315 -  Austrian GP & British GP Prerace 2025 - podcast episode cover

315 - Austrian GP & British GP Prerace 2025

Jul 02, 20251 hr 30 minSeason 1Ep. 315
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Summary

This episode recaps the Austrian Grand Prix where Lando Norris secured a dominant win for McLaren, overcoming a mid-race challenge from teammate Oscar Piastri. The race also saw early retirements for Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz, and discussed standout rookie performances. The hosts also delve into the latest F1 news, including driver market rumors and leadership shifts, and preview the upcoming British Grand Prix at Silverstone.

Episode description

The valleys in Spielberg may be picturesque, but as the temperature heats up in the title battle, will the racing be as beautiful? SHOW NOTES BOT in frame for Alpine gig Sainz drops FIA president bid Red Bull in talks with Vettel about replacing Marko Perez: Red Bull is sorry now, aren’t the Support the show on Patreon and get all our bonus episodes! Follow us on the socials Email us at [email protected] Join our fantasy league with invite code P46XBLLQJ06 New to F1? Check out our primer episode Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Welcome, Host Update, and Travel

Don't tell your grandmother how to suck eggs and welcome to Shift F1, a podcast about speedy race cars. I'm your host this week, Danny O'Dwyer. Drew Scanlon is on retirement. And of course, Rob, that is an idiomatic expression. Expressing, I guess, that the young people should not teach the old people how to do things. Like, for instance, how to turn into turn three in Austria. How are you doing?

this week, my friend? Not bad, not bad. I'm worried people are going to think that Drew is retired from the podcast. No, Drew is just retired from this episode. Drew is out traveling the world. Yes, exactly. As I was for the past two weeks. Thanks for holding down the fort. Apologies. I had to go on a... I'm just shy of 3,500 miles I did in just over two weeks. So a lot of them...

a lot of America, Rob. I saw a lot of this beautiful land that, as a naturalized U.S. citizen, I may be getting kicked out of at some stage in the future, although the administration seems to care. I don't think you have to worry. What'd you say? I don't think you have to worry. No, I think the administration cares more about the color of my skin than anything else. I'll just ham up the Irish, as it were. But yeah, I saw lots of beautiful...

Beautiful America. Strip malls? Um... Strip malls, gas stations. Okay, yeah. Yeah. Lots. Yeah. Southern... Yeah. Salt Lake City. The Mormons really put their city in the worst part of mountain time. It's like, just, everywhere is beautiful except where that city is. They really got chased around. Talk about, hey, talk about the original persecution in America. Wait, no. Let's go back a couple. No, it's sort of squarely in the middle, honestly, like one of many. Yeah, man oh man.

a beautiful trip through history and natural history. I saw lots of bison and stuff like that. It was a pretty good time. And I caught up with the racing as much as possible, which is what we're going to do this week here on Shift F1. Of course, if this is your first...

Show Introduction and Housekeeping

episode of the show we recommend you go back to listen to our preseason primer that's episode 298 for this season that'll basically catch you up on all the players in F1 how the sport works and stuff like that But for now, we are here to talk about Austria. once I've done all the housekeeping and thanked all of our incredible patrons as well over at patreon.com slash shift F1. The chicken finger pita, Matt and Harmony, Deanj, It's a Me Ferrario, Get Rich O Die Ryan.

agave atx cypress training turf scs michael mabes cigarettes telemetry deck colon the shirt FTC, Drew Stewart, Bailey Foote, Jason, Abraham Getchel, waypoint.bunnycrimes.com, Snigs, Alex Goucher, Max Fultar, Jeff Foster, Troy Stammer, William Romph, Lachlan the Madden Man,

Patreon and F1 The Movie

Samurai Love Story, and of course, Jason Kelly. Thank you all so much for supporting us. Our Patreon exclusive podcast this month, unsurprisingly, is going to be F1 The Movie. Maybe the worst named movie of all time. But by reviews, it seems to have gone down pretty well. I've been looking for an IMAX to watch this in, so I haven't watched it yet. Rob, have you watched it yet? I've not seen it yet. We were busy with Move stuff during...

the window when I could have gone and seen it. Now I'm looking at whether it's still the Jordan's Furniture IMAX, which is the only good IMAX screens in Boston. Unless you go to the Alamo, I guess, in Boston. The only good IMAX is in the Boston.

area are in a furniture store it's one of the many quirks jordan's furniture imax yep it's one of the many quirks of uh of new england which is that jordan's furniture uh two major locations in uh in massachusetts each has an imax theater in it as well as a little theme park

So it's literally, I figured when you said this that it was like, oh, it used to be a furniture store and they've converted it into an IMAX. But you're saying you can buy end tables at this place that also has an IMAX? Not only can you buy them. when you go when you exit the theater you have to exit they make you walk

through the entire furniture store on your way out of the movie. Exit through the gift shop. Yeah, pretty much. So perhaps you would like a love seat or a sectional couch or a dining room set. That is fascinating. Yeah, it's the brothers that used to run the place are eccentrics. Okay. And so they built like... actual theme parks in their furniture store.

For the children. Just hang out. And there's little trapezes and carousels. And they're used to having animatronic bands. It's weird. Oh my god. And then there's really good IMAX screens. This is like the brothers who took over the father's furniture business. But they really didn't want a furniture business. They wanted to make a theme park. There is a bit of that. One of them, I think, did sell his interest in the business a while ago and became...

uh, basically like the financing guy for, um, like various Broadway shows. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Uh, so that is like Cliff's blizinski before him. He got into funding. He bailed out and was like, I like entertainment, so I'm going to go fund that. And then the other guy just retired. Amazing. Well... Now I want to go there to watch F1 the movie. Be sure that we will have our thoughts and maybe our prayers for F1 the movie.

for all of you over at patreon.com slash shift F1 in the not too distant. Although Drew is on the road for a little bit, so we'll have to figure that out. Rob, you're not going on vacation anytime soon, are you? The poor...

Travel Disruptions and Race Prep

The poor Shift F1 fans are going to, you know, it's... Oh, almost certainly I'm going to go on vacation for, like, two or three weeks because when we move house, like, there's going to be a... There will be a gap there where it's like, sorry, this is not happening.

Yeah, that's very, very fair. Racing will continue, though, and our podcast will also, as we're going to tackle the Austrian Grand Prix. I was traveling for this, but I caught up with... most of practices and quali and I definitely watched the race when I got home to California on Sunday night. I kept it for myself and watched the whole thing. Had a good time. Let's dive into, I guess, practice at all before we get into it.

Rookie Practice and F2 Crash

There was actually what I want to talk to you about, first of all, is some of the rookies that managed to get in the car during P1. which, you know, selfishly, as an Irishman, of course, I want to talk about Alex Dunn, who is doing a great job in F2 at the moment. Bit of a championship lead, swap around in F2. between the two races. Crazy races. Did you see the crash in F2 sprint race? Yeah. That was a nasty one. I've never seen Halo to Halo Contact.

Yeah, we can probably chalk another W up to the halo. Yeah, thanks, Jules, for another... It looked like the encroachment of the sort of... What do you call it? The roll hoop on... The one car that went over. Yeah. I believe it was... I know it was... Arvid Lindblad was involved, and I think it's...

Is it Megatuneth? I can never pronounce his name. Sammy Megatuneth. I think he was the one that rolled over. But yeah, it was very lucky that nobody got hurt. And it's just always weird to see a car upside down. Like dash.

especially one that sort of rolled over. It's such a weird, strange one. The accent was floaty, is the way I would describe it. Like a car got a little bit airborne with a sort of a rear-wheel-to-rear-wheel contact, and then those things do tend to... that create huge like jounces for the car but this one they kind of just look

It was like Air Bud, basically. Like the car had suddenly been loaded up with flubber. It just sort of like, you know, the undertray just sort of lifted off. The car swanned over, and you had a real scary near miss. Alex Dunn got in Lando's seat for some laps. There was a couple of other ones who got in there as well as part of the sort of mandatory rookies.

