The Late Braking F1 Podcast - F1 New Year's Resolutions!

Episode Date: January 4, 2023

Late Braking is back for 2023!....well, two thirds of us at least. Join Ben and Sam as they look at whether F1 is eyeing up an 11th team, Zak Brown’s comments on F1 becoming overly political, and hand out some New Year’s Resolutions for the drivers. JOIN our Discord: https://discord.gg/dQJdu2SbAm SUPPORT our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/latebraking TWEET us @LBraking BUY our merch: https://late-braking-f1-podcast.creator-spring.com/ SUBSCRIBE to our podcast! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network. Thank you for listening to the Late Breaking F1 podcast. Make sure to tune in for new episodes every Wednesday and Grand Prix Sunday. Hello and a very warm welcome to the late breaking F1 podcast presented by Sam Sage and me, Ben Hocking. A very happy new year to you all. Late breakings back for 2003 or at least two thirds of us are because, Harry doesn't care about any of you all. Late Breaking Light is not here this week.

He'll be back next week. For his ventures in Thailand. Not at all jealous whatsoever. But the two of us will be able to man the fort, we hope. New Year and New Year, New Year, New Year, and my new year's resolution was to just get Harry out of my life. And it's become well because, of course, now I'm left with just my favourite late breaker. And that is you being late Breaking Light. You have to hang it in IP to unlock us.

He's the free trial version on the app store. No, we missing me. He'll be back very, very soon. But yeah, bloody lovely to be back. Had a lovely break. Thank you for letting us all have a break. Hope you joined the quiz episode. I had fish cakes for dinner.

If I was interested, as a start to the year. Not a pizza. That's on Sunday. Anyway, yeah. New Year, New Me. No pizza on Wednesday, Ben. How about you? New Year, New Year, New You?

Let's go with yes. I mean, I feel like my new year. year's resolution should be to be less smug. I was very smug in 2022. So I'm going to be trying be less smug in 2023. The problem is it looks like I'm going to win our fantasy football league. So I've got like an excuse at the start of the year to be smug. And I have to really like, hopefully I lose next week. And I don't actually win the league. And then I don't have to be some, you know, unsmug about something. But unless you're beating me in the teammate wars, you can be as smugg as you'd like. I'm your, I'm your cheer.

leader, I'm over here picking up, come on bang. Any other time, if it's against me, I will kill you. Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. Also, I'm just for your information, when we do an end of year quiz for the end of 2023, what did you have for your first recording dinner of the year will be a question? And it won't be pizza, and I'm going to get it wrong. I'm going to get it wrong.

Yeah, you certainly will. We've got plenty to talk about because it's been a few weeks since we've really dealt with any F1 news. And whilst it is end of December, beginning of January, there's still plenty to keep us occupied. And if you were wondering, you will hear the sultry tones of Harry Ead, at least once in this podcast. He has been able to upload something. But up tonight, we've got potentially a new F1 team. Is there going to be an 11th F1 team? We're going to be talking about the drivers and the team principals giving their top 10 drivers of 2022. How do they? They compared to our lists? What did they get right? What did they get wrong? Zach Brown's comments on F1

being overly political, whether we agree or disagree with his comments there. And we're going to kick off with some New Year's resolutions for some drivers. So this is where Harry will contribute a little bit coming up. But we'll start with you, Sam. Lewis Hamilton, New Year's resolution for him. So it's so very difficult for a seven-time world champion to go into a new year thinking, what can I do now? What is it that I could do that, you know, oh, I haven't done yet or, you know, new year, new me. I think for Lewis Hamilton, it's almost a continuation of the past. And I don't think Lewis Hamilton has to go out and beat George Russell. You know, like, there is, it's allowed to be a changing of the guard. You're allowed to have that, hey, Lewis is coming off

the horse. George Russell is very much on the horse now. And weird analogy. And when you look at Lewis Hamilton, you think, what hasn't he achieved? An eighth world title? I mean, don't know wrong. If Mercedes has got a title winning car in their hands, expect Lewis Hamilton to throw literally everything and George Russell himself at the title opportunity to try and secure it. But for me, it's to continue being a team leader and leaving a strong legacy at the Segeys. He's not going to be around forever. Three, four years at the absolute maximum, I think, at the max. And I think he, oh, maybe he shouldn't use the max so much. We're talking like Lewis Hamilton. That might rattle a few people. My point is, he needs to set up the team long term for success.

He's going to be an ambassador for them when he leads Formula One in the next couple of seasons. Guy George Russell as well. Lewis Hamilton, New Year's Resolution, be the ultimate team leader. If you're wondering, everyone, we've picked out nine random drivers, and they are very much random for the ones that we've picked. There was no science to this whatsoever. Any long-term listener of the podcast will know we never deal with science, but if you are newer to the podcast, it's completely random.

Speaking of which, we go from Lewis Hamilton to Esteban Ockon, two drivers that are very closely associated with one another. I guess if it's Suzuki, they are. But Estabana O'Con, my New Year's resolution for Esteban O'Con is to work effectively with your teammate. That's very amicable. Well, if you think about Esteban O'Con and his relatively, young career.

Although I guess we're heading away from being able to say that. He's had issues with his teammates. He's had issues with Sergio Perez at the time at Force India and Racing Point and everything else the team was known as back then.

And we know that he had some issues with Fernando Alonzo at the back end of the 2022 season. And I'm not necessarily saying, especially in the Alonzo's circumstance, that it was necessarily his fault that he was having these issues. But really,

Pierre Gazley, we know that they have previous issues, and they're going to have to get over it in order to make this work in 2023. If you think of where O'Conn is in his career, it is so similarly aligned with where Gazley is in his career that there is the real potential that they try and one-up each other to the point where they just don't work well as a team. And it goes against what Alpina are trying to do, which is ultimately getting amongst the front runners. If you just think about this. Pierre Gasly, 26 years old, born in February of 1996. Estaban Ocon, 26 years old, born in September of 1996, literally seven months between them. They each have one win. Gassley has three podiums, O'Con has two. Pierre Gasley has 108 starts. O'Con has 111,

so three more. And points-wise, they're even close. Pierre-Gazley has three-three-two, Esteban-O'con has 364. So they are so similarly aligned with where they are in their respective careers that it could be damaging. So for Ocon's sake, I would say, work well with your teammate because if you can't get over that really last bit that he needs to achieve, it will likely hold him back. Sam Sage signs. I've got written on my notepad for the next one. Yeah. Samuel Seiz. That was a football player, wasn't it, that we found on FIFA. I think he plays for someone like Hull. He played for Leeds, didn't he?

That's it. Oh, something like that. Some nice northern team, I'm sure. Has a lovely time, I imagine, up in the north. Anyway, Carl Sites, this one is playing and simple. You gotta beat Charles LeClermer, man. You've got to be top of that team. I think if...

Two out of three years, that will make it. And I think that shows that he's a real fighter in that team. I think it shows that he's got a real place in that Ferrari team. If he's comfortable... beating a gang by Charlotte Claire. It goes two out of three is the other way round. Remember how close that first year was. This final year almost feels like the deciding year.

You know, like, where you getting street fighter, you get like fight final round. This is it, right? This is the decider of who's number one now at Ferrari. Now, we all know that God the Claire has God the Claire, but Carlos Seitz is going to slouch. He will pull out a fantastic result, and this is the year that he needs to decide it.

And he needs to go out there and thrash, Sheller. I don't just mean beat by a point. It used to be like a win ahead, a cut the wings ahead. If Ferrari had the car, of course, we don't know yet. But for me, you've got to beat Lecler, you've got to beat him efficiently and comfortably. And I think that's got to be his good resolution. I feel like there was some encouraging signs towards the end of last year.

