The Suzuki Samurai is a small SUV made for driving on rough roads and off-road trails. It’s built to be tough and simple, which is why many people like it for outdoor driving. In a podcast, it might be brought up as a well-known off-road vehicle.
Qualifying is the part of the weekend where drivers try to set the fastest lap to decide their starting position for the race. If you start near the front, you usually have a much easier time.
The Monaco GP is the Formula 1 race in Monaco. Because the track is narrow and twisty, it’s hard to pass other cars, so where you qualify often matters a lot.
Pole position means you start the race from the very front. It’s a big deal because it gives you the cleanest air and the best chance to control the race.
It’s a movie-style comparison. The idea is that Monaco is so tight that if you make a small mistake, you can’t really recover—things go wrong fast.
Term
P1
In F1, “P1” means first place—whoever was fastest. The podcast is pointing out that the best drivers were separated by extremely tiny time differences.
Term
P2
“P2” means second place—second-fastest. They’re saying the top two were separated by an incredibly small amount of time.
Term
P4
“P4” means fourth place. The point is that even the driver in fourth was only a tiny fraction of a second behind the leaders.
“X factor” means something special that’s hard to quantify—like a driver’s ability to perform at the right moment. The host is saying the driver can outperform expectations even without the best car.
“Track evolves” means the circuit changes as the session goes on. More rubber can get onto the racing line, and grip can improve or shift, so later laps can feel different.
Carlos Sainz is an F1 driver. Here, they’re talking about his qualifying position—he’s set to start 12th.
Term
Q2
Qualifying is split into timed sessions. Q2 is the second round—if you’re quick enough you move on to the next round, and if not you’re done for qualifying and your starting spot is set from your laps in Q2.
A “red” means the race/qualifying is stopped with a red flag for safety. If it happens while you’re trying to set a lap, you might not be able to finish or improve your time.
“Ineligible to start” means the driver isn’t allowed to participate in the next part of qualifying or start the race. It usually happens when something goes wrong and the rules don’t let them take their place.
Max Verstappen is one of the best Formula 1 drivers. Here, the hosts are talking about a bad moment at Monaco where his car didn’t get going normally right at the start. Monaco is a track where starts and early incidents can decide the whole race.
A “grid box” is the exact spot on the starting grid where a car waits before the race starts. “P2” means he was in the second position area on the grid. That placement can affect how well you can launch and line up for the first corner.
“Race to the first corner” means the scramble right after the start where drivers try to get the best position before the first turn. At Monaco, that’s especially important because there’s not much room to pass later. So whoever navigates that moment well often has a big advantage.
Kimi Antonelli is a young Formula 1 driver. The hosts are saying that while Max Verstappen had trouble at the start, Antonelli was able to drive off and move ahead. At Monaco, that kind of early moment can be huge.
“Emergency lights” are warning signals that show something is seriously wrong with the car. Here, the hosts are describing a start where Verstappen’s car triggered warnings and couldn’t move normally. When that happens, other drivers have to react immediately to avoid trouble.
“Pit stop deltas” means the time difference between cars when they stop in the pits. At Monaco, you can’t easily pass on track, so who loses the least time in the pits usually has the best chance to win. That’s why pit timing can decide the whole race.
In F1, the “power unit” is the whole engine setup that makes the car go. It’s more than a normal engine because it also uses hybrid energy systems to help deliver power.
The Monaco Grand Prix is an F1 race in Monaco on a very twisty, slow street circuit. Because it’s so tight, the cars behave differently than on normal race tracks.
A formation lap is the lap right before the race where cars get into position and warm up. If something feels wrong during that lap, it can be an early sign the car won’t start properly when the race begins.
The clutch is the mechanical connection between the engine and the gearbox that allows the car to engage drive smoothly. In F1, if the clutch engagement feels off, it can make the car launch sluggishly and can be mistaken for grip issues.
In F1, “service life” refers to how many races (or the allowed usage window) a specific power unit component is permitted to run before it must be replaced. Teams manage this because reliability and penalties are tied to component wear.
“Hybrid power” in F1 refers to the combination of an internal combustion engine with energy-recovery and electric assist systems. If the issue is traced to the hybrid system’s construction or components, it can affect how consistently the car delivers power across the race.
Turn 1 is the first big corner right after the start. In Monaco, it’s crowded and easy to get squeezed, so one mistake can cost you momentum and positions.
A pit box is the team’s designated spot in the pit lane. When someone says a driver isn’t in their pit box, it usually means the car isn’t positioned correctly for the planned pit stop.
“Passing around the outside” means you go wide and try to get past on the outer part of a turn. It can be tricky because you need good traction and the timing has to be right. But if it works, you can take the position without getting squeezed.
“Radio calls” are the messages the driver sends to the team over the headset. The team can also talk back with instructions or updates. On a bumpy track, the driver may sound more panicked even if the situation is manageable.
A chicane is a little “S” of turns that forces cars to slow down. It’s used to make the corner safer and harder to pass through, especially on tight street circuits like Monaco.
Stewards are the race officials who judge whether something happened that breaks the rules. If they think it didn’t change the race enough, they may decide not to penalize it.
“Cutting the line” means taking a shortcut that isn’t allowed. In this case, drivers were warned because the pit-lane area near the Cadillac section made it easy to cross into an area that triggers penalties.
F1 cars carry an electronic device that helps race officials track them. For pit lane speed checks, the FIA uses that tracking data to measure how fast the car is going.
Timing loops are sensors in the track that detect when a car passes. By measuring how long it takes to go between two points, the system can calculate the car’s speed.
Concept
tiny margin seen in practice
This is about how close drivers can get to the pit lane limit before it triggers a penalty. Because the pit lane is measured in a specific way, taking a slightly different line can make it look like you went too fast. That’s why there were warnings and careful guidance.
It’s a built-in speed cap that forces the car to go no faster than the pit lane limit. That helps drivers avoid speeding while they’re passing the garages. But if you take the wrong path and get penalized for it, the limiter won’t automatically prevent that.
Hard tires are the tougher, longer-lasting tire option. They usually don’t grip as well as softer tires, but they can go longer before wearing out. The host is saying Russell switched to these tires when he pitted.
An undercut is when you pit earlier than the cars around you to get new tires first. With fresher tires, you can go faster and try to pass before the other driver pits. Here, it’s being discussed as part of Russell’s attempt to gain track position.
At the pit exit there are specific lines you’re not supposed to cross. If you do, it can be treated like a rules violation. Here, they checked the video and decided he was okay on that point.
In F1, “strategy” is the plan for when to pit and what tires to run. The goal is to come out at the right time so you don’t get stuck behind other cars.
“Mediums” are one type of tire rubber choice in F1. They’re meant to last a decent amount of time while still giving good grip, so they’re often used when teams want a balance of speed and longevity.
A tire change is when the team brings the car into the pits and swaps the tires. It’s a big part of race strategy because it takes time, so teams try to do it at the best moment.
An “accordion of cars” describes a traffic pattern where cars bunch up and compress into a wave behind a slower car. In F1, this can be caused by a driver holding up others, and it affects who can pit safely and who gets stuck behind the pack.
The “final corner complex” is the sequence of turns at the end of a lap that sets up the exit and the next lap’s start. In F1, small errors in this area can disrupt braking points, positioning, and timing—making it easier for other cars to overtake or forcing a driver to compromise their line.
It means the team might be changing plans too much or making things more complicated than they need to be. In a race, quick decisions matter, and constant changes can make it harder for the driver to trust the plan.
Radio comms are the messages the driver gets from the team over the headset. They’re used to talk about strategy and what’s happening on track right now.
It means the driver’s brain is overloaded with too much to do at once. At Monaco, everything happens fast and constantly, so it’s easy to get overwhelmed.
Brake bias is how much of the braking happens at the front versus the rear wheels. Changing it can make the car feel more stable or more eager to turn when you brake.
“Comms breakdowns” means radio messages between the team and driver aren’t working smoothly. If the driver and pit wall don’t understand each other, it can mess up pit timing and strategy.
The pit cycle is the plan for when cars come in for tires and how that timing affects the rest of the race. If something changes (like a crash or a safety car), the whole plan can get thrown off.
Term
two box
“Two box” is radio shorthand for telling the driver to come into the pits for a stop. It’s basically the team’s timing call for when to change tires.
In F1, a “five-second penalty” means the team gets an extra five seconds added to their race time. The rules also say you have to deal with it at the next chance you get, not later on just because it’s convenient.
In F1 pit/penalty contexts, “stationary” refers to a car being stopped for a period of time (e.g., waiting in the pit lane or stationary behind another car) rather than moving under its own power. The hosts argue about whether that stopped time can be treated as “serving” a five-second penalty, which is why the rule about serving at the next available opportunity matters.