Getting some time in the cars before they're eventually put in the Red Bull second seat and then retired. But yeah, it was cool. As an Irishman, it's... I'm getting texts from family about Formula 2 for the first time because of...

The Irish teenager doing so well over there. So it's pretty cool. And yeah, when he got the seat on the weekend, I was getting messages from my sister about it. So pretty cool for everyone back home to have an Irish driver in the paddock again. It's been a long, long time. There was a guy who... Did a bit for Jordan, but like legitimate Irish driver. Eddie Irvine is one of those situations where he's from the north, so we can't really.

We like to claim Catholic Northern Irish. You know, it's like that, the way like the English like to claim Northern Irish, you know what I mean? We're as guilty of that sometimes. Eddie was a great man for the island, but it's hard to call him a Republic of Irishmen.

Austrian GP Qualifying Review

But yeah, that was pretty cool, selfishly. I was very excited about that. But anyway, qualifying came and went, and it was interesting. Let me go from the bottom. Nico Hulkenberg. ended up in last in the cyber, which considering where his teammate was, wasn't ideal. Similarly, Carlos Sainz was in 19th, which considering where his teammate was, wasn't ideal. Yuki Tsunoda continuing his rough patch slash career at Red Bull Racing in 18th position. Esteban Ocon sort of...

hanging around in the Haas in 17th. Lance Strolls, 16th. Ali Rehrman, 15th. Franco Colopinto was in 14th. Isaac Hadjar in 13th. Alex Albon failed to make it into... into Q3 in the Williams, but obviously did much better than Carlos in 12th. Alonso had a decent go of it in 11th. Last points playing position in Q2 for him in the other Aston Martin. Then our top 10 goes Pierre Gasly, Kimi Antonelli in ninth. Gabriel Bortoleto in eighth. Doing a half decent job there in the Sauber.

Max Verstappen never quite got the speed under his wheels he needed. He qualified seventh. I believe that is his tied for his worst qualification in that Red Bull. Liam Lawson in sixth, remarkably, the racing bull's car out-qualifying the number one Red Bull driver there.

Obviously, we've been comparing him to Yuki for a long time, but that was an interesting one to see. George Russell fell down the table a little bit disappointingly as qualifying went on. He ended up in fifth. Lewis was in fourth. which is a decent go of it except that his teammate split the McLarens. Piastri had a rough one. He got a yellow flag on his last lap and he wasn't able to get another one in there.

He ended up in third for the start of the race. Charles Leclerc in second and Lando in first. So an interesting opportunity there for Leclerc to split the McLarens. or the McLarens to work together to get him out of the way. Any thoughts on quality at all, Rob? I mean, just, like, good showings for some of the rookies. And it was cool seeing Bortoletto emerge from, you know, the...

the void that he's sort of stuck in with Sauber. And in part, there's also really poor showings for some of the teams that have been on really good form of late. Williams appears to be in a skid. with uh performance yeah um mercedes as well now i wonder to what degree is remember russell was saying uh after canada that

their car favors cooler temperatures. And that might be also a power unit thing. And so maybe a lot of Mercedes runners are going to be suffering with the heat as we're getting into... the in in the summer proper and is very warm in austria this weekend and so you saw a lot of teams just sort of like have sudden drops in performance that yes, we're also compounded by the fact that it's tough to get a clean run.

in in uh austria it is a tiny track so if a yellow is waved in any sector that's probably your lap gone because you'll be on top of that yellow in in just a moment uh there's um constant traffic uh apparently Max gave Bortoletto a toe at a key juncture because Max was just like, I'm fucked. Bortoletto's had a rough go of it this year, so I'll stay in front of him.

He almost had qualified. He was right behind him in the grid, so maybe too much of a toe. So, yeah, I wonder if it's a little bit of, like, some of... Teams will develop their cars, you know, and stay in an operating window. I wonder if now a track like this one exceeds some of those tolerances. And so some of the teams that have maybe slightly...

Less refined cars are actually a little more rugged when they come to a situation like this. Whereas Mercedes is optimized for... getting the most out of different situations uh with their car but uh yeah it was it was a Much needed shot in the arm for a lot of the rookies or near rookies who've had kind of an anonymous season as far as qualifying goes. Yeah, you mentioned Williams having a bit of trouble.

Carlos Sainz Pre-Race Retirement

earlier in the weekend. This is compounded. Before the race even starts, they are about to go around on their formation lap and Carlos Sainz's car gets in an odd situation where he thinks that it's locked in first gear. seem to get it going. And then he gets a bit of a push from the Marshals, and they abort the start, but he manages to get going again. He has to start from the pit lane, which, considering he was starting in last, doesn't really...

Second last. Doesn't really make much of a difference. But as he's pulling into the pit lane, there's a significant amount of smoke coming out of the back of his engine. Looks like maybe there's an oil leak or something. But by the time he stops, his rear... brakes are basically bursting into flames um so the the the implication being that something perhaps likely heat related sitting on the grid um

Either some coolant or pipes or whatever it was contributed to the brakes locking up a little bit. And then essentially he was riding them the whole way around the...

The formation lap. He comes in. They are desperately trying to... I was kind of interested in this. I was like, this is an aborted start. Does that mean that they can do anything with the car? Because they were... blowing air on it they were blowing retardant on it they were they were really trying to make it so that the the brakes would just chill out a little bit so they could get going

for the race, but ultimately, unsurprisingly, Sainz's car was retired before the 10-minute gap of the aborted start was finalized. Yeah, crazy scenes. Yeah, it was... You knew something really bad when the... trackside marshals come out and they start pushing it and you see them start shaking their heads like the car was that's where I thought it was a gearbox thing too because like okay so the car's stuck in a drive gear and you can't get to go rolling

But yeah, then it certainly did look like maybe the rear brakes had seized and he just drove through it for the laps of bringing it around. But watching it just burst into flames, he... pulled up to the end of the pit lane, was grim, and then you got the radio call. Game over, sorry. Yeah. Which, yeah, it's, there have been, it seems like Williams is having reliability issues right now.

Austrian GP Race Start and Incidents

Yes, the only driver they have left, of course, now is Alex Albon starting in 12th. Let's take it to the start. So lights out, away they go. Lando... Defends hard against Leclerc here as he attempts to try and pip him into turn one. In so doing, he slows Leclerc down a little bit, and it gives Piastri the opportunity to get around the outside of the Ferrari on the entry into Turn 1, and he does a great job of it.

So the McLarens are away, first and second, Lando and Piastri with Leclerc in third as they... Drive the long straight on the way up to turn three. At turn three, it's pretty even-steven until we see a big lock-up from Kimi Antonelli. Surprised by how early people braked, perhaps, in the concertina. He basically just...

dives up the inside, locks it, and spears Max Verstappen. Both of them get spun around. Somehow, Liam Lawson survives this incident. I have no idea how he survives, because he gets tagged in that. There is hard contact, it looks like. And he looks like he's sure to be taken out as well. Really...

