Sky Sports F1 Podcast: Daniel Ricciardo is back! | McLaren's pace and Ferrari's woes analysed!

Hello and welcome to the Sky Sports F1 podcast with me, Matt Baker. This week I'm joined

by Ted Kravitz and soon to be joined by Bernie Collins to look back on a brilliant weekend

at the British Grand Prix. But before we do that, full disclosure, we're recording this

after we recorded the initial podcast because just as I was having my lunch, the fork was

just going into the food, get a few notifications on my phone suggesting that Nick DeVries is

about to be replaced at Alphatari by Daniel Ricciardo. We've since learned that that is

true. So Ted, I'm going to get your reaction in sec. Let me just read the statement or

part the statement from the team. Scuderia Alphatari announces that Daniel Ricciardo

will be joining the team on loan from Red Bull Racing for the remainder of the Formula One

season, starting from the upcoming Hungarian Grand Prix. Ted, eyebrows are raised. What's

your initial reaction to that? Yeah, immediately, immediately. So Nick DeVries out Daniel Ricciardo

in. Well, the timing is interesting because today was the first day that Daniel Ricciardo

was back in a Red Bull Racing Formula One car proper, not just doing demonstration runs

since he left McLaren at the end of 2022. So this was the first opportunity that Red Bull

and, you know, by extension Alphatari, because they're the same organization as when it comes

to drivers, as it has been demonstrated, were able to gauge whether Daniel Ricciardo was

still on it and whether he still had it and whether he had been just burnt out at McLaren

and whether he was actually the same driver that left Red Bull all those years ago and

not the same driver who left McLaren and clearly, according to Red Bull, the latter is true

and that Daniel Ricciardo was exactly the same driver who left Red Bull way back when

and is not the same driver who suffered so badly with the McLaren car and was extremely

competitive and that gave them, you know, a lunchtime's running. Matt, half a half a

day's running was enough to make to persuade Christian Horner, Helmut Marco, Peter Bayer

and Franz Tost, who were the ones who had made the decision with the blessing of Oliver

Mintzlaff, the man in charge at Red Bull, to terminate Nick DeVries' contract or pay

him off for the rest of the season. We don't know what's happened and put Daniel Ricciardo

in immediately, not even Liam Lawson, who we thought was next in line on the Red Bull

staircase of talent. It seems like Red Bull want Liam Lawson to complete his super formula

season in Japan and they're happy to put Daniel Ricciardo in at this moment and not give Nick

DeVries the next two races, which is what we understood he had up until the beginning

of the summer break to prove that he was worthy of the seat.

Yeah, I think Horner, I mean, Horner's been quoted here as saying his times during the

tyre test were extremely competitive. It was a very impressive drive and we're excited

to see what the rest of the season brings for Daniel on loan at Scuderia Alpha Tauri.

Clearly, you know, I'm not, obviously not a Formula One racing driver, but clearly they've

seen something in such a short period of time that they've been so impressed by it. And we

have to remember where he's come from at McLaren, you know, he was, it was a disappointing

season, 11th in the driver's standings in 2022. He left his deal, of course, a year early.

So they must have seen something. But do you think that's quite unusual to see something

so quickly in a driver?

Well, it is the best car by a country mile in Formula One. And so maybe Daniel just couldn't

deal with the McLaren and its idiosyncrasies that we know it still really has. And we're

kind of surprised to see the McLaren doing well at the British Grand Prix in the hands

of Landon Orris and Oskar Piastri for the first time in probably, what, two or three years

that McLaren has been, you know, doing, been a P2 car. So when they saw that what Daniel

could do in the best car on the grid, they were sufficiently impressed to actually put

him in. But it must have been something quick, because the last time we heard from Christian

Horner was at the Austrian Grand Prix when he told us live on Sky F1 that there are no

plans to replace Nick DeVries at present. Now, he did. So as not to be to completely

mislead us, Christian did put those words at present. I think I remember he sort of muttered

them under his breath. But you know, there are no plans to replace Nick DeVries at present.

So, you know, Christian can reliably go back to that quote and say, no, I wasn't misleading

you, everybody. There were no plans to, to replace Nick DeVries at present, but at present

clearly only lasted a couple of weeks. And then they saw the time that Daniel Ricciardo

or the performance he was able to do was slotting into that team. And they were able to change

the app present to now there are some plans to replace Nick DeVries, and we're going to

replace him win the space of a few hours. Now, this is all well and good basing it, Matt,

on the Red Bull RB 19, which is the class of the field. He's not driving that car. He's

driving probably one of the slowest cars on the grid, if not the slowest, which is the

Alpha Territory. The Alpha Territory is talk about, as we'll talk about later in the podcast,

had some upgrades to Silverstone, and they finished further down than they normally do

with a non upgraded car. So this is not a great Alpha Territory, it's fair to say. And my only

question is not that they should have replaced Nick DeVries. Clearly it wasn't working. I would

have thought it was fair for Nick DeVries to have a couple more races in Hungary and Belgium,

just so that he knows well to show what he could do up to the summer break. The surprise is why

Daniel Ricciardo would want to go into that car and a car that's worse than the McLaren he left

probably last year. And that quote I thought from from Daniel Ricciardo, I'll just get it up here,

was odd. It's just one line, wasn't it, Matt? You didn't read it out. Daniel Ricciardo said,

I'm stoked to be back on track with the Red Bull family. He can't even bring himself to say,

Alpha Territory. He's just saying, he's just saying, because he can't see, he doesn't want to

say, I'm delighted to drive the Alpha Territory, maybe, because it's not a quick car. But he's

back on track with the Red Bull family. So yeah, maybe there's some longer term gain in it for

Daniel Ricciardo, because there might well be some short term pain if he can't do any better

than Nick DeVries. That was going to be my next question. Do you think this ultimately is leading

to him trying to compete for that second seat at Red Bull? And what do you think this does to

Sergio Perez going forward? Yes, yes, it does. And I think it makes Sergio Perez check the terms of

his contract to see if it's as leaky as Nick DeVries, his contract with Red Bull obviously was.

And worry about whether Daniel Ricciardo has come back. I take it back, I take this back to the

Australian Grand Prix. Do you remember, I know my notebooks are mostly forgettable, Matt, but do

you remember my Saturday notebook? Do you remember my Saturday notebook when I happened upon Daniel

Ricciardo? And I told him that I thought it was he cut a sad figure on the pit wall, a great racing

driver like him being on the pit wall, kind of out of the action away from where his natural

place is on the grid. And I said, look, you know, don't don't do that, you know, and he said, don't

worry, it's okay. You know, I can do this for a year. And I'm wearing and I'm wearing the clothes.

There was something he said, which was like, I'll be back. And I'll pro and I want to be back in

these clothes in this Red Bull gear. And the plan is to come back. And he's been saying it ever

since Miami, when he's been interviewed as well. So it's a really tricky one, because this whole

plan of coming back could be scuppered by being no quicker than Yuki Sonoda in a not good

Alcatari. But certainly if he is, and he can score points, you know, on debut at Alcatari and

has is kind of the driver, he knows who can transform a car. And this will be a good deciding

value of how much is car and how much is driver, won't it? This will give us an idea of that or

age. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If he is amazing, then checker will be pretty worried, actually, even

though checker brings a lot of sponsorship, and there are a lot of merchandise opportunities,

selling Red Bull stuff in Mexico to Mexican fans. And checker does bring a track sponsorship,

there are a few sponsors I can point to on the car that have come courtesy of, you know, Red

Bull's desire to expand and exploit the South American and Mexican market, that, you know,

he may well be worried if Red Bull decide to go the Riccardo way if he turns out to be the man

who turns Alcatari around. And a word, just a word on Nick De Vries, you know, we mustn't forget,

this is a Formula E world champion, he won F2 in 2019, and cast your mind back only to September

of 2022 when he raced in Italy, he replaced Alex Albon, who had a appendicitis, and he scored

points. He beat Nicholas Latifi in the Williams finished ninth. So this is a guy who's not

short of experience. He's also 28 years old, so he's a bit little bit older than say the younger

rookies on the grid. So, you know, where will his head be at, do you think, after this disappointment?

