¶ Intro / Opening
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¶ Welcome and World Cup Divergence
Welcome to Mist Apex Podcast and there's a heat hazard declared officially by the FIA, not just because of some of the hot takes you'll hear over the next hour, but it's set to swelter at the Red Bull ring this weekend. Yes, I know the World Cup is on. Today though, there'll be no hydration breaks. We're gonna zero stop this Austrian Grand Prix preview. The title fight is heating up.
George Russell's future isn't cooling down. Jonathan Simon here. Matt Trumpets, as always, Matt, who has bragging rights, I guess. On everything on me right now, your your team's doing well in the World Cup, the USA, you whooped Australia, the New York Knicks. I mean, what else do you need?
I mean, honestly, I'm glorying in all this sports goodness right now. And if you look at New York, there's just not everybody's like, yeah, we are kind of jealous of you and we hate to admit it because you always act like you're better than us anyway.
Well, you know, New York. What can I say? No, uh the thing that kills me is like you're making a big deal about the US men's team beating Australia. Yeah. And people in England love to pretend that they have the most disappointing World Cup team ever. But I believe that. The US men's team is literally the Aston Martin of World Cup teams. And so that's how I'm bringing it back to Formula One for.
Oh that is uh that is I'm gonna say that is an insult. That is a a big insult to who? I don't know, to Aston Martin or to to the USA men's soccer team? I I'm not sure. What one one of the two.
Pick whichever one works for ya. It's all good.
¶ George Russell's Contract Extension Rumors
Big news coming out of the paddock already and we are recording it's four PM UK time, about one AM Melbourne, eleven A.M. New York. So news is gonna filter as it comes. We'll try and get most of it in. We probably miss some by the time this comes out. George Russell, the rumors are he's confirmed Matt for twenty twenty seven. Uh rumors of a confirmation. So it's not quite confirmed by George or the team yet. Now, the rumour is that a contract clause has been triggered.
and an announcement could happen this weekend, I'm shocked. Because I heard in November that George said, Well, there is a performance based clause on his contract, right? And I'm thinking, well, what performance based clause would there be? What to beat your teammate, which he's not doing. So clearly that is a different clause he's triggered, and it looks like he's gonna race on in 2027, and probably alongside Antonelli, you'd guess.
Well, I mean, if you're Antonelli, where would you go? And if you're George, where would you go? Yeah, exactly. Uh uh and you're right. It is interesting when you say performance clause, usually you always think, Oh, well, if the driver is uh having issues, then that means the team can get rid of them. But those things do cut both directions. And famously I think we've seen uh Ricardo. and especially Vettel, for sure, take advantage of poor team performance to to
bounce off for uh happier pastures, but it can work both directions. If you're happy where you are, then you get to stay and it puts the driver in charge of making that choice. Must have been before they had confirmation of how Antonelli was really going to do that that clause existed. I wouldn't bet on it for the uh next upcoming contract negotiations though.
¶ Max Verstappen's Future and Options
Well, I'm guessing it's a at least either a driver's standings clause. He currently sits third in the standings and it might be at a certain point of the year he's had to hit it, or maybe a self performance type clause like, Hey George, if you win one race by this point
or the team's, you know, P1ing constructors, you can trigger it. But then another report says, well, hey, it's been a mutual agreement. So it's not just George saying, hey, I've just activated this clause on my contract. Mercedes have also agreed to it too. And now if you're Max Verstappen, and maybe we'll get to this a little later on, because I'm getting drained with the Max Verstappen future kind of, you know, what's going to happen there.
He kind of I I guess he's got nowhere to go because McLaren looks full. Mercedes now probably full. They're probably going to keep Antonelli. Ferrari's a no go. What do you do if you're Max Verstappen, right?
Well, yeah, I mean y you have two choices, but I I think you're interest your it is interesting and you are correct. The most uh fascinating part of this is the doors that are have been closed on a lot of drivers. Carlos signs, like there are a lot of drivers who might have been sniffing around Mercedes in the event they decided they wanted to make a change. But what this also tells us is that fundamentally George's performance
at Mercedes has made Mercedes happy enough that they would really very much like him still on board. Maybe development related, maybe they see the underlying performance where the uh results on track haven't matched up, but it's irrelevant. I don't know. If you're Max, you have two choices right now. You could look uh you could hold on for another year at Red Bull, see what happens at Aston, maybe, which is uh or Audi perhaps.
Oh, Jason.
Well, I mean you say this, but seasons seasons are long and they will be getting massive amounts of help from the uh from the regulations. Certainly the Honda Power Unit will and the Audi as well. And they both have the potential to be v decent cars. You know, they have the backing.
Um or you go, you know, at all right, and then you just take your money and go NAS carring, rallying, sports carring for a a year or two till something opens up, and then you come back and hope you haven't lost any performance.
I think it's the right fit too. Like George and Mercedes seem like at least with Toto Wolf as well, I don't want to say it's a match made in heaven, but it's as close to it as you can kind of get there, you know, like it's a good relationship. I just wonder if this is happening too early. I wanna know the background to it, if it is the the performance clause, like if he satisfied something fair enough.
Uh and if he does win the championship this year we'll all swallow our words and say, Okay, well we w we were premature to criticize whether it was too early to sign George Russell. I think it's a good decision. He is in a in a title fight match. And not just with Kimi Antonelli.
¶ Mercedes' Internal Title Fight Strategy
I'd say Ferrari have inserted themselves in this title fight. There's two camps here. I want to know which one you're in, because there are some people that say, hey, Ferrari have just come off a win in Barcelona. They're looking quick. This is a three horse race for the title. I'm talking Antonelli, Russell, Hamilton. But then there's this other camp going, well, wait a second, Ferrari got lucky with a virtual safety car. Which camp are you in?
Oh no, no, no. They they they they were winning Barcelona regardless. Regardless. And uh you know, you've left somebody out. You've left out a main character here in the championship race, and that is the uh savage unreliability of the Mercedes power unit. And uh yeah, I don't know. Well, I do want to say before we go on and talk about Ferrari, I'm assuming that's where you're going with that. Don't overlook. how unbelievably junior high school and petty team principals can be.
I've seen it.
just as it's just as certain that Mercedes decided to make this announcement or release the rumor to just complicate Red Bull and Max's upcoming discussion'cause the whole isn't the whole like a board basically of Red Bull at Austria and there's going to be some meetings and talkings going on about futures and already like I saw a rumor that Paul Monahan was leaving. This could absolutely be Toto just like
It's not enough that he's barred Christian Horner from the sport. He's really just gonna grind them under his heel now.
We've seen this. We see Horner and Abitabul, Cyril Abitabul, do you remember him? I don't know where he was.
