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Car
Mazda Cx5
They mention the Mazda CX-5, which is a popular compact SUV. In this episode, they say they brought the new one to Le Mans.
Place
Le Mans
Le Mans is a famous race in France. It’s known for long endurance races, and car companies often use it as a big event to showcase new vehicles.
Car
Ferrari Luce
The Ferrari Luce is a Ferrari model that’s being discussed as an electric vehicle. The podcast mention suggests it’s connected to a new debut and changes in who is competing or leading. It’s being brought up because it represents a shift in the lineup.
Car
Ford Mustang
The Ford Mustang is a sporty car made by Ford, usually offered as a coupe or convertible. It’s known for having strong acceleration and a performance-focused design. People talk about it a lot because it’s a well-known car for driving fast and for racing setups.
Car
Mazda Mx5
The Mazda MX-5 (Miata) is a small two-seat sports car designed to be fun and easy to drive. It’s known for good handling rather than just raw power. The podcast references an MX-5 Cup, which is a racing series for this model.
Concept
street racing
Street racing means racing on normal city streets instead of a track. It’s hard to organize because you have to close roads for safety, and the streets can be too tight to pass easily.
Term
power unit
A “power unit” is the part of a race car that makes it move—its main engine or electric system. It’s the thing that provides the car’s driving power.
Topic
Formula E
Formula E is a racing series where the cars are fully electric. The races are often held in city areas, so the track layout and safety rules are a big deal.
Term
Formula 1
Formula 1 is the biggest, most famous kind of open-wheel racing. The cars are very advanced and the races happen all over the world.
Term
700 horsepower
Horsepower is a way to describe how much power a car’s motor can produce. “700 horsepower” means the car is extremely powerful, which matters for speed and safety in racing.
Term
gravel traps
Gravel traps are safety zones next to the track. If a car goes off course, the loose gravel helps slow it down before it hits something harder.
Term
catch fencing
Catch fencing is safety fencing placed around a race track. If a car crashes or breaks apart, the fencing helps keep debris from flying into dangerous areas.
Concept
safety-wise, they've completely outgrown a lot of the tracks
The idea is that newer, faster cars can be too much for older tracks’ safety setups. If the track can’t safely handle the higher speeds, they may change venues or upgrade safety areas.
Place
Mexico City
Mexico City is where a Formula 1 race is held. The hosts are talking about a shorter version of the track layout, which changes the route the cars take during the race.
Concept
short track
A “short track” is when the race doesn’t use the entire track. They run a shorter route, which can change how the cars drive and how the race plays out.
Term
Formula One circuit
A “Formula One circuit” is the main track used for Formula 1 races. They’re saying the race uses the Formula 1 track, but only part of it (a shorter layout).
Term
FE
FE here refers to Formula E, the all-electric single-seater racing series. The host argues that Formula E’s continued growth is tied to manufacturers needing it as a marketing and technology platform to help justify the huge investment in electric cars.
Concept
electric cars
Electric cars are vehicles powered by electricity instead of gasoline. The host is saying companies spend a lot on them, and racing helps them justify that spending.
Place
Austin
Austin is where another major racing event is held in Texas. They’re checking whether it will use a shorter track layout or the full track.
Term
NASCAR configuration
A “NASCAR configuration” is a different way of laying out the same venue for NASCAR-style races. It usually changes which parts of the track get used, so the driving feels different.
Term
track limits
Track limits are the rules about where tires are allowed to go on the track. If a driver goes past the allowed edge, officials can penalize them, even if they didn’t crash.
Topic
London Grand Prix
The London Grand Prix is the name of a racing event they’re talking about. They quickly correct that it wasn’t at London—it was held at Brands Hatch.
Place
Brands Hatch
Brands Hatch is a well-known race track in the UK. Different racing series have used it, and the track layout is the kind that can make races and strategy interesting.
Term
fuel mileage race
A “fuel mileage race” is a race where saving fuel matters a lot. Instead of going flat-out the whole time, drivers and teams have to manage power and timing so they don’t run out of fuel.
Topic
Amsterdam Grand Prix
The Amsterdam Grand Prix is a race event in Amsterdam. The hosts are talking about it as part of a schedule where there may be two races in the same weekend.
Topic
double headers
A “double header” means there are two races during the same event weekend. Teams may have to plan for both races, not just one.
Topic
World Endurance Championship
The World Endurance Championship is long-distance racing where teams drive for hours, not just minutes. The FIA runs it, and the episode is talking about whether its race dates overlap with other series.
Person
Ben Soleim
Ben Soleim is mentioned as a top FIA official. The hosts are saying he (and the FIA’s calendar group) thinks the race dates shouldn’t overlap.
Topic
Sportacar calendars
This is about the schedules for sports-car racing events. The point is that different racing series can end up trying to use the same weekends, which causes conflicts.
Topic
IMSA CTMP
IMSA is a major North American racing organizer. “CTMP” is a track in Canada, and the hosts are saying the dates can overlap with other endurance races.
Topic
prologue
A prologue is an opening event before the main part of the season. Think of it as the series’ warm-up or kickoff race weekend.
Place
Zyli International Circuit
This is the race track where they’re suggesting the opening “prologue” event will happen. A prologue is basically the series’ kickoff race weekend before the main races.
Topic
WEC
WEC is a major endurance racing series run by the FIA. Cars race for many hours, so teams have to manage strategy and reliability, not just go fast.
Topic
Southern Europe
They’re talking about moving upcoming races to Southern Europe. That affects travel and logistics for teams getting cars and equipment ready.
Term
one and a half points races
In endurance championships, races can carry different points weights. “One and a half points” means the event awards 1.5× the usual championship points, which can significantly affect the season standings when only a few races remain.
Term
two races of more than six hours
Endurance races are measured by how long they last. If it’s more than six hours, teams usually need multiple drivers and careful pit strategy to manage the whole race.
Place
Nurburgring
The Nürburgring is a famous race track in Germany. Car people use it to compare how fast and how well cars handle because it’s long, twisty, and has big changes in elevation.
Topic
simcast
A simcast is basically a live show about sim racing. It’s like a broadcast for people who race in racing video games, with updates and guest talks.
Topic
spa 24 hours
The Spa 24 Hours is a long endurance race in Belgium where cars run for a full day. It’s not just about being fast—teams also have to manage tires, fuel, driver changes, and avoid problems.
Topic
RS1
RS1 is the channel/platform where the show is going to be streamed. They’re saying you can watch it there at 8pm.
Person
Jonathan Ogden
Jonathan Ogden is mentioned as a guest associated with Phoenix Racing. In the context of prep for the Spa 24 Hours, he’s likely contributing team or driver-perspective insight into endurance-race preparation.
Person
Kenny Hobbs
Kenny Hobbs is another guest. He’s connected with Luna Rose Racing and is joining to discuss prep for the Spa 24 Hours.
