The Late Braking F1 Podcast - Is there hope for Aston Martin?

Episode Date: May 17, 2026

With both cars finally seeing the chequered flag in Miami, Ben and Sam discuss Aston Martin's targets and whether there are any genuine reasons for optimism. They also cover the potential rescheduling of 2026's cancelled races, before getting stuck into some of your F1 driver questions. Get involved in F1 Fantasy this season! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Join the Late Braking league⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and see if you can beat us... LEAGUE CODE: C6Y6R4ZUY02 Want more Late Braking? Support the show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and get:Ad-free listeningFull-length bonus episodesPower Rankings after every raceHistorical race reviews& more exclusive extras!Don't forget! You can also gift a Late Braking Patreon subscription—perfect for loved ones or your own wish list. Choose anything 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 ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Come hang out with us and thousands of fellow F1 fans in our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Discord⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ server and get involved in lively everyday & race weekend chats!Join our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠F1 Fantasy League⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and see if you can beat us!Get in touch any time at [e-mail]  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Thank you for listening to the Late Breaking F1 podcast. Make sure to check out new episodes every Wednesday and every Sunday. Very warm, welcome to the late breaking F1 podcast presented by Sam Sage and me, Ben Hocking. On this, I was going to call it a non-race weekend Sunday, Sam, but in truth, it is a race weekend for some, if your name is Max Verstappen. My man never stops racing. Every weekend is a race weekend for Max Verstappen. And as I've just realized, he's in the lead currently, as we're recording this.

The man just, all he does is, Wing, wing, wing, a matter what. I feel like that song is actually written about him. Yeah. I mean, there's still quite a few hours to go in this 24 hours as well. So if when it goes out, he's actually crashed out, then that's going to seem really bad. It shows that we're supporters, though. So that's good.

I'm equally a supporter of the Daxia, which is just running around all on its own. Is it just a San Dario? Yes. Just at the back. It's just, yeah, it's like its own class, I think. It just looks like me driving around. The Gerberg ring, which I love. So, yeah, it's good to see that it's sold out this year.

It's great to see the interest in endurance racing is still very much alive. Been loving it, absolutely loving it. Do you know what my favorite thing about this whole weekend has been is, like, people in the media and websites and news outlets and whoever, who don't usually post anything about something like endurance racing are starting to post because Vastappens there. And it's a way, how can you shoehorn versus? Stappen's name in any headline or tweet that you've got going out. Just look at our episode title today. Yeah, Formula One related with Max for Stapling at the go-hangering.

We would never do something like that. We'd never shoehorn names into titles or anything. Gosh, no, no, no. We're on, honestly, we're fine. Receptable broadcasts. We're in a sync-gov. Well, we've got a Q&A coming up later on today. We're also going to be talking about the F-1 calendar and some potential changes to that.

but we're going to start with Aston Martin, the team that once upon a time Max Verstappen might have been rumoured to go to. How many times do you get his game into this opening in five minutes? Who, Max Verstappen? Oh, very good. No, I think we're talking about Max Verstappen. Okay, good.

So we're talking about a team that Max Verstappen is not racing for, that being Aston Martin. They remain 11th in the Constructors Championship, joining Cadillac on zero points. I was going to go with a Nile Poir because of Eurovision last night, but even the UK didn't manage that. Good news, though. Miami was the first time

that Bo Fast and Martin cars finished a race in 2026. So everything is on the up. Everything's coming up, Millhouse. Where do they go from here? Oh, isn't it just the lowest of expectations, the lowest of wings for them? It's like saying that both podcast hosts

managed to finish a show. You're like, well, yeah, kind of is expected when you do a podcast that you're going to make it all the way through to the end of the podcast. Wasn't any good, but you made it to the end. Right? You know, like that is a bare minimum.

And if you're going to be in a sporting event, getting to the end of the sporting event tends to be the bare minimum to show that you've actually turned up. Where do they go from here? I don't know where they go from here. That's the difficult question. I think that's where Ashton Martin are a little bit stuck right now is one direction is not an option for them.

They need to be on the offensive in all directions. And the key part is working closely with Honda because there's so many things changing in the regulations when it comes to engines, that they need to make sure that unlike last time where they were basically caught with their pants down, where they want enough staff. They have hired and fired everyone that are being a part of the Red Bull program

a few years beforehand. The engine didn't fit into the chassis. It vibrated. It couldn't get up to 6,000 RPM. It's honestly, the list of mess that came from the engine alone is ridiculous. You've got to hire a cleaner to sort that all out. But then when you've got these changes coming, potentially for next year, you think, well, that throws more confusion into it.

Well, I don't think it does. I actually think for Austin Martin especially, it might add clarity to allow them to sit down and go, there's going to be massive changes to the engine next year. You know, we might see a 10% changing the GPU, CPU, GPU, I'm talking about computers here. Computers here. Well, they're our battery powered, after all. But, you know, where you've got that combustion engine percentage increasing and the battery

power potentially decreasing, you might see a lot of change in terms of fuel and the way that the engine is using its oil usage and the way the power is used. So this might change a lot in terms of the way that Honda are manufacturing the engines themselves. you might think, oh gosh, we could get the first one right. Well, I actually think that helps them. Because they could get the first one right, the change is being so plentiful. In theory, it might put other teams on the back foot,

which might allow Ashton Martin to just rejig the whole plan and go, right, we're going to start afresh, we're still going to be a bit behind, but at least we've got a target that everyone else is also working to, not this linear plan from 2026, all the way through to 2030, where we're already going to be multiple seconds behind. So I don't think they know where to go, but I do think these new regulations coming in might offer them a bit of a helping hand.

Yeah, at least in the more longer term. Short term, I think they're a bit stuffed. And that's probably why I think that's probably why you lean more towards what could happen next year because I think most of this year is a foregone conclusion and not in a good way. I've spent some time thinking about their, I don't know, upgrade strategy, but not really an upgrade strategy, because they're, didn't have any upgrades when we went to Miami. They were the only team that did. And I know we, I don't know, ripped on them a bit for that at the time and rightly so, but also I kind of

understand what they're doing here in that there's not much point upgrading a car that can't finish a race. At least that was the truth before Miami. And there's not much point in going for these incremental gains. Fernando Alonso spoke about it afterwards to say that, you know, we could bring these smaller upgrades and improve by three tenths of a second. What's that going to get us? We're still going to be like seven temps behind Williams or seven tenths behind racing balls, whoever the back of the midfield is. That doesn't get us anywhere.

So he might as well hold out for and, you know, make these upgrades more efficient by bringing bigger upgrades once they're ready at some point in the future. He said the next few races, probably not going to see much of a different us to Martin. I suppose the good thing for Ashton Martin is they're basically not up against anyone at this point. There's, it's not like they're in a race like Ferrari are with McLaren and they are both with Mercedes. And Red Bull are trying to race themselves to get back to the front here. Astor Martin are in a game of one right now. They know that they're at the back.

