The Late Braking F1 Podcast - Mid-Season Grades for Every F1 Driver! | Part 1

Episode Date: July 16, 2025

Fresh out of 2025 Goodwood Festival of Speed, Ben and Sam are here giving each driver on the 2025 grid their mid-season report cards! They also discuss Pirelli's divisive new tyre and Alex Dunne's impressive McLaren debut, before a quick round of Pump the Brakes... >>> Don't miss out - limited tickets left for our 2025 LIVE SHOW in Austin TX! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠CLICK HERE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to grab yours or for more info!

This podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network. Thank you for listening to the Late Breaking F1 podcast. Make sure to check out new episodes every Wednesday and every Sunday. Welcome to the late breaking F1 podcast presented by Sam Sage and me, Ben Hocking. Back with another midweek episode, not a preview because apparently there are two summer breaks this year. No one told us. I know. Why does Belgium get the world's biggest break?

What's going on? Sewing all of Toto's hats, I imagine. that is going to wear for the next one. We're really going to try and make that a thing. So, too, Scott. But that is a nice segue, because we've had a little bit of time between F1 races.

It means we can get out there into the world and pretend that we have lives. We've gone to Goodwood, Sam. We touched grass. Literally. With the festival of speed. We did. We went there as a little late-breaking gang.

We had a wonder. We saw some F1 cars, some F1 legends. We had a couple of beers. And we were deafened by Felipe Massa in his Ferrari. Yeah. We can't quite put it into terms how close that car was to us as it was being wheeled away back into the paddock.

But goodness me, it'd be loud. Yeah. So I'll tell you what I'm going to say how close we were to that car. I had to scoge my towing because it was that close to runging over my feet as it went past us. And then decided to backfire essentially in our faces. Then, should you like being backfired in your face? Hey, you know what? It's not the top of my bucket list.

But the whole weekend was just such a, such a frill. and thank you to Goodwood for letting us come along because we were there with media access throughout the weekend. And, you know, Goodwood, for those of you who don't know, maybe, you know, based in the US or whatever, like Goodwood has been around for, I want to say, over 30 years now. It goes back to the 1990s and it's, yeah, a very reputable festival for all of motoring, not just F1, but obviously there was such an F1 focus this year with it being 75 year anniversary. And like you say, the amount of legends that we saw, Saturday was dedicated to world champions, getting seven together in one place is quite a feat. So well done

to Goodwood for that. And so many epic cars throughout the years, you got to see your favorite Jordan from 1998. I got to see the wonderful 2001 Jaguar front on without the gold wheels. I saw it side on with the gold wheels. It made for good viewing for all. Yeah, we saw Prost. We saw Hacking and many other legends of the game. Botas was there, not that he was to. too visible, but he was there. Felipe, Massively, you've made sure. If you're not from the UK, or even if you are, actually, you pretty heard of Goodwood. It might be the most iconic car festival,

in my opinion, in Europe, definitely in the UK. And it's up there worldwide, you know, along the lines of Seamer and things like that. So if we're in the UK, you think, oh, I'm doing Silverstone, and you're going to stretch that trip, get Goodwood a little going. So it's a great bit of fun. And we'll likely be there, and we have a great time this year. So check it out. Love going. Thanks again to Goodwood.

Indeed. Check out our socials. There's a bit on there about how we spent our time very seriously the whole time. Again, we were media representatives. We did not misbehave in any way. We were very serious the whole time. Let's move on to grading the grid. Now, as we've said a couple of times, we are at a neat part in the season where 12 races under our belt, 12 races still to go. And because of this break between the British GP and the Belgian GP, it gives us a bit of time to evaluate how the drive.

drivers are doing so far this season. So we've already had a bit of a look at the championship picture between Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris on our last episode. We're now going to split the drivers into two. So we've got 10 drivers we're going to look at today. We're going to give them all a grade based on how their first dozen races have gone so far this year. And then on Sunday's episode, we'll look at the other 10 drivers. And we've got one driver from each team in each block. So if you have a favorite team, you'll have at least one representative across both days. Let's start with the man who, a bit of a groundbreaking move this season to Ferrari, that being Lewis Hamilton, has a sprint win under his belt earlier on in the

season at the Chinese GP. Outside of that has a struggle to find the podium. It's been a difficult one for him in that respect. What would you grade him? Yeah, I actually found a lot of these really tricky and Hamilton's was one of those that was especially tricky. The Ferrari has been up and down in form. Of course, you have to compare to his teammate, whereas the Clare now has a hang front of podium. Hamilton doesn't have any yet. Cut of fourth places, though, have done really, really well. And when he has become one with the car, you can still see that he's got that old pace. It's definitely still there. Out qualified by the Clare more often than not, though, but the sprint wing showed that he could put a result out of the bag if the conditions really come through.

I've been with the C-plus, I know it's Hamilton. I think this is being a good, not great, start his Ferrari career. Part of that I put down to the Ferrari, it's clearly not the machine he wants it to be. He's clearly there for next season, rather than this season. I'm sure DeCleur is thinking the same thing. But more often than not,

he's been slightly off the pace than what I've wanted from the Clare. But he's not embarrassed himself. There's not be any moments where I really think, cricky, you are so, so bad in comparison to the Clare, which there's a risk, right? The Clare is that good. There is a risk that can happen right now when they are in their careers, respectively.

So for me, on the, on the better side of good, it's a C plus. British buyers. I've gone with a C. We are way out from one another. Yeah, I agree with your assessment on this. I think the Chinese sprint promised a little bit more than what has delivered, given how early in the season that was and how early into his stint at Ferrari it was. And it's not like that Chinese sprint, he got the result through some lucky safety car or some weird situation with weather or anything like that. He had a number. He had a number of good result later in the season, another sprint, the Miami sprint. But even though that was a good

performance, that was, if you remember, there was a pit stop in a sprint race, which was weird, and you had to be on the right tire at the right time. And for whatever reason, Ferrari actually did something good that day. But that Chinese sprint win was just, he was the best driver from start to finish. So the fact that he hasn't been able to build on that has been disappointing. I don't know if you agree with this. There haven't been that many lows, but just not. many highs either. This is exactly why I went for a C plus, because the lobes are just pure, mediocre. They're just average, and that's the C's. But he's had a couple of really good moments, the two-four places, the sprint wing, the Miami performance I thought was going as you mentioned. So that's what

bumped it up slightly for me. Nothing is embarrassing. You know, he hit Mesegis last season. Yeah, a couple of, you know, Q2 knockouts, got a Q3 knockout, a new one workouts, rather. Russell was kind of trouncing him. They're still really close as teammates. It's still a very close race. I got a clue statistically above. But I don't think it's been that different. So it's been solid. He's done all right to stay in the mix with Lecler, really, given he's only beaten Lecler, I think, twice all year.

And yet you look at the standard, in normal races, obviously the sprint races, he's got a couple of situations where he's beaten LeClau there. But he's only 16 points behind. He's only one position behind. He's not distant from his teammate. So there's still plenty to work with. I agree with what you said earlier about how it's not really. about this year. And he has said a few times he can't wait to, I can't remember exactly how he phrased

it, but have something to do with the DNA of next year's car, the ex-DNA of next year's car. You might say. No. I'm just naming an unrelated rapper that has nothing to do with Lewis Hamilton. Very talented peeing, aske, and that is all. Yes. But yeah, I was sort of, when I was reflecting on his season, it was a case of what's been his worst race. And there's not actually been that many out and out poor races from him. But then you look at, well, what's his best race? You could pick the fourth place finish at Austria when he was double digits, double digit seconds behind his teammate,

or the fourth place finish at Silverstone, where he couldn't beat Salber to the podium. I'm not saying like those were awful results, but equally if those are your best results, that's been a great year. So that's why I went to see. What about Alex Albon? He's our Williams representative on today's episode.

just doing quite well in the midfield. You could call him the leader of Formula 1.5 or whatever that is these days. What are you grading him? I'm giving Albauga B. Albano. That's how we spell it now. Lowercase A, L, upper case B for Bono.