Brand
CrowdStrike
CrowdStrike is a company that sponsors the race, so the event is called the “CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa.” Sponsors often get their name attached to big events.
Person
Andrew Cotton
Andrew Cotton is the editor of a motorsport magazine called Racecar Engineering. In this episode, he’s joining to give expert commentary on the race.
Term
grid
The grid is the lineup of cars at the start of a race. Saying it’s “in rude health” means the starting field looks strong and healthy.
Term
Pirelli rubber
Pirelli makes the tires the teams run. Tires are a huge deal in racing—what they’re made of and how they’re used can change how much grip the car has, especially in heat or rain.
Term
traction control
Traction control is a computer system that helps prevent the wheels from spinning when the road is slippery. It can make the car easier to control when grip suddenly changes, like when rain hits.
Term
air conditioning
Air conditioning keeps the driver cooler. In very hot races, staying comfortable can help the driver stay focused and consistent, especially when conditions change.
Company
WRT
WRT is a racing team. The host is saying they’ve had trouble in the past when weather changes suddenly, because strategy and tire timing become harder.
Term
wet tires
Wet tires are made to grip on a rainy track. Their tread helps push water out from under the tire so the car can still slow down and turn safely.
Person
Dries van Thorien
Dries van Thorien is a race driver. In this story, he’s the driver the team put into the car when they switched to rain tires.
Concept
lap of the gods
“Lap of the gods” is a saying for when racing feels like it’s decided by luck. When weather and timing go wrong or right, it can completely change who wins.
Concept
balance of performance
Balance of performance is how racing organizers try to make different cars compete more fairly. They adjust rules so one car doesn’t automatically become much faster than the others.
Term
GT3
GT3 is a type of race car class. It’s designed so different brands can race against each other using similar rules, so the competition is more about driving and team setup than having a totally unique car.
Person
Stefan Matel
Stefan Matel is the organizer/figure the host expects to announce the next racing schedule. The host also says he’s good at keeping teams and drivers involved.
Concept
entry list
An entry list is the list of who’s officially entered to race. If it’s big, there are more cars on track, and that can make things more complicated—especially if the weather changes.
Concept
driver categories
Driver categories are different groups of drivers in the same event. They help organize who competes where, and they can make racing more tricky when there are lots of cars and changing conditions.
Brand
Porsche
They’re talking about which race-car brand the team is using. Switching from Ferrari to Porsche changes the car platform the team has to work with.
Person
Luke Donk-Volker
Luke Donk-Volker is the person the host interviewed. The important part here is that the interview information was delayed so it wouldn’t break an embargo before the official announcement.
Concept
embargo
An embargo is a “don’t publish yet” agreement. It’s used so everyone releases the news at the same time instead of one person spoiling it early.
Brand
Genesis
Genesis is a luxury car brand. In this segment, they’re talking about Genesis trying to compete in racing and then make a road version that’s allowed on public streets.
Term
homologation
Homologation is the approval process that lets a race car compete. It typically requires the manufacturer to build and sell a minimum number of road cars so the race version is based on something real.
Company
FIA
The FIA is the organization that writes the rules for international auto racing. In this segment, it’s described as the body manufacturers go to when they want consistent technical rules.
Term
technical regulations
Technical regulations are the detailed rules that define what a race car is allowed to do and how it must be built (for example, limits on components, dimensions, and performance-related systems). The hosts argue that stable technical regulations reduce uncertainty for manufacturers.
Term
GT cars
GT cars are grand touring-style race cars based on production models, typically competing in GT championships. In this segment, the hosts connect the evolution of regulations to “extreme GT cars” and then to Genesis’s plan to build toward GT3 rules.
Concept
customer racing
Customer racing means a company sells race cars to teams that aren’t the manufacturer’s own team. Those teams buy the cars and race them themselves.
Concept
manufacturer racing
Manufacturer racing is when the car company itself runs the race team. Instead of selling cars to others, the factory team competes directly.
Term
GT4s
GT4 is another class of race car, usually simpler and cheaper than GT3. The point here is that even GT4 cars have evolved into more specialized racing machines.
Term
onboard system
An onboard system is the car’s in-race electronics that control and monitor how the car runs. Teams can adjust settings for different tracks, which changes performance even if the car is the same model.
Company
Bosch
Bosch is a big technology company that makes automotive parts and electronics. In racing, they help provide the kinds of onboard systems teams use to control and monitor the car.
Concept
backward engineered into a road car
“Backward engineered into a road car” describes taking technology developed for racing and translating it into production vehicles. In practice, teams and manufacturers adapt materials, aerodynamics, electronics, and control strategies so the performance ideas can be used on street-legal cars.
Term
prototype racing car
A prototype race car is built mainly for racing, not for selling as a normal street car. The idea is that lessons from these cars can later influence real road cars.
Term
BOP
BOP is a set of race rules meant to keep different cars fairly matched. Instead of letting one car be faster just because of its design, the rules add limits so teams are closer in speed.
Term
setup
A “setup” is how a race team tunes the car for a specific track. Small adjustments can change how the tires grip and how the car handles.
Term
right height at the back
“Ride height” (here described as the right height at the back) is the distance between the car and the ground. In GT racing, changing ride height affects aerodynamics and suspension geometry, which can materially change downforce and handling—so it can create performance gaps that BOP can’t fully eliminate across all setups.
Term
camber
Camber is the angle of the tire when viewed from the front or rear. Changing it helps the tire stay more evenly loaded in turns, improving grip.
Concept
sweet spot
A “sweet spot” is the range where the car works best—where it feels most balanced and grips well. If another car has to be pushed away from that range to match, it may handle worse or be harder to drive fast.
Term
DTM
DTM is a well-known racing series in Germany. Here it’s mentioned to say that when you have mostly top-level pro drivers, it’s easier to balance car performance fairly.
Term
Bronze
Bronze is a driver skill/experience level label used in some racing rules. When you mix Bronze drivers with faster ones, it affects how evenly the cars’ performance shows up in results.
Term
Silver
Silver is a label for a driver’s skill/experience level used in some racing series. If races include drivers with different ratings, it can make car-balancing rules behave differently on track.
Term
Platinum
Platinum is a label for the highest driver skill category in some racing series. The idea here is that even top drivers can have a bad weekend, and rules can’t fix that completely.
Place
Nobergring
This is a famous race track in Germany—Nürburgring. It’s known for being tough on cars, so teams have to be smart about setup and strategy.
Concept
strategic battle
In endurance racing, a “strategic battle” means teams are trying to win by making the right decisions at the right times—like when to pit and how to handle weather. Sometimes the best plan beats the fastest car.
Concept
proper old school endurance race
They mean the race will feel like the classic kind of endurance racing—long, unpredictable, and decided by planning and adapting. It’s not just about one-off speed.
