17 Burst results for "Nick De Vries"
The Autosport Podcast
"nick de vries" Discussed on The Autosport Podcast
"There is an argument that there's not a lot that you always nothing they can do about Aston Martin developing their way into a good position. But yeah, where do you see Alpine and McLaren making that? But having just said that, who could have predicted what Aston were going to do. So it is possible. And I think it's really interesting talking to some of the members of the team, particularly some of you guys down at Williams. They're actually inspired by seeing what Aston have done because it's like right. This is possible. It's a good story for Formula One and it's a good story for a lot of the teams. It's just ultimately, you know, it's the prize money thing, right? They're going to end up not doing as well because they haven't done good enough job. I'm going to get into that. Next, take a quick break and I'm going to dig into that a little bit more about what we should be expecting to see teams doing this year. Stick around back in a second. All right, let's talk about that. At the point, Alex just made teams being inspired by Aston Martin, revealed a car a year ago that was second slowest and by the middle of the season had a new development path and were on their way. And yet multiple times when I've asked people about Mercedes since the beginning of this year, I'm often told how Mercedes is going to dig themselves out of the Maya and people often say, well, in a cost cap era, that's really difficult. So those two things can't be true, Aston Martin did it in a cost cap era and didn't break the cost cap. So Mercedes should be able to do it. They've got a team of people that know how to win. Well, championships am I being a bit too simplistic? Only because astin made its major gain over a winter, like it did make significant gains in 2022, like I said, Phil, we're about to go after Melbourne, and I remember watching FP three with Andrew van leeuwen and Sebastian Vettel which has binned it because there was no down force and it was porpoising horrifically. And the car was just slow. They had made significant gains. They were up there a threat to the podium positions on merit in Austin and things like that. They would as well inconsistent. But then they had the new car coming behind. And that's really where they've made their game. So I take the point, I do take the point, but that is not quite the same comparison. Okay. Okay. So while the teams can do it, they can do an Aston over the next year or 18 months. It just refreshing to see this narrative of the cost cap has baked in this advantage for the big teams and the small teams will never be able to make a big step. I think that's been dispelled and I think that's really encouraging for Formula One. Let's look at I'm not giving a full rundown. Apologies listeners. A terrible podcast host. I should do that at the beginning of the podcast every week. You know Sergio Pérez won from Max Verstappen and Fernando Alonso, who is back on the podium. George Russell Lewis Hamilton, science and leclerc in 6th and 7th, then ocon and gastly all going two by two and Kevin Magnussen in the house. Yuki tsunoda was just outside the point. He was inside the points, but he was 11th Nico hulkenberg 12th. Zhou guang yu in 13th Nick de vries in the AlphaTauri 14th Oscar piastre got past Logan sergeant finish 15th legan sergeant 16th, which I still think a good drive though, by the way, we get into that. And Lando Norris 17th Valtteri Bottas, classified 18th. Let me talk a little bit about McLaren, the Williams and that back end of the grade with AlphaTauri teams that are not where they should be or teams that are probably quite happy with how they're doing. McLaren couldn't pass. Well, okay, so Lando Norris in a McLaren couldn't pass a Williams, even with DRS. That actually panic stations at McLaren. Well, whether it's team orders and piastre got past him, he did get past Logan sergeant. Eventually. But Kev, this is, this is a difficult Monday morning to wake up to at McLaren, isn't it? Yeah, but they were kind of expecting weren't they? We talked about this after Bahrain that they were quite pleased because they thought it was going to be even worse than it was. And they got a load of updates coming. So I think they'll be encouraged by piastres performance in qualifying. I think we now can see that he is for whatever reason to step up from Ricardo in the second car. Obviously Landau had a little mistake in qualifying, which had big consequences, so he was kind of out of it from there. I was not like carrying a problem. Why did they switch the cars around? If Lando's the number one. Can I just jump in very, very quickly? It wasn't a little mistake, Kev. You didn't beat in the car. But it was a poor mistake. It was important. A little fire, a little size mistake, but it was bad from land. I think, and I know he reads my driver ratings. He should be very lucky that he's not being rated on qualifying this season now. Okay, so I think panic stations at McLaren more so than I ever ever have done based on today's you run. I mean, by which I mean the reason why not the 80s. Early 90s. I don't think there was many panic stations during that era. But yeah, I'm still not yet. Let's get to some more normal tracks. I don't think it's going to be quite as terrible as it looks at the moment. Don't forget they both had incidents on the first lap. They weren't down the back on Lando's end yet because you hit the wall and then you had to come in and get his nose changed and pastry was just, was he unlucky? I think it was just one of those unfortunate things that at that corner is possible to get a little bit squeezed and he just did with the Alpine. So yeah, unfortunate more at the start there for McLaren than any sort of shock reason for them being back there.
The Autosport Podcast
"nick de vries" Discussed on The Autosport Podcast
"Second round and he's getting penalties already. But they seemed quicker, at least a day, does this track suit the Ferraris more than Bahrain, are they going to be hopeful for Sunday? It should do with regards to tyre wear because this is something that's been a bugbear Ferraris for a little while now and they're not so great at managing the tyres and Bahrain really exacerbates that and it really magnifies that issue, particularly just because the tarmac is so abrasive the tarmac and Jeddah isn't anywhere near like that. So with regards to tyre wear and that kind of thing, it shouldn't affect Ferrari quite so much. But they were honestly a little bit surprised to be second in qualifying. And you know, without Verstappen's issue, yeah, it would have been P three, but that's still a good effort, nonetheless, to be a tenth and a half away from Perez's ultimate time. It does take that penalty, but he thinks that a podium again is very much possible. Leclerc said, you know, it's more possible for Carlos Sainz than it is for him, but it's something that Ferrari feels that it's achievable. And it knows that it's better with regards to race pace over qualifying, which I think is another contributing factor to why they were slightly surprised. But yeah, it's not all doom and gloom at Ferrari. Bahrain was a difficult round for them with regards to reliability and with tire wear. And they've been really behind the 8 ball so far this weekend, you know, the Ferraris haven't been really factoring at the top of the time sheets. There is the suspicion that they were perhaps running their engines quite detuned because they were just losing so much time in the straight lines in practice, but in qualifying, yeah, they seem to be much, much better in much better shape. And yeah, we'll see how they get on tomorrow if they can fight for a podium. If they can find something over Alonso that maybe Alonso had over them in Bahrain, we'll have to wait and see. Yeah, let's hope that Ferrari power unit is robust, they're not de rating it or anything because it was still good. Some decent performances at times for Hass now from over the weekend as well. So we'll wait and see on that in terms of that midfield battle when we thought we were going to be talking about Aston Alpine McLaren. Things are working out a little bit different this year with Aston Martin's progress, Alpine line up with ocon in 6th and gasly in 9th. Bahrain was a weird one because we saw ghastly making progress through the field ocon collecting time penalty. So I feel like we haven't really just had a chance to see them start where they should do and then progress from there. Is that where you expected them to be? This is probably a little bit more in line with what they promised as a team, perhaps over the off season. The car has been really, really strong. And it does seem quite wayward. So I was down one, two, and then it turns 22 and 23 on Friday. You could see the red balls going through the Aston Martins going through really, really, really stable. The Alpine looked a little bit all limbs kind of all a little bit wayward. It just seemed to produce the lap time where it needed to. To see gasly and knock on, up there, it's not it's probably where it should be given the progress that it's made. Ocon did have a little bit of a moment where he very nearly lost the current qualifying. And just about managed to keep it on the road. That was an issue that he had to face and he had to deal with, but it was a very, really strong performance from our pain. They'd looked really strong all weekend. So it's not a surprise given the context of the weekend to see them up there doing quite so well. Well, Oscar piastre and Lando Norris had both a little sniff of the wall this weekend. Oscar piastre getting away with it and in his second qualifying for McLaren, starting 8th on the road. Lando Norris down in 19th I had to retire him. Can you explain what happened to Lando Norris and if we heard from piastre afterwards as well? He must be made up. Let's be honest, it was sonoris fault there. He just got a little bit too overeager with trying to take the apex into the turn 27, which is the final corner. And just clip the wall when you do that, when you clip a concrete wall with your front left tyre, you're going to break something. And you could see that sort of tire wiggle where the suspension was just broken. And there was no chance of getting him back out in time. So that ended Norris session pretty much immediately. He'd managed to get at a lap in and this was his going to be a second lap that was a bit stronger, but unfortunately he wasn't able to clock that. Bias tree was really, really strong. And it was really good to see him in his first race doing such a first season doing such a good job given the difficulties that he endured in Bahrain. He did say that he was very, very careful when it came to Jared because he has raced at the circuit before in formula two. He's won here twice back when formula two was doing three races a weekend for some unknown reason. But he hasn't raced here for over a year. So he was slowly trying to build up for it. Slowly get used to it because it's such a difficult circuit for a rookie to deal with. But he was getting more and more comfortable. The lap time just seemed to come for him. And ultimately, yeah, he did a really, really good job. McLaren still knows that it's behind and it still has a lot of work to do with regards to its concept and development, but that really difficult Bahrain. The picture doesn't seem so bad now. And realistically, Norris probably should have been in Q three as well, given his pace in practice sessions. Maybe you've got a couple of tents on pediatric as well. So you would have to expect both of them to be in on had things been a little bit normal. Norris sort of given maybe a little bit of a quarter there in Q one. Yeah, people were quick to write off McLaren bottom of the constructors after the first round, but we haven't seen them do a full event yet, so a normal weekend. So this could be it. JBL, thank you very much. It's late here, which means it's very late for you. I appreciate you coming on the podcast. Thank you for that. We look forward to. Hearing more from you. This season. That is your podcast for today. I'll finish off Nico hulkenberg in tenth, Zhou guang knew in 11th, Charles Clarke 12th as I mentioned, Kevin Magnussen and his ass in his 13th place Valtteri Bottas is 14th, followed by Max Verstappen 15th, three places behind Charles Leclerc, big action last year. They won't be doing the dance for the DRS activation line because that's been moved till after the apex boo spoiling our fun, but they will be on a similar piece of the track as they both make their way through the field. A UK Samoa 16th Alex Alban in the Williams 17th Nick de vries in the AlphaTauri 18th Lando 19th, as we mentioned in Logan sergeant 20th. That is your lineup for Sunday. Thank you for listening to the podcast. And we'll catch you tomorrow. Podcast network.
