Latest / Pit Talk / F1 silly season nears crunch point after Horner bombshell! + Can anyone stop Marquez or Feeney?

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F1 silly season nears crunch point after Horner bombshell! + Can anyone stop Marquez or Feeney? · Pit Talk

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Speaker 1: This is the moment, man, that we've all been waiting
0:21
Speaker 1: for for.
0:22
Speaker 2: In a romax, he cups Oscar Piastree, Lando Norris.
0:26
Speaker 1: They aren't playing hardball out there at the moment. Sleeve
0:29
Speaker 1: Piverchool Moment to twenty twenty four.
0:36
Speaker 4: Hello and welcome to Pittalk, brought to you by Shannons.
0:40
Speaker 4: On today's episode, brock Feenie extends his championship lead in
0:43
Speaker 4: the supercars as the end of the Sprint Cup approaches.
0:47
Speaker 4: In moder GP, it's Mark Marquez winning again to inflict
0:50
Speaker 4: yet more pain on his would be title rivals, and
0:53
Speaker 4: the F one Silly season is heading towards a crunch.
0:56
Speaker 4: In the aftermath of Christian Horner's shock dismissal from Red
0:59
Speaker 4: Bull Racing, my name is Michael Lomonado. It's great to
1:02
Speaker 4: have your company and the company of my co host.
1:04
Speaker 4: Today he will be flowing because he will not be
1:06
Speaker 4: at his extra limit.
1:08
Speaker 1: It's Matt Clayton. I'm not flowing at all. It's be
1:10
Speaker 1: perfectly honest. Any Monday after a murder g weekend, there's
1:13
Speaker 1: not a lot of flow going on. But if I'm
1:16
Speaker 1: half as good at what I do in life as
1:18
Speaker 1: Mark Marquez is it riding a murder GP bike, then
1:20
Speaker 1: I shall be very satisfied.
1:22
Speaker 2: Yes, how close are you to your extra limit?
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Speaker 3: Possibly over it?
1:26
Speaker 2: You know we're all view the extra limit.
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Speaker 4: We'll get into the supercars and murder gyp action in
1:31
Speaker 4: just a moment, but I want to start with Formula
1:32
Speaker 4: one because we're only a few days after Christian Horner's
1:36
Speaker 4: shocked dismissal from Red Bull Racing. We talked about in
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Speaker 4: a special episode of the podcast that should be in
1:40
Speaker 4: your podcast Speed if you go back and have a
1:42
Speaker 4: look late last week. It was Thursday morning Australia Times
1:45
Speaker 4: was all confirmed or Wednesday night, and the repercussions of
1:48
Speaker 4: that have been really interesting because, like we said last week,
1:50
Speaker 4: it has been a surprise to pretty much everybody except
1:53
Speaker 4: the very inner sanctum of Red Bull. We can only
1:55
Speaker 4: assume unless he was sacked by accident, which seems unlikely,
1:58
Speaker 4: but the driver market percussions are also very interesting because
2:01
Speaker 4: this is tied inextricably with Max Verstappan's position of the team.
2:05
Speaker 4: It's been a story we've been talking about for quite
2:06
Speaker 4: a while. Will he stay whether he go to Mercedes,
2:08
Speaker 4: where he go elsewhere, or will he just bite his
2:10
Speaker 4: time for now that has not gone effect for the
2:13
Speaker 4: rest of the driver market. I want to start there
2:15
Speaker 4: before we look at some of the looser hinds of
2:18
Speaker 4: the driver market, because if he's tied with George Russell,
2:21
Speaker 4: that obviously puts George Russell is his express in a
2:23
Speaker 4: pretty unusual position whether or not he gets a contract,
2:26
Speaker 4: because it seems to be looming over him.
2:27
Speaker 2: Well.
2:28
Speaker 1: It is funny too, because George Russell should have all
2:30
Speaker 1: the bargaining power right now because he's been so good
2:32
Speaker 1: this year, and yet we feel that we're waiting. He's
2:36
Speaker 1: just constantly waiting. We're at the halfway point now. He's
2:39
Speaker 1: done everything he needs to do to justify a pretty
2:41
Speaker 1: decent pay rise. I would have thought, and some tenure
2:43
Speaker 1: wherever he wants it. But you're in this limbo position
2:46
Speaker 1: because there's the speculation on what Max for Stappen will do.
2:50
Speaker 1: I look the Christian Horner as ex Red Bull team principal.
2:52
Speaker 1: Thing when you said that before, that's still jarring. I'm
2:54
Speaker 1: still taking some time to process that. But I think
2:57
Speaker 1: one of the things that happened last week, I'm more
2:59
Speaker 1: convinced now that stap In stays but for next year,
3:02
Speaker 1: and we did touch on this a little bit in
3:04
Speaker 1: the podcast last week. I think he will want to
3:06
Speaker 1: have an inside look at where the competitive order is
3:09
Speaker 1: as we go into this new rule reset for twenty
3:12
Speaker 1: twenty six, and then maybe read things from there. So
3:15
Speaker 1: I think this probably increases the chances of him staying,
3:18
Speaker 1: but maybe only for the shorter term. So I would
3:21
Speaker 1: imagine that he will be at red Bull and Russell
3:23
Speaker 1: will be at Mercedes for next year, But then what
3:25
Speaker 1: happens after that. We know, with these big rule changes,
3:28
Speaker 1: We've lived this several times, the competitive order can be
3:31
Speaker 1: completely turned on its head overnight. And the one I
3:34
Speaker 1: keep thinking about is twenty thirteen into fourteen, where at
3:37
Speaker 1: the end of twenty thirteen it never looked like any
3:39
Speaker 1: other team than Red Bull was ever going to win
3:40
Speaker 1: a Grand Prix, and then we got to Melbourne in
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Speaker 1: twenty fourteen and Daniel Riccardo got to qualified and let's
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Speaker 1: not talk about that, but that season Red Bull went
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Speaker 1: from a championship winning force winning four championships in a
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Speaker 1: row to barely being able to win a race, lucked
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Speaker 1: into a couple win. The Mercedes got stripped themselves over
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Speaker 1: a couple of times. These things can change very, very rapidly,
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Speaker 1: and I think the STAPAN is going to have a
4:01
Speaker 1: look at where this sits, maybe early next year. So
4:04
Speaker 1: I think this sort of driver market merry go around.
4:06
Speaker 3: It might have pressed.
4:07
Speaker 1: Pause on it at the top end of the grid
4:09
Speaker 1: for the short term, but I can see it really
4:11
Speaker 1: firing up next year. If you get a six or
4:12
Speaker 1: eight race sample size next year and somebody we don't
4:16
Speaker 1: know who that somebody is has stolen a really big
4:18
Speaker 1: march with this early stage of the rule reset. That's
4:21
Speaker 1: I think where Verstappan becomes a player, because every team
4:23
Speaker 1: Moss is taking the call. If you look at the
4:25
Speaker 1: caller idea as Maxim staffin on the line, sorry, we're
4:27
Speaker 1: happy with our two drivers. Thanks for asking. You're taking
4:30
Speaker 1: that call. He's got the pick of what he wants.
4:33
Speaker 1: Where will he want to go?
4:33
Speaker 4: That's the thing we do know, yes, and I think
4:35
Speaker 4: there's a difference as well. You know, the thirteen fourteen
4:37
Speaker 4: analogy is interesting a because I mean, just like potentially
4:42
Speaker 4: next year is engines.
4:42
Speaker 2: A tripped up right, Yeah, completely more than the chassis.
4:45
Speaker 2: And that's a big question mark for Red Body.
4:47
Speaker 4: Is that power unit their first in house one, albeit
4:49
Speaker 4: with some Ford collaboration.
4:51
Speaker 2: Is it any good?
