The Late Braking F1 Podcast - Why cancelling the 2023 Emilia Romagna GP was the right call

Episode Date: May 21, 2023

On what would have been race day, Sam, Ben & Harry review why it was ultimately the right call to cancel this weekend's race in Imola. They also discuss whether it should be rescheduled for later in the year, Zak Brown's comment that Piastri is a future world champ, and consider which team has the better introduction of upgrades with Mercedes now debuting at Monaco vs. Ferrari at Catalunya. >>> DONATE to the Emilia Romagna relief efforts: https://www.f1.com/donate

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It was just $11. Can you stop true craming me? Can I have another slice? Try the season's biggest hits from the PC Holiday Insiders Report. Thank you for listening to the Late Breaking F1 podcast. Make sure to check out new episodes every Wednesday and every Sunday. And a very warm welcome to the late breaking F1 podcast presented by Harry Eid, Sam Sage, and me, Ben Hocking. Not the episode we were expecting to bring you today, but we're bringing you an episode nonetheless.

Of course, today was supposed to be the review of the. Imola Grand Prix. But instead, of course, the race canceled midweek. So no F1 this weekend. Sam, obviously we recorded this just before the news of the cancellation, which we, yeah, had to somewhat address thanks to Harry's preamble on Wednesday's episode. But, yeah, not the episode we were expecting, right? I mean, small secret here.

I haven't actually listened to our midweek episode after recording it, so I don't know what you said. Said you suck. Ah, see, that's what I was expecting anyway, so I'm not even surprised. I was actually genuinely okay and nice in that preamble. You're welcome. You do us proud most at the time. Anyway.

50% of the time. No, this is not the episode that we expected. We're here discussing a council grand prix, the fact that a whole region of, you know, of Italy is, walls underwater and people have been displaced and are missing and some have unfortunately sadly lost their lives. And we are discussing the public reactions. compared to the reaction from the FIA and from Liberty

about cancelling a Grand Prix. And there have been quite a few mixed reactions about this decision online, which I mean surprises me. I'm not going to lie because for me, and I think the three of us, which is why we tend to gel so well, we tend to align most of the time.

It makes total sense, you know, to put it on our top line view, that when people's lives are actively at risk and there's being emergency service use and hotels are being used to make sure people have a bed and a shower and somewhere warm and dry to sleep with their families and make sure everyone is safe.

And, you know, you don't want, I don't know, 200,000 Formula One fans turning up for a weekend. They're going, all right, I know your life's an absolute travesty, but I've paid 200 quick for a ticket, so get out. No, it's entirely the right thing to do to put a stop to this event. At the end of the day, everyone's going to get paid from a Formula One standpoint, right? All the staff are getting paid from the teams. The people that run around the track,

obviously doing the flag waving and whatnot the marshals, they are all volunteers anyway, and they are probably heavily affected by what's going on in the region, because they're usually locals to the area. And all the fangs, it's come out, and I think this is right from the FIA, have said, and Liberty have said, you can either seek a refund, or you get to move your ticket to next year, which, considering inflation and changing a prices or whatnot, they're actually probably getting a pretty solid deal on the race ticket, I think.

So from a crisis management standpoint, I actually think Liberty and F1 have done really bloody good job. I was quite surprised at how good a job they've done with everything. What about you, lads? What do you think? I think that you can tell this is we've been thrown off slightly because Sam's just launched into the first topic. Didn't even do like some silly intro? No, I know. It's too serious. It's just gone straight in.

People have lost their lives. Straight for the jugglers. I've protected their jugglers, actually. Yeah, Liberty at FIA, F1, the correct call. I know we said We obviously debated whether it would be the correct call to cancel it. But if you, you know, look at the devastation that's come out, the region of Amelia Romagna.

Well done. Thank you. There's just, it sucks because I think I was looking forward to Imala, a bit of, well, obviously. Love Imala. Questionable weather for the weekend. Could have made it quite spicy. And it sucks because I just like Imola as a track anyway.

So it's a sad one to lose off the calendar. but there's, I just don't think there's, yes, the track today looks, I've seen pictures, it looks fine, obviously it does, but it's just everywhere around it. So that annoys me, people try, yeah, there, I'm not going to name HOOC, but on Twitter, I quote retweeting F1 journalist, you can't have made a bit of a, a, good, didn't even know who, but just go look at some. Go look at me, if you want to, if you're bothered, someone, a bit of a passive, aggressive tweet from an official F1 journalist that said, oh, you know, I know that, uh, Stefano's a local

boy, and I understand the, there's, there's issues, but. but the track is lovely in drying now. I just thought, oh, shove it. Like, Yuki Seng Ogun is 500 metres down the road behind him, shoveling mud and grit out of the way, and people are still trying to find their loved ones. But, oh, the track is nice and dry now. Bugger off.

That is such an insensitive take. It really irked me. Okay. Coming up on today's episode, a bit later on in the show, we've got Zach Brown and Oscar Piastri chat, because we needed to fill this episode with something, given the absence of the race. we'll be talking about the Mercedes upgrades that we spent about 20 minutes talking about on Wednesday that we're coming up this weekend.

