The hosts dive into a casual chat covering everything from the quirks of AirPods and their durability to the nuances of race strategy and driver-team communication in motorsports. They share insights from Suzuka, highlighting the respectful Japanese fan culture and the thrill of a personal hot lap experience. The episode also touches on Max Verstappen's dominant qualifying performance, frustrations with FIA fines, and the excitement building for the Long Beach IndyCar race weekend. Alongside racing talk, there's humor and personal anecdotes, making for a relaxed yet informative conversation.
Topics:airpods durabilitydriver-team radio communicationsuzuka race experiencejapanese fan culturemax verstappen qualifyingfia fines controversylong beach indycar weekendrace strategymotorsport anecdotesindianapolis motorsports
The guys keep losing -or laundering- their AirPods. Drivers need to learn to trust their teams when they're on the track. Hinch had a good time at Suzuka, even though the race was boring, and Long Beach was coming up. So, don't forget to tune in. On multiple TVs. And your neighbor's TVs.
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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.
"...dder once again. So, very cool. A hand controlled Corvette, um, is gonna be, uh, what he's driving."
Select text to request an explanation
This is, is off track.
Question for you. How often do you guys have
to like clean out your AirPod cases from like dirt and ear wax and stuff?
Well, I don't, I don't own them long enough to need to clean 'em.
So that's not really a problem that I have. Are you, are you
Losing them or are you just like constantly in need of like the new model?
No, I don't, I don't give a, I actually don't like 'em that much.
I like their convenience. I hate how they look.
I just, I lose them temporarily and then find them again.
But by that point, Amazon has delivered them three hours later from when I ordered them. Got it. And so it's like,
Yeah, that's a Becky move.
Becky has like several pairs. It's either that or
She, well I didn't, I didn't spill them. .
No. Yeah, no, this she does, she doesn't spill these.
She either loses them or claims they don't work and then gets new ones.
And then I see her using the old ones like in a different application somewhere and ah, just doesn't, I don't know, something there didn't quite add up. Um,
I, uh, I, I know people were kind of wondering about how waterproof they are.
I have done my own research on this.
You can run 'em through the laundry three times before they just completely stop working. , I've definitely done
After the second time they get a little spotty.
Hmm. Yeah. Third time's the charm.
So anyways, I just got some new AirPods.
So is that how you clean them? , ,
apple, AirPods good for exactly three cleans.
It's funny you say you don't really like them otherwise.
'cause you're right, like the convenience of them is just undeniable and like apple winds because they just make it so that there's, But you look like such a Use them.
Dude, I'll never forget the first time they came out with like the, the original plugin Ones, the long ones, right?
Uhhuh, the long court.
And like you would walk around a city and you would just see like in that first month, two months when they came out, everybody that had them.
You like, what a, like that guy, that guy just bugs me fundamentally.
I was like, I hate those things. I'm never getting those
Things.
Well now, now it's the same with now it's like the over year ones or the douchey ones. Yeah. Yeah. Like
The beats That have become the apples don't, you don't need those.
I don't mind those to be honest. Because,
Because you're a That's why, that's mainly why.
No, because I feel like with these ones, 'cause they're so white and they're so visible and obvious that it was like people were trying to wear them just to wear them.
Those could be like easily mistaken for any headphones.
The over the, the max ones or whatever, they just kind of look like over the year headphones.
Which, if that's your thing, it's not my thing nine times outta 10, but like whatever.
I get it. They're also convenient
and also work good and yeah.
I don't know those ones, I'm not as against, I, I still don't think there's a better headphone out there.
Like I owned several pair and I just, I don't like the over the ear thing anymore.
Yeah. Um, but like the Bose quiet Comfort twenties Yeah.
Or whatever. That was the greatest headphone
that's been made.
And I just, I can't, I don't want the whole, the whole theme about, but like nothing's touched that I've done the like Bose noise canceling ones in the ear.
They're fine. They're not as good.
These are, again, it's the convenience.
As soon as you open it and plug it in your ear, it's automatically connected to all your <inaudible>.
So it's like, it's just, it's not plug and play.
It's putting your ear in play.
That's fair. I'm a big fan
of stealing the Delta uh, headphones.
Even when I don't need them. Like if I'm on
30 cent ones that scratch the inside your Ear come in paper bags 'cause they're so cheap.
Yeah. I love them. I use 'em for everything.
What do you use Them? I'm baffled by this.
What is everything? Does
Everything Be, what are all these applications?
Well, usually I look, I haven't flown in a while, so I'm using these 'cause my last pair of Delta ones broke.
But when we're recording This, seen with Delta, no. Yeah.
Tim go back and watch some videos. You
Old have those heads.
No. Come back and watch some of our old videos.
I will take a screenshot now and send it to you.
Um, and then on the Nintendo Switch they plug in.
Sometimes if I want my Kindle to read something to me, I'll have it do that.
I, I like the Delta ones so much to the point where if I have a layover and I have two Delta flight, I'll take one on each flight.
Stop, stop, stop, stop.
What is your Kindle reading to you?
