The Late Braking F1 Podcast - F1 in a crisis: The rise of esports

Episode Date: April 2, 2020

With F1 sidelined for a while, the door has opened for esports to take centre stage and show what it can do. With big stars such as Max Verstappen and Lando Norris getting involved, the guys explore how much esports can benefit from the lack of real-life action and whether this will remain or fade as soon as F1 returns. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network. Hello and a very warm welcome to the late-breaking Formula One podcast. Harry and Sam join me, guys. How are you feeling this week? Pretty good, surviving the old isolation. And if you're also enduring isolation and listening to the podcast, whether you're new or returning thing, why don't you drop us a little subscribe, a little follow,

share it to someone who are also going through isolation. It'll be nice to share the motorsport loving. Today we're going to be doing an episode of overrated, underrated a little bit later on, something we haven't done for a little while. We'll be taking three random topics and saying, is it overrated? Are they overrated, underrated, or just about right? But before all of that, we're going to be talking about the coronavirus and the impact that it has had on Formula One to this point and the potential impact it could well have in the coming months. obviously as you know a number of races have already been either postponed or cancelled and this is a topic that we haven't really dealt into all that much we've kind of dedicated content elsewhere deciding to avoid it but we decided we're going to tackle it head on today we're going

to have a pragmatic approach to it a sensitive approach something that we don't normally do so I mean this is one for the record books I mean Sam first of all obviously F1 we've become a customs are seeing it every single year without fail and we never think of a reason that it won't be there. Of course, we're now into April. It's unlikely we're going to see Formula One at least for another few months. Sport can be such a brilliant form of escapism. Do you think that yourself and indeed other people who love motorsport, how much are you missing it? It's odd, isn't it? You kind of think that you get the build up to the season. We see the whole way through the winter break and that excitement was building and building.

You got delivery reveal time and the excitement just ramps up once again. You get to see the cars we've been waiting for for months on end after, you know, Hamilton wings and other ties and you think could this be another golden season of F1? Could we see something really special? It's getting closer. The cars go out there on practice. Again, all the cars turn up. They're all looking good.

Williams looking faster than ever. And all of a sudden, it's like a proper punch in the gut. It's like someone's taking the wind out of you all of a sudden. And you go, oh, I don't get that excitement every other weekend. You know, I don't get to look forward to that escapism, as you said, on a Saturday and a Sunday. I don't get to shout and scream over my favorite moments of a week, which is which I share with my closest friends and family and a fantastic community. And it's odd. It's something that has been taken away from us without anyone having a saying it, that community aspect, that bonding aspect, that drive and want.

and in many ways a business and a social aspect. And yet, one of the loveliest things I've seen in such a difficult and dark time is how much the community have come together. They've bonded on social media. We've seen drivers hit sim rigs and start doing online content, which will go into a little bit more detail later on, which is again fantastic. We've seen Formula One themselves put on e-sports events, and Sky are rerunning old races.

It's genuinely quite special to see how lovely, caring together this community is. And it's horrible that it's taking something so drastic and hurtful and difficult to get through as this virus to show that aspect of our community. But at least there's a real positive that can be taken away from it. But at the end of the day, I'm still so gutted that every weekend we get to there isn't a race. And it looks like it's going to be another good few weekends until we get to the point where a race could be on our race. screens looking like it could be after the normal summer breaks so maybe monsa spa you know it's getting harder and harder to predict where that race could be 2021 season of regs they're going to get pushed back we're getting to more detail on that later as well who knows when it's going to be

rectified thank god we have things like online racing and whatnot to happen because we need something to quench that competitive first yeah and i have to say i mean speaking from sort of my perspective i won't speak for for i review but as much as i do desperately want to see formula one and whether that does come in Italy, spa, even after that, I think it's really important that the organizers of Formula One and the event holders are sensible about their decisions. We saw something that was very nearly, I don't want to, I don't want to say catastrophic, but going ahead with the Melbourne Grand Prix,

I think would have been a terrible decision to make, and they were very close to doing that. And I can only hope that with any future decisions that they make, obviously they've already postponed a few that are happening in the recent future, but I don't want them to jeopardise people's health. I mean, that comes well above Formula One. But as you rightly say, Sam, the escapism that so many get, and it's not just the sport itself, it's the sense of community that comes with it.