Like, well, there you go. It was starting to happen for it. Certainly if you look at like the US, that qualifying lap, obviously didn't get a chance to convert that in the race thanks to bowling ball and Russell, but it felt like it was getting there towards the end of last year. He wasn't hooked up. Yeah, he wasn't hooked up very well with the car earlier in the year. I don't know whether he takes that into 2022 or not, but I'll move on. I've selected Lance Stroll for the next one. So Lance Stroll goes from having to face a four-time world champion to a two-time world champion.

So actually, it should be, yeah, exactly. you'll be facing Nicholas Latifi in 2024 or will be good. Yeah, it's not really an easier challenge, is it? Fernando Alonzo is his teammate? So I was thinking about what this one could be as a New Year's resolution and I was sort of rumbling around in my mind maybe beat Alonzo five times in qualifying. It doesn't sound like much, but maybe that should be it or score 70% of what Fernando Alonzo scores for the year.

Would that be a success? And then I completely went the other way with it. And I said, actually, Lance, your New Year's resolution, focus on yourself. Because if you compare yourself to Fernando Alonzo, it's not going to be a good year and you are going to be left with disappointment. Fernando Alonzo is very good at the F1. And I hate to break it to you, Lance. He's better than you at the F1. And that's okay.

It's a shocker. That's okay. The quicker you accept that this year, the better it's going to be. for you. And I think if he just focuses on his own driving, focuses on himself and beating other teams around him rather than just his teammate, that will serve him best. Will it mean he beats Fernando Alonzo? No, but is that realistic? Possibly not. I think he just needs to focus on himself, focus on improving his qualifying particularly, and go from there. Don't compare yourself too directly to Fernando Alonzo because it probably won't go very well. It's the best thing that

stroll could do really just to follow Alonso around like a puppy dog and anything Alonso does Lankstrol should immediately do after him. Not better because that will of course upset Fernando, God Fernando, but just like 1% worse. Because in theory if you're 1% worse in Fernando Alonkso at every single part of the season, you can be a pretty good racing driver, right? So for me, just do everything a moment after Alonso does it? I almost agree with you until you think that Fernando Alonzo will probably leave in a rage at the end of the year, which Alonzo can do because there are other teams willing to pick up his talent. Stroll can't do that otherwise he'll be out of F1.

He's on the gnaughty step, isn't he? A couple of Strull was putting him straight on the gnaughty step. So maybe don't do that that Alonzo might do. But everything else, completely agree. Should we hear from Harry? It's been too long. Late breaking light. Let's give him his air time.

All right. So Harry's picked out three drivers to give New Year's resolutions to. he's picked out I don't know what order this is in Charles LeClair Oscar Piastri and Sergio Perez that might be the right order

let's see Hello everyone Harry I should have done that as Brexit beef Hello Brexit beef here No sorry Hello everyone

It is Harry Otherwise no it's late breaking light You'll obviously have realised that I'm not on the podcast This week Which you know I'm very sad about But I am still on holiday

and I'm actually currently lying on a beach whilst I do this. So, you know, I'm sorry I'm not there, but also not that sorry. Anyway, I said I would do or submit a few New Year's resolutions for a few drivers, as if I'm a listener doing a submission, which is nice. I feel privileged to be on this side of the podcast. Anyway, the first one I'm going to do is Shao LeClair, and his New Year's resolution is to not crash. not so he didn't do it a lot last year

but if he wants well you know if Ferrari can give him the car first obviously but if he wants to challenge Vastappen over an entire year over an entire season he needs to iron out those mistakes just as Vastappen had to when he you know was crashing quite a few times

earlier on his career so yeah I think it's a key one for LeClau because as much as Ferrari didn't provide him with the right package last year he made a couple of mistakes himself so he needs to iron them those out if he wants to beat old Maxi Vistap

My second one is for Osapiestri Now his news resolution is to just not panic Or put too much pressure on his own shoulders And I just think because of all the controversy That was surrounding his announcement last year his form in the junior formulas which has been excellent I think there's a lot of

expectations there but he's going up against Landon Norris who you know as as we said in our review podcast at the end of last year had a sublime year and is driving beautifully and you know has effectively forced Daniel Ricardo out of a out of a team which you know you wouldn't have put money on

so yeah but for Piastri I think if Norris does beat him, which, you know, could happen, I think, or he's beating him regularly. I think he just needs not to panic because there's a lot of pressure on that young man's shoulders. So that's my resolution for Piastri. And the third one I was going to do, I've forgotten. Oh, I know I've got it. Sorry, guys. Is Sergio Perez.

And his news resolution is to just be more consistent. they should have got a 1-2 last year in all honesty and it was Perez's lack of consistency I think Perez still had a really good year but it wasn't enough clearly to get P2 in the championship so I think this year he really needs to up that consistency because Daniel Ricardo is there and he's got a big presence

he's got quite a few wins he's well-known well-liked within Red Bull and I don't know I just think if Perez has a bad year, then Daniel Riccardo is going to be knocking on Christian Horner's door every 30 seconds asking for that second seat. So important year for Paris, I think, you know, he's not at the end of his career, but it's coming to a close. So I think he needs to make sure he sees it out with a few more years. Anyway, this has been great. Hope you're having a lovely, lovely week.

And I will be there properly next week. I also will apologise in advance because if the podcast is edited terribly, it's not on me because I'm not allowed to do it. Anyway, Sam Ben, you suck as ever and I'll speak to soon. Bye-bye. Oh, lovely and kind as always. You know, you can record those calm sounds, you know, when you hear the waves in the background where he just talks softly over it. It was quite therapeutic to listen to. I quite enjoyed it.

Yeah. Until he forgot who the third person was. I mean, that's, is that the most Harry? thing you've ever heard in your life. Textbook. A Harry Ead. A Harry Ead textbook, that would absolutely be included and I would read that.

Thank you for your contribution, Harry. You won't hear from him again for the rest of the show. Apologies, folks. Or you're welcome, folks, depending on your stance. Yuki Sanoda, late-breaking Hall of Famer. What's his New Year's resolution, Sam? Prove yourself, Yuki. That is your

New Year's resolution. You need to to, and obviously we don't know where that Alpha Tower is going to sit. We've recently just seen their news article come out that they are shedding sponsors, and it all seems a little bit wayward there, but you're going up against Nick DeVries, who, former world champion, Formula 2 world champion, things that you've got done, UK. So you need to make sure that you win that team battle,

and you prove yourself as a long-term Formula One driver, because I think another season of inconsistencies, crashing the car, you know, not bringing home results when they're there in the time, able to take is going to put you in a very precarious position when one of these Red Bull junior drivers decides to finally step up and show what you know you got the likes of Dennis Halger right an F2 who are very very good and looking very very tasty for an F1 seat if you're not proving yourself you're the on that's out of here so you can see under there your news resolution prove you're here for the long term this year yeah Hall of Fame credentials can only get you so far I'm afraid

So I would listen to Mr. Sage. I know he's a big time listener at the podcast. He is. He loves it. Last New Year's resolution goes out to Max Verstappen, and you're probably thinking, well, a two-time reigning champion probably doesn't need too much of a New Year's resolution, apart from keep doing what you're doing.

Whilst I would 100% agree with that sentiment, I do want to throw another one in there. New Year's resolution for you, Max Verstappen. Watch a season review. from some time between 2000 and 2004, which is a slightly cryptic way of me basically saying, pay attention to the dynamic that Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello had, because I think that's the one area based on what happened at the end of the year, where he can still improve.

Max is very, very good at the F1, much like Fernando Alonzo is very, very good at the F1. And Sergio Perez, whilst he's good at the F1, he's not quite as good at the F1 as what Max Verstappen is. The second he doesn't feel threatened or maybe paranoid of what Perez can do, the better he will be as a teammate to Perez and the better he will do in return. Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barrichello had a very successful partnership at Ferrari, led them to multiple Constructors Championships in a row. And whilst, and there were some difficult decisions that had to take place in that time.

