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37:55
Person
George Russell
A very fast British race car driver who drives for the famous Mercedes team in Formula 1.
Place
Red Bull Ring
A beautiful, fast race track located in the mountains of Austria, owned by the Red Bull company.
Car
Jeep Wrangler
The Jeep Wrangler is a rugged, boxy SUV made by Jeep that is built specifically for driving on rough outdoor terrain like dirt, mud, and rocks. Its most famous feature is that its roof and doors can be completely taken off for an open-air driving experience.
Part
DRS
A button the driver can press to open a flap in the back wing of the car, making it go faster on straightaways to help pass other cars.
Person
Kimi Antonelli
A young, extremely talented Italian race car driver who is being groomed by Mercedes to be their next superstar.
Term
double yellow flag
A warning flag that means there is a big crash ahead. Drivers must slow down a lot, and any fast lap times they are trying to set will be canceled.
Term
regenerative braking
A system that captures the energy normally wasted when a car brakes and turns it into electricity to recharge the hybrid battery, giving the car extra power later.
Concept
clipping
When a hybrid race car runs out of battery power or hits its legal limit for electric boost on a straightaway, causing the car to suddenly feel like it's slowing down.
Term
thermal degradation
When race car tires get too hot and start losing their grip because the rubber is literally overheating, making the car slide around.
Place
Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course
A famous, twisty race track in Ohio known for its hills and challenging turns where IndyCar races every year.
Person
Felipe Nasr
A highly successful Brazilian race car driver who has raced in Formula 1 and sports cars, and sometimes helps test IndyCars.
LIVE
This is off track.
Hello.
Welcome to off track with engine Rossi.
How's your weekend?
It was good, bro.
Uh, we have a pretty big time delay here in terms of, uh, communicating via, um, Indian
apolis, California to London, which further proves my point.
We never went to the moon.
Certainly didn't call anyone on landline to get to the moon.
And yeah, here we are.
F1 race.
Pretty boring.
George Russell still a and we go to middle high this week and happy 4th of July, America's
250th birthday.
Let's go.
See ya.
What a great episode guys.
We'll get to Nashville next week.
I, I, I think it's, I almost think it's working.
I almost think we're all on a similar, oh, thank God.
Okay.
So yeah, we've been having some technical difficulties guys and to Alex's, yeah, as
he alluded to it's because Tim's in California smashing pills apparently as a Beverly,
yeah, as a Beverly, Beverly, Hilly and, um, and I'm in London.
So yeah, it's, it's the signals going all over the world.
This is actually the best argument you have for us not going to the moon is the lack of
ability to have a good signal between three places.
Well, I don't know because the, the two U.S. signals are doing pretty well.
It's, uh, it's the one in the U.S.
Uh, it might as well be, we put a flag on it.
It is part of the U.S. I guess in some capacity.
Yeah.
No, dude, you gotta remember I'm in a city that was built like a thousand years ago.
So the moon was down before London.
No, no.
I'm in London lost its best people in 1776.
I don't think, I don't think many of you guys were in London.
Yeah.
But you had our collective brain power.
Yeah.
Anyway.
Yeah.
So how was your, how actually was your weekend, Alex?
What did you get up to this weekend?
My weekend was nice, bro.
Um, you know, you take the weekends that you can get these days with the schedule, especially
as there's, uh, this weekend plus one more off until the end of the IndyCar season, which
is, uh, in a wild sentence to say, considering there's still, I don't know, eight races left.
No, that can't be right in July.
We have a weekend off in August.
We have a weekend off.
No, we do not.
That is DC.
No, no.
But before that, the, the last week, like the first week end of August, like the July
31st.
You were right.
You were right.
I'm sorry.
I was going to be in really big trouble.
You're right.
So I'm sorry.
You can't be very interested.
There's three weekends off until the end of the IndyCar season, which again, I mean,
the point remains the same.
Um, yes.
You're gone more than we're not.
Yeah.
Just enjoyed, enjoyed the time at home.
No real interesting stories to share.
Unfortunately.
Oh, ring.
I assume.
