Latest / Pit Talk / Oscar Piastri's season 'collapse' analysed + can Ferrari take the title ascendancy? Austrian GP Preview

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Oscar Piastri's season 'collapse' analysed + can Ferrari take the title ascendancy? Austrian GP Preview · Pit Talk

0:05
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Pittalk, brought to you by Shannon's.
0:08
Speaker 1: On today's episode, Oscar Piastre cops both barrels from esteemed
0:12
Speaker 1: title winning pundits over the start of his season, But
0:15
Speaker 1: is there any truth to the claims if his so
0:17
Speaker 1: called collapse, And we look ahead to this weekend's Austrian
0:21
Speaker 1: Grand Prix and whether Ferrari is set for another statement
0:24
Speaker 1: performance with a new engine. My name's Michael Lamonado. It's
0:27
Speaker 1: great to have your company and the company of my
0:29
Speaker 1: co hosts. The hills are alive and you should run
0:32
Speaker 1: for your lives. It's Matt Clayton.
0:34
Speaker 2: I was wondering how long we get into this before
0:36
Speaker 2: a sound of music reference? Are you stealing from the
0:38
Speaker 2: sky sports prep notes for the weekend? But there are
0:41
Speaker 2: plenty of that going on. I do enjoy this Grand
0:43
Speaker 2: Prix because it's kind of a bit of a silly
0:45
Speaker 2: racetrack and a lot of respects. It feels a bit
0:47
Speaker 2: sort of more go karting than Formula One, and I
0:50
Speaker 2: wouldn't like it if there were twenty two of them,
0:52
Speaker 2: but as a in isolation, I quite enjoy it. It's
0:55
Speaker 2: very picturesque. The racing is often very good, so yeah,
0:58
Speaker 2: looking forward to this one.
0:59
Speaker 1: It is one of the highlights during the season. I
1:01
Speaker 1: think picturesque certainly does sum it up. And I don't
1:03
Speaker 1: mind a short race track either, I feel like that
1:06
Speaker 1: inevitably lends to something wacky or other happening. Plus elevation
1:10
Speaker 1: is never a bad thing as well, so very much
1:12
Speaker 1: a welcome return more than a decade ago now I
1:15
Speaker 1: think was returned to the calendar, but never a bad
1:18
Speaker 1: one to join. We start this week though by looking
1:21
Speaker 1: backwards a little bit, because it has been a weekend off.
1:24
Speaker 1: These feel increasingly unusual, despite the pretty stop start mature
1:28
Speaker 1: of the start of the season to the Barcelona Grand
1:31
Speaker 1: Prix from a couple of weeks ago, where of course
1:33
Speaker 1: the tone felt like it changed a little bit. We'll
1:34
Speaker 1: talk about Mercedes and Ferrari a little bit later on
1:37
Speaker 1: in the podcast, but I want to start with Oscar Piastre.
1:39
Speaker 1: We haven't talked a great deal about him in the
1:41
Speaker 1: last couple of weeks. Nu'ts because there hasn't been a
1:43
Speaker 1: great tal to talk about him about, if that sentence
1:47
Speaker 1: makes sense at all, And likewise McLaren that wasn't until
1:50
Speaker 1: the end of the Grand Prix in Spain, where he
1:52
Speaker 1: finished relatively anonymously. At the end of it, moved up
1:55
Speaker 1: some positions up to fifth thanks to Charla Clair leaving
1:58
Speaker 1: the race and also Andrea kemiansdo too. But his performance
2:02
Speaker 1: in Spain, which by his own admission was mystifyingly off
2:04
Speaker 1: the pace, certainly caught the attention of Nico Rosberg and
2:07
Speaker 1: jaqu Vilneve on the Sky Sports broadcast British Sky Sports broadcast,
2:11
Speaker 1: I read you a couple of the select quotes. Mat
2:13
Speaker 1: I'm sure've already seen it, but haryone who hasn't read
2:16
Speaker 1: or heard their commentary, it's certainly worthy of mentioned here.
2:20
Speaker 1: Nico Rosberg said, of course, is not going too well
2:23
Speaker 1: for him of late. His market value has taken a
2:25
Speaker 1: bit of a plunge in the last weeks and months,
2:28
Speaker 1: and he said last year it seemed like he was
2:30
Speaker 1: on par with Lando all the time, and this Yeorlando
2:32
Speaker 1: has jumped ahead somewhat with these new regulations. Jacques Vilnerve,
2:37
Speaker 1: who well known to Australian audiences for his I don't
2:41
Speaker 1: know what's the best way to describe antagonistic relationship sometimes
2:44
Speaker 1: with Australians. Australian drivers in particular, suggested that we saw
2:48
Speaker 1: this trend begin last year, that he collapsed of course
2:52
Speaker 1: round about the Austin Grand Prix more or less, and
2:54
Speaker 1: his form went down and hasn't recovered. It's really odd
2:57
Speaker 1: nobody's talking about him anymore, and that's in the space
3:01
Speaker 1: of what six months. Even less, you're only as good
3:03
Speaker 1: as your last race, he says. Everyone loves to say
3:05
Speaker 1: that this has two three bad races and people move on.
3:08
Speaker 1: Seemed pretty harsh considering he's only what is it, five
3:11
Speaker 1: points behind Lando Norris at this point in the season,
3:14
Speaker 1: started about one and a half Grand Prix.
3:16
Speaker 2: Mostly is you know, unreliability.
3:19
Speaker 1: But it was pretty surprising, remarks.
3:20
Speaker 2: I thought a little bit when you mentioned Jacqueville and
3:23
Speaker 2: even Australians. I thought you were going Daddy Minogue there
3:25
Speaker 2: for a minute, but that was not quite where you
3:27
Speaker 2: were head of with that conversation. But yeah, the irony
3:29
Speaker 2: of nobody's talking about him anymore, says the man who's
3:32
Speaker 2: being paid to talk about him and the twenty one
3:34
Speaker 2: other drivers in Formula One, as he embarks on his
3:37
Speaker 2: Global Superannuation Tour after the nineteen ninety six World Championship
3:40
Speaker 2: ninety seven World Championship. But there you go. But look,
3:44
Speaker 2: both things can be true here. I think part of
3:46
Speaker 2: what Rosberg said in terms of the market value, I
3:49
Speaker 2: don't necessarily disagree with that two degreeous elements of that
3:52
Speaker 2: that if you're only as good as your last race
3:55
Speaker 2: and that sort of thing, But there isn't much to
3:57
Speaker 2: choose between the two of them over the court the season,
4:00
Speaker 2: and I think it just plays into this underwhelming beginning
4:04
Speaker 2: to the season that McLaren has had and obviously missing
4:07
Speaker 2: races entirely. You mentioned Barcelona and we were talking about it.
4:11
Speaker 2: Actually at the time it was pretty anonymous that it
4:14
Speaker 2: was pretty bleak. But I also don't think that that,
4:16
Speaker 2: as one of the seven rounds we've had, has been
4:18
Speaker 2: the full story of the season. I think Catalanna was
4:22
Speaker 2: just there were just a number of things that certainly spiraled,
4:24
Speaker 2: and the fact that his teammate ends up on the
4:27
Speaker 2: podium because of all of the retirements and what have
4:29
Speaker 2: you that you mentioned was probably another way to stick
4:31
Speaker 2: the knife in. So Catalonia wasn't great. Of course, of
4:35
Speaker 2: the season McLaren has. We've been used to see McLaren
4:38
Speaker 2: as a dominant team. They're clearly not that this year,
4:40
Speaker 2: and so everything's going to seem underwhelming by comparison. He's
4:43
Speaker 2: been a little bit off, but I don't think we
4:45
Speaker 2: should be ringing alarm bells and coming out without landish statements.
4:49
Speaker 2: But then again, if you're on TV and you're holding
4:51
Speaker 2: a microphone, I guess you've got to send your invoice
4:53
Speaker 2: in at the end of the day. So there's a
4:55
Speaker 2: little part of that too, isn't there.
