17 Burst results for "Hayden Cobb"
The Autosport Podcast
"hayden cobb" Discussed on The Autosport Podcast
"Out and we get to see some of the quicker lap times you can't always get an overall read of who is quickest, but it was a Max Verstappen, clean, sweep. In free practice to on the quick runs Verstappen posting a one 29 6 O three. In second, Alonso, in the Aston Martin, a one 29 8 one one. And the second Red Bull of Sergio Pérez, a one 29 9 O two. Joining us on the podcast today to discuss what's going on today's action and the big stories from auto sport dot com is the editor of our website Hayden Cobb. Welcome back to the podcast. You're doing all right. Hello, thanks for having me back again, yeah. I'm doing well. How are you? Good, yeah, good. No, we love having you on because we can talk about what happened today, but also what our listeners and readers of the website have been clicking on. So, you know, we can put the agenda together, but ultimately, it's our audience that dictate what they find interesting. So it's always good to go through with you the biggest articles on the website. But let's talk a little bit about today's free practice. Are you and the team, of course, have been covering that for our readers. It was Verstappen Alonso Perez, like I mentioned, then ocon in the Alpine. Then Russell and gasoline in the top 6 then stroll in the other Aston Martin, Nico hulkenberg and then leclerc and saints. So let's get into it, but first of all, can you tell us about the story we were running earlier this week about why Max Verstappen arrived to the circuit late? That's right. Yeah, it was a bit of an odd one to see all 19 drivers apart from the reigning world champion in the paddock on Thursday morning, but it turns out just happened to have been suffering with a stomach bug. A tummy bug I think is the exact phrase Red Bull used to describe it, which is quite cute. We can read through the lines. We can yeah, and yeah, I mean, I think we've all probably been there at some stage in our lives and it's never fun and so to get on a long haul flight from his Monaco home to Saudi Arabia, I think the other passengers that may have been sharing that flight with him would actually be thanking him for not getting on that flight if he wasn't feeling so well. So he missed all of his Thursday activities with the media and usually with his team. But it didn't work out to be too much of a problem for him in the end because with the late start in Saudi Arabia due to the night race, he basically could catch up with his team Friday morning when he was feeling much better. And yes, as you said about the Friday practice, he topped both sessions so I don't think he was feeling too unwell given the circumstances. And if people are watching the highlights or our listeners end up watching some of today or over the weekend, they'll pick up on some track changes. No, it changed from 21 to 22. Some people are saying that when we first saw it in 2021, this track was downright dangerous with very little runoff area, driving next to the walls, the highest speed circuit in the world. And because of the fast sweeping curvy nature of it, no sightlines, so you could come around the corner and just come across a car. That changed from year one to year two, what's happened as we go back to Saudi Arabia with the track changes. Yeah, that's right. So it is pretty much more of the same in broad strokes, but predominantly it's moving walls back from certain areas of the track. So turn for, for example, walls be moved back by 7 and a half meters, and it turned 20 5 meters. Just to provide a bit more runoff, obviously, and having the walls less so encompassing. Some of the banking and the kerbs have been changed, partly for either grip levels or sight lines, as you mentioned earlier. All in the name of making the circuit safer, I think it's probably given because of the high speed nature of the track is probably the most dangerous track on the F one calendar currently, we're sort of seeing how Vega shapes up in fairness later this year because no one really knows what that looks like in reality. The combination of that high speed blind corners and what particularly in practice and what we're seeing qualifying tomorrow is, yeah, you have cars going on the slow laps building up their tire temperatures, et cetera and those already on push laps, which is obviously not what you have on during the race situation. So you have cars going slower that will either be on the racing line, which is generally narrow or off it just close to it with cars coming up behind them. And there was as it's been the case for every year since we've been Saudi Arabia, countless incidents of drivers race engineers speakers of saying, well, watch out for another driver behind you approaching fast and sometimes the message doesn't come across quickly enough and you have a lot of near misses. Thankfully, we have, I don't think we've ever really had a proper or any sort of incident. There's been plenty of near misses, but no sort of clashes and certainly there were none today, but you do sort of feel that there's only probably a matter of time before something like that happens. But the other problem is how do you avoid it? How do you solve it? The only real suggestion that that would sort of permanently do it is have a minimum lap time that all drivers must adhere to and keep that high enough where you don't have those great differences in speed between a car on a qualifying lap and a car on a preparation. And I was watching the formula two practice this morning while I was just sort of doing some other jobs. I'm not glued to F two practice week in week out. I love motor sport, but you know I had it on whilst I was also doing some other stuff, but there was a red flag at the end of that. I think from memory, it was called deal. Who spun. Coming out of 13. A sort of a snap oversteer moment. Spun it, ended up sideways on the track, and of course the yellow flags came out, and I think I don't know who was coming up just behind, maybe one of the primers or something. But quick thinking, but on a different day, that could have easily been, he put his hands up, instinctively, to the side of his helmet. That could easily have been a T bone incident. And it wasn't.
The Autosport Podcast
"hayden cobb" Discussed on The Autosport Podcast
"Alonso at Aston Martin emerged as the fastest driver in second practice for the season opening Bahrain Grand Prix, ahead of Red Bull's Max Verstappen and Sergio Pérez. The session saw the top 13 drivers finish within a second of each other, with Charles Leclerc and Ferrari in fourth place. Hass driver Nico hulkenberg produced an impressive effort to finish. 5th, temperatures around 22° air temp track temp about 26° in the evening under the lights prompting several teams to head out on the soft tyres, Alpine Z Esteban ocon used the soft to go first, followed by Lance stroll of Aston Martin and I think the 27th lapid driven in that car and the first round of performance runs saw leclerc go first ahead of Carlos Sainz, Perez shot to the top of the time sheets before Alonso took over with a one minute 30.907, which would be unbeaten for the rest of the session. The drivers then did the typical late FP two long run data gathering exercise, after the session, the stewards got busy with investigating Nick de vries pulling out in front of Lando Norris in the pit lane. When Alonso's time followed an impressive performance from FP one, where he split the two Red Bulls despite attempts by Alonso and Aston Martin to downplay their impressive pace from testing, they are still strong. Aston had two cars in the top 6 with Lance stroll back in the car that's going to be a big talking point today and some concerns though about his mobility at one point when the team asked him to alter his line through turn one. He replied, I can't. Red Bull's pace on the long run simulations still appear to mark them out though as the team to be. The discuss, the action back on track and for the first time this year, as it's the first race of the season, editor, I've also sport dot com, Hayden Cobb. Welcome back to the podcast. Here we go again. What do you make of Aston Martin's true pace then? It's been very, very impressive. Yeah, like you said, there is the hype train that's growing and it's led by Fernando Alonso in terms of the spearhead for the team because of what Lance trials unfortunately been up to in the last couple of weeks. But the pace is there, the car looks looks a contender now. I will say I expect more to come from Red Bull fari and probably Mercedes come qualifying and the race when they sort of turn engines up and various strategy gets involved. But in terms of the pace of the car and its competitiveness, yeah, I would say we can confidently say that Aston Martin are going to be in the hunt. I would put them probably a little bit further back than say being first and. Fight for the win, but yeah, no, they've definitely been in the fight. And that is so exciting because for anyone to take the fight to Red Bull this year. Because coming out of testing, like everybody was saying, not just us and also sport dares make a wrong prediction. My goodness made that we find out about it. But team bosses, engineers, everyone in the paddock, we spoke to saying look, Red Bull's good. Red Bull are quick. So for anyone to be even close would be great. For Aston Martin to have made progress, that's great, especially for Fernando Alonso. He finally made a career move at the right time, criminal, but he hasn't won since, was it 2013 or something? His last race. Where he won. But how far ahead are they? From the midfield. That's what we just don't know. But if you look at that pack, Red Bull Ferrari Mercedes Aston Martin. People don't seem to be talking about Ferrari and Mercedes as much, this sort of quietly going about their plans, their runs, doing all that kind of stuff. Like all the hype is on Aston Martin. How did you read that battle with Red Bull Ferrari Mercedes today when we were looking at that the soft tyre pace? Red Bull have got pacing pacing hands. They traditionally have the engines turned down somewhat. I know other teams will, but they certainly since they've had that Honda package that's been the class of the field for a couple of years now. Yeah, they turn up the settings on come sort of Q two, Q three, qualifying. And they find three and four tenths. And not that I want to burst any bubbles, but I really wouldn't be that surprised if it's a rebel one two by a couple of tents in qualifying. I think they were trying a few sort of setup options over Friday practice, some which didn't quite work out Verstappen was sort of heard complaining over team radio that the feeling and the general car wasn't quite as good as it testing. He's probably them because of the limited testing time that they had. They were like, well, FP one isn't in representative conditions. It's effectively an hour test session. So why not give it a go and see what else we can find out about this car because they only had three days of pre season testing. And so therefore, I think when they revert back to sort of what we saw in in testing of what they know that works and what looked planted smooth and when you've spoken to Alex and other people that have been tracked side in Bahrain over the last couple of weeks they certainly say that's the class of the field. So I would fully expect them to sort of return to the top. Ferrari and Mercedes, again, they've sort of stuck to their own plans. For example, in FP one, neither of those teams even touched a soft tyre, obviously it just knowing that it's only really an account when the sun goes down because FB two is run at the same time of day as qualifying in the race. So when they did strap it on, they were granted a little bit of a step behind Red Bull and asked them on who did use the soft tyre in FP one. But I think again, still sort of largely sticking to their program, still figuring out their car. I would again still therefore put them a step behind Red Bull, but I'd expect them to be there and probably ahead of Aston Martin once again turn up the wick of their engines as well. Now let me ask you as the editor of auto
The Autosport Podcast
"hayden cobb" Discussed on The Autosport Podcast