They know they've barely got a car that can finish a race. They simply need to get a car together that starts to put reality into the fantasy that they produced last year, which was this Adrian Newey and the Cow, Honda, Mega Machine that we expected to kind of turn up and change the face of Formula One. Obviously, we're so far from that. I think they need to take three or four big steps this year, maybe one at the summer break when they're comfortable, one before the end of the year, excuse me,

and then one right at the end of the year that allows them to really start to realize how that direction of a dream was meant to come about. Obviously, they were so far on the back foot when Newe came in with the wind tunnel being delayed. Then it does cause the difficulties in understanding how to mitigate the regulations both pros and cons. They've got a lot to learn still.

So I do think that it's going to be at least 2027 before we see any meaningful advantage for Honda and Ashton Martin coming in. We played Formula Fortunes on Wednesday's episode. And I don't know why I'm bringing that up. I suffered a devastating loss. But as a result of playing Formula Fortunes, I was able to go back and look at some of the occasions we played it last year. I think we did it three or four times. and one of the questions we asked on one of those editions last year,

how many races will Aston Martin win in 26? And I bet you the top answer wasn't none. I can't remember what the top answer was, but there were people who said four, five, six, and I don't think that's going to be right. I think zero's probably going to happen. I reckon if you want to put some money on zero, you might be doing all right.

Yeah. I've said before that I think their biggest issue right now, heading out of the first three races, at least, was a lack of data. If you look at most teams and what they were able to do, including like Cadillac even, who are maybe their nearest rivals in terms of pace right now, Cadillac were able to do 110 laps in the Chinese main Grand Prix, which was out of 112 because they both got lapped. Astor Martin had 41 in that same race.

There was a possible 116 laps in Australia from both drivers. They did 64, which is barely hard. half. And because of this, they had a real lack of data to work with going into this extended break that we've had. We've had, what, one race in seven weeks? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and maybe two months now, yeah.

And whereas the likes of Williams, for example, were able to use that time quite effectively to catch back up in Miami, Astor Martin, I just don't think had the information at hand to really help them out a great deal. I don't think that would have changed massively for them, but it has really held them back. And it's good that they've solved this vibration issue. Alonzo seemed to confirm in Miami that's gone. But that list that you mentioned earlier is really long of things that they need to improve. Landstrol has had a battery issue that has caused a retirement this year.

He's had a water pressure issue that's caused the retirement. A power unit issue stopped him running in qualifying in Australia. And of course he did the race, but it was not classified because he was so many laps behind. there are so many reliability issues they've had to this point that they need to keep going. Yeah, the other thing that's causing the problems, of course, is that they are trying to work with an engine manufacturer that's on the other side of the planet. And their issues are paired. It's got like it's only ever coming just from the engine or only ever coming just from the kind of the electrics and the chassis.

It is a constant battle between the two of how one is impacting the other. And we've heard stories coming out of Ashton Martin that the shatter didn't fit over the engine properly. when they first brought it in. Because they just weren't made in tandem, there was such poor communication between the two companies that they had no synergy, no ability to work together across the globe, which is tricky, of course,

but we're in the modern day now. When it comes to Formula One, you've got to be there with each other. If Red Bull and 4 are able to do something together, and that's in theory on two separate continents, and in theory, so can, you know, Honda in Japan and Astor Martin, who are up near Coventry.

So in theory, perfectly plausible. They need to find a way to make sure these companies are actually aligned and working together, because that will stop them having these issues going forward. Yeah, and outside of, outside of this as well, Fernando Alonzo at Miami, spoke a bit about what's next on the agenda for Aston Bime. What do they fix now that the vibration issue is at least sorted? He said the biggest problem was the gearbox.

He said it was impossible to drive. I lost sink in every breaking point. I had no acceleration out of the corners, and the down shifts were all over the place and very random. Sometimes I had push, sometimes I had rear locking, and that was a really bad surprise. That's something he's identified as the number one thing to at least partially fix for Canada based on some of the breaking zones that we have there. Again, this is quite telling that their list of things to fix is so long that he thinks it's the gearbox

that they need to focus on. I think this shows why it's not just a failure on Honda's part either. You know, Aston Martin has really got this wrong in a number of different ways. A gearbox is, it sounds really silly, it's far more integral to a car than you actually think it is. It's not just about changing gears. It's not just going from first through to whatever gear you have in your car and back down again when you're braking.

It is the literal soul around what your car is built around because if your engine revs, you can't allow it to shift up, to move into the next gear to then go through the chambers to allow the engine to move, you cause overheating, you cause too much pressure. The engine might stall. If you're then going down and you're losing power at the wrong, momentum, you're smooth or smooth in its transition. Your braking is a regular. The rear wheels will lock, because we've seen multiple times is what happened with Liam Lorsing in Miami,

where he took out Pierre Gasly. The gearbox had a failure, and it meant that he was unable to get the car to move properly. It's so integral to having a working car that if you've never driven a manual car, you won't understand how much you need to do and to judge you to juggle when you're going through gears, when you're having to slow the car down for a corner, when you're having to adjust for traffic or risks around you. An automatic gearbox does a log of that for you. In a road car, it's so well programmed. They're excellent.

BMW even came up recently and said, we might never make a manual car again because our automatic gearboxes are so good. It's actually just worse for the car to have a manual driver now. But having a manual gearbox, you have to be a real part of that car. If it isn't working for you, you will see a loss of time,

a loss of confidence, a loss of ability and a loss of reliability. So it's hugely integral to getting it right. And it shows that Aston Marston has got a six-three holes in the ship all over the place. And think about Canada that's next up as well, a lot of really fast chicanes there, multiple fast chicanes over the lap,

where you really need to downshift and upshift very quickly out of these corners. If you are downshifting before you need to or before other cars need to and you don't have the confidence in the gearbox, you're going to be losing even more time than Aston Martin are already losing. So if that's something they don't fix with Canada,

Canada, and again, we only have the one practice session because it's a sprint weekend. I don't want to say Astor Martin will be in trouble because they're already there, but they can be plunged further into trouble, if that's the case. There's a real risk that Canada could be their slowest Grand Prix if they do both finish the race. Because of the nature of the Grand Prix, I do think that they will struggle to maximize any part of the track. Oh, boy. Good news, though, for Astor Martin and Honda, maybe. these ADUO changes.

So you mentioned working with Honda and this is maybe a good example of that because number one, first bit of good news, the first ADUO review will take place after Canada. So there is an opportunity to fix things at that point via upgrades. It was initially going to be after round six,

which was supposed to be Canada, sorry, it was supposed to be Miami, then didn't become Miami and became Monaco, because of the two cancellations, and now has come back to Canada. So overall, might be considered a win. The other thing is there's been a tweak in the rules. So it was initially,

if you are 8% or more worse than what is believed to be the leading team or the leading engine, you will get $8 million to spend on upgrades. Now, if you are over 10% away, you will get $11 million, and it's believed that Honda is the reason this rule exists. Cheers, Honda.

