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and get wild! Hello

1:16

everybody. And welcome to shift F one

1:18

a podcast about Speedier A Scars. I'm Drew

1:20

Scanlon joining me. As always we have Denny,

1:22

oh Dwyer, how are you to any top

1:24

of the mornings you drew on the Irish

1:26

one. For those of you who are new

1:29

to this podcast and should be quite easy

1:31

to understand which one that is because it's

1:33

the one with the Irish accent who really

1:35

know very much at all. Also

1:37

joining us. As always we have Robs Acne Harry,

1:40

Europe. Pretty. Good. I'm one who

1:42

knows less than he drinks. He. Does. A

1:45

great well welcome everyone to. It's

1:47

a different episode that are other

1:49

stuff is as the annual pre

1:52

season primer episode you'll note that

1:54

the wrong time is probably double

1:56

I would on whole episode. length

1:59

is. Because this is where

2:01

we explain how Formula One works, who

2:03

everybody is, and how to have fun

2:05

watching it all while assuming the you

2:07

the listener have no prior knowledge of

2:09

the sport or indeed any kind of

2:12

motor sport. So if you are new

2:14

to F One, maybe you've watched some

2:16

of Netflix has tried to survive. You

2:18

have come direct place and he has.

2:20

You aren't new to F One? stick

2:22

around because we're gonna cover everything and

2:24

everyone that has new. The. Season.

2:27

Absolutely. If you don't know am

2:29

and what sports are was cars are

2:31

you can listen to our preseason primer

2:33

primer which went off of least. Ah

2:36

yes, oh a little bit about some I

2:39

guess the normal show we. We sort of

2:41

see this this podcast as a sort of

2:43

a companion piece to the Formula One season

2:45

so we we posted episode every week on

2:47

Wednesdays. Talk about the news of the racing

2:50

world, what to expect from the upcoming race

2:52

and race has just happened. You know what

2:54

happened in that race and then why? There's

2:56

always incidents. To. To. Unpack and

2:59

Armchair Quarterback or we also

3:01

take listener questions and at

3:03

hour shift f on podcast,

3:05

email.com or F One.cool/emails and

3:07

of course you can support

3:09

us on Patriot Patrons get

3:12

access to Add Free episodes

3:14

or Discord Channel and the

3:16

ever expanding back catalogue of

3:18

Patron exclusive episodes. Cover are

3:20

racing documentaries like Center and

3:22

Michael Fassbender is Road To

3:25

Lamar. She just wrapped up

3:27

primers for. Other racing series like

3:29

Formula E in Indycar if you

3:31

decide that. Oh my god I

3:33

love all voters forces and can

3:35

happen mom. And also correlated

3:37

films like Days of Thunder in the Fast

3:39

and Furious. So if you would like to

3:42

get access all that fun stuff and just

3:44

ship support show you can do so a

3:46

repeater and that com/shift f one or click

3:48

the link in the show notes get usually

3:50

for don't have racing action in the movie

3:53

cars to so you know like that's true.

3:55

We. Will if it's guy of it's give

3:57

his car relay the mayor race related well

3:59

movies. Car the point is

4:01

like. Your. As you with

4:04

every passing season we're finding more ways

4:06

to the find somebody. The car movie.

4:08

Absolutely, You know, even if it's even

4:10

if the movies mostly about launching an

4:12

orbital cannon to destroy Funky Boy so

4:14

manifest as a medic, a. Very

4:18

true I'd so just a quick know before

4:20

we dive in. This is gonna be a

4:23

lot of info. So.

4:25

Don't worry about remembering all of it, just

4:27

kinda let it wash over you to pick

4:29

up what you pick up are watching races

4:31

I think is really what helps at all.

4:33

Come together because you'll you'll see things and

4:35

go. Oh that's the thing they mentioned in

4:37

the primer and you can always listen to

4:39

this again if you really want to give

4:42

us more and bucks. Intent.

4:45

Or at so to kick it

4:47

off for the one is. The

4:50

world's fastest. Arguably.

4:52

The most prestigious and the certainly

4:55

most watched motor racing championship it's

4:57

been around since nineteen fifties. And

5:00

it it works. Like a lot of sports

5:02

their their teams to compete at events over

5:04

the course of the season. At

5:06

the end of the season a champion is crowned.

5:08

Said break that down. There are

5:11

tens or with two cars each, meaning that

5:13

there are twenty cars in every race. And

5:16

this year there are twenty four races,

5:18

each at a different track. "Across

5:20

twenty one different countries, countries and we're going

5:23

to get to exactly where each one of

5:25

those is at a later in the. The

5:29

season takes place from March through

5:31

December and both teams and drivers

5:33

earn points for how they finish

5:35

in the race. The driver and

5:38

the team. With. The most points at

5:40

the end of the season. When. The championship

5:42

near actually two championships or one

5:44

for the drivers in one for

5:46

the teams, which is called the

5:48

Constructors Championship. Teams

5:50

points are made up of their drivers

5:53

points. Which. Usually means that

5:55

the winner of the drivers' championship.

5:57

Is. Usually on the team that wins the constructor.

6:00

They've been ship the not always but really

6:02

all anyone cares about is that the driver

6:04

soon Shipley A. We want to see our

6:06

our gladiators to battle. Ah that's kind of

6:08

what we're all watching for. Yeah, the

6:10

constructors feels like it's predominantly to do

6:12

with prize money at this stage. Yes,

6:14

the teams certainly care about the constructor

6:16

championship or because how they finish has

6:18

a direct effect on the prize money

6:20

they get to. the higher you finish,

6:22

the more money you get. Money is

6:25

at the heart of a lot of

6:27

sports is no different in Formula One.

6:29

Ah, and this sort of feedback loop

6:31

tends to keep the top teams at

6:33

the top, which makes it all the

6:35

more exciting. See, this is when we

6:37

put our spin. On. Us

6:40

when another seemed as well. So are. I

6:42

remember having the revelation when I was getting

6:44

into F One that it can be really

6:46

exciting to see someone come in third place

6:48

because they're an underdog. And I mention that

6:50

to illustrate that. The. More that

6:52

you know about the teams capabilities.

6:55

The. More exciting it can be when you watch

6:57

them exceed those capability such as I think we're

6:59

trying to do with the shows. To get sort

7:02

of context to all this, Yeah, it's It's not

7:04

all about who wins at there's often, you know.

7:06

sometimes it's thrilling just to see somebody get into

7:08

the points for the very first time. and when

7:10

we do this rundown of teams and drivers later,

7:13

hopefully not give you a bit of insight into

7:15

sort of. Where. Everyone

7:17

generally finishes. Yeah. And

7:19

it does may prove especially important for

7:21

the season because last year. One

7:24

team was extremely dominance and if you

7:26

don't have a sense of the other

7:28

story lines that are going on outside

7:30

of who wins, it can be a

7:32

little boring so. As a were trying

7:34

to hear about but back to the money drivers.

7:36

Technically. Don't earn a paper in

7:38

any prize money from Formula One itself.

7:40

Did you receive bonuses from their teams

7:43

based on how they finish in the

7:45

championship? Bonuses are

7:47

defined by their contracts so they are publicized,

7:49

but many of when drivers are very well

7:51

paid. So for example, Lewis

7:53

Hamilton and Max her staff and

7:55

were twenty first and twenty second

7:57

on last year's Forbes highest list.

8:00

For how little a high speed athletes

8:02

at Sixty Five and Sixty Four million

8:04

dollars respectively are ahead of Klay Thompson

8:07

and Patrick. My home's. Go

8:10

F one. Is trying to

8:12

curb this feedback loop with this

8:14

with a spending cap So each

8:16

team is required to spend no

8:18

more than a hundred and thirty

8:20

five million dollars per season. He

8:25

asked, how can they afford any stride A

8:27

limited you got off. One

8:29

team did breach that cap and Twenty twenty

8:31

one and was penalised with a fine and

8:34

a reduction in the amount of wind tunnel

8:36

time that they can use to develop. The

8:39

next season so far as you say, if you're new to

8:41

from in a one that is may be. The.

8:43

Most likely the biggest signals to the

8:45

sport you're about to get into. The

8:47

broke the rules and they were penalized

8:50

by having less wins toddler thought. And

8:52

yeah, let me tell you about Computational

8:54

Fluid Dynamics. Limit

8:57

the number of in video graphics

8:59

cards is exactly users can to

9:01

on the other the i you're not

9:03

lead over clock your your Cst machines

9:05

for the next week to soda Wolf

9:08

was found for a of home and

9:10

accept that I was is really Saki

9:12

while. The My Dad

9:15

during the during the mid season break

9:17

organise Socket Yeah yeah. Ah,

9:19

driver salaries are excluded from the cap,

9:21

but there's also just a matter of

9:23

institutional knowledge, etc. so it it remains

9:25

to be seen to south active. The

9:27

spending cap is this is the second

9:29

year I think at one hundred and

9:31

thirty five million. so we're We're still

9:34

sort of seeing if that does play

9:36

out, but I think we would. Most.

9:38

Would agree to step in or a

9:40

direct. Is it always drivers or is

9:42

it just the top two highest paid

9:44

people and I just always happens to

9:46

be trials? Good point. Know it looks

9:49

like it looks like drivers or isn't

9:51

and then new. Yes, Three staffers. Hour

9:53

or so each team is allowed to

9:55

have. And. But seems

9:57

correlate with. The.