Instead, they'll come up at Monaco. But it's the difference in strategy to Ferrari who are bringing upgrades in Spain. So we'll be discussing who might be right in that situation. But start, obviously, cancellation of Imola. I just wanted to quickly read the statement that Formula One put out on Wednesday when they announced that the race would not go ahead. following discussions between Formula One, the president of the FIA, the competent authorities, including the relevant ministers, the president of the Automobile Club of Italy, the president of Amelian, Romania region, the mayor of the city and the promoter.

The decision has been taken not to proceed with the Grand Prix weekend at Imola. The decision has been taken because it is not possible to safely hold the event for our fans, the teams and our personnel, and it is the right and responsible thing to do given the situation faced by the towns and cities in the region. It would not be right to put further pressure on the local authorities and emergency services at this difficult time. Now, we know since then that Formula One themselves have donated a very large sum of money towards the effort to help the region, all the flooding, all of the devastation that has already been mentioned today. If you want to help out, you can do.

We'll leave a link in the description of this episode. F1.com forward slash donate is the easiest way to go about that. and then you can go off to links from there to help the region. But Sam, I mean, you've given you a sort of overview so far in terms of what you thought about the decision. It's very rare that a cancellation not only happens, but happens early enough in the week. You know, we were midweek when this was announced. What are your overall thoughts as the details emerged when the week went on? I think also it just proves that F1 absolutely hates us.

the fact that we recorded. And once again, within 12 hours, they went, psych, no growery. We're supposed to be, you know, late's breaking. I look, yeah, but I look behind the, behind the microphone here. We were supposed to be doing our midweek podcast on a Wednesday for a little while just because some people are busy on Tuesdays, Ben.

Yeah, Ben. Yeah, Ben. But we didn't this week because Ben can do Wednesdays. So we're on Tuesday. So it's your fault, Ben. And then we got mugged off. Carly, folks. It's my friend.

fault on this. It is, I'm really sorry. And the worst bit is, we can't even take the Mickey too much because it really is a horribly serious issue that it's to be looked at properly. If it was something small, we'd definitely just rip the crap out of each other. But, you know, we're all on the raspberry juice here today, aren't we? I've just realized that. The raspberry juice.

Berry, sorry, summer berry, whatever you call it. Strawberry and watermelon. Uh, well, I'm in. Show there. Oh, that's what you're singing. Took me a minute, Harry Styles. Anyway, so, yeah, I think, again, I've already mentioned it, but it was 100% the right call. I think what was really surprising is in these kind of events when they take place, I'm not just talking about, you know, around Formula One, but, you know, worldwide, when you see like a real travesty like this, a natural disaster-esque event that happens, you tend to get a lot of build-up about it.

There tends to be immediate coverage that is almost worldwide about it. Let's just take, I don't know, when the volcano was erupting Hawaii, it looked like it was on the brink of really, you know, causing a mass eruption last. year. That was all over the news. The same with any major disaster that happens, you know, across the Middle East or whatnot where you have a lot of earthquakes or something like that. You hear about it for a good buildup. This kind of trickled in, unlike the water, I imagine. It kind of almost felt like, you know, there's a bit of rain. Always, there's some rain coming. Okay, we've had wet grotry before, no problem. And then all of a sudden, it was a bit like, it's quite a lot of rain, actually, you know.

It's a lot of water. Quite a lot of water on the ground. And all of a sudden, it was like within 12, 12, 24 hours, it was like, yeah, we might cancel this. It was like, oh, that's kind of come out of nowhere, that that's suddenly turned around. So I generally think that Formula One management, Liberty Media, had to come up with this decision in a really, really small time frame. And I genuinely think they've learned from some previous issues, for example, the missile strike in Saudi Arabia, right? That is a little bit unnerving. I'm not sure how confident I feel if I was spectating at tracking a missile strike went off less than 15 miles away. or, for example, when Russia, of course, decided to invade Ukraine.

We were obviously going to the Russian Grand Prix. And I think it still took a little bit too long to really make that call. So I feel like they have learned they've acted responsibly. And I'm quite proud of them for how they've handled it. I don't say it often. But I generally think they've done themselves proud. I think they've done the sport proud. I think they've acted responsibly.

And the way they've then set up this, you know, fund campaign, donating, the likes of Ferrari, of course, who it's a very near and dear region to them, of donating, I think, a million dollars to the region. I think Formula One as a collective is reacting very positively and very well. And I think the spectators are reacting very positively and very well. I know a lot of people who were travelling from across the world to that region who were tweeting, you know, I'm in a hotel room with no electricity.

I can't charge my phone. I'm literally having to live by candlelight at the moment. But no one was putting pressure on the locals. It seemed like they were panicking or making it all about them. it was a real collective Formula One effort to make sure that they were benefiting the region rather than, you know, oh, it's our sport, we're doing what we can. So we're only here for entertainment. That's all Formula One is.

I know it employs a lot of people. But at the end of the day, sport is here for fun. It does not come before human life. And I think they reacted really, really well about it. I guess just to add another example into the mix that you said there, Australia 2020, right? Yeah, great. I mean, they left that up until the Friday of first practice when people were queuing up outside. Imagine if that situation had happened here, which seemed plausible.

So, yeah, that's maybe just another one's throwing with the other good examples that you mentioned. Harry, what were your thoughts as the details emerged throughout the week? You just don't my point, Ben, but it's a completely valid one. I think this is the F1 of completely and utterly learned from, and it's almost selfish in a way, but it's not because they're acting responsibly. But they've completely learned from Australia 2020 because they let that, I guess COVID is slightly different.