Yeah.
Well, I know that you were following along with the US and the World Cup because I'm,
I'm, I see the text messages in the group chat.
I was not.
I don't, I don't care.
Okay.
So you just, you just celebrate when they win, but you don't actually, you don't know
until the group chat goes off.
No, it's funny.
Uh, actually it was you and I that were kind of the ones that were not paying attention.
Yeah.
It's funny how you still don't know how group chats work because, um, just because some
people in the group chat are saying things, it doesn't mean that that's the full like
understanding of the pros.
It's just normally anything, anytime it's like something pro America, you're usually
very on board.
No, I mean, we're obviously going to win the World Cup, but that doesn't mean I have
to watch.
I just don't, I don't like to acknowledge that there's an existence of a group chat that
I'm not in.
That's why we try to bring it up as often as possible.
Yeah.
It just doesn't feel right.
It's only, don't worry.
It don't feel bad.
It's just the first friends that are from Indianapolis.
Well, no, it's, it's, it's just people that, um, you know, we enjoy talking to.
Yeah.
And try and spend time with.
That's how I was reading it.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We're on the same page.
Okay.
Good.
Good.
I'm glad there's no confusion there.
Um, I'd also like to just sidebar candid also moving on in the World Cup.
To where?
I, the round is 16, the sweet 16, I think they call it.
I might be mixing that up with another tournament.
Tim, what did you do this weekend?
Anything fun and exciting?
Yeah.
Actually, I had a pretty cool thing that I did this weekend.
I doubt it.
The Academy Museum is like one stop away on the Metro.
Not cool.
So I went to a screening of North by Northwest where Guillermo del Toro gave a 30 minute
lecture beforehand about how Hitchcock directed it.
And then he came back out after the movie and broke down how they made the famous airplane
scene.
And then we watched it again, just that scene with Guillermo del Toro giving live commentary.
Isn't that?
I think this kid is North, right?
Northwest.
Oh, Northwest.
I get you now.
Yes.
Sure.
So I did not know that Alfred Hitchcock created the film and music festival in Austin, Texas.
He was prolific.
He was prolific.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I thought that was a newer thing.
Maybe it was wrong.
No, that's South by Southwest, dumbass.
Oh, yeah, that's right.
I was just going with it.
I've also spoken on a panel at that event and still didn't get it.
I thought you were doing that intentionally.
I didn't realize you actually mixed that up.
I'm very tired, Tim.
I'm very tired.
Oh, is he tired?
I'm tired.
I didn't get to sleep till noon today like you did.
I got up at 7.15.
Yeah, your time.
Yeah, that's noon in England.
That's like, I can't even do that math for I am.
But yes, it was very cool.
That does actually sound kind of cool, like a little nerdy, but interesting for people
that like that stuff, which I know you do.
So I'm glad you got to do it.
Okay, James.
So it was Austria this weekend.
We had a chat before you went about how much you were looking forward to going to that
race because it's kind of like a mini spa, a mini road America in some aspects.
Did it live up to the hype?
I'm going to say yes.
I'm going to say that I thought the track was very cool.
I thought they'd do a really good job at the facilities.
It was one of them, despite being one, because I hear this thing, right?
Although really cool old tracks, whether it's spa, Silverstone, Suzuka, Monza, all like
on the F1 circuit, they're in the middle of nowhere, right?
So the infrastructure for getting people in it, it's two lane roads basically.
And Austria is not too different.
It's closer to a highway than a lot of those other places, but to get out of the track
is still two lane roads.
And it was the most efficient exit of the actual track of any of the busy F1 races that I've
been to, even including Austin.
Like Austin's a nightmare.
It takes you an hour to get out of the parking lot.
This was like Austro-German efficiency at its finest, and it was genuinely very impressive.
We stayed in a little town called Graz.
I don't know if you've been there, if you ever stayed there.
Sure have.
Which was fine.
Which was fine.
But yeah, dude, it was just, it was hot.
There's like this heat wave hitting Europe, and they don't know how to do heat very well
over here.
At all.
Yeah.