4:57
Speaker 1: Yes, I think that inevitably, I mean to be honest
4:59
Speaker 1: with disrespect throughither of them world champions, they usually know
5:02
Speaker 1: what they're talking about. It did strike me when they
5:05
Speaker 1: were asked about him that neither of them was sort
5:07
Speaker 1: of fully across what happened in his race, or even
5:09
Speaker 1: the last couple of races perhaps for him, which I
5:12
Speaker 1: think to be fair, might say more about the fact
5:14
Speaker 1: that McLaren's just been a little bit nowhere recently, rather
5:16
Speaker 1: than if anything about them too much. You know, he
5:19
Speaker 1: can't keep track of every team live on television the
5:21
Speaker 1: thirty minutes after the race, and I think that's fair enough.
5:24
Speaker 2: Gritison.
5:24
Speaker 1: We'll talk about Mercedes and McLaren just a second, but
5:27
Speaker 1: I want to go take you through the head to
5:28
Speaker 1: head stats, which you can find as well on the
5:30
Speaker 1: Fox Sports website if you head over there. I mean
5:33
Speaker 1: qualifying so far this year, Pastre's leading four to three Norris.
5:36
Speaker 1: Norris is starting fractionally ahead points three places, so essentially
5:39
Speaker 1: nothing between them. And that's in the time differential as well,
5:42
Speaker 1: which is forty milliseconds between them, four hundreds of a
5:46
Speaker 1: second if you like. But this is the thing, this
5:48
Speaker 1: is this statistic I think tells me more about the
5:50
Speaker 1: season ending else, which is that Norris leads two to
5:52
Speaker 1: one in terms of race finishes. Yes, that's from seven
5:55
Speaker 1: Grand Prix. They've both finished races just three times. Yes,
5:59
Speaker 1: there's not a lot you can really draw from that,
6:01
Speaker 1: and on average they're finishing in exactly the same place.
6:04
Speaker 1: It's just that they're not finishing very often, which is
6:06
Speaker 1: a fairly important part of the equation. But neither is
6:09
Speaker 1: one so far. They've best finished is so far a third.
6:12
Speaker 1: That's Japan for Piastre and Canada for Norris. They're both
6:16
Speaker 1: qualifying when they're ahead roughly by the same margin, around
6:18
Speaker 1: a tenth, between tenth and tenth and a half. That's
6:21
Speaker 1: second and second. I should have said for race finishes
6:23
Speaker 1: Japan and Miami. It's qualifying as third and third, nothing
6:26
Speaker 1: to split them, really, and I think that that very
6:28
Speaker 1: much is the you know, seeing other trend from last year.
6:31
Speaker 1: That is the trend from last year, that these are
6:32
Speaker 1: two incredibly evenly matched drivers in a car that's changed
6:36
Speaker 1: a lot this year, that they generally seem to be
6:38
Speaker 1: getting a similar amount out of. Admittedly, from race to
6:41
Speaker 1: race it's tended to be one or the other having
6:44
Speaker 1: an advantage. We've seen fewer races this year, I think
6:46
Speaker 1: where they've both been closely matched in that Grand Prix,
6:50
Speaker 1: and I think that's maybe something interesting about their season.
6:52
Speaker 1: But it seems to me this is much more about
6:54
Speaker 1: McLaren that it is about either driver, because you could
6:57
Speaker 1: also say, well, were't is the defending champion is nowhere?
6:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, completely, and that's part of the problem here. Despite
7:02
Speaker 2: the fact that it's nearly the end of June, we've
7:04
Speaker 2: had seven Grand Prix, but I still feel it's a
7:06
Speaker 2: very small sample size, simply because Piastre had even started
7:09
Speaker 2: two at the seven Let's be honest, and like you said,
7:11
Speaker 2: what is it three races where they've both seen the
7:13
Speaker 2: check and flag. The sample size is very, very small,
7:16
Speaker 2: and the trend is it's close enough to last year's
7:20
Speaker 2: trend between the two of them that it's adjacent. I
7:23
Speaker 2: think it's still relevant. I think the fact that we're
7:26
Speaker 2: seeing them the performance is pretty similar, but they're not
7:29
Speaker 2: fighting at the front, where it's far more obvious because
7:31
Speaker 2: they're not really fighting for anything significant. Yet, there's not
7:33
Speaker 2: really been a Grand Prix where we've said this year, oh,
7:36
Speaker 2: this is a McLaren weekend, this is definitely going to happen.
7:38
Speaker 2: They feel like a not a bit part player, but
7:41
Speaker 2: certainly a minor player this year. And then you add
7:44
Speaker 2: the unreliability and in the fact that Piastre it's, like
7:46
Speaker 2: I said the end of June, he started five Grand
7:48
Speaker 2: Prix in a calendar year. Now, I will be slightly
7:52
Speaker 2: concerned if we have more performances like Barcelona by the
7:57
Speaker 2: time we get to about twelve thirteen rounds and remember this,
8:00
Speaker 2: so many rounds still to go here. So I think
8:03
Speaker 2: if Barcelona is the start of an unwanted trend, then
8:06
Speaker 2: perhaps there's a conversation to be had. But it feels
8:08
Speaker 2: to me that it is a bit of a repeat
8:10
Speaker 2: of last year. It's just they're fighting for things that
8:12
Speaker 2: are more minor this year and the recency bias of Yeah,
8:16
Speaker 2: Catalonia Piastre relative to Dorris was just a long way off.
8:20
Speaker 2: And that's why this weekend and the next few are
8:22
Speaker 2: important because I just think we need more data. Quite frankly,
8:24
Speaker 2: at the moment, we just don't really have it.
8:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's absolutely right, and more data, a
8:29
Speaker 1: known expected track a lot of these seasons, a lot
8:32
Speaker 1: of these races at the start of the season. Obviously,
8:34
Speaker 1: the flyaway races are all of the little bit unusual
8:37
Speaker 1: and mostly a bit unusual, and a lot of them,
8:38
Speaker 1: as we've said, with spread weekends two, which I think
8:40
Speaker 1: dilutes the sample size too, because you just don't get
8:43
Speaker 1: that usual run up. There was one if you were
8:46
Speaker 1: to try and justify some of this commentary, though, there's
8:49
Speaker 1: one element that I think that the Spain demonstrated, and
8:51
Speaker 1: this is the part you're pointing to that I think
8:53
Speaker 1: is worth looking at, which is that when Piastre has
8:55
Speaker 1: been behind Norris in a race but qualifying, the mandins
8:59
Speaker 1: have never been very large in a race. It has
9:00
Speaker 1: been bigger in Miami and in Spain there were massive deficits,
9:07
Speaker 1: almost half a minute deficits to Norris. Considering there are
9:09
Speaker 1: only one or two places behind, respectively Norris, that seems
9:13
Speaker 1: like quite a lot. And this seems also like potentially
9:16
Speaker 1: a little bit of a repeat of some of the
9:18
Speaker 1: struggles we did see from Piastree at the end of
9:19
Speaker 1: last year, when we're at those low grip tracks or
9:22
Speaker 1: in conditions where there isn't a lot of grip. We
9:25
Speaker 1: know Miami, where it's really hot and they have a
9:26
Speaker 1: really a highly unusual track surface, there's not a lot
9:29
Speaker 1: of grip there, a lot of drivers complain about that,
9:32
Speaker 1: and likewise in Spain the track was fifty two degrees,
9:36
Speaker 1: that is very low grip conditions traditionally, these are both
9:39
Speaker 1: places he struggled at, combined with McLaren perhaps not appearing
9:42
Speaker 1: to have very many of what we may be assumed
9:45
Speaker 1: were locked in like sort of institutional strengths. If you like,
9:50
Speaker 1: this car is no longer that good on tire where
9:53
Speaker 1: it seems it's also no longer super easy to roll
9:56
Speaker 1: out of the blocks fast or to remain consistent over
9:59
Speaker 1: the of course the weekend in the way it was
10:01
Speaker 1: last year. But I think there is perhaps something to watch,
10:05
Speaker 1: and only to watch so far and think we've had
10:07
Speaker 1: enough raises to really confirm it, but the Piastre is
10:10
Speaker 1: still struggling with something or still has a key weakness
10:13
Speaker 1: in his game.
