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Car Chases & Next Year
Car Chases & Next Year
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About this episode
The hosts share a wild story about a police chase involving a stolen car and a canine unit near Tim's apartment, sparking a humorous discussion about police dogs and neighborhood safety. They then dive into racing topics, including Colton Herta's first F2 test, the return of the Portuguese Grand Prix, and debate the rookie of the year in F1, highlighting standout performances by Beerman and Haja. The conversation also touches on Ferrari's struggles, IndyCar scheduling challenges, and the dominance of Chip Ganassi Racing. The episode blends personal anecdotes with insightful motorsport analysis.
Topics:
police chase story
canine unit
colton herta f2 test
portuguese grand prix return
f1 rookie of the year debate
ferrari struggles
indycar schedule uncertainty
chip ganassi racing dominance
motorsport news
personal anecdotes
Cars:
Toyota Supra
Tim was woken up by a car chase, James has ideas for in-flight entertainment, and Alex is annoyed. Plus, Colton made his F2 test debut, F1 added a new track, and the guys wonder about next year.
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Too Afraid to Ask
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Toyota A90
"Like as you're getting closer to landing, let's say you're on a long flight. Let's say you're cross the Atlantic and you're on a long flight, so you watch one movie and then like, it's time to watch that second movie and you know, it could be a 90 minute, you know, whatever. Or it could be Oppenheimer and you're like, oh, I'm not gonna finish Oppenheimer, but like, you're an idiot."
Select text to request an explanation
This is off track.
Yeah. It turns out you can drive
through a gate if you drive fast enough.
Gates. Yeah. Gates aren't that strong.
When, when faced with a car at speed, you know, inertia is a hell of a thing. .
So Tim, you had a fun night. So
Yeah, I was in the middle of telling you guys about it.
Uh, tried to get to bed early last night.
Went to sleep when Hazel went to sleep.
Thank you both for eating. Um, .
Not cool story about, I woke up, I woke up, uh, to my windows rattling because a helicopter was very low over my apartment.
And then I looked out the window and like five cop cars were tearing down the tiny ass road in my apartment complex.
So I naturally thought the Russians were invading.
Uh, it turns out the cops were chasing some people that I guess had done something and then in their like trying to flee, they stole a car and drove it through one of the gates of my apartment complex and then ditched the car.
So for the next two hours there was LAPD overhead cop cars going through, circling off areas of the apartment.
But Alex, you missed this 'cause you're getting coffee at about one in the morning, one 30 I Heard.
Yeah, the helicopter starts yelling out or on the megaphone, like, you know, we're releasing the canine unit.
This is your last chance to surrender before the canine unit is out.
And then they're like, the canine unit is loose.
If you're apprehended by the canine unit, you know, we recommend you stop to avoid further injury.
Those guys did not, uh, heed the lesson and they're both in the hospital with dog bites.
So, um, Do you know what lesson I learned from this?
What's that? Dogs are awesome.
You need thicker windows. ,
I have like new windows.
They're pretty good, but I also sleep with my windows open.
So I think that was part of it.
I mean, to be fair, a chopper hovering above your house on a megaphone that is designed to be loud enough to reach the ground so people can hear what you're, I don't think the windows are gonna make a huge difference in that case. Also,
Like I didn't shut the windows.
I was like here for the show.
I was . Uh, yeah. You also texted your neighbors
because you tried to get in on the show.
Yeah, so there were a couple things.
Um, the first one was, yeah, well we have like a group chat with all the neighbors and I live in a very large apartment complex.
So like, it was happening in the other half, so I was texting with the guys who lived over there, but we got like a bulletin that was like, suspect is a white male and a black hoodie.
So I was like, I'm definitely throwing on a black hoodie and taking Teddy for a walk just to see what's going on As you do.
I was trying to convince the other neighbors who were on the other half who maybe had had a few drinks last night before they had gone to bed and were woken up by this, that they should go ask the police if they could pet the canine or if they could like pet the police dogs.
Um, I have a question.
Serious question about how this works logistically.
What if you were just out walking Teddy, let's say you had been out at the bar and you got home and you're like, I'm gonna take Teddy, Teddy for a walk before I go to bed.
How do the canines know which white guy in a black hoodie to go after?
I feel like that's why they get on the megaphone and give you plenty of heads up of what's coming.