Thankfully, mercifully, my hotel had air conditioning when it worked.
It was great.
Didn't have much else, but like the shower, if you open the shower door, like the shower
door would like hit the bed basically on the way out.
And then like the sink was just in the room, and the shower was like part of the room.
It was weird.
It was a weird way out.
Well I guess that means if you got hot in the middle of the night, you could just shower
in bed.
I mean, that's basically what one of the guys did when his AC completely cocked out.
He just cold showered and then just rolled into bed.
But yeah, what a weekend.
What a weekend.
It was fun.
I'm really glad to have done it and seen it.
I would have loved to have raced there.
It seems like a cool track.
I know you said it was kind of like.
It is a very cool track.
No, no, no.
It's a fun lap.
Like it's super high grip.
It's obviously very short, but it's surprisingly technical, despite there not being many corners.
No, I thought it was a lot of fun.
It actually races.
It races pretty well, considering again how short it is and there's quite a few high speed
corners and that sort of thing, a lot of elevation change.
The fans are bad ass.
And as you said, the facilities are surprisingly nice.
So no, it's a track I enjoy.
Enjoy to use the track.
It's not as surprising when you like remember that Red Bull on set and they just have more
money than God.
It seems like people like that energy drink.
Yeah.
They seem to enjoy it.
I enjoyed a few myself this weekend because they're just like everywhere.
You can just pick them off of trays that people don't like.
Do you want to know what else is everywhere?
If you want to think of the equivalent on an IndyCar weekend, Wrangler Energy.
It's now canned.
It's sugar free.
It's full sugar.
It's whatever you want.
I'm assuming this is a Heartland food products.
Have you not had a Wrangler Energy?
No.
I've had the hydration thing.
Wow.
The energy drinks pretty good.
I didn't know you had an energy drink.
I take that back.
I had forgot that that's what it was called.
It's canned.
Is that what you said?
It's canned.
So it's like the full experience.
All right.
Like guys jumping out of borderline space level height pods and parachuting out sponsored
by Wrangler.
We should.
That'd be kind of cool.
Would you do that?
Would you ever do what old Felix Rosenbaum did or whatever his name was?
No.
I wouldn't jump out of a normal airplane at 18,000 feet, let alone 70.
That's probably a good idea.
No.
Follow up question.
Would you do what Pastrana did and jump out without anything and hope your buddy catches
you?
Dude, no.
So it's funny because it popped up on my Instagram feed the other day.
That thing where the guy jumped out without a parachute but like to land in the net.
Remember that?
That would.
I mean, oh my God.
Like at least with the Travis thing, there was a bunch of dudes and so like if one, if
you grab bear hug the one guy and pulls the shoot, if it doesn't work, other dudes can
like still maybe catch up to him.
And this guy had one shot and as soon as he's going down, as soon as he flips over, he just
doesn't know and he just has to hope for that like two seconds before he gets down there
that he did it right.
Hope my aim was good.
Pretty nuts.
But yes, so the race itself was actually pretty good.
It was a pretty decent race, I thought.
You said it was boring, but I thought I had some good stuff to it.
It was okay, but we should probably go back to qualifying.
Cover qualifying.
Yes.
We should.
We should.
How did you see it?
So it's Q3.
Antonelli's been the class of the field in the first couple.
For Stappen, took a huge risk in Q2, saved a set of softs to have two sets of softs, which
was amazing.
Made it by four 100s of a second on you.
Unfortunately, that was their best strategy decision of the weekend, but we'll get to
that.
Yes, that is true.
So that worked and it was going to not get him pulled, but he's probably going to get
third, maybe second.
And an undisclosed failure of the rear wing.
The team was very quick to take the blame, which, ah.
So I watched it back a lot because I was fully expecting like there to be a delay with the
faith DRS.
It wasn't there like, yeah, they said it wasn't that.
Yeah.
But I also think that the team is in desperation mode to keep young Max for Stappen in the
organization.
And so I think they're just like, no, it was us, sorry.
And that is a popular opinion in the paddock.
My rebuttal to that is, so you're making parts that fall apart and cause accidents.
