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[Assistant] Uhm, then we come to the engine, just as important to have a good engine. Otherwise, you're just gonna be nowhere. Uhm, so it goes on and on. Then you need a good team boss to keep the team going in one direction. You need, you need, uh, you need to invest just as much in having the best drivers. So it's, it's a, it's a whole package. It's not just one area.


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[Assistant] Oh, there we go. I'm quite a good hair day today, actually. Just putting it in place. What's your routine? Yeah, there's a whole strategy to it. So there's a, there's a hairspray which goes to the, to the skull first of all, then the hairspray goes on top of everything. And then there's also, uh, there's also, um,


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[Assistant] Top three favorite Formula One drivers of all time. Well, Mika Hakunen, because my father was managing him, so Mika Hakunen, and I was cheering for him big time in his fight against, uh, in his fight against, uh, Schumacher.


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[Assistant] Before that, I didn't really see anybody, because I started to get into F1 with Mika Hakunen. So then, after Mika Hakunen, in that period before I started, who was my favorite? Uh, I don't think I really had a favorite in that period then.


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[Assistant] Um, there was, I mean, there was Raikkonen, Alonso, Montoya, Montoya. I think Montoya was awesome because it was just so exciting to watch him battle, battle Michael, uh, in, in wheel to wheel. That was awesome. So maybe Montoya for a period there.


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[Assistant] And then of course, once I started, it's more difficult to say, um, favorite driver. So let's go, let's go for Hakkinen and Montoya. But then looking at history, looking at history, my dad, how about that? So, Hakkinen, my dad and Montoya.


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[Assistant] Yeah, it's a, it's a mixture. I mean, it's super exciting to go to Vegas. At the same time, you know that the, the burden of everything apart from the actual driving is gonna be, uh, tenfold almost for the whole weekend. Um, so that's something that then one would not look forward to so much.


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[Assistant] Um, so it depends, uh, it depends, but I think in general it would be just exciting. I mean, I would love to have had Vegas on the, on the calendar at the time. And, um, and in the lead up now, I would be in the simulator, uh, at the, at the headquarter and I'll be doing laps and laps and laps and practicing the Vegas track. Uh, probably even doing a race distance so I can practice the.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and so you'd probably even do a race distance to practice that.


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[Assistant] No, simulators are still quite far off and they always will be. It's always, uh, it's, it's a real challenge to get that to be a hundred percent realistic. Um, but anyways, they've made progress and, and, uh, it's still worth spending time in it. Um, so, um, yeah.


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[Assistant] Well, I mean, would you like to see, it's an easy answer, I would love to see another competitive team being in F1.


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[Assistant] There's no point to have another team that's just gonna run around in last place. That would be completely useless, so we don't need that.


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[Assistant] But if that team can prove that they can, that they have the...


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[Assistant] The competence, the people and the funding to be competitive within a few years.


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[Assistant] Then of course that would be great because also there's talk about it being backed by Cadillac. So then you'd have a, you'd have a American car manufacturer, American team. That's awesome. That's awesome. That's super cool. Then all you need is an American driver and then you got the full package and it would be amazing for the sport. And the pushback from the teams.


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[Assistant] Maybe it comes because some people think they're just gonna be uncompetitive. Uhm, so that could be some pushback. And then of course they take some money away from the pie. Uhm, so teams and F1 get less, less revenues, less profit. Uhm, so there's definitely gonna be pushback as a result of that.


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[Assistant] Which in a way is understandable also. Uhm, but personally, if they can prove that they can be competitive, I would love to see them in F1.


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[Assistant] Yeah, so we have a ice cream shop in Ibiza, it's called Vivi's Creamery. Uhm, and we're number one now in the Balearics, which is awesome. Wow, incredible. Yeah.


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[Assistant] And, uh, we had an amazing season as well. So my favorite flavor, the one I take every time, honestly, I just go for vanilla. Just plain and simple. It's awesome. So I really like that. I go vanilla stretchatella.


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[Assistant] Yeah, yeah, of course. I'm involved in everything. Wow. Yeah. It's a, it's a, it's like a passion project from, uh, Vivian and I, which we share together. Um, and so we just, uh, yeah, we get involved together.


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[Assistant] No, no, we're all started from zero, even with having a shop or everything. We started from zero and we have like 10 employees now, you know, so it's like a, it's like quite a big, uh, big machine. Um, and, uh, now it's, yeah, it's been, uh,


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[Assistant] It's been a lovely experience. The problem is that when we're there in summer, we go every second day and then it's almost like all you can eat. So it's not, it's not the best. Health wise, it's not the best. But thankfully it's just an Ibiza. So yeah.


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[Assistant] What a life. Damon, did I remember seeing a tweet where you hit, did you hit a bird at Zandvoort?


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[Assistant] 12 hours. I don't know. Well, given the timings of the race, it's going to be very, very late. Some of those, uh, when we actually finish racing, let alone when people are actually going to get to bed. I mean, yeah, it's, it's going to be very interesting. It's definitely going to be as well. The last time we went to Vegas, which was in a car park, which was, which was far less exciting than, than doing it along the way.


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[Assistant] How times have changed now. I don't think anyone in the US will not know that it's happening in Vegas this year. Okay, let's move on to talk about our predictions then for the rest of the 2023 season. I've got some various categories, which I asked all of you to go away and have a think about.


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[Assistant] Uh, right, our very first category, and I promise we're not going to spend too long on this, is the winner of the world championship. I haven't got yours, Damon, but I'm going to guess you're probably going to go with Max. Uh, all of us have gone with Max, and I think it's probably now a case of when will he win the world title.


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[Assistant] Yes, exactly. Yeaah, and the constructors type, yeaah. On his own. He's gonna get both. Yeaah.


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[Assistant] He's 125 points clear of second place in the championship. The earliest he could win it is Japan, but that does require quite a few of his competitors or his nearest in second place to have bad weekends. So it's most likely going to be in Qatar, which is also a sprint weekend. So I guess the question, now I'll come to you on this, could anything get in the way?


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[Assistant] of Max Verstappen winning that title as early as Qatar. Do you think it could be pushed back? Is there anything that would push it back to the USA, to Mexico, even to Brazil?


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[Assistant] Runner up in the Drivers World Championship. This is probably a little bit closer. There's a, there's a few disagreements already that I can see. And Damon, I'm sure you're going to, you're going to get, tell me what you've picked as well. But Nat, go on. Who have you picked for the runner up?


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[Assistant] I would really like to see Alonso fighting up there at least.


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[Assistant] Take over your batch sheets, to be fair, leads us onto the Constructors' Championship. Who's gonna win Constructors' Championship? Again, I think we're all gonna go Red Bull. Blake, you went Red Bull, then Max, as we alluded to earlier, which I think is quite funny. And Natalie stole that one.


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[Assistant] Damon, what do you make of the fact that, you know, I think when I look at Mercedes, they've got two drivers who are both capable of scoring really good points week on week. And I'm not sure you can say that of some of the other teams. It seems like when you've got George and Lewis in a team together,


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[Assistant] Those are probably the pairing that you'd pick to go forward and score you points consistently. Is that fair?


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[Assistant] We can, we can move on to that. Yes. Yes, please, please do. Go on, Damon. Who would you pick as your most improved driver for the rest of 2023?


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[Assistant] And if you look at the head-to-head between him and Lando Norris, qualifying record, he's 10-2 down against Lando and the race record, not much better, 9-3 to Lando.


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[Assistant] No, that's fair enough. Uh, yeaah, Lewis, Lewis obviously would be a very, very popular winner. Blake, what about, what about you?


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[Assistant] It would be like, uh, what was it, Taylor Swift? Taylor Swift, during one of her songs, created, uh, uh, something on the Richter scale at one of her recent concerts. Anyone read that? Yea, I can read that.


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[Assistant] Uhm, very good, very good. Uh, right, final, final one, I just kinda put this in as something at the end, just a random prediction for the rest of the season. So, uh, anyone wanna, anyone take the floor? Uhm, Blake, go on, start with you. What was your random prediction? I'll send it, I'll send it first.


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[Assistant] Thank you very much everyone. Uh, really appreciate your company. That was very, very good. I think, uh, some interesting predictions. We will probably look back on them as we do with all predictions and go, what a load of rubbish.


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[Assistant] Uhm, I wanna talk about your career, your thoughts on Formula One at the moment, and also the future of motorsport, how we can get more women into this brilliant sport as well. But, I thought actually, because we're in the comms box here in Hungary, this is quite an apt place to start, right? Because you've been with us at Sky for a couple of years now.


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[Assistant] When you were racing, did you ever anticipate that you might have a career afterwards in the media? Was that ever something on your mind?


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[Assistant] I mean, as an interviewer that strikes fear into the very core of me.


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[Assistant] Yeah, uhm, I'm gonna make sure I try and ask some good questions here of.


