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Red Flags Breed Red Flags - 2023 Australian Grand Prix Review · The Undercut Podcast

• 0:00
  In our last podcast, the Australian Preview, when Jesse made his prediction about an Alpine top 5 and a Haas top 10,
• 0:06
  I said, what about Alcatari? I think they're going to make it into the top 10. And I was told I was stupid.
• 0:12
  He made it into the top 10, so I'm not so stupid now.
• 0:17
  Hello and welcome back to the Undercut Podcast. I'm one of your hosts, Tima Obis-Daily, and as always,
• 0:33
  I am joined by the manager of my Herald, Jesse Billington, and the Susan Temeikar, Ellie May Taylor.
• 0:38
  How are you both? First of all, is that a Neighbours reference because we're in Australia? It is.
• 0:43
  Ah, I'm glad I finally figured it out. And I'm doing well-ish. I cannot really feel my legs,
• 0:48
  but I did a half marathon on Sunday and yeah, just paying the consequences for that one right now.
• 0:54
  Good. Ellie May, how are you? Surprisingly awake. We'll take you.
• 0:59
  I think this has to be the first podcast where I've said I'm not tired, but that's because I've had
• 1:04
  11 hours sleep. The irony of it being for the Australian Grand Prix. Well, the funny thing is,
• 1:09
  is for context, I had a very long day on Saturday, but being the hardcore fan I am.
• 1:17
  See, she's dedicated, Jesse. She gets up.
• 1:19
  Well, I am dedicated. So I set my alarm for 20 past four to get up and watched all the build up
• 1:27
  at half four. My alarm went off. I fell asleep through it all. Didn't wake up at all for my alarm
• 1:35
  until my dad came in and was like, are you getting up? And this was at like quarter to six.
• 1:41
  And I was like, these two are still before the race start.
• 1:44
  It was still before the race, but I was convinced my alarm never went off. So I came downstairs and
• 1:48
  I was like, I don't know what happened. My alarm didn't go off. And my dad was like, yes, it did.
• 1:53
  It went on for ages. You just didn't wake up. I mean, I just sort of, I just woke up at quarter
• 2:00
  to six and just literally the laptop stuck the race on. I was like, ah, this will be done in time
• 2:04
  for me to go and go and get ready for the half marathon. It was not in fact, I ended up watching
• 2:10
  the final like lap, essentially stood in the car park of the stadium where we were starting the race
• 2:17
  from. I was like, it's cold. I'm watching something I should have really been watching in bed.
• 2:22
  I don't want to be here. What life choices that unique life choices. I'm not going to say poor.
• 2:28
  I feel better for having done the half marathon. But again, you're going to hear me mention it a
• 2:31
  lot because it's that level of sort of smug endorphins. We don't care anymore. We're here
• 2:36
  for the Australian Grand Prix. We're just going to plow with that. I think you want to talk about
• 2:39
  running, do a running podcast. Fine. I'll go and get who's the guest we usually have on? Is it
• 2:44
  Fraser that does a lot of running? No, Lawrence. Lawrence. That's it. I'll go and find Lawrence
• 2:48
  and we'll do a start a running podcast. You have fun with that. Anyway, we're back of course to try
• 2:53
  and make some sense of all the action from this weekend's Australian Grand Prix, plus some
• 2:59
  smashing news and nonsense. And with that in mind, I am going to do a Jesse here and go off on a bit
• 3:03
  of one with the first bit of news. Well, actually, actually, I'm going to do a you and completely
• 3:08
  interrupt everything for the first time. And because I know someone's got to do it because
• 3:14
  technically this is Ellie May's anniversary of joining the podcast. She first joined the podcast.
• 3:22
  Yeah, it is. I didn't know. I didn't think anyone would remember.
• 3:26
  No, I remember because I care. And so, yeah, I thought I was like, I think it was about this
• 3:33
  time last year that we first had Ellie May on and check check check notes. And she was a guest back
• 3:38
  then. She was probably there, was she? She was a guest that just sort of never left. Yeah. She did
• 3:43
  the Australian Grand Prix review with us on the 10th of April. We liked her so much as a guest.
• 3:47
  We kept her around. Yeah, because then the next podcast recording after that simply has a footnote
• 3:52
  of also with Ellie May. That was that I think she was there at that point. They were like,
• 3:59
  cool, welcome to the podcast. This is the first time we had you on. I don't want to
• 4:04
  the notes. You weren't around for the Imola preview or review. I don't know. I was a guest
• 4:12
  for Australia. And then I filled in for team over the Miami preview. And after that,
• 4:18
  we had the marathon review of Miami with Hazel. And then that was it. You were with us after that
• 4:23
  point. Yeah. You've stuck with us through thick and thin and we are glad to have you. We're grateful.
• 4:30
  We've indoctrinated her successfully. Anyway, now I've teemo teemo with an
• 4:35
  interruption. I'll let them continue. It's a fair enough interruption there. It's Ellie May. She's
• 4:38
  important. So yes, FIA, because you know, we can't go race weekend without them doing something.
• 4:45
  Pit wall nonsense is how I've described this. They have announced that teams are now banned
• 4:51
  from celebrating on the pit wall following a Grand Prix. And I quote from their kind of
• 4:57
  rules and regulations stuff. It's forbidden to climb on pit wall debris fence at any time and
• 5:00
  refers to appendix H article 2.3.2 of the FIA's international sporting code. Rules are enforced
• 5:06
  across the multiple categories sanctioned by the governing body. So part of the rule that covers
• 5:10
  this particular situation regarding climbing pit wall fences states that again, quoting team personnel
• 5:16
  are only allowed in the pit lane immediately before they are required to work on the car and
• 5:20
  must withdraw as soon as the work is complete. It's forbidden for personnel to climb on pit
• 5:24
  wall debris fence at any time. Any action by a team breaching this ban will be reported to the
• 5:29
  stewards. Now pit wall celebrations is something we've seen in Formula One for as long as I can
• 5:35
  remember. And having done a bit of a Google search earlier and checking everything, including random
• 5:42
  deaths that you see in Formula One that are slightly more on the bizarre side, not once has
• 5:46
  there been an instance that's come up as a result of someone falling off either side of the pit wall
• 5:51
  and going splat or being hit by a car or anything kind of on that side of things. So I'm kind of
• 5:58
  intrigued by that. And it's notable points related to this filament as the Melbourne race is one where
• 6:03
  it's actually impossible for team personnel to get into the dangerous circumstances that the FIA are
• 6:08
  kind of expecting people to. And you could do that in Jeddah, which begs the question, why not maybe
• 6:15
  just fix Jeddah instead and the few other tracks apparently that aren't up to the same spec and
• 6:20
  then there is no need for that and you can still kind of have pit wall celebrations. The debris
• 6:25
  fencing lining, most pit straights, again, most, why is this not a basic thing that should just be
• 6:32
  included as part of what you do when you get to host an F1 race? I don't get why that's not a thing.
• 6:37
  At the top of FIA, Grade 1 track goes up vertically and then angles over tracks in effort to stop any
• 6:42
  dropped or loose parts flicking up and flying into the pit lane. And this is mirrored on the opposite
• 6:46
  side of the track to protect fans in the grandstands. What Melbourne has is the pit line is lined with
• 6:51
  thick glass panels to allow fans a better view of the action in the pit lane, which means that the
• 6:55
  foot holds that are typically there, the metal debris fencing are not present, so no one can climb
• 7:01
  high. It kind of gives you the best of both. And you've got to think that with the bicycle nonsense
• 7:07
  from previous racing in Saudi Arabia, do they just not have better things to be doing with their time?
• 7:16
  They've got much bigger issues and it just seems like nonsense again. And maybe sort this stuff out
• 7:24
  10 years from now when you've actually got nothing else to solve and you've fixed all your other
• 7:27
  bullshit problems. I don't know. Is this your point one on the list or is this enter Timo and his speech?
• 7:36
  This is my point one. No, no, my speech is later. Okay, good. Then I've still got a counter waiting for that one.
• 7:41
  But is the biggest threat to Formula One, Formula One itself? Arguably yes. I think to a certain
• 7:49
  extent, its own success is possibly going to lead it down pathways that make it less attractive to
• 7:54
  certain groups of fans, but ultimately also more attractive to other groups of fans. This seems like
• 7:58
  a weird safety precaution they're taking. Especially when nothing has ever happened.
• 8:05
  At the Australian Grand Prix, we did see a fella. Yes, but that's not on the start finish straight.
• 8:11
  That's a different issue. And again, we're talking about the start finish straight specifically here,
• 8:17
  nothing else. And if that has ever been an accident there that maybe I missed because there is
• 8:23
  always that possibility, I'm betting it would probably be from early days where it probably
• 8:26
  still a hay bale. I mean, you used to have a guy running out onto the start finish straight to wave
• 8:30
  the flag. And if you can get away with doing that without getting run over, then I don't see what
• 8:35
  the problem is with modern safety rules and equipment just celebrating as we have seen them do
• 8:41
  ever since any of us started watching Formula One. I guess it does make the end of a race a bit flat,
• 8:50
  not seeing all the personnel and crew cheering for whoever's gone onto the podium.
• 8:58
  I guess in some ways I kind of get it. I guess the barriers or fencing, they're not designed to have
• 9:10
  a load of people on them. So I guess they could fall. Just make them stronger.