4:51
Speaker 4: That's that's number one question, and no one knows because
4:54
Speaker 4: it's it's so difficult to try and even speculate over
4:57
Speaker 4: relative competitiveness because the engine only exist on test benches
5:01
Speaker 4: at the moment. But the other element of that I
5:03
Speaker 4: think is interesting is if you would compare Sebastian Verel,
5:05
Speaker 4: who did move.
5:05
Speaker 2: After that first year of regulation. Yes, he was I
5:08
Speaker 2: don't want to say in declines.
5:09
Speaker 4: It's probably not fair, and he's still performed well at Ferrari,
5:11
Speaker 4: but he was being beaten by Daniel Ricardo that year.
5:13
Speaker 2: Correct, No one's beating.
5:14
Speaker 4: Max Mustaffin at the moment, which means his stocks will
5:16
Speaker 4: remain as high next year as they have been now.
5:19
Speaker 4: Whereas if there was this additional competition, maybe you'd say
5:22
Speaker 4: he'd be more motivated to take a leap of faith.
5:25
Speaker 4: There's no need for that now because he's going to
5:28
Speaker 4: still be the four time world champion.
5:29
Speaker 2: Next year he won't be a five time world champion.
5:31
Speaker 4: I'm pretty confident that, but everyone is still going to
5:34
Speaker 4: be answering that call. The George Rasselaman I think is
5:36
Speaker 4: interesting and now I want to go to the Mercedes
5:38
Speaker 4: reserve driver Eltie Botas because if he were to be
5:41
Speaker 4: displaced where the next year or the year after, it's
5:43
Speaker 4: not obvious where he would go, because he should be
5:46
Speaker 4: it's ideal place. The Red Bull Racing idea of a
5:49
Speaker 4: straight swap is kind of interesting because without Christian Horner there, suddenly,
5:53
Speaker 4: to my mind, maybe.
5:54
Speaker 3: That's possible becomes more possible.
5:56
Speaker 4: Yeah, but there's also this rumor that Aston Martin could
5:58
Speaker 4: be his ultimate destination. Aston's obviously ambitious, spending a lot
6:00
Speaker 4: of money day have Adrian you in now to have
6:02
Speaker 4: Hondaworks power. Maybe leading a different manufacturer could be an
6:07
Speaker 4: alternaty for it.
6:08
Speaker 1: I'm really curious with the Aston question because there's this
6:11
Speaker 1: perception that it's going to be very good at some point,
6:14
Speaker 1: but that at some point, how does that fit into
6:17
Speaker 1: a driver's career timeline? Do you go there and say,
6:20
Speaker 1: in three years time, we're going to be great or
6:22
Speaker 1: do you need to go there and get an instant
6:24
Speaker 1: return from that? And I think that's going to be
6:26
Speaker 1: really interesting as to who really wants to go there.
6:28
Speaker 1: There's just this expectation that it is going to work.
6:31
Speaker 1: They don't lack for resource, they don't lack for ambition,
6:33
Speaker 1: they don't lack for budget. Let's be perfectly honest, but
6:36
Speaker 1: you can't just spend your way to a world championship.
6:38
Speaker 1: You can put all the blocks in place, it may
6:40
Speaker 1: not work. So it's going to require a leap of
6:42
Speaker 1: faith that if I'm a top race winning driver, I
6:46
Speaker 1: don't think I'd be willing to make that decision now.
6:49
Speaker 1: Now ask me that question in eighteen months perhaps, But
6:52
Speaker 1: it's going to require someone to take a bit of
6:54
Speaker 1: a flyer at the moment because they are unproven. Theoretically,
6:57
Speaker 1: this is a great team and great personnel, great resource,
7:00
Speaker 1: but theory doesn't win you anything.
7:02
Speaker 3: Does it. So that's why it's this really interesting.
7:04
Speaker 1: They're they're the big player in all of this, but
7:07
Speaker 1: it's just when that's going to be.
7:08
Speaker 3: I don't think it's yet.
7:09
Speaker 1: So how that aligns with some of these other driver's
7:11
Speaker 1: timetables George Russell is a genuine a lister and would
7:14
Speaker 1: be willing to and able to lead any team. He
7:18
Speaker 1: will have his pick after for stabborn of what he
7:21
Speaker 1: wants to do. But then where do you go because
7:23
Speaker 1: we know you can pick the right team at the
7:26
Speaker 1: wrong time. See Fernando Alto, he's been well chairing to
7:28
Speaker 1: doing this. Yeah, well correct, and it would be a
7:32
Speaker 1: very very Alonso thing to do for him to retire
7:34
Speaker 1: or go and do something else and then all of
7:36
Speaker 1: a sudden they get really good. So maybe we should
7:38
Speaker 1: just be watching what Fernando does and then do the
7:39
Speaker 1: opposite to that.
7:41
Speaker 4: Weirdly quite good career advice. Yeah, I don't mean to
7:46
Speaker 4: talk about that, Martin idea. I saw this only recently
7:49
Speaker 4: after the race, the previous race we had in Great Britain.
7:52
Speaker 4: If you go and find Lance Strol's post trace radio
7:54
Speaker 4: gives you.
7:56
Speaker 3: Yes, where he is, possibly where he is.
7:59
Speaker 4: But I want to talk abou about botas now because
8:01
Speaker 4: this is an open seat situation. A little bit less
8:03
Speaker 4: speculation here about drivers being displaced, because this is related
8:07
Speaker 4: directly to the Cadillac, the new team that'll be arriving
8:10
Speaker 4: in Formula One next year. Obviously, doesn't have any drivers
8:12
Speaker 4: to replace there and he is in the mix there
8:14
Speaker 4: where the team started all those years ago, and it
8:17
Speaker 4: is years ago now as Andretti warning to bring American
8:19
Speaker 4: drivers into the sport, has realized, well, they aren't pretty
8:23
Speaker 4: many ready now to go and experience might be better for.
8:25
Speaker 2: A new team.
8:26
Speaker 4: Valdrie Botas has very experienced, a ten time Grand Prix
8:28
Speaker 4: winner closely linked to the Cadillac team, and Cadillac wants
8:32
Speaker 4: to make its first driver announce but probably by the
8:34
Speaker 4: mid season break we can see a lot of things
8:36
Speaker 4: start to roll. So it's in the next couple of
8:37
Speaker 4: weeks on the two races left, but also sought after
8:40
Speaker 4: by Alpine. This is something we've learned in the last
8:42
Speaker 4: few weeks because Alpine doesn't really know what's what it's doing.
8:46
Speaker 4: It seems like with that second seat start with Jack Down.
8:48
Speaker 4: Now Franco Golapindo bots the money to the team, but
8:51
Speaker 4: he hasn't performed any better than Jack Down has, by
8:53
Speaker 4: some metrics, has performed worse.
8:55
Speaker 2: It's almost like their rookie driver is not giving much
8:57
Speaker 2: of a shot.
8:57
Speaker 4: But anyway, funny that Valtrie botass now is been asked
9:00
Speaker 4: or Mercedes has been asked whether or not would be
9:02
Speaker 4: willing to release him from his reserve duties to race
9:04
Speaker 4: as soon as this year at some point, which does
9:07
Speaker 4: present him with a bit of a question. This question
9:09
Speaker 4: from Alpines arrived exactly when he seems to be in
9:12
Speaker 4: the final stages potentially negotiating.
9:13
Speaker 2: That contract with Cadillac. It must be quite a quandary.
9:17
Speaker 1: For it, Isn't it funny you can go from having
9:19
Speaker 1: no options to having two options and none of them
9:21
Speaker 1: are necessarily bad. I'm just wondering with botas how much
9:26
Speaker 1: does his past dictate where his future goes. Because one
9:30
Speaker 1: thing we know about Alpine is that they're putting their
9:31
Speaker 1: engine program in the bin and they're going to approach
9:34
Speaker 1: these new regulations with a Mercedes powerplant. And that might
9:37
Speaker 1: be the key in all of this, because the success
9:40
Speaker 1: that he had in Formula one was driving with a
9:42
Speaker 1: Mercedes powerplant. That's a known quantity. He also knows because
9:45
Speaker 1: he was on the grid and saw his firsthand how
9:48
Speaker 1: right Mercedes got that big engine change for twenty fourteen.
