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safeguard your accounts, and block scams before they happen. If identity theft strikes, we help you recover. Stay protected at Aura.com slash listen. That's A-U-R-A dot com slash listen. Picture this, you're halfway through a DIY car fix, tools scattered everywhere, and boom, you realize you're missing a path. It's okay because you know whatever it is, it's on eBay.
They've got everything. Brakes, headlights, cold air intakes, whatever you need. And it's guaranteed to fit, which means no more crossing your fingers and hoping you ordered the right thing. all the parts you need at prices you'll love, guaranteed to fit every time. eBay. Things people love. Hey guys, Spanners here, just dropping in mid-week because we have Uncle Joe dropping in. He's going to talk a little bit about the FIA and answer some of your questions.
But before that, we're going to look ahead to the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix with Christian Pedersen. And then for the actual race review, it is a late one. So it's 8 p.m. lights out in the UK. We'll be recording and streaming live around. Half past midnight with Scott and Antonia. But before we get into the show, you know I'm going to bug you about Miami. We've had a great response already, so there is a good crowd.
At the moment, it's more the merrier. So if you're interested in coming to our event, email me spanners at mistapex.net with the subject line Miami and just how many people you think might be with you. So basically after qualifying. On the sprint day on Saturday, which is the 3rd of May, jump in an Uber and traffic dependent 15-20 minutes head south to join us and BoxBox Auto Club. There'll be a live podcast recording where we'll review the sprint race.
And then we're also going to have a things you reckon type section. And then I'm really excited. We are going to have a live interactive screen. with a quiz that you can play along with your phone. So we're going to have a lot of fun. There's going to be a tequila bar. We're looking at getting a food truck out there. So just get in touch. Email me.
mistapex.net subject line Miami. The only reason I need to know who's coming is like things like chairs. We literally have to know how many chairs we need. It's free entry, but we may have a QR code there. as a tip jar to the staff at the venue, because the venue is letting us have it for free, which is very important at this kind of independent level.
We are an independent podcast produced in the podcasting shed with the kind permission 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. Joining me is somebody who has vowed to disagree with everything I say today. It's Christian Pedersen. I will do my best.
Yeah, we were going to have Christina on as well, but there's been a technical fault at her end, which is crazy, Christian, because normally it's you that gives me a audio issues. And also that's aside from the fact that you are deliberately messing with me at every opportunity.
I miss Christina, but I'm a bit proud it wasn't me this time, though. For once. Okay, so obviously we're going to look ahead to the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. But the first thing I actually want to talk about is the feedback I've gotten on my... So Hamilton fans are a little bit upset at the moment. Martin Brundle had made a comment that there was some odd choices for driver of the day. Hamilton got driver of the day.
Perhaps I didn't do enough to look at why people might have voted him for driver of the day. There have been some weird driver of the day selections, to be fair. Antonelli, I think for a P7, but he'd made some overtakes as well. So I'm wondering whether people are voting driver of the day based on action. And there was one battle with Lewis Hamilton. He lost out to signs early on.
But then he did really aggressively send it down the inside, down the home straight later in the race. And you go, yeah, I can see why Hamilton fans were... and me included, were enjoying him doing some wheel-to-wheel racing, overtaking Lando Norris around the outside.
I think I stand by my initial response to that, Christian, which is, well, he qualified a long way behind his teammate, didn't seem to have the same race pace as his teammate. And ultimately, you know, he was racing Williams, which is not where you want to be in a Ferrari. I'll come back to the Hamilton part. First, the driver of the day bit.
I find that pretty weird as well because actually during the race on the graphics, they gave examples to who could be the driver of the day. Maybe that's the top voted at the time they show the graphic or something like that. But then you see things like their subreddits. Someone like Hamilton has his own subreddit. Ferrari has their own subreddit on Reddit. And communities like that.
with hashtags and stuff, just promoting the message. And I think there's been like an ego for Hamilton to do good. So maybe that would explain it, but I definitely think as you. Something weird is going on with the driver of the day this year. It's been a little bit off compared to what we saw the previous year. So maybe they have... to learn somehow to to maybe fish out the the wrong world so when people do like
waves of votes from somewhere, maybe Formula One management have learned something there, probably. And for the Hamilton part, I felt... Completely the same. I've wanted him to do good. We've wanted him to do good in the Ferrari, right? All that press at the start of the year, all that buildup, and then... Everyone who's been rooting just a tiny bit for Hamilton during the years wants him to do good after 21.
We need it. So I think that explains it a little bit. And I'm not completely, I'm not in line with your critique. I think he has a lot of work to do in learning driving that car. And I think the second stint in Bahrain was the first time maybe he sort of catched the car, got into the rhythm of the car.
But for me, since that sprint win, which didn't it just didn't feel we didn't have enough time to linger on it and enjoy it so if he'd have won that if that had been the main race if there hadn't have been a sprint weekend and he'd gone and got pole and won that race I think that would still be sitting in my heart and making me feel warm and fluffy. But it was a sprint race. And then as we went into the main race, then he couldn't qualify and didn't seem to have any pace. And you go...
And then was ultimately disqualified, I think, from that race as well. But don't you feel like after the sprint race, people were not really cheering somehow? Everyone was like, what just happened there? It was muted, wasn't it? Yeah, it was. It was really strange. And it was two in the morning for Europeans. as well true true very true very true and weekend so probably half drunk and most of them so it got taken away from us very quickly and we're both talking as Hamilton fans here
But then since then, I haven't felt excited. And I think the fact that... they got disqualified from that race. And you go, well, if that sprint race had come... If that performance had come during the main race, he probably would have got disqualified from it anyway. And you go, well, then that pace wasn't really real because if both your cars are getting disqualified, yeah, you've got this performance.
briefly you go oh wow yeah but if we didn't get disqualified yeah but you probably you were able to do things that gave you performance that ultimately got you disqualified every team could do that Every team could run lower than they're allowed. And my enthusiasm for Ferrari and them being title contenders this year just completely dissipated. And to be clear, Christian...
If Leclerc was going for a title push, I wouldn't be as happy as if it was Hamilton. But I'd still be like, hey, that's pretty cool. That's Leclerc going for a title. You do have the British connection. I mean, that's maybe 50% of it. Let's be generous. Well, I like to see Danes do well as well. So that national feeling, we can't really do anything about it. It's good, it's there. But I think...
It's almost like a Hollywood movie. You know, the way 21 happened and being the most successful driver in the world, still being the only black. It's all this happening still and you can feel it in. in the support Hamilton is getting these days. You can really feel this sense of people just wanting him to have the aid and that's it. Then we can start all over. Lando can do what he wants or whatever. It feels like that. And I think it feels like that with...