• 9:16
  Yeah, you've got then got to redesign fences. You've got to make sure that's enforced across
• 9:22
  all the grade one lists circuits. Like you said, this is an FIA thing. So they've got to make sure
• 9:30
  that it's sort of contiguous across their entire range of sports at the FIA and I assume also FIM
• 9:36
  mandate. So you've got to do that for everything as far as F123, obviously. Then obviously you've
• 9:41
  got your F1 Academy, then obviously you've got all your endurance series that FIA moderated. Then
• 9:45
  also you've got FIM, which is probably going to have the same rules. So you've got your Moto 123
• 9:50
  and Moto E to cover as well. Formula E also an FIA certified sport. So you've got that to sort out
• 9:56
  and make sure that's got the right catch fencing. Even more important considering it's a street
• 10:00
  circuit where you've got people arguably even closer to the racing and just sort of physical
• 10:04
  proximity. And the fact that you have that sort of catch fencing is the same catch fencing that
• 10:09
  goes all the way around the circuit. And that still didn't stop someone getting their arm lacerated
• 10:14
  by a piece of broken house from Kevin Magnussen. I can understand the safety aspect of why they're
• 10:20
  doing it. Yes, it's a bummer to not see that anymore. But ultimately given the speeds that
• 10:24
  the cars are traveling, the fact that more and more often we're seeing little bits of these cars
• 10:28
  coming off, we're seeing the little sort of curved end section of the rear of the front wings sort of
• 10:33
  being broken off or end plates being broken off. And often they're being sort of swept off the
• 10:36
  racing line due to the wind rush of the cars. And generally we'll be left there. So we'll be
• 10:41
  meatball flagged if they've got a loose piece. But if it doesn't get spotted in time, that piece
• 10:45
  could just end up off the racing line. There is a very real chance that would get picked up and
• 10:50
  flung at that catch fencing. And while you don't generally at that moment in time... You're not
• 10:54
  likely to have on the start finish straight when you're coming over the finish line at the end of
• 10:58
  a race. No, they're not going to be that going that fast. So I can see why there's some sort of
• 11:02
  weird, why have you done that? The cars won't be going flat out there in enough speed to cause
• 11:06
  that aerial disruption. I don't know. It just seems an odd thing for them to try and target and
• 11:12
  do something about. Especially when they've got such a... A boatload of other problems.
• 11:18
  That they should be dealing with. I'm not against them doing it. It's annoying.
• 11:23
  No, it's a weird preemptive thing to do, especially when nothing has really happened before. And again,
• 11:29
  the Kevin Magnuson thing, fair enough, something needs to be done there. But again, that's not the
• 11:33
  start finish straight. So it's not like they're all going up there. Yes, but it's not on the start
• 11:39
  finish straight. And upgrade the safety on the rest of it. Fine. And upgrade the safety on the
• 11:44
  start finish straight. But my point is you're not having those pit crew members celebrating on lap
• 11:49
  23 going, oh yeah, we love these in first place and then running back into the pits again. You
• 11:52
  get it specifically at the end when everyone's probably slowed down anyway, more or less,
• 11:56
  because they're not properly racing to the line for the most part, because we haven't got races
• 12:00
  where that's an issue yet. And the finish line is actually before the pit row starts essentially.
• 12:05
  So generally speaking, you've crossed that line, you're already slowing down,
• 12:08
  because you go into a yellow flag zone. Making my point for me even more there. So yeah.
• 12:12
  So it's just a bit of a very odd thing. And I'm all for kind of making sure we're all safe,
• 12:18
  but it seems to be you've got bigger issues and bigger fish to fry here. Maybe sort of some of
• 12:22
  those are first before you start dealing with this stuff, especially when nothing's happened.
• 12:26
  I guess it's better to preempt that something might happen, then let something bad happen.
• 12:31
  And then we complain that why didn't it happen sooner, I guess. And I guess with the true,
• 12:37
  but we've managed to last for the last at least 20 years, just roughly off the top of my head
• 12:41
  without anything happening. And I'm only saying 20, because that's as far back as I go.
• 12:46
  And I agree is a weird one that they sort of clamped down on because
• 12:51
  we all like seeing it. But I guess we've got more street circuits coming up, which means all this
• 12:57
  fencing is temporary as well. So it's maybe benefit for the street circuits then. And then you have
• 13:02
  the glass panelling that Melbourne has for everywhere else. There's probably a lot of
• 13:09
  rules about around it, then might as well try and meet some halfway point.
• 13:14
  There's obviously some logic behind it, but the FIA never wants to let anyone know what their logic
• 13:20
  is behind any decision they make. So the net result is they often end up coming across as a bit
• 13:24
  stupid or a bit out of touch with the sports they're controlling.
• 13:27
  So by that kind of reasoning, if you take somewhere like Austin, where, and I mean,
• 13:32
  again, that's just the obvious one that comes to mind here, you've got whoever's waving the checkered
• 13:37
  flag at the end there, because okay, they're a bit higher up in a box, but they're still leaning out
• 13:41
  and waving flags. So surely that's not allowed then anymore. Because if you crash it at high speed,
• 13:45
  we're going wrong there, then, ooh, danger. So we can't actually finish a race anymore.
• 13:49
  So at what point do you say, no, enough is enough?
• 13:56
  I don't know. It's a tricky one to try and draw the line because most circuits have a point where
• 14:00
  the person waving the checkered flag actually has to lean out across the circuit and you see
• 14:04
  the physical waving checkered flag.
• 14:06
  Either over rules, they can't do that now.
• 14:11
  Yeah. I don't know. I guess it's a strange one. And obviously the way that it's marshalled,
• 14:18
  it's appropriately done and thought out is going to be weird. I don't know. It's another case of
• 14:24
  the FIA doing something, but not doing it with enough clarity or distinction for anyone to see
• 14:31
  the logic behind what they've done and why they've done it. And you can see vaguely what the
• 14:36
  intention is, but the net result has been ultimately to a very critical crowd,
• 14:41
  rather critical unsurprisingly.
• 14:43
  They've been consistently NAF is probably the very short way of putting that.
• 14:48
  It's an odd one.
• 14:50
  But we've got some slightly better news early May because if we've highly heard that decision,
• 14:54
  that actually makes sense.
• 14:57
  We do. Stefano Domenicali announced on Sky Sports just before FP1 that next year F1
• 15:04
  Academy will be racing alongside F1. They're yet to start this year's season, but considering
• 15:09
  they have seven races this season with five being held at F1 circuits just on different weekends to
• 15:15
  the ones F1 will be using, I'm hoping it will at least be kind of this amount next year. The
• 15:19
  context, I think W Series were meant to have eight before they fell into financial trouble.
• 15:25
  So hopefully F1 Academy will get the same or at least more. But I think this is a positive step.
• 15:30
  I mean, it's one that was needed in order to see F1 Academy be successful. And it also means
• 15:37
  F1 are looking into the future of this series and it's not just going to run for a year and that be
• 15:42
  it. It would have been nice.
• 15:43
  I think the question of why it didn't happen this year, like you say, because they knew about it
• 15:48
  enough in advance to say, oh, we could just shut, we've got races where F2 and F3 aren't, where we
• 15:53
  could fit them in. We could do it later in the season. It would still work. So it seems odd,
• 15:57
  but at least we get something out of it for next year. It is a positive, I guess.
• 16:03
  It's a net positive. But again, what it does is reminds people of the case of,
• 16:06
  why don't you just do that from the beginning? It was almost like they had their own doubts.
• 16:10
  I feel like we could do a lot of that going backwards with F1 Academy, W Series and a lot
• 16:14
  of stuff with F1. Why did you not just do this earlier, you silly gooses?
• 16:18
  Just say it with your chest from the start. The third point, you've got a little sort of
• 16:23
  news notes section rather loops back to Timo's opening point, which was sort of safety around
• 16:28
  circuits. And this one goes more towards the track invasion, which is sort of a thing that
• 16:33
  now officially happens where you sort of, everyone rushes onto track to catch the podium celebrations
• 16:37
  from trackside. The problem is because of the chaos that sort of wrapped up the Australian Grand Prix,
• 16:44
  that almost happened a lap early because we had the final lap of racing, which was under the
• 16:50
  safety car. And then people started to come out onto the circuit, forgetting that the drivers
• 16:54
  would then have a cool down lap after the safety car lap to make their way largely back to the pits.
• 17:01
  And the result was there were security teams and marshals literally trying to hold people back
• 17:06
  at marshaling points as they're trying to sort of rush through and get onto the circuit,
• 17:09
  while cars are still expected to be circulating for essentially another lap at relatively high
• 17:14
  speeds. So, and this is, this is the Australian Grand Prix promoters being sort of sanctioned by
• 17:20
  the Formula One motorsport and being slapped with a rule breach. I do find that a little bit laughable
• 17:25
  because I feel like they wouldn't have been put in that situation if the end of the race had been
• 17:28
  dealt with differently by F1 in the first place. So to try and put all the cop onto the GP promoters
• 17:34
  seems a little bit cheeky to me. Ultimately, the sort of the buck stops with the people whose event
• 17:41
  it is. And in that instance, you are the buck stops with the Australian Grand Prix promoters.
• 17:46
  They have paid to host this event. I don't think it's as black and white as that.
