P1 with Matt and Tommy - Our reaction to the Visa Cash App RB F1 car launch

Episode Date: February 10, 2024

We were up nice and early to see the new livery from the grid's weirdest team name - and what a livery it is! Finally, some paint!WE'RE GOING BACK ON TOUR! Tickets for our April live shows are available right here: https://www.tegeurope.com/events/p1-with-matt-tommy/You can sign up to our Patreon here! You'll get access to exclusive episodes you won't hear anywhere else, every P1 episode ad-free, full driver interview videos, early access to tickets and more!Follow us on socials! You can find us on Twitter, Instagram, Twitch, YouTube and TikTok. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello everybody and welcome back to the P1 podcast early edition with Matt and Tommy. Yes, we are coming to you live at 6.53 in the morning. Standard Europeans complaining about an early start. And we are here today to talk about the Visa CashUp RBF1 car that's launched today in Vegas. And I think we need to just dive straight into some first thoughts, Tommy. And that forget Visa Cashab RB. we're calling them Toro Rosso from now on because they are back. Oh yeah.

Yeah. There was a lot of jokes that when they revealed the name that everyone had just called them Taroso anyway, and they went, oh, if that's the case, we'll just do the Taroso livery then. Pretty much. And they did. And they did. They painted it. They paint on it.

What a revelation. Paint. Design, not just carbon. It's actually a beautiful looking car. And I don't know whether, I mean, I do. think it's really nice. I think the Torosso from previous looked really nice and it's nice for it to come back. I wonder if there's an element where we're so sick deep down of seeing carbon cars as well that literally anything with colour, we would have gone 10 out of 10. 10 out of 10. Absolutely. What a, what a banging livery. Yeah, because I've seen things now that I don't like as much.

But at the same time, I do think it's still banging because essentially it is based on that Toroso from 2017 that they ran. That is one of my favorite liveries of all time. This is like a worse version of it, but it's still better than anything else on the grid. Yeah, we're still going to keep it positive. We're still going to keep it upbeat. I mean, saying it's a worse version of one of my favorite liberties of all time

is certainly not a bad thing. Yeah, why don't you tell us what you would improve then, Tommy, before we get to the question? Where are the issues? The only thing I don't like, I think it's, they've done a very good job because they've got a lot of sponsors and it's very easy to make it quite busy and it is quite busy. But because then you can start adding like too many colours and you know how like we absolutely hated when they added the all and red last year on the Alphotara and it didn't quite look right. Whereas this I think works.

The only thing I don't like is the white lines are quite abrupt. they look quite extreme I preferred the Toroso when they had the red there that maybe it looks better in person because we've just seen like renders at the moment and it always looks brighter

in that case but that's the only thing I'm not the biggest fan of but everything else is just really really nice and I'm really hoping because from the pictures that they shared and the way they rendered it in their animation

video, it looks like it is that Toroso kind of like shiny metallic paint because that's another thing. We're so used to matte liveries and them looking quite dull that it looks like it's going to be like that shiny silver, which is really, really cool. Yeah, I mean, the white that you mentioned, I think, you know, for me, it looks, it looks reasonably well blended in. I know what you mean in terms of it's quite abrupt with the white, but I actually maybe prefer that to the block red that I think we had before with the Orland sponsorship and stuff like that. So yeah, I think it works quite well. The front wings, obviously, white as well with the Hugo.

And yeah, I'm a fan. Question from Badger Sprite. Is this the best livery so far? Yes or absolutely yes. Yes. Absolutely yes. I would say so. I think it's funny because we've spoken about HASS, for example,

being the most boring but also clean design. I think from a design perspective, the Hasse or whatever might actually. be more flowing. You talk about these block whites, which some people might like, some people might not. And it comes back to my previous point about,

are we just a fan of colour at the moment? Yeah, but in terms of... You paint the carbon bit of the house in this colour blue. It's the best livery on the grid. Yes, exactly. But they haven't,

so therefore you have to say that V-Carb have done a good job. I'd like to see how much will be left after testing. and where they would lose it if they do. I don't think there's actually, to be fair, because of how busy the car is,

