313 - Canadian GP 2025

And welcome to Shift F1, a podcast about speedy race cars. That's the coffee they drink up in Canada. Coffee I need because Danny O'Dwyer is not here. He's on assignments, just me and Rob today. Welcome to Shift F1, a podcast about speedy race cars. How are you, Rob? Not bad. I am just thinking about how much fun it would have been to go up there for the race and to enjoy poutine from La Banquise. I don't know what that is. I know what poutine is. Is that a restaurant?

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to our title sponsors, and indeed to all the patrons supporting us over at patreon.com slash shiftf1. You make the show possible. You know what also makes the show possible, Rob, is Grand Prix's happening.

This one just happened in Canada. Sometimes the Grand Prix could make it a little easier to keep the show going. Sometimes the show happens in spite of the Grand Prix. This isn't quite at that tier. No. But I'm not going to say this was a classic Canadian Grand Prix.

No. I think there is a fair bit to talk about, though. So let's just hop right into the grid here. Pole position, George Russell. Back on top. Set his time on the medium tire, which looked like the faster one in qualifying, unusually. We also learned recently that the Mercedes is good in cooler weather. So...

They've got that in spades up in Canada, I hear. Second place, Max Verstappen. He enters this weekend with just one penalty point away from a race ban. He got pretty annoyed with people asking him. about that, so let's just move on. Oscar Piastri lines up third, electing this weekend not to use McLaren's new suspension. He explained that he didn't think it was demonstrably better, so he didn't want to upset the apple cart.

Fourth place, the other Mercedes of Kimmy Antonelli. Worth pointing out that because this is a temporary circuit, most, if not all, of the rookies have never been here before. So good on Kimmy for putting it up on the second row. Lewis Hamilton in fifth.

in the Ferrari. Fernando Alonso getting his Aston Martin up into sixth. Lando Norris in seventh. He did take the new suspension and wasn't as happy with his car across the weekend. He and, in eighth place, Charles Leclerc will both start on the hard tire. The first of the runners to do so. Everybody else is on the mediums. Leclerc crashed in free practice one after only nine laps and had to skip free practice two. So he did not get a lot of practice running. Ninth place.

Starting ninth, Alex Albon, his engine cover exploded off of his car in Q1, exposing the whole left side of his car. which I'm sure the mechanics weren't too happy about on account of all the secrets. He's just too fast. It's like watching Red Line or something. The car just disintegrates around him. What he was trying to do, the car couldn't take. That's right. To channel Toto Wolf. Red flag for that. So...

Thankfully, for him, he was able to get back out there and escape the session and get into Q3. Lining up 10th will be Franco Colapinto. Isaac Hadjar qualified 9th.

but was penalized three positions for impeding Carlos Sainz in qualifying. He said over the radio that he thought Sainz was aborting his lap, so I assume he was told... this by his team and i guess signs did i guess signs did make a mistake significant one at the start of the lap and so that's insult to injury injury right there like oh we thought you we thought you aborted because you're just going so slow

But it does seem like he still might have been able to actually recover from the error. So, like, Hajar should have stayed out of the way. But, yeah, it does seem like... Something may have happened early in Sainz's run, and he was always going to have a tough time getting out of Q3, but the impeding put paid to any hope of advancing. Yeah, Sainz was pretty miffed after the session. So it'll be...

Albon, 9th. Colopinto, 10th. Hulkenberg, 11th. And Hajar, 12th. You know, it's... The impeding stuff is very rarely, I feel, the driver's fault. And I can't... grasp why the teams can't get a handle on this because they've got so much other telemetry right like why can't you just tell your computer to notify you hey it looks like this guy coming up on us is starting a flying lap warning warning warning i don't know um

If you're an engineer, write in. 13th place, Oliver Behrman. 14th, Esteban Ocon in the two Haases, their 200th Grand Prix. Haas splitting their tire strategy with Ocon starting on the hard tire, along with everyone else behind him, including Gabriel. Riel Bortoleto in 15th, Carlos Sainz in 16th, Lance Stroll in 17th, back in the car after having surgery on his wrist.

18th is Yuki Tsunoda. He qualified 11th, but was penalized 10 places for overtaking under red flags in practice. Kind of a weird situation, I guess. This is when Piastri, in practice, hit the wall of champions with his rear right. Tsunoda said that he was afraid that the tire would come off of Piastri's car and hit him, which is why he passed him. But them's the rules.

And then two pit lane starts for Liam Lawson and Pierre Gasly, who are relegated to the pit lane for changing power unit elements on their car. So.

I can take it through the start, Rob, but if you want, you are welcome to. Oh, no, please take it away. Okay. We get a good start from Russell. Holding the lead into turn one, perhaps even a better start from his teammate Antonelli, who pulls even with Piastri around the outside of turn one, which then becomes the inside of turn two.

Piastri staying ahead through the turn, but Antonelli pulls even with him, and they drag race down the straight to turn three. Piastri crucially has the inside line, so as... I'm sorry, it's Antonelli who has the inside line. So as they break, Antonelli sneaks into third place. The other battle happening here is between Colopinto and Albon. Colopinto had jumped Albon at the start, and so Albon...

Pulls even with him on the straight down into the turn eight and nine complex. Albon tries to break late and go around the outside of turn eight, but there is not any room. So he has to bail across the grass, cutting turn nine. Thankfully, as he rejoins the track, kind of bouncing his way back on, there are no collisions, but it does create some bunching up, which allows Hülkenberg to take advantage and passes both cars, moving up from 11th to 9th place.

That was a scary moment, because he just comes flying back onto the track, and Ronald commented, was that an unsafe rejoin? But... You can't stop when you're on the grass. That is the downside of those grass runoffs is that like you try to break, you're just going to wipe yourself out. But you kind of have to just try to hold it straight. And when you get back on tarmac, then you can steer. But you're kind of a passenger in those moments.

I think it was like three wheels off the ground at all times. I do wonder, I don't know if they came out with why his car failed late in the race, but like the minute you see it just like... hammering back onto the ground uh i was like that doesn't seem good for the floor and the things that are behind the floor yeah yeah so he he would let it retire um

And then as we settle in here, the big question becomes whether the race is going to be a one-stop or a two-stop. We've got some different tire strategies going on. As mentioned, Norris and Leclerc are both starting on the, or did both start on the hard tire. splitting the strategies with their teammates. And while the medium tire seemed great in qualifying, we get some radio from Verstappen on lap 11, calling it fragile. He then pits a lap later for hards, which seems fairly early.

suggesting that maybe there's some higher degradation going on here than the teams were expecting. And it would make those long runs on the hards dicey. So that's kind of putting that into jeopardy. That strategy. Russell and Antonelli pit thereafter for hard tires, covering off Verstappen. However, Norris on his hard tires does manage to get by Alonso at turn 11. I'm sorry.

at the hairpin on turn 11, Alonzo going wide and opening the door for him. And four laps later, Norris passes Hamilton with DRS on the back straight just before Hamilton dives for the pits. Also on lap... 15, some action in the back of the field with signs diving down the inside of Bortoletto at the hairpin, locking up his tires, but sealing the deal. And on the following straight, Tsunoda also gets by Bortoletto with DRS.