• 17:51
  I think that that extent, it certainly is as black and white as it is. When you sign a contract with
• 17:56
  Formula One that you're going to host a Formula One event, it's the same as hiring a children's
• 17:59
  party entertainer. If he turns out to be a drunken racist, that's on you for hiring the drunken racist.
• 18:04
  If, and that's essentially the contract you signed. The buck at this point stops with the
• 18:10
  Australian Grand Prix promoters, they're the people that organise this event, that host this event.
• 18:14
  You just simply book Formula One as your entertainment for that event. And unfortunately,
• 18:19
  the buck stops with the people that booked Formula One. There is not with the action you've booked,
• 18:24
  it is with the way you've organised how people will enjoy and respond to what you've put on.
• 18:30
  If the race had been done slightly differently, one could argue that the fans would not have
• 18:34
  bothered trying to get onto the track until afterwards because they wouldn't have been
• 18:36
  confused as to when the race actually finished. Were they invading because they were confused or
• 18:41
  were they invading because they wanted to get to the podium? They want to get to the podium,
• 18:50
  but you never see that in other races where they decide, oh, there's a lap left, we better
• 18:53
  get onto the track now before it's all finished. Italy last year when we finished under a safety
• 18:59
  car, we literally didn't have that. This is largely down to the confusion of that final lap
• 19:03
  and the fact that it's so tricky to tell when you're at a race, quite when it's finished,
• 19:07
  because there's so little communication in the stands, you do not hear a damn thing unless
• 19:11
  you're sat opposite a screen, you do not know. So this comes down to something F1 and the promoter
• 19:15
  should work together towards more being transparent on that in the future, then have more stuff around
• 19:20
  the place to actually show when stuff is properly finished. And yes, okay, you could say part of
• 19:24
  that is down to promoter of the individual Grand Prix, but at the same time, F1, I feel like they
• 19:29
  could be at least making that suggestion a bit sooner rather than waiting for something like
• 19:33
  this to happen. It's mutually beneficial for everyone to be on the same page for that.
• 19:37
  Ultimately, the buck still stops with the Australian Grand Prix promoter, it's down to them to make
• 19:41
  sure it's done properly. Interestingly, the fella who organises it is retiring after the,
• 19:46
  has retired after this Grand Prix, it's a new person that will be in charge of it as the sort
• 19:50
  of managing director of the Australian Grand Prix. So it'll be interesting to see if any changes are
• 19:54
  made coming into 2024, whether we see anything new happen there, and largely in response to what we've
• 20:00
  seen this weekend. So that'll be interesting. But again, the track invasion being too early,
• 20:05
  I think that largely does stem from something we'll ultimately get around to touching on the
• 20:09
  confusion at the end of the Grand Prix and the way it was handled. Though, ultimately,
• 20:14
  I will have some interesting things to say on that that might fly in the face of what you were
• 20:18
  anticipating. So we'll get to that in due course. The next point on our list is one fella had his
• 20:22
  arm lacerated by a piece of flying debris after Kevin Magnusson's very strange crash where he
• 20:26
  sort of stuck it against the barrier at turn three, I think it was, and sort of scuttled along the
• 20:32
  track and bits of his car went everywhere. One bloke had his arm cut by it. No, nothing major.
• 20:38
  Yeah, nothing major wrong with his arm. There's literally a sort of gash down his forearm.
• 20:42
  He didn't get to keep the piece though, which was annoying. It was stolen off of him by another
• 20:46
  Australian Grand Prix fan, but Aussie Grand Prix fans seem to misbehave quite significantly
• 20:52
  afterwards. There was a lot of things confiscated from them as they tried to leave the paddock as
• 20:55
  far as including one of the light panels. Insert politically incorrect Australian joke here.
• 21:02
  Yeah, they're all criminals. But when you're invited to an event or you pay to come along
• 21:10
  to an event, you don't start stealing things from the place. I can just understand the idea
• 21:14
  of taking a bit of track hoarding or like I did, I took some tyre marble from Monza, but you don't
• 21:19
  steal a fixture fitting from the circuit. So you didn't steal about then? It's tyre marble. At that
• 21:26
  point, it's detritus. It's like picking up a blade of grass from a foot. One man's precious,
• 21:31
  another man's gold, that kind of thing. It's obviously worth something to a Formula One fan.
• 21:36
  Yeah, it's a tyre marble from the Citadel of Speed, it's Monza, but that's different to stealing.
• 21:42
  It's different to stealing a light panel from... Very minor thievery, especially in comparison to
• 21:46
  stealing a light panel from the side of the circuit, not an advertising hoarding. A wired in light
• 21:51
  panel that's used to communicate safety cars, red flags and blue flags. To be fair, I wouldn't steal
• 21:57
  that either. I'd steal something proper. Yeah, you'd take something that's a bit easier to try
• 22:02
  and sneak out as well, as opposed to simply walking up to the security gates on the way out and going,
• 22:07
  did you bring that light panel with you from home? Yes. Yes. So that's going to be interesting, but
• 22:13
  the knock-on effects this sort of behaviour could have with future track invasions, not only the
• 22:18
  lack of safety that this year's won triggered, but also the blatant effects that were occurring.
• 22:24
  That's probably an earlier problem about the start-finish straight, because then you just
• 22:29
  ban fans completely and then they're not in any danger of any flying debris. And then everyone's
• 22:34
  safe and no team person ever allowed at the track whatsoever. The car just has to be perfect as it
• 22:38
  is on the Friday. No one's allowed to touch it. The driver's not allowed in the car and we're all
• 22:42
  good. I think that's taking it possibly at least two steps too far. But the argument is that what
• 22:47
  it could do is bad fan behaviour from here onwards could look at changing the way that fans are treated
• 22:55
  on race weekends. And ultimately, the moment that while they are treated as cash cows, they can't
• 22:59
  go to a certain point where they're seen to be sort of damaging the reputation of the sport and
• 23:04
  equally the circuits that it visits. Otherwise, people are going to be less and less likely to
• 23:08
  want to host a Grand Prix if they know that every year they've got to repopulate the entire circuit
• 23:13
  with light bars and stuff. It's going to have detrimental effects ultimately to the way the
• 23:19
  sport is perceived by people that want to be looking at hosting it. I think, yeah, it kind of
• 23:25
  really, it also comes down to the fans behaving as a fan should not doing what they're doing,
• 23:32
  like stealing light fittings or as a case of no one turned up to Lewis Hamilton's
• 23:40
  in like the Park Ferme bit because they were all worried about security breach in the Mercedes
• 23:44
  garage. And I think there were also marshals huddled around Nico Hulkenberg's car because
• 23:50
  they were worried that people were going to try and steal things from that. And it's kind of like,
• 23:54
  that isn't needed on a Formula One weekend. Just have fun and behave correctly.
• 24:01
  Again, it's this lack of clarity for a lot of things that just puts, and again, not the lack of
• 24:06
  clarity on just don't steal shit and don't be a dick. That's fair enough. Obviously, that should
• 24:10
  be common sense. But I think the rest is the combination of that and then the lack of clarity
• 24:13
  on other things like you say, Mercedes crew not being sure what they can and can't do. It's just
• 24:19
  confusion for everything. And it's kind of hard to be in their moment than it is to be in their
• 24:23
  moment than enjoy themselves as they should do as a team and as the fans have paid for to be there.
• 24:31
  It's a very strange one. And I hope that it doesn't begin to negative.
• 24:36
  There's a lot of that at the moment.
• 24:37
  And we'll see what happens. But interestingly, this whole sort of stealing things off of cars
• 24:41
  that had been had sort of parked inside of the circuit, recovered from the track, it happened
• 24:44
  at, I want to say 24 hours of Daytona. Someone was caught literally ripping the front end off of a
• 24:49
  car that had been sort of removed by the marshals and parked up at the side of the track.
• 24:53
  And that's a ballsy kind of thief over the thievery there. I kind of, I respect that to an extent
• 24:59
  because at least you tried something proper there and you didn't just take a light fitting.
• 25:02
  Yeah, I ripped the front end of a car.
• 25:04
  Yeah. I can sort of admire the aspiration to but ultimately at the end of the day,
• 25:10
  that's probably that bit of the car was still wrong. I will say that. Yeah. So it's a very
• 25:15
  strange. It was afterwards. Yeah. Because all of a sudden the teams could now buy an entirely new
• 25:20
  front bumper diffuser and sort of set it back to you. Yeah. Just buy a cap from the stall.
• 25:29
  I know they're expensive, but it's better to have that than be done for crimes. Anyway,
• 25:34
  we'll move on to the final piece of sort of news as it were, before we go on to the race.
• 25:38
  And this is actually looking ahead to the Azerbaijan weekend coming up. And obviously,
• 25:42
  we know we've got the sprint being hosted at Azerbaijan. And what we want for this actually
• 25:46
  is we want your opinions. We want you to hit us up in the DMS on the socials, comment on the YouTube
• 25:51
  or even on the Spotify. I'll make sure I've got the comments open on this Spotify episode when
• 25:55
  it goes out. And I want you to let us know what you think about the new or possibly new. I don't
• 26:00
  think it's been completely ratified yet. The new sprint set up for the weekend to come. And this
• 26:04
  is only happening in Azerbaijan. They're sort of doing a one-off test with it. Friday, we'll see
• 26:08
  an FP1 session followed by qualifying. And this will determine Sunday's Grand Prix starting order.
