Downforce is what helps the tires stick to the road. If it comes in late (or suddenly changes), the car can feel unstable and may slide off the racing line.
In F1, teams use rear wings to create grip (downforce). A “Macarena wing” is a special wing that changes position by flipping during the lap—so it can be efficient on straights but still give downforce in corners.
This refers to a regulatory timing limit on how quickly the rear wing mechanism must complete its changeover. The point is to ensure the car gets the intended aerodynamic state (and downforce level) predictably before the driver needs it in the corner.
“Active arrow” here describes an actively controlled rear-wing system that deploys/changes based on inputs and/or track position. The host suggests it may trigger at distance markers, and the FIA concern is whether the wing is fully transitioned by the time the car needs downforce.
Distance markers are track reference points used to trigger or calibrate car systems during a lap. In this context, they’re tied to when the wing mechanism activates, and whether the wing has completed its transition by the time the car reaches the cornering phase.
Person
Laurent Mickeys
This person is described as the team leader for Red Bull. The host says he’s willing to switch back to an older wing design if the new one can’t be made safe enough.
A “second impact crash” is when a driver’s car hits something after an initial loss of control—often after the car has already gone off-line or rotated. The hosts contrast this with other crash types, noting that Spa’s fatalities (in their recollection) have tended to involve this sequence.
Antoine Hubert was a Formula 2 driver whose death is referenced here as part of the broader safety discussion around open-wheel crashes. The hosts connect his incident to concerns about how track layout and barriers affect crash outcomes.
“Runoff” is the area beside the track designed to slow and contain cars that leave the racing surface. The hosts say Spa has had incidents in places with decent runoff, which can reduce how often a car can re-enter traffic after going off.
Ferrari is one of Formula 1’s historic teams, and the hosts discuss its position in a safety/responsibility argument. In this excerpt, Ferrari is described as being within its rights to frame certain incidents as driver “skill issue” rather than a car design flaw.
The FIA (Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile) is Formula 1’s governing body that sets rules and safety obligations for teams and events. The hosts discuss “FIA obligations” in the context of how responsibility is assigned after incidents.
Red Bull is a Formula 1 team and constructor, and it’s central to the hosts’ blame/causality discussion. They argue that Red Bull should stop giving Max a car that “crashes out,” while also distinguishing between the car’s design and how it’s implemented.
“Silly season” is the motorsport nickname for the period when driver contracts and team lineups are in flux. In Formula 1, it’s when rumors and announcements about who will drive for which team next year start to dominate the news cycle.
The “mid season break” is the scheduled pause in the Formula 1 calendar between the first half and the second half of the season. The hosts use it as a timeline marker for when more races—and then the driver-market churn—will happen.
Haas is a Formula 1 team that competes in the modern F1 grid and is often linked to driver-market rumors. Here, the hosts discuss Haas potentially changing its driver lineup for the next season.
Person
Sonoda
“Sonoda” is referenced as a potential driver in the Haas seat rumor discussion. The hosts are placing him in the context of F1 driver development and contract timing for the next season.
Person
Kamara
“Kamara” is mentioned as a potential driver option tied to Haas seat rumors. The context suggests the hosts are discussing contract/lineup possibilities for next year, but the exact full name isn’t provided in this excerpt.
Formula 3 is a junior single-seater racing series that sits below Formula 2 and above lower feeder categories. The hosts mention it as part of a driver’s progression, including winning Formula 3 and then moving up.
Formula 2 is the next rung in the FIA’s single-seater ladder, typically used to prepare drivers for Formula 1. The hosts say the driver is currently in F2 and has had wins and podiums, framing it as evidence of readiness.
Honda is referenced as a relationship factor in the driver-market discussion. In modern F1, Honda is most relevant through its engine and technical partnerships (via Red Bull’s power unit program), which can influence driver development pipelines.
Super Formula is a major racing series in Japan for open-wheel race cars. Drivers use it to show they can compete at a high level before moving to bigger international opportunities.
Super GT is a top-level racing series in Japan featuring fast sports cars. It’s different from open-wheel racing, so drivers may have to adapt their style when moving between categories.
Formula One is the highest level of open-wheel racing in the world. It’s the series drivers aim for, and teams decide who gets seats based on talent and fit—not just one result.
Person
Luca Bador
Luca Badoer is a race driver who was connected to Ferrari’s driver program. The hosts mention him as an example of someone who had a good reputation but didn’t perform well when stepping into an F1 race seat.
Formula Two is the step just below Formula One where drivers race single-seat cars. People used to think you basically had to be at the very top there to get into F1, but that’s not always the case anymore.
IndyCar is the main open-wheel racing series in the United States. It’s not the same as Formula 1, so drivers don’t always adapt instantly when they switch.
Factory backing means a car company is supporting the team more directly than a normal sponsor. When that happens, the team usually has more resources and people expect better results.
Pay drivers are racers who get a seat partly because they can bring money or sponsors. The concern is that the team might not be choosing the driver who’s best for winning.
The host is saying there are lots of talented young drivers, but not enough open seats in Formula 1. So it’s harder for drivers to get (or keep) a race seat.
“Max” is Max Verstappen, one of the leading drivers in Formula 1. The hosts are talking about how strong his negotiating position is and how that can affect what he has to do off-track.
A clause is a specific line in a contract that sets a rule. In this case, it sounds like there’s a contract rule about what the driver does for sponsors/marketing and what obligations they can skip.
“Horner” is Christian Horner, a key leader at Red Bull Racing. The conversation is basically about team politics and how contract leverage can affect who supports whom.
Person
Marco
“Marco” is a person the host mentions as being involved in negotiations and team support. The clip doesn’t say who he is by full name, but it sounds like someone trying to manage the situation around Max’s contract demands.
Sponsors are companies that pay for branding and exposure. Drivers usually have to do promotional work for them, like appearances or content—here, the host says Max’s deal may let him skip that stuff.
The Valencia Street circuit was an old Formula 1 race held on city streets in Spain. The host is saying the Madrid track reminds them of that older street-racing style.
A banked corner is a turn where the road is tilted like a ramp. The tilt helps the car stick to the track, so it can go faster and feel more stable in the corner.
A gyro cam is a camera that uses sensors to keep itself steady. When the car goes onto a tilted part of the track, the camera can stay level so you can better judge what the car is doing.
A banked wall is a barrier that’s tilted, not straight up and down. On tracks like NASCAR ovals, that tilt helps cars stay stable and fast in the turns.
Baku is a street circuit in Azerbaijan. It mixes slow, sharp turns with faster sections, so it can look intimidating on paper but still be fun and competitive to race on.
Miami is an F1 race track in Florida. The hosts are saying that, unlike Baku, they’re not sure yet whether Miami has been proven to be as good as it looked at first.
A street circuit is a race track made out of normal city streets. The corners and layout can feel similar from one city to the next because they’re based on existing roads.
Herman Tilke is the person many modern race tracks are designed by. The hosts are joking that his tracks often feel similar, especially the first corner.
Grand Prix Legends is an older racing simulator game. The hosts are saying eye-racing is like a spiritual continuation of that earlier sim.
Term
intimidating physics
“Intimidating physics” refers to the simulation’s modeling of car behavior being difficult to master. In sim racing, this usually means the car responds realistically to inputs (throttle, braking, steering), so it’s less forgiving than arcade-style games.
Stewards are the officials who make calls about whether drivers followed the rules. “Online stewarding” means those rule checks and decisions happen through a computer system during online races.
“Sim market” just means the world of racing simulation games—who plays them and what people are willing to pay for. The host is saying iRacing predicted that demand for premium sim experiences would grow.
iRacing is a popular computer racing game that’s built for serious online competition. The hosts are saying it already has a big community of drivers and setups, so it makes sense for IndyCar to partner with it.
Papyrus is a company that used to make standalone racing games for PCs. The host is basically saying the industry moved away from that style and toward always-updating online platforms.
Codemasters is a company that makes racing games, including the official F1 games. The host is saying console players might expect more presentation and spectacle from that style of game.
They’re referencing the Ardennes region in Belgium, where the Spa race track is. Because it’s hilly and forested, weather and grip can change a lot during the race.
This is a famous World War II battle that happened in the Ardennes area. The hosts mention it because the Ardennes is associated with the word “bulge,” and they’re making jokes about it.
Relief rain is rain that happens because the land has hills or mountains. The air gets pushed up by the terrain, cools down, and can turn into clouds and rain—sometimes only in one part of the track.
A microclimate means “small-scale weather.” Even if the broader region looks calm, a specific spot—like parts of a track—can have different conditions such as rain or cooler temperatures.
A heat dome is a weather pattern that traps hot air over an area. If it moves away before the race, the track may be cooler, which can change how the tires behave.
An “energy starved track” is a track where the car doesn’t need to use as much energy to stay quick. That can affect how the team times power boosts during the race.
Kimmy Antonelli is mentioned as the current points leader for the drivers’ championship. That means he’s ahead of the other drivers based on how many points he’s earned so far this season.
George Russell is mentioned as the teammate who’s second in the championship points. In F1, that’s a quick way to see who’s doing best across the season.