I think he's high on, a really strong season, but I think Williams have been through some tumultuous times towards the back end of, you know, the second quarter of this season, I shall phrase it. The Williams seemed to really sink in, quality over the last four or five Grand Prix. Basically, since we hit Spain, it's felt like that car has struggled to really run with good form.

They've had some D&Fs. A lot of them weren't their fault. Alex Albuhran has put himself into trouble a little bit. But regularly, when the car is allowing him to, he's qualifying at the top end of Q2, occasionally to Q3. He's been getting himself into points when we had that stretch of top five or six finishes. I think it was four or five in a row, which Matt Williams was fantastically well done. Whilst Carla Sites is also big in the wars, I think Albu has a lot of.

definitely had the better on things there at Williams, and he scored regularly good points. So overall, I have been really impressed with Alba. I think he stepped up higher than I thought he would. He's outdriven, Carlos Signing a number of ways that I wasn't expecting him to. And he's adapted well to the Williams being a far more competitive car. There's a few areas I'd like to see him improve. I do think that occasionally he's misqualifying potential. And I do think that he's, he has caused incidents himself as well. The one in Spain, I think it was with Lawson when the car was also not doing too well, was partially on his fault. And that's why it's struck down slightly.

But like a B is one of my highest scores that you'll see today. And I do think that overall, there's like a really strong first half of this season. Yeah, I've gone with a B plus. I wasn't a million miles off an A minus. And I think if his, again, that run of retirements he's had quite recently, probably more on the car than it is him. But if he had the chance to maybe, like Austria, for example, he was in a fairly good spot there.

If he was able to convert on that, then maybe, I would have stuck with an A-minus. He has been able to convert some really good positions. Like, he's had three top five finishes, which by itself is very impressive. But if he had not scored another point outside of those three top five finishes, that would be enough to be everyone in the midfield, apart from Holkenberg.

Like, every single other driver... Well, that's so funny. I love that. I love that it's Holkenberg. That's the person that we're comparing this to in that sound, but that's just so funny. He's done a very good job. And he's also on top of those fifth place finishes, two of which were back to back with the

Miami and Imala results. Both of those were really impressive. Of course, Miami, he was competing with the Ferraris and beating the Ferraris. And Imola, I know the strategy went right that day, but he really converted on it. He's also had some seventh eighths and knives and that's, you know, those will add up over time. And the championship standings tell you that. And we knew going into the season, he would have a bit of a test, like trying to, answer some critics of which I'd probably include myself as a part of, or skeptics would probably be a bit more accurate, not knowing how he would fare against someone of Carlos Seines' calibre. Carlos Seines is not Logan Sargent. He's not Nicholas Latifi.

Yet, halfway through the season, 46 points to 13, 7-5 in qualifying. Like, Albin has proven that he is deserving of what is an up-and-coming seat of Williams. So, yeah, very well done to him. I've gone with a B-plus. Next we have Kimmy Antonelli. You know him? Grimee. Grande Kimi. Little Kimi Antonelli.

What are you grading Antonelli? What am I giving Antonelli? I'm giving Antingelli a B minus. Rookie treatment is in order, folks. Rookie treatment is only 12 races into his career. So I have been kinder to Antigley than maybe I would be to the more, you know, to the likes of Hamilton, who I have high expectations of. his season has been on a big of an odd sliding scale.

He was so fantastic in the first three races. And I really mean that. I wasn't expecting miracles from him, but I think he got a fourth, a sixth and a sixth in his first three races. And that's really strong. And that fourth came from, what,

17th on the grid? Yeah, exactly. And you've got to remember that he had to deal with those conditions on his first Grand Prix. Agile was in the wall, Bortoletto nowhere to be seen, drivers were far more experienced than him.

Piaastri finishes behind him due to a mistake. You know, there are reasons to be really proud of that fourth place. And I give him a lot of credit for it. He endured a lot in that Grand Prix, first Grand Prix. China, I thought, was really really good. And Japan, really tough track, a real driver's track. And sixth place to get around there, the qualifying, especially he made it for him. Really, really great.

Other highlights include, of course, the sprint pole position that he's had. The podium in Canada was a real highlight. But then he takes some real loads. You know, he's in the last, how many, two, three, four. And the last six Grand Prix, he's like four D&Fs. Four D&Fs in the last sixth Grand Prix, it's not a good look, but he's a rookie. And so because he's a rookie, he does get a little bit about a lout. You know, the Great Britain DNF, the weather was so bad at Silverstone.

You're straight to the back of Haggai. You can barely see what's coming. I don't really fully blame him for that one, that's for sure. I think some were his own fault, you know, and they have been caused by himself. So he's not matched George Russell, and that's expected. But occasionally there's been glimmers, real glimmers of speed, outright speed, that we know he's got. He just needs to convert that outright speed

into more consistency and race understanding, much like Piastrian had to do a couple of seasons ago. Antingelli's going through that same phase. So if this was another driver who had these results, they would have had a lower score. I am giving him the rookie caveat. But a B minus, I think he's a great start for a driver who's coming to one of the top teams.

He's against one of the top opponents in terms of George Russell. And he's got himself opposing him and some really good finishes. So a B minus. Which is why I've gone with it. a C minus and I think again, I'm looking at it more through the lens of how he's performed without taking the rookie status into consideration. Otherwise, it probably would be a very similar grey because based on expectation, he would be around a B, I think, because not only is he a rookie, he's a rookie that did one year of F2, no years of FIA Formula 3. You know, he essentially

went from Frecker to F2 to F1 in three years. That doesn't happen very often. and with good reasons. So it has, and going into a Mercedes as well, it's not like any other seat. It's going into a seat which has provided constructors and drivers championships in the not too distant past. So very difficult challenge for him. I agree with the bright moments that you mentioned, the Australia recovery in very difficult conditions, the Miami sprint pole, I think made everyone sort of sit up and go,

okay, like this guy is capable of hooking together a lap, the Canada podium, obviously. I think maybe my issue so far is that maybe his own fault for starting too strong, but it hasn't developed as much maybe as I thought it would. It's almost the first few races were maybe a little bit more encouraging than the last few. You specified some of the DNFs. And whilst the DNFs in a few of those instances weren't his fault, Silverstone, Spain, Imola, none of them were heading very well anyway. and Monaco, he didn't DNF at Monaco, but he might as well have done.

Like, his crash in qualifying to me, like from a grading perspective, is the equivalent of a DNF because that cost him any chance at scoring points on the Sunday. So it's been a rough stretch for him with that one Canadian podium in the middle of it. So he'll be looking for, even if he's not on the podium again for the next two or three races, it's just getting back that consistency of what he had in the first few races. Pierre Gazley, what are you eating him? Sausages out. Yeah, now, as a little bias here from me,

we all know that I'm a secret sausage fan. I don't know how much of a secret that is. Heck. And I think that Alping, well, I think a lot of us do at this point recognize that that Alping is by far, it's a stinky car, it's poo-pooh. It's a big poo-poo.