They're all absolutely.
Yeah. You haven't had a drink with him at the pub, have you as well?
No, that was that was odd. No, uh Beatable's doing whack with Hyundai, I believe.
Okay, there you go. So no no drinks at the pub with that that drink with Otmar Shafna, that was uh maybe you do another one soon. Get us some insights for for Missed Apex. Where I was taking this to actually was kind of Toto's quote about Well he said there's a third party involved in this championship fight. Constructor and driver. He said singular there.
Paul Charleclerc, he means Lewis Hamilton here, just the Toto Wolf, I'm assuming. Um, he says, We'll discuss internally with George and Kimmy how we want to handle a situation where we risk holding each other up. Now this is after Barcelona, of course, when You could kind of argue and say, well, they might have been within a shot of winning had they not held each other up and maybe Lewis doesn't get the virtual safety car.
¶ The Split Strategy Dilemma
Should Mercedes start splitting strategies, Matt? Isn't that just going to cause more complication between the team?
Okay, so I I love this because that that driver, that was the exact kind of tiny pettiness mess with your opponent's head. that I think Todu is particularly brilliant at. uh sowing dissension in the Ferrari camp by just forgetting to use the plural instead of the singular. Oh, I'm sorry, Charles, I forgot. I didn't really mean just Lewis. And but you're like, we all know exactly what he meant. N it's interesting. I would be very curious what George would make of it.
If Toad said, okay, well, you know how we had all those rules we agreed to at the beginning of the season, I'm going to throw them out. And since Antonelli's ahead, he's just going to get all the favorable calls from now on. I don't think that goes down so well. I think I think it's an issue if he does it. I don't think it makes Mercedes look great, not because
you know, running a team that way makes you look bad. Red Bull ran their team that way, but it was but if you went to Red Bull and drove for them, that was you signed up for those terms. George signed up with Lewis for absolute fairness. And if they stop delivering on it well before there's a numerical, a serious numerical argument, um, then then that'll be a real interesting change in the culture of the team, I think.
George today said the win for the team is priority. Doesn't matter which driver. Come on, George. What am I listening to right now? Seriously. You I'm retracting his twenty twenty seven contract for that. BS uh quote alone. Of course it's about you, George. Come on. You got one chance of the world title, at least possibly, your best chance in your career so far. I think if they split strategies, Matt
It probably will cause more divide, right? Like amongst the garages and amongst the team than it is gonna like is George Russell going to I'm sure at the end of the day he'll round of applause, shake Kimmy Antonelli's hand. Well done on on the title, but
I mean...
Surely right now you just start it it's kind of like you're in it's a three dimensional battle. I think you've got the George Garage, you've got the Lewis garage. You've got Lando Norris's in there as well doing his thing. Antonelli's got his own race to run. It's the first time an F1 we've seen this since probably twenty ten, where we had those five drivers going for the title at the final race.
Uh yeah. And, you know, as I said on the last review show, I believe this has been a Mercedes issue. At certain points they are vulnerable because they are having to consider outcomes, they're having to try and find an optimal strategy where the optimal strategy is unknown. And they can't send one driver on plan A and one driver on plan B to uh borrow uh some letters from Ferrari there.
Wow.
I sort of used your point to make my own argument about Mercedes, but really, if I'm in Russell's camp, I'm liking a split strategy because if you think that Antonelli is as likely as not to be the lead driver, you can imagine the way that works is they don't say lead driver gets strategy A. Second driver gets strategy B. Probably what it is, watch like pit stops. Ah, lead driver gets choice.
So so they're gonna go, Kemi, we have plan A and plan B, and you know, we have half a lap to decide. Do you box and cover or do you stay out and overcut? Let's just use Barcelona since we all know what happened.
And we all know what happened with d do you remember McLaren last year too? Like I don't I know what you're saying with the whole strategy A, strategy B, but when Not Lando Norris did it last year, I had to cop it for six months and listen to
Australian fans say, Hey, they're not supporting Oscar Piastri. They're they're supporting Norris. It's a biased team. Now I'm not saying the Italians and the Brits are gonna say that at Mercedes, but certainly like it's I just think it it's more ugly than it is beneficial doing that kind of stuff. You're you're disagreeing already.
¶ George Russell's Strategy Advantage
I no, no, I'm totally disagreeing. I think it's absolutely fair. Whoever is leading at the first pit stop. Gets the gets the strategy choice. That's reasonable. The drivers then their performance on track decides who's in the um we would call it the cat bird seat from way back when. And the thing that I like about this, and this is why I think George, of all people, will actually argue for it.
is because he's quite likely, if you just look at uh past races, there's a much bigger than zero percent chance he will be the one getting the second strategy, but Mercedes has a tendency to pick the wrong strategy a lot.
In that
in that position. And Antonelli, bless him, is a genius, but he's been in Formula One not nearly long enough. necessarily to have a feel for when the team is making a good strategy strategy suggestion and when they aren't. So if I'm Russell, I'm like, hey, this is kind of great. If I'm lead driver, I can pick the best strategy. And I know the best strategy. And I've been working with my team a long time. So we know what I can do and what I can't.
If it's Antonelli, he's probably gonna lean on the team more and the team will have a sense that a lot of times won't be right. And it'll open the door for me to run the alternate strategy, but gain more points from it because it'll wind up being the better one just because of where Mercedes natural strategy weakness lies. So
I don't know. If I'm Georgia and I'm being really sneaky, I'd be like, I I will I will step up for the team and demand that the team win is most important and we should absolutely split strategies and the lead driver should pick. And I think that's fair. It was hard to argue that. And then think that he's gonna inherit like the best of both worlds as a result of going for that.
¶ Ferrari's Austrian GP Prospects
Well, how about Ferrari? Like should Charlotte Clerk now the rest of the year just support Lewis Hamilton for a title fight? Should he give up his dream that he's worked his whole life for to help Lewis? He's about I think he's From memory, about eighty points behind. Let me check that up. He's about three, four races behind No, that's three races behind Antonelli for the lead. Should he just give up and just help Lewis?
I again i it it's sort of funny. We've had what, a third of the races. It's a bit soon for anyone to be giving up entirely.
But
I mean, say what you will about on track performance and who's really fastest and what really makes the driver the best anyway. The changes that have been associated with the performance increase from Ferrari, have been pushed for and eventually gained from Lewis's side of the garage. And uh therefore I mean, if I'm Charles, I just I think my preferred strategy is long term I benefit from what's happened here. So yes, any sneak chance, I absolutely positively want to take advantage.
But in the meantime, I just keep quiet and hope that my chance comes without having to make a fuss about it.