I mean, I'm sure, you know, his supporters, and he will think that he's been unfairly treated,

I don't think he got a fair crack at the whip. I think he was talking to him, reading between

the lines, didn't get the support, obviously, of Helmut Marker, and that can only destroy

your confidence. When Helmut Marker does a podcast saying Christian Horner didn't think he was worth

the C either, but I, I insisted. It turns out I was wrong in the middle of a season.

It's not exactly motivating, is it? But hey, that's what you get when you race for Christian

Horner and Helmut, and Helmut Marker, I suppose. But in the end, he wasn't quick enough, I guess,

all the hard, hard nutcases in Formula One will say that he's just wasn't quick enough. And if

you're not quick enough, and you don't score points like Yuki Saneda score some points, then

you don't deserve to stay. But yeah, I don't know, I like Nick, I respect him. I think he's a good

driver. I don't think it was the, I think it was probably the only opportunity he had to join. I

don't think there was an offer from Williams at the end of last year to be racing alongside Alex

Albin. He took the only offer he had, didn't work out. I wish him all the best, because he deserves,

you know, everything that, that his talent suggests. Maybe he was spoiled by being in a,

spoils the wrong word. Maybe he was used to the bigger teams like Mercedes. He was a young

Mercedes driver, wasn't he, before he went to Alphatari, and didn't find the level of support

that he had at a smaller team like Alphatari. But yeah, as they would say, you know, those are

the breaks. And I think it's, he joins the long, long list of drivers, unfortunately, having their

careers interrupted, let's only hope, the hands of Helmut Marko and Red Bull. Yeah, absolutely.

And, you know, 10 races as well. That is not a lot, is it? 10 races, and he's been,

no, I mean, we all thought, you know, we had, we had the story, I think we did it on Skyof1 at

the Austrian Grand Prix, which said that Helmut Marko had given him four races that he knew,

Austria, Silverstone, Hungary, and Belgium. And if he hadn't scored points by then, he would be

replaced. So they only did half of those. And then he was replaced. So maybe that's not entirely

fair, giving, they didn't give him the four races. But also, you know, it's not Liam Lawson,

is Daniel Ricciardo. You know, I think we all knew, and I asked Franz Tost, I said,

is this, is this the case? And he said, look, this will only be the case if Nick decides it

to be the case that he's replaced. Nick will decide if Nick performs and scores points,

he stays. If he doesn't, he won't. And that was the last, the Alf Tari boss, Franz Tost,

had to say about it. That was in Austria. Nick didn't perform, he didn't score points,

but he wasn't given the last two races before the sunbreak to try.

Just quickly, before we go back to the main pod, what are your predictions? What do you,

what do you anticipate for the rest of the season with Daniel Ricciardo?

Big question. I think only just heard the news a few minutes ago. What do you think?

I would hope knowing the quality of Daniel Ricciardo that he would outpace Yuki Sinoda

quite quickly, just on experience and ability in terms of longevity in Formula One.

And I would expect him to score the odd point here and there, but it probably won't be that many

and he'll be lucky to end up consistently quicker than Sinoda and showing himself

to have saved Alf Tari season and to score more points. If Alf Tari finished last in

the constructors, that's a calamity. That is disastrous for Red Bull. And if Ricciardo can

save them from doing that, he's done the job that they want him to do and he'll be in good shape,

potentially, to challenge for Czecho's seat, Czecho Prezese seat in 2024.

Okay. Well, thank you very much, Ted. We're now going to seamlessly,

through the magic of editing, throw back to the original podcast to look back on Silverstone.

So I started by asking Bernie how her weekend was.

Yeah, it was lovely to be back at Silverstone. It always feels very special, the atmosphere,

you know, going to the track and all the fans there. And yeah, it was a really busy weekend.

I think very typical Silverstone in some ways and now we've got the, you know, the best, the

weather could throw at us. Friday I got a little bit burnt, Saturday I got quite wet. So it's been

a little bit of everything, but it was nice to see, you know, a brilliant Grand Prix and a brilliant

podium that we ended up with as well and then the Brits on there. So yeah, it was definitely an

interesting weekend. Yeah, we're both quite fair-skinned. So I think we have to be careful

in these conditions like Silverstone. Ted, how was your weekend? Well, I'm not fair-skinned,

but I do put a lot of sun cream on. Hello, Matt. Hello, Bernie. Hello, everybody, by the way.

Matt, should we let them into a secret, the listeners and the viewers? Go on.

Go on. In our production office, the only person who is absolutely religious about putting sun

cream on constantly, and the viewers and listeners will know this when they see me on TV

with my white stripe there, is me. So I burn more than anybody and I have the array of zinc and

titanium oxide-based sunblocks on my little part of our production table, stolen by every

other member of the Sky 1 team. So little secret for them there. It's true. Every sun cream has

a different use. Yes, it does. Am I right in thinking? For different conditions, for different

parts of the body, different sun cream. It does. Every part of the body has a different sun cream

and I have it all on my desk in front of my little... This is Trace. So I didn't realize

they were yours, Ted. I've just been stealing those. They're not mine because I expense the cost

of them, basically, Bernie, to be absolutely honest about it. So they belong to the company

and to the production. Too much information? Maybe not. No, they belong to the production.

You've not been stealing them. They are everybody's and you're welcome to them. But, yes, it was a

good weekend. A great weekend, actually. A lot of people, they're great to see everybody in the

crowd and on the grandstands and on the viewing banks. 480,000 over the weekend. There were some

issues here and there with parking and access and some things, facilities on site and the likes of

that. But they get better every day, every weekend. But Silverstone was, yeah,

resplendent in the summer sunshine and well done to Max Verstappen. Got to say that, first of all,

amazing. Continues to break records. The McLaren record broken and winning once again. But behind

him, the non-Max Verstappen World Championship just got better and better with the addition

of a fourth team in it now. Not just Mercedes, Aston Martin and Ferrari, but now they've been

joined by McLaren. So there are four teams in the non-Max Verstappen Championship actually going for

it. It's brilliant. Yeah, well, we're going to get into all of that. This is what's coming up. We're

going to talk about how McLaren have got so fast all of a sudden. Really, really interesting story.

I also want to talk about having three Brits in the top five. We're going to talk about Alex Albon

and Williams. A little bit on Ferrari too. Not a good weekend for them. Plus, I want to talk about

when Hollywood came to Northamptonshire and the filming of the upcoming F1 film, which we'll get

into later on. Before we get into that, just time to tell you about the Sky Sports Shop.

This is brand new in partnership with Fanatics. We've recently launched the Sky Sports Shop,

which retails F1 official merchandise. You can visit skysports.com forward slash shop

to buy your official F1 merchandise and new customers get a 10% discount when they sign up.

So Ted, if you want a McLaren mug after their great weekend, you can go to the Sky Sports Shop

and buy it. Is it Team Stuff we're selling or is it Sky Sports Stuff? Are we selling

Sky Sports F1 Ted's notebooks? We are not yet selling Ted's notebooks. I imagine they would

sell out instantly. Then why are we selling them? Let's do it. We'll put some podcast merchandise

on there. For the time being, you might just be limited to your team kits. Let's get one of these.

