Latest / Let's Kick It Off! / Ep 28: BONUS: Off The Grid – Let’s Rev It Up!

Transcript

Ep 28: BONUS: Off The Grid – Let’s Rev It Up! · Let's Kick It Off!

• 0:00
  Welcome to a special bonus episode of Let's Kick It Off.
• 0:05
  Now with the football season over, the lads have decided to
• 0:08
  shift gears and focus their attention on the world of
• 0:11
  Formula One. Join Steve, Ash, AS and Scott
• 0:15
  today to chat all things F1. Enjoy.
• 0:35
  Let's F1 it off. So let's drive it off.
• 0:39
  So Steve, did you watch the race on the weekend?
• 0:43
  No, I saw saw some clips. I didn't watch it live.
• 0:47
  I'm still not fully converted with F1.
• 0:49
  I follow it, but I don't watch it.
• 0:52
  Yeah, like live races and stuff. I don't know, maybe when
• 0:56
  Hamilton was more in it, I was more into it.
• 0:59
  But since Verstappen's just like storming it, I don't know.
• 1:01
  It's just feels less competitive.
• 1:04
  What about your McLaren boys there down the road from where
• 1:06
  you were brought up? You know one's British as well.
• 1:08
  Lando Norris. Yeah, No, still not.
• 1:12
  You didn't look sold at all. A few people said watch Drive to
• 1:16
  Survive as well on Netflix, which we start.
• 1:18
  I started it with Laura, but we didn't finish it, so I feel like
• 1:22
  I can get into it. Got the F1 film coming out as
• 1:25
  well in a couple of weeks time. Brad Pitt.
• 1:28
  Apple TV the backers Lewis Hamilton's been part of writing
• 1:33
  the script. It's available in all good
• 1:35
  theatres, including the Waterloo IMAX.
• 1:38
  Yeah. Well, you guys will, you guys
• 1:39
  will have to sell it to me. Scott, you're travelling out to
• 1:42
  Canada, right? So that's some hardcore family
• 1:46
  stuff. It's always been on the bucket
• 1:48
  list just to do a trip to calendar anyway and I've just
• 1:51
  timed it perfectly with the F1 so.
• 1:54
  How long are you going out there for, Scott?
• 1:56
  Two weeks. Nice.
• 1:58
  Yeah, Fly out next Friday and then two weeks.
• 2:01
  I'm doing a little bit of a trip in terms of going to Toronto, a
• 2:04
  few days in Toronto, up to Montreal and then go from
• 2:08
  Montreal to Quebec and then I fly back out from Toronto home.
• 2:12
  Yeah, just doing a few things, going to see a few things as
• 2:15
  well. Mile, I'm out there and
• 2:18
  hopefully a decent race. Who?
• 2:22
  Who do you support? Scott F1.
• 2:24
  McLaren. Yeah, McLaren.
• 2:26
  Yeah, who's in McLaren? Is that who you said, Norris?
• 2:29
  Norris and PS3. And how are they doing?
• 2:32
  Yeah. They're doing well leading the
• 2:34
  championship in 1/2, so both drivers and the and the
• 2:39
  championship. Wait, sorry, who's who's the
• 2:42
  drivers? So you've got Landon Norris and
• 2:44
  then PS3 Oscar. So who's leading the
• 2:47
  championship? Oscar at the moment by a couple
• 2:49
  of points. What's happened to Max?
• 2:53
  Car This car's not particularly up there, but it might be this
• 2:57
  weekend. Now you can explain to me
• 2:59
  because I I thought Max was just storming it, so he's not.
• 3:02
  So red, so red. Red Bull's biggest change is
• 3:05
  they lost Adrian Nui, who was like their chief designer,
• 3:09
  technical guru. He's he's basically created like
• 3:12
  cars through what the past 3040 plus years kind of thing and.
• 3:16
  He's he's the Dave Dave Brailsford of F1 that Brailsford
• 3:19
  is for cycle. Slightly better than that.
• 3:22
  Yeah, yeah, that's an insult. That's an insult, yeah.