Well this happened two thousand seven. Kimi Raikken won the title. Next year, Felipe Massa, I mean, kind of what? Almost won the title. We won't speak about that, Felipe. We won't bring that up. I know there's like a legal case and stuff, so I've got to actually be careful of what I say there. Now, I'm not saying that. you know, Lewis will win the title this year and then Shark will win it next year. I'm just saying it can happen. And maybe Lewis goes, Oh, I've won my eight
I'm good. I'll help Charles next year, you know, win his title. That's a possibility. I doubt that's gonna happen. I think everything I've said so far about that Ferrari title fight is um let's just wait and see because they're bringing some upgrades to Austria. And everybody's hyped up on Ferrari thinking, oh my goodness, this is the quickest team now. They've just won Barcelona. Now wait a second.
Because
You know this Aduo, Matt? I've called it Aduo ADUO additional development upgrade opportunities. Ferrari have their first one ready to go for Austria. Does that mean they're gonna win? I'm excited. Do I get my red prancing horse cap on? Am I ready for top step of the podium this weekend? Give me some hope.
Okay, I'll give you some hope, but I I think it's gonna have less to do with the initial upgrade, which is rumored to be mainly a fuel upgrade and possibly not worth what they originally thought. for various complicated power unit development reasons.
¶ Austria's Heat and Altitude Challenges
Mm-hmm. Well, the the real thing to focus on here, and this is part of our larger look at the track, is one, you mentioned a heat hazard, correct? Yeah, okay. Which one is it?
Or at the track. Which one?
Both. Um my camera. Uh first of all, which of the teams has gone with a non-aluminum cylinder head to be able to run higher engine temperatures? I'll give you a hint, not Mercedes. And that's good. Again, the fuel upgrade. So that's worth maybe a little bit of zip. Well I think the big thing here is if we're gonna talk about uh the fourth driver being Mercedes unreliability, well, the problem they've been having
They think now, and they think they fixed it, has been overheating and uh battery packs related. And it's both going to be hot. And we're at altitude where cooling is so much less effective. And Mercedes loves to play right on the edge of, oh, the entire car overheated won't run anymore. So they may have to turn down. enough that that they do not have an advantage.
Well yeah, well that's the thing, right? Is the Red Bull ring is seven hundred meters above sea level. Brazil's about the same. Mexico's the the highest one we go to on the calendar. That's like Two kilometers above sea level, it's it's way higher. Now, all this altitude stuff, right? It means less cooling, thinner air, and you just mentioned it, Mercedes have already had problems. with cooling and temperatures. Ferrari as well. Yes, they're bringing in this upgrade, which you just said, right?
¶ Red Bull's Potential Performance Boost
They're playing it down as you would if you're Ferrari. Oh, we're bringing an upgrade. It'll be all right. We won't be, you know, top of the order. Bang, pole position. That's what I want to see on Saturday. No. I also think Ferrari could struggle this weekend. I was reading something about how, you know, how they have this little smaller turbo that spools quicker. Which means less cooling for them. So all signs are really pointing towards Ferrari and Mercedes struggling.
And I think it could open the door for Red Bull to be quick this weekend because it could be this race of attrition, temperatures of like thirty six degrees Celsius. What's that in Fahrenheit? That's like a hundred and ten almost. Like it's very hot in Austria this weekend. So so it's I mean, what do you do, right? I mean you're gonna have the cool suits on, there's so much to battle this this weekend.
Well, I I think the first thing you think about when you think about that, aside from just the thermal management within the car itself, is you think about your tires. 'cause we've seen the effect of not being able to manage tires and hot temperatures. And then if you were like me, you remember that Ferrari have cleverly designed an entirely new S well, they haven't. They're wheel suppliers designed a brand new wheel hub that seems to be even better.
with regards to managing tire temperatures, as we saw in Barcelona. So you think to yourself, well this could also be like a real advantage for Ferrari. It doesn't matter if my engine is more powerful, if my Tires have overheated and they're just spinning because the tread is essentially liquid at this point. Your engine power does you no good, but if you can get that delicious sweet horsepower down on the asphalt, then you have a massive advantage, even if your turbo is small.
And we will spool faster, but ultimately you have less power. That's that's the issue for them. And of course, that was based on the start advantage they knew they'd have until the rules got changed. And that's boy, that's a whole nother podcast. And I've complained about it a lot anyway. So I will spare you that.
¶ FIA Engine Ranking Controversy
Um Red Bull though, you do make the good point. If the FIA's a duo decision is correct and they have the strongest combustion chamber,
Oh my goodness.
Then then that actually means the turbo is less important and it's already not going to work as well because we're at altitude. So yeah, that is potentially a real advantage for Red Bull. I think the problem for them is the whole rest of the car aerodynamically and just in terms of its balance being predictable for the drivers.
Does it seem to be circuit by circuit. Now we got medium high speed. Yeah. Are they better at that this year? I I I it's hard for me to keep track. They keep on flipping back and forth, right? Well
I definitely know Ferrari have struggled at all the high speed tracks, like Suzuka, Melbourne. That's'cause I looked it up, Matt, obviously. And uh Austria is also a high speed track, so that's not playing in their favour. The lack of breaking in Austria too, like that won't suit Lewis Hamilton's style. But then I think about it and I go, Well, Silverstone has
I think it's the least breaking you do on the calendar and Lewis has won there nine times in his career. So I don't know what to make of that. Anyway, so you got that situation. But yeah, just quickly.
Well well no, I was just gonna say, yeah, he makes up a lot of time, but consider that for all Austria is a very fast track, you do have that just almost dead stop into what I think they call turn three. Yeah.
Antonelli took out Verstappen last year, right? That coin.
Yes. Turns out braking is important at least in that corner and you can gain a lot of time there. And I would put a lot of what Ferrari was missing at the high speed circuits down to exactly that, just like they run out of oomph before they get to the same speed as their rivals, unless
just an absolute lack of aerodynamic performance. Their balance, again, the more balance your car has, the easier it is to manage your tires. So I think they're starting from a good position, but they do have notable deficits to Mercedes. And Red Bull in certain instances. So yeah, fascinating. Absolutely fascinating.
And fascinating too that Ferrari have had I mean, they've had this engine upgrade apparently ready since winter testing. because they all the teams knew they were gonna have this kind of balance of power aduo come through during the year. So now they can pull the trigger and that's why it's ready to go for Austria. But
The funny part is, imagine if you're sitting there as Red Bull. Like when you said that before, when when the FIA I think this is like two, three weeks ago for anyone who missed this, the FIA said that Red Bull have the quickest engine. I was like Huh? I had the Mister Bean you know the Mr. Bean meme, The Face where you're so confused? I I couldn't believe it. I thought I was reading a typo, but it they legit even Red Bull are confused about that. So
Um, that stumped me. And I'm sure Red Bull or Ford, as they are now, have their upgrades ready to go and can't pull the trigger because they're not allowed to. So
¶ Mercedes' Reliability at Red Bull Ring
That's not gonna play in their favor. Look, the good news for Red Bull is that they have some upgrades this weekend. But before I forget all that, I mean we kinda touched on I think the big story here, Matt, that I don't want to miss is We talked about the weather, right? It's hot. The altitude. And look at history. You've had two critical Mercedes battery failures.