• 26:14
  Saturday will then host sprint qualifying and the sprint race. So they'll have a separate
• 26:20
  qualifying session for the sprint in itself and then the sprint race. And then Sunday will have
• 26:24
  the Grand Prix, which of course will have had its order determined by the qualifying on the Friday.
• 26:30
  So we want you to get in touch with your thoughts on this one, your theories, your ideas and opinions.
• 26:35
  So again, hit us up across the social medias, the DMS comment sections on YouTube and Spotify.
• 26:40
  We want to know what you think and we'll do our best to include anyone who gets in touch
• 26:44
  on the next podcast. My initial thought is I love it because that means I can just skip Saturday.
• 26:50
  I don't need to bother with that. And I can just watch an hour on Friday and then come back on
• 26:53
  Sunday and have a nice bit more weekend back. Jobs are good. I mean, ultimately sprint race
• 26:58
  still contributes to the overall standings of the season. Just going to watch highlights.
• 27:01
  Won't bother. Could be interesting. I guess in some respects, it means that maybe we'll get
• 27:09
  more racing in the sprint because drivers, I mean, they're still going to have to be careful with,
• 27:17
  because they know that they've got a race the next day, but they might be a bit more ballsy to try
• 27:22
  and get some points. You're not going to be losing out places in the main event as it were, if you
• 27:28
  really go for an absolute send. I still think what they should have done if they want to have a sprint
• 27:34
  format is just look at the feeder series. You've got a perfectly good sprint and future race
• 27:40
  format there. Why muck about with that? Just copy and paste it. That works brilliantly for those two.
• 27:45
  At least try that out for a form before mucking about with it if you're going to go down that
• 27:48
  avenue. But Timo, that'd be too sensible. And we've established long ago on this podcast that
• 27:53
  Formula One VFI isn't going to do you. I'm getting more and more annoyed at the moment with these people.
• 27:58
  Well, take that out on them in your own social media feeds. For the rest of the time though,
• 28:01
  we want to hear your opinions on the matter, so feel free to get in touch. We'll move on though
• 28:06
  to the race, which by and large was quite sensible right up until the final sort of five laps or so,
• 28:13
  when it all of a sudden went a bit peak tong. So we had Russell Pole with Verstappen starting P2
• 28:18
  and Hamilton P3. Russell Pole did we? Verstappen Pole, Russell P2 and Hamilton P3. It has been a
• 28:23
  long busy day and I'm quite tired. So interesting qualifying first of all with the Mercedes showing
• 28:30
  a fair lick of speed, something they managed to carry over into the race. But ultimately the
• 28:35
  podium by the end of the race was Verstappen P1, Hamilton P2 and Alonso in his now commonplace P3.
• 28:42
  We did however see three standing starts through the race, which ties us with the Saudi Arabian
• 28:49
  Grand Prix in 2021, the Tuscan Grand Prix in 2020 held at Mugello, the Spa Grand Prix in 1990 and
• 28:57
  of course the Austrian Grand Prix in 1987 for a few little statistics. So it was all a bit chaotic.
• 29:04
  Everything made perfect sense right up until the final quarter barely and then it all went a bit
• 29:11
  awry. That is where I will enter the chat again because like you say, it does all make sense.
• 29:18
  And the weird thing here, Jesse, is that I do agree with you to a point and that is that the
• 29:25
  regulations you can argue were correctly interpreted, but I'm just gonna do my spiel and
• 29:31
  then I will let you come in and do the thing. So I'm just going to get it all out in the system.
• 29:35
  So we're going to start with the first red flag because I was just having the build of this. So
• 29:40
  what happened basically for just a quick refresher, Alex L once spun out at turn six,
• 29:44
  touched the barriers a bit and spilled gravel onto the track. He had a red flag then for gravel
• 29:48
  with some arguing that you can't have cars at high speed going through there with gravel on the track,
• 29:53
  which sure, but as Button said in commentary on Sky, you're not going 140 miles per hour
• 29:57
  under a safety car. So I don't understand why there's a red flag. You just slow down for the
• 30:01
  incident. The safety car can slow down and they can sweep the gravel when the cars aren't going
• 30:05
  past the incident. Like we've done many times in the past where we've had similar kind of things.
• 30:10
  It damaged a lot of people's races and there was a strategy called that a lot of people made that
• 30:14
  they thought was right. It was strange, but you could understand the safety car aspect of it as
• 30:20
  well. And Martin Blunder also then said after the race that he thought when Alex L went off, they
• 30:25
  could perhaps have used a safety car and swept the gravel and cleared the car away. So I'm not
• 30:29
  convinced that that was red flag worthy and ultimately bugging a few people's races.
• 30:34
  I'm not going to include Rust in that because his car probably still would have gone boom and that
• 30:38
  would have been him done. But for other people, we're not sure what that would have done then
• 30:42
  because again, you had this free pit stop essentially then which counted as your tire
• 30:48
  changed and then everyone wasn't really pushing for the majority of the race because they just
• 30:51
  want to see if they could get to the end of it, which does beg the question, should we allow
• 30:57
  pit stops to happen in red flag conditions, but not have them count as the change that
• 31:03
  change from one compound to the other that the race requires because otherwise it could make the
• 31:09
  race a little bit more dull. Whereas if you need to make sure everyone does another pit stop when
• 31:13
  the racing resumes, that would then potentially make it more interesting. We would have perhaps
• 31:17
  seen the Hamilton Alonso battle that we want instead of just a little bit of push and shove.
• 31:22
  But red flag two came out and then crashed coming out of turn two with the wheel coming off as we
• 31:27
  mentioned and his car going to the wall. Red flag again, more understandable, but I will say that
• 31:33
  earlier the same day in Formula 2, Roy Nassani and Enzo Fittobaldi did crash at the same spot
• 31:38
  and that wasn't red flag with Martian vehicles on track to clean everything up. So it was curious
• 31:43
  that you had one rule for that and another and a different one for Formula 1 there. And Verstappen
• 31:49
  was then on the record saying it's quite clear, I just didn't understand why we needed a red flag,
• 31:53
  I think you could have had a safety car and a normal rolling start then afterwards, you
• 31:57
  would have had all these shunts and then you have a normal finish. So he was saying the race
• 32:01
  director just created problems of selves at the end of the day. He understands why the drivers
• 32:05
  have reacted in a negative way because we've never seen red flags for this before and again,
• 32:09
  it doesn't seem strictly necessary. Possibly you get the red flag because it was so close to the
• 32:14
  end of the race, but at the same time, are you there for the safety or are you there for the
• 32:19
  entertainment purposes and it should always be for the safety? Lando Norrisen obviously was also
• 32:23
  saying in the second half and especially the four laps to go, I feel like you ruin a lot of things
• 32:27
  by doing this. Don't feel like it's fair for people who've done a good job and then they get
• 32:32
  taken out just because of something that is completely out of their control. You come all
• 32:37
  the way to Australia, you have a lot of work to do and you drive 56, 55 laps perfectly and because
• 32:42
  they try to put on a show, you just get unlucky and everything can get taken away from you all of a
• 32:46
  sudden. And this is the guy that benefited from this quite heavily and got eight points I think
• 32:51
  from this. So I just think this side of it needs a small rethink and for me, it screams a bit of
• 32:58
  manufacturing entertainment. There was an Instagram post by F1 after the race saying it was box office
• 33:02
  entertainment and I think that was a little bit telling there. All sport is entertainment, but not
• 33:07
  all entertainment is sport and Formula One could do with remembering that. The Magellan restart that
• 33:12
  you mentioned earlier, Jesse, comes to mind there because I feel like that should have been a standing
• 33:16
  start there, not a rolling start and the crashing that we got there could have been avoided. It was
• 33:22
  the opposite case here, especially with two hours ago. Cold tyres as well, it was just asking for
• 33:26
  trouble and Baku will literally be drive to survive if they're going to live up to this
• 33:32
  entertainment side of things because not only have you this sprint format there where of all the places
• 33:37
  to do it, you've got a track that aside from last year has a history of being absolute carnage without
• 33:44
  needing any help from that. So doubling the chances are interesting, let's say that and while it can
• 33:51
  be argued, like you probably will in a minute, that the stewards, etc. correctly interpreted the rules,
• 33:55
  it leaves a bad taste in your mouth and the Atlanta says those higher up try and put in a show ruin
• 33:59
  the race for numerous drivers who did absolutely nothing wrong up to that point. If you want more
• 34:03
  interesting racing, make the car smaller and get the closer overtaking, translate into actual
• 34:07
  overtaking and if F1 wants to become WWE, then fine, just tell us so that those of us who don't care for
• 34:14
  that kind of thinking often follow some real sport. So I think that yes, everything was done to the
• 34:21
  book, but just because you can do something one way doesn't mean you should. Jesse, go for it.
• 34:28
  Okay, because I didn't actually know what you're going to say, I just sort of assumed that what
• 34:32
  you're going to say is going to be quite controversial and ultimately antipodean to what
• 34:36
  I was thinking, but what you've actually said is by and large, the route I was thinking down.