I mean, three extra million. If they're not worse by more than 10%, they're in big trouble because what earth's wrong then? Oh, good Lord. Could you imagine if they're 9.9% worse? Or they show up and, like, you've actually got the best engine. And what have you done here, guys? Like, what's going on?

it's an odd and interesting program that Formula One are running. And there's been a lot of complaints about it, actually, from listeners of this show, from social media users, which are many, and F1 watches, you know, there is a real problem that people say, well, you should just be giving a leg up because you weren't very good at something. And I guess you can apply this complaint to that new engine regulation that we've got now, where if your battery starts to fail or you don't get the best launch off of a race start, you get a helping hand essentially to make sure you get off the line faster.

It's a bit like this in terms of regulations that you couldn't create an engine that was good enough. So now we're going to hold back the brilliant craftsmanship of essentially Mercedes and maybe forward or running alongside them to make sure that everyone comes together. I understand their point they're making. I think it's a fair point that they're making. I think I disagree with the point of the EGUO system in the sense that I want Formula One to be as close and as competitive as possible.

And having someone like Honda languishing at the back, having Ferrari be maybe three, four tenths away further back, overall it just doesn't affect the product positively. It causes us to have a less competitive sport. If you want to have a dominant year, year after year, then go back to the hybrid era because that's what's going to happen. Hopefully these duo systems will mitigate us having a six-year run of Mercedes dominating everything again.

That's the plan anyway. Honda need this big time. Honda absolutely need this. It isn't just Honda, they need to bear that in mind that the likes of Audi will pick this up. Ferrari, most likely, will pick this up as well. And it'll be interesting to see whether Red Bull Ford

get anything or Mercedes gets anything. We don't know who has technically got the fast of the two engines. If Mercedes picks something up, then they're all in trouble. But realistically, they need to make sure that they are maximising this $8 to $11 million. Like, that is a ridiculous amount of money for anything and anyone. Spend it properly. please actually spend it wisely and have something to show for it at the end of the situation.

I'm very curious to see what they can improve, but it's a big chunk of cash. Yeah, and it's always important as well to remember the distinction between the opportunity to catch up and catching up. This isn't a case of your engine is slower. We will ourselves, like F1, the FIA, step in to ensure that we are almost scaling back the engine of someone else and assuring that you're caught up in that regard. You get the money. If you don't spend that money wisely, you will be as slow as you were before this injection of cash.

So that is the good thing about this. And I think they were just, with this whole system, they were ultimately just worried of 2014 to 2018 or so repeating itself where Mercedes had such a head start. And credit to Mercedes, they got themselves to head start. But it's almost as soon as you've got that and you don't have a distinction between, and of course there was no cost cap at the time as well,

it's very difficult, even if you are making progress as the slower team, why would you make more progress than the team in front of you? As mentioned before, there's still so much room to grow for all of these teams, including the leading packages right now. So, yeah, it's one of those where I understand why some are against it. I think for a competitive F1, it's a necessity,

because otherwise Honda, they're going to go through what, they did last time and it's going to be years until they're competitive. Yeah, I agree. And it also could cause interest from outside manufacturers to know that they've got options to possibly get further investment to allow them to create a competitive package if they want to step in to the sport at a later date. Also, this isn't new. This exists in other races as well. Adurance racing, as we mentioned, they have ballasts that you might put on for cars that have done better throughout the season, BTCC, carry weight as well. It's a very normal situation now to create a more competitive

field and it works in those scenarios. So again, as Ben mentioned, this isn't a you will be more competitive. This is the opportunity to become more competitive. And that's, I think, quite important wording. All right. Let's see how Aston Martin get on in Canada. Of course, we'll be previewing that race on Wednesday. Let's take a quick break. And on the other side, we're going to be discussing the F1 calendar and the opportunity for Bahrain and Saudi Arabia to reappear on it. Welcome back, everyone. We're going to talk about the calendar here. Obviously, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia have got a lot of attention because of the, the postponements or the cancellations,

whichever word you want to use, of the two races that were supposed to take place earlier in the year. There were some comments recently at an investors meeting for F1 where they said, we'll be thoughtful in our approach to potentially getting these back on the calendar. We'll continuously evaluate the calendar this year. It might be possible to reschedule one race towards the end of the season. So maybe not thinking both is possible,

maybe one is possible. A few potential solutions to get this done. I thought we could just go through both of them and see what we think. The first one I've seen outlined is that we can use the week between Baku and Singapore to host one of these races. So that would be on the 4th of October. That would be Sunday race day. And of course, with Baku and Singapore, they're already somewhat in the area.

Would you be in favor of this happening? More racing, yeah. always in favour of it. Also, especially if it's Bahrain, a big lover of Bahrain, I think it's very underrated as a racetrack. So just from a entertainment, content, racing, point of view, absolutely love it, here for it. In terms of the actual logistics and the difficulty at places on the drivers and the personnel, we are pacting as it is. And we called this, right, when they came out and said that they're having to move these races, everyone was saying, cancelled, every race canceled,

they're gone, and we went, no, they got. The wording is very specific here. They will look to be rescheduled. And here we go. I think we're even pointing out this week, actually, when we first discussed this as the option they'll probably try to fill. So it makes sense that this is where they've tried to place it. Weather-wise, it works for the Middle East. It's just starting to cool after a really hot summer.

We saw that Qatar is obviously relatively near. I think it's about a month later from this slot as well at the moment. Baku as well is bearable at this time as well. It would likely be a night race maybe at Bahrain as well, which should be quite interesting if we're able to do that, which I will allow again for whether to play a part of things. Same as Saudi, of course. So it logistically works. I just don't know if I like the strain that goes on to the staff that have to go through this.

And we've brought this up before. Formula One is a grueling business to actually be a part of, part of the fanfare, the circus that travels around with Formula One. Think of those people that have to drive those HGVs to different locations to sit on a ferry or to pack it into a plane to land. Do they have to set the whole tent up at 4 a.m. on a Wednesday for it to then come back down here on a Sunday night, to then get in the van on a Monday morning to draw. It's relentless and grueling.

And I do think with that being the case, having a week break is probably beneficial. But I understand that contracts cost a lot of money. These Middle East nations will want to make sure they host these events because they're integral to them and their tourism and they've spent a lot of cash. bringing it in there. So they'll be disappointed if it can't happen. But overall, I probably err on the side of caution. I think these people who actually work in the sport deserve to have a little bit of a little bit of leeway.

