This is,
Is off track. Hi.
Hello. Thank you. There's no Tim. Well, hold on. I was in a really bad mood. I've been in a bad mood for like, the last 30 minutes and I just realized that Tim's not on this show. Well, and all of a sudden my mood just Got way better. He, no, Tim, Tim is on the show. Um, he just can't talk because he's in the air. 'cause he doesn't prioritize or plan his life appropriately, um, for this podcast. Which is weird considering we, he's the only person that doesn't actually have real things going
on, um, yet. And he
Makes more money on the show time. Yeah. He makes more money on the show than you or I do. Correct. So it's weird. I mean, I, it is, I busted my ass to get here to do this show and you've had to move stuff around and we've all had to make a lot of sacrifices. Tim occasionally has to get up early. Right. Um, but in this case, he prioritized, uh, vacation over, over the show even you were on vacation and
Still I was in, I was in, I was in Hawaii. Six hours behind you guys. Yeah. He is actually on the east coast on our time zone and just is like, nah, I don't care enough. Mm-hmm. But what's fun about this rant is he can hear it all. Um, he just can hear it all. Cannot say anything. Um, so he can't defend himself, which is great. So we're not talking behind his back. We're actually talking directly to his face. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So we're not bad people.
No. We're great people. Uh, great friends. Um, yeah. Yeah. No, he, it's, it is great. 'cause not only is he listening live, he's then also gonna have to re-listen when he edits. And then he is gonna have to re-listen again before his last listen. And he publishes under a piece of chocolate. What kind? I'm
Hungry. Okay. So let's back up. Why are you so pissy? What's, what's your problem, James? What's
I'm hand grade, Alex.
What's so bad? Okay. Well that's, I mean, you're a grownass adult. You have the ability to get yourself food a
Hundred percent. So,
Okay.
I take all responsibility for it being almost five o'clock my time. Mm-hmm . Not where I am, but where I have been and where I whatever wake up
This morning, your, your stomach thinks it's five. Yep. My
Stomach thinks it's five. And I, and I accept that. Right. But the plan was always that when I got to my destination, I was gonna be able to order room service to the room. And that way I could eat.
Oh, is that how room service works? You order it and it comes to the room. Right.
They service your food to the room.
They service your room.
Right. Yeah. And so I'm in this very nice, uh, like ranch, like hotel place in Palm Springs, um, for a convention with a partner, CSN Shout out CSN. And, and I spent, I'm not exaggerating, okay. This is not me just in a bad mood. 'cause now I've had my piece of chocolate and I know that Tim can't talk. So like, I'm much in a much better mood. I spent 32 minutes calling the front desk and the room service and the concierge and every button on the phone of this hotel.
And they all just rang until they hung up. And, and I did that for 32 minutes trying to just get ahold of a single human being. I called everything from the front desk, the bell desk, the concierge, the restaurant, the in-room dining button. I even tried the spa just to see if anybody would answer the spa. Nobody picked up for 32 minutes. She
Called valet.
There's, there was no buttons left. I hit zero. Then I called them, I called the hotel number on my cell phone. Interesting. And they answered eventually. And they put me on hold for 16 minutes before they, before they answered. So I take full responsibility for putting myself in a position where I was not fed properly until this time. But I am upset at the failure in the system, which was, I had a plan and the system should work. And if the system had worked, I would've been totally fine.
But my frustration came from the failure in the system, very first world problem, champagne problem. I know. Shout out to Becky No. For making me these little things
Because they kept me. Listen, listen. There's nothing that bothers me more truly than like, incompetence.
You have a job, do the job. Right. Here's the thing. I know someone, someone,
You're No, but you're paying, you're paying, you're paying to be there. Yes. You're not, you're not, they're not giving you this for free. Outta the kindness of their heart. You're paying to be there. And whether or not your room service comes on time or not is irrelevant. The fact that you can't get anyone to speak to you is a guest of the hotel that you're paying to stay in is a problem.
What, what I was saying, like what I was thinking there in my 32 minutes of alone time was like if I walked in my room and discovered a flood, like a, like a pipe had burst and it was actively flooding the room, I, I literally couldn't get ahold of anybody.
Or like there was a murderer Or a murderer with a dead body.
Maybe both we're still there.
That would be a predicament. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. And I would also then probably be dead because 32 minutes later, most likely he was not gonna let me walk away.
So, so then they'd have a lot of blood on their hands. Two bodies
Literally. Yeah. Yeah. Quite literally. So they'd have to replace the floors. It would be a whole thing, right? Yeah. Um, so anyway, the, um, luckily for you, right before I logged on, they finally answered the phone and, um, not, again, not through the hotel, phone service, through the 16 minute hold that I was on. So I've placed my order, which hopefully will come sometime during this recording and you can all see and hear me. It's probably not
Good. No, they're definitely in it. Yeah. Knowing this experience, it'll come like at 10 30 when you're trying to go to sleep.