Antonelli and Verstappen Collision

Poor move from Antonelli. If it's even a move, it looks like complete lapse. He is just... He misses completely. I'm not even sure that he's caught up by the traffic because it looks like he just whiffs the breaking point entirely, even if it was a clear circuit. You see him sort of pull out to the very far inside line.

going like twice as fast as anyone else is into the corner throws the brakes on and it's it's already uh irrecoverable at that point um and yeah max is just um is caught out but A very uncharacteristic, but not as unsurprising, extremely rookie move from a rookie. Yeah, Max's reaction. Did you see them afterwards after the crash? They're having a little chin wag about it. You could tell. Kimmy kept his helmet on the whole way back to the pit. So, yeah, clearly.

just understood that he had done bad. I mean, if you're going to take out Max in a race, this is probably the one to do it. He was kind of floating around in seventh there. But it's another good example of when you're up front.

you you tend to not get caught up in incidents like this you know what i mean like if you're if you're in that mid pack you run the risk of getting tagged by a rookie sometimes um it just goes to show how important qualification is even just for surviving early parts of these races Albon

McLaren Lead Battle Begins

On mediums, gets past Gasly into six during turn nine. Sorry, we have a safety car there. A couple of people came in, actually. Izak Hadjar and somebody else came in to get an early stop. done with the heat here. There were a lot of people. Two stops seemed to be the main strategy. Some people were dancing with a one stop. Two of the drivers actually did it. We'll talk about them later.

But as they get going again, like I said, Albon gets past Gasly into sixth there. Decent fight happening in this sort of part of the race for most of it. 11 is where the fight between the McLarens sort of heats up. So they are letting them race. There's a bit of a gap there. Piastri is hunting down. Lando, and they are stretching out from third and fourth at this stage. I think there's a five-second gap between Piastri and Leclerc and five seconds behind Leclerc as well.

So the McLarens have sort of established a bit of a leadership battle all to themselves during this race. Piastri does get past Lando into turn three on lap 11. But as is the case sort of between this little section between three and four where you have a second DRS zone, Lando manages to get DRS and get it back on the entrance into four. The next two laps are just fantastic battle between the two of them. Is Piastri close enough for DRS? It was sort of like...

When he was 7 tenths off on the start finish, it wasn't quite there, but he was half a second off at one stage. And you could tell he was about to do it, and it was a terrific battle between the two of them, wasn't it?

McLaren Teammate Duel Analysis

Yeah, it was excellent stuff. Thank God, actually. If the McLarens aren't going to shoot out with each other, then the race for the Drivers' World Championship is actually pretty boring. And the race for this Grand Prix win is pretty boring. There's interesting stuff in the mid-pack, but the fact that... they are sort of good to go racing pretty much at any point. Because the other thing they're not doing is...

Like, oh, let's just seal this win, and then you guys can go fight. The fact that Piastri sort of had the green light to go on the attack. And that sort of did mark, you sort of noticed from that point onward. The engineers are openly, like... Counter strategizing against one another. You have now the two sides of the garage fully invested in trying to get their guy the edge, which is fun. It was good stuff. And, you know, this...

This was, I think, the best duel between them. I don't think it ever got this close again, in part because the next time stakes were higher, it more involved a lot of lap traffic and pit choreography. And it did sort of this one-on-one, you know, there's no traffic at the stage of the race. But it was absolutely great stuff. And crucially, like, again...

Norris passes really two big gut checks in this race, arguably three. He gets the start clean, which has been an issue before. And not just that, but he... you know, shivved Charles in the midst of that. Like, he totally, like, shut down Charles and let Piastri get into P2, though.

The pace seemed like that was going to be a foregone conclusion at some point anyway. And then he, you know, he is able to deal with some pretty edgy... challenges from piastri and they keep it clean um you know hard not to think about like you know

These two guys racing one another very hard, very fairly. You don't see bits of carbon fiber flying all over the track. It doesn't end that way. Last year... uh lando racing max it ended differently yeah and it is just like these guys are a little bit uh more fair, more respectful, I think, of when it comes to racing other drivers and each other. Yeah, and it probably helps with their teammates too, so they both have a...

significant disincentive to sort of have pieces of papaya carbon fiber flying through the sky. But as you said, Land did a great job on that lap 11. to get the place back it ended up being sort of maybe the move of the rice um to to allow piastri to sort of have that position but then um

Mid-Race Crashes and Retirements

managed to recover it. Lap 12, Bortoleto gets past Gasly. Gasly's sort of slightly out of position. I'm not quite sure how Bortoleto ended up behind him here because he did qualify ahead of him. I guess that fracas with Max made Gasly pop up a few places in the order there. And Gasly's tires were shot at that stage. So Borledo went to seventh. That's on turn four he managed to do it. Norris goes off-road on lap 14 at both turn nine and ten. So ten's the final turn on this very...

Small track. Maybe the only slip up we see him do in the early part of this race. Yuki Tsunoda attempting to get anything out of this race. crashes into the other guy who usually crashes into people doing desperate moves on turn three. He just rams Lance Stroll off. off the track there's a bit of damage to the end plates of this becoming a yuki signature the the the the f1 online f1

A dive bomb? Yeah, like, and they're not the worst thing I've ever seen because they generally are close. Like, he almost pulls it off each time where it's like, damn, you almost made that happen. But... just can't quite make the apex as much as he needs to to avoid the collision but like picks up penalties in this race uh it was what was it signs a couple races ago that he did this too like it's

I don't know. I'm starting to worry. We got a tilt issue with our boy over there. The Red Bull Magic is doing its thing where you're underperforming. Qualy goes like shit.

Now you're trying to make it happen on race day, but the pace isn't there, so the moves are making you more marginal, and you end up just wallowing around the back, running into people. Yeah, he has to come in for a new... front wing and you're just looking at Red Bull in that scenario going when Max is out of this race you guys are just

You're Sauber. I think Karun was talking about this. But yeah, there's no other team where if the principal driver is out of the picture, they're not even midfield. It's wild. Yeah. And it's not just Yuki's problem, right? This has been an issue for a long, long time. No, and racing bulls are cleaning up. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. Liam Lawson up there, you know. They got Hajar looking like, I don't know, the second coming of Ayrton, basically. Like, it's ridiculous the degree to which, like, everything is working right up until the big show. Yeah, don't put them in that cursed car. Christian Horner's monkey paw car. So, yeah, lap 17, Albon retires. Just Williams having performance issues, having reliability issues. They're out of the picture for the rest of this weekend. Lap 20.

Piastri's Flat Spot and Pit Stop

I'm yawning here for some reason because it's about to get exciting. Lap 20. Piastri tries it on turn four. Desperate to get ahead of Lando. The big issue here is that we're coming up to the pit windows and obviously... Whatever driver's in first, you would imagine, is going to get the pit strategy. So Piastri really trying to get that front seat for the McLarens. He flat spots his tire in doing so. Puff a smoke.

It's the one time McLaren get on the radio and say, eh, that move on turn four was marginal. Which basically says, don't do that. Don't, don't. Don't crash into your teammates. We're here for good racing, but that was a little bit desperate. Lando gets the strategy. He actually comes in at the end of this lap.

He pits for hards. And Piastri stays out. They don't immediately pit him here. He has a flat spot. They say it's not messing with his performance. It's obviously not very fun to drive in. But what did you make of this, Rob, that they didn't immediately pull in? piastri after the i am conspiracy minded and immediately i was like oh they want to get these guys separated

I was like, there's zero chance. Zero chance that he's going to stay out and gain time and do an overcut thing. No way is that working. Especially because Piastri's on the radio. He's like, well, I do have a flat spot. Like the tire, we literally just saw whatever life that tire had just got like compromised. And they keep them out there for five more laps.

Like, come on. That was a, all right, time to separate the children without having to issue team orders. And I think this is a crucial thing. Is that a conspiracy minded? Just in life in general, there's times where you need to make things happen, but... actually like making a declarative instruction about it turns into an issue. Whereas if you just have things unfold in such a way that the point becomes mooted.

Everyone is allowed to feel good about that. No decisions were made. No toes were stepped on. It's just like that little point of conflict went away and we all get to keep it moving. And this felt like that. And I don't think the drivers are, I don't think Piastri is a sucker at all. I would bet you if that's the thing that McLaren was doing, he probably also caught into that and realized that, like, you know, for now, this duel is suspended.

And we'll see what happens later in the race. But my immediate thought was, no, they want to get these guys apart on the racetrack.