I think they might actually just have to accept if they are slow that that will be it. Because, of course, what they've done, and it makes sense, and I don't know why Alpine maybe didn't do the same, is paint it, especially if they're rebranding, right? This is what V-Carber doing. They're trying to make the Visa stand out, obviously, massively well, and that's what they've done.

just paint it for the livery let's roll it and testing and see how slow we are and then oh we had to strip back some paint exactly and I think that should be the way to at least go from it from a brand perspective but also to maybe not anger fans as much going into the season about how they're all going to be black it's yeah I'd like to see how much will be left

but I don't think they have much wiggle room with the sponsors that are on there do you reckon now Formula One teams go to sponsors and obviously we know from like a marketing side that there'll be certain there's certain things in in rules for like marketing companies that they're like we have to have our logo on a white background or something like that like and they'll pay additional money you do wonder if there's like a fallback from f1 teams that like so how do you feel about a white logo on carbon fiber you can have it for this price later down the season? and reduced rate.

It will save us a whopping 2,000th of a second per lap, and your brand will lose its identity and its colours. What we say? Yeah, exactly. But I'm glad, yeah, like you say, just them painting a car at this point, it looks really cool. Like, obviously I was saying at the start bits I didn't like, but overall it is really, really nice.

I really do like it. Tommy is just covering off the fact that nobody's as good of a livery designer as Tom Bellingham and, you know, give him the wheel and he will deliver. But overall, you're a fan. A big fan, yeah. For me, do I like it the most? I think probably yes. I do really like the McLaren and steak as well. But I think this is my favourite so far.

It's very, very cool indeed. And we'll just see, see now. how much weight-saving they decided to do. Exactly. Wheely Bad F1 comes in with, in this age, where every other team has chosen carbon fiber over paint, why did V-carb stick with colour?

And I think it is very much just a case of the rebrand, the launch, wanting as many eyeballs on Visa Cash App RB and everything else that comes with it, because it's an important rebrand for the team. They need to get the message and the logo out there. I do find your point to me which I think is a really interesting one is that glossy kind of paint over mat I wonder if that will be something that goes first as opposed to the actual

design of it because again it looked so much better as glossy rather than matte where it's very easily seen as dull and it's quite difficult to get that wow factor with a matte livery so yeah I do I do wonder whether they've gone all right you know let's let's just make it look snazzy and then we'll figure it out if it's terrible but look look back at last year mcclaren they had some chrome on it and they were on the front row of the grid challenging max for stab and maybe there is something there yeah i'm seeing a couple of pictures now from the vagus launch which we'll get into later about uh doing a vagus launch and then dropping some uh renders online and as not not seeing any of that that launch but it does look like it's very uh brightly painted

the Red Bull logos and the Visa is in like that chrome silver like we saw with Toroso, so that's really, really cool. And I do wonder, you mention about like the fact that it is this new rebrand. Red Bull are at the end of the day, they're there for marketing purposes to promote their brand in Formula One. And they're probably, they probably weighed up the option. as a big, you know, savvy marketing company and gone, I don't care if it's one second quicker over a 70-lap race. We are here to get our brand out there and we want brand identity.

And that's a... And they're no... Visa Cash App R&B, so they've got a lot of... Red Bull have got a lot of brand identity with that name. Yeah, but we'll all call them... We'll all know they're a Red Bull team. It's got the big red bull bull on the air intake. And they're probably just gone, well, this is actually worth it.

And it makes you wonder why other teams don't do that because the sponsors at the end of the day are paying a lot of money. And that is the thing. You do wonder, like, them having a big title sponsor and loads of money that they can inject into the team for performance probably makes up more than them stripping all the paint off and companies not wanting to sponsor them. Fair, yeah.

It's certainly an interesting point. That's it. Tom Bellingham is going into Formula One as a business manager from here and on. You watch this. Such a gurry. Next question, MJ95. Why have so many celebrities in Las Vegas for the launch and not stream it? This is my biggest bug bear.