Yeah. And just to be clear, we're not putting to one side the possibility that it still won't be safe to put on these races. That's entirely possible at this point as well. We're just talking about if it is the potential of doing this, I'm dead against this because if this happens on the 4th of October, we would essentially have a calendar, which is triple header, one week off, triple header,

one week off, triple header. So you've got nine races in just 11 weeks, which is a huge strain on everyone. And whilst I, triple headers, I'm not really for anyway. I'd rather stick to just double headers, really. But if you're going to do triple headers, you want them to be as logistically close to each other as can possibly be. So, for example, if you're doing a triple header in Europe, where you're going from, let's say, Austria to Spar to Zambor, it's still tough on the teams and the personnel don't get me wrong, but they're all pretty close. There's not a huge amount of travel time. You could drive there in a day, you know. Right. Whereas these three triple headers would be Baku to Singapore, I know they're in the same continent. They aren't anywhere close to each other.

Yeah, the flight time is like six to seven hours. You've got to get all that stuff onto a place. if you're going to fly it. And then you would have Bahrain or Saudi Arabia in the middle of those. So you are still trekking across an entire continent with that. Second triple header goes from North to South America, which, again, not a short trip. And then the third triple header, the one that we love, the one that sees off the season, you go from North America to the Middle East. You're going from Vegas to Qatar, which, as we've said multiple times.

Great idea, F one. So that's one reason I don't agree with this. Second reason I don't is because the 2023 Qatar GP that we've spoken about before. If you weren't watching F1 at the time, that was one of the hottest weekends we've ever had in the sport. I was held in Qatar. That was held on the 8th of October,

which is four days in the same sort of calendar as would take place here. That weekend, it was, or at least during the race, 36 degree minimum temperature. And in the cockpits, that's close. close to 50. The daily sort of mean average temperature in both Bahrain and Jeddah pretty much identical to Qatar. So we run the risk of a repeat of that Grand Prix. And to remind you what happened there, Logan Sargent suffered from heatstroke and had to retire

from that Grand Prix. Ocon vomited in his helmet during the race. Lance Stroll and Alex Albin, I think it was, both of the. them had to be helped out of their car at the end of the race. That weekend was not safe for F1. That's the scary bit, because if you have a crash or there's a fire in the car, you have to be helped out of your car, think of what can happen. You know, that's a horrific thought. The worst part, I think, is also the fact that obviously this is just one of the Grand Prix, and they're looking to try and put another one into the schedule by maybe pushing the whole year

back another week. And you might end up with something like a quadruple header going from Vegas to Qatar to Saudi Arabia to Abu Dhabi. And that is, again, just relentless. Well, yeah, that's the second solution to run through. Because Abu Dhabi has, in its contract, it must hold the last race of the year, currently scheduled for the 6th of December. The other idea is to push that back to the 13th of December and then use the 6th of December for, again, either Bahrain or Saudi Arabia. So that would create a quadruple header to end the year, as well as seven races in eight weeks. Yeah, it's just, like at what point do you maybe think that sport itself is not worth

the risk of just people trying to do their jobs, realistically? Do we need it? Like, especially barring, as I mentioned, I think it's a great race. But do we need it this year with everything that's going on? I have to urge on the side of caution. I think it's too brutal, especially when you've got a difference between, especially the top teams and the bottom teams, where there are some rotations in place,

where you will have some team members who will fly away for half of the Grand Prix or two-thirds of the Grand Prix, but not the whole calendar. But that's an easier thing to do for the bigger teams, and that's not as common for the smaller ones. And of course, even with the bigger teams, there are some roles and some people

that will need to be there for every single race. And you're essentially telling these people, you're going to have to be away from home for like four months to end the year, if something like this were to take place, it's brutal. Especially with the calendar, potentially starting in as early as late February, early March now. That means that you get, oh, good, especially from the UK, you get to come home for two and a half, three months in the cold and the dark. And then you're off again.

Off you go, you've got to think about people's lives at this point. So I'm going to say no, this year we just don't need it. My fear, of course, as is usually the case with F1, is money, because Bahrain and Saudi Arabia collectively make up essentially 8% of the calendar 2 out of 24. But they make up 14% of F1's sort of yearly calendar hosting income. It's about $150 million they make from those two races. F1's going to lose a lot if they can't replace even one of them. them, let alone both of them. And I worry that's just going to drive their decisions here. Well, the other issue, of course, is they wanting to represent the Formula One as in the

healthiest place because it's ever being with these new regulations. That's viewing figures that are going to be down across the globe because, of course, they'll be missing two Grand Prix. They've really missed those two Grand Prix, so they want to rectify that, of course. You're right hosting money. It'll be sponsorship money. We'll have to change because they won't be present at two events. So it has a huge knock on effect. This is not just as simple as going. Oh, no, we won't bother. There's a little. log of cash that essentially it's not just that. It'll be hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars that will not go into where F1's pockets because they can't host these two Grompry.

There's one other thing that has maybe spoken about a little bit less with all this. And it's not even relating to hosting Grand Prix. It's the logistics and organization around the world for other Grompry. So for example, I think the Singapore GP is maybe the one that's most affected by this. But it also impacted the Japanese GP earlier in the year is that often these Middle Eastern cities, particularly the likes of Dubai and Doha and Qatar and even Bahrain, they are key locations when it comes to transporting materials for flyaway races. So if you've got a race like Singapore, they will almost always go through that region. And in most cases, these countries and these cities will have deals with F1 that ultimately

make it a bit cheaper for F1 to transport all of this stuff around the world. if they can't go through those cities and have to find alternate routes, outside of that just being tough to do anyway, it's likely to be more expensive for these teams. And freight transportation is not something that's covered by the cost cap because it's not directly related to personnel travel, which is excluded from the cost cap. Does that then become unfair for these?

I know they're all in the same boat technically, but that's draining away at the cost cap. I mean, money is money. It is a separate magical pit that gets to be put into a bank account wherever you need to spend cash. It is a part of the cost cap. Take harsh. They are the smallest team on the grid. They've got the lowest budget.

You might sit there and think, well, these teams are all multi, multi, hundred million dollars. It's not as simple as it might seem. You know, you look at the investment rate that some of these teams have. And yeah, they can spend up to the new cost cap, which is what now been? $230 million. Yeah, it's just over $200. Yeah. Yeah, something like that.

You know, that's a lot of bloody money. That's extreme money. But then you think, okay, well, what if we're spending another $50 million on top of that for personnel, for travel, for freight, for all these extra. For fuel costs, which is having to go out through the roof at the moment with what's going on, a team like Haas, who then have to logistically sort all that out on a much smaller team and a much smaller budget, if they have to spend, let's say, $10 million extra outside of the cost cap, well, they might not have $10 million outside of the cost cap that they've allotted for. that then comes out of their ability to develop a car. And then that car development suffers. They become less competitive. They can't get to races properly.