Lap 28, Ferrari brings in Leclerc to get off of his hard tires, which he is real peeved about since he was telling his team that his tires were fine. So from his perspective, why not stay out and see if they could one stop? And they put him out on hearts again. That was the part where I was just like, I still...

I don't know what the play was there. I was like, maybe they're holding out for a late safety car, which they would turn out to get, but by that point, they sort of cashed in in hopes of that, too. It was a strange call. that they'd made, it didn't seem like the Hards were that beloved. And if you could have extended on that, it was, I don't know, it's yet another, like...

The logic of Ferrari calls, going back years, is sometimes not always apparent. And it's certainly not apparent to Charles Leclerc. And this was one of those moments where... Like the ironclad rule of tire strategy was that you need to use two compounds. I just don't understand where you go from like the hardest compound.

back onto the hardest compound, and you're still now locked into having to do the switch late. Maybe there was some weirdness with how their allocation unfolded, how they went through their allocation, but strange moment. Yeah, it looks like he and, well, Stroll are the only two drivers to have gone hard, hard. Race fans pointed out that he was racing in traffic by that point.

versus some other drivers who did end up doing a one-stop, namely Ocon and Sainz, who at that point were racing in more free air. But yeah, I think what strikes me about... this kind of stuff is that number one, Leclerc is usually a pretty level-headed guy. And when you hear this sort of disbelief, it just strikes me that like... oh, you don't trust your team. You know, if you're... Or they're not communicating well. Like, even if you didn't trust them, if they told you...

And I guess they can't tell you everything because, you know, you don't want to give away all your strategy over the radio. But that's, yeah, it's, I think it, separate from the actual strategy going on here, it's that, it's that relationship. that puts little question marks in my head. Yeah, I mean, you know, he didn't have... They came out of it with decent results, all things considered, but it was a strange call and...

It is a consistent pattern with Ferrari drivers that there is a lack of confidence in what they're hearing from the pit wall. I think maybe it also starts with Ferrari seem to have, I feel like you hear more like...

Plan C, we are considering Plan D when you're hearing Ferrari radio messages. And so it kind of seems like they might have... too many possibilities like floating around that everyone is keeping track of at all times uh and you know what's the what's the lap time here uh it's like a minute uh What is it, like a minute? Qualifying was a minute 12, minute 11. Yeah, it's like you don't have much time to ponder this stuff. And so it's all very high pressure, but it's a...

they seem to struggle with it more than anyone. And their tendency of going sort of contra-conventional logic is striking. Yeah.

Let's see. The other Ferrari. Poor Lewis Hamilton. Also not having a great race. For a reason you figured out, Rob. Yeah, hit a... groundhog early in the race and damaged the floor. Yeah. I assume the groundhog was not okay. Yeah. I assume that was, that was curtains for the little groundhog as well. It's a hazard here. You see, like, a couple times during the race, you'll see critters dart across the back straight. Yeah. Yeah, Hamilton was pretty bummed out. He did not.

I guess, um, clock that he had hit one during the race, but was told afterwards. And as a huge animal lover, he was, he was pretty bummed. Um,

Let's see. Here we are. Lap 38 for Stappenpitz again is covered off by... Both Mercedes cars, again, Antonelli first, and then Russell going a little longer. Antonelli actually comes out of the pits even with Verstappen, but Verstappen's got that speed advantage and warm tires. position on the track, so he stays ahead. Lap 45, we get some more scrapping in the backfield with Stroll getting by Gasly on the inside of the hairpin.

Gasly fights back, trying to get around at the final chicane, but has to dip onto the grass and cut the corner, complaining on the radio that Stroll pushed him off. And the stewards agreed, handing Stroll a 10-second penalty. That was an interesting one because I think I hadn't ever realized that the way the rules are prioritized is that you're allowed your defensive move, and Stroll didn't really make one until he moved over to the left. But...

He did not leave racing room when he made that defensive move. And so even if you have held on to your move to cut back across the track and deny someone the line... It seems like the stewards are saying, once those wheels overlap, you have to leave racing room.

And so even though Stroll had kept it straight and level until corner entry, the fact that he squeezed Gasly there, made it open and shut, and they hit him with a pretty stiff penalty for what looked initially to me like not the most egregious thing I've ever seen. It just looked like him sort of like drifting back over to take the chicane and sort of forcing Gasly to get out of it. But that was a real clear marker put down that, no, that's not...

That is not how we do this. Once that guy is partially alongside you, you have to concede a fair bit of tarmac.

Yeah, and it's similar to the next incident that we are going to discuss. Lap 62 with eight to go. The McLaren strategies finally converge, Norris having closed the gap down to Piastri in fourth on a set of newer hard tires, having gone... Hard, medium, hard to Piastri's medium, hard, hard. And so with eight laps left, we get a bonafide teammate battle. Norris's engineer even says to him, let's attack Oscar while he doesn't have DRS.

since he's over a second clear of Antonelli, which is refreshing. I'd love to see it. It does take a few laps, but Norris eventually takes his shot at the hairpin. On lap 66, diving up the inside a little too deep, which opens the door back up for Piastri to cut back on the exit and pull even with Norris down the following straight. And from there, it's a straight up drag race.

But Piastri's got the inside for the chicane, and Norris has to drop back as they head on to the start finish straight. However... Piastri does not get the greatest exit from the chicane, and while he does have DRS, Norris has the speed advantage. Piastri is on the racing line. as they come down to turn one, but Norris thinks he can go around the outside, and so he jukes to the left.

But as they hit the braking zone, Norris's front wing hits Piastri's rear left tire, and it is game over for Norris, who just sort of careens alongside the barrier. and comes to rest near the end of the straight. Rob, your thoughts. Oh, my heart sank. First of all, it was a great duel up until that moment. Multiple laps of him setting up the attack, incredible drag race, the fight down to the chicane, all awesome. And then...

It's just a terrible lapse. Like it looked so bad in almost every camera angle. Like the second he just runs up the back of his teammate trying to shoot a gap that is non-existent. Like it's like he would have been on the grass. And even going half onto the grass, I'm not sure there was room. It was inexplicable, honestly. If he was trying to go for a gap, it's inexplicable what the thought there was.