Discussing McLaren Pit Strategy

Yeah, it seemed like the maybe unwritten understanding here was that you can fight in the first part of this race and maybe the strategy will allow you guys to fight near the end of this race too. Or at least, you know, that's what they're... Well, especially because... You know, obviously the goal is get a full pit stop between you and the rest of the field. You can do it. You can put an entire pit stop.

you know, gap between you and the rest of the field, then it kind of doesn't matter what's going to happen. In a track like this, you have to worry about things like safety cars and such. It's a small track. And so...

Yeah, like in the middle of the race, if you have an advantage like McLaren does, you don't want your drivers... mixing up in that way like it's fine if they're pushing each other to have more pace and they build that huge delta between them and the rest of the field but the second you see You're normally like Mr. Reliable, steady hand driver, nearly spears teammate. No, that's not... We need to chill this out.

Yuki Tsunoda's Race Incidents

As you said, Piastri pits five laps later, or close to it. Lap 24, he comes in for hards. Sonoda has another go. uh on this time colopinto on turn four he's like well that lockup didn't work that great the first time i'm going to try it again uh turn four the site of the now apocryphal Albon Hamilton incident, one of two that really made his career. Well, yeah. What do you think about? Think about how good those guys did in that second car for a second. You know what I mean? Again.

They discarded Pierre Gasly and Alex Alvin like they were nothing. Get this trash out of here. Two guys who have proven to be rock steady performers. Maybe even like number one drivers. And just discarded because the fault must be in these drivers, not the car. It's crazy how much worse it's gotten, that second car. It's like, because they were, you know, finishing it in the top 10. You know what I mean? But it wasn't good enough. Anyway.

Sonota smashes into Colopinto here, spins him around. Sonota gets a 10-second penalty. Understandably, his race is cooked, basically. Norris goes on to... The middle part of this race is classic. middle part of a Formula One European summer race where not really much happens. You're basically waiting for the tyre strategy to kick in.

Mid-Race Lull and Hajar Overtake

I literally have no notes for 19 laps here. Norris onto mediums on 52 is the next one I have. Oh, yeah. So I will say Hajar had a beautiful overtake of Colapinto on lap 37. Oh, nice. Thereabouts where it was like one of those millimeter perfect, you know, getting down the inside of the corner and just not running him out. That's the crucial thing. Like, he didn't run him off.

uh he just held his line stayed tucked inside didn't leave its carbon fiber littering around the track and then pulled away uh very very cleanly executed like it's very funny when you think about how hedge our season began with the crash out in the formation lap of Australia, it increasingly looks like he is hands down the most rock solid rookie that is out there on the field.

And, yeah, it's little moments like that where, you know, he will go into these sort of high leverage situations, high stakes, close racing. you know, maintains that sort of fair distance, which he might train himself out of, right? It feels like the overall strategy is a lot of drivers, like, you don't. You run them out wide.

Like, of course, you push him off the track as much as you possibly can. But, yeah, he's staying inside the lines. It's good stuff. Yeah, as Hajar famously said, if you no longer go for the gap.

Second Pit Stop Cycle Drama

You're not a racing driver. I guess in the pit stop cycle, did you see a little bit of drama with the Norris Piastri second cycle pit stops? Oh, yeah. Norris got blocked horribly heading into the pits by Colopinto. Because where the white line is for the pit entrance, it... interacts in such a way with the racing line of the corner that somebody can basically

cut across the track and make that, like, you're on the racing line, then you cut across the track to make it into the pit entrance. And if you're not expecting that, you'll get completely balked. And that happened to Norris, and it just, like, cost him, like, a... Easy second with his gap to Piastri. And that plus some sketchy... Well, McLaren was having slow pit stops, I think, throughout this race a little bit. Yeah, the front left seemed to be an issue, yeah.

Yeah. So, you know, I've played enough motorsport manager to know what you got to do in that situation, which is you go to hire new staff and you sort by tire changing stat and then you hire new people there. So maybe they need to do that. Zach Brown, call me. Maybe someone would be a steady hand there. Well, somebody got freaked out because it was their final stop for Fiastri. They did a 2.0 when they stuck his mediums on on lap 54.

Pretty impressive there. We're going to talk about how not to use your brakes. But before that, let's take our own quick break. And we'll be back right after this.

Piastri's Fast Stop and Blue Flags

Lap 54, Piastri has come in. He's gotten his mediums. 2.0 pit stop. Ridiculously fast. Especially considering, as you said, the trouble they were having with that front left for the previous pits. Nobody's watching that, though, because they're watching Colopinto and Yuki fighting again. The two, you know. Knights who have already clashed 20 laps earlier are duking it out at turn three. Blue flag, blue flag, blue flag. Oscar Piastri coming through and Colopinto just drives him off the track.

What did you make of this? Was this red mist or blue flag accidental here? Oh, yeah, it seemed like head firmly up ass. Like, just fully engaged with the Battle of Tsunoda and unaware. that there is a leading car behind him. It just seems completely oblivious. Very opportunistic of Tsunoda, really, to sort of use the blue flags. Tsunoda sort of got one. Got one off on them there. But I did love Piastri's radio message. You know, all these years later, Alpine found a way to fuck me.

Oh, man. Thankfully, Piastri survives it. He does go on the grass in a part of the track that's like on the top of a hill straight as you're... accelerating quite a lot. So with DRS, it was a bad spot for it to happen. Real chancy. Yes. He managed to survive it, thankfully, and got past the two of them. That was the last of the drama for him for this race.

Notable Performances and Finishers

We're only got about 15 laps left at this stage. Bordelado gets past Hajar to 8 on 57. Nico Hülkenberg, who started in last place, obviously ended up in, you know... gaining a position of sorts when Sainz couldn't start the race, but didn't really gain a position, just had a bit of empty space in front of him. He's having a fantastic race. He's up into ninth by lap 58, up into the points, paying positions after being stuck.

in the back. Bortoletto and Alonso have a nice little duel here in lap 69. A nice duel. turn three. Borleto gets past him, but Alonso gets him back on the way into four, as some folks have been doing. And despite the slightly fresher tires, Piastri took...

Like you said, four or five extra laps before his initial pit stop. But by the time he comes out on their last set, his tires are only one lap cleaner. So it's not really making much of a difference. Lando does a good job of keeping him about one and a half seconds behind him for... The end stint here.

Lando Norris Wins Austrian GP

He never really closes the gap. The only people to not pit twice during this race were Lawson and Alonso. But crossing the line first was our boy, Lando Norris. who gets his flowers after, you know, a tricky race last weekend or the previous race. It looked like, you know, this was Lando with his head on his shoulders, getting it done. passing the tests that came his way during this race weekend and getting his points for us, all 25 of them.

Oscar Piastri came in second. Charles Leclerc, a decent amount behind him. I think there was like a 20-second gap between the last McLaren and the first Ferrari. Similarly with... Hamilton was a decent amount. He was 10 seconds behind Charlotte fourth. George Russell just sort of wasn't really in this race. He qualified fifth. He ended fifth.

He sort of seemed to be on his own for significant parts of this one. I think he was 30 seconds behind Hamilton. Lawson was five seconds behind him in sixth place. Lawson. Fantastic result. I think he qualified. Did he qualify seventh behind Max? So he stuck it anyway. Fernando Alonso finishes in seventh.