You don't have it read documents sometimes?
No, I don't want a Kindle Document.
You don't even, like, you're not even talking about like a book.
You're saying like you'll have it read documents to you.
Well, if I'm gonna listen to a book, I'm gonna get like the proper audio book.
Right. But if I'm gonna like download it, if I,
there's like an article I wanna read, I'll download it as PDF and I'll just have it like my Kindle read to me while I'm doing something else.
Now you can have Siri do that, so I don't do that anymore. You can,
Yeah.
What, what documents do you anyways? There
Was You, you're like the least document.
I'm yeah. Tied down guy I can think
of. I mean I have, I know
Documents sometimes.
No, but like your scripts and stuff, right.
Which obviously you're not having your Kindle read. I
Don't do the Kindle read script. No.
Right. So what documents that aren't, you know.
No, but like there's like an outline on or or a, a show bible or pitch material that I need to go over and I don't want to like really focus on it. That
Is that diet Cherry Coke?
No, that is a Diet Coke.
That's a, that's a Christmas diet Coke .
Oh. Which if there was a diet cherry coke,
I would absolutely smash that.
Um, but no, I did not know that Tim, that Siri can read my articles for me.
Luckily I also have eyes, so I'm not gonna probably do that anytime soon.
But like if I'm doing the dishes, I, I want, oh hey, there was this article that somebody sent on Don't Chat when you read your documents.
I don't think, well, I was talking about the articles now.
We moved on try and keep up like if I'm, if I'm cleaning up the kitchen and there's like an article somebody sent me Yeah.
Podcasts I listen to while cleaning house or walking dogs.
That's, that's a, that's a thing.
So I can, I'm in a group chat That sends a bunch of articles.
Like today there's been three articles in this group chat and uh, they're all kind of interesting.
But I'm not gonna sit down and read all three of them.
So like I'm gonna have 'em on while I'm doing other stuff.
Do I know what's funny is when we, you're Gonna have your documents on , what you listen to really Documents on that word documents, aren't you?
It's great. I just mentioned like that's
what they're classified as in terms of a file.
Like they're a dot doc or a do pdf DF they're in my documents folder on my computer.
But no, I used one word and he's launched onto it.
Got Siri just reading off his, uh, tax returns to him.
You know what's funny, Tim? I guess, I mean, no, not Tim.
Alex, you know what's funny is when Tim hears us talk about a group chat that we're on that he's not a part of, he immediately gets fomo and starts questioning what the group chat is and why he's not part of it.
Mm-hmm. He just mentioned one that we're not on
and all it does is share articles.
I cannot tell you how uninterested I am in being on that group chat. .
Well we also talk about when we're gonna play board games, but it's lately it's just become an article sharing group chat. Do
You guys, is it just no words, it's just like you guys respond with articles, just talk pretty much Just links.
It's become that. Yeah. Do
You, do you do like the little emoji responses or no? Yeah, you
Do the like, you like it or you like do the, like the the Passive aggressive thumbs up. Yeah. Yeah.
Do do you ever dislike it?
If you don't like the article, will you go back and give it A thumbs down?
Yeah, that's what just said. You, you go give it.
But like, that's not to say like, Hey, you shouldn't have shared this.
But it's like, oh man, this is about something that's bad.
I'd feel bad if I liked that. Speaking
Of documents, um, Alex Alban's a bitch.
I just, yeah, I mean you're gonna have to, you're gonna have to hit me with this one because I I don't see where your hatreds coming from here.
Did You, did you not hear his whole onboard or like that, that whole message exchange.
Okay. And you thought that was appropriate? I did.
He was, it's not that I thought it was appropriate.
I just thought that for the amount of times I've heard him say like, good stuff and Okay.
Intelligent stuff, one outburst.
I'm not necessarily gonna write him off as a human being.
I think that's not how I operate.
Um, you know, that, um, I wanna go through, I wanna go through your old radio messages and see how many times you've just mother team for a strategy call.
Just the once and it was, It ended. Okay.
I mean it wasn't, it wasn't really a strategy call.
More so just a complete and total failure Of operational blunder.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um, no, here's,
here is what I didn't like.
I I it, I think I'm just bothered by the tone of voice of these younger drivers and man, I am old man on bench right now.
I love it. I love it so much. Hold on.
First of all, up update what you're talking about.
So during the race Alban, um, who by the way has been doing an incredible job this year.
When you think about, um, who he's competing against as his teammate, you know, Carlos signs multi Grand Prix winner, you know, was challenging old Charles in a Ferrari pretty much every weekend for years.
Like they were neck and neck and go, Carlos goes to the Williams Alban.
There's always kind of been an asterisk by him 'cause you know, he had that difficult stint and Red Bull and then he is been with a team that you know, hasn't had a car and how good of his teammate's really been.
Anyways, he's clearly very fast, um, qualified in the top 10.
Did he make it into Q3? Yeah, he was ninth. Yeah. Okay.
And was kind of running there the whole time.
And I think that, you know, it was a, a, um, eye piercingly boring race.
Um, and so there wasn't really a lot of options.