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[Assistant] Now a broadcaster. Do you miss racing? Do you, do you, obviously because you're going to a lot of racetracks now in this, in this new part of your career. When you come here, is there still a part of you that's kind of going, oh I wish I was on track, I wish I was still doing that?


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[Assistant] And I guess as well, athletes, you know, once, once you retire as an athlete, it must be hard to match the adrenaline, the competition in, in everyday life. I mean, as not an elite athlete myself, I can't imagine much comes close to driving a cart over 200 miles an hour and being in that intense competition. Is that fair?


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[Assistant] Uhm, I wanna get into your career now, and I want you to take us back to where it all began.


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[Assistant] Yeah, and you came over to England, didn't you?


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[Assistant] Cause how old were you at this point? Sixteen. Sixteen. That is really young. Nineteen. Three years, yeaah. To be leaving home. Yeaah. And moving to country. Yeaah.


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[Assistant] Welcome to England. So you went back to the States and then talk us through that part of your career. How did it eventually lead to 2005 and getting that drive in IndyCar?


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[Assistant] Yeah. And I mean, would that have happened if you hadn't have gone to the track? Right, right at the very start of that story, when you were kind of so down and out about the whole thing.


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[Assistant] Yeah, fascinating. 2005, you raced in the Indy 500 for the first time. You became the first woman to lead laps and score a top 5 finish at the Indy 500. A brilliant achievement, but what did you make of it at the time, and reflecting on it now, do you see the significance of that achievement?


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[Assistant] Yeah. I mean, with the Indy 500, presumably that's something you watched a lot as a child.


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[Assistant] And how did it feel to be there as a participant, as a racer?


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[Assistant] Yeah, definitely, definitely. Ryan on Twitter would like to know what the biggest highlight for you was during your IndyCar and NASCAR career.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I wonder if we have a bit of that in F1 actually, because obviously there are drivers who would have grown up watching Lewis Hamilton, right? Some of our younger drivers, and you then find yourself going into a corner with Lewis, I mean Lando.


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[Assistant] But yea, you do forget, don't you, that some of these drivers, these are heroes, these are racing heroes, and they're racing against them. Uhm, I wanna just get your thoughts on ovals, and for some of our F1 audience.


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[Assistant] And for myself, I think ovals are just this sort of mythical, the speed, the danger of oval, you know, I mean, compared with say a more traditional racetrack. Just tell us what it's like to race an oval.


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[Assistant] Another question from Instagram, Matthew, great name, would like to know, what do you think the American racer feeder series need to do to steer more rookies towards F1?


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[Assistant] Yeah, absolutely. We've seen a lot of drivers go the other way, haven't we? From Formula 1 to Indy cars, so it's maybe just time for a few to go the other way. Now I want to get into your thoughts on


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[Assistant] On how we can get more women involved in motorscore, how...


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[Assistant] Because looking at your career, you didn't have a W series, did you? You didn't have an F1 academy. You fought your way to the-


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[Assistant] And you did pretty well, you know, and you got to the very top, so yeaah, it just perhaps goes to show. Uhm, you know, if you were Stefano Domenicali, right now,


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[Assistant] Is there anything you'd be doing to change opportunities for women in motorsport? Is there anything you think that he or Formula One could be doing better? So at least perhaps give some opportunities.


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[Assistant] Yeah, absolutely. Uhm, Doug on Instagram would like to know, is there a woman on the radar through the junior categories that you believe has the speed to be competitive in Formula One?


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[Assistant] Yeah, I mean, you are absolutely a role model for, for young drivers, for young women drivers everywhere, aren't you? Because of your, because of your path and what you've done. Absolutely a hundred percent.


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[Assistant] I want to talk about Formula 1 today. Uh, question on Instagram. What driver would be the best if all drivers had the same car? So if we put all of the 20 Formula 1 drivers in RB19s, say, for this season, who would you pick as the one? Maybe apart from Max, because we can't probably...


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[Assistant] Can you say that Max would be bossing that in the RB19? Yeah.


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[Assistant] Do you know, I mean, are you surprised that we haven't seen a situation where we do get the best drivers in the world all in the same machinery?


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[Assistant] Paul would like to know on Instagram, what's your favourite Indy car and F1 track?


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[Assistant] Final question from Instagram. If you could make a guest appearance at any European circuit, which would you choose?


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[Assistant] As a driver. As a driver. To drive it. To drive it, yeaah. This is your, this is your, you're coming back.


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[Assistant] You know, it's the, uh, you know, the big, big swan song, the media attention around it. You're driving one final race in Europe, which is that circuit that you choose. Maybe it's Brands Hatch.


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[Assistant] Hello all, a very warm welcome to this week's episode of the Sky Sports F1 podcast with me, Matt Baker. I hope you are well and enjoyed a brilliant Italian Grand Prix. To help me break that down and look into the big stories, I'm joined by Formula One world champion, Nico Rosberg and F1 content creator Aldis. Hello to you both. Nico, I'll start with you. How was your weekend in Monza?


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[Assistant] Aldous, what about you? How was your weekend? Did you enjoy the race?


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[Assistant] Definitely, yeaah, we've had two cracking races, haven't we, since the summer break. Uhm, so ten wins in a row for Max.


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[Assistant] But perhaps somewhat overshadowed by the incredible Ferrari performance in front of the Tifosi. So we'll get into all of that, but before we do...


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[Assistant] I want to do our one word race reviews. Now, Nico, I'm nervous about doing this this week because last time we did this, you ridiculed me for having a rubbish word. So I'm going to, I'm still going to go last, but I'm going to come to you first. What, uh, what's your one word race review for the Italian Grand Prix?


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[Assistant] Yeah, perfect, perfect. And why have you picked Thrilling? Just because of all the overtaking?


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[Assistant] Oh god, I'm nervous. I've gone for competitive, which it still seems underwhelming. I feel there should be more wordplay, but I thought it was competitive throughout the weekend, which I don't think is something we've said all season or for a lot of this season in Formula One. I thought competitive between Carlos and Max for the first 15 laps.


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[Assistant] But also competitive throughout the field and I want to give a special mention to Alex Albon in the Williams because I think when after Qualley we heard both McLaren drivers say, you know, oh, we're not going to be able to be able to overtake the Williams of Alex in the straights and they were right. It was.


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[Assistant] It was very, very competitive, uh, in that midfield and battles everywhere. So yeah, competitive. Nico, I think you're going to give me like a five out of 10 or something for that.


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[Assistant] Alright, let's start by talking about Ferrari, because I think Ferrari were the big story yesterday, despite the records for Max. Nico, could they have asked for a better weekend in the context of this season, in the context of the domination by Red Bull? Could they have asked for a better weekend?


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[Assistant] Aldous, do you think it was the best Ferrari performance of the year so far?


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[Assistant] Nico, what about that battle between Carlos and Charle at the end there? Do you, I mean, I saw footage of Charle going up to Fred Versaire in the paddock and checking his pulse.


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[Assistant] After, after the race, because it must have been nerve, nervy for the Ferrari pit wall, but do you think it was the right decision to allow them to race and to go as, go as hard as they did in those final few laps?


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[Assistant] Be a fly on the wall in that room, yea, be, be incredible. And Nico, what's it like? I mean, I, I thought the, the, from the onboard footage, it w, it looked so close. It looked, you know, when you're going at 200 miles an hour down those straights, wheel to wheel with your, with your teammate, what is that like? Take us inside the cockpit.


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[Assistant] What if all this had gone the other way? What if they had have crashed out? Because I think we'd be doing a whole different podcast today, wouldn't we, about how, you know, Fred Versailles has lost control of the drivers, the drivers are, are leading the, uh, leading the Ferrari team.


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[Assistant] There certainly is, yea, understatement maybe. There seems to be all the pressure. Speaking of pressure, I thought it was interesting what Fred Vassar was saying across the weekend. He came into the weekend saying he was just going to treat it as any other normal weekend.


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[Assistant] Nico, do you think this was a big weekend for Fred Versailles in terms of getting the Tifosi onside, giving them something to cheer about this season? Do you think this is almost where perhaps the Tifosi maybe like really sort of fell, not fell in love with Fred Versailles, but became more of a fan of him and his methods?


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[Assistant] Maybe he needs you, Nico, to give him some Italian lessons.


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[Assistant] Well on that, I mean, do you think that's a genuine issue? You think that's a real problem that he has to sort out quick if he's going to get the Tifosi onside?


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[Assistant] Mm, goodness. That's a lot of pressure to also learn a language and, and, you know, take Ferrari into, uh, back to the top of Formula One. Aldous, how, how, how do you rate Fred Versailles' time in the job so far? You know, obviously we're sort of nearing two thirds of the way through the season. What, what would you give him out of 10?


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[Assistant] Right, right, right, the team principals so far for this season. Fascinating, fascinating. Just to bring it back onto Ferrari, I think, and I'm going to refer actually to a tweet you did all this over the weekend.


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[Assistant] This, this potentially was quite a big weekend for Ferrari in that they now leapfrog Aston Martin in the Constructors Championship. So they're now on 228 points, Aston are behind on 217.