Lewis Hamilton is mentioned as being third in the points standings. That means he’s still in the fight for the championship based on accumulated results.
The Jeep Gladiator is a pickup truck that’s made to handle rough roads and trails. It has a truck bed for hauling and a cabin for passengers, like other pickups. People talk about it because it’s meant to be both useful and capable off-road.
This is a specific Formula 1 race in 2020, held at Monza in Italy. The hosts are talking about it because something unusual happened with the pit lane and race stoppages that changed how penalties played out.
A stop-go penalty is an F1 punishment where the driver must come into the pits and stop for a set amount of time before continuing. In this race, the timing of pit lane closures and race stoppages made it hard to serve that penalty right away.
Sometimes F1 officials close the pit lane during an accident. If the pit lane is closed, drivers can’t use it to serve penalties, so the punishment has to wait until later.
Antonio Giovinazzi is an F1 driver from Italy. The hosts mention him because he also got a penalty, but the race interruptions prevented him from serving it right away.
Kevin Magnussen is an F1 driver. His crash/incident is what caused the pit lane to close, which then made the race rules about penalties get complicated for other drivers.
A red flag means the race is stopped for safety. In this case, it prevented the drivers from serving their penalties during the laps that happened right after the stoppage.
The safety car is a pace car that comes out to slow everyone down after an accident. Here, it matters because it changes when drivers are allowed to serve penalties.
Parabolica is a well-known corner at Monza in Italy. The hosts mention it because Leclerc crashed there, and that crash led to the race being slowed and then stopped.
Leclerc is Charles Leclerc, a Ferrari driver. The hosts say he crashed at a specific corner, and that caused the race to be stopped, which affected how penalties could be served.
“Pit under green” means you go into the pits while the race is actively running normally (not slowed by a safety car or stopped). Here, it’s important because it changed the order of the cars after the restart.
Topic
restart the race
After a red flag, F1 races can be restarted once it’s safe. The hosts are saying that restart is what determined when penalties could be handled and how the cars ended up positioned.
The Ford Mustang is a sports car made by Ford. It’s designed to be fun to drive and comes in different versions. In the episode, it’s mentioned because the speaker owned one and had it stolen.
The McLaren Senna is a very fast, race-inspired supercar made by McLaren. It’s built to go extremely quickly and stick to the road at high speeds. The episode mentions it in connection with a race moment where the car stopped after using up its fuel.
LIVE
MUSIC
Non-Boutette and welcome to Shift F1, a podcast about speedy race cars almost tripped over the Belgian-French there.
Uh, welcome. That is a phrase that takes a bit of explaining.
Okay.
Uh, in regular French, it literally means no, maybe, but in Belgian-French, it means yes, certainly.
Wow. The wars must have been started over this.
This explains a lot about relations.
And it's basically how I feel about Spa. Uh, it is one of F1, is it? One of F1's great races?
Kind of yes and kind of no. Uh, I am Drew Scanlon joining me.
Danny O'Dwyer, how are you Danny?
I'm doing great. It's great whenever we race here and it doesn't end under a sort of a one-lap safety car situation. I'll say that.
Um, although you could argue that a lot of Spa, Spa's greatest moments have come because of the, the particular weather of the Ardennes Forest.
Oh, it's joining us, Rob Zachney. How are you, Rob?
I believe Spa is innocent of all charges. A Spa cannot fail. Spa can be failed by different racing series, different racing specs.
And anything that happens at Spa should be your cue that you need to change.
If you're 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 would like to go back and listen to that, it is episode 338.
Also, this show would not be possible without our audience over at Patreon.com slash Shift F1, where every month we release ad-free versions of the pod early, along with bonus podcasts and videos,
exclusive before our patrons that 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 Shift F1 or click a link in the show notes.
What do we have going on this month, Danny?
Well, we are moving on from death races to great races. Drew has suggested that we watch the 1965 classic movie, The Great Race.
Classic question mark?
That's for our patrons to find out exclusively at Patreon.com slash Shift F1.
I have a little birdie tell me though that it has the greatest pie fight in cinema history, which as we all know from recent Oscars years is a very coveted award indeed.
Yeah, it also, you know, I think it dovetails nicely with our, I mean, the original Death Race was a race across a continent. This is a race around the world, Danny.
A race around the world? Is that what you're telling me?
That's right. It's actually based on a real race. A car race from New York to Paris.
That seems ill-conceived, I would say.
The movie is also sort of the...
Watch out for that iceberg.
The basis for wacky races, which becomes apparent in the opening credits. It's really something. I have watched it.
I'm looking forward to it. I'm not just for the pie race.
I also love the...
Reminding me that Death Race was originally the original version. Of course, we did review both death races, but that classic Corman one was across America, even though it is painfully obvious that the moment they leave New York, they are filming in California for the rest of that movie.
But look, we're not going to dwell on that.
So yes, loads of great podcasts available. Loads of great movie reviews available for the patrons.
And a massive thanks to all of our incredible title sponsors.
That video game podcast.
Rich energy. They're back.
Yes, indeed.
All right. Well, seeing as it is the Belgian GP pre-race episode.
Shall we have a little Frankenchamp boys?
Frankenchamping at the bit for the rest of this episode.
Wow. Great. I was trying to come up with the death race Frankenstein joke, but...
Oh, that would have been good too.
Before we get to Belgium, we're going to hit some news here, such as the news section is. Little light on the news this week.
This is a great news section. I don't know what you're this is a murderer's row of oddball headlines as we as we barrel towards the the summer break here.
Well, the first one I'm going to start with here is I think fairly important.
So Masterstappen had two crashes recently won an Austria and most recently in Silverstone as a result of his car not working right.
He I'll just talk to the Silverstone one spun off the track because as he said in quotes after the after the fact the rear wing basically didn't close fast enough.
And so by the time he turned, he did not have enough downforce to keep him on the track.
So if you recall what it actually looks like for so Red Bull and Ferrari both running what is called the Macarena wing, which instead of just flipping open instead flips all the way upside down so that when they're going down a straight,
the upside down nature of it actually provides a lift instead of downforce reducing the drag and thus has to flip all the way back over before entering a turn.
I I assume that the time between him hitting the brakes and it actually, you know, providing downforce, like flipping back over to be able to provide downforce is what causes that that upset of the car and the FIA.
It seemed this is what the news story actually is about. The FIA is now talking with Red Bull and Ferrari about their Macarena wings on safety grounds to make sure that something like this doesn't doesn't happen again.
It is believed that they are mandating that the transition, although I don't know that this is actually new. I don't know. It may be that the stipulation in the existing regulations is that the wing has to transition within 400 milliseconds.
But perhaps they are just either enforcing that or that's a new regulation. But that is that is what they are going to be talking with Ferrari and Red Bull about because it would not do to have a four time champion fly off the track at Spa for the third time around.
Yeah, I don't know if I'm Ferrari. I'm like, we haven't had these problems, though. Like this is one of those. We came up with the idea. We implemented it.
Neither of our guys has gone flying into a wall or fast corner. I think you just need to talk to Red Bull is is one of those things because it like is a faster transition even fully the issue.
It seems like when the transition is completed is where you run into the real problems. You know what I mean? It's like like it's too abrupt.
Or it's just if you have a transition like that happen when you already have steering input going, you're starting to like load up the wing with with like as your cornering.
And then you have a sudden like kick of downforce arrive. That seems to be what unsettles a car in the situation. And it seems like it is the rival of that downforce that may trigger the issue less so the transition.
Now, it might be that the transition is taking too long so that the downforce comes in too late in the corner. But again, that is one of those things where I don't know what the technical regulations stipulate on this matter.
It is possible they just have it's the active arrow kicks in at certain distance markers and they haven't verified whether enough transition is complete past those distance markers.
But like going for argument is if Red Bull is having trouble with the transition, then Red Bull should be putting in tolerances so that they have all the downforce they need coming into the corner, rather than the being a wing issue.
This is one of those things to be solved on the on the like team side, rather than revisiting the entire concept.
Yeah, you know, unless it is a, you know, it's break controlled, right? So if, if, if it starts flipping back over when first happen hits the break, and it still is just not completing it fast enough, I think there's three outcomes, right?
It's either Red Bull says, yeah, here's our fix that we're planning to do where we know that it will work and they test it in practice and it does and whatever.
The other second option is the FIA says, that's not good enough, or you don't have a fix and therefore you need to run your old spec wing, which Red Bull team principal Laurent Mickeys has said that they would do if in the interest of safety, if they can't come to a good solution.
And the third is that the FIA says, you know what, none of this at all, Red Bull and Ferrari, both of you have to run non Macarena wings, which I think would be a shame, because like you said, Ferrari hasn't had any issues.
And it's a fun weird thing on these cars. The wing is weird and this is the kind of innovation I love to see.
Yeah, interesting innovation for sure. I can see how teams are always looking for an edge and generally they, I feel like generally they don't do that in ways that where the opposite side of that edge, the sharp edge of it is dangerous or like pushing up against
safety grounds. So I see why FIA is getting involved, maybe to save the teams from themselves to a certain extent, certainly in Red Bull's case, but yeah, we don't want to see those happening.
