The 2025 Formula One Season: A Year of Chaos, Comebacks, and the Crown No One Saw Coming

This special episode of The Drive Thru News provides a comprehensive wrap-up of the 2025 Formula One Season with discussions on races, team strategies, and driver performances. The season opened with Lewis Hamilton’s unexpected move to Ferrari and McLaren’s early dominance. Highlights include Max Verstappen’s relentless pursuit of victory, McLaren’s strategic missteps, and unforeseen upsets like Lando Norris claiming the championship. The narrative weaves through various races, controversies, and memorable moments, concluding with reflections on the thrilling climax at Yas Marina and speculation on future seasons.

Skip ahead if you must… Here’s the highlights from this episode you might be most interested in and their corresponding time stamps.

• 00:00:00 2025 Formula One Season Overview
• 00:01:28 Hamilton’s Move to Ferrari and Classic Car Debate
• 00:05:13 Mercedes’ Struggles and Team Dynamics
• 00:11:09 Bottas’ New Persona and Social Media Highlights
• 00:13:10 Driver Changes and Team Strategies for 2025
• 00:17:11 Hamilton’s Ferrari Debut and Race Analysis
• 00:30:41 Rain Races and Driver Performances
• 00:35:18 Upcoming Races and Predictions
• 00:35:58 Debating Hamilton’s Performance
• 00:36:51 Ferrari’s Pit Strategy Woes
• 00:38:48 Comparing Teams and Drivers
• 00:40:36 The Frustration with Modern F1
• 00:43:23 Driver Age and Performance
• 00:47:18 Red Bull’s Driver Dynamics
• 00:48:32 The Return of V10s?
• 00:50:35 Monaco Predictions and Criticisms
• 00:56:40 Ferrari’s Transmission Troubles
• 01:01:12 The Future of F1 and Disney Partnership
• 01:08:50 Mad Max Racing Ideas for Monaco
• 01:09:40 Ferrari’s Struggles and Team Orders
• 01:11:39 The Challenges of Canadian Grand Prix
• 01:16:19 Movie Theater Experiences and F1 Movie Discussion
• 01:17:41 Proposed Wing Changes and Ferrari’s Performance
• 01:18:55 Max Verstappen’s Dominance and Future Prospects
• 01:21:38 Formula One’s Popularity and Future
• 01:37:20 Cadillac and Audi’s Entry into Formula One
• 01:42:05 Porsche’s Three Strike Strategy
• 01:43:00 Wacky Car Commercials
• 01:45:18 Franz Herman’s Racing Triumph
• 01:46:39 US Grand Prix Highlights
• 01:48:09 Max Verstappen’s Championship Comeback
• 01:52:51 Formula One 2025 Game Review
• 01:57:38 Brazilian Grand Prix Drama
• 02:04:42 Yas Marina Season Finale
• 02:05:29 Formula One 2025 Season Recap
• 02:19:49 Future of Formula One Coverage

Executive Producer Tania: [00:00:00] Welcome to Break Fixes, Drive-Through News, your monthly recap for everything fast, fascinating, and usually four wheeled. We’re serving up a fresh batch of automotive headlines, motorsports madness, and car adjacent curiosities, all with zero wait time and maximum flavor from Formula One, drama to concept car debuts with garage built legends to the quirkiest stories rolling out of the state of Florida.

We’ve got your fix. So grab your coffee, buckle up, and let’s cruise through the latest in the world of wheels with a side of entertainment and just a dash of tire smoke.

Crew Chief Eric: During 2025, formula One was more than a championship. It was a saga of speed, rivalry, and redemption. From Melbourne’s opening roar to Abu Dhabi’s final curtain.

The season unfolded like a high octane drama. McLaren’s resurgence, ver stop in’s, relentless pursuit. Russell’s defiance and Ferrari’s gamble with Hamilton all collided in a year that tested the limits of man and machine. This is the story of the 2025 formula One season told month by month, race by race, and moment by [00:01:00] moment.

ANNOUNCER!: The year began not with the roar of engines, but with whispers in the paddock. Hamilton’s move to Ferrari sent shockwaves through the sport while Bahrain’s winter Sun revealed McLaren’s hidden speed. The stage was set, the players assembled, and the world held its breath.

Crew Chief Eric: Now that Hamilton is over at Ferrari, and we’ll talk about that more.

Especially the photos that came out, him looking like Shum me and stuff that he gave some really profound investment advice over the winter break. He says, hypercar are boring. You should buy a classic car

Crew Chief Brad: and art.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. Okay. Thanks. Rich guy. I mean, what do you say to that? The ocean has water in it and it’s wet.

Moisture is the essence of water.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, cool. Right? His version of it. So we all can buy a classic car. Yeah, right. Dan’s got a mountain of them [00:02:00]

Crew Chief Brad: now. Now, hold on. Right. There’s a difference between a classic car and whatever’s going on at the mountain. Big difference. Do you call the cars at a junkyard classics?

Executive Producer Tania: Well, it depends on the level of classic because of a certain age

Crew Chief Brad: cars of a certain age.

Executive Producer Tania: You could start calling it a classic and even normal people can buy a classic car. You could have a sixties Mustang. That would be considered a classic. Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Crew Chief Brad: A sixties Mustang. Yes. Ford Taurus that nobody wants.

It’s not a classic.

Crew Chief Eric: I had two. Two Mercury Sables.

Crew Chief Brad: Tanya, your point is like what happens on classic rock radio where Nirvana is classic rock now, so everybody listens to classic rock.

Executive Producer Tania: Hamilton’s comment is like, okay, cool, you’re gonna go buy a classic car. You’re not gonna go buy a 20 grand, 1960s Mustang or a Camaro or something from that age.

You’re gonna go [00:03:00] buy some classic car that’s gonna cost $750,000 or $2 million. Some Mercedes, one of a kind gold wing sl, blah, blah, blah.

Crew Chief Brad: Don’t buy a La Ferrari. Buy a two 50 GTO.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah. He’s talking about shit that nobody can afford. So cool for you. Yeah. Everybody should buy a classic car, but everybody that can buy a classic car is gonna be buying.

Not those things.

Crew Chief Brad: Buy a classic car, not a shitbox.

Crew Chief Eric: Sound. Buying advice from Lewis Hamilton

Executive Producer Tania: and Art who can afford art. Really? I’m sure I can go buy the, the knockoff reprint.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes. Hold on. All posters.com. Yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: Everybody go

Crew Chief Brad: to display and, and, and get your art there.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh boy. That’s definitely not a, what should I buy episode in the making Rich people.

What should I buy? What art goes with my car? People would probably listen to that more than some of the other, what should I buys? We’ve done like 25. What should I buys? And that’s the one people will probably listen to is what Van [00:04:00] Gogh or Renoir goes with my Bugatti like, Ugh, stop.

Executive Producer Tania: See, in the Picasso we go with the cyber truck.

Crew Chief Brad: I feel like you are grossly overestimating the buying capacity of our listeners.

Crew Chief Eric: All three Arbitron rated listeners. We have.

Crew Chief Brad: Yes. I don’t think Mark Hewitt is out there buying a Aron.

Crew Chief Eric: Nope.

Crew Chief Brad: Or Chiron or, or whatever. And then he’s gonna steal and buy the Mona Lisa.

Crew Chief Eric: Well we opened the door and I already mentioned you’ve seen him now in the Ferrari driving suit, pre-practice and all that kind of stuff.

I still think it’s weird to see him at Ferrari. People are, you know, already creating memes about him there. Ferrari headquarters in the big black double trench coat and all that stuff. Looking very much like Schumacher did the same thing, you know, 25 years ago. Okay, sure.

Crew Chief Brad: I think it’s awesome.

Crew Chief Eric: Hamilton’s at Ferrari, he’s going to suck.

Crew Chief Brad: They’ve been actually fairly competitive the last two seasons. They’ve had a good car, team orders and like some poor mistakes made [00:05:00] by the drivers. I actually feel like this is good and I think he’s gonna be better than people are giving him credit for.

Crew Chief Eric: I don’t think so. I think he’s done. I think he’s too old and if he was still good, he’d be good.

And he’s not good.

Executive Producer Tania: No, there’s no way. Like the Mercedes, it got better. They improved it definitely in the last season. The season before even the two seasons before the car was crap. Like it was visible. There’s no amount of anything he could do. When you saw the straight line speed and the disparate difference in that speed, there’s no way he or Russell could have competed in that version of the car.

In those seasons, the car was crap. It was so freaking slow. Absolute garbage. Tappin could have been in it and he wouldn’t have won.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s ’cause I think they were cheating if you compare him to the rest of the cars. He wasn’t doing that great. There either, but the car

Executive Producer Tania: was not good against, it was better than like Haas and like Williams and those cars, but it wasn’t better than Ferrari.

Even in those seasons, they struggled to even be like the top 10. The car was so bad does, and then in the last [00:06:00] season at least they were getting podiums.

Crew Chief Eric: How does Mercedes struggle to build a car? Like that to me, doesn’t make sense.

Crew Chief Brad: They were struggling to build a competitive race car.

Crew Chief Eric: I think that’s bs.

I’m calling Flag on the play. You can’t tell me the Mercedes that has a racing pedigree that’s longer than anybody there. Can’t build a car.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, they didn’t because they went through that whole purposing thing where the car was completely unstable and jumping around. So they did something. But that was happening to everybody though,

Crew Chief Eric: wasn’t it?

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, but Mercedes took the longest to figure it out and they, they had it more drastic. You know what? I feel like the catalyst was for Mercedes and it’s probably doesn’t make any sense or whatever, but Nikki Lauda when when Lauda passed, he was doing a lot for them still up until then.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah. He was team consultant.

Crew Chief Brad: They lost his expertise in years of experience and knowledge and I feel like it seems to have had an effect on them.

Crew Chief Eric: Maybe he was the Mercedes whisper. Yeah. But he was the Ferrari whisperer before that. Basic suspension. Yeah, sure. That’s all the [00:07:00] same. But I think the technology far surpassed. LA’s expertise because he raced in the seventies and the eighties we’re 40 years in the future, the cars aren’t even close to being the same.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah. But he was an engineer. He didn’t walk away from Formula One. He stayed in it that whole time. And as an engineer, he probably learned

Crew Chief Brad: exactly. I just because he wasn’t racing doesn’t mean he wasn’t driving the cars.

Crew Chief Eric: He’s not Adrian Newey

Crew Chief Brad: I, he was doing better than Adrian Newey was. When he was alive, the team was winning.

Crew Chief Eric: The point is not one person designs the car. And you can’t tell me that Mercedes doesn’t have talented people that could design a car, that could be competitive, as competitive as everybody else.

Crew Chief Brad: Apparently not. Not as talented as Red Bull and Ferrari and McClaren. It

Executive Producer Tania: was wildly uncompetitive against many other manufacturers for at least two years.

So I know you wanna say Red Bull was cheating if you take Red Bull out of the picture. Their performance with everybody else was hot garbage. So was everybody else cheating as well? And it was just Mercedes.

Crew Chief Brad: They were only faster than the back markers.

Executive Producer Tania: Basically. That’s all that car could do.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s a mid-pack team.

I get it. Point being though, I don’t think you’re [00:08:00] going to see a whole hell of a lot outta Lewis at Ferrari. That’s my prediction. It’s gonna be more of the same.

Crew Chief Brad: I think he’s going to be better than your predicting and that. That’s my prediction.

Crew Chief Eric: Okay.

Executive Producer Tania: I look forward to seeing it. Well, this is funny.

Eric’s very strong about his opinion and he hasn’t watched a Formula One race in like 20 years, but he’s very confident and strong about all of it.

Crew Chief Eric: I secretly keep up with it. I don’t have to watch the races to get the race results and read and understand.

Crew Chief Brad: That’s how I feel about rally.

Crew Chief Eric: Stop it. Stop it.

Crew Chief Brad: Okay. This is us making our picks like for the NFC Championship game coming up. You know Exactly. Mexicans versus the Eagles. Who’s gonna win the the F1 championship this year?

Crew Chief Eric: It’s not gonna be Ferrari.

Crew Chief Brad: Who, who’s gonna be, who’s gonna win the driver’s championship and who’s gonna win the constructors?

They do not have to be the same.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s gonna be stopping again as long as he’s still driving and whatever other, blah, blah, blah. Because everybody, the cash, that’s not who won the Constructors

Executive Producer Tania: championship

Crew Chief Eric: this year? See? Yeah. So McLaren won the Constructors championship. I know that. [00:09:00] The whole Zach Brown thing, it’s like, okay, so it’s McLaren’s year.

Let’s see what happens. But I don’t think Ferrari’s gonna do it. Ferrari doesn’t feel like it’s been competitive for a while.

Executive Producer Tania: Ferrari was very competitive last season. They were a lot more competitive than they have been in the last X number of years.

Crew Chief Brad: I feel like Ferrari made an upgrade in Driver.

Executive Producer Tania: Yes.

With

Crew Chief Eric: dots after

Executive Producer Tania: it.

Crew Chief Brad: So as long as their car is still as competitive as it was in prior years, and if they made an upgrade in driver, then that should tell you that they should perform better, at least as good as they did in prior years or better.

Executive Producer Tania: I think it’ll be interesting to see. I think you could tell with the Mercedes being.

So uncompetitive Hamilton didn’t give a shit. And why should he? What is he gonna bust his ass out there to come in 10th. Okay, he came in 10th, but it’s like, how much more is he gonna bust his ass? He was never gonna come in first. So your drive and your passion gets killed a little bit when you’re like, I gotta drive this fricking turd and there’s nothing I can do.

And it’s like, I know I’m a better [00:10:00] driver than these people, but like I haven’t, I can’t compete like you put me in a Pinto and I’m racing against. GT forties,

Crew Chief Eric: he wants to be Sena. That was his role model. That’s the Sena in the Tolman story where the Tolman was. They were like Haas back then. He ended up almost winning that Monte Carlo race, even though they cheated and took it away from him.

But there’s all these regulations and shit that was used against him. But I don’t know if it’s apples to apples. But the thing is, if you have the determination as a driver, you’re going to try regardless and not just be like complacent and take a paycheck. And that’s the thing is if Hamilton has been resting on his laurels for the last couple of years, it means he’s lost his edge, which means he’s not gonna be fast.

Executive Producer Tania: Here’s the question that I have. Maybe it won’t matter, but Mr. Verstappen, will he lose his edge now that he’s going to be a father?

Crew Chief Eric: I am surprised he didn’t quit at the end of this season and just be like, I’m done. That’s it. Four. That’s all I need.

Executive Producer Tania: He has a contract. He’s not allowed out till like 2028. I mean, I’m sure he can buy himself out, but technically he’s got a contract till then

Crew Chief Eric: or until he [00:11:00] underperforms enough that they really need to get rid of him, of course they’ll kick

Executive Producer Tania: him out.

Crew Chief Eric: But are they gonna do that if he causes enough nuisance? He, I’m sure he will. You know what I mean?

Crew Chief Brad: He’s just got a curse on air a couple times. Let’s move on to another former Mercedes driver that I think is doing great things.

Crew Chief Eric: You talk about BOTAs.

Crew Chief Brad: BOTAs is my spirit animal. He is my new favorite driver in F1.

He is just, he’s awesome. I love Boas.

Crew Chief Eric: Thought he was hilarious. ’cause Tanya goes, that man needs to get a haircut. And I said, I’m glad you mentioned that because there’s an Instagram

Crew Chief Brad: video.

Crew Chief Eric: A buck test, getting

Executive Producer Tania: a haircut. He needs to shave that mustache off. It’s so

Crew Chief Eric: nasty.

Crew Chief Brad: That’s the point.

Crew Chief Eric: I know it is. Have you seen the whole thing now?

The gimmick with his stunt double Who looks nothing like him?

Executive Producer Tania: It’s hilarious. He just, I just saw a thing of him doing, I think I actually coincidentally and also in Australia. ’cause he’s very big into cycling as well. Yeah. Um, and he, and he competes in a lot of different races

Crew Chief Brad: and nude swimming in creeks.

Executive Producer Tania: And he was doing, no, it was a nude bike ride was quote nude, like he was just in his underwear and he was, [00:12:00] and like everybody was just like in their underwear basically doing this bike ride. I was like, oh my god. Also one that sucks ’cause the underwear don’t think was padded. So that’s rough bike ride.

Have fun with that.

Crew Chief Brad: Some guys like that.

Executive Producer Tania: Yes, he was sporting his mustache and living his best life naked on his bike.

Crew Chief Brad: Bicycle, bicycle. Bye. And I think his

Executive Producer Tania: stunt double must, her stunt dude must have been with him. ’cause there was another guy like next to him on a bicycle that like looked a lot like him.

Yes.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s the guy. Yeah. A hundred percent.

Crew Chief Brad: Uh, but this is a good follow on social media. He’s he’s good stuff.

Crew Chief Eric: He is entertaining, that’s for sure. See I keep up with formula when I keep up with the right stuff in for me. Go on. Mm-hmm.

Crew Chief Brad: The stuff that matters. Bois’s haircut. That’s, this is the podcast that we should be having.

This is Bois’s Fashion and haircut. There you go.

Crew Chief Eric: Hey, there are podcasts out there that built themselves around that whole principle, not throwing any

Crew Chief Brad: shit. I know they’ve been former guests and,

Crew Chief Eric: and they are no [00:13:00] longer producing shows. So that’s that.

Crew Chief Brad: Oh, they’re not?

Crew Chief Eric: No, they’re off the air. Did you miss that?

They retired at the end of the season. They’re done.

Crew Chief Brad: So sad.

Crew Chief Eric: So Bottas Perez is out. He doesn’t have a seat. Nope. Okay. He’s out li going into the season. Vin’s teammate is gonna be Lawson. Yep. How’s that gonna work?

Executive Producer Tania: If the guy holds his ego in check. Should work out fine. He’s gotta be a team player by team player.

Max Tappin is number one.

COMMERCIAL: Yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: And you do everything to protect him and he’ll always be in front of you. So it’s shoo me and Barra all

Crew Chief Eric: over again. I get it. We got Lawson moved to Red Bull, we got Carlos signs, went to. No. Williams. Williams, he went to Williams. Williams. Okay. And then Hamilton went to Ferrari.

And Le Claire is still at Ferrari? Yes. Are any new drivers coming in for this season? Yes, a

SFX: couple.

Crew Chief Eric: There’s a lot of youngins with no experience. Are they driving for Audi Gazoo or Andretti at any point in 2025,

Executive Producer Tania: even though it’s Audi, it’s still Saber for 2025, they’ll officially be Audi in [00:14:00] 2026. And so Audi has brought on Nico Holgenburg, they moved him from Haas and he’s going to be the Audi driver in 2026, but he’s already gonna sit in the Saber next year.

And then they brought in a Brazilian driver, Gabrielle Bto, who’s the other number two chair.

Crew Chief Eric: So speaking of Audi, what is this that they were looking to sell out their investment and get out of Formula One before they even got started? Is that true or is that crap?

Executive Producer Tania: I think it’s crap because if you go on Audi’s website, they have a whole page dedicated, uh, formula One talking about their entrance in 2026 and that they also, I think they got some

Crew Chief Eric: guitar investment money as well.

And there is still rumor on the street, and I brought it up because I wish them the best that Andretti and GM are coming to Formula One at some point.

Executive Producer Tania: So Cadillac’s coming to Formula One, which is General

Crew Chief Eric: Motors,

Executive Producer Tania: that was. I think green lit. If it isn’t, it’s about to be, it might not be completely complete.

It seems like it actually is gonna happen versus the Andretti one, which is [00:15:00] just, that makes no

Crew Chief Eric: sense. That doesn’t mean that Andretti can’t come along with General Motors. I mean, pretty much, and then at some point, general Motors says, have you met Michael? And then passes the baton and then Andrettis in Formula One.