That's how you keep them.
I don't know why that would make Max feel better.
Right?
Like Max isn't dumb.
Max knows if like actually something happened or not, right?
It's not going to affect how he sleeps at night.
So if the public perception is, oh yeah, we couldn't actually build a wing that stayed
together, like that's not going to help their cause.
I wouldn't have thought.
Anyway, the point is they brought a bunch of upgrades and the car was quicker.
And so he crashed behind him on the racetrack where George Russell and Kimmy Antonelli.
And Alex, I learned a lot about Formula One flagging rules this weekend in terms of single
and double yellows.
So have these changed since you were informing the one?
So when I was there, there was the rule and it's interesting that they've defined it
a little more, but not really.
So the rule when there was a yellow was as long as you didn't go green, you're fine.
So as long as you didn't set a personal best.
And that could have been two 1,000 slower where it got super convoluted and annoying
was in a wet to dry session, which I hadn't, I had that happen to me once.
So I'm almost wondering if this new, not because of me, but as the sport has evolved,
I wonder if they've split it up why there's a single and double way of yellow.
The way the rule is written, so like, so you know that F1's got three sectors and within
each sector, there's like eight microsectors.
As I understand it, it's under a single wave yellow.
It means there's something up, but you just have to reduce your speed.
You have to reduce your speed by 5% or more in that microsector.
That's sort of the expectation.
I don't even know if the 5% thing is actually like a hard and fast rule.
No, I think it's you have to prove that you have done something different than the previous
lap. Yes, you have to show a meaningful intent to slow down.
Right. And they use 5% as like a reference.
But again, I don't think it's like an actual thing.
So there are a few issues that I have with this.
So ultimately, what happens is Kimmy comes through and believes that it's a double
wave yellow and in a double wave yellow, all laps get deleted and you cannot get better, right?
Single wave yellow, they don't care about the rest of the lap.
As long as you show in that microsector that you meaningfully slow down.
So George was on a was on an absolute heater and saw the single yellow lifted.
He did lift like 96 meters, like a not not tiny.
Yeah, not nothing.
So about 100 meters before the corner earlier than normal lifted.
Second last corner and then finishes the lap, ends up going pole.
Kimmy was on a fast lap.
Ultimately, it wasn't going to be as fast as George's anyway.
He mistook it for a double yellow, which is again, you cannot improve.
So he abandons his lap.
So George read the flag right, knew the rule, reacted accordingly and still pulled off
a faster lap credit to George Russell executed brilliantly.
What was funny is what we think happens when you look at the data, he does slow down a
little bit in nine, but then the way he accelerates off of 10 compared to Leclerc came
second was unbelievable.
He basically gained all of that time back.
So the kind of working theory is that as you lift in these cars, you can regen more
power.
And so he had burned battery going down into nine, lifted in a way that he would not
have, and that gave him more battery to burn coming out of 10 and the net difference
from his best sector three to that sector three in the whole sector was only half a
tenth.
So to your point, going back, you can just show that you've slowed down.
It was not his best sector.
I think the real, so again, George did nothing wrong.
He played it perfectly well executed.
Go George Russell.
The, I think what, what comes out of this is, is the rule written correctly, right?
Because Max hit a wall, like he spun out in a very fast corner and smoked a wall.
Normally that would be if not a double yellow in qualifying an immediate red flag.
And so I think people are pretty perplexed as to why it wasn't at least a double yellow.
And should there be some kind of rule that's like, hey, if driver makes contact with wall
and, you know, we've got to just get people out there as quickly as possible, because
it was like a 20 something second delay before it was elevated from single to double.
I feel like there's like three episodes that we could share with the FIA and they can
like, yeah, I was just about to sort their rules out based on what the three of us have
already basically determined is correct over here in IndyCar.
And you know what, here's what I like about how IndyCar does it.
Okay.
Because if you were to say just blanket statement, yeah, hey, if we have any kind of issue, yellow
flags out, you can't go faster, like in qualifying that ruins your lap.
And there are times where there's really no safety concern.
There's just a car to run off or something like that.