I think that, you know, the one saving grace perhaps is that like at the point in which he'd be hitting brakes, it's generally on, you know, those types of corners are generally the places where they have the barriers set up, you know, in the in the best way to collect a car as opposed to say, you know, and
grow down crashed or something like that. So, but but yeah, I can't imagine that's very fun to drive to be not being able to trust the car in such a basic way when you're trying to find, find every inch.
Look, we're going to spa and we, we know that this is a track that has been modified even in recent years because it's ability to take the lives of young drivers who have difficulty in corners. And, you know, that's, that's always the fear is when a car gets, you know, in traffic when a car spins out that it
can, it can land on the wrong part of the track and then it becomes a much bigger deal. So yeah, I can, you know, I can't, I can't argue with them pressing this based on the fact that based on the two incidents that Max has had anyway.
Spa, spa's an interesting one because the spots are great example of, as far as I know, none of the fatalities because there have been sports car fatalities in the last like decade as well, in addition to the Antoine Hubert incident.
But as far as I know, at least the open wheel ones have always been sort of second impact crashes and that one's Arush, Radeon, like that's just a, that is a tricky one where you're going to go off.
But these sort of just go flying off the course ones. We have been lucky in so far as they've happened in places where there is a decent amount of like runoff before you go, you go flying the wall and you don't go, there's no way for you to transit, come back into traffic from there.
It's one of these errors. But yeah, it is something that they definitely are like going to have to look closely at. But this is one of those things where I do think Ferrari is within their rights to obviously like the FIA has different obligations here but
Ferrari is within their rights to say like this is kind of a skill, one of those like skill issue type things, right? We're like, yes, Red Bull need to stop giving Max a car that like crashes out. But that is a implementation of the design rather than the design itself.
Right. Yeah. Yeah.
All right. Well, we're coming up on the halfway mark of the season. Still a couple more races until we get to the mid, the mid season break. But Danny, silly season has just begun.
Yeah. So I forgive, let me just try and piece this thing together because there's a couple of different variables here and I didn't get that much sleep last night, which I was not partying. I'm just, you know, I just had a little bit of narcolepsy is the opposite. What did I?
Insomnia. There we go. Yeah. Okay. So basically, yeah, as you said, like silly season is likely to rear its head in the next couple of races. This is obviously when the teams end up picking who they are.
Who's going to be in their seats for next year? So there's rumors at the moment basically are floating around Haas and there's a couple of different elements of this. Haas are, I guess the rumors that we're looking at here are Kamara and Sonoda for the two seats next year.
Or for one seat. Or for, yes. Or for one seat. I think it's actually for one seat. This has been the speed at which this has developed has surprised me too. Like, yeah, last year it was Bearman's coming along really well. Good for him. And this year the speed at which has become like, so it's okay.
It's just a dead man walking, right? Right. But the interesting thing is a number of weeks ago, and this is the problem with silly season is that it's just like a set of dominoes at the reports about like, well, if Max goes to McLaren, then maybe Red Bull will come in and get Bearman.
So, you know, one seat, two seats. Who knows? Because at least we're not in a Fernando Alonso move situation or whatever. We're waiting for one person to start the whole thing off. Or I guess no, it was signs, I guess it was probably the most recent one, right?
The entire field is held hostage based on what the man will do.
He has been part of the Ferrari Driver Academy. Set of Camera was part of Red Bull for a number of years. He's not anymore. He won Formula 3 last year. Raphael has. So, sorry, go ahead.
Did you say Formula 3 or Formula 2?
Formula 3, yeah. So, Formula 3, am I going crazy? I'm pretty sure it's Formula 3.
Yeah, but is he in F2 now?
He's in F2 at the moment, yeah. And he's doing quite well. He's had a win in some podiums. So, yeah, he won F3 in his rookie season. So, he's won the going for it.
You know, sort of inauspiciously lost the seat last year. There has been talk, obviously, with Ayo Kamatsu. I think probably has some eyes on some of these Japanese drivers.
But then also they have their relationship with Honda, right?
Toyota, sorry.
So, you notice a Honda driver, I think, more so than Toyota.
Toyota. So, the other one that was floating around this whole time was Ryo Hirakawa, who was another younger prospect coming from Japan, who predominantly raced in...
Sorry, I shouldn't say younger prospect. He's probably older than Yuki. He's in his 30s. But he was in Super Formula and Super GTs.
It was also talk of him possibly coming over as well. So, those are the names that I have seen so far that are floating around with this.
But again, like you said, Akon looks like he's probably a dead man walking.
I think Bearman will likely stick around unless there's some craziness elsewhere. And then, yeah, we have everything from a 21-year-old Brazilian to a 32-year-old Japanese veteran, almost.
And then how old is Yuki?
He's in his 20s.
I think he's mid-20s. 25 or something, is he?
He's 26, yeah. So, bit of a spread there, possibly.
Yeah, but Danny, don't you feel just having watched how these things play out?
Hirakawa's not happening. People are not going in on a 32-year-old driver.
We all love the sunny haze situation, but that is not a...
Unless there's something someone you can uniquely bring to the picture at that age, you're probably not bringing them into Formula One.
The closest equivalent I can think of is when Shumacher got hurt and they had Luca Bador, the Ferrari factory driver, come in and turned in the most dog shit performances in F1 like that have ever been seen.
And it was really unfortunate because by all accounts, he was an excellent driver, had a sterling reputation, just wasn't capable of making the jump to Formula One.
It was embarrassing for all concerned.
So, that one's probably going to be out.
Yuki, I feel like, unfortunately, there's a lot of game tape available on him, right?
And it would just be, do you think that that is the move?
If Ferrari are advocating to get the guy from their program into the seat at Haas, and he's showing that promise.
And I don't think it's as important, Danny, as it used to be that you had to win Formula Two.
It used to be sort of like, you had to be at the top of the finisher.
I think the Max thing kind of blew that out of the water where it's like, Formula Two, Formula One, the transition isn't one to one.
Mick won Formula Two.
He's driving in last place in IndyCar, effectively.
They're very different series.
And so, my gut says like, they're going to be looking hard at the guy in Formula Two that has the factory backing.
Okon, I think he's been unlucky in that.
You know, if you think about the, he gets compared to Gasly a lot, because there's the well-known rivalry between them, the bad blood.
And it's where they were in their careers.
They were very one to one.
Gasly at the key moments in his career, both before departing Red Bull, the second team Red Bull, and then everything's done at Alpine.
He's risen to all those occasions.
And he sort of, I think, made a case for Gasly is like a value add to the car, right?
You put a generic driver in there.
Gasly is going to give you a little bit more.
I'm not sure Okon has made quite the same case for himself.
And then I think Bairman coming in and looking considerably more capable is that's the kiss of death, right?
Because it's like, well, the new guy showed up.
He's excellent.
Are you giving us the stable, like maximizing it results that we want from a veteran?
I don't know if they feel that way about Okon.
Okon's kind of a prickly guy.
He seems like he got better on that front.
But yeah, it just feels like he was the right man for Haas coming out of the wilderness of pay drivers and, you know, the hapless Steiner years.
But now they actually like are kind of an trajectory where they can build a car to compete here and there.
And the expectation got higher, much faster, much faster than Okon was ready to meet it.
Yeah. And I think right now we're in a sort of there's a glut of great young drivers and not enough seats.
And, you know, we always look at these young drivers when they come in, like in the case of Gasly or Okon.
And you sort of the question is, maybe we don't say explicitly, but the question is, is this a great driver or is this a journeyman?
Like we will find out eventually.
And I think in Okon's case, you know, he's never risen to that next level.
He's been a fantastic, you know, kind of like like a KMAG or like Holkenberg's another great example of somebody who we all thought was, you know,
Holkenberg's like the greatest example of that.
I mean, that's where the I like the Holkenberg comparison.
But Holkenberg is like the grand champion of that class of driver where like you're not quite enough to be like one of the stars.
But my God, it's like.
Holkenberg is like your great understudy on Broadway, right?
Where it's like everyone who sees him called up is going to be like, God damn.
So we didn't see the star that night.
They had the understudy playing the character, but like he was so fucking good.
It was incredible.
And that's kind of Holkenberg, right?
Where it's like on his day, he will turn in those those performances.
And I think everyone would love to have another Holkenberg, I think to a degree, Volterys and his like, are you are you a Holkenberg era?
And just about to be, but he's almost there.
But even there, that's a high standard.
Like if we're going to keep you around until your forties in F one and you're not like a multi-time world champion, then you've got to really bring the maximizing of opportunities and just being a great presence on the team.
And I'm not sure O'Conn is living up to that standard.
And so you're kind of going to go fishing for, even if you're like, well, we need a Holkenberg type character.
You're going to say go fish if you're sitting there with O'Conn.
Yeah, I was just about to say the same thing about Botas in a way is sort of like the, if Holkenberg is the top of the journeyman, Botas is sort of the, maybe he's up there or maybe he's the bottom of the next tier up or something.
But I think the other thing that happens is like when you get, when you transition into one of these like older drivers who is that steady hand who's able to communicate well with the team, perhaps has an element of je ne sais quoi.
