Sky Sports F1 Podcast: The only concern for Red Bull is they have broken two trophies - Sky Sports F1 Podcast's Mid-season review!

Hello, everyone. Very welcome to the Sky Sports F1 podcast with me, Matt Baker. Joining me

for this one in our shiny, lovely studio is David Croft and Formula One content creator

and podcaster, Tony Cowan-Brown, alongside by the powers of technology in the screen

over there, Karin Chantok. Karin, hello.

Hello. It's not as shiny here. I've just found some stains to my children's yoga. There

I'm here. Well, what an image. What an image to paint. Lack of culture or not, as it were.

Crofty, we'll start by talking a little bit. You can explain to the listeners or viewers why

you're slightly wet. I've just got back from spa and I'm still a bit damp, to be honest.

No, I've struggled to get here today. The M1 was closed in both directions. Had it not

had been closed, then I would have been here an hour ago. It wouldn't have been raining. Outside

this podcast studio, it is lashing down. I'm reliably informed. Someone is starting to build

an arc. That's where we've got to this summer. Karin, fancy going on a little boat journey

with his mates. It's not going to get any better, is it? Well, the only good news is copy. It has

saved England from Australia's backing, which was going quite well. That's the only upside

of this rain. If you're watching this podcast after the final lashes test has finished in Australia

of one, it's Karin Shandong, ladies and gentlemen. Now, welcome, Tony, because we're going to give

you the privilege, as it were, of giving us your one-word race review for the Belgian Grand Prix.

So go and kick things off, one-word race review. I had one word and I started talking with you

on and I changed it. Fans, only because I watched Formula E this weekend as well and the fans got

stuck in the drizzle as well. They were inside, covered, but the rain stopped the race for 90

minutes. I don't know. I have a deep empathy of fans of motorsports just being willing to sit outside

in the absolute, as it's throwing it down and still keep that level of enthusiasm up. So weirdly,

I'm going to stick with fans, actually, I think. I think that's a good one. They were the proper

heroes of Spa. Isn't it nice that we went in July for the first time ever? We went to race in Spa

in July, which has 1.4 millimetres less rainfall on average than August, but yet the entire rainfall

for the month of August was deposited on every single day, bar Sunday. It was appalling conditions

at times, but the fans, great humour, great voice. Most of them got the result I think they wanted

as well, which was a max win. And we got some really good action when it stopped raining.

Yeah, absolutely. Go on Karin, your one-word race review from the screen.

Can I say Piastri? I know it's a noun rather than a word, but I thought he established himself as a

star this weekend. I know Sunday didn't play out for him, but listen, the same thing. I go back,

Mighty Schumacher's Spa debut only lasted as far as Piastri's did at the first few hundred metres.

But certainly a star was established, I think. Yeah, there you said that.

1991 at Spa-Francorchamps was my first race when it was Michael Schumacher's debut race

in the Jordan Green 7-up. Was that two laps, Karin? No, no, he burned the clutch

out coming out of La Sorse and stopped at the top of O'Rouche, so he didn't even get to Le Com

on the opening lap. But still got a drive for the rest of the season. I like that,

that's a nice comparison, but yeah, that was my first ever race. That's amazing, yeah, wow.

We'll come on to talk a bit more about Piastri in a bit, because yeah, I mean,

I'll come on to what we're going to do. Go on, you go with your one-word race review.

Well, I suppose soggy or damp, squelchy, but I'm just going to go spa, because it's the way you

say it. Spa, we had a bit of everything, didn't we? And I think we had some great reminders as to

why we love that racetrack, why it's got to be on the calendar as one of the firm favourites

for drivers and for fans, and how it's so unpredictable, it challenges the engineers,

even if it's not a sprint weekend, and it just threw up everything that Spa throws up. And

yeah, I was grinning from ear to ear when I got on the plane to come home last night. I was grinning

even more when I got home. Half past nine, I got home last night. That is the quickest I've ever

managed to get home after a race ever. It was two and a half hours quicker than Silverstone.

I can only imagine. How did you do that? Did you get a helicopter?

No, I didn't know. Because normally, we are sprinting. Remember the time we,

Simon Lazer, me nearly left his bag at immigration because he was running so quickly to try and

get on the last Eurostar? Yes, that was the best dash ever. Simon Lazer would be still

sweating from that run, to be fair. No, we got the back roads out of Spa, got to Liege, got on a

charter with the Williams team, and landed at Luton Airport. My bags were there by the time

we got through passport control, and I was back home with my other half in time to watch the

highlights. It was fantastic. Incredible, incredible. This is the side that people don't see. The

formula one is us in airports at sort of 2am, 3am landing, way after everyone's left.

Can I say, after 12 races this season and four races in five weeks, never was there a better

time to be home while it was still light outside. That was your golden ticket, wasn't it?

You paid the price today with the commute. Yeah, now I'm getting late today.

Like, you had your go, you had your upside now. What, the Lord give this and take it away?

Right, right. I've gone for a, well actually the same as you, Spa, but with an R on the end.

What, because you're a pirate? No, because of the great bickering between Max Verstappen and GP,

all we get is race engineer. I thought it was brilliant. I really enjoyed it, but I also

I think it points to the position that Red Bull are in at the moment, where they're so comfortable,

so easily able to work in each other's company. They're able to make decisive, good calls

instantly. And I think, yeah, when you've got a relationship like that with your race engineer,

I think you can win anything, can't you? Yeah, I think that GP and Max,

Giampiero Lambi, I think they are the best combination for each other that they could

possibly have. GP is vastly experienced. He's been around the sport a long, long time. He's

pulled the rest as a race engineer for many years at Force India. He takes no nonsense from Max,

but understands that there will be times that his driver gets a bit hot headed and isn't in full

control of the facts and would like to make the decisions himself and would get, you know,

a little bit irate when it's not quite what he envisaged. He understands, he has the patience,

he absorbs it all, and he puts Max, I wouldn't say he puts him away, but he puts Max right

in a way that Max respects, and there was a huge amount of respect from the pair of them.

They work together superbly well. They both know each other's faults and each other's pros,

and it's a seamless relationship. I know we heard a lot of it over the weekend,

but that's only because it's racing. Isn't the heat at the moment these sort of things happen?

Did you hear, so I was going to say, did you hear Horner call him, he's our Jason Statham

equivalent? Yes. I mean, that was very funny, but I recreated back to the relationship between

Sebastian Vettel and Guillaume Rockerland, Rocky as he was known, also a Red Bull, and it was similar

Crofty, wasn't it, where he was almost like this sort of big brother, you know, sitting on the pit

wall, and then the little brother, you know, getting all hot headed and the adrenaline is pumping in

the car and just, you know, they bicker like siblings, but actually, they're in it together,

you know, chasing that common goal of winning races and world championships. They're quite

well at it as well. You know, Rocky and Seb won four, and these guys are well on their way together.

That's a really good analogy, Casey, because Seb used to push it as well, and used to go and do

things that Rocky didn't want Seb to do, and Max tries the same. At the end of the day,

Max respects GP enough to not push it too far, but I think they're a great combination, and I

want to hear more of that over the team radio. Yeah, you have Bono, and you have Lewis,

what a brilliant race engineer driver combination. That's been over the years.

We had Shov, didn't we, and Michael Schumacher, Andrew Shovlin, and Michael Schumacher and Jenson

Button. It was Shov, Tom Stallard, and Oscar Piastri this year, Daniel Ricciardo before, you

know, these are the people that are the connection between the driver in the cockpit who will feel

vulnerable because he doesn't know all the time what the decision is being made and the rest of

the pit wall and those with all the data, their fingertips and their mouses. So you've got to

have that essential trust. It reminds, I find as a spectator when you hear those iconic duos,

it's a great reminder of how much more there is behind the driver, like the full, the breadth of

the team. I also like, they've been together seven years, right? It was 26 years. I love the

evolution also, when you go back and listen to the team radios between the two of them,

way back in the day, and you see how far they've come, that trust that's been built,

and to your point, like that trust that goes both ways. I, when there's a good, I much rather that

than what we can sometimes get of the passive aggressive, just like you don't get it, and then

that's the end of conversation. I'd much rather see that kind of sparring the back and forth because

they know where to push the limit and they know when to stop. But it's the evolution of those

comms that I love, just like you can see that relationship being built, like a true relationship

being built over time. We need to dig out some 2016, you know, in that first few years when they

were learning how to work with each other, we need to dig some of that out, don't we, and find out

how it's changed. It is very much like, you know, yourself and me, Tony. Where are we going with this?

