Business of Speed Podcast - Hungarian Grand Prix Preivew

Episode Date: July 24, 2026

Welcome back to the Business of Speed podcast, Hungarian preview episode. Lali Mikkelsen, are you ready for Hungry Eyes? Actually, that's how we should have let it off, was Hungry Eyes. Let's do it. One, two, three. Hungry Eyes. I see the magic between you and I has got Hungry Eyes. Great song, great song. Hungry Eyes, damn. Great song, great movie.

dirty dancing if you haven't seen it please do yourself a favor watch dirty dancing this weekend it is so good it's so good so good so good okay this is being recorded after fp2 so we have more insight than we would have before free prac any of the free practices uh i'm gonna start let's start with you first of all what did you think of what you saw on track today so i'm gonna tell you what i thought i think that you need to do this because it is hammer time do i have a hammer i might have a hammer in here i might actually have a hammer in here i'm in a garage please if there was ever time to pull it out right now the hammer whoa whoa whoa whoa no no come on get your mind out of that gotta there we go it's hammer time so that's what i thought i think

Listen, this is a track. I love this track. I'll tell you why I love this track. Because it is not power unit dependent. It is mechanical grip and aerodynamic grip dependent. So I absolutely love it. For our friends out there in the world who may be newer to the sport, reminder, mechanical grip is what your road car has. So it's basically made up of like the weight of your car, the suspension, the tires, the surface that you're on. Doesn't really change. Aerodynamic grip is amazing. It's made up of your wing, the airflow underneath the car, around the car. So this track is super dependent on that, not very dependent on the power unit. And we all know that there is one very strong power unit this year, Mercedes. So that's why it's looking good

in my opinion. But that's why it's looking really good in my opinion for Ferrari, Forza Ferrari. The Red Bull power unit, the Red Bull ICE is the best ICE. I think the entire power unit is probably Mercedes and somewhere down below that is Ferrari. I was on the missed apex podcast giving my predictions yesterday before we saw anything. And as most of you know, I will never, never, never pick Ferrari because I just, it's a jinxing thing, superstitious thing. So I will never put, I will never say like I predict a one, two or anything. Some of the gentlemen on the show and other people watching were like, Oh, Ferrari one, two. And I was like, yeah, I believe I agree with you and then i ended up with my mercedes one two with a with a mclaren on the podium which is

mostly like you can't bet it's hard to bet against mercedes but i just i also can't pick i just can't do it i just don't i never do it it's why i'm bad at betting because i'm like but what i think is interesting is what the first thing you mentioned about the track five of the next six tracks monza not included obviously are closer to what we're going to see at the hungaro ring in terms of requiring or not requiring power so less power hungry tracks five of the next six which means it's very important for george russell it's very important for andrea kimmy antonelli to get massive points hall this week and then obviously throughout the rest of these six races that are coming up or five of the next six races

because that could put a big damper. This could be the gap that Lewis Hamilton needs to catch up. Like this next stint, these next six races, a quarter of the season essentially, could be what either puts Lewis up there a lot closer. What are we, 45 points back? Yeah, less than two wins I think I saw last time. So yeah, like 45, I think.

So I think this is where we're going to see. Is George Russell cut out for this? Is he going to bounce back from last week? Is Ferrari going to make their move? If they do, it's going to be, like I said, this five of the next six races, this is where they can make their move. I would like to remind people that last year,

we thought Oscar Piastri had this thing locked and loaded. and then a wall in Baku told him, hold my beer for a second, Oscar. So anything can happen. Like really, the Mercedes have a few bad weekends in a row. Kimi loses some confidence. Something could happen. And guess what?

Lewis comes in and pulls it out from under us and that. So I'm still really hopeful that if nothing else, we'll keep a tight battle toward the end. And obviously the circuit suits them quite well. chock full of 14 low and medium speed corners that car really likes that we don't the straight is relatively short so it's a great track for uh for that car and then the other thing i wanted to talk to you is about aston martin and our friend adrian newey who is for once spoke and he's he didn't seem like he was serving a life in in prison sentence he looked he seemed more upbeat

The car is apparently, it's not even considered an upgrade. It's basically a B version. It's almost fully reconstructed. There was a rear suspension failure, obviously, that we saw. So we didn't get the full beans of the car. What are your thoughts on that? Do you think, Aston Martin, is there some miracle where by the end of the season, we see Aston Martin sort of consistently, maybe not on the podium, top five even?

No, no, no. I think we're far away from that. I don't think they even have the drivers for that, to be honest with you. And I love Nando, but I don't see them having the chops right now. I mean, Nando seems out of it to begin with. He's almost not even interested half the time. I don't blame him. Well, he's driving a tractor trailer around the track.