I mean, what is this backdoor nonsense that we’re doing? I don’t know.

Executive Producer Tania: Because there’s also been talks about like, oh, maybe Perez will come back and could race for like Cadillac, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, we’ll see. What year is that gonna happen? I think they’re trying to do it for 2026. Okay. Yeah, because that’s when the rule, there’s a rule change that’s happening in 2026, so that’s why then think an engine to something.

So that’s when Audi can officially come in.

Crew Chief Brad: Apparently Andretti is scaling back his role in the team and in the organization, which I guess that is making F1 more accepting of having all this happen.

Crew Chief Eric: So you drop back and you punt and then burst down.

Crew Chief Brad: It also says that Cadillac’s motors aren’t gonna be ready until 2028, so it’s gonna be a GM branded car with a different engine supplier.

How funny would be, it was a Ford. [00:16:00]

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. Or it’s a, a Honda with a GM badge. Which is the Porsche thing. Right. Where it was gonna be a Honda engine with a Porsche badge. It’s like, whatever. Yeah. When do they reveal the new cars that look just like the cars from the year before? That’s in think February of the next couple months.

Okay. Yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: It starts like into January. There’s a whole schedule out there of the team reveals and stuff.

Crew Chief Eric: Are we still doing Visa Cash app steak, Chipotle, MoneyGram? Like, is that all like a thing or have all the teams changed again?

Crew Chief Brad: Well, isn’t that Audi now

Crew Chief Eric: they’re Kick Saber

Executive Producer Tania: or whatever.

Crew Chief Brad: MoneyGram was Haas

Executive Producer Tania: Visa Cash app, blah blah, blah is now Racing Bulls Toro rso, but Racing Bulls Alpha Tar.

It was Alpha Tar then it was something, I don’t know. It was Alpha Tar Toso, visa Cash app, something, something, and now it’s Racing Bulls.

Crew Chief Brad: Why do they need to keep changing the name?

Executive Producer Tania: All right. All

Crew Chief Eric: that aside is Ocon back or not? He’s ha, terrible. All right. That’s all I needed to know. I’m rooting for Ocon O Con’s.

Gonna take it this year. He’s gonna take all of ’em. Ocon. [00:17:00] Yeah. Right. That’s my prediction. He,

Crew Chief Brad: he’s gonna take ’em all out. Out is what he He’s gonna take them all out.

Executive Producer Tania: Take got his partner

ANNOUNCER!: preseason Buzz Lewis. Hamilton’s blockbuster move to Ferrari. Shook the grid. February. Testing in Bahrain revealed McLaren’s pace hinting at a season of dominance.

The engines hadn’t yet roared in anger, but the paddock was already a blaze with speculation.

Crew Chief Eric: Formula one season hasn’t started yet. Russell is the senior driver at Mercedes now. Yep. Yeah. Is there anything else to

Executive Producer Tania: say? He thinks it’s gonna launch a new era for himself or a new chapter, whatever, but he has no team support ’cause he is got, forget who now is the dude, but he’s a complete rookie green, green, green in F1.

Oh, that’s antonelli.

Crew Chief Brad: Antonelli.

Executive Producer Tania: So that’s great. But it’s also helpful when you have a teammate that at least is marginally competitive alongside you that can do things like help block or fend off the [00:18:00] approach of everyone else. But I, I see him being mostly alone and he’s probably gonna struggle.

Crew Chief Eric: Antonelli is what? How old is he now? 20,

COMMERCIAL: 25?

Crew Chief Eric: Well, I don’t know. Well he’s 19. I think he’s like the youngest Formula One driver on the grid. I don’t think he’s the youngest to start a Formula One race, but he’s the youngest in Formula One and right now, and it’s just like, apparently Mercedes handpicked him when he was 11, back when he was go-karting and stuff.

And so, I don’t know, they, I guess they’ve invested a lot of money in him and time and resources over the last eight years, so they’re hoping he’s gonna be the next prodigy. Didn’t he have like a big, massive, unnecessary wreck? One of his first races? I believe so, yeah. I don’t see good things for Mercedes this year.

Yeah. But there is rumor that your boy BOTAs.

Executive Producer Tania: He’s a reserve driver again for them. Yeah. Which honestly would mean if Antonelli doesn’t deliver, maybe there’s a chance they kick him out and put BOTAs back in the seat. But then BOTAs would be the senior driver. Would he though? Or is he gotta take team orders

Crew Chief Eric: [00:19:00] from Russell?

I guess it would depend on, uh, what the performance looks like. BOTAs is faster than Russell. We already know that. Right. So what is he gonna do? Just sandbag the whole time.

Crew Chief Brad: And are we just saying senior driver as like as a product of their age? Or do we mean like they’re seniority? The lead driver, like the, yeah, the driver one and driver two.

Executive Producer Tania: By senior we mean the lead for the team.

Crew Chief Brad: Okay.

Executive Producer Tania: Which generally should be dictated by experience.

Crew Chief Brad: Oh, it should be dictated by wins. Whoever’s performing the best,

Executive Producer Tania: which would then be BOTAs.

Crew Chief Eric: I was gonna say, ’cause Russell has none and Antonelli has none.

Executive Producer Tania: No Russell’s one. I don’t know, three,

Crew Chief Brad: four. There’s more that goes into it obviously than wins and, and stuff like that and experience and everything.

But it’s who they’re hanging their future on,

Executive Producer Tania: which probably wouldn’t be BOTAs

Crew Chief Brad: because BOTAs is towards the end of his career. But Russell is still very much in the middle of his career. He’s like reaching his peak or his prime. Antonelli is starting. You know what they’re hoping is a really good career, but.

To talk about something Mercedes adjacent, who [00:20:00] is the quote unquote senior driver now at Ferrari? Is it Hamilton or is Cleric still driver one?

Executive Producer Tania: It’s

Crew Chief Eric: gotta be Hamilton.

Executive Producer Tania: That is something I’ve been wondering because that is a very ugly political drama that they are now in

Crew Chief Brad: because Cleric was driver one when signs was there, right?

Executive Producer Tania: Correct. Supposed to be.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: But how do you bring the seven time World champion onto your team and say you

Crew Chief Eric: are number two? And this goes back to what I said last time about Lewis Hamilton not being able to do Jack of All at Ferrari because if they play Ferrari politics like they always have just like the opportunities when Bar had to win over Humie and they said get outta the way Ruben’s Michael’s coming through.

If Le Claire’s senior driver, Hamilton has to follow team orders ’cause that’s the way it works and he’s not gonna amount to Jack. At the end of the year because he is always gonna be in second place to Le Cla. Unless he’s outperforming Le Claire. Then they’re gonna [00:21:00] tell him, depends on how his contract is written.

If his contract is written that he is the number two driver he’s done,

Executive Producer Tania: there is no way his contract is written that he’s a number two driver. He is going for eighth world champion. There’s so, there’s no way he’s gonna sign something that’s gonna prevent him from being an eight time champion. Then that answers your question.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, I guess it does. There you

Executive Producer Tania: go. But if he’s not performing, I don’t think they’re just gonna be like Le Claire sandbag and make sure you know, you let Lewis win. Right. But if he actually is a contender, there’s no way they’re gonna tell Le Claire. Yeah,

Crew Chief Brad: that’s true. And to Eric’s point, in previous episodes, they have to actually be in a position to win a race.

Duh. That’s before any of this. Yes. Comes in question Anyway. So they’ve still got a lot of work to do.

Crew Chief Eric: This is all posturing now because we don’t know what’s gonna happen. The only thing we do know is they revealed the new cars, which to me look exactly like the cars from last year. They

Crew Chief Brad: always do. Like a couple years ago I got super excited about all the car reveals and I looked at ’em and like sometimes they release ’em in [00:22:00] like really cool colors or something really unique and then comes race day and it’s like, it’s the exact same cars before.

What did you change? What is this? I don’t care.

Crew Chief Eric: I’ve been saying that and everybody makes fun of me, but whatever. It’s fine. And the Mercedes especially looks the same as it did the W 16, whatever the hell, whatever. Who cares? Same car as last year. With Suckier drivers.

Crew Chief Brad: When does your album come out?

Crew Chief Eric: What

Executive Producer Tania: do we call my album?

Boomers and Bends? If I may digress for a moment. Just tangentially, I finally started watching the Netflix Docudrama Senna. Oh,

Crew Chief Eric: did you?

Executive Producer Tania: I am on the final episode course. I know how it ends. It’s like Titanic. No spoilers. No spoilers. Don’t spoil it for us, unfortunately. I know how it ends. Wow, that’s an interesting, uh,

Crew Chief Eric: yeah, interpretation.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You gotta listen to the podcast episode we did with John Summers and, uh, will Ross

Executive Producer Tania: and I have not, because I’ve wanted to experience the series for myself. [00:23:00] You’ll have to come back and tell us if we were right. Well, I will say, and you don’t have to confirm or deny anything, there’s definitely a sense of.

This is Jesus Christ.

Crew Chief Eric: So the word the motoring historian John Summers likes to use is beatification. That is the official word he uses to summarize that sentiment, that Sena is God.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah. Very interesting.

Crew Chief Eric: And pro is Darth Vader, but you know, whatever. It’s all good. Is

Executive Producer Tania: that completely untrue?

Crew Chief Eric: Well, you need to listen to the episode for sure.

’cause we get into all that. So that being said, last little bit of Formula one stuff, your boy Toto, Mr. Mercedes, highest paid player and Formula One. This is why Mercedes can’t win anything. They’re too busy paying Toto salary. He had a response to Hamilton’s iconic recreation of Schumacher’s photograph at Martinello.

What do we think? I don’t actually know what his response was. The article is

Executive Producer Tania: clickbait.

Crew Chief Brad: No, they, they have it down there. It’s a little bit like you divorce amicably and it’s all [00:24:00] good and you see your ex-partner for the first time with a new friend. But I’m

Executive Producer Tania: really happy for him and I told him that those pictures were iconic that he made.

It was so well curated and no surprise with Lewis. So it was all good fun. He’s fine.

Crew Chief Eric: Do people not realize it is literally a copy of something that Schumacher did 30 years ago? Literally everybody realizes that. Yes, it’s nothing new or iconic. It was already done and it was iconic then. It’s weird. Am I wrong?

Crew Chief Brad: Well, he’s trying to tap into his inner Schumacher.

Crew Chief Eric: This is my problem with Hamilton, if you remember him when he was really young and he showed up on top gear and he was like the last one to drive the old piece of junk celebrity card that they had. And he was like super fast and he blew everybody outta the water.

And he was just a young guy. That was the last time I think I saw Hamilton like. Be himself. He turned into this machine of the media kind of thing and and he’s like a little ken doll that they dress up. I feel like he never gets to be who he was then when he [00:25:00] was up and coming in racing and he was fast and he was good, and not saying he isn’t good today, but he’s older, he is more mature now, and I think he’s part of the machine rather than just being himself.

Crew Chief Brad: So that brings up a good point. You think this photo was put together by Ferrari and it wasn’t Hamilton’s idea?

Crew Chief Eric: I do think that, yes. He’s like a little dress up toy. He’s a puppet. See

Crew Chief Brad: that

Crew Chief Eric: Ferrari’s trying to make a statement. You have to remember Ferrari too. You don’t go to Ferrari and give them an idea.

They tell you what needs to be done. That’s what they wanted. And maybe in their eyes they see Hamilton as Schumacher’s replacement. Schumacher never got the eighth. He left after his seventh. Right? He went to Mercedes. Speaking of Mercedes never accomplished anything there. And then obviously the tragedy of the accident and all that kind of stuff.

And now they have Hamilton and they’re like, we can be part of the eighth that we never had with Schumi. So let’s sort of pick up where Schumacher left off. But it’s not just let him be who he’s gonna be. And, and I get, I don’t know. That’s what turns me off about it. [00:26:00] Versus like, I know that Alonzo’s, the elder statesman, I’m not a huge Alonzo fan, but Alonzo’s always been Alonzo.

When he was in wac, when he was in Formula One, we went to IndyCar. It’s like, Hey, you just kind of follow him around. You go, it’s Alonzo, you know? He is who he is. But there’s been, for me, this transformation with Lewis that I, I don’t understand, but I’m glad to see BOTAs back. He’s the fin that’s gonna be in Australian soon, right?

Like that’s, he’s making his own transformation, but in a good way.

Executive Producer Tania: We won’t belabor it. No. But I think he is being who he is and who he is, is a person that evolved from where he was when he was younger. And whether we like what that evolution is, it’s an evolution for him. That’s fair. That’s fair.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, on that depressing bit of food for thought,

ANNOUNCER!: when the lights went out in Melbourne, the waiting was over.

Lando Norris seized victory igniting McLaren’s charge. A week later in Shanghai, Oscar Ptri answered back, proving this would be no one man show. The season had begun [00:27:00] and the papaya orange was impossible to ignore.

Executive Producer Tania: Guess what I subjected him to.

Crew Chief Brad: You made him watch a race.

Executive Producer Tania: I made him listen to it. It was on the laptop in the garage while we were doing some work.

I had the race playing, so he at least was listening to it, possibly sometimes seeing it.

Crew Chief Brad: So I’m just sitting here waiting for Eric to say, I told you so.

Executive Producer Tania: Thank

Crew Chief Eric: you. He said it multiple times. He said it multiple times.

Crew Chief Brad: Thank you.

Crew Chief Eric: I’m gonna be nice.

Crew Chief Brad: Bullshit. When are you ever Nice

Crew Chief Eric: flag on the play. I’m gonna start with Alonzo’s.

He was baffled by his unlucky crash that came out of nowhere because it was the same freaking corner that everybody was trying to cut in the rain through the sand trap. And if it worked for the first guy, it must work for the rest of us. Meanwhile, crash off into the side eating a sandwich. He’s done. I kept saying it.

I was like, every time somebody came through that turn to that chicane, I’m like, guys, you know it’s raining. The curbs are slicker than snot. And you’ve got this [00:28:00] garbage sand on the inside and you saw it happen with Ptri. He coded his tires, he made it to the next corner, and then he was off because he had zero traction After putting it through the sand trap and you’re confused by what happened.

This is like racing 1 0 1, driving in the rain. The rain line is where you have grip.

Crew Chief Brad: Also, don’t touch the curbs.

Crew Chief Eric: No kidding. Like we learned all this crap in HBDE, like we learned it all a million years ago. But again, their Formula One are the best drivers in the world. They need to go back to HBDE. I think he was surprised by the crash.

Meanwhile, there’s all the Instagram videos of Alonzo. I never wanna speak to the media again. I have nothing to say to you people. There is nothing new to talk about. I am a robot. Do not interview me anymore. I’m like, whatever, dude. Isn’t it time freaking retire?

Crew Chief Brad: It was a Sunday. Jesus was busy. He didn’t have time to take the wheel in that case.

Crew Chief Eric: Let’s get to the punchline here. Okay. The juiciest part of the episode is about to [00:29:00] happen. Hamilton first

Executive Producer Tania: race of the season, McLaren wins. Lando Norris P one. Oh, max for staffing P two because of posh three’s. Unfortunate slide in the last few laps of the race, as was just mentioned. Russell. Mercedes P three.

Crew Chief Eric: Give us the rest of the drivers between Russell. Mercedes. The inferior Mercedes. Mercedes can develop a car.

Executive Producer Tania: Mercedes. Rookie driver, Jimmy Antonelli. Fourth place Uhhuh. Alex Alvin Williams. Fifth place Uhhuh. Lance Stroll. Aston Martin. Sixth. Nico Holberg’s. Kick Solver. Seventh place. Oh, okay. Charles Le Claire Ferrari.

Eighth place. Wait, wait, wait, wait. What happened? I heard. Yeah. Oscar Ptri McLaren Ninth Place. Who should have been second? Wait, hold

Crew Chief Eric: on. We’re at ninth place. We’re like almost out of the points at this point. A two position

Executive Producer Tania: drop from his qualifying position of eighth Place.

Crew Chief Eric: Who was

Executive Producer Tania: in 10th place? Who was it again,

Crew Chief Brad: sir?

Lewis Hamilton. [00:30:00]

Executive Producer Tania: Seventh time world champion. Louis Hamilton. Oh, okay. Alright. With his debut Grand Prix with Ferrari.

Crew Chief Brad: Now, I will say a couple things. One, the Williams team really surprised me.

Crew Chief Eric: Science was in P two during practice. I’m sorry, feel bad that he

Executive Producer Tania: wrecked himself out on like Lab three,

Crew Chief Brad: another one where Jesus was busy.

And then the next thing I’ll say,

Crew Chief Eric: not today, not today, not today. Carlos

Crew Chief Brad: Jesus put up a sign and said out to lunch,

Crew Chief Eric: it’s the time difference in Australia. He was like, nah, man. True, true, true.

Crew Chief Brad: He was in another part of the world. I’ll also say it was mostly a rain race the whole time. Pretty much rain races are very unpredictable and a lot of shit happens and a lot of the grid doesn’t turn out like it usually does during a dry race.

So rain races do have a lot of variability.

Crew Chief Eric: Flag on the, I can’t even use the referee whistle anymore. I’m gonna get a vula and be like. Because isn’t Hamilton [00:31:00] touted as like one of the rain gods? Like when the weather gets bad then Hamilton comes to life and all this bs.

Crew Chief Brad: Maybe in the Mercedes he was,

Crew Chief Eric: that’s the Hamilton of 20 years ago.

Because the Hamilton I saw in Australia in 2025. Hang it up, brother. You’re done.

Executive Producer Tania: We’ll give him the benefit of a few more races to see how things turn out. We’re gonna

Crew Chief Eric: make it to the third round and I’m gonna tell you it’s gonna be the same from

Crew Chief Brad: then on. He was also having trouble with the team strategy and like understanding the team strategy and stuff.

It’s, I mean, I’m not saying, I’m not saying you’re wrong.

Executive Producer Tania: Ferrari. Ferrari though.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah. Ferrari did what Ferrari does

Executive Producer Tania: in offense or defense, whatever would be appropriate for here. They did Ferrari themselves because when it did start raining hard at the end of the race. Everybody else pitted and they stayed out too many laps, kept trying to go on the hard tires and when they all finally pitted it f LeClaire, he would’ve been way higher up based on where he was had he pitted with everybody else, but they [00:32:00] kept them out and they did a typical bullshit Ferrari strategy of like two years ago.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, they looked like they were in the drive through line in McDonald’s, like one car behind the other. Like what are we doing here? You know what I mean? This is ridiculous. The thing is that strategy, I don’t know how to understand how you can’t understand it. Like they’re gonna tell you to pit and you come pit, but the strategy behind the wheel, when you’re on track, you’re driving and you’re supposed to be driving to your limits and pushing past your limits and being the the God amongst Gods

Executive Producer Tania: actually not anymore.

See, because they actually tell them not to as the strategy.

Crew Chief Eric: Then what is the point of this anymore?

Executive Producer Tania: What I’ve observed over the last few years of coming back in and watching it is they go really hard, like the first two, three laps, they try to like win at the first corner basically, and then after the first couple laps, everybody just dials it back and they go into cruise mode.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s tire preservation,

Executive Producer Tania: and then they all try to punch it in the last two laps of the race. To win it again, but no, it’s not like 20 years ago where it was like, we’re going hard every lap. 12 tenths the whole [00:33:00] time. No, they go like 11 tenths the first laps, and then they go seven tenths for 40 laps out of the race, and then they start dialing it back in.

Like they literally, like, you can listen to the strategy where they’re like, oh, you know, don’t push, don’t push. Or, or then they’ll be like, okay, it’s time to push now. Can you go faster?

Crew Chief Eric: Are they giving birth? Like what is all this push to,

Crew Chief Brad: you know, Eric, to your point, they don’t make drivers like they used to.

