You are listening to Mist Apex Podcast. We live. F1. Welcome to Miss Apex Podcast. I'm your host, Richard Reddy, but my friends call me Spanner, so let's be friends. Welcome to our Miami Grand Prix race review. Miss Apex is on location in Miami with Global Poker. whose parent company vgw is a premium partner of scuderia ferrari hp and Thanks to BoxBox, Car Club and Haggerty, Garage and Social who hosted us for our live event last night. It went really well. Everyone had a great time.
Thanks to everybody who came out. Check out their links in the show notes below. But we had another amazing chapter in Oscar Piastri's March. to the title. We'll track the insane adventures of Mad Max in the Punterdrome and a wild weekend for the Scooteria. Also, Williams ate their porridge This weekend, they looked on fire. Kimmy showed us a little, but not a lot. And we'll discuss a lot more on this initially damp, but eventually warm and humid episode of Missed Apex Podcast.
We are an independent podcast produced in the podcasting shed. With the kind support of our patrons and partners, we aim to bring you a race review before your Monday morning commute. We might be wrong, but we're first. i'm joined in my let's call it a shed by my uber driver in miami matt two rumpets hello matt after the deluge. That was quite a rainstorm we had today.
Yeah, but then we had this constant thing in F1 where we go, is it going to rain? Is Christmas going to come? Is the tooth fairy going to leave money underneath our pillow? And then it was almost a fear. Before the race, I said to you, do you know what? I'll take rain delays and even a potential cancellation over a dry Miami Grand Prix. That's the call I was going to make. But we had a dry Miami Grand Prix. And actually, it was pretty cool. It was a good race. You know, it was a very good race.
Props to Pirelli for making the tires a little bit softer. Maybe that helps some, but also I think they extended a DRS zone and that may have just helped give a little more spite. to the Miami Grand Prix. And I'm also joined by my trackside tour guide and Lego racing expert, Christina Limes. And you did show me all the activations and stuff, which is a cool part of being part of a racetrack, which I wouldn't, I just definitely wouldn't bother seeing them.
unless I happened upon them. But you showed me these massive Lego cars. And it's featured on the TikTok. I did a TikTok with them. I had no idea that the drivers were going to get in and sort of, and basically race them around the driver parade. If I had known that the driver parade was going to be them driving with both drivers loaded onto them.
400,000 pieces i would have been in my seat and i think a lot of other people would have as well because it looked like so much fun and instead i was sitting there eating like arguably some good chicken tenders and fries but like Not miss the Lego race with the drivers. Good. Check tenders and fries. And they took it really seriously. And the crash damage at the end was extensive. gonna hit the cost cap like quite frankly that is going to that's gonna hurt
I think so. We've already covered the sprint review. So if you want to hear our take on the sprint review, we did it at a live event at Hagerty Garage and Social. And you can catch that on our YouTube and normal feed. But Matt, I think let's go straight into the action here. So the controversial moment of the day. for me, was Lando Norris being hunted out of the leads by Max Verstappen. I think I've sort of given away what my opinion of it is.
but it set up the whole rest of the race lots of other good racing during the course of the day so it was enjoyable and actually listening to the crowd behind there were much more informed I think than say even last season I think it's caught the imagination of the people who want to come and watch this Grand Prix and they didn't
away disappointed i don't think from this race but i do want to start with that that grandstand moment with verstappen and and norris and say whose fault is it well it is absolutely max's fault of course i mean there's lando coming around the corner there's max And Max just like wheels over and smacks him off the track. And I just gotta ask, I mean, is that what friends do for friends?
It's what some of my friends would do if we were carting. It's what some of them did do when we went carting. It's one of those things where I know we're doing whose fault is it anyway between the cars, but we know whose actual fault it is. And that's the regulations. That's the FIA. It's the big frustration of having rules that are written where this type of racing is allowed, encouraged, and doing something nonsensical like that doesn't get penalized despite the fact that
It was a dumb move. It was a bad move. And it went, like, it's just such a weird place. I think you actually put your finger on it. We say whose fault it is, and it's the steward's fault for saying, oh, that's just turn one, lap one.
Things will happen. You have to say, no, that's actually not it. We had so much other good racing. It really flagged up how... i don't know what's the right thuggish i don't know if thuggish is not the right word but you know what are you just like how uh it was not elegant how about that So, I don't think it is the weird racing rules at all. I think in this situation, it's really just a kink off to the left, Matt.
At some point, we've got to stop expecting the car that's nominally on the outside because it was the car on the inside. Verstappen had a moment coming out of Turn 1. Norris could do nothing else but get alongside. And then he's just following his line as the road kinks to the left. So when there's a kink in Imola. We expect people just to stay in their lane as the kink goes. There's no obligation because the road kinks off to the left for all the drivers to fly off to the right. Mustafa is just
either out of control or deliberately driving into Lando Norris. We don't know because amazingly there's no access to the onboards at the time of recording. This isn't even one of those situations. They're not hitting the brake pedal. So to me, it's irrelevant who's ahead.
the imaginary apex of the kink or not so I don't know to me this is just a clear case of Verstappen just moved over nerfed Norris off the track and then hasn't got a penalty and i just don't understand that's not a normal lap one incident it's not normal to just go oh we're on a bit of a kink i'll just wipe out the car that's overtaking me this is verstappen going no
you don't get to overtake me this is the same as he did in uh in austria that where he just was like right i i know i'm losing the position but i'm still gonna just cover the whole track and take you out The more I look at it, the more it looks like a, you're getting ahead of me, therefore I'm just going to hit you. It's a professional foul. It's really a weird thing, and it's a pattern with the two of them especially.
And I just wonder, because I know they're friends and they raced a lot together online and they came up through carts together and all that other stuff. But it really...