I'll get a nice leather bound. This one says Book Journal on the front of it. It's my wife's.

I'll imprint Ted's notebooks with a Sky Sports logo and F1 logo and we'll sell this.

You've got to sign them Ted. I want to sign one. Okay, we'll only sell 12, so I can sign them all.

Good, all right. We'll sell more than that. There you go. So yeah, that's the Sky Sports Shop,

brand new. Don't forget you get 10% discount if you sign up. Right, McLaren. Let's talk

about them because such an impressive weekend for them. Qualified, Norris P2, Piastri P3 and

genuinely on Saturday were the second fastest car. Then in the race, Norris overtook Verstappen to

lead the British Grand Prix. Huge roars. He did that for about five laps before being

overtaken by Verstappen. Piastri got unlucky with the timing of the safety car. Otherwise,

I think it probably would have been a 2-3 for the team. So let's get into how McLaren,

Bernie, have managed to find all that pace. Can you put it down to one or two things? Where do

you see that pace coming from? Yeah, I think they find something fundamentally that they've

changed very quickly. It was a big step in Austria. We knew that it was only Norris that had the upgrade

there. They were told that they were both going to have the upgrade for Silverstone and a little

bit more. McLaren were quite open in saying the step between Austria and Silverstone wasn't going

to be as big to the step in Austria. But it's quite big change, isn't it, in terms of pace. Now,

the circuit, I think, suits them. So Austria, I think, suited Norris. He's always gone well there.

The circuit characteristics of both Austria and Silverstone does anyway suit the McLaren cars.

They were expected to be more in the running, but the step they've taken seemed really dramatic.

I actually think looking forward to Budapest is going to be a big test for them. It's a very

different circuit, a lot more low speed corners. So it'll be interesting to see how they order and

those, like Ted mentioned, the Aston Mercedes McLaren, where's the order going to sit post

Budapest? They've been back and forth all year. Now McLaren in the fray. It's going to be really

interesting. So it's hard to put it down to one element of that car, because we obviously only

see a small fraction of the upgrades that come. We only see what's on the outside. That's the

only thing they need to declare to us. We don't see what's happening under the bodywork.

But it seems that outcome from that team, much, much more positive. The driver's speaking much

more positively about the car, the balance of the car a lot more in Vs. And what impressed me this

weekend was how quickly they get the tyres working up to temperature. Norris notably, you know,

on top of a stop and at the start of the race, fit to hold off Hamilton after the safety car restart

when Hamilton run the soft, everyone thought that hard tyre was going to be really difficult to hold

on to. And you see it further back down the field, you know, anyone on a harder tyre really

struggling to hold on to people on softer tyres. So something in that McLaren, be it the brake

heat and how they get the tyre really, really helps in these colder track conditions, get the tyre

working straight away. So and maybe that helped them in qualifying as well. And those tricky sort

of crossover conditions, slightly damp, they were definitely on top of the tyres and the heat

much more than other teams. And again, Budapest is probably going to be a test in the other

direction, really hot track temperatures with a different track. Is it going to fundamentally

change where they... Yeah, so I was surprised, Matt, on Sunday morning when Andrea Stella was

actually sort of down flat playing his expectations from McLaren in the race saying,

look, we haven't got on top of our tyre degradation issues. They're just, you know, we've got it in

the pipeline, we can only do so much, concentrate on so much with the cost cap at one time. And

we're not sure, we think we're going to go backwards because of our tyre degradation.

Now, what that means was that if it's thermal degradation or just any kind of degradation,

combination of the new tyre construction, which worked and from McLaren and the low track temperatures,

as Bernie says, and the upgrades meant that they were great on their tyres. And it was,

there was not a worry. Lando didn't have to worry about fitting the hard tyres,

which seemed like quite a conservative choice off the safety car restart. Because all he had to do

was to keep Lewis Hamilton behind him until he got a burst of heat into his tyres around

the fast stuff. And that was it. Those hard tyres were going to work for him. And he could keep

that position. So yeah, I mean, it would have been, you're right, Matt, it would have been a 2-3

with Oscar Piastri had he not lost out, got unlucky under the safety car. But as it was,

we had four, I want to say we have four Brits in the top five. But Oscar Piastri is not British,

he is Australian. But he did, he did, you know, when you get the race classification with a little

flags after, and there was this Dutch flag at the top, then there was the Union flag for Lewis

and Philando, the little Union flag in the top right of the Australian flag for Oscar,

and then the Union flag for George, who was fifth. So there was something about Silverstone

and the home advantage really, really playing to the people who have the Union flag somewhere

in their nationalities. I know Oscar Australia, you know, not the UK. But I would like to also

remember how miserable Lando was at the beginning of the season, and how, you know, how sorry we

felt for him in Bahrain testing when the car was clearly awful and early on, we were like, oh Lando,

you know, your heart went out to him as like another year on the sidelines. And it was so great

that on the same weekend that where we have Max Verstappen, no less, saying that if Lando was in

a car that could win races, and championships, Lando can win races and championships,

that he showed that he was able to hold on to that P2 and deliver it and hold off, you know,

the likes of Lewis Hamilton and beat Max off the start. And Bernie, I have a question for you.

Do you think Max raced Lando differently at the start for two reasons? First of all,

knowing that he'd get him eventually once they got their tires going and with the Super Duba DRS,

and secondly, that he wasn't Lewis Hamilton? Well, it's interesting question. So this year I've

sort of been observing with Max, he hasn't been very aggressive at any of the starts, I don't think,

so he's very rarely actually lost the position off the line, but he's been much more conservative

than he was in the past. And I put that down to the car having more than enough peace that at some

point in the race he will get, he doesn't need it off the line, even at the tracks that are difficult

to overtake, he doesn't feel forced into that very aggressive lap one. And I think it is more

confidence in car peace than it is the Lewis effect. I think it is that he has matured in terms of

doesn't need that raw aggression off the line to make sure he has the position.

And he does have this buffer where he doesn't need to be turn one lap one in P1 in order to win the

race. So I have sort of noticed that quite a few events this year, almost a very reserved start

performance, which I think is the car performance he knows that by lap 52, he will have it whether

he has it on lap one or not. Yeah, that's what happens if you have the red bull underneath

you is you have that confidence, don't you? Going into weekend after weekend that you can,

yeah, basically whatever happens, you can still win the race. We've seen him win from sort of,

what was he, 14th? Thought he started pretty far down the grid this season and he still

managed to come through the field very quickly. I've got a tweet here from Tom who wants to know,

Ted, are McLaren now quick enough to stay near the top all season or was it just Silverstone

that suited their car with the upgrades? Silverstone definitely suited their car

with the upgrades. Lando took a bit of wing off as well. So the answer is I don't know.

Bernie already kind of answered it when she said that Hungary will tell, but they will be in and

amongst the non-Max Verstappen Championship for the rest of the season. And it will depend on

track conditions, tyres, track temperature, tyre behaviour and you know, anything else driver

performance, whether they can sort of sustain that and move up the constructors order because you

look at it and because they've been quite lowly, let me have a look, they are still far off the

constructors points of everybody else. So McLaren have only now got 59, whereas Aston Martin have

got 181. You know, they're so far off. I know you can score a lot of points of a weekend and only

this weekend McLaren scored 30 to Aston Martin's six. I think I've got that right. Yeah, that's

right. So you know, it can turn around quite quickly, but yeah, McLaren have got a bit of a

way to go to get back up there in the constructors. Yeah, I've read something which I think your

numbers that you've just read out confirm that McLaren scored more points this weekend than

they had all season around race 11. So it is a struggle to overhaul that points difference

going through the rest of the year. You know, we've got a 23 race season, so we're almost halfway

through the season now and to have lags so far for the first half of the season, it is going to be big

to overturn those positions to where they sit in the championship. But like you mentioned,

it's not undoable. The interesting thing that you mentioned Ted is the tired dyke and their concern

and that they're one of the few teams by McLaren that stuck to the medium hard one-stop strategy.