You know what I mean?
And even though he's a driver I've really liked over the years, he comes with a bit more of a bite than some other drivers.
You know, he's not had great fun with his teammates over the years.
I don't necessarily think he comes with like a massive fan base either.
So I think the longer his career goes on without sort of achieving these other sort of, you know, perhaps not, maybe they're less important for the racetrack or for a weekend, but they are added buys.
I think when you compare that to younger drivers, to me, he's the type of driver who's definitely under threat as opposed to somebody like a, like a Botas or a Holkenberg maybe who, you know, with for the right price is the right driver, if that makes sense.
Yeah, let's let's take a quick break here.
But then we will be back with some quick hits before we get to the track.
All right, speaking of contracts, Rob, you found something interesting about Max's.
Yeah.
So this comes to us via Carlos signs who's giving an interview to a Spanish language outlet.
He was asked about basically other, you know, Max has been experimenting with a series and drive and signs was asked if other, if there are other drivers on the grid, that might be capable of doing the things that that Max is doing with regard to like experimenting with
other series and signs gave a response that was really interesting.
He said, I think that in the 24 race championship with all the marketing interviews we do that's impossible.
No driver could manage it.
Well, Max, Max would be the only one because he's the only one who doesn't do marketing or interviews.
He hasn't written into his contracts.
He can afford to do so and Red Bull accepts it.
As for the rest of us, we simply don't have the time or the free capacity to put our energy into a race like that.
I did not know that Max basically has all his marketing and sponsor obligations as optional.
That is wild because even yeah, we know Lewis never got out of that stuff.
I'm not sure Lewis would have wanted to lose always kind of like being the global ambassador type character.
But like, we also know he got tired of it.
And he, you know, there's that good bit on Drive to Survival last year where him and I know you're talking about like the absolute grind that is the schedule.
And Hamilton is complained about like how, you know, how much they are on the hook for taking part in special promotions.
Wasn't it him, I think last week he was saying like this, like Lego races, like, okay, this, this, these last four, this takes up so much time.
We should be getting paid for this.
I'm surprised that like, I would have thought that there are like sort of formula, maybe, you know, team based stuff, but then also like formula one based stuff.
You know what I mean?
That stuff I don't think they get out of.
Yeah.
But then, you know, who knows, like a lot of the max stuff that's out there, perhaps they do it during a race weekend, you know, maybe they work around some of that.
I think did he just make the absolute most of two things.
One is that he seems like the kind of guy who would literally just take his ball and go home if he doesn't get what he wants.
And so if he was like, no, I'm not doing all these obligations.
And I will leave and you'll watch the best driver on the grid just like depart rather than go like shake hands with watchmakers and their fans.
Like maybe that is a card you play.
But the other thing is, when did that clause get put into place because I do wonder that he absolutely play the hell out of the position where Marco was desperate to make him happy and line up support for him against Horner.
And did Max basically just say, yeah, no, no, like I will extend.
But my new contract where you're still paying me more than anyone else on the grid.
It also has to mean I don't do anything for marketing or sponsor obligations, which is magnificent like way to go.
Like, I mean, when you're a driver of that caliber, when you're like writing, not the checks literally, but like you've got every you're holding all the cards.
You can make a lot of demands, which also makes me think, though.
I just don't see what other team is going to give him the same deal.
Yeah.
Like, yeah, I think short of leaving F1, in which case he can do whatever he wants.
If he if he leaves F1, then he can literally sort of create his own role anywhere else and notice board.
But if he stays within F1, I have a really hard time believing that anyone would match the pay and the perks that he gets without getting any of the sponsor and marketing upside that they that they usually expect.
Dude, if any other team sign max, the first thing they're they're going to do is invite all the neighbors over to look at their new son.
Yeah.
Like, could you imagine?
Yeah.
So, yeah, I think that's I think I think you're right.
Yeah.
Maybe who knows?
As you know, it's wilder that Red Bull would do it too, because like Red Bull is all marketing.
The entire thing is like, have these characters sort of in prox approximation to the brand and other things that's doing for them to get past that.
Like, part of me is like, there's no way Zach Brown wouldn't want to have that guy shellacked in papaya and like, you know, doing events all the time.
But maybe they wouldn't see it that way.
Maybe the maybe the entire thing is still worth it to have our brand McLaren with the greatest driver, Verstappen.
We don't need him doing events.
Maybe in a closet, it's like, we get to generate you anywhere we want.
We'll just go like, OK, Max Verstappen, Orange, you know, send him to Northern Ireland to do a march.
That's a very nice joke.
Jenny, how exhausted are you?
We're doing marching season jokes with, we're deploying the Orange Army to Northern Ireland for marching season.
What the fuck is happening in your head?
I was going to say, like, send him to the moon.
I was trying to, I was racking my brains for like, what's something orange that's not Dutch that you could send them to?
And my brain immediately went to the north.
Terrible news from Northern Ireland, the provisional IRA, car bomb, Red Bull's hospitality trailer.
If you have Max walking through a bunch of predominant, the Catholic area is banging a drum.
You know what I mean?
Fantastic.
No, but I think it is one of, like, incredibly derailed by that.
That's so good and so awful.
But yeah, I just, I am not sure he could ever have a deal as sweet as the one he has.
And so this further makes me think like, dude, you either just got to write out these lanyards at Red Bull up to including them occasionally dumping you off the track into a wall.
Or you got to leave F1 and go like invent what the rest of Max Verstappen's driving career looks like.
Do a shoe macker, disappear for a few years, do your own thing and then come back.
You know what I mean?
To me, he I think is such a good driver that he could easily skip some of the, like, wait till the V8s come back.
You know what I mean?
Like, go do something else and then.
He's not the only guy, though, who could literally do the, like, video game thing of being an owner driver.
Yeah.
If you want to do that, he's already got the, like, I don't know how much of a going concern Team Red Line is with the eSports thing and how still current he is on that.
But he is the only guy who could, like, literally say, I'm leaving F1.
I want to pursue my racing passions elsewhere and then have billions of investment lined up behind him to pursue whatever racing series he wants to do.
Yeah.
Just think about all those hordes of fans all over Europe.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Well, speaking of crashing into walls, Danny, we have a video of the Madrid track.
Yes, there's a video.
Yeah, they posted it on their Instagram, right?
It's a video of...
They posted it on the XD Everything platform?
Oh, sorry.
It was on XD Everything platform, of course.
I think it's a composite of both Charles and Lewis driving around.
For real, not on a simulator.
They're driving around Madrid.
Obviously, there has been lots of fears about the Madrid circuit not being finished on time.
So this is at least Ferrari throwing their support behind the track.
Yeah, so initial thoughts on this track.
You have in the notes, you said you felt it looked a little bit like Jeddah.
Oh, yeah.
Like, it is all concrete walls and catch fencing.
And so I don't know if it's the concrete walls or if it's the...
Maybe it's just the Spanish sky, but I also got some, like, Valencia vibes of this.
And I quite like the old Valencia Street circuit track.
It was sort of around for...
I guess it wasn't around that long, but it was around during very important years for me in Formula One.
It always felt like part of the bread and butter of tracks until I realised it wasn't and it disappeared.
I think the part that I'm most interested in, and this reminds me of a Reddit post on F1 from earlier this week,
is they have the big...
They gave it a name, I forget, but the banked corner that's near the end of the lap here.
Sure.
It's got a pretty big bank on it.
And somebody on Reddit during the week was saying,
forget the drone cam, bring back the gyro cam.
Oh, right.
Do you remember they had that camera that was gyroscopic.
So when they went on a bank, it stayed, you know, sort of level.
Yeah, horizontal, you know, horizon level.
The severity of the banking.
Yeah, yeah.
It was like so awesome because you'd be like...
I think they still do that a lot in NASCAR.
Oh, that's great.
I think it's a common...
I mean, that's a great use for it, especially on the banked walls of NASCAR.
But yeah, it's going to be so hard to tell on this one.
It's another, you know, lots of high-speed corners.
But yeah, there's something about...
I think it's when you see some of these walls before they have maybe advertising or barriers in front of them,
it just looks very intimidating.
Yeah, so I'll be interested to see what the, you know, final versions look like.
I'm of the case where I used to be a lot more pessimistic about new tracks,
and I want to go back and listen to what I said about Baku before we race there,
because that has become...
That has attracted, if you showed me pictures of it and showed me the circuit layout,
which is just a bunch of 90-degree corners.
I would have said this is a bad idea.
I think Baku had so many visual items of interest, though, in it.
I think...
I am curious what you said, like, coming into it,
but I do think Baku looked promising just like at the eye-test level,
whereas, like, I don't know if we've been totally just proven about Miami.
Like, Miami's had some good races, but I thought it was, like, deeply uninspired.
This also looks kind of uninspired.
It's, like, Rizzless as the case.
Turn one feels like the same turn one we have in every single one of these new street circuits.
I think Herman Tilke has that written into his contract.
You know, he's, like, just used the same one.
Actually, was he involved in this?
I'm sure he was.
I'm pretty sure he was.