The Autosport Podcast
"nick de vries" Discussed on The Autosport Podcast
"It will be exciting, but it will also be disruptive. And I would have thought that we should really start to see all the benefits of their new facility, not so much in 24, but 25, and then into the new era, new regulations, 26. So it's a really important investment. And incidentally, you know, obviously Aston Martin having had a very good pre season test. More good news on today while we are recording the podcast, which is a vast and not in the gonda. Lawrence Stroll's car company that he's invested so much money in and spent a lot of time and effort trying to get pointed the right direction. They have announced today profitability for the first time since the company was floated on the stock exchange four and a half years ago. And the share price is soared by about 14% just today. So it goes to show that things are pointing in the right direction generally, both for the not just the F one team, but for the car company. And fair play to Lauren stroll for sticking at it and putting the money in to make all of that possible. Shame land stroll can't point a bicycle in the right direction, isn't it? Do we know for a fact that he came off as well as his bicycle he came off, did he break both wrists? Well, there's a lot of things that are being said. They say it was a bicycle accident, obviously there are those people who say, is this like quite a man Pablo Monty. Han man Pablo Juan Pablo Montoya's so called tennis accident. The tennis accident stood in the tennis ball. And then there are people quite close to the team who say that there are he does have or at least last week did have steel pins in there, which suggests he won't be racing, but yeah, the bizarre cage eNOS of the team in the run up to the first Grand Prix and the test whilst very bizarre and you kind of feel that perhaps that was driven by Lauren sim himself who has faith in the power of his money and Swiss clinics to make anything happen and so he didn't want to rule out the possibility of Lance driving. And indeed, you know, as we speak, there's still been no news. It's looking like it was going to be Felipe drugovich. There was a very silly story doing the rounds based on speculation that Sebastian Vettel would pop out of retirement. It's actually in Vettel who is on holiday with his family and entertaining his kids by the beach right now, so not available for the Bahrain Grand Prix. It'll be great if drug a bitch gets that run because I do think too many times GP two champions in formula two champions have sat by the sidelines and kind of stalls their career and wouldn't it be nice to see a formula two champion not only get the break, get the break in the first race with the team that seems to have got a pretty handy car. So it'd be a nice turn up for the books. It'll rather it'll be very interesting because Lance Lance is clearly a competent racing driver, but the team will see what drugovich can do in that car. And it'll be very interesting then to look at the data that they get from that. And if lands ends up out for a second race of drug events, we should do the first two races. He will get to know the car very well and it'll be very interesting to see how he matches against Fernando Alonso. I've always had the belief that sooner or later Lawrence and Lance will have the conversation that he's had his opportunity and the team will move on and I think it's still too early for that to happen, but that will happen one day and should happen one day. And it'll be an interesting dynamic to see what happens with Lance being replaced in this first race or two. If I could have it at a flip on extra to that of the more number of races that Lance stories out on the sidelines, the longer it delays the inevitable fallout between Alonso and bowed strolls, I suppose. So it would be interesting because Mark saying sort of about what Djokovic can do and how close he gets to Alonso, but I suppose that that curve is sort of exponential, isn't it? Because the longer Djokovic is in the car, the more familiar he becomes, a more refined, and more ingratiated to the team. The bigger the catch up that Lance has to do having come back potentially from a physically quite severe injury. There's rumor that he's being treated by the same specialist that basically reattached Marc Marquez's arm. So the longer he's rusting us, the physical demands, the lack of time he'll have in a simulator and then it becomes one, two, three races, obviously Lance trolls had several seasons, F one, but maybe it's one, two, three races for him to get back to speed where Djokovic was and then before you know it, that could be first third of the season gone. We don't know, but an interesting and interesting sub thread. Well, I suppose that's what Reddit is. A subplot is what more traditional, isn't it? Yes, and this is the Reddit. This is a corner of the Internet, so I don't delve into being a bit late. I was interested and slightly confused not to say bemused by the run plans they had for drugovich during testing because he sort of seemed to be doing the majority of his running during daytime. He took the a.m., but like the pre lunch slot on the days he drove. Which basically is track conditions completely irrelevant to the way the Grand Prix would pan out on the Grand Prix weekend. So you couldn't really draw anything, particularly from the times he set, and certainly even if they had bolted on a set of sticky tyres, he wouldn't have been able to set a particularly representative lap time. Oh, well, representative of the condition as they were before lunch. But not in ideal time. So you kind of think what were they playing at? Completely. I wonder, again, the cynical part of me wonders how much of that might have been a Fernando Alonso land grabbed that I want the most competitive Sessions the most representative so I'm in a best dad and obviously that's to some extent that's in the team's interest because if for this first race while everyone's getting up to speed, there is a 5th place fragrance site going up for grabs, maybe it's better to get one car in 5th and the other one in 12 than it is to get to one night and once tenth with a sort of smaller spread. So I wonder if that's attached but I'd also say maybe we're reading too much into it because I thought considering they are rookies you need to get off up to F one's speed. I thought piastre drugovich and Nick de vries had really bizarre run plans like piastre was just given not even racing relations, just tool around evaluate certain things and P two seconds off the pace. If it wasn't for Alpine just doing nothing representative because their run plan I spoke to a few people at the team was literally we've got this new suspension. So we're going to go through every single click to see how it reacts and not chose times. We just want to isolate what does what? So apart from those guys going really slow, none of the rookies were sort of really, really up there. And you looked they were just some of them were just sent out on the prototypes or the hard tyres and we'll see you in a couple of hours sort of thing really sort of lame and up and representative. I know a few of them have said that they're qualifying their forte. So maybe they're hoping they can just sort of for FP three and Colleen and Bahrain they can just turn up and nail it. But maybe they haven't had the privilege of a low fuel dusk run yet to see what they can really do, but perhaps that's why they're out of Kyoto and Djokovic victim victim to that perhaps a little bit. Just picking up on what you're saying there I also thought it was very interesting that max was Max Verstappen was quite happy to let Sergio Pérez do the final part of the test and its entirety. It was almost a kind of an indication of the degree of confidence. I don't even need to do that. I think we know where we are. Actually, we could do with helping Sergio to get up to speed and get himself a little bit more geared into that car. So yeah, you can read there's a lot to be read into who does what and during those testings. But testing, but I thought it was quite telling Red Bull's confidence and Marx's personal confidence in the car is pretty sky high. Max seems to have
The Autosport Podcast
"nick de vries" Discussed on The Autosport Podcast
"Leg two sunny Valencia for the preseason test to spy on these new generation cars. So today we'll find out what's so special about gen three, which drivers and teams. He thinks you should look out for, and if this is the reset formulary needs to step up into the motor sport mainstream, let's get up to speed with that expert Jake boxel leg, JBL. Welcome back to the podcast first one this year. How was Christmas and new year? Was it satisfactory? I was lovely, thank you. Yeah, it was a really nice couple of weeks. I think it just hit in that middle of that cold snap. And then I was off to formula E testing, so there was a swing of about 1920°, I think, because it was very, very, very lovely weather in Valencia. And then coming back to a slightly less salubrious climbs, let's say. It took a little bit of getting used to, but yeah, it's been less December, ready, relaxed and ready to go back at it again. So you're going to jump on a plane very soon head off to Mexico City for the first of, oh, I haven't made a note of this. I want to say 18 E threes. Is that right? 16. Oh, there you go. I managed to be massively incompetent in the first three minutes of the podcast. Let's get a little word on how formula E wrapped up last year. So we put stoffel van Doorn 6th in our top 50 drivers. Lists. Where did we leave that last generation of cars in terms of who was doing well who wasn't doing so well and who left and who was joining? Well, obviously I think I can answer both of those questions with one in Mercedes, obviously being fantastic. We're not totally dominant. You can't really be so dominant and formula E because all of the cars are so close together, but there was that sense that they were just the best team in terms of execution in terms of, let's say, professionalism, not that all of the teams aren't, but it just had this sort of extra Sheen that maybe the other teams didn't have. And obviously winning two teams titles back to back, Nick de vries winning the previous season and then stuff of van dawn winning the title last season in Seoul. That was kind of the state of play and then obviously we had Mitch Evans managing to take it down to the wire despite an electrical issue in London that kind of had essentially put him out of the title fight, but he came back, he rallied. He won the first soul race and then I think finished 6th in the second. So it wasn't able to give vandal and too much of a run for his money. It's been almost a year since we had the reveal of the kind of final iteration of the gen three race car in Monaco. So now we can't wait to go racing with it this weekend. What are some of the key stats and benchmarks that mean the gen three cars are a really big step up from what we've seen racing in formula E so far? I'm going to throw a lot of numbers that you Martin. I hope you like them. There are a lot of big numbers, that's good. The gen two car had a drive motor of 250 kW and this new car has 350, so 100 more and so that's what we're going to see in attack mode and in qualifying mode that 350 kW mapping and then the standard race mode will be 300 kW. But there's also a front mounted motor as well. It doesn't contribute to the overall power output of the car, but it contributes to the regeneration, so that produces 250 kW of region. So that's 600 kW in total. Overall, in the course of a race, around 40% of the energy that's being used by each car will come from that regeneration phase, which is, I think that's up about 15% from the old car, maybe