A “double stack” is when two cars are serviced in the pit lane back-to-back (or effectively in sequence) with minimal gap, so the second car can be released quickly after the first. In this discussion, the hosts connect double-stacking to how pit timing and “stationary” time can interact with penalty timing—i.e., the time delta is treated as part of strategy rather than automatically counting against the penalty.
Track position just means where you are on the track compared to other cars. Being ahead usually makes it easier to defend or overtake, while being behind makes it harder.
Mercedes is the Formula 1 team in this story. They’re the ones giving radio instructions about whether a driver should pit or stay out during the Safety Car.
A five-second penalty means the driver effectively loses five seconds because of a rules issue. In this case, it only applies if the car goes into the pits and stops in the right place.
In Formula 1, a “five-second” penalty is a time penalty added to a driver’s race time, typically served by holding the car in the pit lane for five seconds during a stop. If it’s not executed correctly, it can turn a manageable issue into a much bigger loss of track position.
A restart is when the race goes back to normal speed after a caution period. Everyone is bunched up, so the first few seconds matter a lot. The host is pointing out how Antonelli managed the restart well.
“Track abrasion” means the track surface is getting worn down. If it turns into rough, damaged asphalt, it can make the tires lose grip and the car handle differently.
Leclerc is a Formula 1 driver for Ferrari. In this part of the show, he’s upset because he thinks the team didn’t fix a car problem—especially the brakes—before his incident.
Here “brakes” means the car’s stopping system, not just the idea of slowing down. Leclerc is saying the braking problem kept happening and the team didn’t fix it, which he believes led to the incident.
“Spec” here means the exact way the car is set up and configured. Leclerc is saying Hamilton’s setup seems to work, so Ferrari should switch to that instead of what they’re doing now.
Brembo is a company that makes high-performance brake systems. In F1, they provide the brakes that teams use, and they work closely with teams on how the braking hardware is set up.
Ohlins makes shock absorber parts. Those shocks help keep the tires in contact with the track and control how the car moves over bumps and during hard driving.
Telemetry is the data the race car sends back to the team while it’s running. After a problem or crash, teams look at that data to figure out what went wrong.
A “standing start” means the cars start from a stop, not rolling. Getting off the line cleanly matters a lot because you’re trying to accelerate from zero.
A “runoff” is the extra space beside the track meant to catch cars if they leave the racing line. It can keep things safer, but it usually means you’re out of the race if you hit it hard.
Term
run down the actual finishing order
The “finishing order” is just the final list of who placed where in the race. When they “run it down,” they’re telling you the final positions.
ADUO is an F1 rule that gives some teams extra chances to improve their cars. It’s meant to help teams that are falling behind catch up when the sport changes major parts of the power system.
The internal combustion engine is the part that uses fuel to make power by burning it. Here, they’re saying the rule is judging the engine part, not the hybrid energy parts.
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They say you can tell a lot about a person by the contents of their freezer.
So what does a bottle of Jagermeister say?
It says you have standards. You don't cut corners.
And you like your Jagermeister shots the way they're meant to be enjoyed.
Ice cold. As for the frozen taquitos and mystery leftovers, we'll keep that between us.
Drink it cold or don't drink it at all.
Jagermeister. Damn, that's cold.
Drink responsibly. Jagermeister liqueur 35% alcohol by volume.
Imported by Masked Jagermeister US White Plains New York.
BUSCAR LA QUINTA PATALGATO
Meaning to make something more complicated than it needs to be.
Nothing is supposed to happen in Monaco, Rob.
Five legged cats all over the place.
I'm Drew Scanlon. That's Rob Zachney. How are you, Rob?
Not bad. Yeah, lots to keep track of with that Monaco GP.
Not a ton of like racing racing stuff to keep track of.
But, you know, fans of the stewards had a lot to cheer for this Monaco GP.
If you are new to this podcast, a very warm welcome to you.
And if you are new to Formula One itself, we've got an episode just for you.
Our preseason primer episode assumes no prior F1 knowledge
and explains how the sport works and who everybody is.
So if you'd like to go back and listen to that episode,
also this show would not be possible without our audience over at
patreon.com slash shiftf1 where every month we release ad-free versions
of this podcast early, extra early this week,
along with bonus pods and videos exclusively for our patrons,
the cover racing documentaries and films, F1 video games,
experiments with other racing series and a lot of weird things.
So if you would like to support the show and get access to all that fun stuff,
head over to patreon.com slash shiftf1 or click the link in the show notes.
Danny O'Dwyer is still on assignment this week,
so I shall read the title sponsor patrons.
Of course, as we mentioned last week,
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Woo, alright. Rob, this is going to be a bit of a weird show today.
I, as mentioned in the last episode, am dealing with newborn twins.
Danny is on another continent. You have prior commitments,
so this is the only time this week that any two of us could record.
And it's Monday, meaning that one, we will be missing any news that breaks
in the next 24 hours. Honestly, what else is new?
Kind of part for the course for this podcast.
Pretty much guaranteed that's going to be an action-packed week in F1 Newsland.
And number two, it means I also have not had time to prepare my play-by-play notes,
so here's what we're going to do. I feel like this is a little unprofessional,
but I'm going to pull up the F1 YouTube highlights to sort of jog my memory
of what happened in this race, and we're just going to wing it kind of from there.
I won't put it on screen or anything, so if you're just listening to the audio version,
you're not going to miss anything.
But yeah, we're going to roll with this, starting with the grid here, Rob.
As we mentioned in the last episode, qualifying is super important in Monaco
because it is extraordinarily difficult to pass, because it's so narrow.
So where you qualify is pretty good indicator about where you're going to finish.
Maybe not this time, but usually.
But on pole position with an emphatic time, Kimmy Ancinelli.
He's hot, folks.
In second, Max Verstappen.
In third, Lewis Hamilton.
And in fourth, Charlotte Claire Robb.
So the qualifying three was one of the wildest.
The end stages of that was some of the most ridiculous qualifying stuff of the year.
I do think Monaco, I saw a pitch.
I think it was on, I was not there on the race or out of sport.
This is one of them usually reading, but basically that F1 just needs to embrace the fact that
it's the best qualifying of the year.
It's not the best race, but the real thing that you're watching is the qualifying,
because as we talked about, it is a sort of Death Star Trench Run type experience.
And every mistake is like instantly fatal for the car.
And Q3 ended with a series of people pulling times out of thin air within,
I think at one point the difference between P1 and P2 was literally a thousandth of a second.
And P4 was covered by like 0.025 seconds.
Right, so it was like that top four.
If you ever needed a demonstration of how ridiculous the execution level is at the top of the F1 grid,
this was it.
Ancinelli's lap was really good and crucially, especially for a driver this young,
he shows out when he needs to, right?
He has the best car this year, he needs to be on that pole.
It is clear that Russell doesn't have that in him, he doesn't have that perfection.
He's lost that quality magic that he used to have back at Williams, but Ancinelli has it.
And it's key at moments like this that it not desert you.
And so he showed up at a big moment because he was under incredible pressure from,
for me, like maybe the best driving performance of the weekend was for Stappen and qualifying.
Because we know he doesn't have the best car.
And he damn near took that pole from Ancinelli.
And so if you ever need a demonstration of just like what is sort of the max X factor here,
it's this, it's that he is a guy who can be arguably not even in the second best car,
maybe the third, maybe the fourth best car on the grid and be challenging for the pole
at Monaco because he is just that good.
Also, you know, the reports of loose Hamilton's death greatly exaggerated, I think,
over the course of this of this Monaco weekend.
His return to form has been really, really something.
It's something people are less interested in talking about than being with Kim Kardashian right now,
which you got a lot of coverage of over the course of the weekend.
But yeah, the tail end of Q3 was really, really incredible.
As you just watched, you know, drivers all within a knife's edge and really driving home,
just how, you know, there's the phrase like being driving a car 10 tenths, right,
like getting getting maximum pace out of it.
They have to have that dialed up, especially this track, you have to be able to do it.
You can't just like run a bunch of laps and like hopefully get one good one out of it.
You have to be able to do it again and as the track evolves and you got that this weekend.
But also at the tail end of qualifying in a bit of foreshadowing,
you had that session running.
You had that session like going to caution due to like literal last second hits with hits with the wall.
Yes, I mean, like we said, at the I think at the end of the first runs of Q3,
they were the top four were covered by 25 thousandths of a second.
So it really was a complete toss up and it was looking like Charlie Claire might actually do it.
Like he we know he can be good around here.
It's his home race and honestly that first qualifying lap,
it's not often that a qualifying lap can give me goosebumps,
but something about the way that he was just barely hanging on.