Luckily, I ordered a salad, so I wasn't expecting it to be warm. That's the good news. That's not gonna be like an overcooked steak or a cold or pasta or something. It's mm-hmm . It's gonna be a salad, so it's fine. Right. Got it. Anyway, uh, yeah, so I, as I said, I'm out here in Palm Springs doing an event for CSN collision Centers, a partner of mine that has been very good to me.
And they do this yearly thing, Canadian company, and they do this yearly, like getaway and like awards dinner and whatever. And they always do it somewhere very warm in the middle of winter to get all the Canadians out of the frigid cold. So it's very nice of them to take that into consideration. Phoenix, California, Nevada, whatever. It's kind of where we've done it over the years. Hmm.
Um, I was just in Baltimore, uh, where I swung by the headquarters of Hub Ma, who oh, make all the cool tools that remove us from battered race cars if required. Mm-hmm . Used to be the, uh, title sponsor of the safety team before, uh, A MR mm-hmm . But a R safety team still uses all their tools and dude, it's such an incredible company. Like it's a really impressive program that they've got there. And like the stuff they make those tools are unbelievable. Like, it's insane what they can do.
But don't they also make, like, aren't they like jaws of life for EMS? It's
That stuff kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. Oh yeah. We use them. But like every fire department or ambulance, MS whatever. Exactly. Like Yeah. Yeah. That's what the bread and butter is. Yep. Um, but yeah, like you look at videos of what these things can do to cars to get people out. It's in like a handheld battery powered mm-hmm . Machine. Like the engineering behind it is unreal.
And like, they actually have, they call it like their experiential set or whatever, and they have like old, like cars from the junkyard, not like old cars, but just written off cars or whatever.
Like, but like, they look relatively intact and they like do demos and like, train people on actual cars and like cut 'em up and like, they know where to, they do like these two cuts in the front of the chassis and then they use this like spreader device to literally just fold the front half of the car down. So the dashboard like, bends away from a passenger if you need to get them out. Roofs, doors gone in a second. No problem. Like, unbelievable. Mm-hmm . Very cool.
And it's, you know, one of their tools literally saved my life in my accident in 15 because they used the spreader on like, around my hips to kind of push the tub out, which popped the thing, which let them get me out. So, um, I owe them a big debt of gratitude, you could say. Hmm. Yeah. Uh, so yeah, that's nice. Until Saturday. And then, I don't know, then, then we're heading to St. Pete in like two minutes.
I saw your, uh, CSN commercial that launched I think today.
Yeah. It's been out up in Canada for a little bit, but we posted it today for the broader audience. Yeah. What do you think?
Yeah, . Um, I thought you did a good job. Uh,
Thanks, Val.
The, the tire screech as you pulled to a a, a halt in front of the service door was annoying. I didn't like that.
Do you wanna know what's hilarious? Yeah. I don't know if I'm supposed to say this, but I'm gonna, I shot that when our former teammate, Marvin Soffer was staying with me in Canada mm-hmm . And he is actually driving the car in that scene where the car, like from the outside, drives up and stops in the thing.
Why? because he, because he was Are you With No, no, no. 'cause he came with me and I felt bad he was standing around. I was like, do I wanna drive the car? He is like, sure. So he drove the car and he made it the commercial technically stunt drove. Did he get paid? Okay. So yes. Yeah. More than you're gonna get today at your hotel.
At this rate. Absolutely. If I pass out Good show. I apologize. Um, but, okay, so that's all my boring stuff outta the way and complaining. Um, more importantly, you've just got back from Florida.
I did get back from Florida. I had a, uh, I had a whirlwind, I had a whirlwind couple days. So I went down Saturday. Well first of all, uh, at the end of last week we did a bunch of team, uh, content filming days and such. Uh, cool. For the team, for the deliveries, for Java House, for Splenda, et cetera.
The deliveries do look awesome, by the way.
Deliveries are cool. They did a very good job. They like even better in person. You're gonna like him in person.
Did I, because like I know you said that like we saw whatever was announced at whatever, and like you had said that that wasn't the final deal. Yeah. And you were like, yeah, it looks pretty cool, but like of course you're gonna say that it's your car, but No, you were right. They legitimately look
Pretty good. No, but in person they look very nice. Like it's super gloss. Like a lot of teams have gone kind of, not a lot of teams, but it's just, it's, it's, it's, it's a pretty car anyways. Um, so we do, we're doing these filming days and bless his heart, oh, Christian, um, was I guess very ill, um, very sick, but he, he was being a trooper and he was like committing to it and he was not complaining and he was doing the best job that he could and, and all this sort of thing.
