The Late Braking F1 Podcast - How WRONG Were Our 2025 F1 Start-of-Season Predictions?

Episode Date: December 10, 2025

The LB boys revisit their start-of-season predictions, from teammate battles to the full Championship order, and uncover just how deep into the hopium they really were! They also react to Zak Brown’s controversial radio message to Piastri, and the news of Helmut Marko’s exit from Red Bull, before finishing off with some Histula 1... Want more Late Braking? Support the show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and get: Ad-free listening Full-length bonus episodes Power Rankings after every race Historical race reviews & more exclusive extras! Give the 'gift' of Late Braking this holiday period with a Patreon gift subscription,⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and your favourite F1 fan can enjoy anywhere from 1 month up to a full year of top-notch F1 content! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/latebrakingf1/gift⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Connect with Late Braking: You can find us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠X (Twitter)⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Come hang out with us and thousands of fellow F1 fans in our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Discord⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ server and get involved in lively everyday & race weekend chats! Think you can beat us? Join our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠F1 Fantasy League⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and prove it! Get in touch any time at [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Hello and a very warm welcome to the late breaking F1 podcast presented by Harry Ead, Sam Sage, and me, Ben Hocking. The F1 season might be over, but there's still plenty of F1 chat to be had. We've still got the LB awards coming up in a week's time. and we've still got our season review. But most importantly, Sam, we get to review our preseason predictions today and where we were right and more importantly, where we were very wrong. Yeah, if you're new to the show and this is your first season prediction review,

prepare for a lot of things to be very, very wrong. And it really is a race to the bottom of who got the least things wrong rather than the most things right. But firstly, before we dive into that, late breaking house. How is it over there? How is moving? Are you married? What's going on? Yeah, three days later, I still haven't left this room.

We've soft chairs again. Yeah, right, that is a point, by the way, because this chair slowly sinks as we're talking.

Every outbreak are going to have to just prop it back over again. We're going to be like completely disjointed like five minutes, aren't we? We have a real issue as a team

with our desk chair. Everything just fails. You know, we have a real issue as a team. Full stop. We should end. Well, one thing we don't have an issue with

is teammate wars that we're going to review, unbelievably, this is the ninth season we have done teammate wars. And there's a lot on the line here because Sam, you have won four times going into this. And so have I. We are locked for all. The race to five is on. Sorry, that means we've done eight and Harrier's at one. Backspirner, Harry. And the Discord, of course, participated at the beginning of the year as well. So we'll see how they've said. We're going to go through all 10 teams.

teams go through who we said would win those intra-team battles, where we were right, were we surprised by the result, and then we'll take a break, and we'll go into our drivers and constructors' championship predictions as well. But let's start with the championship order, as we predicted it at the beginning of the year, so this is the championship order from last year, starting with McLaren. And there was already a difference in opinion because on one side, myself and the Discord, went with Lando Norris. On the other side, you were both with Oscar Piastri. And you were right for far more of the season than I was, but ultimately, Lando Norris winning the championship and the battle. Sam, did Oscar Piastri still have the season

that you expected even if the result was just short? I'm not going to lie. I still think something has changed internally in that McLaren team after what happened after that summer break. You don't go from leading for that long, being that quick, being that dominant. Something has changed inside the way that they set up the car, the development. whatever they were doing, something altered. It's too big a difference between the two. And because of that, I actually felt a little bit disappointed, a little bit shocked at how off the pace he was for the final five or six Grand Prix.

At one point, I thought he had this sewn up, wrapped up, especially after Lando and Norris had the engine failure in Zambor. I thought, oh, gosh, you get one of them a season between a team at this rate. That's so unlucky for Lando, but surely that means that's job down for Oscar Piastri. All they had to do was basically just continue to be on the podium, we'd be pretty solid. And it just went so disastrously wrong from that point onwards. So he was great up until that point.

I stand by something changed, but I was a bit gutted with the way that his season ending. It really wasn't what I expected from him. Yeah, I take the point here, but it feels a bit of a dirty point because it didn't quite go the way that I thought it was going to go. I thought Lando Norris would take this slightly more comfortably than what he did. And instead, Oscar Piastri was more than a match for him in terms of the percentage of points that they've got. If you look at the three years that Piastri and Norris have now been

teammates, of course, Piastri's rookie year in 2023, 33. 33% of the points, Piastri won in that 2023 season. That was up to 44% last year, and here we are now at 49% this year, very nearly getting that win. So it's all trending in the right direction. 2025, he outqualified Norris more times than he did in 23 and 24 combined. That was a real area of improvement that needed to happen. He definitely followed through on that. And it's that six-race stretch that you're talking about, Sam, that's the difference here. 97-42 to Norris in just those six Grand Prix has ultimately, I think, decided this one. It's a good start, Harry. Zero out of one. Zero from one. I mean, after Zan thought, Sam, we would have been looking really smug, like super, super smug about

this. Sheff and Sue Chef over here. We were kicking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't call me Sue. but yeah it's it it's it's it's ended really closely but but the sort of points difference between them probably doesn't tell the story of how I think the piastri's performance has been over the over the season and yeah like I said the points gap after zanvore was pretty big and then after that it didn't really didn't really go his way um I think he for me he exceeded my expectations and then he'd like managed to level them out by the poor last third of the year. So he probably ended about where maybe, I know I put him ahead of Norris,

but he probably ended up about where I thought he was going to be. So, yeah, disappointed one. But as we've said already, he is only on year three of his effort on career. Yeah, and that is easy to forget, given how well he's done in 2025. Ferrari was the second team we picked. And again, there was a slight difference in opinion here. Myself, Harry and the Discord went for Charles Leclair. Sam, you were on an island, you went with Lewis Hamilton.

You knew at the time, I went back and listened to this. You knew you were being brave, which sounds weird, given we're talking about a seven-time champion. But are you surprised with that 242 to 156 difference? Like, are you surprised it was as comfortable for LeClaire as it was? It was the last four or five races that really spread this out. They were much closer throughout the majority of the season. I think at one point I remember looking back at the points gap was only about 15 to 20 points. And I thought if this ends with Hamilton being maybe 40 points behind Charler-Clau at the end of the season,

and it's a really admirable first going of a Ferrari. A Ferrari that is absolutely terrible. It's a gone awful car. If they end that close together with how good Charler is right now, both in qualifying and the race, I think Lewis can have held his head up high and going, yeah, you know, I was adapting. I hate this era of car. I'll move on. We grow.