They had pre-ease a lot of the other teams. Red Bull, for example, went to the soft final

stint, which was definitely a quicker strategy Mercedes as well, which is why Hamilton was

still on track at the point to benefit from the VSE. So if they can't overcome that tired dyke

problem in other circuits where tired dyke is higher fundamentally, it will be harder for them as well.

Silverstone is a low dyke track. You can stick to the harder compounds that are working there

and McLaren is getting them to work. But if we get to a very high dyke track with the high track

temperatures, if they've not overcome that fundamental overheating issue at looks like

that's causing their tired dyke, that's going to be more difficult for them to score those big

points all. Sorry to do tired tire chat, Matt. I'm dying inside. What was the alarm you did?

Stomp the season. Tire chat is going off. But, Bernie, do you not think that some people regretted

that soft tire switch towards the end? Because on the radio, Hamilton said, my rears are done.

He was done. Two laps towards the end. Couldn't get Lando. Lando was safe from the attack from

Lewis Hamilton towards the end because Lewis's softs were gone. And it was only because George

treated them like butter in the first stint because he needed to and everybody was, we were in that

sort of dull phase of tire management in the first stint while everybody figured out what was

going on. That when they went at it hammer and tongs towards the end, the soft, do you think it

was the faster at the end to put the soft on? I think it's very difficult because we lick a lot

of field average degradation and actually we get quite a range of degradation within that. So,

I think on field average, the soft medium was the correct way of strategy. Now, that did involve

George Russell, as you mentioned, in the first stint managing, unless in some of their radio

comms midway through that first stint, they're then telling him, actually, the tire's a lot better.

You can decrease the management. You can push a little bit harder. At one point, he's told

target lab plus eight. Now, eight laps over the 52 laps of Silverstone is a 15% switch and where

they thought they would stop. So, the tire was performing a lot better than they thought or

they could manage it a lot better than they thought. So, I think on the whole, it was the right thing

to do. I think people were looking at McLaren Norris in particular worried that the hard tire was

going to be overcome by the soft and potentially Lewis didn't manage to stint the best, pushing

quite hard to try and get Norris initially overheating his tires, then having a very difficult

soft stint. It's all a cycle, you know, when you're in the dirty air, it's harder, etc., etc.

So, I think on free air, the soft medium was probably correct, which is unusual for Silverstone

because normally in Silverstone, you need the two harder compounds to make the one-stop race work.

So, that's maybe a sign that the Pirelli construction is working well or better than expected,

combined with the lower track temperatures. If you look further down the grills, someone like

Perez managed to gain positions over the Ferraris. He's stuck to the hard tires, so

he can't just look at the Norris Hamilton example. I think there were examples further down where

the softer tire definitely benefited compared to the harder one. Carlos lost out, I think,

on the harder compound versus other drivers that Perez, even Leclerc, on the medium or soft

tires were fed to take advantage of him in that part of the race. Last thing on tire chat, Matt,

everybody was saying before the race, with this new construction, nobody has done a 52 lap race

on these new tires, nobody. So, it was a real trip into the unknown. There was some

tire jeopardy and a trip into the unknown. People didn't know how the construction was going to go

because it was, instead of under the radar, quite a big change, but it worked out well.

I just want to keep going with McLaren. I want to refer back to something that Toto Wolf said,

Ted. I think this might have even been to you. He said, there's no silver bullet in Formula One.

This was back in May when Mercedes were struggling. He said, we can't just bring

an upgrade. We're not just going to get half a second. Do you feel like McLaren, Ted,

have sort of dispelled Toto Wolf's myth or sort of thoughts there? You don't.

No, because this was the McLaren. Do you remember at the start of the season, McLaren came to the

launch and, effectively, immediately after in testing said, we've messed up here. This car

is not the one we wanted. We found out probably in about December, January, that there was something

much better in the wind tunnel. We're busy making that. While we make that, we've got to put up with

this that we know isn't great. That Mercedes decided that in March and in April. Mercedes are

trying to figure their way out of getting out of that. McLaren realized it much earlier that they

were going to have to do a new car. This is the, by the summer break and after it, we will have the

entire McLaren new car. If that is for the rest of the balance of the season, better than the

Mercedes, I don't want to, bodge job. I don't want to be sensationalist and call it a bodge job,

but it's a compromise. Let's call it compromise. I'll take bodge job back. If it's better,

then that proves what Toto is saying, which is true in the regard of there's no silver bullet to

make the Mercedes suddenly great from a compromised concept. McLaren who stopped and then started

again with a good concept and that car makes sense when you look at it, that might end up for the

rest of the season being faster as possible, being faster than the Mercedes. If Aston gets

some upgrades on there and get back to where they were consistently scoring podiums for fun,

then they might end up being faster than the Mercedes. Those three Mercedes powered teams

are going to be really close towards the end of the year. I want to have a word on the drivers

then from McLaren as well and particularly talk about Piastri because I think that was a race

where he really proved his worth Bernie, didn't he? I mean, this is a Formula 3, a Formula 2 champion,

obviously had a year out, but throughout the season, he's impressed in that he's been close to

Lando and then the fact that this weekend he was able to stay so close to Lando throughout the race,

obviously as we said, got slightly stuffed by the safety card, but he really looks the real deal,

doesn't he, Oscar Piastri? Oh yeah, I think in those tricky qualifying positions, if we go back

to Saturday to qualify so well, when there's big pressure on, there's a lot of fast-paced decisions

being happened and fundamentally you have to get the lap done at the right time. It's very strong

showing to be so close and then to line up P3 on the grid at Silverstone or any event is big

pressure, big pressure in terms of how the car is going to go. We haven't done, as Ted said,

you haven't done 52 laps on these new tyres in this construction week at work, so it is big

pressure to start on that position and hold on to that position and he ran a really good race

and was unfortunate to miss out with the safety car, not through any poor decision or poor driving

on his behalf, just unfortunate timing of the VSC. I don't think McLaren could have predicted that

in any way, so a really strong showing from him and I think he started, you know, I think there

was some comments post race from Norris saying, you know, he is pushing him quite hard, which is,

you know, a very, very positive review of Piastri's performance and I think we will start to see,

as his confidence grows and he goes through these experiences time and time again,

even stronger showings from him, so McLaren do luck to have a very, very strong driver

power and if that car can perform in these other events that we've discussed, then, you know,

it's very positive for his brushful season, isn't it? Yeah, and Ted, a word on Lando. There was a

sort of quote that came out in the press conference where he was talking about watching Lewis and

Fernando in 2007 in McLaren's fight it out at Silverstone and you fast forward to this year,

he's battling Lewis Hamilton in the final few laps at Silverstone. That's a really cool story,

isn't it? And what do you make of Lando's weekend? He seemed genuinely quite sort of thrilled,

overwhelmed. What was your perception on the ground of how he was in and amongst the fans at

Silverstone? Well, two things. First of all, with Lewis and Fernando, two drivers who have

very differing experiences of their McLaren experience, of their McLaren history.

They came at it from a different way. Lewis was genuinely happy to see McLaren

back and doing well. Fernando was at the same time genuinely happy to see them back,

but saw more trouble in McLaren. He knows now that McLaren are going to be trouble for Aston Martin

and maybe Lewis felt against what I said earlier about Mercedes might be dropped by these two.