So this is during the filming and all this stuff.
Um, this was, this was all of last week, but yes. Okay. So that, yeah. Yeah. That includes some of the filming. So, um, but at the time, no one really knew in the beginning, uh, that he was super sick and he didn't want people to be stressed out because the test was coming up and we only get two half days and all this sort of thing.
Well, in the Java House, Splenda production days, we did a lot of photos and some short video, you know, pretending to drink coffees and different products and all this sort of thing. Pretending to drink coffee. Some of you can't drink 19 different coffees. Like, so, I mean, yes, you would have a little sip of some of them, but you weren't actually drinking all this different type of, of liquid in a 30 to 60 minute window.
Yes. Um, and I guess there wasn't any sort of consideration from anyone because no one really knew about like, keeping track of whose mouth was on what, so anyways, I got sick and I've, I've been like really sick. You sound a little Yeah. Yeah. I'm like, good now, but man, it hit me like f freight train on Saturday. Good. Good. Which is before you leave for a test. Awesome. That's just, that's just life. It's fine. It was, it was some fevers. It was some sweats.
It was some night terrors, but, you know, listen, we're gonna get through it. Nothing, little Tylenol can't fix eye bleeding, you know? Right, exactly. Ear ringing. Yeah. I lost 28 pounds, but other than that, totally fine. Um, so anyway, so I went down, I I, I went down early because I needed to be down there Sunday morning and I'll tell you why in a second. But anyway, so I went down Saturday morning with Brian Simpson. We flew into Miami. There was a semi-private course in Miami.
I needed to be in kind of Fort Lauderdale area, like first thing Sunday morning, like 7:30 AM Sunday morning. So we flew down Saturday, played around of golf on Saturday afternoon, stayed night there, had a nice dinner as much as I could enjoy it, considering I was dying. Um, and then Did you draw down? Yeah. Yeah. But it was funny. I, it was one of those nights where like I went to bed at eight 15, but then I woke up at 1130, like drenched.
So I got up, took a shower, went back to sleep, so I, yeah, whatever. Um, so woke up Sunday morning and we drove about 45 minutes north, uh, to Palmetto's training center where I got to visit my horse again. Oh, cool. And this was, this was a cool thing because the last time that I saw him, he raced, uh, it was in October-ish time. He raced in, in Churchill. You were there. Yep. Um, difficult day, all this sort of thing.
Uh, it turns out he had a, he had an injury, um, of which you would equate it to a, a human pulling a hamstring. So like, not okay. The end of the world, but something that certainly requires rest and attention. And because it's an animal that can't communicate with how he's feeling for eyes. Yeah, right. And progressing. Uh, it's a longer rest time than Right. You would think it is. So anyways from Yeah, it's gotta go above and beyond to make sure.
Right, right. So essentially from November all the way to about the last week of January, like he was on essentially bedrest, um, stall rest. They moved him, they moved him down to Florida. Uh, or it's warm. A lot of horses. You know, that's where I would wanna be if I was Yeah, a lot of horses Winter in Florida. Yeah, they spring and fall in Kentucky and they summer in upstate New York. 'cause you know, you don't wanna be in the Midwest when it's too hot.
So they've got a pretty good's a bad program. They got a pretty good program going on. So, um, I got to go down and see him. I got to be there as he kind of took his, like he was back training again. He was back on it. And um, like he returned immediately to, uh, to uh, the same kind of pace that he had prior to the injury. So they were really impressed because a lot of times horses when they're, you know, the activity level drops off, they lose a lot of muscle mass.
They don't eat as much, you know, they just, it takes a, a bit for their strength to come back and their endurance to come back and they're like, he didn't lose anything. So, um, it was encouraging. Yeah. I mean he just turned three so like, he's Yeah. . So, uh, that was cool. It was good to see him.
It was cool to, to spend some time with the trainer, kind of hear about like, what does that look like for a horse to go kind of go through that program and as he ramps up for Keeneland in April, like how does his training program change and all that sort of thing. So anyways, so that was that. Um, and then we headed north to Sebring on our way. We, uh, stopped a Cracker Barrel because , you know, as you should, I mean that's my, that's my new, that's my new thing guys.
I'm sure you're gonna see it soon. It's on my helmet, it's on my suit. Cracker Barrel and Alex Rossi going hard in 2025. It's gonna be great. Stay tuned for what that means. But, uh, it's pretty exciting. So we stopped there, um, got to Sebring and uh, the team was scheduled to fly down on a charter from Indianapolis.