• 3:25
  No, I mean Brailsford from a cycling perspective, not a
• 3:27
  football. Perspective.
• 3:28
  You didn't mean to enhance it. OK, Yeah.
• 3:31
  But he's been, he's been to a few teams, even McLaren as well,
• 3:34
  So and he basically designs championship winning cars and
• 3:39
  that's what he did at Red Bull and they've lost him this year
• 3:41
  or last year. So he's at Aston Martin down.
• 3:44
  So there's a probably that an element of that.
• 3:46
  And then obviously they've only got 1 driver that can actually
• 3:49
  do anything with that car. So where it's technically A-Team
• 3:52
  sport, not a single driver. But some argue the championship
• 3:55
  is the team, one that they want to win versus the driver.
• 3:59
  The driver is always going to go down in history, you know,
• 4:01
  whether it's Schumacher or Hamilton kind of thing.
• 4:04
  They're the ones that, you know, got the all time record.
• 4:08
  That's the issue. The easiest way to think about
• 4:10
  it, Steve, like when Scott talks about design of a car, you know,
• 4:14
  the way Peps teams have played across Barcelona by Munich and
• 4:18
  City, that's that's how Adrian Newey's designed his cars
• 4:21
  because there's always different regulations about the specifics
• 4:25
  of the car depending on the season.
• 4:27
  You have to design A car based on the rules and regulations at
• 4:30
  the time. So he's designed cars throughout
• 4:33
  different areas and won championships in like the 90s,
• 4:36
  naughties and 10's and yeah, I guess 20s.
• 4:40
  So he is the man and he gets paid about anywhere between 20
• 4:47
  to 40 million depending on the job he's had.
• 4:49
  So I think with the flexi wing thing as well, Rob Marshall,
• 4:53
  who's gone to McLaren from Red Bull, he's really good and all
• 4:56
  that kind of flexi stuff that Red Bull were really good at.
• 4:58
  So yeah, I think you got to give McLaren credit as well.
• 5:04
  Recruited well, set up a good structure, taking their time
• 5:08
  over things, being patience, trusted the process, had to had
• 5:13
  to go backwards to go forward, so a lot of credit for them.
• 5:16
  What did they get relegated or? Well, they were pretty awful,
• 5:21
  but the. Guy, the guys, the guy who were
• 5:24
  there at that time when we're not there now.
• 5:27
  The two 2008 was last time they won a championship.
• 5:31
  Well, sorry, before last year. So they they just basically went
• 5:34
  in decline and that was Lewis Hamilton's first title.
• 5:37
  But since since then, it was pretty much decline.
• 5:40
  They were changing engine supplies.
• 5:41
  People were leaving, you know, to other race teams and stuff.
• 5:45
  And then, yeah, I think it's been a few years of pain.
• 5:49
  Scott, this will make you laugh in the good old days when you
• 5:53
  know there wasn't any. What's up around and and yeah,
• 5:57
  other social media channels I remember.
• 5:59
  Dinosaur. Dinosaur Me and us had a McLaren
• 6:03
  argument. This is like 20/11/12.
• 6:05
  Do you remember the Aussie? Was it Sam Michaels I think the
• 6:11
  sporting director? It was.
• 6:13
  It was Lewis's last year and the car kept on blowing out even
• 6:17
  though it was a good car and we were arguing about the structure
• 6:22
  because I was saying that Sam Michaels seed is useless and
• 6:24
  he's not, he's not bringing anything to the table because
• 6:27
  they were rubbish on pit stops as well.
• 6:29
  And a bit like now we've reven as defending the other side.
• 6:32
  So yeah, nothing's changed in about 12-13 years.
• 6:37
  So. So is it like is this the most
• 6:39
  Open Championship in a few years?
• 6:41
  Yeah, you could argue. I think McLaren will probably be
• 6:44
  an eventual winners of the like the team championship, but the
• 6:48
  drivers will go down to the wire.