I think Lewis felt, OK, McLaren, you might be good in this high speed, but we'll get you back

over the balance of the season, such as Mercedes' confidence in their race pace, I guess. But that's

for that one. And when I was leaving the circuit after I'd done my notebook, I finished up at

Aston Martin and then Fernando came through and gave the McLaren boys a sort of bravo and a hand

clap, which I thought was nice. I think Fernando does still have a sort of soft spot thinking

back to the McLaren the way it ended. I think he does have a sort of McLaren soft spot deep in

his heart, even though it didn't really end up particularly well. Anyway, that's just one thing.

And two things. The second thing, Lewis definitely has a soft spot for McLaren,

and it's well felt that he's glad for everybody there. Lando of the weekend was just happy to be

back in it. He was glad to see his bucket hats and his green hoodies in the grandstands, his merch,

and he was feeling the love of everybody in the paddock. When it was asked for selfies,

would do some sort of funny faces. Someone fan said to me, oh, you're not doing a Lando

funny selfie face. I said, what was the kind of Lando funny selfie face? He does a kind of blue

steel when you ask him for a selfie, which I thought was odd. I don't know whether he was

just mixing up, mixing it up with the selfies. Probably had quite a lot to be fair. Yeah,

he does. Yeah. And so you can use yourself while while doing it. But no, he was just glad to be

back in and amongst it and was feeling the love, had his family there, had his had his sisters there,

I think as well. I didn't see only his brother, he might have been there. But yeah, it was just a

sort of fun weekend, a positive weekend all around. And he was just happy to be at Silverstone with a

car with which he could do something. And getting the podium was just great. It was just a giggle,

you know, I land on the radio afterwards. When he's told P2, he's just kind of,

it was just that that summed it up. Yeah, yeah, he'd be well worth. I mean, obviously on Skynow,

where you can listen to all team radios across the entire race, he would be well worth listening to

for an entire race. And I think he was already was shouting gap, gap on the radio to his engineer

at the end when when when Lewis was was on his on his tail. So yeah, congratulations to McLaren,

congratulations to Landau, because an Oscar as well, because I think yeah, a brilliant race for

them. And we will see, won't we in Hungary, if that success continues. Let's continue talking

about the three slash four Brits in the top five. And George Russell, because there's a question

here from John Oscar piastres. Yeah, if you just yeah, if you just joined the podcast, yeah, yeah.

British, he's got the union flag in his flag. He is a proud Australian. All right, okay,

sorry, purely from a flag perspective. Yeah. Okay, John on Twitter, and this is for you,

Bernie, would George make a good strategist because his tire strategy always seems on point.

And we do hear him to be fair on the radio. He's quite involved, I feel, isn't he during

the race? He really wants to know what's going on. I appreciate he's very hard for you to say

whether he'd make a good strategist. But what was your perception of George and the way he carries

himself in that in that respect? Yeah, I think it's weird when you when you listen to a lot of the

radio now, a lot of the drivers are very on top of what's going on strategically, very on top of

their own and other strategies. Whereas maybe, you know, previously a lot of drivers weren't

necessarily always paying attention to the strategy meeting, but now they realize that

that midfield, it's not midfield, it's the second to the fifth field is so tight that

these small, small differences in stop black meet quite a big difference. And I thought it was

really interesting from Mercedes and now as I said, as we don't know where I came from, but

they were one of the few teams to split the cars between the soft and the medium start tire.

George was a bit of an outlier starting on the south and they had more work to do in that first

stint in order to make that work. Now, it was very smart move from Mercedes or George again,

we don't know which but very smart move in that they had feedback on both tires, one of the few

teams that had direct feedback on how both of those tires were going to influence both strategies

going forward. So it allowed Lewis to extend to fit the soft tire at the end and it allowed George to

fit the medium tire second. So they had all of the information available, even though they were

in traffic. So as a strategist, when you're watching the race and both Mercedes were very close

behind both Ferraris, it's very hard to get a read on their degradation or their piece,

because they're in traffic the whole time. So you're actually reading for a race degradation

and Ferrari's piece, you're not reading theirs. So they had some information that were not available

to the Romero field until they got on Freer when the Ferrari pitted.

So and you know, George's feedback at that point was very much, these tires are still good. I think

we can extend, let's you know, even to the point of saying, well, why are we stopping in there?

What he was told, I think that they're stopping because of optimum stop laps, not because of

traffic. And at one point, he said, and I think this is a good mark of George, he's been given

the positions to Ferrari or the pit window gap to Ferrari. And he actually says, I'm not interested

in looking backwards. I'm interested in looking forwards. What are my gaps to McLaren? Where are

McLaren? How are we beating McLaren? And that fundamentally changes a bit the thought process,

or at least his thought process is very clear to the pit wall that he's interested. He's not

worried about undercutting Ferrari. He's worried about getting his best strategy in order. And

that's good understanding from George. And I think that is someone who's spent a lot of time

looking at the data he's been presented by the strategy team on a Friday or a Saturday night.

They had some good log runs on Friday as well. They were one of the few teams that ran the hard

tire as well, MP1, which isn't that useful from a strategy point of view, but it is good for driver

feeling. So I think, yeah, there's a lot of intellect going on in the background there in

order to draw. He knows the information that the pit wall won from him. And he's given that

information very clear, concise way. So a good strategistic hands comment, but a good member

of the strategy team through his driving on his feet back, yes, Dash Belly.

Do you see any of that, Ted, when he went up in the Typhoon? Could you see him sort of calculating

or working through, you know, perhaps a slightly different way to how others might approach it?

Yeah, well, we were just trying to keep our lunch down. Yeah, no, no, no, I did actually because

what we both realized in that RAF Typhoon piece was that that aircraft is such a capable machine

that it's very, very easy for the aircraft to be kind of, you know, thinking, an aircraft at this

level and thinking, come on, pilot, you know, you're not even at my level. And there's so much

capacity the pilot needs to have and to think about it. And for the pilot to actually be able

to do that fly it have the physical resist the physical G sensations and all of that to be at

the same level as the aircraft. That that is when that's where you need to be. And, you know,

George and I were kind of here when we were flying the plane, which we were flying the aircraft,

we were kind of able to do that look around, see what's going on, get the picture. But

Group Captain Billy Cooper and Flight of Tent Matt Brighty, who were the pilots were,

they were at the same level as their aircraft, they were completely at ease with their aircraft

and able to think about everybody else, looking at the radar and where they were in the, in the,

you know, over the land or the sea, thinking about all of these pictures, what happens if we have a

engine problem or hydraulic problem, if we need to eject now, where's the local where's the latest

search and rescue helicopter. And it's exactly the same. And we were be George and I were

overloaded. But those pilots were not and George is never overloaded. He gets the picture of

what actually what's going on. But yeah, nice, nice segue back into the Typhoon piece. Did you

like it? Yeah, really interesting insight, really interesting insight from, from George.