We go again. But I do think the gap widened just a bit more than I was expecting come the last four or five races. the three in a row of Q1 elimination really feels like it was quite disappointing. Even with the car being poor, Lecler did show what it was capable of, even at the very top of its game, I think there was room for Lewis Hamilton

to do better than he did. So, yeah, I was being brave. I didn't expect to be let down to that extent. The gap was bigger than I was expecting. The qualifying was a real issue for him throughout the year. He was outqualified 19 times by Shao LeClaire, which is the most he's ever been outqualified by a teammate. And you speak of those last sort of three or four raises

in particular. I went back and looked at this. Statistically, he was the second worst qualifier on the grid in those last four Grand Prix. It was just Colopinto that was behind him. So he really struggled towards the end of this year. No polls only for the second time in his career, no podiums for the first time in his career. And 156 points is his lowest in the new points era ever since 2010. So I was pretty surprised, very surprised, actually, that this was as one-sided as it was. But we saw the one time that they were able to run this car without any worry was China,

and it worked well for him. So who knows when we go to 2026. Let's go now to Red Bull. We all said Max Verstappen. That is a shock. Yes. So regardless of which teammate battle you look at, we were all right.

I've got all right. Yeah, yeah. You got Vastappen to win the Red Bull fight correctly. He was on the board. He beat Leo. Lawson 36-0 in the two races he had against him, and he beat Yuki Sonoda 385 to 30, which I'm going to call Just a whisper. We'll get him next to him. He won't. To put that into context, Yuki Sunoda joined Red Bull as Vastappen's teammate at the third race of the season in Japan. By the end of round four,

which was Bahrain, Vastappen had enough points to win this battle. Oh, oh. We've seen seen some one-sided teammate was before. I don't think we've ever seen anything like this. That's a disgusting fact. Yeah. Yeah. To also have seen off two teammates in one year, which isn't the first time for Vastappan, this has happened.

But, yeah, in quite such a dominant style, I'm not sure we necessarily... Look, we all put Verstappen to win, yeah, and I thought it was going to be comfortable. But two of... I know Lawson never really got a proper chance to actually show it. but have been that dominant versus two good drivers on the grid.

You know, I know it's not been great for them this year, but Snedda and Lawson are not bad drivers. They've just had tough years against one of the greatest we've ever seen. So, yeah, that's a pasting. Yeah. We've seen, like, results that have been one-sided in the past, like Hamilton versus Bottas or Stauffin versus Perez. We have never, this is unprecedented.

We have never seen anything like this. I mean, Sago has averaged 1.3 points every, if you average it across every round this entire season, in a Red Bull for the majority of it, 1.3 points a race, that's pretty dreadful. What, nearly 10, over 10 times the points scored by Max Sassapin versus. Yeah, yeah. It is atrocious when you read it that way. But it does mean we all get a point, so good news. Speaking of all of us getting a point, we move to Mercedes next, and we all said George Russell. And I was wondering, beginning of this year, would anyone go really plucky and say Kimmy Antonelli

and his rookie year could pull off a shock? We all avoided that trap, Sam. This was fairly comfortable in the end, 319 points to 150. Did you expect Russell to double the amount of points that Antonelli had? No, I didn't. I thought Anthony Ellie, I think maybe at the three of us, I probably was the one that was going to maybe look to be plucky and be a little bit brave and put Antingelli forward for this, because I really backed him at the start of the season. But the gap is far wider than I was expecting. He had a really tricky middle part of the season when Mercedes tried that new rear suspension upgrade. I think they brought to Canada. Well, it worked perfectly in Canada. It seemed like Canada was their perfect storm. Everything came together and it

just connected. And yet that didn't apply to any other racetrack that they went to, I think, till well into the second half of the summer break. And it's like... And it's nearly more, didn't it? He lost the confidence, you know? And confidence makes up so much of your forming Formula One. And it's his rookie season. And he's going up against some of the greatest We're in such a premium level league at the moment when it comes to Formula One. The drivers are such high quality that if you get your confidence knocked and you're struggling against Charles LeCler, you're struggling against George Russell, Oscar Piastri, Landon Norris, Max Verstappen,

even drivers that are tried to shoot above their station a little bit, like Fernando Alonzo and that, Aston, Austin Martin. These are no scrubs. These are really tough guys to go up against. So if you're on your A game, you're suddenly outside the points. And that's what happens. Kelly, he regularly fell out of the point. So the gap is bigger than I was expecting, but I do think it is somewhat understandable, at least. Yeah, I mean, credit to what George

Russell was able to do. He scored an all but one race this year, whereas Antonelli failed to score in 10. Monaco, right? Yeah, Monaco. And that was largely related to his car breaking down in the one qualifying session. You don't want your car to break down in Q2. So, yeah, I think I expected Antonelli to get a few more wins against Russell than he did this year. So credit to him. If you are thinking about picking Antonelli for next season, though. If you look at the Mexico to Qatar, which is four races and two sprints, until early 61, Russell 58. So much closer. Interesting. Ashton Martin, we all said Fernando Alonzo, and despite it looking a little bit Larry for a while, that's how it ended up. Alonzo

winning this one, 56 to 33. But, Harry, until the Belgian GP, Landstrol was winning this one. It's giving him a head start, mate. Yeah. Yeah, I think the problem for Alonzo, I guess, was at the start of the season, he had a couple of duff races. He obviously crashed out of the first one. And Stroll had some, like, good results at the start, which was odd, quite frankly. Didn't crash in Australia, took advantage of three disqualifications in China. Yeah, that would work.

Yeah. Timed Senga came out of Australia because it was wet. Exactly. Well, yeah, low grip and Lance Stroll is away. Has he ever tried ice rally? I feel like he'd be brilliant. Maybe just rally in general. Maybe he's, yeah, like the next Sebastian Loeb and we never knew.

Sebastian Loeb and Lance Loeb. But, yeah, and then after that, I think we saw the Aston Martin didn't quite have the competitiveness, especially in the first part of the year. It was actually quite rubbish. Yeah. And then they brought a few upgrades and think it was around, it was around spa, wasn't it? Well, they brought the wrong upgrade or something. And then they brought the right one. But from then on, yeah, obviously, Alonso was,

Alonso was still out driving Lance from race three onwards, basically, or race four onwards, but for like no points every time. It was always like 11th places. So, yeah, obviously it took him quite a while to get there. But yeah, he, it hit a little bit shaky at the start, but we made it. And also his qualifying was something.

24-0. 24-0. Yeah, that's the school line. I said at the beginning of the year when we were doing teammate wars predictions, which was in the studio, if you remember, I said the only chance this is close is if the car isn't as good, which I kind of feel is how it's gone down, because this scoreline is pretty friendly to Landstrol, I think, based on the qualifying record.