And even if you'd say like, well, it was a desperation play. I don't think there was a play there at all. Like it was just time to, you got multiple laps left in the race. Like you can, you can try this again. And instead, just to drive up the back of your teammate and destroy your race, and let's be real, easily could have cut the tire. Oh, yeah. I feel like in so many cases, that does cut the tire. And...

They're going really fast. Before I even was like, Norris, what do you do? My other thought was, when you see the front wing come off like that, all that downforce disappears. Frequently, the front wing goes under the tires. so you don't get as much braking force. They're going so fast. I was like, what's ahead of them?

What is going to bring him to a halt? I was worried we were going to see a head-on impact into a barrier at some point. Fortunately, we didn't. They've sort of sculpted that wall. I guess they might have reprofiled that. That's what Max seemed to indicate when he was in the cool-down room with George. But yeah, it was bad on a lot of levels, and...

I think we've talked so much about this on the show. It's conversation in F1, like Norris' judgment and mental game in clutch moments. And he's done really well lately. But this is one of those things where, oh, we're just going to we're going to bring that discourse back. That topic is now it's alive again. Yeah. Yeah. I think Palmer during his commentary.

characterized it as he's hoping that the space will open up, but it just doesn't. Yeah, it is sort of a kind of perplexing move. Norris is immediately on the radio apologizing. And seems to know that, yeah, it was pretty boneheaded. He sounded, I will say, he sounded actually pretty like, tried something, didn't work. Silly of me. Yeah. Which... Yeah. You feel like that was not... It's got to be embarrassing, right? Yeah. Yeah. It does seem embarrassing. I suppose...

If you're thinking that Piastri is going to come back over to make the next corner, the gap would have opened up. But yeah, it just seems... Just like a terrible moment. I think it's one of the biggest, like, hey, did your... did your brain just check out your judgment just like depart for this moment since, um, Russell followed Norris into a wall, uh, at what was it? Vegas. Um, it was in Singapore.

Yeah, where it was one of the night races, but it was just one of the moments where it's like, oh, you just like completely checked out of the moment. Yeah, I may have misspoke. I don't know that. Because this is a start finish straight. The turn one is a left. Yeah. So I don't know that Russell or Piastri was on the racing line. That was just his defensive. Right. Move. Right. So.

Yeah, I don't know. Norris was maybe thinking that he would go back to the right to make that left turn. Right. That makes sense to me. Yeah. But... but then you'd still be driving into a really tight wedge. Like it's like passing on the inside of one doesn't feel like much of a real thing. Although sometimes you can set yourself up for something coming out of two. Uh, but yeah, it's, it's a very,

It was a bad play, and it's like one of those things where I was thinking about the way Piastri raised Antonelli at the start. Really exciting stuff. They were side-by-side through multiple corners. And Piastri at a certain point, I think, just played the percentages. He was just like, I'm not going to fight this guy any further. It's too hard. He's got the advantage.

Yeah. And, like, I'm just going to let him run ahead. The Mercedes are quick this weekend. And, like, yeah, Max and Antonelli are going to, you know. uh, game positions and Max is going to sort of narrow the gap. Maybe how, but Piastri doesn't, he just sort of checks out and like drives the race that has given him. And. The nature of F1, particularly given how long the seasons are and how many Grand Prix there are, it's a cumulative sport. A series of decent outcomes is...

Better than like the hero or zero moment that gives you like, especially you're not fighting for the lead where you can say like the points at stake are so critical. This was, yeah, this was just kind of a ghastly error. And it's like the kind of thing that is going to, and is, taking Norris out of this championship fight.

Without necessarily Piastri having had to put forth a sort of dominant performance that you see, like winning championships, it's just Norris lets him off the hook at these moments because he's just like... taking rounds with zero points um and i i wonder also how like how large do these moments loom uh for him where like a thing that always worries me about this is

there's a degree to which driving is instinctual, and you start doubting your instincts or your judgment. And he should, right? Like, this was a mistake. That was a bad call. But... It always strikes me as very hard in professional sports once an athlete's confidence gets rattled and you're going to like being a pro, like a quarterback in the NFL. You have to both be like...

really cognitively sharp to do your job, but also operating a little ahead of like where normal conscious thought exists, right? It's like high level processing that unfolds at the speed of reflex. And once those things decouple, it rarely spells anything good for, like, the future of an athlete's performance. And that's what really worries me about Lando is, you know, you, like...

riding the ship when it comes to the mental game here. I'm not talking about the gloominess he takes on about it. I'm just talking about how he reads and reacts to moments like this and how you take lessons on board moving forward. I think he's ending up in a dangerous place because like some stuff does need to change, but this kind of change is really hard to do under this kind of pressure. Yeah. Yeah. It's it. Makes for an interesting season. I hope that he can turn it around and...

you know, keep, stay, stay in the fight. But I guess we'll have to see. We're going to take a quick break and then we'll be back with the end of the race and some safety car shenanigans. All right.

So we do get a safety car for this. Piastri takes the opportunity to pit, perhaps to protect against a puncture risk, as you mentioned, Rob. And there's a moment where Russell... Under the safety car slows abruptly and Verstappen kind of shoots right by him. And this is illegal. You cannot overtake under a safety car. Verstappen is immediately on the radio complaining.

And after the race, Red Bull even protests this, claiming that Russell drove erratically and engaged in unsportsmanlike behavior when he pointed out over the radio that Verstappen had passed him. That was part of their complaint. The stewards did not see it that way. I have a quote here from them in this racefans.net article.

Quote, we are not satisfied that by simply reporting to his team that car one had overtaken that he engaged in unsportsmanlike conduct. I'll link that race fans article in there that. has the full steward report because it includes Russell's explanations of why he was doing what he was doing. So why was he doing it? Because I also did kind of wonder the, why did you slow down that much? Because the race is going to finish in your safety car. So if you're saying, I needed to keep...

heat in my tires did you though yeah so part part of it is um that there are uh so he had done this in other places as well and particularly in yellow flag zones, which there were because of the debris from Norris's crash. Which you are compelled to do. Even under safety car, you need to slow down. There's a delta time on their dashboards that they have to hit. So he, let's see, I'm just going to read here from the steward's statement.

The driver of Cars 63, that's Russell, explained that periodic braking is commonplace and to be expected during safety car deployments to ensure that temperature is maintained in tire and brakes. On the back straight, he found himself catching the safety car. He pointed to an in-car video which showed him gesticulating with his hand, which said he was trying to signal to the safety car driver to speed up. He braked where he did for two reasons. First, to ensure he kept a gap to the safety car.