People who weren't maybe following Formula One before as well? Yeah, well, yeah. When he was there winning everything, there was an anyone but Hamilton movement. In the same way, there's an anyone but Verstappen movement right now. I don't sense that so much. So people aren't coming in and seeing him as the big bad anymore. And it feels more like Schumacher's comeback at Mercedes versus Rosberg. And so if he'd have just sacked it after 2021.
I don't think anyone would have cared. Everyone would have gone, yeah, no, fair enough. Just go. But then, yeah, there's no resolution. There's no eighth. And, you know, technically did lose out on points against Russell last year as well. And now he's had this uninspiring start at Ferrari. You go, right, where are these struggles coming from? And I wonder if... You see these young people come through who have all the same skills as you.
And I think in any sport, as it matures, you know, you get someone who comes in and dominates the game. Like in rugby, someone comes in like Johnny Wilkinson, who's just kicking and can just kick from anywhere. And then suddenly kicking becomes a very big... part of the game you get a big i don't know golf really but you know you get someone who hits a big drive and then suddenly everyone has to have a big drive just to compete
And so you've got Hamilton with his ability to be really late on the breaks and break aggressively and hard, later than everyone else. And you used to be able to go to a track like Abu Dhabi and go, well, this is a Hamilton track. Because, you know, he can really get it stopped at those chicanes. And now I just wonder just...
He's been there long enough that all the kids that come through, they have all those top Trump elements. You know, they all have a 10 on the breaking. And I wonder if that's just, you know, it's a generational thing now. He looked amazing. He burst on the scene.
perhaps with a lower standard of general driver, and like with Schumacher. By the time Schumacher ended his career, everyone was a fitness guy. When he started, people were hanging out of their cockpit with a cigarette, stub it out, and then go to the start of the race. So I don't know. I don't know. It might not be a pure age thing. It might be that the pack is better. Yeah, also I think maybe...
Maybe we, times are different, right? So we have a race every weekend now and we see it in 8K from all different angles. And I mean, we get fit all this information and it's all the time. It's only been what's been four races now. And the one qualification for the Ferrari one was, one, the drink bottle, which was broken. So it leaked all the water. That is because of the water radio.
Well, not because of the water radio. The water radio was because of that. And then there was, of course, the plank. I mean, that was just bad luck somehow. And we grouped all this with a guy who is basically his speciality is breaking. And he's gone from one team to another. He's been driving on one team for what was 13, 11 years. And then he goes to a new car with a new brake system. This one is on Brembo. He used to be on the carbon industry brake.
So he has to, and you know it's banners, even when you just drive a rental car. The breaking point. That is where you need to fix it, right?
And he has to fix it in millimeters of a second. And I think it takes time. And I think we are a little bit too hasty in the judgment. And I didn't realize... uh the massive difference between the braking systems i thought it was like oh one type of brake pad maybe i don't know grips a little bit differently or you need um you need a different kind of uh you know break pattern so you know that you can't hit them hard all at once
That's what I was thinking. Maybe his Brembo ones, they're better at being just hit hard. in a straight line and then worn down towards the ultimate turning point. But actually, the system is way more complicated. How much do you know, Christian, about the difference in the braking system? I found a great article from scuderiafans.com. which I'm just going to have to read from because...
Do it because all I know is it's a hell of a job doing the breaks. It has to be done in mines and it has to be done in certain environments where you can only do it in the dark or something. It's a science, right? Just doing these breaks and it takes two, three months to do it.
brake sets so yeah okay well look the front brakes are all hydraulic so you know imagine that you are just in your normal road car you hit the brake pedal and your small movement with your foot through hydraulic pressure gets turned into a bigger pressure but a smaller distance i don't know but it's just hydraulic brakes at the rear there's hydraulic brakes but also the clever systems combine that with
The regen system, so some of it will be having a braking force, and that braking force is regenerating your battery, it's charging your battery. And then the other thing is just using engine braking. So if you've got high revs and then you lift off the accelerator, you're actually having to combat the force of the engine against the road. So the road and the engine are fighting each other, which creates braking pressure.
And so apparently most of the teams use more engine braking than Lewis Hamilton is used to. And also there's an advantage with that, which is that there's a differential at the back. So the wheels can move at different... Therefore, you can have different braking pressures on each. And there was something that Verstappen alluded to, which was a handbrake effect, which I don't think we ever got to the bottom of.
But basically, if you can get more braking pressure on your inside than your outside, it's going to help you rotate. Now, I'm not talking about the Scarb's hydraulic system or the potential asymmetric braking cheat. I think this is just a standard.
engine braking that teams use and so if he's having to do that more that is a significantly different type of braking and the only experience i really have in it is i got a bit of advice in sim racing where you have the gears and you can use the gears strategically to rotate the car and one thing i'll shout out our iRacing champ Danny who he said to me right save your last downshift
for that final bit of rotation so as you're getting down you want to get most of that rotation done at the very slowest point you save your final downshift that's that throws the weight of the car forward onto the front left or if you're turning right and you the front outside tire
So you've got a bit more grip and also it sends the rear out. So this is the thing the ScuderiaFans.com article is teaching me is that this engine braking basically throws the rear out more, makes the car unsettled, but it helps you rotate. the car, but you then perhaps don't have the confidence. And now Leclerc was talking about that he had to push past the point where he was confident and just trust it that it was going to stick. And so clearly Hamilton hasn't quite got to that point yet.
These cars are complicated, Christian. I remember in the old days, drivers used to jump into another team, and if they were good, they were good. Whereas now, you've got Hülkenberg can't drive his car, Sainz has taken ages to get up to speed with his Williams, and Hamilton can't get up to speed in this car either. At the same time, we're seeing a field that is maybe within a second, second and a half of the entire field.
So back when this generation of cars was new, you could have been two seconds off and maybe still make it into Q2. Everything is a little bit more tightened now, and I think we have to evaluate things in that light as well. I think next year will be very interesting because everyone just starts from scratch again. And then we will see who is better at adapting fast and who will get comfortable in the car.
So Hamilton, I think you were right and I was wrong. So Ferrari used Brembo and this engine braking, where it's been using carbon industry. Industries, yeah. But there's also the fact that when you pick up the energy on your rear wheels... The way you pick up the energy is different from team to team as well.