And Alonzo, some of them were self-inflicted. We've seen a few errors from Alonzo this year. Spanish GP, I think he gave up a few spots there because he went off, had a spin, in Miami as well, obviously at the spin in Qatar. So there have been some self-inflicted errors from Alonzo, but also some really bad luck. Monaco is one that immediately springs to mind. Imola, they were genuinely quick there,

and strategically they got it wrong. Monza, he retired from a point-scoring spot as well. So I think this one might be a beard kind. Alpine, another one where we all agreed, we all said Pierre Gasly, and Sam, you quite rightly asked at the time, are we picking between three drivers and we might as well have done

because firstly, Pierre Gazley versus Jack Dewan was 7-0 in the favour of Pierre Gasley and then versus Colopinto was 15-0 in the favour of Ghazley. Fairly comprehensive, Sam. It never felt like with the Alpine

maybe getting worse as the season went on that Colopinto was ever realistically going to get the chance to win this one. Yeah, it's always going to be tough for Colopinto to coming as a rookie halfway through a season in the worst car, when the grid is that close as well, it's always tricky to get yourself further up when the LP was clearly so much further behind than everyone else.

But I just feel for Pierre Gasley, man. He's such a good racing driver. And it's like putting Sena in a cardboard box and asking him to beat Prost and McLaren. You just think, realistically, you're great. It's just not going to happen, is it? Quite simply, not going to happen. Get Gasly in a better car immediately.

Who's Prost in the analogy? I'm looking at a dark old truck. Yeah. Ghazly is Senna. Prost is the rest of the grid. Yeah, there you go. Prost has the power of 19 drivers. You know what? He was a pretty good driver. He might well have done. Okay, so we're on a bit of a roll here.

Oh no. That's where the role ends, because we get to Haas next. Someone got this right. But it's not anyone we're talking to right now. The Discord correctly predicted that Olly Berman would beat Esteban Okon, albeit by three points in the end, 31.38. We all said Esteban Ocon. Sam, I'm going to quote you on this one. You're getting the wool pulled over your eyes. Ocon's got this. Where's the wall? Where is it? Show me the wall.

Show me the wall. Bring on the wall. Cheers, Anton. Rest and peace, don't win it. Pick up now. Or not. What was the difference between the two drivers? not by much in the end in terms of points, but is it Beerman and the way in which he kind of built into the season? Yeah, he just managed to excel. It sounds really silly,

but at the right moments when the heart was actually competitive, actually good, there were as stinks as they will be with any car that's that far down the Constructors' Championship, where they're just not going to be a very good car. They will be both outside the points, they'll both be fighting at best for maybe like a 12th or 13th. And we saw that.

We did see that with Ockong and with Behrman. And a lot of the time, Berman was beating, was losing to O'Con, sorry, when the points weren't on the cars. And O'Con will actually be right next to him or in front of him, but there was nothing available to him. Unfortunately, for Ocon, Bermann stepped up,

especially in qualifying, the moment the car was somewhat competitive. And it's races like Mexico, where sure, he got a little bit of luck, but his pure talent allowed him to hold on to what the luck gave him. And O'Con just couldn't emulate that, meaning that at the end of the season, it falls the other way.

It would have been closer. Sorry, further apart had O'Cohan not had that great final racing, Abu Dhabi, actually. Yeah. I think qualifying was a slight difference between these two, not that either of them performed particularly well. And I think that's more car related than it was driver related. If you were to assign points based on qualifying, the same format as they get in the race, Berman would have got 16 points in the year and Ocon would have got 10. This was a really poor

car in qualifying, but it was often needing them to do more work on the Sunday. And I think ultimately, Berman just got a few more Q3 appearances where he didn't have to make those overtakes in order to get some good spots, of course, including that wonderful P4 in Mexico. Well, Racing Bulls is up next. We all said Yuki Sonoda would win. And this might be the only thing he has won this year because he beat Isaac Adjah 3-0, technically. That's a point. I mean, we all score or we all don't, so I think we're in an okay spot.

I actually said this wouldn't be the teammate battle at the end of the year. and I was right. I wasn't right in how I got there because I thought they were going to promote limb blood early. But yeah, in that sense, it was correct. Is it any negotiation for me to have a point in you two to not have a point?

Any chance? On the basis of what? I'm losing. No. Because I'll still lose. Don't you worry? Trust in my uselessness. I apply this strategy everywhere I go.

Do it in poker games. Any chance that I could just have some of you. Can you just give me the money instead of, let's just end this now. Just let me have some more money right now. Monopoly. Four. Can I have your property?

Why? I don't know. Mayfair, please. I'm nice. Great strat. I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to build the tension here because we still want two teams to go

but we're at a point where we should probably take a break. So we're going to take a quick short break and on the other side, we'll get to Williams and Salber and then we'll disclose who has won. Make Wars in 2025. please contact Connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2,600. To speak to an advisor free of charge. FedMGEM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming, Ontario.

Welcome back, everyone. Eight teams that we've run through two to go, just Williams and Salber. A bit of a recap on what has happened so far. There was a difference in McLaren where myself and the Discord took victory. Sam and Harry going for Oscar Piastri. No good, I'm afraid. Ferrari, a difference there as well. Sam going with Lewis Hamilton, whereas myself, Harry and the Discord were right with Charles Leclair.

Quite a bit of agreement down the board. Red Bull and Mercedes and Aster Martin, all three of us and the Discord, saying, Verstappan, Russell and Alonzo, respectively. Exactly the same at Alpine as well. All four parties going with Pierre Gazley there. And then Hasse, a win for the Discord as they went with Oli Behrman, where the three of us went for Esteban Ockon. And then to close out the first segment, we went through Racing Bulls,

where all three of us and the Discord again got the answer correct, I guess, technically, with Yuki Sanoda, even though Sam wanted a point where the three of us would not pick up one. Did we not do a mid-season? Well, I wasn't a big season, like a change of what we thought between Hadjo and Lawson. Sometimes we do that. I guess it happens so early on that we might have mid-season. The third race. Yeah, yeah, right.

We've done it before, but I feel like it's happened like during the summer break where, whereas you don't really think about after three Grand Prix going in for the 12th, one 12th mark of the season. I'm desperately trying just to pick up another point here. I respect. Well, if you've been paying attention, folks, the Discord so far is on 8 out of 8, but they're not going to make it 8, sorry, 9 out of 9,

because they said Carlos Sines would beat Alex Albin. That was wrong. Unfortunately, all three of us predicted that Carlos Sines would beat Alex Albon, so four wrong out of four. In the vein of Sam trying to get a point, can we just like count it from maybe, I don't know. Forget the first five races, yeah. Count it from Baku and then go from there.

Well, the final... I can't tell I can have a point. No! The final score was 73 to 64. in the favour of Alex Alburn. But Sam, it's a very interesting way of getting there, very much a tale of two halves, because first six races of the year,

Alex Albin scored 40 points. In the last 18, he scored 33. Yeah, and it felt like the last eight, he didn't score any. He didn't. I think it might be the last eight, possibly, yeah. Which is a real turnout for the book. You've been thought with how well he started,

but this might have been a big of a domination move from Alex Albin and Carla Sites who had been left floundering. It felt like he was for the first few Grand Prix. Then he settles, got comfortable. It felt like something in the car changed, or he just felt really comfy in the way it was set up. And the results just started to rolling,

especially after the summer break. I'm really impressed with how he turned around his form and the consistency inside the points. When the Williams was good, Carla Sites was good. Of course, he picked up that podium as well. Wodium. Two odiums.