The actual action on track is only the very start of it. It's the tip of the iceberg when it comes to people enjoying it and having that escapist. And I mean, speaking to the point of sim racing, because I think that's what we should come on to next and how that has risen and to the occasion really. Creativity, I think, really comes from, the best creativity comes from crisis moments. It comes from when you are forced to think outside of the box.

I know, sort of speaking from our perspective, not having that live action to comment on and to react to, it's forced us to really think outside the box and go, okay, what can we do instead? What's going to work the best? what do people want in these times where there is so much bad news going around. There's, you know, you can look left, you can look right and you'll see two different bits of bad news. And you want some sort of, some sort of good to come out of it, some sort of

positivity. And it's forced us to really think, okay, how do we give that to the people? How do we go about that? And I'm sure that has been the same for so many content creators in the Formula One community, but just in any form of content creation, even not related to, sport. In terms of the online racing, Sam, how do you think that that's gone? Because obviously, there were a few events that were organised very last moment for the Australian Grand Prix weekend, the race and Voloche managed to put something together. Now it seems to be something of a more organized approach. Now they've got time to do it. Do you think that this has been a, you know, substantial rising for sim racing? And do you think it will last even when Formula One does come

them back. See, this is what's really interesting about sim racing in general. Before we even talk about the effects that this pandemic has had on sim racing, is if you look at sports as a whole and how their esports counterparts can play into that, racing is by far the most realistic and close comparison to its real-life counterpart. You know, you've got FIFA when it comes to football, and it's not the same, right? You're playing it on a controller, whereas you look at, say, Madding as well, or the NBA. Again, you're playing it on a controller.

but you look at Sim racing, you're there, whether it being a studio in your bedroom, depending on who you are, you might be a real racing driver, you might be someone like myself who is lucky enough to have a spare third bedroom or I sit up on a Logitex set up in the corner and I get to do some laps. And I feel like a lot of the time I'm on the track and it's fantastic, right? And so why not take advantage of having such a close comparison digitally as we do in real light? And hats off to the likes of the race, hats off to Valacche, you know, Dickleason, Jack Nicholson is doing a fantastic job

commentating with Jolian Palmer and they threw that together. They absolutely cobbled it together around nowhere. John Eric Verne putting together the Volochette stuff and the amount of drivers we saw

and not just drivers, but celebrities, sports people turning up for these things and it shows you what racing has as a pulling together moment for the whole community that's going through this awful, awful predicament that we're in.

You know, Cautoir, Real Madrid's goalkeeper, was racing in one of Voloches races. You've got people like, you know, Pajango is racing alongside Max Verstappen and DeCosta is there. People like Roberto Mary are on track, you know, one Pablo Montoya out on track racing the likes of sim races such as Jimmy Broadbeck and Tim McDuck and Arava, you know, this is a coming together of worlds. And yes, it was cobbled together at the start. But it's taken off. Landon Norris was the largest followed, a contestant.

creator on Twitch for a whole day last weekend, which is incredible. I mean, yes, he's got the following due to being an F1 driver, but being F1 driver doesn't make you popular. That makes you known. Landon Norris has shown his personality there, and he's shown that F1 can be an enjoyable, popular, easygoing, and exciting aspect of the sport. And I think sim racing, especially with the amount of Sims we've got now, not just the F1 2019 game, which arguably is more on the arcade side than Sim, but you've got Race Room, you've got R Factor, which is fantastic. You've got eye racing as well, the amount of cars you've got access to, the amount of teams available, and the amount of teams that are actually willing to put funding into

this now to create some kind of virtual aspect to it. You know, Rudy Van Buren was racing as well. He was obviously World's Fastest Gamer. He's still races with McLaren, I think it is. It's genuinely incredible to see the turn-up between real-life successful drivers. Holkerbergs bought a whole Sim just to try it. George Russell has just bought a whole SIM just to get involved. And then people who are just casual races.

You know, again, people that just make content on YouTube because they enjoy it. People who are just quick at Sims getting invited to take part in it. And obviously, the key part of this is that Sims are not just for fun. Real life racing drivers have to use sim racing technology to develop their understanding of tracks, to help development of cars. So they're also benefiting out of this. and teams are also going to benefit out of this and it's keeping both the commercial

and team aspect of this alive and around that the community is thriving. I think across YouTube, when the race and Voloche put on those first few races alongside Jimmy Broadbeck stream, which was the third largest, there was over 120,000 concurrent viewers on YouTube live streams for F1

and racing-related content, which is just incredible from an online community. It's had a difficult starts because it's been thrown into it. You know, you've had to grab it by the horns and see what you could do with it. But my God, they've organized it well. They've done a brilliant job.