Term
touring car race
A touring car race uses cars that are closer to what you’d see on the road. The host is saying this event feels more like that style of racing than like GT3 racing.
Place
mid-Ohio sports car course
Mid-Ohio is a race track in the U.S. where sports cars compete. It has a variety of turns, so it’s a good place to see how well a car is set up and how skilled the drivers are.
Concept
momentum
In racing, “momentum” means you’re coming off a good weekend and you’re likely to be strong again. Teams try to keep the same good habits and information so they don’t lose their edge during the gap between races.
Topic
offseason
The offseason is the break between racing seasons. Drivers and teams use that time to train and get ready for the next set of races.
Place
Daytona
Daytona is another race location on the schedule. They’re comparing how long the break is between Atlanta and Daytona.
Place
Atlanta
Atlanta is a race location on the calendar. The speaker is using it to say there’s a similar time gap between two events.
Concept
rookies
Rookies are drivers who are new to the series or to racing at that level. The speaker is saying it can be harder for them because they don’t have as many relationships and experience yet.
Concept
debutants
Debutants are newcomers making their first start. The speaker is saying new drivers can find it tough because they don’t have the same familiarity with the rest of the grid.
Person
Ethan Jacobs
Ethan Jacobs is another racer the host is talking about. They’re praising how well he performed and how he managed his speed and spacing during the races.
Concept
gaps
“Gaps” means how much time separates one car from another. Drivers manage those gaps to stay in control of position and avoid getting stuck behind slower cars.
Car
BMW X5
The BMW X5 is a larger family SUV that focuses on comfort and a premium feel. It’s designed to drive well on normal roads, and it can also be prepared for racing events. In the podcast, it sounds like it was used in competition rather than just daily driving.
Topic
Speck and X5
Speck and X5 sound like other racing series or categories the speaker has raced in before. It’s mentioned to explain why they know Ethan Jacobs well.
Term
peek to the inside
In racing, “peeking” to the inside means briefly moving toward the inside line to test whether the other driver will leave space. It’s often used to set up a later move without committing fully to the pass.
Concept
lifted out of it
“Lifting out of it” means you back off the gas to slow down a bit. Racers do it when a move isn’t going to work so they can stay in control and not make the situation worse.
Concept
sailed around the outside
“Sailing around the outside” means trying to pass by going around the outside line of a corner. You’re banking on staying fast enough that you can get alongside or ahead without losing control.
Concept
run down
A “run” is the burst of speed you set up after a corner. If you get a good run, you’re faster going into the next area where passing is possible.
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Durance racing, rallying, touring cars and bikes.
If it has wheels and an engine and they keep score, it's on midweek motorsport.
And as Switzerland and Canada kick off in the World Cup in the United States, we are
back.
This is the first midweek motorsport series 21 episode 23.
John Handoff in a relatively warm midlands of the UK here in the studios at Thrapston,
looking beautiful evening.
Fantastic.
Looking out over the meadow in front of us.
One man and he's, oh hello.
Now I just realised who that is.
We have a chap here who trains dogs and he's got both of his dogs here this evening.
And he's just walking over by the river down towards the ceiling club.
So I realised I'm describing it somewhat like what you colleagues see.
It's absolutely lovely.
He's got both of his German chevrolet.
And it's just that thing with the clicker, where he trains them with the clicker.
When I get the dogs, when I retire, and I will have dogs when I retire, dogs plural.
I'm going to tap them on the shoulder because his dogs are down to the absolute brilliance.
Anyway, here we are in a warm midlands.
I suspect in an even more sweaty south London is Tim Gray, our executive producer as we
come back after our weeks off, week off after Le Mans up in London.
Tim Gray, good evening Tim.
On a packed programme tonight we have what?
Are you not trying to week off?
I was busy producing NLS at the weekend.
Well yeah, well no, I didn't have a week off.
I've been doing other stuff.
I've been testing cars.
I've been booking flights.
I've been getting all sorts done.
I had a lovely couple of days in Liverpool in north Wales earlier.
Was this with Master?
It was with Master, with then you.
Do you remember we had that sneak preview of the Master 16, a left hand drive version.
On Tuesday, Monday afternoon I went over there, Tuesday I drove out into north Wales.
It was 35 degrees in north Wales, around the back of Snowdornia, right where the Mac
Clubies, for those of you who are, yes, Pleoanspottles, absolutely.
I think he's more commercial than military.
I had an absolutely great run out in that car and I'm looking forward to it.
We've got Jeremy Thompson, who is the CEO of Master UK, walked around the car, a couple
of different versions of the drive.
We've got a long version, a short version.
You will hear that coming up in the next few weeks.
Plus we've got the CX-5, the new CX-5 coming as well.
We took that to Le Mans.
At Tim's, sorry, Nick, who we'll hear from in just a moment, Nick had a transit people
carrier that he took to Le Mans, which he liked, I think he liked a lot, well we'll
find out when we hear that as well.
Other than that, on a packed program tonight's team, we have what?
We have all the usual features apart from rally report, which we don't have.
Okay.
Because I don't think there was a rally last week.
I think you're probably right with that.
They had the back to back of Finland and Japan and then had a little rest.
So Nick Damon will have his team by team review of the Grand Prix of Barcelona, Catalonia,
which seems like such a long time ago.
We have Andrew Cotten, we have John De Geese with a double stint, we have Callender News,
we have Pointless and we have a big interview as well.
So lots of camera.
We do.
Justin has a connist this week.
Correct.
We've had a quite long gap between our Willemaster MX5 races and they were back at Middle High
or just before the moment.
And Justin will be with us later on tonight.
Shall I do some parish notices?
Edwardian says, EFA is in winter time.
He says laughing at the English calling weather in the 30s a heatwave.
It's 36 degrees and we still work outside even in the winter.
Yes, I accept that.
I'm not complaining.
I love the heat.
It's the humidity that is the problem.
It's not dry heat.
But I drive around with dry heat.
Great.
I'll take that all the time.
Drive around with me windows down.
I did have to have the air con on in the car coming back from Liverpool in the portion.
But in the morning, I didn't have it on in the master.
Even though it was roughly the same temperature was one in the 30s.
Anyway, all about that.
Hello to M. Gordita.
She says I'll listen to it well after the show has taken place.
I'm going to Imse this weekend.
Excellent.
Well done.
Hello to Otter.
EF is after being offered the position of Ferrari's marketing chief following the firing
of the incumbents after the Luce E.V. debut.
There was a master Luce as well actually.
So they just copied the name there.
In all seriously, thank you to our friends at Ferrari Corsa in particular.
I came home to an incredible book that we were sent.
I don't know how much it was to get it in because it was about 40 kilos.
I'm slightly exaggerating there.
Thank you very much to Luca and the rest of the team.