I wouldn't be interested either. Yeah, and some of the commentary around FP1 was like, this is basically preseason testing for Aston Martin. If I'm Nando and I'm in the middle of the season and this is our preseason testing, I am so disconnected from this. Even if this car is decent at this point, a lot to be seen. I think, you know, P16, P17 is really best they're going to do, which is not that great. There's probably a couple teams, you know, there's probably a few teams, I would say a couple teams that they could surpass. Cadillac still looks like Cadillac and you know Williams or the Haas is back there but

yeah I don't let's not let's not bet on a lot there so I'm gonna I'm gonna have a different take than you on this I do think that Nando today they said he's he's he's in it probably for for more than one year perhaps a couple more years so I do think that they have this wonderfully unique opportunity to use the second half of the season as sort of this live organic development of the 27 car. So I think that it's in Fernando's best interest to be all in and give as much laser pointed feedback, be so focused on getting this car basically 2027 ready at different tracks with different setups. So I think that perhaps after the summer break, I think we're going to see a more checked in Fernando. He's going to be back. He's going to have some rest. He's going to

spend time with that new baby of his. Spain won the World Cup. He's going to be in a good mood. He's going to eat some gambas on the beach and he's going to be back. And I do think that if they're smart, and obviously we know that this is a very smart group of people, the rest of the 26th season is sort of a preseason testing for 27 that the other guys can't do.

The big teams can't do that because they're actively fighting for a championship. These guys are like, peace out, we don't need you 26. See you never. I think everything you just described sounds like retirement. Spend time with my baby. No.

Spain won the World Cup. Beach. Absolutamente no. No, no, no, no, no. I mean, listen, I'm not ready for Nando to go either. I don't think he will. I'm just, I'm still not sold on it, right? We were told it was going to be great in the beginning of the season.

And then they took the track and nothing's been great. So we'll see. But to your point, this is Newey's. This should actually be Newey's car now. Not what we saw the first half. Exactly. There we go. Hope I'm wrong.

Hope Nando does well. Do you want to hear my predictions? Let's go with predictions because I think we got a couple other things to talk about too. So go ahead and let's hear predictions. You're going to like them. So these predictions are for all my Italian friends.

I'm going to start with P3 because I always start with P1. So I'm going to start with my P3. It's going to be Lando Norris in the McLaren. I think he's going to have a great weekend. Once again, I don't think that this track is going to be really a power unit dependent or it's not.

So that's my P3. My P2 is one Mr. Charles Leclerc. P1 we are going with Hammer Time Lewis Hamilton Hamilton Gaudiuma Goatface

is going to win this race go off into an incredible summer break and come back and just tuk tuk tuk tuk tuk for his championship

numero ocho there you go I will not be as I'm not going to be as optimistic as most people know my predictions are very biased

so I say it's a Mercedes 1-2 which guy on top okay Andrea Chimiantonelli of course because if Ferrari's not going to win

then I'm going to at least root for the driver I like so Andrea Chimiantonelli George George and I'll put Lando up there one two three

and again this is all hopes that I'm absolutely wrong because I cannot ever that seems like our cop-outs are maybe 10 so I'm going to give you my predictions

but I hope they're wrong. I give you my predictions because I legitimately believe in them and I also want them to occur. FYI. It's not about believing in them. It's about

I can't deal with the pain of them. I can't deal with the hopium that gets injected into my veins when they do have like we had an incredible FP2

and they looked genuinely quick and yeah. And then on Sunday it just doesn't happen. I know. It's so depressing. It's been a long time.

You know, Over 30 plus years here, it starts to weigh on you. So the real, my real thoughts, I do, I'm with you on the mood. I think this is a track that is absolutely geared towards that Ferrari. And obviously this is, Hamilton loves this track. He's won here, what, nine times or something like that. I mean, all things would say this is a Lewis Hamilton weekend. You know what we don't know?

The Enigma. Is Mama, Lewis and Mama there? She's not Mama Hamilton. I can't remember her last name. sorry mrs lewis's mom if she's there this is a very good sign he does very well when she's there yeah he does he does let's do fingers crossed that lewis's mom is her name is uh it's lockhart carmen lockhart lockhart mrs lockhart i hope you are in hungary right now and bring your son a lot of good luck yeah there was a couple things that now that we've talked about hungary and we we were

over that a couple things that popped up i don't know if you heard andrea stella's comments did you did you hear that just give me a little bit more than that please talked about um he made a comment in the comment i'm trying i cannot find the exact quote he essentially said that the drivers are having a hard time with the car because the algorithm are constantly updating almost per lap, right? Like it's constantly updating car. And again, this led to some other chatter and conversation about what is actually driving the cars.