But it bugs me. When I said the problem is the stewards, the problem is the stewards aren't punishing that. You're right. It's not a normal turn one problem. This isn't someone locking up, coming up the inside. This isn't like some understeer that you didn't... expect this isn't a fourth person joining the party at the last minute meaning someone can't go where they expected to be able to go no it was a wide open track they knew where each other were and it was just like
And it just ruined the whole spectacle of the race because that battle was going to be everything. I think it's really telling of how Everyone has that opinion of the regulations that this is just bad, it's encouraging bad racing, that immediately upon seeing a move like that on the first lap, we're assuming that it's because of these regulations and it's because this is the type of behavior that has been
permitted nobody is wondering oh was it a weird twitch was it that the track was slightly still wet no one is pondering that everyone is immediately going wow another dumb move that is allowed by this set of regulations and that's going unpunished because you see it as such a pattern of behavior. and just repeating over and over and over again, no one's questioning it anymore. Everyone's just throwing up their hands and going, here we go again.
I haven't looked at who was in the steward's office. I genuinely don't know. But the fact that Max got away with murder this weekend makes me suspect. I'm just going to go ahead and say, was Warwick one of the stewards? I don't want to name what he was. Yeah. Derek was there. Right. Because how else do you explain it? The impeding against Stroll in the sprint qualifying was as textbook as impeding as you could be.
Stroll had to go off the racing line to break because Verstappen was just dawdling on the racing line. Held up his own teammate as well. Ruined Norris' lap also. and then pitted he wasn't even on a lap so i just i can't imagine any other driver getting away with that um obviously had to be penalized for the unsafe relief release but that was more of a red bull thing But then to not get penalized for this either, you go, that's not...
That's not right, and no wonder Verstappen just dawdles around doing whatever he wants, if he's not getting punished for it. I challenge Verstappen fans here who are going to go, oh, you lot are a bunch of Max haters. Do you really, really think? that he shouldn't have got a penalty for impeding do you honestly genuinely think he shouldn't have got a penalty for hitting norris and just staring into him in a straight like hand on heart tell me i'm wrong about
Definitely not wrong. Okay. When you're a fan of Verstappen, you should absolutely be wanting him to get penalties because you're going to see him racing better, racing more cleanly, and better on-track action from him when he's forced into following a good technique.
that's the part that's frustrating you're not actually seeing good racing half the time you're seeing ah here's the rule of the word like here's the rule of regulations i'm going to like exploit that and yes that's part of the game but when it gives you shit racing is that really something that you want?
So the thing that we're really talking about here is twofold. One is Max is a superstar, and we know from other sports, sometimes superstars do get judged by different standards, so that's part of it. But realistically, what Christina says is correct. When the stewards let him do that, he will do that and he will do that until he's punished for it consistently. And I'm sorry if you hit somebody in the middle of a track.
You've caused a collision. It is against one of the most fundamental rules in motorsport. And what makes it worse, what makes it so savage, is the entire rest of the race. We saw so many good... moves by so many people except for carlos signs at the end of the race It was just spectacular how close they could get their cars together. They weren't being nice about it.
but they were being respectable about it. They left each other the room you have to leave in order for us, the fans, to enjoy the show. When Max drives like that, he ruins the show, and I think that's really what... bothering people more and more because the whole stance, they went nuts. They booed massively when they saw that. Oh, they were calling Max every name under the sun for that. And you're right, it's boring racing. So when Ocon and Hamilton...
were racing. They sort of chose to race by a different set of rules. So they chose that they had to leave each other racing room and it was better racing. I think this is the thing I'm getting... I'm getting bored of the Verstappen style of racing when it's allowed. If it was getting penalized, then it wouldn't matter. You go, yeah, he's gone for it. He's made the referee make a decision. They penalized him. Fine. But when it becomes the norm in F1,
Now, instead of multi-corner racing, the corners don't, the battles don't even last one corner. They're over in half a corner. So it's whoever dives bop, dive bombs to the apex first. And it's over. And, you know, I got a nice video of that incident or the incident later on with Norris and Verstappen. And I'm scanning. I'm not even looking at the whole thing. I get to the apex line and I go, oh, Verstappen was ahead.
Therefore, it's his corner. He can just run Norris off. And he did. So it's not good racing. I really hope something comes off the back of that. Because I really think it's ridiculous that that wasn't. that wasn't penalized and and when we got to the end of the race like certainly the commentary we were listening to
It got forgotten that Norris just got punted off out of the lead and nothing was done about it. So as much as we've criticized Norris and as much as he should have just had pole position if he'd nailed his lap and disappeared away. There's nothing he could do. Lando Norris has just been robbed. I'm not a Lando Norris fan, by the way. He's just been completely robbed of a race win. Yeah, I agree. And it barely came up in the post-race interview. Yeah, well, they have people they serve.
I don't know. Look, so the mainstream media, they do have this thing where they try and sort of dampen it down. So... In the post-race interview, the interviewer said to Norris, oh, when you went around the outside of Max there, it probably was never going to work. Is that what you thought? Did you think, oh, it's probably never going to work? And you go, blimey. slowed down out the corner norris would have had to have stopped to not be alongside and he gave this answer saying well
People complain if I go for it. People complain if I don't go for it. Which tells you that he's paying a lot of attention to media comments, social media comments. I think it's surprising when we hear the superstar drivers talk about that so when we had Bottas doing the famous to whom it may concern go away and stop being so bothersome, I think is what he said. Yeah. That was in relation, I thought that was like to a management company or his agent or something. That was to Instagram.