You think dogs are going based on the color of the hoodie?
James ? No, obviously not.
But I'm just saying that like they're not, they they, they probably don't have anything to like, give these dogs a scent of.
'cause they haven't caught these guys yet. Otherwise
How are they catching them?
They're not just letting them go and whatever human they find first is what they're Attacking.
But that's what I'm saying. Are they just waiting
until they see a guy running in the opposite direction and then they say like, whatever the command is and it can't just be, how would they, what do I guess?
I don't know. I don't know.
I maybe it is like, hey, we, they surrounded an area.
Go find anybody who's, who's outside in this area who cooperated.
Like yeah, yeah. Oh
Know, no scent guys. Come on.
I feel like, you know, you, you guys talk about how everybody talks about like their, their their silly belief that like, oh, I could lay on this plane or I could take a bar a fight.
Yeah. I feel like if police dogs are
after me, I could, I could calm him down.
I'd be like, no, who's a Good boy?
That's most insane . Like, that's almost as insane
as you claiming that you could be an Olympic level curler in three months.
Stand by it. I stand
By that.
I know you do and you still stand in the wrong part of this conversation. ,
this is just not even, it's ridiculous.
It reminds me of a, it reminds me of a funny story.
So, so we're moving and yesterday we went to the new house to look at something and the previous owner was there.
So we met the guy and we were just like, just chatting and catching up whatever.
And we're like, oh, so where'd you, where'd you move to?
And he moved to a different part of Indianapolis and um, and he was like, yeah, it's an adjustment.
You know, it's definitely different. We were here
for a while and now it's a totally different neighborhood.
And he was like, you know, here you would check the ring cam and see a family of deer walking across the front yard in our new place.
You check the ring cam and it's like, oh, we saw the shooting and oh, there's pit bulls fighting on our front lawn .
I'm like, okay man, where'd you move?
They moved to Connecticut.
They're still in Indianapolis.
But is there a tough way to say you're from Connecticut? No,
Absolutely not.
It's gotta be our least tough state, right?
Delaware, Rhode Island mania. I
Feel like, I feel like Delaware, it's at least like, there's some blue collar parts of it.
I feel like Maine is, I don't know, big Delaware.
There's some backwoods people.
Yeah. Maine not would say has some, has some tough people.
Rhode Island. I think Alex was right. That one.
That one's not that tough. I both are,
But Connecticut's like bougie. Like, like
It, yeah.
That's just, That's like, you can't, but I'm from Hartford, man.
Like that's not, you're not intimidating anybody. Stan
Tino's from Connecticut.
Oh, well now it's gonna feel like I was making a joke about that when I was literally just making fun of that state.
Yeah. I'm not gonna retract it.
No. I wonder how many listeners we have from Connecticut.
I'm not saying they're bad.
I'm just saying like, I wouldn't be dissuaded from fighting somebody if they're like, you don't wanna mess with me, man, I'm from Connecticut.
I'd be like, Hmm. That's actually pushing it the other way.
Like I'm feeling more confident going in doesn't Signal like a particularly rough upbringing. .
Like there's even parts From the person that's lived in West Hollywood next to the Grove for the past 12 years.
Man, I just told you about all the cops that were in my apartment complex twice yesterday.
I'm from the main streets. Great
Point.
The mean streets of LA bro.
Yeah, I um, I I was thinking about this the other day.
Uh, 'cause I feel like we've talked about this and this is a travel podcast, so did we or did we not have a discussion?
Breaking is over, isn't it? Holy?
Oh, it's, yeah, no, this, we have a laundry list of things to talk about that have nothing to do with motorsports.
But have we, did we or did we not talk about how on a flight, on the in flight entertainment thing, right?
It should like only show you movies that you still have enough time to watch.
No, I disagree. But you, you
Like, you understand, I've, I've had this conversation with someone then, and like, it's a, it's a concept that makes sense.
Like as you're getting closer to landing, let's say you're on a long flight.
Let's say you're cross the Atlantic and you're on a long flight, so you watch one movie and then like, it's time to watch that second movie and you know, it could be a 90 minute, you know, whatever.
Or it could be Oppenheimer and you're like, oh, I'm not gonna finish Oppenheimer, but like, you're an idiot.