And there was obviously the one with, you know, George Russell at Canada, then you had Antonelli Barcelona. So who's to say that they're gonna show any improvement this weekend at Austria?
Well they do have a history of doing well at Austria regardless. Red Bull that is. Do they?
Red Bull or Mercedes?
Red Bull. I mean Max always seems to do excessively well. Um Mercedes generally this has been a good circuit for them, but it's also been a weird one.
It's a good one.
They've had like remember they had to stay off the curbs that one time because they kept on messing up their engine, the vibrations that were being caused, the harmonic resonance. Yeah. In the chassis. Um
Well, they they also had they also had twenty nineteen. They had I mean they suffered from the same issues that are gonna happen this weekend. You had the high air track temps, they were way off the pace. I think Lewis and Boltas were were not quick at all. Every year we came here in the turbo hybrid era era, you have like a weird result.
Like the Williams were third and fourth, I remember twenty fourteen, like and y you just have some weird results here. I'm not saying Mercedes had never been quick here, but I'm saying, like you said, Matt, you do have some off
¶ Antonelli's New Power Unit
you know, outlier kind of events happen. But just where I wanna shift this quickly is the team has said, and this is specifically on Antonelli's car, they're bringing a new power unit, new battery pack. They say that they brought some upgrades to help.
And whether it's software, hardware, tweaks, you can get all into all the intricacies a little bit later. But they've had these recent breakdowns, Matt. This is critical for the rest of their season because, you know, you can't lose a title on reliability. We've seen it happen before. But it would be a failure for Mercedes to do anything but win the championship this year. That the the team that was rumored to have won it even before the season began.
Uh yeah, well you absolutely can in fact lose a championship on reliability, but you really, really would rather not, especially in this day and age. And I just always find it instructive to go back to Summers instructing all of us on the difference between an update. And an upgrade. Yes, sir. So if Mercedes says they're bringing new stuff to make things better, well then that's the results they see from their modeling and simulations and CFD and so on and so forth.
But we gotta see what happens when it hits the track and especially in these conditions.
¶ FIA's Secret Engine Algorithm
And if it worked for them, then yeah, now you'd think they'd have ultimately the power unit advantage. And I guess that would be the last thing for anyone still confused about that. The a duo, the updates you're allowed is based only on a secret black box FIA algorithm only focused on the combustion engine. So your electric side has nothing to do with it. However, your overall performance is completely tied into how your electrical system interacts with your combustion unit.
And I mean, I wouldn't put it past Mercedes and Ferrari and literally every other team. to be playing as many games as possible, trying to get these advantages, even though they're not exactly sure what the FIA is measuring. So this is why you have such a nonsensical result from uh sort of from a fan point of view. Like uh obviously everyone knows the best overall power unit belongs to Mercedes.
But even the drivers and the teams, Matt, like you hear them in interviews like Lando Norris going, you know, if Ferrari had the quickest engine, they'd be, you know, the best team out there. I know Norris plays the political game really well. Like that's one thing we've got to be careful of there. But even the teams were shocked to find out that Red Bull had the the quickest uh engine. I guess you're right though. It's it's based on the ice, right? Which is the
petrol part of the engine. It's not based on the battery. So Mercedes might have the best battery component. It might be unreliable, but it might be the quickest. So y who knows how they measure this stuff in this secret black box. I wonder if you can I was gonna come up with a suggestion to to just bribe this guy, whoever is there one guy sitting in a shed, just like analyzing telemetry, like Getting you know what I mean?
It's a couple of guys, but my understanding it's both lab testing and telemetry from the track. It's some combination of the two and they feel like they can isolate a performance number just for the combustion engine, or probably they get it in the lab and then they confirm it to make sure no tricks are being played when they test it.
Yeah, like
on a dyno or whatever. Ah. But it it it but it is it is one of the more nonsensical results. Cause if you s take half a step back and say, well, what was the point of this anyway? Well, the point was that Mercedes shouldn't be getting any help right now, and Ferrari and everyone else should be getting help. And that's not how it's played out at all.
¶ FIA Telemetry and Temperature Conversion
Also along with that too is uh I remember once I think I was doing pit reporting at a at a racing event, it was GT's, and I went into the actual truck where they had the person who was deciding all this stuff. So they would actually analyze each team's telemetry and say, Oh look
they're putting too much uh engine power into that car, I can disqualify them or send a notice. And I'm sitting here looking at this computer and it's one guy and I thought I could literally just alt F4 somebody's car from here. Like surely I could literally just shut down hey, the leaders twenty seconds ahead, bang. Like I I I'm pretty sure you could do that. I might be wrong.
Maybe somebody out there, FIA officials listening to the podcast, please let us know if you're allowed to or well not allowed to, but if you can do that. Um The weather, before we forget. So I mentioned it's gonna be hot, like what thirty six degrees. Impressive part everybody about Matt Trumpets is he can uh figure out what thirty six degrees Celsius is in Fahrenheit and convert in his head in like seconds. I'll give you go, can you do it?
Uh which one are we doing? Which number?
thirty six Celsius to Fahrenheit.
Uh well the only hard part about that is doubling it to 72 and subtracting seventh. So that that's a that's a tricky one. Two minus seven is is always gonna get you, but that's a 464, add 32, that is 96.
Wow. I wrote ninety seven. It might be a typo. I'll give you that. It could be a finger slipping there.
The thing is y you know, it's seven point two. So, you know, y y I didn't account for the decimal because I figured you didn't need that level of accuracy. Also in my head it starts to get more challenging with multiple numbers. Boy, that's going to be some brilliant podcasting. Everybody watch Trump, it's do math. It's bad enough when I just like read numbers off a spreadsheet.
¶ Hottest Races and Pirelli Strategy
Well, I learned something there because i you know, we we got viewers uh or w listeners excuse me from like you know, all parts of the world. We got US listeners, got UK listeners. Do you use Fahrenheit in the UK? No. I'm pretty sure they use Celsius over over there as well. Anyway, it won't be the hottest F one race in history this weekend. That was uh Bahrain two thousand five. Forty two degrees Celsius, about a hundred and eight.