Everyone is putting together. The level of production that they're now putting into this is fantastic. We've now seeing it officially broadcast on the Formula One channel, on the website, on Sky Sports. There were even certain commentators getting involved as well. Generally brilliant. I think for Sim Racing, this could be the birth of an absolutely fantastic life, where actually, maybe in 50 to 100 years time, we don't see racing on the track anymore

if sim racing becomes that realistic. You never know what can happen, but I think this is only good for gaming, sim racing and the online racing community. Yeah, I agree. And it just sort of lends itself to situations that you would never see on track. An indie car racer versus a popular streamer

versus a current Formula One driver versus a former Formula One driver, versus a, you know, a regular sim racer. It's these sort of situations you would never get on track. So it's brilliant that this situation, as terrible as it is, has given an opportunity for that kind of thing to happen. And it's an opportunity for, you know, people who do race competitively on sims, say it's eye racing, say it's our factor, you know, to prove themselves and to make a name for themselves.

You know, they've got the world watching them. They've got thousands more people watching them now than would have been before. And it gives opportunity even for the guys who are in great positions. You know, Lando Norris is a McLaren F one driver. That isn't going to change. That's, you know, he's earned that place already. But his position in the community for what he's been able to do and really just show his personality, that's going to serve him so well for the upcoming years.

So that leads me on to the question, Sam, because obviously at the not Bahrain Grand Prix, that sort of F1 officially put together. Was it only Nicholas Latifie? It was only Latifie and Norris, and that was about it, who took part, right? I mean, I don't think there's been such an involvement from the current F1 drivers as there was, say, from the current indie car drivers on that race.

Do you think that those drivers should embrace this a bit more and have a bit of fun? I 100% think they should embrace it as much as possible. As we've seen with Norris and Baskappen, it's a fantastic way to boost your profile when you're off the grid. I mean, someone like Lewis Hamilton maybe thinks, why do I need to do that? I've got other things going on. Maybe he thinks it's a bit old. But there you go, Nico Holgerberg was there.

He's repping it on the new game. He's got himself a new setup. He's got no idea what he's doing, which I absolutely love. But the boy's got pace. The one issue, I think, when it comes to, you know, an IndyCar and I racing or the real F1 drivers on F1, 2019. is the quality of the game that they're playing. I know that sounds a bit odd, but F12019, created by Codemaskers,

has some serious online issues. You know, there's a lot of latency differences. There's a lot of lag that can happen, which causes lag spikes, which causes crashes for no reason. And the difference between ir racing, where you can upload any livery you want without real copyright issues

and F1 2019, which, of course, is the fully licensed Formula One game, and they've got the rights for that for another three, four years at least, is that that game is not, as realistic as ira racing. If you were going to take all the official cars and put them onto eye racing, I think you've got a much more attractive proposition

for hardcore drivers that care more about the driving and they do about the fact that they're playing a game. You know, you haven't seen Daniel Ricardo jump onto a sim. You haven't seen Valtrey Bottas jumping onto a sim. But you have seen the likes of everybody said, Norris, the Tifi. George Russell's just picked it up.

The Stappen's on there now. Holkerberg, who is obviously an extra driver. He's on it. It needs something, I think, a little more realistic, a little more with a bit of proposition behind it, I think, to bring on the rest of the grid. I don't know if that's just because you can't pick up all the NASCAR or IndyCar liverys and skip the straight on to eye racing.

You can't for F1 due to maybe copyright issues. But I'd love for the allowance to be made to have something come up that gives the fans something to really engage with. Even a mini championship that honestly doesn't mean a lot. You know, you get a tying little trophy. It's not going to go down in a history books of world champions. But it could be fun. It could be an interesting, maybe a cash prize, maybe an extra five points in the real life season. I definitely think that F1 drivers need to embrace what is going on more and get involved with

the community. Now is the time to, if you're going to be selfish about it, raise your profile, make yourself look good, get a longer respect off a lot of people. Now is the time to do it. And hey, I'd like to see a lot more racing from real-life drivers. Lewis Hamilton, Kimmy Reichen and Landon Norris going wheel to will in F1-2119 and then one of them bumping them off and cutting the corner into hairpin time. Sounds ideal to me.