So I think we've explained this a little bit in the past, but you know, a lot of, uh, teams, you know, will pull together to get a charter flight going of a 7 37, um, from Indy to wherever random airport that we're going to for a test or a race. And it's much more efficient than booking 90 Southwest flights and that sort of thing. So the problem with that is the charter operations are not really as dependable as your Americans, your Deltas, your Uniteds, which say there's a reason they're not
Flying like commercial people all the
Time. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, um, they were scheduled to take off at eight 30 and land around 11 or whatever. So be at the track, you know, 1130 noon, you know, start setting up. We had our engineering meeting scheduled for two 15. So I get a notification that they're like, oh yeah, we're not, we're not even gonna be in the air now until 1130. And then it was one o'clock and then it was whatever. So, oh man. I got to, I got to Seabring at one 15.
Yeah. One 15 for like, my two 15 engineering meeting. And they were like, oh yeah, we're not gonna be able to do anything till seven o'clock tonight. It got pushed back so far. And so also Brian, who was riding with me, 'cause we flew down together to, was sharing a rental car. He couldn't check into his Airbnb until four. Well, let me tell you, there's not a lot to do in Sebring, you know, on a Sunday afternoon. Well, there's also a golf course. So we were just like, screw it,
we're just gonna go golf again. .
So this was a golf trip for you guys. We had a little bit of driving
Involved. Exactly. Ended up turning into just another afternoon of golf. So that was, that was kind of my lead up to the Sebring test.
Yeah, but how was the fall? the Sebring test. Um, yes. So we talked about the weird format, the like half day, half day thing. So that way you're there the whole time and can't save money from being only there one day. It's making sure everybody's paying for the whole
Time. Well, why would you at all ever wanna save money, James?
No, no, no. Of course not. Of course not.
No, no, no, no. Um, so let's see, I, where do I start? Um, I was group two, which means that I was the afternoon of day one and then the inverse. So I would be the morning of day two. Um, which means that I got to kind of sit out the morning, which I think worked out well to kind of watch Christian, uh, do his session, kind of sit on the time and stand, listen to the flow of communication, how this team works and operates and go through, just goes through changes and that sort of thing. Um,
Did, did they intentionally try to take like one person from each team? Like, did they try to split the teams up so that not everybody was in the same thing?
No, it was just random. it have almost made more sense to do that? So that way at least every team had a car on track in each session, so that way you guys could like compare track conditions and be able to make kind of more thorough assessments of certain changes.
Oh,
Oh, right. 'cause because again, because it would make it so that a team had a car on each session and then you could make a better Yeah. Sorry, dumb. That was dumb with me. I don't know why I said that.
Yeah, yeah. Anyways, anyway, um, so, uh, Sebring, um, we're, I don't know where to begin. So the first, the first morning, um, you know, Christian had his, uh, his items to get through all this sort of thing. Um, there was some encouraging stuff, there was some disappointing stuff.
Um, you know, you go through the whole off season and like you come up with all these new, you know, kind of tweaks and, and evolutions of damper design and development, and you hire new people and you get new input and all this stuff. So like this grandiose vision of we're gonna put these new components on that we, you know, have spent a lot of money and time and like, look good on data and everything, we're gonna put 'em on and go four times quicker. Like, that's hard.
Like sometimes that happens, but it's, it's rare. Um, and I think that this is the first time that this team has really, you know, been in that situation to have that sort of off-season development. So I think there was a maybe a little bit of over excitement for
Expectations. Like almost Yeah. 'cause they haven't been through the Sure.
The disappointment, Yeah. Like it's, it's, I remember when Penske, you know, switched to their own dampers, you know, they started making their own dampers and it was like a year of, they had to like, keep going back to like their, the dampers. They were buying off shelves and like try and figure out where they were going wrong with their own design, everything.
And, you know, finally in the long run, it's a benefit, but like, it doesn't, it doesn't, just because you're making the new and it's all cool and everything doesn't mean it's automatically faster. Yeah. So
Anyways, you gotta figure it out.
So there was, there was a lot of good things collected, um, but I wouldn't say the overall performance was Wow. Uh, which is, okay. So I got in excited just to see what the ECR street course esque kind of whatever Sebring car is like.
Let me, let me jump in with a question with, to whatever degree you're allowed or comfortable to answer this question. Obviously when you bring a driver in from a different organization, the engineers always sit the driver down in a room and just pepper them with questions, right? Yeah. You try to like pull whatever you remember from the last
Team Yep. Right. Just a complete data dump. Yeah. Um, not literal data. Like mental data. So would, would you, would you say , would you say that the street course philosophy from McLaren to ECR was significantly different? Like, was it way different what you were used to? Or was it just Different? Like a complete departure? Okay. Um, it's a, it, it was actually much closer to an Andretti philosophy. I would say. Much, much closer.