Gabriel Bortoleto did qualify in the top 10, and he finished in eighth, but his teammate who qualified last finished right behind him. Incredibly. Nico Hulkenberg. The Sauber is getting two points. or two cars in the .6 points in total. It's a great photograph of Portoleto and a topless Nico Hulkenberg who's doing the rounds on Instagram as we love to see. Esteban.com manages to get that final...

point in 10th position. His teammate, Ali Berman, just outside the points at 11th. Isaac Hadjar in 12th position. Pierre Gasly in 13th. Lance Stroll in 14th. despite being rammed by Sonata Colopinto in 15th, Yuki in 16th, Albon, Verstappen, Kimi Antonelli and Carlos Sainz did not finish this.

race. But as you can see, all of those retirements in the first section, first third of the race, as it were. What did you make of the race, Rob? I personally the middle part I watched it on replay so I could skip a lot of the boring parts and I enjoyed it but yeah what did you make of it

Overall Thoughts on Austrian Race

Yeah, I mean, it was fine. It was not the most dynamic race we've seen. But it had a good start and interesting finale. It's just that the finale didn't really pay off. The two contending for the lead didn't really come back in contact with each other. There was too much traffic. And yeah, it also just seemed like the heat. And reliability issues played such a role in sort of knocking various contenders out that, you know, it was...

It was a fine race. We've seen very dull ones at points this season. This was not that. I think it also just This was a race that did showcase, wow, McLaren do have a pretty decisive edge for the season. At least in some of these circuits, where it's just not even a contest. Maybe if Max had been able to stay in the race, we'd have seen something. But he seemed pretty... He didn't seem like he was very optimistic about what they could get out of this weekend. Yeah.

Championship Standings Update

Let's go through the driver's standards before we hit the news here. Oscar Piastri still leads the Drivers' Championship with 216 points, 15 clear of Lando Norris. but they are very much toe-for-toe battling it out here. Max Verstappen is in third, about 50 points adrift of the McLarens. George Russell... Quite close to Max actually with 146 points to Max's 155. Charlotte Clare is in fifth with 119. Lewis Hamilton is in sixth with 91.

Kimi Antonelli is in seventh with 63. Alex Albon in eighth position with 42 points for Williams this year. Estevan Ocon in ninth with 23 points. Just one point clear of Nico Hulkenberg in 10th in the Sauber. 22 points. Isaac Hadjar has one point behind him in 11th. He's got 21 points. Then we've got Lance Stroll and Fernando Alonso tied in 12th and 13th with 14 points. Carlos Sainz and the other Williams a bit adrift of his teammate.

with 13 points in 14th position. Liam Lawson in 15th with 12 points. Pierre Gasly in 16th with 11. Yuki Sinodon in 17th with 10. Very orderly, my boys. Thank you very much. team position with six points. Gabriel Bortoleto in 19th with four. Franco Colapinto in 20th with zero tied with our good boy Jack Doohan. unlikely to get any more points there. And then when it comes to the constructors...

I didn't even think about the constructors. McLaren, of course, in first with 417 points. Almost double Ferrari's haul in second. They have 210. Just one point clear of the Mercedes in third. who have 209 points themselves. Rebel Racing in fourth with 162 likely to finish there, given the season as it's progressed and those car number two problems. And they have a decent gap between the Mercedes.

ahead of them and the Williams behind them who are 55 points in fifth position. The racing bulls chomping on their heels with 36. points in sixth Haas have 29 points in seven position just one clear of Aston Martin who have 28th in eight kick sauber with 26 points in ninth position you think 26 points halfway through a season any other year you wouldn't be in ninth, but there you go. And the Alpines are last with 11 points. So there's a decent spread this year of everyone across the...

Across the grid. They're all having their days. Robbo, you've got some news for us here. What's going on in the world of Formula One news and intrigue?

F1 News: Silly Season Rumors

Well, there's silly season or silly preseason stuff happening. There's midseason rumors, as there often are. Interesting one from the race this weekend, this week. Which is that Valtteri Bottas has been under a topic of discussion between... Alpine, Flavio Briatore, and Mercedes, he's still a Mercedes contracted driver, for maybe being pulled into duties at Alpine before the end of the season.

Obviously, the situation in Alpine is pretty bad. It's bad, but also, again, just to the top point of Alpine kind of not really being a team in disarray. There's anxiety over the fact that they're cruising toward a last place finish in F1 and they don't want that. But also they decided this was going to be the year they were going to trial rookie drivers. And that is so rookie drivers in a shitty car is.

a bad combination. I don't think we've seen a lot of evidence that ever works well. See how that unfolded for Mazepin and then Schumacher at Haas. See how that unfolded for DeVries at Red Bull. like rookie drivers being given a you know real piece of shit does not bring out good like it's not a good coaching environment exactly yeah compounds their problems

But Alpine have sort of been a team that has done sharp changes in direction, very capricious. And Flavio seems like sort of a capricious character. And they want points. They want someone pulling in the kind of points that Gasly is managing to ring out of that car. No more ny ny ny ny ny. Yeah, well, you know, obviously, like, Valtteri isn't the sort to give you that.

Valtteri will just post nudes on his Instagram. Exactly. Have a weird haircut. That's a situation where you can imagine the Mr. Burns owning the baseball team of Valtteri comes in with some weird... You know, mustache. Shave your sideburns. So obviously this is preliminary. This does not moot.

The talks he's in with Cadillac, though it does appear like if he joined Alpine, that might basically mark the end of his flirtation with Cadillac. Alpine might want him for 2026. And so it kind of comes down to... I think it kind of depends. I think that where we left things last week was Cadillac was going to have reps at Silverstone. And they're going to make some significant progress toward locking down their driver lineup.

This weekend. My suspicion is. He is going to probably. If Alpine is serious. He's going to be evaluating. A couple offers. At Silverstone this weekend. And we'll hear how this turns out. I don't know. If you're Valtteri Bottas. What. How do you handle this, Drew? You got a racing seat you get in right now and maybe lock up next year versus big question mark with Cadillac. Yeah.

I'm also not sure. It seems like a poison chalice. Does he really desperately want to get back into F1? If he does, then I guess you do it. There's going to be a decent shakeup next year with car stuff. Maybe it goes your right way, but yeah.

Sainz Withdraws FIA Presidency Bid

That's a tricky one. Speaking of shaking up things in the sport, it sounds like, unfortunately, our boy Sainz has decided to drop out of the... The FIA presidency battle, is that right? Yeah, he offered sort of face-saving explanations that he's got his Dakar rally commitments and he just doesn't have time to run for FIA.

president you know what with the what with the rally and all uh but obviously this is mostly related to the fact that a few weeks ago we talked about those letters of support that soliam got that indicated that he would be tougher to unseat than we thought And it appears to have accomplished its primary goal, which was chase off a strong contender. And so Sainz, you know, making clear he will not be challenging.

It certainly makes it seem like we're going to be stuck with Ben Solium for a while longer. There are apparently a couple different... groups within the FIA who do want to unseat him, and they have various candidates in mind that they're continuing to float and seeing if there's something they can do.

by October 24th, which is the deadline to get a candidate in the running for the FIA presidency. But it doesn't look good right now, which kind of goes to show it's kind of an odd organization, right? The amount of no-confidence votes this guy has received from within the FIA certainly should be kind of a death sentence for his ability to administer it. But the way the FIA is structured, he is...

That accountability is not going to matter. The various motorsport clubs that back this presidency will continue to do so. Yeah, what a bummer. It's just another example of shitty leadership not being able to be unseated. It's really remarkable. Once you remove shame.

You know what I mean? Once social shame and stigma were removed as things that could force people to like, hey, no one... no one fucking wants you here used to be enough to make people leave and now we have this new meta where the more people are like shut the fuck up die people will stay in more yeah

Mercedes Contract Talks and Vettel

It's wild. What's going on over the... You mentioned Silly Season. What's going on over at Mercedes? I saw some more rumblings about Verstappen and, of course, Russell. His contract talks have been a point of conversation leading up to Silverstone. It's kind of funny because I think it seemed like Mercedes had really tried to tamp down the Verstappen discussions and just not have this be a major talking point. So George being George before.