9:59

Air. engine and

10:03

mechanical like right your

10:05

three like lead department people who have

10:07

the special sauce locked in their heads

10:11

that market is that market is open and

10:14

those people are very important the drivers are

10:16

merely the most visible so speaking

10:19

of visibility what is gonna happen when you sit

10:21

down and actually watch a race first

10:24

of all you'll hear a lot about the race weekend

10:26

so in addition to the race there are

10:28

actually a number of other events

10:31

that happen so first we've got the practice

10:33

sessions usually it's two

10:35

on Friday and one on

10:37

Saturday that lasts about an hour each and this

10:39

is you know since the cars change

10:42

every year teams update them and

10:44

the track conditions are never consistent from race

10:47

to race it's important for the teams to

10:49

send their cars around and dial in their

10:51

setups by making all kinds of adjustments to

10:53

aerodynamic elements and break bias and all that

10:56

stuff most of

10:58

that is invisible since the teams tend to

11:00

play their cards pretty close to their chests

11:02

in practice but you usually get a sense

11:05

broadly about how

11:07

a team might do based on their

11:09

practice performance this is especially true in

11:12

preseason testing as well the

11:15

next event is qualifying which is kind of

11:17

a misnomer you can't really fail to qualify

11:19

in the modern era of formula one it's

11:22

more about determining the order that

11:24

the cars will start the race

11:27

so qualifying takes place

11:29

on Saturday after the third

11:31

practice session and is divided itself into

11:33

three sessions that are each about 15

11:35

minutes long so in the first session

11:38

which we call Q1 all

11:40

20 cars go out on track and try to

11:42

set the best lap time that they they're

11:45

not really racing they're all just kind of doing a time

11:48

trial simultaneously and at the end

11:50

of the session the slowest five cars are eliminated

11:54

and those are the cars that start at the back

11:56

of the grid in positions 20 to 16 In

12:00

Q2, the remaining 15 cars

12:02

go again and again, the slowest five are

12:04

knocked out. And then in Q3, you've got

12:07

10 cars left. And again, their best times

12:09

in that session determine their

12:11

starting order. So the fastest car in

12:13

the Q3 session starts the race

12:15

in the front, which we call pole

12:17

position. It is important

12:20

to know that it's how you do

12:22

in each session that determines

12:24

your starting place, not your overall best

12:26

time. So for example, rain

12:28

could show up in Q3 and

12:31

make everybody slower than the cars that got

12:33

knocked out in Q2. But

12:35

those in Q3 would still start in the top 10. It's

12:39

also important to know that despite being

12:42

basically a time trial, it's actually pretty

12:44

fun to watch. The sort

12:46

of knockout, the ticking of the clock nature

12:48

really adds to the drama and you get

12:51

some pretty amazing moments, especially if rain shows

12:53

up, which tends to

12:55

throw everybody's plans into disarray. But

12:58

most importantly for me, it's really, it's the

13:00

first chapter in the story of the race

13:02

weekend. I sort of

13:04

feel incomplete if I don't watch qualifying and just turn on

13:06

the race, because then you're like, well, how did that guy,

13:09

you know, start in third? Yeah,

13:11

totally. Yeah, it feels like almost like

13:13

not watching the semi-final before the final,

13:16

because so much of the, you know, so

13:18

much of what's going to happen during the race

13:20

is going to be influenced by where people are

13:22

starting. And that's because it's not

13:24

just the fastest car that wins, you have to overtake

13:26

people in this sport. And if you are, you

13:29

know, a car that has tricky

13:31

time on a certain type of track getting

13:33

overtakes done, then maybe qualifying is more important

13:35

for you. So it's all

13:38

those storylines that sort of emerge throughout that race

13:40

weekend. Now, as

13:42

you become more of an F1 sicko, and there

13:44

are some people who do live by this, what

13:47

Drew just said about qualifying, there are people who are like,

13:49

you're really not getting the full race

13:52

weekend unless you watch practice. I haven't

13:54

gone that far, because for

13:56

the most part practice tends not to be that eventful,

13:58

and like you get a lot of, like, like a

14:00

good commentary during it and there's, you know,

14:03

catch up on hot dots. But

14:05

it's not necessarily the most riveting thing to watch. And

14:07

a lot of people tend not to watch it, which

14:10

is a problem for Formula One, or

14:12

at least Formula One feels it's a problem and

14:15

would really like it. Even so there

14:17

being events on

14:19

two days with a thing that people

14:21

feel passionate about watching. What

14:23

if you had three days of just

14:25

must see racing action? Hence

14:28

a different weekend format that

14:30

F1 has been trying to figure out. That's

14:33

right. I'll get

14:35

to that in a second. I just want to

14:37

go over the race itself. The

14:40

yes, the race race. The

14:43

races are on Sunday and last

14:45

a maximum of two hours during which

14:47

they drive nearly 200 miles. The

14:50

number of laps varies because each circuit

14:53

is a different length. They

14:56

all feature at least one pit stop, sometimes

14:58

multiple. It's up to the teams, really how

15:01

they, how they want to play it. Rob

15:03

will get to strategy and tires, which affect

15:06

the pit stops. At

15:08

the end, the drivers are awarded points

15:11

that contribute to their championship standings and

15:14

crucially only the top 10

15:16

finishers in the race

15:18

are awarded points with first

15:20

place getting 25 second place gets 18. I

15:24

kind of steps down all the way to 10th

15:26

place, which gets one point. It

15:29

is pretty brutal. If you finish

15:31

outside the top 10 and get zero

15:33

points, having done an entire race weekend, but

15:35

that is just one of the many stories

15:38

you as a viewer are following. Cause like

15:40

you said, Danny, sometimes it is a huge

15:42

achievement. If an underdog driver or team gets

15:44

a single championship point. Yeah, because they're fighting

15:46

the teams around them. And that might be

15:49

just the two points they needed to get

15:51

seventh in the championship and then get millions

15:53

more at the end of the season. Very

15:56

true. So now that we've thrown all

15:58

of that at you, like Rob. said there

16:00

is one more kind of confusing

16:02

event that only shows up occasionally.

16:04

So there are six sprint

16:07

events scheduled for

16:09

this year and the sprint

16:11

is basically a short race. It's one

16:13

third the distance of the normal race.

16:16

There are no pit stops and

16:20

the top eight finishers in the sprint

16:22

earn points. So it's eight for first

16:25

place down to one for eight. On

16:28

race weekends where there is a sprint we

16:30

get one practice session on Friday followed

16:33

by sprint specific qualifying

16:35

which they call the shootout.

16:37

It works like regular qualifying but the sessions are

16:40

a bit shorter. On

16:42

Saturday the sprint itself happens then

16:45

we get regular qualifying for the race

16:48

and the race is on Sunday as

16:50

usual. And that is a change from

16:53

last year so even smaller rules like

16:55

this get tweaked on an annual basis.

16:58

That's right it's only been around for like five years or so

17:00

and it's it's still a little

17:02

divisive. Like you said F1 basically

17:04

introduced them so that they could sell more tickets

17:06

and TV time. Sometimes they're fun

17:09

sometimes they're not. It used to be that

17:11

how you finished in the sprint affected the

17:13

race. It no longer it's it's it's siloed

17:15

off now and you get points. I

17:19

don't know if if if maybe all you have

17:21

time for is to watch the race sometimes they're

17:23

great. Yeah leave

17:26

it up to you. It's an extra short little

17:28

weird race. You can decide to

17:31

watch your nots and there's only six of

17:33

them. This year it's going to be China,

17:35

Miami, Austria, USA, Brazil and Qatar. Well

17:38

which USA? Oh um

17:41

COTA. Okay. Okay.

17:46

All right so like

17:48

I said there are two drivers per team

17:51

and teammates in F1 are a little

17:54

weird. They do

17:56

sometimes work together. So

17:58

for instance the car car behind

18:00

may be ordered to defend

18:03

against another attacking team, but

18:05

that's only if the driver listens to the team's orders.

18:08

It mostly happens. There

18:12

were some infamous occasions where they did

18:15

not. Every driver

18:17

out there thinks they are the best

18:19

and they especially want to beat their

18:21

teammates because they're the only

18:23

ones with the same machinery. It's

18:26

a pretty poor reflection on your ability

18:28

if your teammate beats you every time in the

18:31

same car. But

18:33

before we get to those teams and

18:35

their drivers, a quick note about how

18:37

to tell them apart on track. Each

18:40

team has a different paint job, which we

18:42

call a livery, but the

18:44

cars within the same team look

18:46

practically identical. So the major difference between

18:48

each car on the same team is

18:51

the color of their camera pod is

18:53

sometimes called a T-bar because

18:55

it looks like a little squat letter T

18:57

that sits on top of the car just

19:00

behind the driver's head. So one driver will

19:02

have a black T-bar while

19:04

another one will have a fluorescent yellow one.

19:07

Typically, it's the more senior driver that has the black one,

19:09

but that's not always the case. So

19:11

be on the lookout on the Shift

19:13

F1 social accounts for our spotters guide

19:15

as we get closer to the first

19:17

race. The only other way of

19:19

telling them apart is the color

19:22

and style of their helmets, but

19:24

the drivers change their helmets every

19:27

race. So it's kind

19:29

of a tricky one to

19:31

keep your eyes on on a weekend by weekend basis.

19:34

Yeah, it's also kind of obscured by

19:36

the halo, the kind of protective barrier

19:38

around them too. And

19:41

then one note about engines that can be a little

19:43

confusing. A lot of the teams have

19:45

names that you've heard of like Mercedes and

19:48

Ferrari, like those are F1 teams. But

19:50

in addition to being teams, they

19:52

also make their own engines and

19:55

then sell those engines to other

19:57

smaller teams, which we call customer

19:59

teams. So

20:02

with each team breakdown, we'll also mention

20:04

the engine manufacturer, because it's important to

20:06

know. All

20:09

right, but before we

20:11

get to all the teams and drivers, let's

20:13

take a quick commercial break.

20:19

And now we're back. Let's get

20:21

to the teams and drivers. Kick

20:24

it off, Danny O'Dwyer. Commercial

20:26

breaks, I feel like, are also

20:28

on theme with this. They really,

20:31

really are. Especially after the side

20:33

pods of this podcast with

20:35

logos of crypto

20:37

companies, petrochemical companies. Although

20:40

I think we deselected those in the ad

20:43

tools. That's true.

20:45

Yeah, I think neither of those will come up. So

20:47

maybe we're not very formula one after all. Yes,

20:51

let's dive into the teams. We've broken these up

20:53

between the three of us. And

20:56

I have the honor of talking about

20:58

Red Bull. Yes, that's right. The drinks

21:00

company, what with the touring with the

21:03

bull and the funny commercials. And they

21:05

have all those weird soapbox derbies and

21:07

people create, you know, small planes

21:10

and jump off of piers and weird

21:12

European cities. Red Bull. It's

21:14

a weird company. They make people go

21:16

into balloons and space and jump out.

21:18

And they also have a formula one

21:20

team. And you would think with all

21:22

of that excess and frivolity that this

21:24

would be a piss poor team that

21:26

just sort of turns up cells and

21:28

cans of its weird elixir and then

21:30

disappears. But in fact, since their entrance

21:33

into the sports, they have been rather

21:35

dominant. They

21:37

are currently enjoying their second sort of

21:39

dynastic period within the sport, just

21:41

having scooped up three drivers championships

21:43

in a row. And

21:45

the construction is very important the last year as

21:47

well. And their car is

21:50

very easy to see

21:52

or to pick out because it kind of

21:54

looks like one of their cans

21:56

turned on its side with four wheels strapped

21:58

to it. front wing and rear

22:00

wing. It's got a big red bull on it. It's

22:03

dark blue. The engine is

22:06

made by Honda and Red

22:08

Bull. What's the situation

22:10

with them? The Red Bull powertrain's

22:12

rebranding. It's still Honda making

22:15

it. It's just that Honda

22:17

wanted to exit the sport and Red

22:19

Bull was standing up their own engine

22:22

development arm. But

22:24

that takes years. We'll get to that in a bit.

22:27

Engines are hard. So while Red Bull is

22:29

spinning up their own engine designing

22:31

operation, it's still Honda selling them.

22:34

I think they slap a badge on it, but it's a

22:36

Honda engine. There is no Honda team,

22:39

weirdly. This is the only engine

22:41

that doesn't really have... It's not

22:43

a full-time constructor. Right.

22:45

It's a team with a Japanese

22:47

engine based in the

22:50

UK, but they're originally from Austria. In

22:52

fact, they own one of the circuits

22:54

that we're going to be racing on,

22:56

the Red Bull ring in

22:58

Austria, previously known as the A1

23:01

ring. It's a bit of an older track that

23:03

they've done up in recent years. The team

23:05

principal, who is effectively sort of like... I

23:08

guess the role of this person changes a

23:10

little bit team to team, but it's effectively

23:13

the sort of head coach, the manager of

23:15

the team. The boss. The boss,

23:17

in some ways, the sort of owner

23:19

of the team in some situations as

23:21

well. The team principal for

23:24

Red Bull is currently Christian

23:26

Horner, who has been their team principal

23:29

since the very start. He is

23:31

currently embroiled in a rather,

23:33

I guess, opaque

23:36

issue within the company in terms

23:38

of his... How he was treating

23:40

a certain employee. There's an internal

23:42

investigation going on. At the

23:45

time of recording, we're not quite sure what's

23:47

going on. They interviewed him last week. But

23:49

if he was to leave the team, I

23:52

don't know what the circumstances of that will

23:54

be. I'm not Making any

23:56

judgment calls on that. But Just in terms of

23:58

F1, it would be a massive... The of

24:00

a deal of Christian Horner was

24:02

lost at the to principle of

24:04

our team is sort of. I

24:06

am a mainstay of that of

24:09

Red Bull as he is not

24:11

though arguably the most important administrative

24:13

officer or that probably goes to

24:15

their chief technical officer Adrian Newey

24:17

who is largely through of understood

24:19

to be the air one of

24:21

the best car designers on the

24:23

best engineers in the sport of

24:25

he has managed to produce and

24:27

championship winning cars for Red Bull

24:29

for. Many many years, even when they

24:32

were winning championships, they were. Usually

24:34

second am. so and new he

24:36

a sort of their secret weapon

24:38

am it does some weird internal

24:40

politics stuffing happening at Red Bull.

24:42

A district managers who was the

24:44

founder of the Rebel Company and

24:46

he passed away in late twenty

24:48

twenty two and it sounds like

24:50

there are. Some internal the

24:53

you know, Power. Struggles going

24:55

on between the parent company and the

24:57

At F One team which is arguably

24:59

one of it's biggest non drink releases

25:01

and Wings Am, so I wonder if

25:03

we'll see some of that sort of

25:05

stuff play at this year as well.

25:08

Behind the scenes and lot of F

25:10

One is about politics. At last year

25:12

they are first place in the construct

25:14

A savage have largely because of the

25:16

success of their number one driver undeniable

25:19

number one driver. current drivers champion and

25:21

champion for the past three years in

25:23

a row. And Max for stop

25:25

and he is.she is racing royalty.

25:27

His father just was an F

25:29

One driver. not nearly as successful

25:31

and but he was in the

25:33

sport for a while Am. Like

25:35

I said, last year was his

25:38

third championship. is I twenty six

25:40

years old Am. and his style

25:42

I guess is that other a

25:44

confident young driver who's got his

25:46

shoulders as am. In years

25:48

past, perhaps folks would say he was

25:50

a bit more aggressive. In recent years,

25:52

he hasn't needed to be aggressive scraps.

25:55

That's part of us am. But.

25:57

I yeah he's there. He's.

25:59

A fantasy. The driver regardless of whatever

26:01

you think about his temperament, his skills,

26:03

or and really, Outstanding! If

26:05

you hear other drivers talk about specially

26:08

is a X teammates talk about just

26:10

how in in and I guess at

26:12

close to the car he is in

26:14

terms of being able to understand when

26:16

is where it's waiters and when it's

26:19

twitches am he's really a generational talent

26:21

and the real question is whether nos

26:23

he and his a longtime girlfriend scary

26:25

pk will eventually tie the knot. It's

26:28

been three years he did steal her

26:30

off of another driver am and on

26:32

not to reduce carry because agency in

26:34

this regard. But am I think that's the

26:36

thing world? You know that, the championships or one

26:38

thing. but I think it's about time he said

26:41

a put his money whereas math isn't and you

26:43

know, Put. A Ring Honest as Sergio

26:45

Perez doesn't have that problem. He's happy

26:47

married man with a children's He is

26:49

there an older drivers thirty three. Sorry.