When we're on air, we have people talking in our ears all the time, you know, our gallery,

Matt, you've produced me, and you'll know that whatever you say to me, I just say yes and nod my

head really sweetly. Karun, when you're a driver, you never questioned your race engineer in the

same way you never questioned your director or producer now. I mean, I rarely do. I'm just seeing

your nose growing like a bird coming out of your mouth if you don't care. But anyway, I'll let you

have it. Oh, very good. Slander. Matt, what's our plan today? Let's move on from all these lies.

Coming up, because I want to use this as a bit of a way to talk about the Belgian Grand Prix,

but I also kind of want it to be a mid-season review, okay? I don't know if you saw Ted Kravitz

being headmaster this week, did a very good job of handing out grades throughout the weekend to

the team. So we're not quite going to go down Ted Kravitz's headmaster route, but I think we'll

try and touch on as many teams. Well, we'll touch on all of the teams, some in more detail than others,

but we'll try and get through as many as possible. But look, let's start with Red Bull,

and I think it's fair to say it's been a pretty good start to the season for our Red Bull team.

The biggest concern perhaps is that they've broken two trophies in two weeks. Might be the biggest

problem. How did they break those trophies in Belgium? They were solid. The second one.

Didn't the thing fall on it? I don't know what they call it.

Thank you, Kravitz. The trophies were solid. I was sort of talking to someone about the trophies on

Thursday, because of the irony that we were being swept away by Rivers of Rain, a race sponsored

by a cruising company. The only thing that could float down Eau Rouge was one of their ships on

Friday, quite frankly. Perfect branding. And they were saying, we've got these really solid trophies,

they're brilliant. They're really, really heavy. I can't believe someone broke.

Yeah, I know. It's remarkable. I will say that the only other thing they appear to have broken

is their second driver in some ways. At the start of the year, I go back to the drive,

he put it in Jeddah, but more importantly in Baku. Crofty and I were in the commentary box there,

saying he would have overtaken Max, let alone the strategy, but he would have overtaken Max

on track and won that race. And it was a proper convincing performance, admittedly as one of

his strongest circuits on the calendar. But ever since he got overtaken on whatever was lap 41

in Miami, it's just gone away from him. And I look at what happened even yesterday on the weekend at

Spa, Max got ahead of him and he put 22 seconds on him in 27 laps. That's a big chunk of performance

to put around a track where they're spending a lot of time full throttle driving in a straight

line, essentially. And to me, that is the cause of concern. The only cause of concern at the

moment in the Red Bull camp is, you know, Max, is this the fourth teammate that he's potentially

broken? I mean, who can they have alongside him? Or do they just say, you know what,

we don't really need anyone to be challenging him. We're happy for somebody to be half a second

off the pace because our car is good enough for Max to be able to deliver at that level.

Tony, what do you make of that relationship? Do you think actually this is a very good teammate

for Max Verstappen? Because ultimately, he's out the way. He's not causing a problem for Verstappen,

who, let's face it, is the number one driver at Red Bull. I am getting a slight feeling,

is that in my country chair here, that Max is probably a little bored up there. I think he

would probably want a teammate that can actually bring it to him. I don't know if I agree that Max

is breaking his teammates, but there's something interesting there. I don't know. I keep going

back and forth. I keep, because I keep going back and forth on this. I keep going back and forth on

he's had four teammates. They're not at his level. He's racing on a completely different level right

now. I think he's bored. I think he definitely wants someone to be able to bring it to him and

offer something maybe a bit more exciting for him. But I also agree with the fact that I don't think

Red Bull is pushing his teammates as much right now because they don't need to. As we've seen,

he's basically bringing all the points on his own. Is there any for a second teammate?

He could leave the constructors, couldn't he, by himself? He is winning the constructors

championship or by himself. I tend to, rarely I ever say this, I tend to agree with Helmut

Marco on this one, whereby Sergio's troubles started when he thought he could be a world champion

and he thought he could win the world championship. In Miami, he was six points off Max starting on

pole. I think that broke him a little bit. Then I think the very next time in Monaco,

where he crashed in Q1, absolutely broke Checo then. I think if he returns after the summer

break, I'm no psychologist, but I think if he returns after the summer break, happy to accept

that he's playing second fiddle to Max Verstappen. Happy to accept that second is what Red Bull

need him to do. Happy to accept that that's a good place to be and better than 18 other drivers on

the grid. Checo will be absolutely fine. But if he harbors ambitions to be better than Max Verstappen

at the moment and to beat Max Verstappen, he probably needs to start putting a bit more effort

into it. Because the one thing I will say about Max, he's in the best car, yes. His team have done

a superb job and there are many, many theories out there in social media land as to why Red Bull

are doing so well at the moment. I'm not interested in going down that path. But what I would say is

the team and driver, Red Bull and Max, have come together beautifully. And Max behind the scenes

is putting so much effort into his driving at the moment. It is no surprise he's driving so well.

And it wasn't they say that the harder I try, the luckier I get. Max is at home, racing in sim

racing, practicing in the sim at home, spending five or six days a week in the sim, his sim or the

Red Bull sim. Honing his craft, honing his skills. What does he do on his weekend? Not if he goes

in races 24 hour, sim races. He loves driving. And the more he drives, the better he gets because

he's practicing all the time. And maybe he's raising the bar to a level that other drivers

kind of need to follow at the moment. So Checo wants to beat him, got to put the effort in.

And I don't think he's putting that level of effort into trying to beat Max Verstappen. That's

not me having to go at Checo Perez. I'm just actually saying you've got to raise your game and

you've got to put the effort in or you get nothing back.

Is it a weird paradox, though, that to be a successful driver pairing to Max, you have to

accept that you're number two, but to be a best driver, you never accept that you're number two

and you're in it to win. It's not like it's an impossible, it feels like a weird tension.

It's the Ferrari situation, isn't it, that they had with Michael and Eddie Irvine and Rubens.

Rubens arrived at Ferrari in 2000, expecting to be alongside Michael and be an equal and compete

against Michael and quickly realized that wasn't going to be the case and basically spent five

years being really frustrated. Whereas Eddie Irvine went there and knew he wasn't going to do that

and thought, you know what, if I get within three tenths of this bloke, that'll be great.

And I'm going to be a Ferrari driver and life is good. And he was happy as anything, made a lot

of money and lived a happier life in that period. So I think it's about there at some point,

I think, and I agree with Crofty, you know, in Czechos situation, he's got to accept,

he's against one of the greatest nationally talented drivers ever to sit in a Formula One car.

You know, I think for me, the point of all of this is at the moment, it's fine, right? Max is

winning the constructors by himself, blah, blah, blah. But the reality is, if Mercedes and McLaren

and Aston and Ferrari do get it together and, you know, natural order of things is we'll start to

see convergence with stability of rules. That's just the way everyone's always been. They will

get closer. Then Max might need a support act. And then you can't have a teammate who's not made Q3

for four or five weekends in a row. And I think that's the point I'm trying to make is, from

Red Bull's perspective, it's not about this year. This year is done and dusted. They're going to

clean it up. It's a question of when rather than if. But it's about what are they going to do for

next year? And I think that's where the Ricardo factor starts to come into play here.

Yeah, great. Yeah.

Czecho helps sell a lot of cans of Red Bull in North America and in Latin America.

He brings a lot of sponsorship money to the team, which is important, even in these cost-cap

times. But that is not going to save him if his results don't come up to where Red Bull won.

It's actually not in Red Bull.