If you remember two years on the trot, Austria, there was controversy about Barrakello not keeping a position and one of them was a race win. But even when Barrakello had issue with what he had to do, his issues were largely with the team. They were very rarely with Michael Schumacher. And Michael Schumacher at pretty much every occasion that he needed to, paid the respect to Ruben's Barrakello. You know, when he was a very difficult decision at Austria, when Barakello was told to give the win to Michael Schumacher, Michael Schumacher puts him on the top step on the podium, say, this guy won, this guy did everything he needed to do.

Now, Michael Schumacher walked away with the points. And I'm not saying Michael Schumacher was completely and utterly selfish to the point where he was doing it for his own game. But it benefited him to do that because Barakalo would pay him back. because he wasn't at angst with him. I think Vostappen needs to understand that's how he needs to do it. Vestappen is clear of Perez. He can beat Perez.

He can win world championships. He's already proven it. He can make it a bit more comfortable for himself for giving up the odd result when it really doesn't matter. Think of the United States Grand Prix when Barrichello and Schumacher essentially crossed the line together. Schumacher allowed that to happen because at that point, he didn't need the win.

he didn't need the points. So I would just pay attention to that sort of relationship. And for your own personal gain as well, not just to be a nice person, for your own personal gain, try and play it in a very similar way. That's a really, really good one, actually. And if you are unaware,

if you're new to Formula One, you don't know about Schumacher and his history, especially with Barrichella. Go and look it up because it's really fascinating. And that's one of the more ingenious parts of Michael Schumacher's reigning in Formula One was his relationship management with the key people around him, one of them being his teammate.

So go have a look. It's very interesting. Indeed. That'll do it for our first segment of the show. When we return, we'll be talking about Zach Brown and political statements within Formula One. Welcome back, folks. Zach Brown made some comments. It was a little while ago now, but we haven't spoken about news for a while. So here it is on the docket for tonight. Zach Brown's comments on political statements.

So he's speaking to ESPN. and I'll quote exactly what he said regarding political statements within F1. He said, it's tricky, right? Because some of the topics are really good. Some are controversial. Some are polarising. I think in general we want to be a sport that is doing good. We just need to find a balance there and not have every start of a race being a new political agenda for someone.

I don't think that's healthy as it can detract from what everyone is tuned into, which is they want to watch a Grand Prix. He continued to say that everyone is allowed freedom of speech. it did get out of control at times with so much messaging going on. Does it detract from the focus of the sport? These drivers can do this stuff in their own time. So I think it's within Formula One and the FIA's rights say here's the code of conduct we expect for you to follow during a Grand Prix weekend. You're free to do whatever you want to do Monday through Friday, so to speak, but obviously it's at a Grand Prix weekend. The drivers have the most cameras on them. Sam, what did you make of these comments? Do you agree with what he's saying or do you disagree? Oh, it's a very, um,

sensitive topic. And the way that Zach knows how to craft his words, right? Everything that's in that quote, he is intended to say. He knows full well what he's saying to the press there.

He's a marketer at the end of the day. Zach knows how I can put it on a face, how I put on an image. And there are a lot of things in there that I think makes sense are fair enough. You know, where he spoke about every race, it felt like we turned up

and there was a different political message and it was hard to follow. That, I think,'s very fair. does Formula One as a brand with its athletes need to centralise its messaging? Does it need to support those athletes in going, we're doing the racism issue, right? You know, the whole, we did the kneeling thing. We don't stand for racism. We race as one.

Are we pushing that? That's okay, sure. And I understand his point of, you know, if Sebastian Vetter, for example, turns up and goes, this race weekend, it's about water being an issue. This race weekend is about saving the bees. This race weekend, it's about, you know, equal rights. they're all incredibly important issues, but I do understand it could be a little bit difficult to dissect

what message we're presenting. That bit I get. The rest of it, I do think, is an absolute load of cod swallop, quite frankly, because if you are an athlete and Formula One should be for good, it should be producing good messages and helping people and supporting people, as well as providing entertainment, if I'm whoever, we'll go with Lewis Hamilton as being the biggest, you know, name of the sport, If I do my work for good Monday through to Friday, as Zach Brown has said there,

why would I not use the time where I am at most exposure to push my issue forward? Where I've done everything that I'm contractually meant to do, you know, turned up from my sessions, I've done on my press events, I've signed signatures, I've gone and met fans. Why can't I wear a T-shirt that says, Black Lives Matter? Why can't I wear a T-shirt that says, we race this one, or, you know, women's rights, or trans rights? Why can't I do that? And, you know, Zach and McLaren have very much been a key part of that messaging. There's a lot of images that went around about this about the McLaren having the Rainbow Halo, right?

And that stood for LGBTQ plus rights, an incredibly important and essential matter that Formula One should be tackling and needs to be more to do so. But, Zach, you can't sit there and go, free speeches are right, but only to a certain point when it, I don't want you to do it if it doesn't suit me anymore. I don't want to hear it. Formula One has got a huge audience and you need to utilise that audience. It's not just for entertainment. You should use it as well for promoting important and essential matters

that affect your fans, it affects your supporters, it affects people in the countries you visit, and it affects your drivers and young drivers coming through and team members of those teams. It is part of life that we go through those issues, and Formula One has a choice

to either be for good and to support it and promote it and do all they can to make it a more comfortable topic to discuss, whatever that issue might be, or you immediately look like the bad guy, much like the Qatari World Cup did, and you shun every opportunity for free speech, every opportunity for people who may be come from a different background to yourself to speak out. So, Zach, overall, I think this is a bad take. I think this is a really poor take. I do think the comments about Formula One meaning to centralise their message is fair. Don't think it's necessarily perfect, but it's fair.

I think the rest of it is a really, really bad take from Zach. And I'm a bit disappointed because I really like Zach, and I didn't think this would come out of his mouth out of everyone. So, for me, F1 drivers, you keep shouting from the roofs. Whatever your issue is, I want to hear it, is important. Do you think that the measure that's been introduced here is perhaps more looking towards the future rather than looking at the past, in that I can't say this for sure, but it feels.

feels like everything that has been raised by drivers individually separate from the FIA, what political and human rights things they're suggesting, have generally been in line with the FIA's overall opinion, or at least hasn't been directly against what they think. Do you think that this is almost like a preventative measure where they're not certain that will always be the case, where if a driver wears a T-shirt, which is completely against what the FIA actually thinks, themselves or want to be reflected to look like. Do you think that's why they're introducing it?

They're bringing it into practice, I think. I think you're touching on it there, but I think the reason they're bringing this to practice is damage limitation. I think they, their customers of Formula One, and that's remember their main customers of Formula One are the nations that pay for races to come to them, right? Your Middle East nations, South American nations that maybe have had a bad reputation at times I've got cultural issues. Several nations in Europe, of course, we were at Russia, not long ago. China has had serious problems.

It's going through them now. There are nations that we attend regularly that pay big, big money for us to turn up to as a sport. And I think that the FIA and Liberty have gone, we don't want to be cheesing anyone off who's spending big bucks with Formula One. You know, imagine if Lewis Hamilton walks out and goes,

boycott Saudi Arabia due to human rights. and it's blazing on the telly, right? To possibly a billion people. It will get shared on news articles. It will go onto newspapers. You'll see it on social media. A Saudi Arabia who paid that much money, you know, go, yeah, no problems. You come to us next weekend.

We're fine. Obviously not. There's going to be a very difficult conversation that's going to be had between whatever venue, obviously, Saudi Arabia was just an example, whatever venue it is being spoken about, or whatever right that is clearly an issue within a certain area and FIA or Liberty who are having to maintain those TV licenses, promotional areas, whatever. I think FIA and Liberty have a responsibility to make sure that messaging that goes out is factual and is well-checked.