Two wodiums. Amazing. Thanks, Williams. Wallace Wines. Too long. Anything you've got to say on Williams, surprised by how it ended? I am. I, well, see, I thought Sines was going to win this one.

And what he did, again, from, I guess, back to onewards was what I was expecting from him. I probably didn't consider how long it might take him to adjust to the new team, etc. We think Ocala Sines has been so good at adjusting to a new team because he's been to basically every team on the grid now. True, yeah. But even like at Ferrari did take him a little while to adjust there. So probably should have considered that one and also couldn't foresee how good album was in the first like five races or so. Your logic was actually spot on in the teammate was predicted.

Because you outright said, I think Alex Album will have the advantage early. And then Carlos Sines will be better in the second half of the year, which is exactly what happened. Just not quite enough. Yeah, just too much of an advantage in the first battle of the year. So no points whatsoever for Williams, which leads us to what was a distant last place for Salber, of course, in in 2024, not so this year. Holkenberg versus Bortoletto, I think we were going into this one expecting it would be incredibly low scoring.

Not really the case. Nico Hulkenberg winning 51 to 19. This is where I'm on an island. I predicted Gabriel Bortoletto would beat Nico Hulkemberg, both of you and Discord saying that Hulkenberg would correct. win. I will say I don't think points-wise this is entirely reflective of how the season went. I think Bortoletto was closer than it looks, certainly in qualifying. They were at 12 all at the end of the year.

I just think, Sam, the advantage that Holkenberg had was based on that, it was based on that experience, often that tire management, the overall race pace that maybe just set them apart. Yeah, his race management was fantastic, even though Hulkwing missing for a part of the season, the way that he found himself so regularly fighting, even just for a couple of points at the end of the Grand Prix, it's what Fanda Alonkso does so well, you know, he knows when to play

these cards, he knows when to go, when to stop, goes when to hold him, knows where to fold them, for the famous quote there. Bringing out more poker references, that's two and half an hour. Good work. There's a little pee on my jumper, what that stands for? Penus.

I knew that was coming. I mean, you got you sat that one up too much there were worse P words I could have said to be fair so true polyester was one of the

you absolute polyester anyway he managed it really well Bortoletto had a lot to make some rookie mistakes in a few big races as well such as Silverstone

which cost him where Holgerberg really gained yeah you know what I don't regret the decision even though it's lost me change anything I just

I feel like it was a fair shout And he was impressive in this first year, Bortoletto, but ultimately on the wrong side of this one. So, we've all 10 teams wrapped up. What do the scores look like? Sam, six out of 10 for the year for you. My worst ever performance, I think. Yeah, it's not your best.

But you've got those four wins. So you'll be back next year. Just call me Max for Steppen, baby. So good. And then we have a tie between myself and Harry Ead. We've both got seven out of ten. apart from the Discord's got 9 out of 10 so none of us win this year.

The people win. Yeah. So the Discord has more wins than you now. That is unfortunate. Should we have a look at our driver's championship predictions and our Constructors' Championship predictions as well? That's valid. Should we start with Drivers' Championship predictions?

I think for the first time we actually went from first. to 20th and did the full grid here. So what we're going to do, we'll run through where everyone has actually finished and the closest one gets the point. So if, I mean, we'll start with Landon Norris. I like starting here because I said he would be second place, which is one position out from what he actually achieved, which was the championship.

But you two scrubs for it'd finish fourth, which is what Sam said, and you said fifth. So, it's a whisker away. Really close on. I'll take the win there. The finest of margins. Second place was Max Verstappen, of course. Do you remember where you predicted Max Verstappen to finish?

I don't think I said to win. You didn't say it'd win, no. You said it'd be sixth place. God, don't tell me I said lower than six. No, you said fifth place, Sam, which means I said he'd win the championship, of course. So one position away. What championship did we think we were watching going to watch this year? Harry, Ed, we are delusional.

What's going on? Don't worry. I like the top half of this list better than I like the bottom half. This is looking really good for me right now. It's not going to look very good for me in a little while. Harry is going to come back a stormer, I reckon. Well, you both take the point for Oscar Piastri, because he finished third. You both said he'd be the runner up, whereas I said it'd be fifth. So you get a point there.

Yeah, suck it, Ben. Thanks. The first actual match that we've got is fourth place, that being George Russell. So it's not me and Sam, because we both said it'd be in sixth place. not trusting the Mercedes, which I think was fairly valid, but you said he'd finish fourth, spot on. Who the hell did I say he was going to win this championship? You said, Charles LeCleur.

You said the person who had finished first, Charles LeCleur, who finished in fifth place. Oh, God. I mean, we were all out. Me and Sam will take a point because we said it'd be third, but... Don't worry, mate. We're about to hear an even worse suggestion. Lewis Hamilton was up next. He finished sixth, which means, I mean, I'll take the point because I said,

fourth. You said third. 2025 world champion, Sam. It could still happen. No, it can't. Another match, though, as we get to seventh place, Kimmy Antonelli. Very nearly not, of course, because Antonelli had a chance of getting ahead of Lewis Hamilton at that final race in Abu Dhabi. Good thing for you both that he didn't, though, because you both said he'd finished seventh.

I said he'd finish eighth. Oh. We'll get on to why I said he'd finished eighth in a bit. bit. Oh, who have you? Oh, God. Eighth place in the championship was Alex Alburn. I mean, Sam, you get the point because you said he'd finished 10th. Nice. We didn't have any faith in him. We had him lower 12th.

Also me. Carlos Seins, we all said it finished ninth. He finished ninth. We do know something. Genuices. We're good at this. Call it. We win predictions for the year. Maybe not. There's still some hairless in it. Let's check on how many points I've got.

I think Ben's running it, Dan. Don't worry. I've got this noted, Dan. 10th place was Fernando Alonzo. Harry, you take the point because you said it'd finish 11th. I said it'd finish all the way down in 14th, and Sam said 12th. But head of the Fernando Alonzo fan club helps you out there. Got to have the faith. Yeah. P. 11th.

Hulkeberg was 11th. I mean, you both get a point because you said it'd be 19th. I said it'd be last. Wow. Best point I'll ever get. Yeah, so it's a real stretch of a point. But Isaac Hatchar finished 12th. Sam, you were the most optimistic in 16th, so you get the point there.

This is great. I really enjoy this game. When did we fit him? I had him 17th. You had him 18th. Good. Sorry, Isaac. Bearman, I got bareman spot on in 13th, so I'll take the point there.