So what what IndyCar does is they avoid throwing the yellow until it's kind of necessary.
So if a car goes down a run off, but it is navigating through the tires and hasn't turned
around or stopped, they'll keep it green locally.
So that way you don't get hosed.
It's not till there's a car stopped or sideways or something that they'll put the
local yellow out and then you do have to slow down because we tried once this like 15%
thing and it's impossible and you can't do that, right?
You can't judge what 15% of that sector is as a driver.
It's just stupid.
So I actually think that IndyCar does this very well and has like a really good system
for it.
And I do think that F1, the FIA now need to, again, this was there.
This was the rule.
They enforce their rule to the way it was written.
But I think everyone's now like, you're now encouraged basically to try to just barely
lift through what could be, you know, a proper accident.
So two things that I take out of this just to end the conversation on qualifying is one,
like it's crazy to me that a single yellow flag displayed on a light panel is the full
light panel being yellow and then a double yellow flag is just half the light panel
being yellow.
I feel like that's that's wrong.
It flashes, right?
It's like a diagonal.
It's like yellow and black.
And it flashes.
Yeah, it alternates.
Okay.
So like it should be kind of clear.
It's like basically a standing versus a waving, right?
Fine.
Okay.
Well, I just saw a still image.
So that makes sense.
And then number two that I didn't, I didn't realize at all.
We obviously talked a lot at the beginning of the year about this new F1 regulation and
and kind of the clipping and all this sort of stuff that can be very annoying, especially
in racing when you're just having people go drive by other people because they have an
extra 30 kilometers an hour.
I had no idea that the cars were self-learning and that there was some like AI adaptive
software in there because I saw a post on social media.
Referencing kind of the situation that occurred with, you know, George, obviously auto
regen, harvesting this extra energy that he wouldn't have had and then having so much
extra out of the final corner.
I'm just blown away.
It's one thing if the driver realizes that he has like more sock or state of charge or
battery available and they're like, oh shoot, I'm going to use it.
You can't do that in IndyCar because there's an energy limit that exists per lap.
I mean, there is an F1 too, but it's a much, much, much lower energy limit.
So this really wouldn't be a thing in IndyCar.
But like the fact that the car is just then deploying it because it knows it has it is
kind of lame.
I don't know that I like that.
So this is this goes back to like the original conversation at the start of all this with
the rules where like Alonzo is saying it's faster to lift in a fast corner than to go
flat because then you have more power, which is fine.
If you as the driver, I mean, it's not fine, but that's a strategy.
If it's you as a driver, they're then choosing to do that and deploy it.
Not if the car is just doing it automatically.
Purely just when you put the pedal down, it is just giving you all the power that it
has regardless of whether it's ice or hybrid or whatever.
It's it's so yeah, it's it did show some of the quirks of this rule set.
Um, regardless, Leclerc did a great job to get on the front row.
Hamilton was third, Antony fourth, Max ended up fifth.
So we go into the race.
Mercedes was very much expected to be the class of the field, but with Ferrari's pace
and how good they were in Barcelona when it was hot and in high dig.
This isn't as high a track, but with the heat, it was definitely a big thermal
dig and it's, you know, you can burn the rears off at this place really easily
with all the acceleration.
And then the race itself was, I thought, kind of interesting, the opening laps.
There was some genuinely really good racing on the opening laps.
Some real good back and forth.
I mean, like Max making passes, Timmy screwing passes up.
The two Ferraris going at it.
Like it was really good wheel to wheel for like the first four or five laps.
Then we had some good pace and some good, you know, passes later.
Max was just doing a good job.
Got around Hamilton, sort of just running around out front.
And then there was kind of a moment where a decision had to be made
and a couple of people maybe could have won the race that weren't named
Jordan Russell alluded to Red Bulls poor.
Yeah, best decision.
And yeah, so I mean, I mean, on that second, on that second stint,
you know, it was obvious that the Max had George's number.
You know, he closed the gap down from, I don't know, like seven seconds.
Down to like one point four.
And George, George was struggling with with pace kind of later in the stint.