Fahrenheit. Never been a hotter race than that, everybody. But two thousand five is as uh is as far as we go back, Matt, when the Hall of Records mysteriously melted away, unfortunately.
Yeah. Um no I the thing is you sort of got different. You have from an environmental point of view. you have your track temperature. That that matters a lot. And it's just generally worth knowing that usually that temperature you see for the track, they put that sensor in the coolest place on the track because they don't want
Is that right?
Issues. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because here's the thing that I learned talking to people who really know what they're talking about. The um the binder, the bitumen that they use on roads and tracks in general, just starts to melt once you get to about ADC. So like uh some motor G P races in the sixties, I I've been reliably informed potentially at the hottest parts of the track might be getting to the oh. Well. Yeah. Things are starting to melt under there kind of.
Is that what happened in Monaco? Is that why the track melted away? No, that would be a different story.
You know what? I I I think I have someone who knows about that and I may be following up on it. However, I don't have the full story right now, other than to say that I'm pretty sure that was a problem across the entire weekend and not just something that showed up on the Sunday.
¶ Optimizing Race Pit Stop Strategies
Right oh. Well, Pirelli are bringing the what is it? C three, C four, C five, softest in their range. Yep. Uh this weekend. Now I'm excited about that because Barcelona, the two three The two to three stop race we had was fun, got to admit. It wasn't quite as fun or as a circus act as like the twenty eleven Pirelli where we had those four stop races. But
Who's to say in Austria this weekend we don't have a four stop race? I mean, if you're gonna have one of the hottest weekends in F one history, track temp probably in the fifties, sixties, you'd say, Matt, on on race day.
Yeah. You'd think fifty's you think uh fifty or above, I would say.
I would say that this is good. for for our entertainment. I feel sorry for the drivers. I feel sorry for everybody at the track. Me sitting at home in my uh ten degrees Celsius, freezing cold in winter here in Australia, will be enjoying the entertainment.
Um yeah, so so we talked about the track. Uh I want to get the drivers in a second. Again, there's always this uh sort of focus on, oh, we need a two-stop, you need a three-stop. No, what you need is a two-stop and a three-stop, or a one-stop and a two-stop, whose outcomes are very close to identical. when you run the actual race. That's what makes it exciting and
had Mercedes just been brave enough to try and go for that one last stop and there hadn't been subsequent safety cars, that's what we would have seen in Barcelona. Is is is essentially Lewis went out there and said, Hey, a three stop might beat you like a gong. And Mercedes had to respond to it. That's why we get the exciting racing. If everybody's on exactly the same pit strategy, then it just devolves into like the lap, the undercut and the overcut in the lap before and after the pit stop.
What you really want is a diversity of valid options for the teams to exercise.
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¶ Max Verstappen's Red Bull Future
And in Austria too, the power unit is I would say a big key. You know, if if your power unit's a monster here at the Red Bull ring, it probably means you're gonna win. So according to the FIA, Matt, Red Bull's gonna win. 'Cause they have the best power unit. Isn't that right?
Yeah, again see my footnote about what it is they exactly measured and it's not really the best power unit. It's just some magic number and I think Mercedes guessed well enough that they got away with it. Ha
Well look, I I hope for Red Bull's sake, I hope for Max for Stappen's sake. that uh Red Bull show some improvement this weekend. Apparently, uh, and and this is uh gonna be a shock to people, how successful Red Bull are gonna be for the rest of the year could determine Max Verstappen's future at the team. I'm being sarcastic there. Of course it is. Of course they need speed, you know, to make Max quick.
Yeah, no, I I love this because boy, there's been so little ink spilled on Max Verstappen and his future at Red Bull. Which was a sarcastic comment because I realized it doesn't always read well across cultures, but Yeah. I mean, yeah, the obvious problem for Max is the team isn't performant. A lot of its senior staff have left and you're in what any other sport would be called potentially a rebuilding era, at least on the team side, the engineering side.
But if you're Max, you know, you can look at Lewis and say, Well, I have a window. And at the far side of that window, I've got Antonelli. And who knows who else coming up the ranks, there's another one already, um, and F2 that are that are leg will be legitimate threats. in terms of their level of talent, especially to have an extra car advantage. So yeah, you you do want to strike while that iron is hot.
And then there's always that thing of Max just being Max and saying, well, look, if I'm not winning, it's not really that much fun for me, or at least I don't have a chance to win. I don't know. I I I have brought this up before, but we did interview Button back in the day and he made sort of an offhanded comment, not part of our interview, that like The brawn that he won the championship in wasn't really a particularly fun car to drive. He's driven cars that he liked a lot better.
But it was a car that could win everything. So is it really the car you're driving, Max? Or is it the you just don't get engaged enough if you're not cl if you can't sniff a win or a podium?
Well that's right. I remember Jensen Button at the time like struggling at some tracks as well to build tire temperatures in into the car and all that. So yeah, that there's a big deal. Like if Max isn't enjoying himself and the car's he's not at one with the car, then of course, yeah, he's he's gonna wanna find
another team or another car elsewhere that that's gonna suit him. But as well is the team fundamentally the people there, is that gonna is that the same as what Max was enjoying You know, in the last five, ten years, apparently Paul Monaghan, you know, the the chief engineer at Red Bull, apparently he could leave the team as well.
I think I mentioned that a little bit earlier. It's a rumor. I haven't seen it confirmed. But it wouldn't surprise me because all these people have been stuck in that role for a long time. Yeah. And now now what they're getting offered is a chance to step up and have more You know, have more to do at more say, more zeros on the paycheck and everything.
He has performance clauses too, Matt. Do we get into that? 'Cause I know with Russell we kind of thought uh that there were certain clauses that could you know well let's not get into that again, but apparently last year what was it? Like something about the team had to be second or third in constructors, he had an exit clause. I can't remember. But apparently it's the same this year as well.
Yeah, well, I mean I mean, probably everybody has clauses of that kind, regardless of what team you're in. But the issue, as we already pointed out, is the doors are rapidly closing. If there's no better performing or no promising enough team to go to. Mm-hmm. I mean, does he go does he go to where I don't know.
Um well what Aston. That's y that's I mean, that's the only real place he could and we talked about this earlier, right? When we talked about how the the domino effect with George Russell is like Aston Martin was pretty much his only option you would say realistically'cause I would say they have the money to pay him.'Cause I think if he did go to Mercedes, I mean i the relief for Toto Wolf and Mercedes right now, Matt, is that Toto doesn't have to go to the Mercedes board to get approval.
to sign Max, like that's how much money Verstappen would Uh I'm not gonna say he would demand it, but just naturally, you know, a driver of his caliber, y he'd need to be paid big time. So I think that's kind of the relief for Mercedes. They don't have to worry about that because it's probably gonna be Russell Antonelli again next year. Aston Martin
apparently have the money. Apparently if if you go to Lawrence Stroll's house, it's a money pit. It's an endless hole you can just reach and grab whatever figure you want. I'm lying.