Liam Lawson finished 14th this year. You both get a point because you had him eighth. I guess we thought Red Bull, right? Right, yeah, yeah. Which is why I had him seventh. I had him beating Antonelli. That's hilarious. Yeah.

You're ashamed now. Yeah. Ockon finished in P15. You both shared the point because he, you had him 13th. I'd him at 11th because obviously I'm basically head of that fan club. Bacon boy. Wrong. Lancho finished 16th.

Harry, you said he would finish 14th. me and Sam said 18th so we all get a point we're all two away I like this this is great Harry you got Sonoda spot on

in 17th probably not for the reason you were expecting probably thinking he was going to be a bad racing balls for the entire year sure

yeah but you got a point nonetheless Gazley was 18th Sam you get a point because he said 11th what did you say

10th we were expecting the LP to be a bit better than it was I think and then we get to the last couple of drivers

was Bortoletto, I get a point because I had him in 19th place. You both had him in 20th. Oh, yeah. And then Colopinto was 20th. We didn't predict his position, so no points there. But Jack Dewan, Sam, you get a point. You had him in 17th. Where did you have him?

I had him in 15th. Ariad him in 16th. I enjoy being less bad, and that's how I've got points in. Four. Not only less bad, Sam. You have won this round, 12 points to you. Harry, you finish runner up with 10. I'm last with 8.

It does feel like the worst victory I've ever had. Yeah, it's hard to call that one a victory, I reckon. I only thought two actually right. Should take a look at constructors quickly as well? See how that those stacked up? Right side of the top, I was the only person to say that McLaren was going to win the Constructors' Championship, so I'll take the dub there. Mercedes was P2.

I wasn't very optimistic with Mercedes, though. I had them fourth. You both had them third, so you're a bit closer, but they've exceeded all of our expectations. Red Bull, I was spot on in third. You both had them in fourth, and then Ferrari in fourth place. I will take a point because I said they would be run us up.

Me and Harry said they would win the constructive challenge. Next season, we've got to stop each other. We can't enable each other anymore. So much opium. We can not enable each other. We need, and this is a very visual reference, We need the hopium to copium graph, which is like the beginning of the year, all of the hopium.

And then by the end of the year, it's all of the copium. And they kind of just switch places as the years and the races go on, you know. We all said Williams be P5. So we'll take that one. Racing Bulls was P6. I said there'd be eighth, which was actually the closest. Aston Martin, P7. Harry, you had them sixth.

Sam, you had them eighth. So you can both share a point because I was really down on them. I said that there'd be ninth. You were spot on with Hass in P8, whereas me and Sam had them in seventh. Salba somehow weren't last. We all had them predicted last. So we'll share the spores there in P9. And then Alpine.

Yeah. Me and Sam said there'd be P6. You said P7, so enjoy the win. Yeah. Harry, do you win that round? Me and Harry both had six out of ten. Another draw. Sam, you had four.

Hey, I got a full out wing. Discord, they can beat me on that. No, we didn't ask them to. I don't get. Speaking of things you didn't win, shall we round out this segment with the final left one fantasy update of the...

Why have you spoiled it already? Oh, no! Sorry, folks. What final round that would have been. I gained 1,100 places to win. Use all the chips at once. All the Doritos. Firstly, before we get into any update on who's finished where, a massive thank you to Beef in the Discord who has managed it.

Not only this season, she's done it for the last couple of years as well. After every single Grand Prix, she puts in a post to say how we've all done. It's very much appreciated. And thank you for all of the scrolling that you do to find all of our names on that leaderboard. I hope they change the interface for you next year. Make your job slightly easier. But we do really... No, you don't know.

We do really appreciate it. I believe it's to be better, so you don't have to scroll as far. Yeah. We'll try. And, hey, this is much as much of a reflection on her as it is on us, because 2,956 teams this year, which, according to beef, is 1,786 more than what we had last year. That's not bad. Stad beef.

Star beef. Better than beef, man. It is. A great name to end the year as well. So the winner of Abu Dhabi was Sonic the Hajjar 2. Which I really want to question, was Sonic the Hajjar taken? And that's why you've had to put two on the end. If so, great work.

353 points. Congratulations to 44th gear who wins the league on 5,867 points. And P2 overall in the world. So congratulations to you're taking a... a big old win. But Sam, you had to make do with second, though. Second place was for the game. And then third place, Reichen's Yacht, Monaco, 2006.

Well done to our top three. That's such good names. It was a good end of the season for Rob Marshall's scaffolding as we gained three spots to finish P6 in the end. 11 points off the podium. So not quite, but I said this in Discord earlier. I might just retire at this point. It's not getting better from it, like how the game works, mate.

Sadly, you are right. I haven't been used to saying this all year, but Kirstie, down seven spots, 220th, but still a very good recovery from the first few races of the year and wraps up second place in our mini-championship, Harry, up another 24 spots, 665th. That power would be really proud of you. I did it for him. but did it for Kiefer.

You need to name your team next team after Kiefer. And then we'll get to it and we'll be like, why did we ask you to do that? Let you forget. But then can you do the update every year and as soon with an impression? Yes. Did. Oh, God.

And then Sam, down 33 spots to end the year, 1,199th. I'm really proud of myself. The thing is, though, like you are comfortable. in the top 50% in the league. I think we've just had a very good year collectively. I appreciate your kindness in closing this. I tried, you know.

I'll be better next year when I understand the way the points are scored. As a key fundamental reason. Literally didn't clock on to about three quarters the way through the year. Oh, he wasn't trying. Here we go. It wasn't there.

Can I have some more points? And they considered giving me more points. Somehow you've won everything, Sam. Oh, yes. I'm so good at games. Just like me a child happy. It's ridiculous. Oh, we play a game later.

Just you wait for that joke to come up. So, are we outing ourselves here a bit, but F1 Arcade on Sunday? Can you reset it, please? I think I won. Can I have another go until I win? You all have to put your names in as Sam, so I always win. I am the worst loser ever. Oh, thank you to everyone who took part in F1 Fantasy this year.

And again, a massive thank you to be for organizing and running it throughout the year. I'm sure as long as F1 improves and comes back, we will do another season of F1 Fantasy in March. Maybe we'll actually get to be a proper league, not just privately, because we have a popular tag. We're the popular league. We're so popular. Except us F1. Embrace us. And with that, we go to a second break.

On the other side, we've got Zach Brown and his radio message. to Oscar Pastry after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, and also news from Red Bull. Kindest Community, celebrating Acts of Kindness Nationwide, with a chance at 100,000 donation for the winning community and a 2026 holiday caravan stop. Learn more at Canada's Wonderland.com. after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Brown interrupted Tom Stalard, who's Piastri's race engineer,

to say in a rather animated fashion, Oscar, I'm not doing an impression, Oscar, what a season, you're a star, seven wins, we love you, we'd love to do this again next year. Thank you, Oscar, for everything you've done, what a year. He then makes a second appearance over team radio to say, Oscar, very proud of you,

what a team player, we go again next year, see you on the podium. Now, we've already discussed, unfortunately, his message to Lando Norris after the Grand Prix. Is this an appropriate message, Sam, for someone who's just lost the driver's championship? First thing I want to call out with these messages I get really sick of. This has got just a Zach Brown thing. We'd love to do it again next year. I really hate this sentiment.