They came in for another set of hards.
And what Max was trying to do is Max was trying to extend that middle stint
so far that he could put mediums on to to end the race.
And it just got to the point where, you know, Max couldn't keep going.
They were bleeding too much time.
So before that final stop, kind of all of the sequence ended, you know,
Max was under two seconds from George's rear wing and came out like 13 seconds
behind him with 25, seven laps to go.
And so in that whole cycle, you know, they lost, call it 11, 12 seconds,
which really took the race away from Max.
Unless there was something crazy that happened with yellow or that sort of thing.
Because I do think genuinely George wasn't the quickest car.
You know, I think Kimmy was quicker.
I think Max was quicker, but George had track position
and Mercedes called a great race.
And I think that that's proven by the end, you know, the top three cars
finished under two seconds, yeah, two seconds apart.
So George was definitely using up all of the margin that Mercedes had given him.
Kimmy was was on a charge after, you know, struggling for the first half
the race with brake issues and kind of having to adjust and adapt to that.
Ferrari was brought back down to earth, I think, this weekend
after what was a pretty mesmerizing performance in Barcelona.
Lewis seems to have found his home with this regulation set.
You know, I think, Charles is obviously a great benchmark.
But this is definitely the toughest teammate that he's had to face
is Lewis in this current era.
So that's an interesting storyline.
And then, yeah, I think as each week goes by, the list of people that
George pisses off, who's bigger and bigger, but you can't comment on that
because you're an F1 guy, but it's just and we don't need to say anymore.
You just look at social media. It's wild.
The picture from the podium was pretty great.
Because he and a lot of people in the IndyCar world asked me about this.
He's not he's not a bad guy.
He's he's actually he's a he is a genuinely good human being.
But man, the things he says and the way he carries himself
just really brought people.
It didn't make it.
It didn't make it easier on on on himself or else.
Sometimes, God bless him.
But he's the thing.
So like so, so he's taken he's taken.
What is it?
28 points out of Kimmy or something like that in the last two weeks.
202518
Yeah, 28 Yeah, he's he's he's, you know, happy, right?
He's happy he won the race and just listened to his radio.
But in Barcelona, Kimmy passed him, right?
George started on pole.
Kimmy passed him. He's going to be he was going to be him.
He got beat, right?
He didn't get the points, but he got beat on the track here in Austria.
If if Kimmy had started second because that yellow doesn't come out for Max
or he doesn't finish his lap or whatever and not fourth
and then throw it off three times in the first like Kimmy's pace in that
at the end of the race, it was better.
Max caught him from like seven seconds back.
Kimmy caught them both from like 15 seconds back, right?
Is he actually happy?
Like if you're George, are you happy with the last two weeks
or are you still like, man?
I've sorted out qualifying, but there's something missing still in the races
because I did get beat in Barcelona.
And like I had this conversation with Brundle like off air.
If there was ever a race that I won, but like I was clearly not the fastest car,
like someone else was catching you right at the end and just couldn't get by
or ran out of time or whatever.
I was like not that happy.
I was like happy with the result, but I'm like I would focus more on the fact
that like, well, why weren't we the fastest?
Like why were they better than us?
Where are they better than us?
How can we fix that?
Is do you think that's the mindset he's got?
Were you that way? Are
Oh, yeah, he has to have that mindset because George is an elite Formula One driver.
I think that's proven in qualifying because what he does time and time again
is Kimmy can have his number like all through practice and through two rounds
of qualifying and then he'll show up in Q3.
Pull it out.
Yeah, and it won't be.
He finds another 10th and a half, you know, like Lewis used to do on Nico or or whatever.
It's he finds half a second.
Right. And so George is clearly very adaptable and talented and capable.
But if it's not coming naturally, it's one thing to do it for a lap.
It's it's it's impossible to do it for 70 or 80 or 55 or however many there are.
Right. And and I think that's kind of what we're seeing is George has
the the talent and the innate pace to go out and put a pull out together
in a Mercedes Benz Formula One car. Right.
But he's having to work pretty hard for it.