It has a huge knock on effect because of this. So it's not as simple as F1 teams can sign a check, no problem. You might be thinking, oh, you're being a bit sympathetic for companies that are hundreds of millions of dollars. It's the nature of the sport. If we're going to have a competitive sport that's fair and even as much as it can be, you've got to think of these things. So F1 are in a really sticky position.

I want to keep an eye on. as we go throughout the year. And I guess the last thing to really mention on this is that with the way in which the season started and Bahrain and Saudi Arabia not being able to take place, one of the main reasons, if not the main reason, there wasn't a replacement for either of those Grand Prix at the time. It's because F1 didn't have the time to put on something else.

Like it was all too soon. We are months out from the potential of a race in October or shifting the calendar around in December. So you might think we've got plenty of time to fix this. We don't have as much time as people might think. The sooner these things can get done, the more time these teams are going to have to prepare for it. If we get too close to some of these dates

and F1 try to put something together, it might not be feasible. No, no. But the last thing I want to raise, which I agree is the most important part of this, is the people element, you know, the customers who are paying to go to these Grand Prix, is that, you know, you have maybe booked to fly out to Bahrain.

You think, oh, I want to go to the Bahrain GP. I paid for that in September last year, whenever the tickets went on sale. You pay for your flights, you pay for your hotel. It gets cancelled. And rightly so. It should have been cancelled with everything that's going on in the world. That makes total sense. But, okay, it's been rescheduled for October.

Can you afford new hotels, new flights to go there? And then what if a race gets moved because of it? What if Abidabie gets pushed back by a week? And you think, oh, I've spent, you know, my savings on going to the Abidabie Grand Prix, because I want to be there at the Formula One conclusion. That's gone back a week. Okay, well, now you've got to pay for new flights. I hope that they can be rearranged.

And new hotels, I hope it can be a rearrange. It's got such a ground, granular level knock-on effect that doing this can cause so much financial hardship for people that want to pursue Formula One because they love it. But equally, we ain't all millionaires. It's not easy to do. And having to have a changing your work schedule or a changing your budget, that's a massive knock-on effect for your everyday.

customers. So they need to bear that in mind of how it might affect the normal level spectator. I remember the dark days of early 2020. Of course, in the pandemic era, when we spoke to Karun Chandok, and we asked him a question and it was something like, and at this point, the calendar had sort of started to take shape, but of course we started much later in the year. And those races were quite jammed in. And I remember asking him in that, in that interview we did with him, is this going to be a really tough strain on the drivers? And he said, I don't think, I'm paraphrasing here. I don't think he necessarily said, I don't care about the drivers, but he said, of all the

people I'm worried about, it's not the drivers. It's the personnel. It's the fans. Like, there are so many other groups above the drivers to think about in that scenario that it is really tough on when you start to put three races together or five races in six weeks. So, yeah, it's, um, whilst there's no. whilst there's no sympathy for the drivers, it is best to highlight those other groups that you just have.

Let's take our second break on this episode. On the other side, we're getting into a Q&A. Welcome back, everyone. It's time for Q&A. So if you saw on our socials or indeed Discord, if you're not a part of Discord already, make sure you get involved. We put out a Q&A a few days ago,

specifically looking at questions about drivers. So we did one maybe about a month ago that focused more on the teams. Now we're focusing more on the drivers. Again, wonderful array of questions. Thank you always for your support. It means a lot that you take the effort at the time to go and write something. But it's also good content. Indeed.

I'm going to actually start with sort of two questions because they somewhat relate to each other. And they're both about Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari. So the first question, when will it be acceptable? that this is all Lewis is capable of. And the second question, how long until Olli takes over from Old Man Hamilton? I'm thinking 2027. So I guess there's sort of two parts to that question

that relate to the Ferrari lineup. But is this all Lewis has got? I think as arguably Lewis's biggest supporter on the show, I'm quite regularly his biggest critic where it comes to his ability. And I think it is all he's got. I think we're at that point where it's okay, to understand that someone is not at the peak of their powers anymore.

And the Lewis Hamilton we saw from 2017 to 2020, which was arguably absolute peak Hamilton, it's not going to come back. And unless you maybe give him exactly the same car, that's going to be very difficult to do. And I think you can say that about many drivers who were at the top of their game at one point, Fernando and Enso is still spectacular. But if you actually gave him the Ferrari right now,

is he beating a Mercedes regularly? Is he winning Grand Prix? I don't think so. I think these drivers all start to tail off the older they get. And it makes sense with the way that the regulation shift. You're going to lose a little bit. Daniel Ricardo said it himself as well. He suited one style of car really well.

I guess it adapted. Does it change? He was unable to get there. He was missing something. He lost a little something. It's very normal. So, no, I don't think Lewis Hamilton is at the peak of his powers anymore. I think this is all Lewis Hamilton has.

I think at this point, right now, the likes of Charlotte, Clare, Russell, Norris, Piastri, they're all fascinating. They're all faster than him. Yeah, I think when it comes to his Mercedes stint or the end of his Mercedes stint, there was still a lot of good in there. In the, 2023 was a really good year for him. But even outside of that, the couple of other seasons he had versus Russell, he was competitive with him.

Russell's proven himself to be a very good qualifier in F1. Hamilton was able to match that. And you might say, well, he's obviously, Hamilton's obviously away from the peak of his powers because at one point, he was the best qualifier on the grid. I would agree with that. But as soon as he goes to Ferrari, he has that one year or the first year, last year, where he doesn't have any involvement in the car.

He's in a new environment. He struggles against LeClaire. And I think fans of his maybe could accept that, knowing that 2026 had the chance to be better. And I think we're still slightly too early in the season to definitively say, started very well, last couple have been shakier. I think give me six races and we'll know. It's just been too disjointed so far this year. I think that's fair.

I think you already know with Lewis Hamilton personally. What do you think about the second part? We did our driver predictions, of course, very recently, actually, where we spoke about who might be in that Ferrari. You think there's now a chance that he could hang up his boots? Because I think you said Hamilton would stay there for next year. Yeah, I've got Hamilton staying. And I'm going to stick with that for one.

more year. I think the choice does come down to Lewis Hamilton. Like, if he wants to go, I think he should go. And I think if he wants to stay, he will be allowed to stay by Ferrari, maybe on an additional one-year contract because it is very difficult to get rid of Lewis Hamilton. In that, I don't know, just from the name value alone, from the marketing side of things, like, I don't think Ferrari want to be the ones to pull the plot. I think they're hoping that Lewis Hamilton will be the one to call it a day at some point rather than them have to make the decision for him. That's not easy.