9:51
Speaker 1: So I'm wondering, Yeah, it would be very tempting to
9:54
Speaker 1: get him with a startup with Cadillac. You don't have
9:56
Speaker 1: any experience with them or their engine provider. Yes, you
9:59
Speaker 1: get in on the ground floor and you get to
10:01
Speaker 1: create the story. Theoretically, Alpine should be more competitive on track.
10:07
Speaker 1: We know that it's been, let's be polite, dysfunctional behind
10:11
Speaker 1: the scenes. Unusual for me, it's like, so you do
10:15
Speaker 1: wonder how much his performance as opposed to future It
10:18
Speaker 1: depends how long he wants to hang around. I guess
10:20
Speaker 1: wou'd be the question. If you want a last short Hurrah,
10:23
Speaker 1: and you're purely going on performance, then may be Alpine
10:26
Speaker 1: with a Mercedes engine that becomes where you go. But
10:29
Speaker 1: if you want to build something and be at ground
10:32
Speaker 1: zero for a brand new startup, which has got to
10:34
Speaker 1: be attractive in a lot of respects, then you can
10:37
Speaker 1: see the merits of Cadillac. But what's really interesting to
10:39
Speaker 1: me is if you're a team principal of Alpine or Cadillac,
10:43
Speaker 1: who do you want? Because it's not just about the
10:45
Speaker 1: driving and the there's a commercial aspect to this. We
10:48
Speaker 1: know that Sergioperiz wants to get back on the grid.
10:51
Speaker 1: He's he more attractive from a commercial point of view,
10:53
Speaker 1: given that the market that they're in.
10:54
Speaker 3: It's an interesting.
10:55
Speaker 1: Conundrum for the teams as much as it is for Botas.
10:58
Speaker 1: I feel that Botas has the whip in terms of
11:01
Speaker 1: he can choose I think where he wants to be.
11:04
Speaker 1: But what do the teams want? And is it purely
11:07
Speaker 1: about performance on the Stopwatch given that we don't know
11:09
Speaker 1: who the second car is going to be driven by?
11:11
Speaker 4: H It's a good question because they both and this
11:13
Speaker 4: goes a little bit back to the Alpine perspective of
11:15
Speaker 4: you know, a joke, I don't really know what they
11:17
Speaker 4: want or what's going with the second seat.
11:19
Speaker 3: Was that a joke?
11:20
Speaker 2: Yeah?
11:20
Speaker 4: Wow, I mean really actually turned out, But it is funny.
11:24
Speaker 4: They clearly need a stabilizing influence. Now, whether that's a
11:27
Speaker 4: lot of experience or just some experience, or a driver
11:30
Speaker 4: who's very resilient to these kinds of ructions in a team,
11:34
Speaker 4: I think none of those factors really matter. But Valtibodas
11:36
Speaker 4: does fit the bill on all those counts, right Like
11:38
Speaker 4: he's driven in a Mercedes that was dominated by Lewis Hamilton.
11:41
Speaker 4: He went through and he'spoken quite openly about those mental demons,
11:43
Speaker 4: about overcoming that idea that he can't be the greatest
11:47
Speaker 4: when he's in a team with Lewis Hamilton, because he's
11:49
Speaker 4: driver statistically now the great civil time, so he's been
11:51
Speaker 4: through there, he's done that. He has one ten Grand
11:53
Speaker 4: Prix in relation to Lewis Hamilton qualified really well. He
11:56
Speaker 4: has a really good qualifying record, the most prolific polgetter
11:59
Speaker 4: of all time, So it kind of fits the bill
12:01
Speaker 4: on all of those, and that he's very experienced and
12:03
Speaker 4: has kept his hands in it by being the Mercedes
12:05
Speaker 4: reserve driver, so he's also very involved in the sport.
12:08
Speaker 4: But all those, all of those criteria are very important
12:11
Speaker 4: to Cadillac, all at the same time in a way
12:13
Speaker 4: where Alpine kind of would be happy probably to take
12:16
Speaker 4: any of those, yes, because Cadillac has no experience, has
12:19
Speaker 4: doesn't have a car at the moment, doesn't have any
12:22
Speaker 4: drivers at the moment, doesn't know what it's in for
12:24
Speaker 4: next year, doesn't know whether the car is just going
12:26
Speaker 4: to be last or might have like a Hals esque
12:29
Speaker 4: debut where it's kind of all.
12:30
Speaker 2: Right, sort of not that bad, sort of being okay, in.
12:33
Speaker 4: Which case it needs a driver who can kind of
12:34
Speaker 4: deal with any of those situations, and that is also
12:36
Speaker 4: Valtrie Potass, but by a more important degree to my mind,
12:41
Speaker 4: Alpane does have Pier Gazzt. Experienced driver, a race winning driver,
12:45
Speaker 4: a fast driver clearly can put up with everything that's
12:47
Speaker 4: going on at Alpane without his performance dropping off. Had
12:50
Speaker 4: quite a good weekend last time out of the last
12:52
Speaker 4: couple of races, so they don't need that driver as much.
12:56
Speaker 2: I think. So if your Cadillac I.
12:59
Speaker 4: Suspect you are well, you're probably putting slightly bigger number
13:02
Speaker 4: on the table.
13:03
Speaker 2: Now, great move by Valterie podcast perhaps to put his
13:05
Speaker 2: name out there at Alpine. He does what he did.
13:07
Speaker 1: Yes, this is all broken nicely for Valterie Botas because
13:09
Speaker 1: I think the decimal place might have just moved in
13:12
Speaker 1: the offer that he's going to be asking for. So
13:13
Speaker 1: all good news for him. But your point on Gasly
13:16
Speaker 1: is very well made. I don't think the driver mix
13:18
Speaker 1: at Alpine is necessarily the problem here, if they had
13:21
Speaker 1: just given Jack doing the whole season, or if they've
13:23
Speaker 1: given Franco colopinto the whole season, or if they've given
13:25
Speaker 1: anyone some stability and a chance to grow. Because you've
13:28
Speaker 1: got Ghastly he's very experienced and he's won a race,
13:30
Speaker 1: and he's always good for a podium when you don't
13:32
Speaker 1: expect it. There's your leader and your shining light. There's
13:35
Speaker 1: an opportunity there for them to bring another less experienced
13:38
Speaker 1: driver through if they just give them time.
13:40
Speaker 3: And that's the key sentence.
13:41
Speaker 1: So I think Botas is probably more needed at Cadillac
13:45
Speaker 1: than he is at Alpine. But it depends whether Botas
13:48
Speaker 1: wants short term performance, which is probably going to get
13:50
Speaker 1: with Alpine only because Cadillac is an unknown because it
13:52
Speaker 1: is a startup.
13:53
Speaker 4: Yeah, but I think there's perhaps we've talked about this before,
13:55
Speaker 4: but anything good that happens at Cadillac, if he were
13:58
Speaker 4: to go there, he can claim a little bit of absolutely.
14:01
Speaker 4: Is it Alpine, there'll be a little bit of extra
14:03
Speaker 4: expectation because the team's established, even if it's going to
14:05
Speaker 4: be starting with quite a low base last in the
14:07
Speaker 4: Constructors Championship, and anytime he's beaten by Ghasly that's going
14:10
Speaker 4: to look a little bit bad for him. Not really bad,
14:12
Speaker 4: because you know, Gasies was a very good driver, but
14:15
Speaker 4: it's just going to be reputationally. It is the last
14:17
Speaker 4: roll of the dice of building some kind of legacy
14:19
Speaker 4: that isn't just being the second best driver at Mercedes. Frank,
14:23
Speaker 4: you know, Alpine's risky in that sense, even though the performed,
14:26
Speaker 4: he might get a podium somewhere or you're more likely
14:28
Speaker 4: to whereas a Cadillac, you know, first point score. Regardless
14:31
Speaker 4: whether or not he gets it, he'll have developed that car.