It's a big poo-poo. And it is the slowest car. So the fact that Gassley has had, he sits above Alonso and the like in the points table at the moment. You know, he's currently, I've got to wringing down here. Pierre Gassi is 13. He's above Sings. He's above Sengoda. He's above Bermann.

He's above Alonso. He's really beating some cars that should be well in front of him. And he's had three points finishes. And none of them did I feel like he's scraped into those. Great Britain, he arguably shouldn't have been sixth place. He finished sick. We should be way lower than that. I think with the strategy that he ended up being on.

It did a great job for fight the likes of Max for staffing. I know that, of course, Max had the spin. And we'll finish his in front of him regardless. But he's doing a brilliant job of much older ties in that sense. The eighth place in Spain, that car should have been eighth place in Spain. And even when the car was a bit better at the start of the season, the seventh in Bahrain. Yes, it played to the car's strengths a little bit.

But what a performance he's had. DSQed, of course, in China, which is unfortunate. And a couple of D&Fs along the way. But in that car, I'm not sure it would have made any different. I'm not sure he had gone on to score fantastic points in the Saudi Arabia Grand Prix, for example, or Morgico for crying out loud, I'm not sure he'll be up there really belting it home.

The only one that really made me think, this is great, was Canada. That's probably the only Grand Prix that I've looked at and gone, you probably won't as good with Colopinto, actually. It's probably the only time I've really certainly looked at that thought. He had your number this weekend, but otherwise, he is really being a cut above the rest for how bad the cart is. I really do think he deserves a bit better.

What was the great, sorry, on that one? A minus. A minus. love that. I've gone with a B-minus for Pierre Gasly. A lot of it is just based on that car, because it is not very good. And look, Alpine have 19 points and 100% of them are his. So he is, he's doing far better than what Colopinto is doing and what Jack doing and has done. And I've really hope for his sake that we can see even a slightly better Alpine, like even last season's Alpine, where he can deliver a little bit more of the results that you said, like the,

the Bahrain result for sure. That was a really impressive one. Silverstone, I didn't give him driver of the day at Silverstone. It is a contender for best, second best performance at a Grand Prix so far this year. He was phenomenal on that day. It's not been perfect. You said the Canada one where he started in the pit lane and couldn't make any progress. That's definitely up there.

The tire wear and the lack of management of the tires in Austria was tough because he qualified so well and eventually found himself tumbling back down the order. It's not like Colopinto did a great job on the tire, so that might be more down to the car than it is him. But I might have down a little bit for that. The other one is Monaco because I do put the error he had with Yuki Sonoda coming out the tunnel on Ghazly, which is a shame because I actually think his pace was pretty good. Not that he would have been able to show it because as Sonoda proved, that strategy was not going to work out. But yeah, I think he's had a good season so far. Hopefully for his sake, he can show it a bit more in the second half.

And the last one that will review on this side of the break, Gabrielle Bortoletto. What have you graded him? I think maybe a little bit harsh here. I've given Bortoletto a D. You just look at the points difference between himself and Hulkeberg. Now I know that Hulkeberg, of course, picked up that podium. But he picked up that podium. and that's kind of the point here

that the gap is quite, you know, giant between the two of them. I think there's, what, 30 points at least between the two of them. Now, Bortoletto's not been bad, and this team maybe sounds like it's worse than it is, but four points. I think he's got all season,

which came in Austria, is not enough when we're now actually seeing that Holkerberg is regularly able to finish within the points and has picked up. Even if you remove the podium, he's picked up, what, 20 points all by itself, without that podium-ish, which is really strong.

It shows you that salber is actually more compressive than we thought it was going to be it's not the broken green toast in the corner anymore. It's more your air fryer or microwave, I'm sure, which serves multiple purposes

throughout the home. And whilst he's improved, his results have been fairly consistent. A lot of 19th, a lot of 8ths. And then it picked up a little bit, cut the 14th, the 12th and then the 8th. So a cut of DNFs, which are on him.

They are his fault. Great Britain was definitely on him. Miami, I think, was also caused by him. So, you know, it's been regularly below paring compared to his teammate. And then he's had the one pickup, I think, in Austria, which causes him to look high, then he really has been. So it's not bad. He's not, you know, he's driving the car at the back of the grid for the most part.

It's going to be tough. But I do think that more can be taking out of this. Whilst he's a rookie, he gets a bit of grace for that. Holgerberg has really shown what could be done. And I thought they would have been a little bit closer. I've gone with a C-minus for Bortoletto. I've gone with the same grade for him as I've gone with Frantanelli. I think it's very tough to tell Salba versus Mercedes,

but I think they've roughly impressed me as much as each other. Maybe a slightly different way of getting there because Bortoletto first five races of the season for me didn't show much. Not like Hulkenberg showed much in those first five either, but yeah, Bortoletto didn't show much when the car was at its worse. I think it got better as we got to Miami and Imala. I think in both of those instances, he could have scored points and not based on what he did. He wasn't able to convert on what I thought was either a good qualifying performance or a good start to erase.

Miami, I think the DNF was car-related, but I struggled to remember that far back. Imala strategically, they went the wrong way with him, which I think he was probably on course for the back end of the points there. Austria definitely the best of the lot so far. Not perfect because I think a more experienced driver would have been able to get Fernando Alonzo, maybe even Liam Lawson, but even so, that was better than anything we'd seen. And then a tough outing at Silverstone, certainly not the only one, but a tough outing. I think he spun three times that weekend. I think the overall picture between him and Holcomberg is a touch better than it looks.

I know it's 37-4 and I have already kissed away teammate wars this year. But in terms of like race finishes, it's 8-4 to Holkenberg, which Holcomburgne. That's where we're at this point in their respective careers, but that's not embarrassing. And in qualifying, they are dead level, six all. So there's something to work with here. And it has, I think, trended upwards as we've gone through the year. I think with the sale where it's clear the car has gotten better over the last five or six races. But Hulk's manager to achieve four-point finishes in a row.

Bortoletto's picked up one. and I'm really beating Holkenberg once in those last four. I think that's where the separation really comes through. Yeah, certainly in the Spanish GP and the Silverstone GP where there was, Holkenberg's done a very good job and we'll get into it on Sunday, obviously, when we review him as well. But Holkenberg has done a very good job of being in the right position when there has been turmoil across the top teams.

He's not the only one. There are a few others that I think we'll get to today that have benefited from that as well. And that's certainly the experience factor that Salber would have been. looking for when they hired him. Okay, that's the first five drivers all done and dusted. We're going to take a quick break. On the other side, we're reviewing five more. Welcome back, everyone, to part two of today's episode and our next driver to review

how they've done in the first 12 races of this season. Last year's champion. And increasingly looking like might not be this year's champion. Max Verstappen, what are you rating him? I've given Max Verstappen a B plus. he's driving what looks like in some Grand Prix a shopping trolley. He's struggling to get around corners.

They're having to be experimental. It's clear that that car is nowhere near the ability they had last season, especially up against his McLaren Boys at the moment. But I think he's finished outside the top five three times this season. DING after one, of course, in Austria where he was taken out by Kimmy Antigli

and likely were going to finish inside the top five there. I mean, Bahrain was another one that he had where he's outside the top five. And of course, the final one was Spain, where he picked up the penalty under the safety car that dropped him all the way back, basically. So there's a tough end to him for that one. So realistically, driving a car that I think is not great at all to have multiple race victories throughout this season, to go up against both Norris and Piastri regularly, who are in a better car, who have got better hardware underneath them. And to have this many points to still be clear in third place is a real credit to just have brilliant Maxis for Stappan is.