I really think McLaren in a lot of respects, their street course philosophy is an outlier. I think that a lot of teams are kind of, if you say Andretti is the street course benchmark. I think a lot of teams are in that greater bubble. And then McLaren is in this, this bubble
Of street courses. And you could argue that that's their weakest type of track.
I think it is. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, even though Patto won there last year, like it is, right? No. Like it's, no. Yeah, for sure. So anyways, um, yes, I was pumped, I was excited, like a lot of anticipation, a lot of buildup, all this sort of thing. And, um, there was a lot of new systems as well, uh, for the team. You know, there's a lot more people, lot more networking systems, a lot more tools, a lot more, like a much more complicated intercom system.
Like a lot of big upgrades to the team, which are all good things, but all new things. Um, so it was a little bit of slow start from that standpoint. But, um, the, the biggest problem that we ended up having was I couldn't do a lap, uh, in the beginning. Well, the first hour and a half, that's,
That's bad. That's
Bad if you can't do that. Yeah. Um, because we were having fuel pressure problems. And so it was one of those things where we'd leave pit lane, like the car would run and then it would have a fuel pressure drop out, like you're out of fuel and then it would kind of come back and you get back to pit lane. And the, the fuel cell on an IndyCar is very complicated.
It's very difficult to work on because it's all internal components and it's all within in the bladder and the fuel cell and that sort of thing. So it's time consuming to troubleshoot and to try and figure out and replace parts. Well, we went through a couple different iterations of what it could be simply, um, you know, Chevy was pretty clear that they could see on the data that it wasn't on their side.
Um, right. But then there was some questions that arose from the fact that IndyCar, and this is not a, a, a bad thing against IndyCar, it's just the reality. They are mandating. And it's a great thing actually. Um, fuel flow sensors on all of the cars for this year, uh, to kind of monitor and ensure that everyone is, you know, doing the same thing and everyone's abiding by the rules. Um, but we were like, this is a new thing. Like we haven't, we haven't run this on track on the 21 car before.
Could it be that the way it's plumbed or this particular sensor is bad, and that sort of thing. So we went through the effort, which was like a good 40 minutes of bypassing the sensor, um, thinking that, that, that's gotta be the problem.
Interesting to know that you can do that.
Well, yes. But you would know that they did, that you'd
Get okay.
Because like, it's not giving telemetry data. So, yeah. Um, and we were like, okay, that's, that's gotta be it. So then we left Pit Lang and it was not it. And so at this point there was about two hours left. Um, so then we were like, all right, it's gotta be, it's gotta be a
What. And so you've done, you've done next to no laps at this point, with only two
Hours. I've done no laps. The only person that has done less laps than me is Scott Dixon, who blew up an engine on an install. Right. Which is like, gotta be a new record.
suboptimal. Um, but we're, we're right there behind him. Uh, considering we have only done out ins. And so, um, it's, it's starting to be a little bit of a panic. 'cause we know that, you know, there's only a, an half day, um, that we have left. And at this point, I'm really pissed off that IndyCar didn't allow all of the teams to do like an install at 9:00 AM and then, you know, have half the cars that weren't running in the afternoon go back.
But it would be nice that we would've had, you know, four hours to diagnose, said problem. But anyways, that wasn't the hand that we were dealt. Um, but we found a solution with about an hour and 10 minutes to go, um, kind of through dumb luck. But if we ran the car at 18 and a half gallons, it could at least run, like, it could at least do some lapse until it got to about 14 gallons into which case this problem started to happen. And we would've to pit. So, So we would get, that's full tanks.
So you had to have a full tank and you had
Down to, we had to have a full tank, three
Quarters full. Right. And then you'd have to refill
Again, right? So we were like, all right, fine. It doesn't matter. Let's make sure systems are working. Like let's make sure, you know, we got ride heights, right? Like, we're kind of abandoning today already. Let's just make sure we're as prepared as possible for tomorrow.
And so we, we kind of got through all that and we were trying, it was, we kind of were like hopeful that, okay, well if we start on full tanks, you know, we can at least, like if we do full tanks and then full tanks again and make a change, like we'll be able to get a read on it. But it, it was muddy because the, the cars are so heavy now that, um, tire deck at Sebring is actually a thing, which it didn't used to be in the past.
So as the fuel was coming down, like the performance of the car was going up, but then the tire deck was coming in, so it was really hard to like judge if the change was good or not, or anyways, so it was a wasted day. Um, but we were able to identify some underlying issues that we had with the hybrid. We were able to identify some underlying issues that we had with the brakes. Um, all just, you know, new component stuff, first time on the car stuff.
And so going into the night, it was, you know, let's sort out those issues and certainly fix the fuel problem. The problem is, um, they didn't really know where to begin. So unfortunately the guys and girls had an incredibly late night. 'cause the only solution was change everything fuel related, um, which is, is no easy task. That being said, um, they got it all done. We got back on track at 9:00 AM uh, for day two. Uh, the car was fixed.