I'm like, well, yeah, I'm contracted. You're paying me a lot of money. This is how sport works. What do you think is going to happen? No, I would actually, Oscar Piastri says, I wouldn't. want to do this again next year. I look at where Ghazley is. That's where I want to be.

Yeah. I made me for P20, actually. You know, that's much harder to achieve. Anyway, so that's get out of my chest. This is, you know, when someone's already, I don't know if you do, actually. Here's a situation for you. Someone's already lying on the ground. They're in pain.

Oh, ah, help me. Help me. Zat Brown runs up out of nowhere. It just boots you while you're already on the floor. Of the worst. It's not the meme where, I forget what it's from, where you've got someone who shot someone else, and it's like, look at what they've done.

Literally this. Pause that brown has coming and gone, oh, I said some nice things there. What else can I go? Just twist the knife in a little bit more. Oscar for being a team player. You know, this sucks. This is not what you're going to hear.

You've just had your dreams crushed. You were leading for so long. You had to give up a lot of things, Monsa comes to mind immediately and then your boss goes Cheers for playing the team game Much love to you We'd love to do it again next year

I just Nah It's not what you're here is it Not particularly great How are your thoughts Ugh Um Zach

We used to call Zach Brown Marketing Man didn't we I'm going to Withdraw that title Because he's just PR man Okay Yeah And it's just

It's icky PR It's like really trying to be really curated, PR, make everything in McLaren, as we've seen with papyrals, et cetera, make everything seem like really like shiny and glowing and it's just a little bit icky. And this radio message along with the, this is the world champion hardline, is just don't let him have the radio, quite frankly, McLaren. I think let the engineers talk to their drivers on the radio. you don't need this. For PSDry as well, right after the race. And this is why I say he's a PR man. Zach Brown knows this is going to get picked up.

He could say this. Sure. He could say this afterwards, just to his face, say, look, you've done a great job this year. I'm sorry, it hasn't gone your way. Thank you so much for being team player. But this is self-promotional in a way. And I just...

I'm right. Your message right then was genuinely better than anything he said. but more heartfelt more sincere and understood where he was coming from but it's it just seems a bit disingenuine and i don't know even though whether he means it to be but it just it comes across like that and it's just not the right time i don't think the intentions were bad like he's just won a champion i i i don't think the intentions are bad but yeah it's just a bit it's just a bit icky isn't it i don't like it very icky and and for piastri who's who's done he must have a notepad full of

things McLaren have wronged me on from 2025, it's just not the right time, is it? I think it's just going to wind him up. No. This is one of those where it's like progressively annoyed me more the week has gone on. Like the more I think about this,

the more annoyed I am about it. Only Tuesday. Well, yeah, I mean, all two days since we've heard this. I think this is completely and utterly tone deaf. I think this is not. the appropriate message whatsoever for a guy that has fought for months, held the championship lead for months, and has come up agonizingly short in his quest to be a world champion.

The Constructors was won, you know, ages ago. His only target at this point in time is winning the driver's championship. And he's just missed out. And I get wanting to focus on the positives of the year, and Piastri should do that. Like, pointing out he's had seven wins and been even better than he was in 2024. Yes, he should, you know, reflect on that. But let the man feel what he needs to feel after what was a very tough situation for him. I feel like Tom Stallard, his race engineer, was actually starting to make a good point. When Zach Brown literally just cuts him off to say what I think he feels he needs to say going back to him being PR man. And I don't even think it's necessarily just about what he said. It's the

tone as well if you've actually listened to the message. He is incredibly animated and understandably so. He's just won a championship. But he doesn't, he fails to see that whilst he, Zach Brown, has won two out of two championships, the person he's talking to has not. The person he's talking to has won one out of two championships and he's going to be very naturally disappointed in that moment. And the thing that sealed it for me was trying to imagine, I know it's not quite the same situation, but it's not far off. 2016, both Mercedes in the championship fight going into that

last race. Lewis Hamilton, of course, wins the Grand Prix, but just about misses out on the championship. Can you imagine Toto Wolf coming over Team Radio and going, what a team player, Lewis. Great job all year. Nine wins. Bang. The impression's

all wrong. It would be mouth, half, mouthful of pump and nickel. Great job this season. You're a real team player. I've done Michael Kane. You missed out on the Michael. But you've got the cane. Lurich, you've really done to self-prack.

But you're a real two-player. Can you imagine, okay, impressions aside, can you imagine Toto Wolf saying that to Lewis Hamilton? I think it would be going down really well with Lewis Hamilton. Lewis Hamilton would rightly tell him to do one. as Oscar Piastri, I feel, would have been entitled to do as well. Yeah, it's like in Piastri is remarkably calm in all situations. And maybe he isn't behind closed doors, but at least in public, because...

I think he walks into a room with Mark Weber closes the door and just screams for about two minutes. And then he's like, okay, calm, we're good, off we go. I just genuinely think, Sam, that calling him a team player in that spot is pretty insulting. Oh, massively. It relegates him. All of his efforts, all of his leadership, all of the way he drove throughout the season, the brilliant overtakes he made, the leading of the championship, the points he scored. In one fell swoop, he has relegated Oscar Piastri not to being a title rival, a contender,

a brilliant driver, but simply a cheers for holding the other guy up. And if that's all you hear, if you're new to Formula One, that's the first time you heard about it, you may be not too sure how it works. It really does diminish a lot of the brilliant work that Oscar Piastri put in. And a message, as short even as what Harry said to say, I know this is really tough for you. You've fought a brilliant season. We'll talk about it more when you get here.

You can be proud of what you've done this year. We'll go again next year. You'll have another chance. We'll do it again. Something like that would just be a lot more like understanding, empathetic. But no, it felt like it was trying to ring home Zach Brown as being a, hey, everyone loves me. Look at this is a good time.

McCloy having a great time. You know, we're world champion, baby. We didn't lose it to Matt. It felt like that maybe wait to his hair a little bit and he forgot to think about how Oscar Pagasy would might genuinely be feeling. The other thing that we'd like to chat about is Helmut Marco, who has been announced he's leaving Red Bull. So the 82-year-old has been an advisor for the team since their debut in 2005

and has played a rather large role in the Red Bull Junior program that has seen the promotion of the likes of Sebastian Vettel and Max Verstappen, has multiple driver's championships and constructors championships that he's been a key figure in helping to win but he is now stepping aside. Harry, what are your thoughts on this? Is it expected?