But I think the team maybe tried to take, you know, uh, a gamble, um, and kept him out a little bit longer.
And he basically got undercut and he lost a couple spots and all it was was just this crying on the radio about basically how inept that decision was and how stupid they were for doing it and how dare they do this to him, blah, blah blah.
And it's just like you were stuck in, in position, whatever.
Okay. You weren't going anywhere.
You probably would've yelled at us if we didn't try and do something.
So we were trying to do something. It didn't work out.
Like no one is doing anything in this race.
The response was, it would've been even worse if we didn't do what we did.
So shut up. You don't have all the information.
Stop whining. Like, I don't mind some emotion and yelling,
but like it was just the, oh my God you guys, how dare you do this to me.
And it's just like, bro, Yeah, it was what That what I did, what was about it? I think,
Yeah, he made it sound like he knew better.
Right? Where like when you're in the car,
you can only see one race.
You only know what's happening to you and maybe directly in front of you.
Right? You don't know the implications of anything else.
And so, and I've said this to like other drivers, I've had this conversation with guys before when I've witnessed that kind of behavior.
It's like, look man, you have to assume when you're in the car that the team can see stuff that you can't, they know stuff that you don't.
And those decisions are based on all the stuff that you do not know.
If you get outta the car and you guys have your debrief and you realize after the fact they've done something dumb, you guys can have that conversation then.
But in the race it is so pointless fighting with your team about something like that because you don't have all the information.
Do you wanna know what the funny part is?
Like during the same race, uh, before the first stop, max comes on the radio and he was like, um, can I start pushing?
Because like he knew that they were getting into a pit window and that like, I guess he knew that cars were starting to cycle based on, he was probably watching TV around the track or whatever and his engineer was like, oh yeah, yeah, you probably should start doing that.
Like, he start pushing out, I think Max Max is the exception 'cause he probably does know more somehow than everyone else.
Um, but yes, otherwise he Also gets on the radio sometimes and on the team pretty hard. But
For sure, for sure.
I just, yeah, I don't know. I think, I think it, it,
it was kind of a trend this weekend.
Like bor, bor, borello, Gabrielle Borello, whatever's Balto, um, was like screaming and crying on the radio when he almost lost it in one 30 r about how the car broke.
And he like just put his right sides in the grass before he turned in.
It's like, what are you guys, what are you guys doing?
And then old, old Jack, Jack doing or whatever, when he turned into turn one with the DRS open and he hits the wall.
And thankfully he was okay 'cause that was a monstrous hit.
And he comes on the radio and he's like, what happened? And they're like,
Well, there was a, there was, There was a button you were supposed to hit.
Yeah. Yeah. So, um, we've just gone straight into Suzuka.
James, why don't you, why don't you talk, hang On, talk to us.
I wanted to touch on something if we can't real quick, just based on what you guys were talking about there, because you were talking about like, you have to put the trust in the fact that the team has more information than you do coming up.
Obviously. Like you start in
go-karting, that's not the case.
You're the one out there. You don't, you're not getting
information piped into your head from somebody else.
So when you start making the transition to being in the forms of racing that you do have someone in your ear kind of giving you strategy, how is that adjustment or how was it for you guys? Well,
You don't have any strategy until, until essentially IndyCar F1 ssa until there's, until there's pit stops, there's no strategy.
Okay? The strategy is keep the tires
under you and beat the other guys.
So you don't really need a lot of coaching on that.
You don't really need a lot of back and forth on that.
Um, so the, so, so the short answer is, Tim, I mean, you get there as a rookie and you as a rookie, you know, abs actually nothing.
And so I think everybody kind of comes in with this blind faith that what you're being told is gospel.
And it's not till you're 2, 3, 4 years into your career that you start being like, okay, is this really what we should be doing?
Even when Yeah, nine times outta 10, it is.
Look, teams make mistakes too, right? Absolutely.
But it's something to, to talk about after the race because there's not a lot of, there's not a good, the the exception is, is times when like, like in, in the F1 race in China, or you go back to spa last year when the race pivoted from what people thought it was gonna be from two stops to one stop.
And so the driver's like, Hey, I know you guys said we're supposed to box next lap, but like the tires are pretty good.
Like, I think I can keep this going.
Is there a chance we can stretch this out?
And then they'll figure it out on, in their heads and be like, okay, if you think you can keep this pace up, then yes, if you don't, then no.
And in those cases, yes, the driver can play a part in it, but, and that's, and that's only gonna come, that decision can only be made with input from the driver.
So it's, it is a two-way street, but it's like a, it's like an eight lane highway, one direction and like a two lane country road coming back the other way, if you know what I mean.
Sorry Alex, I just, I was curious about that problem, Tim, anytime that we can teach you about motorsport, it's just a, well, I figure it's just a, I have a question about something, positive moment. There's
Gotta be at least one or two people listening who also have a question about that. , we're
Doing this for Aunt Linda.
Um, okay, so James, you were, you were in Japan for quite some time.
I don't know where you are right now, but, uh, whatever, you're similar Malibu.