I I I hesitate to put it up there with that Max Verstappen lap of Saudi Arabia,
where it's like I he's he's going to plaid and then he crashed.
Both of those were just like I feel like I'm witnessing something nonhuman.
But at the end that was not enough.
He tried in the in the second round of laps and and ended up in the wall.
So he will start fourth.
Not the not the only one who did, you know, as we get on the grid.
Well, I'm just fine.
I should talk about Portoletto when we when we get to him.
So yeah, continue.
Okay, so fifth place.
Isaac Hadjar again getting it up there with close to his teammate,
which is something that we haven't often seen out of Red Bull in the past.
I don't know decade George Russell will start sixth.
And then the two McLarens of Oscar Piastri in seventh and Landon Orris eighth.
Pierre Gasly best of the rest in ninth and then Liam Lawson in the racing bulls in tenth.
Another one, another name that we are kind of seeing up there frequently in 11th Alex Albon
and then Carlos Sainz in 12th in both Williams cars.
Nicole Holkenberg 13th.
And I heard David Croft saying that that is his worst qualifying this year, which is impressive.
I think he I think every other race is qualified 11th.
Franco Colopinto 14th.
Arvid Linblad is 15th and then Gabriel Portoletto in 16th.
Yeah, so he got through into Q2, but had a he had a hit of the wall there at the end of Q1.
So he never returned a lap in Q2.
So he was he was showing a great deal of pace.
But he, you know, brought out he brought out a red in at the end of Q3 and was and had to be like towed back to the pits.
And so therefore was ineligible to start in sorry in Q2 and in Q1.
He was ineligible to start in Q2.
Right.
Behind him Esteban O'Conn in 17th, followed by Sergio Perez, Oliver Bearman, both Haas cars, not having a great weekend.
Valtteri Bottas in 20th.
And then Frani Nabilonzo and Lance Stroll, two boys loving life.
OK, so here we go.
Thanks to Formula One for the highlights.
Well, yeah, we can talk about the most deflating moment of the weekend because this is the big note off the start.
I mean, yeah, you're sitting there primed for Max Verstappen just pulled out that God to your lap on Saturday.
He is he is like parked up right behind Antonelli.
Well, he's offset.
He's in he's in the P2 grid box.
But, you know, he's right there.
And if there's one moment you can get this done at Monaco, it's that race to the first corner.
And so you're just sitting there being like, man, here's here's Antonelli going up against, you know, one of his mentors and also one like an absolute killer.
One of the elite drivers, one of the most fearless like this is going to be high pressure, high stakes.
We're going to see some fireworks the first corner.
Lights go out.
Max's car lurches and then the emergency lights come on the little orange wing, wing mirror lights and the wing indicator lights.
Max, to his credit, has the presence of mind immediately sort of with what little what little drive ability he has left in the car.
He lurches it off to the left hand side.
Everyone has cat like reflexes getting around him.
There's there's there's no incidents from that.
But yeah, Kimi Antonelli drives off while everyone else is navigating a stationary Max Verstappen.
And that is the moment that like, well, Kimi Antonelli just like drove off into the wind, which is always the most probable outcome of this.
But your your hope that it might be lap after lap of, you know, can the young buck survive the pressure?
Because there's two ways you can win a Monaco, right?
Like it's one you could you could pull off the first turn overtake.
But then this thing you live and die of a pit stop deltas.
And so you can imagine lap after lap, the version of this race where a bit like Russell Lancelli at at Montreal, where it's just like the pressure ratcheting it up.
And who's going to blink first and, you know, how's the pit cycle going to work?
And all of that just goes away.
The air goes rushing out of the Monaco Grand Prix as as Verstappen, you know, has the has the power unit fail there on the pits.
And there were in retrospect, there was maybe even the suggestion that he might have known something was wrong.
He'd left the line very sluggishly for the formation lap.
And the commentator's initial thought was, was he finding the clutch by point and trying to like get a feel for the for the grip in his grid box?
But now you sort of look back at that moment and, oh, was that already he is struggling with what feels like a badly compromised power unit?
Yeah, I think he said as much in a mid race interview when he went and talked to the media pen that he had.
He knew something was wrong on the formation lap.
And then it it turned out that car don't go when lights went up.
I had a moment where I'm like, he is so quitting F1.
Right.
Very might have dropped the mic.
If it comes down to, you know, apparently they were already planning was going to be the last race on this power unit, according to Autosport that Lauren Mckies.
Like the engine was nearing the end of its service life.
They were planning on retiring it after this because as any players of the F1 video games know power units as they wear out and they run distance to lose power.
So the way the games model this is like you only get 100% power off your engine for the first the race where it's installed.
After that, you're a little bit down on power and you're sort of encouraged to and this is what the F1 teams do.
They kind of run they tend to run engines that are near the end of their tether at Monaco because it is not a very fast track.
So they already knew like this is this engines like last last race.
But if it is an issue that is traced back to, you know, just the the hybrid power, you know, construction of the engines.
It feels like it'll be one of those things.
You know how like once you identify the nuisance, every time you encounter it again, it pisses you off more because you have the anticipated irritation of like dealing with it.
And so it makes it hit much, much worse.
I got to believe Max is sort of in that zone of he's already kind of like annoyed by these power these power unit regulations.
This weekend is a huge pain in the ass for for someone who get the strong sense is kind of introvert and then your race is over at the start.
We've got a taste of this Nindy car whenever they have big capacitor units that give them a boost of hyperpower.
Whenever something happens with those, the drivers lose their shit in the in the interview after where it's like, well, I guess engine broke because of a thing that we didn't want.
The stupid hybrid they added to it that doesn't do anything.
So I can easily imagine how how Max would feel at the tail end of that.
I was actually surprised.
His interview was really very thorough and laid back.
He was he was not heated at all.
So, you know, kind of unusual.
That's a little bit of that, Drew.
The other big move I think on the opening lap is so Landon Norris is trying to go around the outside of Oscar Piastri up ahead of him in turn one and then gets pinched has to slow down to avoid hitting the wall.
That compromises his momentum, which allows Pierre Gasly to steam by him up the hill.
And then now now we're into now.
Now we're into drew watching YouTube.
So I have 20.
OK, go for it.
So things also start cropping up from from the first.
We got our first notice and this is a taste of how this whole race is going to go for Russell.
He's noted for a false start on lap three.
Norris had been on the radio saying that George was not in his pit box.
Right.
They did clear him of that.
But Russell would be in the crosshairs of the stewards, the the rest of the race.
Perez somewhere in there apparently gets an overtake done on the outside of Mirabeau.
I could they never showed the overtake as far as I can tell on the broadcast.
So maybe it's in the highlights.
But yeah, so somewhere near the start of the race.
Perez does what Perez does best.
But also it's like he's like a Pokemon.
Like that's his move is the pass around the outside.
And if it works, if it's super effective, that's cool.
If it's not, it's a tragedy.
But but but here it kind of worked out.
So he so he has a bit of heroics there at the start.
And then yeah, it's around lap 20 where and this sets up.
I think what the what you're about to see there on the highlights.
Lap 20 had our reports.
His power unit is way off the mark that he is he is down on power.
And he is not the most poised over the radio.
His radio calls are everything's exaggerated because the surface of Monaco is really, really bumpy.
So everyone's radio calls sound like Rebel pilots on the Death Star Run,
where it's like kind of as weird buzz as they are being bounced along the track surface.
So Hatchar sounds maybe a little exaggeratedly panicky,
but also he just sounds legitimately panicky.
You know, he's he's calling the radio.
He's calling on the radio saying that his power unit is down and he gets the response.
You know, OK, we're looking into it and then he gets confirmation.
Oh, we see it.
We see it.
We're trying to fix it.
And then a minute later, you hear Hatchar fix it faster because in on his tail is George Russell,
whose car is not walking wounded.
And so Russell is as this duel goes on or not really a duel.
He's just trying to get around a slower car.
There's two seconds off the pace.
So so Hatchar is is really compromised and Russell is all over Hatchar
and they keep having these close calls at the chicane exiting the exiting the tunnel.
And there's a moment where, you know, Hatchar cuts the chicane to stay ahead of Russell
and then continues on in front.
No action taken.
Russell complains about it on the radio.
It's it's it's one of those things where I do kind of wish the stewards were faster
for things like that, where it's this guy should not still be holding up traffic
if he's cutting the chicane.
But either way, you know, they let that one go.
Maybe they didn't decide he got he gained a sufficient advantage.
But it is a long close race as Hatchar is just trying to hang on to that position while
while Red Bull is trying to do something from the pit lane to figure out settings
they can bounce or something to to fix that power unit issue.