The Austrian GP did a presser where he was like, oh, yeah, no, Mercedes, like my contract situation is kind of dependent on what Max decides to do. Mercedes is in talks with Max. You know, I don't take it personally if you're, you know. Obviously, you need to be looking at whether you can get Max Verstappen. He's like, based on my results, I don't have anything to worry about. But, you know, it's nothing personal. They have to see if there's a possibility with Max. And...

Wolf can see that they are indeed continuing to have talks with Max, but he doesn't think... that anything will come of that uh but these are talks you have to have because max is such a special talent yada yada yada uh you know due diligence requires that if you have a chance of bringing in max you have to You have to play out that string. You have to see if you can poach him. Wolf has hinted that they should resolve the driver situation over the summer break.

for staff and of course in contract i rebel until 2028 but as we know with formula one contracts once a driver wants to go often times those uh Release clauses are easier to get to than they seem to be on paper. Speaking of Red Bull shifting things around, here's another popular possible replacement. Yeah, Red Bull, thing of bringing Sebastian Vettel back. Not as a driver. So, Helmet Marco, as we've discussed before, he's old as fuck. Yes. And...

There have been some discussions, Vettel said this on, I think, like an Austrian media interview, but there have been discussions about having Vettel take over. Marco's duties with the team once Marco steps down. Now, Marco has kind of an odd portfolio. He's an advisor to the team, but not necessarily like... within direct chain of command, but does have full signatory power over parts of the team. I don't know if, like, would all the stuff that Marco can do, would all that...

power and authority devolve on Vettel, I would bet you that Christian wouldn't want that. Right. You know, you do not want to... This sort of... I do not think... A lot of organizations would want to follow in the Austrian tradition of dual monarchy when it comes to running this team. And even though they go back with Seb a fair bit, I doubt that the Christian would want... You know, Sab to be...

is empowered to be the thorn in his side that Marco has been, but it may not be fully up to him. And these are preliminary talks anyway. This is the sort of thing where, oh yeah, this is how you show respect for a beloved member of your racing family. Yeah, we'd love to have you come back and have this vague role with the team moving forward. Yeah, he's always had a sort of...

Hand of the King vibe to me. Maybe not Hand of the King, maybe like Grand Meister or something. Real busier energy. Yes, he does.

Perez on Red Bull Struggles

And speaking of Red Bull Woes as well, I see Sergio Perez has been once again taking advantage of the fact that that second seat does not seem to be particularly drivable. Yeah. Shacko gave a gave an interview where he was talking about like people at the team have said

To him, he's a very good authority. People are very well-placed on the team to know. Red Bull regret not standing by me more last year. Oh, really? Which does sound like sour grapes, but also has to be undeniably true at this point, right? uh they were high on on sergio we were all feeling good about like what he was bringing to the team and then the performance fell apart and it was like man what's with what's with check out like he's he's completely collapsed

And now it just appears to be endemic to the team. He also did give some insights on why he thinks it has gone this way. But one of the things he does highlight is that... In his view, Red Bull did just decide to stop supporting him. They could have tamped down the rumors, but instead they fed him. They sort of fed the rumors and fed Checo to the Wolves, basically. In particular, it seems to have stuck in his craw that... Like...

Gave an interview where he basically said Red Bull team members are not going to get their big bonus for a first place finish like they have in previous years because of checkout. And that's kind of a shitty thing to say. Because of the car they built? Yeah. So he said they put him under contract, they extended him, and then... From the moment he signed that extension, it was nothing but rumors that he was going to lose his gig. And Red Bull never tamped down those rumors until eventually.

You know, he lost his seat entirely. So he's kind of understandably bitter about that. Not necessarily wrong.

Checo Blames Newey Departure

You know, they went very quickly from he's our guy, we've extended him to he has to show he's our guy to he's gone. The other thing that he did highlight is from his standpoint, everything fell apart when Nui left. uh once it was clear news out the door you know it was like he there's that gap between him deciding to leave and when he left just because the way F1 contracts are signed, but Checo's point is that the margins in F1 are super fine, and the second you had Newey no longer there...

Now those little marginal differences when it comes to developing the car and improving things all start to go away for Red Bull. I mean, if that is true, that is the type of thing that you go, well, no wonder Max is talking to other teams. and what's going to happen in 2026. I mean, Red Bull have significant... We're not even talking about the power unit stuff. They have a really interesting next couple of years.

in a way the fact that they've fallen off as much as they have at the end of this this uh era maybe behooves them because you know the kind of there is some traction for them i mean i mean there is

progress to be made. It's not just like they're going to get knocked off their perch. Once you've followed this sport long enough, you see the teams that seem... unbeatable or insurmountable they very quickly become very beatable like like a Mercedes um McLaren's progression over the past couple of years you know in the opposite direction it's it's wild who knows maybe Sauber will be fighting

for positions on the podium. Thanks very much, Rob. I appreciate you getting all that news together, especially with Drew out this week. We are back next week with another...

British GP Preview Silverstone

This is we're sort of here in Europe now. We're enjoying the European. It'll be an even more European calendar next year once they've shifted Canada around, which is cool. But we are in Europe for the. The sweltering hot days and we are heading to good old Blighty. This coming weekend. To Silverstone. To the place where it all began. May 13th 1950. The first Formula 1 Grand Prix race. Based on.

RAF Silverstone. This, of course, is an ex-World War II airport. What do you call it? Airfield. Airfield, I guess, is probably the better way of putting it. It was built in 1942. It has these sort of quintessential triangular-shaped... you know three runways pointing in different directions maximize the amount of takeoff and landing power you can have and because of that that formed the sort of the bones, as it were, the skeleton of this track, which has changed.

decent amount over the years the main one is that they changed where the start of the race was uh they still race other junior series is on the other straight but um That was the main change. I feel like that happened over a decade ago now at this stage. And it's old news. Yes, it is a track that the drivers seem to like. Lewis Hamilton famously compared it to flying a jet, an appropriate comparison.

There are 18 turns on this one. A lot of high speed turns. Some fast braking zones. Some hard braking zones. Two DRS zones on this one. as well uh one on between lap five and or sorry turn five and six And one after Maggots and Beckets on the back straight as well. There isn't one on the start-finish straight, which they have turned on and off over the years, I know. This is one of those circuits that just has...

A million and one different famous turn names from Luffield and Brooklands to Abbey and Copps, of course. Maggots and Beckets, I mentioned before. Chapel, the Hangar Straits, Stowe, Vale. Wood, you know, all the good ones. The Hamilton Strait, which is the one that doesn't have the DRSN on it anymore.

Yeah, great, great track. Seems to be a fun one to go to. I've been there once for qualifying. I just turned up a lot of people at camp, though, which seems like a good way to do it. Nice bit of heat, good fans. Yeah, this was last year we had the... Was it last year or was? We had Hamilton getting his first... Was it a podium or win? Did he win last year? He won last year, didn't he? He did, yeah.

which was great scenes, of course. Wait, was that right? Yeah, that was before Ferrari. Exactly, yeah. A bit of a swan song for him and Mercedes. What do you make of Silverstone? You a fan of the track, Rob? The history?

Reflecting on Silverstone Circuit

Uh... My allergy to the English media's love of itself and celebrating all things England gets a little bit exhausting, and I think Silverstone... is a perfectly fine track and does have a lot of history, but I think in terms of, like, the holy chapels of racing, I actually think it's one of my least favorite of them.

But we're going to have it forever because it's England, because all the teams have sort of concentrated in England. Specifically, a lot of them are around this track as well. Right. It's a cool track, and there are moments. It's generated a lot of iconic moments, for sure. But it's rarely, like...