"It's that time of the week. Welcome back to the third in our third series of our top ten lists, and if you haven't catched the previous one yet, you can do that in the podcast archive right now. Joined by three guests today. Welcome back to our chief editor, Kevin Turner. What's the list you've put together for us this week? So this is a bit more difficult to define the last couple but hopefully still fun, top ten, one hit wonders. What do you mean in Formula One? So these are people that only won one world championship Grand Prix. So I'm kind of racing them both on their careers. As drives at my one race, but also the quality of their one win. Yes, so it's kind of weighing those two things together. One is also a bit of shock factor involved, which comes in much higher up the list. How do they do it? What was the race? What were they driving? Exactly. All those things. What was their overall career like? Difficult balance to get, you see. I thought that made, well, a couple of people on the list I thought had to be on the list, even though the actual race they won, perhaps wasn't as mega as some of the others they did. They've been balanced. Well, I felt I guess think about your list and whether they would reorder it somewhat our second guest from the first two podcasts is motor sport journalist Damien Smith. Welcome back. Thank you for having me. Always nice to see you in person. But I feel like I see you each week because I have also card delivered through my letterbox. I have your face smiling at me. How can you mug in the corner there? It's a very friendly face, isn't it? It's always nice to see, but although I did think that the old sports, it felt like there were about 18 Damian Smiths because every time I came around a corner, Damon was stood there. I was haunting you. Yeah, but they actually very helpful, 'cause we had a few last minute dramas that demo stepped up heroically to help. He's very heroic. That's what I want to say. Any fellow listeners who also like to read magazines as I do, because I love a magazine, much to my wife's annoyance, because you bought you told me you needed the big screen iPad to read magazines on the iPad. And then it's in the drawer. But I just love and I probably have too many. But there is that thing that if you do read magazines as well, there's the little picture of the person who wrote the story. Now I can tell you that there's plenty of people who look nothing like that picture because it was taken many years ago. But I mean, you do, you do anything like well thank you. You see the magazine. You look like yourself. I suppose that's a good thing. There's a certain person on auto sport whose photo has is quite old. Let's just say, I think we're kind and should leave it. You should leave it. I once got accused of having a fake beard put on my picture to make myself look older. I mean, there's a lot to unpack there, which we won't do now. No, I thought that was an odd thing to criticize some wonderful. Well, we say recently it wasn't at all had our 70th auto sport edition, goodness. It was during lockdown and that whole time is a blur in my brain. But I look back at the 60th magazine and care view very fresh faced, like that 12 years, 12 years ago. I'm like, who is that? And it says, it says your name. So it must be you. It's not the time it's the mileage I think is the pleasure and the number of children that has the thing. It will be pretty dangerous. I might child myself in 2000 and 6 when I started, but obviously it's 2010 that 60th that you're talking about was in yeah. We had a picture of the whole staff, didn't we at the back? Yeah, yeah, so taken from a high up camera, which we had in some copy and pasting. Oh really? Shopping to get a few people that may not have been able to make it. I was on the 50th and we did the photo in Hampton road and telling them where our office was in those days. And there were quite a few people who weren't there. And as you can imagine, that the Mac work in those days. It wasn't really put. You could really you could tell. You could tell quite a lot. There was a clamor from certain members of staff to have one for the 70th. But on the basis that it was in the middle of a pandemic, do you think that was a very good reason to get everyone together from the various corners of the country that they were then in? You could have had maybe like a page of selfies or in remote areas. And you say, yeah, like on Anson deck show when they have all of their audience on a big screen. Yeah, exactly. Everyone does. Yeah. Fair enough. So let's get on to our third guest. Who's appeared in none of these pictures? Digitally, we could do it, I guess. But Hayden Cobb editor of
The Autosport Podcast
"hayden cobb" Discussed on The Autosport Podcast
"In our third series of our top ten lists these special podcasts we're making for our third series, which let's be Frank is a labor of love for our chief editor, Kevin Turner, our first guest back on the podcast. Welcome. Welcome, welcome. Thanks very much. Yeah, looking forward to this. What's the topic this week? This week, it is the top ten F one drivers not to win the world championship. Not to win a world champion. Some good drivers to get through. So I think there have been 34 world champions. But I wouldn't say that lay the top 34 greatest F one drivers. So I think there's some overlap between the back end of that list and the top end of this list. Let's get the opinion of our other two guests. Welcome back to the podcast. Motor sport journalist Damien Smith, good to have you back. Thank you nice to be back. Thank you. You two have just had a lovely pub lunch. Out of ten, how would you rate that one? I would say an 8 or 9, I think. This guy's going to go for 8. That's a high rating. With another former colleague who you like collecting former colleagues. I'm just hoping to hang around for long enough so that I guess everyone becomes a former colleague and I'm still here in a little shed. I'm not envious at all after my Tesco meal deal. Although I forgot my club card, so I paid full price for it. Well, the extra 50 P. Somebody say something witty now. And our third guest on the podcast and I also support a dot com's editor, Hayden Cobb. Welcome to Kev's top ten podcast. This is the first one you've done or not. Thank you. Yeah, that's right. My debut. Expectations. The previous two series have never dragged you in. No, unfortunately not, but there you go, so I hoped I confess, do you want to know about my lunch or is it going to do good? I know I went quite Polish when it too. Oh, come on. It was very nice. What's wrong with you, people? The most posh one, then. One of the most posh. We had sort of a burger and chips. Yeah, but three pound 90, not three pound 40. Because I left McKee ring in the car, so I was going to go back and get it for that 50 P so anything. But it's ten minutes away. This right, I'm going to go back to the top now. Let's see what my lunch is a care bought it. So did he? Yeah, he did. He's a generous man. In fact, he invited you in on the premise of having lunch, and then we roped you into podcasts. That may have been the case. That's exactly what happened. Good payment scheme, I think. It is good. Right, let's get into our top ten. F one drivers never to win a world championship. Kev kick us off. Who's at ten? What are the stats? So number ten Felipe Massa, 2002 and 2004 to 17 269 starts 11 win 16 poles. Best results second in 2008, of course. So bear with me, I know that Massa obviously hung around a bit too long. He got absolutely pasted by all of his teammates really after he had the unfortunate incident at Hungary. But actually, if you look at what he did, I'd say 2007 to that first part of 2009 really Megan, in particular, 2008. He came within what, ten, 15 seconds of being world champion. He's probably closer to winning the world championship than anyone else on this list because of that. And remember he wasn't very good in the wet and that was a wet dies in front of his home crowd, massive pressure of the championship, and he did, I think it was absolutely fantastic performance. Surely the race of his life and it was just what was going on behind the end meant they lost the championship by a point and he really was stunning that season. He beat Raikkonen 6 two on win 6 two on poles. His teammate world champion teammate. And let's not forget there were points that he lost through no thought of his own obviously was mega in Hungary, had the engine blow up. The lost in that one, there's the whole other podcast, Singapore, 2008, which, you know, he was, he was on course for a good result there. So as much as obviously history goes well, of course there's Hamilton, you know, another world championship, but actually that particular year, masa was fantastic, and I think that's what edges him onto this for me. He's a good example of a very respectable, decent Grand Prix driver who had one real shot at the world title and actually stepped up and actually took his opportunity. He wasn't his fault that he didn't work out, as you say. So I've got a lot of respect for him. For that. But yeah, he's just, he would have been odd to think of him as a world champion now. I don't know how would you be perceived as a world champion, had it gone his way that day? Well, you described as a sliding doors moment on the previous podcast because who knows how that changes the trajectory of a career that's true when you become world champion and you know you get that extra aura around you. Yeah, and I think for our younger listeners to this include myself in that is all right. Who's the youngest person in the room? No, I only mentioned that because when we get into the rest of this list, this is probably the most recent one. And even then I think for some people's memories, as you've just alluded to there, the sort of second half of mass's career is probably what maybe what people will remember.
The Autosport Podcast
"hayden cobb" Discussed on The Autosport Podcast
"5 one twos against an arm on 7s, which there was left with one Pedro rigas in the gulf 9 one 7. And for I moved aiming around the chasing cars. To try and get one of them in range because he was the quickest driver. So he was he was the Ferrari Lee drive at a time when there was some pretty handy for Ali drives around. So yeah, I think Damien is right. I think how do you hung around in 1771 a few little Jackie X did with that color code, maybe it was still getting better, but aemon surely would have done at least a good job. And maybe we'd have just added to the list of ridiculous ways that he lost he lost races. It's just the universe didn't fancy it. I don't think. That's our first list of series three. So make sure you tune in. Same time next week as we continue our series our auto sport dot com editor Hayden Cobb will join us on the next one along with these two gentlemen, quick plug for the book then. When's it out? Is there a date? I've got to finish it. It should be in 2023, hopefully. So I'm in the closing yards now. So yeah, it's coming soon. We look forward to having you back. When you can tell us all about it, we'll do a whole podcast. It sounds like a fantastic that means Damian can write the top ten bennis on drivers because it was the one of the few lists that I didn't take because when's it been the Tom Wednesday Renault owns in stone obviously Benson became very but raced against Renault and tolman and I just thought it sounded too hard. Well, it's interesting. So most people think benetton started in 86 because officially that's when the team changed its name from tolman, but it bought tolman early in 85. So those who work at the team. But think that the last Holman was a bed at home. So pat Simmons has been on started in 85 to 86. And then it finished in 2001, which was the last season. It was called benetton, even though Renault had bought the team in 2000. I've been asking consistent right now. You get inside to what I haven't done. I haven't done a business on I just saw literally hard, but maybe I can set maybe that's maybe that's a task for Damon. Once you've done the book, get the book done first. Let's get that out. All right. Thank you so much. For listening, tune in to number two on our top tens list series three. We'll catch you on the next one.