So you try and you're like, ah, maybe it was taxiing and stuff.
It'll still, and so I've, I've heard someone say there should just be a thing where like, it just eliminates movies as the time goes down.
You, you should have that option, but it shouldn't automatically do that.
Now what it, now what some of 'em will do is you can, like on Delta ones, you can sign in on your account and you can pick up where you left off.
Because what if it's your first of three flights that day and you're like, oh, I'm gonna watch like 40 minutes now and I'm gonna finish it on the next one.
That's a good one. So you used to have the ability
to pick up where you left off.
Well, United had a good little trick, and I don't usually say much good about United, but it had a thing where like when I hit play on a movie, it popped up and said, Hey, you do not have enough time to finish this.
And so then it's up to you. Right.
So you're like, but it's like I went into it. No.
'cause I knew it was on the edge and I went in and they were like, nah, you're not gonna finish this.
And you know what they were right.
Or you can be an adult with a functioning mind.
And when it shows the description and the rating and it shows how long it is, you can be like, huh, it's two hours and 18 minutes.
Mm-hmm . I have an hour and 20 minutes left. Mm-hmm .
I'm not gonna finish it. Mm-hmm . That's also an
Option.
No, you could. Yeah. It is an option. Option. You
Could, but who wants to live their life that way? Yeah.
You know, that's a sad, sad cold existence that you're talking about. Alex,
I really hope that your new house has better internet .
Yeah. Well We're watching all eight pixels of
you . I . And
It's all Frozen and blotchy, so I don't get it.
I The Internet's right there. It's right there. That's
Not how Internet works.
I it's you're in a mood today. You're kind
of grumpy. What's going on?
I'm not grumpy. It's just, we're talking
about ridiculous things.
We were talking about really stupid things.
Sorry that I got woken up by a police helicopter last night and wanted to discuss it with my friends.
But now we're talking about the least tough states and how it's bull that airlines don't tell you how much time you have left in a flight for the mayor. You have
Available to You.
James, we should just apologize. What would you like
to discuss, Alex?
We'll, we'll we'll turn the conversation to you. What would, have
You ever had one armpit That smells really bad.
The other guess we won. Doesn't, we
Won't.
No, no.
I had that issue. Sounds like a medical issue. I
Know.
I should probably get that looked at. Sorry. Do you
Sweat on on one side?
No, I, walking home from the track in Abu Dhabi.
Did you forget to put early? I was very on both.
Yeah. Oh, I don't think I've ever, could you imagine?
I did. I did not put sunscreen on one arm once.
Okay. As I put it out the arm,
You put deodorant on one armpit.
I just don't think I've ever, I don't know.
I feel like that's such a, you Probably got a phone call Or it's such a, it's such a good natural, Like, I don't know, , What kind of, how do yours work? ?
What kind of deodorant are You using?
I was more on the other one.
Alex, how was your weekend Pal?
Uh, my weekend was great, James. Um, I saw you. Yeah.
Um, we, we all went out in a sun, no storm to, uh, celebrate yours and Connor's combined birthday.
Mm-hmm . Which was a nice treat.
Uh, we had a special guest show up in Won Patto Award, which is always entertaining for all involved.
Um, and the day before that we, uh, popped downtown quickly to see friends who had a, had a, had a wedding.
Um, they kind of did the, the courthouse wedding and then had a reception for their friends afterwards.
Um, and those two things were significant 'cause that was the first time that Kelly, uh, left the house in the nighttime without Ben.
Um, so she got outta the house for the first time in seven months to do things like an adult.
So that was, that Was cool because that was, that was her first two times. Like not
Not putting him to bed.
Putting him to bed, right. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
And how did it go? Was it like stressful?
Was she freaking out? Was she she
Was not freaking out.
She did great itching to get home.
She was a little annoyed that, uh, both, both of those nights he slept better than he has in a while.
So she was a little Taking it personal. A
Little pissed about that .
Um, but no, it was a nice weekend.
We, we had a good time as parents out on the town, so thanks for giving us a reason.
They're Jimbo dude. Of
Course.
Thanks for, uh, thanks for those gin martinis.
Those were delicious. Mm-hmm.
Those Were delicious. Um, uh, the, the funny,
the funny part about, you know, as you say, the kind of unexpected gas paddle we had, uh, messaged him saying that, Hey, we're did I like go downtown tonight.