We still don't know what the particular problem was, but I guess it's kind of irrelevant at this point. Um, and then it was just, okay, let's try and get through as much of, you know, getting me comfortable in what their car is and, and, and how they do things, and try and answer some questions that maybe Christian didn't get answers on that sort of thing. And we, we did that. Um, the car actually is, is, is pretty good in, in a lot of respects.
Um, I thought that, you know, there's, there, there was a mentality that existed that they had, you know, kind of a certain problem. Um, and I don't know that that is, that is true anymore. Uh, so that's cool to be able to kind of cross that off the list and be able to actually chase a more seemingly normal balanced characteristic. Um, the bummer part is, so we, we got through some stuff. We were, I mean, we were half a day behind, so we weren't
that fast, but we weren't a million miles away either. Um,
And that can see you're not always going for your laptop. Right? Especially in your scenario with all the new stuff. It's, let's, it's always, always nice to do it.
Everyone is, everyone is everyone
Tries to at the Yeah. Like, yeah. So we weren't, we weren't where we needed to be, but like we weren't, it wasn't a disaster. Um, and I was actually pretty happy with like, some of the, the directions and things that we found and, and the car was making very positive steps forward. Um, on that note, like our fastest lap came like at the last round of the day on used tires because we made such a good change that we actually improved on used tires. So it wasn't maximized, nothing was done right.
But like I, I left there pretty positive and I was super pumped because Christian was then gonna start on the package that I had found and like gonna have another three and a half hours to develop that further. Well, he got 10 laps into the afternoon and his hybrid melted down, so Oh, damnit. So, yeah. Okay. So it was, it was about as bad, I mean, I'm gonna be honest with you guys. It was about as bad as a test as a team could have.
Um, which is annoying because I think that for all of the, the people involved in the, the, the off season they've had, there was so much high expectation because it was like so many things they hadn't been able to do before that. So this was supposed to be like, as you would write it up, like this was supposed to be the, the best preseason test the team's ever had. And it ended up being like probably one of the Not a great one.
Yeah. But, um, I, I am honestly pretty excited about like the, the group that's there. Um, it's really cool to be a part of a two car team. It's really cool to be a part of a team that can pivot very quickly. You know, if, if you identify that there's a, there's a problem or a direction you need to be going, it's not getting this massive ship to like kind of change philosophies.
It's, you're talking to like three or four people and it's like, yeah, if you get the buy-in, like you are, you're going in that direction. So there's a lot of, um, uh, ability to, to react quickly in the organization. Um, the, the mechanics are all incredibly experienced. Um, you know, some of the guys in the, in the engineering room have been at some of the best teams. Like, there's, there's a lot of very good pieces.
So it's exciting. I think St. Pete, I th I I, I truly think, you know, the beginning of all this, like, I, I, I have realistic expectations. Like I'm not, we're not gonna go to St. Pete and win. Um, this is something that, you know, is gonna be an evolution. It's going to improve with time, it's gonna take a lot of effort. It's gonna be painful. It's gonna be, it's gonna be what it's gonna be. But, um, it's a cool, it's a cool thing to be a part of.
And I do think there's the potential for, you know, surprising results at different times throughout the year. So that's kind of what you gotta focus on and be ready to capitalize on that when the opportunity presents itself. Yeah.
It's a building, it's a building year, right? I mean, the team has undergone some massive changes and, uh, have a level of funding now they've not previously had. And like you said, you don't just get, you don't just get to like, spend money and get toys and it just works, right? Like all these things are development. It's almost like in some ways there's probably some parallels to when you join McLaren because that was a third card.
Everything on that car was new, even though the team was established.
It. No, there's a lot of people
Were knew that, where I was like, man, I've seen this before. Like, oh, an intercom system would work. And I was like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it does highlight like how frustrating it is and how challenging it is. Like, look, let's all look at it from a negative standpoint. Let's try to look at just how it challenges teams and drivers. The fact that they get so little time to test.
I mean, like, that's it, that's, that's your, that's your baptism with the team and it didn't go great, but the next time you guys hit the racetrack, it counts. It's at st it's at St. Pete. And like, that's like a really tall order for everybody. And it, it sucks in some respects, but yeah, it's, it's the challenge too, right? It's, it's impressive. Um, listen,
It is what it is. We're not gonna change it. We have a very strong plan in place for what we're gonna do in St. Pete and how we can maximize the weekend. And, and that's what we're gonna do.