It's less visible in the way that it's a disaster compared to a massive flood. Especially in that early part of COVID. Well, you can't see COVID. Yeah, and you don't know what's coming. But I think by we got to that point in 2020, when you all was coming down the road and F1 just sort of pretended everything was held on to their money,

didn't they? Everything was fine. And then it wasn't. So I think, yeah, they've clearly learned here. And look, mistakes you should learn for them. And they have so well done F1. Yeah, I don't think there's anything else more for me to add. I'm just glad they made the right call.

As you say, Ben, you mentioned this in the preview podcast where we were discussing about the weather. He said, I just hope we were here on Sunday discussing, obviously, we're not discussing a race, but discussing something positive and not what F1 should have done. Yeah. Which obviously, we're not because they made the right call. Yeah, it's very rare. It happens once in a blue moon, probably once every five years when it comes to me. But I am going to compliment Formula One on this because I think they did nail the decision. It became increasingly evident that the cancellation was the only possible way to go about this.

And I'm glad that they made the decision in a very decisive and effective manner. They didn't, you know, there was no room for confusion. There was no delay. it was a case of as soon as it became unfeasible for the race to go ahead, it was cancelled and that was that, which was really great to see because they could have left this to linger. They could have tried almost,

it's not quite a direct comparison, but they could have tried a Belgium from a couple years ago where they, there wasn't flooding in the area, obviously for SPAR, but they just gave the race every possible opportunity to happen until the last possible moment

where, of course, we had a one lap race. They could have tried the same thing here, and it just wouldn't have worked because of all of the devastation to the surrounding areas. So, you know, this race couldn't happen for safety reasons. It couldn't happen for logistical reasons. You're absolutely right to bring up the point, Sam, that, you know, there's images of dry tracks and it doesn't matter. Like, it really doesn't matter. It was never the condition of the track itself that was the. main reason this was always going to be cancelled. For me, it was a morality reason. In terms of

emergency services and having to divert people and resources away from areas and regions that absolutely need it more than just putting on a motor race. Yeah, I appreciate emergency services all over the world are always stretched. Like, that is a well-known issue. But certainly where you've got every single person and every single resource out there attempting to tackle the devastation. station of the region. As you say, people have died. There are hundreds, if not thousands of people who need to be rehomed, who do not have access to their homes anymore. When all of the pressure is going on that, how could you possibly, from a pure morality standpoint, justify taking people away from that to run a motor race, to have, you know, at its core, 20 people going around in a

circle as fast as they can. Like, you can't justify that. So this was absolutely the right decision. And I'm glad they are equally to you, but I'm glad they're refunding fans here. And again, just making it really straightforward. No room for confusion. Overall, just, yeah, I don't think they could have handled it any better.

I do want to give a nice little shout out to the Williams racing team, though, who put on a little e-sports event. I think it was much like what we had in COVID. I think they did it last night, which. for those listening would be Saturday night, I think it was. They did a race around Imola, I believe, on e-sports. They had celebs turn up the likes of Thibbeau-Cortoir. The goalkeeper was there.

A few other big e-sports racing games were there. I think Alex Alvin took part as well. And they did it to raise money for the local area. And it provided entertainment as well for F1 fans to go and watch. So they jumped on that really, really quickly. They used their current connections that they had, and they put on a nice little event. I'm not saying that every team should go ahead and should be doing that.

But it was really nice. I would like to see a lot more of that if we have similar instances in the future because well, I'm having it was good. And shout out to some other drivers as well that really supported the course here. So, you know, Yuki Sanoda is Hall of Famer, obviously.

Good reason. I love UK. The street's helping out just, yeah. And anyone and everyone within Formula One that assisted. Well done to you. We'll take a short break. We'll just discuss the potential rescheduling of the event

and whether a contract extension should be given to Imola as a result of this right after the break. At Desjardin, we speak business. We speak startup funding and comprehensive game plans. We've mastered made-to-measure growth and expansion advice, and we can talk your ear-off about transferring your business when the time comes. Because at Desjardin business, we speak the same language you do. Business.

So join the more than 400,000 Canadian entrepreneurs who already count on us, and contact Desjardin today. We'd love to talk. business. So now obviously we know that Imala isn't happening today, Sunday 21st of May, but attention now turns to whether this race can happen later on in the year or whether it's not going to happen in 2023 at all and whether the track should have an extension to 2026 as a result of missing out this year. Sam, what do your thoughts, first of all on the potential rescheduling and then secondly on the possible contract extension? I mean, rescheduling is hard. We've got such a

compacted calendar as it is, right? We are squeezing venues wherever we can. We've already, quite publicly on this podcast, and I think many other people have made the point stated that the geographical layout of the calendar does not make a lot of sense, right? Your hauling teams, left, right and centre across the globe. You know, we're already going to, we've already experienced it once, the fact that we went from, you know, Miami to Baku. That was silly when other races are in a much closer vicinity. And so the latter races of this year of the calendar are, obviously very much Asia-focused or American-focused, both North and South. And so sticking Imala right in the middle of one of those groupings doesn't really make sense. The only place that I think