James O'Donnell looking forward to the show.
Definitely an evening for listening in the garden with a cold drink.
Hope you guys had the opportunity to relax last week after what was a great Le Mans.
It was a great Le Mans.
We'll talk to John about that and see.
We'll talk to Daggers about that later on.
I was going to do the show from the garden tonight.
It is actually cooler in the studio than it is outside even now.
Incredible.
Hello to James O'Donnell.
Good to hear you.
That you're listening tonight.
Hello to Tom Marschallek, home after a medical procedure.
All good.
I'm kidding.
It's your line today from home.
I'm trying to listen at work.
Tom, hope you and the Mustang, you and your Mustang, are in particularly fine fettel at
the moment.
Our artist in residence, N.G. O'Donnell, are still recovering from the hospitality of
the first tickets in Ford and a phenomenal Le Mans for him and his better half, Kerry,
tuned in working on a commissioned piece tonight.
Now, if you haven't seen this, by the way, at N.G. O'Donnell Art on Twitter, he's doing
some very limited edition prints, which he doesn't do very often, of his 962.
There are a few left and they're not that expensive.
They are a very good way to get into his art.
They're not original.
They are prints, but even so.
Hello to Rafi.
Looking forward to the show tonight.
No earfears.
I'm listening from, at least to the first hour, from Damstadt, cheering for some friends.
Hello Rafi.
Sara Rigby tuned in, listening live.
Looking forward to another jam packed bursting at the same show.
Yes, and that's just me and my shorts, to be honest.
Sara, I've eaten rather too well recently, particularly on the Mazda launch.
Launch punch is a thing.
I promise you it is true.
To Alex Orkin.
Hello, no earfears.
A lemon carrot salad flatbread.
Post Le Mans midweek motorsport, the second half of the season kicking off now.
It really is.
James or Donald.
Hello.
Good to know that you're listening in tonight.
Chris Sucu, no earfears.
Doug Payella followed by chocolate ice cream.
Wow.
Yeah, we had Doug tonight.
We had...
I never had it in a Payella though.
No, I haven't either.
Doug and Salad.
All the latest motorsport news from around the world.
Midweek motorsport.
As that bed feeds, I'll quickly say hello to Johannes from his sweltering Vienna to
the guys at Mazda MX5 Cup to RTL.
Welcome back.
Tweeting in last week was a bit of a ruck.
Yes, but we were playing the race again.
Earfears tonight from Matt Hunter, who will be with us later on.
Yes, he's tomorrow, isn't he?
Jimmy Dwyer is listening live tonight.
This Sean Crockett, who we met at first tickets at LeMond.
Yes, Jesse Young is earfears tonight.
Marcus Hudson is working for round four of the Super 4-2-15 national championship at
Fallback this weekend, where Nick Damon and Joe Bradley will be sweating their what-nots
off.
Luke is listening tonight around the southern tip of Lykke, Seneca, so he's going to Imse
and Alexander Orkin has got his feet in a paddling pool.
I'd expect your team, and if you want to get in touch with us, it's still nil nil.
Tim and the team to Switzerland, Canada, just to prove we're live.
And Tim Gray has the top story, and it's one of his favourites.
It's calendar news.
Oh, you love a good calendar, don't you?
I do.
I'm quite excited by this particular calendar.
We've got two bits of calendar news to start with.
Oh, right.
Yes.
So I'm going to talk about the one that's the most recently released calendar first,
and then the one that's released before afterwards.
Formula E, yes.
Yes, Formula E.
E.
E.
E.
Even before you start talking about this, do I detect, gentlemen, a significant change
in Formula E and their whole raison d'etre and the point of them being around?
Because they're launched telling us, and this is season 10 or whatever it is.
This won't be 13, but yes.
13, is it?
So this is season 13, and they told us 13 seasons ago.
It wasn't for the likes of us.
This was for new fans, and they were going to take motor racing to new people in city
centres.
They were going to rock up and just go, oh, come on in.
It won't cost you anything.
Come and watch motor racing.
And that seems to have changed somewhat.
Yes.
Manufacturers seem to have been busy doing what motor manufacturers do and have built
faster and faster cars with more and more power.
And they've rather grown the city centre streets that the original concept was racing
on to the point that they're either too fast or too dangerous or can't overtake there.
So they decided...
So expensive, as we said right at the start, it doesn't matter what the mode of power unit
is, street racing is expensive to set up and doing one race over a weekend where you've
got closed city streets for three weeks around the event just isn't going to work.
So finally, Mr Raghag and...
He's long gone.
Yes, and all that.
But, well, he's...
Hello, everyone, by the way.
Hello, Nick.
Nick Damon's with us tonight.
Nick Damon, our Formula E sports car.
Hello, everybody.
Do you want to just...
Straight from Yorkshire.
It's quite a break what you said about them.
Given the fact that they started what 12 years ago, so they must have started in 2014 or
15.
Because who has actually got all the new fans in the past 11 years?
Sports car racing and Formula 1.
Netflix and Formula 1.
That's where all the new motorsport fans have come.
And Formula E have managed to achieve no new fans.
They have managed to attract a few of the existing fans.
But it's like...
I don't know.
The team's absolutely right.
They're now going to have pushing 700 horsepower next year with the new cars.
The cars are bigger and therefore they have a huge momentum.
Therefore they need to be going into gravel traps and catch fencing.
Not catch fencing, do you know what I mean?
Rather than into...
I mean the drivers, rather than they didn't go into gravel traps.
But...
Well, yeah.
But for safety-wise, they've completely outgrown a lot of the tracks.
That's why...
I'm sure we'll come to that.
That's why the venue for the UK has changed.
Because they are too big to continue racing at the end.
Right, this is...
Yes, yes.
This is Colander News.
So, Tim, just go through the calendar.
And we're not being snitty about this.
I just think it's a very, very interesting vault fast from Formula E.
Because now...
It's just an evolution.
It's not a vault fast.
It's an evolution.
I know, it's an evolution.
The cars have grown more powerful.
They've outgrown the circuits that they wanted to race on.
And they now have to race on bigger circuits.
And nobody turned up to the circuits that they wanted to race on.
And nobody was interested in it.
So it's become part of the mainstream.
It's been getting enough fans to make a profit.
It's part of the mainstream now.
It's no longer the outlier than it wanted to be.
Oh, yes.
No, no.
I don't think they ever wanted to be an outlier.
They wanted...
Oh, yes, they did.
They did, Tim.
No, nobody wanted to be an outlier.
They wanted to be different.
And they are.
They wanted that their stated aim was to attract people who weren't interested in motorsport,
who could walk to the events from their apartments in the city that they were racing around.
And that didn't work.
It didn't work.
It was never going to work.
And it didn't work.
And anybody who had an ounce of common sense could have told them that.
Because the money that the finances weren't going to stack up.