• 34:41
  Well, I've spoiled your party immediately then. You have to a certain extent, I do think that we
• 34:46
  had this sort of over exuberance when it came to waving red flags, although I can see why
• 34:51
  the marshals race directors would have obviously been pushing for red flags in some of these
• 34:56
  instances. Yes, we were looking at a track where tires seemed to be getting quite cold quite quickly,
• 35:01
  especially later on in the day with the sun setting, the track surface losing temperature,
• 35:04
  we saw that certainly on the final restart, just how cold those tires got all of a sudden. This is
• 35:09
  because the safety car really has a very physical limit as to what it can do around that track,
• 35:14
  simply a speed that's untenable for the F1 cars to keep any heat in its tires, that's why we see
• 35:18
  these cold tire restarts. But when it comes to actually waving the red flag, I think on a street
• 35:25
  circuit with closely encapsulated walls, and you've got vehicles coming onto the track to recover
• 35:32
  stricken F1 cars. In the for raw that followed the Japanese Grand Prix, I can understand why
• 35:39
  maybe Formula One was a bit more sort of happy go lucky with chucking out his red flags and really
• 35:44
  going somewhere. All I will say to that then is the counter I already put in there is why did they
• 35:48
  not do that for Formula Two, you had the big trucks and cranes and people all out on the track on the
• 35:52
  exact same bit of the circuit and yet the safety car was just moving on by with all the cars
• 35:57
  perfectly going behind it. It seems curious that on the same day, near hours before this happens,
• 36:03
  you have as close to the same thing as you can have and you just decide, nah, it's F2, we don't
• 36:08
  need to do a red flag for that. But for F1, oh yes, and that and again this incident in Formula Two,
• 36:13
  that was about 10 laps or less so before the end of the race as well. So it's very similar circumstances.
• 36:19
  I think possibly with F2 then it's more of a shortfall of F2 which has different race directors and
• 36:26
  different sort of marsh shooting teams. So all of a sudden their shortfall there lies with more with
• 36:31
  the Formula Two side of things than with Formula One. I can understand very much with the safety
• 36:35
  aspect why Formula One did what it did and why the race happened the way it did. My question when it
• 36:40
  comes to following the rules was more with the restart for that very final lap behind the safety
• 36:45
  car. It was a very by the letter following of the rule book, though it's not particularly exciting
• 36:50
  and quite ultimately disappointing because we've seen a very unique finishing order.
• 36:56
  Well that's something I wanted to say and it smacks of, okay, we're going to have a two-lap
• 37:00
  shootout, oh dear, carnage immediately, excellent, but also then we have this excellent result on
• 37:05
  paper as Elime was so wishing to come true with the Hulk P4 and that's face everyone else was
• 37:10
  hoping for that as well because we're human. What did you achieve here? It's kind of very the end
• 37:14
  of burn-off reading. What did we learn? I'm not entirely sure, but let's not do it again.
• 37:21
  I'll wrap up my piece on it, I'll let Elime speak, because what we achieved was a very
• 37:26
  by the book play of things, which I think is exactly what we need in a sport that since
• 37:30
  2021 has been sort of rattled by this idea of, oh you can just sort of make up different rules on
• 37:37
  the fly to make things more interesting and this sort of weird idea that someone somewhere in an
• 37:42
  office just goes, oh we'll do it this way because it'll be interesting and that's not how sport goes.
• 37:47
  You do not see that in any other sport where they go, I see what you've done there, it's interesting,
• 37:52
  we'll let it slide, or I think it'd be more interesting if we played this certain rule a
• 37:55
  slightly different way that you would have to infer from the way it's written. I think obviously
• 37:59
  the rule book reformed one has been gone over with a fine tooth comb pretty much after every race
• 38:04
  since Abu Dhabi 2021. Keep going back to it, but people have gone over every single rule every time
• 38:09
  it comes up and goes no that needs to be made clearer, no we cannot leave a grey area there,
• 38:13
  and I think ultimately that is for the benefit of the sport, makes it easier to understand and follow
• 38:18
  if you've got rules that have no grey area or room for interpretation. So when it comes to
• 38:23
  restarting this grid where you've had not all the cars go through the certain points of this
• 38:28
  sort of defined marshalling points and the discern sort of micro sectors that they use,
• 38:33
  it makes sense to simply go back to the last point in time where you have a definable measure
• 38:39
  of what order the cars were in, what their places were, and that was at the start. It makes sense,
• 38:43
  but I don't think it's something that should have been done in the first place, and instead I mean
• 38:47
  again I know this is a different form of racing that I'm going to say into and then I will throw
• 38:51
  you at me, I will not neglect you don't worry, but Indycar was at the Texas Motor Speedway
• 38:56
  on Sunday as well. They finished under yellow flags after I think Grosjean, typical Grosjean
• 39:02
  crashed just before the end. Yeah I know but it's still classic Grosjean.
• 39:08
  Go for it, Grosjean are crashing generally. Work with me here, it's a general thing, and
• 39:14
  you've got an oval race there. They already moved the time up for the race because they knew that
• 39:18
  rain was coming and they didn't want to have, they knew they wouldn't be able to do an oval race in
• 39:24
  the rain, and they finished under yellow because it wouldn't have been doable to just have a red
• 39:27
  flag and then do that kind of F1 kind of thing, because again can you imagine the chaos they
• 39:32
  would have had on an oval with that many Indycars still going around the place. So I just find it
• 39:37
  curious that the Americans who are all about the showmanship and the entertainment side of things,
• 39:44
  for me they did a better job of sorting their stuff out this weekend than Formula One did when
• 39:49
  it came to having that combination of health and safety, good sport and the good sport being
• 39:55
  entertainment, not the entertainment being the sport. Yeah more confusing one for the other.
• 40:00
  Ellie May. Yeah Ellie May go for it. I've said my piece, they follow the rules, job done, Ellie May.
• 40:07
  Yeah I mean I guess we're kind of going down a similar line. I think
• 40:10
  your first point with Albin and that red flag, I think first of all I think the red flag is fair
• 40:19
  because not only is you know a tractor coming out to collect the car or whatever, you're having
• 40:27
  marshals on the track sweeping all this, all the gravel back into the gravel trap and to have as
• 40:37
  many marshals as they did on track to get it done as quickly as possible, I think it's fair enough
• 40:42
  why they did the red flag and then in terms of then what Timo was saying in terms of the tire
• 40:49
  changes during the red flags, I have questioned it myself, it does seem unfair if you know
• 40:58
  a car, some cars have already pitted and changed their tyres and now they're losing out because
• 41:02
  teams can now change their tyres and that's essentially a free pit stop but you've got to
• 41:07
  think it's probably down to safety. I think Karim was saying that he's gone over gravel before and
• 41:14
  it's punctured his tyres so from a safety perspective those tyres need to be changed
• 41:20
  and you can't really tell a team you can and can't. In which case change them under that but just
• 41:28
  don't have that counters being the mandatory switch from one compound to the other that you
• 41:33
  would need for a Grand Prix. Change it for safety for all kinds of purposes but then just make sure
• 41:37
  that they go back in later and have that as make that clear to them that way you can cover both
• 41:42
  ways off there. But then you can't guarantee that a team will have the tyre allocation available to
• 41:47
  them to then go back and change the tyres? Have F1 and the FIA and the students or whoever be in
• 41:52
  charge of that have an extra special set of tyres for everyone for just such an eventuality it's
• 41:58
  planned out then and hey if we never need to use them perfect but at least we got them. I don't
• 42:05
  think that would all work I mean even just down to I guess environmentally because that's
• 42:11
  more because F1 are doing such a great job of that already. I know but anyway then going off on the
• 42:18
  last red flag with Kevin Magnussen I guess they were whether it should have been a red flag or
• 42:25
  not I guess they were damned if they do damned if they don't because when Danny Rick car
• 42:35
  Monter yes yeah pulled over to the side yeah did he pull over to the side with engine failure or
• 42:40
  trying to think what happened yeah he pulled over to the side it was going to start finish straight
• 42:44
  and then though it was the back straight coming out not to start finish straight no just saying
• 42:50
  straight there we go just before parabolic yeah so then it finished under a yellow flag because
• 42:56
  they couldn't get his car out off the track in time that would have inevitably happened at this
• 43:02
  track as they had just done a yellow flag on safety car because they wouldn't have had time
• 43:06
  which ultimately got the same result for a lot of people there especially the podium that wouldn't
• 43:10
  have been altered if they'd done that this time around but when they did that at monza people
• 43:16
  went mad at them saying that should have been a red flag so now they've done a red flag and people
• 43:22
  have now said that is a thing of that should be the FIA and the stewards putting their foot down
• 43:27
  saying well you can have your opinion but we're going to stick to our gun because we're the people
• 43:31
  in charge here you're not we decided yellow flag and safety car finish that's what we're going to
• 43:36
  do you don't like it write a petition and we'll think about it but we're not going to nothing was
• 43:41
  ever put in writing after that so again yeah damn if you don't you'll let if you're the people in