• 6:50
  I think you can't rule out Max, but I think between those 3,
• 6:53
  Max, Oscar and Lando, I don't think anybody else was really in
• 6:56
  the hunt. But yeah, you're talking one
• 6:58
  race winning. You're the leader of the the
• 7:00
  championship. So it's really close at the
• 7:02
  moment. So I think what we this.
• 7:03
  Week this weekend, this weekend's going to be
• 7:05
  interesting because with these new regs that have come in, we
• 7:08
  just don't know if it changes the Perkin order.
• 7:10
  Some people are saying that Ferrari and Aston Martin, it
• 7:13
  completely changes it for them, but we'll see.
• 7:16
  I mean, this is what we should do me as and Scott should make
• 7:20
  predictions for the championship, especially the
• 7:22
  drivers one. And then Steve, we'll give you
• 7:25
  like a few weeks to kind of watch some of the European races
• 7:29
  and yeah, watch Scott in Canada, and then you can come up with
• 7:32
  your own prediction. So what's your predictions then?
• 7:39
  Let's go, Scott. Constructors Championship.
• 7:42
  Yeah, Constructors is McLaren. I think that's going to be
• 7:45
  obvious for me. And then the drivers, my heart
• 7:49
  says I want Lando, but I think my head says PS3, but just snip
• 7:53
  it. But I do have Lando as a British
• 7:55
  fan, British team, British driver.
• 7:57
  But PS3 just looks absolutely solid at this moment.
• 8:01
  But you never know. As.
• 8:04
  I think the bastard will give us some clues for sure.
• 8:07
  So I'm looking forward to that without knowing what's happening
• 8:11
  with the change. And McLaren should win the
• 8:13
  constructors. And if, if the brakes don't
• 8:19
  affect them too much and they still have the dominant car and
• 8:22
  they can take, you know, take Max out the game, I think Lando
• 8:27
  will be OK. And if Max is in the picture, I
• 8:30
  don't trust Lando against Max, I trust Oscar.
• 8:32
  And in that scenario, and I also don't trust either of them to to
• 8:37
  beat Max, I'd almost sneakily think that unfortunately Max
• 8:43
  will come in between the two of them and get the win.
• 8:45
  So it will be interesting to see what happens.
• 8:48
  Cool. That's a roundabout way of
• 8:49
  saying Max. I think then, and I'll make it
• 8:51
  good because I'm going to go with Lando.
• 8:54
  Oscars, definitely. Technically the better driver at
• 8:56
  the moment. He's feeling the car better.
• 8:58
  But yeah, it's a long championship.
• 9:01
  Yeah, I'm going to back the British boy, even though he
• 9:04
  needs to cheer up a little bit and he's driving the fastest car
• 9:07
  in the world. But sometimes you wouldn't know
• 9:08
  it. But yeah, I'll go.
• 9:09
  Lando. Yeah, that's a, that's a good
• 9:13
  list of predictions. And then, Steve, you can give us
• 9:17
  yours in a few weeks. Did you and us do your
• 9:20
  constructors or is that? I think McLaren should win it
• 9:22
  just because the the the second we got two cars score any
• 9:27
  points. Yeah, basically SO.
• 9:29
  And Ferrari are too far behind Mercedes.
• 9:32
  Also, I think Antonini's a bit too inexperienced to get serious
• 9:36
  points. Pre season Ferrari were actually
• 9:40
  a lot of people's favourites for the constructors because they
• 9:43
  actually finished second last season and they only lost the
• 9:46
  constructors championship like in the last race.
• 9:49
  So there were big hopes for Ferrari this season, not
• 9:52
  necessarily the drivers championship, but yeah, they
• 9:55
  thought it could be strong on the constructor side.
• 9:57
  But yeah, I. Think they've got the best,
• 9:59
  they've still got the best driver line up, but I think
• 10:02
  Piastry surprised me this year. He's way better than I thought
• 10:05
  he would be. So yeah, McLaren.
• 10:08
  I think you're, you're right as in terms of the you've got Max,
• 10:11
  he's got nothing to lose. He's got 4 already.
• 10:14
  You know, he can go into races and, you know, crush people out
• 10:17
  if yeah, well, literally I'll make the corner or not make the
• 10:20
  corner. But these, these are the 2.