The other thing that's looming in all this is they're being caught by a lot of traffic
as as this goes on and Hatchar his race begins to impact Liam Lawson's if this goes on.
So it becomes a jockeying for position about the pit cycle between him and Russell.
But then also Red Bull doesn't really want to hold up Lawson, who is who is showing a lot of good pace.
And meanwhile, Russell's Russell's just in in hell here for for a number of laps.
And I think so I think it's Russell who pits first.
Let's let's yeah, let's take a quick break and then we will come back to the pits.
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So the first pit I'm seeing here is lap 29 Hamilton comes into the pits and is this the first of our speeding penalties.
It is the story of the weekend is pit lane speeding violations.
And it becomes super relevant here so so Hamilton gets the five second penalty for pit lane speeding.
And then when Russell comes in trying to beat Hajar during this pit cycle, since he hasn't been able to do it on the track, he also gets dinged for pit lane speeding.
I'm trying to see how many violations were there it became comical because at a certain point on the timing and scoring screen.
If you're watching it live on the on the bar to the left hand side of the frame would have all the timing bar.
It was like two thirds of the field had that little red exclamation point by them to indicate there is a penalty being in there's an investigation or a penalty being assessed.
I'm seeing a total of six race fans.net has a great they have a whole article every penalty noted investigated and served in a crazy Monaco Grand Prix.
I'm seeing six and some of those I mean Rob there were so many penalties here you were getting the same penalty per driver and therefore the FIA had to start putting time stamps on penalties to distinguish them from one another.
But yes.
Yeah, so they also tried to and I don't I don't fully follow the visual like I can't fully visualize what was causing this but Scott Mitchell Maulman at race fans explains that.
Yeah, I'm just going to quote here.
Albin was warned late in the Grand Prix that several drivers were getting penalties and was related to cutting the line around the Cadillac area Cadillac is positioned at the end of the pit lane which is slightly more open this year.
Then when it was funneled more tightly by barriers on both sides, this seems to have invited drivers to cut the white line that denotes the fast lane, which is done at both ends of the pit here.
It is allowed from regulatory perspective but can create an unusual problem.
The speed of a car in the pit lane in F1 is measured using electronic timing loops and the FIA transponders rather than through a camera or a gun.
Okay, this is what because I had been assuming the whole race that a gun was aligned oddly or something that something on maybe pit entrance was misaligned.
Okay, so they're using a timing loops and transponders.
Going back to quoting, the car will pass over multiple loops in the pit lane and then the system calculates its speed based on the time taken to travel that distance.
The thing all drivers live in fear of with fast pass tolling is that at some point they'll figure out how fast you travel between those two tollways and realize that that doesn't add up if you're reserving the speed limit.
Well, apparently that's what's happening here.
As the fast lane is used to calculate the pit lane distance, even a marginally too aggressive cut of the line would shorten it.
So a car traveling at exactly 60 kilometers an hour would complete the distance slightly too quickly for how it should be measured and be very fractionally over the speed limit.
Hence the tiny margin seen in practice.
It is understood that this was discussed between teams and the FIA during the weekend and some drivers were even warned before the race to be careful of their positioning down the pit lane.
Wow, yes.
Okay, so the limiter would not save you if you took the line that you just ended up shaving enough distance off your your your path down the pit lane that you picked up a penalty.
And so, okay, the penalties were a little ridiculous.
I do feel like if they were briefed on it and warned about this, that changed my feeling about the penalties a little bit, because again, like the drivers briefings are supposed to flag things exactly like this.
And so, yes, usually the drivers are going to rely on the pit lane speed limiter to keep them safe from the rules perspective.
But they didn't.
This is apparently requested a right of review for the second, which we will get to because it impacted the end of the race.
But yes, back to lap 32 here is when Russell finally does pit he still stuck behind Hajar who as you mentioned Rob because of his engine troubles.
His gap to he was in fourth and his gap to Hamilton and third at this stage was 17 seconds but it had been over 20 at other parts of the race.
And therefore the gap from Lawson in ninth to Norris who was ahead of him was shrinking and therefore they didn't want that to to back Norris into Lawson.
And so Russell pits on lap 32 from fifth place puts on hard tires.
Did he get a speeding?
He did.
So he's already doing like this is so unbeknownst to him even though he gets his undercut works.
Yeah.
And he goes he just barely beats Hajar out of the pits when Hajar stops.
He stops a lap later.
And then but Russell's fate is already sealed effectively.
But well, it's it's gonna take one other thing to go horribly wrong for him to truly to truly seal his fate.
But yes, he picked up the speed the pit lane speeding violation as well as I think he had gotten noted for maybe crossing the white line at pit exit.
But when they reviewed the footage, I guess he's found in the clear on that.
So like very a series of near misses there for him, but he does get tagged with the with the speeding violation.
Yes.
Next up in the highlight reel lap 45 is Russell going past a slowing Lando Norris.
This is another one Rob that was.
Gosh, tough to take for McLaren on their 100th Grand Prix weekend.
That's two retirements due to technical problems for Norris in a row.
And then another retirement lap 60 Lance Stroll.
Do you have anything in between these two incidents, Rob?
Not really.
I guess a little bit of drama with Albin and signs, which is that yes, you've got Williams trying to signs on a different strategy.
And so they ask Albin to let signs through so that he can run ahead.
I think he's on aging mediums at that point.
He needs to go and build a gap so he can stop.
And at that point, Williams has two cars in the top 10.
So if if Albin can hold up the field and create a gap for signs, signs can get his tire change in there safely.
And he'll be then then then look at a double points finish, which they which they badly need this year.
Albin is.
Not the most composed about it over the radio.
It's a vibe we picked up from him a lot.
Saying quite pointedly, we're being too smart about this.
We're really risking my race here.
And apparently something to that because after as Albin is trying to create this huge accordion of cars stuck behind him and create the space.
He does get overtaken by Lindblad on the on the starfinn astrate and Lindblad goes ahead.
And so now with that cycle, it would be Albin we dropped out of the points if if sign stops and comes out ahead.
So it Albin was not happy with the decision, but also the Lindblad overtake was sort of set up by a bit of a miscue by him in the final corner complex.
So not not Albin's finest hour, but also just another moment that really underscores like.
Williams can be a really feel good story and a lot of charismatic personalities on it on there who all seem to get along as individuals.
But on race day, you often get the sense that like there is a major discontent with between Albin and the team.
And there have been little hints that with signs to that.
I think both these drivers just kind of emotionally gutted to be finding themselves in cars that are once again borderline back markers.
Yeah.
And I could easily imagine vowels being a guy who's a race strategy guy as a matter of course.
I could see the drivers feeling like the team has a predisposition to overthink and over strategize.
Or, you know, to be ruthless in the pursuit of these very, very valuable points.
Remember, this is the team and the team principal who when Logan Sargent crashed, or no, when Alex Albin crashed, they put Alex Albin in Logan Sargent's car.
That's true.
Because Albin's the better driver, like absolutely mercenary behavior.
So what this said to me is not necessarily that Albin is hot on the radio, which, you know, is maybe part of the case, but that he doesn't necessarily trust that the team has not only his interests, but the team's interests at heart.
And that I think is the more concerning takeaway for me, that the driver is just, why can't the engineer just say, trust me, this is what, this is the right thing to do.
There's another, I can't bring to mind, but there was some other strategy called that another driver was doubting that was very clearly clear for us to see.
Maybe it was Leclerc.
I'm not sure.
But yeah, when I hear those radio messages, that's what I think.
Yeah, it is.
It's a tough place because, again, as I say all this, it's easy to overanalyze radio comms at Monaco from the spectator perspective.
Again, I can't imagine trying to carry on a conversation at a track where the marshals do this thing.
Like Monaco is a, that is a full concentration maximum effort.
Like every, every lap is the hardest lap of your life.
I cannot imagine.
It's a concept you bring up a lot, Drew, like task saturation.
And I think Monaco, the baseline requirements for an F1 driver, your task, your borderline tasks saturated just driving the car, like in perfect silence.
Having to then manage settings, break bias and then try to carry on a conversation and think about race state.
I feel like once you, once you're trying to juggle all that, you're at like 120% of task, task load.
And so I do suspect maybe some of this is also drivers and you hear throughout this weekend, drivers and engineers not really understanding what the other is saying.
And it becomes quite consequential here at the, at this next moment you flagged because lap 60, we see stroll has buried the car in the wall.
And that triggers a whole lot of chaos as people are trying, he's in the final corner.
And so they're going to have to deviate traffic through the pit lane, but also it brings out, they bring out the safety car fast.
But there, you know, there's a question of like, will this end up being red flagged? What's going on?