So you have to put that into the equation as well. And I also think there's some brake-by-wire introduced in some parts. Is it the rear wheels that are brake-by-wire now? Yes, it is. Maybe I'm wrong about this. So the brake-by-wire part is it matches. the amount of brake pressure that the driver is putting on it matches that and it says okay well this time we're
so we'll use the regen system as part of it, and then we'll also match that with the engine braking. So there's a lot of clever stuff going in there. Also, it's worth noting there's a few different types of adjustment you can do. Everyone knows about the rear to front. You can change the brake bias. So, you know, if you want it a little bit more on the front end, you can really put the brake bias forward and all that weight shifting forward in the car. Maybe if you're going to do a more of a...
a kind of a gradual braking into a 90 degree turn. Maybe you want a little bit more to the rear so you can make those adjustments. But what I've learned today is you can also change. It's called braking bias drift. So when you hit the brakes, you could have the brake bias more 50-50, but the longer you're on the brakes, that brake bias shifts.
to the rear as you get more into the corner and i i had no idea about that so yeah braking is way more complicated than i realized Plus, you have to put into mention that they maybe change this for every corner on the track. Very rarely every corner, but at least five, six, seven times a lap, you change the brake bias, maybe the diff and stuff like that. All that while talking to the engineers and shifting and driving the car at the maximum.
Well, he seemed quite positive. He said he learned more in Bahrain than he had at previous times. And so he's positive going forward. But I don't know. I'll just be honest with you. I just feel really down about it. I totally get it. I feel down. I want him to succeed as well. I'm probably not as fannish as you are for Hamilton, but I've always liked him. I think he's a true racer and I think he's probably the best there is.
in times. All right. So let's look ahead then to the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. And what is it that we're looking for? What are the key questions? that need answering. So I think to me, the jury's still out on Tsunoda. So basically I'm going to go through all my worst fan fears at the moment, which is it's not settled, is it? I don't think it's settled.
What do we need? What does he need? I think there is some... Don't you think there's something in the team that is not fully functioning? I mean, everything is just sort of collapsing. And you heard all the rumors about Helmut Marko and Verstappen's manager having a loud discussion in the paddock after the race. Things are just not looking good for that team. I think maybe Tsunoda could gain some positivity from that. Just be the one who excels in that.
ruin, if you could call it that. It's a shame to watch. I got an email actually about Tsunoda. Why don't I read this email out here? But basically it was about Tsunoda's since moving to Red Bull, there has been a distinct, I think, change in how he comes across. over interviews and stuff, and he seems much more calm. He seems very measured and he's the Tsunoda that I want him to be.
And apologies to the person who emailed that. But yeah, perhaps if he senses that there's sharks circling around the Verstappen situation. If you can be, basically do what Russell did and now focus all your energy on, right, there is only one other driver in this whole pack.
And that is Verstappen. I have to be near him relatively and give people the confidence that actually I reduce Verstappen's negotiating position. And then when it all crumbles, you're the number one. So they'll bring in Hadjar. who Tsunoda will probably think, yeah, I can be on top of Hajar and lead that Red Bull 2026 chance. I mean, it's kind of cold to base things on that, but we survive how we can, don't we? And I think in Formula 1, it's so fierce that one's downfall is your upturn, maybe.
And I agree with you on the Sonoda part. I think maybe the new team he's gotten has... Maybe talk to him in a different way since, but he seems a little bit more adult now. He seems a little bit more in control of himself, which is, I think, a very welcome thing, and it will do him good. I'd love him to shake this perception of being immature. I'd love him to go the whole season without giving anyone any excuse.
He isn't Kimi Raikkonen. He can't get away with, steering wheel, where's my steering wheel? He can't get away with that. So he has just got to be, and this is a reality of our society, he's just going to have to be... 200% more mature to give no one any excuse. Yeah, so no late post-race break checks and lunges on Verstappen, please, Yuki. Where do you think he will do it? Do you think Sunil's got it?
I don't know. And it's a really bad thing. I'm not always a fan of someone because I think they're the greatest ever in the world. But yeah, I'm wishing him well. I think if he can just work out the problem. Now we've seen... Other experienced drivers moving to different teams. We just mentioned Sainz. We just mentioned Hamilton and Hulkenberg. And so you go, OK, so there's a certain baked in thing of, well, you've moved teams. It's going to take some time to adjust.
So if we adjust in our minds that, we go, is he doing any worse than Hamilton, for example, at Ferrari at the moment? No, it does seem like it's a very, very different car to drive. We just need that one result. That one result where, I don't know, he's finishing. Okay, here's what I want then. Here's what I want. I want him one place behind Verstappen. No more than that. Within a couple of qualifying places and one place behind, and then I'll breathe properly easily.
Yeah, that would look good. That would be good for the team as well. I think it will bring some balance to the team if you can do that. But in regards to Saudi Arabia… I think I've been very, very, very, very impressed with all the rookies, if we can call them that, this year. I think the level is so high. They've impressed me, all of them. But Saudi Arabia could be a make it or break it kind of experience for a rookie if you go off at that speed.
I think we will see a rookie loaner thing or two. Yeah, I don't want to keep banging this drum, but I do get really scared going through the asses and they moved the barriers back a little bit. So you've got a bit more visibility. But, you know, for the NASCAR and the super speedways, they always talk about the big one, where you will at some point have a 25 car pilot. And I think at some point we are going to have the big one at Saudi. And it's just going to take someone.
You're having a little off or trying to go side by side into the wall, ending up sideways through those blind corners. I don't think people are going to have time to react. And once one goes in... Now all you've got is a bigger barrier in the way. And I can just see a multi-car pileup and you've just got to sit there and go, oh my goodness, I hope those survival cells do their job. Thank goodness we've got the halo, but it's coming.
And you're right. So last year, they had Behrman out there as a rookie and like a complete rookie. First ever race, right? But they put him on the softer tyre, for example. So everyone was out there on mediums. They put him on the softer tyre and I think they gave him a survive.
kind of strategy well he's not going to do that this time and you're going to have also Bortoleto Lawson's got a bit more experience but yeah you're going to have Hadjar there the potential is is high for something to go wrong And just like every year, I think I'm just going to sit there and hope. I know this will sound wrong in 2025, but I like the fact that it can go wrong. I like the fact that we want to go racing and we want it to be a little bit... exciting and dangerous.
And then we have to squeeze the lemon sometimes. We have to... push the boundaries and I think they've done that in Saudi Arabia but I totally hear you Spanish and I agree it is a very dangerous track but I do feel the like just the lighting system nowadays the fencing All that, what's it called, the thing they built, some of the boundaries. Yeah, TechPro, yeah. They're so good at it now.