I can see it really fitting in is if we were to reduce the summer break window by a week and have it, I think it's before the Hungarian Grand Prix, which is the race back after the summer break. And we've made the summer break three weeks or whatever it would be in sake of four, because we already did have an extended spring break, because obviously we, obviously, we have a year. lost China. So we have kind of hang a little bit more of a relaxed attitude to the start of this season. So I think that's where they could bring it if they're going to. But I think realistically, we aren't going to see it added back to the calendar. And that is a real shame. We all really enjoy Imola as a track. It's a really fantastic race circuit. One of what they call the driver's

tracks, isn't it, where they really have to showcase a lot of that. Proper good skill. You know, be good at the F1. Proper good skill. Love it. You can tell I am a famous racing driver with that analysis. So I would like to see it back. I really don't think it's going to happen, unfortunately, just because we are so compacted. Although other thing, the COVID year, I believe I saw a stat that this was the first time ever

that two of the first seven Romprees had been cancelled or removed, which is quite interesting for completely separate reasons as well. In terms of should they have it extended, I mean, I want to say yes, their contract, that is. I want to say yes.

I want to say that they've missed a year, so they deserve another year. But that's just not how the world of contractual law and money and commercialism really works. I can't see liberty just with all the demand that they're, well, they're saying they're getting from other nations and other regions about wanting to host a race going, yeah, well, just for free, give you a complete exemption. I mean, it will look very good on them if they did. They'll learn a lot of goodwill with the area.

I think if they were to craft that in a nice PR statement, they could get a lot of good sentiment from the Formula One community. but it's just they make so much money from these contractual agreements with these circuits that I just don't think they'll pass it up. I think the fact that they're already refunding all these tickets and or allowing tickets to be used in the next year or something like that, I think in their eyes they're going, we've given up enough cash for this one, especially with the donation that they're doing everything. I think they'll go, you'll be sorted by 2026. So you either pay up to stay on or you're moving along, unfortunately, or 2025 whenever it is.

so I don't think it will happen unfortunately but I would like to see it happen if the world was a lovely place where money didn't matter it would happen but that is not where we live oh dear Harry thoughts on rescheduling and then potential extension

I don't think it's going to be rescheduled and I don't think it should be either from being honest I and it sucks because again as I mentioned love him a lot and I wish we were going there but I just don't think it's I just think it's worth it given how many races we still have to do

and it's just logistically we obviously had it in COVID but that was different. That was, you know, they were trying to put on an entire season because so much got cancelled. This is one race that I just don't think they need to put back in for the sake of

having it on the calendar this year. And it is a shame, but I just don't think it's worth it. In terms of getting an extension on that year, again, I miss ham, I don't think that's just not how it works. Having said that, this, I don't want,

when it comes around, to, you know, contract extension time for Imola, this should not look bad on Imola at all. It's not their fault. So I know, I'd hope F1 would, you know, would bear this in mind next time they're negotiating. And as you mentioned, Stefano Domenicali is an Imola boy at heart is where he grew up, I think.

Is that correct? Yeah, he's from the region. Yeah. So, yeah, you know, you hope that would play a factor. But yeah, so I don't think an ex-examil a factor. But yeah, so I don't think an extra, just an automatic extra year is the right way. But I hope that when it comes around to extending for the next time they get to that point, then, you know, this isn't, they couldn't do anything here.

So it was F1 that cancelled it anyway. So it wasn't Imola's fault. Yeah. And I think also we have Monsor on the, on the calendar, which obviously another Italian Grand Prix, if you knew to F1, it's also situated in Italy. There's no reason why they could, in theory, go, well, this is a risk of this time of year. Let's pick it up in future and make it almost like an Italy doubleheader, for example, right? I mean, geographically, that makes sense.

It makes sense with the teams when you have to travel up the country. So you could put them almost on like a doubleheader for Italy and maybe have a slightly warmer period of Italy so you wouldn't get any more rain. There's a lot of solutions here. I mean, it's a fair point. And to be honest, this is probably a comment on climate change itself

because May you'd think Italy is going to be quite nice. But if we'd had a race this year at Imola, it had been three weight races on the bounce at Imola in Italy. So maybe move it. Because we also stated, didn't we? I think on the, on the preview, when we thought this was just going to be a light spitting of rain. Very horrible.

That wet rather races, overrated, you know, not always the banger you think they're going to be. Well, exactly. So, yeah, this year not going to happen, but I, you know, I hope it doesn't reflect badly on them for next contract extension time. There's also one other factor just to bear in mind is that we don't know exactly when the circuit and the region is going to be ready for. Formula One again if we're looking at rescheduling. We don't know exactly at the moment. At what point would they be ready to host the race? Would be next month?

Would it be July? Would it be August? I don't honestly know. So there is that consideration too. It's one of the issues of having the calendar the way that it is at the moment where it's almost run at like 99% capacity. There's very little room for flex and rescheduling and changing because it's so tightly organized that one thing being cancelled or one thing needing to be postponed just means

that there isn't the scope to put that back in elsewhere in the year. It doesn't work the same way as, let's say, IndyCar as an example, where there's much fewer races in a season, but generally speaking time-wise, it's not done over much of a different time. You could add another race in later on in the year and teams wouldn't get burned out because there's just more flexing included in that calendar. That's one example. But so to your points, I don't think it should be rescheduled. I think if it was going to be rescheduled at any point, Sam,

your week that you pointed out is probably the right one. But I don't think we need it, to be honest. I don't think the teams would be majorly happy at having one fewer, one fewer week in that summer break, or at least the employees of the teams. I don't think they'd be happy with that, even though we have had the extended spring breakers. I guess you'd call it.