They've been bailed out.
Is it twice now that they've been bailed out?
But they have now...
And the FIA, of course, Mohammed bin Salayem, who is getting short of FIA World Championships
and therefore flexing his muscles at Le Mans, more about that later, I'm sure, is desperate
to keep them on board.
And they've launched a new truck championship, I know, honest.
Well done, the FIA.
But...
We'll talk about trucks later.
Oh, I'm sure we will.
But they have completely changed their outlook onto who might watch and who they're trying
to attract.
And I'm not saying that's a bad thing.
That's good.
It's called Pivoty, but it just proves they were wrong in the first place.
And I'd rather wish that they would admit that, because it would make me feel better.
But I'm not sure really whether they're aiming to satisfy John Hindoff or the first Rackston.
I've commented on the first race, mate.
You.
Me and Sam Collins did live commentary on the first race.
Ever.
Oh, OK.
Yep.
It's on the archive.
That's when Niko Cross went upside down.
Oh, what's his name?
Yes.
German bloke.
What's his name?
I can see his face.
No, Nick Hydefield.
Nick Hydefield.
Nick Hydefield.
Oh, no one can see his face.
I'll get it eventually.
I don't know.
The calendar starts on December the 18th and 19th.
We've digressed.
Yes, he went on a rant and didn't let me do the calendar.
It starts at Jedder because that's his paying for it.
Mexico City is the second one.
That's sort of a race track.
Is that on the short track still?
It's on the Formula One circuit.
Yes, but it's on the short track.
So they cut off halfway down the main street and come around the back of where they store
all the bits and pieces and then they come back halfway down the back street.
Is that still on the short track or are they using the full track?
It does not say.
That actually works really well.
Look, people think I'm against FE.
I'm not at all.
I was against the way they marketed it in the first place because I thought they were
being condescending towards people who were interested in motor racing.
And I thought they got that wrong and I think that's why it's filled up until now and it
does feel up until now.
And the only reason it's continued is because manufacturers need to do FE to justify the
billions of dollars that they have spent on electric cars, which actually that's going
to come to an end and then they'll actually have to stand on their own two feet.
So what they're doing now is quite sensible.
However, I thought that the short track at Mexico actually worked pretty well for them.
Where are they going after Mexico?
They're off to Austin for their first racing quota.
Is that on the short track as well or is that in the long track?
It's the NASCAR configuration.
Yes, I like that.
That's another good track.
That'll work really well.
No, it won't.
It'll be a track limit will be a disaster.
No, it won't.
It won't.
It'll be a crash-faced, but it won't be a disaster.
But that's okay.
That'll work well until...
Every single driver will get a penalty for track limits.
It's cheap on telly as well because far fewer cameras.
Two weeks after that, they're off to Miami.
Being Vanidus and Miami.
Which version of the Miami circuit are they using?
Oh, that would be the short track again.
There is only one version of Miami.
No, there's not.
There's two versions of Miami because when they did some of the promotional stuff, they
did it on a short track that cuts out that long backstrike and it cuts back around.
São Paulo on March 13th.
Is that the full version of that track?
You can see where I'm going with this, can't you?
Yes, you're suggesting that they can't do full laps, which is obviously not because it's
the Gen 4 car and that hasn't been an issue since 2015.
Sanya, which is where they were last weekend, is where they're going back to on April 17th.
That's the earlier date in the calendar.
Can I stop you there?
And isn't that the problem?
What?
Who knew there at Sanya last weekend?
Not me.
I did.
Not me.
It's the first time they've been there since Covid.
When I catch, I'm going to say right now, when I catch Formula E, I really enjoy watching it.
I just never know when it's on.
Or where it's on.
I don't know if someone Tim knows very well.
ITV4 or Sky can't make a series link work on it.
No.
So you miss it most of the time.
And of course, because I'm all over, I end up looking at all the news sites, I always end up finding the result.
So there's no point watching it.
I mean, you wouldn't have stumbled across this by accident because the race was 3.30 in the morning.
Although I managed to watch all of the supercars from Darwin because that was on series.
That was on series link.
Exactly what you're saying.
ITV4 will not series link it.
I don't know why.
And neither will the Channel 4.
Well, that one wasn't on ITV4, it was on ITVX.
And Sky doesn't support cross channel series linking anywhere.
Dude, why is the whole season not on ITV4?
Especially at 3.30 in the morning.
Because this is a free to air deal done by ITVX.
So after that, after Sanje?
Then they head to Europe.
Berlin, maybe 8th and 9th, double header.
Monaco, May 15th and 16th, another double header.
And that is on the full circuit then?
Yes.
May the 29th and 30th, Brands Hatch, another double header.
Is that a door noise?
Is that on the full Grand Prix circuit?
It's on the Indy circuit because they're not allowed to use that many days of Grand Prix circuit.
No, no, stop.
That's about noise.
That's about noise.
Even the Nimbis can't complain about the formalities.
The formalities are no noise at the next door doing the streaming.
Yes, exactly.
So I would think...
That's the London Grand Prix that takes over from down in Docklands.
Now, can I just point out that when we say the London Grand Prix, that is easy jet London Grand Prix.
In fairness, it's closer than London Gatwick and London Stanislaus and London Luton.
Yes.
To London, I mean.
It's still an hour minimum outside of London.
No, it's not. I live in London. It's 20 minutes away.
Oh, you live in South London, don't you?
South East London, mate. It's three minutes.
It seems absolutely right. They're 35 minutes on a bad day.
In fact, in probably 12 minutes, you could get from Brands Hatch to somewhere with a London...
which is part of a London borough.
How long would it take you to get from Excel to Brands Hatch?
How are you travelling?
45 minutes.
In a car?
45 minutes.
You go through the Silvertown Tunnel, straight on...
Tall.
Yes, you do have to pay a toll.
I shouldn't be subsidising your driving with my council tax.
It's not the only...
not the only event that's called Brands Hatch London.
Is it not?
No.
It's not.
A-1-G-P had the London Grand Prix.
Oh, no, that's right. Yes, that was at Brands Hatch.
That was tedious as well. That was an absolute snooze fest.
And of course the London Paralympics were held at Brands Hatch where Alex and Nardi won...
Indycar... Indycar... did not Indycar go to...
It did go there in 2003, but I don't think they called it London.
Well, I think they probably did.
When they went there in the 80s and it became the Indy circuit, what do they call it then?
No, they were there in 2000.
That was the first time I met Declan Brennan in 2003 in the Indy.
Really?
And that was a snooze fest. Yes.
Because it was a... it was a fuel mileage race.
Yes.
And it was awful.
It was terrible.
The two mandatory pit stops was one mandatory pit stop too many.
Whereafter Brands? For Formula E?
Another double header. The Amsterdam Grand Prix.
The always should be double headers.