Yeah, I think the platform might make a difference here. I think F1's pretty locked in to what they have to do in terms of using F1 2019. It would look a bit weird if they went off and used something else. Of course, IndyCar have a bit more flexibility. And I think, you know, they put together a great broadcast. And you have plenty of people racing in that race at Watkins Glen that didn't really know what they were doing in terms of sim racing, but they decided to just roll with it and give it a go. and didn't really care that, you know, if they were beaten,

they weren't going to lose reputation or anything like that. Sorry, Ben. I was just going to jump on to say the other thing that means that why Lando and the Skaplan and the like are so into Sim racing and make it so regular, is that they are part of Team Red Line Racing, which is they call themselves the fastest team online in the world. They've got people like Nick Katzberg on there as well. Christian Kishman, I can't practice so name.

Richard Stangaway's in there Kevin Banderlinder's on there So they've got really almost like a real-life team That are sim races So maybe if there was a bit more of that going on Then it could be more enticing But Harry, you're right Lewis Hamilton I think plays a lot of GT sport

I don't know if maybe his sponsorship In an odd way with that game Prevents him from taking part In a public domain on other games Maybe that's the issue with Formula One There's a sponsorship issue going on But yeah, let's move on from the Simwell It's good to see it bounce back

in a very big way. Hopefully it carries on to prosper even when the season does return. But let's move on to the other effects of the virus. Yeah, absolutely. And they've got at least a few months to work it out. So we'll see how that develops. Moving on to sort of how the 2020 championship might look. Of course, we have no idea when the championship will start or even if it will start at all. We don't know that for certain. Harry's already floated the idea about of perhaps a 2020, 2020, 2021 superseason. That's definitely a possibility that is on the table at the moment. But let's just say it's not going to start imminently.

Let's say that there's a good chance it starts towards sort of the end of the summer break. Do you think that the 2020 championship would be diminished in any way if they did just limit it to say, let's say that there's 10 races, maybe even single figures, do you think that at that point it becomes worth it? Because the early sort of Formula One seasons at the 1950s, they did include fewer than 10 races. And, you know, we count Fangio's championships as, as master's, and meaning just as much as current-day Hamilton's championships.

Do you think that a modern sort of 10 race season, do you think that that would be good for, do you think that would be no good for the sport? Sam, what do you think about this one? The thing is, it shouldn't matter, right? You make the incredibly valid point that the first few championships were single-figure championships, and we look at those guys as some of the best races of all time. I mean, we understand the machinery was an absolute box with an engine in it, and absolutely no protection,

so it's more a safety factor that you can drive that around over 100 miles and out, but we do still value those championships as highly as, you know, Hamilton's most recent Rosberg and whatnot. What plays on my mind

is because of the current method of Formula One with the endurance, with how the cars run, I don't think the community will value it, if it's, say, between 8 and 10 races. And if I'm Lewis Hamilton, which I'm most definitely not,

and I would, wing my seventh title, but there's only eight races in the championship, I think there is forever a slightly tainted point of view on me matching Michael Schumacher's record, eight race championship. I feel like he'll be a little disappointed. I think the best way to do it, if we start as late as say Singapore, is to have a superseason. I think if he goes and wins a superseason of maybe 24 races across, you know, 14, 15 months, hangs down, deserves it. One hundred percent, you know, everyone goes, fair play, you've done it over that distance, congratulations. It also means that Aber Dhabi might not be the last race of the season, which would be really

exciting. So, yeah, I've oddly, I think it does diminish it. I'm not entirely sure why, maybe you two have an idea on that. But for me, I think it needs to be at least minimum 15, 60 races for me to feel like it's an authentic modern F1 season. So, just sort of, I mean, you've used Lewis Hamilton as the example and how he might stack up against Michael Schumacher if he were to win a season which was much, you know, not the same length as the other ones. What if someone like Valtrey Bottas wins a championship