10:14
Speaker 2: Well, and I think with history has shown us with
10:15
Speaker 2: Piastre that he eventually gets there, but he gets there
10:18
Speaker 2: or on his own timetable, that it might not be
10:20
Speaker 2: the timetable that necessarily he would like or that we
10:22
Speaker 2: would like. In that he's someone who is for as
10:25
Speaker 2: naturally talented as he is, he is a worker and
10:27
Speaker 2: a grinder with these things. And we've seen this through
10:29
Speaker 2: the early part of his career when there were things
10:32
Speaker 2: that were clear not red flags, but were holding him back,
10:35
Speaker 2: he would methodically work his way through them, be that
10:37
Speaker 2: tire usage or qualifying pace, or you know, being able
10:41
Speaker 2: to make the stints consistent in a race. He's been
10:43
Speaker 2: someone who's just kept adding arrows to the quiver as
10:45
Speaker 2: he's gone through, addressed the weaknesses and got better at them.
10:48
Speaker 2: I think the other factor that we probably need to
10:50
Speaker 2: consider here is that when you're looking at last year,
10:53
Speaker 2: looking from a position of dominance for a team with
10:56
Speaker 2: really only one of the red bulls able to get
10:59
Speaker 2: in there and sort of upset the battle between two
11:02
Speaker 2: teammates for effectively race wins. A lot of the time
11:05
Speaker 2: this season, there are four, well three and a half
11:08
Speaker 2: pretty decent teams, let's be honest, and I just think
11:11
Speaker 2: having the greater competition at the front perhaps accentuate some
11:15
Speaker 2: of the things that we're talking about, because yes, you
11:17
Speaker 2: can be a little bit off your teammate, but instead
11:19
Speaker 2: of that being first and third, it becomes fifth and
11:21
Speaker 2: seventh or something along those lines. So it looks more
11:23
Speaker 2: underwhelming because of the level of competition of Ferrari have
11:26
Speaker 2: clearly taken a step up Mercedes and more competitive than
11:28
Speaker 2: last year, so this part of that as well. But
11:31
Speaker 2: I would put this in the category of it's not nothing,
11:35
Speaker 2: but it's also not a massive thing that perhaps in
11:38
Speaker 2: the immediate aftermath of a bit of a blar race
11:40
Speaker 2: in Barcelona that it was made to be. It's on
11:43
Speaker 2: the watch list for me. It's something to watch to
11:45
Speaker 2: see if it becomes a trend over the next three,
11:47
Speaker 2: four five races. So it's got my antenna up in
11:49
Speaker 2: that respect, but I don't think it's anything to get
11:51
Speaker 2: super alarmed about right now.
11:52
Speaker 1: It's also something we talked about last year, but one
11:55
Speaker 1: of the risks for the driver that didn't win the
11:57
Speaker 1: title last year was that McLaren's dominant streak was necessarily
12:00
Speaker 1: going to continue because of the change in regulations. Well
12:03
Speaker 1: then out of the question, but was certainly less likely
12:05
Speaker 1: than likely, and so it's proved, at least so far
12:07
Speaker 1: this year. We have seen some pretty reasonable form swings
12:11
Speaker 1: over those seven races, so maybe we shouldn't rule it
12:13
Speaker 1: out entirely, but certainly the points gaps are getting pretty
12:15
Speaker 1: big for McLaren and both its drivers to be in
12:17
Speaker 1: title contingent for either championship this season. It seems like
12:20
Speaker 1: it's perhaps swung back towards Ferrari, which we'll talk about
12:23
Speaker 1: later on, but that McLaren angle I think is worth
12:26
Speaker 1: drilling down into a little bit. I thought it was
12:27
Speaker 1: interesting that a week or two ago, Andrea's out of
12:29
Speaker 1: the team principal talked about for the first time in
12:32
Speaker 1: his tenure at McLaren anyway he's felt the disadvantage of
12:35
Speaker 1: being a customer team, and McLaren is the only customer
12:38
Speaker 1: team in that front running group. Of course, with Red
12:40
Speaker 1: Bull now debuting its own power unit for the first
12:42
Speaker 1: time this year, well to such a claim that it's
12:45
Speaker 1: in fact the best one according to the FAA, which is.
12:48
Speaker 2: Best enginew FORUL the one apparently, Yes, it's its own thing.
12:52
Speaker 1: He says, that's partly down, that's partly expressed rather through unreliability,
12:56
Speaker 1: and McLaren has copped its probably more than its fair
12:59
Speaker 1: share unreliable, that even relative to the Mercedes team. But
13:03
Speaker 1: also then the knock on effects of not being able
13:05
Speaker 1: to package in the ideal way all the things we
13:07
Speaker 1: understand that are the letdown, I guess or the deficit
13:11
Speaker 1: for being a customer team. I wonder how much that's
13:14
Speaker 1: playing a role. And I also can't help but wonder
13:17
Speaker 1: now that Red Bull in a sense at least the
13:21
Speaker 1: ultimate independent team, obviously backed by one of the largest
13:25
Speaker 1: wealthiest companies in the world, but in a sense independent team.
13:29
Speaker 1: Where does this put McLaren in the medium term, particularly
13:33
Speaker 1: given we are expecting new engines again in perhaps as
13:37
Speaker 1: little as four years. Yes, they're meant to be simpler,
13:39
Speaker 1: but nonetheless those disadvantage of being a customer will remain.
13:44
Speaker 1: I wonder if this has some people thinking Zach Brown
13:47
Speaker 1: most important among them, about whether a simplified engine formula
13:51
Speaker 1: is the right time for McLaren to consider for the
13:52
Speaker 1: first time in its history building its own engines.
13:55
Speaker 2: This is part of it, isn't it. Like the more
13:57
Speaker 2: mature a rule set gets, I think the delineation between
14:03
Speaker 2: customer and full factory. For the sake of her call,
14:06
Speaker 2: give you it a motor GP term here. McLaren's now
14:09
Speaker 2: the outlier in the Big four right because they are
14:11
Speaker 2: the only customer now. And I think when you get
14:14
Speaker 2: a brand new rule set that would tend to favor well,
14:17
Speaker 2: it would be less favorable for the customers, shall we say.
14:21
Speaker 2: And as you're alluding to there, the fact that we're
14:23
Speaker 2: not just going to have this carryover as much of
14:27
Speaker 2: a carryover as perhaps we thought between twenty six and
14:29
Speaker 2: twenty seven, it is less of an advantage for McLaren
14:33
Speaker 2: as it might be. The more mature rule set, the
14:35
Speaker 2: better it is for a customer team. We've seen that
14:37
Speaker 2: over the course of time. So you do have to
14:40
Speaker 2: wonder should the sport move towards a more simplified engine formula,
14:45
Speaker 2: as you suggest, And that's probably another series of podcasts
14:47
Speaker 2: that we're not going to do right now, but you
14:49
Speaker 2: do wonder if that changes the working model for some
14:52
Speaker 2: of these teams that have been in it for a while.
14:54
Speaker 2: Like you've said, there's never really bit a period for
14:55
Speaker 2: what I understand that McLaren has ever a countenance doing that,
14:59
Speaker 2: but maybe more simplified engine formula. And if this is
15:02
Speaker 2: the ticket you need to be able to fight at
15:04
Speaker 2: the sharp end with these other teams that are doing
15:06
Speaker 2: it themselves. Perhaps that's a complete change of philosophy for
15:10
Speaker 2: a team. That's another story, I guess, But yeah, I
15:13
Speaker 2: just think the immaturity of the rule set right now
15:15
Speaker 2: and the fact that it feels like the customer teams
15:17
Speaker 2: are a lot more reactionary, if that makes sense. You
15:19
Speaker 2: are reacting a lot too, perhaps problems you didn't anticipate
15:23
Speaker 2: or noticed in the build of these things, because here
15:26
Speaker 2: is your engine off you go, as opposed to doing
15:28
Speaker 2: it internally while you're building the chassis around it and
15:31
Speaker 2: being much more on top of it. Maybe twenty twenty
15:33
Speaker 2: six is not a great year to be a customer team,
15:35
Speaker 2: And that's all plague into what's going on at the
15:37
Speaker 2: moment with Piastre in particular.
15:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, reactionally, I think is right. You're also just second
15:41
Speaker 1: to learn everything in the same way that McLaren was
15:43
Speaker 1: second to understand the engine. They made a big deal
15:45
Speaker 1: about that. Seems like they were second to have the
15:48
Speaker 1: reliability answers that Mercedes is slowly beginning to understand now,
15:53
Speaker 1: and that just means you never really catch up or
15:55
Speaker 1: you will eventually, you know, over years. But how many
15:57
Speaker 1: years does it take and how many years is this
15:59
Speaker 1: full psych as you say actually have in it, because
16:02
Speaker 1: you know, sort of true ways to look at the
16:04
Speaker 1: title victories of the last couple of seasons, isn't it,
16:06
Speaker 1: Because of course that that regulatory era, or the engine
16:09
Speaker 1: regulatory era, started with Ron Dennis, who feels like a
16:12
Speaker 1: long time ago now saying well, there's no way to
16:14
Speaker 1: win the title without a works engine, and they went
16:15
Speaker 1: to Ponder and then Reno for a bid and ended
16:18
Speaker 1: up back at Mercedes, and then they did eventually win
16:20
Speaker 1: it as a customer, but it took them a decade.
16:23
Speaker 1: Like that's it was, you know, you can sort of
16:25
Speaker 1: see both and by then the engines were all pretty
16:26
Speaker 1: much the same, and there was development freezers, and there
16:28
Speaker 1: was not really that much of an advantage to being
16:30
Speaker 1: a works manufacturer. So it's an interesting question to ponder,
16:34
Speaker 1: I think for McLaren, particularly as the sport is in
16:36
Speaker 1: such financial root health and all the teams are very
16:39
Speaker 1: healthy financially now as well, including McLaren despite being on
16:42
Speaker 1: the rocks essentially during the pandemic. Things have really turned
16:44
Speaker 1: around there. Maybe this is the moment you consider if
16:48
Speaker 1: not going the red ball roote, but you literally do
16:51
Speaker 1: everything in house for yourself, become an engine manufacturer, but
16:54
Speaker 1: maybe investigated against some kind of engine partnership or a
16:57
Speaker 1: works deal with a manufacturer interested in joining Formula one,
17:01
Speaker 1: because if that continues to be a deficit for the
17:04
Speaker 1: next few years, and then you start the clock again
17:06
Speaker 1: essentially in twenty thirty or twenty thirty one, and this
17:08
Speaker 1: could be a long perod of being frustratingly a few
17:12
Speaker 1: tenths even just out of.
17:13
Speaker 2: Reach the title. Yeah, how long do you wait? That's
17:15
Speaker 2: the question. How many years into this do you get
17:17
Speaker 2: to before you're like, all right, we need to do
17:19
Speaker 2: something different here, as much as I just want on
17:21
Speaker 2: a quicker side here. I know we were laughing about
17:22
Speaker 2: the red bull thing before, and we should be because
17:24
Speaker 2: it is preposterous, but you do we do need to
17:27
Speaker 2: consider the fact that one of the great surprises for
17:31
Speaker 2: me this year, and I didn't expect them to be
17:32
Speaker 2: useless or inept because they're a championship winning organization, But
17:35
Speaker 2: it seemed when they said they were going to do
17:37
Speaker 2: their own engine, people were just like, really, these guys
17:40
Speaker 2: are going to do their own engine. There was a
17:41
Speaker 2: bit of that attitude about it. And it's interesting that
17:44
Speaker 2: whether it's the best or second best or whatever, it is,
17:46
Speaker 2: the fact that we've not really talked too much about
17:48
Speaker 2: the fact that they're a first year engine supplier is
17:51
Speaker 2: incredibly impressive a on its face, but B you do
17:55
Speaker 2: wonder for other teams that might be in a position
17:57
Speaker 2: to do that themselves in the future. I A McLaren,
17:59
Speaker 2: whether they look it and go, huh, if these guys
18:02
Speaker 2: can do it, and I'm not going to go and say,
18:04
Speaker 2: you know, because there are drinks company, but if these
18:06
Speaker 2: guys can do it, and they can do it successfully
18:09
Speaker 2: and quickly and look like they've been doing it for
18:11
Speaker 2: years and we're not really talking about them being a
18:13
Speaker 2: first year engine supplier or builder, then why can't we
18:16
Speaker 2: do it too? And you do wonder what the success
18:19
Speaker 2: or the relative lack of hiccups this Red Bull thing
18:22
Speaker 2: has had this year, how that plays into other teams
18:25
Speaker 2: that might consider the same thing in the future.
18:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, in the cost cap era. Part
18:29
Speaker 1: of the benefit of it, both for the engines and
18:31
Speaker 1: also the teams in general, is that you can more
18:34
Speaker 1: easily take staff from other brands, which is part of
18:37
Speaker 1: the red Full success story. Isn't it that eventually people
18:39
Speaker 1: in the Mercedes engine department couldn't be offered higher pay
18:43
Speaker 1: rises to stale promotions to say, because you just can't
18:45
Speaker 1: keep doing that in the way the big teams would
18:47
Speaker 1: have once upon a time. Suddenly there's a little bit
18:50
Speaker 1: more churn, a lot of Mercedes, a lot of good
18:52
Speaker 1: Mercedes people, former Mercedes people with the Red Bull operation,
18:55
Speaker 1: good former Honda people. Likewise, how many people can a
18:58
Speaker 1: new engine program managed to capture, particularly if it is
19:01
Speaker 1: based in the UK where there are other ones. I mean,
19:04
Speaker 1: I've heard stories about Audi struggling a little bit because
19:07
Speaker 1: it's been harder to attract people to go and work
19:09
Speaker 1: in Germany when they're based in the UK and there
19:11
Speaker 1: are other engine manufacturers in the UK they could go
19:14
Speaker 1: and work for instead. So there are a lot of
19:16
Speaker 1: interesting questions in that. I think there's no short term
19:18
Speaker 1: answer there. McLaren certain hasn't suggested it something it's actively considering,
19:22
Speaker 1: but I think a little while ago zach Bround didn't
19:24
Speaker 1: actively rule it out either, So perhaps something that comes up.
19:27
Speaker 1: If the new engine really is a much cheaper, much
19:30
Speaker 1: simpler one, perhaps that's the right gateway for McLaren to
19:33
Speaker 1: consider that final step after all these years, after finally
19:37
Speaker 1: having raced its one thousandth Grand Prix. Yes last weekend
19:40
Speaker 1: as well as it's worth mentioning. Let's move on now, though,
19:43
Speaker 1: about to Move of the Week, brought to you by
19:45
Speaker 1: Shannon's two racing categories in action over the weekend. The
19:48
Speaker 1: supercars in Darwin, and of course it was MotoGP as well.
19:53
Speaker 1: Plenty of controversy going on in the land of MotoGP
19:56
Speaker 1: in well, in the land of the Czech Republic, and
19:58
Speaker 1: you still call the Czech Republic.
19:59
Speaker 2: Check with I think we call it get check here.
20:02
Speaker 2: It was about as hot a Bretto as it was
20:04
Speaker 2: in Darwin, quite frankly, which is not something I expected
20:06
Speaker 2: to say. But for Move of the Week, going into
20:09
Speaker 2: the left field boxes I tend to do with this
20:11
Speaker 2: particular podcast, I think the move of the week is
20:13
Speaker 2: Mark Marquez is suddenly back in championship contention. That's the move,
20:17
Speaker 2: because Nino reminds you, let's go back. So he broke
20:21
Speaker 2: his right foot and needed right shoulder surgery after the
20:24
Speaker 2: French Grand Prix in May, didn't do the main race,
20:27
Speaker 2: skip the following round in Catalunya, and then came back
20:29
Speaker 2: to Magello at the end of May pretty much half cook,
20:32
Speaker 2: just to get some racing under his belt. Now, when
20:35
Speaker 2: we left Migello, we had a prellier taking a one
20:38
Speaker 2: two in that race, with Marco Bezeki leading home Juge
20:41
Speaker 2: Martin Mark Marquez was one hundred and two points off
20:45
Speaker 2: the championship lead. And for context, and yes, we're going
20:48
Speaker 2: back to the non sprint race era. Here. In Marquez's
20:51
Speaker 2: seven previous Premier class titles, he was thirty seven points
20:55
Speaker 2: behind after six rounds in twenty seventeen. That's the biggest
20:58
Speaker 2: deficit he's ever over come. So he talking about one
21:01
Speaker 2: hundred and two point deficit. Here we are two races later.