There's a couple of performances that really stand out for me. Japan was obviously fantastic, one of the best qualifying and raised performances. I think that he's delivered, which is strong when you've won that many as well.

And then he's put off to great performances elsewhere. I think he was fantastic in Canada, but he did a really, really good job. I thought his lapping Spain was actually fantastic. Of course, it was just ruined by the behaviour that he had in the Grand Prix, of course.

Overall, he's been a real credit to himself and he's the shining light of that team. There's a few things that can't bopped him up. I don't appreciate the crash with George Russell, of course. I think him dropping it under safety car and Silverstone was on him. So there were a few moments like that that brought him down for me. Yeah, I've gone with an A.

I nearly went with an A minus because of those few errors. This would have been for me like a nailed on A and then a few things have come into consideration in the last few Grand Prix. Weirdly, they both kind of start with losing it under the safety car because you've got Silverstone where he drops a number of spots. But the Spanish GP, that all started with him very nearly losing it under the safety car. Now, of course, the wheel-to-wheel contact with George Russell in turn one, I don't put on Verstappen whatsoever. But of course, the later incident, yeah, that's probably on Verstappen. And that's the thing that Hertz is ranking the most for sure. I've still gone with Venné because I think there have been a lot of eight, nine out of ten out of ten performances so far this year.

Imola Suzuki, he obviously won. He pressured for the win in Australia and Canada. he held the lead even if he wasn't close to winning in Miami and Saudi Arabia. That's half the season. So he has been in the mix where he's been able to. I think he did a pretty good job of making something out of a few bad weekends as well. I don't think the car was very good at Bahrain. And he made something of that.

Monaco somewhat as well. Weirdly, I don't think that Red Bull went very well there. And he is still the nearest challenger to McLaren. So, yeah, and also another point that we do need to make with Red Bull, there'd be on seven points about him. So it's, isn't that crazy? It's so stupid. So that's why I've gone with an A.

Esteban Ock on us, A plus, and we move forward, I guess. But I'll ask you anyway. I'm not that far off. I'm going A minus. I think he's having a really, really strong season. The same as Gasly, essentially being a bit of a better car, whilst the heart has it been great,

I think great would be very a massive compliment but he's his 10th currently in driver's standings. He's in that top half and he's had some real shining moments. Shangler was absolutely fantastic. That fifth place in China

I think gets forgotten by a lot of people just how good to drive that was from a mess with a really brilliant performance. But he's also been mopping up points here and there you know, eight in Bahrain, a seventh in Monaco which I think was really great. And yes, they had the help with of course the teammate thing or what's going on.

but still make it happen. Nighting Canada, 10th, Austria. Like, he's chipping away. He's chipping away. And whilst it does seem that the hearse is very topsy-turvy, where if one driver it will work, the next driver it won't work. And that's how him and Ben seem to be jumping to and fro. It doesn't like when it works for O'Con.

It does work really, really well. And he's showcasing the experience that Haas needed him to when they lost Holkenberg. O'Conn, maybe not as good as Holkenberg right now. But he's definitely bringing to Haast what they need when they've got a rookie in the other side of the garage. And that is that level head, that experience, that help for the youngster. I think he's like a really, really strong season. And the horse is right down there, I think overall with pace, with kind of where the

Salba racing balls sits. I think it's in that region. So really impressed with him. Things have been absolutely brilliant. Yeah, given some of the howlers that has have had so far this year, like they said, they've had some races where they've been competitive. And then others where you just ask, what are they doing? And they've forgotten how F1 works.

I've gone with a B plus, so we're very similar here. Yeah, the fact that he's top 10 is quite an achievement in a car as poor as that. His qualifying consistency hasn't been great so far this year, which is why I've marked him down a little bit. He is beating his rookie teammate in all facets, so in terms of points, race finishes, qualifying as well. But similar to how I view the Bortoletto-Holklenberg situation, I actually think it's a bit closer than what the score alive.

suggests. I think Berman's been a bit unlucky, whereas Ockon has maybe had the better of the luck so far this year. He has had a few really tough outings. Imala, if you remember, he hit after the first lap because he was last and then just had no pace. I think he ended up retiring, but honestly, I don't think anyone noticed. And then Japan, where his teammates scored a point, he wasn't able to get anywhere near the points on that day. So those are the negatives, but so many positives. China performance absolutely deserves a lot of praise. He was phenomenal that day. rain, maybe even better. He came from a long way back to make a, they undercut quite heavy in that Grand Prix, great tire management and Monaco. Yes, that came from qualifying, but I guess what?

It's the same for everyone. If you qualify well, you've got a great chance of points. And he was the one that got it done. He got through Q1 and Q2. He's been generally pretty good at Monaco over the years, and he proved it again at Haas this year. So he's in a good spot, B-plus. Liam Lawson, of course, has raced for two teams so far this season, did a couple of races at Red Bull before being demoted to racing balls for the remainder for the last 10. How would you grade him? Oh, I feel like I might have been harsh here. It's my lowest score of the lot.

I've given him an E-plus. The plus is almost insulting. Yeah. When you open your paper up, see your grade. E plus. But look, mum,

it's a plus. That ain't going to cut it. There's a positive here, guys. Red ball was tricky. Red ball was really tricky for him. You look about 12th place in China and you see some of the results

that have come from Yuki. And you think 12th place wasn't actually that terrible. DING after course in Australia, which was an ideal, and then get swapped to racing balls where I think he's grown into the season. And I would not be shocked that if we do this again, at the end of the season, if this grade is significantly improved.

He is being on the wrong side of Hajjar, nine times out of ten, it feels like. Every time Hadjar just slips into Q2 or just slips into Q3, Lorsing is the one that just slipped out in Q1, and it's often being a tenth, two tenth, but there have been those moments

where it's being three or four tenths, and he's had to warm back into this rate. His performances have regularly gotten better. You know, he's had, the eight place in Monaco, which they executed that strategy first, brilliantly well and that was partly on him for making that happen. I gave him credit for that

for executing that. The P-6 in Austria was genuinely really, really good and he had Hajar's number on that race. He had a really, really good Grand Prix there. That was a great step up from him. But he's just like, he competes like he's in Robot Wars. It's like he's nicknamed and you've graded him down for that.

So I'd kill a lot, it just doesn't know where to stop going into calm back. That's right, thanks. I watch the F-1 movie. yesterday we're going to get on Sunday's episode. But he loves combat, and I think that is his detriment. I think he gets himself into the wars too often, penalties companies way too many times,

or damage causes him to lose pace in the Grand Prix. I think he needs to stop here. I think he needs to get himself into racing a clean Grand Prix and just focusing on his own race. So it is an E-plus, but I do think in 12 races time, it could be much higher. I'm giving Sergeant Bash a D. Sergeant Bash.

Big up the flame thrower from Sergeant Bash that looked great and did nothing every time. The metal was too strong. Wasn't effective by any fire. It's so niche, but it was so ineffective. Big up Matilda.

Liam Lawson, yeah, it gets a D. First two races for Red Bull. I don't even like, they barely factor in. Like, it gets more mad over time, like how ridiculous that decision was. Obviously, I didn't think he should be in there in the first place, but they gave him

a race where it was chucking it down and a race that had one practice session because it was a sprint. And then they said, no, that's it. And you know how bad that second seat is and he's still finished 12th. Like, it's not good, but is it that dire? Yeah, I just, so I've really factored those two races in. But the rest of it, it was a dodgy start. Bahrain, Miami were particularly tough. Canada more recently was also quite difficult. I think maybe in all three of those, he was a worst driver of the day contender, if not a winner in some of those.