It's not one of my favorite tracks in terms of layout. I think visually it's kind of boring. Yeah, it is. It's sort of the... a strip mall of formula one tracks you know what i mean there's not there's it's very samey the whole way around the angles on it are yeah like if i if i had to say like uh right now like i think maybe of of sort of the

you know call it like the trinity i think maybe monza is my favorite these days um but you know this is this is still one of the biggies and uh it's you know when it's good it's great And especially if you get some great variable English weather, you can see some wild stuff there.

Silverstone Weather Forecast

It looks like that's what's going to happen as well. The weather at the moment over there is a little bit come and go. It's hot at the moment, but getting a little bit cooler as the week progresses. Friday, the temperatures are floating around 23 degrees Celsius, which is 74 Fahrenheit. Very low chance of precipitation, but it's there. The Saturday, that chance of precipitation rises up to about 25%, but that's consistent throughout the day, which makes you think that...

At some stage, there could be rain. Essentially, what it looks like is we have decently moderate temperatures, 21 degrees on Saturday. That's 70 degrees Fahrenheit. And you're getting the sort of quintessential, there's going to be a lot of clouds in the sky and we don't know what's going to be in them. So that's... positive if you like a little bit of a splash. And then Sunday for race time, it's almost the same. 21 degrees Celsius, 69 degrees Fahrenheit.

nice 20 chance of rain uh for the chunk of the day from basically morning till the evening 20 so I this to me is the type of if you were planning a road trip in England and you saw this, you'd go, you know what? I'm going to check back in two more days because they'll have a much better idea. It seems like it's floating around there. So. Yeah, we'll see. A little bit of a splash would be good fun, though. In good old England.

Shift F1 Fantasy League Update

I already did the standings earlier for reasons that I'm not quite sure about. We don't have emails this week either. I'm not sure if I have access to the Shift F1 Fantasy League at the moment. Let me have a quick little go. He wants me to pick my team, Rob. How's your team? Do you have a team? No. Obviously, my team is the whole field. I couldn't pick. My F1 fantasy is just getting to watch this beautiful sport every week.

Dwyer Straits aren't doing that well. I've probably, you know, appropriately, given their name. I have failed to... and keep them up to date for significant parts of this season. And let me see if I can find our Shift F1. No, that's the wrong one. Shift F1 podcast. Here it is. Surely this is it. This is over 2,000 teams. Look at that. Okay. We're going to go by the Austrian Grand Prix.

The winners, as far as I can tell, anyway. Let's go with the top. Jesus, there's a lot of people in fifth. The top three, let's go with here. Fernando Alonso. comes in third here. They're actually tied for second with Esteban on swear words. I like that one. It's pretty good. And second, but the winner at Austria was GoGoGadgetBoxBox with 332 points. They had Piastri.

With a triple. That's incredible, actually. Alonso, Lawson, Colopinto, and Hajar. With Ferrari and McLaren as their teams. Incredible that you come in first if you don't have Norris. That's wild. Uh, the top, uh, ten here. Let's go. It's signed, sealed, and delivered in tenth. We have a tie for eighth. Uh, with bring back Marlboro and the Fast of Us 2025. Um... Number seven, we are checking still. Scuderia.

Potakito in sixth place. Number five, I think my favorite named team of recent memory, Vowels Movement. Wow. In fourth, Stop What You're Doing. And third, a good collaboration between Video Games and F1 here with Solidus Steak. Number two in second place, F1 banned my team name. And in first we have Ukulele in parentheses Endor8000.

Congratulations to all of you for indulging your fantasies with us here. If you want to join our fantasy standings, you can do so with the code in the show notes. You can also send us emails, shiftf1podcast at gmail. or f1.cool slash emails for the cool kids. We'll be doing some of those next week, I believe. Yes, we will.

Maybe we will. We'll be doing it the week after, I think. Definitely, at least. We do have Silverstone this week, but there's a little bit of a gap before we head up to Spa-Francorchamps on July 25th. But that's going to be... bouncing straight into Hungary for the first week of that one. So yeah, we've got some racing coming up. And then after that, I'm trying to think, is that when the gap happens? It is, okay. So we've got...

GB, and then a week gap. A week gap or two weeks? That's a significant. It must be two. What happened there, I wonder? Yeah, Great Britain on July 6th. And then... Belgium isn't until July 27th. Math is hard for me, Rob, but that seems like it's a two-week gap between the two of those. And then Hungary is after that, and then we have two weeks until...

Or three weeks until Zanforsh at the end of August. So funny little summer times. Trying to stay away from those hot, hot heats, I guess. Rob, as you know.

Other Motorsport Series Updates

we don't just like to race locally we also like to race around the world yeah dtm oh is in the norris ring I swear to God, it looks like nose ring. DTM nose ring. I prefer rings elsewhere. For the round four of the DTM season, European Le Mans, not to be confused with North American or African Le Mans. The European Le Mans series happening. The four hours of Imola occurring this weekend. Did you watch any of the spa 24 hours? There was a nasty crash on there.

on the back straight. One of the cars basically cut out, and then nobody realized that they were coming around. You know that final... like at the bottom of Spa, like right before the big braking zone. So, you know, they have that penultimate left-hander that's taken flash. So they were coming around there and it was basically on the driving line, a car beached.

And somebody just ate him. Nailed him. It was pretty bad, but everyone walked away. Everyone's fine? Yeah, everyone's fine, thankfully. So somebody mentioned this earlier. Did you catch the Joseph Newgarden crash? A couple weeks ago. It was uncanny. First of all, they were going, he was leading the race, and they were cutting the brake, and they have little packages for the drivers who were leading. And so they got kind of a glam cam series of shots of Newgarden.

And then Ryan cut to commercial, like, cut back because, like, at that moment, he drove into someone else's wreck and just nailed them going flat out. Oh, really? Basically T-boning. Got his car flipped immediately, like skidded about 100 yards. I did see this when he ate the wall, didn't he? He like tried to get up the inside. Yeah, almost went over into the pit wall. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. God, that was... a scary one yeah man oh man yeah i have noted though maybe there's

IndyCar Safety and NASCAR Chicago

IndyCar's Rapid Response, the AMR safety guys, they are there so fucking fast with every single one of these things. And I know it's easier at Noble, but this holds true at other tracks. They have people on site at a...

Pretty blistering pace. They're also good clearing racks pretty fast. I don't know. There's some things where they've got the pickups that have the... little like crane on the back of them, they can just like... lift those cars out of there without putting a uh crane on the track and i'm like maybe maybe f1 has some things to learn from from indy cars i think americans are just really good like there's i think there's certain things because like my parents were over

last month and one of the things my dad kept saying was how many cars do people own here because like you drive past someone's you know lot and they have like a bunch of old cars and I'm like the difference

in car culture here is so palpable because people, people know how to fix cars in America more than they do in Europe. People work on cars more. People are like good at, you know lifting out engines and doing you know what I mean like they have the equipment and stuff like that and I even find out when I go to the Petaluma racetrack here that like

those guys are good like you know it's just a weekend guy who's got a tow truck but like when someone crashes they get them out and they so i i don't know to me that's like a very Americans are good at car shit. And that's what I see. And I suppose just putting their back into it, like they flip Newgarden's car back over and extract them like pronto. I always find that scary when they're not sure whether or not to push them over.

there's no shock absorbers on these cards when you you know they lifted them down pretty well i saw that but you wouldn't want to just like toss somebody over you know No, but they did it like pros, right? Like sort of levered them up, had people pivot around, lower them back down. It was impressive. But yeah, like it's been, you know, a lot of racing happening lately and a lot of near misses. Yes.

scary incidents. It can either make you feel very good about motorsport safety or make you a bit worried. Speaking of American racing, NASCAR will be at the Chicago Street Race for Challenge Round 2. It's the Grand Park 165. IndyCar is also racing. This weekend at Mid-Ohio for the Honda Indy 200. Damn roasting Ohio. Mid-Ohio. They're so mid. I went to a lot of states. I think I was in...