21:04
Speaker 2: He's won both Grand Prix, he won the sprint in
21:07
Speaker 2: Hungary a Prillia finding new ways to shoot themselves in
21:10
Speaker 2: both feet lit alone one of them, and so in
21:13
Speaker 2: the last two rounds it's Marquez sixty nine points, Martin sixteen,
21:18
Speaker 2: Berzeki seven, if you can believe that. So this one
21:21
Speaker 2: hundred and two point gap has become forty, So he's
21:24
Speaker 2: back to forty points. That's basically just a little bit
21:26
Speaker 2: more than a perfect race weekend. There are thirteen rounds
21:30
Speaker 2: to go, and if Mark Marquees knows anything, it's how
21:33
Speaker 2: to win World championships. Aprellier have never won one, Berzeki's
21:36
Speaker 2: never won one. Martin won one and fell out of
21:39
Speaker 2: the line in twenty twenty four on a DUCTI. So
21:43
Speaker 2: three weeks ago Mark Marquez's championship chances were pretty much
21:46
Speaker 2: in the bin, and here he is lurking ominously. That
21:49
Speaker 2: is the move of the season, lit alone the week,
21:51
Speaker 2: because you would never say never with with any other rider.
21:55
Speaker 2: If there were one hundred and two points behind the
21:56
Speaker 2: leader of the championship, you'd say, well, that's it, like
21:58
Speaker 2: it'd be the biggest deficit in the history of motor
22:00
Speaker 2: GP to come back and win the World championship. But
22:02
Speaker 2: as time has proven, he is not any other writer.
22:05
Speaker 2: And you add the fact that Aprilia has got a
22:08
Speaker 2: little wobbly in the last two rounds, this thing is
22:10
Speaker 2: absolutely on and it's going to inject this fantastic second
22:14
Speaker 2: half of the season where you have clearly the best
22:17
Speaker 2: guy on honest day, can be the best bike, but
22:20
Speaker 2: he has ground to make up, and Aprillier aren't going
22:23
Speaker 2: to be as bad as they have been for the
22:24
Speaker 2: past two rounds. But man, it sets up the last
22:26
Speaker 2: part of the season where you've got the best guy
22:29
Speaker 2: just pursuing the guys at the front who've never won
22:32
Speaker 2: it before. It's a pretty fantastic narrative and I am
22:34
Speaker 2: here for it.
22:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's not just for me the fact that
22:37
Speaker 1: a Privy has been extremely error prone recently issuing on
22:41
Speaker 1: the foot. It's what the atmosphere and that team must be.
22:44
Speaker 1: Like we've talked I think we've mentioned before anyway, or
22:46
Speaker 1: we would have in the Motor GP podcast if you've
22:48
Speaker 1: listened to at the same feed. The team is leaving
22:52
Speaker 1: that team at the end of the season in the
22:53
Speaker 1: contract move that's probably going to be announced this week now.
22:56
Speaker 1: The contract moves are being announced, but Zeki is staying.
22:58
Speaker 1: But he's obviously now coming off the back of a
23:01
Speaker 1: barely high profile, embarrassing and not particularly entifying moment with
23:05
Speaker 1: the Marshall's track side, and will also be welcoming a
23:08
Speaker 1: new teammate who is a multiple world champion as well
23:11
Speaker 1: next season, almost certainly with Becker van Yaya, so that
23:14
Speaker 1: changes things a little bit. Also had this situation where
23:16
Speaker 1: the team boss there and the whole team in fact,
23:19
Speaker 1: has had to sort of not defend his riders as
23:25
Speaker 1: wholeheartedly as perhaps you might have expected for a variety
23:28
Speaker 1: of reasons. Whereas a chichaddie, it's Mark markes all the way.
23:31
Speaker 1: He's just there, He's got the full back of the team.
23:33
Speaker 1: He's the first person who's been announced to staying with
23:36
Speaker 1: the team for next year. That the contexts of those
23:39
Speaker 1: two different sides or three sides I guess of the
23:41
Speaker 1: championship all feel very different. But one of them feels
23:45
Speaker 1: strong and the others don't.
23:46
Speaker 2: Well, you know what, one of them feels like. One
23:48
Speaker 2: of them feels inevitable. That's the word that I would use,
23:51
Speaker 2: because you know, you can cue the Jaws music with
23:53
Speaker 2: Mark Marke as we've seen this story before, and if
23:56
Speaker 2: anyone's capable of mowing down such a massive deficit. Now,
24:00
Speaker 2: the thing with Mark is that you always have to
24:02
Speaker 2: you know, he doesn't bounce as well as he used to.
24:04
Speaker 2: When he crashes these days, it's just a function. It's
24:05
Speaker 2: just a function of being an older rider these days.
24:07
Speaker 2: So they've obviously got a factor that in. But just that,
24:10
Speaker 2: I'm not surprised that he's got back to a deficit
24:14
Speaker 2: that seems manageable. I'm more shocked at how fast it's happened.
24:17
Speaker 2: That's the thing for me in that, you know, three
24:19
Speaker 2: or four weeks ago, it's like, well this, you know,
24:20
Speaker 2: if he gets back into it, there might be three
24:22
Speaker 2: or four rounds to go in the season. He's pretty
24:23
Speaker 2: much here right now. And that's the thing that surprised
24:26
Speaker 2: me with all of this. But yeah, as far as
24:28
Speaker 2: moves of the Week go, that was not what I
24:29
Speaker 2: was expecting to have a by being go card for
24:31
Speaker 2: this week. But I am assuming that you're adding two
24:34
Speaker 2: wheels and moving to Darwin from Checkia as we're now
24:37
Speaker 2: calling it, because I dare say Hidden Valley's probably on
24:40
Speaker 2: your card for this this weekend.
24:42
Speaker 1: Yes, surprisingly similar climates. Actually, I should have done a
24:45
Speaker 1: little analysis that I stick with the climate here. I'm
24:47
Speaker 1: going to go with move of the week. It is
24:49
Speaker 1: a few days old, this news, but it's worth mentioning
24:51
Speaker 1: here that next year Darwin will become a night race.
24:54
Speaker 1: That's a pretty good move of the week, I think,
24:56
Speaker 1: or move the move of the next year perhaps. Then
25:00
Speaker 1: It's been talked about for a little while, the concept
25:01
Speaker 1: moving Darwin to being a night race. Obviously, night events
25:04
Speaker 1: are just very in vogue with some sport in general
25:07
Speaker 1: doesn't need that much explanation, I guess, and in motor
25:10
Speaker 1: racing it seems increasingly common as well. Doesn't everyone want
25:13
Speaker 1: some kind of night race to be a bit of
25:15
Speaker 1: a feature And look, Sydney does it well obviously, but
25:18
Speaker 1: it's I think that there's something that's a bit more
25:20
Speaker 1: atmosphere about the Darwin event generally, with no disrespect to
25:23
Speaker 1: our friends at Sydney Motorsport Parks, I think that there's
25:26
Speaker 1: there's some positives there. The bigger positive well, there's a
25:29
Speaker 1: little bit of controversy, it's worth pointing out. I think
25:31
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago when they thought about this,
25:32
Speaker 1: maybe it was pre pandemic. You know, a lot of
25:34
Speaker 1: the businesses in Darwin felt that maybe that locks them
25:37
Speaker 1: out of night training because everyone's at the racetrack instead
25:41
Speaker 1: of going to dinner. Anyway, that remains to me saying
25:42
Speaker 1: decisions being made whatever. But this is the second alarmy
25:46
Speaker 1: of this, which is that Darwin is of course pretty hot.
25:48
Speaker 1: As we've mentioned already and we saw this weekend. It's
25:51
Speaker 1: timely perhaps that this announcement was made. Three drivers or
25:54
Speaker 1: two drivers knocked out rather of Sunday's race because of
25:58
Speaker 1: heat exhaustion from Saturday's race. That was Brodie Castecki, who
26:02
Speaker 1: was battling an illness coming into this weekend, but nonetheless,
26:05
Speaker 1: and then Thomas Randall as well. It was really quite
26:08
Speaker 1: bad because his callsuit failed on the formation lap. I
26:11
Speaker 1: know he's a warm up lap, which is the worst
26:13
Speaker 1: possible time for.
26:14
Speaker 2: It to fail.
26:15
Speaker 1: Cam Hill also mentioned afterwards that his callsuit had failed
26:18
Speaker 1: and he was struggling to just a little bit less
26:20
Speaker 1: high profile. Revealed it after the fact. Every driver is
26:22
Speaker 1: a little bit different in how to handle those sorts
26:24
Speaker 1: of conditions. It's it's sort of a remarkable element to this,
26:28
Speaker 1: and I guess is where I want to pivot to.