Exactly. And I think second at Spa, however many seconds he was beaten by Max, absolutely fine.

20 seconds.

20 seconds. It really doesn't matter because he finished second. Red Bull had a 1-2 for the

second year in a row. His performance in Hungary was a great rebound. But if he goes to Zanvoort

and he doesn't make Q3 and he finishes eighth, you know, once again, that's not where Red Bull

are expecting him to be. And I don't think for all his commercial value, something like 65%

of all online Red Bull F1 merchandise is sold to Mexico, which shows the commercial value of

Checo. But that's not going to save him if he's not doing it on the track.

He should be in that car and the cars are equal as well. You know, even after his crash with Lewis

in the sprint race, he still had exactly the same car as Max, but he was driving it in a

different way. No display in a different way, you know, you could tell. But he has got to finish

second to his teammate if his teammate has won the race or on occasion take his chance and beat

him. And we know he can, but he's just got to realise he is a Rubens. He is an Eddie Irvine.

He's not a Michael Schumacher. On that note, no, it's true. I think that's an excellent summary

to segue on to team number two. Yeah. Well, there's one more point I want to make on Red Bull.

And when we put the tweet up or the Instagram post up about this podcast and we said we want to

review the first half of the season, there were quite a few people on there who were saying,

you know, well, it's been a very dull season. It's been a very boring season. How can, you know,

of, you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, I'm not going to watch the rest of the year or whatever.

Now, I don't, I don't agree that this has been a boring season by any stretch. I think if, you

know, there's been so many interesting battles, if it perhaps is a foregone conclusion that Max

wins most of the races, certainly the last eight, that's going to happen. But Tony, I wonder, I

wonder if we can try and make the case for this not being a boring season to those people who

have said that, because there is so much else going on, isn't there?

There is. I think it very much depends on how you watch motorsports and what you enjoy the most.

For example, it depends on the perception that you have. If the only thing you want to see is

different winners on that podium every single weekend and, you know, a different person crossing

the line, then yes, this is probably a boring season. But I, the reason, for example, that I

got into Formula One so long ago and I stuck with it is just the complexities of the sport,

the technology, everything that's changing, the regulations, like even looking at the tire warmers,

you know, are they, are they, are we banning them? Are we not banning them? Why are we banning them?

How does that have an impact? What is that going to change? Like all of that, I think there's this

so much that the sport has to offer. But also, everyone has always been, in my opinion, about

the midfield battles. And there's a lot in the midfield battles for me right now that are happening

that's really interesting. And it's interesting to see, you know, how well, and I know we're going

to talk about this, but, you know, how well McLaren did in the first half of this weekend and

wasn't able to do so well in the second half, but how far they've come from the start of the season

and similarly to Aston Martin. There's just so much going on that I think it's wrong to focus

on the top three. And I personally don't think that I think it's actually fascinating to see how

fast he is right now, him being Max Verstappen. And I think there's so much to look into that.

So I don't know, I'm, and maybe a unique case in that, but I don't think that's true. I just think

it really depends on how you approach the sport and how you look at it. And I would, my plea would

maybe be to just don't look at the top three podium, look more at the midfield battles,

and look more at the ever, even just the evolution of this season and the sport from the first

the first race that we had and where we are now 12 races in, so much has changed within the sports

from the shake ups and the drivers. I just, I have a hard time with anyone who ever says that

this sport is boring or even just the race is boring. There's always something there to look

into. And I feel like people like David Croft have more to say about like that, the intricacies

of the sport, but that's my perception. I'm not going to disagree with any of that. I think there

there are many ways to consume Formula One and whatever way you want to consume it,

you know, choose your poison. That's absolutely fine. I'm not going to say to anyone that they're

wrong out there, but all I would say is if you think the site of cars going at 200 miles an hour

plus or yeah, or doing 170 miles an hour through, through maggots and beckets or, you know,

showing the most supreme engineering challenge in the hands of some of the most talented human

beings ever to grab hold of a steering wheel, where we're at tracks where you're millimeters away

from ruining your afternoon for 70 odd laps in a race. If you think that's boring, I can't help you.

I really can't. I choose a different sport, basically. I know I don't want people to choose

a different sport, Karun. I'd like people to be watching on Sunday afternoon, but I can't help you

if you think that's boring. It is so, so easy to run with a herd here and say, oh, it's boring

because Max keeps winning. Why not marvel at the record, at the excellence, at the consistency

and to be that good for so long? I couldn't do it, you know? Karun couldn't do it. He got one more

race in F1. The Nic de Vriesi was so much better than some of the drivers out there, but, you know,

you couldn't do that form of excellence. You know what it takes, Karun, to be that good,

you know? Appreciate what we're seeing because we're not going to see it forever.

Yeah, I agree. And look, there's good stories up and down, up and down the field, isn't it? You know,

I think there's been stuff going on. We started with all the stuff at Aston and their rejuvenation,

really, at the start of the year from where they were. There's stuff going on. I think you'd have

to say they're having more boring races than others, but that's been the case since Formula

1 started in 1950. Boring's the wrong word, mate. Boring's the wrong word.

I can't have every football match, every cricket match going down to the last ball or the last

minute. It's just that is sport. Not every match or race is going to be exciting to the end,

but on the whole, I think we've had a decent season. Boring's the wrong word. We've had more

straightforward races. You know, we've had more races that have panned out to their eventual

conclusion a lot more, a lot sooner than we've had before, but not every race can be happy

to have you 2021. Actually, the word that you bring straightforward is funny to me because if

anything, I wished that some of the races were a little less complicated and we had answers sooner

and we actually knew what was going on and the FIA was giving us a consistent level of, you know,

if anything, that's my wish of just like, we could just calm down a little bit. Well, that's

what Martin said when he was talking to Natalie after the race yesterday. He said,

I actually need to go back and look at that because there were so many pit stops in such

quick succession that actually, you know, I mean, you know, as well as anyone sitting in the

commentary box, you're trying to keep on top of 20 race stories, as it were, and it's quite hard.

It's like trying to read every book on the shelf in the library in the space of an hour and a half.

Yeah. Honestly, I've not been, I've not been depressed this season. It has panned out the

way I thought it would go, but it's not depressing me because I, sorry, I still find the sight of

Formula One cars racing around the track really exciting. Come and join us more often, you know,

just sit on your sofa and we'll try and get you standing up and cheering by the end.

Yeah. Okay, let's move on to talk about Mercedes and we will, I promise we will start to pick up the

pace of these, if these teams are going to get through all nine or nine of the rest of them.

I might dry out. We finish this podcast. So Mercedes sits second in the, in the Constructors

Championship on 247 points. Karun, for a team that's dominated for so long in the sport,

obviously they've now been kind of surpassed by Red Bull in that sense this, the last couple of

years, but is it fair to say they're getting closer, but they're still quite a way off?

Yeah, I mean, you know, I was just doing my numbers for the first half of the season and last year

Mercedes, on average, were 0.8% off the Red Bull and this year they were 0.596. So they've improved

by a quarter, but it's still not enough. And I think they've been those flashes of

of brilliance, you know, Lewis is qualifying in Budapest is probably the standard.

There have been certain races where they've looked better than others, but actually,

historically, you know, there'd been a track where they've been strong. And I think

on the whole, they've come and come away from the first 12 races being disappointed.

Toto's body language and his interviews with Ted were pretty, pretty clear on that front.

You know, they were hoping that they've understood their concept at the end of last year. They were,

they stuck with the concept. Then they've had this mid-season change, the big upgrade,

but it's not really moved them ahead of the midfield pack. You know, they've kind of still

stayed in that middle fight with Ferrari and Aston. Aston, if anything, have dropped back a bit,

but now McLaren are in that fight. So I think on the whole Mercedes as a team will be pretty

disappointed, despite the fact that I still believe they have the best collective driver line-up in

Formula One. Do you agree, Tony? Yeah, I have not a lot more to add to that than I would.