Secondly, to keep temperature in his brakes and tires. So the other complaint that Verstappen had was that he was dropping too far behind, and that's where the yellow flag stuff comes into play. He looked in his mirrors before he braked to check whether car won, which was Verstappen.

was immediately behind and only braked after he saw that car one was to the side. His telemetry showed that the brake pressure he applied was 30 PSI, which he said was not severe. The driver of car one ought to have anticipated that he might... apply brake to keep heat in his tires and brakes. It is not the responsibility of the car ahead to look out for the following car in any event.

By pointing out to his team that car one had overtaken, he was not intending to provoke an investigation into car one. He did not know that the race would definitely end under a safety car. Mercedes submitted that what the driver of car 63 had said over the radio was nothing other than factual. The team had lodged no complaint with race control about the car one overtake because the position was given back.

Buy car one. This is what these stewards documents are like, by the way. I wish that they would just... I think they publish these somewhere. The FIA website is awful, but I kind of wish they just had an RSS feed of this stuff that you could just hook into, because I find it fascinating. Yeah, no, like stewards and rulings. So... there's like the level of pettiness that exists between these two teams is off the charts there is also this all seems like it's part of sort of a longer term

Red Bull strategy in the Verstappen era, which is like, you're always working the refs. So if the last race, your guy intentionally ran into somebody and then is within a point of getting a race ban. well then, obviously, people are just trying to get you into trouble. And you're trying to put that marker down that, well, if the FIA rules against Max, it's because they have it in for him.

uh it's it's an interesting dynamic too where like max will do stuff and the fa will clarify rules and then other people get in trouble for the shit that like max has done because like they've been forced to clarify stuff so it's like it's part of their like the way that they work the officials to sort of protect their interests and protect the driver who frequently runs a foul or into the gray when it comes to these rules.

but also these teams like we live in like the golden age of Narking in F1 where it is just Everyone's on the radio. That was impeding. Nobody can get out of the pit lane without demanding to speak to the manager. And there's a bit of that. And that is how this situation feels as well, a little bit, where Russell immediately on the right, he can't do that. He can't overtake. And it's like, yeah, we all know that dude.

Like, he'll give the position back. I'm sure he's not. But I do think, like, there's a little bit of, teacher, do you see what he did? And...

It's kind of an annoying aspect of the sport at this point, but I think it's particularly bad between these two teams because it's like the dads don't like each other. And... all and neither neither is origin max so it's this just weird layers of disdain that strangely enough they're very good at masking in those times they have to appear together in public yeah yeah uh you know Handshakes at the end. Cordial in the cool down room. Sportsmanship. You'll love to see it. But yes, let's get to...

Well, actually, before we get to the end here, there was more safety car stuff. The commentators noted that the stewards were investigating seven drivers for more safety car infringements. This was apparently because... They overtook cars under safety car after the race had concluded, which you're still under safety car, apparently.

No penalties were issued, but drivers did get a formal warning. This was Antonelli, Piastri, Leclerc, Ocon, Sainz, Gasly, and Stroll. Sorry, is this because a bunch of the dudes kind of floored it down the final straight? And not the long straight, but like across the line before turn one. I did notice as the race was winding down, a ton of guys pulled out of formation and went zooming down the straight toward one.

I think it was after the finish line, you know, when everyone's doing their victory lap, they passed each other. Apparently, that's a no-go. Let the Canadians have a show. Let the engines out a little bit.

Yeah. But this, yes, the race concluded under safety car in the following manner. George Russell wins the race from pole position. Also got the fastest lap, I think. So triple hat trick for him. Max Verstappen second, and Kimi Antonelli holds on to that third place for his first podium, the third youngest podium finisher ever behind Verstappen and Lance Stroll. Oscar Piastri finishes fourth.

Lewis, I'm sorry, Charles Leclerc finishes fifth, and Lewis Hamilton sixth. So even though Leclerc was complaining and fearful of the strategy, he... Made up. How many positions? When did he start? Eight. Three positions. To finish fifth, Lewis Hamilton sixth, Fernando Alonso seventh. Good haul for Aston Martin. Nico Holkenberg in eighth. Another good haul for the Sauber team. And then Esteban Ocon and Carlos Sainz in 9th and 10th, both of them...

successfully deploying the one-stop strategy and getting up into the points. Oliver Behrman in 11th. Yuki Tsunoda also one-stopped, but no points for him. He finished his 12th. Franco Colapinto, 13th. Gabriel Borrello, 14th. to Leto. Pierre Gasly comes home in 15th. Then we've got Isaac Hadjar and Lance Stroll bringing up the rear. The DNFs, Lando Norris, Liam Lawson, and Alex Albon.

Lawson retired on lap 53. I don't remember why. Yeah, I think they put a new power engine in and they said something on the radio that like, hey, we want to... You know, you run away in the back. We want to preserve the engine. Something like that. Loris, Loris, Lando Norris also received a five-second penalty for causing a collision. And I think... I saw an article but didn't read it on why he will not get a grid drop. Boy. So.

He won't. Don't know why. Because sometimes what happens is they issue you a penalty, and then if you can't serve it, it gets converted into a grid drop. But that is not happening for Norris, apparently, for the next race. And that's the Canadian Grand Prix. Shall we take it to the news, Rob? Let's do it. So we had surmised, we had wondered what the second Spanish...

The second Grand Prix next year in Spain, because we've got the Spanish Grand Prix at Madrid. At the Madrid. So that's what's going to be called the Spanish Grand Prix. But the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya is still on the calendar. What will that one be called, Rob? The Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix. Barcelona-Catalunya, yeah. All right. separatism folks we love it uh we also have uh an extension to the canadian grand prix we're going to be racing here in canadia for uh

A long time, the next nine years. 2035. Doesn't seem like a real year. I was wondering if that was going to line it up with the Miami extension, but no, that went out to 2041. Oh my God. Will Miami be around in 2041? Big, big question. I did ask some locals about this. They're inland enough where... The answer is partially no, but the track should probably be okay. Okay, maybe we'll get like a Monaco sort of waterfront. Even these darkest of times, there's hope, Drew.

Our coasts, our ecosystem may not be okay. We may not be okay. But the Grand Prix track at Hard Rock Stadium will endure. Good.

Well, we are also considering, it seems, bringing races to more places. Thailand. being one of them, that has moved into the next step. We haven't confirmed here, but there's a picture here on autosport.com of Stefano Domenicali. CEO of Formula One meeting with the Prime Minister of Thailand and they have confirmed 1.2 billion dollars has been agreed to develop this track thinking that

we would welcome it onto the calendar in 2028 for a five-year contract. Again, that is not confirmed yet. They're just saying the money's there and everyone's, it's sort of thumbs up all around, but nothing's been signed on paper. Thailand, of course, the country that Alex Albon races under, himself being part Thai. So I imagine... We'd get some home field advantage there, and I don't know. Perhaps some good outlook, turnout. Not sure how big that...