¶ Team Resources and F1 Competitiveness
Well, it's never an unlimited money pet, but there are very clearly teams that have more resource available to them. And if you can't offer by far the best performing car, then you either need to offer some kind of team culture that you really vibe with and it's like, well, okay, fine. I don't mind because like everybody here is amazing. The chemistry is fantastic. I'm just having the time of my life. I don't really care.
'Cause after all it is Formula One, man, there there's rarely more than one or two teams that can really win a championship. And maybe another two or three that might win a raise. You know, d I it's been that way as long as I can remember watching it. Um Start of the was it twenty thirteen? Twenty there was one season where we had five winners and five races. That was pretty unusual, also the very end of a regulation set.
It was even better. It was seven from seven in in twenty twelve.
Okay, there you go.
Possibility, it could have been nine from nine. I won't get into that, but it could have been for anybody who watched F one back then. Uh does he hold too much power at Red Bull, do you reckon, Mac? Like, do you think'cause Carlos signs during the week, I don't know if you saw this, but apparently he revealed that Max has it written into his contract to not do marketing and interview.
So I if you're gonna pay him big bucks at Mercedes, like do you want that? You'd want to make some money off his brand somehow.
Uh yeah, so I think the problem is the whole Red Bull team was built around catering to Mac. And again, that's a valid and normal strategy. But the collapse of power above him, yeah, means he perhaps has an outsized voice relative to any other driver's position in a team. But that uh that wouldn't have happened. Well, I I'm not gonna get into the what ifs, but had the normal team principle then had Matachit still been alive, this would have never happened.
I mean it might have happened, but it wouldn't have been an issue for Max and he wouldn't have been able to get as much leverage out of it as he is now. Because at the end of the day, say what you will about anyone directly above him. This was Dietrich Matterchet's team, and everything we're seeing now is a direct result of his passing and the power devolving into a more corporate entity.
¶ Carlos Sainz's Radical F1 Idea
Yeah. Everything's getting off the rails at at Red Bull. Even Carlos Sides getting Carlos Sides off the rails. Just revealed that uh Just revealed that Verstappen, I guess, revelation in his contract. Another car law signs off the rails as well, Matt. He said uh an idea, I think he said something like, you should have each driver race every car twice. Over the course of a season to determine a champion. Jesus Christ, somebody checked the water at the end.
The Carlos Science residence, anyway? Well, surely you don't have a car.
I will fight you about it. This is absolutely completely brilliant. What is the biggest differentiator in Formula One? It's the car. Right. We all know this. Who's the best driver? Is it necessarily the one in the best car? No. Are they all so close in performance? I mean, even you know, even even people that get mocked for performance like Stroll, look, and they would probably trash you. at any race you cared to mention. Their level of performance just is across a pretty narrow band.
So what he's saying is if we rotated the drivers by team across a season, So you start your first race is in Williams, your second race is in Red Bull, your third race is in Mercedes, your fourth race is in uh Audi, your fifth race like like that. Yeah. Across a twenty-two uh twenty twenty-two week season, every driver would get two races in the same make. And that means that their point score would be much more signal and much less noise.
across a whole season because I'd be yeah, I wouldn't get any points when I started in the asin this year, but I'd probably get a haul of'em in a Mercedes, wouldn't I? but also a challenge for the team because they'd have new drivers to deal with and for the drivers because they would have to adapt to cars that drove quite a bit differently week after week after week. It would be a really fascinating challenge. Now obviously.
completely unworkable in the real world. But like as a as sort of a thinking exercise, I'm like, oh yeah, no, I'm totally actually on board with that. That that really works quite well.
¶ Red Bull's Weight Reduction Upgrade
I'm not saying it a terrible idea. I'm just saying that it will never happen. And it's not even a half-baked idea, Carlos Sainz. It's burnt. It's not happening. It's never it.
In real life, I don't think he meant it to happen in real life. I think he was probably making a point about how limiting it is because if you get a team that messes up. You you, the driver, ha can't make up for it no matter how good you are. And arguments we've had. Yeah, no, you c you could bit Max and Aston and he might do better than Alonzo or Stroll, but he's not doing Q three better by any stretch of the imagination.
No, of course not. No. Look, I I get where Kylo Science is coming from. Um I I hope for Max's sake in Austria, because apparently Red Bull are bringing uh an upgrade update. I should say you mentioned you and you and Summers have taught me well now. And they're going to be at the minimum weight. What is it, like seven hundred and seventy kilograms? What's that? Like three Shaquille O'Neals? Like
Yeah, it's pretty light. So they're gonna be lighter. They're gonna be better. I hope for Max's sake, Matt, that he's top step of the podium and it rejuvenates himself this weekend. I think all signs are pointing towards a Red Bull leap this weekend. I think they're gonna win. I'm calling it.
Well, I will tell you this, unless the car itself breaks while racing,'cause they made it lighter. The closest thing you get to a guaranteed upgrade is the car is five or six kilograms lighter. That is just lap time all the way round. So I I if they if they have made the car and I think it's seven six eight.
What honestly, there have been a lot of different weights in Formula One regulations over the years and they're kind of all in my brain. And so occasionally I just snatch the wrong one by accident. But if they are if they are down to minimum weight, then that should be a significant lap time upgrade for them.
¶ F1 Development: Past vs. Present
Look, we'll uh I don't know where we're how long have we gone so far? I think we're trying to do I know Spanners always promises every podcast we're gonna do under an hour. I will actually stick to that, uh, this podcast for for the the Austrian
We're probably around forty three, forty five minutes of uh recorded material.
Do you think this year, Matt, you know, I know y you know I love my F1 history. I think back to two thousand nine. There's this kind of two thousand nine S development race happening, maybe not to the extreme. Now for people who didn't watch F1 back then, this is how dramatic it was. What you have with Aston today, you had a team like that in 2009 show up one weekend. And put it on pole. Like it was uh that was the force India back then, right?
Is it a bit hard to do these days because of the cost cap, Matt? Is it more modern day so engineers are making less mistakes? Are we gonna see that this year? Aster Martin potentially make that leap? Pole position one round?
Well, no, because the power unit is too far off the mark. I think what you had in two thousand nine is you had very, very mature power units. So there was not a great deal of difference. Mercedes, I think, was the most powerful, Renault the least, but the the band was so narrow. And Renault had some other technological advantages that allowed them to be very, very competitive and work very well with uh
¶ AI and Simulation in Team Development
With the Red Bull. But the big difference is across that 2009 to 2021 when we really had a cost cap. One, you had the incredible rate of development of simulation tools. Artificial intelligence. uh different modeling algorithms that are far more efficient than your standard Monte Carlo method that came out of uh World War II nuclear weapons development. And all of the teams that had no cost cap spent everything they could on this.