So let's just say, I don't know, Valtrey Bottas walks out and says, kangaroos should be God and they're better than children. Good point. Right? You might think, Valtry, you've nailed it there, but let's fact-check it first. fine. But that's all I think they should do. And I think realistically, people are going to speak their minds and there are issues around the world and maybe money shouldn't be the governing thing when it comes to every single moment of Formula One.

That's why I think they brought this in. Currently, nothing has been said that's cost them a customer or cost them a race. But I think that they're getting slightly nervous, slightly twitchy feet about possibly losing themselves a venue or a customer later on down the line. Yeah, it does appear to be that just increased regulation, doesn't it? And it's a really difficult one as to where the line is drawn from individualism to representation of a company or of a brand. Now, they might not be necessarily direct employees of Formula One, but they are employees

of teams that are under the F1 umbrella. So it's difficult to know where that exact, where you draw the line. In terms of what Zach Brown has mentioned here, I tend to agree more than disagree with Zach Brown on most issues, but here I'm mostly with you, Sam. I disagree with pretty much everything that he's put in this statement. Firstly, the line I just want to focus on here, it can detract from what everyone has turned into, which is a Grand Prix race. It can detract from that.

Has anyone ever enjoyed a race less because of what has happened in a pre-race buildup? Has anyone ever done that? If you have. I mean, and not just from a political statement standpoint as well. I just meet anything pre-race. Like, has a shaky Martin Brundel grid interview ever affected your enjoyment of the Grand Prix, has followed. Has a, I don't know, just a cringy Sky Sports segment ever turned you against the race? And have you ever been sat there during a classic saying, well, this is pretty good.

This might be eight out of ten, maybe even nine out of ten. But it can't be a ten out of ten. Because you know what? I'm detracted from the sport because of what happened two hours ago when Lewis Hamilton wore a T-shirt before the race. Surely no one is in that position. Even if you disagree, that political statements should be done prior to a race, surely you cannot say that it has affected your enjoyment of the race that has followed. It does not detract from the entertainment. As soon as the flag is dropped, as soon as the lights go out,

you're in the zone for F1 and you're not thinking about what's happened before. That's for before and after the race. So I cannot buy that as an argument whatsoever. however. In terms of your point, Sam, the part that you kind of agreed with Zach Brown in terms of it being difficult to track what's being said week to week, race to race. I mostly agree with you. I think it could be done better, but the only way it can be done better is if more is being done outside of an individual person doing it. And the only way you can get it more, direct and more focused is with FIA involvement. If they don't want to get involved in these

sorts of things, I don't think it's ever going to be easier to understand. It's difficult because I don't really personally, throughout the whole of 2022, I don't think I had an issue with mixed messaging or not quite knowing what's being advocated for each week. But I can say that because I'm very much involved in F1 and I, you know, I pay attention to everything. everything. If I'm a casual fan, does it become a bit more difficult? Maybe so. But I, I don't know, I understand what your point was there. And I think it could be done better, but it's difficult to do that if it's just an individual. Yeah, and I think if we are to go to countries where the human rights records are, quite frankly, appalling, I think it has to be a prerequisite that the only condition

you go there is to actually advocate these rights because if you're not doing so, then why are you going? Yeah, it's obviously a money grab a lot of the time, but, you know, I think it's the least F1 can do. So as usual, I think the drivers in 2022 and the years before it have done a really good job with some of these human rights and political issues and advocating them on a massive stage. I think the FIA could and perhaps should get involved in some more of these and do more. Certainly the watering down of the anti-racism message was a real gut punch in 2022. So I'd like to see them do more. But, you know, it would seem like a waste to really not use that privilege of such a massive stage.

and a lot of drivers have taken up that privilege. And in the FIA, you could very much argue, we race as one. What did it really mean by the end of it? We race as one when it suits us and it makes us money. It does feel like that a lot of the time. We'll take a short break here. We'll be talking about top tens from drivers and team principals right after this.

Okay, so you would have heard if you listen to one of our episodes on the, lead up to Christmas that we all did our top 10 lists, top 10 drivers of 2022. When I say we did these top 10 lists, what I actually mean is myself and Sam pre-prepared a list of top 10 drivers and Harry wrote out 10 names out from random as we recorded. But that's by the by. But it's not only the three of us that produce our highly sought-after rankings, because since we've done that, a couple more rankings have come out.

top 10 drivers as voted for by drivers and as voted for by team principals. So I'll do a quick run through of what each of those look like. For the drivers, just to say, every single driver voted on this with the exception of Lewis Hamilton. I think 19 of the 20 drivers participated in this. Max Verstappen was first, Chau LeClair second, Lewis Hamilton and George Russell was a tie for third. Lando Norris 5th, Alonzo 6th, Carlos Sein 7th. Alex Albin, Vettel and Perez were then all a tie for eighth. And then the team principles, I believe all 10 team principles took part in this.

Max Verstappen again was first. Charles LeClair second, Russell third, Hamilton 4th, Perez 5th, Norris 6th, signed 7th, Alonzo 8th, Bottas 9th and Vettel 10th. So anything from either of those lists that caught your eyes, Sam? The first big one for me that stands out is The placement of Perez by the team principles Is much higher than I think any of us really had it And it's higher than drivers that I expect to be then as well

I think the drivers themselves would put Perez During 8th so effectively would be Around the 10th mark really That's pretty much where we went as well Just for the reference on this Harry had him seventh, you had him ninth, item 10th. So there you go. Back end of that top 10, I think is a very fair place to put him.

But the team principals have put Perez in fifth place above the likes of Landon Norris and Valtrey Bottas and Fernando Alonkso and even with Savaski Vettel, who in that second half of the season, considering that he missed the first few races, had a really, really strong end of his career in Formula One. So that's the big one that jumps out to me. The other one is that the drivers equally ranked Hamilton and Russell as the same. Now, the difference if you've seen the lists physically in front of your faces, folks,

there's actually a score on the team principle because they've given them points, whereas the drivers seem to have just have rankings. So I can understand how that might be a bit different. It might just be the same amount of people gave Hamilton third and Russell third. But if there were points given out, it might have ebbed and flowed a little bit. But for me, that was interesting. How about you, Ben? is anything that you've looked at and gone, wasn't expecting that to be the case?

I completely agree with what you said on Sergio Perez being in fifth place. That was the first thing that jumped out to me because, as mentioned, all of us had him in the top 10, but certainly lower than that, and the drivers have got him lower than that as well. I've got a, Perez being ahead of Lando Norris really surprised me in that ranking, because just for reference, all three of us had him second in our lists. And even the drivers, that really stood out, actually. Lando Norris, we all had him second place. And I know we're not alone in.

I've seen other people have rankings and many have put him second or third. You know, the drivers had him fifth as well. So, I don't know, maybe our opinion of Norris is too high or either that or either the team principals and the drivers have got him too low. That stood out to me as well. The other name that also scared out to me there is on the driver's list that isn't on the two principals list is Alex Alwon, who is equal with Vettel and Perez, and is just behind Carlos Sites. Now, I think I was the only one that put him on my top 10 list, right, end of year.

Yeah. And I think that's great. And I was going to, the weirdly, the argument I was going to bring up against Philando Norris, is for our favour, rather than the drivers, is that I think we will see drives across the entire grid and not just the top teams, because it feels like both groups have rated the top teams and the top drivers almost in a separate league, whereas obviously we put Norris in a second. Certainly, the principles have done, whereas it looks like with Albon, the drivers have gone, wait, Albon did a really good job here. He's definitely a top 10 driver at the moment, but the principals, again, haven't seen that.