Love that. So based on your casual observations, um, both from in the car and when you were standing Trackside, look, we, we, we say this all the time, you can't really look into test times too much, but at the end of the day, people do try to push, you know, um, at some point. So who, I mean times aside, like we all could see the times, but as you know, not everybody was on track at the same time or whatever.
So based on what you saw, who looked, who looked good, who looked comfortable, who looked consistently quick,
This is gonna, this is gonna surprise you. Um, the two? Yeah. The 12.
Yeah. So first and 10. 10 and the, yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah.
Um, the 26th. The nine. How was, was Pat when he was on, when he was on track? Uh, yep. Was good.
Yeah. 'cause he had more issues at day two.
Yes. Uh, Patto was, Patto was strong. He was very fast. I don't, I don't know that like I DE's a thing again, right? Like DE's a DE's a real thing again. So wasn't
You think that's just the weight?
Ah, it must be. I mean, well there is gonna be a new tire in 2025. We were obviously not on that tire. Um,
There's gonna be a different straight course tire or you didn't even get to test it for the one day, you got to test.
No. So even more reason why Sebring doesn't
. So Sebring is literally a systems change.
Yes. I mean, completely irrelevant. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So, um, yeah.
'cause that would make sense. If you've got a car that's heavier on the same tire, fine. But if the car's heavier and there's a new tire, then it's a completely different,
But, but the, the new tire's supposed to, I believe, I don't wanna say, I don't wanna say because I don't know for sure. Um, right. But yes, it's, it's a different tire.
Right. So the usual suspects, you basically just picked the top five in the championship from last year. But was there, was there anyone that you were surprised for how good they looked?
Not surprised or how bad,
But like was there somebody that was way worse than you expected?
No, I think, I think the shank cars, like it makes sense with their alliance that they would be good. Um, right.
They're G cars now,
Right? I mean from cars to GSI cars. Yeah. He did have an extra half day for everyone on everyone. 'cause he filled in for Felix. So I think that was, was a little bit of the reason why he was so far up there. But anyways, that is what it is. Um, he will be
Fast. So why, what, what was wrong with Felix was Felix
Not, well, Felix had pneumonia. Uh, so he was not in on day one. Um, that's so fun. Not fun. But no, I wouldn't say, I know what you're getting at. There was some people on the time sheets that were like, wow, that's impressive. But none of those people ever backed it up on the subsequent day. Right, right, right. So yes, there was some fat lapse thrown in there. Um, but I I, I don't think that those organizations have all of a sudden, oh, we're gonna compete with Cani.
Like I don't, I don't think that that's the case. I could be wrong. Um, it's still like, it's hard to do that lap. Like don't, don't get me wrong, they were faster than me. Yeah, you still got a pedal. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So like we're, we're obviously talking about, we're talking about Stingray, we're talking about Connor, we're talking about Devlin in the 30 car. Super strong. Um, Callum Ilot in the Prema car. Uh, actually that's the surprise for me. Like I obviously know what Cal's capable of.
Obviously the pedigree of Prema speaks for itself, but like they were strong, the thermal test with Andretti mm-hmm . And I was like, okay, that I could see that road course long was a long road course. So very European in a lot of respects. Um, but like Sebring is not like anything in Europe. Like there's nothing that you can compare that to. And they were like on it, they were genuinely on it both days. Um, you know, Schwarzman was a little bit further off
of Callum, but that, that's to be expected. Um, you just
Gotta get used to bumps and surface changes.
. Exactly. But like Callum was legitimately both days, not only quick, but like his average stint speed was good. Um, the team, you know, didn't have, it didn't stop on track. It wasn't like stalling in pit lane. Like there was no obvious like gremlins they were fighting. Yeah. So they looked pretty sorted. So I would say actually that was my, my surprise of the test.
That's cool. That's, that's gonna be, it's gonna be a fun one to watch. I know a lot of people have very high expectations, even though it is a brand new group and all those things, but just because of that pedigree from Europe and, and the success that they've had, there's a lot of people that are expecting quite a bit outta that team. It's not easy to just jump in and be competitive. So it'll be, uh, yeah, fascinating to see how
It plays up. Man, if they can pull it off, it'll be pretty remarkable. Um,
Pretty impressive.
And, and who knows, maybe they will, like, they're two for two now. Obviously race weekends and everyone being on track at the same time and you know, a limited amount of time in session and yellow flags and limited traffic and like, it's a whole different beast on a race weekend trying to get, you know, performance outta the car. But what they've shown so far is like they're gonna be, they're gonna be a threat and a competitor, especially in like the upper midfield range. So yeah,
It's, it's the, the potential they've shown they can be fast. And now it's the, like how do you manage a race weekend and a practice session versus a testing? Yeah. Because that's, that is a very different beast. But yeah. Um, there's enough experienced people in IndyCar on that team that should be able to kind of help them grasp that right off the bat. So Yeah. Very fascinating. Um, alright, real quick, racing again has started in NASCAR Daytona 500. You watched,
I I put myself through it. I put myself through it every year, you know? Yeah. I watched the last 70 laps because Lord knows like that's gonna take two hours of my night anyways. Um, and listen, I find it visually so awesome to watch. Like, it looks cool. It, it's exciting. Like, I'm kind of like, it's like a movie where you don't know what's gonna happen. You know something's gonna happen, but you don't know what's gonna happen. You're kind waiting for that moment. Yeah.