And he said, oh man, I just landed back in Indy.
I'm sitting on the, on the runway taxiing.
We've been stuck here for 45 minutes.
'cause again, that was the big day of the storm, like you were saying.
Mm-hmm . And he says, yeah, I'm still, you know, I'm,
and we're like, well, why don't you just come straight from the airport?
Just, and he goes, I am pretty hungry.
And so Patto just came off the plane, got a card, came straight to the restaurant for dinner, which I thought was a pretty, uh, pretty good move on his part.
He just got home. Kid loves a
Meal. Kid loves a
Meal.
Yeah. He does love a meal. He just got home from, um,
filming his new Fox commercial, so he couldn't really like, give us details, but he said it was very Good.
He said he was a garbage man, which is not the, uh, demographic I would've chosen for young potato, but Not, not sure profession.
Yeah. I'm sure there's a, uh,
there's some, some logic to it.
There is, I'm sure I'm looking forward to seeing it. Um,
Do I know what I'm looking forward to seeing?
Oh wait, The, so you know, IndyCar uh, released the schedule.
Yes. Um, a couple months ago at this point.
Yet we still have no idea like what time races are.
Like, I'm looking forward to seeing that because it is very hard to, I don't know, plan your travel and scheduling, especially with a infant when you dunno when the race is.
So I really don't understand what the delay is.
Well, it's so they didn't, the broadcast schedule didn't come out, eh, it's just the like the date. Just
The date, yeah.
Oh, interesting. I don't think
I actually really appreciated that. Yeah.
It's very, very annoying.
And you ask and they're like, we have no idea. So cool.
Awesome. I'll just book two flight options then.
Are you, are you like one of these guys that books the first like half of the season before the season starts and then the second half of the season?
Like no, before May, but Like, no, but once we get through Christmas we are, we're two months out guys.
You're in it. It's, you're deep in it. It's coming.
So like I was booking flights to Sebring, which is like middle of February and booking flights to Phoenix, which is middle of February.
And then I was like, whoa, <inaudible> 10 days after that is St.
Pete. So I might as well book that.
And then I was like, well wait, I don't know what time I can leave Sunday because I have no idea what time the race is.
And then I was like, well just, Just stay Sunday night.
No, I won't do that. I have no interest in doing that.
are, do you not, you don't fly your plane to that one.
Is that too far? It's not
Too far.
It just doesn't, it is not a time saver.
Oh right. 'cause you can get a direct
to Tampa and so it's Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Good call. So if
You fly, if had your own plane, you wouldn't, we only fly The, we only fly the PT putt when um, it is more efficient than commercial.
That makes sense. That's
what I've always liked about you and your piloting.
I remember asking you this very early.
I was like, do you do this for the sheer joy of piloting?
Do you just love aviation and love flying and you're just at one with the plane and soaring through the beautiful crisp blue sky and the sun shining and some wispy clouds off in the distance and you're like, no time efficiency.
Get me where I need to go as quickly as possible.
Get me home as quickly as possible. Thank you very much.
I respect that. Mm-hmm . I respect that. Um,
Okay, so to appease Alex and wanting to talk about racing, there is racing stuff hopefully, since we haven't recorded it yet, the Tuesday episode will be with Doug Bulls and we'll have talked about the new officiating stuff going on in car, but in other racing news F one's returning to Portugal, Colton Herda just spent his first time in an F two car.
Well we got some stuff we can talk about.
We do, we do. Um, let's start with Colton.
I have not spoken to him personally since the test.
Alex, I don't know if you have I have not too scared to ask .
Yeah. On paper in some respects it didn't look awesome.
Just, I'll just text him in the text in the sense of, um, what was he like 15th?
I think on combined times for the two days, something like that.
No lower than that. Okay.
Look, wasn't the fastest car. That's fine.
It's his first day in the car.
The thing that I found both positive and negative, there's a double-edged sword in this story, which was he was ahead of his teammate who's like a fairly rated driver, had some, got a good CV and, and so good that he's ahead of his teammate.
Mm-hmm . Why are, why is the team so slow? . Mm-hmm .
Look, maybe this was not a, uh, go out and set super fast lap times kind of thing.
Days you think he'd want to test? Yeah.