And then who, who, everyone's going through the pits, who's going to stop for tires?
And this is where you hear a lot of comms breakdowns between the pit wall and, and the drivers.
And, you know, let's get into the reason for Strahl's accident after this, I think.
And let's just talk about the pit cycle here, because this is where Russell's race becomes irretrievable.
Mercedes calls in Antonelli to two box to get fresh tires. It's effectively a free stop here.
Yeah, he actually, they call him in too late and he has to go around again.
Yeah, he still has enough margin to make it somewhat safe, but it is, it is now chance here.
Especially because Hamilton behind him has a five second penalty to serve. So he serves it.
Meanwhile, Leclerc is stacked up behind him. He, Leclerc actually does a good job of like backing up, like knowing that this is going to happen.
So he's not actually stationary behind Hamilton in the pits for too long.
Russell, it's super unclear exactly what happens here.
I have a little bit of color on that. Yeah, because to me, it looks like they're simultaneous crosstalk on the radio and everything flows from that, but go ahead for what you see.
Right. So again, race fans doing the good work over here, trying to untangle what exactly happened here.
So Russell has a five second penalty to serve.
He, let's see, he comes in and effectively, so he comes in and stacks behind Antonelli as they are pitting.
So he is waiting while Antonelli gets his pit stop done, then he moves up into his pit box and the crew attacks his car and changes his tires.
They do not wait five seconds before they do so.
The right front crew hesitates.
Yes.
And I think I'm not even sure, say they had salvaged this or remembered belatedly if they service the car and then hold him five seconds.
Is that kosher because they always do they don't touch the car for five seconds and then you take action.
So another thing to note here is that when you are handed and I didn't know this for sure and neither did the commentators, at least the Sky team that I listened to.
We did finally get confirmation from I think Anthony Davidson when you are handed a five second penalty, you must serve it at the next available opportunity.
So you could not, as George Russell did, elect not to serve it and then say, I just append it to the end of the race, not kosher.
However, the fact that they botched this, they did have one more opportunity to fix it.
So number one, apparently they Mercedes thought that because George Russell was stationary behind Antonelli while Antonelli pit stop was happening.
They thought that was OK.
That was five seconds that we didn't touch the car and therefore we've served our penalty.
I admire the, this feels, that feels like board game night.
That feels like somebody just brought board game night to it.
Well, technically.
Never, never play Katan with Toto Wolf, I think is the lesson there or something because like that is, I admire the creativity of that.
Well, hold on.
He was totally stationary for five seconds.
And then it's like, well, somebody actually write this.
All right, let's check online and see if there's a Rada in the manual to see if this has been addressed.
Nobody has never occurred to anybody.
But yeah, I don't think that it shouldn't fly because a double stack, the time delta is not being penalized.
The time delta is just a function of your strategy.
That's why your stationary is your double stacking.
You can't count that against the penalty, but it's creative to try.
Yes.
So they think Mercedes thinks that they're good.
Russell doesn't.
And he's like, if he, he proposes the idea because the cars, because if we're stroll crashed, the cars are now going through the pit lane behind the safety car.
So Russell's like, well, why don't I just pull over, serve my five second penalty.
At the end of the pits.
In his pit box as the cars are again.
So he leaves his pit stop and then they have to come back around through the pit lane to follow the safety car.
Russell's like, why don't I just pull in here again and serve my pit stop.
And he gets overruled by that as well.
I am curious whether that would have made a difference because at that point, going around again behind the safety car, he pulls over and serves five seconds.
He's still going to be buried, right?
Because at this point, the field is, is stacked up.
So he's still going to the back.
So he would still be at, you know, he would have lost a lot of positions, more so than if he would have had, he served the pits, the penalty in his actual pit stop.
Right.
Because at that point, the field is still strung out.
He still has track position in a way that a lap later, he no longer does.
Right.
But perhaps not.
It wouldn't be as bad as what actually happened, which was the FAA or the stewards said this.
No, here have a drive through penalty.
So once the race actually gets going again, Russell now has to serve a drive through penalty.
He does so and it drops into the back of the grid.
But not before we get some radio where Russell is asking the team like, hey, I didn't, I didn't serve my, my, my penalty.
And total of was like, dude, shut up.
No, we're going to talk about this after the race.
That was comical.
So there is one, the one part of this that I can't work out over assigning responsibility is Mercedes tells George to stay out.
But he is already saying, as that message is coming in from the pit wall, stay out, stay out.
You know, in the reaction to the stroll crash, Russell is saying something on the radio and he wants to come in.
And also everyone is heading in because they're now deviating traffic through the pit lane.
But it also, but also at a crucial moment, it seems like comms just go dead.
That Russell pulls in behind Antonelli and it's not clear to me that Mercedes actually set up to.
Yes, that is another wrinkle here when they did not mean to double stack.
So Russell is was told to stay out, but then the safety car needed to go through the pits.
So Mercedes is like here.
Race fans has the actual transcription here.
So his engineer Dudley says we are in the safety car window staying out, staying out.
And Russell has confirmed staying out.
And then later stay on your Delta staying out.
Then the safety car goes into the pits.
Russell follows it, of course.
Then they talk over each other.
Russell is saying we have to go into the pit lane to get tires.
His engineer says safety car in the pit lane, safety car in the pit lane.
Russell says get tires ready to swap.
What am I doing?
And then he pulls up behind Antonelli.
Later he asks was I meant to be boxing then for tires or not?
And Dudley says negative.
We'll discuss that later though.
So they had anticipated Antonelli doing the stop while Russell continued.
And then when the safety car came back around again through the pit lane,
that's when Russell would have stopped presumably also to serve his penalty.
But since he pulled in behind Antonelli and stopped for a little bit,
Mercedes is like well, I guess we're good.
Changes tires.
There's an interesting wrinkle there.
He'd already changed tires.
So you have to serve the penalty if you stop.
But if you hadn't stopped, they're going through the pit lane,
but he never stops.
He doesn't have to take the five-some second penalty, right?
It's only if he goes in the pits in his pit box.
Right.
So there's a version of this where he gets past Antonelli during that pit cycle.
Because Antonelli missed the first.
Antonelli loses all his time missing like not being able to get in the pits at the first call.
Russell's there.
That's why he's stacked up behind him.
So Russell does have this brief window where if he doesn't take tires,
because the tires would have been good to the end.
I think somebody was at Lindblad never actually had a tire change,
except for the red flag.
But I think somebody never had a pit stop under racing conditions,
which is apparently legit for the rules.
You're right.
And so there is a world where Russell could have actually like,
boy, that would have been fun.
Having Russell end up, I do suspect Russell gives that spot back.
I don't think Russell would have wanted that smoke at all.
But it would have been a very funny moment.
But for me, the thing that is illustrative here is,
one, sometimes I think George talks too fucking much on the radio.
I think he is discursive.
That's sort of a valedictorian like energy teacher's pat,
like VIP sometimes gives is,
I think he can be too gearless over the radio to show like,
hey, I just want to pull up a chair next to you and like,
let's strategize together and look how on top of all this I am.
I want to sort of be the executive in charge of the race.
And I think sometimes there's moments where it's like,
no, you just need to be quiet and wait to be told what to do.
And I think here this is that moment of like,
if there's not crosstalk, if he's just sort of waiting to receive command,
I think some of the issues are cleaned up.
On the other hand, it is undeniable that Mercedes fucks up all the time around Russell.
And again, these are the like, which came first chicken or the egg type situations of
does Russell over communicate with that pit wall,
because he's not entirely confident that they know what is going on
or that they are like paying close attention to his race,
witness the fact that, okay, maybe he shouldn't have stopped
and Mercedes was caught flat footed by that.
Nobody at Mercedes was and put the word out to the pit crew that like,
hey, next time you see Russell's car, you have to hold five seconds, you got a penalty.
Like that is a, like that is not on George.
When they serviced his car and released him,
that is a thing that like Mercedes was supposed to make sure
that that five second penalty doesn't become a catastrophic one.
And Mercedes blew that.
And were they caught flat footed because there's a miscommunication between George
and the pit wall? Yeah, certainly.
It certainly seems like it.
George seems like he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do with that moment
and kind of guessed wrong and left his team in the lurch.
But on the other hand, like kind of yet again,
Mercedes misplays the situation and, you know, snatches disaster from the jaws of a setback.
Yeah, we're going to get to the reason this all kicked off,
the reason for Stroll's crash in a second.
But let's, let's do the restart here.
Antonelli's colossal lead was eliminated by the safety car.
So now Hamilton is breathing down his neck on the restart,
but Antonelli does a great job at the restart and stays comfortably ahead.