Um, and so talk to us about your journey, like your journey down south to Suzuka, what you thought of the track, what you thought of a race that had always been on your bucket list forever.
The fan experience, the track itself, everything.
Talk to us. Tell us, did it live up to expectations? I'll
Talk and then, uh, you can rebuttal with all of your real world experience from the other side of it.
Um, yeah, so All of it.
My one, my one time, One time in the, in the big show.
Yeah, like, that's a big deal. So we'll get there.
So, um, yeah, we've talked about this tracks a bucket list for every driver and, um, you hear all these stories about how passionate the fans are there.
I got to witness that a little bit when IndyCar raced at Motegi.
Um, so I've, I've had some experience with the, the Japanese fan base and they're the best.
They're just hilarious and they're so passionate.
But like the most respectful group of like the most respectful mass of people I think you could ever find.
Like you could find individuals that are equally as respectful from different places and different cultures or whatever.
You will never find a mass audience as respectful as that.
So like a great example is in the fans, Well you have to because your, your nose to butts the whole time.
so many nose to butts. Just so much nose to butt.
So the fan zone there is, you know, big stage where drivers come out and it's, you know, 20, 30,000 people sit, maybe not that many.
Maybe it's five, 10,000 people in this area.
And it's like concert stage kind of set up and drivers come out, whatever.
And you go to Silverstone or you go to Melbourne or you go to Austin, you go to all these places and it's like madness.
It's chaos. Everybody's cheering and screaming
and throwing beads up on the stage and like all sorts of stuff right?
In Japan, pin drop, completely silent.
Everybody is sitting, there's no like interaction.
Like it's, it's like a little unnerving almost, but it's just 'cause they're trying to be polite, right?
Like they'll clap at the end.
They're kind of like very polite, gentle, like golf clap sort of thing.
But it's not the hooting and hooting and hollering that you're used to seeing other fan zones and it's like a little eerie.
It kind of throws people off.
And it's funny, dude, 'cause I even got, I got a comment on Twitter after the race, which I thought was funny because I did the post-race interviews, right?
And when you do those interviews, the microphone links up to the speaker in the facility so that way all the fans can hear the thing.
And this, like, every time I've done it, this has been the case.
And so normally you like start the question or like introduce the guy, say whatever, and you give the fans a a you hold for a second so the fans can do a little cheer and depending on who it is and where they are, that amount changes, right?
So like Max, max comes up, but he's wins.
You know, he's, he's a legend there.
He is won that race four times in a row now.
Like all, all these cool, whatever.
And so we're like, all right, yo, what are your grand Prix max for snapping guys?
All right, let's just carry on that . It was dead silent.
Nobody said anything. I was like, okay, fine.
All no, no noise. So I got this guy on Twitter
that was like, ah, this hitch cliff guy needs to understand that you gotta give the fans time to react when you introduce the drivers because he just went straight into the first question without giving anyone a chance to cheer and the drivers to take in that moment.
I'm like, no, no, I did. They make no noise.
You don't understand. They do not make noise. That
Was me on Twitter, not my burner by the way.
I was gonna say, I'm generally like, I get that, but I'm also pro anybody criticizing you online, like I don't wanna totally, I don't wanna discourage that.
So, so anyway, the, the track I was just hoping when I got there that, you know, often in these, these shows we'll do like, um, we we'll get to participate in the hot laps to do like a lap for the broadcast, right?
Like a track preview or whatever.
The Hot Laps program where all the different OEMs give two or three cars to drivers and they take fans around whatever.
They don't bring it to Japan.
And so I was like, oh man, like I was so bummed and Alex Jakes the lead commentator and I were talking about it and he's like, hold on, I got an idea.
And he reached out to one of our producers, George Crocu big shout out George.
'cause George got in touch with a Porsche Super Cup or Porsche Carrera Cup Japan team.
I was like, Hey, can one of our commentators take one of your race cars around the track on Thursday?
And they're like, yeah, sure. I was like, what? Okay.
So I rock up, I have a helmet I have where a pair of boots from where I don't know somebody.
So like I an open face helmet that was just at the track that George got it like specked out for me, okay.
And I had, um, I stole a pair of boots from one of the drivers, one of the F1 drivers who I'm gonna not name because he doesn't know that I took them and I was, I was in street clothes.
They're like, oh well, like we do passenger rides and they don't have to wear race suits, you can just go in your street clothes.
I was like, okay, so I'm wearing race boots a helmet and street clothes, get into this thing.
And they're just like, yeah, here's the car.
Drive out that way and hang a right and there's pit lane.
And I was like, no, no info.
Like no prep, no nothing, just off you go. Like, yeah.
Like I, dude, I got in it and I was like, Hey, how do you start it?
Like, nobody even showed me how to turn the thing on.
And there's like, yeah, go ahead.
And so I just gotta, I was like four laps.
It wasn't a lot of running, but like, dude, I gotta go rip around Suzuka for four lap in a Porsche Super Cup car or Porsche.
Was it with slicks? Yes, it was with Slicks.
Oh my god. In
Street clothes.