Let's just make this clear. They all should be double headers.
Not Formula R this time.
No.
No Formula 1 for Zandvoort, but that will work fine round there.
I think that will be great.
Harama?
Harama? In the housing estate.
Double header.
You must have been a Harama, Nick.
No, I've been past Harama.
I've driven past it and never been to Harama.
I've been there and worked. I've seen racing there.
Johnny Palmer went there last year on a D2 just because he could.
It's one of the 115 million tracks I've actually been to.
And commented on that.
No, okay. After Harama?
Shanghai.
Yeah, okay.
And then the season ends in Tokyo.
Oh, on a straight track?
Yes. Double header on a street track.
Interesting. Do we know where that is yet?
Have we seen anything odd?
Tokyo.
It's Tokyo.
Yes, Tokyo is massive.
Tokyo is bigger than Los Angeles.
There's a sprawling mass.
Yes.
It's huge.
Is it the case where it's like London, Tokyo, and it's like 50 miles outside?
Easily. It could be. Yes.
We'll find out.
It's on this year's calendar as well, isn't it?
Right. We'll see.
I don't know.
We'll see.
We'll see when it comes out.
Hang on.
Tom Furth's the 2003 IndyCar race was actually champ car.
And it was the London champ car trophy.
Yes.
It was, yes.
There we go.
Totally.
Totally.
I'm there.
Gareth Howell sends apologies for absence.
He's having a catch up with his daughter in the Cambridge Blue,
which I suspect is an establishment serving alcohol and not a rowing boat.
Or any other kind of sporting excellence,
because you can get Cambridge Blue for quite a lot of different sports.
That's true, actually, yes.
Moving on.
No.
No, actually, before you say that, Johannes, this has been pointed out.
And I'm going to talk about this as well later on,
because clashing dates is a bit of a cause for that at the moment.
I was actually about to say that this Formula E calendar has two clashes,
but the next calendar that we're going to talk about.
The World Endurance Championship.
Yes.
The FIA World Endurance Championship.
Yeah.
This is another FIA calendar where the FIA have said they don't want their series to clash.
This is actually unacceptable from the president of the FIA, Ben Soleim,
and the rest of the calendar committee,
because there's enough weekends in the year to keep things apart.
And particularly with FE and WAC, there's quite a large crossover of drivers and manufacturers.
And I am absolutely certain we'll pick this up again later on.
It's the same with the Sportacar calendars.
So is it two, Tim?
Two.
Clash?
Yes.
Yeah.
Having said that, how many of these will even go ahead?
Which are the ones that clash?
I think we have a clash at Spa with Berlin.
Right, well those will happen.
Yes.
Although it's just down the road in fairness.
I mean you could fly between them, couldn't you?
Yeah, helicopters.
Yep.
I'm just trying to find the other one now.
Don't mention the Berlin Airlift.
Okay.
Probably not good at this point.
Particularly to where they have the Berlin Race.
And what's the other one?
I'm just thinking of it as Saniq.
Uh-huh.
Saniq clash.
No, that doesn't clash.
Okay.
There's another significant one.
I actually saw it today and I've completely forgotten about it
because I just went, oh really.
Anyway, there's two clashes.
Right, hence.
Yes, Sao Paulo clashes with Shanghai.
Sao Paulo, Wec.
WEC, sorry.
Yes.
Must stop calling it Wec.
World Endurance Championship Sao Paulo.
Which already clashes with IMSA CTMP.
Canadian Time, also clashes with Formula E Shanghai, does it?
Yeah, so they probably want to move.
Excellent.
Well done everybody.
Well done everybody.
Ev always says she wants to get everybody who does calendars in a room
and beat them with a stick.
So that you can come out with a calendar that doesn't necessarily clash.
By the way, just to prove that we're live Bosnia and Hertz,
Gavina, just gone one up against Cata.
Is that two then?
Well, I think it's unfair, isn't it?
There's 22 of them on the pitch at the same time, isn't it?
So the FIA World Endurance Championship will start with a prologue on the
21st and 22nd of March, which it's suggested will be at the
Zyli International Circuit in Cata.
Right, if that is right, that is the Sunday and the Monday after Sabring.
Which means that nobody who's worked at Sabring over the weekend can get there
until the Monday, which would have been the same this year
and saw they're going to have to do what they did this year
and just say everybody can only do one of the two days, not both of the two days.
That's followed by a race there.
Sorry, I've just been told by the response about her.
She's never said I would beat them with a stick before they come out in the room.
No, actually, you know what would be worse than that, Ev?
Was if you just sat in the room and looked over your spectacles in a disappointed way,
I'd rather be beaten with a stick than have you look over your spectacles in a disappointed way.
You see that look more than most though, John.
I do, it's fairness.
Have you developed an immunity to it?
No, never. It's impossible, Tim.
Imola was in 9th, 10th and 11th of April.
I reckon that will be the first round of the season.
I think you're right.
They probably already booked Imola for Prologue on the 3rd and 4th of April.
Given how many people turned up for that as the first round this year,
I think it would be madness if they didn't do that.
It was a fantastic event.
I understand the...
So many people saying why is a world championship going to Imola?
And that is exactly why it's going to Imola.
Of course it is.
And every event at Imola gets massive support
because people in Northern Italy love motor racing.
Love motor sport.
It is a terrible track for Formula 1 though.
Yes, but the fans still came out in their 100s of thousands.
They didn't say it though.
Yes, but that doesn't mean anything.
I'm going to tell you this now.
I don't know this to be true.
I am not at all passing any disparaging remarks on to Piafion,
who I respect massively as the president of the ACO.
But I think the start of the season with three races in Europe before Le Mans
is a tacit admission by the ACO.
Not contractually, but in real terms, the Cata won't happen.
Why would Cata not happen?
I'll just leave that for a moment.
No, we're nine months away.
We're going to get too geopolitical.
One side is desperate for peace,
or at least getting out of it in some way.
I don't think there's going to be an issue in that region come next March.
Well, not a new one anyway.
That's not the same one anyway.
I hope you're right.
That's all I'm going to say.
Don't forget, even our glorious home office has taken away the travel advisory now.
That's not the same as shipping a whole load of equipment out there,
not knowing whether you're ever going to get it back.
And trying to get insurance on that journey.
Exactly so.
But at the moment, there's nothing going on there.
And it hasn't been really going on there for several weeks.
I love your boyish enthusiasm.
I'm just...
I'm the 24th of 25th of April.
We need to get through this because we've got a cough coming up.
Oh yes, he's standing by.
The Six Ours of Silverstone.
You spoke to Stuart Pringle.
And it's now been confirmed.
I asked him the direct question,
which might have been a bit early,
whether that was going to be for the RSE Tourist Trophy Jeremy Vaughan.
It will be the year.
Yes, it absolutely will be.