This is my, you know, I'm, I'm, you know, I wish, I wish we'd have more than a two minute 15 video on YouTube or a 15 second video on Twitter to unveil the car. You know, you've got Kendrick Lamar performing there. You've got Terry Cruz doing social videos with the team. What, what, why? Where's the, why have we stopped? Why can't we just stick a little iPhone on a tripod and let everybody, you know, come in and tune in. I don't know. For me, it doesn't make any sense to have a Vegas launch

and to not live stream it to the world. I don't know. It just feels weird to me. There must be a reason. There must be a drawback somewhere or they couldn't get X, Y, Z. But it just doesn't make sense and how have they not got a workaround for it.

Yeah, they've done it before they did it last year where they had a big event, and then they just shared a video. They did this exactly the same last year. But you think with a new team, maybe they were so annoyed by the reaction to their very first Alpha Tauri fashion show

that they're like, fine. You were all complaining that we did a fashion show and then revealed the car and you had to wait 20 minutes before we took the cover off. So we're going to now just drop the pictures online and we're going to do our fashion show

and nice launch for all the people that go that can't complain on the internet. They could have done, you know, you think of all the things they could have done with the car launch. They could have put out 10 ATMs and then people just strutting down, sticking their card in, boom. Oh, no, actually, I've got an app. It's called Cash App. Now, there's so many things they could have done.

They could have got Danny Rick and Yuki Snowda. The ideas just are flowing at this early in the morning. And they decided, no. And the weird thing was, I think, as well. Obviously, we got up at silly o'clock for us in Europe to see the, see the car but you're literally talking like minutes before we know this launch is out and there's like no tweets from the team no one's tweeting anything that that was such a weird weird feeling um there was like a little bit of insta sort of oh it's coming at half past or whatever it might

have been but everyone was just like what's going on you would think that there would be a buildup to it so that we'd all know, all right, or maybe they didn't want to shout about the fact it wasn't being live streamed and they just wanted to be like, here you go, I don't know what their decisions were there, but everyone knew it was happening. They still kind of posted that it was launching on this day

and that sort of stuff. So yeah, it just seems like very basic kind of social media strategy didn't really happen for a brand new launch of a brand new team or a rebranded team in Formula One. I wonder if they just, they go, well, Everyone, if people, everyone just starts tweeting pictures of it, it's good for us. And it doesn't really matter beforehand. Like as soon as the car's out, everyone can go crazy then maybe.

Yeah, it's a strange choice to, like, so you spend all that money in a, especially in a budget cap era to put on a big show and then be like, well, we're not going to show it for you guys. We say budget cap era, marketing doesn't come into that, does it? Oh, yeah, true. I couldn't remember if it did. Mate, if that came in the budget cap, everyone would do it outside McDonald's and they would just be like,

it's the car, all right, take care. See you later, guys. So yeah. Next question, T.J. Snahashish. Why two Red Bull teams on the grid? Does that not sacrifice the integrity of the competition? Welcome to Formula One, where Toro-Rosso slash the second Red Bull team,

2006 they've been around for I think once you're in that's it you know F1 can say no to some really really valuable Formula 1 teams that want to join Andretti but Red Bull can have two teams

and that can stay that way for as long as they as soon as you're in the pearly gates that's fine but it's getting in the pearly gates is the problem does it sacrifice the integrity of the competition Not really because Toro Rosso slash Alpha Tauri slash every other version of that team hasn't ever really challenged at the front.

We've had that one discussion when Max Verstappen went past Pierre Ghazdi. I think it was in Qatar a few years ago. I think it was 2021. Everyone was like, oh, did he go wide on purpose there? Was there a call made for Pierre to go wide? No, because surely he would have just got out the way on the racing line rather than...

And then Alonso that's completely unrelated, did it a lap later anyway. Yeah, exactly. Does it sacrifice the integrity? Not no, because they are their own team. Maybe we will be changing that opinion if, as we've said many times in this podcast, Visa Cash App R.B, rollout Red Bull 2023 car and start getting podiums at left, right and center. But until then, you know, it's not like Red Bull the only people to have done that because, of course, you had racing point copying Mercedes and then they thrust themselves up the grid. It's not just. Red Bull and there are of course ties within engine suppliers and teams and Williams and Mercedes not necessarily working together like Team 1 and Team 2 but there are connections there are relationships within Formula 1 it's not just Red Bull yeah there's always internal politics and things like that in Formula 1 obviously obviously this is an extreme example because it is two teams and by the same