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[Assistant] And it perhaps points to the importance of having two drivers who can consistently bring in points. I'm going to tell you what, what each driver has got between the two. So Carlos is on 117, Charles on 111, Alonso though is on 170 compared to Stroll on 47.


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[Assistant] So Nico, what do you think, or how important is it to have two drivers getting points week in week out?


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[Assistant] Can you see Nico a situation where, and obviously we know Lawrence Stroll, Lance's dad,


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[Assistant] Does own the team. So can you ever see a situation where Lawrence is outing his own son from the team?


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[Assistant] Yeah. I listened to a lot of his interviews this weekend. He was really despondent. I mean, he obviously had the FP1 session where Felipe was in the, was in the car, then had a mechanical issue in FP2, qualified 20th and finished P16. I mean, Aldous, you're shaking your head at the very mention of Lance. What have you made of his performance so far? I guess in that race, but also across the season.


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[Assistant] Yeah, it's an expensive business having a Formula One team, but then also having your son in it and not performing.


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[Assistant] Time will tell, certainly time will tell. Let's, let's move on to talk about...


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[Assistant] Well, talk about Red Bull in the sense of now it's 10 wins in a row for Max Verstappen, which is just an incredible achievement. He, he's won, or sorry, Red Bull have won 24 out of the last 25 races, incredible numbers and


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[Assistant] I think it's also a case of it doesn't necessarily look like that's going to change over the next few races. It looks like that number could creep up to 11, 12, 13. Who knows after that. I've got a tweet here that says, which circuit is the most likely one where Ferrari and co could beat Red Bull? Nico, where do you think?


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[Assistant] I thought Nico, your old boss Toto was pretty interesting yesterday when he was talking about the records that Red Bull had broken. He said, those numbers, it is for Wikipedia and nobody reads that anyway. So Nico, take us inside the Toto's office. Did he really care about records?


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[Assistant] Hmm. But did he, did he care about records when, when you were racing with him? Did he, as you were breaking records? Yeah.


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[Assistant] Yeah. Surely, surely every driver does. I mean, it's a chance to write yourself in history, isn't it? Um, okay. A couple, couple more tweets. Uh, what this one from Anthony, which Nico, I'm sure you got this a lot this weekend. Nico, can you take a selfie with Max in Singapore before the race? Oh, yes. This is referring to.


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[Assistant] Oh, okay, fine. All right. Well, there we go. We'll see what happens in Qatar, who you're going to take a photo with. Another tweet, this is from Das, uh, Taniko, if you got offered a drive in Red Bull next year, would you take it even if you were the Red Bull's second driver?


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[Assistant] If you do fancy it, I'm sure there'd be a fair few fans who'd want to see it. Okay, let's, let's move on and just talk about Mercedes. Uhm, I've got a tweet here from Jude.


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[Assistant] What are you expecting to see from the Silver Arrows?


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[Assistant] What's going on then, Nico? Take us inside the factory at Mercedes. What will be the conversations? What will be the process in order to get back to the front of the grid next year?


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[Assistant] New contracts for George and Lewis. Do you think that allows Mercedes to have stability into next year? It now kind of just grounds everyone within the team and says, right, we are fully focused on 2024. We've got our drivers. We've got everyone around us. Let's, let's go for it.


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[Assistant] A couple of other stories to wrap up. Uh, Liam Lawson, I think we should, I think we should have a quick chat about him because he finished 11th yesterday in the race, which is the highest. That second Alfa Tauri has finished all season. The best of Reiss finish was 12th. Ricciardo managed to get his best was, it was 13th.


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[Assistant] So, Aldous, what do you make of Liam Lawson's last two races, his debut in Formula One?


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[Assistant] Nico, what do you think Liam Lawson's last two performances have done for Daniel Ricciardo? Where does that leave him now?


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[Assistant] Are they really going to bring Daniel Ricciardo back? You know, would they still have that goodwill towards Daniel Ricciardo, do you think?


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[Assistant] Yeah. Okay. Quick look at Singapore before we go. Nico, you won there, of course, in 2016 on your way to the World Championship. What do you expect from Singapore? I mean, you alluded to it earlier. It's a, it, quality is important, but also it's a tricky, tight track with, you know, we might get some weather, you know, what, what are your expectations ahead of Singapore?


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[Assistant] Yeah, it was going to be a fascinating race. We've got a weekend off of course, uh, but we will be back after the Singapore Grand Prix to look back at that as well. Uh, Nico, Aldous, thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it. Uh, until next Tuesday. See you then. Bye for now.


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[Assistant] Really good, thank you. I wasn't in Canada, but I was still at a motorsporting event. So you can't keep me away too long, but yeah, no, it was good. It was nice to watch it. Sometimes it's nice to watch it from afar and see exactly what's been happening. And yeah, it was a really exciting one to watch from afar for me.


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[Assistant] We saw something really interesting I think over this whole race, and I'm sure we'll get into it a lot more, but with the upgrades, with the fact that Max


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[Assistant] Fantastic, you know, magical drivers. It just felt like it was the first race that I've been like, there's something.


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[Assistant] That could happen here. Uhm, and, and, and with a track like Canada as well, I know Max was out front laughing, but you know, he nearly knocked himself out on a curb.


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[Assistant] Well yeaah, but uhm, but it was, it just felt like finally we've had something, some of the upgrades are starting to show something and we're starting to see a bit more of an exciting prospect of a season.


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[Assistant] I would think, yeaah, I think, you know, Max sort of summed it up after the race, didn't he? He said, you know,


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[Assistant] I don't want to look at the two different generations. I don't want to see.


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[Assistant] But Lewis does that as well. If you've ever asked Lewis about records, he's very much like, I don't look at records, you know, I just focus on what's next.


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[Assistant] Yeah, you're gonna think about it, aren't you? Because Senna was one of the, you know, the most famous faces in Formula One history. Of course you're gonna think about it. But are you going to put everything onto it and think that then, uhm,


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[Assistant] Justifies your talent or, or gives you the validation that you need to prove that you're a good driver. Probably not, you know, he's already got that on his, on his own merit, I guess. So yeah, I think, I think in that way he probably doesn't want to.


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[Assistant] You probably might not want to annoy fans as well by saying, yes, well, I'm as good as in Senna now, you know, that's not a line that you want to kind of say, you know, they're two different entities in two different greats.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I thought it was great. I think we also, we also don't often see Lewis alongside Lewis, uh, alongside Alonzo and alongside.


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[Assistant] Max, I think I heard a stat somewhere that it's only happened once in Qatar. Uhm, I'd have to look that up, that's not-


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[Assistant] Very good fact checking for me, but, but it was, you know, how many world championships between them? 11? Did I do that maths right? Yeah. 11 world championships in a race that felt like it ignited something new and exciting in this championship, which we haven't seen yet this season. It's been a bit.


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[Assistant] A bit of a, maybe a choir to start to the season than we've maybe hoped for. And it just, it felt like there was a new fire lit under a lot of bellies. And to see then that be the final podium for me just felt really special.


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[Assistant] Yeah, there's gonna be some sort of impact on losing out on that time with the, with the penalty they received. We haven't seen it yet because obviously they've had such a strong start to the season. They've won every single race so far.


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[Assistant] Aston Martin and Mercedes, they're gonna start their own little battle and I think that's really exciting.


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[Assistant] Yes, because if, look, he started 12th and he finished 6th.


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[Assistant] In any other drive or any other team, you'd be like, that's a good drive. That's a, that's an impressive drive. But the fact is he shouldn't have qualified 12.


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[Assistant] P12 anyway, that, that's, that's the main thing we need to take away from this. So they don't have no headaches at the moment. Yes, they've got one driver that's doing amazingly and looks like he's going to win the championship, but it's a team, as they always say to us, it's a team sport. And so if one's not doing it and.


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[Assistant] For him, he needed confidence. He needed confidence this weekend. He didn't get it. It's not the best track to try and get your confidence back. He crashed out in qualifying I think last year in Canada.


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[Assistant] But to, to not even get into Q3. And I think that's a hat trick of not getting into Q3. He's had a couple of non Q3 performances. That's a real headache.


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[Assistant] For his own confidence to, to support, you know, he's got a, uh, a fierce Fernando Alonso behind him. If he had a second red ball sitting behind him, making it as wide as Alex Alban did for the entirety of that race. Yeah, he would have support and also they would have an easy wrap up with the, of the team's championship. Without that, they're going to really struggle.


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[Assistant] And they need it. They need the number two driver that you so rightly said he's slotted into now, but.


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[Assistant] Just going to move it on. In Miami, he was so defiant as well. Like he was so confident coming into that race and then to have it all taken, taken away. And you know, you have to remember he's won what two races this season. It's not like he's a bad driver, but the confidence level has dropped. That will dip back up. Absolutely. He will, he will pick up his confidence again, but I don't.