Yeah. And all of the teams that had no money throughout that era, Williams, off cough. didn't. And now they're you can't catch up. You can't spend. There's no way to spend the amount of money you'd need to. to catch up with the n cycles and generations of information and data they've already been able to generate to the point where I was listening to uh another show the only other podcast I listen to and it's not a Formula One podcast.
This is blasphemous. Y'all...
Not a Formula One podcast, I will tell you I listen to no Formula One podcasts.
Apart from us.
I'm I'm on most of these, so like it's it's sort of like a you get my point there.
Yes, yes.
Um, and it's getting to the point where they've generated so much data in wind tunnels and stuff like that. that they no longer have to run They no longer have to run full CFD simulations. They can instead train an artificial intelligence, which is not your chat GPT people. There are some resemblances and some things in common, but not at all. We're talking about a very different set of tools here.
But they can train it up on these results and instead of running lengthy, huge, demanding CFD simulations. the artificial intelligence being trained enough on past results can just tell you much more quickly and almost in real time if what you are thinking of is going to work. Now obviously there's going to be some caveats there and be very, very far outside my wheelhouse, but I did hear someone who
who actually I believe was responsible for the development of the mass damper with his own AI company, talking about this in a show that was recorded last month. So I'm not also just making it up. And I I think the bigger teams are getting to the point where they have and that's, I mean, imagine the efficiency advantage there. Well, one AI set of tokens and responses or whatever versus a whole CFD cycle. So now I can really make progress at just exponentially better levels. And if I'm
a team that didn't have money and doesn't have these tools, I'm still doing things the old fashioned way. I remember back in the day, a friend of ours got hired to work at a team and discovered that their server infrastructure was so poor. they were still having to hand-enter suspension settings to run simulations for Friday practice. And everybody else had automated it and could run all possible suspension settings.
And choose from the pool of the best ones to start the Friday with. So this is like this is we're still there. It just everybody has moved up some because uh because now Formula One makes lots of money, so all the teams have money.
First off, that was all very good, but how did we get onto this?'Cause we were talking about
You were talking about whether a forced India result could happen.
It's less waggles.
Because the data tools that big teams have are just suffocatingly that much better.
¶ Fernando Alonso's Aston Martin Dilemma
Well that's it. Okay, so to bring it back to that, if you remember uh two thousand nine to all the F one fans watching back then, so you had, you know, Force India, like we said, they were slow one round, they come into spa, poll, podium. They were as slow as what you'd see from Aston Martin. Then he had the opposite effect. I remember Toyota the same year, front row starts Bahrain and then two races later, slowest car at Monaco. So it's not as dramatic as what you're saying is gonna happen.
The problem is now by you saying all this is if you're Fernando Bolonso, cover your ears. Because this is a man who's trying to extend his career beyond seventy five years old or whatever he is now, and I'm impressed with how Like, I actually can't believe it's twenty twenty six. It's been twenty years since he won his last world title and he's still tearing up a Formula One racetrack and doing a great job out there. Anyway.
We think he's leaning towards another contract, Matt. Is i are the rumors coming out of the paddock on a Thursday? He says he'll make his mind up on the performance improvement. From Aston Martin. Now, while I giggle and why that's funny, is like Red Bull, they're bringing some some upgrades this weekend, updates, excuse me, to uh Austria. Now
I don't think anything they bring to the car is gonna fix things, right? Like it's gonna have to be down to the engine you mentioned earlier. It's all about this Honda Power unit. That's where they're struggling. I'm we're not saying that the car's a gem. We're not saying the car's as good as a you know, the chassis not as good as a Ferrari, but I'm pretty sure.
Uh like unless Honda is funding their project big time, I don't think we're gonna see a massive leap from Aston Martin. I hope Alonso doesn't retire then. Can you give me some good news? I'm I'm getting negative here. I need some good news, please.
Well, I mean, I think good news number one is Honda's been given an extraordinary amount of leeway to fix things. 'Cause it's not in anybody's best interest for for them to be that far off the pace. No. Secondly, uh I I do believe based on the timing of Nui's garden leaves, that what he presented to the team and and what he demanded from Honda were just You could go with very poorly thought out and no one to really oversee him.
And I think that is sort of less the case now. If nothing else, he's there and can see it for himself and and will have a much better idea. And certainly historically he has designed some terrible, terrible performing cars. and then a year or two later had championship winning cars. So if I'm Alonzo, Here's what I would like. I would like to see that the performance of the car, aside from the power unit, is significantly improving as far as a balance and comfort.
ghost because remember they gave him that special seating position and he had to quit because it it was it was literally just breaking him like that was a couple of races ago. Yeah. So rethinking the seat the seating position Very important. But just fundamentally, will the car be balanced enough to know if I'm gonna have understeer or oversteer? I don't even care if it's understeers like, you know, my granddad's station wagon. At this point that would be an estate to you, European.
Doesn't matter. As long as it just does the same thing in every corner, I can cope with it a lot better than just never knowing what's gonna happen. Problematically, some a lot of that too is down to the programming. of getting the power from braking and from the engine into the battery. So if you need power, it takes full power and braking and you have all this extra um slowing down at the crankshaft of the um
uh of of of the car. So your brakes work super duper well. Get to the next time round and your battery's full, it gives you none of that. And I think that the uh manual systems, they're hydraulic, are just struggling a bit to keep up.
And along with that too, so I think you mentioned earlier about um well you mentioned something about the budget. I've l I've lost it. But it was about you know these Agio upgrades coming in. So I looked it up and
¶ Aston Martin's Budget and Planning
You know, uh y yeah, Red Bull's your your yardstick basically, then you have your everybody else who's a few percentage off and and all that kind of stuff. Now, apparently Aston Martin are allowed about eleven million dollars. Extra on top of the cost cap to to improve whatever the the problems are with the power units and all that kind of stuff. You see Alonso's quote that just came out. I know you know they're still in the
No, I didn't, but I'm not surprised.
Tell me what he goes he says apparently there's no money to bring upgrades. And he says, unlimited upgrades like the other teams do. I should pronounce every R with a roll every time I come that'cause you know how he pronounces them like that? Anyway, he said it's surprising to see the FIA page on Friday every race because maybe the other teams have the money machine in the minus one floor in the factory. Now this is Alonso uh throwing his toys out the Pram.
uh clearly upset with with how things are going. Lawrence Stroll is not a money pit. He's already lost I mean, the amount of money they've spent to get to this stage and be back at a grid is is terrifying for them, right? And now the FIA's gone, hey, here's eleven million dollars more to make yourselves quicker. I doubt money is going to solve this problem, Matt. There's obviously other fundamental problems.