Absolutely will be, which is the oldest trophy in motorsport.
Goes back in 1903.
I'm delighted about that.
And by the way, I really hope we do go to Katner for the prologue and the race.
The president of the Katner Motor and Motorcycling Federation came to visit us at LeMond.
And he was lovely.
And they are genuinely trying to build something special in that part of the world.
And I really hope it does.
It's beyond their control and our control.
And you can only control the bits you can't control.
So after Silverstone, we go to...
Well, one thing that we don't have at the moment is a European LeMond Series calendar.
And I wondered whether...
No.
No, I know that that's not an option, but I wondered whether they might be back to back weeks.
No.
No?
I don't think so.
I think that'll be back where it has been, which is much later in the year.
Yeah.
It would make sense for those teams who run in both series to not have to...
I agree with you.
And I thought the double weekend was great.
But I think that's too early to do the rest.
Double weekend you can't do, but consecutive weekends I think would work well.
I think it's too early in the year.
I mean, it's going to rain.
The other thing is, if you have the back of back weekends, you...
You split your tickets there.
Whereas if you have one in April and one in September, you don't.
Silverstone is one of the few ELMS races that charges for tickets though, isn't it?
Yep, totally.
So after Silverstone...
Spar, 13th, 14th, 15th of May.
This is a week later that it has been.
Could still be snowing as it could be at Silverstone.
Yes.
I mean, it could be 40 degrees there as it has been.
Yes.
Or it could snow or both.
Yep.
Put it this way, by the way.
I'm not going to do in early April.
I'm not doing...
I don't think I'll be driving down to Imola unless I've got a four-wheel drive and winter tyres.
And probably it's here for Silverstone.
That's only 45 minutes.
LaMonna is the ninth to the 13th of June, which I think is a week too early.
Well, and so do Imza.
Yes.
Of which, more later, I'm sure.
I mean, it's definitely a week too early.
It's not the 24th weekend of the year to start with.
Yeah.
I think that's caught Imza out and I think that'll cause them problems.
I think the...
As we've said with the rest of this WEC calendar, everything's got to move because they haven't thought it through.
Sao Paulo's the ninth to eleventh of July.
Coat of the tenth to the twelfth of September.
Fugis is the fourth.
Sao Paulo clashed with CTMP again for Imza.
Yes, it does.
It does.
Yes.
Coat of the tenth to the twelfth of September.
That doesn't clash with an Imza race, which is convenient.
That's great because I like going to that one.
Fuji, 24th to the 26th of September.
I'm choosing Texas.
Fugis when?
24th to the 26th of September.
Yeah, that could be anything, kind of, whether or good.
The same weekend is on this year, is it?
Pretty much.
Yes, exactly the same.
And then we've got Bahrain on the fourth, fifth and sixth of November.
That's next year.
When are we going to find out where the end of the season is this year?
Look at the point.
So, Nick...
Yes?
Will Qatar and Bahrain happen on the dates that they are meant to happen later this year?
What, being reinstated?
Yeah.
No.
Okay.
And that is logistic, so there's nothing to do with anything else.
They don't want to go back out there again.
So, when do you think the WEC have to tell the teams and everybody else that they're going to be in Southern Europe instead of that?
My guess is they already know.
My guess isn't having to talk to a lot of people in Le Mans.
Oh, okay.
Someone told me two venues at Le Mans.
Was that me?
Was that me?
I'm just keeping it quiet because they told me the two venues it was going to be.
I went, okay, not the ones I'd have chosen, but fair enough.
I spoke to a lot of the teams and I didn't get the same answer on the two venues for any of the teams.
And I had my ideas and I've been persuaded otherwise from what I thought for a variety of reasons.
I won't say why, but I don't think any of the teams that I spoke to...
Was Lamborghini one of those reasons?
No.
Ah, you mean for Nali Mondiali or whatever they're called.
Yeah, it's the thing we call it that.
No, very interesting.
What we'll find out in the next week or 10 days, I'm almost certain, as Nick says, that we will have the final two races,
which will be one and a half points races, whether it's a 10 and an 8 or two 8, I haven't had any intel on,
but it will be two races of more than six hours to ensure the one and a half points awarded,
so that the amount of points across the season.
I think it's almost certain now that they'll be in Europe somewhere, Southern Europe, it kind of has to be.
And whether it's in the...
What does that mean?
Yes, well what...
I did go to a rearranged race at the Nurburgring in November once, that was an experience.
Yes, it's not going to be the Nurburgring.
No.
I think it'll be...
I think I'll tell you now, I think I know where it is, but I am prepared to accept that it could be Italy, Portugal or Spain.
And France has been mentioned as well.
I would have said straight away that Ricard is in the mix.
I do not think Ricard is really an option in November.
Well, it could be the one in October, but I don't think that from the intelligence I've had now, I don't think that's the case.
Can I tell you about tomorrow's simcast, John?
You can't!
Because at 8pm on RS1 tomorrow, Matt and Steven will be talking about their prep for the spa 24 hours,
and will be joined by two special guests, Jonathan Ogden of Phoenix Racing and Kenny Hobbs of Luna Rose Racing.
That's the simcast for all your sim racing news.
RS1 tomorrow at 8pm.
An awful lot of sports car racing at this time of the year.
Let's look forward and have a bit of an update on the CrowdStrike 24 hours of spa.
This week we're looking at it in a slightly different way in our CrowdStrike report here on midweek morning sport.
Because we've got the man who is the editor of race car engineering with us to talk about it, Andrew Cotton joining us this Wednesday evening.
First of all, thank you very much for joining us.
A cracking grid for the CrowdStrike 24 hours of spa.
It's in rude health at the moment.
What's caught your eye and what should we be looking for at the weekend?
The weather, I think, is probably the only thing that we need to be looking at.
It looks like it's going to be extremely hot temperatures Thursday, Friday, up to 38, 39 degrees centigrade.
So the track temperatures are going to be very high.
And then thunderstorms over the weekend.
So when they hit, how heavy the teams deal with it is going to be interesting.
And in terms of the technology side of things, they're all on Pirelli rubber.
There's not that much choice.
So people are just going to have to react to it.
Who's got the best traction control?
Well, who's got the best traction control?
Who's got air conditioning?
And who gets lucky?
We know that in the past, WRT have struggled with the weather when that hit.
Obviously, they've got their spies out in the fields all around and as the local team.
And they got the weather report that it was going to rain a couple of years ago when the Ferrari one.
And they got Dries van Thorien and they put the wet tires on, then did a rain dance.
The half lap that he did on a dry track before the heavens opened damaged his tires enough that he didn't actually have anything to fight with when the rain did hit.
The Ferrari that stopped a little bit later was able to drive around the outside of Blanchermonde.
So it is in the lap of the gods.
Once you get changeable weather conditions, balance of performance is usually pretty good.