26:52

thirty four now and he's a Mexican driver,

26:54

elder statesman. I don't know he's been around,

26:57

he's he's been a lot of teams Syrian,

26:59

even. Journey minutes of way to

27:01

put as and he largely was kind of

27:03

on the way out of this force at

27:05

the end of the Twenty Twenty season and

27:07

but had a terrific. Last. Couple

27:09

of races right as Alexander album was

27:12

having a bad set of races and

27:14

and basically took over from him and

27:16

Twenty Twenty One last year. he play

27:18

seconds. At although. And.

27:21

Fans will say that might have been a

27:23

lot more to do with the car than

27:25

his particular am mentality or ability. Last year

27:27

seems like is losing a bit of an

27:29

edge and which is something that's happened to

27:31

lot of Max for Stop and teammates over

27:34

the years as the car teams there seems

27:36

to sort of trend towards the way he

27:38

likes to drive which is as I said

27:40

previously at quite difficult for other drivers to

27:42

pick up on. and that's Rebel Bear. probably

27:44

the favorites going into Twenty Twenty Four. Yeah.

27:47

I would say that Sergio Perez also

27:49

ah we keep a sharp eye on

27:52

driver contracts and he like a lot

27:54

of the rest of the driver here

27:56

gonna coincidentally his contract is up. At.

27:59

The end of this year, Gonna has passed

28:01

the field fourteen I think we counted last

28:03

week. Is that right? Oh my gosh, yeah.

28:07

You're. Right? So next up his Mercedes

28:10

they are of course a German

28:12

team other f one base like

28:14

most actually to sniff one teams

28:16

ah their Hq in the Uk.

28:19

And. It's kind of the you know, the

28:21

silicon Valley a formula one. His. Arm.

28:25

Until Twenty twenty one. Mercedes

28:27

had one the previous seven.

28:30

Drivers and Constructors Championships. Yikes.

28:32

So they were the previous

28:34

dynasty. Recently they've had to

28:36

take a backseat to read

28:38

both. After they pursue

28:40

a car design that really didn't pan out.

28:43

So all eyes will be on them

28:46

this year to see if they have

28:48

turned it around. Ah, their livery we

28:50

haven't actually seen yet by Mike. Assume

28:52

that it either black or silver and

28:54

to your mother all black this year

28:56

Drew so it's sure there's so much

28:58

carbon fiber out there. The whole bit

29:00

about like that here's a you recognize

29:03

was which car and driver is was

29:05

I'm like sorry new F One fans

29:07

They all collectively decided to spend a

29:09

supreme has. Wade. Through

29:11

Ah they run their own engine

29:14

a Mercedes engine on their team.

29:16

Principal is a guy named Toto

29:18

verse. She. Needed

29:20

a more menacing Germanic figure.

29:22

As you keep, there isn't

29:24

one. Maybe Arnold Schwarzenegger, Toto

29:26

Wolff is your team principal

29:29

or they placed second last

29:31

year. Other drivers. Are.

29:33

Number One, Sir Lewis Hamilton.

29:36

He is one of the all time greats.

29:38

Having. One Seven Championships tied

29:41

only with Michael Schumacher.

29:44

He has spent the last

29:46

eleven seasons. With. mercedes and

29:49

this will be his final one

29:51

before he moves to ferrari that

29:53

announcement came only a short while

29:55

ago as it is reporting and

29:58

was pretty shocking considering his record

30:00

with Mercedes and with Total Wolf at

30:02

the helm. So it will be pretty interesting to

30:04

see how he fares this year.

30:07

He is British. He's the

30:09

only black driver in the sport. Last

30:12

year he placed third in the championship and he

30:14

is another of the elder, not

30:16

the eldest, but one of them, an

30:19

ancient 39 years old. His

30:23

teammate is a young gun named George

30:25

Russell. He's 26. This is

30:28

Russell's third year with Mercedes

30:30

and while some expected him

30:32

to outshine the aging Hamilton, he

30:34

made some pretty big errors last year

30:36

that resulted in him

30:38

coming a distant eighth in

30:41

the driver's championship to

30:43

Hamilton's third. In prior years

30:45

though he had been very consistent and

30:48

excelled in qualifying especially. So we'll

30:51

have to see if this year is more

30:53

of a return to form. But

30:56

speaking of Ferrari, Rob,

30:59

tell us. Yeah

31:01

it's the most storied team in Formula

31:04

One. It has sort

31:06

of the longest history in racing

31:09

for a number of years. Ferrari was considered

31:11

such an integral part of the sport and

31:13

the thought of it leaving would be so

31:15

devastating the health of the sport that the

31:18

end of each season they just received bags

31:20

of cash from F1 just for

31:22

being Ferrari. The historical franchise award

31:24

if memory serves is

31:27

what they called it. They finally got rid of that because

31:29

the other teams didn't think it was fair that Ferrari was

31:31

pocketing 50 million dollars for just

31:33

being Ferrari. So now

31:36

they're down there with the rest

31:38

of them. Traditionally,

31:40

Ferrari, you know,

31:42

if you've seen the movie, this

31:45

is not a... the movie's not

31:47

making it up. Ferrari starts out as a

31:49

car manufacturer that is there to support the

31:51

ambitions of an owner who likes to go

31:53

racing. And so for

31:55

a number of years like the Ferrari F1

31:58

team was kind of the, you know, One

32:01

of the lungs of the Ferrari com

32:03

you know car manufacturing company in terms

32:05

of the importance of it's business or

32:07

in recent years that may change their

32:10

spun off from Fiat Chrysler in Twenty

32:12

sixteen. Ah, they are. The. Most

32:14

ridiculously profitable manufacture in the

32:17

world. You know other other

32:19

manufacturers they the pocket of

32:21

very small miles from from

32:23

the sale of individual far

32:26

for ari. Pockets. Given

32:28

up tens of thousands of dollars

32:30

a month of you know a

32:32

hundred thousand dollars from from moving

32:34

one part of gotta wait list

32:36

to buy a Ferrari stretching into

32:38

next year. They recently appointed Fred

32:40

Visser a long time captain a

32:42

different race in teams as they

32:44

are team principal. Ah he is

32:46

a sort of hard nose and

32:48

very experienced operator and it seems

32:50

like you sort of put their

32:52

to right the ship as it

32:54

were because Ferrari has been team

32:56

that has struggled. Off and

32:58

on since or the departure of

33:01

Michael Schumacher in this or the

33:03

legendary leadership that surrounded him or

33:05

the had good season. Since then

33:07

they have won championships since he

33:09

laughed. but they've never return to

33:12

the glory days of the nineties

33:14

and early two thousand. Ah there

33:16

to drivers are of sorrow Claire

33:18

who is a mani guest A

33:20

driver. Depending on which language he

33:23

is speaking, he changes how he

33:25

pronounces his name. He speaks French,

33:27

English, And Italian. Ah, you sort

33:29

of tapped as one you're promising

33:31

drivers in the sport a number

33:33

of years ago. Ah, you know,

33:35

stock. If it has slipped all

33:37

or his the very slightly still

33:39

regarded as one of the fastest

33:42

and most talented drivers. He's had

33:44

some atrocious luck at Ferrari, but

33:46

as you to, there still seems

33:48

pretty bright. The extended him recently

33:50

to be partnered with Lewis Hamilton

33:52

for whatever is the foreseeable future

33:54

after Lewis Hamilton moves that team

33:56

in that process. the person who got

33:58

a little bit screwed one Carlos Sainz,

34:01

a Spanish driver who played

34:03

seventh last year in the championship. He

34:05

has been a, speaking of

34:07

journeymen, he is a very good driver who

34:09

has just moved around to a lot of

34:12

places because as good as he is, he's

34:14

never been seen as the primary

34:16

driver. He's never been seen as

34:18

like this guy is gonna be

34:21

the franchise and so he

34:23

gets moved around a lot. Yeah,

34:26

I will point out that we talk a lot

34:28

about like the number one driver, you know, primary

34:31

driver. These aren't necessarily

34:33

codified in the

34:37

team's like running order but

34:40

it's like a sort of like a wink and a nod.

34:42

A lot of the

34:44

time a lot of teams will mostly say like we

34:46

don't have a number one driver but sometimes it's pretty

34:48

apparent. Yeah, sometimes

34:50

it's not, sometimes it's close but I mean

34:53

Ferrari next year will be an interesting situation

34:55

and how it goes there with Leclerc but

34:58

yeah, yeah, a lot of the time

35:00

it's pretty assumed. If it's not seniority,

35:02

you know, then it's point. Might

35:05

get pretty interesting there this year though. I'm curious if

35:07

science has to go into good. He does not have,

35:09

he has a contract this year, nobody knows where he's

35:11

going after this. He does not currently have a ride

35:14

for the next season so I'm curious if he goes

35:16

full Cobra Kai or whether he shows

35:18

he's a good soldier and willing to do whatever

35:20

it takes to help out the team that dumped

35:23

him. Well one team that

35:25

has a very obvious number one driver is our

35:27

next one McLaren who

35:29

have a beautiful orange car or

35:31

papaya as they often refer

35:33

to it as. It's one of the more noticeable

35:37

cars on the grid. It has a Mercedes

35:39

engine in it, they are based in the

35:41

UK and they've been around since about the

35:43

60s founded by actually a New Zealander Bruce

35:45

McLaren and they have,

35:48

they're sort of an interesting team, lots of

35:50

different partnerships over

35:52

the years. Pretty good

35:54

decent run in the 90s and early aughts as

35:56

a Mercedes works team and when

35:58

they made that transition. They've had a

36:00

lot of great drivers over the years, but

36:03

they sort of struggled in the modern era,

36:05

especially when we started this podcast about 10

36:08

years ago at this stage almost. They

36:13

were sort of a well-regarded

36:15

name who really weren't picking up many

36:17

points, and that has shifted in the

36:19

past few years. A

36:22

large part of that has to do with a big rebuild

36:24

that they've done there. CEO Zach

36:26

Brown is a very familiar

36:28

face around the grid, an American guy who's

36:31

been the sort of helm of this organization

36:34

for much of the past decade. Their

36:36

team principal is Andrea Stella, who operates and takes

36:39

care of most of the race weekend

36:42

business. Last year they

36:44

placed fourth, which for them is pretty

36:46

terrific given the recent history.

36:49

And they did so rather convincingly,

36:51

mostly down to their number one

36:54

driver, Lando Narris, who was a

36:56

24-year-old English... Actually

36:59

well, his nationality is UK, but I think like many

37:01

of these drivers, he was born

37:04

in Brussels or something. They're

37:07

all born all over the place and where

37:09

they grew up and what their nationality is and sometimes somewhere

37:13

else, lots of international children. Last

37:15

year he placed in sixth. He

37:18

also sort of matured a lot last year.

37:21

He was kind of like one of the young,

37:24

at-heart drivers on the grid, especially during

37:26

the Covid years. I think he was

37:29

a fantastic representative for the sport, for

37:31

younger people doing

37:33

great like Twitch streams and getting involved

37:35

in the esports side of stuff. But

37:38

last year he caught a more mature

37:41

figure, I think, and whether

37:44

or not there's anything to do with his success, it

37:47

seems at least that he's really knuckled down and

37:49

found his form. His teammate,

37:51

Oscar Piastri, in many ways reminds

37:53

me of Lando Narris from a couple of years back. He's

37:56

an Australian. Last year he placed

37:58

ninth. He's

38:01

22 years old, like I said, and

38:05

in an interesting position. I feel like he

38:08

isn't... nobody's expecting him to

38:10

fight with Lando for the number

38:13

one season McLaren, but much

38:15

like Perez at Red Bull, I think

38:18

they will want to see him

38:20

keep up as much as possible

38:22

with Lando this time around. I

38:25

think there's a chance that he does very

38:28

well in the season. And then, yeah,

38:32

he's one I'm watching, for sure. Next

38:36

up, Rob. Yeah, the

38:39

Aston Martin team, kind of

38:41

an odd one here. So they

38:43

are a Mercedes customer team. They

38:46

are led by Mike Crack, took

38:48

over after the

38:50

sort of surprise dismissal of their

38:53

previous team principal, our staff now

38:55

are. But you know, he

38:58

seems to have done a fine job. Like Aston Martin

39:00

has become a more competitive team on his

39:02

watch, but kind of gives off non-entity

39:04

vibes in part because the big

39:06

wheel at Aston Martin is in

39:09

fact a billionaire named

39:11

Lawrence Stroll, who

39:13

sort of had a reputation cultivated as a

39:15

turnaround expert, but kind of a guy who

39:18

takes over companies and reworks their business and

39:22

creates a lot of value from distressed

39:24

assets and then flips them or runs

39:26

them. And

39:29

he appears to have started doing that

39:31

with Aston Martin, which I'm not sure

39:33

was always the plan because he got

39:35

into racing to support the ambitions of

39:37

his son Lance, a

39:39

Canadian race car driver who has

39:42

flashes of being a totally decent driver.