Country is into motorsports, but I know that the region certainly has hosted a lot of tracks. We've got Malaysia down there as well, Singapore.

F1's moved toward destination races. Thailand is a major tourist destination as well. So I do feel it actually fits neatly in sort of the type of places that they've been... you know, doing, doing Grand Prix lately where you imagine it'd be a, in addition to like, uh, you know, a fair number of local fans, uh, you're, I think your assumption would be, you're going to draw in a ton of people from, you know,

Australia, New Zealand, China. Yeah, good point. Yeah. One driver drawn the people in. Is he? I don't know. George Russell. His stock is rising.

Certainly, it's maybe never been higher. What would you say to that, Rob? And what would you say about all these stories swirling around his future? Well, it's odd, though. I agree. It feels like this is his finest season in F1. Low-key, I think he and Max are both having extraordinary seasons with getting the most out of cars that are not frontrunners.

And so I think on the one hand, you'd argue that Russell's delivering a lot on the promise. And so it's not a surprise when you hear things that, like, there's rumors that, like... Aston Martin is considering getting him for the squad. But that's also predicated on the fact that his contract with Mercedes is ending and Mercedes has not apparently extended.

And he's been pretty forthright about this, that downplaying concerns about it, that, you know, their focus is on the, you know, the usual stuff, our focus is on the season. But... Hanging over this is the sense that Total Wolf, one, hugely believes in Kimi Antonelli, but also really wants to have Max Verstappen.

And that Max might be able to exit Red Bull in part because there's the contract clause that it's sort of an open secret that if he's like out of the top four in the driver standings, I think. after this next round of F1, he will be able to activate an exit clause to get out of the team and not race for them in 2026. And so, like... So Mercedes might be leaving that possibility open, and the answer there would be you keep Kimi, you let George walk, and you bring in Max.

Kimi and Mac seem to get along really well. So, you know, I think that would be sort of a source of reassurance for Wolf. But it does... It's a weird thing, because I think it's a little bit like the Carlos Sainz thing, where you have a driver who's really kind of proven himself and done all the things you want to see from a driver. But...

There's a bigger fish out there. It'll be a bigger catch for the team. And so as good as you've done and as many expectations as you've surpassed, it's kind of like, well, thank you, but... Good luck in your future endeavors. And there are not a ton of... teams that are as desirable to go to. It could be a straightforward swap, like that George joins the long, grim line of drivers over to Red Bull to seek their fortunes there. Honestly, I could see that.

working quite well. Christian Horner and George Russell. Out in their Land Rover Defenders. Yeah, yeah. The extremely posh vibes of them. The sort of Tory vibes. But... You know, Aston Martin is an interesting thing because on the one hand, Adrian Newey will start doing something soon. Like, they'll be getting Newey-mobiles very soon. But that team sucks right now. And...

It's just not that desirable a landing spot. But there aren't a ton of desirable landing spots. McLaren is basically locked up. I think Norris would still have to... Run to the back of his teammate and cut his tire, like, a few more times before McLaren would start to be looking for the end of that. And, like, stab somebody. Like, Zac Brown loves that guy. Yeah. Yeah. And, like...

We'll come to this. Nothing seems to be quite right at Ferrari. Nothing seems to be quite panning out the way they hoped. So maybe you have a possibility there. But beyond that, where is he going to go? Audi Sauber doesn't seem super promising. He's in an odd place, because I agree. His stock should be very high. And he has maximized what is there. But...

just the way these things are syncing up, he might find himself out of a good drive. And he might just be like, you know, he was going to be the future Mercedes, but if you have a chance to get Max Verstappen, you kind of have to go for Max Verstappen. Yeah, I think that's, I'm sure Total Wolf likes Russell, but this is just a, this is business, right? Boy, Verstappen and Antonelli, that would be a force of a team.

You think, but like the same thing. Max has never, Max did not have the most distinguished career before Red Bull. True. Like, you know, I mean, he won that race in, oh no, I'm thinking of. I think I'm thinking of Sebastian Vettel. I think you are. I think you are thinking of Vettel who won in a Toro Rosso. Yeah, Max did not win in a Toro Rosso. But I think that, like...

There's a weird thing where, like, is there sort of a transitive property where nobody can drive the Red Bull? Everyone you send to this number two Red Bull car just gets killed. Like, cars undriveable. Is there a transitive property where Max... probably like might not be the driver that you think he is if you give him any other team's hardware. Or that you would simply have to recreate a similar problem where you're going to build a Maximobile and you're down to 1.5 cars.

Imagine what that would do for Ricardo's revisionist history if Max went somewhere else and was bad. It would make the whole thing really interesting because then it becomes like...

Red Bull starts to look like a pipeline that only feeds up to one team. But that doesn't totally work, though, because so many of the guys who were washed out of the Red Bull program... uh did did go on to have great careers it's true yeah we got we got ghastly tearing it up signs doing great um yeah but yeah but russell but you're right ricardo was in there for a while in the number two seat uh number one seat for a while and

didn't really accomplish a lot once he left that team. It would be very funny if Max went out and a similar thing happened. So I think it's a very weird thing. It would be a very fraught move, but... Pure pace, I think it's just so hard to argue against it that you're kind of like, whatever problems might come from Max joining the team, one of the big answers to those problems would probably also be Max.

you might as well give it a shot. Yeah, I saw someone ask Hajar, hey, what if you had to move up to the big team? And he was like, no, I'm not ready. Please, please no. No, why would you do it? Like, this is, I think multiple, I think Nico Rosberg was like, he has to tell them, no, you have to stay out of that car. Yeah. It is so funny. This has become like a meme that everyone is just like, you cannot.

Do not take the number two Red Bull card. Don't do it. This is not a promotion. I wonder, I mean, frankly, if Red Bull put Russell in Verstappen's seat and... Would that level them out, you know, the two cars? And then would Red Bull become a desirable team again?

Because now you have drivers much more conventional in terms of preferences, and you're also designing now for... Yeah, no, it would be super interesting. And yes, does suddenly Mercedes start having an issue where, like, boy, that number two car is getting to be quite a handful because there are decisions... made by car development that are maximizing what you're going to get out of a really excellent but really singular driver.