entity if you like so and then of course there's been a little bit more controversy this year because they're now starting making more parts in Milton Keynes for this team so that so that that that's caused controversy but it's only ever controversial when they do well when they were when they were 10th in the constructors and barely scored a point no one cared suddenly if they start finishing races in six or seventh even if it's that like people will start to complain about it and things like that but I don't think it's a problem personally because you know we've we've seen a we've already had a year where it was so close between red bull and another team and I know you mentioned the ghastly thing but you know you could say the extreme

example would be that an alfa towery could have just yeated hamilton off at abou dabu-dabee it away and they'd have won the title and it's like well what can you do because they definitely wouldn't have won the title that would have been uh even more uproar than massy probably well exactly but it just shows you that that people think they're going to get involved and they didn't so um although some people think that yuki sunoda retired on purpose so uh max could win an irrelevant race when he was 250 points clear in the championship yeah but some people on two me right wow they've done worse. They've done this. Honestly,

tin four hats. But also you know, you can argue that they've given a lot more to the sport than certain other teams they've bought in very exciting drivers like Sebastian Vettel, Max Verstapp and Daniel Ricard. What are the teams? Might you be suggesting there, Tommy?

No one in particular. No one? Interesting. When a team's brought young talent like that in and interesting and exciting drivers, They've literally won a race as well. You know, they're part of the sport, and it's not something I'm annoyed about.

I'd rather just have more teams on the grid than saying like, oh, we have to get rid of this team. I don't understand why they can't have one extra team. Like, we're going to go into that debate again, but you don't have to get rid of a team to add a new one. We've had... No, but Tommy, Andretti are going to gain more from Formula One than four.

one are going to gain from one of the most prestigious names in the history of motorsport. How dare they? Of one in every single discipline known to man. But anyway, there are other teams as well that also bring lots. I would also say that, of course, this livery is probably my favourite, I would say. But Williams is a close second. I think, you know, let's not forget Williams. They also did paint their car to a degree, which is fantastic from Williams for now.

but I think what tips V-carb over the line, God, what an awful name, is the gloss. I think that's the nice kind of, oh, oh yeah, I forgot glossy paint exists on Formula One cars, and it's a nice throwback to a few years ago. So that pretty much sums it up, Tom Bellingham, an early morning podcast, or how do you summarize your life, your final thoughts? I summarise it by saying,

thank you Visa Cash App RB for painting your car and not making as angry after getting up at 6am. Well, five actually. But anyway, I know we're going to get a lot of angry

fans saying, I get up every more, shut the hell up. This is normal for me. I watch F1 races at 4 a.m. And every single time we complain, we also preface it and what's after it. With a disclaimer. With a disclaimer that we appreciate you

and we think you're bloody amazing. We don't know how we would survive in those situations but fair fricking play is basically what we say to that. So yeah, that is my final thoughts. Well done everybody for being able to get up at early times. And we will see you next week. What's next? Next one is Aston Martin next week on Monday.

Oh, that will be a long one. Looking forward to that. I want another meme of Lawrence Stroll walking up onto the stage with like, you know how loads of people making videos of the different music and walking up? I need that again. Yeah, we do.

Can't wait for that chat. All right, thank you, everybody. Lots of love. To be fair, this podcast will be going out before we're live on Twitch later today. It is actually P1's birthday, which should have been our final thought, realistically. One year today, P1 was born,

which is crazy to say out loud. But we are going to be doing a sub-a-thon on Twitch from 5pm UK time today. So when you do listen to this, set your alarm. Come join us, come celebrate P-1's birthday party. I might try and find some birthday party attire. No, not attire. I'm not going to wear things.

I meant like, no. Oh, Tommy, stop it. That'll be after 9 o'clock. That's the watershed. So anyway, this is going so sideways and we'll see you later for a Twitch birthday party if you want to come join Matt P1 Tommy. Bye.

Bye. Make sure you follow us on all of our socials. We're Matt P1 Tommy on Twitter, TikTok, Twitch and Instagram. You can also sign up to our Patreon at the link in the episode notes for ad-free episodes, full video interviews and extra bonus episodes for as little as $5 a month. Finally, make sure you're following us on Spotify. See you soon. P1 is a stack production and part of the A-casts,

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