And I just think if we were in 2020 and we were struggling for numbers, then yeah, you would maybe throw this in, but I don't see any reason to force the way into the calendar here. I find that on this podcast, it's usually the way that things will work is Sam and Harry will come up with really lovely ideas that I being a pessimist or realist,

depending on how you view it, will shoot down. Instead, on this one, it's going to be the other way around. Just grant on the year extension. Go on, do it. Good Lord. He never been so happy. Just do it, F1. Come on.

I appreciate that, yes, you're probably right, that the world doesn't work that way and there's more financial considerations than just that. But it's not their fault. Just, I don't know, get the contract and then just change the five to a set. It's really easy to do. You just like put that one extra line in.

And it'll look like a six. Yeah. And that's your problem. solve. No one will look at that and think, oh, that's interesting. That can't be right. No, people will look at it and say, yeah, F1 know what they're talking about. They put 2026 from the beginning. No one will know. No one will know. They'll never going to know. I'll never know. It's not also, in terms of the goodwill point as well, I don't know whether some of that would be eroded away as a result of this, because Domenicali has stated that the option to extend by a year is on the table.

From his own words, it's on the table. I don't know. If he's saying it's on the table and he doesn't go ahead with it, that is probably an even worse look than him not saying it's on the table in the first place. So, it's on the table, but no.

The table is also in space. You haven't got access to it. I feel like sometimes as much as I love the goodwill factor, just keep your mouth shut unless you're going to go through it, right? Don't put that out into the world. Well, that's kind of my point, right? If you don't intend to go through with it,

maybe you just don't say it in the first place, which makes me kind of think they will go ahead with it. I hope you are right, Ben. I hope you are the glowing, positive light that we all need at us. At this moment, that was strangely hard to say. Good Lord. I love that I got the chance to be the optimist. Never happened.

Optimistic, Ben. Optimistic? We've never had it before. I don't think so. Well, I'll tell you what. We'll take a short break. I'll make sure that, you know, I get back to my realistic, pessimistic self, and we'll be discussing upgrades for Mercedes and Ferrari. Ontario, the wait is over.

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Please play responsibly. How do you think those upgrades went for Mercedes this weekend? I was really happy with them. I looked like they achieved what I said they would. And similarly, they also achieve nothing. They're still third in the championship. So for me, they've really got gone backwards. I don't think it's really transformed their season, you know?

They're just where they were before. No, nothing's happened. is the worst Formula One banter. It's just great banter. It's bad banter, this is. None of us are fathers. It really is. It really is.

A bit of Alan Partridge. Accidental Partridge. Right. Upgrades. So Mercedes obviously couldn't introduce their upgrades at Imala like they planned, but instead they will be introducing them at Monaco. So that's new side pods, new floor, revised suspension as well. Ferrari were initially supposed to bring some upgrades

to Imala as well, although they were going to back out of this anyway because rain was scheduled for the weekend. So new suspension and diffuser updates for them, they were going to park it anyway. But they're going to go for Spain as their introduction, rather than Monaco. Harry, who's got it right?

I don't know. Oh, that's great analysis from you. It's good answer. Rocking a hard place for these teams. But more specifically for Mercedes, because I think it's believed that, well, we think we know that one of the major updates is side pods. And you can't just take sidebots off the car again. Yeah, just have some side pods.

PBA on there. It's a trick of one. They're reversed terror. Reverse terror. With only a week in between Imala and what was supposed to be Imola and Monaco. They're on. Yeah, they're already on the car. So there's no real way for Mercedes to undo this just for the sake.

of, well, we might not get the best data at Monaco. They're just going to have to stick it out. And maybe they won't get the right telemetry or data they want from Monaco. But I guess, can have to deal with it and then wait until Spain and then do it properly. So I think in terms of the advantage they're going to get from it versus Ferrari not doing it until Spain, there isn't one. It's just the same. Is it for tat? Yes.

It's for tap for. Yeah, I think it's basically the same. they're both going to start getting the real data from Spain onward, so neither of them have really gained or lost anything in that sense. It's just unfortunate for messages. The big update they've been promising is going to come up in Monaco where you never do more than like 150 miles an hour. Pointless.

And it's real slow. So anyway, yeah, unfortunate for Merck. But, you know, just got to stick it out and wait until Spain comes. I guess for Ferrari is easier. because, again, they weren't just gluing side pods to their update. That's not their own thing. That's how I would update a Formula One class. I would just get the glue and put bits on.

Again, someone said this about the episode the other day, advanced physics with late breaking. We are good at it. Back at it again. Thank you for that comment. It made me laugh a lot. Yeah, so it's, it was less tricky for Ferrari. And as you say, Ben, they'd already backed out because of the rain in Imola anyway.

Which, again, if we had had a wet race, maybe it's the same sort of thing for Mercedes. It had these updates. but they would never know if they actually worked properly. So it might have been two races that it was... So they won the race. Yeah, but that... See, that would be the thing.

They'd win the race because it was like tricky conditions. Like, we're amazing. Hamilton have a rain master class. And they're going, wow, we're a championship material. Vachose. It's great. Side points are the way forward. Yeah, get the glick.