They just fired me in street clothes.
Dude, the seat belts were so loose.
I don't know even know who the driver was, huh?
I maxed out everything.
And I was like, I am barely in this car, man, this is so bad.
And like, I obviously wasn't gonna go out and like fire it off 10 tens and put myself in a position to crash, but like, why not?
Big failures happen and tires come loose sometimes and like, I don't know who built this car, .
And they're just like, yeah, have at it bud.
I'm like, this is the least formula one weekend experience I've ever had. So loose.
It was awesome. That's so cool though.
So cool, man. So I just got the racetrack
to myself on Thursday for four laps and Got it.
Just go feel it and see it and Awesome. Wow. Wow.
Chills, literal chills.
It was like, it's so much more narrow than the cabinetry.
Chills . Thank you. Thank you for picking that up.
I, um, it's so narrow. I was shocked at how narrow it felt.
Hmm. Um, and the the full probably the
Race is Well yeah, I mean like, well, yeah, so anyway, so the, the, that experience was great.
The track is incredible.
The race was almost, it was this second most boring race we've seen in the last two years.
Beat only by Monaco last year when everybody pit on the red flag in the first lap and then drove around on hards five seconds off the pace and didn't change a single position.
Oh, I thought you were gonna say St. Pete IndyCar.
No dude. Way, way more entertaining than
anything that happened in Japan. No.
Um, no. So I saw, I saw, did you see Jeremy Clarkson's,
uh, tweet a couple days ago?
I did not. Oh yeah. I think I, he was like, I've had,
I've had an idea to make F1 racing more consistently exciting.
Don't use tracks for overtaking is difficult. It's got some logic
To it that's very practical. Yeah,
Yeah, yeah. It's very
Practical.
Um, uh, harder to execute.
So, okay, the race was boring.
There seemed to be a lot of, uh, of, of chatter about the, about qualifying.
Well, so is that worth, worth recapping?
We, we, we talked, we talked last week a lot about the Red Bull, uh, situation.
And if you guys listened, uh, you um, you uh, realized that James and I at the end both said that no way is Liam Lawson gonna out qualify Yuki Sonta and no way is Yuki Sonta gonna be close to Max.
And we were right, I must say, um, that no Lawson Didn't qualify Yuki No, They were 14th and 15th. Yeah. . Yeah.
Was it true? Oh shoot, well, okay, whatever.
It wasn't like this big. Oh my God. First
By what it, and like it wasn't in Yuki's defense, he got a look.
You still gotta, you still gotta, you execute when it happens.
But like the team, the way the red flag fell in Q2, he kind of got boned a little bit.
And so if you look in practice man on the soft, he was legitimately almost as fast as Max, like he was within a 10th or two of max over a single app.
It was much, much better than anyone's done in that car for the last 36 months.
So some potential there, he boned it in qualifying and the team boned him a little bit in qualifying.
But um, overall did like actually a pretty solid job.
But what was so impressive about qualifying, Tim and Alex knows this, it's, it was just another example of why Max first happened is so much better than everybody right now.
His qualifying lap in a car like the, the McLaren were comfortably a quarter second a lap faster than anybody in Suzuka lab.
And look, if you wanna say once everybody shows up for qualifying that that deficit can, can shrink a bit because Red Bull's got a special engine map or you know, Mercedes has a special engine map or something, they run a bit more fuel in practice, whatever, fine.
But it's, it's a 10th and a half.
If it's not two and a half, like it's all of easy 10th and a half easy, 10th and a half.
And what Max did in qualifying was he extracted everything that car could do and then some where the other guys just made mistakes.
He was absolutely perfect.
So we talk about your theoretical best labs, right?
So F1 tracks have three sectors and in qualifying, let's say you do two runs in Q1, two runs in Q2, two runs in Q3.
Okay? Six,
six runs through the whole track.
Max's best sector one, his best sector two and his best sector three all came on the same lap and it was his last one.
That is so hard to do.
Like if you've got two new sets of tires back to back, there's a good chance you're gonna find ways to improve and at least two of the three sectors kind of thing, right?
By your third run, it's, it's, you know, it's law of diminishing returns, right?
Unless you've made a mistake somewhere like it's small that you're by your fourth, fifth, sixth run to keep finding pace and to not have a single sector not be your best.
And none of them were the best sectors.
They weren't, none of them were purple, all of them were green.
He just put it together man.
And like at that track, qualifying as the race, as soon as he gets through, turn one and first game over.
And he should have been third at best, probably fifth.
And he qualified poll and won the race. Unbelievable.
Well it was what was amazing.
So I was watching qualifying a little tape delayed.
Um, but I was, I, I made sure that I didn't look at any sort of social media and so I was truly shocked when the result happened.
But I remember specifically, and this is a weird, like you would only really notice this if you're a racing driver.
Um, but I was kind of falling along in his lap and there was nothing that really wowed me.
Like I wasn't that stunned by it.
And as you say, like there was nothing in there that was like the best that we had seen throughout qualifying.
But his, his chacan was so good, dude.