and that ends up being the only championship he wins in his career? Do you then think that he is undeserving? Because I certainly don't, but would you say that, would you say that? I wouldn't necessarily say he's undeserving. I think there would always be the question on analysts, pundits, commentators' lips of, yeah, he won an eight-race championship. Can he have held on to that, though, if there are another 13 races left in the season? Because he's been that close before eight races into a season, and then he's immediately lost it. Or after the summer break, he's been nowhere. I think that a lucky bit of form or a reliability issue over eight races is so impactful that, whereas across 20 to 23 races,

you can run that out. The average will play it out. Most people will have a DNF or a reliability show for 20 to 23 races. Over eight races, if the same points apply, maybe that's a difference. Maybe we have to go back

to old F1 point systems or something to dilute what that difference could be. But if I'm Valtrey Bottas, I win my only world championship on the only season that's eight races long, I don't know how proud I feel about achieving. He might feel completely different, of course. But for me, that's like,

I won that awkward, dodgy season. that people only remember due to there being a pandemic across the world. Maybe I've lost it anyway. Maybe I would have one. I will never know. So I wouldn't feel that validated if it was me. For me, I think 10 is the cutoff point. Any less than 10, I'd roll it into a superseason.

Any more than that, I think, you know, keep it as one season. I actually think it holds a bit more value if someone were to win a championship with only sort of eight, 10 races. two reasons behind that. First of all is how reliable these current cars are. I think the cars are at a stage where they are reliable enough that there are so few retirements now due to engine failures and the like that I think you will probably get a completely fair championship.

If you did this 20 years ago, cars were retiring so much more often. You think of like the BAR Hondas of the early noughties in late 90s, how much they retired. And it wasn't just them, other teams as well. I think it would perhaps be a bit more unfair, but because so many cars finished races now,

I reckon you can get a good championship out of that. And also, I mean, to the point where, you know, Valtrey Bottas, if he were to win, sort of, you know, if he was in the lead after seven or eight races, as he has been in previous seasons, or at least he's been in touching distance, then, you know, the playing field is very known in that circumstance.

You know, Hamilton knows he's got 20 races or 21 races. If he knows he's only got seven or eight, I don't think he allows the same thing to happen, if you get what I mean there. And I think that's what keeps it fair, is that everyone, as long as everyone knows exactly what's happening and knows how many races there will be, then it's a level playing field.

You know, you've got, you know, they lay it out and say there will be eight races. These are the eight races. Go for it. everyone knows the same. Everyone understands, you know, what's happening. So, yeah, I don't see, I don't see any problem with it. Will people look at it differently and say that the value isn't as high?

Maybe they will. I'm going to look at it and say they fully deserve it, whoever would win that theoretical championship. That's very interesting. I wonder what people outside of the three of us would think, if you do have an opinion on that, either get in contact with us at Elbreaking on Twitter. If you're watching this kind of

on form of social media, then make sure you get involved. We have an email as well. If you want to have a little debate to get involved, it would just be interesting to know what people actually think about either a really short eight to ten race season or I think for me the cutoff

would probably be 14 races. I think that way you've got a definite majority of races going into the calendar then. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right with that. I think we've probably exhausted all of that now. We are having slight technical issues. Harry has been completely booted from the session because his internet is capable of producing about one megabyte per second, but there you can't say much. Mine is probably only about two ahead of that.

Sam, you're the one, you're the Wi-Fi king out of the three of us, aren't you? Technology-wise, I am in the future ages in comparison to you absolute Bronx-age people down there. I'm surprised that you guys haven't caught up yet. Yeah, I know. I know, literally in the middle of the sticks. I'm surprised we can even get this recording going. We'll update you as to if Harry can get back in the session or not. Should we start?

We'll at least start with underrated, overrated. It's such a shame, actually, because we were going to have an incredible jingle. But of course, Harry was the one controlling the soundboard. So, Sam, people have been denied. Well, you know what, Ben? I don't think we should deny people that. I think we should talk about a statement that's come out. We'll do some more proper talk.