Crew Chief Eric: Can’t all be Sena, can’t we? Oh, oh, I, I’m just saying Hamilton wrecked the Ferrari at the test track. I don’t think it’s gonna get any better for him and I don’t wanna hear about how, oh, new team B. B, you guys told me all this stuff,

Executive Producer Tania: bill, pull that. ’cause I already saw a thing where it showed his first years in any of the three teams he’s driven in.

He did not win. So even when he moved to Mercedes the first time, his first year was crap. He got points, he got some podiums and all that, but he was not one the first time. And the same thing [00:34:00] with like McLaren for the one year that he did it, I guess, or whatever it was. And then so people are gonna say if he has a bad year, they’re still gonna hang it and they’re gonna be like, oh, he did it in with the other teams too, so we’re gonna hold out for, you know, next year.

Uhhuh.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, sure. Just like every football team. But the point is, by that point, he’ll be two years older than when he transitioned over. Oh yeah. So he’s aging out of Formula One, he just needs to stop. You can’t beat father time.

Executive Producer Tania: And it might just be that, you know, reflexes are down the drive to risk your life.

Crew Chief Eric: He’s already proven what he needs to prove. Now the thing is, if he’s still got it in him to say he wants to better Schumacher and not be tied with Schumacher, then he’s gotta do it. But if he can’t, then he can’t. It is what it is. There’s plenty of other champions out there that have settled for, I did what I came to do and I’m done.

And what’s the point of hanging on and collecting a paycheck at this point? Because to come in 10th. 10. Well look at Alonzo. I don’t understand what Aston Martin’s doing. Two time

Executive Producer Tania: World champion

Crew Chief Eric: coming in back marker. [00:35:00] Well, mid pack,

Crew Chief Brad: they’re like Tom Brady.

Crew Chief Eric: It would’ve been hilarious if Alonzo hadn’t wrecked.

He would’ve finished in front of Hamilton. But to have Lance Stroll and all these other guys in front of you that we make fun of all the time, you know, in previous years, you’re like, dude, you’re done. Like you’re not Haas, but you might as well be.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, this weekend is the Chinese Grand Prix, so we’ll see what happens there.

We shall see. I’m coming over we’re, which I saw

Crew Chief Brad: something. They’re having issues with tires, logistics like getting tires, BS with tires. I don’t want hear it.

ANNOUNCER!: Suzuka belonged to Sapan, a reminder of his relentless grip on the crown. But Bahrain and Jeda told a different story. Oscar Pietri, young and Fearless, claimed back-to-back wins.

April was no longer about defending titles, it was about rewriting them.

Crew Chief Eric: Again, I’ve devoted 2025 to watching every race to the formula one. See you guys. I didn’t know you called me out. You said, what do I know? I’m not a fan. [00:36:00] I don’t watch blah, blah, blah, yada yada. Hamilton’s gonna be the best. You’re gonna see Ferrari, blah blah, blah.

The Mercedes is inferior. I

Executive Producer Tania: don’t think we went that far. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I think we’ve just said we couldn’t count him out yet.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, we said he’s not gonna be a back marker. Like Eric said he was going to be.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh really? Oh really? And I told you, and I’ll put money on this, that by the third race, he would cement exactly how he was gonna do for the rest of the season.

And we’re at what race? Five now? Yes. We’ve had

Executive Producer Tania: five races, I would say. I don’t know yet. He, he’s not gonna win a championship this year, that’s for sure. Not gonna win one next year either. He’s so far been in the top 10 for the five races. Ninth is in the top 10. Yeah, you’re right. No, he’s currently sixth in points.

He’s not ninth. His best finish was fifth. Technically, his best finish was first in the sprint race.

Crew Chief Eric: It doesn’t count.

Executive Producer Tania: But nonetheless, Bahrain in the middle of that race, both he and La Claire. There was like a light switch moment where they were like [00:37:00] flying around the track. I don’t know what turbo mushroom they got when they went into pit, when they came back out.

I mean, there was like night and day and they were like flying around the track. They were gaining time. And then it’s like, I think they went back for like another pit stop and suddenly like the mushroom wore off or something. So that was disappointing.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s like, remember Mario Kart 64 where you got the gold mushroom?

And you kept hitting the button as fast as you could. Yes. Because you wanted to go, you know, the super boost and then when it ran out you were like, oh no, that was the middle of that

Executive Producer Tania: race. It was like, holy shit. Like the Ferrari suddenly like work software upgrade. Yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: They didn’t pay their subscription fees.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah. What it was they, they only did a temporary subscription. First 30 minutes free,

Crew Chief Brad: wasn’t it? That there wasn’t there a yellow and they had put mediums on and everybody else put sauce or something like that. Their pit strategy is garbage.

Executive Producer Tania: Yes. It was something with the tires, like they were doing really well on the tires they had and then they switched off of them and then suddenly it was like garbage.

And it was like, why did you switch to these? ’cause you already knew from another team that these were garbage and yet you chose them. Winning strategy. Great job. [00:38:00] Well, Ferrari’s

Crew Chief Eric: gonna Ferrari.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah. And they do. It’s so dumb. Unfortunately, if you’d watch the last like three, four seasons, they literally make the most bonehead decisions.

Whether it’s timing of pitting their people, the order of pitting, them, team orders in general, the value of their pit stops, the value of their tire choices. They usually make the most astine choices and then they suffer and they lose position. So yes, Ferrari’s gonna, Ferrari has become a thing because of the way they’ve managed themselves over the last several seasons.

Crew Chief Eric: As a Tizi, I’m gonna die of a very old age. Like I’m gonna live to be 200 waiting for Ferrari to win a championship again. Like this is unreal. The keystone cop garbage that I’ve been watching, like this is why I stopped watching Formula One. And every race is painful because it’s like, what are you clowns doing?

And then last year, if you go back even to the Formula One special and all that kind of stuff, and I talked about you wanna tell me that Mercedes can’t build a car, you guys are, oh, what’s inferior? And Adrian knew it. Over a [00:39:00] Red Bull. It was. It was. And it’s all bullshit. It’s all

Executive Producer Tania: bullshit.

Crew Chief Eric: No. Adrian Newey goes to Aston Martin and nothing changes.

He’s

Executive Producer Tania: not doing anything yet. That’s why. Well, yeah,

Crew Chief Eric: because apparently they’re making cars with scribes and ads and stuff from the Egyptian period.

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t know what the deal is with this magician, Adrian Newey. Okay. That apparently anytime he’s been on the team that they’ve won the Constructors for like the last 30 years or something like that.

I don’t, I have any idea. I really could give a shit. But if you watch the other races, the straight line speed and the out of cornering speed of the Red Bull was incomparable with anybody else.

Crew Chief Eric: They were cheating.

Executive Producer Tania: It passed the Mercedes and shit like it was parked in the paddock.

Crew Chief Eric: But the Mercedes this year,

Executive Producer Tania: because they do upgrades every year at the end of the season, the car is different and they change something.

Does

Crew Chief Eric: Ferrari do downgrades every year? Yes.

Executive Producer Tania: Yes they do. Downgrades? Yes, a hundred percent. Just like Mercedes did a big downgrade last year. ’cause their car was garbage compared to the year before.

Crew Chief Eric: Apparently they can’t get their electronics right as we saw [00:40:00] with Russell. Which race was it? Bahrain?

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t remember.

But yeah, he’s. Timing system basically shut the whole everything

Crew Chief Eric: down on the track. And he still survived without it. It was amazing. Well, he

Executive Producer Tania: barely made it because on like the last lap, it was like his whole car. Remember I joked, it was like, I was like, dude is like gonna have total electrical failure and he is gonna not make it to the end of the race.

It was like the last lap. He is like, uh, guys, uh, my steering wheel’s not working anymore. Like something wasn’t working and it was like the car was shutting down.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t think he had any more lap in it.

Crew Chief Eric: Outside of all that. I mean, Mercedes is doing great. Red Bull’s doing Red Bull, Ferraris, whatever.

China was, meh. Suzuka was a complete snooze fest. So boring for such a legacy track with so much character and so much history. And you watch the old races of, you know, Sena at Suzuka, the track hasn’t changed other than the repaid. The

Executive Producer Tania: cars have changed. The cars are twice as long as Senna’s days. Yeah, I mean it’s an exaggeration, but they’re so much bigger.

The rules are different. The parody is [00:41:00] different. So boring. Basically watching it to finally one day be there to see something happen. Because honestly, after the first couple opening laps where you’re checking to see if they don’t wreck and turn one or wreck anywhere in the first lap, it basically becomes

Crew Chief Eric: an HPD where

Executive Producer Tania: they’re just

Crew Chief Eric: going around awful.

And then Bahrain was the most exciting race so far. Hands down. That was really good. And then Saudi is like a go-kart track. There is no space. There’s zero space for error, as we saw with Sonota in the second turn of the first lap. What the heck are you guys doing? And then. Max cutting off turn two because there was no room and that whole debate and debacle.

But that track was boring. Like once they set their pace, it wasn’t any better than Monaco where there’s, there’s no room to pass because the cars are too big. So the whole excitement of Formula one in the old days was then cutting it up and dicing it up and why can’t we go back to the smaller wheel based card?

Because then they’d be slower and then they can’t be slower. Do they really have to do 200 miles an hour? I mean that’s what the endurance cars do, [00:42:00] right? Or more than 200 to do like two 30, but they’ve got the space to do it.

Executive Producer Tania: I think they should go back to manual gear boxes also to make it more interesting.

Yeah,

Crew Chief Eric: the whole tire thing is dumb and the pit stop strategies are weird and well,

Executive Producer Tania: there’s no more refueling. So you took that variable out of it. Like you didn’t have the guy running outta fuel in the last lap, you know, had the minimum fuel load. So it was lightweight and going faster and miscalculated.

Crew Chief Eric: I noticed this year they got rid of the whole energy thing where they have the virtual refueling that’s gone. Right. I haven’t seen that again, they don’t really highlight it too much.

Crew Chief Brad: That wasn’t F1 that was in emsa. That was uh Lama.

Executive Producer Tania: Oh, maybe you’re right. There is a thing where they gotta do something but they don’t usually publicize.

Well

Crew Chief Eric: anyway, Hamilton is not doing so great.

Executive Producer Tania: He’s not impressing. There’s lots of excuses, if you will. That’s the right word for it. And I know if you wanna say excuses, but explanations that he gives, like the latest one he was talking about was how different the brakes on the Ferrari are from what he is used to.

He said, we made a point of saying that he is never engine braked. Ever. And that’s [00:43:00] something that you do in the Ferraris. And so he is not used to it. Which if that’s true, I mean, you could lose a lot of time if your break points aren’t correct.

Crew Chief Eric: But if they’re using engine braking, then that means they can go deeper into the corners and use the engine to help slow the car down.

It’s not like the braking zones became longer as a result of it. ’cause Le Claire isn’t complaining about those problems. Yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: But Le Claire’s been driving the car for like five seasons or something, so he’s gotten used to it.

Crew Chief Eric: Million time world champion. Louis Hamilton doesn’t know how to drive a Formula one car.

Is that what you’re telling me?

Executive Producer Tania: I’ve never driven a Formula One car. I don’t know how easy it is to go from one to the other.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s like spec me. They’re all the same, right? I mean,

Executive Producer Tania: come on. I mean, in theory the, it’s all the same, but how do you eke out your 12 tenths. Yeah, you eek

Crew Chief Eric: it out when you’re 18 years old and not 40 or 65 like Alonzo.

Executive Producer Tania: And that might be true, although Alonzo had like, I forget how many, like a hundred points last season. Like he actually podiums once, no, in the first like 10 races. I think he was on the podium every time. And then the car like totally would became [00:44:00] like an ass. I don’t know what they did.

Crew Chief Eric: They upgraded

Crew Chief Brad: it.

Executive Producer Tania: They downgraded it.

Crew Chief Brad: Eric, you’re just an ageist.

Crew Chief Eric: No, I, okay. Look at the rest of the field. The median age of the drivers. I mean, come on. They’re all in their early twenties.

Executive Producer Tania: It’s funny how he like rooting against, ’cause in fact, like I’d love to see somebody who’s 40 years old go out and kick the ass of all the 18-year-old new rookie drivers.

Yeah, I, I

Crew Chief Brad: think he’s just being contrarian because people like Lewis probably like, oh fuck, Lewis Hamilton,

Executive Producer Tania: he never liked Lewis. So that’s part of it too.

Crew Chief Eric: This is just like when Lada spent one too many seasons behind the wheel and he should have retired earlier than he did.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, that’s probably true, but they’ve all done it.

Schumacher

Crew Chief Eric: should

Executive Producer Tania: have

Crew Chief Eric: stopped those two seasons with Mercedes were crap. He should have never done that. Like a hundred percent. I don’t disagree with, and he was in his forties as well. And no, I’m not saying that, you know, somebody in their forties or 65 like Alonzo couldn’t win. A race or win a championship.

But the point is he’s not showing any enthusiasm, like even the background shots of Hamilton, like he’s disconnected. [00:45:00] They keep saying he doesn’t get along with his race engineer. There’s all these excuses, blah, blah, blah. Then why did you leave Mercedes? Because obviously the Mercedes suddenly got better overnight or did it get better because you weren’t there sucking in the driver’s seat?

So which is it? I am throwing shade, but I’m not trying to be any sort of way to be like, look, if you can’t do it, then hang it up. There’s a lot of young drivers in F two that wanna move up and other people that want an opportunity, and both him and Alonzo are sucking up a seat as the second chair collecting a paycheck.

Go do something else. Go race at Lama. Go do touring car. I don’t care what you do. But in Formula One, I think he’s done. I don’t think even if Hamilton runs another couple of years and say he goes to 43 or 44 like Alonzo is, that’s his real age folks. That’s another four years. I don’t think he’s got a championship in the next four years.

I just don’t see it. I don’t see it with Ferrari. So who does he go to? Is he gonna go Red Bull? Is he gonna pull a Sena and go to like he did with going to Williams in his last year? And then Well that, we know how that ended. But the point [00:46:00] is all that shuffling around, I think the younger guys, they just have the advantage and I’ve been impressed ’cause we make fun.

Haas with Toyota has been doing really great this season and Williams has been shockingly good. Bottom of the barrel teams, unfortunately Albers just there.

Executive Producer Tania: Williams was middle pack last year also. So where they are right now is really no different than they’re not suddenly a magic that they’ve never been before.

Alban was doing pretty decently last year and then they’ve got the benefit of Carlos in the other car. Which he was a higher position person when he was in Ferrari. So there’s obviously a difference between two cars ’cause he’s not in the top five at any point.

Crew Chief Eric: Again, they’re putting the cars together with chisels and spoons or something.

I don’t know. But they’re

Executive Producer Tania: all the same. It’s, it’s mi aup. Right? That’s what I’m saying. You should be able to take pole and being first again,

Crew Chief Eric: Aston Martin should have come out the gate with Adrian Newey on the payroll and won the championship. Fernando Alonzo Champion 2025.

Executive Producer Tania: He’s not. And you even [00:47:00] read the article that said that Newey has gone in there and said you all are sitting here with the most antiquated bullshit.

Yes. 20-year-old stuff. What is he gonna work with? It’s gonna take him, God knows how many races in months before he gets things. Probably how he wants it.

Crew Chief Brad: And then he is gonna get somewhere else. Pretty much.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah. Not as long as Daddy stroll’s paying.

Crew Chief Brad: Daddy wore once a dollar.

Executive Producer Tania: The

Crew Chief Eric: Sonota Liam Lawson thing is.

Hilarious. It’s not

Executive Producer Tania: surprising at all to anyone who’s, who knows how the Red Bull people operate. This was a zero shock and should have been seen coming

Crew Chief Eric: a mile away. It’s amazing how they could just switch. But then it’s not amazing because it’s all the same team. They have four cars. One’s a junior team and one’s a senior team, and they can move drivers around all day long.

It’s not like they fired him.

Executive Producer Tania: They would’ve fired his ass anyway. ’cause they did that with the junior team last year. They got rid of a driver completely.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: If they didn’t like suno enough to move him up, they probably would’ve gotten somebody from anywhere else and brought him in. They don’t give a

Crew Chief Eric: shit.

Do you think he’s gonna make it to the end of the year?

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t know. Because if they’re gonna, I don’t know. When he didn’t crash out, he [00:48:00] was okay. He was better than Liam at least. So they probably gonna give him a little bit more of a chance. But if he starts wrecking every race or finishing in the bottom, I don’t know if there’s like a driver swap limit in a season,

Crew Chief Eric: they’ll bring Botox in.

That’s what they’ll do. Oh, no wait, he is a Mercedes as a backup driver. Nevermind.

Crew Chief Brad: They’ll bring back Checko

Crew Chief Eric: a check. Checko or Daniel Ricardo. They’re like, yeah, we’ll settle for Ricardo. It’s fine. We’ll just bring him back. It’ll be okay. It’s gotta be better than this. So there’s other controversy going on, allegedly, supposedly, maybe.

This is again, hokey pokey. And I read this on the Audi Club news that v tens could be returning, but Audi’s not happy about that because that goes against their whole EV thing. So they’re taking a stand and they might pull out, but they might stay in. But I don’t know what’s going on. But I’m excited. V tens returning to Formula One.

Hallelujah. That’s awesome.

Executive Producer Tania: The latest says they’re not gonna do the V tens, but

Crew Chief Eric: who knows again, the hokey pokey. But in some Formula one Florida man, you mentioned Carlos, you had me cracking up about [00:49:00] this the other day. Phyllis in

Executive Producer Tania: feel bad for the guy ’cause he got a 10,000 euro fine that he had to pay for being five seconds late to the Japanese anthem as it was playing at the very beginning of the festivities.

So with tariffs, that’s like $50,000

Crew Chief Brad: if you do the math. I mean, he’s set to make $10 million this year.

Executive Producer Tania: Oh, it’s nothing.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s the, yeah, it’s the equip. It’s 10 basis points. It’s point. It’s not that he can’t afford it, it’s nothing. Yeah, it’s It’s the point.

Executive Producer Tania: It’s nothing like really, it’s like I was late ’cause I was having a bathroom emergency.

Crew Chief Brad: He’s making a big stink about it.

Executive Producer Tania: He literally flushed money down the toilet.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: And they had very strict protocols and rules in F1 about being where you need to be and all that stuff. And he actually received a 50% penalty ’cause they took pity on him. And the reason he was late was because he literally had to go to the bathroom.

Number two. He even has a medical doctor saying that he was having stomach issues and that like legitimately, yeah. Like he had to go to the bathroom and [00:50:00] they, they were like, no, we’re still gonna give you a 10,000 Euro penalty. So basically stand there and crap. Your pants is the better answer than being a human and having like a gastro

Crew Chief Eric: issue.

He should get sponsored by Pepto. That’s what he should do.

ANNOUNCER!: Miami’s heat, Mila’s heritage, Monaco’s, glittering streets. Each stage brought its own drama. Ptri struck in America, Besta and fought back in Italy, and Norris claimed the jewel of Monte Carlo. May was a month of glamor, but beneath the champagne, the battle lines were drawn.

Crew Chief Brad: Predictions for Monaco.

Crew Chief Eric: It is a

Executive Producer Tania: snooze fest.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, it’s a procession.

Executive Producer Tania: Sounds like it might rain during qualifying. There’s a slight chance, but looks like there’s sun during the race, so there you have it.

Crew Chief Eric: No. Yeah, wherever they qualify is where they finish, unless somebody wrecks and that’s pretty much it.

Or Ocon tries to take ’em all out again. One or the other.

Crew Chief Brad: I’m gonna predict Lance Stroll is not gonna win.