So it's interesting to see what their motivations lie and their inspirations where their scoring is coming from, but they think Albon in the driver's sense is right next to Carlos, but the team principals don't see Albon as a top 10 driver at all. It's interesting how that's happened and flowed. Yeah, very much so. I mean, I didn't have Albin in the top 10, but I did have him a very close 11th. So I thought he was in that mix. And I didn't ultimately think there was a lot that separated Vettel, Perez, Bottas and Albin. I thought those four were all pretty close. So it is interesting to see. I think you're right. The team principles seem to have gone a lot closer to what the championship standings were. Obviously, Perez in 5th, I think reflects that as well as that. And O'Norris being further down. The other thing that definitely caught my eye, I had Esteban Ock on seventh.

You had Esteban Ock on seventh. Harry had Esteban Ock on eighth. He does not get a spot on either list for the two principals or the drivers. Single mention. And considering that Fonuzzo, Fonogso, is his name now. Phonso. Oh, he's not going to appreciate that. Sorry, Fulando.

He's got a new asking by it. I'm sure he'll be happy. Fernando Alonso is what, eighth on the two principles list and sixth on the drivers. And yet Ocon, yes, OK, finished ahead due to maybe some reliability issues with the LP.

But it's not like he was bad at any point of the season and regularly was delivering strong points. I'm surprised he's out of both lists. Yeah, it's genuinely surprising because we all accepted that Alonzo had the better year than Ocon, even though the points told us differently. Like there was, I had one place between them. You and Harry both had two places between them,

but we all had Alonzo higher than Ocon. It was really consistent all year. I'm surprised that he didn't find a place on either list. Because as we've mentioned, it seems as if the team principals have mostly gone with championship position as quite a leading factor in their rankings, with the exception of Fernando Alonzo and Esteban O'Con. Yeah, bizarre. Maybe there's a little bit of favouritism being played there behind the scenes.

Maybe a bit of personalities or loyalties to drive as they like as races. Who knows? We're not in the minds of the team principles, unfortunately. Yeah, that's true. I mean, it does also have to be said that there's a lot of teams associated with other teams in the sport. certainly if you think Ferrari, Hass and Alpha Romeo are somewhat close as a three and Red Bull and Alphateria closer as a two. Mercedes obviously give engines to Williams and to Aston Martin and to McLaren.

Alpine are kind of the lone island, aren't they? So that might well be playing into it somewhat, but of course Alonzo does show up on both of the list, so it can't be that entirely. It's interesting to see though. They do these rankings every year. I thought our list were better, to be honest. They are, mate. They are better.

Getting the big two principals. It's a good start to the podcasting year. Team big seables. Oh man, it's only the 4th of January. Got a whole year of this to fill up with folks. Let's move on. Let's move on to the FIA inviting expressions of interest for prospective F1 teams. So an 11th F1 team has been discussed for a little while, but there hasn't been any action from the FIA regarding this until a tweet two days ago.

Of course, this would be announced at a tweet. Mohammed Bunsenilip, Ben Suleyam, obviously the head of the FIA, posted on Twitter, I have asked my FIA, team to look at launching an expressions of interest process for prospective new teams for the FIA F1 World Championship. Now, the last bit of F1 team news that we got was regarding Audi that are going to be entering the sport, but they will essentially be replacing an existing team. This is talking about a brand new team. Your thoughts on this, sir? First, if we're just talking about the general prospect of another team joining Formula One, I am all for it. Absolutely love it. I miss the days of 12 teams.

and we had 24 cars on the grid. It made racing, when they were actually semi-competitive, more fun up and down the grid. You know, it's better if you, even if you have cars at the back who are off the pace, it's nice to have two or three teams that are all kind of semi-off the pace together and you get a bit of action further down.

It does allow that. It allows some more seats for more drivers to come through, of course, more opportunities, more drama. More is generally better when it comes to racing cars on the track in Formula One. We like that. Now, there is a certain individual brand,

company that I feel a bit sorry for here. And that is Andretti because Andretti were like, you know when you're a teenager, I know this feeling very well. And there's maybe a girl you liked at school. You're flirting. You're trying it on. Oh, you know, kind of fancy you of it. I do like you.

I do like you. I could so easily, like, put a name from us. Oh, that's not. I won't do it. That's, anyway. You know, you're in the playground. You know, how's it going? How are you doing?

And they kind of, you know, like, yeah. Yeah, yeah, good. Good, good, good. This is F1 now. The nice girl is F1. Yeah, yeah, I'm right. Yeah, leave me alone, yeah. And then the next day,

I really just wish someone would like me. And you're like, what have I got to do? What have I got to do? And Andretti are literally sat there being pied off watching Formula One on social media go, oh, we really like someone to come and join us now. And it's like, why weren't Andretti good enough? There's plenty of teams that could provide engines. They've got the money.

They've got the racing pedigms. agree. I will love I'm so close to Andretti. Seriously, we relate to this a lot of strong more astronomy, you think. Dark days, man. I mean, there are obviously

an abundance of incredible manufacturing teams that I would love to see in Formula One. A lot of American teams to possibly come back, the likes of Ford, be great to have Chevy, possibly come into it as well, but a Dodge, perhaps. You know, I'd absolutely love to see some more European sides as well. Porsche,

obviously that's always been rumoured as then possibly be coming in with Red Bull, maybe a bit of Williams as well. Do it themselves. Come back in. BMW, be great to have them. They've got a huge driving program. Be cool to have them. And Toyota.

They were so on the brink of having something brilliant in the end of the kind of the gnaughties, as they like to be called. It would be so good to see Toyota come back in. Again, they have a massive racing pedigree. So, yeah, I would love to see more teams. 12, 13, I don't know. I'm happy for more competition. It's exciting.

It's fun. But you've got to feel sorry for Andretti here. left outside in the cold when Formula One's off flirting with everyone else. Awful stuff. I mean, they might be able to take advantage of it. You know, they might be able to step forward and put together this expression of interest CV or whatever you'd call it. I don't know.

Question on this. Sound like a Ferrari engineer now. Question. Question. Why don't they just have this open all the time? I don't understand it. Like if you just have this permanently open, then you can just assess it as and when a team expresses the interest. There shouldn't necessarily need to be a, okay,

we're now actively searching for a team. If the team is right to come in, just have that process ongoing. I don't quite understand that. It's all a bit confusing, really, because you've got people, and I don't want to single him out, because it is other teams as well and other people saying things like this,

but people such as Toto Wolf are out there saying, on record, saying that an 11th entry hasn't happened because there isn't a viable team. How do you know there isn't a viable team if you don't have this process in place that checks if a team is viable?

You can't say it because the process isn't over. It's the equivalent of like a company discussing like adding a new member of the team and the boss turning around and saying, you know what, no, there's no one out there, no one's viable. And then realize that, well, you haven't actually put any job adverts out there.

You haven't done any head hunting. How do you know that no one's viable? You haven't even put out a job advert. That sounds bonkers, but that's essentially what's happened here. There's been no action from the FIA to actually find anyone if this process hasn't been there in the first place.

So, I mean, that was, my first thought on this. Generally speaking, I agree with you, Sam, that I think the golden number here is 22 or 24. Or really, it's just however many

competitive teams you can get in the sport. Because what we don't want is an HRT situation. We don't want a or like a USF1 situation where they didn't even get to race. They were given the keys to and then just never actually got there. So whoever goes ahead with this needs to be serious about it. But ultimately,

you know, there's already something in place where the teams that are worried about their own profits, their own money coming in as a result of being in F1, they're already going to be paid $200 million if someone comes into the sport. That will be the entry payment. I'm so, I don't care who you are. If you're putting together $200,000. million dollars, you're pretty serious about it. And we can't allow the sport to just stagnate and just sit still. If there are teams out there that can be viable, let them in. And, you know, I appreciate that there should be due diligence done as to whether there is a good plan in place and whether they've got the finances to cover it. But they have the teams agreed that $200 million total.

and that will be split evenly between the 10 teams. So let's hypothesize here and say that at the moment, this is an estimated figure, at the moment, there is one billion pounds worth of prize money split between the 10 teams. It's not quite split evenly, but let's just for the sake of this say that it is. So every team gets $100 million. If you are adding an 11th team in to that 1 billion prize point, let's assume they add no value from the start. That number goes from 100 to 90.