• 10:22
  You know, they're going to. I think he's going to get to a
• 10:24
  point where you could be right where he just squeezes it out
• 10:27
  because these guys have not been in a dominant car across the
• 10:31
  entire field and then been having those kind of
• 10:34
  back-to-back wins without, without any real pressure.
• 10:37
  Max's first three titles, he was probably 2030 seconds ahead of
• 10:41
  everybody else in the field. So he's probably had it a little
• 10:43
  bit easier within his first first championship.
• 10:46
  And it just gets easier each season for fame.
• 10:49
  But. Yeah, it's it's dependent on
• 10:51
  this Barcelona Reg thing as well.
• 10:53
  If if McLaren maintained their advantage, I think it should be
• 10:56
  Lando Oscar, but I'm assuming that's what the talk is right?
• 11:00
  The the McLaren have a better handle on the flexibility aspect
• 11:05
  and their their car balance relies a bit more on it and that
• 11:08
  this should pin them back a bit. And then it kind of makes the
• 11:12
  makes it more an even battle. And then I think Max is the best
• 11:16
  of those three. That's what I'm sort of and and
• 11:19
  then and each McLaren will kind of take points off each other
• 11:22
  while Max is just gets every thing from from that that car.
• 11:27
  And that's why I think, but we'll see, right.
• 11:30
  We got to wait for we got to wait for this Barcelona, because
• 11:32
  it's really interesting. You normally don't get such a
• 11:34
  big change like mid season telegraphed as well.
• 11:38
  It was telegraphed at the beginning of the season that
• 11:40
  this is going to happen. So it's really interesting.
• 11:44
  Steve, you know, you remember the famous Abu Dhabi race in
• 11:47
  2021? We all watched it along with one
• 11:51
  of our cousins, and I was giving you all the explainers.
• 11:55
  And do you remember you were like, this is boring because
• 11:58
  like, you know, Lewis is going to win.
• 11:59
  And I was telling you, you know, don't say that because the
• 12:03
  safety car can still come out. But probably one last explainer,
• 12:07
  even for listeners as well, is if they all had the same CarMax
• 12:13
  would win this championship easy.
• 12:14
  So that's why when people say it's just the car, that's just,
• 12:19
  it's just simply not the case. You've got to be a good driver
• 12:22
  or got to be one of the best. So how come you put money on
• 12:25
  Lewis to win? Because we fought first, you
• 12:28
  know, pre season we thought Ferrari were going to have a
• 12:30
  strong car. So yeah, that obviously.
• 12:32
  Didn't turn out to be the case. All else being equal, the cars
• 12:35
  Max is a better driver than Lewis.
• 12:38
  No. Well, maybe now because of
• 12:40
  Lewis's age, maybe Max has got a bit more speed, but Lewis would
• 12:45
  give him a cracking race. Well, you're saying Max though,
• 12:47
  right? Because he just said.
• 12:48
  No, no, because Lewis Lewis's Ferrari's not in the picture.
• 12:52
  No, no, but I'm saying if all, if everyone had the same car
• 12:54
  like you just said, who's it between Max and Lewis?
• 12:56
  I'll still pick Lewis up because I'm a Lewis guy.
• 12:59
  Lewis is not in the picture. When you look, when you.
• 13:03
  Look, Piers Morgan, but you know, yeah.
• 13:05
  No, if you watch a fair question isn't.
• 13:08
  It if you watch old films, Max, you'll be able to like recognise
• 13:13
  his talent across decades, where you look at Schumacher and how
• 13:16
  he drive. You look at Alonzo in his early
• 13:19
  years when he won his first two. You can even go back to Senna
• 13:22
  that he's driving style. He's just beyond anything else
• 13:25
  and he's just got that edge over everybody.
• 13:28
  He's just, you know, I had to. Say it, but.
• 13:31
  He's just a phenomenal driver. No matter What Car you put him
• 13:34
  in, he will he will get absolutely everything out of it
• 13:38
  kind of thing. And he just, he runs in ragged
• 13:40
  basically. But in a way that just gets
• 13:43
  results after results. He drove another car didn't he
• 13:46
  recently and broke the lap record?