14:33
Speaker 4: He'll probably be the one that gets it, and then
14:34
Speaker 4: maybe you'll get the first podium or whatever, first Q
14:36
Speaker 4: three exact.
14:38
Speaker 3: He'll be.
14:39
Speaker 1: He'll be there for eternity in their history books as
14:42
Speaker 1: the guy that was at base camp who achieved the
14:44
Speaker 1: first success the team has, assuming it has some, and
14:47
Speaker 1: I think that's as a legacy play.
14:49
Speaker 3: You know, you get a nice company car too.
14:51
Speaker 2: I bet you know.
14:52
Speaker 4: I like first driver for a General Motors team in
14:54
Speaker 4: Formula One, so for me, I'd say that that's winning.
14:57
Speaker 4: But if the prospect is getting an LPN this season,
15:00
Speaker 4: you never know, race and drivers love to race, so
15:01
Speaker 4: maybe there's an element there. I'll leave that as a
15:07
Speaker 4: comment because we do have to move on to super cars.
15:09
Speaker 4: They are in action to towns are at the weekend.
15:11
Speaker 4: The town's full five hundred split over three races, and
15:13
Speaker 4: a really interesting weekend. If we throw our minds foreward
15:16
Speaker 4: forward to the finals. We talked about this briefly at
15:18
Speaker 4: the end of last week's podcast. Our first street circuit
15:21
Speaker 4: real street circuits of Calendar and Albert Park whatever, And
15:24
Speaker 4: two of the last three tracks in those finals in
15:27
Speaker 4: that finals campaign are on street circuits.
15:28
Speaker 2: So there's a little bit to riden into that.
15:30
Speaker 4: But before we talk about that, I want to talk
15:32
Speaker 4: about some of the raw performance elements. This is an
15:35
Speaker 4: extended intro into interested versus expert versus interested.
15:38
Speaker 1: We still haven't got a sting for interesting or a
15:40
Speaker 1: T shirt or something. But now last week you did say, look,
15:44
Speaker 1: this Shapes is being a brock Fenny weekend, and that
15:46
Speaker 1: is literally the sum total of my notes. This Shape
15:48
Speaker 1: is a brock Fenny weekend. It was a brock Fenny weekend.
15:50
Speaker 1: But what's interesting is that, you know we were talking
15:52
Speaker 1: about this before, wasn't the fact that he was winning.
15:56
Speaker 1: The gap to his teammate is probably bigger than we
15:59
Speaker 1: were thinking. Now we know he's very good on street circuits,
16:02
Speaker 1: but I was a little bit surprised by the level
16:04
Speaker 1: of dominance, not the fact that he was dominant.
16:06
Speaker 4: Yeah, and this is something that's just been now the
16:09
Speaker 4: story of all year, and for me, it's obviously been
16:12
Speaker 4: growing that as a narrative for a while and Brown's
16:14
Speaker 4: probably just coming out of the reigning champion Will Brown's
16:17
Speaker 4: just coming out of this really fallow. Perhaps the last
16:20
Speaker 4: couple of rounds in Darwin Peenie always dominates there as well,
16:22
Speaker 4: sort of no competition there. But what struck me is
16:25
Speaker 4: that so by the end of this weekend We'll finished
16:27
Speaker 4: second on the podium to Brock and did challenge for
16:29
Speaker 4: a victory briefly, but was really desponded afterwards because he's
16:33
Speaker 4: been another weekend where qualifying has been really disappointing for him.
16:36
Speaker 4: Didn't get back into the shootout on Saturday and Sunday
16:38
Speaker 4: the first time since Perth, but still just didn't have
16:41
Speaker 4: Brock's pace at any point. A couple of polls again
16:43
Speaker 4: for Brock, which is not surprising. Again ten poles now
16:45
Speaker 4: for him to one for Will, and now qualifying gaps
16:49
Speaker 4: the struggle because while it's easy to look at the
16:50
Speaker 4: headline stats and you know Brock's running away with it
16:52
Speaker 4: and what there's the finals were running away the top
16:54
Speaker 4: of the standings and triple it's obviously doing very well, the.
16:58
Speaker 2: Gap between the cars is all really still quite close.
17:00
Speaker 4: Like victory are still up for grabs, podium are still
17:02
Speaker 4: up for grabs, which means qualifying, even you qualified seven
17:05
Speaker 4: to eighth, I think it was Will for Saturday and Sunday.
17:07
Speaker 4: Friday was a bit of a right off of the team.
17:09
Speaker 4: That's a lot of work to go through over the
17:12
Speaker 4: course of a race when you're racing Matt Pains or
17:14
Speaker 4: Grove cars in several elements or Wu had a good
17:18
Speaker 4: weekend eventually, and there are a lot of competitive cars
17:20
Speaker 4: that are usually in that top seven or five even
17:23
Speaker 4: that just undo his whole weekend, and that's been his
17:25
Speaker 4: problem here. And that's interesting for a couple of reasons.
17:28
Speaker 4: One is that he had a lot of this all
17:30
Speaker 4: his own way last year. And I think Townsville was
17:32
Speaker 4: an interesting race because if you cast your minds back,
17:35
Speaker 4: they sort of qualified Phoenie just ahead. I think it
17:37
Speaker 4: was eighth and thirteenth or something like that last year.
17:40
Speaker 4: But Brown, as he did inevitably in every race last year,
17:43
Speaker 4: finished on the podium and passed Phoene easily on that way.
17:46
Speaker 4: This year has really kind of been the opposite, where
17:48
Speaker 4: even though Phoene maybe didn't have quite as much pace
17:50
Speaker 4: on Sunday, still won the race, So there's been that
17:53
Speaker 4: total turn around there. But what interests me about Will's
17:56
Speaker 4: response being pretty disappointed is that it doesn't matter because
17:59
Speaker 4: we've got the finals, but he knows it matters because
18:02
Speaker 4: the performance is not there.
18:03
Speaker 3: Well, there's a momentum element. This isn't there.
18:05
Speaker 1: Positive, positive or negative momentum go such a long way,
18:08
Speaker 1: which is bizarre in such a data driven sport here
18:11
Speaker 1: no matter whether it's four or two wheels, and yet
18:14
Speaker 1: the emotional momentum side can really take over the hard
18:18
Speaker 1: data and what you know to be true. So every
18:20
Speaker 1: time he is significantly outqualified, there's the shoulders go down.
18:24
Speaker 1: I've got to do this again to fight my way
18:27
Speaker 1: back to where I think I should rightfully be, and
18:30
Speaker 1: that wears on you over the course of a season.
18:32
Speaker 1: But as you were saying, because the format is different
18:33
Speaker 1: this year, individually that doesn't mean as much, but psychologically
18:37
Speaker 1: that's the thing.
18:38
Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, look at some of the numbers. I've written
18:41
Speaker 4: some down here and I'll consult my notes. Right qualifying,
18:44
Speaker 4: it's Feeney twenty to round two, like that's pretty that's
18:48
Speaker 4: damaging and by an average of four point nine places,
18:50
Speaker 4: and it's only a tenth in a little bit, but
18:52
Speaker 4: that's actually pretty big for SUP because only so many
18:54
Speaker 4: teammates that separated by that. It's fifteen to sixteen races
18:57
Speaker 4: average of just over a place thirty one points per
18:59
Speaker 4: week and a little bit more tofeening.
19:01
Speaker 2: It adds up to quite a lot.
19:02
Speaker 4: And like I say, with the finals, it kind of
19:04
Speaker 4: doesn't matter like Brown's going to start second. He means
19:08
Speaker 4: the points gap when they reset, it's not going to
19:09
Speaker 4: be massive, that's right. But he hasn't been able to generate,
19:12
Speaker 4: like you say, that momentum. And while we've still got
19:14
Speaker 4: three races till the finals, two of them are in
19:16
Speaker 4: duros and they're kind of a little bit they're be wacky.