Crew Chief Eric: I was [00:51:00] gonna say,

hold on. I’m gonna do the Great Carac for a minute. And Louis Hamilton eighth place?

Crew Chief Brad: No, I think Louis Hamilton’s gonna get sixth place, please. I think Alonzo’s gonna win.

Crew Chief Eric: No Alonzo’s too busy just being a jerk. Like does he want everybody to hate him? I read these articles about Alonzo and he’s just like, I don’t get it.

Like if you’re done with Formula One, retire,

Crew Chief Brad: he’s not done. He’s not done with this.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, is that what it is? Yeah. It’s not done with the money. The Benjamins. No,

Crew Chief Brad: of course not. Okay.

Crew Chief Eric: Okay. God. He drives me nuts though. He’s got such a chip on his shoulder and I was hopeful there because the Mila race last weekend was one of the most exciting races we’ve seen so far, at least to a point.

And it was like, oh look, Alonzo, he’s up near the front and then it was like boom, garbage back of the pack. I realized he is there to tow Lance stroll around. He is paid to be in front of [00:52:00] Lance and just do lead follow while a race is happening. It’s like a de, it’s ridiculous. That’s

Executive Producer Tania: not a bad gig I guess.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah dude, I would be so pissed.

Executive Producer Tania: Depends how much money he is getting.

Crew Chief Eric: Go do something else. Go race WEC or

Crew Chief Brad: But what else? What else does he have to prove? He’s won Lama, hasn’t he won an F1 championship? Yeah, a couple of them. So what else does he have to prove? Who gives a shit? Will you think? Fine. Did

Crew Chief Eric: he win Indy as well?

Crew Chief Brad: No, his car broke down.

Crew Chief Eric: Ah, okay. So he doesn’t have the triple crown. He was in the

Crew Chief Brad: Hondas. That kept breaking down I think.

Crew Chief Eric: Well then he should go do like the Berg ring 24 or something different. I think

Crew Chief Brad: he’s gonna go do whatever the hell he wants and he doesn’t care what any of us think. He’s got his money, he’s got his championships in two different motor sports.

He’s fine. Go run to car, go Valentino Rossi and go to motorcycles. Go the other way.

Executive Producer Tania: I’m not sure that transition works as well.

Crew Chief Brad: Uh, it it, it does not. It is a very different discipline. That’s

Crew Chief Eric: when, uh, like Hockman went to go do rally and he is apparently the only finished person without rally jeans in his [00:53:00] DNA and he was absolutely terrible at it.

Crew Chief Brad: Does he have NASCAR jeans and stuff?

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, like you kidding me? Yeah. No, no, no, no. Alright, so continuing the saga of the Tizi and Ferrari and Lewis and all this happy horse hockey Miami. Is a terrible track.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s a terrible event. Yeah, boy, it’s a waste of time.

Crew Chief Eric: Terrible track. It sucks. But there was a moment of just absolute radio glory.

It was the funniest thing. So Tanya, do you remember it was like after all the rain debacle and weather, it was gonna rain, whether it was gonna rain, there was all that stuff at the beginning. So it was a little bit exciting. And then once there was no more call for rain, it got super boring and everybody just kind of fell into place.

Much like with some of the other tracks. There was that moment though, where Lewis is fighting with Le Claire over the radio because one is arguing that the other one is holding them up and the team orders and the team wasn’t giving in the, giving the point by let him through, right? Yes. So Brad, did you see this race?

Crew Chief Brad: No, but I think I [00:54:00] saw blips of what you’re talking about.

Crew Chief Eric: So LeClaire at some point is like, all right, give me back the position, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So he is gotta let Le Claire through. And Hamilton didn’t really want to. Although he made a big stink about having better tires and he really didn’t gain anything by being in front of Le Claire.

It’s like, because the Ferrari’s are like, I don’t know, they’re just dog shit. They must be four cylinders while everybody else is six because they can’t get out of their own way. To that end, he lets Le Claire through and then his engineers like on the radio and he is like signs, 1.6 signs, one point whatever signs.

Science is behind him and then Lewis is like, do you want me to let him through too? And I just died. That is the funniest thing I’ve heard in Formula One in like forever Apparently it like went over like a lead balloon, right? As it should. But I was like, I was not expecting that from Hamilton for him to like sort of bite back and be like, Hey, why don’t we let me let signs pass too?

He’s very frustrated.

Crew Chief Brad: Was this the same race where he said that it like, [00:55:00] just go have a tea or something like that?

Crew Chief Eric: Yes. Yeah. That was later because he is like, the strategy was complete bunk and he’s like, these guys don’t know what they’re doing. And it is just, it’s a absolute mess. And obviously he’s comparing them to many years of being with Mercedes.

That race in Miami was, it was boring. The second half was whatever. Other than that it was, yeah, it was boring.

Crew Chief Brad: It seems like over the last couple years, Ferrari has just not been able to figure out a strategy that works.

Crew Chief Eric: So why did he go to Ferrari? It was stupid. Oh, it’s about that. It’s about that again.

It’s about the tariffs. I got it again. How

Crew Chief Brad: many championships does he have? What does he actually have to prove? I don’t hear what he says in public facing.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, but

Crew Chief Brad: what does he actually have to prove? Absolutely not a God thing. Collective

Crew Chief Eric: paycheck.

Crew Chief Brad: Yes, exactly.

Crew Chief Eric: Like I’ve been saying. So Emila the uh, Emelia Romania Grand Prix.

That was a good race. That was exciting. Lots of interesting stuff’s happening. Suddenly the Red Bull is fast again. The McLaren’s, you know, they want to take each other out. I think Lando is kind of playing dirty. I don’t just let [00:56:00] Piore do his thing. He’s faster than you get out of the way. It’s all these games there too.

But I think LeClaire, you really got to see some of his true colors come through at that race. He got angry and he was driving in anger and I think it was hilarious. And there was that moment there on the radio too where he’s like, is this what racing has become? Right? Where it’s all BS team politics and they can’t just race anymore because we have to go to Plan Delta.

We have to go to plan this and that, and blah, blah blah, and all this shit. It’s like, just let ’em drive. Just let them drive. Stop screwing around with tires and pit stop nonsense. Build a better mouse trap. Go out and race the hell out of ’em. And let’s see who wins. But Tanya, you kept talking about turbo mushrooms during that race.

The Ferrari cars have a problem

Executive Producer Tania: and it’ll be interesting. Whatever that problem is, is ever unearthed because they are incredibly slow and sluggish. They barely can pass each other. They can’t keep up with the fricking Williams, with [00:57:00] DRS wide open. They can’t make a pass. Everything is super slow. But then there’s moments where it’s like he got the turbo mushroom in Mario Kart, and suddenly like he’s raking people in and like the lap times are coming down and it’s like, holy crap, here we go.

Let’s go. And then suddenly it’s like, do. And the mushroom ran out and is back to being turd. They can’t get it out its own way and accelerate. Like what is wrong?

Crew Chief Eric: That, or the geral wore off one or the other.

Executive Producer Tania: Even LA Clare’s car is the

Crew Chief Eric: same thing. Yeah. Personally, watching some of that video of the Incar when they’re running for top speed, even with DRS open, they’re like an eighth gear foot to the floor and the thing just hangs there at like 6,000 RPM in the wrong part of the rev range and it just, it won’t pull.

And I turned to Tanya as we were watching, I said, I think the Ferrari needs to redesign their transmission. I think the gearing is wrong. And that’s keeping those cars behind. If they could shorten up their gear pack a little bit, six, seven, and eighth [00:58:00] gear, maybe they could get back some of the speed that they’re missing.

But if you’re sitting there in eighth gear at 6,000 RPM doing 190 miles an hour and it won’t pull, what is it geared for? 300? Like, it doesn’t make any sense. Those stupid engines turn like 14,000 rrp. M you’re barely in the power zone at that point. You might as well just leave it in seventh. You know? So I, I think their gearing is maybe what’s killing them.

And then we’re gonna hear excuses about the floor design and this and that. And the wing here. And the wing there. I think it’s the transmission. I think that’s the Achilles heel of the Ferrari.

Executive Producer Tania: And we heard Hamilton, I think it was even in the last. Keeps complaining about the brakes. The brakes are very different.

The design is different than what he is used to from Mercedes. He mentioned before that he’s never had to engine brake one of the cars before, and he’s having to learn how to do that here and it’s okay. So maybe one to chalk it up to he’s sing the violin, singing a song, complaining. But at this last race.

LeClaire through qualifying in like [00:59:00] practice was bemoaning the brakes. Like, my God, my God, my God. Apparently they were like behaving. So I don’t know what their technology or their brakes is, but it would, they, they’re

Crew Chief Eric: electric.

Executive Producer Tania: They would behave one way in a certain time and then suddenly they were behaving differently at another time.

And it’s like, if you brakes don’t work. If they’re not carrying the right speed or decreasing the speed in the zones and, and having the right power to come out, and if they have a sluggish motor, the transmission’s not geared correctly. I mean, they’re losing time everywhere.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: They can’t get outta their own way.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s horrible.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, LA Clara’s not a bad driver. He’s fighting. And we could say the Louis Hamilton’s not a bad driver either, right? And he’s doing crap. But then you see that them when they’re side by side with the other cars and it’s like the disparity is kind of evident. They are not competitive against the Red Bull or the McLaren.

We’ll see how it changes. What

Crew Chief Eric: race number is this? Like 10? Uh, I don’t know that there’s been that many, but my prediction has held true by the third race. He wasn’t gonna do any better than where he is at.

Executive Producer Tania: But [01:00:00] if the car is a problem, then it’s not fair either,

Crew Chief Brad: because where are the Mercedes?

Crew Chief Eric: They’re at the front doing better.

Antonelli started like second at Amala. It was insane. You guys told the Mercedes is inferior. They don’t know how to build a car, blah, blah, blah, and now they’re like kicking butt. I don’t

Crew Chief Brad: think anybody said that

Executive Producer Tania: the Mercedes as last year’s season. So Mercedes fell off and they were wildly uncompetitive.

You talk about how, yeah,

Crew Chief Eric: yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: Ferrari can’t accelerate and get out of its own way. It was pathetic. The Mercedes as the season last year, wound down their improvements. You could see they were doing better, the Mercedes was becoming more competitive. So whatever they’ve done coming into this year, yes, they have a more competitive car.

So maybe had he stayed with Mercedes, it’d be a whole other story right now.

Crew Chief Eric: Russell’s doing great. Antonelli’s doing great. Guess we’ll see. Too bad. Super disappointed in Ferrari this year, but I’m gonna tough it out. I promise you guys we’re gonna, we’re gonna ride to the end. That

Executive Producer Tania: would’ve been the last five years as well.

[01:01:00] So, I mean,

Crew Chief Eric: and you wonder why I don’t watch. I’m telling you guys spend a year following IMSA and WEC and you will see much better racing than the garbage that Formula One is putting out. And now we’re gonna bring Mickey Mouse into the equation now. Now there’s partnerships with Disney. Once I read that, I was like, thank God this is the only year I can go back to watching real racing and not this trash.

He acts like somebody put a gun to his head doing it for you guys. You called me out. You said, I didn’t know we told you to watch Drive to Survive.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah. You’re not a real fan unless you watch Drive to Survive.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, let’s correct that. Emmy Award-winning drive to Survive. Let me puke a little bit.

Executive Producer Tania: Netflix’s Emmy Award-winning.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s like giving yourself your own. Yeah. It’s such garbage. Whatever. No, thank you. There is no reason to watch Drive to Survive if you watch the races. I mean, I’m just gonna flat out say that,

Crew Chief Brad: but you don’t get all the drama.

Crew Chief Eric: Ah, you know what’s gonna have a bunch of drama in it, this Brad Pitt movie.

Are we gonna go see it? I mean, eventually I will see it when it’s at the bargain bin. [01:02:00] Free 99 on your streaming service.

Executive Producer Tania: Preferably, but I, I guess I could spend money on it. I think I have a gift card.

Crew Chief Eric: Wow. I’ll use someone else’s money to watch this terrible movie. Third one of the night, Brad Pitt movie, or completely unrelated, but car adjacent the Paul Walker story.

Which would you watch?

Crew Chief Brad: I need more. Is it any Brad Pitt movie or

Crew Chief Eric: the Brad Pitt Formula one movie is what I’m referring to.

Crew Chief Brad: So driven two or the Paul Walker story?

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. Yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: Um, I would rather sit there and watch Sesame Street with my kids for two hours.

Crew Chief Eric: Again, you’re gonna be able to watch Disney with F1 soon enough.

So that’s the future.

Crew Chief Brad: That’s the future. That means ESPN owned by Disney too, so yeah. Yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: Wait, is that what the partnership is that like you’ll be able to stream Formula One

Crew Chief Eric: on Disney. All I saw were pictures of Mickey Mouse with a Formula One car and I was just like, I’m done. I’m out.

Executive Producer Tania: No, I’m not out.

’cause if you’re regular streaming Disney Plus, if you’ve got a subscription to it, now you can watch Formula One without paying. Another [01:03:00] subscription to the F1 channel.

Crew Chief Brad: Can we rename the F1 drivers with cars characters? Oh man, that’d be

Crew Chief Eric: so funny.

Crew Chief Brad: The winner of this year’s championship becomes Lightning McQueen.

Crew Chief Eric: Mm.

Crew Chief Brad: And then we’ve got the other guys, I don’t remember their names.

Executive Producer Tania: Oh, is there gonna be a Pixar Cars? But F1.

Crew Chief Brad: There was an F1 car. He was Italian in cars too.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes. I just don’t see F1 TV giving up the goat to Disney giving them the rights. No, I don’t think

Executive Producer Tania: that’s what this is. They’re trying to appeal to the very younger crowd by like partnering to have the mascots.

But then I would question, do young kids even watch Mickey Mouse? Henry likes it.

Crew Chief Eric: They’re still on. Okay. Maybe it’s the other way. Formula One is trying to bring Disney up to its level, not the other way around.

Crew Chief Brad: They gonna move the Miami race to Orlando.

Crew Chief Eric: It’ll be on an oval and it’ll be run by Indy cars.

Crew Chief Brad: Oh wait, wait.

They already do that. Go 45 minutes east and just run it a Daytona.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, I guess we’ll have to report on the developments of this as they come to [01:04:00] light in the upcoming months.

ANNOUNCER!: Yes. Spain fell to Ptri, but Canada belonged to George Russell. A defiant reminder that Mercedes had not faded. Austria returned Norris to the top step.

June was a carousel of champions. Each victory reshaping the narrative of the year.

Crew Chief Eric: All right. Ferrari, three pizzas at lama. How come Ferrari Formula One can’t build a car? That’s worth a damn. I’m just gonna lay it out there.

William Ross: F1 is getting very, very boring. You don’t say especially watching Monaco. That’s just a joke.

Charles LeClair, however you wanna pronounce his name, Charles, whatever, you’ll never be anything other than angry. Yes, angry. Angry, little Frenchman. I’m sorry, manganese, or however we pronounce that

Crew Chief Brad: Mangas.

William Ross: I think Louis Hamilton’s passed his prime new regulations come in next year and it’s either hit or miss.

’cause then you’re always chasing it. But it’s whoever can nail it right outta the thing is gonna win. I mean, look what Mercedes did. And all of a sudden, now it’s Red Bull came into it. Now all of a sudden it’s [01:05:00] McClaren. McClaren just got it, refined it and nailed down the little things to it. But now all of a sudden, next year, it’s completely new regulations.

You know, I always look at both sides and say, well, you know, if you look at qualifying that it’s either no more than second or second half between lap times and everyone’s always in 10 tense, this and that. But then you watch the race and everything spreads out and just why they can’t get their shit together.

And I just can’t believe that they would get rid of Asur that quickly. Yeah. And put it all on him. Come on, whoever nicked the idea of bringing Newie and not just, oh, here, here’s the checkbook, Adrian, how much you want. Whatever you need, get it. Why they didn’t sign him. I don’t know. Someone’s ego got in the way.

They didn’t wanna have him there, and I don’t know if it was au, whoever it was, but that was a huge F up on their part for not getting Adrian Newey huge. Especially next year, Aston Martin comes out and starts just crushing it. Heads will roll because they’ll just prove the point. I mean, as we all know, Adrian knew he is just, you know, he’s the man that’s that.

And they’ll have Honda engines, so they’ll have the power, how they can still call themselves as to, Martin is beyond me. I mean, [01:06:00]

Crew Chief Eric: so Tonya, you have this meme here. Well,

Executive Producer Tania: it’s not a meme, it’s a quote. Who’s saying this? Fred Ser, apparently.

Crew Chief Eric: And who is he referring to himself? I don’t know who

Executive Producer Tania: the one thing is.

Crew Chief Eric: Is it the car at this point? The motor. Why don’t you read it for our audience? ’cause they’re not looking at this.

Executive Producer Tania: Fred Vaser is quoted as saying we must ask ourselves the right questions. If Ferrari hasn’t won for years. We’ve changed the team principle, the drivers, we’ve changed everything. Except one thing

Crew Chief Eric: is that his resignation.

What is that?

Executive Producer Tania: Well, he’s the principal that’s changed, so they’ve already done that. I don’t know. Is it higher ups in Ferrari?

William Ross: I think he’s talking about their mentality, I would think. But I mean, obviously there’s more than that that needs to change. But the problem with Ferrari is they’re so bureaucratic in regards to how they run everything internally.

It’s. Horrendous.

Crew Chief Eric: How is the LAMA team? How are the 4, 9, 9 P guys getting away with it? They built a killer car three years in a row.

Crew Chief Brad: You said it already. They’re not a factory team. They’re a private tier.

William Ross: Mm. And if they [01:07:00] poach the guy that’s running that now and put him in charge, get rid of Aser and put him in, then okay.

Then there goes your Lamas team. They’re done. Yeah. If they’re trying to say that’s the case, then they both suck. Yeah. Then they’re both bad.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s why I said Ferrari has to leave Lamont after this year. They need to stop and go out on a high, three in a row. You know? Wait another 52 years to come back

Crew Chief Brad: and just call it a day.

I feel like that’s cowardly lying. They can’t do that. Ford’s coming in next year. They’ve gotta go against Ford. They have to.

Executive Producer Tania: We need a new movie. Ford V. Ferrari part two.

Crew Chief Brad: Part two. It’ll be like hot shots. Part part two. Yeah, part part two. Hot shots, part

Crew Chief Eric: two.

Crew Chief Brad: That’s awesome. The second one,

Crew Chief Eric: as long as it doesn’t end up like Highlander Part two and nevermind.

Like the naked gun, two and a half or whatever it was. Oh, there

Executive Producer Tania: is a new naked gun coming out. Let’s not go there.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, right. Oh, sweet. Don’t search for that on the internet kids. So let’s talk about Monaco just a little bit longer. Although it doesn’t need any more airtime than it’s already gotten.

Executive Producer Tania: The drivers hate the race.

Crew Chief Eric: The fans hate the [01:08:00] race.

Executive Producer Tania: Why are they still racing there? Other than that quote? It’s Monaco. And who gives a crap? What’s that Musical Tradition. Tradition. Bitler on the roof. Yeah,

Crew Chief Eric: there you go.

Crew Chief Brad: I don’t even think it’s got anything to do with tradition. I think it’s money.

William Ross: Oh yeah. Now moving the date too.

They’re changed all up. Not gonna be on Memorial Weekend anymore. Yeah, just a cash grab. Yeah. I mean, that’s what it boils down to, you know, using that excuse. Oh, it’s traditional. Oh, there’s, yeah, Tanya said Everyone hates it there. Drivers hate it. Teams hate it. The cars are too big, there’s no passing, there’s nothing.

Executive Producer Tania: And they tried to make it more interesting by forcing additional pit stops and it did nothing. Yeah, it did absolutely nothing. It did not change the order of anything.