But then immediately it was yellow flag.
It's so sad because all right, Antonelli, Hamilton, Leclerc, restart.
Here we go.
Oh, only Antonelli and Hamilton have come around this corner.
Yellow flag.
What has happened to Charlotte Claire?
Rob.
He's in the wall at the Stroll zone.
And what they find on the replay is that with the Stroll incident,
it looked like he went out, he was a bit wide in the final corner and got on the marbles.
And the car just straight up didn't turn and he goes into the wall.
On the restart, when he's still basically under safety car pace,
Leclerc has the exact same issue happen.
The car is wide through that final corner and then just like goes straight into the wall at the exact same point.
But on the replay, Brundle notes at that point.
I don't know when they got onto it on F1 TV.
But on the replay, Brundle realizes, hey, wait a second.
Is that a pothole, basically, that that is not that what is what is out there is a huge bit of track abrasion.
So at the outside of the outside left of the final corner,
there's a huge big black square tarmac patch on the road.
You know, like you find in any city, right?
Like a huge bit of freshly poured asphalt to level things off.
And the track is full of these.
It looks very tidy in most places.
But in the center of it, it also looks like a divot left by a golf club, right?
Like a huge bit of track has has been abraded and is crumbling apart the way asphalt does, right?
When you when you see like that that that black that black top fall apart, it falls apart in chunks.
It doesn't like skim away.
It just comes up in chunks.
And then they pull up the stroll incident and they realized it wasn't marbles that stroll hit.
It was big chunks of asphalt that got under the car.
And so what was happening for stroll and then happened to Leclerc is that you had the left hand side of the car hit this pothole where effectively you have no grip.
And then you totally unbalances the car and then you bounce back up onto the tarmac.
But you still can't make full contact with the with the road surface because there's huge chunks of roadway under the tire.
And so now you're just kind of a passenger that there's just not enough.
The car is skidding and there's not enough grip to actually get the turn through.
And so two drivers, the exact same incident happens.
And now you have this this this clear sign.
The road surface is not OK.
And so they red flag the race so that they can go assess what they're going to do about this, which gives us a great moment of like, you know,
various dads and uncles of Monaco heading out to the dads and uncles of Monaco volunteering at the race,
heading out there to like sort of stare at the tarmac, kick it with their feet a little bit of street sweeper comes by.
There's nothing they can do.
They can't like, you know, there's there's only like 10 laps left in this race or so.
So, you know, they're not going to pour fresh, you know, asphalt in here.
You don't have time for that.
So it becomes a they're red flagging the race and they're just going to have to tell the drivers be wary of that.
Now. So with stroll, it's interesting, actually, both drivers.
Leclerc and stroll not having the best time.
Stroll also seemed to come out of it like, yeah, fighting with the car the whole weekend.
You know, not surprising it ended up this way.
But Leclerc, the second his car hit the wall, he was on the radio.
Actually, even before that, when stroll went into the wall, Leclerc was on the radio complaining at the Ferrari pit wall about like their strategy.
He didn't understand what they were doing.
And then when the car ended up in the wall, he gets on the radio and says, I'm not even taking the blame for this.
This isn't on me.
I told you.
And then in the in the lengthy red flag, they get a chance to interview Leclerc.
And he just unloads on on the team effectively.
A speech basically out of the Godfather, right, where he's like, I am always very honest.
I am the first person to hold myself to account.
I'm the first person to blame myself when I have truly made a mistake.
But in exchange for that, I am also I'm not going to hesitate to call out, you know, other other people's mistakes.
I'm not going to pretend that, you know, this has not happened.
And so then he just like goes off on the team where the interviewer basically said like, hey, that rough that you hit that pothole, right?
You know, there's nothing you could do.
And he was like, it wasn't that.
It was the brakes this whole weekend.
I've been saying the brakes and like basically says that whatever caused that incident the hell with that as far as Leclerc is concerned.
It is the fact that Ferrari were ignoring his like complaints, like ignoring his concerns around the tires and did nothing to sort of fix his break issues this this entire weekend.
And that is really what what caused the the incident.
And so he was just fully like, I lay at the feet of the team.
And then the only crack of like optimism daylight he left there was basically, well, at least we know now.
We we just need to follow Lewis's spec.
He was like, we were doing something different than Lewis.
You can see it's worked out really well for Lewis.
We need to stop doing what we are doing.
And hopefully we will just sort of match what what Lewis inside the garage is is doing and move on from there.
But it was the another entry in our growing genre of Leclerc feeling like he is mentally and emotionally broken by Ferrari.
Very, very good bit.
I also like that, I guess, due to the constrained nature of the Monaco garages that when the camera follows Leclerc, he can't disappear into his trailer.
He just has to go into the corner where he rips off his helmet and starts wildly gesticulating.
Very rare to see that.
Yeah, I I wonder because it's tough to tell because no one else.
I mean, the only other driver that did that is stroll.
Everyone else navigated through it.
Okay.
So if Leclerc's brakes had been working optimally, would he have made that crash?
Who knows.
So I'll just say this.
These are things that don't happen very often in F1.
This is coming from the race.
But Brembo, who make all the brakes in F1 and the way this works is all brakes are designed by the team's engineering departments.
I think Brembo even consults all the brakes, but Brembo has like a series of internal like like almost like watertight doors between the the brakes that they're making for each team.
They're not a spec part, but Brembo is like the leading performance brake manufacturer in the world.
So they're the ones who fab all the brakes that are fit for F1.
So to a degree Brembo is an engineering partner for every team.
So Leclerc saying that it was the brakes that as soon as the safety car was out there, three of the four brakes on his car stopped working.
Brembo came out and said Brembo group is really surprised by the statements made by Charles Leclerc after F1's Monaco Grand Prix.
The partnership between Brembo and Scuderia Ferrari has continued for more than 50 years and also extends to other brands within the group, including AP Racing Clutches and Olin's Dampers confirming the strength and breadth of his longstanding collaboration.
At present, the company does not know the causes of the issues experienced by Charles Leclerc and therefore considers it premature to draw definitive technical conclusions before the available data has been analyzed.
In such cases as this, it is necessary to examine the telemetry together with the teams and engineers in order to accurately determine the origin of the incident.
Again, these statements aren't usual. That's like so much boilerplate, but also it's rare that Brembo or a parts supplier like that feels moved to come out and be like, hey, hey, hey, hey.
Don't look at us just yet. We don't know what's going on, and I think they're looking at the same thing you are, Drew, which is, yeah, but the same thing happened to Stroll.
It's so clear what happened is the car hit a bad patch of tarmac and then slid off, but Leclerc was out there in front of a microphone saying, no, that was a coincidence next to the real problem, which was these shitty brakes.
Well, we eventually get going. Again, standing start. Antony Le, again, leads off the line from Lewis Hamilton. Behind him is George Russell in third spot for now.
And then Isaac Hajar, who is still dealing with those engine power unit problems, allowing Pierre Gasly to challenge him around the outside of turn one and get into fourth place.
This is lap 71, seven laps to go. And Hajar also under investigation at that point for, oh boy, what is it at this point? Let me consult the Racefans article.
I think was the red flag infringement, which usually means that the team has worked on the car in an illegal way during the red flag.
So that's a big question mark hanging over this race. Gasly also working on his second five second penalty for speeding in the pit lane and Russell on that drive through penalty for not serving his initial five second penalty.
But we head into the hairpin, and this is where things continue to go bad for the Williams team. They have actually, their gambit to get both cars in the points had worked. Alba now back ahead of signs in ninth place with signs in tenth.
But going through the hairpin, it is real tight. Cars are side by side and Nico Holkenberg just clips the back of Carlos Sainz who bumps into the wall but keeps going and then is tagged by Franco Colopinto and spun around.
And at this point he just drives into a runoff and retires from the race. Colopinto is handed, here we go in real time, a penalty for, no, he is under investigation for causing a collision with Carlos Sainz but that is eventually cleared.
Nice.
Who wants to give Colopinto a penalty? Look at what you're letting yourself in for these days.
Lap 73, Russell serves his drive through penalty comes out in basically the back of the field.
And then we cut to, in these highlights, Lap 78 of 78, Kimmy Antonelli coming across the line as the victor of the 2026 Monaco Grand Prix. Hamilton in second and then as on track, Pierre Gasly in third.
But because Isaac Hadjar was within five seconds, Gasly drops down and Hadjar gets third place.
He, as I said, is cleared. Hadjar is of his red flag infringement so he keeps that third place.
Oh gosh, let me run down the actual finishing order here. As I said, Kimmy Antonelli in first. And guys, I think Antonelli might be good. Your thoughts, Rob. Seems very, very good.