I love it, man. I don't wish anyone a harm. No, no. But when were you born? You were born in the 70s? Yeah. Early 70s? 71. But even me as an 80s baby, you know, kids, if you're listening, you know, the millennials and the Gen Zs.
The world was more dangerous in the 70s and 80s because there was no health and safety stuff. And even in Formula One, there was almost an accepted level of loss and death. Listen, my dad's... four kits and he had like the miniature Volkswagen kind of mobile like a Fiat 500 or something.
He just cut the roof off. And then it was a cabriolet. And they drove 300 kilometers to visit us with no seatbelts or anything. I mean, that was just how he did it back then. I'm not saying that is the right way to do it.
But when you've seen it and experienced it, maybe it takes, maybe you... crave it a little bit more that the edgy feeling right okay so i'm not i'm not dismissing it entirely and obviously the danger element is a huge part of what makes motorsport appealing and sexy However, when there's low hanging fruit like this, I'm just surprised that they let a section of track.
like that exist in formula one now when you've got all the other amazing safety things but they go but this one thing where it seems like it's an accident waiting to happen they just go nah it'd be fine but look look at spa
where you have the potential to ping back out onto the track at the top of Eau Rouge. That's a known issue. Everyone talks about it. It's constantly like, how can we fix that? What can we do about it? Whereas with this track, they're just like, we'll shove it back a bit, but it'll be okay. I actually think this track will...
ceased to be part of the calendar when they built a new area in Saudi Arabia. So maybe that is also why we're not doing anything about it just now. Maybe. Okay, for the tires, because Matt couldn't make this preview, they've gone one step softer. So, okay. Oh God, you're really going to miss Matt in this segment here, but they're going for the C3, C4, C5.
So they can only have gone one softer. I don't think we've seen the C6 yet. I don't think that's come out of the bag, the new C6. So if we go in old money in last year's money, this is the softest possible. So the C3 is going to be the hard tyre. However, this is generally considered to be a low-wear track. Last year, only Bottas did a two-stop, and I think everybody else did a one-stop. So if they've gone a step softer...
What might happen is that it could be advantageous to... extend that first stint as long as possible so we might see a little bit of tyre management and then maybe we don't see such a big undercut so yeah so Like in Bahrain, there was a big undercut because there was high tyre wear, but they never got into a management phase because they didn't want to manage it. They just wanted to use it up, get onto the next tyre. The next tyre has fresh rubber, is faster.
So you get an undercut if you pit earlier than the car that stays out on the older tyres. Here, I think there will be tyre management. Everyone's going to be managing it. And when you eventually come off that tyre, maybe there's not such a big offset. You'll probably go medium hard. So, yeah, I think the incentive will be like Singapore. Let's try and extend. Let's go as long as possible.
It doesn't bode well for a mega exciting race, if so, but it should bring in a bit more of a tactical element. And what I would hope is that it does open the window for a two-stop if you want to try something different. Yeah, and you forgot, well, we still have Stroll.
He'll create a virtual or something. Yeah, but sometimes the safety car just kills. You're waiting. You're like, when's the crossover going to be? Who's going to blink first? And then there's a safety car. Everyone pits and you go, oh. I mean, we probably missed a great opportunity for that for Ferrari this weekend in Bahrain.
If they had the opportunity to do full stint on the second tire. We'll never know. And then I wouldn't be sitting here feeling so sad. Let's have a look here. Right. Okay. So obviously the biggest question is... Norris versus Piastri. How do you see it? So I've been on the fence about this for quite some time because I... Piastri and Norris is the perfect example of what is going on in fan calls. Piestri is this, like, I've always hyped this guy. He's like this.
He doesn't say anything. He just stands there. And you have to ask him, do you want something to eat, Oscar? Yes. He's like that kind of character. He doesn't say anything if there's nothing to be said. Whereas on the other side, you have Lando, who is like... He will be the one in front of the bus, right? He is the one yelling. He's the one dancing, drinking, yada, yada. He's like a ladies' man, the way he moves, stuff like that. He's a charlatan. They are completely opposite.
And when you're a charlatan, you're going to have a lot of people voting against you. That is just the nature of the beast, right? And all these people will... automatically be on the Oscars side, whether they are an Oscar fan or not. That is why I think we've heard a lot about this. Oscar Piastri, the new, he's the world champion. Whereas everyone who just watched the data knows it's Lando was up there, right? Lando is going to be... from my point of view, the McLaren world champion this year.
I don't think he's much better than Oscar PS3. Okay, but that's how I feel. And I made my predictions at the beginning of the season and stuff. And I'm getting slaughtered, though. I think exactly what you're saying. I still think Norris has the... This is going to make a great segment. ...has the higher ceiling of it. But honestly, I'm getting hammered because Piastri keeps putting in these really consistent...
Now, I stick by what I said pre-season because I'm only looking at the data and the data said the qualifying wasn't quite there and the data said the tyre management wasn't quite there and there was weekends where he went missing. If that changes, that's fine. But in the nature of this thing is, right, you make 10 predictions. And if you make, you know, the sensible, things probably won't change that much 10 times. Every single prediction you make along those lines.
Someone will argue at you and say, no, you're wrong. It's about to drastically change. And so out of those 10, one or two, the extraordinary thing will happen. And that seems to be happening right now. Although I will caution everybody that this time last year, everyone thought Carlos Sainz was on his way to becoming a world champion. So things can change very quickly at the moment.
What we're not seeing, what we haven't really seen too much of is the McLaren drivers consistently out clear head to head in the same way that you kind of had Hamilton Rosberg. So you say Hamilton-Rosburgh 2014, it seemed really close. 2015, Hamilton was just clear. And then, you know, very competitive again in 2016. At the moment, my feeling is that Norris is just...
dropping balls left, right and centre. Did you hear my biff list on the last podcast? Excuse me. Well, you know, it's obviously... Things went wrong in qualifying. Things went wrong at the start, out of the start box. Then all the wheel-to-wheel stuff, he seemed to lose out on those battles, even though he eventually went past Leclerc. It took a long time to get past probably a significantly slower car.
on a track where passing is possible. I want to talk about passing in general in a moment. But you go... Can Lando Norris actually get out of his own head? Because at the moment, he looks shattered. He looks like he's gone, I'm going into the season. I owned Piastri last year, apart from a few weekends. I know I'm better than him. And then now he looks a bit shell-shocked. Because he can't get it together. And any time he is less than perfect, Piastri's been there.