It's a fascinating thing to think about. Now that we've sort of put it out there, I yearn for it to happen, honestly. Because it'd be pure reality TV. It'd be like, what is it? What was the show where they, like, two married couples, like, swap spouses, but, like, in a non-sexual way? Wife swap? Was it just wife swap? It's sort of an insouciant like Discovery TV, probably like the learning chat TLC name. But yeah, where it's like, oh, let's just see. Let's just see these like.

dynamics of these two people who've been like sort of formed by this environment and like social structures swap them and we just see what happens yeah uh we're also gonna see what happens

With some other personnel around the league, Rob, you want to start with what's going on at Alpine? Nothing good. So, yeah, look at the Mayo. has just departed Alpine and Renault as CEO. Yeah. And, you know, this falls on the heels of, like, years of what you can only describe as, like, disarray at the team. And it seems like this was not an... anticipated move, but he's leaving in mid-July. Sort of made a by-the-number statement. There's a time in life, it's time to move on. He's 58, though.

Like, 58 is not when people sort of reach the pinnacle of an executive career. Like, it's time to hang it in. But it just seems like... everything about that team seems like it's in flux and nothing has gone right. And DeMeo, I think you could argue, he was instrumental in letting things get to this point. And it's not surprising that he will not be the person to sort of oversee the turnaround. That, you know, on his watch, you had Safnauer sort of shown the door.

A series of debacles with leadership. I can't remember if he was literal. I think he must have been, because he was around when they let Safnauer go. this is a team that lost oscar piastri because their contracting department uh couldn't get terms to him uh in time like it's just not it's they're not not serious people yeah

Yeah. Speaking of which, Rob, the F1 stewards, they keep talking to gambling sites. And they keep getting fired for doing so. So if you're unaware, the stewards, the ones who issue rulings on driving standards during the race, so like when... You know, they look at telemetry, they look at video, and a lot of them are former drivers themselves. And then they see, like, did this person leave any space? No.

All right, here's a penalty. It's a rotating crew. There's like different stewards every race. And again, some of them are former drivers. Just before the Canadian Grand Prix, one of them, Derek Warwick. was suspended and was replaced by another steward. And work was suspended because he gave an interview to, again, a gambling site. So Johnny Herbert did the same thing and was axed. I think banned.

for indefinitely versus work, who I think was just given a one race ban. I don't know why, I don't know why gambling sites are. talking to these guys why they have news like what so i think part of it is like every gambling site is trying to make it they're all trying to weave themselves into respectable sports ecosystem i think part of that is you maintain a slight editorial operation

The editorial presence is like, hey, DraftKings has opinions about this. Or DraftKings is giving you the news about what's happening in sports. And armed with this expert editorial analysis, why not go and place a little wager? But I had missed this the first time I saw the story. And I have a little more sympathy with what happened to work here. The interview was published by a PR agency.

And then they do a blast offering these quotes. You and I, we get these emails all the time in video games, right? Where it's like, basically an interview comes pre-baked. Here's quotes from so-and-so, a thought leader in the industry. on this topic du jour. Let us know if you would like to further reach out and talk, but you get these sort of like things where they do an interview with someone, offer them an expert analysis, and try to get someone to republish it.

And the condition was that anyone who used the quotes would give credit that the source was the gambling website. But it seems like he didn't talk to the gambling website. He talked to a PR agency working with the gambling website. Okay. And I also, I do not know what's the context for the interview. Like, did he know he was sitting down like these were the terms? Or is he sitting there, like, just around the paddock?

and someone sits down with him and you know at a certain point like people are credentialed you have no idea who they are yeah so he he was talking about the Verstappen-Russell clash in the Spanish Grand Prix, for which he was not a steward for that race. But he said...

Should he have done what he did with George Russell in turn five? Absolutely not. Did he get a penalty for it? Yes. Some people argue that Sebastian Vettel received a 10-second drive-through penalty in Baku when he deliberately drove... into Lewis Hamilton, but if you look at the video of Max, it looks to me like he dived in, but then turned away from George. The momentum just carried him into him. Also, really?

I'm not condoning it. I'm not saying it was right. It was absolutely wrong. The FIA rightly gave him a penalty. Should it have been harsher, I actually think they got it about right. Many would say he should have received a race ban as a deterrent for young karting drivers, and they're probably right. I can't tell what this man actually believes. No, it's pretty wishy-washy. But, apparently, the...

The FIA has decided that that's uncool. You are a steward. You're talking about other stewards' verdicts. And they said you are not being a steward for the Canadian Grand Prix. But it does not seem like that is an indefinite ban the likes of which Johnny Herbert got. So we may see Mr. Warwick again. Last bit of personnel stuff here, Rob.

Ferrari. This is not really news, but I'm curious what you thought of it. So in the past couple weeks... Obviously, this is not the season Ferrari 1 to be having. You sort of have the spring where it's like, get ready, Lewis Hamilton's going to be in red. What a season we're poised for. And it just hasn't panned out that way. Vibe around the team doesn't seem good. Hamilton hasn't performed particularly well. Seems kind of unhappy.

Leclerc often seems kind of unhappy with the state of things. His reactions following races are not positive about the state of the team. I think a couple weeks ago there was a quote, things can't go on like this, which is... you know, pretty, a pretty dire pronouncement. And then the last couple weeks, there was a wave of stories talking about rumors that Fred Vasseur, his contract is up.

I think, at the end of this year. And now something's being described as the embattled Ferrari team principal. And that he is under fire and that there's rumors of possible replacements. There was an interview with... Christian Horner a few weeks ago. There are rumors that Ferrari might be looking at Christian Horner, and he shut those rumors down, you know, typical Horner fashion. My Italian is worse than Flavio's English, so how do you think that would work?

Which is a pretty good line. Yeah, no. Again. But the thing for me is... It feels like the first two years of Vassour's time at Ferrari, the vibe seemed good. People seemed like, ah, there's a seasoned team principal at Ferrari. And now it's like the bottom's dropped out of that. And there's a bit of like a death watch. uh, happening with him. And I'm not entirely sure where this is coming from. Uh, the race.com has a story that like,

It follows a familiar pattern, which is at a certain point the Italian press sort of decides it's time to start dropping these stories. And they kind of create the controversy. But it doesn't necessarily mean they're wrong. Like a lot of times when these stories start emerging, it is because the seat is getting warm. And so like, is the tail wagging the dog?

Like, is the Italian press, like, creating controversy where there is none? Or is this, like, part of the opening move to, like, letting a team principal know it's put up or shut up time? But I'm sort of sitting here being like, I just don't know.