Some qualifying stuff. Maybe, maybe not. I don't know.
You gotta practice race runs you, first of all, you gotta get comfortable in the car.
So Colin's never been in the car.
He is gotta get comfortable with the car, he's gotta figure the thing out.
That takes a day, right?
You're not just gonna like the morning gets you physically comfortable in the car.
Probably adjusting seats and pads and pedals and stuff like that.
The afternoon you start to get comfortable in the driving of the car.
But then as we've always talked about, right, you sleep on it overnight and what kind of takes so much mental thought on day one just kind of happens by second nature on day two.
Once you marinate it overnight, you can get in the car and do everything you were doing the day before but with 20% capacity left over to look at the finer points.
So then at that point, you know, you do have to go through a bunch of setup changes and start building up Colton's database of what a spring change feels like, what the wing change feels like, what toes and cams and tire pressures, changes, feel like you've gotta do long runs.
You've gotta figure out what a race distance is.
They don't pay points in qualifying.
They pay points in the race. So there is some logic
to like not just focusing on single lap pace.
The other side of it is achieving single lap pace in an F two car is quite challenging because the tire is so peaky and it is like kind of one lap and like push cool push cool push session done.
So you do have to learn how to do that.
Um, but Alex just thinks he's slow. So
I didn't say that , um, I don't think Colton is slow.
I think he, you brought up a very good point.
So his teammate I think was either a super formula champion or vice champion or something, uh, obvious.
I obviously in an open wheel car and was a step behind Colton.
Um, and let's, let's say the theory turns out to be true, which again, we've talked about testing at length at this podcast.
You can't read into it, but you, you can infer some things.
So if the team turns out to not be what they were expecting, what do you do?
Because ultimately there's no other seats in F two available.
And what's wild about all of this is right around the same time this Abi Dhabi test was happening, the FIA has awarded much more points to IndyCar than previously given in years past.
Now, is there the potential that Cadillac and the hers, et cetera could petition the FIA and be like, Hey, based on this that came out in 2025, I already have my qualifications to get a super license.
And do you pull the ripcord on this? Like, is that even a
Consideration?
And do what? Go back to IndyCar. I mean his seats go, sure,
Okay.
They can run four cars.
My point is, if, if they as a group come to the conclusion, and again this is all, we are all making assumptions here.
If they come to the conclusion that Holy <inaudible> I'm gonna finish 18th next year.
Like why would you expose yourself to that? Okay,
So high tech finished second in the team championship in F two this year.
Okay. So I don't think the team's bad and I don't think
after one two day test you pull the rip record in that kind of panic fashion.
A large part of what he's doing over there is learning tracks, learning culture, learning cadence of the weekends, all those things.
Mm-hmm being available for fp ones and sim work and yada yada yada.
So we've, we've said from the get go, we don't really believe that Colton's finishing position in F two is going to be the deciding factor on his eligibility for an F1 ride, you know, from the team's perspective.
Um, so no, I think, I think you say the course look one test man, that's one test.
I'm sure there's, I'm sure there's a lot that we don't know about what happened and why and as long as Colin's happy with the, the team and the progress and whatever, then off you go.
Portugal, as you said is back on the F1 calendar.
Did you have a race port in Mount Alex? Yes. In World
Series. Oh nice.
That'd be a fun card. That track.
Sure. I was Is do you like it?
I won. Doesn't actually always
correlate with liking it. Yeah,
It was cool.
Okay.
It comes at the cost of Zan Vort, which I don't Great atmosphere.
Not a great racetrack for F1.
No there's not, there's quite a few of those though. Tim,
You can just say that to me.
I was Figuring it'd be more successful if I texted it and we didn't have to make a thing out of it, but that clearly didn't work.
I'm just saying stop on the popcorn chips.
so good though. You're so good Tim.
I haven't eaten on this podcast in a long time. I felt like I had to do that.
Tim's just a Debbie downer. What from you?
I'm sorry Pod have you met Kettle ?
I don't mind if he eats popcorn chips.
Yeah, but you're donor about everything else, like what your name is.
Hello .
I said hello .
True. It Could have been worse.
Could have been a lot worse. Yeah.
Anyways, um, lot of, lot of tracks in F1.
Um, I are cool tracks not great races.