Lewis Hamilton in second. Isaac Hadjar third. Oscar Piastri will come home in fourth. Really a salvage, I think, for McLaren this weekend.
Liam Lawson finishes fifth. And behind him, his Racing Bulls teammate, Arvid Lindblad, incredible as you said, Rob, did not pit until he changed his tires during the red flag.
Pierre Gasly ended up seventh after his five second penalty. Alex Albun comes home eighth. Ended up with some decent points for Williams.
Esteban Ocon in the Haas is ninth. And remember, he started 17th in Monaco. Pretty amazing.
Poor Sergio Perez had finished in tenth, which would have meant the very first points for the Cadillac team. But he was apparently out of position.
Again, this is another one that they had to timestamp because he was out of position at the start once before. But at the restart, and this earned him a 10 second penalty, dropping him out of the points, he was then replaced by the other pointless team,
Aston Martin with Fernando Alonso. So they now have one point. Gabriel Bordoletto comes home 11th. George Russell 12th. Nico Holkenberg 13th. Franca Colapinto is 14th. And then Sergio Perez in 15th. And Carlos Sainz classified as 16th.
He got 25 second penalties for speeding in the pit lane. Holkenberg received a 10 second penalty for causing that collision with Sainz and Perez that 10 second penalty for a false start.
Wow. A crazy Monaco Grand Prix. Again, I will put a link in the show notes to that Russell back and forth with his team and a collation of every penalty served and handed down in Monaco, both from race fans.
Anything you'd like to note about the Monaco Grand Prix before we get to the news, Rob?
Yeah, just two small things. One, Fred Vassour during that race weekend was missed qualifying day, I think it was, to head in for medical checks for something.
So I assume it was something somewhat urgent to cause him to miss a missed important day at Monaco. But he was back on Sunday looks looks fine. Doesn't seem like any sort of consequences. But yeah, hoping everything's good with him.
You know, he's a big personality and, you know, we we would hate to hate for someone to be sort of overcome or let down by their body over the course of this over the course of this season.
The other thing is, when you're doing roundups of the celebrities enough at racing events and everything, look who all is here. You don't need to show Patrick Dempsey. We know Patrick Dempsey is there.
Patrick Dempsey doesn't. Patrick Dempsey just lives up the track. He's going to be there no matter what Patrick Dempsey would be there if he wasn't Patrick Dempsey.
He did acting basically to finance his racing addiction. But like, yeah, we know we know Patrick Dempsey is here. It's great to see him. But I think at this point, it's kind of like, it's like showing a fueling rig and being like, look at this thing. Yep. Yep. There it is.
Oh, the safety cars here. Amazing.
All right. Well, that's it for Monaco. Do you want to hit this ADUO news thing?
Yes. Have you seen any of it?
A little bit.
Okay.
So you want to reset a little bit what this is?
Because I was going to ask. I was going to ask you a question.
Okay, please.
Which was before getting into this, how would you have ranked the engines on the F1 grid?
Right. So for the context here, ADUO is basically additional development upgrade opportunity, which is the most severance ass way of describing a catch up mechanic in F1.
Yes. Because we have the new power units this year, the thinking was, well, let's, everything's going to be new.
We might have some gross disparities here between the power units. We want the racing to be close.
Therefore, we're going to assess who has the best power unit.
And therefore, anyone who is below that performance level, we are going to allow them to catch up a little bit.
Crucially, I said power unit. That's not actually what they're measuring.
They're measuring the internal combustion engine part of the entire power unit, power unit encompassing the hybrid parts as well.
So, yeah, Rob, if you would have had me guess who has the strongest combustion element, I probably would have said Mercedes.
Because they are just, you know, pulling away from the rest of it.
It didn't even occur to me to ask combustion, because I didn't realize it was going to be about the ice, basically.
Yeah.
Like, but if you're asking me the power unit, it's like, well, clearly Mercedes has had the best power unit on the grid since the start of the year.
And then probably, you know, it's probably, I would have said, then it is Ferrari.
And then it's probably Red Bull, Red Bull Honda Audi, you know, I guess.
What is, yeah, so that's probably what I would have said going into this.
And so race day, race morning, they announce who's getting what out of the ADUO, like midseason check-in.
And Red Bull, Red Bull is identified as the benchmark.
They are allowed no ADUO opportunities.
Mercedes gets to make one upgrade.
And then Ferrari, Audi and Honda get two upgrades.
Amazing.
I am, this is, I don't, I'm not an engineer.
I don't know how this is one of those things where it's like, this is beyond my chem.
This is beyond my expertise, but I guess my initial feeling is we have had to, we treat the power unit.
We're even discouraged from saying engine anymore, right?
That it is the whole power unit.
It is a system, multiple elements, but taken together, that is what supplies power in the F1 car.
The notion that you would only analyze like one third of that entire package, not in terms of power per se, but like, you know, in terms of like the overall, you know, mechanical share of what's going on.
The fact that you would dish this out based just on analyzing the power unit, the combustion engine is kind of bonkers to me.
Like, have we been in a hybrid system and they don't really have a convincing way to measure overall power unit performance?
So they're just, because this, to, to, to major the way this feels is we have really good systems for analyzing how an engine is performing.
You know, we've had things being able to run on dynamometers for, for ages.
But moving to this hybrid world that F1 is at, that no longer tells you the story.
It almost feels like, well, hang out, we have a perfectly good ruler right here.
And so we're going to use that even though that is no longer the relevant measurement, right?
That we're, you know, we're, we're using a ruler and we're supposed to be taking a volume measurement is, is kind of how it, how it feels.
So I'm kind of perplexed by this, that we're this far, because yes, this is a new engine spec, but turbo hybrid is not.
We've been, we've been in turbo hybrid land for, for a decade now.
So I'm kind of baffled.
It's one of the most like, in NFL terms, this was football, this is like the Patriots, right?
This is the like, how the fuck does Mercedes get an upgrade out of this?
Yeah.
Uh, yep.
The FIA works in mysterious ways, I guess is all, all I can say.
Yeah.
Hang on.
There's 11 last thing.
That last thing I was saying about ADUO.
Uh-huh.
Um, so apparently like they kind of knew this was not going to be a popular outcome.
But Nick Timbazas pointed out, the FIA did propose a more holistic approach to measuring engine performance.
The manufacturer shot it down.
Now I, now that is, now, crucially, he says that the car makers, and I don't entirely notice he mean like the corporate stakeholders like Ford, Honda, Audi, is it them?
Or was the teams?
Usually when they say the team shot something down, that's who they mean.
But if it was the car makers, who all this was like built around, then this really does highlight the degree to which the wheels are coming off this like the spec.
Because all of this was engineered to sort of satisfy the car makers.
And this is sort of the spec they wanted.
And then if they were also the ones to veto, the thing that would have allowed a more holistic analysis that was going to be crucial for letting their partner teams catch up.
Jesus, that's going to, that is bad news for the relationship between the teams and their engine manufacturers.
And it is bad news for like how this entire spec has been managed.
Yeah, but I get it, right?
Because you don't want, if you are an internal combustion engine manufacturer, you want to be judged on your merits, not by, you don't want to be, you don't want a team that's not you maybe botching the execution of the rest of the power unit, right?
So, but yeah, in this case, maybe, maybe it has backfired.
All right, Spain Rob, let's talk about it.
Yeah, so this has been a sort of standby on the on the F1 circuit.
It is a, you know, it is an every racing game you have, if you've played any sort of racing game in the last like 15 years, you know the circuit you've been on it.
It is also a famous MotoGP track scene of some of the most iconic MotoGP races, you know, in in history, and maybe not as successful a F1 facility.
It is it is not generated quite the same level of drama as as it has in MotoGP.
They amended the track a few years ago to try and spice things up and sort of make for a more dynamic final sector that appeared to not accomplish a whole lot.
But this is also a track that is nearing the tail end of its tenure as like a standby on the F1 calendar.
I think from here it might be moving into a alternating role with, you know, some of the other classic tracks, but with the Madrid, I think.
Okay, so is that right?
I can't remember if Madrid was going to be like there every year and then Catalonia will be cycling between.
Oh, with Spa maybe.
Yeah, the F1 doing a lot of things to like F1 wants to be racing wants to have destination races as much as possible, like in cities.
That is that is the direction they want the sport to go.
And they kind of resent the classic purpose built like racing facilities and they're trying to move those to a sort of supporting role.
And Catalonia is the latest to fall victim to this.
But it is a famous one known track.
You know, as far as how it tends to go for for F1, you know, you get a lot of action.
It's got a very long like runway scale, main straight, long run down to turn one and two where you see a ton of action through.
It's a right and then a left hander where it's they're still relatively fast.