And so I think it's quite clear that Norris' those kind of negative comments have gotten under his skin. But today, for me, Christina, he was just a completely hapless, done-over, mugged victim. It was really unfortunate because you're looking at the numbers, you're looking at the pace he had for the rest of the race.
and it's not even just that he lost a position if it was okay max pushed him off track and then he had to just wait a couple of corners to try and get that position back again that would be one thing But it's the fact that he got pushed off into a corner that had the runoff paint instead of standard grip. There was a curb. And he lost, what, four or five positions? But then he had to go and gain back. There wasn't the simple solution of just give Max a penalty or make him give the position back.
It was, no, no, no, he is well and truly had his day absolutely ruined. by a habit that continuously comes up again and again it's frustrating we could have had a very lovely fight wheel-to-wheel action between Norris and Verstappen and we know how they fight each other unlike how they do anybody else It's special, right? Well, we did get it. Seeing a fight for third position is not the same as seeing a fight for the win. Was it still good? Yes, absolutely. But it's not the same as for the win.
Granted, but Matt, you were saying to me offline, you think that it was different, the battle between Max and Piastri and Max and... Sorry, Max and Oscar and Max and Lando. Definitely. Yeah, I... Personal, right, Christina? It does, yes. Even if you see a lot of the similar moves or similar defensive style from Verstappen that he does with Piastri vs Norris,
It does feel different. There's history there. They grew up together in a way that you know piastri hasn't piastri is also so level-headed that even if he's having beef with somebody it doesn't amp up in the same way as people who are more vocal like verstappen and norris also
and that's something you love to see whether that's for a championship fight or just a fight in general and anytime you get to see them go wheel to wheel and you know casually flip each other the bird when they possibly can yeah it's a good storyline it's something that's fun and exciting to see and when you don't get that when you can feel it slipping out of your fingers that's so frustrating
well yeah it's it's i don't know it's like that it's almost like they're brothers you know in a weird way you know how brothers can be like they can lose sight of the bigger picture because they're just competing with each other constantly And I just, I really got the sense watching today's race that Verstappen, like he made Piastri's life hard. That pass wasn't easy. He did everything right. but he literally ruined his tires. He threw everything he had at keeping Norris behind him.
And, oh, and it was brilliant to watch, but you're sitting there going, why? You know you're not in this race, man. You're ruining your own race to do this. I've got a theory. I mean, holding off Piastri fiercely. And I think he did make some really late defensive maneuvers. So down into turn 17, he did a ghost defense.
like right at the last minute on Piastri and you go if Piastri had made a lunge that ghost defend might have just chopped him in half so he was defending but I get what you're saying it seemed a lot more personal against um against Norris I've got a weird theory that he thinks he can't win the title. So if he can't win the title, his way of beating Norris
I love that. I love that. That's very good. Yeah. But I don't want it to do down, um, Piastri's performance. So in the sprint review, i got my little moment about the end of the intermediate phase where you know the thing we talk about it happened it just did and today where there was lower deg
That was less of an issue. But today, once he got out into the lead, well, in fact, you could put it before he got into the lead, he was far more decisive against Verstappen than we've seen Norris. He's decisive in an overtake in the way we've seen him be decisive in overtake. And then once he was out in the lead, he was sort of left with a 10 second lead.
He then managed it down to a three-second lead and held it. From that point of view, Christina, he keeps delivering. I mean, that was a perfect race from his point of view.
No, he did a phenomenal job. It's always a delight to watch Piastri race because he keeps things so neat and tidy and clean. He's one of those textbook drivers that you go and you look at and... you're just in awe at how he makes it look easy and like he's not breaking a sweat and that's a certain type of just awe-inspiring in and of itself.
I will say it's also just hammering home as well how these regulations if you have clean air your life is gonna be a lot easier and It is what it is, but that certainly doesn't take away from the fact that Piastri is putting together a phenomenal start to a season.
making sure that he can get into the lead and take full advantage of having that clean air he knows he has to get it he has to get it as quickly as possible puts it together on a saturday and even if he doesn't get pole he makes sure he gets in front as early as possible and runs with it it's great
His starts have been phenomenal. So off the line, he's given himself a massive advantage. So he got into P3 straight away out of turn one, I think as well. So he was already ahead of Antonelli. He got ahead of Verstappen. in the last race. So that's the whole thing we could go into. He does seem quicker off the line than other people as well.
Yeah, well, I just thought it was interesting that yesterday he was like, I couldn't buy luck. And his engineer said, we'd rather have it tomorrow. And it really absolutely delivered. Yeah, so there's a little luck when your teammate gets punted off ahead of you and gets put several cars back and has to work his way past a Williams, both Ferraris, I think. Yeah, whatever. He had to take a bunch of overtakes.
And I don't think it was so much luck in the sprint because Lando Norris had him covered. in a way on race pace and stuff but obviously the sting of him feeling he lost the Miami Grand Prix to a safety car last season And you get that same thing happen again. You kind of go, oh my gosh, there's definitely a curse here. But yeah, he's done nothing wrong. He's keeping it cool. We could say, you know, if he was Finnish, they'd be calling him Iceman or something like that. But he's not.
cool I don't know why people wouldn't give him like an Iceman thing because he doesn't like he hasn't got glasses sunglasses and whipping them off and then jumping in a jet kind of vibe he's just got a going about my business and I'm kind of fine kind of Day at the office vibe. Yeah. Another day at the office. That's what we all want from Grand Prix drivers, of course. Let's go down the grid. Then I think the... Next emotion-evoking team is Ferrari.
And so we had a good day for Ferrari on the sprint race. But all that positivity is way behind us, Christina. What on earth was going on with that team? That is a Lewis Hamilton. that we have never seen before. That is a middle-aged Lewis Hamilton and I think the world is ready for a grumpy middle-aged Lewis Hamilton. Honestly, if I had Lewis Hamilton over the radio telling me, like, oh, do you want to take the time to, like, make a cup of... I... I quit!