39:44

But if he were not a billionaire

39:46

son who did not own

39:49

a Formula One team, Mike

39:51

probably wouldn't have an

39:54

F1 racing seat, but

39:58

happily he is blessed with a father who came. can buy

40:00

an F1 team and let him be the driver for it.

40:06

Last year, it kind of an embarrassing season because

40:09

with one of the better cars they put together

40:11

in years, he kind of

40:14

sucked in it and was a

40:16

non-factor in the championship points race.

40:18

But again, dad owns the company,

40:21

but increasingly it also kind of feels like

40:23

dad is running the company because he's really into

40:26

running an F1 team now. And

40:28

so Lance is in the position that

40:30

I think we've encountered from time to

40:32

time with sometimes a child develops an

40:34

interest and then a parent just takes

40:36

it over and maybe ruins it a

40:38

little bit for their kid, who can

40:40

say? His

40:43

teammate there is Fernando

40:45

Alonso, one of

40:47

the biggest names in the sport, one

40:49

of the best characters in

40:52

the sport, I believe. The

40:54

best description of him probably was one he

40:57

gave, of himself

40:59

during Drive to Survive last year,

41:01

where last year, the year

41:03

before, where he says, like, you know, F1

41:07

needs a villain, and

41:09

I guess it's me or something like that. And

41:11

that is the part that he's been willing to

41:13

play time and again. He

41:15

has cultivated a reputation definitely

41:18

deserved, but again, he exaggerates

41:20

it as just one of

41:22

the smartest drivers there is.

41:24

If you follow American football,

41:26

Fernando Alonso has huge Aaron

41:28

Rodgers energy in terms of

41:30

just like the way

41:32

he approaches the sport, emphasizes sort

41:35

of the cunning and the

41:37

strategic genius of it. Also

41:39

a very, very good driver and also

41:42

a pathologically self-interested

41:45

man, even by the

41:47

standards of F1 drivers. He's

41:49

at Aston Martin right now, but he has left

41:51

chaos in his wake. He left

41:54

the Alpine team sort of on

41:56

a surprise basis to jump ship

41:58

to Aston Martin. He

42:01

jumped to McLaren right as that team fell

42:03

off a cliff. He drove for Ferrari he

42:07

was at God the news that

42:09

McLaren before that and some

42:12

people still say that he

42:14

knocked on them to f1 and caused McLaren

42:17

to receive one of the stiffest penalties

42:19

in the history of the sport because

42:23

He was just in the fit of peak and decided

42:25

to burn the house down on the

42:27

way out. So that's that's the driver lineup You

42:30

know the the rich kid

42:33

and the rich kid and the

42:35

the aging eighth Yeah,

42:38

42 years old. He is the

42:40

oldest driver and shows no sign

42:42

of slowing down 40

42:46

I think has been like sort of the unofficial cap People

42:49

start looking around like I don't know but like

42:51

he is still Drive

42:53

the wheels off. He fights in that bomb Brady

42:55

place like yeah offseason f1 news they

42:58

just start running stories that were obviously planted

43:00

by a PR people today one of the

43:02

stories that I saw was Fernando

43:05

Alonzo after you know, recent

43:07

medical evaluations pleasantly surprised thinks

43:09

he can drive till he's 50 Well

43:15

speaking of alpein they're the next team

43:17

to talk about here alpein is the

43:19

extremely French team It

43:21

is spelled like Alpine But

43:24

alpein is the racing brand

43:26

for the French car company Renault

43:28

Which is itself partly owned by

43:30

the country of France Their

43:32

team principal is French. They run

43:35

a Renault engine in their car

43:37

and both their drivers are

43:39

French we Yeah

43:42

Their livery is blue and pink Like

43:46

the tree color Exactly,

43:48

yes, their team principal

43:51

is Bruno famine. He's relatively new.

43:53

He started midway through the last

43:56

season Last year this

43:58

team placed six their drivers

44:01

are Pierre Gasly. He has

44:03

had one of the most

44:05

tumultuous F1 careers,

44:08

namely because it touched Formula One,

44:10

or it touched Red Bull,

44:13

which, you know, if you're in the sport

44:15

long enough, you learn that, boy, unless you're

44:17

Max Verstappen, it sucks to be a Red

44:19

Bull driver because they will boot you out

44:21

mid season. If you make

44:24

so much as a single mistake that happened to

44:26

Pierre Gasly, but he has now landed

44:28

at Alpine. He placed 11th

44:30

last year. He's 28 years old, his teammate, Esteban

44:34

Ocon, 27 years old, also from France,

44:36

last year placed 12th. He's another one

44:38

that has sort of bounced around. Yeah,

44:43

he, Ocon

44:46

has sort of rubbed elbows

44:48

with his teammates in some

44:51

occasionally catastrophic ways. I don't

44:54

know that we've seen that so much recently,

44:57

but sometimes sparks can fly. So, well, these

44:59

guys are childhood's best friends who hate each

45:01

other. True.

45:05

I think over a

45:07

girl. They have

45:09

not said, they've just alluded to things were done

45:12

that will never be spoken of. So

45:14

I thought it was a girl, like

45:17

for sure. I like to think

45:19

it's the, that they were the two guys

45:21

in that Ridley Scott movie about the

45:23

two fences during the French civil

45:26

war. What was that called again? The

45:28

two lads having fights over and over

45:31

again. The duelists. Yeah. Yeah. That's,

45:33

they were the two guys in the

45:35

duelists. Yeah. Oh, now they're

45:37

driving cars. That might qualify

45:39

it though for a page and exclusive podcast. Next

45:45

up is Williams who are, you know, we've been doing

45:47

these teams in order of where they finished. And really

45:49

a couple of years ago, if you'd said we were

45:51

talking about Williams, not last,

45:54

but fourth from the bottom,

45:57

you would have said that was ridiculous. My friends.

46:00

Daniel Am. they are another

46:02

story. The British team as

46:04

based off of another driver

46:07

much like Mclaren Am. In

46:09

recent years the family run

46:12

business of Williams was sort

46:14

of. I. Am you

46:16

know that the influence of the family

46:18

Wayne's as as the founder of the

46:21

at the team passed away in his

46:23

daughter sort of had a tough front

46:25

of running the team for a while

46:27

there and it was eventually bought by

46:29

a air. Venture Capital

46:31

firm. I guess it was Darnton Capital

46:34

M. Air but in

46:36

more recent years again they have

46:38

had much more. They are. They

46:40

are sort of properly rising the

46:42

ship am and the person at

46:44

the forefront of that is James

46:46

Vows who at is A and

46:48

other stories an engineer within the

46:50

spores. He was a Mercedes for

46:52

long time he is based be

46:54

running the ship over. There is

46:56

team principal. He sort of gives

46:58

off principal vibes. He's kind of

47:01

you know is a front and

47:03

center allies. He's talking and he.

47:05

Goes on the you to chart a

47:07

you tube amp show and he's and

47:09

he's trying to be at. They're basically

47:12

explaining how they're fixing the steam and

47:14

have thing everything is going and davor

47:16

Mercedes engine in there as well. They

47:18

play seventh last year and they are

47:21

two drivers are in very different physicians

47:23

I would say Alex album as is

47:25

he flies on their the tie flag

47:28

Am I think he was technically born

47:30

in the Uk air but he is

47:32

massive tie heritage of course am he.

47:35

Placed. Thirteenth last year and it was

47:37

by far his best season. Alex's somebody

47:39

a lot of people like is a

47:41

very. Amicable, Guy wears a

47:44

hard on a slave. I would

47:46

say he's probably one of the

47:48

more vulnerable sort of or at

47:50

least emotionally a sort of authentic

47:52

are transparent driver am and he

47:54

had a tough go of us.

47:56

Like many to his, i read

47:58

both and people feel. That he may

48:00

have been sort of spoiled and away

48:03

like he might have and run ragged

48:05

there we'd never guess. a good driver

48:07

Adam and he's doing tons of fantastic

48:09

last year is Twenty Seven Seas no

48:11

spring chicken for the sport these days,

48:13

am. When you started and thirty

48:15

really want to make sure you're you're worth the

48:18

or a paycheck or they're gonna try and bring

48:20

a young gun in their am but he is

48:22

on the ascendancy and as were looking at the

48:24

sort of the lemon dance it's gonna happen later

48:27

this year. When we start to be you know

48:29

everyone starts to look at who they're gonna pick

48:31

up for. Twenty Twenty Five album is one of

48:33

those drivers that air folks are saying may be

48:35

in line for that opening up. Mercedes.

48:38

Sees a his teammates logan. Sergeants

48:40

has had a tougher go of

48:43

as he's an American driver. He

48:45

pays twenty first last year which

48:47

is lower. Than. Liam

48:49

Lawson who lost his cease as air

48:51

what are we calling that team again

48:54

or whatever they were the last year

48:56

near advertisement. Last year they were alpha

48:58

tower fell off Atari. okay grace they

49:00

weren't are also the were off Atari

49:02

and the next year they're called something

49:04

out in August of that the A

49:07

for Cabana hot Seconds am. he is

49:09

a spring chicken. He's only twenty one

49:11

years old boss. I think last year

49:13

was pretty catastrophic for him. No one's

49:15

expect him to keep pace with Albano,

49:18

don't think. but. Even given that, he

49:20

basically couldn't have done much worse

49:22

except I guess De Vries technically

49:24

probably did do worse yet writing

49:26

and I think this is definitely

49:28

the put up or shut up

49:30

serious for handing. I think that's

49:32

fair to say which is a

49:34

big same as best these we

49:36

really don't get that many American

49:38

drivers even though. It. Does a

49:40

lot of the sport is oh my Americans and As

49:42

American teams. Bertram.

49:45

Allies: you looted Any Alpha

49:48

Towering is no more. Long

49:50

live Visa, Cash, app

49:52

are be ceases. Not.

49:54

Rb is that would be more fun.

49:57

We got the. Cars.

50:00

The maybe they really are doing this with

50:02

is not be the cash out rebel. They don't

50:04

want people saying that no. No,

50:06

or as you might be able to

50:08

tell from it's isn't t name is

50:11

sort of a sister team. To

50:14

Red Bull Rb stands wind or

50:16

it. It doesn't that it does

50:19

Red Bull. There. Are

50:21

limits about how much technical information you can

50:23

share with another team. but in the past

50:25

Red Bull has used This team is sort

50:27

of a farm system for it's younger drivers

50:29

that may be changing. There's

50:32

talk of the team wanting to assert

50:34

themselves as a stronger force in and

50:36

of themselves. or but the Rebel connection

50:38

is is still very strong. I'm yeah

50:40

act I am very curious to see

50:42

what the identity of this team will

50:44

be added as I think we're calling

50:46

are be I think that's the The

50:48

Shore ham I'm not calling it v

50:50

cash app are B M I don't

50:53

thing also calling it V Carb. The.

50:55

Admin are on my caller V car or

50:58

like that. It is

51:00

a blue and red. I actually really like their liver

51:02

it out if there for the that past few years

51:04

they've had or it. I think this is actually. Reminiscent

51:07

of a livery that was like three years ago that

51:09

I really enjoyed. I'd also kind i went by your

51:11

credit card. F K.

51:15

Ah, they've got that Honda/red Bull

51:17

engine in there. It is an

51:20

Italian team. Actually based in

51:22

Italy. Their team

51:24

principal is the guy named Laura.

51:26

Mickey's. He stepped in

51:28

at the end of last year. He

51:31

is the former sporting director at Ferrari,

51:33

though before that he worked at the

51:35

F I A the sport's governing body

51:37

as safety director and deputy race directors.

51:40

Who knows a few things about cars.

51:43

And has served as a race

51:46

engineer and head of vehicle performance

51:48

at the teams to two times

51:50

ago it was called Toro Rosso

51:52

which was a great name because

51:54

that's Italian for. Red

51:57

Bull. So.

52:00

Yeah, he's been there before. He is coming

52:02

back. I think he was actually there when

52:04

it was called Menardi. So that's

52:06

what happens in F1 is these teams

52:08

just get renamed. They

52:11

occasionally, there is a brand new team.

52:14

We'll get to that, the

52:17

newest one, although it's been some

52:19

years. And we're, there's trying, another

52:21

one is trying to come in. I'm

52:23

sure we'll hear all about that over the course of the season, but

52:25

yeah, this is the, this

52:27

is the eighth

52:29

place team last year. Their

52:32

drivers are Yuki

52:35

Tsunoda from Japan. He

52:37

is 23 years old. Last

52:40

year he placed 14th in the

52:42

driver's championship. He is another

52:44

one that came in sort of as a, like

52:47

a question mark. And we were

52:51

really sure if he was going to have a second

52:53

season, because he kept crashing the car. He

52:55

did. And he's

52:57

pretty funny on Drive to

52:59

Survive. He, someone asked him

53:01

what his favorite thing about F1 is. And he said

53:03

the food at the hospitality suite.