I feel like that's true when you have as many events as F1 does though, like adding a track to the calendar or a track returning to the calendar is just not, it's not interesting.
Whereas if that happens in IndyCar, it's like, it's pretty, it's exciting.
You know, it's something new, something different in F1 it's like, wait, we don't race there.
Like it's just, there's so many tracks that it's like okay.
And they also used to race there.
Like they raced there in 21 I think was the last time.
Right, right. It's not so it's not even like it's,
it's like they've got that Mad Street race coming.
I think people are pretty excited about that. That
Is exciting because It's something different.
Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm Just funny
that Tim clearly googled new Motorsport news.
No, I did significantly less than that.
I just opened Twitter and those were the things that I saw .
Cool. So while Tim brought up F1, there's something
that I'm curious about 'cause we haven't really talked about this, uh, since the season ended, but big depth of talent in the rookie field in F1 this year.
We'll be curious on who your rookie of the year is between Hija, Bearman, Antonelli, BTO Lawson, and I guess, I mean, I don't think Kop Pento counts actually. I think he did too many races.
Um, Bearman by a mile Inter.
Okay. That is also mine, but I wouldn't have said by a mile.
So why? Okay.
Um, well I think the, the next, the next one you go to is Isaac or however the hell you say his name.
Isac. Yeah. Um, But then it, when I think about him
and it's like, well the racing bull is pretty good, clearly.
Um, clearly right, because anyone that looks good in the racing bowl that goes to the A team gets absolutely smoked.
And it's not even that they get smoked by Max, it's that they're worse than they were in the racing bowl in the previous team in the racing bowl.
Yes. So the fact that he, you know, had
as many top sixes and top tens as he did is not a wow factor for me.
Um, he's clearly very good and I think he will be, it'll be interesting to see how he does next year.
Um, Kimmy uh, he's in a Mercedes and so the fact that he got a couple podiums throughout the year is like, okay, you're in a Mercedes.
He also got pretty, pretty smoked by George.
Um, K Pinto doesn't even register for me in that conversation.
Neither does tto. Um, so here we are at,
Neither does tto.
Why not Punto, he tied Holgenburg in qualifying, which Holgenburg buried Magnuson in qualifying was kind of seen as like a Saturday specialist.
Yeah. He had, I don't know if it was four
or five Q3 appearances, scored points every time he was in Q3 scored points another time when he wasn't.
Um, he just took a guy in Nico who was very highly rated after last year and you know, was picked up by Audi to be the, the future and, and the face and the front man of that new team.
And as his first year in like a, in an underperforming car, the worst car, well that's not fair.
The LPs worst car, um, they finished ninth.
Um, he had no TPC program.
He didn't come into this year like Ptri did or like Antonelli did with, you know, gobs of miles.
Um, I don't think he'd ever driven to sour before the open test at the start of the year.
Okay. They'd done some fp ones in a,
in a McLaren the year before.
But, um, that seems like a pretty, pretty not terrible run.
Well James, clearly you because you're paid to, um, paid a little bit more attention to those.
I follow this a little closer, 12th and below.
Um, so I, I did not know most of those things because like Alpine, as you mentioned, saber was not really involved in anything positive except for I guess a couple of Q3 appearances, um, throughout the year.
What the reason I go to, to Beerman is because, you know, when he, when he filled in for Carlos, um, at Ferrari, he, he did a really good job.
And so there was this, this expectation from him that he is, he's kind of one of the, the elites and, and the star of the future sort of thing.
And his time at Haas didn't start out particularly good.
Um, his, he he made quite a few rookie mistakes, which I don't hold that against him, but honestly wasn't doing anything of any sort of spectacular fashion.
Whereas I think with the expectation that people had from him that was missing.
And then we got to the last third of the year, last half of the year, whatever you wanna call it, and all of a sudden this kid was leading rounds of qualifying.
He was qualifying, he was making Q3 every single weekend.
He at one point had four consecutive points finishes for Haass, which was the most amount of consecutive points, finishes Hass had ever had.
The only reason he didn't have five. Oh he was five.
He was five. So the only, only reason,
the only reason he didn't have six is 'cause his car actually failed I think in Brazil.
Um, he was making Ocon completely reconsider his life choices in the latter part of the year and was like, I forgot how to drive a race car because the disparity was so large and it came off the back of a, a rocky start to the season where all of this expectation was there.