The Autosport Podcast
"hayden cobb" Discussed on The Autosport Podcast
"Aerodynamic testing reductions after striking an agreement over its breach of Formula One's budget cap last year. The FIA revealed after the Japanese Grand Prix that both Red Bull and Aston Martin were in breach, putting them at risk of sanctions, Red Bull have fiercely denied that they broke the budget cap, but they did enter talks with the FIA to reach a settlement. Today we find out what exactly are the four financial and sporting penalties dished out. How it will impact Red Bull on the track, and what it means for teams who might breach the cost cap in the future. Let's get up to speed with auto sport dot com's editor, Hayden Cobb, Hayden, welcome back to the podcast. Thanks very much for having me. It feels like it's been a long time, so it's nice, nice to be back. How are you doing? Oh, good, normally it's on a Sunday Night show doing a race review, but this week we've got Luke and codders. We've sent them to Mexico, enjoying the 6 hours. Although not Luke, he stayed out there. He's fully acclimatized now. He is, you know, slightly sleepy on the first couple of days, but let's get into it. Look, this is huge news. Every F one team has a budget cap for the team. Things like engine program, from 2021. They did do a dry run before it. I've seen some people saying, well, this is the first time we've done it, you know, it's probably Red Bull fans, obviously saying, well, you kind of got to give them some leeway. There was a practice run as it were. So it was the first time yes last year it was being done for real. Following Japan, we found out Red Bull and Aston Martin were in breach. What's been the timeline since then? So yes, so both teams had basically the opportunity to either go into what is loosely called an agreement breach where they sort of negotiate if that is the right word of what the penalty would be with from the FIA or the second road in that fork is basically to fight it and state their case. But both teams were winning and offering to go into the agreement breach pathway. So therefore they went into talks with the FIA on what sort of penalties they would be facing. And yeah, so yeah, we'll just quickly recap that it was minor spending breach by Red Bull, which was under 5% of the total budget cap. And for Aston Martin, it was a procedural breach. So different types of breaches there. And Williams had one of these already earlier in the year. They did. They were late with submitting some paperwork during the year and they got a $25,000 fine, I believe that's off my head. So that sort of where the ballpark was looking for procedural breaches where Aston Martin but rebel, obviously in a whole new world of actually breaking the cost cap. And so we got to the United States Grand Prix when talks were ongoing. But they were on Red Bulls behalf at least they were paused after the death of Dietrich's manager. And then resumed as a approach to the Mexican Grand Prix. And as of yes, Friday morning in Mexico, the penalties were announced and the full reasons behind it, and that's where we are right now. We finally got news of Red Bull's punishment. It's both financial and sporting, which I partly mentioned in the intro, but can you fill us in on what Red Bull are facing and what the FIA have imposed on them? Yeah, sure. So starting on the financial, it's the $7 million fine fixed fine paid. Within 30 days to use the axial reading, but paid now. It sounds like last time I got a speeding ticket. It does feel like, oh, there's to get that included, but you know, it's always important for the details. So that's the financial side of it. The sporting side of it, which is probably the more crux and the key of it for Red Bull's point of view is a 10% reduction on their aerodynamic testing. That's both wind tunnel and CFD time. And we already have this sliding scale of restrictions on aerodynamic testing, whereby the teams that are the most successful of the year before have less percentage time to those at the back. With the idea of bringing the grid together. So as Red Bull are world constructors champions, this this year, they were already getting the least amount, which was going to be 70% of the 7th place team. Hope you're heating up with me at home. So working out the maths of the 10% reduction, it actually means they're now on a 63 percent of their aerodynamic testing time. Now let's compare that to Ferrari who, if they hold on to second place this year off the compared to Mercedes, they'll get a 75% of the 7th place team. So it's a considerable margin that they have lost and. There's no two ways about it, but is it enough? Is it strong enough is it? That's the sort of debate that is going to rage on simply and probably ask different people and they'll give you different answers. It's very Formula One thing in true Formula One style to make something massively complicated, but yet they picked 7th place in the constructors championship that gets that's like the baseline and the hundred you're listening and thinking like there's more than 7 teams. That is the baseline. So if you finish 8th, 9th, tenth or more teams enter, for instance, with new engine regs doesn't look like it, but if there's an 11th team, you actually get more. So you get a 105, 110 115 percent. But then it works its way down, so 6th, 5th, fourth, as Hayden's mentioned, a reducing sliding scale. But yeah, 7th place is the benchmark, the baseline in terms of. And it actually kind of gets rejigged halfway through the season as well, but that's a very Formula One thing to make something that could be easy to understand and really over complicate it. Listen, couldn't Red Bull appeal this. No, as we said earlier, because it was an agreed a penalty that they went into talks with the FIA. There's no sign away there. They're right to appeal. They agreed to the penalty. So that's them done and that's the same with Aston Martin. So no, that will be the penalty in its entirety. Unless there's further breaches to come next year, which I'm sure all teams will be aware of not doing. That will be it in terms of what penalties will be felt for the 2021 season. So when the obvious question is, I think I should ask this on behalf of many of our listeners.
The Autosport Podcast
"hayden cobb" Discussed on The Autosport Podcast
"It was a dominant victory for Max Verstappen and Red Bull. And he had today's Belgian Grand Prix, a one two for the team, max finishing about two weeks up the road, starting not quite at the back of the grid because there were a lot of penalties to take into account, but a 14th grid spot technically even starting 13th and whilst he and fellow championship contender, Charles Leclerc did start at the back and both made good progress on lap one after that, with their days did diverge will get into that and why it was an amazing day for Red Bull and not a good one for Ferrari and the other winners and losers from today's event. I'm joined by Jess mcfadden. Hayden Cobb and Luke Smith, who is fresh back from the track and look what was it like getting back into Formula One after the summer break. Really, really good, thank you, Martin. It was a nice sort of back to school feel in Formula One. I mean, it's lovely in the paddock. You see lots of people, lots of lots of big sort of life events have happened over the past three weeks or so for many of our colleagues and their Formula One paddock members that's been very, very nice to see. And yeah, it was good to catch up after a little while. So yeah, that was all good. And then when we finally got into the on track action, obviously I think there was, yeah, a familiar result at the end of it. I think obviously we had to pick up on all the Fernando Alonso, Daniel Ricciardo Oscar piastre so much has happened on the news cycle, but when we finally got on track, it was a very familiar result at the end of it. And versa and I think delivering probably one of the most dominant displays I can remember in recent F one history, despite starting so far back. And I think a real death knell maybe for Ferrari sham ship hopes, if it had not already sounded, it does seem that yeah, this display is really, really put into perspective just how far clear of the pack Red Bull is right now. Yeah, Ferrari mentioned that Red Bull are really quick in a straight line, but also really quick in the corners, which is doesn't sound great. Sort of win win, isn't it, really? Yeah, exactly. Luke, in terms of your analysis of watching the race in person today, where do you think Red Bull have got it so right? Because, you know, clearly technical directive zero three 9 has not hobbled the teams that we all that some people thought it was some people even thought it was a conspiracy and aimed at slowing down the quicker teams, but after perhaps some worry a few weeks ago, Red Bull don't need to worry about whatever technical directives have come out because they were brutally fast today, but what in your mind was it that won it for them today? I think it just speaks to how good the RBA team car is as an all round package as you said, it was quick in a straight line and then quickest through the corners as well. So really there's no upside for Ferrari. The Red Bull RB 18 straight line speed, that's been its big asset so far this season where it's really taken a step ahead of the Ferrari. But as far as we know how important that is, it's a 1.2 mile run from when you exit last source all the way to Lake on, obviously through a rouge radion up the kennel straight. And that is where I think you would expect most of the lap time gains to be made by the Red Bulls, but it was actually through the second sector through all the twisty bits where Ferrari running there are high down force package compared to Red Bull this weekend would have been expected to take a step forward and maybe claw back some of that time. But that was actually where Verstappen in qualifying made his biggest gains, which is crazy. So it really just points to how good a groove he was in a weekend. He did one run in Q one, Q two and Q three, obviously had the penalty, but that was still good enough for pole position. And yeah, it's just hard to see any weaknesses in the package right now. One of the drivers passed a comment on I'm trying to remember he hang on. Charles Leclerc passed a comment on Saturday after qualifying saying that if the RB 18 had been designed for any track, it would seem like it's been designed for spa, which I thought was quite telling and also he said after the race that unfortunately Ferrari hasn't got any hope that it was purely a trap specific thing that was why they were so far behind this weekend. I think it maybe is exaggerated and exacerbated some of the differences between Red Bull and Ferrari. But overall, you just can't get away from the fact that that Red Bull package. It just seems better in every single area than the Ferrari right now. And yeah, that is very, very bad news if your name is Charles Leclerc because the title race just keeps getting bleaker and bleaker and that's before we bring in any sort of team strategy errors or on track mistakes or anything as we've seen over the past few years. Jess, Max Verstappen seems to have gone into the settings and turned the AI drivers to easy today because there was no competition. It was almost Brazil 2021 S wasn't it in terms of how easily Hamilton picked through the field last year and max seemingly so this year in spa and two very different tracks, two very different situations, but in terms of the ease at which they cut through the pack was pretty pretty incredible. Even just how quickly he made those positions up on spa as everybody listening knows and as crafty keeps liking to remind us longest circuit on the calendar. The gaps can open up and make if you don't get your passes done early and you don't get strategy right, then you can lose out quite massively. I think Verstappen was aiming for podium when we, when he was starting out because he thought that the likes of science in Perez, who Perez in equal machinery, you would imagine would be as far up the road as he could possibly get by the time that max would have been able to fight through the traffic and get within striking distance. So I think he was thinking a podium would be great, thanks.