• 13:50
  And he games. He's an E racer as well so he
• 13:53
  loves gaming as in racing. I had a thought actually.
• 13:57
  I'd love to see Verstappen in the Visa Cash App RB or whatever
• 14:00
  it's called these days because that car's pretty good as well
• 14:04
  and you've got had yards doing a decent job there.
• 14:07
  Put Verstappen in. I would love to see how fast he
• 14:10
  could drive it. Tell you what the Williams as
• 14:12
  well right like albums finished fifth in like 3 races.
• 14:16
  So Can you imagine you put Max in, it will get a podium or
• 14:19
  somehow get a win? The ways to create more
• 14:22
  entertainment. Last question, how do we fix
• 14:24
  Monaco? You can't.
• 14:26
  Mario Kart. Never will, never will.
• 14:28
  I've come up with a really good idea if you say.
• 14:30
  So. You say, Oh no, honestly, I
• 14:32
  think yeah, it's a controversial 1.
• 14:33
  So they they brought in two stops, mandatory 2 stops.
• 14:36
  Don't think it did anything. But in, in, in if you notice,
• 14:40
  there was that period where I think it was either Albon or
• 14:44
  science was holding up George Russell, I think.
• 14:46
  And Russell cut the cut the chicane right overtook and took
• 14:50
  the penalty. How about this a new rule?
• 14:54
  You can cut the chicane 5 * 5 times during the race.
• 14:58
  You choose when you do it. That's what Ash did right to me
• 15:01
  on that video. Well, there you go, isn't it?
• 15:03
  Right. And with no penalty.
• 15:05
  And you have to decide strategically when you can,
• 15:07
  which basically gives you an overtake when you need it.
• 15:10
  It's like a virtual DRS kind of thing.
• 15:14
  And you get 5 five jokers. How about that?
• 15:16
  Russell inspired me. I thought that's a good idea.
• 15:18
  Cut that bill, bill that if you're fast enough, you should
• 15:22
  be able to, you know, take the penalty.
• 15:23
  Then I thought, wait a minute, why don't we just allow a number
• 15:27
  of jokers? Because it's otherwise it's a
• 15:29
  pure procession. So here you can be more
• 15:32
  strategic. If there's a blockage, you use
• 15:34
  your joker, you know, catch up to the next one.
• 15:37
  Pit stops become a bit more interesting.
• 15:40
  I'm all for any overtaking in Monaco.
• 15:42
  See, so you got, you get my vote.
• 15:44
  But I was actually thinking, you know, obviously, have you, any
• 15:47
  of you guys been to Monaco? The race, not the.
• 15:50
  Race Yeah. So I was thinking like, I always
• 15:53
  wanted to go, but like, you know, because when you're a kid,
• 15:55
  you're growing up watching like the Senna Mansell, I think it
• 15:59
  was in 92 and stuff like that, right?
• 16:01
  You've you always want to go and check it out.
• 16:03
  But what people tell me is that it is a boring race even to
• 16:07
  watch. And then I was like, if you are
• 16:10
  to go these days, it's like you're only, you really want to
• 16:14
  go for qualifying, don't you, on the Saturday, unless you've got
• 16:16
  a big yacht and then, yeah, Sunday's fun.
• 16:19
  They were saying Monday when you're there, because obviously
• 16:22
  if you if you go to a track live, it's not like you're
• 16:25
  seeing every overtake, you know, corner move kind of thing.
• 16:29
  You're watching it on big screen most of the time or then you're
• 16:31
  watching the cars fly past. And that's what they're saying
• 16:35
  is when you're there, the atmosphere of Monaco and just
• 16:38
  watching the cars go around, you know, corners because you're
• 16:41
  actually, because you're on top of it.
• 16:43
  It's not like you're, you know, half a mile away from the track
• 16:46
  kind of thing. You're actually on top of it.
• 16:48
  So the atmosphere, the speed, the sound and stuff, I think
• 16:51
  that's what makes it when you're actually physically at the track
• 16:56
  TV audience. Yeah, it's completely boring.