So you lose, every team would lose an average of $10 million. But you're gaining $20 million from their entry fee. So you're essentially covered for two years. You will break even in two years, assuming within 24 months they add nothing to the sport. Like no any prize money comes about because of this team. Surely they have agreed to this number. they had, it's the Concord Agreement from two years ago, they are happy with this number. At that point, the team should step aside and say, okay, that's, we've put that figure together,

that's what we're happy with. Now it's down to the FIA to make the decisions. Do we want this team in the sport or don't we? This is another instance, really, of where the constructors are too powerful within the sport. You know, once that number is set, it is down to the FIA to decide who is added and who is not added. It's their sport. It's not the team sport. So, you know, I think agreed to $200 million, now you shut up and you let the FIA get on with it and take control of it. In terms of the team you might like to see, Sam, you mentioned a few names there. Do you think that a brand new, a brand new constructor operating within their own rights is the correct approach? Or some form of customer team, maybe something like how hast did it, where they're associated with Dallara.

How would you like to see that done? Um, from a competitive standpoint, I would like to see a brandy manufacturer or at least a team that is maybe a customer team that brings in a manufacturer of its own accord. Like I already mentioned, let's say Andretti coming and they bring forward with them as an all-American unit team or whatever it might be. Um, or let's say, uh, I don't know. Let's make something up. Let's say Sony decide they want to make a team and they go, well, have we got a team, a brand anywhere that we can bring in? I don't know. High and die. Let's be high. I'm dying powered. And I think I just pronounced it's been talking about. So, you know, it's option, right? They make smaller race cars. You never know. So if a new team were to come in, and I mean, not just one, a couple, I would like to

see teams that are coming in swinging, you know, big bucks being spent, contracts have been made, research is being put together with a proper ambient manufacturer. I don't really like the Alfred Towery, Haast. model where they rely entirely on something external to really put together their their team, their car at affordable rate. Hars are a good team, right? It's nice to happen in the sport, but that's all they are at the moment. And the same with Alfa Tauri.

Al Fahari are just an academy. They're not producing anything that in a year's time you might go, hey, Alfa Tari look really exciting at any of that year. Maybe they're going to come back in the next season and they could be challengers. It's never going to happen. it's not going to occur. But if someone like someone with a Toyota engine or someone with a Chevrolet engine comes into the sport

and it's just them, they've got the funding behind them, to give it two seasons, and you might go, wait a minute, they've climbed up the ranks pretty quickly here. This is good stuff. And that's why I think Alpine are so well looked after. You know, when they were Renault, they were Renault, they were Renault, another Alpine, they're still Renault technically. They're their own power unit.

They're their own thing. They're not sat their line on one of the quotation marks. big boys of the sport to give them handouts. So if new teams are going to come in, ideally I want them to bring a constructor with them or be a constructor themselves. Of course I'll take teams as long as they're able to be competitive, but I prefer to have teams that can be 100% self-sustaining.

Yes, I 100% agree with that. It is no doubt about it, it's the riskier way of going about it. There's no doubt that it is riskier. And you do have a threat of an HRT, Virgin USF1 situation happening where they completely flounder or don't even make it to race one. And, you know, F1 looks very silly. The teams are annoyed because they get less payment and a team that doesn't end up contributing anything.

I 100% agree that it's riskier to do it that way. But in terms of the model of F1 and what I envisage F1, what it should be, for the sake of competition, I think you have to go down that route because ultimately, like you say, the teams like Al-Fa-Tauri are not there to win and they can't win. And that's not good for the sport. We want, it's idealistic, I know, but what we'd like is 10 or 11 or 12 teams that all have a viable shot at winning a championship. Yeah.

Based on the quality of their team members and the quality of their drivers. That is the ideal, right? And maybe we'll never get there. But if we can get somewhere close to there, that's better than the situation we've got at the moment. And you're never going to get that via a customer team. Some sort of independent big name that is coming in on its own right, that would be the ideal for me that has a really nailed down plan of how they're going to get there, how they're going to get to be competitive. And ultimately, the changes that Formula One have made should make that easier. I appreciate that

that 200 million up front cost but the whole sport being cheaper than it was a few years ago because of the budget cap helps if they can tie this in with 2026 on the new engine regulations even better therefore you're not really losing out on any

any learnings that you would have had from being in the sport for the few years leading up to that again that would be great if you can work it in with that time then surely you know it's not a guaranteed winner, but it's going to be far easier than if you're doing it mid-regulation

where it costs, there's unlimited spending as it was a few years ago. So I'd like to see it as an independent team because it feels like what the sport should be. If you had to pick one, Ben, one manufacturer, one engine, one provider, if you've got one that you'd like at the top of your list?

Honestly, I don't mind who it is. I really don't mind who it is as long as they come about with a clear plan. It can be Andretti, it can be a big name. You know, it's idealistic, but I'd love to see an unrecognised name. I don't think the teams would go along with that, unfortunately. But I don't mind who it is, as long as they make a positive contribution to the sport and can challenge. Yeah, I think we're very, very much aligned there.

Be interesting to hear what everyone's thoughts are listening as well to the show. And you can, you know, get involved at Twitter. breaking or Instagram late breaking fom podcast or join the discord links to the description please feel us your thoughts on this we'd love to go who you want into sport if anyone at all absolutely we'll be playing f1 overrated underrated right after this okay bit of f1 overrated underrated to kick off 2003 and it is the new year and i thought right i thought coming into this year i was going to be a changed person and I was going to put my differences aside, start afresh, because myself and the soundboard, we've had a lot of differences over the last year. We've had a lot of... Like Prostis-Sanger.

Yeah. Very much like Prostod-Sanger. It's been a lot of friction, a lot of tension between the two of us. And I thought, right, 23, turning over a new leaf, we're going to start a new. And do you know what the soundboard has done? It has deleted every single. track that we've uploaded to it. I wonder what happened to them. I thought you just cleared it out over the winter break. I logged in earlier. They're all gone.

We've got like eight things. Yeah. And they're just the preset ones we get. All of our jingles have been wiped. So soundboard. Yeah. We're having words. We go offline.

I thought that this would be New Year, New Me from the Soundboard. Apparently not. It's just decided to screw me over. days into the year. New Year, going to hate you even earlier, new me. That's what they're doing. Fortunately, folks, I have uploaded the banger that is overrated, underrated. Overrated, underrated, what answers do we give?

What way will they go? Overrated, underrated. What a week's shoes come to see the show? Overrated underrated. Before we get into that wonderful game show, I'm looking at the Sourg now, and I've just realised that obviously we've uploaded. Harry's New Year Resolutions clip. And he's, I don't know if you or he.

No, this is Harry. I almost brought this up earlier. Harry has misspelled resolutions and is typed Harry New Year redelutions. So, well done, Harry. It's a good start to the year from you. You told us we suck. You're not here and your spelt resolutions incorrectly. Do you think he did a version one, which was resolutions,

but he had to redo them? So he's done redulutions. I'm going to pretend that that is the case. He's actually a very clever boy. I mean, everyone who listens to this podcast knows that's not the truth. Yeah, sorry, Harry. If you know, Harry, that's not the truth. Right, let's do the game.