I would certainly reevaluate a couple of things because if a multi-time record-breaking champion is telling you you're taking too much time with this, you probably want to take that feedback and run with it. Not walk, just run. I... The vision that it put in my head of the Ferrari people sort of just sitting there and calmly being like, oh well, do we use the stove?
or the plug-in which which tea set shall we bring out today the yellow the red what do we think Amazing Ferrari impression by the way. It's just such a vision and I'm never going to get that out of my head. So in a certain way, I'm very grateful we got that moment and that Lewis Hamilton was pushed to such extremes of patience that that's what came out of his mouth.
But I certainly hope that they learn and make decisions more efficiently and not in the time that it would take a cuppa to brew and cool. Hope is the right word there because Ferrari has a long history of just being exactly as Ferrari has ever been and always will be. But I have a question for you. Do you think they employ someone?
from the UK to just sit back there and tell them what Lewis really means when he says stuff like that. Like, oh no, when he says that, no, no, no, no, that's very bad. You've really done it badly now. They actually went for a tea break and they're like, no, no, no, no, that was sarcasm. Come back, come back, come back. Exactly. I feel like the Ferrari team radio, you know, it's like push to talk. I feel like when they press it, actually it rings.
on the pit lane says like ring ring and they go oh we should get to that but we do have some some paperwork oh just one moment please yeah yeah hello could you go and hold please your world championship push is important to us So, yeah, the line that got me was the, we'll get back to you. but what are you on about we'll get back to you that says that they don't have a symbiotic relationship going on
It should almost be one mind when you've got a spotter. I've got very limited experience of doing this or having a spotter, but it should be kind of like a stream of consciousness, not like you're having to communicate with customer support. And that's what it felt like he was doing. I feel like I've gotten a faster callback from my customer support in certain cases than this. And it's baffling, too, because it's such an obvious thing when you're on different tire strategies.
the last thing you want to do is ruin both people's strategies with with dithering about like yeah he's on the fast retire let him use it and when you catch him you can go back by Yeah, so here's the key thing.
Lewis Hamilton's snarky messages aside that we haven't yet finished is that they ruined both of their strategies so Lewis Hamilton came up on the faster time and had to spend the best Life of that tire in the dirty air of Leclerc begging to be let by to get on with his race Should have made that switch instantly straight away.
given then that Hamilton got ahead and actually didn't have the best of that tyre at that point to go and chase Antonelli and it was a bit slower just at the point that Leclerc's harder tyre was starting to fire up. That would put them in a situation they should never have been in but once they were in that situation, get it swapped. Obviously Hamilton wasn't seeing that way, which led to the absolute best radio message, which was once the clerk went past, they said,
Sainz is 1.4 seconds behind. Oh, should I let him buy as well? Do you want me to let him pass as well? And he'd go, oh my God, you have lost the room. Before the overtake first happened, when Hamilton was behind, he said like, guys, you guys. He almost said, God, you always do this. Like it sounded like a marital spat. Oh, you're always doing this. You never refresh the toilet roll. Like it sounded like he was fully...
Done. Fed up. This didn't sound like, oh they're just having some teething problems. This sounded like it's taken six races for Ferrari to fully piss off Lewis Hamilton. I'm getting nods. Is that a good thing? Six races? I mean, his give a damn's had gone. Like, he wasn't like, hey, Ricky, listen. i get that there's decisions to be there was none of that it was he sounded fully and thoroughly done and fed up and i would like to say that midfield moody Lewis Hamilton is allowed. I allow it.
I demand now he's not a world champion current world champion he's not a young upshot he's not the focus of formula one anymore frankly because you've got these young stars coming up you you see who the crowds are cheering for when the driver names come up yeah lewis is still up there but people are mega excited about piastri leclerc norris antonelli right
Let Lewis Hamilton have his Kimi Raikkonen face. Yeah, that's all I'm asking. Don't be... I know Planet F1 is sitting there like I can hear it. Lewis Hamilton rages... Leave him alone! Let him do it! But he's entitled to it, ain't he? He had to call his own soft tire in the race yesterday. That did work out well. They did in the sprint race. I mean, they did get the boxing right. They got to come in for the slicks right. But that was still kind of him pushing them.
Yeah. And, and I chose the tire as well. And then he's like, they said, meet him. He's like, nah, soft, soft, mate. Did you catch this one? I don't think we caught it on our sprint review. Carlos signs. stopped uh got the medium in the sprint race and he said on the radio guys i think this is our race tire for tomorrow So I think Lewis saved Ferrari from putting on today's medium race tire.
It could be, or he might have used, in Q2 he used scrub softs for both runs, and I think that might have been one of their qualifying tires. And that might have been why they didn't want to sacrifice it because a couple of laps on a race tire is a little less important than a qualifying tire. It doesn't matter. But there's something.
There's something he wants from them in the way they're... backroom process works their strategy works and he is not getting it and he's getting increasingly frustrated and let me tell you as an old guy man you're just like that patience just drops like a rock when you hit a certain age. so uh go on christina sorry we're driving to and from the track and trumpets anytime someone is not going fast enough Your right foot should know where the accelerator is.
without fail every single time and by the way that was no less severe when i was the one driving and he felt i was going too slowly yo spanners has discovered the right pedal and go all right all right mate the speed limit isn't a suggestion So we had listener Luke come up to us behind the grandstands and threatened us. No, he didn't. He said he enjoyed the show.