When did what, but my, my lord was the Finnish anti-climatic. My Lord does these crashes piss me off. Just innocent guys getting dumped. Like the
Blaming and the number of times it's a guy in the front, like it's, it's a guy in the first
Row. I know you were just sitting in the third doing nothing wrong and a car behind him somehow ends up spinning into him and taking him out. And it's just like, it's so frustrating. It's so frustrating. Then the ends, like, I I, I applaud NASCAR on one hand for like with the overtime rules. It, you know, the next flag after a white flag ends the race. 'cause we gotta put an end to this thing at some time. Like we gotta, we gotta kill it at some point, right?
And so there was a shot that was kind of happening, you know, on the back straight and they kept it green 'cause they wanted the cars to race to the finish and everything. But it was just such a lame finish because of that. Right. Because it ended, it ended up just being two cars that kind of survived and it was a distant
Kind of one two. Yeah. But if the yellow comes out at that crash, the, the result's the same, right? No,
It's Denny wins. Denny wins Denny only when
The yellow Anyways, as soon as cars are crashing when it's supposed, I mean, in any other situation, as soon as cars are crashing, the all comes out. Danny was then he was leading. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe. And he deserved a man. He was great all weekend. Uh, I know he did a, he did a great job. Logano was incredible too. Um, he was, the way he came back from
Yeah.
Being almost a la out, he just drove around guys like that was by far the best car. But then again, the end, like Christopher Bell doing a great job running up front in in the lead. Yeah. And yeah, and Cole Custers drive straight through him. Like it's, yeah, it's so down. And I guess, I guess like, you know, de went on his podcast and kind of sounded off a little bit and I get it, like when I talk to those drivers, almost none of them enjoy play racing.
Like they all hate it and it's, but it's their, it's their race. Like they still have to talk about the Daytona 500 and it still means a lot to win it, but also it's just like super frustrating 'cause it is more of a lottery than any race kind of should be. I think. I don't know. It's, uh, I dunno what the answer is. Obviously I've got no experience in those cars. I would, and I didn't listen to Denny's podcast to see if he kind of gave his 2 cents on what would fix it.
Is it is going faster actually the answer because then maybe they spread out a little bit more. Get
Some separation down, Yeah. Just something to not make it the parking lot and like, not let the cars bump the way they do. Mm. Um, because it, it gets a little too aggressive and, and there's always, always something. Ryan Pre's accident. Holy <inaudible>, that thing was wild. Yeah, yeah. Um, but as play racing, man, as they say mm-hmm . Um, lot of IndyCar ads during the Daytona 500. That was pretty cool. Very cool. Listen, IndyCar's back man, IndyCar's back, dude,
It's, I run into a guy at the airport flying out here. He's an indie Indianapolis guy. Not a huge race fan, but he made the comment, he is like, dude, IndyCar's like awesome right now. Hey. I'm like, what do you mean? He goes, oh, I'm seeing all these ads and like, I'm, I'm, I think I wanna go to a race this year. Like I've, I've only ever been in the 500. I think I really wanna go to a race this year. I'm like, amazing. Here's the list. I'll give you passes, whatever you want.
Come out, check it out. So, yeah, I agree, man. It's, and like the number of commercials we've seen, this is, this sounds too bad. I think we were talking about this maybe earlier, maybe it was someone else, but I'm like, I know that St. Pete's on May 2nd or March or March 2nd, right? Like, it's been, dude, here's what I'm racing. Like I know it's next Sunday. I don't know the date sometimes, right? More often than I probably should admit.
But I just, I'm like, yeah, it's in two weeks, it's in a week, it's in whatever. Right? I know the date because it's been shown on my screen so many times over the last four weeks and on my social screens and whatever, like my social thing. So like, it's, yeah, it's awesome. So I'm excited. It's coming up. We're a week away now from basically traveling to St. Pete and, uh, and giddy up man. So Hell yeah, brother. Hell yeah, brother. Yeah, brother. On that note, I'm gonna let you go.
I'm gonna let you eat your salad. I cannot wait. I've been smashing my, uh, my chips and guac, which was my appetizer, but uh, now it's time for a salad. A little shrimp on there that, oh, love that. Me.
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