Ferrari has seemed to be about where you expect Ferrari to be these last couple years. But now it's a crisis point. And I don't know how I evaluate that. Yeah. Yeah. I think there's like... multiple things going on here one i i also get the feeling that like we call them rumors because we just want them or we we want there to be we want ferrari to be better

Right. And so, oh, they haven't. They're not at the top. How do you respond to these rumors that you're going to get fired? Because we're not at the top here. And that just, I don't know. That's silly to me. I really like Fred, but what I was saying earlier about LeClaire and sometimes Hamilton seeming like they don't have confidence in the team.

The team principle is supposed to give you that confidence, right? You're supposed to create the structure for how the team works together, the personnel. belief in the team. I also think that things take a long time to turn around. Cars are in development for years. And so you can't just put a team principal in for a year and then expect things to turn around. He's been there for longer than that. And I also think that frequent turnover, which there has been at Ferrari.

can't be good for your team either. So I think you need some kind of stability. Fred seems like a pretty stable guy to me. Yeah, so I don't really know how to... to read this, except that I feel like it's a little premature. It is. The one thing that... So the race does have an interesting thing where they do have some stories...

where it seems like some people close to Leclerc have started speaking out that like, you know, because he was Leclerc's first team principal in F1 back in the... Was it Sauber? Was it Sauber? I think so. But...

Yeah, so they were there. Yeah, it was Alfa Romeo at the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was Alfa Romeo. But yes, so they go back, and there was a sense that this was sort of getting the band back together, but that Leclerc might... kind of be losing faith in it i guess the other part of it is the needs that what you need a person at the top waxes and wanes with where a program is at like

You'd say Christian Orton is a really accomplished team principal, but for so much of that, he's also backstopped by Adrian Newey. The technical side is handled by, like, you know, the greatest aerodynamicist of all time, a design genius. And so if you have that side of the shop completely buttoned up, what you basically need is your sort of CEO team principles, fundamentally relationship manager, because they don't need to have the type of literacy that stuff's being handled by someone else.

Zach Brown, when he came in at McLaren, it took me a long time to figure out what his profile was, but he was kind of doing an organizational restructuring. And he's a money guy. Yeah. He brought in advertisers. He brought in a lot of money, but also did a lot to overturn the existing structure there and sort of change how McLaren operated profoundly from the Ron Dennis years and thereafter. Ferrari went from a technical chief.

Mattia, Mattia Bonanno to more of that like CEO type with Fred. But the car fundamentally isn't very good. And the stakes now are very high for that car development being put together because obviously, you know, new regulations coming in. You need to have that side of it buttoned up. And if that is not coming together after...

the length of Fred's tenure, he does own that car now. They might be starting to think, like, do we need someone who's a little closer to the engineering side and can speak a little more competently to what is happening with, like, power unit? Arrow chassis. Do we need someone closer to that side? I don't know. You know, you'd certainly say that Haas has...

really enjoyed an uptick in form since they put IO, uh, in, in charge. And he was the, he's the engineer, uh, for a number of years on this under Steiner and you got Steiner out of there. You put someone who was like literate in how the team built its car. Team form is like skyrockets. So I can sort of see it like that. Maybe that maybe the sense of like what the team's need is has changed that if you fundamentally thought the team is in a good place, it's just Matia can't run a race day squad.

I can see where you put Fred in charge, and now it's like, well, shit, the car's still not good enough. Like, that is not taking care of itself. You think he's catching blame for not landing Newey? That felt like such a long shot, though. I feel like... Yeah, I don't think you can... Luring him out of England? Yeah. Yeah, I... I don't know. It's... I wonder, is it more like... Is there buyer's remorse over...

Hamilton? Like, signs continue to have a good season. And, like, Hamilton hasn't shown up and set the world alight. The car's not very good. But I guess you'd sort of say, like, even setting the Lewis of it all aside, like, there's a bit of your priority was bagging Lewis and our car socks. And now you have kind of an underperforming Lewis and a... still performing Charles, but both drivers, sounding like they're about to start calling in sick for race days. Yeah.

It seems bad. Yeah, it doesn't seem great. Speaking of race days, we're going to take some time to talk about the 24 Hours of Le Mans. So spoilers if you have not seen any of that. This is your warning now. Rob, hit us. It's time for hashtag Kubica Watch. Yes. I hope people Kubica watched as much of the 24 Hours Le Mans. as they could because our boy, our boy did it. Yeah. Now he did it with the help. So quick context, the hyper car, the hyper car tier of WBC.

has been dominated by Ferrari and is a balance of performance series that's a little bit weird like this is the third Le Mans where like Ferrari's just like wrecked shop and To a degree, the other team's getting screwed. It's hard to say. But the thing I remember about the Ferrari lineup in WAC is that they have two cars that are Ferrari factory cars. I think that's like... Yeah, this is the Ferrari factory course. And then there's like AF Corsa Ferrari in a beautiful yellow.

livery, yellow and red livery, as opposed to the factory red and yellow livery. And that customer car is driven by Robert Kubica and... Uh, yeah. You say, and I think Ben Hanson, uh, is, or Philip Hanson is, uh, is there, is the third driver. I was about to say, Ben Hanson, very talented. It's mid max drives cars. It's great.

But Kui is sort of the veteran there, and last year he was having a great run. He kind of screwed up in the rain and caused a major red flag incident and got a huge penalty. But this year... They were sort of in like second position for a huge portion of the race. And then one of the Ferrari factory teams had a horrible, made a horrible mistake going into the pits.

Just got offline, went over the curb, spun the car in the pits. And so the Ferrari factory car lost like 30 seconds just in the final four hours of the race. And this 83 Ferrari, the Corsa Ferrari, piloted by Robert Kubica, just went shooting by. Euphane might have been in the driver's seat by then. The point is, though...

Kubica then did four hours in the car. It was riveting. It wasn't the most dramatic race. You didn't have a ton of major shootouts happening on track. But there was this mounting sense of like... Nobody drives four hours in these, like, apparently his drinks bottle wasn't working for most of it, too. Oh, my God. And remember, the thing is, like, why is Kubica not an F1? Why did his career kind of stall out?

Because his rally accident effectively nearly severed his right arm, destroyed a lot of the musculature there. He drives one-handed, effectively. And so he did a four-hour stint. You have to set blistering pace at Le Mans these days. You have to be on it all the time. There is no longer just like a pace management where you're going like 90%. You kind of have to go like 98, 99 at all times.

And they just had him extend and extend and extend. They had him do, I think, a triple stint on the tires at one point as well, just to put the... Ferrari factory cars in the jam to sort of force them to pit out of sequence. But it was riveting to watch because it was like...

They asked him early, like, are you good to go to the end? And he seemed to be like, what are you? No, that's absurd. No, we're not going to do that. And then he stayed in the car. And then after the last pit stop, he gets on the radio.