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At one point, I compared him a little bit in driving style to someone like Jensen Burton. He's consistent. easier in his inputs and stuff like that, whereas Norris maybe a little bit more in... in the control of his emotions and stuff like that. He's driving more with his emotions, I think. But you put those two in an equal car, and I think Norris will overtake Oscar Piastri. That is the mere fact of it. But until then, because Piastri keeps putting these results in and Norris isn't quite there.
You're right. You're absolutely right if you've been emailing me saying, well, your preseason prediction about Piastri looks like it sucks. Because it does. It does right now. It looks like he's the better driver right now. I can't argue with that. And he is? Yeah. performance wise yes alright let's see I think I think Norris when he just
focus a little bit, finds his rhythm again, I think we will see great things. Hey, look, if Piastri sort of extends his lead and he's looking like a championship favourite and ends up going... To win the championship. I'll eat crow. I don't care. Your enjoyment of this show shouldn't be based on how right I am. We haven't lasted nine years by me being correct about things, have we? Have we ever met someone saying, I listen to Mr. Apex because Spanners is right? Have you ever met that person?
No, but email me if you think that. Where is this person? I think people do enjoy debating our opinions and stuff, and that's fine. But yeah, like you, I still have that feeling that Norris will get it together and go and win this championship this year. If he could just do me a favour and start dominating his teammate real quick, that would be good.
Have we got a problem with overtaking this season? We're going to go to the Joe Saywood interview shortly. I will say it's shorter than normal. We did get some good stuff out of him, but he is sick. And he was on a very dodgy Wi-Fi connection.
We got a local recording, so the quality is fine. However, I got the sense where I went, Joe, I'm not going to keep you on this call any longer than this. So we've got about 25 minutes of Joe after this. Do we have a problem with overtaking, Christian? What's going on? No, I think we have a problem with cars being in their final form and tires being... still sort of tested and combine that with new tarmac on.
and stuff like that. It's not the cars, is it? I think it's the tires. Oh, you think, what would you want Pirelli to do? I have no solution to this. They are the Pirelli people, fix it Pirelli people, please. No, I know this is very complicated and I don't have the solution. But when you are at a point where we are right now, where all the cars are so equal. And you get tarmac like in Suzuka and a track of that nature.
I think there will be some very good racing to come. But I think also we have to pay the price that we saw in Suzuka with the setup we have current. I know. So last season, we were like, oh, we were so innocent. We're like, oh, they're going to be so close. And then this year it's like, oh, they're so close. There's two, there's not enough. That's true. If you want overtaking in F1 now with the aero, you need a delta, you need a difference in pace.
there's a much less difference in pace across the field, therefore less opportunity for overtaking. And so all the cars are complaining about dirty air. I saw a race.com article that the Sauber in particular... Just cannot seem to follow in dirty air. And both the drivers there are complaining, like even on the straight. They're having problems with the dirt, yeah. But yeah, that is being exacerbated by how close the field is. But I've just never understood with F1, though.
Going for like these 2017 regs with more and more downforce chasing this ultimate lap time. When it's an entertainment industry, people like overtakes. I can enjoy a race that doesn't have many overtakes to an extent. And we were used to it in the 90s, but we enjoyed E.T. In the 80s, watch E.T. now. It's boring. It is slow. Watch your favourite 80s movie right now. It's boring as hell. And they had all the credits at the beginning. Oh my goodness.
If you had 90s racing now, people would switch off. So don't hark back to any 90s racing, right? But I still don't understand that. Why not just take half the aero away? Like half. I think you're on point. Because I've always been rooting for more information, more information. Give us some oil temperatures. Give us some input for the pedals. Give us stuff like that.
But we failed to mention maybe the most important thing of the racing car or any car, which is the contact patch, which is the tire. And we have no information about these tires. We don't know what they're built off, how soft they are, anything. They just put on some colors and call them C3, whatever. We have no idea as viewers. We need this information. We need to know how warm they are. We need mandatory pit stops. So we need all three.
compounds used in each race so we can measure which team is how fast on which compound. My fear is if you mandate two pit stops, which they're going to do. It's the worst word in the world. I'm sorry I used it. Do you remember the Qatar Grand Prix last year? Was it last year where Pirelli set a limit? For the tyres. If you run the tyres longer than 22 laps, they're going to pop.
So every driver was flat out. And I'm not sure the modern F1 cars or drivers are prepared for just running every stint flat out as hard as you can. But, you know, was the racing great? Does that give you that? No. So it's like, wow. But think of it like this. If you have to use the hard, the medium and the soft.
and you know the heart is going to be awful, then you just want it out of the way, right? But you have to get it out of the way. Oh, okay. And that process will probably gain at least two pit stops, at least. But I also feel like... There was a time where, OK, you know, the hard is going to be eight tenths slower and then the same to the medium and the soft. Whereas now you seem to have in the race, really, there's only two tyres that are going to work.
the other tyre either falls apart or you can't get it in the window. So that really removes that strategic option. So if you mandate it and go, you've got to use all three tyres, and it turns out, by the way, the hard is just undriveable. Yeah, then what do you do? You've got to get on it. Get on it one lap and then go and pick back to your soft. I think they did something like this for the future Monaco races, didn't they? That's the plan.
At Monaco, it's not going to work. Okay, hang on a second. Nothing's going to work at Monaco. They have to build like a road on top of it. Let me answer one mailbag question here from Ian Porter. It's a Monaco related? Yeah, Monaco related. I saw it. I mentioned Monaco and I just saw your focus. Hi, Spanners. I reckon you're about... This is Ian Porter.
I reckon you're about to stop criticising the Monaco GP soon because it's now obvious that every race outcome is going to be settled by qualifying. The missed Apex team is going to have to come up with a way to make tension interesting. And I can hear the sarcasm here. Oscar was two tenths closer on this lap. No, that is a commentator thing. You can watch it in the live timing screens and you can kind of go, right, who's making a little push? Who's now defending?
And if you watch the lap times for Russell in that last race, it became obvious you kind of go, oh, okay, he's tracking his... He's tire managing because you can see he's picking his lap time, but he's choosing a lap time. that's letting piastri get away if that was hamilton last year up ahead of him he would have been on that gearbox going come on man we're just ruining both our races come on just let me buy yeah whereas he didn't do that he was looking back uh at p3 battle
and was managing his tyres that way. So... Monaco isn't that. So Monaco isn't this tactical race. You don't need to manage your tyres at Monaco. You don't need to go, oh, I need to save my tyres till the end. Save Monaco. Spanish, what's your solution? Why am I saving Monaco? Okay, here's the plan. Task one, keep Monaco. Task two, make it work. The answer. Okay, but I don't want to. This sounds like I'm dad and you're my son. No. I don't want to.