But there have been a few instances where it's looked more bright, Saudi Arabia. I think he was the quicker driver, even if he didn't beat Hadjar that day. Monaco, as you say, he has to execute the team strategy and still finish in the points.

And Austria was by far his best race weekend so far. Qualifying is the issue. He just needs to start to beat Hadjar a little bit more consistently in the second half of the year. Lance Stroll. Well, I've already given my lowest score, right? We've seen that. Okay, we know it's not lower than an E plus.

No, no. It is a D-minus, though. The best way to describe this, his season, and I'm really sorry to do this to you, Kirstie, but it's a shit sandwich. All right, let me just timestamp that, right? 35, 11. Good.

You look at these results and you know exactly why. I'm going to be really specific with these. First two results, sixth, ninth. That's pretty good for Lance stroll, especially in that estimating, which at the start of this season was struggling. But then after that, last. And then 17th, 16th, 16th, 16th, 15th, 15th, 15th, 17th, 14th.

And out of the blue, 7th. And arguably, his should have been higher in Great Britain. It should have been better. than all it was in Silverstone, but several still pretty darn solid. Still beat his team, mate. That's great. Well done you, Lance Strull.

The qualifying thing is what's letting him down. When it is weird conditions, he thrives. If Formula One was only done on wet weather days, he could be the next set and Sena, for all I know. He could be that good. But it's not. Most Formula One races are dry. And when it's dry, he qualifies and he gets eliminating Q1

and he can't move forward and he's stuck in traffic and then he ends up hitting a car or having a problem. He's not DNFed once. He's been there the whole time. That's a good improvement for Lance, but overall, it's not been a good season. But it does baffle me that he's still in front of Alonso in the points table.

That is literally my first note. How is he beating Alonzo? I don't know. I got a lot of starting slow, but he's been so much better for the last seven Grand Prix. It's just people will go, well, Landstrol's beating Fernando Alonzo. He deserves a great, great.

You're not watching the races. Like, I know Landstrol has come up with a couple of miraculous performances so far this year. But race to race, Alonzo has been considerably better. Do you remember that time where Landstrol out qualified Alonzo this year? No, you can't because it hasn't happened. Like, he doesn't do it ever. Oh, look, he is really good at just being in it to win it. The man is Dale Winton.

Remember, baby, the lottery, it's what are you getting real niche here? But, yeah, Australia, P6, because he finished. Silverstone, he finishes P7. And honestly, he lucked into that strategy, man. And the other driver that sort of lucked into the strategy got on the podium, which is probably where Lance Stroll should have been as well. But he still gets seventh place there. The Miami sprint that was just mental.

He managed to go from a Q1 elimination to fifth. He's just found his way in some of these races. But overall, if you ran this season a hundred times, I think Alonzo is ahead in the points by this point, 98, 99% at the time. So I've gone with a D. He's got eight finishes of 14th, 4 worse. that is more than anyone.

So, yeah, it will sound harsh because of the points tally, but I just don't think it is. No, two good performances. Duff not make a good season. And the last driver that we will look at today, the other 10 will look at on Sunday. Lando Norris in the McLaren, of course, currently second place in the championship.

Yeah, he gets my highest score of the day. He gets an A. I think you've got to be really picky with Landon Norris's performance so far and his is almost like a reverse mounting if you want to draw a graphic for this because it starts off so well. First place in Australia, even with the mistake,

unreal start of the season. It gets two second places. I mean, the sprint wasn't great in China, but you know, that's the points are rather minimized there. But two second places, really, really good. And it continues to decline, you know, a third in Bahrain. And he's well off the pace of Priester.

one of his worst performances today against his team at that point. But they get to fourth in Saudi Arabia, but they were really close in pace for a lot of that weekend. Because Piastri qualified better and it meant that he had the better chance. And then all of a sudden, it starts to get better again. Second, second, the winning Monaco was a real standout performance for him. And the only real letdown that he's had is the crash in Canada, which is entirely on him, and I blame him for.

But he bounced back brilliantly with a winning Austria, where I think he'd totally deserved it and held the pressure off. And okay, he got, I'm going to put this politely, slightly lucky with the way that things played out for him in the sense that Piastri made that mistake under safety car to pick up the penalty. He never had the pace outright to win that Grand Prix. He was never in front on track, never made the move on track, never looked like he was going to beat Piascri on track. But that's Formula One. Luck goes your way sometimes, and sometimes it doesn't. And we've seen that up and down the season.

I do think that Piascri takes a slightly more negative. turn of events overall in terms of some luck, but that's hardly marginal. But overall, he's been great, really impressive. There's some mistakes in there. Qualifying is the main one that he needs to improve. And I'm going to take the can of the crash with a picture. So he's still in this cycle hung. He's so close behind. Really, really impressed. Really, really impressed. Okay. A minus for me. I think the races have been an A and then the qualifying. I've just knocked him down to an A minus. Canada's obviously the obvious. worst point of the season so far.

But if you look at the other races, and that's 11 of them, I don't know what the second worst race is. Sure, Saudi Arabia, fourth place wasn't brilliant. Bahrain, third place wasn't brilliant. We're not talking about 10th and for 13th place finishes here. We're talking about podiums or near podiums. And they might be his worst races of the year. He has been consistently very strong all year.

When he is on it, he is on it. like Australia, Austria, Monaco. Like he, especially at Monaco, he never looked in any jeopardy at all to the point where he was setting the fastest lap of the Grand Prix on the final lap of that race. When he turns up to a weekend and everything clicks, he is very difficult to stop. It's really qualifying that there's the only thing that's letting him down at this point. He does have that DNF, but being only single digits away from the championship lead, people want to tell me he's at an awful season. It's not true. He has been great most of the time

with just a few small errors here and there. That's going to do it for those 10 drivers. Let us know what you would grade, where you think we're right, where you think we're horribly wrong in the comments, wherever you can find us on Discord and then the other 10 will follow on Sunday. Make sure you do the same thing there as well. We'll take our second break at this point. On the other side, it's everyone's favorite. tire chat. We'll never wear this one out. We're hey!

Oh boy. Welcome back, everyone. We promised tire chat. And here we are with tire chat, because Pirelli's new C6 tire has split opinion since its debut at Imola early in the season, but the tire supplier remains committed

to offering six dry compounds. While it delivers slightly better performance than the C5, drivers have found it harder to understand, Pirelli had hoped the C6 would be a go-to qualifying tire, pushing teams towards two-stop races with harder compounds for the race itself, but with this year's tyres designed to degrade a little bit less, teams are often reverting to one-stop strategies, leading to a few more professional races.

In its early outings, some teams found the C-6 no faster than the C-5 tire, either missing its narrow performance window or experiencing a quick drop-off. Others reported odd handling as the tires heated up. As a result of this, many teams opted for the more familiar C5 tire in Imola and Montreal qualifying. While the C6 hasn't quite delivered on expectations, Pirelli still sees value in it, but may drop plans to bring it to Singapore later in the year. Instead, it could appear in Las Vegas, where cooler conditions suit its characteristics.

Do you think it's been a net positive to have this new tire in the sport? I think so, yeah. And weirdly, it's not because of the tire itself that I think this is bigger positive, but rather what we can see from having different tire compounds and experimenting with a much softer compound and changing the way the C5, C4, for example, are judged by the team, are viewed by the team. And because of the C6, it's thrown confusion to so many of the themes. It's a lack of data, there's a lack of understanding of how the tire works. It merits a drive of being able to get their tires in the right window to extract the right performance out of it.