19:18
Speaker 2: It's harder to generate that kind.
19:20
Speaker 4: Of individual momentum, yes, even if you're the one having
19:23
Speaker 4: great qualifying, because it's just not quite the same. So
19:25
Speaker 4: to change that, it's not even about changing the narrative,
19:28
Speaker 4: it is literally for himself generating that momentum. And the
19:31
Speaker 4: other difficulty this weekend is between Darwin and Townsville. They've
19:35
Speaker 4: done and it's always a little bit of a red
19:37
Speaker 4: flag isn't for a driver when they say, well, we've
19:39
Speaker 4: taken the car apart, We've looked at the chassis for problems,
19:42
Speaker 4: haven't found the problems.
19:43
Speaker 2: We're looking at it again in Townsville.
19:45
Speaker 4: Like, that's a dire place for a driver to be,
19:47
Speaker 4: especially when it's your teammate that's doing it all.
19:49
Speaker 2: It's not like they're racing another car where you can say,
19:51
Speaker 2: well the car is just fast.
19:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, correct, and you can see the smooth sailing that's
19:54
Speaker 1: going on the other side of the garage. That again
19:56
Speaker 1: plays into the psychological narrative. I just wonder if they're
19:59
Speaker 1: almost needs to be a less public sort of flagellation
20:02
Speaker 1: of things going long and you need to play a
20:04
Speaker 1: better poker face and not let on that he's so
20:06
Speaker 1: affected by this.
20:07
Speaker 3: But yeah, those stats are pretty damning.
20:10
Speaker 4: Yeah, so there's a lot of work for him to do.
20:11
Speaker 4: There's only one Sprint Cup race left in hips which
20:13
Speaker 4: it's almost certainly going to be seen his Sprint Cup win,
20:16
Speaker 4: first Sprint Cup winner for supercars. There are others in
20:19
Speaker 4: jurors to come. But then I guess, look the finals.
20:21
Speaker 4: You can you can look at it both ways, can't you?
20:24
Speaker 2: One way?
20:24
Speaker 4: Is that why would you expect the qualifying changes to happen,
20:27
Speaker 4: But the pressure is going to ramp up in a
20:28
Speaker 4: way none of these drivers have experienced for the first time.
20:31
Speaker 2: That changes things.
20:32
Speaker 4: But I want to come back to that idea that
20:33
Speaker 4: maybe this race Townsville is a good finals indicator.
20:36
Speaker 2: There's a little bit of an asterisk come out.
20:38
Speaker 4: Every street track is obviously quite different, and the first
20:41
Speaker 4: finals is the Gold Coast, which is a pretty wacky
20:44
Speaker 4: street track straight and then those funny chicanes. It's probably
20:48
Speaker 4: maybe a little bit more indicative Adelaide, so grand Final
20:51
Speaker 4: picture not exactly the same, but maybe we can use
20:54
Speaker 4: that as that. And I thought it was really interesting
20:55
Speaker 4: this weekend. So I've done collected all the fastest laps
20:58
Speaker 4: of each team over the course of the weekend, and
21:00
Speaker 4: it's Grove that had the fastest lap and advantage of
21:03
Speaker 4: almost nothing ahead of DJRS so teams J and j
21:06
Speaker 4: Our's case.
21:07
Speaker 2: Very inconsistent season.
21:08
Speaker 4: Yeah, but it does show you, I mean, because Techy
21:10
Speaker 4: won from poll on Friday, breakthrough victory for this team switch,
21:14
Speaker 4: but it shows that he can just about get all
21:17
Speaker 4: things right and when he does, he will win.
21:19
Speaker 1: Which will be so interesting when you get to the
21:21
Speaker 1: point end of the season because when it's knockout, well yeah,
21:24
Speaker 1: and he will have an influence in how this even
21:27
Speaker 1: if he may not win it himself, he's going to
21:28
Speaker 1: influence who might.
21:30
Speaker 3: And it's that classic spoiler role.
21:31
Speaker 1: That you love this at this end of the season
21:33
Speaker 1: when it gets to a really really high stakes that
21:35
Speaker 1: if someone's going to spoil somebody's day, it's probably going
21:38
Speaker 1: to be in.
21:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, And that's sort of the role he's playing.
21:41
Speaker 4: Also one at the Gold Coast last year, just indict
21:44
Speaker 4: these are the sort of previous stats will break out
21:46
Speaker 4: when we get there. But that's really interesting. If we
21:48
Speaker 4: also want to liken this to Adelaide, the format is
21:51
Speaker 4: going to be the same. It's not going to be
21:52
Speaker 4: in the Gold Coast and Sandown with the two race weekends,
21:55
Speaker 4: but in Adelaide we're racing on Friday. It is a
21:57
Speaker 4: four day weekend format. It's a little bit different in
21:59
Speaker 4: terms of practice, but a lot the order was shaken
22:02
Speaker 4: up on Friday. Here Trivia eight was nowhere on Friday,
22:04
Speaker 4: which is one day of that Grand Final that brock
22:08
Speaker 4: Feenie may qualified outside the top ten as he did
22:10
Speaker 4: this weekend yep, and only just get back into those
22:12
Speaker 4: big points, and that could be influential. While the Friday
22:16
Speaker 4: pays relatively fewer points, even more so in Adelaide than
22:18
Speaker 4: it did here, that doesn't matter. You know, we're talking
22:21
Speaker 4: about that last race where it's sort of a bit
22:22
Speaker 4: of a reset, and if you're looking at that, well,
22:24
Speaker 4: then you've got WAU that could be in the mix.
22:26
Speaker 4: They started really badly this weekend, but by the end
22:28
Speaker 4: their car was among the fastest on.
22:30
Speaker 3: Saturday, arguably once I got there.
22:32
Speaker 4: Yeah, for Chasmsten might have been the fastest race car,
22:35
Speaker 4: but was starting so far back that he didn't have
22:37
Speaker 4: an influence. Tickford really quick over one lap in the race,
22:40
Speaker 4: was a little bit less influential.
22:42
Speaker 2: Even team eighteen.
22:43
Speaker 4: I was really impressed to see if I averaged this
22:44
Speaker 4: season qualifying about four tenths off the fastest time down
22:47
Speaker 4: to two tenths this weekend on the street track. That's
22:50
Speaker 4: kind of interesting. So I'm going to write this up
22:52
Speaker 4: over the course of the week in Fox Sports. A
22:53
Speaker 4: bit hard to get stats off across in the podcast
22:55
Speaker 4: and the way I want, but there were some little
22:58
Speaker 4: interesting lessons in towns that I think could have some
23:02
Speaker 4: teams thinking about how they're going to approach the finals,
23:05
Speaker 4: because again it is knockout. You only get a couple
23:07
Speaker 4: of chances over the course of the weekend to score
23:09
Speaker 4: big points. If you start badly, you may not be
23:11
Speaker 4: able to recover in the way you want, yep, because
23:13
Speaker 4: you will only have one extra race, Gold Coast Sandown.
23:17
Speaker 2: It's going to be interesting. We're getting to that point
23:18
Speaker 2: where we can think about it now.
23:20
Speaker 1: I do enjoy you road testing feature story ideas and
23:23
Speaker 1: the podcast to convince yourself that it's something that you
23:25
Speaker 1: want to write. And the more I'm not at you
23:26
Speaker 1: will write it for you with me and anyone else
23:28
Speaker 1: would like to read it. But go ahead, I'm looking
23:30
Speaker 1: forward to read this one now.
23:31
Speaker 2: Very good.
23:32
Speaker 4: Well that's you can read about it later on the
23:34
Speaker 4: Fox Sports website. But tell me a little bit about
23:37
Speaker 4: motives you've actually before we do that one, we do
23:38
Speaker 4: Move of the Week, and I'm going to go back
23:44
Speaker 4: to something we're already talked about with Brock Feenie and
23:46
Speaker 4: I know we've looked sometimes we've taken Move of the
23:48
Speaker 4: Week to meet our own things. I'm going to say
23:50
Speaker 4: defensive move of the Week, defensive drive of the week,
23:52
Speaker 4: even because it was on Sunday where he had the
23:55
Speaker 4: wind just about sewn up.