more. It's really, really changed in how the cars regenerate because there's no rear brakes anymore, which I'll get onto in a bit because it's caused a little bit of an issue later down the line, but this means that all the stopping power from the back is going to come from regen. The way that the drivers operate it is going to be completely different as well. There used to be a kind of paddle on the steering wheel. So you'd pull the paddle and that would then put the region through the rear motor and then fill up the battery, but it's going to be completely different now because it's all going to be done through sort of driver mapping and that sort of thing. So it's not something that they have to do manually. The battery is smaller because of that greater region. It means that they don't have to lumber around all of these big cells. So the last battery was 52 kWh. It was a very, very heavy battery. The new battery produced by Williams, it was a lot smaller, and I think it's around before C 5 46 kWh, so it's a small battery overall. It doesn't need to carry as much. Obviously, with the gen two era, obviously cars would say crash into each other quite a bit, so they were obviously lots of bits of debris all over the circuit. And then when you went to the kind of what I'm going to loosely call the recycling area attract, there was lots of different bits of pieces of car there. These have all been able to be recycled to use in the body work for the gen three car set. That's quite a feat. The gen three cars probably won't produce as much debris because we don't have these big wheel fenders and random bits of body work everywhere. It's slightly more leaned down in that respect. So those are I think the key statistics, the key facts, and then other changes as well to kind of be aware of. Hand cook is now supplying the tires. Michelin supplied them for the first two generations and now hand cooks taken over. And these tyres are sort of quite low grip in comparison. So you can see these drivers properly sort of dancing on the limit. They're really sliding around. And that's something that they're going to have to get used to. Something the team is going to have to get used to as well because they have no data on this tire and they have no data with this car. So they've got to work out of the car works and how to sort of set up properly to get the most out of the tyres and then the tires might do something completely different so they've got to play around with something else. So it's a really big challenge for them. So just to get some clarification on the dual motor setup, so front axle rear axle, but not four wheel drive because the front motor never actually drives the wheel. So just to get that clear in my mind, that front motor's solely exists for regen. So do you think that energy management will continue to play a part of the strategical game in formula E? Just because we have all of this, all of this region, we're still going to have there are still limits, as I said, the battery is smaller. So more predisposed to pushing more energy in. I think maybe if the front region motor kind of offsets the smaller battery, then we're still going to have bits and parts of the race where energy management is key and it's something that I think formula E is very, very proud of doing. It kind of shows how all of these manufacturers, if you like are able to improve their efficiency and push the limits with that, just to kind of make it, it's not going to, it's never going to be completely road relevant because the way that you use the battery is completely different to what you have in a road going EV. In terms of having that efficiency and saying, look, we're able to produce a motor and a powertrain setup that's over 95% efficient and we can do that in a road cars. I think that's something that formula E once it's manufacturers to kind of utilize. So they're still going to be energy management. It's still going to be a big part of things. There's still going to be extra time at the end of races as well. We'll talk about the sporting stuff in a bit, but that's still there to ensure that teams do manage energy rather than just go to the end with a third of a battery pack available in the last couple of laps and everyone's going flat out and nothing really happens. Okay, so with top speeds of 200 miles an hour or 322 km/h and 350 kW of power on that rear motor that's 470 brake horsepower equivalent. This feels like these cars are a big step up from what we've had previously, but will that change the kind of circuits that we go racing on because, you know, you went
The Autosport Podcast
"nick de vries" Discussed on The Autosport Podcast
"Something ridiculous like Daniel Ricciardo? It's not something ridiculous, like Daniel Ricciardo. Q you want to steal? Sorry, can I just, can I just confirm? This is full-time drivers full time drivers correct. In that case, I'm going to throw it to, I think, I think I've written about Latifi breaking down a fair bit and crushing. It was not him either. Alex, final shot. Mick Schumacher. Oh. Nope, the answer. It was Carlos Sainz 1033 laps. Can I ask then? Does that so even though album missed all of the Italian Grand Prix still racked up more ups and signs, I suppose he did better off pretty early in Australia and imola, yeah. Yes, the first erases and still completed more laps. So yes. I did. But yes, Carlos Sainz. So it means we're still all tied up between you guys after halfway through the first round. Q, we're coming on to you now. Now both yourself and Alex are graduates of formula E into Formula One. And Nick de vries, he became the second formerly graduate to make it onto the F one grid if there is such a thing. But who was the first person to do that? Oh, I can say Alex Albon was extricated from his Nissan idams deal, but I have a feeling he did a cameo race a few years before, so I'm gonna lock that in, I think. Final answer, Alexa one is incorrect. I'm afraid. Alex, do you want to steal? I mean, I'm nervous now, but I think it's Pierre gasly. It is Pierre gasly around. He
The Autosport Podcast
"nick de vries" Discussed on The Autosport Podcast
"And yeah, he had a great day. He was on cloud 9 when we spoke to him afterwards and he said that when I signed I was 90% happy because the team was, I thought it would be good, but they had not had a superb stars this season. Then when they finished the season said, I was a 100% happy because they'd made this massive improvement and he said now I'm a hundred plus percent happy. So it's going up and up. Yeah, he said that the atmosphere he could feel was so special. He said it's amazing, strive for another iconic brand, having driven for Ferrari as well. He said that he had a bit of left back pain because the seat wasn't quite fitted correctly and things like that in terms of his adjustment so his little things, but he said basically today I was about getting used to all the systems and everything but he's really, really pleased with what he found. So yeah, very happy Fernando Alonso he's I think fully on board thinking I made the right move for next year and there was an interesting comment that someone asked him about the engine reliability, which obviously was such a weak point for our pen this year and cost him so many points and he said that when he was told the mileage of the engine when he got into the car this morning he was a bit worried because he said by my standards that's like really, really high, but around without missing a beat and he said the reliability is outstanding. So yes, already little maybe little veiled digs going towards his former team. About halfway through the day, as you pointed out earlier on your Twitter, Luke Smith, F one, if Alice has won a follow you, he was the first out this morning. I think he was asked halfway through the day how it's going. I forget who it was posted that and I think his answer was, it was different. And it kind of made me think of that. That Friends seen dredging things out of the memory banks where Ross Ross hasn't. Well, tell me about it, then if you want to talk about it, was it better or worse? He goes, wow. It was just different. And I'm like, no, Fernando. Just say it's better. You've left your old team. He was then asked. Was it better? Better different. And he just smiled and didn't say anything. Funny. And let's talk a little bit about Haas actually. And their drivers today. Yeah, Nico hulkenberg, he's back in an F one car. He's finally obviously announced last Thursday. He swept him yesterday as well, and he's ready to return to F one for the first time in what three years next year. And today was important for him to get fully up to pace, obviously. He said he was dragging a little bit physically towards the end said there was sort of human degradation going on in terms of just doing the laps. He did a 110 laps, so I think that's to be expected. For any number fans out there, I'm treating all the fans of various niches today. He did a one minute 27.000 and his number is 27, so that's a brief moment of satisfaction in the media center. Let's talk, oh, and who was he driving with today? Pietro Fittipaldi. Yes, as you say, Emerson's grandson. He's been reserved, obviously, for the past couple of years, made two Grand Prix starts at the end of 2020 when Roman Grosjean had his accident, but as the rules say it's two or less starts, he is eligible as a rookie for this test. And yeah, it's unclear what he's going to be doing next year with Haas if he's going to continue with the team or not against Steiner said in Brazil, it kind of depends on what Pietro wants to do in terms of racing, how available is, but yeah, that's something to keep an eye on. AlphaTauri, just to finish off the last couple of teams, who was driving for them today. So they had Nick de vries making his debut for them, he's on loan from Mercedes still he's been Mercedes reserve driver for the past couple of years. We didn't get a chance to speak to him. He was also in unbranded overalls, but the car was fully decked up. He did more laps than anybody else there, a 151, so that's a real mammoth, stint by him in the car, but a good chance for him to kind of get scripts with where things are at. And they had Yuki Snowden on the other side of the garage here. Yeah, also did a huge number of laps a 135, so what two 8 6? That's a lot of laps in the day for Alfa towery. So yeah, very productive by them. A different running and different intensity, but almost doing a three or two and a half race distance over a day again. It's going to take its time a little bit sore. I imagine tomorrow, but he's fine. He can he can cope with that. And finally, Williams, fill us in. Yeah, Logan Sargent confirmed finally as a Formula One driver yesterday, we knew he had the super license we knew it was coming, but they made that final announcement yesterday after noon. And he said, yeah, it felt a little bit different today getting in the car knowing like I'm not this isn't an FP one and it's not like I've got to be super gentle and make sure that I don't crash it and also I get my hundred kilometers in the super license point that he can now just go for it with
The Autosport Podcast
"nick de vries" Discussed on The Autosport Podcast