Let's do the game. Overrated, underrated, really simple concept. We've got three things. They can be racetracks. They can be corners. They can be drivers. Be teams, whatever we want. Three different things that we will either judge as overrated or underrated or maybe

it's somewhere in the middle and it's just right. Silverstone. What do you think? I'm going slap bang rated on Silverstone. Silver, I can't speak. It's a new year and I've lost the ability to talk. For some people, that will make them very happy. Silverstone, I think it's a slap bang rated.

I think it is one of the best Grand Prix every single season. It delivers that pretty much every single season. And I reckon 95% of people know that it delivers every single season. So for me, it is exactly rated where it needs to be right at the top. It feels like with Silverstone there were a couple of iffy races around probably just pre-pandemic. There were a couple that were like, they weren't great. A lot like the last couple of spa ones have been. Everyone said, Spar's a great track.

And then you look at the last few spa races and you go, they haven't really been classics, have they? That seemed to be the case a few years ago with Silverstone. but the 2022 one being a bangers really helped it out. I have to say British bias is running rampant here in 2023. I'm a massive fan of Silverstone and I still think it's underrated. And I think it actually really suits the new F1 car, the new regulations. Yes. LeCler going around the outside of Lewis Hamilton at Cops.

I don't think you get that a few years ago from the 2022 race. That was so epic. And it really lends itself well to fights that go on for multiple corners. If you think like a fight that starts going into Brooklyn's can go all the way to maggots and beckets. Like if you've got that sort of fight going on. So I still think it's underrated, even though a lot of people are saying its praises after the 2022 race. Next one. Preseason buildup.

Overrated or underrated? Now, Benjamin, I'm going to ask you for some clarity on what exactly you mean by the preseason buildup, please. Livery reveals, preseason testing, the overall, a drive to survive you can throw in there, just the overall hype leading up to the first race. I think it's overrated. And I think it's, I think I say that because I was around watching Formula One when I think livery reveals and the buildup back to the season was, because, because I think it's, I think I was. it wasn't all online, a lot of it was, you know, activities taken place in person, everyone went to core events. The Spice Girls released a car at one point.

That happened. We've had some big moments. And because a lot of it is now just doing a YouTube revealing our factory and we pull a blanket off and then David Coulter might talk to a senior representative, you know, Disco with David, then, you know, it gets a bit the same. And also something that happens a lot of the time is, incredibly talented graphic designers will release about 87 different possible versions of what they think a livery can look like. And it maybe spoils a bit of the anxiety and the suspense of what a car can look like. And for me, I love livery season. Looking at cars, I'm a very simple human being. Looking at a Formula One car gets me very excited. Not in that way, you're dirty, filthy minded buggers. But, you know, I have a nice time. I love it. I go, what colors are it going to be? What are the other? other colour is going to look like? How will it look on a racetrack? I get very excited. So when I see 87 versions of what could be the same car, I'm like, you're kind of spoiling it for me now. So,

I think it used to be a really, really exciting time. And now people jump the gun a bit early. They do their predictions in the middle of December. You know, there's too many iterations of the same thing. I think people have caused it to be overrated, in my opinion. And there's a lot that could happen to make it a really exciting build up once again. Yeah, I completely agree with you and it's difficult to know where to put this because I agree with everything you say, which kind of makes it overrated. But it's almost like the opportunity of what it could be is underrated. Correct. Correct. Yeah, it's tough to say.

But ultimately, like, it should be this really massive thing to shout about. Certainly preseason testing, like they could do more there to be. build that up. You know, they had the whole shakedown thing at Barcelona last year that they tried to claim wasn't a test. And the test ultimately was so close to the beginning of the season that there wasn't really any hype for it. You're absolutely right with the livery reveals. There's just not much go out with it. Come on. Make some noise. Like it should be exciting. It just feels as if it's a wasted opportunity, not even by one particular team, just by Formula One generally. There are some reveals that happen at preseason testing on the morning of the first test.

Like, this is your car that you're going to be using for the next nine months. Shout about it. Do some grand reveal. Some people might look at it and say, oh, it's a bit much, isn't it? But just go for it. The thing is, the three of us on this show, we've all got marketing backgrounds with those kind of annoying people. If I was Mr. Marketing at a Formula One scene, who, just so you know, there is an employee

a awful one team to call Mr. Marketing. If I was that person, I would be like, let's go crazy, let's show off the sponsors, because that way you entice more money, you entice more airtime. Why would you not be making it the most flashy, ridiculous thing you've ever seen? That's reminded me.

Do you remember a couple years ago when Ferrari launched their car and they had all these weird ballet dancers in an old, Catholic cathedral on a red carpet? That was a bit weird, but at the same time, quite liked how weird it was.

So maybe it's just Ferrari. but it was good. Do more weird stuff with your car livery. Yeah, why not? And also, like, Drive to Survive being part of that. Again, that could, I think, be utilised far better because it's recently just been released, like, not even a week before the first race, I think, which doesn't give a lot of time to watch it.

I think there could be a better buildup, perhaps releasing it in stages throughout January and February. I don't know whether that would work. But again, I feel like that could be utilised better. So I agree with pretty much everything you said. It's almost like it's overrated as it is at the moment, but could very well be underrated versus what it could be. Agreed.

Last one. Bahrain as the first race of the year. Is it overrated or underrated, Sam? This is by far the most underrated thing we may have had on this game. I love Bahrain. It's the most underrated track on, I reckon, the entire calendar for a start. it always produces a brilliant race and a lot of the time

you might argue oh it's the first race of the season of course it's going to be a great race it's unpredictable there might be failures we don't know what drivers are going to do well or not we don't where the teams lie yeah of course that helps but Bahrain just makes for good racing even when we had it in

the secure Grand Prix right right at the end of the season a couple of seasons are going out I know it's the outer loop but there's just something about Bahrain with the current layout that we have it works really well And the new cars performed there well as well, which is great. And I think it's sorry to Australia.

I love you. It's, you know, Albert Park is not as good as the Bahrain track that we have at the moment as Sakeer. It just delivers constantly. Even when it was, in 2016, when it was just Hamilton versus Rosberg, the jewel in the desert. And we had, what was something like a 30-lap long, wheel-to-wheel fight between the two of them. I could watch that all over again. Because Bahrain made it so exciting. It's a great track of in the season.

I love that we have it there now. I think it's a really, really good addition to the current calendar. And I don't think people respect it enough. I am going to say it is rated because I agree with pretty much everything you say in that. I think Bahrain as a circuit is definitely underrated. Again, apologies to all Melbourneians out there. I do think it is a better race in Bahrain than it is in Melbourne. and it might well be the most underrated circuit on the calendar.

It always delivers great races. The only problem I have with it is as a first race of the year, it's not much of an atmosphere. Now, I generally prefer dedicated built tracks to street circuits. Now, there's a bit of a mixture on the calendar at the moment. I actually think fundamentally, the street circuit does work quite well as the first race of the year. It feels a bit more alive. It feels a bit more included. The problem is, I don't actually know if the circuit I want for the first race of the year actually exists, because you need somewhere that's going to work in March. You need somewhere, at least in my mind,

that has a good atmosphere. And no, because I think the secure circuit is fantastic, but it's not, it's not an atmospheric track. It's a fair point. But I don't honestly know if there is a circuit or a race out there at the moment that really, in terms of location as well, like making sure it works with the rest of the calendar, I don't actually know if it exists. The only one that comes to mind that's close to what you're saying is Baku. Baku is obviously a street circuit.

It's got a bit more atmosphere. I wouldn't say it's the most atmospheric track that we go to. But yeah, it's probably better than secure for the crowd atmosphere. but that's the closest thing I can think of that works in line with calendar requirements. Yeah, that's the only thing I would say that leads me to say rating. Because in terms of the actual racing, I completely agree with everything you say. It's just like, is there a way we can, I don't know, have a bit more of a song and dance about the first race of the year, being a bit more of a spectacle off track as well as on track.