I'm pretty sure his company was in some way.
Yeah, it's...
We'll see, but, yeah, it's not...
Rizzless is a good way to put it, and the F1 calendar, it needs Rizz.
We need Rizz.
So does the game release calendar, Rob?
Yeah, so, so eye-racing is...
We've come full circle.
Eye-racing is made by, I think, David Keimer, who was the guy who made the original Indy 500,
the simulation computer game.
Oh.
And then made IndyCar Racing, IndyCar Racing 2, and Grand Prix Legends with Papyrus.
Oh, yeah.
And then after Grand Prix Legends, he just kind of disappears, and he resurfaces to make eye-racing,
which was basically picked up from where I raced, from where Grand Prix Legends left off,
like really intimidating physics, barely, like, you're not gonna have fun playing this, guys.
Like, get ready for real racing, and moved it to this online model, where there's gonna be,
you know, online stewarding and live events, like, real enforcement of racing standards,
and that bet has proven wildly successful.
He correctly read where the sim market was going, what people were willing to pay
for a truly premium experience, and so Papyrus disappeared, and all things were eye-racing,
and they don't make standalone racing sim games anymore.
Until now, where after some fall starts, IndyCar had been trying to figure out
who was going to make a good video game about IndyCar Racing,
and they tried to go with some other vendors, and I remember they were not well-received,
but the big controversy with it was, how can you have anyone make an IndyCar game,
because eye-racing effectively is already a partner with all the existing grid, right?
Remember when IndyCar, like, the COVID year, dated a bunch of eye-racing events that were pretty fucking excellent,
and all the drivers under the age of, like, you know, 35 had eye-racing setups.
They all knew what it was, and they were sort of native to it.
So, when IndyCar's original plans to make an IndyCar game sort of fell apart,
eye-racing, they stepped up and they announced that they were partnering with eye-racing,
and so effectively we're getting IndyCar Racing the game that in a weird way,
like, maybe you saw a squint, this is Papyrus's IndyCar Racing 3.
If they get Paul Payes to do the intro, I'll be happy as a clam.
However, it was delayed until 2027, so they're not going to release the game until 2027 for all platforms.
They released some new screenshots. It sure looks like eye-racing, but that's not necessarily a bad thing, right?
Like, the idea of just having a ready-to-go version of eye-racing that's just IndyCar is not a bad idea,
but I do wonder, like, how will it compare with what people might expect in the console space from, like, things like Codemasters,
where you've got a little more of the, like, glitz and glamour of IndyCar, of F1.
Now, admittedly, IndyCar's glitz and glamour is a little different than Formula One.
It's a little bit more hot dogs and hamburgers, a little bit more pure Americana,
or in the case of this week, occasionally sending some of your sport's biggest stars to go meet with Donald Trump
before the race they're holding in D.C. next month, the Freedom 250 Grand Prix.
They're not calling. Are they really calling it that as well? Oh, my God.
Yep. A 1.7-mile track around the mall, the National Mall, it'll go through past the Archives National Gallery.
Well, now I feel better about the Madrid ring, because this is just, you know, at least it's not that.
Like, that's, you know, I've driven around D.C. a lot in my life, and I don't, you know.
At 200 miles an hour, Danny? Good point.
An American flag waving out the back of your pickup.
When I lived around the DMV, that wasn't the flavor, but I know how in recent years it might have been.
It might be at the moment. I think they should roll it back the whole way.
The only IndyCar game I ever played growing up was Newman-Hoss Racing, which was...
Wait, there was a game?
There was.
And you're never going to believe who made it.
It was a Cygnosis joint.
Oh, my God.
Oh, yeah.
Yep.
I played it on PC, but it was a PlayStation game, predominantly, I believe.
It was based on their, I want to say, Formula One.
I think it came in in 96 or 97.
Their Formula... Cygnosis is Formula One game.
They did make another one in 1997, but I think this was...
I don't want to call it an asset flip, but I think it was based on their F1 game that they had put out.
But of course, Cygnosis is known for everything from, you know, Lemmings to Wipe Out to...
Colony Wars.
All manner of stuff.
Colony Wars.
Absolutely.
Wait, Lemmings was... No, Lemmings was DMA.
Sorry, yeah.
They did make a living game, though. Cygnosis did.
Did they?
Yeah.
God, I'm not surprised.
They're the same...
No, no, no, no.
Cygnosis is Lemmings.
Cygnosis is Lemmings?
Why am I having...
Legendary name.
A weird DMA-related...
I did a documentary on this. You think I'd remember?
I don't remember any stories I wrote like past like two or three years.
Yeah, that's the problem.
You get it out and then you have to like literally flush it from your brain.
Colony Wars, they made, a bunch of other stuff.
Yeah.
Yeah, I literally went back and watched a no-clip doc that I did like three or four years ago.
Yeah, this is great.
This is good.
Yeah, I couldn't remember it.
I had done like links in it that I...
Oh, that's why it was.
It was developed by DMA.
It was published by Cygnosis.
Lemmings was.
Got it, got it, got it.
DMA would then, of course, turn into what we now call rock star games.
Oh, that's...
I did not know that lineage was there.
But either way, if you want to see some bleak pictures of IndyCar drivers, Alex Palau, Felix
Rodenquist, and David Maluk is accepting challenge coins from Donald Trump, those pictures exist.
Does sort of cast one's mind back to the one nation, one race merch that IndyCar had to
immediately delete after releasing.
When was that?
That was run up to this year's IndyCar 500.
Indy 500.
Were you not on that episode, Danny?
One nation, one race.
Yeah, the Indy 500.
Nobody put their hands up in the meeting when that came up.
I'm sure someone did.
They're like, we should have a t-shirt that says IndyCar over everyone.
We should, you know.
Wow, that is amazing.
Fair play.
Well, Danny, let's now take it to the Ardenne Forest for the race in the bulge.
The battle, the only bulge that I have right now is the one for Spa Frankensham.
There it is.
There we go.
I was talking to my wife about the Battle of the Bulge.
Okay, now I almost stepped in it there.
That was a real close, a real close one.
She was trying to make, she was playing Fortnite and trying to make World War II jokes.
Hers were quite basic and then I threw in some really complicated ones.
And then she was like, this is why you're a dad because you just go for the really obscure
World War II things.
Battle of the Bulge, not obscure at all.
Anyway, I digress.
I have to finish talking about this before I fall asleep because of my lack of sleep.
Spa Frankensham, if you're new to F1, this is largely considered one of the, you know,
favourites, fan favourites.
It is a classic track.
It has been with us all the way since 1950.
The original version of this track was a 15 kilometre like endurance track, basically.
That's like 10 miles?
Yeah, absolutely insane.
Rip roaring through the Ardennes Forest, which is an area of Belgium.
It's hilly and foresty and a lot of World War II stuff happened here.
That was the track that like, oh, this car didn't come around when we thought it would.
It must be lost somewhere in the woods.
Yes, from the 1920s to 1950, before Formula One, they were driving on this thing.
And then once Formula One was driving on it, I think more of that was sort of spread around,
and perhaps where, yes, you would have a car, you know, barreling through, you know,
a tin can with wheels barreling through these old roads and then, you know, flying off into the trees
and then nobody realises for 50 minutes that somebody hasn't come around.
So yeah, completely mad track, really.
It wasn't until 79 that we sort of came to the version that we have now,
largely this sort of seven kilometre, 4.35 mile version.
And it's still the longest track, though, in F1, which means we have the fewest amount of laps here
than we would have then, say, Monaco, obviously.
It is a absolutely made for television, made for helicopters.
So that's the sector's look and ask track.
I think it has three of the most distinct sectors in Formula One.
Sector One happening largely on the sort of crest of the hill, that is Spa-Francochamps.
Sector Two being the sort of toboggan down the hill, you know, element of the track.
And then Sector Three being sort of a bit of a faster, you know, sort of race to the finish line,
sort of part of the track.
Lots of long straights here, some pretty deep braking zones here and there.
Like it's not as long straight fast cornery as some of the tracks we've been in recently.
There are a couple of spots here, especially after the various straights where there is heavy braking zones in them.
But yeah, like if we're looking at the current cars we have at the moment, like this, you know,
the pessimists would say Mercedes have this one locked down just because of the amount of straight line speed bias
that's here unless Ferrari are able to, there's been reports that perhaps they've been able to find a couple of tents
over the past month or so with development stuff.
But then the other big question mark for Spa, of course, is weather, not just because, you know, rain can affect a track,
but because of the size of Spa and because of the nature of things like, you know, relief rain and things like that.
The fact that it's up in the hills means that you can often get weather that impacts one part of the track
or perhaps moves across the track during the race.
So yes, weather has often given us some of the best and some of the worst.
I'm sure Russell wouldn't think so. Races of F1 history.
So many great memories here.
I have friends, I have relatives and friends who have been to this track a bunch over the years.
Apparently it's a real experience to go watch a Formula One race here.
But yes, hopefully for us watching at home, it's a good one.
And yes, the segue to weather is required here.
Yeah, we're looking at currently 0% chance of precipitation over qualifying and the race.