23:57
Speaker 2: But Will Brown came on really strong in that last thing.
24:00
Speaker 3: Uncomfortable.
24:01
Speaker 4: It was uncomfortable and for a while, and it is
24:02
Speaker 4: uncomfortable as well because he had the pace to a
24:05
Speaker 4: potentially undercut Phoenie. But the team doesn't allow that kind
24:08
Speaker 4: of thing when to sort of do it on the road,
24:10
Speaker 4: which is fair enough, and he took that as a
24:12
Speaker 4: fair cop. But I thought to go back to the
24:14
Speaker 4: idea that last year in Townsville, Brown kinda ran rings
24:18
Speaker 4: around Phoene, at least on the Saturday race. I thing
24:19
Speaker 4: on Sunday race is a little bit different and sort
24:22
Speaker 4: of asserted that dominance. It ended up winning in the title.
24:24
Speaker 4: That consistency, dependability, it's really flipped around this year and
24:29
Speaker 4: I can't couldn't help but feel that Sunday result was
24:31
Speaker 4: important because if Brown ended the very end of Sunday
24:34
Speaker 4: is the faster car still couldn't deliver the victory. Another
24:37
Speaker 4: victory for Phoene extended championship lead. It was enough for
24:40
Speaker 4: Brown to hold on the second We were only just
24:41
Speaker 4: ahead of that pain. I just felt that was a
24:43
Speaker 4: really important defensive move.
24:45
Speaker 3: No. Agree.
24:46
Speaker 1: So the wins that you get sometimes when you're not
24:48
Speaker 1: the fastest, and we see this in all levels of sport,
24:51
Speaker 1: they are worth more than the points that you get
24:53
Speaker 1: for them. Yes, because of your ability to not squander
24:56
Speaker 1: an advantage you have against a faster opponent.
24:58
Speaker 3: I think it's pretty significant.
25:00
Speaker 2: I think so. So it's going to be my defensive
25:01
Speaker 2: move of the week for Rock Seen.
25:04
Speaker 1: I'm going to go more attacking given you've taken the
25:06
Speaker 1: defensive side of things. Motor DP and Saxon Ring in
25:09
Speaker 1: the sprint race, and we have only ever had if
25:12
Speaker 1: you can believe this, one wet sprint race before last
25:15
Speaker 1: Saturday Saxon Ring.
25:17
Speaker 3: Has been one in three years.
25:18
Speaker 1: Before last Saturday at sax Ring, which is bizarre to think.
25:21
Speaker 1: And Mark Marquez and Saxon Ring, we know how that
25:23
Speaker 1: normally ends.
25:24
Speaker 3: But he messed up the.
25:25
Speaker 1: First corner, so it was fifth after the first lap.
25:28
Speaker 1: And it's interesting because he was saying the whole way
25:30
Speaker 1: through the weekend, I will not risk, I will not risk,
25:33
Speaker 1: I will not risk. He's got a big championship lead.
25:36
Speaker 1: The thing I loved about what he did in this
25:38
Speaker 1: race is he eventually got himself back to second place
25:41
Speaker 1: with about five laps to go, and Marco Betzeki on
25:44
Speaker 1: the aprilias two and a bit seconds up the road.
25:46
Speaker 1: The sensible thing to do would be, all right, there's
25:48
Speaker 1: only three points difference between first and second and a
25:50
Speaker 1: sprint race. I'm just going to take my points and
25:52
Speaker 1: go home. I've got a pretty significant lead. But he's
25:55
Speaker 1: fighting with his instincts. If there's something to win, Mark
25:58
Speaker 1: can't help himself. It could literally just be a game
26:00
Speaker 1: of scrabble, like he wants to just demolish everybody. And
26:04
Speaker 1: he did one lap and went, oh, I took four
26:06
Speaker 1: tenths off him on that lap, and he's like, all right,
26:08
Speaker 1: let's go. And then so you end up with the
26:11
Speaker 1: last two laps where Marquees is closing in at such
26:14
Speaker 1: a rapid rate, and it wasn't a question of whether
26:16
Speaker 1: Marques was faster as whether it's going to.
26:17
Speaker 3: Run out of time or not.
26:18
Speaker 1: And of course we get to the first corner of
26:20
Speaker 1: the very very last lap and move of the week,
26:22
Speaker 1: Mark just absolutely sends it on like Opazeki and then
26:25
Speaker 1: goes and wins by nearly a second on the last
26:28
Speaker 1: lap by keeping the hammer down and I love the
26:30
Speaker 1: fact the move of the week for me is that
26:32
Speaker 1: he knows he shouldn't have been doing it. His team
26:34
Speaker 1: had said play it carefully. He knows everyone's looking at
26:37
Speaker 1: him saying you did not make a mistake here, But
26:39
Speaker 1: he's still prepared to do it, even with the advantage
26:41
Speaker 1: that he's got.
26:42
Speaker 3: And I love that.
26:43
Speaker 1: The move to me is wrestling with your instincts and
26:45
Speaker 1: trying to play the championship picture. Yes, they're so long
26:47
Speaker 1: to go, but if anyone needs reminding about how things
26:50
Speaker 1: can turn very quickly, it's Mark Marquez still prepared to
26:53
Speaker 1: back himself and yes, winning at the Saxon Ring, but
26:55
Speaker 1: not in the way we thought he might.
26:57
Speaker 4: Yeah, and to go back to something you were talking
26:58
Speaker 4: about last week, I doubt he was feeling any dispressure.
27:01
Speaker 4: But there was that interesting statistic this year that all
27:03
Speaker 4: the tracks is traditionally excelled at. Yes, he's ended up
27:06
Speaker 4: with nothing, he's out of them. To go back to
27:08
Speaker 4: Coder as a great examples, where is this? So this weekend,
27:12
Speaker 4: That's what I was thinking of over the course the
27:13
Speaker 4: most weekend. It was clearly had his big pace advantage,
27:15
Speaker 4: but you know, sometimes those statistics just work out and
27:19
Speaker 4: so taking a big risk in the sprint. Okay, the
27:20
Speaker 4: sprint doesn't count the Grand Prix for the sake of
27:22
Speaker 4: that stat but nonetheless, how much was he willing to
27:25
Speaker 4: play with that? But you know, to quote him, he
27:27
Speaker 4: wasn't even at his extra limit, so he felt.
27:30
Speaker 2: Comfortable to it.
27:31
Speaker 1: Indeed, yes, he had other limits he could reach, didn't
27:33
Speaker 1: need them.
27:34
Speaker 4: Yes, exactly. Well, let's go under the German Grand Prix
27:36
Speaker 4: in Moto GP. The headline takeaway I guess was that
27:40
Speaker 4: Mark Marquez wins again quite comfortably in the end.
27:45
Speaker 2: Is it as simple as this? You go to the
27:46
Speaker 2: sax Ring and you turn left, and he's just going.
27:49
Speaker 3: To win it more or less.
27:50
Speaker 1: I think he's won nine Premier class races at this track. Now,
27:53
Speaker 1: he's won twelve World Championship Grand Prix. If you go
27:56
Speaker 1: back to his one, two, five and Motor two days,
27:59
Speaker 1: he's base sick been unbeatable there since twenty ten, which.
28:03
Speaker 3: Is wild when you think about it.
28:05
Speaker 1: But if you gave Mark a blank sheet of paper
28:07
Speaker 1: and a pen and said, design what your ideal circuit
28:09
Speaker 1: would look like the Saxon Ring, I'm glad it's on
28:12
Speaker 1: the calendar. You wouldn't want more than one or two
28:15
Speaker 1: real outline circuits like this. It's such a bizarre racetrack
28:19
Speaker 1: in that it's thirteen corners and ten of them go left,
28:22
Speaker 1: and so it's just climbing and going left on itself
28:24
Speaker 1: the entire time, which is great for a visual podcast.