I think that says a lot about certain drivers and the way certain cars respond to certain tyres. And the fact that we have seen the C5 use where most would think the C6 would be more popular or preferred says that there are differences in opinion and different strategies at play and different cars work in different ways. And I love that. I absolutely love the fact that it can be quite discombobulating to go from going, oh, we're in qualifier. We're going to see the softest tire. Someone's like a medium. You remember that medium is one of the softest tires that we've seen from the Pirelli range anyway.

And I also think that changes perceptions. You look at that medium, you think, oh, bringing me a one-stop race, medium that's a hard. But that medium is wearing really quick because essentially it's a soft tire from previous years that we are occasionally seeing a two-stop race. We are seeing some do a one, some do a two. And I love that. I think more could be done actually with the other compounds in the range to provide differences in tires. We should have a jump like we used to in tyres. For example, we should have the spar, I think.

We might do. And I hope we do, because if we do, it could provide something really interesting. But if we brought the C6 and C5 and C5, for example, you might see a much slower hard tire, but it could go 80% of a Grand Prix, whereas someone might go C5, C5, C6. It could go over and be faster. We don't know. And that's what I love about strategy. We've said this time and time again, that tire strategy and the way that we plan a three stop,

a two stop or one stop, in an idea. your world would all converge on track in the last five or six laps and we would see this battle play out right at the end when we're culminating a massive fight for a key position, the wing, a podium, whatever it might be. So by them throwing this tire ring, I don't think it solved the problem that they were actually trying to solve, but I do think the problem being it's caused has been a bit of a wonderful turnout in terms of a chaotic and confusing manner or a lot of teams don't really know what's going on. I think that's a merit for data, maybe being too important in Formula One and having some mix-ups and chaos. Provides us some interesting races. Ben, what do you think?

I've been trying to find of a neat way to summarize this, and I can't find one, but because I think it's been, I don't think it's been a success quite, but I do think it's a good thing because I think it will be. Like, I think all of what is happening this season will lead this to be a success at some point. So, and I really like the attempt to spice things up and I absolutely encourage them to keep trying. That's the most important thing out of this. And by the sounds of what Porelli are saying, they will continue to try and get this right. I don't mind the strategic questions in qualifying. I don't love or hate it really. I think we've qualified because it's so consistently great anyway. I don't mind if there aren't really any strategic

questions in qualifying and we just get to Q3 and everyone knows that they need to be on the soft tire and you go for a shootout and everyone is at 100% on those qualifying tires. I don't mind if we don't have a question mark of which tire is best. Equally, I don't mind that it's there. It's if it will impact the race or not. So a couple of times, I'm not even saying whether this is a net positive or not, but we've had a few times where if a team is using a medium tire in qualifying, it means that when we get to race day, sometimes they only have one medium compound and one hard tire compound

available to them, which is almost forcing them onto a one stop, which is obviously not what we're really looking for. At the moment, it works okay, because if only a couple of teams do it, then you will have that mix of one and two stop strategies, which is great. But if everyone does it, then obviously everyone's going to be on one-stop strategy, and I don't think that's what we're looking for. In races at the moment, I think this C6 tire has been somewhat unusable. And I would like to see Porelli kind of commit one way or the other with it. So either say, this is a qualifying tire. It can't be used in a race because it is good for one lap

and one lap only. Don't bother using it in a race. And they commit to that because at that point, you could say, well, actually, let's just bring four tire compounds to a race weekend. The other three are all the race compounds and this is the qualifying one. I'd be fine with that. Or they need to go the other way and make this more usable. We need to get to a point, I think, where the C6 tire is almost quicker than the C5 tire by a considerable amount and the drop-off doesn't happen until 10, 15 laps in. So at the moment, I think it's a case of it's barely quicker.

and degrades quicker. So what's the point in having it on for four laps? I think that's where we're at with it now. But because we're doing all of this experimenting, I think we will get that. So I think it's overall a positive. So in an ideal world, you would want to see Pirelli bring, let's go with that four tire idea for now.

Sure. You bring a qualifying tie, which I'm not against as a concept. You have the softest compound tire, which, let's say, if you're driving at full speed, the whole time you're on it, it goes maybe 20%, 25% of a Grand Prix before it completely is un-drivable. The medium tyre would maybe go

45 to 50% of a Grand Prix before it becomes completely undriveable and that hardest tire would maybe go 65 to 70% of a Grand Prix before it becomes un-drivable. Is that where your brain is thinking? Obviously, there'll be some different difference there. Yeah, similar to that.

I'd probably put the percentages down a little bit. I would say like if the hard tire can do maybe half the race at a maximum, then you are probably going to a two-stop race everywhere. And maybe at that point you start to encourage three-stop races, which are a lot of fun when they happen, but is fairly rare. I just think at the moment, the C-6 tire, you either need it to be quick enough that it is a qualifying tire. And like the teams have said, it's not that much quicker than the C-5 at the moment, because they know a bit more about the C-5 and the narrow window

of working, et cetera, et cetera. You even need it to do that, or you need it to degrade a little bit less to the point where you can actually use it on a Sunday. Because I just don't, at the moment, I think the teams are looking at it and going, what's the point? Like, it's just going to die out so quickly that we might as well just eke out a one stop or, well, that is probably the other option. So, yeah, I think the way in which you laid it out is, is close to how I would have it. I'm waiting for them to say that they will bring a qualifying tie.

And you know how we paint the walls colors. over the years. We've had a light blue, we've had a pink and a purple, and waiting for them just to commit to just dyeing the whole tire, like a bright red or something, just to make it clear. And cars are racing around with like neon red tires or something. Hey, that sounds like a marketing opportunity for all of you red companies out there. Yeah, get out there, red companies.

Coca-Cola. I'm sure you do that for McLaren. Or you could make the wheel some sort of, like, you know, can. Like, you could do that, right? You can tell that all three of us have worked in marketing at some point because we're on to something here. Coca-Cola hit us up. Please. Please actually do.

Do you think the 2026 regulations will make anything more complicated? Obviously, Pirelli are focused on what they can control, which is the tyres, but we know or we don't know going into next season exactly how the rest of the formula is going to be laid out. So they'll be working on their own thing, not knowing maybe if. how the cars are going to work? Is that going to impact what they're doing? Yeah, I mean, it's hard to say it's going to impact what they're doing when they have no idea what it is that they're meant to be doing, I suppose. F-1 will have run tests, private tests on the models of these cars.

They're not going to this blind. They're not going with no data at all. But it's not like they could do a Pirelli test on new tyres, which they regularly do on cars in testing sessions. You'll see images from Ferrari running their own track Rastin Martin ran around the inside of Silverstone doing a Porelli test. And that's where they're using the modern car spec on a completely different set of Porelli tires that they're creating, usually for next year's testing.

Now, if you haven't noticed, now that there seems have been bad new cars yet. The 2026 cars haven't been rolled out without seeing any, and we won't see any until 2026, pretty much kicks off with those two private tests, the private tests that we're getting. So Porelli can't do that live testing session. So I must admit for them, this is a really difficult job, and they will take the brunt of blame if it goes wrong. They always have, right? They always have. Being a tire manufacturer in Formula One is hard.

It's a hard tire. It's not the soft tire, that's for sure. And you have to take it on the ching and you have to adapt and develop. And fair play to Pirelli, whilst I don't love the way the ties have been set out, they have always developed the tire to meet what they have been asked to do. They've always hit that criteria. and that's all they can do realistically. So this is tricky. This is really, really hard.