Although, you know, it is one of those weird microclimate kind of areas.
So I would say asterisk, anything could happen.
Cool temps are forecasted.
64 Fahrenheit or 18 Celsius for qualifying and even cooler.
We're looking at 60 or 16 Celsius on race day.
Yeah, because that I think the heat wave that's been the latest heat wave that's been hitting Europe was moving east.
And I think it will have largely passed by the time we get to the race.
And it's about 1500 feet above sea level spies.
So it's it's up a base, but it's not, you know, it's not like up in because I was wondering if its height would make a difference with the heat.
But I think it's more just that the large that heat dome or whatever is sort of is moving on.
Yeah, personally, I've not rated this one too highly over the years.
Yeah, recent years I've been great.
Last year I rated it a two out of four.
You before that 24 was a was a three, then a two and then a one zero for the 2021 race, which was effectively rained out.
So it's not been great for the past.
We got new regs though.
Maybe that'll maybe that'll change things.
Honestly, I'm more pessimistic about this year's spa than I would have been about last year's when the pack was a little bit closer.
I think we're we're have we're running into a little bit of the field getting spread out.
Red Bulls out there going like this is this is an energy, an energy starved track.
So yeah, we're not gonna be too hot.
But going into the weekend we got Kimmy Antonelli on top of the drivers championship with 179 points ahead of his teammate George Russell with 154.
Lewis Hamilton in third close behind with 147 and then Charle Claire in fourth with 108 two by two they go Landon Orris and Oscar Piatri in fifth and sixth with 97 and 82 respectively and then at Max Verstappen and Isaac Hadjar in seventh and eighth with 76 and 52 respectively.
Then combo breaker what Pierre Gasly in ninth and then the two racing bulls of Liam Lawson and Arvid Linblad in 10th and 11th.
Oliver Berman is in 12th followed by the other Alpina Franco Colapinto in 13th and we've got Gabriel Bordoletto in 14th.
Carlos Sainz in 15th they are tied on points with six.
Then we got Alex Albon in 16th, Esteban O'Conn 17th, Fernando Alonso 18th.
He's got one point and the Nico Holkenberg, Valtteri Bottas, Sergio Perez and Lance Stroll all have zero.
Mercedes is on top of the team standings with a 333 points to Ferraris 255.
Very devilish 333 they're halfway to hell baby.
My favorite ACDC song.
McLaren is in third.
A friend of mine in middle school thought the kiss song went, I want a rock and roll all night and part of every day.
Let's not go crazy here folks. Not all day like we got to sleep at some stage.
But that's, I love that. Oh my god, egg corns.
That's great stuff.
McLaren is third with 179, Red Bull is fourth with 128.
Alpina is fifth with 61 points ahead of Racing Bulls with 59 and 6th.
Gene Haas in 2nd.
Oh yeah, I totally see it. It's great. That's all I'm going to hear now.
Haas in 7th to 21, Williams is 8th with 11, Audi is in 9th with 6, Aston Martin is in 10th with 1 and Cadillac in 11th with 0.
Alright, if you'd like to join the standings yourself you can do so using the link in the show notes to join the official Shift F1 Fantasy League.
You can also hit us up on the emails, shiftf1podcast at gmo.com or f1.cool slash emails. Rob, what's going on in email land this week?
So before we got into death race I asked, I put to the audience what was the first time we had sort of dystopian blood sport fiction popping up as a recurring motif and we got some answers.
Okay.
Richard writes, hello shifties, disclaimer, I've never actually gotten around to watching this so I'm not 100% sure.
If it's just inside or just outside what you're looking for but I do think that either way this is a useful data point in the earliest national blood sport media discussion.
A link to the wiki for Dosh Millionspiel.
Oh God.
Richard continues, it's a 1970 movie from West Germany based on 1958 short story that seems conceptually quite similar to The Running Man.
It seems, if I'm being honest, completely awesome.
From the wiki, Dosh Millionspiel, the game of millions is a popular show on the fictional TETV channel to win the grand prize of 1000000 German marks.
A candidate has to survive seven days on the run while being hunted by the Kohlergang.
Of the first 14 candidates, eight were killed during the course of the game.
Bernard Loetz from Levarkussen is the show's 15th candidate.
After almost a week without sleeping food, he has an agony and then the verge of physical collapse.
Loetz could drop out but there's the prospect of the grand prize of 1000000 marks.
He knows the fate of his predecessors when he forfeited the game.
He was so derided as a coward he eventually committed suicide.
Oh my God.
So very German, very dark.
Yes, absolutely.
We're just going to focus on the suffering angle of all this, but I'm into that.
However, let's see, who else wrote in here?
Johnny from Melbourne wrote in in response to Rausmusings around early works that depict societies with blood sport as a central pillar of how they operate.
I'm currently reading the short novel Gladiator at Law by Frederick Paul and C.M. Cornbluth published in 1955, which depicts America 200 years in the future where the population is divided into slum dwellers who live in the fun sounding belly rave.
And those that live in electronically operated dream houses.
The chief hope of escape from the slums is to win a prize in one of the organized field days, a.k.a. Roman style blood sport games.
Probably not the first, but I'd lesser known and certainly very early take on the genre.
Also has some really great unhinged book covers.
Cheers, Johnny from Melbourne.
Anonymous just wrote check out the short story The Lottery by Shirley Jackson from 1948.
Oh, my God, these gladiator at law.
Book covers are absolutely deranged.
I'll be honest, when I when I heard you say gladiator at law, it sounded like fanfic.
It does, or an SNL sketch.
It does.
Exactly.
It's like Russell Croy.
I'm from Cayman lawyer type vibes too.
Yeah, yeah.
Yep.
You're on.
I'm just a symbol gladiator.
Are you not entertained?
Your honor.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So some good entries there for us to contemplate.
Rob, you'll be pleased to learn that dust million and spiel is available in Blu-ray from pdocs-film.de.
Sounds like we've got our 90 euro.
August patron exclusive podcast about that.
I just can't get over belly rave.
That sounds that's that's a bad name.
That's right there.
Yeah.
Sounds incredible.
Yeah.
Put some glow sticks in your hands and smack your belly.
Belly rave.
Let's go.
Should I take this next one from Mitch?
Please do.
All right.
Mitch writes.
Hello.
Just a quick note about Liz's question from today's podcast.
I love when listeners talk to each other.
You were all you were.
Yeah, you all were correct that there is nothing stopping drivers from serving a five or 10 second penalty during a virtual safety car or safety car.
However, drive-throughs and stop-go penalties cannot be served under virtual safety car.
Somewhere in the back of my head, I remembered this being a major factor in a race once.
So I had to look it up in the 2020 Italian Grand Prix with the ghastly win.
Lewis and Antonio Giovanazzi got stop-go penalties for boxing when the pit lane was closed to clear Kevin Magnussen's stricken car.
Giovanazzi and Hamilton were unable to serve their penalties during the laps of safety car that quickly followed when Leclerc crashed at Parabolica,
nor could they serve it during the in or out laps that came due to the red flag.
They had to restart the race and then pit under green, which shuffled them to the back and allowed ghastly to get his win.
Great poll, Mitch.
Yeah.
I remember that.
As you were reading it, I was like, oh yeah, I remember that.
It was like a confluence of hours.
That was a mad race.
Yeah.
That one.
Yeah.
Great call, Mitch.
That's the beauty of it, isn't it?
That's why I love F1.
Recently, I've become a bit of like a rules nerd on Blue Sky about Formula One stuff and people have been asked,
because I got my referee badge last year and I like the sort of like, did the test to be a referee for football soccer?
Like kid soccer?
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, any type of soccer drew, it doesn't have to be kids, you know.
Okay.
I can, you know, professionals, maybe.
There's a guy I worked with at Digital Eclipse who was not really a sports guy, but his kid got into baseball.
Okay.
And he was like, yeah, sure, I'll be an umpire.
And then as a game designer, he was like, you guys, baseball is incredible.
Oh, that's awesome.
That's awesome.
And got so into it.
That's so good.
It like tickled, it found its way in.
Yeah.
Oh, really?
Danny, you want to take this next one from Dante?
Sure.
Okay.
Hi there, Shift F1 crew.
Six weeks ago on a random Sunday.
Sorry, I need to roll this back.
This is from Dante in Uruguay, which I think might be, no offense to anyone else.
That might be the coolest name country combination we've got so far in emails.
Dante from Uruguay.
Six weeks ago on a random Sunday, I watched the Formula One movie without expecting to
like it much.
Right after that, I watched the first season of Drive to Survive in two settings.
Since then, I've watched every Drive to Survive season, listened to every commentary episode
you've done on it, and every preseason primer since 2018 and postseason available.
I'm basically counting the days until each race weekend.
Before six weeks ago, I didn't care much about cars.
Now to my family and friends this May, I'm constantly reading articles about tire strategies,
power units, and speaking about Formula One.
And you guys, what unexpected hobbies have you randomly picked up that ended up taking
a significant amount of your life?
I'm forever grateful to now be part of the Shift F1 fandom and to be able to listen to
Danny's utterly charming laughter each week.
Thanks, bro.