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[Assistant] Yeah. And I think also you have to remember that, um, we lost George Russell in that race. Would he have been in front of Sergio Perez, um, if he had not?


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[Assistant] And that, and nobody wants that, you know. It's like, it's like the Lewis Hamilton next to Valtteri Bottas, you know.


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[Assistant] Bottas isn't a bad driver but he just would never be able to match what, you know, Lewis could do in that car.


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[Assistant] Uhm, but he definitely deserves a seat, that's, yeaah. But it's a funny one, isn't it, that second seat next to Max, because it's such a revolving door. Before Sergio came in, you know, you had Alex, you had Gasly, you had Dan McCarty.


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[Assistant] I mean, Sergio, he has a contract till 2024. He does.


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[Assistant] In theory, absolutely not. They're not going to look at anyone else. Like you say, he is doing the number two driver thing. He's just not performing at the level they want him to be performing at. With the harmony in the team, it's very different, but how long


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[Assistant] You know, Chako's quite a fiery character. How long is he going to keep, you know, his cool?


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[Assistant] About his performance at the moment. And I think for them, they're quite lucky because it seems to be something to do with his confidence and his driving.


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[Assistant] Rather than the team making choices that's frustrating him that we've seen in the past. So I don't think they, they probably would be.


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[Assistant] I guess quite foolish to look elsewhere when they've got such a solid driver in surgery.


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[Assistant] Uhm, and I can't remember where it was in the race, but he said, I've hit a bird. And then afterwards he said in the interviews, yes, they pulled out part of a bird from the car.


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[Assistant] Performance? Maybe that's why he only had nine seconds lead.


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[Assistant] If you're going to hit a bird, and like Ted said, the bird's gone into lots of important parts of the car that's going to make it either overheat or whatever it is, especially with the brakes that tend to overheat in Canada, you've either got a pit or not, so it must have only been the tip of the wing or something that really got


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[Assistant] And you think, do you really think is it race engineer at that point of the race wants to think about, you know, your driver going over a curb and then laughing about it. I mean, that's quite the flex to then crack on and win with a bird and hanging out your car as well.


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[Assistant] Yeah, it's slow corners and longer straights and the tyres were struggling for.


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[Assistant] Getting it, keeping any heat in them at all, so that, so Red Ball was struggling already with that.


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[Assistant] Various different things not working, uhm, so I think track specific.


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[Assistant] But I also do think that we should not look down on the fact that these upgrades from.


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[Assistant] They only start in 2005 and you can't take away the amazing job that they've done. You know, they've really dug in.


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[Assistant] And they've had a lot of adversity come towards them. Obviously the controversy from last year.


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[Assistant] Get the job done, and they've done an amazing job.


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[Assistant] I mean, now that everyone's trying to steal their floor, I think proves everything really, doesn't it?


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[Assistant] But they've stuck with consistency as well. I remember Christians being there for so long.


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[Assistant] So, so they're kept with consistency and they've trusted Christian and, you know, Adrian Newey and they've put their, they've made sure they've stuck and put all their eggs in that one basket and, and waited for this team to be as incredible as it has, as it's now become, uhm, their resurgence, I guess.


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[Assistant] I think Red Bull have, we've seen such a massive change in the Formula One paddock over the last, I would say, five years even.


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[Assistant] With the introduction of formula of a drive to survive and things like that. And, and in general, the audience getting.


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[Assistant] People on their toes in a very different way. They don't maybe do things as traditionally as the rest of the teams and they've made other teams maybe question.


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[Assistant] What they're doing and up their game and things like that.


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[Assistant] I think they just add a bit of spice. I think they've just got a bit of, they've just got a bit of spice about them and they're a bit different from, you know, a team like Ferrari.


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[Assistant] Who keep themselves to themselves a lot, and you know, they're now, you know, branching out a bit more on social media and things, whereas Red Bull


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[Assistant] The Red Bull brand in general is, is kind of cool anyway. It's all the surfers and the snowboarders and things like that. So to bring that into Formula One, I think did breathe a new different life into the paddock.


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[Assistant] It was interesting actually, I heard in an interview, uhm, who was doing the interview? Uh, Karun maybe? I can't remember who did it. Yes, Karun did it on Sunday.


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[Assistant] It took me back a bit when he said, my days are, I'm counting my days down rather than up now to when I'm going to leave. Well, I said it and I was like, a Formula One world of Red Bull without Adrian Newey, what does that look like? And so for me, I was like, well,


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[Assistant] I don't know what that would look like because he's been so integral to their success and the design and the concept of the car.


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[Assistant] Especially this season thinking really, and last season thinking outside of the box in terms of what they were doing.


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[Assistant] You just have to look at the pictures of the Monaco floor.


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[Assistant] But it's incredible the detail of that floor compared to the Williams floor and you cannot


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[Assistant] Take it away from Adrian Newey that he had so much to do with that. And to, even for me to even think, goodness, what does Red Bull look like without Adrian Newey if his days are going down rather than up?


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[Assistant] Well my first reaction was why are we still calling it unsportsman? It should just be unsporting.


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[Assistant] Women drive too. Um, was my first thought. My second thought was, eh? Because,


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[Assistant] And then I think it took some time for everyone to kind of explain it on broadcasts and things like that for exactly what it was. And I, and I-


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[Assistant] I agree with you, just give the penalty for what it was. We all saw that, you know, it was for...


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[Assistant] I'm not impeding, but it was for slowing down other people and it's I guess sort of impeding, but there is a specific rule for it. So use the specific rule for it for the penalty.


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[Assistant] Do you remember when Steiner was talking about having consistent?


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[Assistant] Uh, stewards in, in Spain off the back of an incident that happened in Monaco.


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[Assistant] And it's that question again of, of the inconsistency in terms of maybe how some of the, um, the penalties come through, you know, it's, it's never the same.


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[Assistant] And I remember seeing something else of someone saying, well, what about the Hamilton Alonso in, in the pit lane? You know, that was quite close. Why didn't that one get a...


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[Assistant] Yeah, Andrea Sella did talk about it afterwards, I think, briefly. I don't think it was anything like, we're going to take it up with the FIA.


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[Assistant] Um, disappointment, but not surprising at this point because we've heard everything that's been going on. Um, I actually heard it through one of the drivers who I've been very lucky to stay in contact with. You know, they've, they've got some great drivers in, in that championship. Um, it's disappointing.


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[Assistant] But we mustn't forget what W Series has done for women in motorsport and for


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[Assistant] Um, just letting people see that women can be on track as well. And it was a lot of, if you remember the beginning, there was a lot of controversy that came from.


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[Assistant] You know, segregation of the two women and the, you know, the women on one side and the men on one side. And that wasn't what it was about. It was about showing women's faces in the paddock. It was about really explaining to people that women are talented. They just need to have the same steps up that the men have. Um, whether that's to do with sponsorship funding, you know, just people giving them a chance. And W series has been integral in helping women.


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[Assistant] Become in the limelight and become racing drivers in their own rights. You know, you look at Jamie Chadwick.


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[Assistant] You know, obviously she's won the championship a couple of times and she's out racing it in the indie lights now.


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[Assistant] You know, uhm, Abby Pulling, you know, we've got F1 Academy now, which would never have happened.


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[Assistant] Let's remember that would not have happened without W Series. I truly believe that because it gave everyone a reason to say...


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[Assistant] You know, we need to support people in, in motor sport. And for me, W Series has, has done what it set out to do, which was.


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[Assistant] Give women a safe space to be in motorsport and the fact that, you know, things like drive to survive has allowed more women to, to be part of motorsport.


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[Assistant] To then see women involved in it as well is just so different. Obviously we're waiting to see.


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[Assistant] She got that chance because she was showcased in W Series.


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[Assistant] And Alice Powell, she's on channel four now, you know, that there's all these people that we had never heard from before.


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[Assistant] Uhm, but if anything, it shows as well, W Series, it shows how much we still have to do. If you look at the rules and regulations of Formula One and the language that is used, it's only ever referred to a driver as he.


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[Assistant] Sportsman-like behaviour. From my understanding and my reading, I can't find one mention of woman or her in any of those regulations.


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[Assistant] It's a really easy fix and it's not just for women. It's for non-binary. It's for, you know, for lots of different people out there to not have to feel it's just a he they're speaking to, you know, him coming into the pit lane or whatever it is. They also mentioned cameraman, you know, camera person.


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[Assistant] It's not, it's not hard to just make it more inclusive. So I think there are lots of things we still need to do, but W Series helped really take a massive step for women, I think.


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[Assistant] We need to stop putting a time scale on it because that's not how it works. Because it starts from the grass, it starts from the very bottom and it also starts from the very top. The mindset and the change of how we get more people that are not just males into motorsport. That has to come from both the bottom and the top.


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[Assistant] Uhm, because the top people are giving the people at the bottom the money and then the grassroot is why we get, you know, people coming through.


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[Assistant] Less like a joke, you know, because so many people in sport like to throw around the word princess, you know, when someone, it was the other day I heard someone, a sports person called another sports person princess. And it's like, well, how is that an insult?