No, it's not easy. You're right. It would be tricky to say, Lewis, you're fired. But actually, you look at the points tally. Whilst he's behind LeCler, it's not drastic. It's, you know, he's doing an honorable job in that Ferrari seat. He's not like Lecler's on 80 points and he's on 10 or something like that. It's very, very close between the two of them.

Obviously, he had that fantastic performance in China, for example, and it showed that he still has that something to give. So I don't think it's dramatic right now. I don't think that Ferrari need to come up with a solution tomorrow, otherwise it's game over for that second seat. But, yeah, Hamilton probably doesn't get to one to make the call. I think it still might be Beerman, though, in 2027 against that seat. I still think there's a chance that he's going to announce it at the summer break

if it doesn't go the way he wants it to. I think it's Berman. I think it's 2028. I wouldn't be surprised at all if it's 2027, though. I'd be shocked if it was anyone other than Berman. Oh, God, yeah. Although if I'm Carlos Sykes, I would be a little bit for you. I would be a bit gutted right now.

What do you mean by that point? Williams will be leading the championship, so it'll be fine. Well, they've just got to shed that weight, baby. It's all they got to do, that'll be fine. Next question. Thank you for that one, by the way. let's, this is an interesting one actually. Can't think of anything witty,

but I'm really stoked to see what hilarious hypotheticals everyone else comes up with. Oh, here's one. How much trouble would it be for the sport if Hamilton, Alonzo and Vastappen all leave at the end of this season? It's not impossible. It's not impossible, but the marketing value would just, they have to find new heroes very quick.

I think you'll suddenly start to see Charler's face absolutely everywhere. O'Connor's face just plastered everywhere. everywhere. Yeah, that makes sense. The new face of F1. That's the guy I went to, yeah, actually. The issue is, they end up with what?

One world title on the grid? If those three guys leave? Landon Norris. And whatever happens this year, I guess. Sure, sure, yeah, yes. For now, there's one world title on the grid. Is that the lowest number of world titles we have ever had in a Formula One like across the whole lineup?

I mean, exclude 1950. And yeah, you probably, yeah, I can't immediately think of a time where there would have been fewer than two world championships on the grid. I do think, I don't think Formula One loses drastic credibility that it rocks the sport. But I do think it would go through a couple of years of turbulence where it needs to reestablish who its true stars are. Because Formula One is a tricky game. You could be in and out in a heartbeat. So it's really tricky to know if someone has longevity. That's why I think someone like Charlotte Clare looks to probably end up being their next to pay.

endable star they can rely on because he's not going anywhere anytime soon. Yeah. And look, I really rate Charles LeClaire as a driver, but the accomplishments at the moment, not for his fault, they don't align with his talent. And it would be very strange for F1 to put the marketing bus behind a guy that hasn't won a world title and hasn't really competed for a world title. It's less than 10 victories across his whole career. You know, is that, you know, if someone can another sport turns up and I don't go

watch F1. Oh, this is the guy. He's won less than 10 races. You'd be like, oh, well, yeah, it's fair enough. Fair criticism. I wonder as well if some of it comes down to the messaging of the three retirements, if they all happened, because if Alonzo were to leave and he was just to say, look, I'm like 90 years old. I finally realize that I have a kid now. I just want to go away and maybe do some other racing at some point, but I don't want that full-time schedule. And if Hamilton were to walk away and say, I've got all these other interests that I want to pursue. I've had a great time in F1, but I'm going to call it a day now. And then maybe Vastappen is the one who directly links his retirement to the rules.

I think F1 could deal with one of the three messages being almost against them. Sure. If all three of them, at least partially mention F1 and the lack of fun as a reason for leaving, that's trouble. Yeah, especially if at least two of the three go and race somewhere else almost immediately and talk about how much more enjoyable it is. Because Alonzo, if he leaves F1, he's doing something else. He'll race.

Yeah. He'll race swimming slugs down the street. He already does. On his way home. You know, the man is going to get his, but the staff is the same. Again, as we mentioned at the start of the show, he's currently doing the 24 hours of of, why do I want to put the Nürberg ring? Is that what it's cool with where else with the Nerbergring?

Surely not. Nervigrind 24 hour. That's what it's called. I've just figured it the wrong way around. You know, he's so, such a purist. Hamilton is the one that won't go and do any more racing. And I get it. I don't understand why, but my man's got other things to do.

He's not joined in his brother, a British touring car. What? Honestly, I would love to go to Thruxton and watch the Hamilton brothers go around. Lewis Hamilton versus Tom Ingram. Come on. I'll be up for it. Come on, Tiggers! Some kind of Kupra or something like that.

Oh, man. I want to see that now. But yeah. Tingers, by the way, sounds like a KFC spicy burger. I'll have the KFC Tinger Tower. Yeah, yeah. It's actually made by Tom Ingram. He's got to deal with KFC.

Oh, good lad. Good lad. All right. It would be the biggest exodus of talent in one year, no doubt. It would hurt F1. It would survive. But, yeah, that would be rough for F1 if that happened. Next question, I guess we can somewhat relate to that one. Based on drivers leaving, the next question is,

will there be a rookie on the grid next year? Well, we spoke about this, haven't we, when we dig our driver lineups again? There is a chance, I think. And I think a few stars will need to align. For example, I think Behrman might need to go to Ferrari to free up a half seat. Equally, I think they might need to remove one of the racing bull drivers

if Max Verstappen leaves or if they just deem not good enough. For someone like Solov to maybe take the step up. But we've got a lot of F2 running to really see if they're worthwhile. You know, cameras there as well, I think, as an option. you've got the F2 champion to be crowned, not that that's always a guarantee as we know to get onto the grid. Yeah, there's a chance.

It's not as dead set as we have had previously, though. Yeah, I think Solov and Camero would likely be the two at the top of the list as potentials, based on situation as well as talent. I think then maybe you're looking at one of the Alpine drivers. Dunn's had a rough start. I know we've only had one weekend, sorry, two weekends now.

But Dunn's had a rough start to the year. He's quick, but goodness me, just every corner you feel like it might be over with him. Almost every Alpin driver. Yeah, he's a perfect fit. And Gabrielle Minnie is as well for Alp. And I think the question with both of those drivers, though, is super licence points.

I don't think either of them right now have enough based on, Dunn didn't have a great F3 campaign two years ago, and Mini didn't have a great F2 campaign last year because of the greatness of Prima nowadays. So I think both of those would be struggling on super licence points. So I think Cameron and Solov would be maybe the two in line.

Well, we get to see Gabriela Midi or Gabriela Maxi soon. Mini, Gabioli. No, I'm so tiny. He uses Mega Engine. No. Next one. Alex Albin. Overrated or underrated.

Rated. I think I'll be really boring. I think he's a really good driver. I think Carlos Sykes is maybe showing that he's at that level now where he should be and that previous teammates were slightly easier for him. Yeah, maybe a little overrated. Oh, say it quietly, Ben. Yeah, don't tell anyone because I really like Alex Alvin.