Well, you're asking the impossible. Yeah, I know. Do you know what then? Here's my solution. I'm sure I've said this before. If you want to go to Monaco, fine, keep you Monaco, but stop pretending things. So stop pretending that it's anything other than... It's going to be a complete procession there. Stop talking about, oh, but the walls, the walls. It doesn't matter when you're going around that 70% pace. And also stop hyping qualifying.
Obviously, qualifying is more important there than anywhere else. But it's no more or less exciting of a qualifying session, apart from the tension of knowing it matters a little bit more. It's still very normal. Watch the cars go around and then see what the lap time is at the end. Have you seen the overhead shots of next year's car? Nope. Like compared to this year's car? No, no, tell me, tell me. When you just see the numbers, it's fairly similar in numbers. I think it's 10 centimeters.
15 centimeters shorter, 10 centimeters the other way. But when you see the picture of it overhead, there is a visible, very clear difference. And just that little tiny bit, I think, will do good in Monaco. Because now, all of a sudden, maybe it will be okay to go to God. And here's another thing to note. What's the difference between Christian on a pre-record with me and him on the Zoom call and on a bigger panel with all the live stream watching? He hasn't ruined anything.
Unless he's slipped in some double entendre that I haven't picked up on, he's been bizarrely well behaved. So, Christian. What the hell? Thank you very much. Was that a wrong word? Because that was not my intention. I'm trying to keep it clean, Spanners, for your sake. Thank you, Christian Pedersen, for joining me. We are going to go to our Joe Sayward interview now. I'm definitely...
keeping it in and uh i definitely wanted to to capitalize on his generosity of jumping on even though he wasn't feeling 100 just because we wanted to know what is going on with the fia so i started off by asking joe What on earth is going on at the FIA? Well, there is an election coming up, and that means that we're going to see people coming out of the woodwork wanting to be the president.
And because the president has done an interesting job in the last three years, there's a lot of people who don't want him to be the president anymore. So that's what we're seeing. Deputy President resigning and basically kicking the President up the bottom as he leaves the door. indicates that he's not going to be part of the president's package next time. And quite a few others who fear would also be taking that same route. So that's quite interesting. We'll have to see how it all turns out.
But we're not going to have an election without any other candidates. So that's a good thing, I think, because... I have yet to find anybody apart from people who are on his staff who think he's doing a good job. And the people on his staff are obviously too frank to say anything or have backbones of peanuts, you know. Do peanuts have the backbones come to think of it? Mollusks, maybe. Something to look into. Yes.
But Justin from our Patreon Discord asks, by the end of the year, will the drivers outnumber the amount of FIA employees? Because they really have been bleeding personnel. But he says, on a serious note, are there any actual legitimate... candidates who are drumming up a campaign behind the scenes? The answer to that is there is definitely at least one candidate, but I don't know who it is yet. I am told it is from a mobility side of it, which is in a way it's good.
Because there are more mobility clubs than there are sporting clubs at the FIA, would you believe? So FIA earns most of its money off Formula One and then gives it to the mobility clubs to spend on painting zebra crossings. extending the life of traffic lights to unbearable levels and stuff like this. I honestly don't know what they do with it.
They have a lot of parties, and so a lot of the people who support Mohammed Bin Sulaim like going to parties and getting free jackets off him and stuff like that, because they're really not particularly serious people. Local mojo clubs hold half a meeting a year. And then you have the very big serious ones. You have 20 million members, and they're a little bit teed off. The man from Cuckoo Land has got the same number of votes as they have. You need to have...
the number of members of a club. You know, if you've got 20 members of a club on a Caribbean island... against 20 million voters in Germany. It's just not fair, is it? It's not right. And so what's the worst case scenario if if Mohammed bin Salim stays stays in the role? Is there an sort of a unrepairable relationship now between him and the F1 group Liberty Media? No, I wouldn't say that as yet, because they're just there to make money.
And so they will do what is necessary to... keep everything under control unless he goes completely sillier than he has been already, which is possible because he doesn't listen to anybody. He doesn't... Anyone who suggests it might be a good idea to do this gets kicked out the door. And it's really... a very bad example of how to be a leader, which is not good for future generations of automobile clubs, certainly in the Middle East, because he's showing what not to do more than anything.
So I think it would be best for all concerned if we had a little bit more sensible and stable leadership at the FIA. And if we're not going to get it from him, it has to be from somebody else. If I had a vote in this matter, there would be no question who I'd vote for, which is anybody other than him. But I don't have a vote. I just have a...
Right to say what I think. You know, I'm wondering, I'm assuming that he doesn't write the accreditation certificates then. If he did anything silly like that, it would be the worst thing to do because... I believe it was Lyndon B. Johnson who said it's better to have people inside the tent pissing out than people outside the tent pissing in. because if you're outside the tent, you just have no...
restrictions on you at all. If you're inside the tent, you restrict yourself a little bit on what you're willing to say. So the remarks from the outgoing vice president and then a lady who sort of was a bit more whistleblowy, whose name has escaped me, I apologize. Natalie Robbins. Yeah, Natalie Robbins did a fairly good job of summarizing it last week.
They really did use their voices last week, and it almost seems like that would make his position untenable when you've got people making those kind of public, scathing remarks right at the very top of the organisation. Yes, but in a society that's based on patronage, it doesn't matter what people say because... The silly little man in the corner is going to vote for you because otherwise he loses everything.
There is, we just have to go through the process. The skill is to make all the silly little men in all little corners panic and think, oh my God, we're going to lose everything if we keep on backing this. And once they do that, they'll desert him because they've got the morals of, well, they've got no morals at all.
and they'll vote for whatever's best for them. And, you know, if there are anybody out there who believes in the organisation and, you know, what it stands for, they should vote anyway against him because he's just leading it up the garden path, in my opinion. Yep. And just to remind you that I fall into that category as well. So I will do what's in the best interests of me. So, I mean, if you want to go and start a motor club on an island, declare independence, start the...
And you'll probably get an FIA membership if you promise to vote for the president, you know. As you can hear from Joe's voice, he is struggling a little bit with a bit of illness. So we're not keeping for too long. But I would say, Joe, I would press you for this. If you had to guess. a couple of names for potential challenges for the FIA presidency, who would you get?