More glue. More glue. The whole car is glue. Red Bull pole by one second in Bahrain next year. Yeah, literally. It didn't work. narrator, it didn't work. Yeah.

So tricky, tricky for work, but there's just not much they can do about it. Yeah. Good stuff. I mean, yeah. I mean, you're not wrong, really. The Mesaigna's point is entirely correct. You can't just, you know, if they're rebuilding their car, so to speak, which I imagine it's got to be quite costly on the old budget cap as well.

Especially with all that glue. A lot of glue. Glue ain't cheap. You know, a lot of horses can melt down. I love how in two years we're going to have. two budget cap going over moments. One's going to be food and the other's going to be glue. Yeah, the horses are lined up outside of Stoese.

Anyway, yeah, I think actually, if anything, the positive from the Segeis is more running time is good. Because even though they're not going to be reaching top speeds, they're not going to be doing a lot of overtaking, they are going to be doing a lot of following. They are going to be doing a lot of very low to the ground running on a difficult surface because obviously Monaco is the original, the OG street track where you're running on day-to-day rogue search.

This isn't a billiard table made for a racing track here. This is getting out on the streets and make the car work. It's going to bounce. It's going to rub against the floor. And if it works well and they're comfortable and they're able to get performance out of the car, great. I'm not saying this is the be all and end all from the saying is they won't walk away from Monco going. That's it. We've cracked it onto the championship we go, EIE, EIO.

They are going to have to still wait till Spain. And the great thing about Spain and what Ferrari are doing is Catalonia is probably the one track where every team has more data on that racetrack than any other racetrack, I would argue you could ever turn up to on a Formula One calendar. Because obviously, for years, they went there for pre-season testing

and the sirens are coming. Coming for you and all your comments about gloating horses. Oh, God, they've crossed a boundary. Anyway, yeah, so we've been going to... We've been going to Catalonia for years and years and years, and they are putting, you know, thousands and thousands of kilometres of... testing time and running how the car would work. So in terms of bringing new upgrades to a track,

Castellulunya makes all the sense in the world because you've got so much historical data to understand where your updates are sitting, how things are being influenced, is it a positive or a negative, where are you doing well in certain parts of the track? And obviously, Casanooga is very good for long sweeping corners. It's got a great long straight to challenging things on. I think it's got a very twisty, windy section right at the end. So it does allow each area of the car to be testing in one way or another. I think Ferrari have got a little bit lucky with their timing, of course. I think if everything had gone ahead,

they probably would have, you know, maybe wish they could get on the car sooner if they could dry weekend in Imola, for example. But with Mercedes, I don't think it matters. I think they are so desperate to make something work, so desperate to see a change in the car that the sooner the better. They'll get Spain as well. They'll see the results from Spain,

and they will see if it's changed or not. But I think it actually makes sense to get it on for Monaco, even if it isn't the perfect weekend. The sooner you get it on, the soon you understand if it's a total mess. or if actually you're going in the right direction, but we need a proper race track to keep testing it. I think it's okay,

but I think this has just worked out slightly better for Ferrari, purely on luck, really, August circumstance. I think this is pretty horribly time for Mercedes. I think if there's one circuit they would wish wasn't coming up this week now, it would be Monaco. I think upgrades, you know, you'd introduce them. Obviously, there's some circuits where you introduce. them more, but just anything other than Monaco.

There's a very specific reason that upgrades generally tend to come at, at least early season ones come at Baku and Spain and Imala, and they don't come at Monaco for the very reason that we might find out this weekend because there just isn't the same amount of opportunity to show what those upgrades can do. Like you say, you don't get top speed wise, you don't get anywhere near what an F1 car is capable of. it's a street circuit which fundamentally isn't the best for showing whether upgrades are working on it. You'd rather a specific, you know, an actual track in order to do that.

And Imola would have worked very well. Imola's a very good, maybe not quite Spain, but it's a very good mixture of straight, high speed, medium speed, low speed corners. Like you've kind of got the whole range in there. If you think you've got likes of Tosa, which is very low speed. but then you've got some pretty quick corners in there as well. Even some of the chicanes are fairly quick at Imala these days. So it would have been a really good opportunity to get the mileage at Imola.

Monaco's just not where you want it. I think the car itself, I know Toto Wolf referred to it, Papa Toto referred to it as the new, he referred to it as the new baseline, right? So I think George Russell and Lewis Hamilton. It's just the new baseline. Oh my God, that's... No, I'm not going to explore that idea.

That's dangerous. But I think Mercedes have essentially got as close to a brand-new car as you can possibly get mid-season. Imagine at the beginning of the season saying to the drivers, okay, yeah, you'll get that opportunity. First opportunity, Monaco.

Here's a new car. Have fun. Bye-bye. See what you can do. Yes. Bye-bye. If it doesn't work, they legitimately could be sat at like 15th and 16th

and not move up the entire race. They aren't the, I guess the thing is here as well, Ferrari and Merk aren't the only ones bringing big upgrades because I think Aston Martin would you a big Imala upgrade. I think they are leaving it to Spain. They also leaving to Spain? They backed out of our, yeah. See you later, no thanks.

There's Homer Simpson to the hedge. I think what you said, Sam is probably right, where they'll learn a little bit here at Monaco, but they won't learn much until they get to Spain. Then they'll get a better picture of where they are. but Monaco how much it will actually glean. I just don't know. It's just such a unique track.