• 16:58
  And, and to be honest, this is it's always been a problem.
• 17:02
  Even back in the old days, you could never overtake even when
• 17:05
  the cars were smaller. So you're never going to fix it.
• 17:08
  But I don't know if you saw it, someone posted, I think it was
• 17:11
  on Twitter or something like that, the the E Formula, what it
• 17:17
  was called, they had 197 overtakes during the Monaco
• 17:22
  Grand Prix and there was one in F1.
• 17:26
  So it can be done. It's just how did they do it
• 17:30
  compared to and obviously the the Formula ES, same car, same
• 17:36
  engine, same electric drive, all that kind of stuff.
• 17:39
  Everything's pretty much the same.
• 17:41
  It's down to driverability. So it can be done, It can
• 17:44
  overtakes can't happen. It's just.
• 17:46
  The formulary cars are a bit smaller.
• 17:48
  Secondly, they're pure battery, so they're not, there's no
• 17:52
  internal combustion. And then I think they've got
• 17:54
  boost as well. Boost button.
• 17:56
  I was going to say, they've got a boost button that they can use
• 18:00
  at different times. They've got some like kind of
• 18:02
  like fun innovative ideas actually from some of the races
• 18:05
  I've watched because the the London race is actually right by
• 18:09
  me. That'd be another one.
• 18:12
  So next season we've got we're moving to 50% battery to
• 18:17
  internal combustion. They could do something where
• 18:19
  it's like you could have a boost where you press press the button
• 18:23
  and you again, this is like my idea.
• 18:25
  You get a certain amount of usage and you have to use that
• 18:29
  strategically, right? And that's what I think that's
• 18:32
  the way to solve it. Like my corner cutting idea
• 18:35
  would work for for with, you know, the current cars.
• 18:38
  But with, yeah, with, with that, use a little little button and
• 18:41
  once in a while, you know, you put it down the tunnel, hit your
• 18:45
  boost button, turbo boost. It through Steve as the neutral
• 18:49
  and trying to get into F1, what kind of things put you off or
• 18:54
  what kind of sparks do you need to like to get into the sport?
• 18:58
  Yeah, I don't know, I don't know when Hamilton was like up there,
• 19:01
  it just seemed more appealing to watch me because he's English.
• 19:05
  I know Lando is as well, to be fair.
• 19:07
  But I think, you know, when that that championship that went down
• 19:11
  to the wire, right, the Abu Dhabi 1, you know, I was in
• 19:14
  neutral and I think they even they put it on Channel 5, didn't
• 19:17
  they? Because it, Yeah, yeah, they put
• 19:19
  it on terrestrial TV, you know, like to get more viewers and
• 19:23
  stuff. And it was like, I think hot,
• 19:24
  you know, hot news at the time, probably because the
• 19:27
  championships are so close. Lewis is going for the record.
• 19:30
  And then ever since then, I think as a neutral F1 fan,
• 19:36
  seeing what happened in that race, you like, lose all kind of
• 19:40
  loses the credibility in a way, I guess.
• 19:42
  And I probably never really recovered from that.
• 19:45
  Don't worry, I don't think any of us have as well.
• 19:48
  He should have had his eighth championship completely robbed.
• 19:52
  Well, maybe it keeps. Hopefully Christian heard that
• 19:54
  too. Maybe it keeps it more exciting.
• 19:59
  Yeah, it'll be a great comeback story for for those who like
• 20:03
  their NFL. You know, Tom Brady managed to
• 20:05
  get one more Super Bowl in his 40s, and that would be the
• 20:08
  story. Tiger Woods won the Masters,
• 20:11
  right? It would be that it would be
• 20:12
  that level in terms of Lewis winning a championship, not just
• 20:17
  the 8th part with Ferrari. Like Italy will just, you know,
• 20:21
  just be parting for for eternity.
• 20:24
  A bit like us if we ever win the Premier League again.
• 20:26
  Just going to say Lewis will get to the levels of Scott Mctominy.