And then he at as a teenager had the mental capacity to kind of block that out and not overcompensate from it and just fall back into, again, outside looking in, fall back into what he knew how to do.
And it immediately produced results.
And I think that the Haas is, is obviously a decent car, but it's not a good car.
And he was, like I said, the, what blew me away was there was, there was, there was a couple qualifying sessions towards the end of the year where heat was quickest in Q1.
Mm-hmm and like that's not just sneaking in to Q3 because people crash or people have problems that's showing legitimate pace and he was doing that when his teammate was not even making it out of Q1.
So those are the reasons why, um, I was super impressed with him and maybe I should have given um, BTO a better look but I didn't.
So that is how I come up to my decision.
I think you still picked the right guy.
I mean I, um, I do, I do agree.
He, for me was was that uh, was rookie of the year for a lot of those exact same reasons.
You know, you, you, You The other kind of obvious one, like when you talk to other people in the paddock, HADR was sort of the other popular answer to that.
And again, that's not a shot at Kimmy, it's not a shot at Gabby, it's just you kinda looked at their relative to performances and those were kind of the two guys that stood out a bit more.
And the thing for me about Hija is kinda like you said like that racing bulls car's clearly pretty good.
And who was he ever really up against?
Because he had Yuki for the first two races and Yuki buried 'em, but he should have, 'cause it was his first two races then you had Lawson.
Lawson they didn't think was good enough to be at Red Bull and took a couple races to kind of find his groove. It
Was clear he wasn't like it was, that was probably the worst Red Bull experiment, Right?
So it out qualifying him and like, and like Lawson and once he kind of found his footing at that team again the last say quarter of the season, he was getting up into q threes as well and he was fighting for points.
And so is was, was Lawson just kind of underrated and in a bad place in Red Bull And he is actually pretty good if you think that hijas that good or do we just not really know what Hijas true level is because he hasn't really been put side by side with somebody in the same car.
That's what is gonna be interesting about next year.
And you know, maybe I'll look back on this and be like, nope, had Jar's just absolutely incredible because he is the closest guy to Max ever and blah blah blah.
But then on the bearman side, like you say, you've got a, a car that was not as consistently as quick as a racing pole and you were up against a race winner, right?
I mean like Ocon a Grand Prix winner.
He finished on the podium last year in an alpine in the wet.
Like he's a shoe, he knows how to get it done and Ollie came in and once, yes, he got some of those rookie mistakes outta the way was just leading the program and could take the car to a place where, I mean I think a couple times it probably shouldn't have been even when he was complaining of issues.
It's not like he's like, damn the car's magical and then you know, he's up there sometimes he's like, yeah this is wrong, this is wrong, this is wrong.
And he was still pulling off Q threes, you know.
So, um, for me there's, there's a lot of potential in that kid and I think everyone's sort of thinking the same thing, right?
As soon as Lewis hangs up his helmet, I think there's a pretty natural progression there and uh, it's gonna Be cool.
Well I think, I think, I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that there's two seats at Ferrari open at the end of next year.
You think, you think Shar will bail a if it's bad W wouldn't you For sure.
It's just right. He's, and maybe he's just saying it
'cause that's what you say, but like the number of times he's been like, I want, like I only wanna win a world championship with Ferrari and I wanna bring this team back. Of course everyone
Does.
Every race car driver has a dream of driving a Ferrari and being successful with them at some point.
But it also like time is ticking and it ain't getting better for him and he is without a doubt like one of the one percenters.
So like why is he wasting his time?
I, I saw this thing, um, that was at the end of 2019, like Max and Char both had two Grand Prix victories to their name or something like that.
And at the end of 2025 Charla's eight and Max has 71 . Dude.
Exactly. It's a tough dude.
Char just did his fourth of seven seasons at Ferrari without a win. Think about that.
That's Like the team leader Ain't, that ain't his problem.
It ain't him. Mm-hmm.
It and I would just, it makes me wonder so much, right?
'cause he is got this like the, the most disjointed poll to win ratio of all time and everyone kind of sees it as like, as much as no 'cause will also wins. Right?
But I bet the ratio's the same.
It's like 20 28, 29 to eight where will's like 87, 3 to 20 something.