I know Mercedes themselves have brought like completely brand new front suspensions to Monaco before because of how individually specific the track is. So trying to work out with an upgrades that they want to be used for the entire season is going to work here. Very difficult. You know, we're going to get one of two Lewis Hamilton's at the end of the Monaco race weekend. If it's gone fantastically well and he's on the podium or something, it will be so glad we got these upgrades in for Monaco. It's great to have got the testing timing,

really exciting as to where the car's going. Or cut Lewis Hamilton's in ninth place with George Russell and seventh or something. Monkers just not the right track, man. You know, it's unfortunate for Imola, but it's just not worked out for us, man. It'll be great for Spain. You will get one or two of those reactions.

I'm going to say this really quietly because people will come after me for this. He's not very good at Monaco. He's won it. Relatively. Twice. Twice. No, eight in Macca.

One in 19 and 16. So three times. You're right, Ben. I mean, because soon as how many times he's been there and how many World Championship winning cars he's been in. He probably could have won it at least five or six times. A bit of a bogey track, Farrell, Lewis.

He's a real racer. It's not a street racer. Doesn't like wolves. I mean, I get it. I'm not against that. Metheluk, as a racing driver, don't like wolves. Wool's balls.

Do you remember that? Wals, balls, that advert, that little dog that used to, on the advert? They were like sausage balls. They were not. You don't remember the brand, walls. And did the one, they make,

yeah, yeah. They make ice cream. No, that's, that, if you fair, that's also said walls, but like, Walls Bulls was an advert. It's an awful sounding name. There they are.

Oh. Walls balls. They're just, they're meat balls. Yeah. Camera. I don't remember walls. Look up the advert. It was like a dog that used to pick him out the freezer and go, wolves, wolves.

Very, very British niche reference. That's just so niche. So niche that you're not even being Ben getting it. That's my autistic brain, flashing back to a key memory. To be fair, you do a good job of retaining information on really old random adverts. Pointless adverts. That's why I went to marketing. One day we'll do a game on like old adverts and you'll,

Oh my God, he's just said the F word. Oh, my God. You'll slash me. Oh, my God. I'm sorry. You have to believe that. He just said the F word at nowhere. I mean, assuming that we're all pottymouthed off the podcast.

Oh, my God. Folks, I'm sorry. That comes out of nowhere. Take him down. Oh, my God. That's demungatized if we got monetized in the first place. That has that. That is surely the first time you've accidentally swore.

I'm going to have to text curse. to say I get that out. I think that is the first time. How many episodes have we done? 280 something now. Yeah. Oh gosh. Crazy.

Sorry. Move on. Harry said the F-O-Bax. The next topic isn't going to bring out Harry's potty mouth out more, but we'll talk about, let's talk about Zach Brown, saying that Oscar Piastri has shown he can be a world champion based on his early season form. Sam, is he right? I mean, is he right?

Zach, mate, shut up. Zach, you are just like, I get it. Pick up your drivers, I get it. You know, be their biggest fan, support them, I get it. But I saw a little graphic earlier, which was really funny, where it was like the FE car, the Indy car, and then the F1 car. The other two were like beasts.

So, like, yeah, we're fighting for wings. We're fighting for big points. And the F1 car's like a little, like, gremlin sloth in the corner that's like, I'm terrible as everything I do. Your driver's not going to be world championship material regardless because your car is so. crap that quite frankly ain't going nowhere.

And it's not had a great start to the season. It's not been bad, but I mean, they have the severe issues with the car technically in Bahrain. Didn't they? That's a bit bad. I mean, and I'm getting there. I mean, he didn't do a Landon Norris where he literally drove into the wall in Saudi Arabia. That was one of Landon Norris' worst performances going.

So yes, he beat him there. And then, other than that, it's not being shining, has it? He hasn't stood out as a shining star of the back of the grid like maybe Alex Albonn has. has in that Williams, who was, I always had more experience, he's been going around longer, but he's not wowed me. I mean, I'm sure he is. Pistri is a great driver. He's proven that in his junior career, but the first six races that we've seen him in, not spectacular. I think, Zach, you just need a, I get that you're trying to boost their stock and make, make everyone feel, oh, McClown are in safe hands. We'll be all right. Don't worry. It ain't

looking good. Mando is probably going to leave, I reckon, if you don't get your act together in the next year or two. What's Piestri going to really do at the, at the moment. I would leave, quite frankly. Yeah, look, he may well be championship material. So am I, if everyone's worse than me. Oh, like, and this is not a... I can't argue with that logic. Not a criticism

on Piastri at all, but I just don't think he's been able to show it even if he has, is championship material, because that car just... As you say, it's been, it's not been great, if that's been kind. It's shown glimpses of being better, but then sometimes it's like almost a Mercedes problem they just sort of don't really know what's wrong with that car seems to bounce back and forth up and down the

pecking order Oh Someone got a dictionary do out What was that? That was a motorbike Oh it sounds like someone playing a didgeridoo Wow It's Oscar Biaspin

It's coming Is his calling sound It's been summoned Like the bat signal Oh God. Anyway. We've angered the Aussies. Sorry.