Like I, from the outside you looked at where he hit the brakes and I was like, ah, there's no chance that there's no chance he's making the, the first curb.
And not only did he like make the first curb, he like wrapped it around to such a, a way that like the added to the car and the trajectory for the second one.
Like, he barely had to turn the wheel and it was just like how he was able to just, it was almost, it was almost a willpower s thing.
He's known for this, especially at St.
Pete turn 10 coming to the alt start finish line.
Like he just throws caution to the wind in the last like breaking zone and just ships it and kind of prays and hopes it happens and will like ends lapse and gets poles right.
This reminded me of something like that where Max was like, I'm probably pretty <inaudible> here, I gotta just go for it.
And he said, he even said like when he was walking through the lap, that like he felt he left a little bit on the table in the chicane and then I saw some GPS data overlays of what he did.
Dude, he out broke Lando by like 25 feet.
Like it's unbelievable.
It's insane. And,
and like what's what's tough for Lando is that was Lando was the king of sector three, which is the chicane.
It's essentially one corner, it's the chica and he was the king of sector three all weekend long.
And even Oscar was quicker than him in sector three.
So he just like, he just hesitated.
He just was on a good lap and he didn't wanna overdo it.
'cause we've all been there too. Well he
Was on a good lap.
He didn't wanna blow it. It's so easy
To do. Yeah.
Oh, a hundred Percent. It's so easy to do.
It's like you see the, the lap time going in the right direction.
You get to the last corner, you're like, oh, I can make up even more time here.
And then you totally bone it and you look like an idiot.
So he, he went the other way.
He like was a bit reserved and it costs Like I'm two 10th up.
Like, that should be good. Yeah,
that sounds like such a head game of just, it's well it's, and it's why, it's why it's why Max is the best.
And like he even said it again in his interview, similar to the point James was alluding to.
He was like, I know that our car's not that good, but I know I'm gonna make less mistakes than every single other person.
So he is like, as long as I have a car that's somewhere in some window at some point, like I will just drive better than everyone else and like I'll make the difference.
And he just flat out said it and he continues to do it. So you can't really argue with
It.
That's the problem, right? When you've got like,
even Lando got outta the car and was like, you gotta be kidding me.
Yeah, yeah. Okay. I guess I get it.
You know Fernando, Fernando Alonzo, who is the guy that when you pull drivers, heard of him, Heard of him Globally, it doesn't matter what series, gimme your top three racing drivers of any kind on the planet alive today.
I bet Alonzo's on 95% of drivers top three.
Like he's the guy top other Drivers top five.
Okay. Top five. Top five,
Five years ago, six years ago, top three.
But yes, sure. He's, he's massively respected.
And when he gets out of the car and he's a, he's a confident man as well and he gets outta the car.
Mm-hmm . And he was just like, nobody, nobody can do that.
Nobody can do what he did. And like, that was for me.
Like, he was laughing, he was smiling.
He's like, yeah man, no chance.
Like we don't have any chance against this guy right now.
It's wild. It was, it was, it was cool to watch, honestly.
Like, it was really, really impressive.
And even though it was a boring race, the fact that all three of the like 1, 2, 3 were all within four seconds of the entire grum pri because the McLaren were quicker.
They just couldn't get around 'em. Right? Yeah, yeah.
Max had a great line. He was like, yeah, if I was in
that car, you wouldn't have seen me Also probably true.
And like, you can't argue it.
You, it's like even those guys are like, yeah.
Um, it was funny 'cause like we got through turn one and I jokingly like, oh that was a good race to like the room where we were watching.
Literally there was one position change in the top 10 from there on out, .
It was pretty brutal. Pretty brutal. It was pretty bad.
I just, I think we all need to, there's so much conversation going around about Red Bull, this Red Bull that whatever, whatever Isaac Cajar had jar, I don't know how to say his name.
Um, bravo to him because he is clearly insanely fast and talented and also has a massive <inaudible>.
So like that's just, he's winning in all phases of life.
Just and his career. It's really going
All for him.
Um, what? Yeah, Just big man.
Huge . How did we come by this information? Just
Look it up Tim.
Essentially all but said it. Yeah.
Um, yeah, so moving right along.
Tim's gonna now lose sleep over that one.
Well I just want him to start Googling that. Yeah,
I'm Gonna Google That.
Hedge our big .
Um, did you hear about the science fine?
The what? Say that 10 times fat? Yeah.
Science fine Science. Fine sign's fine.
Like Carlos signs. Yeah. Yeah. He got fined.
Okay. No, before that. Okay.
Did he curse? So No, even,
this is even worse. This is even, this is,
Oh this stink. Right? This
Is even dumber.
Even dumber. The fact
that the FIA can get away with this is insane.
So it's in the like protocols for F1 drivers that you have to be present at the front of the grid for the playing of the, the national anthem of the host country fair.
Carlos was sick, he had like some stomach bug or something.
Okay. Hmm. Was with the FIA medical staff
who acknowledged he had a legitimate problem and so he was getting treated for something in some capacity and was late arriving for the anthem.