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[Assistant] You know, that's just a, that's just a woman, you know, so, so it's all about changing this language and things like that. And I think W series was really integral in being part of that change that we've seen. And hopefully it's waking people up and making them realize that they don't only just know about motorsport, they can race, they can be.


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[Assistant] Pundits, they can be commentators, they can change.


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[Assistant] This sport, there's enough room for everybody to be involved in this sport and it was just about changing those mindsets.


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[Assistant] If girls and women can't see it happening, why would they try and be it?


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[Assistant] need to be changed because if you're not making it a welcoming place for women and that paddock is not safe for women to come into,


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[Assistant] And there is a few that come in. But more often than not, you get a couple of local journals and stuff. Not enough. If you are into motorsport and you want to do it and you want to be an F1 journalist, please fight hard because you can get there.


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[Assistant] That's where it comes in because the lower the car, the better effect you get. So that's what they're trying to eliminate. They're trying to stop anyone putting it too low. And then you have the skid blocks. And unfortunately, if it's worn too much, it suggests the car was too low, in which case you've got a performance advantage. You're out of the race.


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[Assistant] We should also clear up that, um, it's up to the FIA and Joe Bauer, technical delegate, how many cars they check. They checked one after the Qatar sprint. Um, they checked some more after Japan, but they picked up four, we believe yesterday and two, they got hits with two of them. So they looked at Max Lando.


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[Assistant] Lewis and Charles. Lewis and Charles were both fell foul of it. Which begs the question, why not then check all of them, surely?


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[Assistant] Uhm, they're still developing all the time. They obviously have all eyes on 2024. I mean, this is not a 2023 car we're looking at. This is what they are working on for 2024, everything they're bringing and looking at. But he said, oh, Red Bull have stopped developing, you know, because they don't need to, they've got this amazing car. But if Mercedes are closing that gap now, I mean, everything they've been doing this year has been geared towards


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[Assistant] I wanna ask you, ehm, with Max's break issues, how much of an issue was that, do we think, time-wise? Do we think that helped Mercedes close the gap, or was there a genuine two seconds there? Yeah, his lap times, Lewis was closing in, I mean Lewis was like eight seconds behind at one point and got it down to less than two.


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[Assistant] Firstly, how long does it take to build that rapport with your race engineer? And secondly, for you getting in the car in Mexico,


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[Assistant] You've got someone else's race engineer in your rear. You know, you suddenly have to, for that period, that hour, perform your absolute best with someone you don't know very well.


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[Assistant] You know, advantages or any positives you had from earlier sprints.


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[Assistant] Don't just put them all because we need some more audience on that Friday. We'll put a sprint there, you know, pick them for the racing so that, you know, it's much more sensible. We do get a little bit of a shake up. And then on the Saturday in the sprint, stick them all in the F2 cars.


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[Assistant] Hello everyone, a very warm welcome to this week's episode. I hope you're well. Joining me for this one is Sky Sports F1 analyst, Ant Davidson, Sky Sports F1 reporter, Rachel Brooks, and former performance engineer to Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez at Force India, and now F1 content creator, Blake Hintze. Hello all! Hello! Hi! Howdy!


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[Assistant] I just want to tell everyone how this is going to go. So I want us to get into the sprint weekend and our thoughts on that because I'm sure we've all got some fairly interesting, interesting thoughts on how that all played out. Then I want to get into this sort of brewing title fight at Red Bull between


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[Assistant] Max and Sergio, I'm gonna get excited, even if maybe other people are gonna temper that, but I think it's worth getting excited about. And then we've also got some questions at the end of the podcast, uh, from people at home. So.


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[Assistant] Rachel, I'm gonna kick off with you, your One Word Weekend review. You were there in Baku, so, uh, let's start with you.


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[Assistant] Yeah, my goodness. I mean, when you put it like that, and also, yeah, this is the start of a six-week stretch. Obviously, we've got a week off after Miami, but this is the start of a six-week stretch. Yeah, it's, it's an exhausting way to start. Blake, I'm going to come to you next. What's your one-word weekend review?


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[Assistant] Maybe this format, maybe for another track, maybe in the future, this might be something that will be worth doing, but I think on the basis of Azerbaijan, I don't think we can draw a definitive conclusion on the success of it.


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[Assistant] With the fact that Friday setting the grid for Sunday, I think in my head it should be kind of chronological. I think you want like, you know, to build throughout the weekend. You want to have that narrative and have momentum build.


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[Assistant] And the fact that on Sunday morning you're going, oh yea, who is on poll? Oh yea, let's refer back to Friday. You know, oh, who's, who's third? Who's fourth? Let's, let's go back to Friday. I think yea, for me, it just got a little bit confusing. So there we go. It's all like this big circle of words that we've all picked the same.


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[Assistant] Okay, let's get into some questions from people at home, and John C wants to know if...


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[Assistant] He wants to know if the new format played a part on the way the race was played out, considering Baku normally produces drama, does it impact the teams only having one practice session? Blake, start with you. There was only one practice session. How do you think that impacted the teams?


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[Assistant] I think we saw with Gasly and De Vries, they both had bad Fridays, and it felt like they never recovered from Friday, you know, I mean, uh,


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[Assistant] DeVries was the reason for the safety car in the race. He crashed out in Qualley. Gasly had smoke billowing from his car in FP1, which then meant he had a poor race when he finished P14. So as a driver,


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[Assistant] How much are you relying on momentum throughout the weekend to get to that place on Sunday where you're ready to go and you're ready to score good points?


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[Assistant] What about the rookies as well? Because I imagine if you're Oscar Piastri, I know you would have driven in Baku before, but you're driving this car that you're still probably getting to grips with at this point in the season, only four races in.


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[Assistant] And I mean, Blake, obviously you were a performance engineer. How would you have tried to have coach, coach someone perhaps, you know, through the streets of Baku? Cause it looks edge of the edge of the seat stuff, doesn't it? It's, it's so exciting as a viewer.


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[Assistant] Yeah, it really, it really was. Uh, Rachel, you, you mentioned obviously what, uh, what Pierre Gasly said about, about the format. Verstappen said he got bored in qualifying. And, and I think this is quite a funny quote because I think boring, uh, is going shopping.


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[Assistant] And he said it was boring. I mean, what else do people say?


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[Assistant] Yeah, especially having already done a similar qualifying session on Friday. So he's already kind of done a shootout on Friday. Um, let's, let's talk about other ways we change it then. I'm going to nick something from our very own Korean Chandok.


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[Assistant] Uh, on Twitter, who was saying that we need to, if, if we relax the Park Fermi rules, it gives, you know, it gives teams a chance to at least catch up. If you have a bad Friday, you can still tweak the car.


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[Assistant] For, for, for a Saturday or a Saturday afternoon, which hopefully would then put you in a better position for Sunday. I think that's a really good idea. And I don't know if you've got anything else that you would, you would suggest as ways to change it.


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[Assistant] How do, how do we feel about that? I mean, I guess the only issue is keeping it fair, right? Because if you, if you have changes in weather, things like that, that could really favour some people and not others, but. Track condition as well. I don't know if anyone likes the idea of, uh, yeaah. You don't want it to become.


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[Assistant] We've got five more of them, so we've got Austria, Belgium, Qatar, Austin and Brazil. Of those tracks, Rachel, which one would you say is the one you're most excited about seeing a sprint race at?


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[Assistant] It's also the last one that we're going to, so maybe by then we'll have a kind of perfect format of the sprint.


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[Assistant] Kinda goes back to my point of saying like, the chronology of the race weekend just doesn't quite feel right at the moment, does it? The fact that you've just got that Saturday, normally Saturday in the middle, and the form doesn't necessarily carry on over to Sunday.


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[Assistant] I think that's kind of, I think we've got into the sprint weekend, I think we're all sort of saying there are still tweaks to be made, is that fair?


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[Assistant] Don't think anyone's saying we've nailed it. This is, this is the format for the next five. Very unnailed.


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[Assistant] Yeah, for sure. For sure. Do you think we would've...


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[Assistant] Say it wasn't a sprint weekend, do you think we still would have got situations like that? Because obviously Baku does deliver drama, it does deliver excitement most of the time. It's just on this, it felt like this weekend it just struggled during the race. I don't know if you agree, Anne.


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[Assistant] Uh, strategy we, we saw from a lot of drivers. Okay. Let's move on to talk about Max and Sergio and as I said in the intro, the brewing


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[Assistant] Potential title battle that we maybe, maybe not do have on our hands. Certainly at the moment it's 2-2.


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[Assistant] In, you know, two wins each across, across the season. Maybe three, two, if you include Perez's win in the sprint, although I'm sure Max, Max wouldn't include that.


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[Assistant] Uhm, Hockeylife on Instagram would like to know, is Checo 100% a title contender against Max now? Rach, go on, take it away. Do you see Checo as that title contender?