And then, because if we can, if not, we'd rather pause and folks will try and do a seamless edit if we can. The other topic that we had there was somewhat, I forget who it was now, have said that out of all the teams, it will be Ferrari, who would be an absolute disadvantage if the new regulations were pushed back. usually it's you asking the question, Ben, but what do you make of that allegation? Why do you think someone serious in the F1 world has come out publicly with that statement? I mean, the number one thing you would think of is that Italy were more heavily affected early by this. Maybe that has really disrupted what they're trying to do. To be honest, I'm not all about this speculation as to who it will benefit and who it won't. obviously the F1 teams, as we're going to discuss in sort of videos on our YouTube channel,

the F1 teams are very united in terms of going away from the sport and actually putting their, you know, putting their expertise and their resources to good use in terms of fighting this. I have no idea. I have absolutely no idea why Ferrari might be at a disadvantage. I've got no idea why Red Bull might be an advantage. I can't say. And I think anyone who is saying they're an advantage, they're not an advantage,

is peeing into the Gale Force wind. I completely agree with you. The only thing I can think of around that topic in terms of whether someone might have an advantage or a disadvantage is not one specific team. It's more, I think the midfield and the background as such as Williams and Haas at the moment might have a little more time to,

understand the new regulations and where to place their budgets more effectively, because as much as we've now got a cost cap, those smaller teams can't always meet that very lofty heights of the cost cap. So maybe that's where the advantage plays in. Maybe the likes of racing points become asking Martin, Alpha Romeo, Alpha Tauri or Tori, however we're saying it, might actually have the chance of coming in. Harry, are you back in the session? Yes, I am back. Sorry about that, guys. My internet is, it sucks.

Soz. Well, I think that requires an avocados. There we go. We're back, baby. Yeah, so actually, in your absence, Harry, I was going to start underrated, overrated. But then obviously you had to put in the caveat that there wouldn't be a jingle, which Sam rightfully told me there's not having that. So we will now properly start overrated, underrated.

And I think we do have a jingle. Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, Underrated, Overrated, Ooh, Yeah, gets you activated, but please don't get aggravated or agitated. We should hope that you get captivated by F1 underrated, overrated. Yeah, it's F1, aggravated, underrated, underrated. F1. Sam, that was sensational, and I never knew you had stuff of vocabulary. That was really hard. I did that on the spot.

I really thought you were going to say constipated as well, but never mind. I tried to keep away from the really bad things. I almost so merely said, I hope this song doesn't get you impregnated. To be honest, I don't think it would, but... I also will not remember the order I said those words. I cannot wait for the outro. It's going to be great. Yeah, should we just end the segment here so there can be an outro?

No, we do have a few things to discuss in underrated, overrated. We are going to start today with Sochi, not the city, but the actual racetrack itself, the Russian Grand Prix. Sam, overrated, underrated. Right. There's a lot of people that listen to these podcasts, and they don't know a little secret that I've got when it comes to Sochi in Russia. when it comes to racing on a game, I love that track. I love it.

I am so good when it comes to racing around Russia, especially on the F1-211 game. It doesn't feature any other game, that's why. But I'm really good at it, right? So digitally, it's massively under-rating. It's great fun to have a fight round. In real life, I think the community hates it. I think everyone finds it a bit boring,

and I think that is totally expected. So I'm going to go down the middle. It's as it should be. It's a bit dull. It hasn't produced a brilliant race as of yet, apart from when Kviat, torpedo vessel. That was stellar. I loved it.

Yeah, I mean, regular corner cutting on the F1-2019 game around Sochi is just, I mean, you might as well not be doing any of the corners. It's something else. Strict corner cutting, on the other hand. A bit more difficult to get it. that right but you have gone down the middle at least for real life harry overrated underrated i don't think it can be overrated because it's not been rated it's rubbish i don't rate it

how is anyone overrating it it's just a car park and i agree with sam it's good fun on the game which is very weird but um yeah i i bloody hate going to a sochi not not that the place, but just the track. It's just dull, so dull. And what the lyric, yeah, that sounds right. The only time anything good happened was when Kfayat had his real torpedo hat on. So, yeah, no, Sochi, bin. I, yeah, I don't really like it too much.

However, because everyone hates it, I will say it's marginally, very marginally underrated. just because I think there are a few that are worse than it. I don't really understand why I don't like it because there are some great corners there. And I think overall the middle sector flows quite nicely. I think it's a little bit like Valencia. Like there are some great corners at Valencia. And I think overall it does work.