Is it the driver or is it an algorithm? Is it AI? And we start to think about how AI works. And this is not an AI thing. This is just these algorithms in general. Are the cars actually being driven by the drivers anymore? Because if the car, you know, you go into turn one and maybe you put a lot more input into the wheel

and then on the next lap, it adjusts. You can still put the same input into the wheel, but maybe it adjusts what actually happens based on your driving style. Is that really, is that, I don't know. To me, does that feel like Formula One? Absolutely not like Formula One. And they've been having those issues

since the first couple of races, we could hear like, oh, because they so-and-so put the power down in this corner on this lap, the machine learning of the car then. So I 100% don't believe that is in the best interest of Formula One or that it should be part

of this lovely, beautiful sport. There's a lot of people who have a lot of opinions about this. I've been very vocal about them in my little sort of tiny corner of the internet, but Martin Brundle, people whose opinions are very weighty and who know these cars very well,

i i'm still sort of balls to the walls you should just break late make the corner and accelerate the fastest out you know what i mean like that matters to me that is what should be the most important thing in the sport i think that we've sort of lost that narrative of of so much of the yo-yo racing and the clipping and the super clipping and and the ai aspect of it but there's people who have been consistently talking about it on in this undercurrent and we've had some great racing on track so people have forgotten that but it we can't forget about that that is not what in my opinion the sport is about obviously it doesn't matter what i think or what you think or we like it or not we our opinion isn't going to change it but we're still entitled to have our

thoughts and for me that it should not be a part of formula one racing is an algorithm determining how your lap works out yeah it's my two cents he went he went on to talk about how it was difficult to capture certain modeling in the simulations like wind and grip that can derail the power unit's calculated deployment. So because they're mapping, they're using all of this to map the power unit a certain way,

they rely so much on the simulations to be accurate, which is interesting. But to me, again, it doesn't feel like racing. I don't know. It's like, it's almost as if you want to do everything to take all these variables out. To me, the variables of, especially the biggest variable for me that I love is, is reliability. I love when cars aren't, you don't know if it's going to be, you know, what's going to happen. That's part of it because, you know, if you're turning up the engines all the way every time,

the thing could blow up. That's, that is a risk you take. Or you don't and you keep it turned down and you suffer the consequences. But it should be a simple, and again, it should be a simple binary thing. It's either on or off. It's not like you, oh, well, it's going to adjust based on my inputs every single time. I don't know. That should be your road car.

Exactly, exactly. But how does that translate to drivers or this being the pinnacle of racing? It's the pinnacle of engineering, I'll give you that. But now you've taken the driver, I don't want to say completely out of it, But you've almost pulled the drivers completely out of it. Max voiced a lot of concerns, right, early on in the season. Fernando Alonso, our friend, yeah.

Fernando, but Max was the loudest in the room and he was the one that took most of the shit for it, especially from people like Martin Brundle who were like, just shut up and drive. Now all of a sudden Martin Brundle's flipped and he's like, oh, we're missing the corners at Silverstone and it's no longer, you know, now they're flat out everywhere.

And suddenly he's like, he's all over the place. There's a lot of pundits that are changing their tune now. Meanwhile, the drivers who are actually driving these cars that were complaining early on are almost redeemed. And you've just got to think how much of this continues, right? How much more of this, I don't want to call it video game racing, but how much more video game racing as we continue toward, let's say 2030 is the end of this thing, hopefully.

is it only going to get worse until then and finally we'll get a change it seems like we're going to get the change in 2030 back to mostly hopefully all ICE would be awesome but yeah I don't know it was just a thought Alec

you heard that and then I think that just to follow up on something you said I think that there should be only three variables in racing really it should be the weather reliability and the cars around you whether a guy you know is too close too far etc everything else like that is like artificial to me as sort of a a person who really loves the sport of the sport of racing i don't

think that we should have any other artificial sort of variables that aren't meant for safety obviously something like a virtual safety car yes it is very welcome we've learned from horrible trilogies that happened in the past that is something of a necessary input into the racing but if it's not for safety i don't really think it should be part of the sport and i'm very happy to get away from this sort of era of car in you know the next four or five years yeah and then there you go yeah no we'll see we'll see we'll see um i'm we'll see yeah i'm very i am very I want to be optimistic about like 2030 and beyond and hopefully things change and we know that there's going to be adjustments hopefully we're going to get to 60 40 at 2028 like they're claiming

which would be a nice move but yeah I don't know you like again it's just it changes the way you watch it sometimes you're like these are these are not it's not the same type of racing it's not down to the man in the box so to speak as it used to be and i think that's where people get frustrated the the old fans get frustrated and and new fans maybe can't tell the difference which is fine that they they can't but i would just i would urge you to consider you know is is all of the changes and all of the the new type of racing is that really racing i it's it's been on my mind lately so i had to bring it up there you go okay i love it i love discussing it because i'm very fired up about this topic we could almost do like a whole podcast about it one day because i think that there's a

lot to mind there and different people's opinions and and one thing that people don't know is that when they come up with these rules guess what guess who's not invited to the conversation oh you know who the drivers me the drivers are not invited which is like yeah absolutely so that is something when karun chandak was on our podcast he was like well perhaps you should invite a driver or two when you're making these rule changes because they might know a thing or two and they're the ones that have to be in these cars. But like I said, we could rant about this for a while. We can go on and on. For now, I'll bring it back to Hungary. Beautiful track. Been around forever. Such a staple of the season. After Sunday, guys, we're going on a little sad break.

Four weeks. Everyone gets a holiday. For the people who don't know, they're not allowed even to work at the factory. They're just done, done, done. The factory's closed down. It's just a mandatory statutory holiday which is very well deserved for these people enjoy hungry enjoy the weekend enjoy the break we will catch you on the next one ciao ciao