Crew Chief Eric: That should have been a no pit stop race. Just get it done. And there

Executive Producer Tania: should have been blue flag, black flags for people that were just worse than parade lapping and holding people up.

Like get outta the way.

Crew Chief Brad: I think for Monaco, I think they should. Yeah. Like Eric said, note pit stops and then remove all FIA regulations. Just let ’em go. [01:09:00] Just the the, the Mad Max race.

William Ross: That would be awesome.

Crew Chief Brad: Thunderdome

William Ross: and every 10 laughs. They gotta switch cars with their teammate. They gotta jump in each other’s car.

That would make it way better be like Formula E. In the old days, they gotta switch cars.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah. And they, they should start a reverse grid. There we go. Ooh. And then maybe every 20 laps the drivers get out and fight. They get out into a fist fight.

Crew Chief Eric: If they did reverse grid, that might be the only opportunity.

Lance Scroll will ever win a race.

Crew Chief Brad: Lance scroll. Lance scroll.

Executive Producer Tania: If they would’ve reversed Grided, Monaco, Antonelli would’ve been first. Ah, that’s

Crew Chief Eric: true. Haas could get a win. If they reversed grid. It’d be amazing. They still wouldn’t get a win. I’m impressed with Haas this year. I have to say like they’re kind of middle of the pack.

There’s no reason to really make fun of him anymore. And there’s other teams where you’re like, all right, Sal’s just there waiting for Audi to take over. And Aston Martin’s pathetic. And Williams is sort of, again, fighting in the middle, so I can’t really say too much. But the ones I poke the most fun at is Ferrari.

[01:10:00] And it’s heartbreaking. Every race. Is pathetic. I don’t understand. Their dog shit’s slow. That’s all I can say. I don’t unders like DRS wide open drafting somebody and you still can’t get around them. Oh, which

Executive Producer Tania: race was it? Catalonia? I don’t remember, but I know you didn’t believe me for the longest time when I said the Ferraris are slow.

There is a problem with them. And then you saw it when it was like Hamilton verse LeClaire and the DRS Open couldn’t pass him. LeClaire couldn’t pass Hamilton with the DRS open. What are you talking about? Yeah. And then you see like whoever the hell else has with their DRS open and they’re like, shoot by somebody.

It’s like, what is that? It’s an air break instead of like a speed up.

William Ross: It was team orders. Yeah. They get on the radio, let him by. Why? Made this sense. You know why?

Crew Chief Eric: Because you end up like Lando in Canada. That’s why. Oh, what a knucklehead. What was he thinking?

Executive Producer Tania: That guy is his own worst enemy and he chokes.

He chokes. What a knucklehead. Yeah. Where do you think you were going?

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, [01:11:00] that was a eye racing move. Like he was suddenly gonna have traction and space on an island that is the size of Brad’s shoe.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, he, he must have thought Pire was just gonna move over for him. ’cause Pire held his line. He didn’t move to the left, he didn’t pinch him off.

He was in a position and he held that position and then he thought he was just gonna fit. In half the size of a Formula one car.

William Ross: Maybe he thought he was gonna pull that. Uh, what that guy did, the NASCAR movie where he just pinned it against the wall and just pinned it and went around. He figured you just slammed the wall and go

Crew Chief Eric: No, no.

Like the cars movie where he bounces up and then he flips over and lands on the other side. Yeah, that would’ve been great. Yeah. There we go. Fantastic. Some James Bond stuff. Ugh. Canada was boring. Just like Monaco because it’s too small. It’s too tight. It’s just one car width wide. I mean it’s just, Ugh.

That’s another one that, it’s tradition. They run Canada ’cause they, they have to have a Grand Prix in Canada I guess.

William Ross: Well I thought they were getting away from that track. I thought they were supposed to go um, where to Mosport? I thought they were moving away from the island for that [01:12:00] reason. ’cause one going racing, two accessibility.

’cause it’s a nightmare in regards to Yes. There’s only those two ways or one way to get on and off that island. And you gotta get bused on. Yeah, you can’t

Crew Chief Eric: park there. There’s no grandstand.

Executive Producer Tania: Well there are grandstands stops saying that you saw them

Crew Chief Eric: compared to Kona. There’s like no grandstands. There’s like nothing.

There might as well be three chairs and 10 people like playing, you know, musical chairs.

William Ross: Yeah. I always thought they were moving it to downtown or something. Like they were gonna do actually. Oh, that’d be

Crew Chief Eric: even worse. We went to Montreal a couple years ago. The streets downtown.

William Ross: Oh yeah. Horrendous.

Crew Chief Eric: It might as well be Jeep Wranglers racing, not formula cars.

Executive Producer Tania: Not even that, but Montreal is a very grid laid out. Plus city courses are all terrible.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, they’re all awful. Look at Monaco.

Crew Chief Brad: They should move it to Toronto and drive around the skydome parking lot.

Crew Chief Eric: Oh, that’s like what they’re trying to do for indie car. Right. And down in Texas or whatever. Down in Dallas, around the stadium.

But then that ends up like Miami. Right. And then you’re like, that’s horrible. Sucks too. Now I will say I have a newfound appreciation for [01:13:00] Catalonia. That was actually a decent race. The Spanish Grand Prix was pretty good. The outcome was nothing short of to be expected. So I was like, all right, whatever.

But again, Ferrari can’t get outta their own way.

Executive Producer Tania: Hey, that’s the first race they podium

Crew Chief Eric: by luck.

Crew Chief Brad: How many cars were Uh, yeah, dnf. Yeah. Disqualified. Exactly. Three. What were there? Were there 18 cars? Dnf.

William Ross: And nothing’s gonna change now for Ian season because no one’s doing anything more with their cars this year.

And it’s all going to 2026. There might be one or two changes here and they’re very minimal, but, so nothing’s really gonna change in the order. Pastor’s gonna be world champion.

Executive Producer Tania: The Spanish GP was exciting because we hadn’t seen him for a while. We got to see Tappin’s true colors once again.

William Ross: Oh, that was so good.

Oh

Crew Chief Eric: man, that was good.

William Ross: God. I wanted him to get somehow some ways, so he got that last point on his license so he could get banned for the next race. Get suspended. That’d been awesome.

Executive Producer Tania: It’s astonishing that at the very least he wasn’t DQ from that race.

William Ross: Yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: Collusion. I mean, he pretty much was on the radio saying, I’ll show him.

And then purposely [01:14:00] tried to punt him off the track.

Crew Chief Eric: I have said it before, you can take the racer out of the cart, but you can’t take the cart racer out of the boy. He drives like a cart racer.

Executive Producer Tania: No, that was not a cart racing move at all. That was a an aggressive vindictive move. High

Crew Chief Eric: racing move,

Executive Producer Tania: premeditated because he had all the space in the world not to do that.

Crew Chief Eric: I agree with all

Executive Producer Tania: of those things and that sends a bad message to people that are watching.

William Ross: So you think Red Bull will pay him a hundred million dollars next season to stay? That only thing that would keep him there cash. Rumor is he wants to leave. Saw that too. But I,

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t know. Then there’s rumors. He is gonna go to Aston or he is gonna go to Mercedes.

He is gonna go here. He is gonna go there. Really? I don’t know. Is he gonna go to Aston? ’cause Adrian’s there.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s the only reason. Is he gonna be the second driver to Lance who?

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah. Who do you get rid of? Let’s play this game. Who do you get rid of? Stroll or Alonzo?

Crew Chief Eric: Who does Daddy Warbuck’s fire? Well, Alonzo’s 62 years old, so he needs to retire.

But [01:15:00] he’s

William Ross: a better driver than Stroll. Well, but Lance can’t go do tennis now ’cause of his wrist. So he is stuck in F1. Yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: Oh, poor baby.

Crew Chief Eric: And the, and the worst part is, and I’ve said this by watching the race Alonzo, they like give him a little taste of like being like at the front again and the excitement of the old days.

And then it’s like Fernando get back in line and start towing Lance around because that’s what he’s paid to do. He has Lance on his ass the whole time cutting through traffic and just toes lance around. That’s what he’s paid to do. I wouldn’t want that job. And if I was for stopping, I wouldn’t want that job either.

Regardless of Adrian Newey. No. ’cause that’s what you’re signing up to do is tow that guy around.

Crew Chief Brad: If I was making the money that they’re making, I would tow Lance Stroll wherever the fuck you wanted to go for his entire life. I don’t even care. You want to tow to McDonald’s? Let’s go. Yeah. You wanna tow the Starbucks?

You want me to tow you through the Starbucks drive through? Let’s do it. No, no, no. Do you wanna

Executive Producer Tania: toe to Timmy’s Tim Hortons?

Crew Chief Brad: Oh yeah. You, you wanna tow [01:16:00] to the Horton?

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah, let’s get it right. Let’s get it right. Official sponsor of the F1 movie is KFC. You’re gonna tow him to get some Kentucky Fried chicken.

Crew Chief Brad: Oh hell yeah. Can tow you the KFC.

Crew Chief Eric: You seen those commercials? They’re so he stupid. I thought it was Taco Bell. Is it? No, it’s KFC. Well it’s the same company anyway. KFC, taco Bell, McDonald’s, whatever.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s all,

Crew Chief Eric: it’s all Pepsi. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

William Ross: Well, so speaking of the movie, is anyone here going to pay to go see it in the theater?

They’re gonna wait until it comes out on Apple.

Crew Chief Brad: I have small children. I will not be paying to go see anything.

Executive Producer Tania: Oh, coming out on Apple. Oh, that’s right.

William Ross: Don Apple don’t have Applet. You it. Yeah. So four weeks after it’s released, it’ll come on Apple. It should be. Or six weeks. I’ll get it on Voodoo.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah. I just canceled my Apple tv, so Yeah, I won’t be watching it for another year.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, I think I have a gift card to a MC.

Crew Chief Eric: God. God. Well, you’re gonna do an episode about it if, if you go see it, I know you’re gonna go see it, William, come on.

William Ross: Yeah, I’m gonna go see it. We got this great new theater that opened up that’s got the reclining seats and everything. That, and tickets are only like $11 dirt cheap instead of like the 20 something.

Yeah, it’s, it’s awesome. It’s Phoenix [01:17:00] Theaters new first one in this area, I guess, or something. Or they’re starting, I don’t know. But yes, $10 and 79 cents or something like that. That’s not just Matt and Nate that’s like that anytime. Wow. At night you can go. It’s like me and my wife and daughter went the other night, saw movies.

All three of us tickets were only 32 bucks for all three of us. Do you have to make your own popcorn in the back? Well, I mean, I was smuggling my own candy, of course. And my diet. Mountain Dews.

Crew Chief Brad: Do you gotta

William Ross: stand there and run the reel? Yeah. Well it’s good exercise.

Crew Chief Eric: That’s why one arm’s bigger than the other.

William Ross: Yeah. All you have to do is clean up and vacuum after the movie. That’s, oh, there you go. Put on a vest and just clean up.

Crew Chief Brad: You gotta sell concessions to the next movie, the, the next time slot too. Exactly.

William Ross: It’s all give and take.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah.

Crew Chief Eric: So Tanya, you mentioned to me the other day that there are proposed wing changes.

That means that the Ferrari’s are gonna be even slower. Is that right?

Crew Chief Brad: They’re just gonna remove four bolts.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah, there you go.

That was a headline that was floating out there, but I think in the end it does all have to do with the [01:18:00] crackdown on the front wing deflection. Ah, okay. But I think they ended up changing more of the front wing design as a result of that. And so I think it went into effect ahead of Canada. So I don’t know that it necessarily negatively impacted ’em.

’cause they were as slow as normals.

Crew Chief Brad: They didn’t get any slower. That’s a plus,

Executive Producer Tania: but that’s a slow

Crew Chief Eric: track

Executive Producer Tania: too.

William Ross: But Claren didn’t change anything from my understanding. They didn’t change nothing. Everyone else had to change or they changed it. So then that’s why they’re trying to file protests or something like that and said No, it’s within line.

I mean, I know who the biggest culprit was of that flexi wing, Adrian Dewey. I’d love to see his, you know, his office and just seeing him go to town on the big drafting table, still using the mechanical pencil and everything. That’d be unbelievable to see.

Crew Chief Eric: No,

William Ross: it’s like that

Crew Chief Eric: episode of the office where he walks in and he shuts the door and he closes the blinds and he sits down and he starts crying at his desk.

That’s what Adrian is doing at Aston right now. What’d I do? What’d I do? That’s what he is doing.

ANNOUNCER!: Silverstone erupted as Norris triumphed before his home crowd. Belgium [01:19:00] swung back to Ptri Hungary, tilted again to Norris and in Zor. Ptri silenced for Staffan on Dutch soil. The summer sun burned hot, but the title fight burned hotter.

Still

Crew Chief Eric: since you’re here, William, but I’ve gotta ask because we joked we made fun of your $10 movie theater. Did you go see the F1 movie?

William Ross: Hell yes. It’s awesome. Is it, I think it’s a, I think it was a fantastic movie. I thought it was really good. And again, though I can asking, I said this like with Ford verse, fire up.

This is for entertainment. It’s not trying to nail it down, but they did a hell of a job capturing like the speed, the sound, everything. I mean, some of the shots that they got were ly. ’cause I mean you saw when they were filming how immersed they were with the actual F1 after races and everything like that.

Obviously you can clearly tell lots of CGI stuff this and that. Like, oh, that’ll never happen. So there’s a lot of stuff you go like, uh, but you gotta take with a grain of salt. It’s pure entertainment purposes.

Executive Producer Tania: Most of the racing footage was. Literally real racing footage that they went and CGI didn’t [01:20:00] change the colors of the car, so there wasn’t, you know, an Alpine or a Red Bull and stuff like that.

William Ross: Well, the one cool thing is they go back to, in the eighties when he like got into it, they used Martin Donnelly’s actual crash video and footage of him crashing, lying in the middle of the track, the whole nine yards. Wow. So it’s like that, it’s the actual video of it. So they used some real stuff in it.

They kind of cji to make, you know, so it was him in the car driving that lotus, but they used a lot of old footage back then, kind of having flashbacks and kinda how like he was supposed to be the next big thing just, and it’s kind of based Martin do never got back into an F1 car. No spoilers.

Crew Chief Eric: All right, so let me ask this.

Yeah, lemme ask again. Brad Pitt, blah, blah, blah. It’s like Tom Cruise and the rest of ’em. And you talk about the CGI and all this cool stuff in my mind, I think that the storyline, the plot, the acting, the, oh, it’s crap. Okay, so it’s like Grand Smo then, right?

William Ross: Yeah. I mean, come on, you go look at the thing. Oh, this would never happen.

It’s a complete joke. Oh, come on this guy. You’re trying to do the math in your head. Okay. If he was. Even [01:21:00] 18 or 19 when they’re saying he would have to be in the eighties when he break, and then what the years now would be, he’d be in his sixties. I

Crew Chief Eric: would never, ever freaking happen. It’s Alonzo. It’s just the story of Alonzo.

That’s, it’s

William Ross: Brad Pitts. All right. He’s made some good movies, but I mean, every movie he is in, he, he is the same demeanor, same. It’s just plug and play and doing it how he acts. But I enjoyed it. I think it’s definitely worth it to go see it. We didn’t stay for it, but we actually went to the drive-in the other night and it was the second movie.

We went and saw Superman and it was supposed to be the second one, but I was like, yeah, I don’t feel like staying. I, that’s when I’ll wait till it comes back out on Apple TV and I’ll watch it, you know, on my TV again. But I thought it was good.

Crew Chief Eric: Speaking of Apple tv, I heard that Apple is bidding for Formula One coverage for next year.

I

William Ross: think they got it.

Crew Chief Eric: Did they really? No, I thought Disney did. What is the deal with Disney and Formula One?

William Ross: Everyone’s trying to get on the bandwagon and depending on how long they buy the rice for to do it, if they buy it for any more than five years, they’re gonna be effed because I guarantee in five years the.

Popularity [01:22:00] here in the stage is gonna start waning big time. It’s gonna do that NASCAR thing where NASCAR was boom, boom, boom. Yeah. You know, same thing’s gonna happen here with that. What? Because everyone’s gonna just like, nah, it’s the same to your point, weekend to

Crew Chief Eric: your point, we heard a lot of that when we were at Lamont Classic and we were talking to other people about other racing disciplines and you know, people were surprised.

200,000 people showing for a vintage event is just ridiculous numbers. But you heard the same thing from a lot of people. I’m really tired of Formula One. The racing’s really boring, the drama is really fake, blah blah, you know, the same thing. And it, and I know I’ve been saying this, hearing it from other people, unsolicited, you’re sort of like, well, I guess I’m not alone on Survivor Island.

Okay. First of all, formula one TV has always been boring. I mean, it just doesn’t matter what era you pick. Kind of like you’ve always said, you watch the beginning, you snooze in the middle, you watch the end and it’s over. But now it’s to me more spec racing than it’s ever been, at least during the C days.

And Schumacher, the cars were sort of different, you know, especially during the Senate days, you had the flat 12 Ferraris and the [01:23:00] V eight Judds and you know, the turbo this and the that. Yeah. So it was a mixed bag of stuff. And then the V 10 era was obviously amazing, but now, I don’t know, it’s just hard.

And I think the whole COVID o’s over for a long time now. People have gone back to, let’s say, quote unquote normal, and Formula One doesn’t have the same draw because we’re not also. Stuck at home with nothing else to watch.

William Ross: I agree. I mean that’s why I say, you know, the shine will come off of that diamond or everyone I call it, it’ll

Crew Chief Eric: be Shinola when it’s done.

William Ross: Yeah. I especially like the Vegas race of Miamis. I’ll be amazed at that Miami Rays last another three or four seasons because it’s just crap. You know, Austin’s always gonna be there ’cause you’re gonna have that one Austin, you know, great tracker like that. But, and in Vegas too, I think it’s just,

Crew Chief Eric: I’d rather watch the WEC race at Austin than the Formula One race at Austin.

William Ross: I, I agree with you on that. A thousand percent. So, yeah, I mean, and the obscene amount of money that either Disney or Apple, whoever ends with is gonna have to pay. I mean, Liberty Media is just cash cashing and it would not surprise me within the next five years, Liberty Media ends up selling up to the oil rich nations of Saudi Arabia.

Yeah. One of those UAE funds, whatever. And just walks away [01:24:00] making their billions and billions of dollars. ’cause it’s at that point, saturation 24 races. I mean, that’s just too many. I mean that’s, and it’s total cash grab

Crew Chief Eric: to close out this thought on Formula One as we sort of wrap out this impromptu bitter sports news.

I gotta give props to Hulk burg. It’s taking him like 25 years to podium.

Executive Producer Tania: You know, I’m sad to miss that race ’cause that actually looked like it was a really good race at Silverstone. I watched the highlights,

William Ross: you know, that’s why they always wish for rain at every race because it’s evens things out. I make everything interesting when it’s rained.

I’ll watch the whole race. I’m be like, okay, this will be interesting. Yeah, for sure. I’ll watch the thing if it rains.

ANNOUNCER!: Mona’s Temple of Speed bowed to vest happen. Baku Streets echoed his dominance once more. September was Red Bull’s resurgence a reminder. That the reigning champion would not surrender easily.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, we don’t often have motorcycle news, but we do have motorcycle news and I think this one would shock you guys. We’re probably not [01:25:00] sad to see him leave Formula One, but all I’m gonna say is that it’s gonna make Moto GP super interesting. Now, the Gunther Steiner is a team principle. Is he of what? Yes.

Yes. And he owns a Moto GP team now or whatever.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s gonna make Ride to Survive season one. Really interesting.