Let's move on and talk about Red Bull. We mentioned at the top that their records,

honestly, every week, which we come on the podcast, and there's just a new record that

that they've broken or equalled. But Verstappen, sorry, Red Bull had now time a Clarence all-time

record of 11 consecutive wins. That's from 1988. It's probably going to be surpassed. Let's say

that in Hungary. Verstappen's also achieved the eighth hat trick weekend of his career. So a hat

trick is the win, the pole and the fastest lap that ties him with Alan Prost and Seb Vettel

for fifth in the all time list. But what's the real story this weekend Perez and his, I mean,

from my perspective, he, well, the last five races, he's not made it into Q3. And

Bernie, do you think he leaves himself too much to do in the race at the moment? And that's,

that's why we're not seeing him perform at his best? 100% there's too much to do in the race,

starting from not getting out of Q1. That's guaranteed. I think some of it, you know, this week

needs to be more, it's easy for us from the outside to say the check was not made out of Q1

for five weeks in a row or whatever it is. And it's easy to look at that and say, why is that

happening? You know, is he not performing as a driver? This week, from what I could say, there's

a discrepancy between the strategy team and the drivers. So on those conditions, improving

conditions to be the first person to finish a lap. I think when he first crossed the line,

he showed up in P1 or P2 with that lap that he did. And then it just tumbles from there. The

lap times are tumbling really, really quite dramatically, which is what always happens

in those types of conditions. So if you have a driver that has struggled to get out of Q1,

disregarding the fact that the car is by far the fastest car on track, so it should be easy

to get out of Q1, you've got to give them the best possible chance of doing that. And that

fundamentally is being the last car on track in those conditions. I think he queued at the end

of the pit lane for a long time as well. So there's a few things there that go together that say

he should have through, you know, partially through his driving because the car is the fastest

car that's out there, but partially through the position on track, it should be much easier

in this example to progress through Q1. So yes, he's leaving himself a lot of work to do. I think

historically, Tackle has not been the best qualifier. He has been more suited to re-asmig

and attire his work, manage him whenever strategy is done. So there's a combination of things that

need to come now. There have been races, you want to go clearly to shunt, not getting through, but

there have been races since that that haven't been so clear cut. And all of that needs to come

together. And we don't know where the communication has broken down there. We don't know what's

going on in Silverstone Q1. But you need to be with the fastest car as a team, you need to be

progressing through Q1 every week. So, and there's often this teams sometimes get wrapped up in the

sea of insets for Q3, whatever your first priority is to go through Q1. And that's the bit they need

next week. In Hungary, it's much, much more difficult for overtake. You need to go through Q1.

And that needs to be the priority in qualifying and worry about the Q3 position at another point.

Because it's shocking statistic to have not gone through Q1 so much in what is clearly the

fastest car on track. I must say at the time, Matt, I wondered whether it was a team mistake.

I looked at it and I wondered whether, you know, they were so sort of

predalicted on, okay, check out, you know, let's not mess this up again. Let's go out early.

Let's get our laps done. Let's be the first one out of the pit lane sitting at the pit lane for

six or seven minutes. You know, let's do that. Okay. And then we'll be good. And then there was

like this other sort of, yeah, but, you know, drying track needs to be, and they'd like,

shut up drying track, you know, we need to be early on. We've got a plan here. We've got a plan

here. Don't you tell me about drying track, you need to be out of the last person. And when he

wasn't out and what I don't know is whether having done that lap that Bernie said that put him

P1 or P2, whether it was whether he had the opportunity, the tire and the battery to go back

and do another one at the end and the time, or whether he'd run out of time, didn't have the

battery or the tires to do, to do another one at the end. And if he didn't, then that is a team

mistake. And checker was very nice in covering for his team, if that's the case, because I didn't

hear any word from checker afterwards saying, we messed up rather than, you know, it was just,

well, I didn't get it, you know, the best, the best run on it. So it is to checker's credit as a team

player to sort of cover for a team mistake if it was that. But if he didn't manage to get the last

lap together, because, you know, he made a mistake or went off or whatever, then it's sort of 50-50.

But yeah, he just needs, it's like David Coulter once told me about this about, you know, when you're

having a run of bad performance in qualifying, you go into qualifying, so don't mess it up,

don't mess it up, don't mess it up. Oh, I messed it up. You know, and then the pressure just builds

weekend by weekend. But I really hope for his sake, he gets himself out of what I called,

I think on the weekend, a pickle. I think just to add to that, Ted, it's always really difficult,

you know, on the pit wall to defend it a little bit. And there was, you've got the dry end track,

and you will guarantee you have someone in your head saying, what if there's another red flag?

We just need the lap on the board, because at that stage, I think they went through before

he'd put that final lap on. So you're trying to, you've got this risk reward of we need a lap in

case someone else causes another red flag versus we need the lap at the end, because we know that's

going to be the best track condition. And they may have just underestimated how much the track would

improve through those three minutes. So it's really difficult to do each one when you're out,

if I had to play.

Do you think, Ted, that, I mean, we've got two races now, haven't we, before the summer break,

we've got Hungary and then Belgium, then we've got the summer break. So do you think it's two

races to put in two good performances and prove that he should have that second seat? Or,

you know, I mean, I've got, we'll talk about Alex Albon in a bit, but you know,

Helmut Marco with his wandering around the paddock and saying things like, you know,

or I've got it here, you know, unfortunately, Alex is tied to Williams till the end of 2025,

you know, we're entering that season, aren't we? Silly season where things are just starting

to be talked about and moved around. No, I don't buy it. I don't buy this, you know,

there's only a four races ago, we've talked about Czecho challenging for the championship,

just he's going through a rough patch. I don't think he's going to get, he's not going anywhere

for next year. Liam Lawson is not ready. Daniel Ricciardo is not coming back. Alex Albon, I think

would be well advised to stay where he is and Helmut Marco doesn't really want him back. It seems

from that, that quote you say. So I don't think anyone's talking about Czecho being replaced

next year. It doesn't make sense. It's good. It caused Red Bull a problem when Czecho was up there

taking points off Max and Max was, you know, furious about or angry about it or disappointed

about it. You know, it was that that was a problem. Now they don't have that problem,

they just have to get and they're going to win the construction championship anyway,

with all Max's points. And Max is going to win the world championship,

driver's championship. So where's the problem?

Dream scenario, dream scenario for Red Bull.

Seeing as we mentioned Alex Albon, I think we should, we should chat about him and, and he's

secured now all of William's 11 points in the Constructors' Championships. It's been a,

it's been a really good season for him. And I guess, Ted, when you consider where they were

last year, they finished on eight points in the championship in 2022. They're now on 11,

there's clear signs of progress aren't there at Williams and Alex is leading the charge.

Yeah. So only the 36 to go before they beat Alpine for sixth, but that is possible, I guess,

if Alpine really have a terrible rest of the season. But yeah, to be up from last to seventh in

the Constructors would, would be, is good going at the moment. And we'll probably

see the season off very well for Williams. And Alex Albon is, as James Val said, the,

the perfect driver for them. Yes, Logan Sargent does need to start scoring some points there.

But he has had this weekend, the first time I've really heard James Val's come out and say,

Logan is doing what we want him to do. You know, this is, this is, he is, he is developing as a,

as a nice little racing driver here. And we think, you know, we've got a good one and he was going

to start scoring some points. And at least Williams are giving him that motivation and

security, which is more than you can say for Helmut, Mr. Motovator, Marco, and what he wants

to Nick DeVries to do, the other guy who hasn't scored any points. So James Val's is going about

it the right way. Logan Sargent had his best weekend in Formula One so far with a P11. And I

guess it's more of a, you know, only a matter of time before Logan scores points. You'd have to

say he's more likely to score points before Nick DeVries does the way things are going at

Alpha Towery with an upgrade, which showed absolutely no signs of having any pace, adding

any pace to the car whatsoever. But yeah, to answer your question, as for Alex Albin, I think

he'll stay where he is. And he had a great weekend, another great weekend, and he's happy doing it.

I don't know, Bernie, what's your, what's your view on the sort of Albin Sargent dynamic?

Yeah, I totally agree with everything you said. I think Ted, they are coming together as a team,

and they maybe see this as a build year to something better next year. And therefore,

developing the driver that you have in the car, giving them the confidence, you know, Sargent's

going to have some good overlays against Albin to learn from. And if they can build as a team

and work together, and it seems like James is putting the right steps in place to get that to

happen, then it's about building the strength for next year. And if they can finish this year

in P7, that's massive, you know, way more than I think they expect to go into the season. Let's

see if they can hold on to that, because there are cars that are faster behind, you would think,

or should be faster, but they've done very well with, Alex has outperformed the car on the events

that he scored big points. So it's going to be, it's nice to see them working so well together,

and it's nice to see the sort of positive attitude there from James.