I'm sure they'll be using as much data as possible. A lot of the forecast, a lot of the kind of processes that have been put in place to try and emulate what may come out from simulation data, but getting it right on the day on that first race day of 2026, it's still a bit of finger in the air kind of work to see if it's actually going to work.

What do you think? Yeah, I agree with you on, on Pirelli and how they're perceived by the F1 fan base as a whole. They don't always get everything right. And I've been critical of them a little bit over the years. But there are times where people will say, Pirelli, why aren't the tyres this way? And Pirelli just turn around and say,

we've been told to make them this way. Like F1 have said, make this, we make this, and then everyone is unhappy at the tyres. You have to go back to the source of why they're, you know, why they're being built that way in the first place. But yeah, I think with 2026 it is just a case of they can only control what they control. There's not much point in terms of guesswork and they just, they've been given a contract. They need to deliver on that. And then if everything else falls around outside of them, it's not on them. Yeah. I guess if they,

if they market it right, it's almost a blameless game. Well, exactly, exactly. Let's move on to, good opportunity. I think these a couple of races, a couple of weekends where we don't have F1 to catch up on some news that maybe we didn't get time to properly talk about when it happens. So we're going back a few weeks for this one, back to the Austrian GP weekend. So as we know, every non-ruly rookie in the field needs to give up their car twice in free practice sessions throughout the 2025 season to a rookie driver. And Norris and McLaren decided to do this for the first time in Austria with 19-year-old Alex Dunn taking his place in FP1. And the reason we wanted to highlight this was because the man finished fourth at his first

outing in a free practice session. He was less than a tenth away from Oscar Piastri, and he was only just over two temps away from the leading time in that session. As far as FP1 debuts go, Sam, how impressive was that? Pretty darn good, realistically. It's always hard. It's always hard. I'm going to have this entire conversation with, it's a test. It's really hard to know what they're running. He could have been running light fuel or anything like that, right? A certain set up, it's hard to tell. But fourth place is fourth place.

So it's right behind his teammate, I say, you know, in quotation marks there. He's kind of, he was the substitute teammate for that session. But when you're that close to someone like Oscar Piascary in a track that is easy to be good at, but really blimming hard to be great at. Austria hasn't got a lot of corner. So getting it right is tough when you really get it right. So the fact he was that close, I was really,

really surprised, really impressed by what he was able to do. Usually a lot of these rookies are quite far towards the back of these sessions. You might see, you know, let's just say it Ferrari, say LeCler will finish in fifth,

their rookie driver might be 12, 13, 14s. You know, it's more common than not for them between the back end of the field. So he'd been this close was a big impressive mark. And I'm sure there are a couple of teams out there who maybe are not 100% sold on their drivers or might have an open seat who might go. It could be an option. Could be someone that we're interested in. Ben, falls. I think, I firstly, yes, very impressive from him to be fourth. I don't care what the conditions are. I don't care if you want to say, you know, that McCarron is a fantastic car or, you know,

he was on low fuel or the tires were right or it's an FP1 session. So it doesn't, if you're fourth in your debut session in FP1, like that's impressive, regardless of who you are or how you've got there. So well done to Alex Dunn in the first instance. I think the thing that will help him the most out of this, that weekend was not his time in FP1. It's not how close he was to Piastri. It's not even how close he was to first place. It's the fact that Lando Norris went and won.

Because a lot of the time in these FP1 sessions, it is about set up for the driver that's not there. And it's ensuring that their weekend isn't disrupted by what you're doing. There's valuable work that needs to be done from these free practice like rookie sessions in terms of collecting data. And whatever, I'm not saying Lando Norris Wong because of Alex done, but I am saying that McLaren will be very happy that the weekend unfolded the way that it did. He did not hurt what Lando Norris did for the rest of the weekend, and he might have helped it a little bit as well. So very impressive in that regard. I would expect to see him a few more times this season. So as far as I'm aware, I don't think Piastri has given up his seat yet.

So he will need to do that twice. And Lando Norris will need to do it once more. I know that one of those three sessions is going to be taken by Pato Award at the Mexican Grand Prix later in the year. That's already confirmed. But the other two, I would expect to be Alex done again. I, when it comes to these FP1 sessions, you've just got to seize your initiative with these rookie drivers. And he's absolutely done that. You don't get many opportunities to shine. It's not like 20 years ago when we had these dedicated Friday practice drivers, test drivers,

who could consistently go out there on the F1 calendar and show what they can do. It's difficult now, at least in like an F1 sphere. Like he could show what he can do in F2 and other series of. obviously, but you don't get much time in front of the cameras in F1. To go out there and do what he did, it's going to help his stock quite a lot. He's had an odd time in his junior career has others done. He was running up to Kimi Antingelli in F4, which is no bad thing at all. You know, we talk of Kimi Antigelli highly.

You look at what he's done in Formula One so far whilst he's tag a rookie season. And he really has to have a rookie season so far. He's actually real glimmering moments. Alex Doug at this point I think he's third in the F2 title fight he's one of a couple of sprint races or is it feature races sorry one couple of feature races

he's only behind two drivers you know that's how third place works for the way folks and I really do think that McLaren shouldn't rest on their laurels with him he isn't the kind of driver I think that they should go he can maybe be our reserve

he can sit in F2 for two or three years he's the kind of driver that if someone like Cadillac go well we've got Perez maybe coming in for our main scene. Why could they not maybe loan him out? Why can McClellan not maybe go, go on, you can have a really cut price deal if he gets to be in there for a couple of years,

it gets to bring up his experience. Because if someone like Norris goes, I'm not loving it anymore, I want to go somewhere else, or Piastri gets picked up by, I don't know, Red Bull and they rebuild after everything that's going on at the moment. He could be someone that needs proper F-on experience, and this could be a real opportunity for them.

So if the rest of this F2 season starts to really unfold in the right way for him, him. And he's an outside choice for someone like Kagalak. Yeah, I, I've been relatively impressed by him in his junior career to this point. So you mentioned his runner up to Antonelli and Italian F4. Key to Italian F4 folks, be in a Pramer. If you could be in a Pramer, you've got a great chance. And if you're finishing runner up in something that isn't a Pramer, that is, that is pretty impressive. So that's a great start. Had a really tough time in F3 last year to the point. where I thought it would derail his career. He was quite unlucky, I think, throughout most of the

season, but he still managed to get the F2 seat this year. He is really impressing me from what I've seen so far. He's 14 points off the lead, P3, as he say, which means two drivers in front of him. But he is consistently showing, I think he's the overall quickest driver in F2 from what I've seen. I think him, Victor Martins, maybe, probably the two I would put as the outright fastest drivers. Now, Martin's even lower down in the championship than done is. So there's far more to it than just outright pace, and that's why he's not leading the championship.

But if we're just looking at how quick you are, I don't know if there's another driver in that field right now that is as quick as him. What he needs to do is refine his racecraft because he is gung-ho. Like, he will send it on very random corners, at very random times. There have been a few occasions this year.

I've watched him, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, come to mind. Monaco, he had an incident at turn one for the feature race with Martins who was on the front row of the grid with him. There have been a few occasions where I think he's gone for moves where he shouldn't have done. So there's still a bit of work to do. At the moment, he runs the risk of being another Felipe Drogovich,

and I hope he doesn't, or Theo Porcette, to throw his name in there again. these very well-respected F-2 drivers that get somewhere close to F-1 but because there's not an opening at the right time for them, we don't expect there to be one at McLaren anytime soon.