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[Assistant] Yeah, sort of Monaco last year, wasn't it? I think the peak for Perez and then after that, uh, Max.


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[Assistant] Max took a stronghold on that championship. Blake, come on, you've worked with both of these guys. You must know them both well. What did you make of Max's sort of body language and that kind of slightly fraught nature that you had, certainly on the Saturday with George?


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[Assistant] I was going to ask on the Albon and Gasly example you've just given. How do drivers react to going up against Max? Do they see it as this kind of mountain, unachievable sort of thing and they're trying everything to try and get close to him? Or what's the kind of psyche of those drivers?


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[Assistant] Anne, how would you react in that situation if you were paired with Max Verstappen? What would you be doing in your preparation to make sure you were in the best possible position to take the fight to him?


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[Assistant] Rach, what's, what's Max been like to interview over the years? Have you, have you seen a, have you seen a change in him that maybe this year compared to sort of now he's obviously double world champion?


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[Assistant] I wanna, I wanna just touch on Sergio being this sort of street specialist.


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[Assistant] Which he seems to, he seems to be doing his one in Singapore, Saudi, Monaco, obviously in Azerbaijan as well. Amanda has got a question for you, Blake. So, as you were both Checo and Max's performance engineer, what is, what are Checo's strengths in street circuits and Max's strengths in more normal, medium to high speed corners?


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[Assistant] Yeah, fascinating. I mean, what as a driver do you look, do you look to do well at a street circuit? What makes them, apart from the obvious of don't hit the wall because you will hurt the car, what makes a good driver a street circuit driver? If that makes sense.


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[Assistant] To me as a mere motor who hasn't driven a Formula 1 car, I'm pretty transfixed by this, uh, this idea of the flow.


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[Assistant] Yeah, I mean that just sounds amazing to even be like that. I think the closest we'll get is watching Senna's on board through Monaco, isn't it? Probably. That's as far as we can dream. Okay, I think that sort of rounds off Sergio and Max. I do just want to get into some questions from people at home.


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[Assistant] Uh, who've sent in, uh, under our little Twitter post that we put up yesterday, uh, on online.


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[Assistant] And this first question is really interesting because it's from Kristen. I'll read it to you. It says, Can you comment on the Aston Martin drivers wanting to help each other out over the radio during the race?


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[Assistant] While Sergio kept quiet about his hiccup on turn 15, presumably Sir Max wouldn't be aware. Obviously the Red Bull drivers have more at stake than the Aston Martin team, but I find the dynamics fascinating. Rachel, what did you make of this sort of like,


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[Assistant] I was going to say, I mean, imagine learning your, you know, Lance is obviously an accomplished Formula One driver by himself, but I mean, imagine having the tutelage of both Sebastian Vettel and Fernando Alonso in sort of consecutive seasons. You've certainly got the pick, haven't you?


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[Assistant] Blake, have you, have you ever experienced team, teammates working that closely together? I mean, having come from Red Bull, I'm gonna probably guess no.


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[Assistant] The cars to follow more closely. He seems to think we've gone a step backwards this year and we're almost back to where we were. Don't forget we bought in the new regulations to try and get cars to follow closer. I think last year we got really close racing, you know, compared with say 21 or 2020.


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[Assistant] Do we feel like we've gone back a step? Rachel, what do you think?


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[Assistant] Get rid of the rear wings, that's what the FIA can do. Uh, okay, that's almost all we've got time for. It's, it's obviously Miami this week, so I just want to quickly, uh, look ahead to Miami. Uh, Rachel, you were there last year.


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[Assistant] Let's sum up what Miami, what the Miami Grand Prix is, sum up how exciting it is, because it's a real event, isn't it? It's the second year we're going.


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[Assistant] I'm sure you'll look great, uhm, whatever you're wearing. So yeah, thank you very much everyone. We will be back next Tuesday to look back at the Miami Grand Prix. We hope you can join us then. Bye for now.


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[Assistant] Feel there is a sense of authority growing in the paddock with Red Bull. They're owning it this season. But I also sense...


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[Assistant] Maybe an air of foreboding about the relationship between


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[Assistant] Cheko and Max, and both of them are trying to assert themselves over one another. There's one point separating them in the jump.


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[Assistant] And when you think about how impressive that recovery drive was from Max, now he said it all be it through gritted teeth that...


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[Assistant] He was delighted to have secured a P2, that's what he was aiming for. But the dominance with which he did that, had he not been starting P15.


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[Assistant] And perhaps slightly unnerved by those driveshaft issues. He could have won the race, but I just do.


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[Assistant] And I think we're actually agreeing with each other that Christian's going to have his work cut out to manage those two this year.


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[Assistant] Why doesn't this happen more? Why doesn't it happen more? You know this is the most technologically advanced sport in the world and it's been called into question


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[Assistant] With paint on the grid. Why doesn't that happen more and surely there's a way of safeguarding against it?


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[Assistant] I mean, you would have to argue it's an advantage. But, and I don't want to sort of preempt what you're going to say later, they were able to prove there were seven other occasions when the frontjacket touched and that wasn't deemed an advantage. I think as a fan of the sport,


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[Assistant] I speak for other fans when I say you just want clarity and consistency. That, that's the key.


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[Assistant] And you don't want to be finding out the result after the chequered flag. I know I'm jumping forward a bit here, but this is my, you know, I had the pleasure of watching back home, house full of...


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[Assistant] 25 people, a mother and a son day. Couldn't really hear any of it. But it was so interesting to watch it and actually think.


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[Assistant] This isn't right, we can't have the decision to change. What other sport changes, unless you're being stripped of an Olympic medal, I can't think of other examples where the results change after the end of the event.


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[Assistant] But it wasn't instant. It wasn't instant. That's our point though, is it? Alonso said you could have made that decision in the race and I would have had 37 laps to make up that difference. They made it afterwards.


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[Assistant] Okay, but much like football, they were...


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[Assistant] You can refer to VAR, but it has to be instantly. Why isn't the same rule applied to Formula One?


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[Assistant] What I was so impressed with, the fact that Aston Martin were able to draw upon seven examples of when the Jack had touched the car in a pit stop.


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[Assistant] Previously, I mean, how did they even go about doing that in such a small period of time?


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[Assistant] Uh, Alan Carr and Graham Swan, because I was in a list once.


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[Assistant] Touching the car is deemed to be working on the car, or it's not, then why are there seven examples beforehand where it's happened and be let go? Because it wasn't picked up at the time?


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[Assistant] The fact that this sport does have so many subplots does make it compelling and the marginal gains and the minuscule room for error


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[Assistant] It's part of the reason that we watch it, and so the fact that the rear jack touched the car was enough to scupper a podium, actually is fascinating, because you don't get that in any other sport.


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[Assistant] Fans pay a lot of money to watch it and yes, okay, we want to maintain our credibility and integrity throughout, but it is important


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[Assistant] To know what affects the fans and their understanding of the sport. Now,


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[Assistant] I married into a Welsh family who are deeply passionate about their rugby and as much as it pained my father-in-law to tell me.


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[Assistant] He believed England would have won that game had it not been for the red card. So that red card changed the direction of everything. It also made it incredibly complicated because even if ex-professionals can't explain it, what chance have the fans got?


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[Assistant] And I think we need to be very careful about being too technical with Formula One, because yes, it's one of the...


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[Assistant] Compelling elements of our sport that draws people in, it's nuanced, it's layered, it's got countless subplots. But you have to be able to take those bite size elements and have them explained, which is why it's great to have Crofty in the comms box.


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[Assistant] My husband has always played and loved rugby. He's over it. He says it's way too technical. And if you take out the physicality by red carding someone like Freddie, then what's the sport got?


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[Assistant] And I think we have to learn lessons from that. Always draw upon.


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[Assistant] Parallels with other sports and learn potentially from their mistakes.


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[Assistant] Can they? Yes. Will they? No. Because I think reliability will come into play.


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[Assistant] But as we've talked about already, they've had some close calls in the last two races. No car is bulletproof.


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[Assistant] But I go back to our original point whereby the battle will not be with others, it will be internally.


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[Assistant] I mean, I couldn't believe when we looked at the Drivers' Championship that Charle has six.


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[Assistant] But it has been for so long, it begs the question why they haven't got on top of it.


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[Assistant] You know, you may think that you have confidence in what you've achieved over the winter break. Well, it means nothing if everyone else has moved further ahead of you.


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[Assistant] Yeah, and when you see how Max carved his way through the field to finish P2.


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[Assistant] If you're dispirited, how do they feel?


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[Assistant] Yes. Travelator. Yes. The helpful. I actually did. I was standing up and I felt, coffee went, oh, oh, we've got a fallout. He literally caught me.


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[Assistant] Hey, what's going on everybody? For First We Feast, I'm Sean Evans and you're watching Hot Ones. It's the show with hot questions and even hotter wings. And today I'm joined by the man of 1004 holds, Chris Jericho.