Any surprise? The timing quite soon after the last race is, I guess, a bit of a surprise. You kind of thought that this day might be coming soon given the changing of the guard that's been happening at Red Bull. They've lost a good chunk of people from the OGs now, haven't they?

Newey, Horner, John to Wheatley. It's a lot of them are disappearing. So you thought maybe the time was coming. And also, I sense with Laura Mechies, there was a bit of a culture shift or something that maybe it's not shifted yet, but they're trying to, he's trying to implement a bit of a culture shift at Red Bull. His comments, I've read a few different reports on this. Obviously, it's been, it was rumoured for a couple of days afterwards

and it got confirmed today as we record. Yeah. The stories about the sort of final name on the coffin being Helmut Marco's comments about Kimi Antonelli, after Qatar, which obviously sparked a lot of horrible abuse for Antonelli on social media. That may be in the final name of the coffin. Another one I read was that he just signed done. There are all by himself. Yeah.

This might be real. Yes. To be clear, as far as I've seen, at least, I haven't seen anything, you know, substantiated when it comes. to this, but there are reports out there that maybe he signed Alex Dunn, helped him leave the McLaren Jr. program in the hopes of a contract of Red Bull, but was acting on his own volition and didn't get the approval of anyone. Again, that's just a report, but... Supposedly he did the same for Lindblad, of course, and I think he's gone, Nimblad as works. I'm the young driver development leader. I'm going to go and do Alex Dung as well. And then,

if the rumors are to be believed, and we are stating right now that they are currently just rumors, he apparently had to terminate and pay off quite heavily a contract between themselves and Dung for the breaking. It means that Dung's not even with a young driver program. Alping doesn't count. So, yeah, pretty terrible times for Helmut Marco. After, let's face it, he's had quite a successful career, especially at Red Bull. You know, he's helped going through a huge level of young driver talent playing a key part

in both Sebastian Vettles rise and Max Verstappen's rise to, you know, that the top. level. On the other hand, you might see that second seat has been a failure for many years and maybe he hasn't been firm enough in delivering maybe the development that is needing on that side. But he's being an integral part of Red Bull in Formula One. It's going to be weird to see him not there moving forward. I have thought about this today. I can't decide whether he's actually been that good or not. It's tough to tell. And I think only the people internally at Red Bull will really know. Yeah. Because I totally take your point. and i would have made the same thing that you know the success stories of veteran bestappen uh

obviously evident ricardo to an extent and i guess you could i think ricardo come through the junior program what did even though he was in hr too yeah they put him in there because there's a seat i think so just want to clarify yeah um but even so and i guess you could say to some extent alborn and signs but they both got booted out of the or left i mean if they're having success elsewhere is is it So that's the point. People, I think a lot of people make the argument that they have been really successful. But a lot of the time, the success these drivers have found, Albon signs, to a degree, I guess Gassley, although less at the moment. But they have found them not in Red Bulls.

So I find it really tough to say, I just think would, if someone else was there doing that role, would the same results have happened? I don't know. I think the thing with that is, I think that you have every right to debate the success of the drivers that have come through. And if he was a really well-loved chap who didn't put anyone in difficult positions, you can accept that, you know what? Sometimes you hit, sometimes you miss. That happens to everyone that does a young driver program, right? For every world champion, you get five that don't reach that level.

But there are some very controversial moments throughout Helmut Marco's career. The COVID camp, just to pick one, for example, where you just think, what are you doing? There are certain comments that are being quite racially offensive, which are not pleasant to hear. We don't stand by at all. A lot of this is real things that have happened that he is responsible for. The most recent one being Kimmy Antigelli in the way he spoke about that young driver, I think that very much outshines anything good that he's done, unfortunately. Yeah, I mean, I admire the way in which he, because he was, of course, a Formula One driver,

and many people don't know that he was in sort of the early 1970s. and that's one of the early 70s French Grand Prix is where he sustained his eye injury that caused him to leave racing and the way in which he has forged another career still within motorsport, but after that incident is pretty admirable. I won't miss him at all from this grid, being very honest,

because I don't have a lot of time for a lot of the opinions that he has, some of which we've seen recently, some of them, not so recently, but I'm not frankly going to miss him personally, but I do respect the success that he's had throughout his time, 20 years at Red Bull. And as you say, Harry, it's difficult to know how much of, say, Verstappen's success you put on Helmut Marco, but he has been a key figure at that team for two decades.

And it will be weird to see a Red Bull team without him. And we are now at a position where this Red Bull team is kind of unrecognizable from the one that we saw a couple of years ago. Sam, what does the outlook for the team look like now? I think it's really positive. I think Lauren Meckis is doing a really good job at shifting years, two decades of a certain culture buildup and may have been stoic in their original ways of working with Christian Horner at the helm and the way that the team has built up around Tim. There's been so little movement at the top of that team for so long that that culture

was so ingrained to so many different people. And Lauren Meckis, of course, was only at Ferrari a couple of years ago. He's really moved quite suddenly into such a prominent position in a different team. It'll be really interesting to see how he puts his spin on it. And the last three months

you can argue have been very positive, very successful. Max Verstappen has seen a real turnaround in form. He has tried to negate the issues they're currently having by understanding them and developing this car in 2025 to hope that 2026 will be a positive formation moving forward.

Hadjar is someone he's worked closely with. Hopefully that has a positive spin on it. He's removed a lot of people or being a round, while a lot of negative influence has also moved on from Red Bull. Helmut Marco being the latest of this development, of course. So I feel positive for Lauren Meckis. It's obviously difficult to have a crystal ball and forfeit what I predict rather what's going on in the future. But I think this is going to be a better environment overall because of what Meckis is doing at the moment.

I think when it comes to the future of Red Bull, weirdly, the Stappan factor might actually be the most simple factor. I think if he has a competitive car, he stays, and if he doesn't, he goes. I think maybe it's quite as simple as that. I don't think Helmut Marco not being around anymore is going to make him think more about leave it. If they give him a good car next year, he'll still be there. But in terms of the rest of the team, I do think a lot of this comes back to the death of Dietrich Mattersch's a couple of years ago.

2022, I think he passed. Of course, he was the founder of Red Bull. And I think when he was at the helm, he had enough control. over some really big personalities like Christian Horner, Helmut Marco, the Vastappans, to make sure it never imploded. And as soon as he passed, even though they had more success on track a year or so after that happened, I feel like the core of the team with that void kind of crumbled as a result of that.