It's like at Melbourne, we kind of had the off track, but not the on track. And then Bahrain, we've got the opposite. it. And I'd still prefer Bahrain of those two options. But, you know, is there something else out there? Melbourne, if you would all be okay with being airlifted to secure Bahrain for the first race of the season, bring everything you own, all the hype as well, please, because you're all brilliant people, make the race really atmospheric and fun, and then we'll send you all back on the Monday. Yeah, I'd have no idea how we're going to pay for this. And, but we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll, pay you in love.

There's a lot of that to go around. Yeah. And to try and save ourselves from like insulting your home race for the last 10 minutes. We'll pay you in love and a trip to Bahrain. I think that I'll do it for F1, overrated, underrated. That leaves us with two things before we go. Firstly, put out a post the other day. So I've been doing a bit of a bit of calculating, of course I have over the Christmas period, working out some archive statistics for our podcast.

And these are mostly going to be used for a quiz at some point this month. But I put a question out there on social that I'll ask Sam to make a guess at. I don't know the answer. Well, he doesn't know the answer. The question is, since we've started doing Driver of the Day, now our first podcast was the 2018 Belgian Grand Prix for reference, since we started doing Driver of the Day, which of the three of us has voted Lewis Hamilton driver of the day on the most occasions.

And the consensus seems to be, no one has any idea. I put this on Instagram and Twitter. People have said all three of us. So it's really interesting to see people's responses. What do you think this looks like, Sam? See, you've essentially given me a 50-50 that's not. It's a 33, 33, 33. on the first day back.

It's like going to your first day back and seeing in your emails that your manager wants to have a one-to-one with you about something. You think, what have I done? It's the first day back, what have I done? And this is what it feels like. I feel like I've been a very naughty, naughty boy.

And there are schools of thought that I feel like Ben is either trying to trick us for all of us. Yeah. So everyone will assume I think that Harry hasn't done this, right? And that to me says, well, Harry has done it.

Harry is the one that's done the most because he is the one that hasn't definitely done it. If you know what I mean, right? Okay. And then after that, you've got you, Mr. British bias over there, Mr. King of the Brits. And then I'm just random.

And that doesn't help anyone. That's just confusing for all people involved. So I'm going to go with my tricks to point of view and say Mr. Reed has done the Lewis Hamilton Drive of the day the most because it's the least expecting answer, which in turn,

meaning it's going to be wrong because that's what I've chosen. That's very impressive logic, and it has led you to the wrong answer. It's a good start to be yet. So here's one. Lewis Hamilton from Harry has received Driver of the Day

five times since we started doing this. In any four years? Yeah, he's only given it to him five times. He's been world champion three times in those seasons. was he that bad? Oh man. To be honest, I'm not much better because I've given him driver of the day seven times.

What's he got to do? What's he got to do? Well, you're all right. You give him props because whereas Harry's giving it to him five times, I've given it to him seven times. You've given it to him 17 times. Oh, yes.

You are by far, miss the British bias. I am the British bias. British Byers for 23, Mr. British Byers put the crown and the sash. I mean, you're like, what they do, Miss World,

whatever it's called, Miss Great Britain. I will be Mr. British Byers 2023 winner. You ever saw that coming? 17 times. That's a lot. Well, it's very interesting.

And I hope I haven't actually, I've already written this quiz, folks, by the way, in terms of who we've given driver at the day to, worst driver of the day to. I'm hoping I haven't put this as a question, but I'll change it.

I'll change it. I don't worry. In terms of worst driver of the day for Lewis Hamilton, Harry's the only one that's never actually given it to him. That is the most confusing aura of a person I've ever heard of. It works the complete opposite way, because worst driver of the day,

Harry's never given it to Lewis Hamilton. I've only given it to him once, and you've given it to him three times. Wow, maybe I just, I'm really impressed by Lewis Hamilton, and then when he isn't as good as I think he should be, he really let me down. Maybe so. Potentially interesting stat for you.

folks anyway. I did say we'd announce the answer here. So if you said, Sam, well done, you're correct. Well done. Question of the week. Topical, we said, what should be our new year's resolution? We put this out on Instagram and on Twitter. So if you want to get involved with these questions of the weeks that go out every time you do a podcast, they're usually out on Monday or Tuesday. Check out Instagram and Twitter. They'll be there. Any answers from you, Sam, that catch your I really enjoyed the amount of people that said that Harry needs to buy more home appliances to try and get them all onto the late breaking Hall of Fame. And also Virgil said that we should talk to Clives more often so that he won't be his

violence and get more fresh air, which I think is very, very true. And someone said to, I've forgotten who it is, so apologies. It was on Instagram and I'm on Twitter at the moment. They need Harry to wean himself off of the fence. That was Brexit beef. Was it Hall of Fame of Brexit beef? Hall of Fame of Brexit beef. And then Lucy, I don't know if we could do this,

and I think that it might hurt then, but to open our hearts, just sprint races. I don't know, we're going to see one, of course. We're offing to Austin off to see the sprint race in Texas this year. Maybe Ben will fall in love of them if he sees one live. What about you, Ben? I appreciate the optimistic thinking on that one, by the way. But, nah, no.

Be more British biased No chance No chance at all Captain Noz What great name Laura is the new permanent host She told me she's very happy with this person Ah

That's good for you You're banned Free for further Quinda Lloyd Ordering bags of chips in bulk for Ben Save money in the long run There were actually a few like a genuine ones out here. Someone said we should do more podcasts.

You're a nutter you are, but sure, why not? But maybe if you're lucky, you might hear more soon. There's no guarantees of what I'm saying. You just never go. I mean, we've got some plans for the year. We've got some plans for the year. Speaking of, we've actually got a form in our Discord at the moment, which is essentially, what do you want to see more of in 2023?

you know, sprint race rants, Ferrari rants, other rants, let us know. Everything has to be a rant, by the way. If you don't want rants, also let us know that. Yeah, it's not going to change anything, but you can't let us know it. All right. I think that probably does it for Question of the Week. And indeed, for this opening podcast of the year, as we mentioned, Harry is back next week.

We'll be back as a trio for the first time on the 11th of January. Sam, if you wouldn't mind until then, getting us out of it. Folks, I hope you had a wonderful holiday period with whether it were your friends, family, on your own, maybe your favourite pet if you have a favourite or just one. Maybe you hate them as well, I don't know. But I hope you had a lovely time. I hope you had a lovely celebration of the new year and saw it in well, and I hope you're happy and healthy.

And if you're not, reach out to us, come and talk to us in Discord. The links in the description. There's loads of lovely people there. Find yourself an F1 buddy. There are loads of brilliant people to get to know. Thank you for starting your year. We're listening to us. We must be appreciating it.

Get involved on the social, as we said. Twitter is at Elbreaking Instagram is like breaking up on podcast TikTok is like breaking up on podcast if we are down with the kids and thank you Ben and of course if you want to go one step beyond you can join the Patreon

we have several tiers in the Patreon and some of the benefits that you get from that are getting the podcast slightly earlier due to just pure release times but it's ag free and you also get a discount on well done Ben well remembered you also get a discount on the merchandise and we do have a merch store which you can pick up

for yourself if you want to get yourself nice little late breaking tea or a jumper or a cap. Some guy even made a shower curtain once. We don't sell those, but, you know, top marks for effort. So there's loads could do, and we're going to be here all year. And don't forget to joining as well on Race Day Sundays when you get through to the start of the season, because we'll be doing those as well.

In the meantime, I've been Samuel Sage. And I've been Ben Hocking. And remember, keep breaking late. Late breaking light, you shouldn't come back. Bye, Eric. Podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network.