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[Assistant] He's a six time world champion wrestler with 27 years in the game, a bestselling author and host of the People's Podcast. Talk is Jericho. Owned his metal band Fozzy, just released its seventh studio album. It's called Judas and it's available now. Chris, welcome to the show.


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[Assistant] So before you ever made it to the Summerslam stage, I understand that you were a bouncer in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Is that where you birthed the walls of Jericho? Were you ever put in a position where you had to defend yourself?


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[Assistant] So you always hear these stories about comedians and musicians on the come up and how they're, you know, playing small venues or in laundry mats and living inside of their cars. But sometimes the origin stories with wrestlers are even a little bit darker. Can you talk to me about the struggle during the Legion Hall and Moose Lodge days?


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[Assistant] I can't imagine the type of training and diet regimen you have to have to be able to succeed in professional wrestling, but I'm also very interested in the bravado-fueled mic skills. Who's your trash talk Mount Rushmore? Who are the top four of all time in your opinion?


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[Assistant] Is there a pop cultural figure, someone who's not in the wrestling world, that you think would make a great heel in professional wrestling?


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[Assistant] You know, as heated as it might be in the ring or on the mic, maybe once you're off the clock, you guys are best of friends. And I know that sometimes that heat can boil over into the locker room or wherever. When you think about all the feuds that you had, which one held its heat inside the ring and outside of it? Get that swig out.


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[Assistant] What was the greatest royal rumble? The greatest locker room elimination match? The greatest match that the cameras didn't catch?


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[Assistant] But we don't know for sure. Who's that? He's a big DJ. Of course he puked. DJs are stupid.


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[Assistant] Andy Cohen. Andy Cohen. You host that, uhm, show on Bravo.


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[Assistant] So now that the bomb is seeping into your soul, you have death sauce biting at your brain and then the last dab finding its spot as well. I'd like to know.


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[Assistant] Which one of these hot sauces is making the list? What's your message for the hot sauce makers who think that they can get on top of Chris Jerk?


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[Assistant] This camera, this camera, or this camera. Let the people know what you have going on in your life.


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[Assistant] Hey, what's going on Hot Ones fans? A quick heads up, the second annual ComplexCon is coming to Long Beach, California on November 4th and 5th, and you know first we feast and Hot Ones are gonna be in the building.


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[Assistant] There's gonna be a live Hot Ones taping. We're gonna be doing a panel with my buddies Andy Milonakis and Matty Matheson. The last dab will be for sale. It's a whole thing. Total circus. Hope to see you there.


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[Assistant] No, I've never been caught knackering my life. No. Pinky. Pink.


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[Assistant] But anyone really wondering what on earth we're talking about, can you explain, you used the piece of cheese to explain the raised...


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[Assistant] That actually, uh, reliability was astonishing. With eight and a half hours a day of testing, it was very limited on stopping the sessions.


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[Assistant] So whilst it didn't get very much testing, which I'm sure we'll come onto in a minute, uhm, it was sort of fairly seamless and bodes well in terms of reliability.


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[Assistant] That's the problem, isn't it? In a rookie year, you just, even if it's to do it further back,


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[Assistant] Take some of the expectation off and some of the pressure off. You just want to have a clean season. And if he's not going to get that, I mean...


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[Assistant] I suppose the concern for him is that Lando knows how difficult that car is to drive and doesn't, you know...


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[Assistant] He can probably get, come to terms with the car quicker than Oscar can. I mean, I don't know.


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[Assistant] Learn your craft at the back with the pressure off. I think it's worse if you're somewhere like McLaren and Lando is outperforming you.


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[Assistant] Hang on a minute, he put a disclaimer in, like you don't believe him is what he's trying to say. Don't take him as well, or is it just for the part?


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[Assistant] Covid year when we had limited running was at the Nürburgring when it was really cold. We had to go into the weekend without practice session.


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[Assistant] But do you remember the, the sense of anticipation and excitement going into the weekend because we were going into the unknown? Yea. And it feels like that on a much grander scale. I love it.


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[Assistant] Of last year's car, which finished 22 so dominantly.


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[Assistant] It's dominantly a word. Yes, it is now. And you know, there's just an air of, um, confidence about Max and the team. They just seem in a really good place. So yeah, I can't really see beyond them at the moment.


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[Assistant] I mean look, they are incredibly slick operation and outfit, but make no mistake, those kind of human emotions don't just go away. Like that will irk.


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[Assistant] I don't, I don't think you just forget something like that.


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[Assistant] Yeah, and you know, you can put on a public front as much as you want, but it doesn't take away from the fact that...


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[Assistant] Maxfield felt aggrieved for what happened in Monaco and...


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[Assistant] The heat of the battle and when they're out on track and they either have to support or otherwise one another. But are you also, I'm really interested in Valtteri Bottas's.


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[Assistant] Uh, personal revelation, bear with me caller, where he says, it took me a couple of years until I accepted that I wasn't going to beat Lewis Hamilton. But you go into a race season and you say,


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[Assistant] Yeah, I can take him on. Of course I can take him on. Same machinery. You have to have that self-belief. Now I wonder at what point does Sergio Perez adjust his...


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[Assistant] View and his goals for the season and say, okay, I can actually play a really good teammate and number two to Max because let's be honest, you cannot take Max Verstappen on at Red Bull.


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[Assistant] Because don't forget that Red Bull ultimately saved Pere's career. Okay, he had a brilliant performance in Bahrain when he won for Racing Point and that ultimately


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[Assistant] You know, sealed the deal for him at Red Bull, but he was without a drive.


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[Assistant] Because that ultimately will be their undoing if they don't. If they don't. You can't decide halfway through the season we're going to put all our eggs in this basket. I mean look at sizes.


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[Assistant] Made and win at Silverstone suddenly gets this shot in the arms says, actually I can be a number one driver. You can't be waiting till Silverstone to work out how you're going to play this season.


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[Assistant] They're not at that point yet. So, if Carlos and Charla...


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[Assistant] And Max and Cheko are, you've got, you've got to back.


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[Assistant] So do you have a, do you have a date in mind? Do you have a cutoff point? This point in the season, this is where we have to start?


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[Assistant] Also, Fernando is Ted's favorite driver of all time ever. Isn't he? Come on.


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[Assistant] I'm with you. I liked it. I mean, it's great. Yeah. I mean, I think we could have a bit more fun with launches, couldn't we? I want to get back to the Spice Girls days of McLaren.


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[Assistant] I actually think his relationship with Charlotte Clark will be an interesting, uh, dynamic because I think one of the problems before


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[Assistant] I don't know whether Char was, felt disempowered or emasculated in any way, but he wasn't making decisive decisions in the way that Carlos was over Team Radio. And I wonder whether his strong bond with Fred Fassir would change that mindset in him. And he might be a bit more assertive in matters that moment the most.


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[Assistant] Race winner now. He was, he was out of sorts. He wasn't comfortable in the car and he said that feels very different this year.


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[Assistant] I think what was interesting is day one looked good, day two not so much, day three good again. And that kind of almost gives you a snapshot as to the fact that perhaps the operating window is more limited than they thought. I felt like there was a good feeling at the launch. I felt that there was optimism that they'd got on top of their problems, but they can't really walk away from testing full of confidence in the way that say Red Bull, Aston Martin in Ferrari can.


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[Assistant] So we're told, that's what we heard, absolutely, but you know, make no mistake, George had an incredible first season at the team.


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[Assistant] Uhm, I thought he was brilliant last year. I thought he coped so maturely with the fact that, look, you're going to sign for Mercedes, you're going to think, hello.


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[Assistant] Finally, you know, I've been very patient with my career. I've stuck it out the back for long enough. I'm finally coming to approve an entity and I'm going to shine. And then he didn't. And that must have been quite difficult to grapple with. But I thought he handled it really well. I thought,


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[Assistant] His dynamic and, and, you know, relationship with Lewis was brilliant. You know, certainly what they projected was always positive. Um, and yeah, I think, I think George covered himself in glory and then deservedly got that maiden win at the end of the year.


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[Assistant] I mean, I think Lewis showed what a team player he was this year as well, and he was prepared to knuckle down, do the hard work.


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[Assistant] And really working on his fitness, he's taken on Michael Italiano, obviously Daniel's trainer. They've been working really hard. I saw them out in Dubai when I was on a bit of a jolly. They weren't, they were training.


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[Assistant] Okay, is Mr. Handsome gonna get that first elusive podium in his house?


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[Assistant] Yes, it's a lovely bunch of people to work with. I was out in Bahrain with Martin, so first race with boots on ground, which always just feels


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[Assistant] It just feels so good to get going. I think, you know, there's been so much chatter over pre-season and yeaah.


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[Assistant] When it comes down to it, it's when we see cars out on track that we know that we've got something to talk about. And as Martin said, some surprise storylines coming out. I know on the last podcast, you guys touched on Aston, uh, in quite, uh, quite some detail. So no doubt we'll be following them through, through the season and hopefully they're going to give us.