But you're breaking so hard coming off that that long, long straight that it tends to feel very slow, but they're they're wide.
It's a wide corner complex.
A lot of space people to run off if they if they get it wrong and a lot of space to try to navigate two cars side by side through the whole thing.
And that will set you up for a long sweeping right hander for a turn three that feeds you into the, you know, more twisting and technical downhill second sector.
Where, you know, you sort of head into the infield of the circuit and you get a lot of, you know, really, really tight, tight corners and almost like microscopic straights.
Before you head back down to turn 10, the sharpest corner on the on the race, it tends to it is a sharper corner.
I think then circuit maps tend to indicate the the way the drivers tend to attack it is is a fairly sharp hairpin.
There is a lot of runway and a lot of tarmac, but they don't generally use the use all of that for the for the racing line.
You're really cutting that apex hard.
And then you are using the outside apron of the track to sort of go speeding up to turn 11 a fast left hander into a tight turn 12.
And that feeds you into a section where you're picking up speed through through fast corners heading back to that main straight.
So so really like hitting that hitting that hairpin in town and then getting that sector right is crucial for hitting the main straight with maximum power as you as you come around.
So, you know, it's a track that I think in previous years has not been shown to its best advantage because it would exaggerate the difficulties that a lot of cars had following each other due to arrow.
And, you know, like a lot of tracks, the story would completely change if you had rain.
But in terms of like on track action, it became a circuit where outside of the DRS sounds to be a real struggle to get much action going.
Obviously, we have a totally different spec here.
So it'd be ironic if if the new spec effectively fixes what's wrong with Catalonia, right?
If they're about to remove it from full time presence on the calendar.
But hopefully we get a good one to to bid it farewell.
Well, last five winners here.
Most recently, Oscar Piestri, then three Verstappens and then Lewis Hamilton.
Historically in the last since 2019, George Russell, it's one of his better tracks.
It's not.
It's also a good track for racing bulls statistically.
But for Charlie Claire, Lando Norris and Alex Alban, it is in their their bottom five in terms of performance as it is for McLaren.
Statistically, though, Mercedes is usually pretty good here and then Ferrari and then Red Bull.
You were right.
It is literally a one to one swap between Catalonia and Spa.
So 2032 is one that's swapping arrangement.
You know, that's the last year we know that from here, they're going to be alternating, which I'd be pissed to have a spot to because they send a ton of money into circuit upgrades.
But I tend not to be.
We all remember what happens when F1 starts swapping circuits.
That is that hell's waiting room.
Think about how swapping venues for the German Grand Prix was the harbinger of there being no more German Grand Prix.
Yeah.
My own personal ratings for this race have not been very high.
I've rated it a two out of four the last three years and before that was a three.
But hey, seems like Monaco could be chaos.
Why not Spain?
So we have a weird sprint this weekend.
All right, weather wise, Saturday in qualifying time, warm at 84 Fahrenheit or 29 Celsius, 0% chance of precipitation and light wind seven miles an hour out of the south or 11 kilometers an hour on race day.
Much the same slightly cooler temps, 0% precipitation and similar wind.
So just standard weather.
Heading into the weekend, Kimmy Antonelli is on top of the driver's championship with 131 points.
George Russell, 88 in second.
That is quite a margin.
But again, we're only what six races into the season.
Anything can happen.
Charlotte Claire in third with 75 points.
Lewis Hamilton in fourth with 72.
Landon Orris is fifth with 58 and Oscar Piastri sixth with 48.
Max Verstappen is in seventh with 43.
Pierre Gasly in eighth with 20.
Oliver Bearman is in ninth with 18 points and Liam Lawson, number 10 with 16 points.
Colopinto's got 15.
Hajar has 14.
Sines has six.
Lindblad has five.
Gabrielle Bordoletto in 15th place has two points.
And then Esteban Ocon and Alex Albon have one.
Is this right?
Because doesn't Alonso have a point?
That is a good question.
I'm looking at the official, oh wow, I just refreshed.
Y'all.
And I have to do this again.
Thanks for nothing, Formula One dot com.
Kimmy Antonelli, 156 points.
In second place, Lewis Hamilton with 90.
George Russell is in third with 88 still.
Charlotte Claire in fourth with 75.
Oscar Piastri is now in fifth with 60 points.
See now we're getting, here's how the race changed, the driver's championship.
Lano Norris is in sixth with 58 points.
Max Verstappen still seventh with 43.
Hajar now eighth with 29 points.
Liam Lawson 26, tied on points with Pierre Gasly in 10th.
Ollie Bearman's got 18.
Colopinto's got 15.
Lindblad has six.
Sines has, I'm sorry, Lindblad has 13.
Sines has six and Alex Albon in 15th with five points.
Then we have Ocon in 16th with three.
Bordoletto with two and Alonso with one.
Behind him, the zeros of Hulkenberg, Bottas, Perez and Stroll.
Teams, alright, refresh.
Mercedes is on top with 244 points to Ferrari's 165.
McLaren is in third with 118 points and Red Bull in fourth with 72.
Alpine is in fifth with 41 points and then Racing Bulls has 39 points in sixth place.
Gene Haasen team are seventh with 21.
Williams has 11.
Audi has two.
Aston Martin has one in 10th place and Cadillac bringing up the rear with zero.
You can also join the standings yourself using the link in our show notes to join the official Shift of One Fantasy League.
Here are the top three from Monaco in third.
Bridge on the River Kauai.
Very, very good.
In second, Lando the victor and in first, Hambot Verpère.
Overall though, the picture looks like this.
In third, Rich Men of North Monaco.
In second, the Macarena and in first, cigarettes.
Beautiful.
Yes.
You can send us an email if you like.
Shift of OnePodcast or gmail.com or go to f1.cool slash emails.
You can also hit us up on the socials that is up around us, around the internet.
Now let's take it around the world of racing.
Rob, this weekend, the 24 hours of Le Mans at Circuit Le Sarth in Le Mans, France.
Catch it.
The World Superbike Championship is at Misano World Circuit, Marco Simoncelli in Rimini, Italy.
Formula 2 and Formula 3 will be supporting Formula 1 at the Circuit de Barcelona, Catalonia.
The NASCAR O'Reilly Auto Parts series is in Pocono in Long Pond, Pennsylvania for the Miller Tech Battery 250 presented by KOA.
We've got the NHRA in Bristol, the Bristol Dragway in Bristol, Tennessee for the SuperGrip Thunder Valley Nationals.
And we've got NASCAR also at the Tricky Triangle in Pocono for the Great American Getaway 400 presented by VisitPA.
Sorry.
Yes.
Oh, Tricky Triangle.
Yeah.
Okay.
I think you said Tricky Triangle.
And so I was like imagining a Bermuda Triangle situation for like Poultry.
This clarifies a lot for me.
Thank you.
Have you ever seen this hurricane in Pocono?
True.
True.
I have not.
And Formula 1, maybe you've heard of it, kicks off this weekend Friday, June 12th, Free Practice 1, 7.30am Eastern Time, followed by Free Practice 2 at 11am.
Saturday, June 13th, Free Practice 3 starts at 6.30am Eastern, followed by qualifying at 10am.
But the race, everyone, Sunday, June 14th at 9am Eastern.
Not on ESPN.
On Apple TV.
Okay.
We did it, Rob.
We made it through the pod.
Thank you for rearranging your schedule.
You're even rearranging yours.
All good.
I've been working together to make it happen.
That's right.
Danny, definitely back barring some flight mishaps in the States.
Yeah, look forward to that Spanish Grand Prix.
If you'd like to support the show.
Well, I'm sorry.
Final thoughts, Rob.
Here, after Monaco ahead of Spain.
You're in for the German War.
Yes, Danny will be back with more news from history.
If you'd like to support the show and get access to all of our bonus episodes,
the early ad-free version of the podcast and the official Shift F1 Discord,
you can do so over at patreon.com.
Have a good race weekend, everyone.
We will see you all next week.
Thank you.
.
About this episode
Monaco gets framed as the opposite of predictable—“Nothing is supposed to happen in Monaco, Rob”—with stewards, red flags, and power-unit drama shaping the weekend. The hosts zoom in on why qualifying is everything: tiny gaps, late Q3 fireworks, and incidents that can leave drivers ineligible. They then connect Monaco’s chaos to pit-lane rules, safety-car timing, and radio/strategy mix-ups. Barcelona-Catalunya follows with a DRS-focused passing discussion, plus a calendar swap and driver standings preview.
It’s a very Monaco Monday as our podcast field is cut by a third and we limp our way to the finish with a sputtering show outline.
SHOW NOTES
RaceFans to the rescue with the RUS transcript and every penalty
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