Maybe he's slightly overrated. I think Carlos Syng now he's got into the groove of the Williams is showing he's the better of the two Williams drivers. And I think Pierre Gasly is showing he is the better of the dropped Red Bull, the drivers over the last few years. He's done a great job for Williams over the last few years in that he's been the one leading the charge with his teammates. He's had some pretty weak teammates. Yeah, the list is pretty easy, isn't it?

Although I actually think it goes the other way a little bit that I think Carlos Sykes maybe is quite underrated in his ability. Being dropped for Ferrari, I think it spikes a bit of a negative criticism of there's a reason why he was dropped. Obviously, Lewis Hamilton was a big part of that. It took him a little while to get into the groove, picking up two podiums at Williams in his first season there, and then now having a really good start to this year in a car that's struggling. I think Cites is showing that he's a really brilliant Formula One driver. Let's take a quick break, and on the other side, we'll finish off some of these other questions.

Welcome back, everyone. Question here is quite presumptuous, but a question, why do you think Norris is better than Piastri? That is presumptuous. Do you think Norris is better than Piastri? Oh, do I? It's close, right? It's very close. No, I don't think he's better than Piastri.

Your predictions for this year say otherwise. I know, but that's a prediction for one year. Over their whole career, I think Piastri's got more to him. You've got to remember the time they've been in the sport, you know, the situations they've had to be in, who Norris had to go up against, before Piastri is even a Formula One driver. He's gone through a lot.

And Norris is a real foundation part of that team now. I think Piastri is more than one world title than him. I think he's just got to make the right career cool. But I think he's a more ruthless driver. I think he's a better overtaker. And I think he's proving he's just as good of qualifying. That's not to Slake Norris. He's a fantastic Formula One driver and a worthy world champion.

I just think that Piastri has a bit more longevity in his career. Yeah, I think you could be really blunt with this answer and just say, Why do you think Norris is better than Piastri? Because Norris won the world title last year and Piastri didn't. But as I kind of said a few times throughout 2025, I felt that Piastri was better than Norris for longer. The problem and the reason why that I think Norris won the title is because when it went bad for Piastri, it went very bad.

Like we're talking that Baku to Mexico sort of stretch where he was really struggling to get podiums. whereas Norris, he had a couple of DNFs, but for the most part, he never spent more than about two races in a row off the podium. He kept up with the consistency. So whilst Piastri led the championship for longer last year, and as mentioned, I think he was better for longer,

Norris maybe owing to the fact that he's got a few more years of experience in the sport was just able to get enough consistency to drag himself over the line. That's how close it was at the end of the year. So I think Norris is maybe marginally better than Piastri right now. now, but it's seriously marginal. If you were to draw like a line graph of their ability, I would have Norris, like, a really nice, like, gentle increase.

But Piastro would be like a wave, up to 100 down to zero, up to 100 down to zero. And that's intersecting Norris' really gradual and improvement over his Formula One career. So, yeah, the peaks of Piastri, I think, are higher than Norris, but the troughs of Piastri are also far lower than what Norris regularly achieves. Next question. Which driver from the current grid would you most like to interview? And what would you ask them? Well, it depends on I'm going to have proper fun

because I'm having fun then. I'm getting Bottas on the show immediately. Because I think a day with me and Bottas would be great content. Who are going to want to actually get on the show? Probably in Hamilton or a long-so, realistically, because I'd like to talk to them about long-term F1, their history, the way they've got through it,

the trials and tribulations. And also for Stappen, because we can drop his name into the title again. Yeah, I am thinking purely about numbers here. So those are the names. Vastappen would be up there because, like, and it is on the condition that you've got Vestappen at his most honest and he wants to do it. And if you got that version of Vestappen on the show, just sit back.

Brief that this is a no risk interview. He can say whatever he wants. It's all good. You know, have fun with it. I'd love to have that, Stapham. Yeah. And I would ask him about Abu Dhabi 2021. Oh, good.

The first thing I get, just figuring out numbers, man. So, 2021. Immediately. Don't even say hello. No, no. Abidabit, W, 2021. Abidabit. And he's like, yeah, let me get into it.

Equally, any of four drivers listening, I know you all do. If you like I come on the show, you are all very welcome. Yes. Just give us a shout. We'll find time for you, don't you worry about that? We've got a few minutes spare. Yeah. Next question.

Nico Holcombock finally has a semi-competitive car. Is this his last shot to prove he belies. belongs at the front or his legacy, or is his legacy already cemented? Yes, it's his last shot. I don't think he goes anywhere else. I don't think anyone else would take him. He could take a step forward for, for example, you know, in a pinch, an absolute risk if needed someone like, you know, Aston Martin could have him for a year or kind of like

right now can happen for a year. I don't think he's in anyone's five-year plan, for example. So yeah, he needs out and he just start performing everything that's two or three years. Is his legacy cemented? I think so. I think unless he wings like a world title or multiple races in the next three years, he's a really solid driver that the career never properly worked out for him. Yeah, I think he went to Audi on the basis of this would be his last chance,

because he was at Hass and no disrespect to Hass, but he probably felt like that wasn't going anywhere fast. Audi at least presented the opportunity, new power unit, big manufacturer outside of F1. could that come together sort of Mercedes style from 2014. I think it was maybe, and he knew it was likely optimistic way of thinking.

And it started, honestly, I think it started okay for the Audi team. I don't think they're in massive trouble at this point that you can see a good future for them. I think the problem for Holcomburg is that it likely doesn't align with his timeline. He's still doing a brilliant job at his age. Like he's still a very good driver.

I just wonder whether if Audi are now looking at 2030, will Holcomberg still be there? It's not impossible, but it feels unlikely. Agreed. Yeah. Next question. What driver do you think will have the most success post-F1 racing career? Example, someone becoming the head of a team, music career, other sports, racing, etc.

Oh, that's very interesting. way to define success as well, isn't it? Yes. Go outside of racing. It's a tricky question. Who will have the most success outside of Formula One? Well, I'm going to know of Hamilton because arguably he's already had, God knows how much success with the 87,000 projects that he's got going on.

Yes. Hang on sprints of mind? I don't. The problem is F1 is, F1 is a big tool that these drivers can use when they're in F1. It becomes much more difficult when you don't have. that machine behind you. Yeah. So Hamilton has the credibility and he has the name power that he could go away and do

plenty after F1 without being associated still with the sport. I struggle with others in that regard. Like you look at someone like Valtrey Bottas who's done a great job of building a brand for himself in the last couple of years. Does that maintain when he leaves F1? I don't know. Yeah, he's got his what is jing business, his coffee business. I think he's part of cycling.

I think he owns a hockey team. in England. These are all great investments. You see this a lot from these F1 drivers. You're making these diversifications in their investments outside of the sport. It's true, like you look at Ricardo, right? Ricardo was the personality. He was the guy that people looked for.