But why we spend too long on Hamilton, don't spend enough time on Leclerc. And Leclerc is a very, very popular driver. And as I was saying to Luke, and I've said before, if he was on a title charge, even as Hamilton's teammate, I'm not going to be upset. How did you rate the Clerks race? I wasn't paying attention because I was too angry about all Hamilton's race. I kinda forgot he was out there, quite frankly.
um well for two reasons for one all of the media this weekend was around his puppy and you know wrong that dog is absolutely adorable yeah uh doesn't have half the aura that mr squeaks mcgee does that's christina's cat she forgets that people don't know that yeah uh he is a tuxedo cat he's very fat and he's a very jolly happy boy um totally not biased in my opinion of this But yeah.
Like, very little attention was paid to Charles this weekend with his own social media and then never mind during the race itself. We barely heard anything from his radio. We really didn't get any feedback of what was going on in his race, asides he's in front of Lewis or he's behind Lewis. So... It's not just that, oh, we the people who have microphones and like to yap.
are sort of ignoring him it's also that he's just not really attracting much attention to himself this season and that can be a good thing it can be you know what ferrari are having growing pains and maybe we just try to not bring people look don't look over here right now and let them you know sort themselves out yeah superstar teammate isn't it though that's the thing yeah no it's It's not a good idea to be a forgettable team like Aston Martin.
First of all, at Ferrari's age, growing pains is not what they're having, let me just tell you. And second of all, I saw an early quote from him, and they asked, oh, well, you know, like, so qualifying, whatever, and, you know, sprint race, whatever, but, you know.
He's like, oh, well, yeah, even if we have a good qualifying, he goes, we're not going to do very well this weekend if I'm being honest it's just and he's like I know we did well in Jetta but this is a very different track and it's not really going to work out for us at all well that big achievement was
getting past albon wasn't it and like they're celebrating getting past a williams by the way who were really good this weekend but that's not that shouldn't be the big bad for ferrari like yeah we did it we overcame the challenge of albon in a williams Yeah, and the Williams looked fast, and they were much faster than the rest of the midfield, but it's as much Ferrari taking that step backwards at this particular track. And I think you're going to see this kind of peaky performance from them.
Throughout the season they changed so much on the car and they didn't quite get it right. So it's the same struggle to sort of reduce the damage. just area by area by area and improve the overall performance, which is, I know that's not what they wanted, but it's almost certainly what you would have expected.
the big frustration though comes from okay fine you have to troubleshoot the car and it's gonna be go piece by piece front to back solve it all but it feels like they're leaving points on the table essentially when they do dumb things like not listening to their seven-time world championship driver who's going, this makes sense, this does not, please just take my word for it. And go?
That's the part that just absolutely baffles me is okay, sure, fix your car, but make sure you're not making silly mistakes in other departments that you have a lot more control over and more of an ease of solving than the car.
i don't know i feel like the car's good so i feel like the car's got something there we'll see as the season evolves of course and i think really key will be the upgrade packages that we're we're going to start seeing soon as we go into the european season it's imela next and then monaco okay and then and then into you know Canada, Canada. Yeah. By the way, I'm still holding out hopes to go to Montreal. But we'll go.
to, I think, a slightly happier team result for the weekend. So we had George Russell finish in P3. We had Antonelli on his sprint pole. There's a kind of a quiet... positivity coming out of Mercedes and this meme that's going around of George Russell does nothing.
finishes p3 it's starting to to really pay off but i think let's start with the you know the star of yesterday's sprint qualifying christina what what are we making of of antonelli what are we starting to unpick as we see him start to show us a little His learning pace is incredible. We had the fabulous statistic over the first four races that he improved his qualifying results.
each and every time and then you know he dropped back from qualifying p5 to p6 or something like that and then he went and qualified on pole That's incredible to learn about, you know, functioning with a car, functioning in Formula One in general. And to see that rate of improvement, that's very encouraging and a little bit terrifying because my goodness, this is how comfortable he's gotten in six race weekends. Imagine where he's going to be at the end of the season.
He's just, he's a sponge in the best possible way. and it also does mean that you know maybe he will we got the great radio message or not radio message but the interview at the end of the sprint i think it was of going oh that's just how you race i guess i can just do whatever i want amazing he's gonna be a sponge of the good habits and bad ones apparently in formula one so
learning incredibly quickly, for better or for worse, hopefully mostly for better. Matt, I'm concerned about his race pace a little because Russell definitely seems to be eating him on race. Well, you would sort of expect that in the same way we saw when Piastri first came in. The Norse's advantage on managing the tires manifests itself.
midway through the stents and in fact we were watching uh was it Verstappen and and he was up there for a while and and it's just like you know those tires aren't going to stay there and then the next thing you know there's like that big huge gap and Yeah, it is just a thing he is going to learn how to do better. But today... In particular,
He was one of the losers of the virtual safety car lottery because he was on the medium tire. And his buddy George, who hadn't been having a good weekend at all, and was willing to be upfront about it. I started on the hard tire, and he and Hamilton were the only two people in the top 10 to start on the, well, Hamilton's 11th, but you know what I mean. typically top 10 cars. They were the only two to use the hard tire. It was definitely the long shot bet, but it paid off for both of them.
And at least Russell had a team that was able to optimize that when that bet came in, unlike poor Lewis there. So I'm not worried about Antonelli's race pace long term. I think he's also doing a lot of learning about how to survive. at the sharp end of the field where it feels like the rules can be a little bit different and somewhat more fluid and and every every every lap is an adventure for him and but man That qualifying, it was so exciting. Everyone's very excited for him now.
I was about to say, well, his attitude is like, you know, he's perky, he's happy. But then all the rookies are because they're getting to be in F1. And... I know Steve Lalletta, boss of 2311 NASCAR team, who really kindly hosted us last weekend at Talladega. I'm going to tell a tale, though.
because we met their young driver, Riley Herbst, and he gave us a great interview. Go back and listen to our NASCAR special. And I was saying to Steve, I was like, he seems really great. He's like bubbly, he's lively. And Steve just looked me dead in the eye and went, yeah, he's young.