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[Assistant] Uh, a lot to talk about because the Red Bulls looked incredibly dominant, which I guess kind of leads into the lack of competitiveness that we saw in Bahrain. Is there going to be more to get excited about this season? Obviously we're going to hope the answer is yes, but it kind of led us into what we're going to be talking about.


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[Assistant] Today there were some incredibly disappointed drivers on Bahrain and some, uh, rather related as well. So lots to talk about.


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[Assistant] Oh my god, like Martin said, it's forever, and...


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[Assistant] The, the amount of development needed to be able to close that gap is, is, is massive. Uhm, and you know, by the time you've caught up, Red Bull have probably brought a few updates themselves and so it's always kind of a, uh,


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[Assistant] How, how fast can you find the fix that means that the gap can close? And obviously I, you know, we've had one race. I think that's the other thing that we need to remember. We've had one race. Bahrain is, I don't know. I mean, it's not as much of an outlier as some of the other tracks in terms of it being.


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[Assistant] Uh, non-representative, there are things that we can take away from Bahrain to say, okay, well this might be the way that it pans out throughout the rest of the season. And we know how good that Red Bull is and how dominant they were.


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[Assistant] Uh, last year for, for very, for a lot of the season, we know that they're good, but we know Mercedes are good as well. I mean, you don't just forget how to be record breaking.


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[Assistant] Constructors, like that's just, that doesn't go away. But kind of as you guys touched on the, on the last podcast, Mercedes have gone through a lot of changes. They've lost a lot of people. Red Bull have gained a lot of people. So it is, it is kind of about right. Finding what works and having to find it pretty damn quick because you're going to have a lot of people that


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[Assistant] Aren't happy with the way things are going, but uhm, yeah, I think it's.


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[Assistant] Quite understandably from the fan's perspective, the question has arose of, well, how long does Lewis stick it out for? Because as he told us in the lie detector feature that we did, uhm, that came out on Sunday, he has said that he's gonna stay in Formula One until he gets his eighth world title.


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[Assistant] Will that be with Mercedes? I mean, I think it's gonna be interesting moving more and more through the season, listening to...


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[Assistant] How Lewis reacts, because there was a particular piece of, um, of interview post Bahrain that, that made the, uh, kind of later on in the, uh, in the, in the programming where he mentioned how they just didn't listen to me, which I thought, I thought that was quite


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[Assistant] That's what I'm going to be looking out for, like the way that he then talks to the media and kind of positions himself within the team when he's looking at another season of not being very competitive.


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[Assistant] It is. I mean, I found the letter, the open letter to the fans. Ah, if I'm honest, quite odd.


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[Assistant] Um, cause as we've, as we've tried to touch on here.


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[Assistant] And I think as a lot of fans listening will be thinking like, it's only the first race. We can't start making conclusions. As Martin said, longest season ever. And we've just done race one and all of a sudden there are people going, Lewis is going to leave Mercedes and it's all going to be over and he's going to jump to Ferrari or whatever.


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[Assistant] I think it's an interesting topic to discuss, hence us doing a whole podcast on it. Uhm, but the letter to the fans, to me, was more of a knee-jerk reaction than anything else about speculation about him moving on, just because of the fact that it is only the first race. Yes, there's a lot of disappointment.


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[Assistant] Uhm, Mercedes, on their, you know, their social, their digital, their branding, they are very much trying to be, you know, they've always said, like, we win, we lose together. They're very, uhm, you know, fan-centric. They love to include the fans as part of who they are and what they do.


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[Assistant] Like had this been a few races into the season, maybe I would be a bit more like, okay, fine. You know, they just want to cover off and say they understand and they see the frustration of fans and they see the frustration of their drivers and they know it's not good enough. But after race one.


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[Assistant] And the weirdest part of the whole letter to me was the final lines where it says, are you ready to join us for the fight back? If not, then there are no hard feelings.


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[Assistant] Like, so almost like they're, they know that they might lose fans because they're not the out and out winners anymore.


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[Assistant] And just the timing of it for me just is, yeah, it's, it's, it's not what


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[Assistant] It's not, I mean, I'm not the head of comms at Mercedes, uh, and I'm sure the head of comms at Mercedes would have something to say to me in terms of, well, it's not your fashion. So, uh, I'm, I'm looking forward to having that conversation if I ever do, but yeah, I just, it feels quite defeatist so early on.


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[Assistant] Uhm, that you must, they must have known.


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[Assistant] Way, way before testing Bahrain, that this is what was gonna happen.


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[Assistant] Because they're not, they've not played it out. They've apologized for it straight away.


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[Assistant] And yeah, I don't know, like, I don't know what Martin thinks. Uhm, I don't know, did you read, did you ever, did you get a chance to read the letter, Martin?


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[Assistant] Well, depending on how deep on Twitter and Reddit you go, uhm, I don't think any team is without a rumor of him potentially going there for, I mean, that is, is good fun reading, uh, all the, the kind of the, uh, the, the, the, the weird theories that come out about where, where he could potentially go and find his eighth.


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[Assistant] They make for great reading. But yea, to your point, Lewis has quite a unique relationship in that team.


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[Assistant] He is so caught to it, it's almost like they are, they co-exist, they're dependent on each other almost.


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[Assistant] And it would be quite unfathomable to think of him.


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[Assistant] Anywhere else, like, you know, I've seen all the photo shops of him in, in red and it just doesn't look right. So it just, it just looks odd. Um, but I think, you know, in a similar way that Max is into weaving himself into red bull, like it'd be very difficult to imagine Max.


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[Assistant] Anywhere else. Uhm, but yeaah, Lewis does have this very unique position that


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[Assistant] He's got so much freedom as well with Mercedes, uhm, because of who he is and what he's achieved and the way that he likes to operate. He gets this ability to do all these things like the commission, like Ignite, like Mission 44.


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[Assistant] And to walk away from that would probably be a lot more difficult for him than had he not got that.


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[Assistant] There's a, there's a multitude of things keeping him at Mercedes, uhm, and I think I probably agree with Martin in that it's better the devil you know right now, but I wouldn't be surprised if he's open to hearing.


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[Assistant] Of opportunities, I mean, any team up and down the grid would probably break off their, their arm to have somebody like Lewis Hamilton driving for them. Um, but yeah, he's only going to move if he believes it's going to be competitive.


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[Assistant] Uhm, well I think as Martin alluded to, it's gonna be about how big is the gap? How big is that gap? How big is that deficit?


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[Assistant] That's quite a big ask at Saudi, uhm, especially, well, and especially Race 2, like, you know, there's minimal time, as we'll find throughout this season, there's not as much time to be able to turn around.


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[Assistant] Upgrades, you know, I don't think anybody, does anybody have anything planned for Saudi? Not that I've heard.


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[Assistant] It's, so I think it's, it's, it's, they're going to want to have, they're going to want to have seen a reducing pace, but I don't see how that's going to be massively achievable.


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[Assistant] And I think as they all just keep saying, just maximizing on, on positions. I mean, what Mercedes were incredibly good at last season was picking up the opportunities was consistent, turning up consistently finishing. You know, George was on a run of top five finishes for what was it? The first seven or eight races of last year.


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[Assistant] Uhm, that consistency is something that they can achieve. That reliability and that consistency, uhm, where, you know.


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[Assistant] They can still deliver if the outright pace is not quite there just yet.


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[Assistant] And this is, this is why we've got you on Martin. You're the, you're the leveler. You, uh, you keep us honest and, uh, not going down too many rabbit holes. Um, but I think the, the cynic in me as well says,


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[Assistant] Uh, to completely, I guess, juxtapose my entire comment about Martin being the leveler. Maybe you can level me again here, Martin.


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[Assistant] The cynic in me says that they just, they just could not have turned up in Bahrain or, uh, with a, with a copycat Red Bull. Like.


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[Assistant] Could you imagine Christian letting Toto off if they...


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[Assistant] Drop their no side pod concept and came out with what more and more of the teams we've seen doing, which is more akin to the Red Bull.


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[Assistant] You know, Toto would not have heard the end of it if they had abandoned that, that concept and come back, come back, come back without their, with, with it, without their, uh, no side pod concept. That, the cynic in me also says that whilst Martin, you're totally right, development wise, you know, taking it back to square one would just not have been tenable.


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[Assistant] There is also that part of me that goes, they love a tet-a-tet are a, a Horner and Toto wolf, but, and, and I don't know if they could have survived a, oh, so you have copied us then, kind of, kind of scenario.


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[Assistant] It's an interesting question, is it? Because a lot of people were saying how Lando and Lewis's futures might be interlinked, uhm, and it's breezy touched on it there in terms of, well, maybe Lewis retires, Lando takes his seat.


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[Assistant] Uhm, which is an interesting one because if, you know, if we're, if we're saying that Lewis potentially has.


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[Assistant] Five years, uhm, I mean, I don't know how quickly Mercedes can turn it around to give him his eighth title. Cause I mean, he's, he's pretty much said he's going to stick around till his eighth and then.