12 states for the past two weeks. Didn't touch any of that Midwest stuff, though, unfortunately. What's the most Midwest? Wyoming? The eastern side of Wyoming is pretty... Yeah, what's the most mid? No, that's true. But also you're touching on what is the Midwest, which is a topic of great debate in the US. I spend a lot of time getting drunk in random bars in...

Travel Observations and Midwest

Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. Because I had to drive my ass out there. My wife and daughter flew to Montana, so I got to drive there. Let me tell you, I met some colorful folks. Met some colorful folks in some red towns who do not like the present, which was very eye-opening. It was like, I felt like I was on like a...

Like this president, the ones they voted for? The current president, yes, they are not very happy with. Oh man, these guys all have guns too. Yeah. It was fascinating how much they cared about the tariffs. It was wild. Cost of a living, man. people it's hitting people um people do not like having the face eating leopards yeah yeah don't touch my um my social security right right yeah um

F2 Championship and British GP Schedule

F2 and F3 are supporting F1 as they did in Austria. Actually, there was no F3, I don't think, in Austria, but there was good racing in F2. I'm biased, but there's a fun championship battle happening in F2 as there often is, but Alex Dunn is up and in there. So I'm very excited about watching more of that. And Formula One. Formula One will be on.

uh this weekend and i closed my see this is why we missed drew because i closed my little tab i had open for the entire friggin podcast with all of our times here We will be at the Formula One, the Qatar Airways British Grand Prix. It's official title. These are Pacific Times. Let me out, bro.

Exactly, yeah. Let me add three hours. What time is it over there at the moment? Is it like? Yeah, it's 11.30. 11.30? Okay, I'll add three hours to these. I can do math. Practice is at 7.30 a.m. Eastern Time. On Friday, of course, practice two then starts at 11 a.m. Eastern Time. P3 on Saturday, 6.30 Eastern. with Quali on at 10 a.m. Eastern and the race 10 a.m. Eastern on Sunday, July 6th, live from Qatar. No, wait, no, wait, no, British Grand Prix.

Qatar Airways British Grand Prix happening in Great Britain. There we go. Although, is it great? That's a podcast for another day. Shall we check out the grimoire of the book? Yes. As it were.

F1 Historical Moments July 2nd

Let's see what we got here. I thirst for blood. Yes, exactly. You guys haven't had it for two weeks, right? I forgot to send you the... The screenshots I often do. No, but Drew did find that there's a racing connection to the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. The number two car in the motorcade, where Franz Ferdinand was killed, was later, I believe, a Mercedes driver. Wait, later? Yeah.

Wow, so he just got through the war. He was just a guy doing a limo gig in 1914, and then post-war he's doing racing. Amazing. Incredible. Anyone associated with it? You think? I don't know. France Ferdinand. Take me out. Double meaning to that, actually. They certainly did. You're right. I never picked up on that before. Fuck it up. July 2nd in days of yore. If you are only ever going to win one world championship race, it might as well be your first.

Giancarlo Begetti was a young Italian driver who on this day in 1961 won his very first World Championship event at the French Grand Prix at Reims in the famous Sharknose Ferrari 156. The leading Ferrari driver Wolfgang von Tripps and Phil Hood. Sorry, Phil Hill. Both had problems in the race. And on the last lap, Baggetti was second to Dan Gurney's Porsche. Just 300 yards from the finish line, he pulled out of Gurney's slipstream and darted ahead, winning by just one.

10th of a second. Formula One fans in Britain had an unfamiliar voice commenting on the French Grand Prix today in the year 2000 as Murray Walker missed the race because he had dislocated his hip. Oh, that sounds rough. It was the first race he had missed since 1978, and James Allen deputized for him. There you go. Dislocating your hip. That might be the worst bone to dislocate. Don't love it.

Can you dislocate your head? Probably not. Yes, you can. You can? You can do have a dislocated neck, but it's pretty severe. That's a new nightmare for me. You don't like to think about it. You don't like to think about it. No, no. I don't like the idea of it just floating there. No, no, no, no. That's a rough one. If you'd like to support...

Supporting the Show and Patreon

this show and get access to all of our bonus episodes including our upcoming review oh hang on so that spaghetti die didn't like die seconds later no everyone's fine you just fucking lived and won the worst thing we had this week was a dislocated hit okay Which, I mean, that's pretty rough. Yeah, that's pretty bad. I do feel like death has been cheated. Yes. Final Destination has to... For one more time. I want to watch that new Final Destination. Yeah. It's fun watching.

Why don't you do the last one with, what's his face, right? I haven't watched the series, but the famous character after he's passed away. He's been the dude who's like the guy who explains in all the movies, like, hey, death needs to do. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, wow. There you go. That guy who's so famous we all forget his name. Horror fans know his name. They made an Until Dawn movie. Did you see that? The PlayStation, like... Yeah, they made a movie?

British-developed video game, yeah. They made a movie of that thing. Huh. Yeah, it's very strange. I need to sneeze, so we need to finish this podcast. Yeah. Get out of here. I'm allergic. I'm allergic to not talking about Formula One. It's coming, folks. To get access to our review of Formula One, the movie. Tony Todd. Oh, Tony Todd, of course. He was also in the Indiana Jones video game. Yes, he was. Also, I believe the voice of the Vortigons in Half-Life 2. Oh, shit. Really? Yeah.

That's a good performance. They're very funny. Yeah, good stuff. Maybe Half-Life 2. Maybe Half-Life... I forgot. I should know that. Anyway, we're not here to talk about that. We're here to talk about the early ad-free version of the podcast.

Silverstone Expectations and Brad Pitt

and the official Shift F1 Discord. You can get access to all of that over at patreon.com slash Shift F1. Rob, any thoughts for Silverstone heading into it? What are you looking forward to, apart from some glorious British rain, of course? Oh, just insufferable coverage of how good McLaren is doing and just what it means for England. Can't wait. I'm praying every week that Oscar wins.

against Lando, but at least I'll hear something besides God Save the King. Speaking of Silverstone, they have been teasing the Brad Pitt drives the two-year-old Formula One car. I'm not sure if you saw that. Sky Sports did a thing where... He drove Brundle around Silverstone in a fast McLaren. I don't know what it was. But the actual, they're teasing that they stuck him in an F1 car, which they did. I think they did drive F... They drove F2 cars for the filming of the movie, but...

I think they drove F1 cars at one stage at least. I could be wrong, but apparently Brad, the big petrol head, wanted to get some more laps in. There was a very interesting, weird, I don't know, Dax Shepard, his fame eludes me. I never understand why he's famous, but, you know. He apparently is. He has a podcast. Apparently he was in like AA with a bunch of these actors. So they all know him and like him. But he did a Brad Pitt who famously doesn't do many interviews sort of at all.

I think he just doesn't like talking about his kids and many divorces or whatever. Yeah. But he did like a two-hour podcast on this Dax Shepard show and talks a lot about, because apparently they all race motorbikes, and talks a bunch about... his life racing but also the formula one stuff and it was it was really fascinating because he was like getting into the weeds on like just what it's like

uh racing certain tracks and how they how they managed to approach it him talking about doing puan he said like spa was the craziest one it was just like you know insane the amount of grip that the cars have and how good the brakes are. He kept talking about the brakes. He was like, the speeds are cool, but you're doing the speeds on the straights. It's the one time you have to collect yourself. He said trusting the brakes took him the longest amount of time.

But it was crazy to hear just how much, because, like, the Top Gun movie was filmed with those cameras and the jets, but they weren't flying the jets. Right. as much as Tom Cruise probably wanted to. So it was pretty incredible to hear him. So I'll link that in the show notes as well if anyone wants to check that out. It was really interesting in our podcast. All right, that's a pod, folks. We'll be back after Silverstone. Enjoy the racing, and we'll see you next time.

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