Crew Chief Eric: I didn’t know Gene Haas bought a motorcycle team. God fucking Gene

Executive Producer Tania: Haas. Can

Crew Chief Eric: you imagine? I mean, maybe it’s the right place for Gunther. I don’t know. Good luck to him. Going into next year, he is gonna be at the head of Tech three Racing Moto GP team, full ownership.

Crew Chief Brad: It’ll be back marker team. So in order for him to get the job as team principal, he had to buy the team.

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, if you ate first, your last. Right. Well, on that note, ’cause I know this is big news for you. I wanted the biggest things for you and I thought this is just so important. Here it is. Get ready. Get your Kleenex out. Daniel. Ricardo confirms [01:26:00] retirement for motor racing. This is why I put this first and foremost, retirement for motor racing.

Period. Full stop. There are no disciplines. Just no more. Are you sad? Are you heartbroken?

Crew Chief Brad: I don’t care what

Crew Chief Eric: you’ve always cared about

Crew Chief Brad: Ricardo. I mean, it’s not like he died or anything. He’s just not gonna be racing anymore. He’s still got his brand on

Crew Chief Eric: Chante. What’s that translate too? I’ll pass.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah, I signed up for the newsletter and I kept getting like product information and stuff and it’s all not my style.

Crew Chief Eric: What do you think that says about him? What do you think it says about Alonzo that should be making the same statement?

Crew Chief Brad: And according to you, Hamilton too,

Crew Chief Eric: there’s truth in that statement as well.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, Daniel’s getting up there in age.

Crew Chief Brad: I don’t think age has anything to do with it though. I think he just lost his passion for it.

Executive Producer Tania: So he lost his passion for all racing then? Yeah. Yes.

Crew Chief Brad: I can relate. I feel like I’ve kinda lost my passion for track driving. Like the last couple times I went and did it. I didn’t really have any fun. I broke the [01:27:00] car, you know, I didn’t really get to go out on track much. I mean, when I say that the pumpkin spice lattes probably not gonna see the track.

It’s probably a fair statement.

Crew Chief Eric: No, it’s gonna see it when you pull up and you park.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s gonna see it when I go to an IMSA race or professional race or something, but it probably won’t touch a track. Maybe parade lapse.

Executive Producer Tania: Before we move on, we need to discuss endurance racing a little bit more. Oh, okay.

Because Franz Herman, AKA Max Tappin, he participated recently in a Berg four hour endurance race in order to qualify for his GT three. License so that he can this weekend participate in a norlife endurance race. And let’s just talk about how he did in that permit race. He was in a Cayman seven 18 GT four car is what he drove.

However, they de-tuned him because of his quote, rookie standing. They de-tuned him 130 horsepower, holy cow. And added weight. He finished in his class seventh, he [01:28:00] finished overall of, I think 114 cars. 27th. Wow. That’s seemingly impressive.

Crew Chief Eric: So if they, they hadn’t basically neutered the car, he would’ve came in first and probably higher up

Executive Producer Tania: the gym.

I’m wondering. So it’ll be very interesting to see how he does. This weekend in a non detuned car, which he’ll be driving a Ferrari this weekend. All the cars that are available in I I racing. I get it.

Crew Chief Brad: That’s a pre, that’s a premonition.

Executive Producer Tania: Which funnily enough, his co-driver is someone who’s coming up through sim racing.

He’s got like a his own league academy thing that he is doing. So his co-driver is gonna be some sim racer dude. So that’ll be interesting to see how that goes. We’ll put a pin in that

Crew Chief Eric: for a minute ‘

Executive Producer Tania: cause

Crew Chief Eric: we’re gonna come back and talk about Max. I don’t wanna talk about every race that’s happened over the last two months ’cause it’s just too much.

I don’t even remember. Right. So I just wanna say Belgium was a nightmare. The race was delayed for over an hour. It was just WW the whole thing was want want. And that was just an annoying race to sit through. [01:29:00] Budapest. What an amazing race between two people. The McLaren’s. Watching their team strategy is mind-boggling.

I don’t understand what’s going on over there. Can we just let Oscar score point so that Max doesn’t, what is this BS between Lando and Oscar? Like it just needs to stop. They’re already gonna win the manufacturer’s championship for crying out loud, like Red Bull doesn’t stand a chance there. At least bunch of other blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Races in between. So let’s fast forward to Azure Bajan Max Power, right? We are going full bore, and I’m reading stuff about how people are saying that Max is now stacking the end part of the season to try to win the remaining races and take the championship away from the McLaren drivers. Full stop. It’s been done before.

And apparently if he wins every race from here on out, the math works out. Do we think it’s gonna happen? What’s the over under on this?

Executive Producer Tania: They’ve sorted that car out, then yes, it’s probably possible.

Crew Chief Brad: I don’t have any [01:30:00] love for any of the F1 teams really. Go Cadillac.

Crew Chief Eric: We’re gonna get to that go Audi. We’ll get to that too.

You know, I’m not a ti fso. My heart breaks for Ferrari and kind of secretly I want McLaren to win. But then I don’t want McLaren to win ’cause I don’t like the BS that they do amongst their own team. I’m kind of like rooting for Mercedes to kind of like come through as the underdog and just take all of it home.

But that’s not gonna happen either. So I can’t put my focus on any one team ’cause they kind all suck. You know what I mean? Stake. Yeah, stake. Yeah. Yeah. Holgenburg is gonna take it all home. Uh, any rate Max for stopping Champion this year? Do you think it’s gonna happen?

Executive Producer Tania: He won every single race but won last year.

He had a 14 second lead, I think 14, 15 seconds He ended at Azure. Bajan? Yeah. And he started slowing down because that gap was bigger and I think he just wasn’t pushing anymore. ’cause there’s no reason George Russell wasn’t catching up

Crew Chief Eric: even after the pit stop. Let’s be real.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah, let’s be real for a second.

And he just, [01:31:00] they told him, you know what, save the motor, save the car. Cruise the last couple laps.

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, you could tell from the videos when they showed you, he is like short shifting and just cruising around and you’re like, wow. And you still can’t catch him.

Executive Producer Tania: So if they’ve sorted out that car and it’s back to levels that it was at last year,

Crew Chief Eric: it’s over for McLarney.

It’s over. Yeah,

Executive Producer Tania: it’s over.

Crew Chief Eric: So this is what’s gonna make the rest of this formula one season exciting because so far it’s been a bit of a dud, but now it’s getting interesting to see how this is gonna play out. And maybe it, it just comes down. I will argue there’s what seven races left. I think we said Tanya, it’s, it’s too many 24 races in the year.

It’s insane. It’s like every two weeks basically, right? I mean it’s just, it’s bonkers, but we’ll see. I think it’s gonna be interesting. But on a side note, speaking of listeners checking in with us, I got a call from Alabama, Jeff, one of our listeners, and he says to me, he goes, obviously you guys know more about this stuff than I do in his southern draw.

He goes, I just got into F1 recently like everyone else. But he goes, wouldn’t [01:32:00] you say stopping is just one of the best drivers hands down. And so I wanted to open that up to go back to what we were talking about with endurance, with this whole math game, him coming out and potentially winning the championship if everything goes in his favor.

Do we think stopping is in a class? Like a Schumacher or a Sena or somebody like that. Is he that level of driver?

Crew Chief Brad: I think it’s hard to answer that question. Is he a great driver? Is he an amazing driver? Yes. The reality is, I think some of it’s the car,

Crew Chief Eric: but you gotta be able to pilot that car and it,

Crew Chief Brad: you gotta be able to pilot the car.

Yes. But because they’re not all driving, it’s hard to make these comparisons ’cause they’re not all driving the exact same car.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, in Red Bull’s case, the rumor on the street is Son’s car is basically specked identical to ver stop’s car as almost like a backup to Ver stop’s car. And it’s reportedly undrivable.

People used to say the same thing about Sena, where Senna’s car was like, I don’t know how the hell he drives this thing. You know what I mean? Is he at that level or is it just he’s got a particular driving style? What [01:33:00] is it? I

COMMERCIAL: mean, it could be,

Executive Producer Tania: I am changing my opinion of him and I think it’ll be very telling what he does in GT three.

Because if he’s dominating there, then he is definitely

Crew Chief Eric: one of the best

Executive Producer Tania: probably. I think he’s matured a lot from the arrogant asshole he was when he first started out in Formula One.

Crew Chief Brad: And he’s a father now, right?

Executive Producer Tania: Technically now he’s a father, yes. But he started maturing even before then. But maybe that’s ’cause he kind of had a step kid in Kelly’s first daughter, Kelly pk.

So maybe he was already changing there. He’s very consistent. He’s a very consistent driver hitting the mark, laugh after lap, after lap, after lap.

Crew Chief Eric: So that I racing

Executive Producer Tania: and maybe it is, I mean, someone else who tends to be that consistent also is Ptri. So I’d really like to see him if it comes down between him and Norris, I’d like to see him win the World Championship for sure, because I think he is probably the stronger driver.

But I mean Vertin, he’s definitely something. [01:34:00] So it’ll be interesting to see

Crew Chief Eric: if he wins this year. And to your point, if he does something in sports car and endurance racing, you know, let’s say he gets a couple other championships of different disciplines under his belt. I think when we jump forward 10 years and look back, we’re gonna go over stop.

And he might not have eight world titles in Formula One like Lewis was trying to get to, or like Schumacher had seven and you know, all that. But I think we’re gonna regard him in the similar level as like a Jimmy Clark or a Sena or some of those, some of the greats where we didn’t recognize it at the time, but now when we look back, we’re gonna be like, holy heck,

Executive Producer Tania: his contract I think goes till 2028.

So if he wins this and he wins the next. Three seasons, he would have eight world championships.

Crew Chief Eric: He would, but he also, to me, he needs to win Lama because a lot of those old time Formula One champions, not Sena, but a lot of, you know, the Andrettis, the whatevers, they went off and did other big races.

Executive Producer Tania: He’s gonna go do other things he wants to do.

He’s all this GT three stuff he’s doing is ’cause he wants to do the 24 hours of the nerve burger ring.

Crew Chief Eric: [01:35:00] Yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: Once you do that, I’m sure Lamont’s probably isn’t that far behind. Why wouldn’t he?

Crew Chief Eric: 24 hours of Lamont carries more weight, you know, on your resume than 24 hours of the ring does. No offense to the ring.

’cause it’s an awesome thing. Mm-hmm. But in the stratosphere, it’s like the Indy 500 Monaco and Lama or the big three. Right. They’re the triple crown.

Executive Producer Tania: Which is funny because Lamont gets all the attention, but the Nors life is. 10,000 times more difficult. It is, and it’s also 10,000 more times difficult to

Crew Chief Eric: televise.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, and that’s why it doesn’t get the hype it gets, but it’s more impressive. Like if he won first time going to the basically nerve burging Yeah. Kind of deal. And then he like, were to win the 24 hours. Oh my God.

Crew Chief Eric: He wants to go there because the ring is available in I racing and Lama is not. So that’s, that’s why, that’s what it’s all about.

Executive Producer Tania: The other thing about him that I’m liking more is kind of like paying a little bit more attention and learning more about him. Like he really does seem to enjoy all the racing and all the different kinds. Like I watched that one video where he made the negative comment about front wheel drive cars, but like [01:36:00] he was going out test driving the Mustang or all this stuff and he, he got on track in his Mustang for like the first time and, and it starts like raining and I mean, he’s got complete control of this.

Monster, whatever, r blah, blah, blah. Huge beast Mustang thing that he was driving and it’s like he seems like he can maybe get into any car and learn it quickly.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. Like Sena would do. Yeah. The same kind of thing. I don’t know. I’m, I’m hopeful. I, I too am changing my opinion, although secretly like you, I’m sort of rooting for Oscar and then sadly I’m crying into my Cheerios because of Ferrari.

I mean, what a pathetic.

Executive Producer Tania: Ours are terrible.

Crew Chief Eric: They’re so bad. Everybody else is doing two 15 with the DRS open and Ferrari’s like 2 0 4. 2 0 4 maybe. Eh. And then it’s like the DRS opens and then they go backwards 180 miles an hour and it’s like, it’s like it’s awful. What a mess. God. Ferrari. I think they can know how to build a formula car.

We mentioned Audi. We still don’t [01:37:00] know. Well we do know, but I’m like, I’m really disappointed with the driver choice. Like without, that’s gonna be a wash next year.

Executive Producer Tania: Did they say who? The, I don’t remember. Who’s the second driver?

Crew Chief Eric: Holgenburg and I don’t know. Weren’t they gonna bring back Schumacher?

Executive Producer Tania: I don’t think they’d announced the second driver yet.

All we know is it’s Holgenburg. I

Crew Chief Eric: thought they did. And it was some other German or something like that, or whatever. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. My point is we’re gonna go full mullet with Cadillac. We’re bringing back BOTAs. That’s gonna be awesome. BOTAs with the bow tie. Come on. And then Perez, we’re gonna bring back Perez to run with ca.

What do we think about this team up?

Executive Producer Tania: Some people would say like, oh, they should be putting the rookies in, you know, blah blah blah. But like honestly, you have a brand new team. The quickest way to get up to speed is two veteran drivers. And who, other than, I guess Alonzo didn’t wanna move, so

Crew Chief Eric: Strolls paying him too much.

Executive Producer Tania: So he’s, he’s holding on for that Newie, he’s waiting Uhhuh for that car from Newie. Yeah. So he is sticking there. People [01:38:00] poo pooh him BOTAs, but like he did well in Mercedes and maybe you could argue maybe it was the car. I don’t know. He has a decent record and I mean Perez was fine when he was in the Red Bull for the most part.

So there are two veteran seasoned drivers that know what’s going on and they can help bring the Cadillac team to who are all gonna be rookies. They can help build that team out and then eventually they’ll get replaced. But we’ll see how it goes.

Crew Chief Brad: To Tanya’s point, like both of those drivers, even though they didn’t win the championships, they came from championship winning teams.

Yeah,

Crew Chief Eric: yeah, right. Bottas was no slouch when he was at Al Alpha Romeo either. I mean, salur, whatever it was. Right. So just to make sure I got my facts straight, Cadillac powered by Ferrari.

Executive Producer Tania: I think so. At least until they switch

Crew Chief Eric: motors right Beginning. Yeah. Man, how weird is that gonna be?

Crew Chief Brad: They might wanna rethink that.

Crew Chief Eric: Can they bolt a carburetor on it

Executive Producer Tania: so

Crew Chief Brad: it’s it’s gonna be a tester.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, so here’s the thing. A lot of the problems with the Ferrari, [01:39:00] I don’t know if they’re the motor because a lot of things that you can read, they blame. Maybe this sounds silly. Also, it’s not because if they really have a bunch of problems with the braking system, if you’re wasting time early braking and not going in with good entry and then exit speed, you’re never gonna hit the same top.

You just neutered yourself every time you come out of a corner. And then if you’re fighting the car, which allegedly is happening with Hamilton, because these, I don’t know, his style of braking is not compatible with whatever the hell is going on with the Ferrari’s, if this is all true, okay, allegedly then he’s wasting so much time.

He’s constantly trying to counters steer the car because it’s twitchy af through every corner. And it’s like, well how can you be competitive then? You’re inherently always slow. So maybe Cadillac stands a chance if Cadillac’s doing Arrow Cadillac’s doing suspension, break all this stuff, and then they just have the power plant.

Maybe the power plant’s decent and the rest of the car is trash.

Crew Chief Eric: I feel as though Cadillac stands the same chance in its first year. That host does.

Executive Producer Tania: If they’re on the [01:40:00] podium, go on guard. Yeah. Right. Mean, okay, that’s gonna be impressive. Then it’s really gonna be like Ferrari, what the, are you people doing?

Right. ’cause clearly the motor’s fine.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, we’ll just have to wait and see, but I’m excited for the rest of the season. I’m also excited for it to be over.

ANNOUNCER!: Singapore’s night belonged to Russell, America’s wide open planes to vest, apen and Mexico’s altitude to Norris. Three continents, three victors. The pendulum swung wildly and the championship remained unsettled.

Crew Chief Eric: See, I think it’s all about reducing their loss leaders. See, it’s all about the bean counters because they gotta pay for Formula One. I just keep bringing this up. Volkswagen has to figure out how to pay for Audi to go to Formula One next year. So anywhere they can cut the fat, they’re gonna cut it.

Crew Chief Brad: So Volkswagen obviously hasn’t heard the saying, how do you make a small fortune in racing?

Start with a large fortune. They haven’t heard that before because now they’ve got a small fortune and they’re going [01:41:00] racing

Crew Chief Eric: at Dieselgate too, right? So we talked last month about how Volkswagen pulled the plug on the Lambo program in Hypercar, right? For WEC and for Imso. You said yourself, Brad, you were like, I didn’t even know they had a Lambo running in the upper classes in endurance racing.

Fine, fine. Well, we pulled the plug on that. Well, guess what? Surprise, but maybe not a surprise. ’cause I said it from the beginning and people are like, no, you’ll see. It’s gonna be the greatest comeback since the 9 62 and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. This is Porsche’s new halo car and yada yada. The 9 63. The 9 63, the 9 63 is gonna win Lama four years later.

It still hasn’t won anything. Yes. Okay. It got constructor championship or whatever it is in fine. Great. But it didn’t win Lama. It didn’t win anything of significance. So the factory, again, because I think they need to put their money to Formula One is pulling the plug on the Porsche 9 63 hypercar. It is done as of Petite Lama.

That’s [01:42:00] it. That was its final race. Do you think they would’ve continued on with it had it been more successful? I think Porsche’s got this three strike strategy. They either win three times and stop, or they lose three times and stop. I think that’s what it is. But the 9 63 was kind of a loser from the beginning, right?

I mean, you could argue, oh, well balance of power is in the favor of Ferrari, blah, blah, but Ferrari doesn’t compete stateside. They compete at Lama and then they go home, or they do some other big race. They go back to Ello and they ignore everybody for another year. The 9 63 comes over here and competes against Cadillac in Acura or Aston in the Valkyrie or whatever it is, and gets his butt handed to it.

It’s just been hit or miss. And granted, yeah, you got the power of Penske and all these other independent privateers and all this kinda stuff. It hasn’t come together for this car. And so I said after the first year, I’ll be amazed if the 9 63 makes it three years. And here we are at the end of the third year going into the fourth season and they said, no, that’s it.

It’s done. Sad but not sad. I don’t care [01:43:00] about that car. So I think we’re gonna try to start something new here. And it’s Tanya’s goal as a result of last month’s mental gymnastics, trying to figure out Jonathan Price and the Infinity commercials and whoever this British guy is that eats the apple that we still don’t.

It’s like the sin bad movie. We tried, oh, you should have gone through the exercise with us. We were asking like chat GPT and we asked Steve, Izzy, and all these other people, do you know about the British guy eating the apple and the white suit and the commercial, blah blah. I

Executive Producer Tania: know he was somewhere, there’s some sitcom where he’s gonna show up one day, some old TV show where he was in an episode.

Also, one day this mystery will be solved probably on Fraser. Oh. It was he.

Crew Chief Eric: I gotta go back and watch Frazier. I’m just giving her an excuse to watch Frazier at this point. I don’t think you need

Crew Chief Brad: to give her an excuse to watch Frazier. Yeah,

Executive Producer Tania: I mean it’s been like five minutes since I’ve watched the whole thing, so I gotta start again.

Crew Chief Eric: So

Executive Producer Tania: this little

Crew Chief Eric: gem that Tanya found, I think we’re gonna try to do this every month. It’s [01:44:00] fine. Wacky car commercials that maybe have like celebrities in there. Brad, have you seen this one yet?

Crew Chief Brad: I think I saw it when, when Tanya posted it. Yes.

Executive Producer Tania: I would also just like to say that this gem is in the vein of the mystery British guy biting the apple at the end commercial.