Yeah, we will see what happens to Williams for the rest of the season, but definitely moving in

the right direction. So final team, just to check off from Silverstone, and that's Ferrari, I think,

because a really disappointing weekend for them. Leclerc finishing in P9, Sintz in P10, especially

when you consider they started P4 and P5, and it marks a whole year since their last victory,

which was at the British Grand Prix, where Sintz, of course, won from pole. Ted, where do you think

Ferrari are at? I mean, you and your notebook yesterday were kind of, you were putting over the

teams, you know, one by one, that they're behind. And do you still think they're behind Mercedes,

behind McLaren now, and maybe behind also Aston as well? You still think?

Yeah, they were at Silverstone. There's no denying that. Fred Vassa was, I tried to sort of,

you know, after qualifying, I said to Fred Vassa, well, that's more like it.

And he was, yeah, you know, I think so. And then after the race, he was kind of,

you know, we've got to do better than this. We were too conservative on the tyre choices. We were

too conservative on thinking that we needed to go and be the first to pit. I think they were

thinking, oh, you know, everyone's going to react and follow us into the pits. They didn't. And we're

left there looking like, you know, the last bottle of champagne at a wedding, the only people

pitting. And everyone's like, come on, respond, respond. Everyone's like, no, you're right,

Ferrari. You know, I don't think we will bit early, you know, for us. And then missed, of course,

the safety car. All right, Ferrari couldn't have known that there was going to be a safety car, but

Alonso, Lewis, you know, Nath Lando, they all lucked into a cheap, not lucked in, they waited out

and played the game right and got a really cheap race time safety car pit stop, which transformed

their strategy. So yes, Ferrari were unlucky with that, but they made their own luck in needing to

go too early. They went too conservative on the tires. There doesn't seem to be huge sort of high

speed pace there. Charle Claire was seemed to be more excited about going to Wimbledon the day after

than than really anything I saw over the weekend. But you know, I have I still go to every race

with high hopes that Ferrari can have a good weekend. But if you think about them building

for a championship, and you look at last year and you think, okay, you know, they're getting all

these mistakes out their system, well, they're still getting the mistakes out their system,

aren't they? You know, that that that is not looking like a car that's that's a transformed.

And we know it's harder. It's not as nice a car to drive as last year's. So I don't know. Another

year in learning for Ferrari, can they go back to a car like last year's, which is just nice to drive,

because they've got such good drivers that you just got to give them the equipment.

Mm, Bernie, are they glimmers of hope? What where do you see that? Your face maybe says

all that, but where do you where do you see that? You know, if you if you were in the Ferrari team

right now, where what would you how far ahead would you be looking to start seeing improved

performance? Well, it's weird because qualifying showed that that car at Silverstone is good,

at least in the qualifying conditions. So to come away from qualifying in P4, P5,

and be beaten in the race by Alex Albon, who we've just discussed, yes, Albon got the VSE,

but for Ferrari to be beaten by Williams in Silverstone is borderline unacceptable

from a team performance side. Now, the glimmers of hope, I think was Canada. The strategy in

Canada was very, very strong to stay out under the safety car, get the track position really did

well there. And this weekend, I sort of was trying to go through a little bit and they stuck, they

were one of the few teams along with McLaren, he stuck to the medium hard strategy, despite

evidence showing throughout the race that probably the medium soft strategy in terms of

lower degradation was better. And I tried to find reasons for my strategy had as to why,

why did this stick so strongly to that strategy? And there was a few contributing factors for me.

So one is, McLaren didn't do any running on Friday in the FP2 session, so they had no long run

data, they were down to one car, getting long run data on new construction. And instantly on Friday

for Carlos was very high degradation on the soft when you compare it to someone like Mercedes.

So I think we've spoken many, many times in the past about this high deck that Ferrari seemed to

be carrying and that was evident on Friday and that maybe scared them away from the software

compounds in the race despite evidence from others that were fit to control that deck.

They were also worried about both Ferraris were running with both Mercedes directly behind.

And at one point they're giving them the gap to the car behind and trying to say,

you need to maintain this gap in order to be free from undercut risk. So they were very concerned

about being undercut by both Mercedes, which I think is why they forced the clerk in particular

to go early and that forced the hard tire because you have a longer stint to do. So there was a few

little knock on things there and then it's interesting a few laps into that hard stint,

the clerk actually says, I think we've gone too early guys. And I think it was a bit obvious at

that point that they had gone too early when nobody like Ted is saying is covering the situation.

And then they're forced onto the safety car to box again because they've already done 14 laps

on these hard tires. So that just compounded the issue for the tire. But Silverstone historically

has a very high risk of safety car. So you need to be open to the possibility of a safety car

coming at some point in the race and you need to be ready or in your best position for that.

So I can see why on the pillow the nerves of the undercut from Mercedes can particularly with

rustle and soft that you think is going to box early onto hard tire. But they missed what others

picked up on that the deck was much lower with the lower track temperature than it had been on

Friday. And maybe for them if they had fitted a soft the deck would have been too high, maybe

they just cannot control that soft tire, not clear. But they did, you know, it's easy in hindsight,

definitely went too early and then weren't fit to benefit. But they will be disappointed,

the entire team will be disappointed to come away from a reasonably strong qualifying for them.

And, you know, BP9 and P10 in the races is reasonably poor, but it doesn't feel like the car

as a package is poor. It just feels like the network and of the team around it. And it always

sort of feels to me like the communication within it to get the decisions made quickly. We've seen

time and time again on the pit wall, questions being asked of drivers, uncertainty and decisions

being made. And I don't think it's that fundamentally the strategy team are poor or I don't think

that fundamentally any of the engineer and team are poor. I think it's that as a group,

they're not making decisions quickly enough. It feels like there's too much checking someone's

opinion or getting authority to do something or getting approval or a discussion about what we're

doing is right or wrong. It feels like almost, and I don't know, it feels like the strategy team

haven't enough authority to just make a call and make it stick that there's too much discussion as

to whether the strategy team are right or not. I don't know. That's surmising from the outside,

the uncertainty and the cause or sometimes being it. Well, that's because the drivers so often

sort of second guess it and then sometimes contradict it and do exactly the opposite. So,

yeah, they still need that sort of to mature, don't they? Well, at least Charles was at Wimbledon,

wasn't he? Katrown is sorry, he's on centre court. Him and Arthur in front of, yes, him and Arthur,

Pierre was there as well. Yeah, they all look great, didn't they? Yeah. And Wimbledon's a brilliant

place to be. Although you can tell, you can tell Pierre's struggles with the old racing driver neck.

Did you see that he couldn't get the shirt done up to get the tie? Maybe it was a fashion thing.

Hey, who am I to speak? Maybe it was a fashion thing. The tie wouldn't go up past the size 18 neck.

Oh, I didn't see that. I'll have to have a look. Charles was, of course, two buttons open. Yeah,

look great. Yes, look great. Okay, that sort of concludes, I think, I think Silverstone.

Oh, we haven't talked about Fernando Alonso. Oh, sorry. Can I just say that Fernando Alonso,

you know, in his well done McLaren, that was his equal worst result of the year,

which is a lowly six points and seventh, same as Spain, but don't count him out. There was

a very particular thing about the Aston Martin this weekend that I like to call neither fish nor

foul. When, when the circuit is night demands the slow stuff through the sort of Luffield,

Brooklyn's, you know, woodcote, and the rest of it is really quick. The Aston just couldn't cope.