• 43:47
  charge of the grand prix the fi the stewards you're letting other people dictate what you can and
• 43:51
  can't do again if we go back to 2021 it's very much christian and toto on the radio telling michael
• 43:56
  massie what to do and then michael massie getting the shit for it which okay a little bit does go
• 44:01
  towards him but it shouldn't be anywhere near as much as it as it was because again if you've got
• 44:06
  that much pressure on you you're ultimately going to be compromised in whatever decision you are
• 44:09
  you're going to make everyone happier as if you just take a stand to put your foot down and say
• 44:13
  no in this case like we say for australia on this weekend just gone safety car yellow flag jobs are
• 44:20
  good and yeah okay it's a shame that we have we can't go racing the last two laps but that's the
• 44:25
  way it is deal with it i just yeah it's tricky you i mean i see both sides of it it's i think
• 44:35
  the fia were just kind of between a rock and a hard place and in terms of themselves and as well
• 44:42
  i guess whatever they did someone was going to be unhappy with it including the teams they were
• 44:48
  going to be someone was probably going to be unhappy no matter the situation so to be fair
• 44:54
  theron there's always at least one team unhappy about something after every race so you might as
• 44:58
  well be consistent firm in your stance and not let the teams and the fans dictate to you something
• 45:03
  on health and safety and then risk ruining like they did with alpin you have alpin who had a
• 45:08
  tremendous weekend up to that point and it's all ruined because the fia and steward just decided to
• 45:15
  be whimsy and decide oh we'll do one thing for once and we'll change it for this but then next
• 45:19
  time this happens it'll be interesting to see what they do again and why have they when which one they
• 45:23
  go from why they decide on the option they do and we're all probably gonna have to sit down and have
• 45:28
  this conversation again and we're gonna be like well what what did we learn here absolutely nothing
• 45:32
  apparently i do feel sorry for alpin and we know how much i hate that livery but even i was feeling
• 45:41
  bad seeing those two sink sad pink cars by the side of the track i'm like they they worked their
• 45:46
  arse off i think the problem the problem is is that red flags tend to breed red flags no exactly
• 45:55
  more general again being another prime example of that yeah and the the way to look at it is if we
• 46:01
  had the kevin magdalen incident which was unavoidable essentially in that circumstance
• 46:06
  and we simply yellow flagged it and safety card it all the way to the end of the race we would have
• 46:10
  had a finishing order of bestapan hamilton alonzo science gazley stroll and then you've got perez
• 46:17
  norris hulkenberg and ochon making up the top 10 so you'd have had an interesting ish top 10 i don't
• 46:23
  think anyone would have been upset by that we've got a different person on the podium we've got
• 46:28
  has and both alpines in the top 10 we've got both astor martins up there it's a decent enough race
• 46:35
  the only person that really sucks for is oscar piastri who doesn't score points on his home grand
• 46:40
  prix joe in 12th senoda in 13th botas in 14th sergeant in 15th and avrice in 16th that rounds
• 46:47
  out your runners at that point and yeah you'd have still had an interesting enough race result that
• 46:54
  wouldn't have upset too many people but in the end we sort of gambled it for essentially lap 56 and
• 46:59
  lap 57 and then eventually lap 58 where we sort of saw it out to the bitter end and crucially going
• 47:07
  especially up to saudi arabia you don't have a podium that's going to be contested for hours
• 47:11
  after the race that would still have been the same regardless of what happened in before the
• 47:16
  red before red flag two after red flag three before um it got reinstated and then the final
• 47:23
  result the podium was still the same throughout so even if there had been a bit because as annoying
• 47:29
  as it would be to see maybe say p4 b demotor to p6 whatever generally we're less fussed about that
• 47:36
  because that's out of sight and out of mind whereas if it's the podium with the thing we look forward
• 47:41
  to for the end of the race and the celebrations there and then to see russell getting that and
• 47:46
  then alonzo getting that back you're like do i enjoy this do i not and you don't need that again
• 47:50
  so in this instance there was no risk of that but hey i feel like we could go on about this for quite
• 47:55
  a while we should move on to winners i mean you mentioned that before you before we move on to
• 47:59
  winners and spinners i will mention the science thing which is i do think he was unfairly punished
• 48:04
  for that five second that five second penalty for tapping alonzo it's a race one racing incident
• 48:10
  yeah lap one lap one turn one racing incident on dead cold tires that have done nothing for a little
• 48:15
  while and then one solitary slow lap to the grid behind the safety car they're not going to be
• 48:19
  anywhere near warm it's a miracle like i said at the top of this episode the the stewards they they
• 48:25
  seem to like to top themselves in all the wrong places race after race and this one is just taking
• 48:30
  the biscuit the fact of the matter is that was it um sergeant wiped out de vries going into turn one
• 48:37
  and they received no penalty for that at all oh yeah for a far bigger accident whereas science
• 48:43
  was simply a case of he was sort of and both of them were running wide or cold tires yeah both of
• 48:48
  them were clearly racing incidents but science was penalized for his way more aggressively than
• 48:53
  really should have been done and something that ultimately would have been because under a normal
• 48:59
  race a five second penalty doesn't make a huge amount of difference if there had been the rest
• 49:03
  of the race left to run fair enough a lap one turn one instant you could probably drop a five second
• 49:07
  penalty on it that's enough to drop you back one place but because everyone came through behind him
• 49:12
  in the safety car it ruins your race it completely ruins your race and something that would have been
• 49:18
  hugely important to science's standings in the championship like very very very infuriating
• 49:23
  before i throw to ellie may for her winner is that there have been 83 red flags in formula one
• 49:29
  history and we had three of them yesterday we were on the majority of them in the last few years i've never
• 49:37
  known had a good had a good few and the most amusing one to me i can't remember which year it was
• 49:42
  it was either 1990 or 1997 i think the latter the reason a race was red flagged restarted the most
• 49:48
  pathetic of reasons aside from some of the ones from yesterday joss verstappen stalled on the
• 49:53
  starting grid so they restarted so they red flagged restarted so of course he did anyway
• 49:59
  earlier was that though where joss verstappen stalled i'm not 100% sure i want to say italy but
• 50:05
  don't quote me because it depends how easy it is to recover the car immediately but that doesn't
• 50:10
  mean we've seen 3.6 percent of all red flags ever in one race so yes ellie may your winner for this
• 50:17
  weekend if there is one me because despite all that true isn't it despite all that chaos pretty
• 50:26
  much all my predictions were correct but this piln class isn't you know just about me so my
• 50:33
  actual winners are on your anniversary on my anniversary yeah but my actual winners are nico
• 50:40
  hulkenberg and yuki sonoda so starting with nico hulkenberg these past three race weekends hulkenberg
• 50:48
  has shown some really strong qualifying performances and especially at australia where
• 50:53
  he was consistently clear of getting into the next qualifying stage his struggle has always
• 50:58
  been the actual race itself which was partly down to the fact that has don't have a great race
• 51:03
  performance at the moment and i think where he's been out of racing consistently for a while he
• 51:08
  kind of needed to get back into his groove his weakest points have always been his race starts
• 51:13
  that's where he loses out the most but this race he kind of he maintained his position at the start
• 51:19
  and stayed within the points pretty much the entire time even after the chaos ended and finished
• 51:27
  nicely in sevenths and then yuki sonoda he didn't do too badly in qualifying he got 12th which
• 51:35
  as much as it pains me to say that is the worst car on the grid so it's 12th isn't that bad um it's
• 51:43
  kind of like how we were celebrating a williams getting into q2 like in 2020 um throughout the
• 51:50
  race he stayed in the lower end of the points until about halfway through the race where he
• 51:54
  he had to start nursing an issue on his car but he almost had to constantly battle with someone
• 52:00
  trying to overtake him and in the last lap chaos he could have easily been caught in the carnage
• 52:05
  but he actually got a really good start off the line and avoided all the mess around him to get
• 52:09
  up to fifth i think it's a shame for him that he couldn't keep that and he was kind of deserving
• 52:14
  of it but he still got tenth he still gets a point and in our last podcast the australian preview
• 52:22
  when jesse made his prediction about alpine top five and a has top 10 i said what about alpha tari
• 52:28
  i think they're going to make it into the top 10 and i was told i was stupid he made it into the
• 52:33
  top 10 so i'm not so stupid now i said it was a bold call that alpha tari would be up there but
• 52:42
  yeah i mean at one point my wild prediction of a alpine in the top five and a has in the top 10
• 52:48
  was running really true if we go back to the preview i did say to you i'm pretty sure why not
• 52:55
  a has in the top five as well and we had that for a brief moment i don't think it's in the script
• 53:00
  but i think if we go back and listen i'm pretty sure i said that and oh for a second there i could
• 53:04
  have been a kingmaker for you it could have been i don't think the has would have finished in the
• 53:08
  top five but certainly gazley would have been the five for a sweet sweet moment that our good friend
• 53:14