But for some reason, there's just something holding it back, whether it's the lack of atmosphere. Maybe it's just there's no elevation changes. could be any one of those things really but yeah I'm going to say it is ever so slightly underrated but that is literally only because everyone detests it. Do you want anything like

a topic to go with that or? If you want to. I mean that's not a jingle. It's a round of applause. That's fine. I'll accept it. That'll do. Okay. Topic number two. Mercedes and the hybrid era. Of course

they've won every championship. up until this point, Sam, have they been overrated or underrated in this era of Formula One? Massively, massively underrated. I mean, the absolute level of success that they have achieved, I think is massively taken for granted by the Formula One fans due to the fact that it's a bit boring. It's not boring when you think about it. You know, you didn't call Ferrari dominance boring

when they were having a great time back in the early, 2000s. So why is Mercedes boring? What's the difference there? I mean, it shows the absolute incredible teamwork that they've got. The engineering capabilities are fantastic. And this isn't just on track action that's incredible and underrated. Their level of design, their aerodynamic capabilities, their cohesion as a team, the ability to develop such an incredible power unit, all by themselves, not buying out of anyone. They are making it hand over fist, all them, using fantastic minds in their team. And their ability to also keep Lewis, Hamwin's. and happy across a whole rivalry, even Eco Rosberg.

They brought some of the best wheel to wheel racing we've seen. I mean, Bahrain was on a few nights ago, the jewel in the desert. That was a fantastic, fantastic race. One of the best battles on track I think I've ever seen since I've consciously watched Formula One. Their reign over Formula One is massively underrated. People get a little bit arsey about it. But I think it's been brilliant. It has been an absolute spectacle to watch.

I don't think we'll see a mechanical feat like this in terms of engineering, driving capabilities, leadership, Toto doing a fantastic job as well. Yes, you know, I have a fan of the saying, but there's no denying how bloody good it's being. And I don't think a lot of people would appreciate the feats that they've gone to to make that happen, especially up against the likes of Red Ball and Ferrari. They've dominated. It is so underrated, and they deserve every... Sam, does that mean you watched F1 unconsciously as well?

Yeah, when I was in the womb, I was broadcast F1 24-7. I mean, Harry, you open the door for that one. Anyway, Harry, what do you think? This is difficult. I don't think that, I don't think Mercedes are underrated. I think everyone completely appreciates how utterly brilliant they've been since the start of the hybrid era. They've been, you know, pretty much flawless.

I have to disagree with Sam. I think people did find the Ferrari dominance boring, and Mercedes has been even more dominant. But that's not to say that we've had loads of boring years in F1. We've had some cracking years in the hybrid era, not all of them, but some of them being really good. So I don't think they're underrated. I don't want to call them overrated because they're not overrated.

They've done a fantastic job. So I'm going to plonk down the middle on this, sorry, because I think they're just, they're rated. They're rated the right amount. They are rated. Conclusion from Harry Ead, they are rated. You're welcome. I am going to agree with Sam.

I think they are quite underrated, even though people do see how dominant they've been and admire their success. I don't think they admire it quite as much as they should. I don't think people understand how dominant they actually are. The 2000 to 2004 Ferraris that dominated that is kind of the benchmark. I think Mercedes have smashed through it.

I'm not going to say it's not close, but if you had to tell me which of the two eras was more dominant, I would say the Mercedes era without having to think too hard about it. The closest that Mercedes have come to not winning a championship was 2017 when Spastien Vettel

obviously had a very good first half of the season, but still with a few races to go, it was pretty certain that he wasn't going to win. Bear in mind that the early year Ferraris of the 2000s, Kimi Reichen and very nearly beat Michael Schumacher in 2003. No one has come that close to beat at Mercedes in the hybrid era. I agree entirely with what you say, Sam. It's hard to say that they are very underrated

because everyone does see how brilliant they are week in, week out. But I don't think how amazing they've truly been will be fully acknowledged. for another 20 years or so when people can sort of look back and say, wow, that was impressive what they managed to do there. Good. All right. That's nice to hear someone agree with me for once.

Yeah, it must be a bit of a... It doesn't happen all that often. I'm sorry. Onwards. Please, onwards. Now, before I get offended again... Avocados from Mexico. I mean, that cheers me.

I'll pick any situation. All right. Third topic. Last one for today. Goat Strull Overrated, underrated, Harry Ead, what do you think? I don't think he's...