26:29
Speaker 2: But we.
26:31
Speaker 1: The call suit issue has been ongoing for it may
26:35
Speaker 1: be decade or at least a decade years where there
26:39
Speaker 1: are constant failures of the cool suit things will be
26:42
Speaker 1: improved next year with a night race. It'll be slightly
26:44
Speaker 1: less hot, although sometimes it's just hot at night as well.
26:47
Speaker 2: I guess yes, but.
26:48
Speaker 1: It's surprising to me. You know, you're allowed different systems
26:51
Speaker 1: in supercars now, and one of the loopholes here as well,
26:53
Speaker 1: I should go scattered now I'm describing this is that
26:55
Speaker 1: it wasn't quite hot enough. It was zero point nine degrees,
26:58
Speaker 1: not hot enough on some date for the mandatory use
27:02
Speaker 1: of both cooling systems that's the helmet air as well
27:05
Speaker 1: as the cooling vest. That's part of the problem is
27:07
Speaker 1: that not every driver had both active, so that when
27:09
Speaker 1: one failed, you had nothing instead of having essentially a
27:12
Speaker 1: backup system, which is what that rule is designed to do.
27:15
Speaker 1: But it shocks me that with all this effort to
27:19
Speaker 1: getting cars around the track very fast and very successfully,
27:22
Speaker 1: and we can't design a little fridge essentially that goes
27:26
Speaker 1: in the car. There are different ways of doing it.
27:28
Speaker 1: Some still use the the what do you have completely
27:32
Speaker 1: forgot the word?
27:33
Speaker 2: Now?
27:33
Speaker 1: The frozen the ice, the coat, the frozen carbon dioxide.
27:37
Speaker 1: Why can I remember the scientific of it? You know
27:39
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about?
27:40
Speaker 2: Yes?
27:40
Speaker 1: And others use literal refrigeration like a little electronic motor
27:44
Speaker 1: as well, pumps cold water around the body. When it
27:46
Speaker 1: fails at pumps hot water around the body, which is suboptimal.
27:48
Speaker 1: But it's just it's remarkable that and this is in
27:51
Speaker 1: other categories as well. They have problems with it in NASCAR,
27:53
Speaker 1: as I understand it. They have problems with it in
27:56
Speaker 1: Formula One as well. So we can't just say it's,
27:58
Speaker 1: you know, well supercars, old domestic supercars. It's everywhere. But
28:02
Speaker 1: this can't be figured out because we're seeing now real
28:06
Speaker 1: proper health side effects, negative side effects for drivers who are,
28:09
Speaker 1: of course, as all drivers inevitably do, just try and
28:12
Speaker 1: tough it out. I think if Castecki not coming to
28:15
Speaker 1: this with an illness, he probably would have attempted to
28:17
Speaker 1: do the same thing. But he's been sick enough in
28:18
Speaker 1: his helmet this year. It's just remarkable to me. So
28:22
Speaker 1: at least next year week is pick a problem.
28:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree. I mean a sport is all about,
28:25
Speaker 2: you know, achieving maximum performance and pushing the envelope and
28:28
Speaker 2: all those things we like to say about motorsport, and
28:30
Speaker 2: it should advance. It's twenty twenty six. This is what
28:32
Speaker 2: we're doing here. How do the call suits not move
28:35
Speaker 2: with the times? I guess is there have we not
28:38
Speaker 2: got better at this? We've got better at so many
28:40
Speaker 2: other things. We've not got better at this. So no
28:42
Speaker 2: move of the week would be invested a company that's
28:45
Speaker 2: got a lot of runs on the board as far
28:48
Speaker 2: as coursuit development goes, because they'll be getting plenty of business,
28:51
Speaker 2: because clearly it's an issue, isn't it. Yes.
28:53
Speaker 1: Second move of the week is we finally remembering dry
28:55
Speaker 1: ice as the frame.
28:56
Speaker 2: That's the one you will too.
28:57
Speaker 1: That completely was deleted from my brain for a few
29:00
Speaker 1: seconds there, But anyway you figured out what.
29:03
Speaker 2: You're a bit hot.
29:03
Speaker 1: It's too hot. It's too hot here in Belment. Let's
29:06
Speaker 1: move on now to this weekend's Grand Prix in Austria.
29:10
Speaker 1: Formula one returns for another double header Austria and then
29:13
Speaker 1: Silverston the Picturesque a red Bull ring as it is
29:17
Speaker 1: now known the former Usterich Ring. It's short and sharp,
29:20
Speaker 1: it's only got I think nine official corners, although one
29:23
Speaker 1: or two of them probably shouldn't count anyway, and two
29:25
Speaker 1: I'm thinking of in particular Formula one car. But most
29:29
Speaker 1: interesting for me this weekend, of course, we have the
29:31
Speaker 1: context of Ferrari having won its first race of the
29:34
Speaker 1: season last time out in Spain and Lewis Hamilton of
29:36
Speaker 1: course finally getting that Ferrari breakthrough. But it seems as
29:40
Speaker 1: good as a done deal, at least according to the
29:42
Speaker 1: Italian media that Ferrari is introducing an engine upgrade this weekend.
29:46
Speaker 1: It's first of the two that we believe it's allowed.
29:48
Speaker 1: Still no at least at the time of recording official
29:50
Speaker 1: confirmation from the FI on this, but will be allowed
29:52
Speaker 1: two upgrades this year and also next year. And because
29:55
Speaker 1: it has hung its hat, if you like, or pinned
29:58
Speaker 1: its championship hopes this year on these upgrades, it's been
30:02
Speaker 1: working on them behind the scenes. It obviously has not
30:03
Speaker 1: been waiting, which means despite getting that confirmation only a
30:07
Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago in Monaco, it's ready to deploy.
30:09
Speaker 1: Apparently again according to the reports in Austria, this could
30:12
Speaker 1: be a pretty significant moment in the championship considering I think,
30:15
Speaker 1: to paraphrase Lando and Oris, if Ferrari had an engine
30:18
Speaker 1: to match the car, it would be dominating.
30:21
Speaker 2: I mean, we saw it at Catalonia, just how good
30:23
Speaker 2: that was through the quarters, and we know that's a
30:26
Speaker 2: particular that's a very particular track, Catalonia. It's one of
30:30
Speaker 2: those tracks that I think any driver will tell you
30:32
Speaker 2: if you've got a car that's gray through quarters is
30:34
Speaker 2: an absolute joy to drive. And if you've got something
30:37
Speaker 2: that's called an aston Martin perhaps or something else, if
30:40
Speaker 2: you're driving something against perhaps suboptimal with the quarters, it's
30:43
Speaker 2: an absolute nightmare. It does tend to accentuate the streets
30:46
Speaker 2: and really punish the weaknesses of cars and quarters. But yeah,
30:49
Speaker 2: the Norris question is the one that I thought of
30:51
Speaker 2: as well. It's like, well, if they have an engine
30:53
Speaker 2: that's better than what they've currently got, well this weekend
30:55
Speaker 2: clearly they think they're going to have an engine better
30:57
Speaker 2: than what they've currently got. You couldn't fight find two
31:00
Speaker 2: tracks in configuration that could really be an opposite. More
31:03
Speaker 2: our opposite is that the spectrum could you than Catalogy
31:05
Speaker 2: you're in Austria, Austria's or you know, it's a point
31:08
Speaker 2: and squirt track, isn't it. Really? It's a long straight,
31:11
Speaker 2: slow corner, a long straight slow corner, so it's a
31:14
Speaker 2: traction circuit as much as anything else. So perhaps some
31:17
Speaker 2: of the strengths that we saw from Ferrari in the corners.
31:20
Speaker 2: As you mentioned, there's only nine of them, and there's
31:21
Speaker 2: about two that are actually taking at any speed whatsoever.
31:24
Speaker 2: So a totally different racetrack. But look Ferrari right now,
31:28
Speaker 2: I mean, coming in off a win, there's all this
31:30
Speaker 2: positive momentum behind them. It would be great for the
31:33
Speaker 2: story of the season if this engine upgrade hits, right,
31:36
Speaker 2: I mean, if we add a little bit more jeopardy
31:38
Speaker 2: into the top end of the championship, I'm all for it.