I hope you like my Protestant jokes.
Rob's baritone endless pit of knowledge and Drew, the James Bond of games media.
Congratulations on your twins.
Peace.
Dante from Uruguay.
Thank you, Dante.
Thank you, Dante.
Yeah.
You guys want to have a little think about that?
Oh, man.
This happened like the unexpected deep dive.
Six months.
Well, yeah.
Or sooner.
I mean, maybe the deepest dive was getting my pilot's license.
That's fair.
That was a big one.
Almost as hard as me getting my children's referee badge.
Yeah.
Recently, oh, man.
You did your, yeah, I guess your sim stuff you like to do that with your, you're often
like watching, like getting into weird subgenres of movies or like.
Sure.
You read a lot as well.
You did.
You got a deep brief dive.
But now I got it.
You got it.
It's for life, baby.
Oh, I mean, I've been getting very much into, I don't know.
Think a lot about analog technology these days.
My wife got me a typewriter.
For Christmas.
What'd you get?
I've got a Smith Corona silent from 1952.
Nice.
Beautiful.
I just actually just, this is a good example.
I needed a new book and so I ordered a short story collection by Tom Hanks.
Oh, yeah.
Called uncommon type.
Every story of which features a typewriter.
He's big into typewriter.
Oh, yeah.
That's like, that's like his like little kink he's got.
Watch California typewriter.
Yes.
It is on YouTube where he speaks extensively about how much he loves that shop and typewriters.
That's pretty cool.
That's now the actual shop is now closed, but there's like a new shop in its style that
the guy now works at called Berkeley typewriter, which is my local California.
Oh, wow.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Was California typewriter in the Bay?
Yeah.
It was in Berkeley, I think.
And Tom Hanks is from Oakland.
That's right.
And he actually showed up at Berkeley typewriter a couple of weeks ago.
No way.
That's it.
Tom Hanks and Tupac.
We were trying to figure out on the no clip podcast if Cheech and Chong were because Jeremy
had a story where once he went into a dispensary in Berkeley and Chong was sitting there on
a couch and I was like, that is the most stoner story I've ever heard because who knows if
it's true?
Exactly.
I think he owns the dispensary.
Okay.
They are from SoCal though.
Yeah.
I don't know.
Mine are, but during COVID I got big into, my Mustang was stolen, my first car I ever
owned.
And so Danny came up at Jalante.
Exactly.
And hunting car thieves, breaking up.
I'm not telling the story again about the meth and the dildo, but we'll, you know.
Dante, go back into pods.
I'm sure I mentioned it once.
You did.
You told that story.
I don't know what episode.
It was a wild one.
But now I got a jeep after that and I think I got into jeeping.
Well, you're an American now.
Exactly.
Yeah.
So I've slept on my jeep, in my jeep.
I've done, I don't know how many states in this stage.
I've, you know, done rock crawling and fjorded rivers with my family in it and all that stuff.
So I think that's probably one.
That and I guess animal husbandry, more recent years, goats and chickens.
Yesterday, my daughter was trying to convince me to, she was at a local, what do you call
those places?
What do you get animals from?
Oh, that's right.
No, like, like rescues.
Humane, animal shelter?
Humane society or whatever.
Yeah, animal shelter.
She said there was a pig in one of them.
Wow.
And I was like, oh man, I do want a pig.
But you can't really have one pig.
There's some animals that are just like, yeah, like herd animals, you can't be just having
one of them because they'll be just be miserable.
It's like, there's the problem is like when we got goats, it was like, oh, you got to
get a bunch of goats.
And then, you know, you want to get like a, you can get protective animals for herd animals.
So like, oftentimes if you're like worried about like mountain lions or, you know, I
don't know, coyotes or something, you get like a donkey to keep an eye on the goats.
But you can't just have one donkey because donkeys are smart.
So now you got to get two donkeys.
So you end up in this like, there's like this, it's like chicken math.
I've heard of chicken math.
It's the same problem.
We're like, every time anyone gets into chickens, we have three chickens.
We have five bullets at the moment.
They're about six weeks old.
So they're growing up.
They're going to have to transition in.
Whenever you like think how many animals you're going to get, you got to like triple it because
like what's going to happen is you're either going to, this is cool.
I want more of these.
They're bored or you think some are going to die and they don't and stuff like that.
So yeah.
Anyway, I want to get two pigs now.
Yeah.
I mean, for me new hobbies, hobbies that are evolving, you know, ultimately I got a nice
set of speakers a few years ago from my father-in-law and then ever since then it has been a slow,
like that plus getting the new place where now we don't have downstairs neighbors.
There's more space to spread out.
Like that is when I discovered that no, there is an untapped well of interest in this.
Like I become the sort of audio file that I sort of used to roll my eyes at a little
bit where it is, it's more.
I never understood people who made it like a whole big deal out of like, I have separates.
I don't use integrated anything.
And I was like, well, that seems stupid.
Like why wouldn't you just want an AV receiver or like an integrated amplifier that does all
the, you just put your inputs in, it kicks stuff out to the speakers done.
It's all you need.
And then suddenly I was like, no, I need, I need a preamplifier because I'm unhappy with
the signal I'm getting off this one input.
And I don't like how the, and I don't like how the AV receiver is rendering music, like
something you could hear it where it's like, oh no, like this isn't as musical as other,
as the stuff is plugged directly into the amp.
So now I need to create a separate like line for stuff to just reach the speakers.
And that led me to, now I'm in, I was like, I need to create an all analog signal path.
I have no digital intermediation.
And so now I'm in vinyl land.
And the thing, the thing I like about it, but also this is the curse, it's more, I'm
going to get very philosophical for a moment here.
Once you let go of the notion that any true or correct version of your favorite song, your
favorite album exists, a whole world of possibilities opens to you.
Whoa.
Because you start to realize that your favorite music, what you've heard is just one, like
the equipment you heard it on, the medium you heard it through, that is one version
of this that exists, but it's not the only version.
And you can find that very annoying.
And some audio files go that route of like, I must identify the one true like recording
and reproduction method for this album, or you can lean into the chaos and variety of
it, that, oh, this thing that was made in 1979 for vinyl changed when it was moved to
CD a decade later.
And then it changed again when it was remastered for an anniversary reissue.
And then there was a new version that went back to the original masters and remastered
from those, from then there's a new vinyl pressing.
And all of those are subtly different.
And then you can start really just drinking deeply of, well, hang on in a weird way, you
get to enjoy your favorite music, like infinite number of times for the first time, because
different version plus different equipment changes it in subtle ways.
And so now I am like, I have gone down this rabbit hole of I'm trying to identify do I
prefer the vinyl versions of these albums or like CD versions adequate?
Why do they sound so different than the ones on streaming?
Well, those are the remasters and they kind of fucked those up.
Wait a second, I haven't gone this route yet, but like, what are these super audio CD
additions that came out?
And then the final the final thing I've gotten into of late, in addition to like, I've got
pre-amplifier now and power amplifier increasingly like I have an AV receiver that basically
only powers the center speaker and does nothing else.
Oh my God, you've got to be kidding me.
Yeah, that was ridiculous.
I got into music Blu-rays that have five point.
Is it is it's it's not reading a file, it is playing the music off of a Blu-ray disc
like a CD.
And they are awesome, Danny.
It's like a custom thing.
So it didn't really they were experimenting with it in the Blu-ray era and the early the early
Blu-ray era and late DVD era.
They didn't really totally catch on, but they become sort of a boutique item.
And what is cool about them?
Crazy.
I just bought from this this one label super deluxe edition that does these reissues on
Blu-ray of like classic albums.
Fine young cannibals raw on the cooked great album.
It has every mix ever released of that album on the Blu-ray, including like a five point one mix.
And turns out five point one music can be very, very cool.
And again, gimmicky in some cases, but also like transformative in others.
I wanted to ask this question because I was looking at like, you know, oh, let's what's
going on in the world of audiophile for like television these days.
You know, you got soundbars and all these bits and bobs and like I was on the reddit
and looking at like, you know, five point 17 point one and all of those people
were like, do not do surround sound.
Surround sound is is a gimmick.
It is not like worth what what's your take on that?
Like I understand that like most TVs or movies that you're streaming are not like they don't
have true five point one or seven point one.
So they're just kind of like interpreting it and splitting it off in different ways.
But do you disagree?
I strongly disagree.
I think people like so I think what I'll say is this.
Most soundbars and things like that will try and make you think like I can do a surround
mix with the soundbar and maybe two rear satellites and they really can't.
They can't do it.
They're faking it.
You can't you can't turn a soundbar into two really good stereo speakers in the front
of your room.
And I think that's caused some people to view like surround sound as like fake and it's
been exacerbated by like everything now comes out in the most mix.
It's designed to work with these soundbars and all their limitations.
But like no if you have like a good at most mix that's leveraging a good like distributed
surround sound with like five point one or higher if you have like an old DTS five point
one mix.
Those sound incredible and you're not going to convince me that like there are audio files
who were like all of these are the devil.
You should just have two big front speakers and that's it.
Right.
Yeah.
And I think that's a really reductive way of looking at it.