Specifically on the driver line-up? On the driver line-up, 100%. I think they've also got an exciting

driver line-up, I think, like most, I won't say like most people. I, for one, definitely want to see

Lewis win an eighth championship. I actually love, again, I appreciated this weekend seeing Max

Vistappen go through the cars and try and make up those points versus starting in first and

finishing in first. And I think that was something I always really enjoyed with Lewis seeing him

make his way from the backfield. And similarly, I had that excitement this weekend with Max Vistappen

and I was like, I always find these two drivers actually very similar. So no, I agree with that,

everything. That driver line-up's keeping him in contention while keeping that second place

and the distance between themselves and Aston Martin. I worry with Mercedes, who's wagging

these engineering changes? Is the engineering team saying we need to be changing our concepts or is

it pressure from those in the cockpit from Lewis and from George? And that, Lewis is a vastly

experienced racing driver and George has got plenty of experience himself. But you want the

engineering team to be driving it because they understand engineering and design and aerodynamics

way more than the drivers ever will. But I just worry that the changing concept, did it come from

the cockpit or did it come from back at base? They're losing staff. Loic Cera is heading off to

Ferrari and they'll miss him and there have been others that have gone as well. We often see this,

don't we? The dentist dissipates after a while and those groups of men and women that came together

to create such an amazing dynasty at Mercedes. Have we now ticked past midnight and are we

starting to wane just a little bit? Now, if finishing second in the championship is waning

just a little bit, then Checo Perez really is going to be worried. There's eight other teams

would love to be in Mercedes position, but that's, Mercedes don't want to be racing for second.

But every good thing has to come to an end and Mercedes dominance has very much come to an end.

It's how they readjust their mindset from here on in. Karuna, are you seeing enough this season

to make you believe that, say, next year, we're going to have Lewis going for another eight

or for an eighth championship again. Have you seen enough this year that, if, say,

if you were Lewis Hamilton, would that give you confidence in the project in the Mercedes team?

Well, no. I mean, the reality is, they're a long way behind Red Bull, aren't they?

I'm with Tony in the sense that I'd like to see Lewis win that eighth championship.

Crofty and I were in the commentary box in Abu Dhabi 21 and we thought it was going to

happen on that day and we all know how that unfolded. I think I'm one like these guys.

I think I admire greatness and it'll be amazing to be involved in the sport when we see someone

break that record. I remember being there when Michael won his seventh and it was incredible.

But the reality is, the gap between them, the chasm between Mercedes and Red Bull right now is so

big that unless they unlock a huge amount of untapped potential for next season,

it's going to be hard for them to close that gap. But what I will say on the upside,

Aston Martin and McLaren in more recent times have shown that big gains are possible in the

modern era of the sport, which honestly, I didn't think you would ever see those big

leaps that we've seen from those two teams in particular. So yeah, I think if they understand

where the fundamental false lie and a lot of it is to do with just where you run the rear

ride out of the car from what I understand. In the mid-80s, they've always in the previous

generation, let's say before 2022, always ran a completely different rear ride out and the

aero map completely differently in Red Bull. Then when the rules changed, we had the whole

bouncing thing and they've never found a sweet spot in terms of just where to run the rear ride

out. And that's for people who don't know that energizes the front wing and just opens up a

whole load of setup options and aero options in terms of where you could run the car. And that

means Red Bull, for example, who have found that sweet spot are competitive at every range of

circuit, not just a Budapest here or the odd track here and there. And I think they need to

understand how to get their entire concept into a sweet spot that works in all 24 tracks. And then

once you've found that baseline, you can add downforce and add performance and go from there.

But they've really got to knuckle down and see what comes out in testing for 2024.

I guess they'll be already working on that car.

Well, they definitely are. Every team is already well underway with their concept

and in the sim as well with their 2024 car. Extraordinary, isn't it? When you think about the

evolution of F1 and how literally nine months before that car gets on track in Bahrain next

in 2024, they're working on it now. Yeah, not helped by having so many races these days as well.

It's a proper revolving norm. When does anyone get any holiday? You don't. We get two weeks in

the summer. Yeah, that's it. But it's more a case of when does anyone get a time to properly

evaluate and test concepts that are coming through. That's, I think, where some of the

teams are struggling. Fine if you start off well, but there's so much demand race after race after

race after race week in week out that they just haven't got the time or the staff to do the

proper evaluations. And it creates a backlog, doesn't it? We're getting so far behind. We've

got so much more to catch up that it just feels like there's no room for us to actually catch up

and do the necessary work. And I know this is a Formula One podcast, but it was interesting that

we've just had the season closer of Formula E. And so we've had all of the races through January.

And I'm not saying this should be with F1 before everyone comes at me, but we've had January

through now what we like August. And then that's it. And so it feels exciting for the teams to

then be able to like, okay, well, we're taking a few weeks off, but we're going straight into 2024

season, but we actually have the time to prep for that season and to prep on the cars to do the

changes. I was talking to Andrea Stella, who was a fascinating man to sit and have a chat to. And

I think, I think has really grown into that team principal's job at McLaren this year. Patience,

knowledgeable, you know, and has time to see the bigger picture. But he was saying, look,

our upgrades, if they work, brilliant, you know, if they don't, well, we can't spend too much time

this year trying to chase the performance because we are going to undo all the good work for next

year as well. And because of cost cap and because of the wind tunnel restrictions and the spending,

blah, blah, blah, blah, we just haven't got time to dive deep into these upgrades if they don't

work. And even if they do work, we probably still haven't got time to start chasing performance

out of this because it's going to detract so badly from what we need for next year as well.

I'm not quite sure that's what Formula One should be about. Well, that wasn't why the

cost cap got bought in, wasn't it? The cost cap was to stop team spending obscene amounts of money.

But it feels like it is not limiting development for midfield teams. The cost cap is limiting

many things in Formula One. Staff recruitment is being affected by it because teams just can't

pay the money that businesses outside of Formula One can pay because the cost cap isn't going up

and inflation is quite high. There is a brain drain, as it were in Formula One, with people

leaving the sport to go and work elsewhere. Chief financial officers, I'm sure, are spending the

summer shutdown scratching their heads thinking, I hope we've got everything right. It is a hugely

complex piece of mechanism that does anyone really truly understand. And I just think it's

been managed badly as well. Why are we waiting a whole year to have the auditors bring out the

results? Do it quarter by quarter so teams know what's going on and can make adjustments. I was

shocked when I asked the teams how they were planning, how they were mapping the budgets

and the money. I was like, are you checking this on a monthly basis by weekly? And they're like,

oh, no, we look at the end of the year. I'm like, how does that work? And the tech isn't there for

them to constantly see all the spending like it is done retroactively, which makes no sense.

Concrete. I think that's, I'm not sure that's entirely the case. It is audited on a

if anything, on a weekly basis, I think. Really? Yeah, in the sense, internally. Are you talking

about internally? Internally, but not externally. The FIA don't do it on a weekly basis. There's no

mechanism to be able to say, I think we're going up or we're spending too much here and there and

you should slow down. Is that from an outside? Yeah, from an outside perspective. Right. Yeah,

no, I think I think that's because you have to decide, you know, here's your part. This is how

you divvy it up. So you have to internally decide, but that's, that's the way that businesses,

well, that's why any of our businesses, you know, you file annual accounts, isn't it? So,

you know, you plan your, you plan your spend across the year. I think I think that part's not

too unusual. Look, on the whole, I think the cost gap is a positive though. I think in principle,

I get the reasons why we have the cost gap. I also understand the challenges of policing it

accurately. The one thing I think roughly, I would disagree with you is in terms of pay because

actually, you know, if you contrast what somebody in Formula One has paid, an engineer in a particular

role or a mechanic or anybody in that garage who's covered under the other factory, who's covered

under cost gap, you compare that with any other form of motorsport, Indycar, Le Mans, Formula E.

But this is, this is where you've been short now. Hang on, let me finish. No, no, you're right.

You're right in terms of motorsport, but you're being short-sighted because people are leaving

motorsport career. Also, you compare with, you compare with Jaguar Land Rover or you compare

with Nissan or any of the one in the road car industry and Formula One people are paid a premium.