31:40
Speaker 2: But this is an interesting one for me in that,
31:44
Speaker 2: you know, we look at these circuits a year on year,
31:46
Speaker 2: and as much as the formulas changed a lot this year,
31:48
Speaker 2: you will say, oh, this has been a track where
31:50
Speaker 2: Team X has done well in the past. And I'm
31:52
Speaker 2: sure you've haven't uncovered this in your research, but the
31:54
Speaker 2: fact that the past four Austrian GPS have been won
31:57
Speaker 2: by each of the Big four, They've got one each
32:00
Speaker 2: in the last four years there. So you add that
32:04
Speaker 2: Ferrari momentum element to the fact that historically there's not
32:07
Speaker 2: been a great way of finding a form guide here.
32:10
Speaker 2: I think it's actually setting up for a really interesting weekend.
32:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, historically this is actually even going back to its
32:15
Speaker 1: former guys as you're straggering, really quite a wide open
32:18
Speaker 1: race traditionally until that little interlude of Max with Stafford
32:21
Speaker 1: wins where but he was winning everywhere. To be fair,
32:23
Speaker 1: it wasn't just about this circuit. It's typically quite an
32:27
Speaker 1: open Grand Prix. The traction element can play to Ferrari's
32:30
Speaker 1: hands as well. It's something that this car is usually
32:32
Speaker 1: pretty good at, or Perrari normally designed cars that are
32:34
Speaker 1: pretty good in that way, and it was certainly effective
32:35
Speaker 1: in Monaco. So a lot of reasons why we might
32:38
Speaker 1: like to think that Ferrari could be on track for
32:40
Speaker 1: a good weekend, particularly if that engine upgrade does work.
32:43
Speaker 1: And probably no surprise that this is the point in
32:46
Speaker 1: time that they're bringing the upgrade, short of it being
32:48
Speaker 1: pretty much as soon as they could have. But we
32:50
Speaker 1: have what is a fairly engined sensitive race this weekend,
32:54
Speaker 1: and one where again there's some characteristics which Ferrari should
32:57
Speaker 1: excel anyway. Next is which has very much become an
33:01
Speaker 1: engine circuit in forman one cars have got faster and
33:04
Speaker 1: faster will be interesting to actually see this year because
33:07
Speaker 1: the high speed downforce is relatively less with these cars
33:10
Speaker 1: than it was certainly the ground effect here, but nonetheless
33:12
Speaker 1: I think that stands. And then after that, whereas the
33:15
Speaker 1: race after that, I have to go and check back down.
33:16
Speaker 1: There is Spathra Gujam, which is possibly going to be
33:20
Speaker 1: the most challenging or one of the most challenging tracks
33:22
Speaker 1: for these engines outside a place like Monza, which is
33:25
Speaker 1: just one hundred percent straight line speed. You want whatever
33:29
Speaker 1: best version of your engine you can get there, and
33:33
Speaker 1: Ferrari is hoping obviously that it might have because it
33:36
Speaker 1: doesn't even it also doesn't necessarily have to one hundred
33:39
Speaker 1: percent close the gap to Mercedes. You can win with
33:41
Speaker 1: a small horse power deficit if your car is better
33:45
Speaker 1: as the Ferrari seems to be. Not to mention the
33:47
Speaker 1: Mercedes reliability question, so it doesn't. It just has to
33:51
Speaker 1: work well enough, and we could see Ferrari back in
33:55
Speaker 1: the game with only I think it is. It's seventy
33:56
Speaker 1: one or seventy two points down the championship. Lewis hamdl'
33:59
Speaker 1: are only forty points down the championship. It's closer than
34:02
Speaker 1: we probably have felt up until the last week.
34:05
Speaker 2: It's closer than quite frankly it should be given the
34:07
Speaker 2: performance advantages that Mercedes seems to have had for a
34:10
Speaker 2: lot of this very laborious way to save a Grand
34:12
Speaker 2: Prix this year, but it does. You look at the
34:15
Speaker 2: points tables and you know it to be true, but
34:17
Speaker 2: it doesn't feel like that at all. And you look
34:19
Speaker 2: at what your eyeballs have seed over these past seven rounds.
34:21
Speaker 2: It does not feel like that. But goh my god,
34:24
Speaker 2: you mentioned SPA before. With these new engines, I just
34:26
Speaker 2: have of all the tracks so they came up this year.
34:29
Speaker 2: I'm just thinking that run out of the top of
34:31
Speaker 2: Radion and going down the Kemel Straight, where they're just
34:33
Speaker 2: going to be absolutely gasping by the end of it. It
34:35
Speaker 2: makes me sad just thinking about it. But because I
34:38
Speaker 2: am someone who likes to dive into a stat I
34:40
Speaker 2: have got one for you here. Feel free to sprinkle
34:43
Speaker 2: this liberally. So I mentioned that each of the Big
34:46
Speaker 2: four teams has won one of the past four races
34:48
Speaker 2: at the Red Bull Ring. So in twenty twenty two,
34:50
Speaker 2: that was Charlotte Claire in a Ferrari. There have been
34:53
Speaker 2: eighty seven Grand Prix since then. Michael, you know, having
34:57
Speaker 2: he's one, hang on, okay, none, It's constill that bad.
35:02
Speaker 2: It's three, three, that's green. Still, that's not much better.
35:06
Speaker 2: So he's won three of the eighty seven races since
35:09
Speaker 2: that twenty twenty two Austrian Grand Prix win, and he's
35:11
Speaker 2: one none in the last thirty six. And this is
35:15
Speaker 2: where we are now with Charla Clair, and in my
35:18
Speaker 2: estimation he's still one of the best three drivers in
35:20
Speaker 2: FORULA one. But the stats aren't telling me that. That
35:22
Speaker 2: was simultaneously not surprising and thoroughly depressing. Word. I discovered
35:27
Speaker 2: that one this afternoon.
35:28
Speaker 1: Yes, now does that so twenty twenty two? Hang on,
35:30
Speaker 1: I'm doing that. I haven't got the stats in front
35:32
Speaker 1: of me, so this could be completely wrong between the two.
35:34
Speaker 1: Oh no, I was going to say, is that the
35:35
Speaker 1: same number of wins Lewis Hamilton has had in that
35:37
Speaker 1: same amount of time Or that's one, two, two the
35:40
Speaker 1: year before last? So twenty four twenty three didn't win
35:44
Speaker 1: last year didn't win? Is that right? And they're kicked
35:46
Speaker 1: up one this year?
35:47
Speaker 2: So I reckon it's three or yeah? That you could
35:48
Speaker 2: be right? Oh my god?
35:49
Speaker 1: Interesting? Isn't that interesting? Two these drivers that we're we're
35:54
Speaker 1: boasting as perhaps taking back to the championship won six
35:57
Speaker 1: times between them in the last nearly one hundred.
36:00
Speaker 2: I know what I'm going to be reading on Fox
36:01
Speaker 2: sports dot com, dot a youtub borrow when you go
36:03
Speaker 2: and dive through FORX after we get off this podcast.
36:05
Speaker 2: But for the last ninety seconds, people have listened, just
36:08
Speaker 2: listened to you and I do maths. What fantastic podcasts.
36:11
Speaker 2: It wonderful, It's very good.