53:08

He's great. He's really fiery over the radio and

53:11

has really, he's matured as a driver. I think a lot

53:13

like you were mentioning, Landon Norris has. I

53:15

don't know that he is maybe as flashy,

53:20

but he outpaces his teammate

53:22

at least, who granted

53:24

was only in the car part of the season, that

53:27

teammate, Daniel Ricardo from Australia.

53:30

He is 34 years old. Last year placed 17th, but

53:34

he has also bounced

53:37

around in and out of the sport.

53:39

He's back in having spent a

53:42

year or so on the sidelines. He's

53:45

one that's had a lot of experience at

53:48

the top. He used to drive for Red

53:50

Bull. Boy, just everyone

53:52

has touched Red Bull. That's my

53:54

here. And everyone's

53:56

got a story. His was that Max

53:58

Verstappen came in. And he was like, I

54:01

don't want to be this this

54:03

fish in this Max Verstappen pond. So he bailed

54:05

and went to Reno, as it was called at

54:07

the time. Now, Alpine, that didn't really

54:09

pan out. But now he's back

54:11

in RB. And

54:15

just loves that roast beef. Real

54:18

quick, that would have been for the

54:20

RBS stands for. Oh,

54:22

my God. This is this is the thing, right?

54:24

Like that's that's the naming partnership they

54:27

need to pursue next year. RBS

54:29

is just like go

54:31

that go that direction. Real quick, just

54:33

because you mentioned, it's kind of

54:35

weird what is happening with this team with like, how

54:38

independent how competitive they want to be.

54:40

Their justification for this ridiculous name was

54:42

they want a title sponsor would kick

54:44

in more. So it kind

54:46

of sounds like they had to basically hang

54:48

this awful billboard on the name of

54:51

their car. But the weird thing is, yes,

54:53

they're based in Italy historically, based in Italy.

54:56

This year, apparently, extensive

54:58

parts of the operation are being

55:00

relocated to the UK, two million

55:02

lanes where Red Bull is based. And

55:05

so there's kind of like, it's

55:08

really hard to know what's going on with this

55:10

team. Sometimes it looks like it's being prepared for

55:13

sale. Right. Just in case Red Bull doesn't want

55:15

to operate two teams and wants to pocket a

55:18

billion dollars selling a team to someone who

55:20

wants to get into the sport. And

55:22

then there's other ways in which it looks like it

55:24

is being sort of brought in more closely under

55:27

the supervision of the

55:29

sort of the heart of

55:31

the Red Bull racing operation. And

55:34

Zach Brown all but accused, I

55:36

guess, Red Bull of relocating

55:39

operations, the Milton Keynes to blur

55:41

how the budget was being spent

55:43

between the two teams. So

55:47

real weird vibes around the future of this team. The

55:49

canteen budget specifically. Yeah. This

55:52

is why we love F1. There's so many

55:54

stories on and off the track. And

55:57

speaking of sponsors and.

56:00

Branding rob tell

56:02

us who's next Kick

56:05

salver. Well stake

56:07

f1 team kick salver

56:11

so some history

56:14

salver is uh You

56:16

know a long standing at this point team in f1 And

56:19

they have a proud history of being one of the worst teams

56:21

on the grid Operating on a

56:23

shoestring budget. Hey, look marussia would like to

56:26

talk to you about that You're

56:29

right, you know the saubers. Yes,

56:31

salver always made payroll. Uh, so

56:33

shout out to salver Marussia

56:36

is kind of still here danny. I'll get to that. That's

56:38

true. Yeah anyway,

56:40

uh, so salver Was

56:42

had a sort of naming partnership with

56:45

alfa romayo and they reached as alfa

56:47

romayo for a number of years uh,

56:50

and then The

56:53

team is being taken over

56:55

by outie in 2026 when

56:58

a whole new raft of regulations come into

57:00

play The

57:02

plan is for outie then to run this

57:05

team as an outie works team that's gonna

57:07

be an outie powertrain all this stuff You

57:10

just haven't heard too much about this and there's some rumors

57:12

that maybe this Marriage isn't

57:14

as this this engagement is not as sort

57:16

of rock solid as it was once thought

57:18

but in the meantime before outie comes in

57:22

uh, they are partnering with some of those prestigious

57:24

brands in the world like uh steak

57:27

and kick Which

57:30

one of those old names which one of those

57:32

is the cryptocassino I

57:35

think that's steak steak. Yeah. Yeah Right

57:38

and they can't they and and that's kind

57:41

of the real money sponsoring the team But

57:43

they kind of can't do that too much

57:45

because there's laws against gambling. Uh, you know

57:47

in tons of like Advertising

57:49

gambling in tons of places. Uh,

57:51

so kick is there They're

57:55

the streamer right right around the yes,

57:57

they're the the fewer

58:00

Decency rules live streaming.

58:02

Yeah, it's like it's like twitch but

58:04

with more people betting

58:06

on horses But

58:09

yeah fake digital horses uh,

58:12

so and and in keeping with that They

58:15

kind of like it's kind of a cool looking car, but

58:17

also it's the kind of a car that you get when

58:19

it's like Uh, what's going on

58:21

with your old sponsor? Sponsorship situation

58:23

like are you a for real

58:25

operation? Uh, they have

58:27

a highlighter neon green livery

58:31

That is lightly accenting the same

58:33

black unpainted carbon fiber that everyone

58:36

else is running as their

58:38

primary color Uh, they get

58:40

their engines from Ferrari. They're based out

58:42

of switzerland uh, their

58:44

team principal is alzandra aluni bravi

58:46

a sort

58:48

of long-time suit in

58:51

in motorsports Uh,

58:53

they have been declining in form, uh

58:55

in recent years last year. They placed

58:58

ninth. They have two drivers Both

59:00

on the last year of their contract. I believe

59:02

uh, one is valtteri botas a

59:05

Finnish driver placed 15th last year. He's

59:07

34 years old for

59:10

a long time was teammate of

59:13

Lewis hamilton at mercedes and established

59:15

beyond all doubt that he is

59:18

not championship timber,

59:21

uh at mercedes, but a very good driver

59:24

on his day, um The

59:26

results haven't really come at that. Uh

59:29

at sauber But you

59:31

know again, they have them the best cars. Uh,

59:33

joe ganyu is a chinese driver Uh

59:36

last year finished 18th. He's 24 years old Um,

59:40

it's also unclear what his future is both drivers

59:42

would love of course to stay there Uh

59:44

from when outie shows up and brings the real

59:47

money and the real uh, you know engineering budget

59:50

but nyva's future is secure joe is um

59:52

You know seems like a perfectly fine driver. It's

59:55

it's again hard to tell how good people are

59:57

in that alpha But one of the

59:59

major factors that led to Zhou getting

1:00:01

a seat was the fact that

1:00:03

Alfa Romeo is a Fiat brand

1:00:06

that was trying to raise

1:00:08

its profile in the Chinese auto

1:00:10

market. And so it was

1:00:13

theorized that having a Chinese driver racing for

1:00:15

the team would succeed in doing that. Doesn't

1:00:19

seem, I've heard that it didn't fully

1:00:21

work out, but I suspect the fact

1:00:23

that COVID happened and F1 has not

1:00:25

run in China, basically since Zhou joined

1:00:27

the team, did not help the

1:00:29

cause of the

1:00:31

team's profile abroad. But

1:00:34

yeah, both these guys are

1:00:36

kind of in a provey ear and it's going

1:00:38

to be tough to prove it in that car

1:00:40

based on recent history. And

1:00:43

the prize at the end of it is if

1:00:46

Audi comes into the team with the kind of

1:00:48

budget and resources people are thinking, suddenly

1:00:51

you would have a potentially front running

1:00:53

team, new seats open

1:00:55

up at a contender. So

1:00:58

there's to lose a

1:01:01

lot of stake foot on the season. See

1:01:04

what you did there. Our final

1:01:06

team to put a stake in it, if

1:01:08

you will. Yeah. That doesn't make any

1:01:10

sense. Our final team is

1:01:12

a team that we love though,

1:01:14

right Drew? Well,

1:01:19

so Haas F1 team, as

1:01:23

I alluded earlier, they are the most

1:01:26

new team to

1:01:28

Formula One. They actually kind of

1:01:30

bought the factory of an

1:01:32

old team called Marussia. They

1:01:35

are nominally an American team. They're

1:01:37

owned by American businessman, Gene Haas,

1:01:40

who makes his company make CNC

1:01:42

machines, which are basically factory robots.

1:01:44

Ironically though, this team

1:01:46

farms out as many parts of their car

1:01:49

as is allowed by the regulations. They do this

1:01:51

to keep the costs down. It's

1:01:54

an idea that initially returned pretty good

1:01:56

results, placing the team in fifth

1:01:58

in 2018. Yeah. Which

1:02:01

is just the third year of their existence, but

1:02:03

it has been pretty downhill from there, ninth,

1:02:06

ninth, 10th, eighth, 10th,

1:02:10

and as a result, their team

1:02:12

principal, uh, drive

1:02:14

to survives darling, Gunther Steiner

1:02:17

was fired earlier this year and

1:02:20

replaced by the team's former

1:02:22

track side engineering director, Ayo

1:02:25

Komatsu. Uh, it sounds like

1:02:27

they're doing sort of a tag team principle,

1:02:31

uh, thing there where Komatsu

1:02:33

is going to run the technical side and someone

1:02:35

else is going to come in and run like

1:02:37

the, uh, fundraising side,

1:02:39

the money, the wheeling and dealing that

1:02:42

the team principle often does. Um, so they don't,

1:02:44

they don't have to go to her around to

1:02:46

take pictures for Ikea catalogs anymore. That's

1:02:48

true. Yeah. Who, who will do that? Oh my

1:02:51

God. Uh,

1:02:54

yeah. I would say

1:02:56

don't expect just, you know, by

1:02:58

putting a new team principle in there, this is,

1:03:01

there's going to be some rebuilding. Um, don't

1:03:03

expect anything different. Maybe in this

1:03:05

first year, uh, I

1:03:07

think Komatsu is going to need some time to

1:03:09

turn things around. Uh, if you can't,

1:03:11

their livery is, uh, black and

1:03:14

red with a little white. They

1:03:16

run a Ferrari engine. In fact, a

1:03:18

lot of Ferrari parts. Um,

1:03:21

they are technically American, but

1:03:23

they're based in the UK and

1:03:25

last year they placed dead last, uh,

1:03:28

their drivers also didn't fare too

1:03:30

well. Um, they placed 16th and

1:03:33

19th respectively, both journeymen. Um,

1:03:36

Nico Holkenberg is a German

1:03:38

driver, 36 years old. He, uh,

1:03:41

like Ricardo, um, did

1:03:44

the, you know, it's not easy to do is to

1:03:47

leave formula one and come back. Um,

1:03:49

actually both of their drivers did this. Kevin Magnussen, the

1:03:51

other driver on Haas, he is

1:03:53

Danish. He's 31 years old. Um,

1:03:57

he, I believe he Left

1:04:00

for me the one twice. I think he was with

1:04:02

McLaren early on and they let him go and then

1:04:04

he like did some welding For a while and then

1:04:07

they bought on back. Yeah, so he's

1:04:09

both of them have been in and out They're

1:04:11

both very talented Holkenberg. I think though really

1:04:14

sort of shown when he came into

1:04:17

the team and Outshined

1:04:19

Magnuson who had been with the team for for

1:04:21

much longer So

1:04:23

yeah, I think see Yes,

1:04:27

both of their contracts are up at the end of the year

1:04:30

So another one to watch And

1:04:33

with that that is all the

1:04:35

teams and drivers We're gonna take one more commercial

1:04:38

break and then we'll be back with all kinds

1:04:40

of details like what's up with cars What's

1:04:43

up with tires and strategy rules

1:04:45

and regs? Yeah,

1:04:47

so stay tuned. We'll be right back All

1:04:52

right, Rob tell me about cars

1:04:56

All right, so Lightning McQueen Is

1:04:59

the best car racer in the racing circuit,

1:05:01

but you know, he has a problem which

1:05:03

is kind of an asshole But no, sorry,

1:05:05

you mean that one cars. So I guess

1:05:07

we should start with The

1:05:09

sort of heart of an F1 car the engine

1:05:13

first thing they don't like it

1:05:15

when you call them engines obviously everyone does but

1:05:18

The term of art that people prefer

1:05:20

to use is power units Why

1:05:23

is that because an engine is internal combustion

1:05:25

engine that's probably within your car though Maybe

1:05:27

you have electric motors powering it which you

1:05:29

know if you do that's very cool But

1:05:33

all F1 engines are really complicated

1:05:35

hybrids way more complicated than like

1:05:37

the hybrid you might be familiar

1:05:39

with from from like a

1:05:41

Prius So F1

1:05:43

engines, you know used to be

1:05:45

huge monstrous in internal combustion You

1:05:49

know power houses The

1:05:51

caps are shrinking them down to make

1:05:53

the sport more sustainable from a variety

1:05:55

of angles You

1:05:57

Know once upon a time you would build special engines.