And what is this commercial for? God knows

Crew Chief Eric: Canon Pixel jet printers starring Don’t Ansel. It’s like a Japanese commercial only aired in Japan.

COMMERCIAL: Good.

Crew Chief Eric: But the ending is what gets me,

Executive Producer Tania: what is with the strawberry, what I don’t know in his creepy face, what is happening. Yummy.

Crew Chief Brad: That’s a very Japanese thing to do, I think.

Crew Chief Eric: Yes. Did you also notice that his eyebrows are his bushy as his mustache?

Crew Chief Brad: Wonder what else is,

Crew Chief Eric: I mean, I could just watch those last five seconds on repeat where he’s like, Hmm.

Good. Yeah, and eating [01:45:00] the summit, it’s, it’s very creepy, but very satisfying at the same time, like, I have a whole new respect for Nagel mantle as a result of this commercial. This is amazing stuff. Amazing stuff. Hmm. Good.

COMMERCIAL: Right.

Crew Chief Eric: You know, petite’s not the important bit of news. We need to catch up and find out about Franz Herman and how he did at the Berg ring.

He did fantastic.

Executive Producer Tania: Oh yeah. He has a racing team for staffing.com racing and so his co-driver is a stem racer and first Daman did a first and, and he was so far ahead of everybody else. The gap was ridiculous. And when his co-driver came in for his stint, that gap closed down so much that he’s lucky that Max was his teammate or he wouldn’t have, uh, finished in anything.

So Max is gonna Max and he debuts on a norlife and dominates

Crew Chief Eric: because he’s one of the best apparently. So Franz Herman we’re, we’re gonna [01:46:00] watch out for more Franz Herman action. Didn’t he also exit stage? Right? Like he did his stint and then he pieced out. So he left his teammate there to like sort of finish the race and he didn’t care how it ended.

Executive Producer Tania: So it looked like that, but in the end, no. He actually was, I think on the podium with him, but it definitely looked like he might have, he was gonna just leave. That’s awesome. Which is also Max maxing.

Crew Chief Eric: We have what, five, six more races to go? It seems like it’s unending. I mean, we still have Mexico and we’ve got Las Vegas and we got this and we got that.

We got so many races to watch before the end of the season that comes to its crescendo at Yas Marina in Abu Dhabi, which I’m super looking forward to that race ’cause I really do enjoy that track on the Sims. So let’s just talk about Coda,

Executive Producer Tania: shall we?

Crew Chief Eric: The US Grand Prix.

Executive Producer Tania: Oh

Crew Chief Eric: one of three. ’cause we got Miami, we’ve got Texas, and we’ve got Las Vegas.

But Coda’s the most interesting of the three. I don’t know about you, Tanya, but I think the sprint race was more exciting than the actual race.

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, the sprint race was Forza [01:47:00] turn one chaos. Absolute

Crew Chief Eric: chaos. I love the whole Zach Brown blames Huen Berg and then he retracts it and then everybody’s blaming Hulking Berg.

But it’s not Hu Berg’s fault. Is it really Land’s fault or is it Oscar’s fault? Nobody knew whose fault it was, but all I know there was a pile of rubble in that turn. And it was exciting. Which soulful. It’s always strolls. No, no. Stroll had his own moment, which was absolutely hilarious. Who did he wipe out?

Ocon. Yeah. Yeah. And he, he did a hit and run. He tried to drive off. His front wheel is like bouncing, barely connected. And he’s driving as he goes around Ocon, he waves at him like, oh, so sorry. And he tries to drive away. Like, what? Dude, I was dying. It was the funniest thing I’d seen in Formula One all year.

I was like, stroll, what is going on, bro? Wow. Unreal. No, the sprint race was absolutely amazing, but it was good for stopping, right? He took [01:48:00] an extra eight points home, which leans into his first place win. So it’s 25 points for the win. Yep. So now he’s got 31 extra points towards the championship. And I, I turned to Tanya and I said, is he going to make the ultimate comeback in Formula one?

’cause nobody’s ever done this before. Even in the, the modern times and the old times. The Senate days Schumacher before. Nobody’s done over a hundred point swing to come back and win the championship, but I think he can pull it off. He can’t do it alone, though.

Executive Producer Tania: There is a chance mathematically he can do this as long as the Oscar screws up

Crew Chief Eric: and he wins everything, including the sprint

Executive Producer Tania: races, it Max wins everything.

So just running some simple scenarios. If he wins the last two remaining sprint races and the last five races, Oscar can come in second every time except one time. And Max will win. But if Oscar comes in second every time in the races and the sprint races and Max comes in first, [01:49:00] there’s a three point difference.

Crew Chief Eric: You know what I’m gonna tell you that’s gonna make sure that Oscar doesn’t achieve that. Okay. It’s two things. Roll. The first one is Lando and the second one is Norris. Okay? Lando is not gonna let it happen, right? He’s either gonna take him out or he is gonna call up Big Papa Papaya, Zach Brown. He is gonna say, team orders.

You need to put Oscar behind me because I’m the primary driver this week. Remember, that’s what’s gonna happen.

Executive Producer Tania: Mathematically. Max wins the next five races and the next two Sprint races. Even if Lando comes in second, in all those races, he cannot beat Max.

Crew Chief Eric: Oscar can’t beat Max.

Executive Producer Tania: Lando can’t beat Max. That’s

Crew Chief Eric: what I’m saying.

Burins got it in the bag because McLaren’s gonna take themselves out

Executive Producer Tania: if that happens. If they are not podium or they take each other out completely. And if Max can win, every is done. He’s, he is a five time champion

Crew Chief Eric: telling you it’s gonna happen. The crystal ball, it’s gonna happen. It’s gonna happen.

We’re not gonna see the stupidity [01:50:00] that we saw earlier this year where Max is taking people out and coming in like 13th and like whatever he was doing in the middle of the year. Well, he

Crew Chief Brad: was doing that for Christian Horner.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, yeah. Yeah. Right. But I’m also wondering if some of that was like, to get to this point, right?

Like, all right Max, you gotta throw these races away

Executive Producer Tania: because then No, no, no. Max max. In the little that he lets you know about himself. ’cause he is a very private person and although he is having his own documentary coming out, I forget on what service

Crew Chief Eric: would be as exciting as that Scott Dixon thing

Executive Producer Tania: we

Crew Chief Eric: reviewed.

Executive Producer Tania: Yes. Because he’s that kind of person. But to my point, he is not the kind of person he would give a big middle finger to you. If someone came to him and said throw a race. He is never going to do that. He is always going to want to win. Just like how can he race at Nors life in the middle of his F1 season?

How can he go do GT three racing and all this other stuff? Has any other driver ever gone and done another series? Usually it’s like, oh my god, you can’t even go fart in the corner. ’cause God forbid you get injured and [01:51:00] you can’t race. Right. And yet he’s out here doing whatever the f he wants because he can and he will and he doesn’t care.

So there’s, I no way. I believe that he was throwing anything, his car was crap and he dealt with it the best way he could.

Crew Chief Brad: Eric just wrote the next script for Drive to Survive that he’s not gonna watch.

Crew Chief Eric: I’m never gonna

Crew Chief Brad: watch. I think also like Max didn’t start racing in in GT three, you know, sport car racing until Christian Horner left.

Am I correct in saying that

Crew Chief Eric: it all happened last time? I don’t know. I thought

Crew Chief Brad: he was doing a ton of sim racing, but he never actually competed in a real world. I thought he did

Crew Chief Eric: that test with the Acura like last year and some other stuff. Well, was it an actual official race? The Franz Herman is new for this year.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, even the sim racing, he’s been told not to do it, and he’s basically said. F you because he’ll do sim racing where he is racing all through the night, right. Especially like these endurance sim racings. And then the next day, you know, he is getting a couple hours of sleep next day getting the Formula one car to race.

And basically his answer was, I just won the race. What’s the problem? Yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: And, and I think that is a [01:52:00] valid answer,

Executive Producer Tania: touche, like yeah,

Crew Chief Brad: where’s my number two?

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah. I stayed up all night playing my sim racing, but I just came out here qualified on pole and then won the race. So

Crew Chief Eric: because he downs like a six pack of Red Bull, I mean, come on, it’s gotta be in his veins.

He’s racing with rich energy. Oh man. That’s the secret formula right there. I didn’t realize until I was going through all this stuff with the clubhouse and going through the vault and the pictures. When we went to Coda in 2018, spend a minute pre COVID, max was already running at Red Bull. I mean he’s been in Formula One for quite a long time.

To, to your point, Tanya, he doesn’t care anymore. He was

Executive Producer Tania: basically one of the youngest people. He was like 17 or something. He was like controversial too of him getting his license. Like at the age that he did.

Crew Chief Eric: I’m telling you he’s gonna be up there. People are gonna be talking about him like Schumacher and Fangio and Senna.

He’s gonna be the next one. Crystal Ball says so. Well, since you brought up sim racing this weekend, EA Sports gave F1 2025 a way for free through [01:53:00] Steam from Friday night through Monday afternoon and we got our hands on it. What do we think? What do we think about the Formula One simulator? It was a lot better than I was expecting it

Executive Producer Tania: to be ’cause I still remember, I haven’t played a Formula One race game since, I don’t know, formula one, 2002 or something.

I don’t know, like 1998,

Crew Chief Brad: the last time it was free

Executive Producer Tania: and it was horrible. They were like unplayable as soon as you’d try to accelerate, you know, spin like a top. And it’s like every time you try to accelerate out of a corner, they’re sideways and spinning and they were unbearable, but I was expecting something similar to this and instead it was not at all like that.

And it felt very smooth. And I mean you could tell it was different than like a Forza or you know, some other, if you wanna call it sim, some other racing game, if you will. But I was pleased with it,

Crew Chief Eric: man. You played a lot newer Formula One game than I did. The last Formula One game I played was the Nigel Mantle World Championship on Super Nintendo.

That’s like a step above pole position.

Executive Producer Tania: No, I’m sorry. It was the, the last [01:54:00] formula one game I played was the Tiger Handheld. Oh man, you’re going way back.

SFX: And that was the

Crew Chief Eric: only sound effect. Yeah, no, to your point, I tried it out too, and I liked it. Now the question is, do I wanna spend the 80 or a hundred dollars or whatever it costs? Yeah, that’s the problem, the buy in. And the problem is here we are at the tail end of the formula one season and EAs like, oh, we’ll give it to you for free because 2026 is coming out.

And unlike EAs, other products where like WRC, they just keep adding to it. All you had to do was buy it in 2023, and they’ve continued to just add on to it and add onto it. And add onto it. Formula One is like Madden, it was like, oh, Madden 22 and 23, and 24 and 25. So they’re following that model and that’s what sucks.

It’s like, well. I’m gonna pay full price or maybe the discounted price because of this promotional weekend, but it’s like the new ones around the corner again, do you wait for 2026 to come out, [01:55:00] but you’re gonna pay a hundred bucks or do you buy 2025 and look at Dohan, you know, and other drivers that aren’t in the field anymore, you know, on the 2025 roster.

I don’t know.

Crew Chief Brad: My problem with those games is like how much improvement is actually made other than the roster changes, how much do they improve the game itself, the gameplay, the graphics and everything year over year? Like

Crew Chief Eric: you probably played Madden or NBA back in the day, so you know, a lot of the times it was like re-skinning new boxing.

Crew Chief Brad: It never really felt any different

Crew Chief Eric: and every so many years they would change the mechanics or they would change the ui or technology would advance and it would force them to change and they couldn’t just kind of lather, rinse, repeat. And I think the same is a Formula One. It’s like, okay, well we use the ego engine and it’s tuned for Formula One and blah, blah, blah.

And so none of that stuff really changes because if you think about it, the way the cars are shaped don’t mean a hill of beans in the digital world because there’s no airflow. So the cars run at a prescribed speed and all those kinds of things. To [01:56:00] your point, I think there’s a little bit more of that regurgitation going on in the formula one side than there would be maybe in any other game or franchise, you know?

COMMERCIAL: Yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: You know what’s kind of hard to get into with the Formula One game, which I found a little bit of a struggle as I sat there, you know, playing it is I enjoyed going to Coda. Because I know Coda from literal firsthand experience. And then you look at the rest of the roster and you’re like, oh, well I don’t know any of these tracks.

Like other than a Yeah, spa. No spa. ’cause you’ve played spa on other racing games. But then it’s like Miami, what a trash heap. That’s a terrible track. Horrible, terrible course, right? Like at least you know, you go to something like Forza or whatever and it’s like Watkins Glen and VIR and you have these other tracks that maybe a little bit more familiar, which makes it fun as well, right?

Because there’s a little bit of attachment there. I don’t know. Go into some of the tracks that are in the Formula One rock. It’s like this track sucks. Like I don’t even like

Crew Chief Eric: watching

Executive Producer Tania: it, let alone

Crew Chief Eric: playing it. Fictitiously [01:57:00] definitely got a bunch of those on my list too. So those are all in the negative column in the con column of why I don’t wanna spend the $80 on, you know, the next title of Formula one.

I’d rather have something with a little bit more diversity,

ANNOUNCER!: right? Brazil Crowned Norris again, but Las Vegas under the Neon Lights delivered chaos. Affan won yet. McLaren’s double disqualification sent shockwaves through the standings. November was not just a twist, it was the season’s gamble.

Crew Chief Eric: Shall we talk a little bit?

Formula one? Definitely. Why? You’re wearing that hat a thousand percent right? The only thing that we need to talk about is Brazil. Who saw the Sao Paulo race? Highlights?

William Ross: Yeah. How the hell everyone’s saying, oh God, forta it coming from last to third. Something’s fishy about that.

Executive Producer Tania: He did it before in the rain, 17th to first.

So had he not had the stupid That’s true. What? Lap two tire change.

Max Kaiserman: Yeah. Wait, he got stuck in a pit and got down to 17th?

Executive Producer Tania: No, he started in [01:58:00] pit because he changed the engine overnight and a bunch of other modifications and he failed out of qualifying for the first time like ever in Q1?

COMMERCIAL: Yeah, I saw that.

So he

Executive Producer Tania: started at a pit and then like literally like a handful of laps in, got a puncture and had to go pit in and change tires. But still managed to finish the race in third. It was unreal breathing down the neck of Antonelli in second place. If there was like one more lap, he would’ve Oh yeah. He would’ve had ’em in second place.

Max Kaiserman: Something with max stopping and we share the same first name. So I appreciate him quite a bit. The uh, the, the other shoe’s gonna drop on him one day. I just have a feeling it’s gonna be like Lance Armstrong and they’re gonna say, oh my God, this guy has like, well it is probably not drugs or anything like that, but it’s like they’re gonna analyze his brain and realize he fucking sees in slow motion or something, you know, so he can react faster.

I mean we’ve all seen it like he’s made passes that shouldn’t be possible on tracks and stuff. This guy is just a monster and now he’s doing it in computer games and stuff. He’s like a computer gamer and he’s a monster at [01:59:00] that too. I don’t know if that necessarily always translates, you know, real driving to computer driving.

William Ross: Yeah, well as hell, he is running at the Berg ring. He is got his, with that GT three team, whatever. Yeah, that’s how these last few races I think are gonna be interesting ’cause especially Vegas being the street race and then the last two. So, you know, a lot of stuff can happen in regards to that. I mean, the points, I mean, he is not that far off.

I mean, I think all it takes is for Orlando to crash and not finish one race. He’s not racing in

Max Kaiserman: Lamont 26, is he? No. When is that gonna happen? When is he going over to supercar?

Executive Producer Tania: Everything he is been doing now is to do the Nors life. Endurances. Right? Yeah. Basically.

Max Kaiserman: Does he not have sponsorship to get to Lamont or is he uh.

Executive Producer Tania: I’m sure he does, but I wonder if there’s some sort of F1 contractual Yeah.

William Ross: Block. Yeah, I had that same thought. But if there was then how could they wouldn’t have let him run the Berg ring.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah.

William Ross: For the GT three. So, but I mean, who knows though? ’cause those contracts are insane in regards to you can do this, you can’t do that, does that, and

Executive Producer Tania: I have a feeling his contract must say middle [02:00:00] finger, I’m gonna do what I want and if you don’t like it, I’m gonna go to another team who let me do what I want.

William Ross: Yeah, exactly. I wouldn’t doubt it. You’re break, correct? Yeah. Red Bull’s not gonna let it

Max Kaiserman: go. No. There was the Canadian Grand Prix is what kicked him out of Lamont for some reason this year.

William Ross: Yeah, ’cause they always have conflict on the calendar. Correct. ’cause of the same weekend.

Max Kaiserman: Same weekend.

William Ross: Well now here’s a big thing too, is now they effed up Memorial Day weekend in regards to moving Monaco to two weeks before now.

And so there’s only gonna be the two instead. That was always a great day. You wake up and watch the F1 Monaco and the Indy 500 and you got the CocaCola 600, you know, and now it’s screwed up.

Crew Chief Eric: So Sal Paulo, just for a second to go back. There was a moment though, and the radio call was awesome. So Max makes it from worst to first.

He’s in. First place in the pit cycles and all this kind of thing, but he’s on a harder compound tire and they tell a max, I didn’t think I was gonna be able to tell you this, but you are currently in first place. And he goes, that’s not bad. Right? [02:01:00] And then he just keeps driving. But like two or three laps later, they pitted him to put him on soft, which I thought was stupid.

They should have just left him on. He would’ve been fine on the mediums for the rest of the, and he actually would’ve won the race. But I think that pit stop actually caused him to throw that race away, which I think was dumb. I think he could have done it. He had enough lead on Lando that he could have just achieved a miracle.

Basically. Nobody, they said nobody has ever been able to do this in the history of Formula One, which was come basically from last place from the pit and win a race. I mean, he already achieved the fact that he podium, but to win would’ve been incredible. I think they should have left him out there. So that was a mistake on Red Bull’s strategy.

But I will say the rest of the race, I thought MLO was exciting this year and there was a couple others that were like, Ooh, this is good. You know, this race was the best race of the year. It had everything just shenanigans Rex, like all this stuff was going. I was like, this is why you watch Formula One.

Like it’s, it’s sort of like they took ’em all off the leash and let ’em do whatever they wanted to do and it was amazing. Right. [02:02:00] The one thing I noticed, the last couple of races, correct me if I’m wrong, did Lando get a talking to, or is it team orders? Like what’s going on at McLaren because there’s no more Oscar Lando?

Executive Producer Tania: Well, they’re not even bracing against each other. Oscar’s. I don’t know what’s happened to him. He is fallen off the podium. Exactly.

Crew Chief Eric: And suddenly Lando every race. He’s like a machine super consistent. The fastest car head by 20 seconds. And I’m like, what gives, where was the, where’d this come from?

Crew Chief Brad: Swapped cars?

Yeah,

William Ross: yeah, yeah. He’s

Crew Chief Eric: driving Oscar’s car. That’s what it is. Yeah.

William Ross: Well the Australians are having a heyday in regard to conspiracies, in regards to all that stuff and Oh

Crew Chief Eric: really?

William Ross: Oh God. Yeah. Well, they’re saying, you know, why they’re favoring Lando? ’cause they want a British driver to win and a British team, blah, blah, blah.

That kinda stuff. And you know, Orlando’s been there forever. So all the Australians are saying there’s, they’re favoring him and sabotaging Oscar. I mean, you know, that’s not true. Do we? I know Lando kind of had his midseason maybe. Maybe. You know, Lando had his little personal pep talk where he quit drinking all his stuff and says I gotta do [02:03:00] this, this, and this.

So I mean, he really narrowed his focus back to how it should be all season. A few, um, races back. So, I mean, I don’t know, maybe that played a role, but I mean, he’s got his shit back together, that’s for sure. The kid can drive, that’s for sure. But he, he doesn’t have that. He can’t drive like Max? No, he doesn’t have that bitten his teeth where it’s just, it’s all or nothing.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah.