"Available in formula two? How close is it to an F one car? Probably helpful to give an example. So if you look at Monza for lap times for comparison, Alexander Somalia's F three pole time monzo was one 37.559 seconds. Jack dewan's F two pole time was a one minute 31.641, it's about just under 6 seconds quicker. And Charles Leclerc's F one poll time was a one 20.161. So it fits F two fits in that gap between the F three time and the F one time. So as you move up the single seater feeder series pyramid, the cars get a bit quicker. So you're looking at about one 31 around Monza for F two if you're looking for pole position. So it's about still about ten seconds slower around monster a lap than F one, but they're still pretty rapid. And of course, they sound different as well because they haven't got the Formula One hybrid technology, which does kind of mute the raspiness of Formula One a little bit, but you've been trackside for us in formula two this year. So they do sound. I don't know, a little more like a traditional combustion engine. Their throaty is the word I would describe it. They've got a real, they've got a real retro umph to them. Like I think a lot of a lot of people with F one, people have complained, whether I agree with this or not, is not the point. People have complained about the sound of modern F one cars. But F two and F three cars have got that real V 6. So they sound pretty good. And they smell pretty good as well. And then so just set the table for us a little bit coming into the 2022 season. It's weird that we're reviewing it and it's not over, but it's not weird because we do have a driver's champion. Who are the big teams coming into this year who were the champions coming into this year and if you can cast your mind back to Bahrain was a while ago now. Who were the ones that we were talking about the ones to watch? Prima have long been the top team in F two. They won the modern the modern iteration of F two started in 2017. And prima have always been at the front of that. So they won the drivers title with Shoal leclerc in 2017. You may be familiar with his work. They then did the double in 2020 and 2021 with Mick Schumacher and Oscar piastre. The name is tell you everything you need to know about why you should be watching this series. The F two drivers of today are the F one drivers of tomorrow. Nick de vries won in 2019, driving for ART, but dams won the team title with Sergio sette camera and Nicolas laci. So prima generally have been really strong enough to and in F three. Coming into this year, it kind of looked like Theo porchaire sour driver driving for ART and F two. He became the series youngest ever winner last year in his rookie season. So he's coming into his second year in the series. It was kind of Theo porches championship in many ways. It was just sort of expected that Tao was going to be the one to watch this year. Drivers have been in the series a bit longer, like the likes of Liam Lawson, Marcus Armstrong, Yuri vips. Those guys were kind of expected to be right at the top, but we actually had some really, really strong rookies this year. Logan Sargent is currently third in the standings with one round to go. He drove for Carlin. He's a Williams junior. And he'll be taking part in his first Formula One FP one session at Kota. And Jack durin, who's currently fourth, his name has been banded around quite a bit recently in terms of the Alpine Formula One seat. But they're both rookies in their third and fourth in the standings. They've had an amazing year. And Philippe Pedro vich champion third year in the series, which is interesting because quite often, if people haven't won it in their second year, everyone's thinks so, they're a bit past it. But Felipe came in this year, he returned to MP motor sport from virtuosi. He did his first season F two with MP. He went to virtuosi last year, slightly failed experiment, went back to MP, won the championship, and he's currently nearly 80 points clear of Porter who will probably finish second. There's no guarantee of that, but at the moment it's portray second in the standings with a 164 points, sergeant's got a 135 and then doing Jay Han derulo, who drives to prima and ends a Fittipaldi are all joint fourth on a 126 points. Let's go through the season. We haven't got a focus on every single round, but let's go through that season, then and have a look. Has it always been a runaway runaway success? Or did drugovich at the grand old age of 22? And a bit of a veteran of formula to have to really fight for this one. Talk us through the highlights for you. The grand old age of 22. How funny is that motor sport makes us think that 22 is a grand old age. It really it really was a bit of a tussle for a lot of the season Porter and rugby were trading the top spot. And I'll go into each round in detail in a bit. From about the halfway point, he was leading and he was leading quite convincingly and you get to the French Grand Prix round that was round 9. He was 40 points clear. And portray kind of clawed it back a bit in Hungary, but it was just not enough to beat Philippe, who had a mega season, mega tea, MP motor sport of not one and F two title before. They had a best finish of 6th in the team standings and their best best driver finish was 9th. Coincidentally, one of those was Felipe in 2020. So they really just brought everything together really well. I think sandor doors man who runs the team has done a brilliant job pulling all of those components together to get that result. If we look back to the start of the season in Bahrain, Jack doohan, rookie, driver for virtuosi. He was second in F three last year. He took pole position, first round, great impression to make. But on Sunday and the feature race, he was coming out of the pits, he made contact with terrible chair, big error, Portia went on to win the feature race, doing finished kind of 7th. And Yuri vips actually had looked to contender for that win, but he had a terrible pit stop, and he was quite ugly by that that it cost him the win. So coming out of that first weekend, poche led the standings. He had 25 points and drogs only scored 8, but 8 points on the Sunday, four points in the Saturday, so he was sitting 5th in the standings.
Box of Neutrals
"nick de vries" Discussed on Box of Neutrals
"And the other thing that really annoys me about this is that the sport just has no sense of irony because if it had any sense of irony, it would have been Aston Martin that blew the budget by like 10 million bucks despite finishing 9 in the standings. It would have been much funnier as the story. And yet here we are with an actual serious potentially serious implications in this story. Very irritating, very annoying. But this will go forever. You may never end. We might all die before this finishes, so just, you know, just take it one day at a time. That's all we have to drive market because that was the other big thing that happened this week wasn't it. Pierre gasly is going to help. We will form a French super team with Esteban ocon, they hate each other. That's going to be good fun. They've tagged a lot of awkward photos together over the course of the last week. It's incredible. Which means the next is going to alpha tauri despite that he with no disrespect to him being neither young, nor Red Bull driver. I say he's not young. He's 27. He's about to be 28 years old. He's still pretty young, but, you know, he's not Yuki tsunoda young, is he. And it does also mean a bit of a kick to the teeth of all of the Red Bull juniors who are having a crack out there in the bad wide world of formula two. And all my Nick de vries wins is a form of a championship, which is pretty good, I guess. And he's straight in and he's got these Formula One debut. Yeah. I'll tell you what, we all thought Oscar pierce through had a lot of hype around it when McLaren absolutely fell over itself to try to sign him. AlphaTauri of Nick de vries on the basis of quite frankly, one Grand Prix performance. Which is either a strong endorsement or a lot of pressure. Let's retrospectively, let's find out what happens this time next year. Talking about Cal stefanovic show. So it's going to be, it's going to be interesting. Okay, we'll be interesting. Because you'll be up against Yuki tsunoda as well, is the established driver there now, I guess, but he's coming in as a more experienced driver. But on the other hand, I mean, he did have that good debut in Monza, but it does also sort of struck me today I don't know if this means disrespectful to either driver, but it does have shades of Brendon Hartley around it, doesn't it? Like he rocked up as a LeMond winner and wick champion, I think. He certainly is in any case. And then just didn't really cut it against gasly. Now I need to raise a little bit more embedded in Formula One through Mercedes a little bit he's done all those practice drives and has now done an actual Grand Prix, but it was one Grand Prix. You know, it doesn't always translate does it like formula E title, formula two title couple of years ago now. There is a lot of high random. You're right, there's a lot of hype. We've got a lot of drivers next to your rocking up with a lot of hype to do well. And that could be ugly. Now very much. And yeah, it is shocking that you do have in this sort of reshuffle of this is a Mercedes junior. That's his malt is why it's quite telling that the best candidate for one of the most prized Red Bull sites on the grid has been given to a Mercedes prodigy. It's quite staggering, but this is the new normal. We all are having to get used to. Well, our Red Bull prodigy has gone to Williams in Alex Albon and another one's gone to Alpine and then the last one who was went to Alpine they went to McLaren and having sacked and the other ones are Aston Martin, so it's sort of like the young driver programs are all a bit cool. Now, I think that's why Alpine's talking about getting rid of it. 'cause it's not good. I never end up where they've been to go, so it's all a bit confusing. But these of course means, I mean, they're always meant to cement this weeks ago, but he's confirmed that he's used his own human mouth to say the horrible words that are Daniel Ricciardo won't be racing next year, not in Formula One. He says not in anything, in fact, he's gone out of his way. He's got out of his for people commenting on Facebook, listen carefully. He's got it out of his way to say he's not going to be a bathroom. Please stop saying he's not going to be there. You might watch it, but he's not going to be racing in it. It's the said no. He said no. But he won't be racing Formula One a that turns out in 2023 because it doesn't want to, well, I'll say it's available. We just want either of them. We just want to go to hassle Williams teams. And he says he's aiming now for 2024, but I mean, it is a risk. This is an enormous risk, and as you said earlier, this is sabbatical asterisk at the end of this year. Yeah, big time. So yeah, even the whole, I'm not sure what you heard in Suzuka Michael, but it's just we're all relying, but best case, the best case scenario when we heard everything kind of occur. We thought that he's going to say it McLaren. Okay, Nara, Matt will clearly has no other choice but to go to Alpine. Okay? Maybe maybe he locks America, so maybe Haas will actually do him some good. So now we're resigned to the fact we'll be quite happy if he ends up a reserve driver at Mercedes. But I don't even know if that's ever going to be. A possibility for him. By then. It's weird because have you asked me like two weeks ago, I would say that's ridiculous. It's a wacky rumor that's been started, I don't know, in some way. Same people he says he's gonna go to bath test, I guess, probably saying that. But he said it in Singapore, even same Mercedes obviously. But he said that being a reserve driver is a realistic option for him. He's really for a driver who has over the last month since he's been sacked and even beforehand when it was clear he was brought by must be included in him that he was probably going to be sacked. Who's gone out of his way to not say the wrong thing to not mislead at least he has left it vague from time to time as everyone falling on does, but he's never done my Sergio. Why don't your parents do what he's going to make? You admitted these outright lies to questions. You never done that. As far as we know, that.