  the has chap was very much brutalized about if lines had got his penalty we would have had a
• 53:20
  hulkenberg podium yep would have done would have should have could have i don't know it's a whole
• 53:26
  wild world but teemo your winner from the weekend there's only one choice for me and thank god that
• 53:33
  i could find an easy person to choose here because otherwise it would have been tricky sorting through
• 53:37
  the rest of all that but louis hamilton because as weird as it is for p2 to be excellent for him
• 53:43
  it was a pretty stonking drive and didn't succumb to alonzo's just alonzo-ness i guess is the only
• 53:51
  way to describe it he's a verb now yeah really solid weekend for mercedes it's shame for russell
• 53:58
  obviously with the pu problem only a second retirement with mercedes interesting that we
• 54:02
  have a pu problem this early on but that's a separate issue for another time i've got a
• 54:07
  month to discuss that but hamilton yeah solid qualifying solid race and yeah kind of shows why
• 54:16
  even when you've got a slightly duff car you can still do pretty decently with it and it'd be
• 54:21
  interesting to see what changes you have made to that car between the last couple of races to get
• 54:26
  there and how much of that redesign is going to still come or how track specific it was
• 54:32
  i don't think mercedes have made too big a change on it possibly this is george russell playing it
• 54:36
  down but he was caught in the interview pan asked about this and he said the change we've made to
• 54:41
  have been absolutely minor they won't have been the ones the changes that you've seen sort of
• 54:48
  make this time difference that's if anything us getting more used to the car and this circuit
• 54:52
  being a lot more favorable to the mercedes than the two circuits we've seen previously so this
• 54:58
  isn't the start of the mercedes renaissance but it does mean there are good things on the horizon
• 55:03
  that there is some good in this chassis that they might be able to unearth um yourself me uh i'm
• 55:11
  gonna call myself a winner for this one because as i may have already mentioned ran a half marathon
• 55:15
  at the weekend uh someone gives a shit that's got nothing to do with the grand prix get back to the
• 55:19
  racing set myself a target of two hours came home in 159 one minute 49 so really happy with it
• 55:24
  no one cares no one cares i care i care and uh no one else does elime you were about to say
• 55:31
  something she just doesn't care she cares she says well done see um she's polite i'm not yeah let
• 55:38
  you say that again um but uh but my winner from the race though for me it's gonna be perez actually
• 55:46
  um he didn't have a shit weekend really really torrid friday and saturday but properly came back
• 55:54
  into the race i think there was there was his car was suffering from a few sort of gearbox issues
• 55:58
  that were snatching down changes and he was struggling to fight it on the brakes but once
• 56:03
  he sort of got the bit between his teeth for sunday he drove phenomenally and he does like
• 56:09
  a race from the back he loves a race from the back he loves a sort of street circuit style location
• 56:14
  which pardon me albert park really is and yeah we saw a sort of top tier level peros performance
• 56:21
  from that one so it was nice to see him prove that it's not just max that can do the red bull
• 56:27
  drive from down the field sort of thing and yeah definitely earned the points that he accrued i'd
• 56:32
  like to have seen him made his way further up but i don't think the final stages of the race were
• 56:37
  conducive to those sort of last few overtakes but even when you look at the rate that other drivers
• 56:42
  were making their way through the field against cars that were arguably a lot slower peres was
• 56:46
  making those moves a lot easier you look at the fact that he and okon were chasing their way through
• 56:51
  the field peres even though he's in a red bull was really ripping through them and yeah you can have
• 56:58
  a good car but you've got to also have the driving now to be able to overtake around a track where
• 57:01
  despite all the drs zones there are in reality still only two or three big overtaking chances
• 57:07
  and he was making passes in places where those overtaking chances usually are he was
• 57:11
  looking at moves through turn 13 and you're thinking okay you've got your confidence back
• 57:15
  in that car and you're flying and that we love to see as a peres fan we'll keep it with you then
• 57:20
  for a second i'll go on anyway i was just going to say i think that's the main one of the main
• 57:25
  points is that peres got his confidence back because he could have easily lost it after what
• 57:30
  happened in qualifying and not having trust in the car when braking so it's good to see that he could
• 57:35
  get back into form then in the race yeah worked over things with his team found out what the
• 57:40
  mechanical problems were worked over things with his trainer and then come into the race with a
• 57:43
  really positive and aggressive mindset and that's the sort of thing you want to see if you're you're
• 57:49
  backing a driver to make a championship challenge i don't think he's going to get the championship
• 57:53
  but he's going to make max Verstappen really goddamn fight for it this year so we'll see what
• 57:59
  happens next. We'll keep it with you for a minute though Jesse who is your spinner for the weekend?
• 58:02
  On the notes i left this blank and i simply because i cannot think of a driver who actually
• 58:06
  had a bad weekend possibly bot ass but i don't know it was alex albon? No he suffered such promise
• 58:14
  and then got nerfed off we'll go for the race not for the weekend. Across for the race i have to be
• 58:21
  pushed to say alpine because both your drivers wiping each other out like that in such weird
• 58:25
  circumstances but i again gasly sort of had nowhere to go was sort of ended up blindsiding his way
• 58:32
  into okon okon had nowhere to go in that instance it wasn't really a case of the fact gasly would
• 58:37
  have had no clue he was there in that sort of gaggle of cars coming through the tight opening
• 58:41
  sector it's not particularly their fault it's just bad luck and i don't want to penalize someone for
• 58:46
  bad luck in the same way that F1 penalized Carlos Steins like even down to you i'd go oh you could
• 58:53
  just sort of slam one on um Logan Sargent locked up on cold brakes going to turn one off a safety car
• 58:58
  sort of standing start reap thing like that's that's easily done especially if you're a rookie
• 59:03
  in what is your third race and ultimately a not very good car that's perfectly easily done and
• 59:09
  as much as we love to tear into the likes of Nicolas Latifi for doing that sort of thing
• 59:14
  Sargent proved he's a bit better than that so again just rookie error i don't feel that's worth
• 59:19
  slamming the guy for so yeah i don't have an overall spinner from this weekend or this race
• 59:23
  i'm afraid complete sort of nilpois from me on that regard. Talking of nilpois, Ellie May your spinner?
• 59:31
  The fan who traveled 11 000 kilometers to see Leclerc and he was out at turn three
• 59:37
  i mean she had a i don't know where she was a little bit funny though i don't know where she was on the
• 59:41
  track i'm hoping before turn three like a little um like yeah a little cardboard sign wasn't it
• 59:50
  um but i'll go with Leclerc i mean he was nowhere really this whole weekend he didn't really have
• 59:58
  the greatest of qualifying sessions um whether that was because Ferrari put him out too late so
• 1:00:05
  he couldn't warm up the tires very well but again he was out the first few corners uh because he
• 1:00:11
  got hit by Stroll but Stroll had nowhere to go it was it was a race it is very weird being on Stroll's
• 1:00:17
  like defensive side and all three of us i think are probably defending him this weekend that it
• 1:00:21
  was just one of those things and you all know that we'd happily take that chance but it genuinely
• 1:00:26
  wasn't his fault yeah and as for Ferrari it's just pain and i'm not even going to mention the
• 1:00:33
  other side of the garage oh that's fair enough i'll move on for me Formula One for all the reasons
• 1:00:40
  i've said earlier are my spinners but i also want to do a special spinning mention to Jacob Phillips
• 1:00:46
  from the podcast who is definitely a spinner as you can because despite intensive planning to
• 1:00:51
  sleep strategically and stay up and do a couple of four-nighters to watch the f2 and the f3 he
• 1:00:57
  bugged it for himself completely before that he had even started and ended up playing catch up on
• 1:01:03
  everything and didn't even have the excuse of running around a stadium for whatever reason
• 1:01:08
  to kind of justify it i'm going to call him out on the podcast as i said i would do and say you
• 1:01:15
  silly goose plan better for next year calling him out on the podcast episode he's supposed to
• 1:01:20
  have been on as well i looked at the post a second ago why is he not here i do not know because i
• 1:01:26
  know he listens to this so he's he's gonna get put it in the comments jacob comment on this youtube
• 1:01:30
  video yeah or spotify does or he gets in touch with us on twitter which you can do you can get
• 1:01:35
  in touch with the podcast on twitter um jacob let us know why you're not here slacking shame
• 1:01:40
  ellie may though you wanted to mention a certain incredible superhero
• 1:01:44
  driver who was also worth a mention for you he's already my winner i don't know who actually put
• 1:01:52
  uh other drivers worth a mention uh because they put hope it was a qualifying performance i just
• 1:01:57
  added my beautiful man in general i thought i'd just give you another chance to plug the guy
• 1:02:02
  well we'll always plug hulkenberg i've also realized i'm really struggling to speak with
• 1:02:07
  in this line so apologies don't talk about mclaren then jesse and saber in this line not a sponsor of
• 1:02:14
  this podcast yet yet there's time um can they be pleased because i've got 18 months of me having
• 1:02:22
  sort of slurry speech where i can't speak very well with it stop saying bad things about them
• 1:02:28
  we want them to sponsor the pod if you still want payments to make this is how this is how it happens
• 1:02:33