He's like, yeah, that's what young people are like. But certainly Antonelli doesn't look phased or anything like that. He's like, yeah, he's taking everything in his stride. All right, cool. You can just wipe people out. I'll just do that then. All right, I'll just go and get... sprint quality poll so there is positivity but it's clear he's not the complete package yet which you wouldn't expect
at all. I'm spoiled. I just expect Lewis Hamilton to come in and start beating Fernando Alonso's. That's what I want for my superstar young kid coming through. I know F1 isn't like that anymore. Give them 15,000 kilometers of testing throughout the season and you might see a different story. that's true there is less testing now let's go on to i think one of the big fun stories of this race after these important messages.
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I keep being negative about it because I predicted them a little bit lower in the prediction show and it was a whole season prediction and I was taking into account that they probably would abandon them. development, which James Vowell says they have. However, Christina, there is a wave of positivity going around Williams. They are punching way above their weight, and I think they cracked the top four this race.
I can't recall if I said it on this podcast or somewhere else in just one of my videos, but I don't think we can describe them as a back marker anymore. They're just firmly a midfield team. And that feels so incredible to say. They got their car in a place that it can perform at a number of tracks so they're able to collect points.
When it's available and they've made sure that everything else around their team is working seemingly very seamlessly you have pit stops where Everything seems to be going smoothly strategy wise like There hasn't really been any massive hiccup that you go, oh my goodness, that's something that they need to really fix. Their car might not be a superstar, but they've made sure that everything is tight and well performing.
They can get the best out of any good day that comes their way, and that's going to serve them incredibly well in the midfield. and beyond. Because today, they look like they were in that special place that McLaren lived in for a while. Well, they were obviously much faster than anyone else in the midfield. And Aston was this way, too, when they first turned up for like a third of a season. Yeah, okay, cool. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they seem like they're maybe...
about to hit that transitional category where they're not really. They only kept up with the Ferraris because Ferraris were particularly bad this weekend. There's nowhere near. But they had the pace. This track really suited them. I think they had a new beamwing configuration and some other stuff. Whatever it is in this weather with these tires, it worked fantastically well. And both the drivers... Both the drivers were really completely on it.
And that is one of the big things that I think James Fowles has gotten right is he's gotten two very competitive drivers that work very well with each other and they're pushing each other. to get the team result. They finish very close. This will be one of those things where we get to the end of the season and it's like 49, 51% points. And it's just... Yeah, there's a lot of very good vibes going on at the Williams team right now.
They're beginning to convince me a little bit. I will admit, I might have been wrong. I've seen so many seasons of them being disappointing. I just had that weight, that momentum. Oh, surely they'll just have a couple of races where they look really fast and someone will get a good result, but it'll just be the same old Williams. But no, this might be a new leaf.
or they fall off the cliff as the development cycle starts and then the gamble for 2026 doesn't pay off. That's also a possibility. But to look on the bright side, Albon is a driver who, when I've looked at it, I've gone, well, we've not really seen... anything from him I don't really rate beating Sargent the stuff at Red Bull was suboptimal but in hindsight you kind of go well he was doing better than some other people that came in afterwards
This year, I think him being, I would say, having the measure of signs initially. Am I being too optimistic? Yes. Oh, okay, okay. We'll go with Matt then. Tell you what, he's not a driver I'm a fan of. He's doing quite well against a rated driver who he admittedly needs some time to settle in. But we can't have this debate about Carlos Sainz in 12 races time. We're having this debate now. And right now, it looks pretty handy against Carlos Sainz.
Who you rate. I do rate highly. He's one of my highest rated drivers. Simply for his adaptability. And as we've seen from other good drivers going to teams and absolutely flopping. It's not as easy as it looks, and particularly in this regulation set. with these cars, it's not easy. And he gave a very good interview talking about these cars are very unique and how they have to be driven.
They sort of only slot into a singular way to get the optimum out of them. And when you've been at a team and developed with a team over time, you've sort of picked these things up. as changes are made, but when it's all brand new to you, you're having to constantly not drive the way you're used to. And think about it, and that costs you a lot of time. So I'm actually impressed to see signs. And even Hamilton, he had those weekends where he was close to Leclerc.
To even get close on occasion for a big switch with a power unit and to a different team is pretty impressive, really. Yeah, and he had a great pass on Antonelli for P5 as well. Oh, that was beauty. Yeah, it was great. And I think, you know, if you've had a P4 and P5, it starts to look less like a flute. doesn't it yeah when you do that i do have to comment on on matt's tone because he doesn't normally talk as soft as this
If you're noticing a difference, I know exactly what you're doing. You've picked up that your room has got more reverb than the rest of us, and you're trying to reduce that with your tone. That is some good mic smithing there. Not trumpets. I do the best I can. But look, he was there today.
Bottom line, he was better than his teammate. He was mixing it with two Ferraris. And you can argue all you want about, oh, Sainz hasn't had eight years to prepare. Oh, the Ferraris have done this, that and the other. Doesn't change the fact. That's what he was doing. And I'm getting my head turned, mostly because Meg Schuster on the ringer is yelling at me quite a lot. Yeah, quite a big fan.
Whatsapps, not only that, she passes on the telling off Whatsapps from other Whatsapp groups she's in, saying Spanners needs to acknowledge that Albon created... And I'm getting my head turned. I am getting my head turned by this performance. And I'm sort of hoping that it continues. I'm hoping that I continue.
to be wrong about alex alban all right guys we're getting towards the end of our race review it's been a really busy weekend uh we've got the sprint content out so if you haven't caught that go back and listen to it and midweek we've got a fantastic interview with an actual Ferrari engineer so I sat down and spoke to Francesco Campelo so we're going to play that out and we have some footage from our quiz night that we had but I'm also I'm so delighted with how the quiz went in the room.
uh using some some great software that was provided for us um and how it went when we did it with our patrons that i'm going to use that to do a an online mist apex live stream quiz that you can play along with on your phone and all the results come in in real time as well and i think we're going to do that midweek i land wednesday so give me a couple of days to write some questions
And so we've got content. We have got content. So you'll forgive us if we cut it a tiny bit short so that we can eat food because we've not really eaten food since the driver parade. that we missed. Alright, Matt, what teams have I missed on our run through the grid? Anything of note from you before we go to the podium? Um...