The Autosport Podcast
"nick de vries" Discussed on The Autosport Podcast
"Heard him give a really lovely radio message in Q three. He did really well to reach Q three, let's also not sort of underplay his performance there. But yeah, he said that this is the best track in the world, and yeah, it's just so much fun than all of the other tracks. How much was this again another sign of humanity? And I think how much Suzuka has meant to him, perhaps why this sort of goodbye might feel a little bit different to him compared to all the other circuits. Yeah, it's a really sort of sweet story. I watched a couple of videos served on lie of him meeting fans and obviously, you know, Suzuki, you say about the DRS hats or whatever. They just detention to detail the craftsmanship almost in some of the things they do is amazing. He was presented with a few sort of figurines. I think, and I was watching that as really sweet and better was obviously quite elegant and actually took the time to engage and ask a few questions and had a bit of back and forth a bit of joking with the fans so, you know, that stands out really well. And it is a mega track. I think, you know, obviously he's done well here before and then you've got the combination of it's a classic track. Think of the history whether it's 2005 with Raikkonen physical or sane Prost in the 80s and 90s. You've got the history and also it is a dare I say it's a bit of a Saturday track, especially with these big wide cars now. We've got it's meggie, got the hide down for sweeps. You've got the dagger, which is just a mega curve spoon, famous one 30 yard, all of that is brilliant. But it is a bit narrow. So you're not going to get even with these rules. I'm not predicting a massive overtaking fester. If you're going to enjoy Suzuka at any point, it's going to be with no fuel in a car nearly in qualifying. So and especially after Aston Martin have looked quick at certain points of season, but almost universally, whenever they look quick, they manage to mess up their tire strategy and be eliminated in Q one, can't get any temperature into the rubber, but they nailed it. It's like, oh, certainly veteran did Lance stroll is starting 19th. But Vettel nailed it. So I can understand why good result at the tail end of track he loves on Saturday when a car is at its best. I can understand where he's come away, you know, particularly buoyant about that. Another man, particularly boy and after, well, two men actually buoyant after today will be Pierre gasly and Nick de vries, the main news this morning breaking at 1 a.m. in the UK, 9 a.m. over in Japan, was that Pierre gasly as expected will race for Alpine in F one next year. He joints on a multiyear deal. That has opened up a space at AlphaTauri, which is taken by Nick de vries de vries, obviously the 2019 F two champion, champion and formula E with Mercedes as well, had that brilliant cameo for Williams on debut finishing 9th and Monza earlier this year, but he will finally get his full-time F one shot next year with alpha towering. Matt, let's start with gasly. You wrote a really good feature on auto spot plus about him and sort of what this means for his F one career. He's been with Red Bull for 9 years. They've helped him through his junior career helped mince F one east race for their genius in the senior team back at the junior team again. How much is this move going to define Pierre gasly's F one career and how we look back on him in years to come? Massively, especially now you've got the precedent of Alban Williams. Gasly now for what four seasons certainly since he was dropped midway through 2019 from a Red Bull team, expectedly he's in the pool of below Max Verstappen and therefore you probably rating below George Russell leclerc Hamilton. But he's always had the measure of his teammate, whether it's sonoda or wiping the floor with Daniel kavita as well. So he's been in this sort of mid tier, but it's a really big pool of drivers you can fit into that. So by have him against ocon, who is a good driver, I think his F one stock has fallen recently, particularly after sort of trouts is maybe a bit too strong, but certainly putting his place by Lonzo. But it's just another benchmark for gasly so we can assess him and see where he compares because he feels really hard done by by his Red Bull stint. The team blame gasly naturally. So it would be good to rate him and also to, like you said, to break free of Red Bull, because if you never feel sorry for an F one driver, what a job they have, but if you look at his career, he's probably better than being Al for Tory, you know, you see the race wins that Uber consistency leading the team. But it's been clear for some time now that he's not going to go back to Red Bull. In fact, you know, Red Bull have sort of bend off their whole driver program. They've undermined it, essentially, by recruiting Perez to go alongside Verstappen. So gasly was kept in a holding pattern doing all he could do. Even apart from freak race at Monza every 12 years, he's never going to be allowed to necessarily win as well if he's in the de facto second team. So breaking free, going to a French team, obviously that has a nice feel to it, although essentially I don't think that matters much at all. It's a nice add on, but if alpina pear knew well and it's a bona FIDE manufacturer team, great. It's a step up the grid you know, probably there were they have got the fourth fastest car this year. They just need to make sure it doesn't break down to give McLaren a shot at a constructor's championship. So all of this is moving forward and whether you think it's ambitious or not Alpine do have this a hundred race target to win titles. And even if that's a flight of fancy, it's more than alpha two, I've got alpha Tori, I was always going to say, well, over the next hundred races will come second in championship because we'll never be that step ahead of Red Bull. So it is a step forward. I also want to just shout out to Alonso. So obviously he stitched a team up a little bit by walking out and really swiftly concluding this deal with Aston Martin and then him and I didn't really know where each other were, whether they're on holiday or in Spain or whatever. And now we're that much further down the line in this. We've got Alpine announcing their French super team, but the announcement comes out at 2 o'clock local time in France, so their fans don't get to sit. And that is because Alpine had been forced into announcing this in a country where they have a presence because all the other remaining races if you go to USA, Mexico, Brazil, they don't sell cars and then you get to Abu Dhabi where only end of season people aren't really going to care. So they've been forced to announce it in Japan with this funky time zone again because of a knock on effect of Alonso. Oh wow as well in Japan as well and now it's like the Alonso tribute edition of their sports car.
The Autosport Podcast
"nick de vries" Discussed on The Autosport Podcast
"Now we know highly tipped this week we think the announcement will come that he'll be partnering Yuki tsunoda at AlphaTauri with a deal for gasly to go to Alpine. What were those in the initial rumors that swirled after his incredible performance? This is a situation where Williams wants him. You'd want to get a contract in front of him pretty quickly, give him a nice two year deal so that he's not casting his net about for a couple of years and there's that security as well. If Alpine makes the offer, you know, maybe he goes there but what are they going to offer are they going to offer a one year deal and then bring doing in for 2024? Are they going to make the same mistake with doing that they do with piastre, there's lots of different variables here. They haven't covered themselves in glory with the contract negotiations and whatever it was terms of heads or whatever that agreement was that wasn't signed on piastres. So Alpine aren't exactly I would say flavor of the month, perhaps with the driving community because they haven't treated drivers lately, perhaps best. Whilst the Williams was fast at Monza, is it fair to say that perhaps Alpine would be the quicker car? As a manager, you'd want to play both sides a little bit to get the best deal for your driver. Yes, you would. You'd be leaning on our pen a little bit, make sure that it's a two year deal that's well paid. And then you get Nick that drive. If it's a one year deal, you get on the Williams drive for more than that. That's the game I would play because it would suit me better that he was in a drive for a couple of years than just for one. And as time went on after the race, then the AlphaTauri conversation started with Pierre gasly being suggested as going to Alpine. Of course, a big French OEM already have a French man in ocon driving for them, could have gasly there as well. The ultimate French team. And then Red Bull and Christian Horner started playing the politics and of course that's what they're very good at and saying, well, we're not going to let him go without either some, you know, compensation and a half decent driver to put inside at AlphaTauri team and of course Nick de vries would be more than a half decent driver to put in that team alongside Yuki tsunoda next year. So we are just waiting for the announcement. We think this week we think at least before. Suzuka this weekend. That's all to come. That's also come, but we can't let you go without this brilliant fact of him scoring points on his debut. That whilst it's a very rare thing to do to score points on your F one debut. Not only has it been done plenty of times before, but it's actually becoming more common. Who are some of those names in the past that you can run through that have scored points on their first outing? Well, I can think of two names that did it at Williams, which de vries in very exalted company because Nico Rosberg did it in 2006 in Bahrain and he got the fastest lap, I believe in that race as well. That 2006 car wasn't particularly good, but it was very quick at Bahrain. And Jacques Villeneuve did it ten years before Nico Rosberg did it with second place at the Australian Grand Prix. The race is a formula E teammate stoffel van Doorn has done it. Deputizing for an injured Fernando Alonso at Bahrain in 2016 at McLaren got a point. Carlos Sanchez junior has done it. Melbourne 2015 and Max Verstappen would have scored in that race. Had he not had a failure. Some of it is a little bit variable. There is Kimi Räikkönen in 2001 who assumes 6th when Olivier panis was sent back to 7th place for passing under yellow flags and Sebastian Vettel's on it in 2007. Guano did it this year with Alfa Romeo Bahrain. Yuki tsunoda did it last year in 2021 with ALF tauri, which led Ross Braun's declare him the most exciting rookie that he'd seen in many, many years. I think trajectories dropped off a little bit since then. But there's so many names to have scored points in the debut, I believe Alain Prost has, Sebastian Bourdais, four time champ car winner, also scored points on his debut despite having a disappointing Formula One career. Lots of lots of names, some truly exalted company that de vries joins and maybe some lesser drivers as well. Locked in, but yeah, it's such a smorgasbord of recognized drivers from across, not just F one, but different disciplines who have come into F one, score points on their debut, maybe it works out for them long term, maybe it didn't, but it's a truly exciting list of drivers there. Absolutely. And especially those names pre 2010 when it was ten down to 8th or ten points out to one point rather from first to 8th in the early noughties and then the sort of 90s point structure. And you have to finish the top 6 to even score points. And that is so really, really impressive for those names you mentioned like an frost and others in there. Now, I was talking to our chief editor Kevin Turner. And he gave me a name that he says, I bet JBL doesn't mention this name and I think it's really unfair of him because this person didn't score points on their debut and yet they did score points on their debut. This person is a British racing driver that did a point scoring finish when they appeared in Formula One in 1984, but also didn't score points. Does any of that sound too cryptic to even have a stab at who Kev was talking about? Very, very cryptic. It's really unfair of him to raise this one because it's like in 84. Man, it's debut 84, British racing driver scored points on his debut, but also didn't score points on his debut. Let me give you the answer because I'm like, Kev, this is too unfair because this is like, it's just a gotcha. Martin Brundle came into Formula One with tyrrell in 1984. Of course. And finished 5th in his first race in Brazil, he also scored a second place in Detroit, but that year, tyrrell were later disqualified from the world championship because of a technical infringement and Martin Brundle would lose all of his points and therefore not officially according to the record books a point scorer on his debut even though he was, and I said, Kev, that is a mean one. Trip up JBL. But I don't know. It's pretty obscure. But I'm annoyed I didn't get that. I'm really annoyed. I had no idea. When he was telling me, I'm like, I would never get civilian years. But you guys are the experts. So there you go. Maybe next time you're in the paddock and you see Martin Brundle, and we're talking about points on debut. Maybe don't remind him of that because Formula One drivers are notoriously spiky when being reminded of bad things. But there we go. Thank you very much for joining us on the podcast today. JBL, we're really appreciate it as good fun one. Really fun podcast to do today. Thank you for listening and we'll catch you on the next one.