I don't. If there is a mobility candidate, it must be somebody who is well known in the world of mobility. Otherwise, what's the point? Having a man with a blazer. and no background in the sport or in the industry, I can't imagine how they think they get elected. So if it's a well-known car company person, maybe, the only person I could think of would be Carlos Tavarez, formerly of Stellantis, who's a big racing fan. And he's got nothing to do, and he's got tons of money in the bank.
departed from Stellantis four months ago. Now, I'm not saying that's him, but he's the kind of person who would have the profile. to maybe get elected, but I can't imagine the chairman of ADAC or whoever. Who would be the right person? All right, Joe, thanks for that. I think we're going to take some listener questions, if that's all right with you. So, Stuart said, Ted Kravick...
caught Max's manager laying into Helmut Marko. Does Joe know what was that about, or is that just the way you have a friendly chat in Red Bull? Well, knowing Raymond, the manager, and knowing Helmut... the Red Bull man. I can see how they might clash when they're having a bad weekend like that.
Does it mean anything? No, it doesn't mean anything at all. That's just their handshake. That's just how they are. No, it's not their handshake. But, you know, you have good weekends and bad weekends. They had a good weekend in Japan and a bad weekend in Bahrain. You know, what do you do? It's part of the game. You sign to drive for a team. Now, if you think it's going to be bad and you'll never win another motor race in your life...
you can go and sign for another team. But right now, there aren't any other teams with drives available. hmm yeah okay so maybe there's been too much made of uh of that spat i've had to say to my wife at times in a restaurant just the way we talk to each other like we'll be having a nice chat but i've had to say to her
it looks like you're yelling at me. She goes, no, it doesn't. I'm like, honestly, ask people. And now the kids are witnesses. I'm like, kids, does it look like mum's yelling at me? They're like, yeah, it does. So, but we weren't, we were getting on just fine. But there might be some teams available because what was the chat about the $1 billion offer from Aston Martin? And then you look at Alonso's form and you go, oh, maybe there is a seat over there.
You're telling me that Aston Martin have got a billion dollars to spend on Max Verstappen? They are 1.1 million pounds in the red. That's the car company. And, you know, I don't really see how they could afford Max Verstappen because, well, Laurence knows how to talk.
I think he's going to need to talk about 300 miles an hour if he's going to get that kind of money. And let's face it, he's already taken loads and loads of money off all the people willing to loan it to him. So I think it's very unlikely that they'd be able to... But, well, I mean, but Red Bull are in trouble. Now, I got told that the specific motivation... Hang on, they weren't in trouble last...
I think to say that it's a disaster because he had one bad weekend is over-exaggerating just a little bit. He won a race in Japan. He may not win the championship because the McLaren is so far ahead of everybody else. But it doesn't mean it's not the end of civilization as we know it. It happens. His beings go up and down. red bull might be able to fix the problem they did it in japan my new spy in red bull says to me that happened to the old one huh died no um
Scott found out. He got found out and he got dragged out the back. But said that the driver swap for the number two was specifically a panic about a clause that said if they finish below a certain championship position, Verstappen can leave. at the end of that that year do you think there's any weight to that no no oh okay stupid Red Bull spy I mean there might be there might be something like that but they would have they wouldn't have got it last year after that
Ridiculous performance by the other bloke, so. The slander. Will the slander for Perez never end, Joe? It's not slander, it's reality. There's a difference between slander and reality. Some people don't accept reality. Just remember, I love Perez. Don't at me. I'm just saying that some people don't see reality in the way it is.
Chris G has got some questions here related to Red Bull. So let's stay on that. What do you make of Uki's performances? And was Liam Lawson judged too quickly? What's your take on all that, Joe? We've not had a chance to talk to you about it. Well, I think that Liam Lawson fell apart in Australia. And I think that it was mentally he just couldn't take it. He didn't understand it.
He was completely lost, and by the time they got to the second race in China, I think the team had gone, well, this guy's never going to do it. because he was just damaged goods from you know that that's certainly what i've been told within the team is like sort of
he's gone, he's not going to do it. That's why things happen so quickly, because they can't sit around and sort of let, well, he'll be all right, give me five races, he'll catch up, he'll be on it, he'll do this, he'll do that. And I think the conclusion was he's not going to do any of that. we've picked the wrong guy, put him back somewhere where he's more comfortable. Yuki's a hard nut. He's a hard nut because...
He doesn't know any other way. He's struggled a little bit, but he's doing better performances than Norsen was, and he's doing better performances almost in Paris, and he's only in second race. at the end of last year, not the beginning of last year. But the fact is that we'll see in two or three races at a time, I expect Yuki will be doing better because he is learning and he's getting closer.
Yeah, as a Tsunoda fan, I am relieved. I was so worried. But yeah, after the last race, you go, yeah, it looks... Looks fine. It looks okay. You know, before Q3, he was there or thereabouts on pace, and he wasn't miles away, and the car was looking difficult to drive. So you kind of go, okay, all right. In Japan, he had a bad qualifier. And as we saw throughout the race, you can't have a deck in Suzuka these days with these cars. So once you're qualified down the back, you're stuck well.
Joe, let's get your insight on some of the other teams then. Tim Rudd asks, Audi, is there any positive news coming out of Ingolstadt and Hinwell? Yeah, well, I think so. They've got some more people come in there. They've got some decent people come in there. They understand that all is not perfect. and they need to get it all together. So, you know, they're a big company, and they're a very wealthy company.
And they can't afford to mess up. So, yeah, I mean, we'll see how it does. But they can't be bad all the time. I mean, they are inheriting Sauber, which wasn't in a great state. And they need to do better. So we'll see how they do. Lots of people making the right noises, but making the right noises isn't quite enough. You've got to make the right actions as well. So we'll see how it goes.
I'm not in panic mode with it. I'm more in panic mode with the global economy. What that will do to a lot of... Yes, there was a very strong statement from Haas about the tariffs, and without getting political, they were saying, this is going to affect us a lot. Well, particularly as he's a Republican benefactor, I believe. That was a Republican benefactor in industrial United States of America going, Oi, we don't like this.
Well, I've got bad news. Anyone who voted for that person is going to get whatever they want to give him until somebody stops him. and there seems to be no interest in Congress in stopping him doing... things that make no sense at all. So, you know, you get what you vote for. Could you possibly explain slightly how that would affect Haas, the tariffs? They won't be able to sell any machine tools anywhere in the world because of tariffs against America.
Oh, so that would be like retaliatory tariffs against... Well, that would be part of it. Yes, also the production costs, all the stuff that goes... I don't know how much of their stuff comes from abroad anyway. Probably quite a lot of the stuff doesn't come from America.
is that America outsources because America can't source the stuff inside itself because there aren't people good enough to do it or they've all gone out of business because their prices were too high and their technology wasn't good enough. They're not competitive. So, you know, trying to force everybody to go and open factories there, it's just not going to work. But that's what you get.