I think the Haas qualifying was good. They continue to be very inconsistent with their drivers. One does well, the other one doesn't, and that was definitely a pattern I saw. I'm just trying to take a really good job by Visa. to undercut Hajar and get him ahead of Alcon, even though they didn't make it to the points. That was like a really nice little piece of strategy that they just nailed. And you mentioned it at the top of the show.
I just got to say, that was some very nice racing between Hamilton and Ocon, and it really livened up the middle of the race. And I think Hamilton probably really enjoyed it until he remembered he was racing a Haas with his Ferrari.
Yeah, well, there was that as well. And also Hamilton had a nice little battle with Hajar as well. Yeah. And they were very respectful because Hajar is a massive Lewis Hamilton fan. And Hajar was also, I think he's being so not quietly impressive. He's being outwardly. impressive at the moment. It looks the better of the two Visa Cash App drivers. And I think smelled a little blood in the water towards the end of the race, thinking, oh, maybe I can go and get Tsunoda as well. But the delivery...
If we look at the special liveries for the race weekend, do you think Visa Cash App was the best of those liveries, or were they beaten soundly by a legacy team in the special livery count?
Well, I think for me... I clearly wasn't asking you. I'm obviously asking Christina. No. pretty and pink is always gonna win or everyone's always bellyaching and going out peeing just give us the pink just give us the pink talking that when we get a fully pink tip to tail car everyone is absolutely delighted no not at all everyone's really happy it was very pretty and i have to say the drink that it was um promoting
Absolutely delightful as well. White peach, I think it is. Red Bull. White peach Red Bull. Yeah. The car matched the can and it... I've drank way too much though. The only reason I'm still awake past 9pm on this race weekend. But yes, the Ferrari livery was just a little bit... disappointing mostly because i think
Either they have to do, you know, actually a full spectacular special livery or just don't promote it as a special livery at the end of the day. Just, yep, it's a sponsored livery. Here it is. Call a spade a spade instead of getting...
people excited. In other race series, no one really bats an eye when you have purely promotional livery because everyone's you yeah nascar that's it all the time yeah nascar indycar everybody's very used to it but when you have formula one we're looking at the liveries they're so consistent and they're viewed more as art pieces
that is the world that we live in and if you're going to be participating in that world as a sponsor especially you should be looking that as an opportunity to be creative and to do something more interesting than just
slapping the logo and the color on the car especially when we're seeing more and more activations getting more and more creative if you're stepping into this space you have to play by the rules and the rules here are your livery should be fun and creative as opposed to just sponsor.
Oh, like, so in Darlington, when they have the throwbacks and stuff, everyone's kind of getting on board and doing the older livery. You mentioned throwback. Ferrari had a blue and white livery that they actually ran in the old, old, old days before aerodynamics. And so... why they didn't just chuck that on there and it part of their history and it works with their sponsor they wanted to promote.
it's baffling but i just remembered we did cover that a little bit in the sprint review but from conversations that we've uh overheard and been a part of i don't think hp are particularly unhappy at the amount of attention like that's the most anyone has said hp in the context of formula one for a long time and i when i was on radio i remember um i made some awful gaffe and i said to the the boss i said oh i did
i know one of my rare awful gaffs not the one where i said a current pop star was dead and uh but yeah i made a mistake and he said he goes yeah yeah that's what he said he goes you know it generated some calls no one ever really calls us so so that was that was fine so yeah maybe no uh no no press is bad press and some press is good press but anyway um let's move on i think to our awards so let's hit the podium.
In what was a better than expected Miami Grand Prix. The rain didn't give us the excitement of the sprint race. However, the on-track action did not disappoint. We saw an overtake. we saw an extension of the DRS zones and we saw a step softer from Pirelli. and they could even have gone a step softer again. My hope would be that Pirelli would look at this and go
We had decent racing. We had some decent deltas. Let's just be a little bit brave and just go to F1 and say, hey, if we go a step too soft and it kind of goes wrong, will you forgive us? You know, it happened in Qatar. They had a problem with the tyres and they said, right, actually we're going to impose a maximum stint length.
and so you go okay if that happens again just just forgive us for that we've got the cooling systems now i think but you we must be braver with our tire selections because f1 really really need the on-track action that Pirelli have been providing with the wearing tie. So let's go on to our awards now. We're going to start with the bad thing because that means we can end on a positive. So I'm going to ask my panel, who missed the apex for you? Oh no, you missed the iPad.
You can be followed by following MattPT55 on BlueSky on X. Not on Instagram. He's not got a face for Instagram. But everywhere else, you can click the links in the show notes below and go and order a copy of his wife's book. which is like a romance book for a Formula One. It's been reviewed well, so it's worth checking out. Matt, who missed the Apex for you? This is going to be kind of an offbeat one.
The cancellation of the Formula One Academy race due to weather. Oh, yeah. We missed the apex because we were there on the Saturday and saw the... Saw the reverse grid race, and it's fantastic racing. In fact, I would love it if Formula One cars were the exact same size as the Formula Academy cars.
because, man, they were nimble. It was just loads of fun to watch, and I was really looking forward to today's race. Now, to be fair, it was an absolute... biblical flood out there on the racetrack we were we were undercover three or four rows back and we had to abandon we had to abandon our seats the rain was coming in sideways So they probably had a good reason to do it, but they canceled.