28:27
Speaker 1: Here I'm drawing circles, but with his dirt track background
28:30
Speaker 1: and how good he is in left handed corners relative
28:33
Speaker 1: to how he is in right handed corners now because
28:34
Speaker 1: of all of the surgeries on that right arm, it
28:37
Speaker 1: becomes a case of who's going to finish second, and
28:40
Speaker 1: they all go into the weekend knowing that, but watching
28:43
Speaker 1: him play with the bike in those left handed turns
28:47
Speaker 1: where you're very rarely stood up straight on this track,
28:49
Speaker 1: you're constantly leaning over and watching him just hit the
28:53
Speaker 1: same lines. It's a combination of being metronomically perfect but
28:57
Speaker 1: also just willing to risk more than anybody else. And
29:00
Speaker 1: Fabio de jen Antonio talked about this in the Grand
29:02
Speaker 1: Prix on Sunday. He sort of emerged out of a
29:05
Speaker 1: big battle pack to sit second and was really competitive
29:07
Speaker 1: did year for the whole entire race, and he said
29:09
Speaker 1: he was just watching Mark and he couldn't believe that
29:12
Speaker 1: he wasn't even half a meter offline. He was breaking
29:15
Speaker 1: at the same point every time. He said, it was
29:16
Speaker 1: actually quite mesmerizing watching how much of a zone he is.
29:20
Speaker 3: It's a hard track.
29:21
Speaker 1: I mean, yes, it's a bit small for motor GP
29:23
Speaker 1: bikes and they certainly don't stretch their legs there. There's
29:25
Speaker 1: a lot of jeopardy at this track, and so to
29:27
Speaker 1: just be constantly on it left all the way through
29:31
Speaker 1: incredibly impressive. So not surprising in the slightest, but it
29:34
Speaker 1: doesn't get any less impressive watching him ride a motor
29:36
Speaker 1: GP bike around.
29:37
Speaker 4: There is there any significance thinking back to because to
29:41
Speaker 4: my mind then the deer of his post surgery career
29:44
Speaker 4: was also here. Yes, the frustration of not being able
29:48
Speaker 4: to will his bike around in the way that he's
29:50
Speaker 4: clearly made it look so easy this weekend. As in
29:51
Speaker 4: the past, it's been clear that he's been back for
29:55
Speaker 4: quite a while now, and particularly this year, back on
29:57
Speaker 4: a competitive bike and able to run rings around anyway.
30:00
Speaker 2: Does that play a role in the meaningfulness of this result?
30:02
Speaker 1: I think so, because it was there that I think
30:05
Speaker 1: he crashed six times that year where he was just
30:08
Speaker 1: trying to bend a honder into places it couldn't possibly
30:11
Speaker 1: go to the point where he was just going to
30:13
Speaker 1: hurt himself again, and he actually pulled out of the
30:15
Speaker 1: race weekend. I think psychologically that was a real turning
30:19
Speaker 1: point in his relationship with Honda's I cannot keep doing
30:22
Speaker 1: this to myself, given the physical anguish that I've gone through.
30:25
Speaker 1: There was that race, and then there was the race
30:26
Speaker 1: in Australia when he finished on the podium where he said,
30:29
Speaker 1: I realized that it's not me anymore, it's the bike.
30:32
Speaker 1: It's the bike that's holding me back. And that set
30:34
Speaker 1: in chain this whole series of events that's now got
30:36
Speaker 1: him to the best bike.
30:37
Speaker 3: On the grid.
30:39
Speaker 1: But it's a significant circuit in that he won a
30:42
Speaker 1: race there between surgeries in twenty twenty one, which made
30:45
Speaker 1: absolutely no sense because his arm was still thirty four
30:48
Speaker 1: degrees out of its natural alignment and one anyway, And
30:51
Speaker 1: still one of the best post race interviews I think
30:54
Speaker 1: I've ever seen in Murder GP because of how raw
30:56
Speaker 1: he was and Matt Burt was doing the interview and
30:59
Speaker 1: didn't over ask the question, and it's like, what's going
31:01
Speaker 1: through your head right now? And you could see Mark's
31:03
Speaker 1: eyes just spinning trying to get the emotions of what
31:06
Speaker 1: this meant into words, which is a rare sign of
31:08
Speaker 1: Mark letting his guard down.
31:09
Speaker 3: Doesn't often do that.
31:11
Speaker 1: But there's something special. We've talked about this before, watching
31:14
Speaker 1: a driver or a rider that has an affinity with
31:17
Speaker 1: a place and you know what it's going to be
31:19
Speaker 1: like before it starts. But watching perfection never gets.
31:22
Speaker 3: Old to me.
31:23
Speaker 1: And yes, it was a very very predictable result over
31:25
Speaker 1: the course of the race weekend, but it's still great
31:27
Speaker 1: to watch, particularly in the context of what he's gone through.
31:30
Speaker 4: Yeah, you said this is all about who could finish second.
31:32
Speaker 4: A couple of writers had a crack and decide they.
31:34
Speaker 3: Didn't want to most writers did.
31:36
Speaker 4: Yes, only ten finishes. Crazy, it's been a while since
31:39
Speaker 4: we've had so few finishes.
31:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, Now, I dug very very quickly when we got
31:44
Speaker 1: down to about twelve runners, I thought, all, this is
31:46
Speaker 1: starting to get to historical territory here. Twenty eleven Australian
31:50
Speaker 1: Grand Prix ten finishes. Casey Stone won that race, one
31:54
Speaker 1: of the world championship and so it was a bizarre race
31:59
Speaker 1: and that we only had a very limited grid to start.
32:01
Speaker 1: We only had eighteen starters on Sunday because we had
32:03
Speaker 1: Franco Morberd earlier and Maverick Vignales injured themselves.
32:06
Speaker 3: During the weekend.
32:07
Speaker 1: We had somemcat Chancer who wasn't there, had a training
32:09
Speaker 1: accident and aambastine and he didn't travel because he had appendicicitus.
32:13
Speaker 1: So the whole exactly so the Tech three KTM had
32:16
Speaker 1: no bikes on track from Saturday morning. They could have
32:19
Speaker 1: just packed up and gone early to Bruno. But when
32:21
Speaker 1: you had this bizarre situation where it rained all day Saturday,
32:25
Speaker 1: all Saturday night Sunday, the sun was out, but the
32:27
Speaker 1: track had absolutely no rubber on it and no one
32:30
Speaker 1: had done any real long runs in the dry, so
32:32
Speaker 1: you had a dry track with no rubber laid down,
32:35
Speaker 1: and the wind had flipped, so was a tail wind
32:38
Speaker 1: going into turn one at saxon Ry, which as you know,
32:41
Speaker 1: is downhill and off camber. So once a lot of
32:43
Speaker 1: riders got twelve fifteen laps into the race, about half distance,
32:46
Speaker 1: tires wearing down, no grip, tailwind pushing you faster into
32:50
Speaker 1: the corner, and they all kept going down at the
32:52
Speaker 1: same corner, so There were eight crashes from the race,
32:54
Speaker 1: and six of them were at turn one because riders
32:57
Speaker 1: were getting down to turn one tipping the bike. Jack
32:59
Speaker 1: Miller said he almost lost at the Quatarero. Did Mark
33:01
Speaker 1: said he had a bit of a moment there. So
33:03
Speaker 1: even the guys that stayed on that was the real
33:05
Speaker 1: problem spot. And Picoba said after the race, I basically
33:09
Speaker 1: took it easy through the first corner for the last
33:11
Speaker 1: ten laps and tried to push everywhere else because I
33:13
Speaker 1: knew what was going to happen, because you remember last
33:16
Speaker 1: year he inherited a race win there because Juge Martine
33:18
Speaker 1: crashed there on the last lap of the race. So
33:21
Speaker 1: it is a problem, but I think it was more
33:22
Speaker 1: a confluence of really green circuit and that tailwind in
33:27
Speaker 1: a big downhill stop at that track. That's what makes
33:30
Speaker 1: that track so unique. But it really was survival of
33:32
Speaker 1: the fit. It's ten finishes in a motor GP race
33:35
Speaker 1: is absolutely bizarre. Mean, it's half a full sized grid.