And there's something wrong with like, I think it might have been his drinks bottle or something. They're like, well, you have to come back in and we'll have to fix that. But he didn't go back in because that would have been the race. So it seems like he just drove like the last, like, you know. two hours of the race with, like, no water. You know, all of it, like, 80% left arm steering.

Just no margin for error. 20-second lead, but those can disappear. One spin, that's it. That's the end. And took his first Lamar victory. Wow. Amazing. Congratulations. Bobby K. Congrats also to our good friend Richie. Ricard Leitz! Still doing it. The GOAT. The most patient man in... The Michael Fassbender documentary. I was telling MK, I was like, I'm such a big fan of that dude because I was like, oh, he might not just be a great driver. He might be a great man. Yeah.

Yeah. No, it's wild how good he is. Like, just won the GT3 category without, like, breaking a sweat. You know, he's one of the great Porsche drivers in the world and, you know, proved it there as well. But it was, you know, it wasn't the most dramatic race, but it's hard not to see Kubica get... One of the great races under his belt and do it in a legendary fashion where like everyone was sort of speechless, like how long he was in that car, how good he remained through all of it, how locked in.

Especially like, you know, when he went back to Williams, and partly this is just Williams was too broke to give him an accessible steering wheel. Like, remember, they didn't give him the left hand with all the buttons until he was basically out the door. But... It sort of seemed like just the, you know, there's going to be such a limit to what he could accomplish just because of like the injuries he'd sustained. And to see him do a four hour just blistering stint in that car.

You know, it was absolutely incredible. You know, he's... Guy's a badass. He always was. He still is. The race had some good coverage of this. Stuff I didn't know. Apparently, his first time is going back to just hang out near racing. Total Wolf wanted to meet with him back in 2013. And he went to the Nürburgring, and there's a story he's telling where he heard the cars on the track, and he couldn't go. He was too sad. And so he was like, he met Toto in a hotel lobby.

They were supposed to meet in the paddock, and he was like, I can't go to the paddock. Let's just talk. Oh, wow. So, like, Kubica, like, you know. A real one. As a lot of Polish dudes can be real flat, real like slightly, slightly like sort of guarded. But yeah, like dark times in the wake of that. But our boy is back.

Congrats to him and team. Let's run down the standings here in Formula One. Oscar Piastri on top with 198 points. Landon Orris in second with 176. We've got Max Russappen in third with 155. Droge Russell in fourth with 136. Charles Leclerc is in fifth with 104. And Lewis Hamilton in sixth with 79. Kimi Antonelli is in seventh with 63 points. And then Alex Albon in eighth with 42.

20-point gap down to Esteban Ocon in 9th, and then Isaac Hadjar in 10th, just one point back. Nico Hulkenberg is in 11th with 20 points. Lance Drolls in 12th. with 14. Sainz is in 13 with 13. Pierre Gasly is in 14th with 11. And Yuki Tsunoda in 15th with 10. Behind them, we've got Fernando Alonso with 8. Behrman with 6. Lawson with 4. And then Bortoleto, Colopinto... and doing with Xero.

In the constructor standings, McLaren is on top with 374 points, Mercedes in second with 199, and Ferrari in third with 183. Red Bull is in fourth with 162, then a big gap down to Williams with 55 in fifth. place. Gene Haas and team are tied on points with the Racing Bulls with 28. Aston Martins in eighth with 22. Sauber in ninth with 20. And Alpine in tenth with 11.

In the standings in our Fantasy League, which you can join using the link in the show notes, from the Canadian Grand Prix, we have the podium of, in third, Don't You Antonelli. Not sure. I'm picking that up. Don't you, Antonelli? Maybe that's it. And then a pair of teams here from different people. Team Green and It's All Green.

Are they the same makeup? Yes, they are tied on points. They tied for first place. Russell, Antonelli, Alonzo, Stroll, Hulkenberg, Mercedes, and Aston Martin. It's all green. As advertised. You guys like weed? Overall, though, the podium looks like this. In third, solidus steak. Nice. Yep. Is that Neil? I think they've been there before. Yeah, they've been trading the top five. Stop what you're doing and bring back Morrowboro.

In second place, Yuki Laylee, parentheses, Endor8000. Yeah, Rob, we're bringing it back. We're bringing back tobacco. Yeah. We're just now a pro smoking podcast. I mean, it looks really cool. Maybe I should start. The photography in the smoking days was fantastic. It's true, yeah. I got some old National Geographic's. Some really good ad work in there.

You could argue no good boxing photos were taken the second indoor smoking was banned. Killed that sport. Yeah, Raging Bull would have looked really different. And in first place, F1 banned my team name. Sorry to hear it. All right. You can send us an email if you like, shiftf1podcastgmail.com or f1.cool slash emails. You can also hit us up on the socials using the link in the show notes. That's us around the internet. Now let's take it around the world of racing.

The NASCAR Craftsman Trucks are at the Pocono Raceway, the Tricky Triangle in Long Pond, Pennsylvania, for the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series Race at Pocono. Did we not sell it? Did we not have a sponsor for that one? We've also got the NASCAR Xfinity Series for the NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Pocono. Guys. Guys, get on it. Formula E. Recession indicators. Buckle up. Boy, that really is. Indonesia is where Formula E is for the Jakarta E-Pri.

We've got the Repco Supercars at Hidden Valley Racetrack in Australia. Get the ranch with your chips. For the better Darwin Triple Crown. B-E-T-R. That's probably a sports betting thing. MotoGP is in Mugello for the Gran Premio d'Italia. Motocross Grand Prix is in Great Britain in Winchester. for the MXGP of Great Britain. The IMSA WeatherTech Sports Car Championship is at Watkins Glen International for Salem's Six Hours of the Glen. IndyCar is at Road America in Plymouth.

Wisconsin for the XPEL Grand Prix at Road America. NHRA is at Virginia Motorsports Park in Petersville, Virginia for the Virginia Nationals. And we got NASCAR. Also at Pocono. Do they have a sponsor? Oh, yeah. It's The Great American Getaway 400 presented by VisitPA.com. Absolutely. Y'all got the internet? Check it out. And that's it. No F1. We're going to be back next week for our pre-Austria race episode.

Nice. And no grimoire. And no grimoire, because Danny is out. Final thoughts on Canada, Rob? Head empty, and I know you've got to get out of here. Oh, yeah. All good. All right, well then, if you would like to support the show and get access to all of our bonus episodes, the ad-free version of the podcast and the official Shift F1 Discord, you can do so over at patreon.com slash shiftf1. Have a good race weekend, everyone. We will see you all next week.