I would have loved for them to have somehow managed to start that, because I was looking forward to it. And the time when they cancelled it, actually, it was getting back to quite runnable conditions, but they then couldn't interfere with the LEGO car race. Yeah, so... Just in case you're wondering how the patriarchy is going, the... The ladies' F1 Academy race was cancelled, so it didn't interfere with the men driving around in Lego cars. So I don't know how you feel about that, Christina.
i was so looking forward to the race we got there hours early technically speaking we did yeah schedule was around oh let's make it to the seats to watch this race so that without question was incredibly disappointing especially because you know okay cool you have to adjust your schedule great fantastic that does happen but You know, I feel like if...
if they were really serious about promoting female drivers they would have found a way to make it work anyway you know they would have shortened up some other part of the program not just gone and said oh you know what, we have to cancel this event. there was so much going on there were two hours in between like the start of the driver parade and when the race actually got started and don't tell me that you wouldn't have been able to trim some fat somewhere Well, it occurs to me.
that they actually had the first practice for the Formula One Academy before they opened the gates and let anybody in on the Friday. I'm now remembering this too. That also would pretty much qualify if your goal is visibility. Not letting the spectators in to see the thing is probably not a good way to get better at that. No, it didn't work. Christina Lee Mace.
who you can find by going on her TikTok and searching for Christina Lee Mason, hopefully reappears back on our video call. And her Instagram, her powerful Instagram. Oh, I'm thinking about those. youtube as well so search for christina lee mace everywhere and on the assumption that she's not going to be able to make it back i'm just going to yell physically in the room i don't know if that came across there so i'll go to my missed apex award then i think it's going to have to be
It's going to have to be the qualifying of the McLarens because I feel like they're losing opportunities and they're being a little bit peaky. So Norris could have had that.
that pole position for today and driven away if it weren't for a scruffy turned 17 in q3 and then also there was that incident in saudi arabia as well and these these are races where he was fast where he looked fast where he had a chance to win and he's taking himself out of the running now and overstappen took him out of the running physically but actually you know he could have been on
Well, you bring up a very interesting point because what those have in common are very heavy braking zones. And Andrea Stella has said there's an issue with the car. There's a numbness. the front axle that's giving both drivers Hi, Christina. Giving both drivers a real difficult time. They're not getting the feedback they need, and they're having to try and substitute, oh, I'm breaking exactly at this point.
to make this turn, and that's why they're losing out in the qualifying to Max, and it's an issue they're trying to solve. Tell Christina, she can't hear me, but ask her who missed the apex and to plug all her social media. Oh my goodness. I think the big miss for me this week was just, that yuki sunoda ended up getting that five second time penalty for speeding in the pit lane it's a dumb one but i was so looking forward to him absolutely
you know replicating what he did in the sprint which was getting more points than max and instead he got a penalty and that made me sad yeah but i think the race pace was there it's just if we'd we'd said a few races ago getting into q3 and we're happy he's in q3 yes overall happy but i always want more because i like yuki no me too absolutely and while you're still here then let's go to the thing of the weekend
We need to change the bumper. We should be calling it the Hit the Apex Award, surely. So I'll ask you, Christina, who hit the Apex? Well, it's... It's technically not. I mean, Lego. I feel like you have to give it to them. I feel, I know that there's so much good wheel to wheel action and I can definitely pick a thing of the week that was actually during the race, like, you know, Hamilton and Ocon going.
absolutely wheel to wheel and doing a brilliant job. We're getting to see Hajar race against Hamilton because He admires him so much. That's just such a cool thing to get to witness. But I'm giving it to Lego because they built cars. Working Lego cars for the drivers to race around and I don't think we've seen the drivers having that much fun In a long time and and their joy is infectious and it just made everything start from such a better spot because you had that just joy
Fantastic. Thank you very much then. Give Matt his mic back. since your system failed. So what I'll ask to finish the show, sorry, a little bit of a scruffy end here, but this is actually the third iteration of the technical setup that we tried. And so we have... managed to be able to talk to you and give you our hot takes on the show so we'll ask matt who hit the apex for you and i am almost completely totally back no problems at all so this is my thing of the weekend
Man, there were so many good things in this weekend. This is what Matt does when he hasn't thought of one. He just goes, I never think of them in advance. But Christina's Lego thing really distracted me. So I was listening to that instead of... instead of thinking. Antonelli's Paul. There you go. Sorry. Just, just, boom, done. Even though it was quickly, quickly cancelled out. It doesn't matter, and I will admit to have been an Antonelli doubter, I wasn't convinced of the...
of the sensibility of taking someone that young and putting them in a top team, even though it was a Mercedes team that was struggling some. But he's very rapidly convincing me. And yeah, I think we have a lot to look forward to from him. My thing of the weekend is everybody who came out to see us. as part of BoxBox Car Club. Go and check out them. If you are into cars in Miami, then you need to check out BoxBox at Hagerty.
social at garage and social and also everybody who came along from the ring f1 audience and missed apex audience and everyone who stopped us Way more people than we would have expected who stopped us to say hello and have a chat. And like I'll always say, don't worry about bothering us.
Don't worry about like, oh, they just want to be left alone. We don't. We love meeting people who listen to our stuff because most of the time I'm just online and I'm just looking at the comments calling me a turnip. And I do wonder when we do those events. are they just turning up to call me a turnip and no people were turning up to be really really lovely so we've got more events coming up this year in the uk and north america and if you get a chance to do it
Please come along. We love having an online community, but a real-life community was kind of cool as well. Until we see you next, work hard, be kind, and have fun. This was Mistake Peg's podcast.