The Autosport Podcast
"nick de vries" Discussed on The Autosport Podcast
"Win his formula E title. Unfortunately this year, he got held up in a lot of incidents, van dorn was the model of consistency, things like that. But he's also got he's obviously got favor with Toto Wolff. As I said, I think that the way he carries himself, he handles himself, I think that would have played well with Mercedes, one of the key reasons why they signed him. And I think ultimately that could lead to him getting a job in Formula One like a permanent job because having that Mercedes is not financial or official backing, but just going to, hey, I'm impressed how wolf, that's really, really, really good. And it has a seat open at Williams like it looks like there will be. He's got to be the number one candidate because it was a terrific job today. And ultimately, you know, that car was always going to be a rocket ship because of what we saw of albon at spa, William San, we can take off even more dragging the even quicker on the straights and they did that. But he was so cool. There was a moment where Verstappen came up to lap him. And he was only just ahead of Joe. And it looked like Joe was going to pounce. De fries handled the blue flag situation perfectly. He helped stop him up for a little bit. Got out of the way, then tags on the back of him. Joe never got another look in he was even then after that on the road up against gas leaks so it showed you how aware he was in the situation I think that he was able to do that. Did get a bit lucky, I think if you read the Stuart's document about his erratic driving under the safety car, but then I think ultimately I think common sense prevailed basically he was having a brake problem. He thought he was going to be under his delta time. So he was worried about having to maintain over that, so he sounds like he just stands for breaks. I hit the gas. I haven't actually seen the replay, but from reading the stewards document, they're basically gone. Yep, you were dealing with a lot. You're a last minute replacement. We're just going to wrap your mind to you. And I think honestly, I think that's the best outcome for everybody, because it's 9th place. Is it going to change the driver's lives behind him? I don't think it is. So happy story for me to want a happy story for him. And fingers crossed, it does help him get a Formula One birth because if you're going to compare albums got a contract there already at Williams, if it's going to be de fries versus Latifi, now Williams doesn't need all that pager money. We know who they should go for, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. A brilliant, a brilliant result, Hayden last word on. I just totally agree. In terms of they have the data now, like all the expectation of ours, is he up to is he up to literally got a Grand Prix worth to data right next to Latifi thoroughly out outperformed him and Monday morning if Williams aren't throwing a contract at Nick de ray's. I mean, I'll go down there and do it for him to be honest. At the very least they should be giving him some sort of ice bath or something to help his shoulders look like he can leave the car. He did need two of his mechanics to lift him out of the car at the end. He'll be broken right now. And he's an elite athlete. And that's the thing as well sometimes when I was watching that, I didn't see it live, but I saw our colleague Jess actually took the video clip and put it on her Twitter and I thought that's really interesting because so much of Formula One now is the tracks are so big. The cars look slow, they don't sound fast. They're not screaming at 18,000 plus revs. The drivers are all super fit and yet times this year when you see Lewis Hamilton just hesitating to get out of a car or you've seen Nick de vries needing two guys to lift him up and those little things are reminders that actually it might sound alien to you Alex because you're lucky enough to go to so many races and stand on corner apexes and watch these cars going ridiculously fast. If you don't get to go to a track, TV does make them look a little bit slow and a little bit easy to drive, but amazing to see him do that. Reminder that this is not easy. Like what they're doing is not easy. Now look, there's I'm sure that there's other stuff we can say talk about amazing recovery drives today for Carlos Sainz who finished fourth. That is a good recovery drive from where he started and I'm trying to remind myself of where he eventually started. And 18th, which was a place ahead of Lewis Hamilton. In 19th and indeed, Lewis Hamilton came in 5th behind Carlos Sainz. So two brilliant recovery drives no watching Game of Thrones on the iPad for Lewis today, which is what he said before the race. If he was going to be stuck in a boring DRS train, Sergio Pérez had a moment early on. His brakes were
The Autosport Podcast
"nick de vries" Discussed on The Autosport Podcast
"Been under the pressure where he's needed his wheel to wheel to wheel prowess and skills to win a race because Ferrari dropped the ball comprehensively so many times. And in fact, it's been looked back to Austria. Clergy and the overtaking, right? So that's the way that potentially Ferrari could have won that race. You know, make them go wheel to wheel force Verstappen into a mistake. Hope that leclerc can hold on, didn't come to that. And in the end, even then the faster car should still win over the course of a race if it all ran to the checkered flag. So yeah, Ferrari did excellently, but they were just never going to win that race, I think. That's interesting, because Kev also says that one of the things that he thinks Verstappen is building as he becomes a championship, you know, double multiple championship winner is racecraft and a lack of desperation. Am I here and you write that you think that that might still be in his driving if forced or has getting that monkey off his back? It's hard, isn't it? It's hypothetical, but if he had gone wheel to wheel, do you think that he's more of a relaxed kind of big picture player now that he's got the world championship? I think it's both things are true at the same time, simply because we haven't had enough data to prove one way or the other. If that makes sense if you look back, if you look back to the early rounds, he did seem to be racing leclerc with a more healthy amount of respect and keeping things clean than he did against Hamilton in the latter races 2021. Don't forget also he had all those penalty points that he earned quite rightly at the end of 21, 2021 for his driving there. Hanging over him. So I'm sure that was probably a consideration. These cars you can race them differently. You don't, I think it's interesting I asked max a few questions zambo about this year compared to last year and is just they are easier to race. They're not ahead of a lot easier to race these cars, but they are easier. So he's not going to have to make the certain amount of desperation and just hoping it all works out that you would see like look at some of Daniel Ricciardo's famous moves. It of course is Formula One career. A lot of them are on the line of are you slightly out of control, are you relying on my other driving not hitting you? It comes off fair enough well play. He knows it, right? But I don't think you need to do that quite so much with these new cars because you can run closer. You don't hurt your tires. It's not quite as do or die. So I think there's an element of Verstappen has driven differently this year. But equally, he hasn't been put under the same amount of pressure. The pressure to win your first world title going up against Lewis Hamilton, the best driver of all time to many people who is famously very, very clean and we will fight unless your Fernando ones are going around the outside of Lake on the Belgian ground pay a few weeks ago. Things like that. He hasn't he hasn't been tested that way. And when there was a weird, they got close to the start in Silverstone, leclerc and Verstappen Verstappen gave pretty much no quarter, but was well within the rules, and then yeah, the driving at the end of that race when he was basically on a damaged limitation drive against Mick Schumacher was like, oh yeah, the ruthless question we're driving Verstappen is still in there. So yeah, my answer to the question I said earlier, it's both things are true at the same time. Be probably think you lean towards the driver grows, gets that more experience that yeah, it is that Verstappen is becoming a more rounded, more rounded racing driver. Absolutely. I'll finish off some of the stats. DNS today for Daniel Ricciardo, who I mentioned, which caused that full safety car at the end the last 6 laps, Lance stroll, Alonso and Vettel, fastest lap today, Sergio Pérez set on lap 46 now, the polls at a Charles Leclerc finishing second today, no point looking at the gap times because we finished under the safety car. And second place George Russell, who inherited second place on the grid coming home third, a fourth a Carlos Sainz working his way back up the grip at Lewis Hamilton finishing 5th, then Sergio Pérez followed by Norris gasly Nick de vries will come on to him actually after he talked about the top three because that's the other big story that I and Zhou guang final points in ten so it's good Hayden to see Max Verstappen on the Monza podium and George Russell for the first time as well the boo boys were back. I was talking about booing to one of my American Friends recently. And he didn't get it. He was like, but that's just a part of sport. You know, anything about Americans why don't we he was thinking of baseball or something. He's like, what's the big deal booing fine? It's friendly. I think the reaction over this year, then there's been that kind of thing going on. Maybe the media made a big deal of it, maybe it's with British, I don't know. It's fair enough on their home soil for whatever reason they might have felt a bit cheated because of that safety car finish. But yeah, the boo boys were back. It was max bothered by that at all you heard from him afterwards. Oh yeah, not at all shrugged it off. And I think in fairness to the situation, it could have been basically it was whoever won the race. It wasn't because it was maxed up and obviously the context being the championship leader fighting the Ferraris is there. But we would interpret the tifosi booze. Well, more about the situation of how the race ended basically denying their hero Ferrari and the chance to attack for the win because it was set up like you say with behind the safety car a few laps to go, you thought there's a late dash for the flag or on here, but that obviously never never material. So I think the booze were more in the state of how the race ended, denying everyone a bit of a late drama, which was, as you said, we said earlier, was basically never on the cars because we're staffing was so comfortable up the road.