The Autosport Podcast
"hayden cobb" Discussed on The Autosport Podcast
"Who stuck the knife in today. Alonso and Norris followed him home and Verstappen drove his damaged Red Bull to 7. They damaged limitation exercise today in what I think is the drive of a champion, but we'll get to that in a bit. Zhou guang knew suffered an horrific crash at the start. With his car rolling and ending up between the tech pro and the catch, fencing before the crowd, the follow-up shunt would send Alex Albon to Coventry hospital via helicopter as of recording, he has been released, saying, I'm very glad that everyone else involved in the first lap incident is okay. Thank you to the medical staff at the track and the hospital if you'd switched off the coverage and were wondering. I'm joined today. That was a long intro, but we needed it. I'm joined today. By the editor of outer sport dot com, Hayden Cobb, and we're joined by royalty on the podcast tonight. Because the main man is in the house, he fed it to Kevin Turner, is gracing us with his presence today. It's the British Grand Prix Kev, so we're wheeling you out for this one. So much to talk about, but first of all, I mean, Kevin, where do you want to start? We have to start with science winning his first race after the 150th attempt, and winning from pole. So on paper, an easy win for science, but it was nothing even close to that actually, but let's get your first thoughts on the events of today. Well, first of all, I think I can live up to that intro, but thanks very much anyway. But what a great race. What a great race to have to talk about. I think it's probably been the race of the season. And it's a really feel good result, isn't it? I don't think there are many people that would begrudge Carlos Sainz finally getting that first Formula One victory has been so close so many signs of just a couple of weeks ago. I pointed out that there were three races that he'd lost by 1.2 seconds or less. So I think as we'll get on to a bit later, he probably ended up being quite fortunate to win despite starting on pole and ended up winning. But I think everyone it's a feel good result. And it's great that he's now not part of the top ten Islam putting together, which is the top ten best F one drivers that didn't win a Grand Prix. He can now be taken off that. That's one less driver after worry about. He will certainly sleep very well tonight. I actually watched the race because of a family birthday at my brother's place and my sister in law said to me why it's a really popular win as he was on the top step and the crowd was cheering. Why is that? And I said, well, because he's just a good guy. And the fans love Carlos Sainz. And I tried to glazed over when I was going into other reasons like he used to race for British team. There was a bit of a bromance between the two drivers. They were called car Lando. She didn't want an answer that long, really. She was just being polite asking about Formula One. But it was a feel good podium and the brick fans did love to see him on the top step. Surely they would have loved to see Hamilton and Norris up there or Russell as well, but Hayden, do you get the same feeling that it was a feel good podium today? I do, yeah, I think outside of the home heroes that the British drivers and Alban, I would say probably Carlos Sainz is probably one of the most popular drivers out of the British fans in that sort of non home hero category. But yeah, like you say, he's got a connection is obviously used to race for McLaren. He gave a good touch of when he was racing in 2010 in formula BMW that he won his first ever race at Silverstone south had an affinity to the place. So 12 years on look at me now type thing and yeah, I mean, winning for Ferrari for any driver must be fantastic, but to do it in a iconic place like Silverstone, it really sort of yeah, I feel good factor. And mighty achievement for him. And I think he drove well on the whole or he did admit that sort of first stint when the race restart after that flag that he was struggling a bit and then indeed it did look like the clerk had had the pace on him, but the safety car came his way. The strategy came his way, whether intentional or not in the clerks misfortune, but he made the most of it and yeah, grabbed it, grabbed the opportunity by both hands by basically dismissing Ferrari's failed sort of plan B type strategy of helping the clerk and went now that I've got to look out for myself here and I've got to win this race for Ferrari. And he did and like you said, he got pole position in the wet beating likes of leclerc and Verstappen who were particularly good in qualifying and in wet qualifying. So I think he can leave Silverstone extremely happy with how his race weekend went and generally how he performed because yeah, the start of this year he had some struggles he held his hands up with sort of the handling of this car and the new regs, but yeah, he made the most of his opportunity and certainly delivered. I've been trying to work out the since the race finished, the order to structure the podcast tonight. There's so much to talk about, but, you know, dear listener, I want to take you on the journey of this podcast. And so I think we have to we'll get to a lot of stuff tonight, but I think we have to start with Ferrari. Now we've got a massive shunt to talk about two big crashes that the lap one, we've got Max Verstappen to talk about. We've got all the other drivers, but I think we just need to get straight in to Ferrari. And I offer the case for the defense, or rather, you know, maybe prosecution on Carlos Sainz. Yeah, he got polled yesterday, but only by I haven't got it written down 0.72. I think listeners correct me if I'm wrong. Max wasn't happy with the car. He caught some yellows and it was generally not a great performance by max and qualifying. He pressured Carlos Sainz got swallowed up on the first start today and then when they had the restart because of the incident, he did well. And he kept the lead, but again, unforced error, pressured off by Verstappen, who at that point I thought was going to just scamper away into the lead. It was a brilliant race win, and everyone's feeling good about his first race win. But I put this question yesterday to coddles and Alex on our live podcast and said, all right, your Ferrari team management, what do you do tomorrow? If Carlos Sainz is in front of leclerc. And I wasn't being particularly clever with that question, even though it actually happened..
The Autosport Podcast
"hayden cobb" Discussed on The Autosport Podcast
"I won't be as sick as charla Claire is feeling this evening. We're going to get into all of the events of today and ask some pretty important questions. And play a few what ifs as well. Join on the podcast today by Alex kalanos, Jess mcfadyen and Hayden Cobb, right? Let's kick off then Alex I'll come straight to you Verstappen made it look easy and I know that because after he took the lead, I counted four times we saw him on TV one time he had a pit stop and they filmed him crossing the line and you know that's a race when someone has just got it in the bag and the TV coverage is not interested. That's my official way of measuring how good someone's race was clearly Verstappen as soon as leclerc had retired as soon as he took Perez. It was done and dusted, right? He made that look so easy. In fact, he was even talking on the radio about how slow he didn't want to drive. That was a pretty big masterclass today. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right there, Martin. That does sum up how dominant Verstappen was in the end. But I think the discussion about the lap time is more of a reflection of Red Bull and Verstappen. Well, more of the Red Bull was reminding Verstappen just exactly how wrong this race can go in the slightest moment, as we saw in 2021, the tyres exploding, you know, that's obviously always a concern when you've got walls are closed, they can be carbon fiber around and also a late race safety car really could have swung things. If, for example, the Red Bulls have just passed the pits and George Russell is able to stop when there's a big instrument at the end. He could have somehow voted into the lead. So I think those were the concerns, but in terms of as we saw out and outpace to the finish, no one was stopping Verstappen and it's interesting because it's quite a response to yesterday, obviously with Perez ending up ahead of him in qualifying leclerc beaten both of them. I think it's a reflection more of leclerc is just able to just he's just so sensationally fast. He makes what is a faster package in the Red Bull. Look, basically he makes the Ferrari package look better than it is. So I think the Red Bull is a much better package this season. It just sort of look Larry's ultimately making the difference. But Verstappen was second best, so to come back the way it did in the race tremendous Perez master of the tyres was made to look pretty ordinary. And again, that's just a reflection of how good Verstappen is. And it's an element of his game, because he's so good at so many other things, is a bit underrated. So Jess Red Bull now one two in the driver's championship. They're starting to run away with it. Well, as we saw, the Ferraris implode did put a tweet out that said yikes is this for the end of Ferrari's championship. Contention. But as lots of people on Twitter like to remind me were only a third of the way through the season and we were having those exact same conversations, but the other way around when Red Bull were having their reliability issues earlier in the season. So it's not looking great. They've not had a great run of races for and I think the key difference here is it's not all about reliability. It has been about making bad strategy calls and throwing away points where you would hope that on days like today where you are a victim of attrition, then you can kind of back it up because you've been perfect the rest of the time. But Ferrari haven't, whereas Red Bull, where the points of mattered have been able to be consistent. So I think that's going to be the worry for Ferrari is that if they've clearly do have a reliability problem because four of the cars that DNF today were Ferrari powered. It's definitely of a concern. And they're going to be left going straight into Canada, so no time to even really think about it. Straight into Canada, which is an awful journey, really, to go from back to Canada, is pretty hardcore. But yeah, there's going to be a lot of question marks. And as we know, as we saw last season, a strong Verstappen is extremely hard to reel back in and it took Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton last season to find absolutely everything that they possibly could to reign him back in and have it finish as close as we did last season not to bring last season back up and give everybody triggered members. Can I just make a very quick point about last season? Because it kept annoying me. I kept seeing this on the TV coverage and all over the Internet as well. People going, oh, Hamilton's mistake at back, he cost him the world title. It cost him the win, guaranteed, did not cost him the world title because he had the world title one before the saga at the end. If that had been done as it always had been before, he still probably wins the world title. But anyway, a minor, a minor gripe for your journey. It's a good show. Do you feel better for that now, Alex? I'm just really annoying because it's just like, it's not right. It's like, yeah, of course it would have helped, but even in spite of that error, he still put himself in a position to win without the rules just being made up in a completely new way. There we go. If this is going to be the continuation of Ferrari form, then I really hope we're not just going to have a Red Bull run away with it because we all want more than that, right? We want to see Ferrari back up there competing for titles. And if we get to halfway point and it's not looking likely. I mean, I hate the fact that we're even having this conversation a third of the way through. So let's hope not. Let's hope let's be optimists. Let's hope that it's going to be a resurgence. I think Alex thinks it's not okay, great. I'll pass over to you. Yeah, sorry to be, again, as usual, the voice of doom and gloom. But the problem is these Red Bulls are so good. Like, look at what happened to them after Bahrain and Melbourne when their thoughts were that old white Ferrari is going to run away, but now how can leclerc lose a 40 odd point leader whatever he had, right? The problem is, is Red Bull have made that car better at every stage. And Ferrari, while it definitely did improve things in Spain, things just aren't going right, like the engine problems that's happening science had a separate hydraulic issue, go wrong today. And it's just a little bit. You just get the sense. You know, I'm not saying this is definitely going to play out, but you just get a sense with teams that Ferrari is still not quite the finished project. Look at the Jack problem, the Hitler today when he came in on the virtual safety car. And whereas Red Bull, they just, it's just when the momentum is with them, the fact that they have improved that car, which was already probably still at least not very close with Ferrari, the standout car coming out of testing. They've made it, they've made it better. Whereas Ferrari things just keep seeming to be going wrong. They can turn that around. It's just they haven't been able to prove that they can do it yet. Well, it's a good time to bring Hayden in to talk about you and your team auto sport dot com..