If somebody doing a similar, let's say a reliability engineering role in Formula One versus the road

car industry are paid a premium in F1. Will you talk to the teams that are struggling to recruit,

then? They are struggling to recruit because they're trying to fit it in within the numbers

they've got because they don't want to get rid of people. They think, you know, the big teams

are being forced to come down to a cap and they're struggling to get people to fit in this little

bit of spare budget they've got, right? That's the thing. No, but they're also struggling

to fill the gaps that have been left by people wanting out. You know full well that not everyone

wants to go to every race these days, so trying to find people to do that is hard.

But that's not a cost cap. That's a very different scenario. But cost cap will stop

the sport attracting the people that's attracted in the past. They will go off to other industries,

not just road cars. There's a lot of synergy between the space program, between aerospace as

well and Formula One. There's a huge amount of synergies out there and team principals are telling

me we are starting to see problems on this. Do you think we should get rid of the cost cap then?

Yes, I think we should get rid of the cost cap as it stands currently and we should turn around and

say, right, let's be honest about this. The intentions of the cost cap were pure and to

stop people spending obscene amounts of money and lots has gone on to try and hide things outside

of the cost cap. You know TD45, Nicholas Tombass. Tombassists have said, right, we're going to clamp

down on all these parts that turn up at tracks that have got a bit of water on them because

they've been designed for a boat or whatever. That's just me being a bit funny, by the way.

But what we should do is just turn around and say, realistically, your cost cap set at $140

million without the top three earners and without the drivers. So you've got $250 million a year

full stop or $300 million or whatever if the commercial side of things needs to get taken

into consideration. Yeah, stop having commercial outside of cost cap because you can hide things

there as well and just have a set fee. Make it simple. Yeah, everyone can understand it and if

you go over that fee, then we're going to come down on you massively hard. Five points, not just

money. Yeah, not $7 million and a wind tunnel restriction. You're going to get for every,

I don't know, for every $10,000, if you've gone over the cost cap, we'll take a point off of it.

Well, I think actually the penalty that they gave their boat, they should have looked at

how much ever was the overspend, I think 1.8 million or something. And just immediately you say,

well, whatever you overspend, double that gets taken away from next year's cap. So they should

have had 3.6 million from this year's cap. But then you'll get massive redundancies. Because if you

start taking, say a team has overspent by $10 million, which is possible with this TD45

that's coming, that's looking at areas outside of F1 that might be influencing what's going

on in F1 within a team. If you ever spent by $10 million, there's a $20 million cost cap penalty.

That's going to lead to redundancies and we don't want to see that.

It's the solution not, and this might be idiotic, but lesser races and more teams on the grid.

Oh, Tony, you have, you, you not understood this whole where the money comes from.

So Tony, they're stating to the world, I haven't got shares in Liberty Media.

No, but if the whole reason is, if we look all the way back about why it was bought in,

was to lower that level, level the playing field just ever so slightly. I feel if you bring in

more teams, yes, they're going to take, it's going to take more time. But also if you allow the

teams to develop the cars properly and spend the money where they need to, less time on the road

running from one continent to another. I don't know, I just, I'm not saying it's the perfect

solution, but when I keep going back to why did we introduce the cost cap to start off with?

Yeah, I don't think less races are going to happen. I would hope we're going to get two more

teams because I do want to see two more teams on the grid. I think we need that variety. And if

we are going to have job losses because of cost cap, then some of those get absorbed in the new

teams as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can I ask a question, Matt? Yeah. Are we still talking about

Mercedes here? Well, we have gone on a little tangent there. Yeah, we have gone on a little

tangent, but you know, actually a very, very, very fascinating one. I'm really sorry. But I

think, look, cost cap is going to be the big story going into the second half of the season,

you know, and all these reports of them are three teams have gone over the cost cap. Nobody

knows. The auditors have already just finished their jobs. The teams submit their accounts,

yeah, think that they've done a great job and they're all under the cost cap, then the FIA

check it against what's allowed and what isn't, and then come back to them and say, yes, you're

okay, or no, you've overspent. And everything I'm told by the FIA at the moment is the timescale

is exactly the same as last year. So Singapore, that's when we'll start to find out a few more

things. Okay, well, let's park it until Singapore, but come to Singapore.

It's a big story. That will dominate, yeah, it will dominate the Formula One news agenda.

Okay, let's move it on. So we've done, we've done Red Bull and Mercedes. Let's talk about Aston

Martin. He's the third in the Constructors' Championship. Karun Alonso was on the podium

for six out of the first eight Grand Prix. What's happened to Aston Martin over the last few races?

Why are they not still fighting at the front? Well, initially, there was a theory about,

you know, when the construction of the Ferrari Tire changed that they struggled, but I think

that's been sort of batted away a bit. I just think at the start of the year, they, you know,

they just started off with a very, very quick and competitive car. But as the year has gone on,

the likes of McLaren and Ferrari and Mercedes have added performance and Aston haven't quite

been able to keep that performance trajectory, you know, in terms of updates and upgrades.

I think Ferrari at the start of the year were terrible in terms of tyre wear. You know, they

could still qualify if you look at the qualifying performances between Alonso and Leclerc or

Sainz to that, you know, they were about power, but in the races, they just go backwards.

They have started to get on top of that. You know, look at Spa, for example, yesterday,

Leclerc's race pace was very strong and he was managing the race and he managed the gap

to Lewis and to Fernando. And I think they have got on top of their tyre wear issues

whereas at the start of the year. So that flattered Aston a bit. I think Mercedes

got to testing, thought they'd understood their concept and we're going to build on last year

and they weren't. And I think then they got lost. And again, that flattered Aston a bit. So,

yeah, but look, I think on the whole Alonso at Spa, you know, they've made some set up tweaks,

you know, having had a couple of tough weekends at Silverstone and Budapest where they were subpar,

unlocked a bit of performance, finished fifth. And now they're back in that fight. You know,

they sort of slipped back to being fifth best team. And now it seems they're at least in that

little fight again. So on the whole, still a very, very strong start to the season.

Okay. Do you know what, unless anyone's got anything else to add to Aston Martin?

I would add to Aston Martin that for the second half of the season, I want to see the Lance

stroll back that turned up in buying. Because I think he's lost his way a little bit. I think

he's lost his mojo. And whatever's happened, Lance just doesn't seem to be as motivated now

as he was at the start of the season. And I do wonder, are we approaching a time when

he's the one driver on the grid that you think you'll guarantee the job as long as, you know,

your dad is there. And we've never actually talked about contracts with Lance Stroll. We've never

looked at his future elsewhere. But I just have a little feeling that in about a year and a half's

time, Lance Stroll will race his last race in Formula One and might go off and do something else.

Wow. Because I just, I think he's losing his mojo. I don't think Formula One was the sport he

wanted to go into when he was younger. I mean, he was a massive tennis talent when he was younger.

One of the best youngsters in Canada at the time. And I just, I just wonder if he might go off and

find something that fulfills him more and brings more excitement to him. I'm not saying he's not

enjoying driving in Formula One. I think there are times he is. But I think I look at him sometimes

and think you want to be doing something else, don't you? Hard sport to do if you are not fully,

your heart's not fully into it. Not, you know, this is not exactly where you want to be doing.

And I think his dad will realise as, you know, as chairman as well. It's a business, isn't it?

It's a business and I need two drivers. So if he's not getting the results, I think an easy

decision is made. Yeah. Okay. Aston Martin, done. That was pretty good, guys. That was,

oh, sorry. Should we go back to the car?

Karun, I know you've got to leave fairly soon. No, no, we'll power on.

Okay, we'll power on. All right, fine, fine. Great. Let's talk Ferrari.

Crofty, I'm going to come to you on this one. Fourth in the Constructors' Championship.

Yep. 191 points. They're sort of just about there or they're about to last and Martin.