Is he thriving? I'd say he's doing a good job outside of F1. Like the Ford stuff is cool. He's had to kind of rely on the Red Bull relationship and Ford partnership. And other than that, I'm not sure what he's really been doing outside of that situation. So you're right. it's tricky. I think you need world title winning power behind you once you leave the sport. What about in F1 becoming a team principal or something like that? Can you see that as a potential for anyone on the grid right now?

I can see a few people becoming a team principal. I think Fernando Ongso would be amazing. And I don't think actually he'd ever go to orderly Formula One. I think he would take a year or so away to evaluate options. I would not be shocked if we see him in some kind of management role within the next decade in Formula One, which I would live for, by the way. I also think, All those people that we spoke about who could be great commentators, a lot of them would make great team members, team principals, team members. I think Carlos Science would be fantastic inside the team. You hear the way he speaks through the team radio, the engineering capability, the understanding of the strategy. I think he would be an amazing individual to work in a Formula One team. Albon as well, I think, could be quite useful in that scenario.

So, yeah, plenty of people that could go on to achieve great things. Alonzo as a team principal would feed families. Goodness me. I'd just love to see it because if he as a team principal had success and he had drivers winning titles, he'd be absolutely fuming about it. Get me in the car. I want to do that. You're still winning for that, no. He would claim them as his titles.

Oh, yeah, he would, no doubt. I am a nine-time world champion. But I think I haven't driven for 20 years. I wonder if it'd just be too close for him. Like, I could see him doing something like that, but maybe elsewhere where it is just the temptation to just go, I reckon I could still do this. I might just jump in the car. He'd definitely be a team owner, I think, with some kind of consortium, 100% if the option

came up. Yeah, obviously already doing a lot of his management sort of stuff. He manages putting off the grid at this point, didn't he? Yeah, yeah. He owns the entire grid to the point where everyone's just going to move to one side at some point and let him win a race. Perfect. I'll tell you what, we'll have two more questions.

Firstly, what did you make of Hadjar's outburst, presumably, meaning his retirement from the Miami GP? Do you think this will continue to affect him? How will Red Bull work with him to overcome his high pressure of himself? It's a very good question because he does have seriously high expectations of himself, and that's how it sometimes comes out. I don't think we saw a lot of it last year, or as much as I thought we were going to see of it last year, based on his junior career record. I think this was maybe the first, not the first time, but maybe the biggest incident of him just being so frustrated at what he's done.

Yeah, we saw it, of course, in Melbourne. He was very upset, understandably. And then, of course, we saw it in Miami most recently. Now, I have no problem with the driver acting like that if something goes wrong in the car. If he wants to punch his steering wheel, if he wants to get out the car and jump up and down and shout in his helmet, that shows passion, it shows commitment. and it shows that you're holding yourself to the highest of expectations. I am here for it. I want that in the drivers.

I want them to live and breathe it and then feel it inside if they make a mistake, because that's how much it means to them. That's what the sport should be. I just want Red Bull to be able to channel it in the right direction. He won't, but there's a real chance that someone with that kind of level of energy, both good and bad, could get themselves into trouble, they can make mistakes, they could end up crashing a car run necessarily because they're holding themselves too high a level.

it's the best way to drive yourself to be brilliant. It's equally the easiest way to have an absolute collapse and fall down upon yourself. He is a brilliant talent. He's a sensation already. We love having him in the sport. I want him to grow and be someone for 15, 20 years in this sport. I don't want him to have some kind of problem in two years' time

because of the high expectation. So I love it. I live for it. He just needs a team around him to harness it and channel it properly. It is tough because there is at least an argument to say that the reason, like, Hadjar's got to where he is based on who he is. Yeah.

And trying to mold that and change that now does present its own risks. So there is a real fine line that Red Bull will need to walk in terms of, because I agree, like managing this and maybe tweaking things is the right way to go about it. But you start to do too much and you take away from what has made Hadjar so great to make it to F1. So it is difficult. But yeah, he has a real track record of being very angry, mostly at himself over the team. Yeah. I think you look at some of our greatest champions and they are of a similar vein, similar mold.

And I think if you can harness it, it's a great, great ability to have. Final question. Who will be the three next new F1 World Champions? Kimmy Hansing Ellie. He's one. George Russell. Oscar Piastri. I'm going to go with, I can't say the same.

I'm going to go with Antonoli Piastri Bortoleto. Oh, okay, big moves for Audi, or you think he'll get a move? No, it'll just happen in a few years' time and George Russell is washed. Wow, so like four years straight of like Antingale and Piastro. Yeah, yeah. Antonelli, yeah. Antonelli actually is the only answer. He's going to win the next 20 world championships in a row.

and at that point F1 will end. Yeah, a lot. Fair enough. We can run. Yeah. Tough question, though, because he's got like, if Berman pulls off the Ferrari move,

if LeCler finally. No, I've ignored Ferrari. I've ignored Ferrari. I've said in 2020, they wouldn't have been entitled this decade. And currently I'm still very right. They will not do it. Yeah.

Oh, boy. Sorry, Ferrari. Thanks again for all of those questions. Massively appreciate it. And I'm sure we'll bring back a Q&A during the summer break or something like that. Because we've got a lot of F1 coming up in the next week or so,

starting with the preview of the Canadian GP on Wednesday. We do. Midweek preview. We're back for F1 racing. It's a sprint weekend and that means we do an extra episode. So you have Sprint qualifying review on the Friday. You'll have a sprint race and qualifying review combined on Saturday and then a race review, as always, on Sunday with power rankings over on Patreon on the Monday.

Now, if you are not a part of Patreon and you want to be the links in the description, and let me tell you that every single person that subscribes there massively helps this show in make better content, get better equipment, going to experiences, you make more content to give back to you guys. So it's so beneficial. We are so grateful.

And thank you to everyone that already does. If you consider it, it's like between $5 and $9 on the tiers. And I promise you that you get so many benefits. You can cancel after a month. If you go, ah, this isn't for me. The whole backlog unlocks as well.

So if you want to go and watch all of something, you can do. Great library of content in there. Thank you to all. support. It makes this show better, which we're really appreciative of. Social media is doing well. Late Breaking F1 on all channels. Instagram's going on 15K. So we're loving the support up there. Thank you so much for everyone that's going on following on social media. TikTok as well is doing well. And we can't forget the

wonderful Facebook, can we? Come on Facebook. We're seeing you guys over on Facebook. We love that representation of late breaking. And then of course, Discord, links to the description and YouTube is always there ticking along nicely towards that 10K before Silverstone, we hope. We'll see you in the midweek, folks. In the meantime, I've been Sansage. And I've been Ben Hocking. And remember, keep breaking late.