I think still made at least the end of it.
Maybe he didn't, doesn't matter, had a medical reason to not be there.
And they find him 20,000 euro for like breaking protocol and procedure.
They advice, I mean, Doesn't, that doesn't surprise me at all.
Like it's, yeah, it is a joke, but it doesn't surprise me.
I, it makes Me, what, what's the phrase?
I'm, I'm disappointed. Not surprised. Mm. Mm-hmm . . Yeah.
Yeah. I'm not mad, I'm disappointed.
Um, I thought that was outta control, but anyway, vie either here, neither here nor there.
So yes, Japan was great. Great vacation with Becky.
Great to catch up with our friends from Singapore, Matt and Sid.
Awesome race. Shout out to Stu Mo from Haas,
who got them all sorted with passes and took care of them during the weekend.
And Max is phenomenal. So we move on.
Nothing going on this weekend.
No. I had one small thing flying home
that I wanna touch on though.
So this is just, this is just a rant.
This is not gonna mean anything to either of you or anybody listening, but I just have to get it off. <crosstalk> my
Checkout then Me.
Yeah, you can go to the bathroom, whatever.
So for some reason as a Canadian, and this has always been the case, this is not new.
The type of visa that I have.
Normally if you get a US visa, like a lot of times it's like a, it's like a full page sized sticker that goes in your passport and it has all your picture and all your, it looks like another passport page.
Almost like, but it's got us visa stuff all over it, right?
Mm-hmm . Or you've got a green card
or you get a resident card if you're a resident.
The particular visa that I've got green card For when you're green, right?
Right. Yep. If you're green, if you're
not feeling well, you get a green card. Still
Get fined by the FIA. But yeah,
of course.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Um, yeah, I, I've, I've had a backlog of fines from 2015 when I missed a lot of pre-race anthems.
'cause I was young in hospital trying to recover blood.
I don't for some reason my visa in a Canadian passport.
You don't get that visa sticker. Okay.
You just have a piece of paper and you have to carry that piece of paper around with you always.
'cause it has to, if somebody wants to see it, you gotta be able to show it.
So I have to carry this very important document around with me everywhere. Like
A real document. Yeah. That
You would need like a real document.
Yeah. Right. Not one that Siri is gonna
read to me over my Kindle.
Right. So when I was checking into the
airport in Japan, a Japanese airline, you land in the States and you clear customs in the States.
But when I check into Japan, they're like, do you live in the us?
And I was like, yes I do. And
they're like, do you have a visa?
I said, yes, I do. They're like,
I don't see it in your passport.
I'm like, 'cause it's not, well where is it?
It's right here. And I present the piece of paper.
They're like, what's this? This is my visa.
Why isn't it in the passport? Ask us customs. I don't know.
I've had this conversation half a dozen times over the last 15 years where when checking into an airport in a foreign country, they're like, well, you can't live in the States.
And I just wanna be like, respectfully, yes I can.
You don't know. And it's not your country. Why do you care?
Let me on the plane. If they wanna kick me out when I get
there, that's my problem.
Why do the check-in desks in a foreign country?
I don't think No, because it's not their problem.
It is their problem. Because they have to then give a seat
to your immigrant ass back to the country.
Do they is I've always heard that It has to be on the same airline.
I believe so. It's like I I know that that's like,
they like kick you out.
Well, I've heard stories where like when they deny you, they immediately ask for your credit card and they swipe and buy you a ticket outta here.
Well, okay, fine if you have the funds, but like there's some people that can't afford $700 on a round trip back to wherever. When
Do you have to go back to your, the country you started the trip in? 'cause like if they, I got
Denied. You're not just gonna say,
Can I not go back to Canada? Couldn't
He just go to Canada? Yeah. This
Is what I know. I'm sure there is a reason
And I think, I think, I think for you in your case, yes.
Let's say a Japanese person who was a Japanese citizen who flew to America and didn't have the right documents.
He would or she would then be sent back to Japan on the same flight. Yeah, no,
I looked it up.
He's right. It it, it's the responsibility
of the airline that flew you there.
And they will return you to the country that you're coming from on the next flight.
So that's why, because they don't wanna, that's why, okay, spend a thousand dollars, get your ass back to where you're supposed to be.
Also forget the, the nuisance of it.
Like that's a, such a big responsibility that you have to carry around an eight and a half by 11 piece of white paper at all times.
Hundred percent. And keep it protective if you And not
crinkled and Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like I horrible. We're all
Given, we're all given a card at birth and they're like, don't lose it.
Can't laminate it. Good luck. Yes'. So,
So true man.
But you don't have to carry that around with you every time you travel.
Right? You just gotta remember the number. That's
The most important Part. 'cause sometimes you need it.
What do you need it for? I have never once needed it.
I feel like I've needed it for something, For anything in my life Right now.
You know what I've, you know what I've never looked into is if I have to like apply for a permanent resident card or 'cause like they never gave me one.
I maybe there's way for, for me, Actually should maybe talk about Long Beach.
Okay. All right.