I think Mercedes are a fair chunk ahead of them. It's been quite a topsy-turvy season,

hasn't it, for Ferrari? Is that a fair assessment? And I wonder, do they know sometimes when they

get to a race if they're going to be quick? And sometimes when they're not as quick as they say

that. Do you know what I mean? There seems to be like predictable. I think they know they're

going to be quick. I just wonder sometimes if they know how they're going to run the race and

make it as quick as they possibly can. They say all the right things beforehand and then something

seems to happen occasionally in races that they go back to the filing cabinet of strategy and pick

out the wrong bit of paper. I spoke to Charles Leclerc in Spa. Spa's great, by the way, Tony,

for there's the stairs that go from the bottom paddock to the top paddock. You catch up with

people on those stairs. There's no escape. There's no escape. And I was blocking Charles

Leclerc's route. He couldn't get anywhere. And we had a really good chat at the start of the weekend.

One thing really struck me is that he totally believes in what Fred Viser is doing at the

same. Look, I've got faith in Fred. I've known him for so long. You know, I fully back everything

he's trying to do. But you could see as he was biting his tongue at a few of the questions that

he's not totally on board with some of the decisions that are being made. Some of the things that

are happening behind the scenes. They've lost Laura Meckis now. He's gone and replaced by someone

who's been at Maranello for many, many years. But we remain to be seen how Diego takes on that

deputy team principles role. They still haven't replaced Matteo Bonotto. You know, there's that

technical leader. Fred's still got an awful lot of work to do. And I'll go back on a limb again.

I wonder how long, and this is not from this conversation that I had with Charles the other

day, I wonder how long he'll be patient with Ferrari and whether he might find that there's

somewhere else that he can go, maybe, if there's a gap in Aston Martin in 2025, which would be

a really, really attractive proposition given what will be happening with Honda

from the following year for them. I actually can't wait for him to be unpatient. That's what

I've been wanting from Charles Leclerc is like, speak up, stop. You know, he's got to have those

Max Verstappen moments as well. It's difficult for him, Tony, isn't it? Because Ferrari have paid

for his career so far. He has been a Ferrari man, and he wants to make it work with Ferrari,

but he's too good a talent to not be getting the results that we think he deserves. Either that

or put a sprint race in every single weekend. And he does well. Tony, what about the driver

pairing? Obviously, we've just spoken about Charles there, but Carlos as well. It's an

exciting pairing, isn't it? But you have to say, Carlos still doesn't feel like he's quite up to

the level of Charles, certainly on the last couple of seasons. It's weird, Ferrari. I might get a lot

of hate for this, but Ferrari is one of those teams that doesn't bring out a lot for me. I found

Carlos Sainz way more exciting as a driver when he was at McLaren and where he is right now at

Ferrari. I find them a lackluster pairing. I think we have moments where you see greatness,

but for this whole season, I keep saying this. I keep going, oh, Ferrari. Didn't pay any attention

to Ferrari. Oh, Ferrari. And that's weird because they're up there. They did great this weekend.

In the grand scheme of things, they did pretty good. So I don't know where I stand on Ferrari.

Ferrari hasn't always been a bizarre one, but for the last few seasons, I've just been like,

I want to see more from both of them, especially Charles Leclerc, but Carlos Sainz as well is

a phenomenal driver. I mean, they all are. But I definitely found him more exciting when he was

at McLaren, strangely. Yeah, interesting. Maybe it's that good social media content.

It was the bromance of Lando. Yeah, the bromance of Lando. All sorts of reasons.

Even the unknown, but even the on track battles, I find myself when I'm watching the race not

focusing on Ferrari. And I think it's part of what he was saying of just like, they come in so

confident. They come in so optimistic. And every single time it feels like there is just something.

I will stick up for them. Canada, I thought that was a great recovery in Canada from their

qualifying. And I thought, you know, in hindsight, they got the strategy absolutely bang on.

And look how exciting it is when they do. But the problem is that's once every 12 races.

We've got two blue moons in August. Such a shame. There's no race. Yeah, you never know.

Very good. Okay. Good pace with Ferrari there, guys. Let's move on to McLaren.

Have you been taking lessons from Ted Kravitz? No.

You've become the headmaster today. Yes. And, you know, using my watch like he

does in the notebook to keep count of how long it's been.

Yeah, but your watch is worth at least a million times more than Ted's.

He's been wearing this knockoff Casio digital watch that he's been wearing for years.

Yeah. Well, that still does the job. So he says.

The man whose heart rate is getting away. Let's move on to McLaren.

And Karina, I'm going to come to you on this one.

Was Spa kind of a little bit of a crash back down to earth for the papaya coloured team?

No, I think it's just a unique circuit, isn't it? And choosing the downforce package at Spa

is more critical than any other track on the calendar. Baku included.

You know, I think because this is the only one where you have such a contradiction between the

first and third sectors versus the middle sector of the lab. And also that you've got this weather

factor, you know, the forecast are so unpredictable. You can tell there's going to be rain at some

stage and they they hedge their bets that was going to be raining for more of the weekend.

Unfortunately, Sunday ended up being dry for them. We had rain in the morning,

but it wasn't the case later on in the day. They went with a higher downforce package

and, you know, Landau got mugged. But because he had the higher downforce package,

it enabled him to do that extra long stint on the soft tyres, manage the softs,

and actually end up seventh, which somewhat surprised him considering the first,

you know, two stints of the race. So no, I think look at the highs they had in qualifying and,

you know, Piastri, as I touched on earlier, I thought did a super job in the dry qualifying

because you've got DRS, which obviously helps you. So no, I don't think it's a crash down to earth.

I think on the whole, you know, they've done an amazing recovery. I think it is the best.

I was trying to think about this before the podcast, because I knew you'd asked me about

McLean at some stage. I think it's the best in season turnaround we've seen since Jordan in 1998.

You know, in contrast to where they were the start of the year, they were genuinely

one of the slowest, if not the slowest cars, and certainly Grand Prix early in the year.

Yeah, Tony, you're not the one. No, I love that comparison back to 1998. I agree.

It's been fun also to see both of the drivers. It's always fun when you see a driver get that,

oh, this is the car I needed. I can now go and do what I know I can do on track.

So for both of the drivers, it was fun. But it was also just great to see Oscar Piastri.

I think this was, you know, his first big moment. Shame that he obviously couldn't,

you know, not totally his fault, but couldn't keep that for Sunday. But honestly,

just, yeah, the recovery. Again, that's what I mean by Formula One is exciting, because

four weeks ago, five weeks ago, we would not be saying this about McLean, and we really

truly didn't know if they were going to be able to turn the ship around. And they truly did,

based on the packages and the changes they bought to the car. And that I find exciting.

And also just great to see the drivers actually excited by going with them again.

Spring in their step. Spring in their step. There you go.

The hand was forced a little bit with their downforce package. I think their medium downforce

package didn't work particularly well at Spa, so they had to go with the higher downforce.

That then helped them in wet and on a drying track. I thought Oscar Piastri, the way he drove

in the tricky conditions from wet to dry, Tom Stallard, his race engineer, said,

Jensen Barton Territory. And it very much was Jensen Barton Territory. And I think showed why

a lot of us feel Oscar Piastri is very much the real deal for the future. And one absolutely to

be watched out for. They have turned it around brilliantly. It is great to see McLaren back on

the up again. And just adding another dimension to that midfield battle. So do you know what?

Well done, Zach Brown for making the changes behind the scenes, you know, Seidel went and the

promotion of Andrea Stella wasn't exactly a revolutionary promotion, but it was the right

promotion for McLaren. And I think they will continue to go from strength to strength.

Now, funny you mention the Andrea Stella coming in, being made team principal,

a team that has had a topsy-turvy, another topsy-turvy weekend is Alpine. Because it seems like it's

a bit of a revolving door, but everyone seems to. From the management getting it right.