36:13
Speaker 1: I want to look at the Mercedes side of this
36:14
Speaker 1: equation now because, while of course they still go in
36:17
Speaker 1: as the form team of the season despite having lost
36:20
Speaker 1: just one Grand Prix so far, increasingly significant question marks
36:24
Speaker 1: over the way it's achieving its performance because of this
36:27
Speaker 1: reliability question two failures to finish Grand Prix from the
36:30
Speaker 1: last three due to what appears to be at least
36:34
Speaker 1: as much as Mercedes is saying so far, the same
36:36
Speaker 1: engine problem for George Russell and Keimi Antonelli, it also
36:40
Speaker 1: seems to be the same or very similar engine problems
36:42
Speaker 1: that affected McLaren back in China that cause Lando Norris
36:46
Speaker 1: a stoppage during practice in Monaco, then had of course
36:48
Speaker 1: have failure to finish the Monaco Grand Prix for an
36:50
Speaker 1: engine problem that looked different but may well have been
36:52
Speaker 1: the same because it was hybrid side. It's quite the
36:55
Speaker 1: list of unreliability that seems to be accumulating. I've got
36:59
Speaker 1: a piece on the Fox Sports website up on Wednesday
37:01
Speaker 1: morning about the reliability count this year. Unsurprisingly, Mercedes has
37:05
Speaker 1: lost the most points, both as a team and as
37:07
Speaker 1: an ends in manufacturer. But that's because when they retire,
37:10
Speaker 1: they're retire from very big points. Paid Aston Martin has
37:13
Speaker 1: a lot more problems, but never in the points you
37:15
Speaker 1: may be shocked to learn. But as we head into
37:18
Speaker 1: much in the same way as we talk about Ferrari,
37:20
Speaker 1: bring a new engine, because we're in this power sensitive
37:23
Speaker 1: phase of the season if you like, or the next
37:25
Speaker 1: couple of races of power sensitive anyway, that's got to
37:27
Speaker 1: be a question for Mercedes if they're not convinced that
37:29
Speaker 1: they have a solution. And as a technical director James
37:33
Speaker 1: Dallison suggested, the result if you don't have the solution
37:35
Speaker 1: is you just essentially have to turn those engines down
37:37
Speaker 1: a little bit.
37:37
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think the key thing you said there
37:39
Speaker 2: was the fact that this goes back to some of
37:41
Speaker 2: the early McLaren failures and we're talking about we're going
37:44
Speaker 2: months now aren't we. This is the thing. This is
37:46
Speaker 2: not something that's just happened more recently. So you know,
37:49
Speaker 2: if you don't want to stretch the performance band until
37:51
Speaker 2: it breaks, you have to stretch it a little less hard,
37:53
Speaker 2: don't you so? And particularly at a power sensitive circuit
37:56
Speaker 2: like this, and the fact that everyone knows that ferraris
37:59
Speaker 2: going to theoretically be better on that front this weekend
38:03
Speaker 2: does add an element of pressure that perhaps the narrative
38:06
Speaker 2: of that the season doesn't suggest is actually real. I mean,
38:08
Speaker 2: the points table tells you it is, but at the
38:11
Speaker 2: moment it's felt like if you're ranking Formula One in
38:14
Speaker 2: tiers for the entire season. Mercedes has been in Tier
38:17
Speaker 2: one or Tier A or whatever you want to call
38:18
Speaker 2: it by itself by a comfortable distance for most of
38:21
Speaker 2: the season. But it actually isn't like that. When you
38:24
Speaker 2: look at the points table and the fact that you've
38:26
Speaker 2: got these two front running teams in one's got worries
38:30
Speaker 2: with its engine and one's very bullish of bringing an
38:32
Speaker 2: upgrade to its engine for this next couple of races,
38:34
Speaker 2: it definitely has the chance to I wouldn't say turn
38:36
Speaker 2: the championship picture on its head, but certainly reshape it
38:39
Speaker 2: a little bit.
38:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's I think, as we said last week,
38:41
Speaker 1: it feels like every week what you think you understood
38:44
Speaker 1: about the season changes, sometimes just a little bit, but
38:47
Speaker 1: in the last few races quite a lot. And that's
38:50
Speaker 1: very exciting because obviously it wasn't that long ago we
38:52
Speaker 1: thought this wasn't going to be a season worth talking
38:54
Speaker 1: about too much, But where we stand right now, it
38:57
Speaker 1: could be a season very much worth talking about, the
39:00
Speaker 1: entire season, perhaps for years beyond that. Just as a
39:03
Speaker 1: final point on this to stick with Mercedes, we of
39:05
Speaker 1: course heard Toto Wolf raise the specter of perhaps having
39:08
Speaker 1: to be a bit more tactical with how he manages
39:10
Speaker 1: his drivers if ferraris in fact constantly challenging, threatening to
39:14
Speaker 1: take wins of it perhaps winning in its own right,
39:16
Speaker 1: and it's not just about chasing down Mercedes. I just
39:18
Speaker 1: happens to be ahead at some races. This, of course,
39:21
Speaker 1: Austria is a track well known for team orders. Is
39:24
Speaker 1: this perhaps going to be the first race where we
39:26
Speaker 1: see Mercedes have to choose? Now that it's raised publicly,
39:31
Speaker 1: this possibility that will actually just letting the driver's race
39:34
Speaker 1: may not be the best way to go about it.
39:37
Speaker 2: I'm looking forward to the five minute pre race feature
39:40
Speaker 2: that poor George is going to have to do the
39:42
Speaker 2: right thing by Mercedes and lower Union flags at half
39:47
Speaker 2: mass and so on and so forth. In answer to
39:50
Speaker 2: that question, I would not rule it out for the
39:52
Speaker 2: course of the season, but I think it's too early.
39:54
Speaker 2: It's a possibly but not yet answer for me. So
39:57
Speaker 2: I know that's sitting on the fence. But us put
40:01
Speaker 2: it this way, if they were to do something like
40:02
Speaker 2: that at this moment, wouldn't it feel a little bit alarmist,
40:05
Speaker 2: a little bit ahead of schedule. I don't really feel
40:07
Speaker 2: that we're in that now. Ferrari come out with the
40:09
Speaker 2: next to Grand Prix, if Charlie Clair breaks his three
40:12
Speaker 2: races at eighty seven throughout, or whatever it was that
40:14
Speaker 2: I said earlier, look perhaps, but at the moment it
40:18
Speaker 2: feels like it's a conversation at least worth starting to
40:21
Speaker 2: know how they are going to deal with it, should
40:23
Speaker 2: they have to. But it would feel like it would
40:25
Speaker 2: be a little bit too early and a little bit
40:26
Speaker 2: heavy handed to intervene at this point. But what's interesting,
40:30
Speaker 2: of course, is that it's a totally different equation. You
40:33
Speaker 2: remember Mercedes winning championships for fun in the mid twenty tens,
40:36
Speaker 2: where they already ever had to worry about the other car.
40:38
Speaker 2: There was no one else really in it. It was
40:39
Speaker 2: just like oh in maxisappas third in the World Championship,
40:42
Speaker 2: one hundred points behind it. So it's fine, we might
40:45
Speaker 2: not be having a season like that because there is
40:47
Speaker 2: still so much of it to go. And you would
40:49
Speaker 2: have to say that the the trajectory of Ferrari's performance
40:53
Speaker 2: era right now is steeper than Mercedes, and that is
40:56
Speaker 2: not something that we expected to say at this point
40:57
Speaker 2: of the year.
40:58
Speaker 1: Alarming to describe the twenty tens a historical period, because
41:01
Speaker 1: that just doesn't really work for me. Yes, it will
41:04
Speaker 1: be very interesting. I think it is too early for
41:06
Speaker 1: Mercedes to pick a winner, but I think Mercedes will
41:08
Speaker 1: perhaps start being a little bit more active with how
41:11
Speaker 1: it manages its drivers on track. If Ferrari, of course
41:14
Speaker 1: that's not yes, we'din races and that itself, you know,
41:16
Speaker 1: can you imagine as perhaps, or as total Wolf suggested,
41:20
Speaker 1: should have been the case. A couple of weeks ago
41:22
Speaker 1: in Spain, George Russell on his comeback weekend being told
41:25
Speaker 1: to move over for his championship winning teammate. I think
41:27
Speaker 1: is significant even if it isn't representative of a shift
41:30
Speaker 1: inside the team for the season overall, I think that
41:34
Speaker 1: would still be a pretty meaningful moment if in fact
41:36
Speaker 1: it comes to that. But we will wait and see,
41:37
Speaker 1: because that's all the time we have for Pittalk this week.
41:40
Speaker 1: You can subscribe to Pittalk wherever you get your favorite podcasts,
41:43
Speaker 1: and you can leave us a rating and a review
41:44
Speaker 1: as well. This weekend it's the Dutch Motorcycle Grand Prix
41:47
Speaker 1: with lights out at ten pm Sunday, followed by the
41:50
Speaker 1: Formula one Austrian Grand Prix, which gets underway at eleven pm.
41:54
Speaker 1: You can keep up to date with all the latest
41:55
Speaker 1: F one, Moto GP and supercars news at Fox sports
41:58
Speaker 1: dot com dot au. Make than me, Michael, i'manato. Thanks
42:01
Speaker 1: very much for your company, and we'll catch you next week.