The Autosport Podcast
"hayden cobb" Discussed on The Autosport Podcast
"Of the floor stays, which is like a very there's a lot of force going through there. So it still feels like the car has huge potential. But these issues that sort of circle around each other and just there's this very much just spiral feeling that they need to fix that stop that cycle and then there could be to see the true potential of it. There's no guarantee that that car will be able to match what Red Bull and Ferrari capable of doing. But there's definitely more to come from it. And I think that's where Hamilton's getting this frustration is like, right, we have something here, but we know that this championship is not going to be in our hands at all if we don't fix it within the next three, four races and that's even with 20 races to go. They know the score. So yeah, it's going to be a big ask, but the next two, three races are going to be going to be cater that. All the talk is of massive, unlocked potential, but that's no use to them. All the numbers say that in theory, we've got a really fast car here, well, that's nice for you. Totally understand his dejection. I'll cheer up some Lewis Hamilton fans today to by reminding them that as of now, he is three points ahead of Max Verstappen in the driver's championships. It's still second place in the George Russell. So that's it. They have a relatively reliable car. But yes, it's an intriguing one. And you do wonder, this is going to be the true test of you've seen years of dominance of Mercedes and they fought off various fights. Okay, they lost to snapping in the drivers fight last year under some very difficult and controversial circumstances. But this is by far their toughest challenge since they came to Formula One as Mercedes Grand Prix. Absolutely. Yeah, we'll be fascinating to see how they how they do over the next, I would say, yeah, imola, Miami after that and then Barcelona, which is sort of like a test bed track. If they're still struggling after those three, it's going to be painful. I really will be. Thank you, sir. Hayden Cobb is editor of auto sport dots come I don't write articles for the website. So I don't mind saying they are the best in the business. You should go and read all the things these guys and girls write. It's amazing stuff. I just hear that I'm here to talk and make podcasts for all sorts of shapes and sizes. But what you guys have done today and on auto sport plus as well, check out that and we will see you again tomorrow after the sprint race well I won't because we'll be doing our usual Saturday podcast with the guys at the circuit so this week it would be Luke and Matt Q, who may well be coming from their higher cars. I think we've put them in a hotel. About an hour away from the circuit, I think they have time to kill and do some recording. I'm sure, looking forward to hearing that in the meantime, thanks for listening. We'll see you soon..
The Autosport Podcast
"hayden cobb" Discussed on The Autosport Podcast
"Also sport magazine. I'm Martin Lee. And this is the auto sport podcast. Well, that was epic and I'm not just talking about David avali, pit lane interviews. I'm getting my request in early for him to do more of those. He brings the energy from his commentary. Now to sprint race weekend, 5 red flags in qualifying. Conditions variable changeable will say. The Emilia romagna Grand Prix sprint race was well and truly shaken up the grid I should say, shake it up with Max Verstappen on pole. For the first time as defending world champion. Charles Leclerc's Ferrari lining up alongside him with his, oh, just the minor matter of a 46 point lead over Verstappen, even if he is in damage limitation mode this weekend. Leclerc is in the right place. McLaren should be delighted with Lando Norris in third, even happier will be huss with Kevin Magnussen in fourth, joining me on the podcast. Today is also sport dot com. Editor, Hayden Cobb, well that was a bit of a qualifying session, a long one. It really was, I think it's probably going to be the longest session of the entire weekend, which is a bit odd when you think it's a sprint weekend, and that was just qualifying. Yes, it was 5 red flags across the sort of three mini segments of qualifying an hour of 40 roughly all told. Yeah, it was a long stint for everyone involved. As I saw someone on social media say, quite inconsiderate of any racing to get in the way of what was basically one long red flag session. I told you the grid was looking different though Fernando Alonso alongside Daniel Ricciardo for 5th and 6th Perez down in 7th Bottas in 8th even though he retired the car in three Vettel in 9th and Carlos Sainz intent, even though he never even took part in the session. The two Mercedes lining up 11th and 13th for Russell and Hamilton respectively. Where shall we start? Let's talk through the red flags actually because this was a session which I've seen people saying afterwards that Max Verstappen locked in to poll. I disagree. I'll tell you why on that right. First red flag, Alban's exploding rear brakes, any muse online or to sport dot com about what's causing that because this is starting to become a bit of a Williams pattern. Any idea how they said afterwards, I've not seen the quotes or anything. Have you seen anything to do with what caused that? So they're still doing the formal investigation, but it very much seems like you said about the pattern of what they had an identical issue in pre season testing in Bahrain, which was happened to Latifi at the time. And it sort of strokes incredibly quickly as in the team don't even really get too much warning of it. The brake temperatures go through the roof and suddenly it's on fire and it's the rear brakes in particular, which is exactly same thing that happened to Alban in Q one of qualifying. He was about three or four corners into a push lap and then would you know it, the right rear brake is quite literally on fire and then explodes. It seems to be if it is the same issue, the sort of caked in brake drum causing this friction catching something and generally the temperature within the brake drum going sky high. And before they know it, it's in flames. It's always very visually eye catching. It was in Bahrain and even more so this afternoon because it literally has the TV cameras caught it. It literally exploded in a fireball that sent bits of carbon fiber and a bits of Williams cars sort of everywhere. And there were some fantastic shots of a bit of pace on fire run over by one of the McLaren's. It was thankfully nothing else happened after that. It was very, very great visual to grab. But yes, that was the first red flag. And it sort of carried on from there in various amounts. I really did say he couldn't set a time he did three laps in total. Also knocked out in the Alpine Esteban ocon and also in the Williams Nicholas Latifi and the two alpha tauris. Now that's going to be a big, big blow to go out in Q one for gasoline and sonoda. Because earlier in the season, they've shown real signs of pace, any clues yet as to where that pace went in imola. Yeah, strange one. I think they really misjudged the Q one time is with these sort of red flags in The Rain coming in and out. I mean, they were on track and on the right tyre, IE the dry tyres. So they didn't sort of mess up strategy wise, just pace just wasn't there in that particular session. They had no K one practice session on the Friday. And of course, that's all or anyone had because of the sprint race format. So maybe they just didn't get the tire in the window and you know, obviously with time ticking and Q one, there's no second chances. And granted sonoda did miss out by 0.004 seconds. To Lewis Hamilton being knocked out in Q one of all people. So they would just fractionally off it, but yeah, I mean, those are the fine margins in Formula One and that's why they were both out in Q one. And then going into Q two, so Carlos Sainz had set a pretty decent lap. He was two tenths off of Max Verstappen in the final Q two timings, but he was on a second flying lap. They asked him to do a second push lap. And when I say that he was finished tenth, that's because his time was good enough to get through to Q three. He just couldn't take part in that because he bend it and after the qualifying session, he seemed really frustrated. And I've seen some feedback afterwards, maybe Ferrari fans, I don't know, saying, he just can't catch a break. He's so unlucky. Yes, but Australia was his doing. And technically today was his doing. I mean, he got onto the slippery painted white line, and it spun him round, so yeah, I don't want to be hard on the guy, but that's two mistakes in a row. And I think he's equally frustrated because he said afterwards, he wasn't even pushing that hard, even though it was a second push lap. He had plenty in reserve, and you hear him on the radio back to the team, just apologetic, and yeah, he went into the weekend signing a new two year deal with Ferrari, but look, the more this goes on, the more he's going to be.