No Will's won more than 20 something races.
Has he He used to win six a year.
Yeah dude, Will's, Will's probably got are you looking it up?
Mm-hmm Tim do something.
45, you're right. Okay. 45 wins off how many poles? 70.
71. Yes. Yeah,
That sounds right.
All right, so that's better. Yeah. Not even close . Yeah.
Alright. But is it
because Charles just really good over a lap or is it because he just can hang on to a a, a not great car, a new tires for one lap, but over a stent and race distance?
You just, I think Ferrari, even when they have a good car still find a way to bone it up.
So That is, Hmm.
So okay, so where would he try to go?
I guess you don't know until end of 26 when you see what the pecking order Is, right?
I mean Aston Red Bull. Yeah.
What is it about Ferrari?
'cause I feel like that's been, as somebody who tertiary keeps track of F1 like that, that's been the ongoing thing of like Ferrari's gonna find a way to up their strategy as best they can or they're gonna find a way to like disappoint people.
Like how does a storied brand with that much history of racing success just so consistently over the last decade it all up?
Or how do they fix it if we wanna be more optimistic? I think
If they do answer Tim, I don't know that it would still be happening. ,
the, the thing is, I don't remember the numbers, but like in, I think they compared it to, to Christian Horne when Christian was still at Red Bull, right?
So let's say before this year, red Bull had come in, in 2005 or whatever it was, and to 2025, Christian was the only team principal, right?
So for 20 years they had one guy and in that time they had boatloads of success, four driver's titles and constructors titles and all the stuff, sorry, eight driver's, titles, whatever.
Um, in that same time, in that same 20 year period, I think Ferrari had been through eight teepees and it's consistency's a big deal, man.
We've talked about that a lot, right?
Like having a consistent driver lineup, having consistent engineering staff, consistent leadership that helps you identify issues and, You know, apply solutions.
If it's, if it keeps changing, it takes the new person however long to really identify the issues.
And then you gotta come up with solutions and then it takes the solutions a while to kick in because that's just the nature of Formula One.
And they just haven't been patient enough to give people the time.
Like when they fired, uh, bono, I was shocked 'cause he had taken them like for two years up in the construction championship every year and then they got rid of him.
So I'm not entirely sure what the thinking was there, but I think that's, that's definitely part of it.
Fred's there for a while.
He signed a new long-term contract, so hopefully this is the beginning of something new.
You know, the new rules set gives him a huge opportunity.
But yeah, it's, I don't know man.
It's gonna be interesting to see.
Gonna be interesting to see.
The real question, Alex, is can anybody on the IndyCar side stop the train that is Chip Canas you racing and now it's below?
Probably not. Okay. That's
No, I like how you Thought about it though.
You put some thought into it. 'cause
What would give anyone the ability to say that there's not a single thing changed. There's nothing's
Changed.
Right, exactly. So if there was anything new,
if his team was different, if there was four new tracks, if there were, if The car was different, the Car was at all different, then yeah, you'd like to say that potentially someone could figure it out more than him.
But based on the, the fact that that's not happening and what we've seen over the past four years, like no one can say that until they go out and do it. So the
The frustrating thing about him is you get the sense that like when you see the jump from 23 to four, four to five, you get the sense it's kind of like Max, he's still getting better, right?
Like he hasn't, I don't even know if he's actually even peaked yet.
Mm. And so everyone's already playing catch up.
If he hits a ceiling, then fine people can figure it out and, and catch up to him.
That's kind of how sport works.
But if he's still getting better, that's, that's bad for everybody.
We do have two new tracks next year.
Maybe that'll throw a curve ball even though I did pretty well at Thermal, Didn't he?
What are the two We have ar Oh, Arlington and Markum.
There's three. Phoenix. Phoenix isn't new. It's
New to him.
No, it's new. New to him. Yeah.
Yeah. Okay. New to this car with the hybrid. That
Is true.
That is true. So maybe, maybe,
well unfortunately didn't he win by more than three wins or something last year? So
Yeah, I know that.
And, and also, like when Thermal was a new track, he, he, he's won every time we've gone there, so.
Sure. Yeah. Hmm. Well that'll be fun.
Anyways, anyway, uh, next week we'll talk about the new governance structure of IndyCar among other things Christmas and Christmas and recapping Nashville.
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