We have democracy so that people can make mistakes and learn what not to do in the future. Unfortunately, they don't learn, so there we go. We'll just have to go through the process all over again. And eventually there'll be some reaction when inflation goes up and they start losing jobs. then there'll be a reaction. And perhaps Donald will lose his majority in Congress at the half-term elections. Who knows? But the guy seems out of control at the moment.
It's times like this that I'm very pleased that I have no strong political opinions one way or the other. Nor do I, that's the funny thing. Just to give you an idea, I quoted the other day from The Economist, which is about the most stable. and conventional and objective publication you can.
And people from America wrote in saying it was a left-wing rag. Goddamn, communists everywhere. And I wrote back and just said, I said, well, you don't know what center is, so how can you possibly judge anything? Good. Well, going back to F1, though, briefly, before the next... F1 is being impacted by this. You know, the share price of Formula One dropped 15%.
The inauguration day. So I'm stalking your JSBM there because, you know, you're talking about the stock price and there is some mention in there. And this is JSBM, the Joe Sayward. business newsletter that's uh it's priced professionally but if you want to get the real inside scoop of things months ahead of anyone else you can click a link in the show notes below to subscribe to that but there is a piece in there joe about a potential sale if we can leak it
Can we leak for free some information, Joe, that you said that perhaps there's a rumor about it? It's speculation. Speculation, some speculation about a potential F1 sale. Well, there is, there have been some rumors of an F1 sale, which appeared, I believe, in the Times newspaper in London. And they didn't say very much about who or what it could be.
But I have heard that it might be, there might be, it's not really, it's an interesting one because it wouldn't be just selling off Liberty Media. It would be, well, it would be buying Liberty Media. off the current owner, John Malone, but it could be that the previous chief executive officer, Red Maffay, might buy it off of his own ownership.
So take it in-house and he would run it and own it as opposed to just running it. We'll see. I don't know if that's true or not. But Maloney's 84 years old and he's looking for... exit strategies and things, and Nuff A is the guy who built Liberty Media, so it kind of makes sense. The other rumor is that Hafei would use the Saudis, the public investment fund, which is ridiculously wealthy and builds entire 3,000-mile-long cities and all this sort of stuff.
to do it. And I think the Saudis might go for that. But I'm waiting to see. I fully expect that Greg Maffay will turn up next week or this week in Jeddah. There's no reason for him to be there, but I just get the feeling he might be. for formula one that's where i go yeah so i think the public perception of that would be worse than what you've just described which is simply a takeover within liberty media i don't think people would take
too much of attention from where that money came from. So could this always be like a more publicly sanitized way for Saudi to take over F1? Do you know how many Formula 1 teams have got money in them from PIF? There's a number of teams that have money from PIF, including Aston Martin, including McLaren. So, you know, I don't think, I don't think the... Maybe it would have to be a consortium of different investors. You know, they've got money to spend and they want to make money off their money.
I don't see why they shouldn't be allowed to do that, to be honest. Everybody else is. You know, we've got a man who says that war in the Ukraine is the fault of the Ukrainians. You know, whatever it is. Well, not you, Joe, because look at you, listen to you. You are clearly struggling and you're hanging on in there to give us great information here on Miss Apex podcast. I'm really grateful. I think we're going to ask you just.
One last question before we give your voice a proper rest here. And it's from EJ. And he said, what is going on with the V10 stuff? Because there was this big push of like, well, we're going to skip the 2026. regulations altogether and go to v10s and actually on this show we were quite excited about the prospect of dumping hybrid engines but it looks like there's been a manufacturer
push back against that? And have they confirmed that they definitely will push on with these 26 regulations now? They will push on with the 26 regulations because you don't ask investors. tweets put in half a billion and then tell them no no you can't have it now it's not how you behave so Fundamentally, it's a wrong idea. It's a wrong idea for a number of reasons.
One is you can't screw the people who've behind you five years ago, four years ago, whatever it is. Actually, no, it's less than that. They all signed up three years ago, and they had a commitment that the formula would last for five years. So you can't just go along and say, well, we know we said that, we know we agreed to it, but we're not going to do it, and we decided to change it.
We think going back to engines that were first built 30 years ago is a good idea. We also think it's a brilliant idea to blow the eardrums out of small children and to... let VIPs no longer talk to one another, because half the people who are supporting V10s have not lived through V10s.
Let me tell you, a lot of us are deaf because of those stupid engines, which are not used in any road cars and have not been used in Formula One for 20 years. It's just a load of tosh. Now, whoever came up with it, brackets the FIA president. was doing it for some reason, presumably goodness knows why he was doing it. I don't understand it. It doesn't make any sense. The only thing that might make some sense is in three or four years, just before the end of the...
the planned formula. If they really think that, you know, the future is to go down the entertainment route, which is a really bad idea because Formula One is about technology, not entertainment. You have to balance the two things. I would think it's better to look at 2031 and say, well, do we want to go with...
fully sustainable fuel? Do we want to go with V8 turbos? At least a V8 is an engine that appears in some cars these days. Can you name a V10 car, a mass production one? No. So what possible relevance is it apart from deafening small children and meaning that half the new viewers we get won't come anymore because any responsible parent won't take their child and have their ear blows. Yeah, I mean, stuff he was on here saying, oh, I don't care, I'll sacrifice my hearing.
It really is loud. I mean... He might be willing to sacrifice his hearing, and I don't care about that, but would he sacrifice the hearing of his children if he had any? What about the money in F1? All those VIPs who pay for all those tickets and can't talk to one another when they get to the racetrack, they're not going to come twice.
That's the good thing about Formula E. You can have a very comfortable conversation. If the aim of the game is to completely destroy motor racing, you're going in the right direction, yeah. Joe Sayward, you have been valiantly battling your illness to talk to us here on Missed Apex Podcast. Go and rest up so that you can go and cover the next Grand Prix. And go and follow Joe on X and on Blue Sky by searching for Joe Sayward.
And we'll give you a link to all of Joe's publications because you do want GP Plus Magazine, which is a PDF published just normally about six hours after the race. So, Joe Sayward, thank you very much for your time. And we will see you in Miami. Okay, that's all from us on Miss Apex Podcast for this midweek preview. I look forward to that Grand Prix and we will see you all on Sunday around 12.30.
British summertime, UK time after the race for our race review. Until we see you next, work hard, be kind and have fun. This was Mr. Apex Podcast. When you're a forward thinker the only thing you're afraid of is business as usual Workday is the AI platform that transforms the way you manage your people and money today so you can transform tomorrow. Workday, moving business forever forward.
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