The Autosport Podcast
"hayden cobb" Discussed on The Autosport Podcast
"Coming through and also the long run pace as well, which is always the more interesting for some people Charles Leclerc. Once again, leading the way in that Ferrari. With a one minute 30.074 but completing much fewer laps than many of his competitors only 15 laps completed today because of clattering, the wall and colliding with his front left wheel on the inside turn, which would bend or break a steering arm track rods. Max Verstappen coming in seconds on a one minute 32 one four. Again, about a tenth and a half behind. Carlos Sainz brings his Ferrari into third and Sergio Pérez fourth Lewis Hamilton the first of two Mercedes and 5th and 6th Lewis followed by George Russell, McLaren, hopefully Boyd in 7th place with Lando Norris Esteban ocon's Alpine in 8th place followed by Valtteri Bottas slipping down in the afternoon times 9th and in the tenth position UK sonoda. After multiple attacks over the last two weeks, Yemen's Houthi rebels group attacking an Aramco storage facility, only a few kilometers from the site of the Jeddah circuit, no doubt doing it on a day when they knew the eyes of the world and the sports media would be on Formula One. The attack happening in free practice one, the sky thick, with dark black smoke, drivers talking over the radio of the smell of oil, Max Verstappen, saying I can smell something burning, is it my car? A lot to talk about today, Hayden Cobb, also sport dot com's editor. Hayden, just run us through the timeline of events if you would today. It was approximately about ten miles away from the track Aramco oil facility. It's now been confirmed as a missile attack and ensure it's an ongoing and long-standing dispute and a very aggressive tactics from both sides between Talia and Yemen. But obviously F one being in the prime spotlight, this is clearly taken as a site tactic for to grow attention to this and F one choosing to race in Saudi Arabia. It was always going to be at risk at something like this, potentially happening, discussions were had between F one and FP two regarding what has happened. They're getting the facts correct, seeing what was potentially happening. And obviously there was a lot of concern in the paddock. Not only from the drivers, but everyone involved because anything in the series like that, given what we've seen not only in that part of the world, but also most recently in Ukraine is particularly scary. The Saudi security officials spoke with Formula One bosses, team principles, drivers, Stefano del micali, the CEO and the FIA president. And in short, they delayed FP two by 15 minutes just to make sure everyone was aware of the facts and have a discussion to make sure they're okay to continue. And then FBE two by and large runners as planned. But 50 minutes later, but we wouldn't have believed that the events just down the road had taken place, but yes, it came back into discussion obviously at the end of FP two and that's why we had a bit of an unusual end to the day. Let's say. So we have the two practice sessions, the F two drivers weren't told. So while this conversation was going on in Formula One, talking to the team bosses and the drivers, after FP two, on a Friday, we're now going to get to speak to another round of drivers and press conferences and media interviews where the TV, but also the written written media get to talk to the drivers and the team bosses. What happened next today? Yes, so an unusual tactic requested by the FIA was for all teams not to do any media TV written or otherwise post FP two because obviously the topic of point was going to be about the attack that they all facility and whether they'd want to race for the rest of this weekend and where they felt safe. Then happened, which in the forms of time obviously makes a bit more sense with the time frame, was there was another meeting involving team principles, drivers, F one, officials and FIO officials with the Saudi security officials and senior figures. To basically give more detail and give more information on the ongoing situation. And in short, basically say that the track itself is the safest place to be in Saudi Arabia. On that one, that's not my assessment. To be fair, there is an understandable approach given the high level security round that event regardless of what's happening around the world. And indeed, the setup that the Saudi Arabian would have had to follow and had to adhere to ensure that the race would go ahead. So in that sense, it was very much a case of, if you can't be safe at the track, you're not going to be safe anywhere. Both Christian Horner and total wolf speaking very briefly after the meeting said that all team principles were in unison in their decision that they want to keep racing and we're comfortable with continuing racing this weekend. We get to hit properly here for many of the drivers. They're having their drivers briefing, which they have every Friday night after practice. Normally, to go over things like yellow flags and the more common issues that come up after practice, but obviously that will be the central focus and we'll hopefully find out very soon what the drive is sort of think about the situation. But at the moment, we understand that all drivers will be carrying on for this weekend as all the teams are. From Formula One, they say this and I quote F one has been in close contact with the relevant authorities, following the situation. The situation. The authorities have confirmed that the event can continue as planned and we will remain in close contact with them and all the teams and closely monitor the situation. A range of opinions on this, I would say, the telegraph sports Twitter account saying that Formula One stands accused of literally playing with fire, as it vows to race on in Saudi Arabia of course pointing out that Saudi Aramco, otherwise known as Aramco, that company that you see their logos plastered all over, Formula One, any of the race venues they go to, let alone being the home race would be a large decision to cancel it. It's not like we didn't know what Formula One was going into. People like Adam hay Nichols, the metro F one columnist being quite punchy. Saying that not sure some security guys and soldiers with rifles will be able to protect a circuit from missile assault. Our colleague Andrew Benson from BBC.
The Autosport Podcast
"hayden cobb" Discussed on The Autosport Podcast
"Coming home first and second in the first round of the 2022 Formula One World Championship Ferrari not only back on the top step, but also a one two full of clerk, winning the Bahrain Grand Prix, second Carlos Sainz Jr. and third, Lewis Hamilton in the first Mercedes followed by his teammate George, Russell in fourth butts, the story of the race, of course, can't be told without the two Red Bull retirements. First of all, Max Verstappen after the final pit stop suffering from a steering issue which he seemed to be driving around, he said after the race finished that it was almost on drivable in the fast corners when the car was loading up. And at the time of recording this podcast around 9 o'clock on Sunday Night, we think it was a steering track rod issue, possibly bent or maybe misaligned when it was dropped down from its jacks after the final pit stop no power steering problem or hydraulic failure which was speculated during the race, but he seemed to be driving around that issue. It didn't make a great restart after the safety car. He says that's because he just couldn't get the car straight. Literally couldn't get the car straightened out to get the power down and follow leclerc for that restart. That safety car was caused by AlphaTauri's Pierre gasly around lap 44, the car seemed to shut down and then set fire to itself quite spectacularly we'll find out what that was all about on the podcast today. Max Verstappen's teammates, Sergio Pérez, with just a lap to go whilst fending off Lewis Hamilton, Perez at the time in third position also suffering what was listed as a power unit failure, the same reason that Max Verstappen would be in lap 54, retiring from the Grand Prix with a power unit failure, but we think, again, we don't know yet until that investigation is complete at the time of recording this podcast, something to do with the fuel pickup system in both cars that of course is a common FIA mandated part, not made by Red Bull. So we'll wait and see the reaction to that. If we go back to the beginning of testing, we mentioned Ferrari we're looking okay. But these things tend to come back and bite us on the bum, and our listeners and our readers will tell us about it. If we do get these things wrong, but for a while we've been saying they're looking all right, joined on the podcast today by auto sport dot com editor Hayden Cobb, F one reporter Matt Q and our F one reporter in Bahrain, Luke Smith. Luke, I'll go back to Barcelona testing where there was a train line running behind the circuits. And you mentioned, maybe just a few people want to buy a ticket, just in case they want to get on the Ferrari hype train. It's left to station and it is barreling down the line. I mean, that Ferrari hype train is going to be packed, right from now on. That was an amazing start to the season. It really was, yeah, I think after all of the expectations that have been built up at three pre season and the moment that Ferrari unveiled that radical looking F one 75 car, we kind of thought, oh, this looks pretty good. And there's the old sort of cliche and motor sport that if it looks fast, it will be fast, and that obviously is not always true. But yeah, it was just such a dominant display by Ferrari. I think them and Red Bull were very, very evenly matched Red Bull had a bit of a pace advantage over all, I think, but it was leclerc looks in real control. It was a really good battle between him and Verstappen. It was very, very clean, which was good. And basically the moment of Verstappen overcooks it at the third attempt to try and get past the clerk from then on leclerc team just have everything under control. It's very serene and I commented on this, I think I was talking to Alex Carlin or grand priti out at the track the other day and I said that everything from Ferrari this year, it just seemed very calm, very serene, everything's just going really well executed. And I think the race today was a perfect example of that. It was a very, very good performance all round. Leclerc, we've seen what he can do. I mean, he won two races, brilliantly in 2019. He's been on form even in Ferrari's two low years. But Ferrari are back. It's just so good to see F one's most famous team back on the top step of the podium that Italian anthem playing. I was in the media pad while the podium was going along and there was some colleagues next to me humming along to the alley and anthem since it's a very catchy tune and it's just, yeah, it's just a good, it was a really, I think just a good, it's a good news story for F one. They've always said that a strong Ferrari means a strong F one and that's very, very true and I think that the nature of the way and it's a good way to start the year Ferrari obviously a very, very happy, but the fact that it looks so close between the leading teams as well. It's really, really exciting. So yeah, a very positive result. I think all around. If you're going to bust out a cliche this early in the podcast, so will I, maybe not a cliche, maybe a Ron Dennis ism, some Ron speak to finish first, first you have to finish. That actually makes sense because that's not the worst of what he said. That one's actually true, and it was about reliability that caused our finishing order again to flatter some of the other drivers and teams today. Matt Q, you are going to be on a job share with Alex kalinka. So you're in the UK tonight, but you'll be traveling for the races that he's not going to. So yes, Ferrari did amazingly well to get a one two, but we can't talk about that without also mentioning why Red Bull weren't on the podium today. So yes, they did well, but what did you make of those? Well, those last few laps when they got hit by those reliability problems. I think I'll follow your lead Martin, pluck out another sort of famous person from motor sport. Is that whole Colin Chapman thing of you design your cars for a 57 lap race, you design your cars to be able to do 57 and a half laps and then it doesn't matter what happened to them. Unfortunately, Red Bull got it. One luck too short with their car or Perez's car expiring just before and Verstappen's as well. So I think it's now come to light, isn't it? Both of them have been isolated to suspicious, I think, is quite Christian Horner used in the press release, but suspiciously similar fuel fuel feed or fuel pump failures. So looking into that. But I go along with what Luke said, I think it was a great result, it was good to see Ferrari up there, but I think on another day that that could have been Red Bull's very easily. I think we sort of check expectations a little bit. But I think max probably didn't quite nail his qualifying lap and then today race plays for Red Bull was good, but not inspiring, but I think that I think you can probably flip a coin on whichever day and those two teams can swap around..