It couldn't cope. It was like, quick stuff, slow stuff. What do I do? And, you know, maybe they

could have taken some wing off maybe in, in post race analysis, Aston will think, you know what,

we tried to cover both the slow stuff and the fast stuff didn't really work.

Tom McCulloch said we knew it wasn't going to be the best weekend for us. But yeah, don't count

out Fernando. Don't think that they're beaten because they will be back on it back on the podium,

possibly even with a chance to win in Budapest. Big prediction for you there. Sorry. What do you

think, Bernie? It sounds right. It sounds like you really know your stuff. You felt some insider

information there, haven't you? I just thought it was interesting how, I mean, what is that when

you have a circuit? Could they not have taken some wing off, do you think? And just gone, you know,

Fernando just try and stay with it in the, in the low speed stuff. I mean, Lance had his own issues

with Pierre Gasly and all of that. But I think when you're taking wing off, particularly your

helping the J-Line speed, but potentially you're not helping the high speed because you're sliding

more in the high speed and therefore potentially leading to higher degradation. So there's always

a very delicate balance to be placed at Silverstone as one of those circuits that does demand,

like you say, a balance of all of the contributing factors to get it exactly right.

Right. Sorry, Matthew, back to where you were. No, no, it's very interesting. I mean, yeah,

I'm sure they'll be banging their heads together at Aston Martin and working out that.

And yeah, moving forward, we'll see if your prediction comes right, Ted.

podium and hungry. I think that's what you said. I'm going to go podium and hungry.

Right, yeah, just want to finish by talking about the film that was being recorded this weekend

at Silverstone. Recorded, yeah. Maybe the film that was being filmed.

Sorry, darling, I'm recording a film this weekend.

So Matt hasn't worked in the film industry. But yeah, this is really exciting, wasn't it?

I mean, we saw Brad Pitt on the grids in and amongst it as an actor being filmed

for the film, not recorded. And yeah, there he was. Ted, what was going on?

I do know what my favorite piece that we put out on Sky of One this weekend was

and bearing in mind that the other one was the piece that I was in. I shot and I edited with

Georgie, which was the typhoon piece. My favorite piece was Brad Pitt and Martin Brundle talking

in the garage on the National Street because it was an exclusive, first of all. So yay, us.

And second of all, it was just so charming to see Brad Pitt, you know, International Movie

Superstar from Seven to Oceans, the Oceans movies to all the other good stuff he's done.

Just embrace. And all right, he might be only sort of into it for the duration that he's doing

this F1 movie, but just embrace the whole F1 vibe and the way we're doing it and the sport

and the history and wanting to be and being so pleased that everybody's welcomed him in

and his film crew. And for me, sort of three things. First of all, the professionalism

of the film crew, watching them in action in the garage, I thought was really great.

You know, we've had other movie crews, I remember come in before and, you know, wanting to sort of

take over, be disruptive, not a bit of that. They were so professional. And I don't know,

you know, it's impossible to tell who were movie extras, who was Carlin, who were running the team,

who were actually professional mechanics, you know, to anything else. So I thought that was

really good. Brad Pitt, Damson Idris looked fantastic on the grid. They did the national anthem

and they were in the driver's briefing and didn't stand out, didn't disrupt anything,

blended in. They did a walk back. I watched them walking back from the drive from the

national anthem boat back to their cars. And, you know, they were in amongst Carlos Sainz and

Max Verstappen and all of that. And they were looking cool. And there was a there was a me

character Matt on the grid. It was there. Yeah, there was a me character who was wearing a flat

cap and was trying to interview them with a dictaphone. Oh, no, you know, I felt like no,

no, no, no, no, no. At least get a microphone. I'd never wear a flat cap. I mean, it's more

of a Martin Brunel character than a me character. Maybe I don't know. So pesky reporter character.

There was a pesky reporter character and Damson Idris kind of ignored him like shut up. I don't

want to talk to you, which is true to life. And then when they got the back to the back of the car,

they were great on the pit wall. They were there with Kim Bodnia from Killing Eve and Kerry Condon,

who's the the Bernie Collins role, the strategist, and the two engineers, the race

code. I did meet a weekend highlight. Matt, I must tell you, was meeting Kerry Condon and boring

her with my banshees of Inno Sheeran admiration for her and Martin McDonald's film, Banshees of

Inno Sheeran. Was I never wild? I didn't. What do you mean wild Dominic? Sorry.

Yes. Sorry to Kerry, boring you on my banshees of Inno Sheeran. And it was just a pleasure to see

it happening and to hear that, you know, they're going about it the right way and doing it well.

And I refer you back to my favorite line of the weekend, Matt, which was Brad Pitt's talking

about the plot, which we won't go into because they want to keep it a bit quiet. Things, you know,

the drivers get together. We're in a season. Brad Pitt comes back to help

Damson Idris's character and then hijinks ensue. And I love that. And I love the idea that hijinks

are going to ensue. And I wonder whether it's a bit of a different film from Top Gun Maverick,

which was the last film that Joseph Kaczynski, the director did, which had its light moments,

you know, with like Bob, the guy in the one of the other planes, but was an action film. And I

like to think from what Brad was saying, there'll be some light moments in there because there are,

you know, some light moments. It's not all sort of driving. But looking at Brad was talking about

Javier Bardem's character as a kind of flamboyant team boss. And F1 put some of the photos up of

Javier Bardem at the back of the grid. He's going to be a hilarious character. And just some, you

know, I'm stoked about the whole thing. They were they were really good, great crew, great cast,

great production. And I'm looking forward F1 is going to welcome them back at many races to come.

Yeah, it's really exciting, isn't it? Because because F1 have been so involved, and we know that

Lewis Hamilton has been involved, there is going to be, you know, you feel like where a lot of

these films probably do fall down as they're not very realistic. They don't represent kind of,

if you were an actual fan of the sport, you'd watch it and probably go, well, that's not really

what happened or that would never happen. But yeah, I mean, Bernie, I don't know what you saw

across the weekend, but things, things are made to be real, aren't they? And I think it's, I think

it's going to be a really interesting film. Yeah. So there's a lovely little moment that I witnessed

over the weekend, just sort of sat on the pad observing, you know, there's a little seating

area there that you can just sit and watch and chill out. And as they sat there, the actor in

the movie who's playing the Pirelli guy, so all of the characters have a Pirelli representative in

there. And he was playing that person and he walked through the paddock while another Pirelli guy

came in the opposite direction, a genuine Pirelli representative. And they just had a little nod,

a little hello at each other, because the guy looked so genuine that he just, it was just assumed

that he worked for Pirelli that weekend. He was someone that he'd not seen before, didn't know

whatever. And I seen the actor then as he walked past, just giggle to himself almost going,

Pirelli don't know whether I'm real or not real anymore. And I'd imagine if he was walking into

their hospitality, he probably got away with it. And it was just really interesting to see that

they've covered it to that level of detail that actually people in the paddock are assuming it's

just a different Pirelli guy for the weekend. But I just, the way the actor laughed to himself

as he walked by going, yeah, I've got this right, like I'm playing the role really well.

And that's going to be such, that character is probably going to be such a small detail in the

film, in the background, that it's going to be really interesting to see how much of the other

details have got right. Oh, very good, very good. Yeah, I look forward to seeing it come out. I'm

sure it's going to take a while to come out, but yeah, when it does, I'm sure we'll receive a lot

of attention. Thank you both very much for your time. Thank you, Ted. Thank you, Bernie. Really

appreciate it. We'll be back as ever next Tuesday for the next episode of the podcast.

Hope you can join us then. Thanks a lot. Bye-bye.

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