1:06:00

Just for qualifying, the car the

1:06:02

had maybe a lap of running

1:06:04

in them. Now they require you.

1:06:07

To make three of three engines

1:06:09

effectively three power units last the

1:06:11

entire season. I'm. Not

1:06:13

sure how it that's for an hour

1:06:15

before. Desert. Ah.

1:06:18

Yes, so I'm not sure if this

1:06:20

has gotten better for a number of

1:06:23

years. Nobody actually did that. It would

1:06:25

be at a certain point ever be

1:06:27

like ah well. We're going to say

1:06:29

penalty now and it's deploy the deployed

1:06:31

in a power units. Are you feeling

1:06:33

reliably hidden? Getting up in part because.

1:06:37

This. Used to be the center of

1:06:39

a lot of development for F One,

1:06:41

but they froze the engine specification

1:06:43

while waiting for the Twenty Twenty Six

1:06:46

regulations to come in which you

1:06:48

know, Which. Means. Theoretically.

1:06:51

The. Engine should all be roughly

1:06:53

equally good. Ah, the people

1:06:56

making the engines are Ferrari and

1:06:58

Mercedes. L Team and

1:07:00

Honda. Alpina. kind

1:07:02

of weird place the only supply themselves and

1:07:04

last year there are some noises that they

1:07:07

wanted some help because they're injured isn't very

1:07:09

good on so even in a bit a

1:07:11

sport where the kind of tried to make

1:07:13

all the into the equivalent to each other.

1:07:16

When. The freeze occur you you still

1:07:19

were working means new have alpine didn't

1:07:21

have very good one parent we the

1:07:23

haven't white fully mass narrow the gap

1:07:26

or to the to the other other

1:07:28

suppliers. ah so the way in of

1:07:30

one engine a power unit works you

1:07:32

have you still have of be six

1:07:35

turbo engine in it. The the internal

1:07:37

combustion part is a ridiculous a piece

1:07:39

of machinery of your car probably you

1:07:42

know pops out on your little a

1:07:44

commoner. you see it like you know

1:07:46

red. lines that like seven thousand eight

1:07:48

thousand rounds you never see you never

1:07:51

actually get anywhere near their driving i

1:07:53

phone card games to fifteen thousand refs

1:07:55

as their as the racing and they

1:07:57

are assisted by a turbo charger and

1:07:59

then And they also have electric motors

1:08:01

assisting them that draw power from two

1:08:03

sources, the Kinetic

1:08:06

Energy Recovery System, the MGUK, and

1:08:10

the Thermal Energy Recovery System, MGUH.

1:08:13

The MGUH is going away in

1:08:15

2026 because it's a huge pain

1:08:18

in the ass because recovering

1:08:20

waste heat from an engine and

1:08:22

turning into useful energy is

1:08:25

really, really complicated and

1:08:27

made researching these things much more

1:08:29

expensive and isn't really relevant to

1:08:31

the direction that a lot of road cars are

1:08:33

going, which are just getting more and more electrified.

1:08:37

And the heat issues there are very different.

1:08:40

What F1 has that anyone who

1:08:42

has a hybrid is familiar with is Kinetic

1:08:44

Energy Recovery, which is all

1:08:47

the things that a car does

1:08:49

that create wasted energy from slowing

1:08:52

down, particularly braking, the

1:08:54

car tries to harvest energy from them

1:08:57

and use that to spin the

1:08:59

battery back up. The

1:09:02

rules limit how much kinetic,

1:09:05

like electrical energy you can recover each

1:09:07

lap. So occasionally you will hear like

1:09:10

a team runs afoul of

1:09:12

rules regarding these like recharge

1:09:14

rates because this is

1:09:16

one of the things that F1 just has in place

1:09:18

to make sure that everyone's

1:09:20

sort of dealing with the same

1:09:23

spec and that nobody's secretly

1:09:25

running like, what if we get

1:09:27

even more electrical boost the way

1:09:29

this works? Because that is kind of how the

1:09:31

car is designed. The

1:09:33

internal combustion engine might be the heart

1:09:36

of it, but the battery is critical

1:09:38

for assisting it to reach sort of

1:09:41

the top of its potential. Because either of

1:09:44

these systems break down and

1:09:46

they used to pretty frequently, a bit

1:09:48

less so now. You

1:09:51

know, the engine doesn't really work without

1:09:53

all the pieces working given

1:09:55

peak performance. Drivers get very

1:09:58

antsy about this. You will hear radio calls. in

1:10:00

the race where it's like no power, no power. And

1:10:03

drivers, the second they begin to feel

1:10:05

that when they get on the, you

1:10:08

know, the loud pedal, the accelerator, and

1:10:11

the thing that they expect to happen doesn't,

1:10:13

they immediately begin to suspect that one of

1:10:15

these complicated components is breaking down.

1:10:19

So with the engines

1:10:21

kind of locked, where is

1:10:23

the real competition in F1 car

1:10:26

design? Well,

1:10:28

it's probably in aerodynamics.

1:10:31

Aerodynamics are where the F1

1:10:34

cars get a lot of their grip, particularly

1:10:36

at high speeds, which lets them corner.

1:10:39

You know, most

1:10:41

cars, like the foundation of cars, mechanical

1:10:43

grip, that's the chassis and where the

1:10:45

rubber meets the road. But

1:10:47

aerodynamic grip is very important for cars moving as

1:10:50

fast as F1 cars do because of those

1:10:52

speeds, the wings and the contours of

1:10:55

the car generate a lot

1:10:57

of force that keep them planted firmly

1:10:59

on the ground. Now,

1:11:01

it used to be that,

1:11:04

you know, the aerodynamic competition was really,

1:11:06

really fierce and the cars got more

1:11:08

and more baroque in

1:11:11

the sort of, in the Rococo sense, the

1:11:13

aesthetic sense, where just they were,

1:11:15

they had all sorts of weird veins

1:11:17

and doodads hanging off the wings. It

1:11:21

got a little too complicated and also it

1:11:24

started causing problems because when

1:11:27

you take a car out of a

1:11:29

lab environment, say a wind tunnel, and

1:11:31

have it running real faster on track with a

1:11:33

bunch of other cars, suddenly

1:11:37

all those aerodynamic elements work way less

1:11:39

well when another car with similar aerodynamic

1:11:41

elements has come and just stirred the

1:11:43

whole pot, creating what is

1:11:45

called like dirty air from the wash of

1:11:47

a car passing through. And

1:11:49

so one of the things that F1 did, because

1:11:52

this would really disturb the ability of

1:11:55

cars to race closely together, which most

1:11:57

of us consider good racing, is It

1:12:00

would make it for boring races without a lot of

1:12:02

passing. So F1 wanted

1:12:04

to de-emphasize that type of

1:12:07

really complicated aerodynamics that has

1:12:09

a ton of dirty

1:12:11

air blasting off the back of a car. And

1:12:14

they embraced ground

1:12:16

effect aerodynamics. And

1:12:18

ground effect aerodynamics, as

1:12:20

the name implies, is kind of

1:12:22

a degree of aerodynamic harnessing that's

1:12:24

taking place between the underbody of

1:12:26

a car and the ground,

1:12:29

where you can sort of channel air there and create,

1:12:31

I don't think, a bit of suction to

1:12:35

the tarmac between the

1:12:38

car and the tarmac. That

1:12:40

was a huge aerodynamic revolution in F1. And

1:12:44

only one designer had any

1:12:46

experience with ground

1:12:48

effect aerodynamics, because this was a thing that

1:12:50

came up in the 80s and then was

1:12:52

taken away, because it was kind of

1:12:54

dangerous as hell. Less dangerous now, but we'll

1:12:56

flip that aside. But yeah, Red

1:12:59

Bull's Adrian Newey was the only guy with

1:13:01

hands-on experience. And Red Bull was the only

1:13:03

team that really nailed the new aerodynamics specs.

1:13:06

Everyone else really struggled with it. And

1:13:10

some have gotten on top of it a bit

1:13:12

better. But you could say that the addition of

1:13:15

ground effect regulations ended

1:13:17

Mercedes run as a top

1:13:19

team and inaugurated this

1:13:21

new era of Red

1:13:23

Bull. The other thing I'd say is,

1:13:26

I'm not sure everyone loves these cars. They

1:13:29

have kind of weird handling characteristics. Cars

1:13:31

get heavier every year for safety reasons.

1:13:33

But the emphasis on ground

1:13:35

effect aerodynamics kind of changed how the

1:13:37

cars function a lot and changed how

1:13:39

they drive a lot. I'm not sure

1:13:42

every driver really loves it. The thing

1:13:44

they really don't love is something called

1:13:47

porpoising, which is, as a

1:13:49

car, because you have now aerodynamic stuff

1:13:52

happening under the car, that

1:13:54

stuff can stall out if your ride

1:13:56

height settings are at all kind of

1:13:58

wonky. And the effect

1:14:00

of that is the car starts bouncing wildly

1:14:04

down the tarmac and can

1:14:06

be really jarring on the

1:14:08

driver. Team's gotten a little bit

1:14:10

on top of the problem, but it

1:14:13

certainly seems like F1 drivers are

1:14:15

getting knocked around the cockpit a

1:14:17

lot more than they were in previous years. So

1:14:23

the other part of how an F1 car is able

1:14:25

to perform so well at

1:14:29

speed is tires. And the more

1:14:31

F1 you watch, the more you might

1:14:34

start to get the sense that all

1:14:36

of this is kind

1:14:38

of how well cars handle their tires.

1:14:43

So F1 has one

1:14:45

tire supplier, Pirelli. And

1:14:48

Pirelli's job with F1 has been

1:14:50

to create tires that are

1:14:52

they the best tires possible? No.

1:14:55

Their tire is designed to

1:14:57

create for interesting, contrasting racing

1:15:01

solutions, approaches during races.

1:15:07

Their mechanism for doing this, F1

1:15:10

teams, Pirelli

1:15:12

decides what set of

1:15:14

tires, what array of tire options teams

1:15:16

will have with them on a race

1:15:19

weekend. There are five tire

1:15:21

compounds. C1, compound

1:15:23

one, is the hardest compound.

1:15:26

C5 is the softest. The

1:15:29

harder the compound, the

1:15:31

less grip it has. It is sort of the rule

1:15:34

of thumb. Softer

1:15:36

compounds have more grip, but they wear

1:15:39

much, much faster. The

1:15:41

other thing that contributes to this is they

1:15:44

warm up at different rates. Hard compound tires

1:15:46

are very slow to come up to temperature.

1:15:50

Soft tires are quick to get into the

1:15:52

optimal temperature range, but

1:15:55

then will also be the ones to

1:15:58

sort of fall off and maybe overheat as well. well.