I'm gonna look into that because maybe I can solve my own problem here by being proactive. Anyway. Long Beach weekend.
Well, anyways, anyways, guys. Um,
long Beach is this weekend.
Good chat. It is on, uh, Fox. It is.
Um, listen, there was a, there's a reminder from Mindy Car Marketing that I'm gonna pass along to all of our listeners.
The masters is also this weekend we get the masters a big deal.
We get, we get that.
It's a, it's a big event that people look forward to each year and that's totally fine.
All that we ask is that you also have IndyCar race on, on another tv.
It in my mind, I don't really care.
I don't really care if you're watching it or not.
Just put it on a TV in a bedroom. I do.
In a, in a bar in a living room. Can I,
I'm just gonna, I'm gonna give an alternate, I'm gonna give an alternate, um, uh, strategy for this is the masters is what?
It's four days, right? It's like Thursday, Friday, Saturday,
Sunday, six hours a day.
Right. If you're watching all of that, you suck.
You, you don't, that's that's not a way to live your life. No, but
Those, but James. James.
But James. But James. But James. But James. James.
James. Here's, here's the argument
that people are gonna have against you.
And all I'm saying is watch whatever you wanna watch.
It's free country. It's America. Do what you want.
Just put it on a tv.
You're, if they're gonna invest that amount of time, they're gonna watch the end.
I'm not encouraging That Anyone watch Going for four days?
No. The, the leaders tee off
for the end when we go green. It's really unfortunate.
Perfect. That's perfect.
'cause a round of golf takes like 76 hours. So just
Tee off for the, watch the tee off.
Come back to the race and for The final, have to watch the, for the final, for the final holes.
Oh, I thought you meant not tee off the start the game.
Start of the round. No, no. Oh no. Okay.
As Alex said, the end to the End, put it on another tv, anywhere in the house On your phone.
Uh, that would be be super helpful.
Be nice. Thanks. Thank you for watching.
Um, and then, and then if we can, if we can ask a really big, you know mm-hmm.
Uh, thing that would be tune in to, to barber, uh, two weeks from now.
That would, that would be sweet. You could make up for it.
'cause honestly, if you love the masters, you'll love the Augusta Motorsports.
The Augusta of Motor Sports. Yep.
That checks out Exactly right.
There's, there's like the Venn diagram.
People who love golf and people who love giant statues of spiders is basically a circle.
So it works out. It's
Wild.
Yeah. A how you feel about Long Beach?
Uh, really good. I think we're gonna win.
That's all I wanna say. I
Love that.
I mean, I love that you've won it twice. Mm-hmm .
You actually, no, but can you make it not as boring as the last time? 'cause that was,
I don't think so.
I'll take, I'll take a boring win 'cause it'll be a really fun night, .
That's Finally I'm gonna run home. Tough
Dolphin.
Will we finally do the Tough Dolphin tattoos?
If you win, getting the hell out of there.
We'll see Tim, we we'll see.
Uh, but no, I am, I love Long Beach.
We, we always wax on about this event.
Um, but it's, it's for real because it is the, it's the best one outside the Indy 500.
It's the 50th anniversary of, um, the Accor Grand Prix of Long Beach.
There's a huge amount of history there.
It's always such a, an amazing event because there's so much going on.
But also the knowledge of the fans is incredible.
The turnout of the fans, even on a Friday is always second to none.
So, um, we love going there.
I'm a little biased because it's a pseudo home race.
Um, but I, I think, I think I am not in the minority when I say, um, it's one of the, the highlight events on the calendar, so can't wait, man. Very excited. Yeah.
After Indy, it's, it's the one, you know, and the fact that it's an IndyCar MA doubleheader is always, you know, a huge thing and very exciting.
And on that note, um, special note and special shout out for Robbie Wickens, who is gonna make his MSO WeatherTech debut this weekend, moving his way up the Motorsports ladder once again.
So, very cool. A hand controlled Corvette, um,
is gonna be, uh, what he's driving.
I'm very excited to watch this.
And, um, yeah, M Race Saturday Indy Car Race Sunday.
Don't miss it guys. It's going be great.
Or if you miss it, put it on television anyways. Have it
On. Stream it on.
Just turn it on. Just turn it on.
That's all I'm asking. Stream it. Just turn
It on, stream it on your phone. Just, you know,
Breaking your neighbor house.
Turn it on their house too. Yeah,
But we encourage, we officially encourage breaking and entering.
No, it's, it's breaking and entering. We're
Not gonna say that.
We're not gonna Say that. Adding ambiance. Alright.
We don't, it's breaking. It's breaking and leaving.
It's breaking and leaving. Breaking and leaving.
You're in and out. That sounds in
And out.
It's not right, but we're not gonna break anything. Think the
Breaking might be the problem.
Okay. We're we encourage entering and leaving .
We're gonna, we're Gonna just Gonna knock all Ask, request and then leave.
There's no entering, there's no breaking, there's no entering, there's requesting, there's knocking, requesting and leaving. If you
Wanna be A nerd about it, You consent guys, that's all we're saying.
This has been off track with Hinch and Rossi.
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