And in terms of the future, I can see it going one or two ways. The first of which is sort of the way you laid out, Sam, which is much more positive in that this gives an opportunity for a few new people, like Lauren Mecky's, to kind of step up and fill that gap and to build the next generation of this core Red Bull team. The other way it could go, which is less positive, is I think that they will use this as an opportunity to bring the team closer to Red Bull sporting operations

more generally in Austria. like Red Bull has had the autonomy and certainly Christian Horner in particular has had the autonomy and power to sort of run Red Bull the F1 team quite separately from Red Bull the rest of the sporting invite

like the football teams they have the ice hockey teams they have for example I think they will use this as an opportunity to make this a bit more bureaucratic and move this a bit more internally a word of warning on that bureaucratic way of working that sounds a lot like a team in Marinello

and it could go quite wrong if they don't play this correctly, I feel. Any closing thoughts? No, I agree. I would like to be optimist to be about Red Bull's future, but I can see what you're saying. There is a lot, and the Hamilton Marco leaving or being forced to leave

his example of that, because again, I was reading about this, that he was one of the key players in trying to oust Christian Horner because he thought he would get a free hand, and they've taken that away from him. Six months, yeah. Yeah, that's not a lot of time.

So I think, yeah, it just shows the internal politics that exists in Red Bull, but I think he was one of the key characters in that, as was Christian Horn. So I'll be able to Sam. I'll remain optimistic for the future. Okay, let's know your thoughts on what Red Bull's future is going to look like with Helmut Marco, no longer there. Let's take our final break on this episode, on the other side, Histula 1.

Oh, boy. Yes. Welcome back to the final part of today's episode. It is time for Histula. 1. History from the love the number one.

Oh, man. Oh, man, isn't it good. I particularly like the beat. Words are really good. Which parts of the beat? Ah, the beginning of the beat. It's not the end of the beat. That's also good as well.

I will grant you that. History of one, six questions in front of me. I'm going to read out an event. Could be about pretty much anything. What the guys have to do is say, who was the Formula One world champion in the year this event happened? And play along at home.

Let us know how many you score out of six. Sam, kick us off. What number would you like? Two, please. Number two. Avatar becomes the highest grossing film

of all time. Sebastian Vettel. No. It's not Sebastian Vettel. I can see why, because you're only a year away from Vettel, 2009, Jensen Button,

the world champion that year. Weirdly, I thought I was 15 years old and I fell asleep in the cinema watching it. Ah, didn't you think it was 1964, then? Very good. Yeah. Yeah, just short, yeah, button 2009.

Harry, what number would you like? Number one, please, Ben. Number one. Oasis, release What's the Story, Morning Glory? I think appropriate. Don't say that on the podcast, please. Uh, oh no, is it Jacques Vienov? It's not Shaqvanov.

No, very close. close again, the answer was Michael Schumacher 1995. Damn. Couple out. Doesn't go his own bloody driver. Yeah, that's the problem. I don't know it. Yeah, not the fact I don't know when

what's them. Grow up. Rattled. God, I love this game. It gets you properly annoyed at each other. Sam, what number would you like? Another five, please, Ben. Number five. Mark Zuckerberg

wins Time Magazine's Person of the Year. That could literally be any year for the last 22 years. Fernando Alonso. No, that one, Sebastian Bill. That was actually 2010. Good sake.

Come on, I know we can get a point there. Number three. Number three. Lewis Hamilton is born Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh, Alan Prost. Yes, it is Alan Prost.

Well done. 1985, which was his first championship win. Sam, we're back to you. Three. That was number three, I'm afraid. It's a disaster. Why, six thing, I guess. I guess, I guess six.

Tom Brady wins his first Super Bowl as part of the New England Patriots. Oh, come on. I literally don't go. That could be yesterday. I'll give you a hint. It wasn't yesterday. 8th December Super Bowl as well The Snowman Super Bowl

That is a reference to power rankings Folks, you'll have to get up You'll have to listen Crikey, mate How many has he got four? Six maybe? Yeah, sure Kimmy Reichenen

Not Kimmy Reikinen A bit further back 2002 Sorry Tom Oh, sorry, six for the Patriots, one for the Buccaneers. I guess that's expert over it. What's happening? What was the answer? I forgot about Tom Brady's last championship.

Ben, like, malfunctioned that I watched it in real time. Yeah. 2002. Sir Michael Schumacher. Okay. Now, the big question, Harry, can you make this game two-nil? Number four? Yeah, yeah, man.

Oh, sweet. I don't know. I don't know if I'm breaking this news to you, so if I am, I'm really sorry. The event is daft punk breaks up. Wait, what? When did daft punk break up? I didn't know they had. I'm sorry, mate.

That news is like around the world. Nice. Like that. I don't know when they did. So, uh, uh, uh, sure. Lewis Hamilton. No. It's Max Mastapin.

It happened in 2021, believe it or not. Can I have a point? Yeah, why not? One all draw. Yes, it worked. That's a good tactic. Wait till the end of the episode where I don't care anymore.

I just want to leave. No question of the week, but there is a good reason for that because of our recording schedule here in December, it means that the next question of the week, a very important one, Sam, who deserves to join the late-breaking Hall of Fame? You will get one collective vote between you,

so make sure you answer. Yes, you are the people, winners of teammate wars this year. Well done. Now, don't squander this opportunity because you join an elite class. It could range from anything, a call of a racetrack,

a film. one of our silly characters who are definitely not. They're real people, I promise. It could be a Formula One driver for crying out there. Who's in the Hall of Fame? Some names that are already in there. Yuki Sagoda, Spaghetti Dinger Lady, Harry's Fire Alarm, beef.

You know, the options go on. How many are you in there now in total? 12. Hang on. 16, I think. What about the film 1917? The film 1917 is in there for one scene. Because we brought it up about eight times in one episode.

And that's how niche it can be. So when that question comes out, you must convince your peers to vote for your option, and they may appear in the Hall of Fame forever. Peer pressure. Yeah, please. I'm encouraging peer pressure. I like breaking out context.

Thank you for listening. Thanks for joining us out of season. We hope you enjoy our kind of Christmas-Sach December antics. Lots more fun to come, including the LB Awards. which are coming up very, very soon, where there's a whole heap of fun to be had and you can hear about a lot of wiggles.

It's like just ick of the year, which I think has officially made it. Yeah, it's there. Good. Can't wait for that. Join the Giscog as well. That's where you can have. Ben, is there a quiz coming, I hear.

Oh, there is a quiz coming, yes. On Saturday, Saturday 13th, that will be 9 p.m. That's UK time. If you're not in the UK, work it out. Be better. Good. You have to do maths if you're coming to distance. score. That's the every rule. Just a quick one on that, by the way, because sometimes people

are put off by, it's a quiz, you need to know everything about F1. Everything is multiple choice. It's an hour of random fun. Like, it's not a serious thing. So just come along and have a good time. Most people in there barely get a question right and have a great laugh. And honestly, I'm one of those people. So it's good fun. Thanks for listening. Join Patreon, if you'll have a little bit more content. We've got all our usual benefits all the way through December and then into the rest of the winter season. And we'll see you in the next one. In the meantime, I'm in Samuel Sage. I've been Ben Hocking.

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