The Autosport Podcast
"hayden cobb" Discussed on The Autosport Podcast
"For Mercedes put in some quick laps today to top both morning and afternoon sessions with drivers running two by two, with the Red Bulls, by far, not behind the two Mercedes. And for anyone hoping the new regulations might mean the entire competitive order was thrown up in the air, will be disappointed. But for followers of Formula One and as an auto sport podcast listener, I'm guessing you have a keener interest than some other people, you won't be surprised to know the status quo is a good place to start when trying to decode the time sheets from testing. Maybe it's a sign that many of the teams are talking up Ferrari or are they trying some smoke and mirrors to divert us and our attention away from their own cars? We'll discuss that on the podcast today. As for global matters, formula ones as it will not hold the Russian Grand Prix scheduled for September 25th in the current circumstances following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The statement is partly this. On Thursday evening, Formula One, the FIA and the teams discussed the position of our sport and the conclusion is, including the view of all relevant stakeholders that it is impossible to hold the Russian Grand Prix in the current circumstances. Whereas the promoter of the Russian Grand Prix reacted to that announcement by confirming the contract to hold the race had been suspended, but it also asked fans not to seek refunds for tickets as and I quote, it is still possible that the round will take place and will be held as previously scheduled. That was despite F one saying the race is not going ahead. Joining me to discuss that is our Formula One reporter Luke Smith and also sport dot com editor Hayden Cobb now Luke will come to you first. We just heard the Formula One statement and then I read the response from the organizers at the circuit saying study on boys don't ask for refunds. It sounds from Formula One like it's a dumb deal, not going to Russia. It sounds from the circuit like. Oh, don't ask for your money back yet. What's the feeling in the pit and paddock where you've been today about Sochi being canceled? It's pretty clear that the Russian Grand Prix will not be going ahead this year and I think it's important to bear in mind that contractually there's a lot of obligations and legalese and therefore the wording of all of these statements is very, very important. And even when Formula One issued its statement, there were a few questions saying, well, is it actually off? What is the situation? Because of the way it was worded. But no, it is pretty clear like we've asked around and it is clear that Formula One won't be racing and Russia this year. We've spoken to a number of drivers about it. They were all very supportive of the decision. Pierre gasly gave quite a moving sort of speech about it during the press conference. And he said that he's got friends in Ukraine who are affected by this. And he said, it's really, it is something that is on his mind and he said that had there been any considerations to go ahead with the race he would have done the same as Sebastian Vettel and boycotted. So it's definitely it's definitely the right call for Formula One. I think that the paddock is very united on that. Obviously we know there's a side story in terms of what's going on with harsh and Nikita Mazepin and the impacts that the removal of the oral Kali sponsorship sponsorship branding from the car this week may have and harsh is going to review everything next week, but it said it does need to resolve what that would mean for Nikita mazin's future as well. So there's a lot of moving parts to this, but I think that the underlying thing is that Formula One won't be racing in a country that is at war. It's quite as simple as that really. We have colleagues that work in the Ukraine, the nuts and bolts of auto sport dot com if you like it work on the back end to make it all happen to give us the tools to do this job. Some of those are based in the Ukraine and so of course our thoughts with them and their family and their friends. Okay, let's talk about track action right now. Lewis Hamilton produced a late charge at the end of Formula One's first Barcelona pre season test. And while it's gone well for Mercedes, Hass and Alpine will probably go away wondering what could have been. And I do wonder if the I'll say the newspaper press, perhaps those that write for general audience might play up the Mercedes domination, they might even call that with George Russell fastest in the morning. A woman at 19 two three three, Hamilton finishing off the day with a one minute 19.138 and the most laps completed, but Hayden will come to you first as always. They set this on a C 5 tires, we don't know fuel loads. We don't know set up. So you can't say Mercedes are on top, but can we say that they'll leave feeling confident? What do you reckon? I think they'll be happier than they were, say, 24 hours ago. Lots of mileage. Yeah, Hampton talking about obstacles to be overcome or being overcome. You certainly sort of felt that today. Planning got the mileage in and even like you say, went for that sort of late run on the softer tyres, which obviously brings a bit of lap time in itself. And yeah, you could just, it felt like a very sort of Mercedes in testing, performance that we're familiar with for quite a while over the last few years. Maybe also sort of goes back to this mantra of the mindset as well of Mercedes this year given how last year when they seem very much hellbent on being at the dominant team and really sort of writing some wrongs that they may feel still from that year and this could easily just be another way of saying to the others. We're here. We're not going away just yet, don't discount us after a couple of decent but not sparkling days, let's say. Hey, look, they're still first in the pit lane. They're still constructors champions, so it might have been some showboating from Mercedes, but it was kayaking in the afternoon from Daniel Ricciardo. Do you like that? Yes, there we go. I was working on that all afternoon. Tell us why Danny Ricciardo was the only driver to put on full wets today and while the others were using intermediates. It wasn't a downpour of Spanish weather. Can you explain? Yes, so we've had it before at Barcelona..
The Autosport Podcast
"hayden cobb" Discussed on The Autosport Podcast
"Ferrari's Charles Leclerc would end day two of the Barcelona pre season test at the top of the timesheets, but let's talk about those time sheets. How much can we really read in? The lap times. It's not really half the story. It's such a small part of the story that needs to be told, which is why we've not sent one or two or three of the team. We got our famous 5 on the ground, trackside in the pit lane in the paddock, talking to people, looking at the cars observing them on the track walking the circuit as well to not only crunch the lap time, numbers, but be able to decode that. Along with their experience of reporting on Formula One for many years and also looking at the cars up close as well. Matt Q joins our coverage for Formula One this year at autosport alongside Hayden Cobb hour auto sport dot com editor who was on yesterday's podcast and at F one reporter Luke Smith. And joining me on tonight's are our technical editor Jake boxhall leg. And our Grand Prix editor Alex Keller got lots of questions that you guys I'm sure will answer on tonight's podcast. But first of all, I want to talk about issues bigger than Formula One, bigger than sports. And that is the news of Russia and Ukraine. Well, Hass will complete the final day of Formula One pre season testing with a plain white livery, or at least their livery which has the Hass in red letters, but without their sponsor and Luke Smith at F one reporter, sent us his take on the news and what's happening. Probably the biggest news this evening was relating to harsh, which is a team that has a Russian title sponsor or a Kali. And a Russian driver in Nikita Mazepin. He was due to appear in the same principles press conference earlier today, but he was pulled out of the last minute, so it left only four figures in there instead of 5. And the mazepin's press call was also canceled later in the day. Harsh announced this evening just to about to leave the circuit to Catalonia that the team would not be running with any oral Kali sponsorship on its car tomorrow. The team runs with red, white and blue colors that resembled Russian flag, all karlie has been the title sponsor of the team for the past two seasons and the team is known as karli Haas F one team. Harsh said it will be running in an all white livery tomorrow, the driver lineup of mazepin and Schumacher doing half day each. That will remain unchanged. While Sebastian Vettel said his mind was made up and I quote, my own opinion is I should not go, I will not go. I think it's wrong to race in that country. And we'll hear from what Max Verstappen said as the voice of Formula One's world champion in just a moment, but Alex, can I start with you actually and talk to you about what the feeling is in the pit and patty carry with the teams and even amongst fellow journalists as well about Formula One's decision to meet this evening with the team bosses and the organizers and the rights holders to talk about whether Formula One should go to Russia and indeed what Formula One is going to say about the bigger events happening in the world right now. It's a real shame that we are having to talk about this and that people in F one circles are doing so. They're obviously under a lot of pressure. You wait for a considering taking matches away from the Champions League. There's World Cup qualification matches that are under threat. Actions have to have consequences. Russia has invaded another sovereign country. It's inconceivable that it should be getting the prestige that comes with hosting sporting events. This is why whenever anybody says, oh, sport and politics don't mix politics shouldn't mix. He's getting it completely wrong. They're intrinsically linked because so many nations, even Britain, I know for a fact that the British government was very keen for the British Grand Prix to get on that COVID testing plan. So that it could show off how successful it's vaccination rollout was in the context of Brexit. You'll be outrageous if it goes ahead. And I think Sebastian Vettel, in particular, was commendable for coming out in the press conference and saying that he would refuse to go. Max Verstappen as well. He came out and said, when a country is at war, it is not right to race there. He's a young guy, but he is the world champion, so his words do carry real weight. So good on those guys for speaking out. But also, we've had some with the branding coming off. That's probably the right step as well. It's an awful situation, and hopefully it can get resolved very quickly. And as peacefully as possible. There is a GP racing podcast now like it was a few months ago. I'll find it before we publish and I'll put a link in the show notes where Mark Gallagher makes a really interesting point about politics and sport and actually he makes not defending any of these countries, but on that podcast Mark makes a really interesting point about where Formula One goes as a sport, whether that is to nations that kill journalists or to China that will suppress entire ethnic groups. And he says, you can make a case for Formula One to going to no country in the world, but there are exceptional circumstances, and I think what he would probably, you know, if we updated that podcast now, say, this is an exceptional circumstance. I've seen lots of obviously debate online. Yes, Formula One does to go to many contentious countries controversial as well, but this is hopefully people would agree. More of a special case. Now let's get on to today's action. Guys, I want to start with Ferrari first of all. Alex and I'll start with you. Now Charles Clark, yes, he topped the timesheets. He put in 78 laps. Carlos Sainz Jr. 71 laps. He was in 5th, but ignoring the timing screens for now. Something that I've mentioned yesterday, but I want to pick up a bit more on today. And that seems to be the reliability. Now testing is full of we had a small water leak here. There was a fuel pump pressure problem there. But some of the teams, Ferrari being one of those seems to have bulletproof reliability at the moment. Can we draw a line between that reliability and pace at this stage, you're the expert on this, how much can we read into that? I wouldn't have said so purely because Carlos Sainz Jr. has come out and said today, we can go up to four seconds faster. It's the sandbagging that comes with testing and in different stages of their programs. But what Ferrari is able to do because it has been so reliable has to chase a little bit of performance, but they say they're nowhere near getting that. But what's really what's really interesting with Ferrari is that the reliability is very impressive considering this is labeled a shakedown, not a test because the teams were so concerned and Formula One was concerned about the cost was not working. Which was always ridiculous because the rules of Formula One for years have improved reliability. Gearbox is only lasting a certain number of events. The same with the cap on engine parts in the pool. Have meant that these bits have got to get better and better and better. And the rule changes for 2022 are purely aerodynamic. The engine is going to be frozen. That's the other big update. And then there's obviously the restrictions on cost and things like that. There's very little expectation amongst from our side, certainly, that there is going to be a repeat of the rest 2014 situation, but there we go. But yeah, with Ferrari, it's really, really interesting..