33:38
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was watching the totem and sworn I'd forgotten
33:41
Speaker 4: someone or it had had an error or something like
33:43
Speaker 4: that didn't make any sense.
33:45
Speaker 2: And just finally Jack Miller quite a good weekend for him.
33:48
Speaker 4: Quite a productive weekend for him, not only in terms
33:50
Speaker 4: of points scores, but for his future. This has been
33:52
Speaker 4: the subject the last couple of weeks at Fox sports
33:55
Speaker 4: dot com Dot you on Monday, what did we learn
33:58
Speaker 4: from it?
33:59
Speaker 1: Great timing, Jack's strongest weekend he's had all seasons in
34:02
Speaker 1: terms of points. Finished fifth in the sprint. It's the
34:04
Speaker 1: best sprint result he's had in his last twenty sprints
34:06
Speaker 1: going back to Austria last year. Eighth in the Grand Prix,
34:09
Speaker 1: which is a little bit disappointing. He is hovering around
34:12
Speaker 1: fifty six for most of the race and lost a
34:13
Speaker 1: couple of places in the last two or three laps.
34:15
Speaker 1: But for him to get thirteen points out of a
34:17
Speaker 1: weekend where it's been a little bit barren lately, he's
34:20
Speaker 1: quite good there. He's often been pretty good at Saxon Ring.
34:22
Speaker 1: But we know that it's going to be him or
34:24
Speaker 1: Miguel oliver or perhaps the Yogo Mira from Moto II
34:27
Speaker 1: who's going to come in and take that second promac seat.
34:29
Speaker 1: Olivera was the first crasher in the Grand Prix and
34:31
Speaker 1: didn't score a point for the entire weekend, and marera
34:34
Speaker 1: If you've read anything that I've written in the last
34:36
Speaker 1: twenty four hours. Was committed one of the craziest things
34:39
Speaker 1: I've ever seen in a Moto II race by just
34:40
Speaker 1: pulling on track without looking and getting completely wiped out
34:44
Speaker 1: by David Alonso and that so stocks down for Rolvera
34:47
Speaker 1: and Morrera this weekend. But in terms of Jack's timing,
34:50
Speaker 1: given that Yamahara said they want this done by the
34:52
Speaker 1: mid season break, we've only got the Czech Republic GP
34:54
Speaker 1: to go. Now Jack's put himself. I think he was
34:57
Speaker 1: in a good position anyway, but I would now describe
34:59
Speaker 1: him having one hand and perhaps four fingers on a
35:02
Speaker 1: contract for next year, which when you consider that he
35:05
Speaker 1: was the last writer signed for this year and only
35:07
Speaker 1: on a one year deal, it's fantastic news for Australian fans.
35:10
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, really good news.
35:12
Speaker 4: Hopefully it will be a lot of optimism by timing
35:13
Speaker 4: you to Philip violand obvious a bit later in the year,
35:16
Speaker 4: almost ting to wrap up Matt. But let's go to
35:18
Speaker 4: the crystal ball by complete home filtration. First of all,
35:23
Speaker 4: how would you like to predict so relatively quiet week
35:26
Speaker 4: by motorsports standard, It's only the Motor GP this weekend.
35:29
Speaker 1: I just want to know if anyone had Christian Horner
35:30
Speaker 1: not being Rebels team principal in their crystal ball.
35:33
Speaker 3: We seeing a number, I'll buy it off you. It's
35:36
Speaker 3: clearly a better crystal ball than you and I have got.
35:37
Speaker 1: But I'm going to stick with a Jack Miller theme here.
35:41
Speaker 1: We've got Bruneau coming up this weekend. My predictions. I
35:43
Speaker 1: think that Jack Miller is going to be confirmed for
35:44
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six, either just before or just after the
35:47
Speaker 1: Bruno weekend. We have a four week gap before the
35:50
Speaker 1: Austrian Grand Prix, and I think we're going to know
35:52
Speaker 1: that Jack's going to be on the twenty twenty six
35:54
Speaker 1: Motor GP grid imminently. Very good, very good timing for him,
35:58
Speaker 1: I suppose, yes, and for us Crystal war for you
36:00
Speaker 1: probably know Christian Horner extremities, but no.
36:03
Speaker 4: I'm going to stay away from Christian Horners, who could
36:05
Speaker 4: predict you after twenty years. I'm going to go with
36:07
Speaker 4: Valterie Botas to go back something to talk about a
36:08
Speaker 4: little bit earlier. I know Cadillac wants to agree to
36:11
Speaker 4: someone before the mid season break, just one driver for now,
36:13
Speaker 4: to give a little bit of momentum to the team
36:15
Speaker 4: a little bit certainty as well, and at least one
36:17
Speaker 4: driver gives you some security and then the other one you.
36:19
Speaker 2: Can play off against circumstances.
36:21
Speaker 4: You know, if it's gonna be Sergio Perry's as the
36:23
Speaker 4: second driver, but maybe Yuki Sonoda could appear on the
36:25
Speaker 4: market later or whatever, maybe George Russell.
36:28
Speaker 2: But I think it's gonna be Valteri Botas first.
36:30
Speaker 4: I think, as we sort of discussed, for me, Cadillac
36:32
Speaker 4: makes the most sense more than Alpine, unless Alpine was
36:35
Speaker 4: strictly speaking second half of the year and then you
36:37
Speaker 4: get to go to Cadillac later, which seems a little
36:39
Speaker 4: bit much, but you never know. But I think it's
36:41
Speaker 4: going to be Valteri Botas at Cadillac. I think it's
36:43
Speaker 4: a good first choice driver for a new team like Cadillac.
36:46
Speaker 4: I think it's a good place for him to go
36:47
Speaker 4: and write the last chapter of his kore and it
36:49
Speaker 4: can be a long one. I'm like, is that old
36:51
Speaker 4: and Fernando Alonso certainly pushing the age shiling up, as
36:53
Speaker 4: is Lewis Hamilton, so it could be quite a long
36:55
Speaker 4: last chapter of his career. But I think it would
36:57
Speaker 4: be really important one one that would be last for him,
37:01
Speaker 4: and I think that of the drivers they have available
37:04
Speaker 4: to them, he's certainly the best choice.
37:06
Speaker 1: I like it for him, and I think I specially
37:08
Speaker 1: like it for Cadillac. I think it gives them a
37:10
Speaker 1: level of credibility that's really hard when you're a startup.
37:13
Speaker 1: No matter what in the name says above the door,
37:15
Speaker 1: no matter the financial support you've got behind you, that
37:18
Speaker 1: gives you instant credibility. A guy who's won a lot
37:20
Speaker 1: of racism, has gone head to head at least over
37:22
Speaker 1: one lap with Lewis Hamilton.
37:23
Speaker 3: It's a pretty good starting point.
37:25
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think so, and great for social media content
37:28
Speaker 4: on social media. But that's all the time we have
37:29
Speaker 4: for pit Talk today. You can subscribe to pittorg revi
37:32
Speaker 4: you get your favorite podcasts and leave us a rating
37:34
Speaker 4: and review as well. This weekend, it's just the check
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Speaker 4: Motorcycle Grand Prix gets all of your attention. Lights out
37:39
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37:43
Speaker 4: cars and Formula One news at Fox Sports dot com
37:46
Speaker 4: dot Au until next week. From Matt Clayton and me,
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Speaker 4: Michael Lomonado. Thanks very much for your company and we'll
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Speaker 4: see them