The Autosport Podcast
"nick de vries" Discussed on The Autosport Podcast
"And it's like, and now that relationship, he said, I don't want to race for you guys. It's really, really fractured. And I think that it's a battle of a driver doesn't want to race for you. What does that say? Even if you say, well, here's your contract. It doesn't exactly so seize for like a happy relationship in the future. So yeah, it's really, really messy. I do wonder if maybe seeing how things rumble on the next few weeks, everyone may say, right, let's put our arms down and talk about this and get something sorted. So people are as happy as can be. But I think either way alpena losing big time in this. But also for piastre himself, he's already a meme on the Internet. All the brands are getting involved. Isn't it? And it might not last forever, but he's a young, he's a young guy. It's not a situation that he himself would have engineered, surely. But yeah, I'm not saying he's a joke, but the situation is a joke and he's got his name all over it. It's not great, is it? And I saw he was liking the tweets about Mercedes were making jokes and putting funny pictures up and he's liking Ryanair did a really good one we saw. And he's liking those tweets, right? So he's involved in the whole situation. Anna somebody posted yesterday online a picture of otmar in 2005 in Honda gear because BAR Honda, Williams fighting over button who wanted to break a contract and move that went to arbitration or Formula One's version of that. BI Honda one and otmar was the head of the auto sport the motor sport division at Honda at that time. So none of these guys are new to contracts. This is not his first rodeo, and he's won in the past, but as you say, if a driver doesn't want to race for you, like you can't strap them in to the seat and say drive fast. So it's a real messy situation. And again, all the management has changed to understand. So that team losing Daniel Ricciardo in the way that it did the war of words that happened there, that was a messy end with their star driver at the time Daniel Ricciardo star was still very, very in the ascendancy almost because he had formed that team around him and was starting to do pretty well. He jumped ship to McLaren, all knew management at instant Renault Alpine name. And then if you zoom out a little bit just to get your final thoughts on this to sort of the thousand feet view, we've got other teams that haven't sorted their seats yet, Hassan Williams et cetera. And then the 10,000 feet of you, you've got VW group investment, possibly Audi coming in, Porsche coming into the sport. So Aston are talking about a 5 year plan to be championship winning team. So how do you think this is playing out in the wider scheme final word kind of Alex just your thoughts on this kind of this bigger setting itself up for the future and these drivers that we're going to have in Formula One, Lando, George, Oscar, this kind of next generation, everyone's kind of posturing to get those drivers in their teams. I think for Lando Norris and George Russell doesn't change much at all. He gets a drive, his talent will shine through. But what he really does cement, particularly the fact that Alonso jumped ship is things do not look good for Alpine because Aston is still rebuilding. It's doing its redoing its factory, a lot of investment there. And if we already did that, like completely changed the end stone base, people were talking about their years ago, came back to the team, couldn't even find their way around the factory because the buildings had physically changed so much. So if all that investment's gone on, and Alonso still thinking, why should I stay? The monies enough to tempt me away and this one's a building project. It's not an alpena at the front of the field. So ultimately, the whole situation, it's a disaster. And who could help you go racing with Luke next year if it's an Oscar for the ashtray. I mean, yeah, I've seen suggestions of Pierre gasly. That's definitely not happening. Why not, a French team? French. He's under contract with Red Bull and for alfajor and although there's no feature of him at Red Bull, then I think they wouldn't be looking to let him go, be the personality clash would not work between him and Esteban ocon. So I think that probably wouldn't happen. I honestly, I think Daniel Ricciardo, that would be my if I was going to say who right now will be racing for our P next, he's I say Ricardo is going to go back to end zone. He'll go back. He knows a lot of the people even if the top level management have changed. And I think that change also means that the wounds of healed from a couple of years ago. Half an hour has spoken and said that there would be no issue bringing Daniel back. So that I reckon is the most likely outcome in this. And some good seats on the grid, Williams and Alex Albon staying there, but no news on second seat. Not yet, no, but again, that is something that they were looking at piastres partner album for next year. Valves has not happened. And now I think they can look to maybe formula two Logan Sargent there, young American driver. I mean, that would have a big appeal for their American owners, but also for Formula One as a whole. I think that would be a that would be a good move if they went for it. Nick de vries is another option, the formula E champion. He's done an FP one for them this season. He was on the short list for last year before they went for Alex Albon. So yeah, I think Williams, they've got a couple of options, but if I were them I maybe buy my time and just see how this sort of Alpine McLaren situation plays out and if anyone falls through the cracks, they might say, well, it's us or nothing and yeah, do you want to keep racing in Formula One? We could offer you a home. Wow, wait. An
The Autosport Podcast
"nick de vries" Discussed on The Autosport Podcast
"Join for our Friday night look of Barcelona free practice by our technical editor Jake boxhall leg and you've been doing live today so you must be well and truly on top of everything that's happened today. House Friday goes. Oh, it's been a long one. For some reason, all of the sessions are so much further back now. I think I did assume it's because of the changed media schedule, but this is like the first. I guess proper time we've seen it because we've had races in weird time zones at the start of the season, I guess we had it a bit in imola, but that was a sprint race weekend. And so we get to what is probably the most average middle of the road race weekend of the season and suddenly we've got FP one at 1 o'clock and it's like what are we going to do this morning? But it's been very, very interesting. Had a new new faces in FP one this morning. Lots of new upgrades as well. So there's a lot to talk about. Yeah, nice to see Nick de vries on track earlier today as well. A free practice one ended with the Ferraris on top. One and two Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz in that order. We saw vips on track as well and Robert Kubrick also so good to see him in the Alfa Romeo, anything notable that you want to talk about from FP one? It was very interesting. Obviously, it was kind of like early days, FP one, and everybody's trying out their upgrades just to see what works and what doesn't. With regard to the three, I guess two of them new faces and one of them an old hand that we're all very, very used to seeing now in FP one Sessions. Was doing kind of tire running and tire programs for Red Bull, so we didn't really set a representative time. And so he was P 20. So I'm sure there are some people that are on their keyboards right now going, you know, who are these Red Bull development drivers, but the truth is, yeah, rebels actually very, very happy with the work that he did. I think from an objective standpoint as well, when you're entitled race, this new F one regulation of having young drivers in for two practice sessions a year. That's kind of something Red Bull doesn't really want to deal with. So rather than give him soft tires and potentially risk him just clouting it into the barrier, it just made more sense for him to just do some tire logging. And then of course, yeah, we saw Nick to race in the Williams. Fresh away from Berlin. He had a chance on Tuesday to do a post race interview with some of us and then it was straight off to Spain and get acquainted with what was effectively a new team for him. So he acquits himself well and was quicker than Nicholas Latifi. So that was an interesting footnote in the session. And then, of course, Charles Leclerc led that session Max Verstappen could have potentially gone a little bit quicker, but it was a Ferrari one two in that session. FP two, where they stick the soft tyres on and although the engine modes are turned way, way down. We can start to read a little bit into the form this weekend and that's why we've got you on tonight because you have an eye for all the things that have turned up in Barcelona. So Charlotte Clare once again leading the way with the one 19 .670, but behind him, just over a tenth, just over two tenths behind were Russell and Hamilton in the Mercedes. Of course, who topped for Miami Friday. So I don't want to read too much into this, but there is a lot of upgrades that Mercedes have bought, but the key is getting on top of the bouncing, which was physically painful for the drivers, but also something that they have taken longer than, say, Ferrari, who were Ferrari have been suffering from this bouncing, but seemed to be able to, in the braking zones, mechanically re-engage those Ferraris so that the performance, although it was probably uncomfortable, it didn't look great in the Ferraris. It didn't harm their performance the way it was harming Mercedes. Can you just tell us in your opinion how it's going to catch it's not designed to trip anyone up because like I said, they top Miami. But in your opinion, the upgrades they've bought to Barcelona. What are they doing? What are they trying to solve and is the pace as genuine as it seems? Well, first and foremost, I think the problem with the bouncing that Mercedes seems to have in Ferrari doesn't is that it's not knocking the forest driver's confidence and they can get whatever they need to get reattached reattached ready for the braking zone and so they've got this down force going into the corner and they've got it on the exit. Mercedes seems to have this horrible issue where it does bounce and therefore they're having to get right off the throttle because the drivers just aren't confident enough going into the corners. And that does seem to be an issue with its erstwhile floor and they do have a new one for Spain. And it seems to have helped quite a lot. We've just literally just now gone through all of the post race interviews with drivers and both the driver seemed a lot happy. George Russell was obviously a little bit cautious because he, as you say, he had topped Miami and it didn't go quite so well in qualifying, but Lewis Hamilton did seem noticeably happier than he has done at any stage this season..
The Autosport Podcast
"nick de vries" Discussed on The Autosport Podcast
"Race format. That it's about gender equality. It's about men and women racing together as a team, and both being equally decisive for victory. And we have seen incredible talent shine in that platform. I think female drivers have been really the stars of extremely mornings, Molly Taylor, many others. And that really makes us super proud in extremely. So thank you. On behalf of all our drivers, all the female drivers also all my team for this award that it's really fantastic to receive thank you. Now, it's time for international racing driver of the year. You were voting between Lewis Hamilton, and as usual, the united 7 time world champion led the charge from Mercedes last year versus Alex Paulo, who was quick and savvy on his way to the IndyCar title in just his second season. In the U.S. the 2021 Formula One World Champion, Max Verstappen, who held the advantage over Lewis Hamilton for much of the year and who dominated many of the stats like laps lead, pole positions and races one. Versus Nick de vries, which kind of makes this a 50% Dutch contest and a 50% Mercedes shootout. The formula three champion, and the winner was, you voted, Max Verstappen. Now we couldn't make it to the awards last night. Christian Horner picked up the award on his behalf, but he did send us this. Hello everyone. Max here. First of all, of course, I want to say a big thank you to all the fans for doing the international racing driver of the year. You know, it's been a very intense year, so all the support I got ready was amazing. But besides that, of course, I also would like to thank Red Bull Racing and on there for providing me with a winning car. The ultimate goal was of course to win the world championships. So now we've achieved that it's something truly incredible, but of course I'm also looking forward to this year again and see the orange army all over the world again. And yeah, I hope you guys all have a great evening. Enjoy. And as always, the final award of the night. We work our way towards the young driver award. The Aston Martin autosport BRD C young driver of the.