Uh yeah. So like i Nid is a bit, if you'll pardon the phrase, rich for him at Aston to be complaining about money. Because if there's any team that looks like a money pit and had endless streams of spending available, it would be Aston. However, I will point you to a favorite saying of mine from my wife's industry, which is quick, cheap, fast or quick, cheap, good, pick two. And what let's take Ferrari's a counter, their power unit update.
has been in the works since two thousand twenty five, when they begin to get a sense of where everybody else else's power unit was at play. Knew he was on garden leave until like the last couple of months before this season. So correct. Yeah. I'm sure the staff did the best they could, but without a long term strategic vision, which really should have started you know, before twenty twenty five, twenty twenty four, twenty twenty three.
Um, you are lost right now and it is costing you just two, three, four, five, ten times as much to try and keep up. So I don't think he's wrong about it. But I believe the reasons aren't that the other teams have unlimited funds that they are playing accounting games with because remind me, who has been who's been dinged for that before? Uh
Red Bull.
I think Aston's been on the naughty list once or twice. I'm not sure if they were ever penalized, but yeah, I I all the teams will be playing some level of accounting games, let's face it. But they're all being watched by the other teams, so there's only so much they're gonna get away with. Anyway.
¶ Recalling Recent FIA Controversies
it it's really the the long-term planning. That's why these other teams seem to have more resources because it costs a lot less. If I know by November I need to produce these parts in July. Well then I can do that very inexpensively. I c do the production late at night when the electricity's cheaper. I can do things off hour. There's so many ways they're probably getting more advantage out of it, but just mostly by being organized.
Now I I wasn't gonna bring it up, but now that you brought up these uh cost cap breaches, I think I'm gonna have to bring up like a list of FIA blunders just before we go. Which of these tickles you fancy the most, Matt? This is like the the this is off the top of my head.
of the last ten years. The handling of the Monaco result with Pierre Gasly. We won't get into that again, but that's an absolute shambles. Oh, for some reason let's reinstate Pierre Gasly there. Oh, George Russell, let's reinstate you. Oh, we can't. Anyway. Uh Red Bull fastest engine decision. I think that that's still quite a howler. Um backtracking on the 50-50 power output. Let's not get into that again. Uh the swearing penalties, jewelry penalties
Uh, the whole driving standards and and thing that happened with Verstappen, do you remember back in twenty twenty one? Yeah. Abu Dhabi twenty twenty one, that's I mean, I'm gonna call that the Lord Voldemort race, the race that shall not be named.
Um, then you've got the Red Bull cost cap breach, which you brought up. And remember, hiding the Ferrari's illegal engine also swept under the rug. Few FIA blunders, Matt, from the la from the last ten years, like Do we wh which of those tickles you fancy the most?
I'm gonna run down. I I don't think the Monaco result was a particular blunder. I think there are issues in that that haven't been properly aired and might need more looking at. Because if you're gonna accept the race director being able to define redefine the speed limit in the pit lane during the race weekend and that has and that has the force of a regulation. Well then maybe him saying you may you must stay all four wheels You know, between the two white lines you may not cut.
then that should be the force of a regulation too, and yet somehow I've heard from some sources they were specifically told that, and then well, whatever. We can get into that. But I think there's room for it to be, yeah, may not have been perfect, but There's some unexplored issues there. Uh fastest engine, already explained it. You know, it was i as with many things, good intentions don't always yield good results.
¶ The Folly of Trivial F1 Rules
Don't you dare mention the the Lord Voldemort race again, by the way. That is off the cards. Anyway.
I will I will fifty fifty power output. I've had my say on that. It's n not a blunder. It was a weakness in catering to the manufacturers more than they should have been. The one for me of all of these that really, really stands out, and it's sort of related, you you could say maybe to the twenty one thing. To me it's um it's the swearing penalties, it's the jewelry penalties because you are making a stand on something.
that was in force decades ago. They didn't want you wearing rings because of a lot of very horrible things that can happen to your hands and accidents. No. And what you were talking about now is entirely different. If you're going to make a point about something, it should be a point about something that matters. And there were much, much better things to be to insist on still being regulations in this day and age.
You know, and and it it was obvious to everyone who watched. So you're not you're undercutting your own power with the drivers. Yeah. But more importantly, the optics of oh, well no, a study ring, no, that's unsafe. Really? Well really. Tell me more guys. Cause you like I went from being like, oh maybe they have a point to like oh or on the radio during a race, you may not use sweary words.
Really? Like have you come to New York my my three year old could swear properly because you can't get down the sidewalk without hearing it. It just like I get it. I know for some people it's inconvenient if you've got kids of a certain age. However That's also kind of life, guys. Get over it.
¶ Final Thoughts and Personal Plugs
Well that's it. It's MBS versus the eighteenth Amendment, really. I mean, might as well arrest the beer baron at this point and it's be as close as As close to that episode as possible. Anyway, final thing, Matt. Let's not get into the rest of it. Let's wrap it up. Uh anything to plug, I guess, before the race review?
Well, I it not really a plug, but I just gotta be proud of, you know how ever so often you gotta be proud of your partner. Oh, my wife has a new book coming out. And it's um a historical fiction. And it's about Helen Gibson, who was Hollywood's first
Stunt woman and she's now writing under the name for historical fictions. Amanda Waller. It's probably not going to be out for like a year, year and a half, but the official announcement hit the trade publication, so I could finally tell people about it. Nice. Very excited. And it's not a romance. It's it's like uh women's fiction, historical fiction kind of deal. And other than that, I just want to say thanks again to David'cause uh he got in touch.
At PT fifty-five, you're in New York, went out, had drinks. It was a fantastic time. So thanks. I really enjoyed it.
Well, there you go. Yeah. And check so that's not gonna be so I can't get my hands on a copy for another year, at least, I I think.
Yeah. Well I mean maybe you know, talk to me off air, we'll see what we
Yeah, well yeah, sneak me a PDF or or or the Word doc version. The draft is point one. V point V zero point one. Anyway, um at Matt Pt fifty five on socials. I'm at Johnny S eight J O N N Y E S S eight. We'll be back for the race review Sunday. The crew will be back. It'll be Spanners, myself,
Matt, unless uh unless one of us gets shot, really, I think we'll all be we'll all be back for Sunday. Um, enjoy. For now though, uh enjoy the race weekend. Austria, it's gonna be a good one. It's gonna be sweltering. Stay cool. Enjoy it. Take care.
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