It's difficult to know what to do with them. He did an F-F-F-Fournary young drivers test the other day. I don't know if that's their plan for him, but like you say, if there are loan opportunities out there, take it, definitely take it. Okay, let's take our final break on this episode. On the other side, it's pump the brakes.

It's been a while. It's been a while. Welcome back, everyone. It's time for pump the brakes. I know there's a newer version out there, but sometimes you've just got to run with the classics, you know. And I say classic, because we play this game about twice a year at this rate. It's a very simple one, pump the brakes. We'll each give an opinion and the other person has to say whether that opinion that might be a little bit controversial is absolutely fine and you should keep thinking that. or if they should pump the brakes because they're being an idiot and you should think again.

I'll kick off. And the thing is, I already know you disagree with it. But I said this on a Patreon episode recently and I'll be a good pump the brakes because I stand by it. And I want to make sure people know what I'm saying. Nika Holkenberg's performance at the British GP was brilliant. But my pump the brakes is it wasn't his best performance of the year. so far. I still think his Spanish GP was better. And look, in terms of moments, no doubt about it, the Silverstone moment is way better. The reason I put the Spanish GP ahead of it in terms of my

own ratings is as great as that P3 was from Holcomberg. He had to overtake one car to get there. Like, he did not overtake more than Lanchdroll out on track. And I know the strategy worked the way that he did. And the way in which he was able to hold off Lewis Hamilton was fantastic. It's why I rated it very highly and still think it's one of the best performances of the season. I just think Spanish GP was even better, like having to overtake Lewis Hamilton on track, the fact that even before all the madness, he was on course for like a seventh place finish and a salber anyway. So I think Holkenberg's performance at Silverstone, not his best of the season. Yeah, you make a lot of good points, but not good enough, I'm afraid.

There are so many people listening who haven't heard that before. No, that is a gunged sound from a Kings Pro moment. that I used to watch and it's also very quiet on the soundboard actually. It was, wasn't it? I'm not playing it again, but it was really quiet.

And it felt like it went on for like three minutes. What's your pub of the brakes? Right, right. Again, I need to be very specific in what I'm saying here because I think it could be misconstrued. Watching a Formula One race, I literally mean watching the race itself

is much better at home on the sofa than at his track side. Yes, it is. I love the experience. I love going to a car truck. I love seeing the cars whiz by. I love walking around, getting a beer and sitting in the sun and seeing everyone love Formula One. But you ain't got a blibing clue what's going on half the time.

I do think it's a real problem with Formula One because it's a great experience. But I do think they may lose fans over time who go, it's just not worth that much money to go and not really fully understand what I'm doing. So yeah, literally watching the race is better on the telly. I agree. I think from a business sense, they'll be fine because those that consider going to say a race a year will get to watch the other 23. Whilst the calendar is as big as it is, I think it's okay. But yeah, in terms of following what's going on and the overall enjoyment of all the action, you're going to get more from it when you're watching on the TV.

So it's just two different experiences. Like you're not going to get the same thing from both. But yeah, I agree. with the sentiment. And let us know if you agreed or disagreed with either of those opinions. Before we go, we have got time for what I'd normally dub the greatest segment in all of podcasting. But for one week only, I'm going to dub it the scariest segments in all of podcasting.

It is the... I'll be scary question of the week. You're probably asking, why is it scary? Well, when you ask questions about Christian Horner on the internet, you don't always love what you find. Don't Google, folks. It's safer that way. We decided to put out the question.

It's our own fault. What would a Christian Horner tell all book about his time at Red Bull be called? What is the title of that book? Firstly, a lot of answers and a lot of answers that will not get played. Doesn't mean they were bad, but they're not getting played. We laughed. Don't be wrong. We laughed. But they're not getting played for obvious reasons. You know who you are. I can't have those words come out of my mouth. I'm sorry, it's going to live recording. I'm sorry, because it can't happen. First one for me comes from Chris. I messed with the bull and got the

horns, which I think was great. Yeah, great work. Rosie's answer may be laugh, which is. Yeah, I'm literally about to read that one. How to be the top terrier in a world of Wolves. I absolutely love this one. This is quite mythical, quite Greek in its sense from Lisa. The Icarus of Milton Kings, which I think is very poetic, very good. Yes, love that. Good work.

Really clever. I do just want to say from Violet as well, who said, this comment section being 70% unusable was very expected with a prompt like this. Violet, you are correct. Thank you for delivery. I've got nothing else to say. Yeah. This one from Lizzie, I'm going to have to bleep it here, but change your

Beep car, which I thought was appropriate considering the amount of beef that he gave Toto Wolf. Yeah, there were a few answers along that line. One from Twitter from Ewan, love a good pun, a Vettel all with Christian Horner. Oh, very good. You have to go back to the 2008 pronunciation of Vettel, but it works. I think it was older than that, wasn't it? Well, maybe.

I really enjoyed this one from John here. He said, who's next in the seat? Which I thought was great, very, very much appropriate for the amount of drivers that he booting out of theirs. Yeah, maybe similar line of thinking from Step Back Bull. Thank you, Max. No, just realize I can't read that one. Yeah, I did that a lot earlier today. I was noting that on all the ones I found funny and then had to get rid of the ones that I couldn't say.

This one is great. A throwback to the episode I did with Harry, of course, from Duke, Dube Rainbow also as Nick. Shockey buttons from Mr. Top. I haven't spoken to you about that on air, have I? Only off there. Did you play along at home? I did play along at home.

I got full marks. Fortunately, I wasn't fooled by Turbo, the goddamn goat. Thought that Mike got you? Shockingly, no. Damn, that's a real shame. This one's from Brian made me laugh. No, Nui, shui. to build an undrivable car.

The last one I wanted to say was from Cooper. And this one really made me laugh. It's maybe a bit of a niche reference, but it's if I did it, which you might know is the same name of the book that OJ Simpson wrote. Which, yeah, if I did it. Final one from me comes from Alicia.

and it was Regble Clips Your Wings. Nice. From the advert. There are loads on there that are really, really funny. And I would urge you,

if you don't follow us on Instagram or Twitter, go and check it out, late breaking, everywhere. Please go have a look. Let me have a phone. Sorry, check it out,

read them, have a giggle, because there are many that are not appropriate for air. Maybe next week's topic will be a little bit more appropriate for air. So make sure you are

following us on both Twitter and on Instagram. Get involved. We usually, you know, Monday afternoon if you're in the US, Monday evening if you're in the UK. And, yeah, get your answers in and we'll read some of them out on next week's episode. I think that's going to do it for today's though, Sam.

I think so. Folks, if you fancy a little bit more F1 concept while we're having this mini off season, it feels like then. Join the Patreon. Get down there. The links in the description. Patriots thing is a gorgeous place for moving.

It's bright. It's slang. But there's aircon for all when the parking is free. And we're about to go through a tier list. a tier list of X and all Red Bull drivers. It's a very Red Bull heavy week actually for us. But we're going to rate those all the way from D.C. up to modern-day Max Verstappen on our homemade tier list

and see where that goes. So join us. Come and get involved. There's loads of other good stuff in there as well. But I urge you to do. Remember that tickets are still on sale for our live show in Austin, Texas. We've sold a log of tickets. There's a few leftovers.

So don't miss out if you're going to be there on the chance to get your hands on some tickets. Thanks for your support. Thanks for listening. We'll see you make week. In the meantime, I've been saving the stage. And I've been Ben Hocking. And remember, keep breaking late. Podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network.