The Autosport Podcast
"nick de vries" Discussed on The Autosport Podcast
"Predictable grid? I think so. Nick de vries and testing said that he was expecting that to be the case. Obviously formula E is kind of quite jumbled up as it is and it can have the propensity to produce very exciting results or offbeat results if you like. And maybe qualifying beforehand was just adding to that and it was just making it even more unpredictable. And so if you look at last season, for example, there wasn't a real tangible championship narrative if you like, obviously de vries was at the top and you won. But you know it could have been the case that one thing happened in one race and you have somebody completely different, so I think halfway through the season at a mortara just suddenly was in championship contention out of nowhere and then towards the end of the season drivers that were in the fight from the start weren't in anymore and it just seemed a little bit unfair that you couldn't really build on momentum because there really wasn't any. So hopefully qualifying will reward those that do a good job that work hard at the track that learn the circuits and get the software right rather than just being a lottery, really. The issue with the qualifying as well is that now the cars will converge because we've had this regulations for what for seasons now is that back then, you know, if you're let's say you're neo, you're definitive back marker qualified well through this quirk of the former, you could expect a Mercedes an Audi, whatever to overtake them, but now when there's only a tenth of a second difference per lapse in the quickest car and as low as car, then where's the opportunity? Where's the car in tenth place? It's got the massive pace advantage over the next 8 cars in front of it to overtake. So you still have a deserving winner and lots of excitement in the park. You don't have that anymore. I think also obviously it's easier with the gift of hindsight and we know now that former is going to be live on channel four this season. But if you're an audience member and one week you're watching degrassi when and you get to know him because he's vocal and he's charismatic and he's in a good car and then next week you tune in and it's a Norman NATO. What's a Norman NATO? That's no disrespect to him, but there was what 11 different race winners last week. When formula E one of its problems that is trying to sell in a sort of pandemic recovery to its manufacturers is that it's good marketing it's got good commercial. Look, there needs to be a big and solid and committed audience. Formulary his struggle with that for a while, having 11 different race winners, yes, it makes it unpredictable. Makes it exciting, but it doesn't help that. What you need really is a stuff of van Doorn to win three races to Costa to win 5 races. And then them to say something controversial in the headlines. If they repeat faces there's something to get behind something to build up a fan base and that will then play into former regrowing its audience, which is again one of the main reasons we've got this change in quality format. Is that a common feeling in the paddock you were in you were traveling with the formulae gang last year is that feeling reflected amongst the teams and others as well or is that just something that you feel you might be with an outlier with that opinion? No, I think it's fair. So let's look at a few examples in the grid. Mercedes obviously, you know, they were losing their championship at some stages through this qualifying format. They have no interest in it. Neo, they don't really profit from it or drag it and they don't really profit from it anyway because what do they do? They qualify 5th and then fall back to 18 that doesn't make them look good. And then you've got your Porsches who are whatever who are massive name and you're just lost in the midfield. So it is generally it's coming from pretty much every side now that they don't really buy into this. Oh, it's everyone can qualify on poll quite so easily anymore because it feels so competitive. That's not really happening as the design of the group qualifying format initially intended. And so we've just got a random take your pick if it rains, or that model was up the order a bit further. As JBL perfectly said, there was no narrative. It was like it was like it was like Black Mirror almost. Black Mirror is fantastic, but no episode is interlinked apart from the little Easter eggs that you've got a really spot out for. It's not like a series where, you know, those character development, whatever, it's just one weekend this happens. Next weekend, another happens. And that's not good. That's not let's be honest about when we're talking. That is not what Netflix audience wants. Yeah, yeah. I cast my mind back to the end of last year and after the Formula One title decider, the some of the moms and dads were talking outside nursery and they don't really know what I do and one of the moms was just saying what an amazing race it was yesterday. She's never watched Formula One before. She was wondering when halftime was going to be. She was like football. So she was a bit disappointed. She couldn't stop. It's a bit boring after a while, but it was all about the battle between it had been built up between two main people who she recognized who she understood obviously one of them was British so again he's like, look at the British media we're going to always play up Lewis Hamilton. But that's the ultimate example I guess of that everywhere that you looked at for that race. It was just there to faces on banners. It was the battle it was the duel, so I kind of opposite of formulary. And let's talk a little bit about the Mercedes team then. They went into the last season, if not favorites with huge expectations of taking the title and they did, and now they have to defend it, JBL, do you think they can do that this year as they don't want to end? They don't want to end in a just limping out of the seas and surely they want to go out on a high or I don't know. What do you think they can do? They'll be up there again for sure. You know, it's always very, very difficult to look into testing times and say this is a clear picture of what we're going to see this year, but they were incredibly quick and testing. And so with the venturi team as well, which also uses the Mercedes power trains. You know, they've got two fantastic drivers. We know how good stuff will van dong can be when he said a good car, not his Formula One career, that kind of coincided with a dreadful machinery, but he's incredibly incredibly good. And then obviously they have the writing champion Nick Davis, who threw out last year's chaotic championship narrative, let's say, was the one that won out..
The Autosport Podcast
"nick de vries" Discussed on The Autosport Podcast
"A former ecommerce, but to tie up with a supplement in this week's edition of auto sport. So I'm just going to throw it to our formerly scribe Mac Hughes, just explain a little bit about this supplement. Thanks Tom, yeah, absolutely. So thanks to modus. For now it remains a one off, but we've put together a really a really good package sort of focusing on Mercedes, which, you know, it's a nice because it ties in motors or a sponsor of Mercedes, but also they just so happen to be the team that won the drivers and teams championship last year. So we've got columns, written personally by Nick Davis, our drivers champion and in debris and Mercedes team boss. And then I've treated it like a marvel or D.C. sort of origin story. So my season review in a micro few weeks ago, we did why Mercedes won, but I've sort of really gone back to the first steps of how to form a routine was put together at the ashes of the HWA DTM program, you know, when all the key signings came on board, you know, Gary puffer, the HWA driver turned Mercedes team adviser goes into great depth about loading the troubles they had that didn't that you wouldn't have necessarily put them on the path to sort of double championship success when they first rocked up and had all these teething issues. And then there's also a great written by my colleague, JBL, or Jake box or leg is podcast listeners will know going into the tech of the current form ahead of its last season in service. And we've got some bits with I'll be low who's the Californian who's a sort of race engineering who's Nick diverse race engineering sort of calmly guided the guy to go to the title. So we've got some great insights in there and it's all part of your weekly auto sport magazine for no additional cost so why not treat yourself? Sounds excellent. We're lucky to have the tab yourself, but also the voice of formulary Jack nicholls to data have a review of the season that we've just had. So welcome Jack. Thank you, looking forward to it. It was a entertaining season as it always is with formerly. Would you give it a grade Jack if this was like an end of time report? How did you've been there for pretty much every race now apart from apart from one or two, so could you give it a great I would fit compared to the 6 other seasons that came before it? My grade would be sort of a B, I think. Because actually, what would you grade your own work? What would you grade your commentary? I had ups and downs and I thought Monaco formulary was the best former erase of all time. And I was very satisfied with my work on that as well. There are some really fascinating bits of commentary tit bits as well. You must have had a good source in a paddock feeding, feeding you those. What'd you mean? Oh, 'cause it's you, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. He's always, he's always livid when I say something that he's said, and I don't say, said Matthew from autosport. And then I'll say something from some other different source and then I'll name them. And then he goes mad, so I will try to mention you more in the future. It's just because my mom and grandma are watching. It's like anecdote about that. I got my grandma to watch the London epri being as it returned to the UK. And as to what she thought she said, when it's so hard to tell which one you are, once you've all put your helmet on so no grandma, I'm trying to rest and not break off. Well, I guess that you sort of give it a great there, but it's been an interesting season. This sort of start with, I guess, the fact that he managed to get 15 events in was quite a miracle considering the COVID situation. Just talk us through what you thought about the season as a whole in the calendar. Yeah, I think that that's where my sort of B comes from because they got a lot of races in COVID was obviously in sort of full force at the start of the season, especially. I mean, not that COVID has gone away, but, you know, Rome was looking really dodgy for a while and that was only the second event of the season and then it was a double header in Valencia and then suddenly you're in puebla instead of Mexico City and all of these were double headers. So they did a great job to get a calendar going. It wasn't really a very formulae. Calendar, particularly, you know, I think that you had Rome in there and Monaco, New York London. For me, those were the only sort of three or four I should say events that a proper formula E events. And so I think that's why it was not the greatest calendar in the world, but it was never going to be able to be. And like you say, just to get it done was hugely successful. And the championship, I mean, mainly due to the qualifying format, I sort of struggled with the championship battle as the season went on. Because it's a very difficult story to tell. And then in the end, Nick de vries, yeah, deserving champion, no doubt about that. I think my biggest sympathies of the season probably go to stuff or van der, because I thought he was remarkable this year and probably my driver of the year and yet he's where did he read it even finished outside the top ten? No. 9th in the championship..