So maybe the management getting it right. I mean, Tony, what did you make it? What have you made of

the changes at Alpine over this weekend? And maybe even the timing of it, you know, like being at a

race. And announcing it. And announcing it at a race. And then I saw, I saw on Twitter the images of

Otmar leaving the track this day. It's quite sad. I look, I could be so wrong here. So I'll look to

the experts, but I feel like in Formula One, there really isn't the perfect or great time to make any

of these announcements. I also find that in today's world with social media, if you've made a decision,

you might as well get it out the door, because else the rumor mills just start. And I think

that's probably even worse. So the timing, I always find timings of announcements in Formula One,

eight times out of 10, just like the wrong time. But that's just because there probably isn't a

good time. My biggest fear in F1 has always been when there is an absolute lack of consistency

from the leadership level. Because I always wonder what that does for the drivers when they see the

chaos up top. And what that does to you from a mental performance, you know, like getting into

car knowing you have one job to do, but you know that at the top, it's like it's all shuffling

around. And I do think I had this question a couple of months ago, even look, last year actually

looking at all the changes that we saw with Williams of just like the amount of venture

capital money that's coming into the sport, how fast they're expecting return on their investment.

And I do think Formula One is one of those sports that just takes time. If you're in it and you're

investing in something, you're in it for the next decade or two or three decades, you can't expect

to return on your investment in two, three, four, five years. And so that's always my biggest

fear of how fast the sport is moving these days of, hey, this is going to take time. And I think

it's the same for the change management and leadership, but also if something's not working,

again, it's like this weird paradox. If something's not working, you might as well change it.

But I do worry for both Ocon and Pierre of just like what that means on the chaos up top.

I'm curious to see where they go from this and what they're actually going to build as a team.

But no, it was mad. I mean, you had what was the change with Laurent Rossi a couple of weeks ago.

Yeah.

I'd rather it happen all at once than like a trickle effect, just like every week there's

something else happening. I think that feels, but those images of Otmar's stuff now,

I broke my heart a little bit.

Yeah, poor Otmar. Karine, sorry, I was just going to come to you on this. Do you think

Otmar has not been given enough time because he thought he was on a hundred race, if you like,

a hundred race plan, right? A hundred races to get Alpine to the front of the grid. He's obviously

had 33 races. Do you have sympathy with him and what he was trying to do at Alpine?

I do a bit, but I think, you know, I don't really want to talk about Otmar by himself,

because I think we have to consider the way that that massive wave of three heavy hitters has come

at one shot. You know, you've lost Alan Permane, who has been in the team for 34 years. Pat Fry,

who seems to have left on his own accord rather than being pushed unlike Otmar and Alan,

and he's gone to Williams, which is a great signing for Williams, by the way.

And that is, I think that that loss of all three of them is a big loss. And I think Tony's point

about lack of direction and leadership from the top, you know, a big change of leadership

is a bit of a worry. I mean, to me, you know, if you look at the people that got rid of,

it's people who are, you know, from an operational and trackside perspective, which means that,

you know, what they're trying to say is that's where the problems were. And therefore, the likes of,

you know, Matt Harmon, the chief designer, and Bruno Famine, who's come in and taken over,

who ran the engine department, you know, that side of it's all fine. The troubles were operationally.

I'm not sure that's necessarily the case. You know, the reality is, they are, you know,

in Formula One, at the moment, they are the sixth best team. They are the sixth fastest car.

But they are the third biggest global automotive manufacturer. That is just not good enough. And

where my concern comes in is, are they going to be bringing in more management and more people

from outside of Motorsport, outside of Formula One? You know, already, if you look at the people

who are in their planning departments, for example, at Endstone and things like that,

they brought them in from the road car industry, you know, people from Rolls Royce and places like

that. And you do wonder now with Renault corporate maybe taking a stronger hold in terms of running

that team, is it going a bit like Toyota from 20 years ago? You know, is it going down a sort of

non F1 way and sort of going down the corporate way, which I'm not convinced is going to work?

The Enton Cordial, excuse my French on this one, it is not an existence between Viri and Endstone.

Tony, you speak for us. I don't, but yeah, it's close to perfection. I'll give you that.

May we, may we, may we. Spa, spa effect. I don't get it. I asked the question to Bruno

Fam in the press conference, you've been two weeks in the job, is this your idea,

or are you carrying out orders from above? Really answer that one to be fair. I said,

what are your targets? He said, wins and championships, which seems far fetched,

given where the team are at the moment. I said, how are you going to do that? You know,

why is it all the problems at Endstone when your engine is the worst on the grid and they're talking

about a balance of power equalization for it? Because the engine is not good. And he says,

no, well, the chassis department, you know, the Endstone, they need to be getting better too.

Karun and I have said this many times since a production meeting in 2019,

before a race where I said in the office, can I just ask a stupid question? I just don't get

Renault at the moment. I don't get what they're trying to do in Formula One. I don't get why the

team's called Alpine. Yeah, as far as I'm aware, you can't buy Alpine cars in America. Yeah,

I think you can buy Renault's. Why would you buy a Renault over a Kia or whatever? Because Renault's

got Formula One technology in it. You know, it's a family car with Formula One technology. Push that

to the marketplace. Or Nissan. Or Nissan or whatever. What a massive name. And that makes

more commercial sense than Alpine. Bruno Fam in sat in a press conference minutes after the team

just got rid by mutual consent or whatever of, you know, the 34 year standing sporting director

and the team principal with Pat Fry announced the previous day and all he could talk about was the

Alpine motorsport program. Nobody wanted to hear that. And it wasn't important to anybody except

Renault and Alpine. And that corporate top brass. And the most, the most damning thing,

Crofty, that weekend, I thought was Alan Frost. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, France's only world

champion. And it was pretty damning, wasn't it? Yeah. But can you disagree with what Alan Frost

is saying? And that's the thing you can't. And I feel really sorry. There are some great people

at Endstone. And that performance, Pierre Gasly's third place in the sprint, I was so pleased that

they had something to celebrate that weekend. And I think Pierre acknowledged that this was

for the whole team. But some bridges need to be to be built, not burns there. And I think there

needs to be, you know, a way forward where we're both sides, Endstone and very the engine where

they all need to feel part of the same team and feel that those making the decisions in France

are not going to push Thunderbolts like this at them. Because it, you know,

they, OPMAR's position has been under threat since Miami. But give the guy time. Otherwise,

do it quietly during the summer break. And then come back with people in place at the next race.

To do it on the Thursday of a Grand Prix, PR wise made no sense to me either.

All right, well, that concludes our peen. Corrine, I know you have to go. So we'll bid you farewell.

Thank you very much for joining us on the screen. Thank you. Always a pleasure. Nice to see your

hair still in place. Oh, thank you. And yours as well. So it's all good. All is well in Formula

1 hair. He's not wrong though. What do you put in that hair? You really want to, it's a three pronged

approach. Three? Three pronged approach. Yeah, at least we've got a process. Prong one. The volumizing

mousse. Volumizing mousse. I can't believe we're doing this. He's angling for a sponsorship here.

Number two is the sea salt spray. I've used that before. What does that do?

Just get, you know, like when you come out the sea and your hair's a bit salty.

Yeah. That's what you do. Yeah, yeah. It's that in a bottle. And then a little,

a little paste just to kind of, you know, I can't believe, I mean, but what, what an effect.

This is where I'm going wrong. Do you have a three pronged approach? I have a two pronged approach.

Well, you're missing one pronged. Step out of shower, dry with towel, apply a bit of cream,

walk out the door. Yeah. Well, I bet you it takes less time, less time than me.

Yeah. But look at, look at you getting all the results. Thank you. Thank you. Anyway,

four more teams to get through. It's like the Sky Sports F1 podcast, hosted by Vida Elsson.

See you there, you go. You're very smart. Many hair brads. We're Tony or Guy.