Max Kaiserman: Did it start raining or something? Why did they switch his tires?

Crew Chief Eric: No, it was weird because that track’s not that long. It’s two and a half miles. Everybody pitted like three times, like other races. Like we’re gonna go to plan a one stop strategy, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, we’re gonna stretch out the medium tires for 56 laps kind of garbage.

And then this time they pitted like every 10 minutes. D absolutely nutty. The

Executive Producer Tania: dg,

Crew Chief Eric: it’s the D, it’s the, yeah, the tire. They were talking about how like sound Paolo is built on a part of the earth that it’s constantly moving so the track is never the same. And like all this like, it sounded like Bill N, the science guy all the time.

And I was like, what are we, this has gotta be bs. Like somebody called MythBusters. ’cause there’s no way this is true.

Max Kaiserman: [02:04:00] Michelin was the sponsor. They wanted more tires going,

Crew Chief Eric: oh, that reminds me of that indie race where like four cars started because everybody was protesting Bridgestone or whatever it was that year.

It was terrible. Yeah. That was

William Ross: horrendous. That’s what killed that race at Indy.

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. That it really was. Well, big factor in it. Yeah. Yeah. Well then Ralph Schumacher hit the wall. Right. That wasn’t really good either for, you know. No, that

William Ross: was, yeah, that was bad. You know, hindsight’s 2020, but you know, so where it got to now, back then, I mean, I don’t wanna say a blessing, but No, Austin’s been fantastic.

Vegas and Miami are gonna go by the wayside in another five years, but Austin’s not gonna go anywhere.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s dedicated track. They gotta pay for that thing.

William Ross: Yeah, I mean, I think they just signed an extension of 2036 or something for that too. Oh my goodness.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, I look forward to seeing how the Formula one season closes after the last race of the year, which is Yas Marina.

Looking forward to that too. I like that track on all the simulators. We’ll see how it all came together, and whether or not I stick with Formula One next year, I will have [02:05:00] achieved my challenge, though. I’ve seen all the races this year. You can’t say that I didn’t watch ’em.

ANNOUNCER!: Qatar’s Desert Heat, Abu Dhabi’s Fading Sunset.

The final battles decided the Crown, and as the fireworks lit, the Yas Marina Sky, the 2025 season closed its book a year of rivalries, redemption, and relentless speed etched forever into Formula One history.

Crew Chief Eric: Ah, so we have made it to the crescendo of the formula one season.

Crew Chief Brad: Crescendo or climax.

Crew Chief Eric: You know, that’s dealer’s choice on that one. Sorta like Las Vegas was dealer’s choice, but we’re gonna leave that where it is. We have suffered through, well, sorry. I’m sorry. Is that, is that the wrong adjective Suffered through I?

We have made it through 24 races this year, and we now have crowned a new Formula One champion.

Crew Chief Brad: Congratulations, land stroll. Congratulations. Land stroll. [02:06:00]

Crew Chief Eric: Before we get into he said, she said, were they right? Were they wrong? What do we think about our new crowned Prince of Formula one?

Crew Chief Brad: I think the silence speaks volumes.

Crew Chief Eric: Tanya’s face alone. I wanna discuss something really, really important about the race at Yas Marina. The move on Synoda by Lando.

Executive Producer Tania: Somehow that’s legal, even though he was four wheels outside the white line.

Crew Chief Brad: Right. But Synoda, I think the stewards rationale was Synoda made the extra moves and forced him to basically do that.

So it was soon Sonoda was at fault.

Executive Producer Tania: They called it aggressive weaving, but he didn’t move. I’ve seen there’s been people that have moved way more freaking aggressively than Sonoda did.

Crew Chief Brad: Like Lando at the start of the previous race when he almost took out Max when they left the line.

Crew Chief Eric: To me it was a repeat of the shortsighted tactic that he took in Canada against [02:07:00] Oscar.

When he put it in the wall, it was the same move. But what I thought was interesting about the whole Yas Marina debacle outside of the fact that they penalized Sonota and then let Lando go, was just before that Red Bull gets on the radio with Sonota. And was like, it is now time for the nuclear option or whatever they said to him.

And Sonota goes, sweep the leg. Yeah, pretty much. Right? And he’s like, I know exactly what I need to do. And we are sitting there just rubbing our hands. We’re like, this is the moment we’ve been waiting for because soda’s signature move is to put a front wheel in a side pod and you end up somewhere in a different racetrack and he continues driving and he’s like, oh, I didn’t see you there driving my line, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

It didn’t ha I was, I was so beside myself like I think it was the biggest f you to Red Bull because he did know what he needed to do. Everybody knew what he was going to do. They were waiting for it. And he [02:08:00] said, uh, and he sort of like half-assed it. But unfortunately Lando did this other, we’ll call it the Canada maneuver and it was all bullshit.

It was terrible. That was the moment. Had the FIA done what they should have done, which was penalize. Lando should have penalize both of ’em. Probably. Yes, both. I don’t care. The sono, it didn’t matter if they penalize Sonota

Executive Producer Tania: when they did penalize sonota, but what does it matter?

Crew Chief Eric: Yeah. It’s like who He’s going to IndyCar, who cares?

But if they had penalized Lando, max would’ve won. Ah, it’s so close, so close. So close. That is a moment in F1 history that I think will just live in infamy as like the deciding moment that made Lando the champion. Somebody got fired for that.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah. Synoda.

Crew Chief Eric: Get outta my head. Max lost by what? Two points after everything was said and [02:09:00] done. Correct. He was so close. Which race? Could have been the race had everything else played out the same way, would’ve made the biggest difference for Max.

Executive Producer Tania: They say it’s the race where he crashed

Crew Chief Eric: into Russell. You know what’s funny about this whole Lando now the Formula One champion, everything on social media has come to like a grinding halt.

There really wasn’t anything like after every Formula One race, it’s like my phone explodes, you know? And there’s the typical Connor and all those guys doing their thing and their impressions, but that it all died off really quick. There has been nothing. It’s been quiet. Shouldn’t there be some Lando memes or, or something like some goodness out there?

Nothing. What would the meme be?

Crew Chief Brad: We’re all depressed.

Crew Chief Eric: I think you’re right.

Crew Chief Brad: The only people that wanted Lando to win was Lando.

Crew Chief Eric: Pretty much his,

Crew Chief Brad: his own team didn’t even want ’em to win. They were

Crew Chief Eric: papaya rules. Papaya rules, which are totally lame. Nevermind again, I told you guys, I don’t like the way they [02:10:00] handle themselves on that team.

I just, I don’t get it. I don’t understand what they’re trying to do good on them. I mean, we predicted that they were gonna win the Constructors Championship and they did. I mean, that was many, many races ago. Collusion aside, it was a hell of a season finale though, whether it was staged for television or otherwise.

I mean, it literally came down to the wire. It came down to like the last pit stop, and there was a moment there where I thought Max was gonna take it. I mean, it really did. Does it light a fire under his butt for next year, or,

Executive Producer Tania: I mean, of course he’s not gonna sit back and be like, oh, I’ll just lose.

Crew Chief Brad: I feel like he’s gonna be championing a new co-driver.

Executive Producer Tania: Well, here’s the problem. They’re already setting us up

Crew Chief Brad: for

Executive Producer Tania: Max not to win because you know, McLaren stopped developing their car mid-season so they could focus on development of the 2026 car. But Red Bull really kept focusing on developing the car this season for the end, and that’s why he was doing so much [02:11:00] better.

So really now they’re on the back foot for 2026 plus they’re gonna have the new engine so they don’t stand any chance. Blah, blah, freaking blah. Isaac got moved into the Red Bull seat, so we shall see if the second seat curse continues and if he will suck a butt or be able to be halfway decent.

Crew Chief Eric: I saw some videos where Haja was outspoken about how he does not like Max and they do not get along, so that’s gonna be really, really interesting.

Crew Chief Brad: When was the last time Red Bull didn’t stand a chance?

Crew Chief Eric: Right.

Crew Chief Brad: They stood a chance this year against McLaren. They stood a chance pretty much every year in the Mercedes years. I mean, yeah, there. There were some times where the Mercedes were just clearly like a lot faster, but Red Bull was always right behind them.

Since I’ve started watching, which is relatively recently, I can’t think of a year where Red Bull was not in the hunt.

Crew Chief Eric: With all the changes happening at Red Bull. New management, new designer, [02:12:00] new engine, new car, new co-driver, new everything, right, new. If they end up doing better than Aston, what does that say about the magical powers of the wizard, Adrian Newey?

Well, we won’t know till next year.

Crew Chief Brad: I think what that says is one man does not make a championship F1 team.

Crew Chief Eric: Ain’t that the truth? It is an army to put these cars out there. We argued many times about the inferior Mercedes. I think Mercedes put a pretty good show up this year, especially considering surprise of the season rookie Kimmy Antonelli.

That kid can drive, especially when he crashes into other people.

Crew Chief Brad: He can drive. He just can’t see.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, you know there’s other Crashy people out

Executive Producer Tania: there like Lance. I don’t think Lance crashed anybody this season. You remember the sprint race? Dakota? He definitely

Crew Chief Eric: crashed people. No, that

Executive Producer Tania: wasn’t him.

Crew Chief Eric: I thought that was Holgenburg.

No, when he ended up plowing into and then he waved at the guy. Remember that? Mm.

Crew Chief Brad: Wasn’t it signs? Didn’t he run into signs, I

Crew Chief Eric: thought, yes, yes, yes.

Crew Chief Brad: So he had [02:13:00] one

Executive Producer Tania: crash the whole season.

Crew Chief Brad: I think that’s a non-zero number one, one crash involving another car.

Executive Producer Tania: Yeah.

Crew Chief Brad: Yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: That’s basically no crashes for him.

Crew Chief Brad: You need to take himself out.

Crew Chief Eric: I am very hopeful for Kimmy Antonelli going into next season. I think he’s got some real promise looking at what he’s been capable of doing this year with quote unquote the inferior Mercedes and he’s a rookie not knowing half of the tracks.

Crew Chief Brad: Are we making predictions for next year already?

Crew Chief Eric: Not yet. Not yet.

Crew Chief Brad: Not yet. Okay. I, I, because I, I’ve got mine.

Crew Chief Eric: We’re still talking about this year’s stuff. I still think quote of the season is David Tard mid-season talking about the fact that they still let pensioners out on the track. I am determined that Alonzo needs to retire. Nope. 42 is the new 75. Like what is, guess who finished

Executive Producer Tania: in 10th place?

Crew Chief Eric: Alonzo Boo. That’s like first place in FP two. He’s gonna

Crew Chief Brad: have an Adrian Newey car next year

Crew Chief Eric: with a Honda Engine. So they’re gonna get all the old Red Bull [02:14:00] motors. They’re gonna get the Red Bull designer. And when does Christian Horner show up?

Crew Chief Brad: Well, he’s too busy trying Tom on the, the lady mechanics and stuff.

Yeah, that’s his work. No, I think the quote of the year was, I think there’s some water in the car in the, in the team. Yeah. It must be the water.

Crew Chief Eric: You know, the only thing entertaining about Russell though is his constant complaining.

Crew Chief Brad: I think that’s why I don’t like him

Crew Chief Eric: paddle

Executive Producer Tania: tailing, petal. They all do it child, but

Crew Chief Eric: yeah, they do.

He’s the winer one though. Exactly. So you kind of love it because you wanna hear it and they play it over the air because it adds something to the extremely boring races. And you know, I’ve wondered about, we’ve talked about this while we watched the races. Are those clips from the drivers actually in real time?

Or they just sort of grabbing stuff and throwing it in when they feel like it to spice up the race? You know?

SFX: Yeah,

Crew Chief Eric: his stuff does add a little bit of just comic relief to some very boring races sometimes.

Executive Producer Tania: I think the best one [02:15:00] was, and I think it was. Last season, not this past season. He was agitated ’cause it was raining.

It was raining. He’s like, guys it’s raining. And then he was like, oh wait a second, it’s my sweat. Like you couldn’t tell it was on the inside of your visor. No, we need to close that. The outside big

Crew Chief Eric: eyelashes. It’s like windshield wipers. He was

Executive Producer Tania: splashing it up. You’re right. I hadn’t thought about that.

Crew Chief Eric: I like that.

One time the Red Bull messed up the pit strategy and they put Max on those hard tires and he comes with a radio and he’s like, what are these tires like? He had no clue what they had put on the car and it was like absolutely horrendous. It was so, so bad.

Crew Chief Brad: Maybe that was the race that decided it.

Crew Chief Eric: So rounding out 2025 I think another surprise of the season, Ollie Beerman.

We gotta keep eyes on Ollie Beerman. Those last couple races. Especially in the ha Holy smokes. Dude was flying. Like obviously [02:16:00] they did some redesigns and things like that late season, but still he’s a kid that can drive. I think we need to keep eyes on Ollie Biman going forward. So thanks to wrap out 2025.

Tanya, did you watch the Formula One movie? No. Oh dang. So we’re gonna have to carry that into next year. Then we’re gonna keep pestering you about the movie until you watch it.

Crew Chief Brad: It’s gonna become the Mad Damon Jimmy Kimmel joke

Executive Producer Tania: once I get my Apple TV subscription, because you have to watch Formula One next year on Apple tv.

I guess then I can watch the Apple movie because it doesn’t stream anywhere, including on airplanes. So there you have it.

Crew Chief Brad: I think I saw it on Prime, not for free. Yes, I, I forgot. There’s a caveat there.

Executive Producer Tania: You pay for Prime to then pay more to watch the stop on Prime. No, thank you.

Crew Chief Eric: That being said. There are rumors of them making another Formula One movie.

Guess who’s gonna be in it? Have you heard about this?

Crew Chief Brad: Zel, Washington? Wait,

Executive Producer Tania: wait. I know. So we had Brad Pit, the first one, [02:17:00] then Brad Pit will be back in the second one. We’ll add George Clooney and then we’ll add Matt Damon and then we’ll add

Crew Chief Brad: Ocean’s Formula One.

It’ll be a casino heist at the Las Vegas Grand Prix. You’re close.

Executive Producer Tania: There is going to be an Oceans. Something coming out.

Crew Chief Eric: 17. Yeah. Oceans F1. There you go. It’s perfect. You’re close. You wanna take another stab at who they could possibly get? Uh, I’ll give you a hint who has recently retired from a long running movie franchise.

Executive Producer Tania: Oh my God. Been diesel. Paul Walker.

Crew Chief Eric: He said, Linda, you let rest in

Executive Producer Tania: peace. He said, Tom Cruise. I said, Tom

Crew Chief Eric: Cruise. Yes, Tom Cruise. They are talking about bringing in Tom Cruise for the second Formula one movie. Of course they will. Bullshit.

Executive Producer Tania: We need

Crew Chief Brad: whole trickle making a comeback. We

Crew Chief Eric: need piece of thunder part two.

If they remade Days of Thunder now, what would that be like?

Crew Chief Brad: We’re getting [02:18:00] days of DRS instead. I thought

Executive Producer Tania: the drive to survive. No, they can’t remake Days of

Crew Chief Brad: Thunder. They’d have to continue it. Yeah, they’d have to continue it. They didn’t remake Top Gun. They continued

Executive Producer Tania: it. We digress from Formula One. It’s Days of Thunder never come out.

When it did and it came out today, that’d be some boring ass shit.

Crew Chief Eric: Would be pretty terrible. It would be terrible. It would be bad.

Executive Producer Tania: Like there would be, what would be the drama be? It’d be like fisticuffs. I mean, I guess there were fisticuffs and Days of Thunder too, but I don’t know. I don’t think

Crew Chief Eric: it would hit as well. Come on down here and get yourself some ice cream.

Executive Producer Tania: That is the best quote. Eric’s

Crew Chief Brad: favorite quote from any movie ever. Ice cream. Ice cream.

Executive Producer Tania: When they went to the hospital, weren’t they like drag racing each other in Le Barons or something?

Crew Chief Brad: They were rental cars. Yeah.

Executive Producer Tania: Were they Le Barons or what were they?

Crew Chief Brad: No, I think one was a Was Illumina. Illumina, because that’s what they raced back.

Crew Chief Eric: They were the street versions of [02:19:00] whatever the NASCAR cars were.

Crew Chief Brad: I think it was Illumina and a Taurus,

Crew Chief Eric: and they were

Executive Producer Tania: hot garbage, but it worked. Can you imagine, what would they do today? A Camry

Crew Chief Eric: and a Camry.

Executive Producer Tania: Camry and a Camaro. I guess

Crew Chief Eric: a Impala. So looking back over the year, it was an exciting year. I mean, I’m glad you guys, I’m gonna say, forced me into watching the season and giving up rally, and I didn’t watch anything else.

That sounds like a personal choice. I watched Rolex and I watched 24 hours of Lama, but Formula One for me still isn’t what it used to be. There’s a lot of things I could do without, but unfortunately I feel like I have to commit to another year. Yeah, of course.

Crew Chief Brad: Commit to the bit

Crew Chief Eric: with all these changes that are coming and the new teams and the new regs and the new cars and new old drivers.

Yeah, I think that leads us to a bit of an issue with the way we’ve been handling Formula One as part of break fix and the drive through and everything else. So here’s an [02:20:00] idea. If we’re gonna commit to another year Formula One and really digging into it, why don’t we spin off a subseries of the drive through.

I got this like idea just scratching away at my brain. I’m thinking formula fanatics and all we do is talk about Formula One and if you don’t like it, you can skip over it and you don’t have to listen to us on the drive through, talk about it. We can actually focus on real news and not our own version of Drive to Survive.

What do you think?

Executive Producer Tania: Like a short, 30 minute segment, what do we do for the other 24 minutes?

Crew Chief Brad: Revisit our predictions each race and see how close we are.

Crew Chief Eric: We get to talk about the races, the results, what happened, the drama, all of it. It’s gonna be awesome.

Crew Chief Brad: And at to Tonya’s point, what do you do with the other 26 minutes?

Executive Producer Tania: A lovely idea. I think people will enjoy that. Brad, are you in? Are you committing?

Crew Chief Brad: I am in with the caveat that we do not call it formula fanatics because I think that name is just [02:21:00] atrocious.

Crew Chief Eric: Well then that’s the name we’re going with.

Crew Chief Brad: Great. I’ll make sure I am not prepared for any of those episodes.

Crew Chief Eric: And so as the echoes of the 2025 season fade, we’re left with more than just statistics and standings we’re left with memories. The roar of Melbourne, the glitter of Monaco, the heartbreak of Vegas, and the sunset of Abu Dhabi a year where legends were challenged, rookies rose, and the balance of power shifted with every turn of the wheel.

Formula one is never just about who wins. It’s about the relentless pursuit, the rivalries that define an era, and the stories that remind us of why we watch the 2025 season gave us all of that. And more so as the engines fall silent and the paddock empties, one truth remains. The [02:22:00] chase never ends because in Formula One, tomorrow is always waiting just beyond the next corner.

Executive Producer Tania: The drive through is our monthly news episode and is sponsored in part by organizations like Collector Car guide.net Project, motoring Garage Style Magazine, the Exotic Car Marketplace, and many others. If you’re interested in becoming a sponsor of the drive-through, look no further than www.motoringpodcast.net, click about and then advertising.

Thank you again to everyone that supports the Motoring Podcast Network, grand Touring Motorsports, our podcast Break Fix, and all the other services we provide.

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• Wolff reveals message he sent to Hamilton after seeing former Mercedes man at Ferrari for first time
• The Formula 1 2025 Season Reveal
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• Audi Makes its Position Clear on Potential F1 V10 Engine Pivot
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• Horner to exit Red Bull with immediate effect with Mekies taking over as CEO