The Autosport Podcast
"hayden cobb" Discussed on The Autosport Podcast
"New rule set and regulations changes. Join on the podcast tonight for a look back at not only the first day of testing slash shakedown. Like I said, we'll get into that and why it's called a shakedown in a moment, but also it's the first time that we really saw the secrets revealed of the Red Bull RB 18 and so in the second half of the podcast we're gonna get onto that properly and have a good look at that car and some of the things that we've seen just on the first day and give that some analysis. I'm joined on the podcast and I'd buy Jake boxhall leg our technical editor and also Hayden Cobb. He is the auto sport dot com editor, right? Hayden, kick us off if you will and actually before we even get into talking about what it's like being in the paddock once again in the media center and being in the F one circus. Talk us through what you guys are doing and just paint a picture for the listeners of the auto sport podcast about the kind of coverage that we're providing this year of testing here Bahrain and then leading into the first race. Obviously you guys are out there, Alex, call in orchestra at Grand Prix editor. Luke Smith, of course, Matt queue joins the Formula One team this year as well. Just talk us through what it's like and the kind of coverage that we're going to be making for our listeners our viewers our readers over the next few days and weeks. Yeah, so it's quite literally a 5 a side football team. So I've got 5 of us here. Jake and I, of course. And as you mentioned there, Alex and Luke Smith. And of course, Matt Q, who had been for a time, obviously covering formula E and now is moving into the world of F one from this season. And it's basically full on attack on this, as you say, test that's not a test, but it's a shakedown, but they put it very plainly. It is a test in every way. It sort of run in everything we've been familiar with. There are no fans. Of course, there's been cry out for it to be broadcast as well, but hopefully we're providing enough coverage of this shakedown contest for the readers and the listeners and the viewers, however you take on your auto sport media. Full live text coverage on every single minute and everything before and after of the test of three days, regular updates, Twitter, q-and-as, of course, the podcast that we're currently speaking on right now, post day videos, I've probably forgotten tiktoks. There's going to be a few tiktoks I've seen as well. So that's basically and of course the magazine. How could I even forget? I will be in trouble with Kevin Turner for getting them last, but yes, pretty much every base is covered that we could possibly think of for this for this week. And what was it like this morning, I presume it was you didn't go yesterday, you walked into the circuit this morning, crack a dawn first thing. What was that like? The atmosphere. That's right, so yes, we weren't allowed in yesterday because a couple of teams were doing the filming filming day and sort of private stuff. We could hear them. We're lucky enough to be in a hotel that is literally next door to the circuit. And when I was working from the hotel, I could hear the cars or a car go around the circuit yesterday. So that was actually quite a nice buzz and turning out this morning. A lot of anticipation, a little bit quiet. As I said before, because there are no fans often when I've been to these tests over the years, even at that time in the morning, there will be Formula One fans milling about in the grandstands, trying to have a look into the garages to get a first glimpse of the cars. But of course, there's none of that there. So not that you're sort of teaming with fans for these sorts of tests in normal times, but it does sort of missed that sort of attention and that buzz. So yeah, apart from that, it felt very normal. And then when we got cars on track and everything sort of felt very normal and very familiar. And then for our listeners who, like me, were following from back in the UK with the auto sport live feed, which YouTube guys were in charge of today. And it was interesting looking at some of the pictures. One of our colleagues, Adam Cooper, posted a picture from top down, like you're taking it from the media center as it were. Is that the access that we're allowed at the moment, how close can you guys get to the cars? Because there's a great piece on autosport plus from Alex kalanos. I Grand Prix editor who talks about walking around the circuit and watching the cars from corner to corner. So is that something that they're restricting? Could you guys have done that if you were allowed and kind of what access in this coming out of COVID time is Formula One app with you guys? It is, as you say, slowly getting back to normal. Of course, they don't want to open everything up and create problems of 2020 scale. But yes, pit lane is open, journalists and media can get down there. Obviously, there's the various restrictions not to overload it. Otherwise everyone would just be sitting outside your Red Bull or your Ferrari garage waiting for the car to come out and it would look a bit messy and probably quite dangerous. But yes, so restricted on numbers purely from a safety point of view, nothing to do with COVID necessarily. Alex went trackside for most of the day to watch the cars in the flesh what people what we all love to do and see how they're behaving where they're strong where they're weak and these sort of early times. And yeah, very fascinating watching is if you were sort of a photographer, that sort of area or part of the TV crew, obviously you're not literally track siders and you can't go high 5 land on earth when he's flying past turn one, but if you had a long pole and you wanted to cause a lot of travel, you probably could, but I highly recommend not doing that. Like the best access is often our colleagues at motor sport images. We're part of the same company. They've got the tabards, they've got just the best access. So yeah, and they really see it all probably in far more than we'll ever see because they know that by and large they won't sort of reveal the dirty secrets they don't want to be seen, but paddock itself also feels a bit more normal, I would say as well. There's still a combination of your Zoom calls and going up to drivers and physics sort of checking the hands, asking how they are. But it's normal as it's ever been for COVID times. I mentioned at the beginning as well, Jake box or LEGO technical editor. This year wearing two hats because hey, I mean, we're just rinsing you for a little bit more. About ten days ago, you were finishing up the Mexico E Prix because you are our man at formula E this year..
The Autosport Podcast
"hayden cobb" Discussed on The Autosport Podcast
"You'll notice I'm not Ariana. In just a few hours she'll be flying off to Abu Dhabi with the rest of the F one paddock. So instead, I'm temporarily taking the reins, and I'm joined by Luke Smith, F one reporter for auto sport and Hayden Cobb editor of autosport dot com. But before we all try and make sense of exactly how that Grand Prix played out, for those listeners who tune into the podcast for the results, and we know there are a few of you. Here's the short version. In a bizarre race that required two restarts and four virtual safety cars, Lewis Hamilton beat Max Verstappen to victory to set up a final round showdown as they head to Abu Dhabi level on points. That's the first time that's happened since 1974 with McLaren's Emerson Fittipaldi, battling Ferraris clay regazzoni for the championship. Bottas took third from ocon in a dash to the line on the final lap, finishing just a few meters ahead. Behind them, Ricardo managed to climb up to 5th, followed by gasly, leclerc, saints, jovina, and a disappointed Lando Norris rise up the points in tenth. Max Verstappen picked up a 5 second time penalty for passing off the track, and after the race was issued a ten second time penalty for sudden breaking and causing a collision for the break check incident with Lewis Hamilton. But that penalty didn't end up affecting the results as Bottas was 16 seconds behind max. There were two red flags, two standing restarts, three different pole sitters, four virtual safety cars, and at least two clashes between the title rivals in a race which is easily the most frantic of the year. And with that said, and I'm pretty surprised that we managed to get such a succinct summary considering the action, I wanted to kick off the podcast as we usually do guys by asking you for your ratings for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. I'm really interested to know what you guys are going to say. I think there's such a mixed feeling towards this race for various reasons, but Luke, why don't we start off with you? What was your rating for the race? Yeah, very mixed feelings, actually, because we've had this amazing fight between Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen. Don't get me wrong, it was incredible to see the instance and everything that happened. And there was so much drama throughout the race, but in terms of actual strategy or intrigue or on track action, it wasn't actually like overtaking or anything like that and a raw fight between the two title rivals. Yeah, maybe it maybe didn't hit some of the heights that we've seen earlier in the season. So there's a bit of a funny one. I thought it was a bit of a messy race with all of the VSC's and debris and everything like that going on. And yeah, it was kind of we kept having these continual battles where we had Lewis will get close to max, max would then be aggressive, Louis would have to back out, we keep repeating that basically. So yeah, I would probably give it a 7 or an 8, I would say. I probably I think, yeah, it's not the kind of race. It's a race on me don't remember and we will remember this so so much. It's so exciting for the championship. But in terms of an out and out race, I think if you take away that lead battle throughout the rest of the field, actually it was quite tame in places. So yeah, I would go with the name. It was a very memorable race and a good race and many places, but it wasn't a ten out of ten or anything like that. For me, can I have two ratings, please? I'll explain why. First one is the entertainment side of it in terms of what makes an entertaining race and I think you've got to go ten out of ten for that because like you say there is so much going on. I'm so impressed the way you summed it up in about three minutes because just trying to cover it in the written form, it's like pages upon pages of everything. So it just had a little bit everything that you almost forget little instances to happen here or there, which for the spectator taking out the sporting purist take on it. It just was incredible and difficult to kick up with. But as Luke said, I think yeah, from perhaps more to what was pure sporting racing situation, take a few marks down from there. I'd agree on the 7, because yes, the back of the front was great, but maybe we didn't see a great deal else going on, but that probably because of the Java suit carnage that was actually unfolding everywhere you looked. Yeah, it was definitely, I think a controversial, I don't even want to because obviously it's been questioned as to whether we are even going to call it a race. And I guess in the fallout in the quotes that have come out post race, max and Red Bull have very much vocalized the fact that they don't believe this is Formula One, that this was an example of penalties and politics, getting in the way of quote unquote racing. Which I'm sure we're going to get on to when we get around to the penalties. But I thought I have to agree with you guys in terms of, I mean, my heart rate, I don't think dipped below one 60 BPM for that entire length of time of the race. Maybe see your doctor about that. I mean, genuinely, I felt like I'd been treat this trait this is therapy. This is a safe space for you. It's time to talk over the troubles that we've just witnessed and go from there. I mean, it's been great. I feel like I don't have to go for a run, because I basically did, however, long we had of some hard cardio based on the fact that it just never seemed to want to calm down. It just had every time you thought it couldn't twist anymore. It twisted again. And the momentum just seemed to swing between Lewis and max throughout. But in order for us to really process and analyze and give the listeners a bit of a viewpoint on exactly what happened out in Saudi Arabia today, I thought we would try and attack this by going through it in chronological order. Just the major points otherwise we will probably be doing a 5 hour podcast, but why don't we begin? Because I guess to your point Luke, the race started off quite simply, given the start for formula two, we'd seen that it can get quite chaotic and there was also throughout the weekend the worries about the safety of the track and formula two with the crash that we saw in formula two as well. Not necessarily to do with the circuit itself, but obviously was quite a harsh start of race procedures today. What did you make of the start of the Grand Prix? And what did you believe was going to be playing out? Did you think it was going to be that boring the whole way through? Or did you know that chaos was most likely coming? It was a quite a serene start and it tallies with a lot of Italy's with what a lot of drivers said that it would be one of two races that would either be chaos and crazy and lots going on or it would be very tame and not a lot happens. And I think back to Baku when it had its first race, the F two race was absolutely crazy. All of the F one guy saw it and thought, okay, if I take it easy and just get to the finish, that will probably be enough..