1:16:01

You'll recognize these three

1:16:03

compounds. Whatever is the

1:16:05

hardest compound at the race weekend

1:16:07

will be white striped, the

1:16:10

medium compound will be yellow

1:16:12

striped, and the softest compound

1:16:14

will be red striped. They

1:16:17

bring different sets of three to

1:16:19

the different tracks based on track

1:16:22

conditions, usually like the quality of

1:16:24

the racing surface, local temperatures. But

1:16:27

the key thing here is that during the race, everyone

1:16:31

has to use two compounds unless it

1:16:34

rains. So the idea here

1:16:36

being that teams will have different strategies

1:16:38

deploying this requirement and using these very

1:16:40

different tire compounds against each

1:16:43

other. I'm not sure it

1:16:45

always pans out that way. There's a lot of

1:16:47

convergence on what tire strategies are, but

1:16:49

you just see a lot of curve

1:16:51

balls thrown there. But usually the most

1:16:53

reliable generator of chaos when

1:16:56

it comes to tire strategy

1:16:58

is rain. F1 has

1:17:00

two wet weather tires. Used

1:17:03

to be you saw both of them in

1:17:05

racing action because F1,

1:17:08

unlike some other forms of

1:17:10

racing, F1 kind

1:17:13

of raises rain or shine. In

1:17:17

light to moderately heavy rain, they

1:17:19

run green striped

1:17:21

intermediate compound tires. They

1:17:24

have a very little bit of tread on them. All

1:17:26

the other tires are racing flex, which

1:17:28

give you huge grip in dry conditions

1:17:31

and very little grip in wet conditions. The interns have

1:17:33

a little bit of tread and

1:17:35

increasingly those are the only tires where you see cars

1:17:39

actually racing in wet

1:17:41

conditions. Because nowadays when

1:17:43

the rain is heavy enough for the blue striped

1:17:45

full wets to come out, it

1:17:48

usually doesn't take too long after that for

1:17:50

somebody to throw a red flag and suspend

1:17:52

the race because it is too dangerous to

1:17:54

continue driving. They're kind of in

1:17:56

a weird place with these tires where if it's wet enough for the weather,

1:17:58

it's not going to be a bad tires that maybe

1:18:01

is too wet for them

1:18:03

to continue racing and there's some argument

1:18:05

the West themselves have gotten

1:18:07

so good at dissipating

1:18:09

water that they just aerosolize

1:18:12

it so perfectly that they create

1:18:14

an impenetrable fog bank that will

1:18:16

not that will not dissipate as

1:18:18

long as cars are racing around

1:18:20

the track in the wet

1:18:22

weather tires. A real feat of

1:18:24

engineering but also means that in certain conditions the

1:18:26

cars will just go park on the grid rather

1:18:28

than continue

1:18:31

racing. Some

1:18:34

terms you're gonna hear come up with tires as

1:18:36

they run they will like they abrade

1:18:39

and you will see them throwing off little little

1:18:42

chunks of rubber here and there and

1:18:44

those are marbles you'll see you know from

1:18:46

the start of a pristine racing track to

1:18:49

the start after a few laps there

1:18:52

are just like swaths of the track covered

1:18:54

in these little bits of like

1:18:57

rubbery crap that

1:18:59

if a car gets on that now

1:19:02

it's like you're running onto a field of

1:19:04

ball bearings and it gets very slippery and

1:19:06

also that stuff sticks to your tires and

1:19:08

destroys their grip so that's bad. The

1:19:11

other thing is tires have really fussy

1:19:14

operating windows where they're at their

1:19:16

best if they

1:19:18

aren't in those operating windows you start getting

1:19:21

a type of wear called

1:19:23

graining which is

1:19:25

kind of an uneven

1:19:27

sort of rate

1:19:30

of wear on the tires they're

1:19:33

sort of wearing away too fast and they're

1:19:35

not producing enough grip

1:19:38

usually tires have a graining phase that they

1:19:40

pass through and then sort

1:19:42

of things resume as normal. A

1:19:45

thing that is not normal you definitely want to avoid but

1:19:47

you're at high risk of especially when you have

1:19:49

nice new tires is flat spotting your tires. F1

1:19:53

doesn't have ad hoc brakes now

1:19:55

you might think my shitty

1:19:57

car does why don't they? I've had these things were supposed

1:19:59

to be sophisticated Well

1:20:01

at a certain point about 20 years ago

1:20:03

when all these driver assistive technologies started to

1:20:05

come into their own There was

1:20:08

concern that the cars were driving themselves and

1:20:10

that too many parts of the traditional drivers

1:20:12

art Were being taken away.

1:20:14

There's something to this for instance The

1:20:16

off sequential gearbox is now with the with the paddles

1:20:19

and you just can't have somebody miss a gear shift

1:20:21

like they used to Which used to be very exciting

1:20:23

when it happened so now the

1:20:25

thing you look for is occasionally somebody just botches

1:20:28

their braking a little bit of the brakes don't

1:20:30

bite correctly and The

1:20:32

brakes will lock the tire will stop rotating

1:20:34

properly and it will just skid and

1:20:37

that skidding will effectively like flatten

1:20:41

one of the Will create basically

1:20:43

a face of the tire where it should be

1:20:45

a round piece of rubber And

1:20:48

that doesn't go away for the rest

1:20:50

of the rest of the time of the tire. It's

1:20:53

gonna go around There's gonna be a per chunk and the

1:20:55

grip level is gonna be weird. It's gonna feel terrible because

1:20:58

there's that that flat spot If

1:21:00

you want to you know get off that tire, you're

1:21:03

gonna have to go in for a pit stop and

1:21:06

pit strategy is Especially

1:21:08

when the racing is maybe not terribly

1:21:11

amazing You start you

1:21:13

know, you'll be watching for those pit

1:21:15

stops because that's where the real action is That's

1:21:18

where these other racing series They'll

1:21:21

be selling you on like cool wheeled

1:21:23

wheel actions duels You

1:21:26

know awesome overtakes and that's one sometimes has that

1:21:28

stuff too hasn't as much at the front lately,

1:21:30

but you know Part

1:21:33

of the mark of being really in that

1:21:36

one is you start getting ridiculously excited over

1:21:39

watching Interval information about

1:21:41

how how far apart two cars are

1:21:43

and what implies for how the pit

1:21:45

stop is going to go so

1:21:49

Because of the tire regulations everyone's gonna

1:21:51

have to stop for a change of

1:21:53

tires at least once during a race

1:21:56

Usually you have to stop multiple times The

1:22:01

pit stops are very very fast as far

1:22:03

as like the amount of time they are

1:22:05

in the pit box It

1:22:08

is also the blink of an eye a

1:22:10

three second pit stop is like good.

1:22:13

That's acceptable The closer

1:22:15

to two seconds flat you can get the

1:22:17

better that pit stop is Ending

1:22:19

over three that's kind of a bad pit stop now

1:22:23

That's just for changing tires If

1:22:26

you have to do anything else if a car needs

1:22:28

some modest repairs, there's really only like one

1:22:32

Manageable repair that's possible in pit stop, which

1:22:34

is a front wing replacement Everything

1:22:37

else starts to become prohibitively expensive in terms of

1:22:39

time But that all

1:22:41

that all takes much longer. So when you see a

1:22:43

car like get some damage Everyone

1:22:46

on the team would you know? They'd

1:22:50

rather die than actually replace that part because it is

1:22:52

too it takes too long The

1:22:56

pit stop itself is very very fast How

1:23:00

bad it is to have to pit kind

1:23:02

of varies by track because the pit lanes

1:23:05

Have different layouts and they're different

1:23:07

lengths, but the thing they

1:23:09

share is a speed limit because

1:23:12

you know, there's people Working

1:23:14

in the pit lane and so you're not

1:23:16

allowed to come Blazing in 150 miles

1:23:19

an hour and then stop on a dime you have

1:23:21

to observe a space a safe speed limit And

1:23:24

that is where the bulk of the time

1:23:26

you lose to other drivers comes

1:23:28

from in the pits There

1:23:31

are two major strategies racing tactics

1:23:33

associated with pit stops and

1:23:35

and the way tires work the

1:23:39

undercut is The

1:23:41

most straightforward the most common way to attack

1:23:44

this problem you're

1:23:46

if you are following somebody and You

1:23:50

can't get past them you come in

1:23:52

for fresh tires and Then

1:23:54

the theory is that you'll be so much

1:23:57

faster than them on the fresh tires that

1:23:59

before they can stop, you

1:24:01

will be inside the length of time

1:24:03

they have to set aside for doing

1:24:06

a pit stop. So

1:24:08

yeah, it's like strike first on getting

1:24:10

fresh tires and then use those fresh tires

1:24:12

which are presumably better performers and go

1:24:14

take the spot, win the battle in

1:24:16

the pit lane. The overcut

1:24:18

is the inverse of that. You

1:24:21

see it much less but it's always kind of

1:24:23

cool when it works. Again, the idea is this

1:24:26

time you wait for someone to go in and

1:24:29

you have the theory that you

1:24:31

still have your fastest laps ahead

1:24:34

of you. You'll be faster on your old

1:24:36

tires than they will be on their

1:24:38

new tires. And so when

1:24:41

they stop you will overtake them because you stay

1:24:43

out to go to stay on the track and

1:24:46

then your ensuing laps will be so fast

1:24:49

that by the time you have to stop for fresh

1:24:51

tires you will have

1:24:53

created a safe gap so

1:24:55

that they can't overtake you again when

1:24:58

you stop for fresh tires.

1:25:01

That is a really chancy strategy because most

1:25:04

of the time fresh tires

1:25:06

are always better. There have been a

1:25:08

couple places, usually when temperatures are weird

1:25:10

and making tires get in the sweet

1:25:12

spot is really hard that

1:25:15

the overcut begins to make more sense.

1:25:18

It's always a very cool thing to see it pulled out but

1:25:21

you're going to see the undercut way more. The

1:25:23

thing to keep

1:25:26

an eye out for is the

1:25:30

weather because all of

1:25:32

these factors just get amplified by uncertain

1:25:35

mixed conditions. All

1:25:39

right. Well, of

1:25:42

course we've got cars, we've got strategy, we

1:25:44

also have rules Danny. We got to keep

1:25:46

things in the lines. What

1:25:48

else is everybody worrying about out there as we

1:25:50

go around the track? Rules are important.

1:25:52

For that rules society would

1:25:55

be chaos instead of this

1:25:57

podcast. We would all be

1:25:59

tearing at each other. those eyeballs and

1:26:01

feasting on the delicious brain innards within.

1:26:04

So Formula One, like much of society, has rules.

1:26:08

Formula One also has flags. Flags

1:26:10

are part of the rules. Flags are how

1:26:12

you tell a driver what's going on, because

1:26:14

they can't hear you. They're too busy driving the car

1:26:16

and it's very loud and they have this big lid

1:26:19

on their head. So instead they

1:26:21

have lots of these people around the track waving

1:26:23

flags at them all the time. Like

1:26:26

Semaphore, you know, much like all

1:26:29

the best parts of our cultures. I'm

1:26:32

going to tell you about some of these flags. I'm going to tell

1:26:35

you what these flags are. But a lot of this, and honestly a

1:26:37

lot of the penalties and a lot of the ins

1:26:40

and outs are sort of intuited through

1:26:42

watching the race and through seeing them,

1:26:45

you know, seeing specific incidents

1:26:47

happening and then sort of

1:26:49

understanding the rules through

1:26:51

those lenses. Which is kind of the case with

1:26:54

all sports. I definitely learned baseball

1:26:56

and basketball and football through that

1:26:58

sort of way. So

1:27:02

let's get to the flags. They're quite easy. The

1:27:04

green flag. The green flag means, hey, everything's

1:27:07

fine. Keep racing. Normal racing conditions

1:27:09

are happening. Maybe there was another flag before and

1:27:11

the green flag is like, don't worry, we're back

1:27:13

to normal. Then you have yellow

1:27:15

flags. Yellow flags mean something up. If there's a

1:27:17

waved yellow flag, a single waved yellow, that means

1:27:19

don't overtake. There's a danger somewhere

1:27:22

on the track. You're about to come up to it. If

1:27:25

there are double yellows, that also means don't

1:27:27

overtake. But usually that means an instance that

1:27:29

is actually blocking the track. So you've got

1:27:31

to be even more careful. You

1:27:34

can get in trouble if you don't slow down enough

1:27:36

during these phases. Happens a lot in qualifying. A

1:27:39

single stationary yellow means that there's

1:27:42

no overtaking due to a

1:27:44

danger near the track, which is sort

1:27:46

of sitting in the middle there somewhere. As

1:27:49

you could probably guess, the red flag is the worst of these.

1:27:51

If you ever look at the traffic lights, you're starting to get

1:27:53

the point. The red flag basically

1:27:55

means that the session has stopped. If

1:27:58

a race has red flag, they'll cars come back to

1:28:01

the pits, if qualifying does they just stop

1:28:03

everything, usually means there's been a pretty big

1:28:05

crash, perhaps a part of the track

1:28:07

has been damaged enough that they have to sort of take a

1:28:09

bit of time to fix it. Or

1:28:11

bad rain like Rob said. Exactly, yeah, inclement

1:28:14

weather, there's a bunch of reasons why this

1:28:16

can happen. They're all normal ones,

1:28:18

now we're going to get into some of the funky

1:28:20

ones, alright? You got the

1:28:22

red and yellow striped flag,

1:28:25

that means there's debris

1:28:28

or maybe some oil on the track

1:28:30

and if they're rocking it from back

1:28:32

to forth, back and forth, that means

1:28:34

there could be an animal on the

1:28:36

track, live or otherwise. Blue

1:28:39

flags are very common but a little bit confusing

1:28:41

if you're new to the sport. These

1:28:44

cars are driving, as Drew said earlier,

1:28:46

like 200 miles for a period

1:28:48

of between an hour

1:28:51

and a half and two hours, usually about an hour and a half. When

1:28:54

that happens, the lead driver often gets to

1:28:56

a point where he's overtaking some of

1:28:59

the drivers at the back of the field. The

1:29:01

blue flag is for the cars that are being

1:29:03

overtaken to warn them that there is somebody faster

1:29:06

coming up and that they need to get out of

1:29:09

the way. Then

1:29:11

we have a black flag with an orange

1:29:13

circle in it, sort of lovingly

1:29:16

known as the meatball flag, which means

1:29:18

that you have a mechanical problem on

1:29:21

your car. Often times this is basically a you need

1:29:23

to come into the pits because there's a bit of

1:29:25

your car hanging off and it's kind of dangerous for

1:29:27

everyone else. The half black

1:29:30

half white flag is a sort of precursor

1:29:32

to the black flag, it basically means you've

1:29:34

done something on sportsman like, the knock

1:29:36

on the knuckles and then if you get the black

1:29:38

flag, often there is a number put on it too.