And so you have this issue across all forms of motorsport.
Indy car is a great example as well.
And you look at let's let's look at Palo for for.
Um, reference, not lately.
I can't really say this lately, but let's go pre 2026.
Alex Palo wasn't like the pole guy. Right.
But yeah, you know, he was always in the top six.
But he wasn't having to try that hard to get the pace.
And so that's where so much of his advantage comes on tire life.
Right. Because he's not 1010s driving the piss out of the car,
really working it hard to get the lap time to transfer
and then maybe put it on pole like a like a Colton Herda, for example.
Right. Who has that ability.
But you're at our pet award, you ask him to do that for 100 laps.
It's like, yeah, he might pull it off sometimes.
The car might have the the capability to do it sometimes.
The tires might hold on sometimes, but over a season, it's not going to happen.
Right. So I think that's kind of what we're seeing with the George Kimmy situation
and so over these stints, over when you have to look after the car
and the tires and everything, Kimmy is just going to be better.
So I think George probably can see that and realize that
and we'll be working to figure out a way to just close that gap
because clearly the pace can still be there.
It's just how he's achieving it probably has to be adjusted a little bit.
Yeah, that makes sense.
And then you just look at what Max was able to do in a car
that's nowhere near as good as in Mercedes right now.
Well, no one can do what Max can do.
Yes, I have to say what Hajar is doing is is very impressive
because he is by far the closest that anyone has ever been
and is not being made to look silly.
But the one thing I'll say about it, though, is whenever Max gets
the car in a better window for Max, it seems like the teammate
can never also make that jump.
Yeah, but at least it's not that bad off. No, I know.
Yeah, he finished six, right?
Like he's in the points.
He's not going out in Q1 and things like that.
But it is it is interesting to me that every time Max gets more comfortable,
that doesn't translate to the other driver all the time, right?
In fact, quite often, it doesn't quite often.
That guy, that's when you start seeing the gap grow,
which I think is really interesting.
But no, Max did an incredible job.
You got to kind of almost give him gold star for the weekend.
Piazzari McLaren just wasn't there.
I mean, they were there in practice and then just are not on the pace
and qualifying the race, but he did a really good job to stand out of trouble
and getting that fourth position.
And that was kind of it, man.
So it was George for Max from Kimmy and the battle goes on.
The last F1 thing to talk about is Aston is really bad.
It's not going to hit.
Aston's really bad.
Like three and a half seconds off, Fernando is three laps down on pace.
Like what are you is there?
I know they are saving all of their eggs for their one upgrade basket.
But like, yeah, is it going to be that's ultimately who knows, man?
I mean, three seconds like because here's the other thing, right?
Like you could show up with one.
So yeah, so what Alex is talking about is they've said, we're not kind of like
trickling updates throughout the year.
We are putting all of our energy and resource into one massive redesign
of basically every component on the car and bringing it all at once,
basically bringing a new car, not a literal new car, but basically a new car.
And the problem with that, as you well know, Alex, is you could bring one new part
and that one new part may not behave on the racetrack exactly as it did
in this wind tunnel or on the sim and you have to refine it.
You have to tune for it.
Furthermore, when you bring, say, a new front wing that shows increased performance,
it doesn't guarantee that it's not going to mess with some other element.
You don't just bolt it on and get the time, right?
You have to bolt it on and then it might mess up the air flow somewhere
down the car differently.
Like, oh, shoot, we got to account for that or we've got to adjust the setup window.
When you come with a brand new car, this is like them going back to Barcelona.
So like, sorry, Barcelona shakedown in January.
So they're so far behind that even if their updates are as good as the Mercedes
or the Ferrari were in Barcelona shakedown, you're still six months behind.
Yeah. No, you know, you're six months behind tuning and adjusting.
And you just find they understand the power unit and that's fine.
And Honda are working on their program, you know, on that side of things.
But I don't know, man.
And what I find the real thing about Aston, I find so interesting is just like,
put yourself in those driver's shoes, like you have to still go to all the weekends.
You have to still go to all the media stuff.
You say you still got to go to all the sponsor dinners and the meet and greets.