I'd say maybe he was previously overrated. He came in to F on with quite a promising junior career and since then has not really delivered. so I think he was overrated, but look at him now. I don't think anyone overrates him at all. He's just stroll,

even though he's goat stroll. He's still stroll. Yeah, I'm just going to, I'm being boring today. I'm going to plunk right down the middle of rated. He's definitely not underrated, even though he's had a couple of good performances, but he's not underrated.

He's just rated. All right. Straight down the middle, another rated from Harry. Literally, using an option that isn't even one of the two that's available in the title of this segment, but I like it. Sam, overrated, underrated, Lance Stroll. I wonder if I'm going to be a little controversial, not something I'm regularly appearing in the terms of, it's controversial. Goat Strull is underrated. Not only because he bring

quality entertainment to the late-breaking channel on a regular basis, which also gives him extra bonus marks. The man has won junior championships. He's always been very successful in the younger generations. He's moved up to Formula One super early. He's a really young guy. He manages to go toe to toe with some really experienced drivers. You know, his teammate is Perez, which is hard to deal with. You know, the guy's got so much experience.

It always does so well. He picks up a podium in his debut season in F1. And I genuinely think that if he sorts out qualifying on a Saturday, even if it's by 50%, he hasn't got to be as good as Perez, but if he just gets 50% better, then I think he can match Perez across the season. I would go as far to say, actually, that maybe he could beat Perez

if he pulls it together just a little more, calms himself down. I think he's capable of being something quite interesting in the future. Yes, he's like a couple of dodgy performances, but the man does well and his first lap starts. I mean, yeah, he starts at the back of the grid, so it's a little easier, but he always recovers well.

A bad driver wouldn't even recover well. So I think he is under-racing. I think he's got a lot more to show. And as much as we take the Mickey a little bit, go Stroh, I think, could bring some exciting things in the future. Stroll isn't great. However, I do think he is a little underrated. Just because everyone views him as this pay driver who is talentless,

which is completely and utterly wrong. He is not talentless. And he would put pay drivers of the past to shape. He would destroy them. I think that says a lot about the current standard and the quality of the Formula One grid, really, more than anything. Yes, he's still behind nearly everyone on the grid, but it's such a high quality grid now. It's difficult. Yeah, qualifying is always really poor for him.

He does recover that somewhat in the race, and he is fairly opportunistic. He does take advantage when given an opportunity. He did nearly match Felipe Massa in his debut Formula One season as a teenager. That's no mean feat. I mean, he's had the Williams car that was pretty bad and couldn't really do much with that. And to be honest, the racing point for most of last season wasn't brilliant either. So it would be interesting to see him if the racing point was a little bit better and whether he can cope with Perez. I don't think he can.

I don't think he's of the same ability. Having said that, though, he's not talentless. Like I said in the beginning, he's not talentless. And a lot of people think he is. So underrated. There you go, folks. What do you think about goat stroll? Overrated?

Underrated? Get down in the comments. Goat stroll. And to be honest, I can't think of a better way to finish a podcast other than on Goat Strull. So Sam, would you mind getting us out of here for this one? It's going to be so different to the first one, folks, because I got to remember it.

Here we go. Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, all right, it's coming. F1. Overrated, underrating. This song gets you nauseating. Samsung's things that are underrelated. Please don't get irritating, this game is very understating and makes me rather animating. Yeah, it's F1, overrated, underrated, yeah. F1, underrated, overrated. F1, underrelated, overrelated, it's F1. Obviously, the hardest title to make a song out of in the world.

In between all the last. That was impressive, Sam. I've got to say. I don't get a lot of time to come up with these. That's hard. Yeah, fair play to you. And now I'm going to make you talk a bit more because, yeah, we're done for this episode.

We're going to get out of here. So, I mean, that theme song alone, that surely deserves you listening to us for the next six months. I mean, that's secured a lot of people listening. I should hope so. I put a lot of effort into that. If you didn't enjoy me singing or anything we've actually discussed in a serious manner, then maybe subscribe, share it with someone who you know likes motorsport and come back for the next one.

We've got YouTube videos going up. We've got races going up now to keep you your racing thirst going. And of course, the podcast will be here every single week from now until possibly ever. So, do get involved. But until the next time you hear us in your eardrums, I've been Samuel saying. I've been Ben Hocking. And I've been Chiangala Fitzickel. I remember keep breaking late.

This podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network.