It is cool to have rear speakers activating especially if you got a big action movie.
The other thing that really turned me around on it even for music is Dire Straits Brothers
and Arms released an at most mix of that album.
That is an album that I know pretty much anyone in our generation knows pretty well.
Right.
It's the first big CD of that era.
You hear it even if you're not a Dire Straits fan.
But the five point one mix changes that album.
Oh yeah.
And becomes like a really excellent way to experience the album.
It is different.
It's not gimmicky.
It's awesome.
It also doesn't replace the old album.
It's just different and that turned me around on it.
So like this is the rabbit hole I'm falling down where it's like now I'm
sort of like looking at oh I want this.
I want this pressing of this of this album.
But oh wait what's this it had a really good super super audio CD release that hasn't been
matched.
I guess I need to get a super audio CD player.
Let's see what's happening in that market.
Oh they're $14,000.
Okay.
Well maybe not.
Oh wait.
There's there's some that are available for a few hundred but they're from like the late
90s or the 2000s and we'll probably stop working entirely any minute now.
Croatian eBay.
Yeah.
So there is that but it is it is fully become the pipeline from like hey these are two really
nice old speakers.
I need a good amplifier to work with them.
It is now blossomed into so what is the even is truth.
What is like what really is when we say music what do we really mean by that.
I feel like you guys are maybe the only people that would find this interesting but and apologies
we are getting along but I when I worked at digital eclipse we remastered I mean remastered
took rock and roll racing which has a bunch of like super Nintendo versions of like 80s
70s and 80s rock songs as a soundtrack.
And we as part of like a Blizzard anniversary collection digital clips like made the SNES
version widescreen and like all these other upgrades to it and part of the upgrades were
putting the real songs in.
Oh that's funny.
And so as a producer not it fell to me to like we partnered with some music licensing
company.
It fell to me to listen to all the different versions of these songs and select the ones
that I liked the most.
Oh that's amazing.
I was like downloading wave files not even flak or high you know bit rate mp3s wave files
and listening to like four versions of Deep Purple's Highway Star.
That is crazy.
And that one specifically I listened to all of them and only one of them gave me goosebumps
and that's the one that I went with.
Oh that's brilliant.
That's a great story.
Which I recall correctly is the 97 remaster.
Okay.
Oh production.
The Blizzard arcade collection available now.
Yeah go play Last Vikings.
Good stuff.
Yep.
All right excellent emails.
Yes.
Check out the podcast G1.com or f1.cool slash emails.
You can also hit us up on the socials that is us around the internet.
Should we take it around the world Danny?
Let's race around the world.
Yeah.
The little 5.1 version.
The World Rally Championship is in Tartu for Rally Estonia.
The Isle of Tartu.
The Jester of Tartu.
The Jester of Tartu.
Formula 2 will be supporting Formula 1 this weekend in Spa.
We've got the Craftsman Trucks in North Wilkesboro, North Carolina at the North Wilkesboro Speedway
for the Window World 250.
Whoa am I in Window World?
I can't tell because it's all windows.
They're so clear.
I know I can see everything else.
Super Formula is at Fuji Speedway this weekend in Oyamacho, Tsumtoku and Shizuoka Prefecture.
Classic Prefecture.
The Motocross Grand Prix is in...
Oh UK, okay.
Swindon.
Oh it is Swindon.
At the Fox Hill Track for the Monster Energy MXGP of Great Britain.
Wow.
The IndyCar Series is in Lebanon, Tennessee at the Nashville Super Speedway for the Music City Grand Prix.
The NHRA is in Sonoma Danny for the Denso Sonoma Nationals.
I'll bet you could hear it from your house.
Yeah probably.
I went to a drag race one time.
It is the loudest thing I've ever experienced.
I've always wanted to go to one.
They used to race.
I think they used to do cops versus racers.
Top the cops.
Yeah.
Top the cops.
Yeah.
That's a cool concept.
I haven't gotten an S-Car.
Also at North Wilkesboro for the...
You'll never guess.
It's the Window World 450.
Window World have this locked down.
Wait a minute.
Okay.
So on the calendar it says the truck series race is the Window World 250 but on the actual
NASCAR website it's the FaithFest 250.
Oh FaithFest.
Hell yeah.
Great new blood video game.
Let's get into it.
So when they say FaithFest that to me sounds like it's like a festival of all faiths.
You know?
They got the...
I'm sure that's what it is.
I'm sure that's what it is.
I'm sure that's what it is.
I'm sure it's like all faiths welcome.
Right.
Yeah.
Who's your favorite?
Jesus?
Muhammad?
Hill.
Other Jesus?
This other interpretation of Jesus?
Jesus but it's okay to get divorced.
The first hippie Jesus.
Danny really over in North Ireland straightened all this stuff up.
Back again.
Exactly.
We're going back.
Which far isn't a Jesus do you like, eh?
The Belgian Grand Prix at Spa kicks off this weekend.
That was the worst Northern Irish accent I've ever gone.
Jesus.
Friday, July 17th.
Free practice one is at 7.30 a.m. Eastern time followed by free practice two at 11 a.m.
Saturday, July 18th.
Free practice three is at 6.30 a.m. followed by qualifying at 10 a.m. Eastern.
But the race everyone Sunday, July 19th at 9 a.m. Eastern time.
Did you know?
I just want to add a little more about the Apple TV app here.
They also do the multi view so you can put up the data tracker.
Wait.
Alongside.
Through the sky broadcast?
Yeah.
I did not know that.
On the sky broadcast as well.
Yes.
That's interesting.
Yeah, even that was by the way, all our emails from this week is like we have a few emails
I read like I pulled for us and then everything else was various things about sky and Apple.
Oh, really?
Okay.
Yeah, that's our that's that's that's the way the cookie crumbles.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, that's what's going on this weekend.
Danny, what happened this day in history?
This day in history on July 14th.
Let's get into it.
Some people only watch motorsport for the crashes.
Or write books.
Thank you.
And they would not have been disappointed.
Great.
In 1973 at the British Grand Prix at Silverstone when Jody Schechter lost control and spun
his car at Woodcott, his McLaren hit the pit wall and then bounced back into the middle
of the track just as the chasing pack arrived with so many cars arriving and only so much
track, a big shunt was inevitable and 10 cars were caught up in the chaos as the race had
to be restarted.
Sounds like nobody died.
The book would have definitely the skull symbols on the side.
Maybe I should have written them in, you know.
Nigel Mansell took the third British Grand Prix victory of his career today in 1991, having
beaten his rival Ayrton Senna.
After Mansell took the checkered flag, Senna's McLaren ground to a halt, having run out of
fuel while running in second on his victory lap, Mansell stopped at Senna's car and the
Brazilian climbed aboard the Englishman's Williams for a lift back to the pits as the
crowd cheered.
And then really annoyingly, they have a picture of Nigel Mansell.
It's one of the few images in this book if you're watching this on YouTube.
But not of him driving Senna.
Right.
The most, like one of the most iconic pictures.
Senna is more expensive to license than others.
Exactly, yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
Now you can sort of imagine what Ayrton Senna may have looked like riding on this car.
Should have drawn a little picture of him there on the side.
Exactly.
Man, oh man.
All right.
There you go.
Well, final thoughts ahead of Belgium, Danny.
I didn't fall asleep during this podcast.
I'm feeling pretty good about that.
Congrats.
Go take a nap.
Looking forward to editing this after this and hearing what I said.
Yeah, I'll be getting up ready to watch it.
Hopefully it's a fun one.
Hopefully it's a safe one, of course.
And yeah, hopefully the Ferrari's can take the battle.
And if they can't, let's get a good Mercedes championship battle up there.
See if Kimmy and Georgie can have a bit of RG bargy.
Great.
Final thoughts, Rob.
I like this tire, Danny.
I hope Danny continues to show up exhausted and sleep deprived on Tuesday mornings.
Well, if you like to support Danny and the show and get access to all of our bonus episodes,
the early ad-reversion of the podcast and the official Shift F1 Discord,
you can do so over at patreon.com slash Shift F1.
Have a good race weekend, everyone.
We will see you all next week.
About this episode
Spa-Francorchamps takes center stage for the Belgian GP prerace: the hosts frame it as a weather-driven classic where microclimates can swing qualifying and race day, and they run through the weekend schedule. They also dig into why the track’s sectors and straight-line bias could shape the competitive picture, with Mercedes a frequent talking point. Between that, there’s a deep detour into F1’s driver market, contract leverage, and even sim-racing and audio-gear debates.
We're off to the Ardennes for a jaunt around an F1 classic, but not before some silly season news and emails.
SHOW NOTES
Ferrari's video of the Madring
Some screenshots of the upcoming IndyCar game
Some IndyCar drivers went to the White House
The book Gladiator-At-Law has some amazing covers (thanks Johnny!)
Recommended: California Typewriter (Hanx visiting Berkeley Typewriter)
Senna hitching a ride on Mansell's car
Support the show on Patreon and get all our bonus episodes!
Follow us on the socials
Email us at [email protected]
Join our fantasy league with invite code C8YVREIUT10
New to F1? Check out our primer episode
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