You still got to risk your tail.
You still got to put in all the effort.
You got to go to the gym.
You got to do all the things drive around three and a half, four seconds off the pace.
I did it.
That's true. Yeah.
But you did it when it was like, I'm here.
Fernando's been there for 20 something years.
Great point. It's for him, especially tough.
OK, anyway, for the July week and coming up, which means mid Ohio is coming up.
You just tested there.
We had a horrible test.
This is good.
I'm hoping this is good.
This was the only thing that we could just this.
This was the reason we weren't crashing our own vehicles on our way home from the test.
It was because we left road America thinking,
we're sorted, we're going to win, showed up, started last mid Ohio.
We we essentially were last and had no answers and we're very confused and very unhappy.
So we were like, well, I mean, starting on pole, that'd be hilarious.
Let's go. It's funny, man.
Like it's not just because the road America test went well,
then the setup when you first got to the race was bad.
The number of times that I've had like a terrible test
and come back in the race weekend was awesome.
It is like, yeah, certainly high.
Yeah, or yes.
What is concerning is the amount of effort and money and resource we all and it's not ECR.
Like I had this conversation with Andretti and Portland last year,
the effort we put into testing and then it just is a complete waste of time.
You know, like I remember the Andretti example in Portland,
they tested there five days before we showed up for the race
and not a single car made it out around one.
And it's just like.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's kind of the nature of things somehow.
OK, so the test wasn't great, battling some issues.
Who was quick? Who looked good?
Kirkwood and Andretti was very good.
So yeah, they won't get out around one.
That's probably not true.
Dennis Hogger was very strong.
Hunkos was very strong.
Penske and ECR sucked.
Nazar drove the two car in place of Joseph
and was only a tenth and a half off McLaughlin and Malukas, which was good for him.
Yeah, because I feel like maybe you know this
because I can't remember off the top of my head.
But has Nazar ever done a test where there were other Penske guys on track?
I feel like every test he's done, he's been the only Penske car and it's been other teams.
But has he ever had?
I think that is correct, essentially.
Yeah, I don't know.
So there you go.
Yeah, that's the first kind of proper benchmark that you've had, which is awesome.
Yep. So that was a decent storyline, I guess, if you want to call it that.
Christian crashed, Marcus Armstrong crashed both in the same corner, pretty big
day-enders for both of them, turned 10, the left at the top of the hill.
But the other reason why the results from the test are irrelevant, despite or in addition
to the things we just said is we tested there and it was about 71 degrees.
The forecast for this weekend is 93.
91. Oh my God, it's so gross.
With a significant chance of rain through the whole weekend.
So if you're coming out, make sure you remember your water and hydrate starting today
because it's going to be pretty sweaty.
Sweet. Got to love that.
It may be hot, but at least there's like not enough restrooms.
True.
Great point.
Well, look, guys, we hope that you are coming out to join for your 4th of July
Celebrations in Mid-Ohio, but if you're not, make sure you tune in on Fox on Sunday
for what's sure to be a banger.
Alex, we will see you in Ohio.
I'm flying straight from London, so I'm going to be tired again.
This has been Off Track with Hinch and Rossi.
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About this episode
James Hinchcliffe and Alex Rossi connect across time zones to recap the Formula 1 Austrian Grand Prix and look ahead to Mid-Ohio. James shares his firsthand experience at the Red Bull Ring, praising the track's efficiency and atmosphere despite the European heatwave. The guys debate Max Verstappen's qualifying drama and Red Bull's team dynamics before diving into IndyCar's grueling summer schedule. Producer Tim shares a nerdy movie screening story, and the hosts swap thoughts on extreme stunts and energy drinks in this high-energy, banter-filled episode.
Original notes
Despite being on different continents, Hinch and Rossi recap the F1 race in Austria, together. Plus, a bad test at Mid-Ohio has Alex feeling confident for the race this weekend.
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Off Track is part of the SiriusXM Sports Podcast Network. If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more, please give a 5-star rating and leave a review. Subscribe today wherever you stream your podcasts.
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