Yeah, it's, he may well, but I just don't feel that he's been, he can even show it because, that car just isn't a competitive, but also reliable enough in terms of its performance. They're like Russell and the Williams. Well, like, it was always all right. Like, he did a good job at times and then we bought it a bit and then got beat by QBits on that one result.

yeah. Oh dear. So yeah, it's a real tricky one. I agree with Sam. Obviously, Zach, just trying to boost boost up his driver's stock, but we've only done a few races and the car's not been great. Say this at the end of the year. Yeah, I'd do it after year one and go, yeah, well, he's...

We're happy with him. He's doing a great job. We found if we give him the car, he could be World Championship material. Yeah. I've got an itchy eye. Sorry. We're on YouTube, so that's what I'm saying it. People can see it. Everyone, if you're listening on the podcast, the whole episode on YouTube.

You can say that anyway, wouldn't you? Yeah. Yeah, I would. I got an XI. I got a little eyelashes. Two eyelashes. Ben, please start talking. Sure.

Yeah, to your point, Zach Brown, saw it out, lad. Like, if you've got, this could work one or two ways because you mentioned like the confidence boosting, like element to saying this. But if you're telling your driver, you know what, you've really shown

you can be a world champion. What's to say, Piastri doesn't turn around and say, great. Fancy give me a car so I can do it. Like honestly, McLaren are, oh, they were very, very close to finishing third in the Constructors Championship two years ago. Well, I mean, 18 months ago, pretty much. And now they are just plummeting. They're not battling for podiums. They're not even battling for, I mean, I guess they're battling for fifth just about. But Aston Martin is so far ahead of them now.

They've just fallen behind in the packing order and they're not able to show whether Norris and Piastri can be world champions. I think we've got enough evidence from Lando Norris in previous years that, you know, I personally think he can be. But with Piastri, yeah, you're right. Who's to say whether he can be world champion or not? He's driving a tractor. I mean, imagine if I was driving a tractor are my world champion material?

to me you are. No, you could, thanks Sam. But most other people who don't love me as much as Sam would probably say, don't know, because you're an attractor

and you're competing in the Formula One World Championship. So how am I supposed to tell whether you can be world champion or not? Honestly, this should be, I can't say, again, I can't say whether he's right or wrong on this. I think he's done all right.

Like, yeah, there've been a few impressive qualifying performances, which early on against Lando Norris is a good sign. But I can't go any, further than good sign. I can't say, well, he did very well in that race because McLaren produced the third best car and Piastri got a podium as a result of it. I can't point to anything like that because McLaren have been no better than, what, like the sixth best team

at any given race. And in many other circumstances, they've been worse. Miami was painful, right? Surely if you're a McLaren fan, Miami was one of the worst race weekends we've had in a long, long time. I think Brownie boy is scrambling. I think he's scrambling. I think he's looking for support in, like an egg, exactly. I think he's looking for support

in the McLaren camp to back him up because it isn't going well at all. And I wouldn't be surprised if it carries on like this, if longer term sponsors start to re-evaluate where they will be on that car. They've got enough of them.

I know, they can lose half of them. It's too with the most box of car on the grid. It's true. It's just that Zach Brown probably, Well, I'm guessing if he says that Piastri can be a world champion, he probably thinks the same thing about Lando Norris. He's just identifying that he has got the line up.

Like, he's ticked that box. But his part of the deal isn't ticked. It's a long way from ticked. I wonder if he thinks he's lost Lando. Oh, what is going on? It's Lando coming through the door. Lando's fear of bick. Oh, no, no, there's a big word.

Oh, God. It's because it's a Sunday. We're like a racist as a disaster. Two bleeps. Sorry. We've annoyed the Australians. And now Lando, the Mando, is coming through the door to take me out. I wonder if Lando's gone, I'm out of here.

When I see it comes, well, I'm going for that Red Bull seat, I wonder. He's out of it. So I wonder if he's switching allegiances to be Astrid to be like, you're my little mate. I mean, yeah. Can he get out? He's signed up for 30 years, isn't he? Let me out. Please let me go.

Yeah. That's the problem. use Esteban Okon contract services that's the type of deal he'll get you

Estes contract we guarantee a minimum 50 year contract just those two and Kimi Reiklan seeing a room

together look at our really long contracts Kimmy still's line for Ferrari I think yeah

still buy it out of that it's probably enough of Piastri and Zach Brown and everything else I think we'll

probably leave things here we'll be back with a more normal episode midw And I'm not sure

ever to do this because we did this last time and we couldn't deliver on it. Sam Shaked, okay, I'm not going to say anything else. No, it jinks at last time, so we're not going to do it this time. I don't know what you're talking about.

That's a matter. That's what a shock. That's not, mate. The level of organisation really scales between the three of us, doesn't it? It's about, it's teared. It really is one after another. If Ben steps out,

Sam has to take on responsibility. If Sam steps out, we're in the mess. There's no podcast. I'm just Harry on his own confused. I really don't know what you're talking about. I feel lost. It's like having a child, isn't it? We have to spell things out and hope you can't work out the word.

Like when you talk about in front of a dog, you know, the V-E-T. Yeah, P-O-D-C-A-S-T. Ah, video. Right, shall we stop now? Yeah. All right, I'll do my outro then. That's your job. I know, but he usually pulls me in.

If you're playing Elby Bingo, which was on Instagram, you haven't got the line from Ben there. I'd love to LB Bingo, by the way. It was great. Well, done, Ben. Ben did that. Oh, don't Ben. El Bingo.

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