  we diss them now they sponsor us later so they stop us from saying bad things and we'll say good
• 1:02:37
  things i still have about one 1500 to pay i think that's a fairly average amount of sponsorship so
• 1:02:43
  if they could sort of just give timo and i some money as well um i'm wait i i'm happy to plug in
• 1:02:49
  this line i've already had my teeth straightened timo do you need yours doing no but you know i'll
• 1:02:54
  wear them just to see what it's like i'll have the for more sponsorship money i will do that
• 1:02:59
  in this line hit us up the email will be in the description below um what we're going to other
• 1:03:05
  other other drivers worth a mention uh lando norris gets uh comes home p8 and scores his first
• 1:03:11
  points in formula one so 81 is 81 his driver number nice little uh sort of joining up the dots
• 1:03:18
  there for him and obviously norris as well also scores points so they're uh off the off the on
• 1:03:23
  the board now mclaren as a team decent little haul of points again they all the way up to p5 in the
• 1:03:28
  constructors after one race really big jump we'll get to that in constructors countdown shortly but
• 1:03:33
  yeah they've lucked out big time but again it's one of those things you've got to be there and
• 1:03:37
  make your own luck in formula one especially when the race is exactly like this so uh good for them
• 1:03:43
  in other kind of point scoring it didn't go too well for the two of us and it went very well for
• 1:03:49
  one of us as we've alluded to early jesse you and i scored a point apiece this week in our predictions
• 1:03:54
  review jesse for your pole position prediction and me for banging in alonzo with another p3 finish
• 1:04:00
  which uh i would have happily sacrificed for science to get on the podium but there we go
• 1:04:05
  eddie being maine meanwhile would be burned as a witch if we were in the different century for
• 1:04:09
  these predictions so she cleans up with pole correctly getting p1 p3 fastest lap and her
• 1:04:15
  wild prediction which just the less is said the better there for jesse and i sake yeah i mean
• 1:04:23
  ellie may thought we were being harsh by set when we did did the math to figure out that her safety
• 1:04:27
  card had to come in the first third of the race and i rounded it down i think this is gonna this
• 1:04:31
  is not going to help him because we're going to be more harsh in future and say no you've got to be
• 1:04:34
  properly wild with stuff now because you're going to be brutal well the thing is is you did question
• 1:04:41
  me on whether that could be my wild prediction so my other wild prediction would have been the
• 1:04:45
  alphataria top 10 and they still got it anyway so i still would have got the point yes yes but we
• 1:04:50
  would have felt a bit more vindicated by it so the worst thing was i completely shot myself in the
• 1:04:55
  foot by making very plain that i'm only awarding whole marks for this because i could have at least
• 1:04:59
  sort of just about jimmied myself a half point for has top 10 but i also needed the alpine top
• 1:05:04
  five so no points for me on that one either um yeah i think overall standings for this one ellie
• 1:05:11
  may is now on nine teemo's on five and i'm on two so i'm having an absolute stinker of a season so
• 1:05:17
  you are you are keeping up with being ferrari aren't you i yeah i'm taking it from last year
• 1:05:21
  if it was me as mercedes you as ferrari ellie may as red bull we're all very much sticking to
• 1:05:25
  our guns i've embodied the ferrari spirit with my predictions and gone gone big and gone home
• 1:05:30
  completely pointless if it helps it's not just f1 predictions that i'm good at doing uh the other
• 1:05:37
  day lottery tickets i was going to say why are you not winning a lottery for us and then we can
• 1:05:41
  fund the podcast a bit more my dad did try that after we were waiting for the train back home
• 1:05:48
  at london paddington which has 12 platforms i think and i said which platform do you think
• 1:05:56
  we'll be on and he was like oh maybe maybe four three i don't know and i was like i'm gonna go
• 1:06:00
  for five and we were all five so maybe i am just just like do they not just have you know you've
• 1:06:07
  been listening to ellie may's anecdote corner
• 1:06:12
  it may just well no because when i've gone to london paddington almost every month since
• 1:06:18
  october and they have all been on different platforms so i think it is completely random
• 1:06:26
  given that it's great western rail i would also assume that it's fairly random
• 1:06:31
  oh western rails get in touch it's the podcast that's about as smooth a segway as we can have
• 1:06:37
  jesse for your constructors camp them yes it's time for constructors countdown
• 1:06:41
  oh
• 1:07:11
  points ahead of their power unit supplier, 65 points over 56, and in the lead extending
• 1:07:16
  their gap again, Red Bull with 123 points.
• 1:07:30
  So that rounds out the Constructors Countdown, but it's time to look at some different standings
• 1:07:33
  than those of our Fantasy League. And my mate from uni, Dan, took the win this week with
• 1:07:39
  339 points. He had both Red Bull drivers and both Aston Martins in there, as well as both
• 1:07:46
  teams as Constructors bolstering his score. Perez, I think, was the highest scoring driver
• 1:07:50
  of the weekend because you get points for overtakes as well. So he did very nicely there
• 1:07:54
  indeed. However, when it comes to the podcast teams, Daddy's Cash scored a tiny 181 points,
• 1:08:01
  pushing it up an overall position to 21st. My neck, Mike Crack, didn't have as good
• 1:08:06
  a week as Saudi, 24th this week with 137 points, giving it a drop to 22nd overall, down one
• 1:08:13
  place from last week. And please subscribe, remember, please subscribe. Coming home 28th
• 1:08:19
  this week with over 100 points, though it doesn't improve overall, staying in 33rd
• 1:08:24
  place out of 33 teams. Ellie May's EMT Racing scored a tidy 273 this week, nabbing her 9th
• 1:08:32
  in the Aussie standings, but she is usurped by My Mid-Beds Racing, who scored 324 points,
• 1:08:38
  MBR's total of 805, now beating EMT's 801 overall. Ellie May's second team, Experiment
• 1:08:45
  Underdog, scored just 87 points this week. Coming home 29th, better than last week, but
• 1:08:54
  overall it retains its 32nd place in the standings. And Timo's Nitro RX Podcast Team bested
• 1:09:00
  its Saudi result with a P21 this week, 152 points to its name, and sees the team move
• 1:09:06
  up to P24, up from P29. Meanwhile, On the Curbs nets 190 points, equal to my Girlfriends
• 1:09:12
  to Shave or Not to Shave team, both tying for 14th place this week, with On the Curbs
• 1:09:19
  retaining its P16 overall from last week. Lastly, my teams, we've already covered
• 1:09:24
  Mid-Beds Racing, my highest scoring team, Jaffa Cake Racing didn't do too badly, snaffling
• 1:09:30
  206 points this week in P13, bolstering its overall position to P11, but not a good week
• 1:09:36
  for BRT Yamaha scoring just-
• 1:09:38
  Who the hell did you have in this team?
• 1:09:40
  BRT Yamaha, which scored 14 points, the lowest of all entrants this week, which sees the
• 1:09:46
  team down in 31st overall. I can go and have a look at-
• 1:09:49
  Did you forget to have any drivers?
• 1:09:51
  I had drivers. I had drivers. BRT Yamaha, I had Charles Leclerc, George Russell, Esquire
• 1:10:00
  Stubban Ocon, Beltri Bottas and Fernando Alonso, with my team constructors being Ferrari and
• 1:10:08
  Alpine. I can't remember if I had a bonus put on them as well. Let's see.
• 1:10:14
  Didn't bloody work, did it?
• 1:10:17
  Oh, I did. Yeah.
• 1:10:18
  On who?
• 1:10:19
  Charles Leclerc was my doubler, so he scored minus 50, doubled to minus 30. It's a miracle
• 1:10:25
  I actually scored both positive points there.
• 1:10:27
  At least my experiment underdog is the five worst drivers and the two worst teams. You
• 1:10:36
  have no excuse.
• 1:10:38
  Any other race weekend, that's a pretty sound pick of Leclerc, Russell, Ocon and Alonso
• 1:10:42
  Bottas.
• 1:10:43
  You say that, but we've got backup, Nick, so that doesn't guarantee anything.
• 1:10:46
  I don't know, man. I might have to make some shopping and change in there. Mitchell K,
• 1:10:51
  team two, sees the biggest drop this week of nine places, while Francisco Rhodes, one,
• 1:10:56
  goes up eight from 25 to P17. It's a busy week in the fantasy standings there.
• 1:11:04
  Truly, truly shocking.
• 1:11:06
  Truly shocking indeed from some of us and amazing from others.
• 1:11:11
  Amazing in both senses of the word there. I think we're just in awe of many things from
• 1:11:16
  that. But there we go. That is all we have time for on this week's episode. It's been
• 1:11:21
  quite a roller coaster. Join us again soon when we'll be reviewing the feeder series
• 1:11:25
  Action from Down Under. Make sure you've liked subscribing, got notifications turned on to
• 1:11:28
  not miss anything. But in the meantime, Miss Ellie May Tabor, where can the people find
• 1:11:33
  you in the meantime if they want to?
• 1:11:37
  You can find me co-running the Pod's Instagram page and running our TikTok account.
• 1:11:46
  Jesse Billington, where can the people find you?
• 1:11:48
  I can be found on Instagram and Twitter as at jesseoncars. You can also find the podcast
• 1:11:54
  on Twitter as well. And if you want more from me, you can find me writing for Classic Car
• 1:11:58
  Weekly and possibly this weekend heading up to Donington for the Masters Race weekend
• 1:12:04
  up there. I think Ellie May, you're planning on coming with me as well. So we've got two
• 1:12:07
  days of classic racing action up there. I think Craig from when we hosted the pub quiz
• 1:12:12
  back in December is also heading up to that as well. So it'll be the first time I've seen
• 1:12:18
  Craig. Sober state as well, which would be quite interesting. Timo, where can the people
• 1:12:24
  find you?
• 1:12:26
  You can find me over on Is It First, the NitroX podcast, Paddx Fority Instagram and on the
• 1:12:30
  Curves where I just have an interview out with Clara Anderson from Extremely There.
• 1:12:34
  So do go and check that out. In the meantime, thank you all very much for listening. You've
• 1:12:40
  been a pleasure to talk to you and for listening to all of us Ram Bon for quite as long as
• 1:12:44
  we have for this episode. And as always, thank you very much and we'll see you again soon.