We've got Tony, so I guess we've got four teams left to go through. What I thought we'd do,

we've got Williams, Haas, Alfa Romeo and Alfa Tauri. All right. So perhaps instead of going

through them one by one, by one, by one, who out of those four teams, you back Crofty in the second

half of the season to have a good second half, who is going to maybe get out of that final

four and perhaps push further into the midfield? I think Williams have the best chance. I think

replacing Yost Capito with James Vowles will go above

McLaren's choice to promote Andrea Stella as there's the move of the season. I think James is

doing a mega job at Williams. And whilst he'll concede himself, there are easy gains to be made,

given that Williams was so far back. I think he's just put in place some simple routes to

improvement, has energised the factory down at Grove, brought in people. Pat Fry and Karun

was talking about it. It is a super signing for Williams and is trying to get a capex spend so

that they can improve the facilities at Grove, update them, replace some of the machinery that's

got a bit old down there. It's a team that can go places with a man who knows what it's like to

win championships. And don't think of James Vowles just as a strategist. He has a master's degree in

engineering. He understands engineering. He understands strategy, obviously, and he understands

management and drivers because he's been working with the young drivers at Mercedes. I think Alex

Albonne is driving superbly at the moment. Logan Sargent, they're putting no pressure on him whatsoever

and I think he's actually doing a solid job in this first season. Williams have got the ingredients

to make it right. I hope they do because we want to see Williams return to form.

Where I do wonder about the other three, Alpha Romeo, they're in a limbo status at the moment

before they become Audi, you feel, yeah? I agree with the Alpha Romeo being a limbo. Williams,

it's interesting, the transition that Williams has had in the last 12 to 80 months, you look at it

and go, that's the place I would like to work. That means nothing in the grand scheme of things,

but after you were saying of all the ingredients, elements are there. There's also an element of

slow wins the race. We're going to get all the elements right and then when we're ready,

we're actually going to be able to hit the ground running. I've been very excited by Williams and

I think everyone, especially people in the UK, want to see Williams back.

Yeah. Limbo status at Alpha Romeo, they've had a bad season compared to last year.

Their car was underweight at the start of last year and they had the benefits from that. It's

interesting, I was talking to Franz Tost in the paddock when Daniel Ricciardo came in about many

things and he questioned Valtteri's motivation and Kevin Magnus' motivation at Alpha Romeo and

Hass and he kind of wondered why they were there and on results, maybe you can see that,

but I think they still bring a wealth of experience to those teams that go down very well. Now, by

the time this podcast comes out, Kevin Magnus and may well have signed a new contract at Hass,

who knows? Valtteri Bottas will definitely be there next year at Alpha Romeo and I hope Joe

Guan, you alongside him, because I actually think Joe's a really fine driver, deserves his place

there, but what's going on with the transition from Salba to Audi, I think is a bit of a distraction

at the moment. They're in a bit of limbo status. The true test for that team will be when Audi

properly take over and from 2026 onwards and you don't hear great reports about where the engine,

the power unit stages at the moment in terms of the research and development and that probably

brings us on to Hass and to Alpha Tauri. Hass, fast car, over one lap struggles when the tires go

off. You can't really say much more than that because that's their season and they can't get a

hold on those problems. Hülkenberg's great to see him back, great to see him motivated,

but he's motivated on the Saturday because he knows that Sunday is going to be a bit of a struggle.

Do you think the change that they did of replacing the two younger, more novel

drivers and bringing in the two that they have now as a combo, do you think that was the best

play for Hass? Absolutely. So at least there's not that component to worry about. They need

experience. The Schumacher and Mazepin, they didn't need experience that year, they just

needed to be racing because the car was so far off the pace, they could have put Max Verstappen

in there, they wouldn't have been anywhere in points. But I think they need experience now

and Hülkenberg, look at what he did in Austria, fine qualifying, brilliant sprint race. Tires

went off once again during the Grand Prix itself, but he's brought home some points for them.

Alpha Tauri is the one that interests me. Where do Alpha Tauri go from here? Yuki Sanoda's

driving okay. And all their points this year. Nick De Vries didn't work, but I'd

like to have seen him given a bit more time. I understand the reasons why, as we're explaining

as to why they got rid of him. And I think Daniel Ricciardo has come in as a motivation,

not just for Yuki, but for Cecho as well. And that seems to have worked in the last couple

of races too. But does Daniel Ricciardo want to be racing ready for Alpha Tauri next year?

Potentially, if Alpha Tauri is a much better car. And there's lots of reports that the plan is,

under whatever name they're going to be, maybe Toro Rosso wants more, that they run

this year's Red Bull next year. Interesting. Wow. Which has happened before. Yeah. Wow.

You know, Supra Giri ran a year old Honda, for instance. It works at the start of the season

and you quickly get out developed. Yeah. But it would definitely work for Alpha Tauri.

But that's just the paddock rumour as it stands.

I also, they come across also as a team that's willing to move maybe a little slow also to

figure out what they need to figure out. It's been fun to see both Yuki. I mean,

Yuki didn't have raced really well this weekend, inspired. It's nice to see. I also wonder when

we were talking right at the start of the conversation about Cecho Perez being comfortable,

just being like, you're going to be the number two. So as long as you're comfortable with that,

then you might be more successful. I wonder if someone like Daniel Ricciardo is able to have

that same mindset shift as well, when we think about why he left Red Bull at the beginning.

If he can have that same shift and go, you know what, I'm not gunning for world champion.

I just want to be a phenomenal number two driver. And then maybe I wonder if he's,

he will get to that or if he's still, you know, when you talk to him.

I don't know the answer to that. Wouldn't that be a real shame? Yeah.

If he did, there would have been absolutely no reason to have left Red Bull in the first place.

Exactly that. Which you can't be right history. So it's not, you know, but

that was the reason why he left. Do you think if he could, he'd never left in the first place?

Surely. Surely. It's fine, but don't call me Shirley.

On that bombshell. Yeah, I think that's about, we've got through all 10 teams.

Eventually. Eventually. Go us.

Just about, just about. So yeah, well done everyone, more than Karine. Thank you,

thank you for joining us. And summer holidays, you off?

Yes. Yeah, where you going?

I'm going, I'm actually going on a cruise. Oh yeah.

I've never done a cruise before and my kids are so excited because there's

24 hour a day food, which they think they're going to go and enjoy,

but there's also F1 simulators on the cruise as well. So my 16 year old, I said,

right, you got to pack, you know, swimming shorts, you got to pack your t-shirts,

you know, I just couldn't be on a simulator all day.

Gloves and that's all he's going to do. Tony, what about you?

How big is the cruise ship? It's fairly large.

Cruises are weird because if you want to escape someone, if you meet people that you

like, it's great. If you meet people on the first day that are a bit awkward, you're like,

oh, well, there's not a lot of places I can hide.

I've never done it before though, but there's so much for the kids to go and enjoy.

It's incredible. And they can't go anywhere.

Yeah. So they can't go anywhere. They can just go and have some fun.

I need to have a lie down. I think it's been quite exhausting. You on the beach?

No, but I live in California, so I can't complain. Blue skies and sunshine is my,

it's my defy. I know that's really cool to say as it's absolutely throwing it down.

It's on the beach every day. So I can't complain about that.

Although I'm a pale redhead, so being in the sunshine doesn't really suit me.

Where does a Californian go for a summer holiday then?

There's a lot of places. Alaska?

Yeah. The incredible thing about California is you've got the seaside,

the mountains, and the deserts all really close. So you could drive up and do a Palm Springs

desert trip where you go into the mountains. There's a lot. There's still some skiing happening

because we've had a very weird winter. I mean, I feel like the weather's all over the place right

now, but no holidays planned. This was kind of my, I came down for two weeks. I'll be in Europe

for another week, which is going to the south of France for three days. So there you go.

There you go. And your summer season in Blackpool?

Yep. You know me. I'm here all week. I'm here all week.

Matt Baker with me three pronged hair. I am going to go on holiday, but thankfully for

everyone at home, we've got some great podcasts lined up with yourself. We're going to do a

little Q&A with you. And we've also got one with Danika Patrick as well. So yeah, we'll keep you,

we'll keep you, you know, there might not be F1, but we'll still keep your whistle

wetted, as it were, with Formula One throughout the August break. Anyway, we all need a holiday.

I don't even do that. Three pronged approach, podcast, like Matt's hair.

Thank you very much for joining us. We hope you enjoyed it and we will be back next Tuesday.

We hope you can join us then. Bye for now.

you

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