1:29:41

It means you've been disqualified, black flags are

1:29:43

fairly rare I think, I don't think, I

1:29:45

kind of remember the last one we've had

1:29:48

in the modern era. The

1:29:50

checkered flag of course is waved at the end of

1:29:52

the race, black and white checkered flag

1:29:54

and then we also have something called a safety car,

1:29:58

which is basically whenever Many of

1:30:01

these incidents will require one essentially

1:30:03

a very fast car

1:30:05

but looks quite slow compared to

1:30:07

the four one cars the drives

1:30:09

out and sort of access a

1:30:11

pace car the other cars drive

1:30:13

behind and it guides them around

1:30:16

and issues that are on the track. And

1:30:18

keeps them moving but sort of keeps

1:30:21

them out of danger and also bunches

1:30:23

up the field so when the safety

1:30:25

car comes in you know maybe maybe

1:30:27

you know the position three was

1:30:30

five seconds ahead of position four

1:30:32

by the time safety car comes

1:30:34

in and dash gap has been

1:30:36

reduced to basically nothing because they're they're

1:30:38

driving right behind each other. Then there's

1:30:40

something called the virtual safety car which

1:30:42

acts in many ways like the safety

1:30:44

car it's basically tells the drivers to

1:30:46

drive within a certain time delta so

1:30:49

it's slowing them all down but

1:30:51

instead of the safety car packing them all

1:30:53

up they keep their well hopefully they keep

1:30:55

their relative space to each other the same

1:30:57

so that when the virtual safety car has

1:30:59

ended. And I

1:31:01

guess there's less of a sporting penalty

1:31:04

on on everyone or on certain people

1:31:07

the role of the dice that happens with the safety car

1:31:09

it doesn't really happen. Now

1:31:11

if you break the rules you're gonna get

1:31:13

a wrap on the knuckles maybe you lose some of that

1:31:15

beautiful you know aerodynamic time

1:31:18

but that's that's if teams do

1:31:20

things that are wrong but if

1:31:22

drivers do things oftentimes they get

1:31:25

penalties during the races and they

1:31:27

don't like that at all. And you

1:31:29

can get you know

1:31:31

penalties for lots of different things and generally

1:31:33

there is a bigger penalty

1:31:36

for the bigger sin sort of thing so

1:31:38

you could get a drive through penalty which

1:31:40

basically means you have to drive into the

1:31:42

pits and out of the pits at the

1:31:44

slower speed that Robin mentioned earlier. And

1:31:47

which kind of messes up your time

1:31:49

you're going to get a bunch of cars overtaking when you

1:31:52

do that and you can get that for doing things like

1:31:54

you know skipping the limits of the

1:31:56

track over and over again cutting corners

1:31:59

and. jumping over chicanes, things like that, they'll

1:32:01

generally give you some sort of warning if you're

1:32:03

going to get one of those. There

1:32:06

are five second penalties and ten second penalties.

1:32:09

Five second could be for little infringements like,

1:32:11

I don't know, knocking into a

1:32:14

car a little bit and blocking

1:32:16

somebody's small sort of infringements. A

1:32:19

ten second penalty or a stop

1:32:21

go penalty which often happens as well where the

1:32:23

driver has to come into the pit and sit

1:32:26

there and nobody's allowed to touch them and

1:32:28

then they are allowed to go after the amount of time

1:32:31

has passed. That's an even worse

1:32:33

one. Have they said this year, remember last year they

1:32:35

said something along the lines that they were going to

1:32:38

try and do those a little bit less? Stop

1:32:41

and go? Yeah, or were

1:32:43

they doing them more? They would never assign them though.

1:32:46

That's like the electric chair in F1. You're

1:32:49

right, yeah. I think there was,

1:32:51

I remember five second stop goes being ran a

1:32:53

lot more than the ten second ones. Yeah,

1:32:57

I mean F1 has, because you mentioned the

1:32:59

penalty stuff, I think just one thing that

1:33:01

is probably going to confuse you is,

1:33:03

and Danny is especially giving you this

1:33:06

about driving standards, but a

1:33:08

lot of this stuff, some of it's black and white because it's a

1:33:11

thing we can put a ruler next to

1:33:13

your car, that's not legal. You can't do

1:33:15

that. But some of this is like, I

1:33:18

have the beholder stuff and

1:33:21

it gets adjudicated very weirdly and contradictory in ways

1:33:23

that will probably confuse you a little bit. Yeah,

1:33:26

absolutely. There's some stuff that's done during the

1:33:28

race and then there's some stuff that's done after

1:33:31

the race or after qualifying. For instance,

1:33:34

getting an extra

1:33:36

grid penalty so that you have, you're knocked back

1:33:39

three positions or five positions or put to the

1:33:41

back of the grid because you did something. Maybe

1:33:44

during qualifying you were meant to or maybe you

1:33:46

changed a gearbox when you get a penalty for

1:33:49

that or you might get a grid position penalty

1:33:51

for the next race if you did something

1:33:54

near the end of the previous race that

1:33:56

they couldn't really penalize you for at the

1:33:58

time. Race

1:34:00

bands are possible, but extremely rare. Um,

1:34:03

and you can get a 10 place penalty

1:34:05

after five reprimands. And the way the reprimands

1:34:07

work are kind of funny in F1 because

1:34:09

it's done in a sort of 12 month

1:34:11

calendar. So if you have a blot

1:34:14

on your license, it goes, uh, once

1:34:16

you've spent, uh, you know,

1:34:18

once you're basically 12 months away from it.

1:34:20

So sometimes people will have higher numbers of

1:34:22

points on their license, depending on when

1:34:25

it happens. It's not within seasons. Um,

1:34:27

yeah, it's a Rob's point defending and, and,

1:34:29

and like, what a, what a,

1:34:32

what a clean overtake is, what a clean

1:34:34

block is. All of those things are

1:34:37

somewhat open to interpret, interpretation. There's some

1:34:39

general rules of thumbs. Um,

1:34:41

if you're the car ahead and somebody's trying

1:34:43

to overtake you, you can defend in one

1:34:45

direction, but you're not allowed to make a

1:34:48

double movement. Like you're not like Duke to

1:34:50

the right and then Duke to the left,

1:34:52

like to basically block somebody. Um,

1:34:54

you know, they will probably run into the

1:34:56

back of you. It's a dangerous thing to do. Um,

1:34:59

sort of last minute, weird

1:35:01

changes in direction are also

1:35:03

not particularly, uh, you know,

1:35:05

looked upon the thing you're going to, or

1:35:07

looked fondly upon. The thing you're going to

1:35:10

realize as well as that while there's no

1:35:12

lines on the track, there is a sort

1:35:14

of an invisible driver's line that exists and

1:35:16

whether or not you were on that or

1:35:19

not often. Becomes

1:35:21

an element in sort of where blame is

1:35:24

laid at the end of the day with

1:35:26

some of these situations. Um,

1:35:29

and, uh, yeah, when you're, when you're in

1:35:31

a position where there were two cars driving

1:35:33

down a straight or taking a corner together,

1:35:35

um, you have to leave

1:35:37

a gap for that car to be

1:35:39

there. You're not allowed basically squeeze

1:35:42

them off the track. Um, uh, although

1:35:44

the limits of that have been tested

1:35:46

again, many times over. Um,

1:35:48

well, and I mean, just real quick on that

1:35:50

point, I think that in the track limits thing,

1:35:52

a thing to bear in mind, cause it's hard

1:35:54

to get this from the TV. The

1:35:57

drivers can't see out of the cars very well. And

1:36:00

the cars are really heavy and they're prone to understeering

1:36:02

which means you're turning left and the car is not

1:36:04

going as left as you think It's

1:36:07

sort of going more straight than you would like And

1:36:09

so those two factors like not really being able to see

1:36:11

and not which means you also can't see where the cars

1:36:13

are and Then the fact that

1:36:15

cars tend to not hold their hold where

1:36:18

the driver is trying to point them Makes

1:36:20

for a lot of weirdness about like the track limit

1:36:22

stuff drivers Just have no idea where the track limits

1:36:24

are when they're driving you're gonna see guys get in

1:36:26

trouble with that all the time But

1:36:28

especially stuff about leaving a gap or

1:36:30

like running people off That's

1:36:32

just gets real weird because sometimes you get like there

1:36:35

are drivers who are like really ruthless about that stuff

1:36:37

but then there are also times you just get the

1:36:39

sense that like These things are

1:36:41

hard drive. Nobody can see and

1:36:43

then it kind of falls to The

1:36:46

stewards to decide what happened here and whether it's

1:36:48

a rules and fraction, right? A

1:36:51

couple of changes this year for folks who

1:36:53

already know most of this The

1:36:56

DRS being enabled used to be after two

1:36:58

laps this year. They're going to reduce it

1:37:00

to one lap So that is both at

1:37:03

the start of the race and at any moment

1:37:05

when the race is resumed

1:37:09

What the DRS about all the aero stuff real

1:37:11

quick. Oh, yeah With

1:37:14

me the drag reduction system, yeah I'll

1:37:17

tell you about the drag reduction system. And

1:37:20

so there's a big wing on the back of

1:37:22

the car which you can

1:37:24

see at the back of the car sticking right up

1:37:26

and it has a big plank in the front of

1:37:28

us and DRS is

1:37:30

effectively a button that the driver can price only

1:37:32

in specific parts of the

1:37:35

track at specific circumstances and That

1:37:37

will open up that flap and basically reduce the

1:37:39

amount of drag that wing at the back of

1:37:42

the car is doing give them some extra You

1:37:44

know speed going down generally

1:37:47

basically all the time going

1:37:49

down specific straights You

1:37:51

can only deploy it You're gonna press that button

1:37:53

when you're within one second of the

1:37:55

car ahead of you be That a car

1:37:57

that you were racing for position or not and. Them.

1:38:00

And yeah, effectively it's a. Overtake.

1:38:03

Button of sorts that was introduced about

1:38:05

a decade ago Now to help give

1:38:08

drivers that little bit of extra horsepower

1:38:10

they need is like sprinkled on top

1:38:12

to to get the overtake done as

1:38:15

safely. M D position and length of

1:38:17

these Drs zones as they're known is

1:38:19

that modified often every year so like

1:38:21

if you're not days before each racists

1:38:24

where they are and in general during

1:38:26

practice and qualifying they are allowed to

1:38:28

have the Drs open kind of whenever

1:38:31

they want am it says. Not ready.

1:38:33

Am penalized then just during the race

1:38:35

or denied Harvest yeah gives about that.

1:38:37

A twelve mile an hour boost rice

1:38:39

which undies long straight skyn can make

1:38:41

a make a massive difference. You can

1:38:43

see it almost like a slingshot. you

1:38:45

can assist am I think as you

1:38:47

can qualify now the day or in

1:38:49

practice to the Or is only open

1:38:51

now and that in the deck and

1:38:53

zones in the proper zone the most

1:38:55

of the. You. Can just open

1:38:57

a thing of Willy nilly. When they first

1:38:59

introduced in Ah died during practice and qualifying,

1:39:02

I think they got away from that. I

1:39:04

didn't qualify as well. Yeah

1:39:06

I do I don't think he I don't think

1:39:08

you I don't think the button works now it's

1:39:10

I'd the the okay so I open it in

1:39:12

a corner is you need that grip and that's

1:39:14

how that downforce in the back to be a

1:39:16

has to make turn speak as if you opened

1:39:19

a lot of one of those f one corners

1:39:21

with the cars going to be they dare you

1:39:23

would quickly lose the back of the car and

1:39:25

spin off the track am the a couple of

1:39:27

a little of it's above the going to test

1:39:29

at the wheel cars and a couple of races

1:39:32

this year. if they haven't said were bus stuff's

1:39:34

coming down the road am They have also talked.

1:39:36

About or they're allowing teens rather

1:39:38

to add what is known as

1:39:40

a cockpit scoop. I'm not quite

1:39:42

sure what it looks like, but

1:39:44

effectively it is A at. It's

1:39:46

something to combat the heat problems

1:39:48

that the drivers were having last

1:39:50

year and notably in Bahrain. So

1:39:52

with some type of. Cooling.

1:39:55

Saying I'm not like minister lower.

1:39:58

i don't i'm wondering is it something Direct

1:40:00

area in or something. Yeah. Um,

1:40:03

they, they, they, they, go on

1:40:05

and search Sergeant Logan Sergeant on Williams last year

1:40:07

had to, he was, you know,

1:40:09

20 years old, had to

1:40:12

stop racing because he was

1:40:14

suffering from heat exhaustion. He just pulled into

1:40:16

the pits. I can't do it anymore. Super

1:40:18

dangerous. Um, yeah. Yeah. So I think the

1:40:20

way I read it was that they were

1:40:23

allowing teams to develop these. So I'm guessing

1:40:25

when these liveries are being announced over the

1:40:27

past few weeks, then we'll start to see,

1:40:29

we are seeing them, but I

1:40:31

haven't, I don't know what it looks like. So

1:40:33

I don't know who's done it and what it

1:40:35

is. Um, you already talked about the new sprint

1:40:37

format. Uh, no point in going over that again,

1:40:39

but they changed it from last year. Um, and

1:40:41

as I mentioned earlier, they have allowed the maximum

1:40:44

number of power units to go one