I mean, in qualifying, usually get the first 20, 25 cars within a second.
And so I don't think that that's going to be a particular issue.
It's more likely to be how the teams all work together.
Mercedes are particularly good at that, at caralling all the pre-race data and putting it all together.
70-ish GT3 cars, they're all in the same category.
We expect Stefan Matel to announce next year's calendar on Friday, do we?
Yeah, he usually does. He does a presentation of his championships.
Now, I have to say they're always in rude health.
He really has a gift for looking after the teams and then wanting to stay with him.
Even those that go to other championships, whether it's GT Masters or DTM or something, they usually come back.
And I think with such a big entry list, I think it has put a few people off.
Once he got 70 cars, I think last year he started 72 because he was expecting some dropouts.
And on a seven-kilometer track with all the different driver categories that you have and now with the weather conditions changing,
you need to be a bit careful.
But I think that Stefan, he's got a very good understanding of how to build a business.
He's got a very good understanding of how to look after your teams, your drivers, your manufacturers, your sponsors.
And his presentation on Friday is always a must attend event.
It'll be 69 actually because we heard earlier on this week that the era Porsche has been withdrawn from the bronze cup.
So that means no Kyle Tilley, no Jake Hill either.
They've been taken off the entry list.
I have no other information than that at the moment.
And if Kyle and the team had anything to say, I think we would have heard about that yet.
So that's something maybe that we'll dig into in the next week or so.
But it's disappointing, particularly for Jake Hill and for Kyle Tilley.
And they're running the Porsche rather than the Ferrari.
I thought that was interesting anyway, but anyway, not happening.
Can we stay with Matt as GT3 for a moment before we talk about anything else?
Genesis unveiled not even a GT concept, GT3 concept.
It's a car. They're going to do it.
It kind of went under the radar a little bit.
I had an interview on Thursday, maybe on Wednesday with Luke Donk-Volker that actually we had to hold back.
We kind of knew it was coming, but he went on to give me quite a bit more detail than I think he should have.
But that was great. But we respected the embargo.
So on Friday, they announced a car.
This kind of goes back to something that we've been talking about in the past with the Toyota as well.
In kind of building street car, road car and race car derivatives and doing the homologation simultaneously, these are big steps for Genesis.
Well, they are.
And this car, particularly the way that Genesis is planning to attack this program is a worry.
There's no two ways about it.
In what respect, Andrew?
If you have a production car that you want to convert into a race car, there are rules and regulations that would allow you to do this.
In the past, it was pretty much led by Ratel and a group of people.
And if you start off with a Bentley and you want to race against a Ferrari, obviously it's going to need an awful lot of work.
What the manufacturers did was they went to the FIA and they demanded a stable set of technical regulations that they could all read and that they would not.
They would take away this anomaly, this doubt.
But actually, you need that doubt in there.
And so now they've got this set of technical regulations.
You know that you can develop your car so a Ferrari can have as many freedoms as a Bentley or Nissan or something like that.
And so you finish up with these extreme GT cars and Genesis has just taken that a step further now and said we're going to build a car to GT3 regulations and then produce a road car out of it.
And so, I mean, that's the line that it appears reading the press release.
That's basically where they're aiming for.
And at that point, it becomes a race car that Genesis is then going to have to sell on the road and they have to sell a certain number to meet minimum homologation standards.
So I think it's 300 cars that they have to sell before they can be homologated.
And so that's the next problem that Genesis is going to have to overcome.
No doubt that this car is going to be an attractive car.
It's going to be a good car.
But I don't know what the business case is behind it as a production car.
Would you be able to sell enough GT3 cars as well to make a business case out of that?
Is it customer racing or is it manufacturer racing?
It's not.
It's not.
That's the big worry.
It's not dissimilar to the Toyota Nealexus GT3, the GR GT3, that they've been trying to get.
What's the right word I'm looking for?
They've been trying to finalize the specification and the homologation of that for about four years, it seems now.
That's been internal decisions.
But they've got the same issue that the road car was behind the race car.
And they couldn't decide on what they wanted to do with the race car, which clearly had a not one effect to the finalization of the race car.
I've seen several bits of reporting about, and you're very close to Stefan Rittel, about him keeping an eye on it.
He thinks he does think it can be controlled though, it seems, Andrew.
Well, yeah, you have to believe it can be controlled.
Otherwise, you lose your class.
The problem is what will this lead to?
First of all, if you've got the Genesis that comes out and it's an extreme car, a racing car that's then developed for the road.
I mean, how exciting that would be anyway.
But you've got to control it.
How does Mercedes react?
They've got a new car on the drawing board.
What do they do?
Do they rely on the balance of performance or do they go extreme?
How does Ferrari react?
Then how does Porsche react?
Then how and all of it comes step by step.
You become more extreme and you still have to balance these cars.
And we know that you have to come up with something pretty trick to be able to balance such different cars.
The idea of balance of performance was originally to get cars of completely different architecture within half a second of each other,
second to half a second, and then for the amateur driver, the bronze driver, to make up the difference.
And there would be more than that gap outside of each other or outside of the bracket that the professional driver would be driving.
So the balance of performance was literally just get them in the ballpark, get them on track and let them go.
Since over the last 20 years effectively, it's become more and more precise.
And now people are expecting less than a tenth of a second between these different architectures.
You can do it, ish, over a 24 hour, well, no, even between two cars of the same team, you've got a big gap.
You can't really say that it can be that accurate.
Theoretically, you can get it.
But when you're looking at Spa 24 hours, for example, you can't balance everybody in qualifying and then expect them to race the same.
You can't balance everybody in a particular area of the race because everyone would look at qualifying and so will your miles off.
So you have to control all of these cars as they get more and more extreme.
And if you allow them to become more extreme, then I'm sorry you will lose control of it.
Yeah, isn't it the case if they get more extreme and GT3 cars already are quite sophisticated racing cars.
They're no longer a street car, a road car with a cage in and some safety improvements.
In fact, GT4s aren't even that anymore.
But the onboard system, starting with the guys from Bosch at Le Mans, the onboard systems, the tune ability, if that's a word, from circuit to circuit.
And surely if you get more and more specialized and towards effectively a bespoke racing car, a prototype racing car that has some road going characteristics
and then is backward engineered into a road car, surely those tiny little changes that you are allowed to make in setup by the regulations,
they're going to have bigger effect and potentially lead to bigger performance differential, which you can't BOP that out.
You can only BOP the car out at a single setup.
You can't BOP the car right through a... Oh, if you're going to raise the right height at the back,
if you're going to put two degrees more camber in it, you're going to have to carry another 10 kilos.
You can't do that, Andrew, can you?
Well, no, and this is where we run into the biggest problems.
Everybody who finishes anything other than first, blame to BOP.
It's the natural stage of affairs, right?
And it's cheaper to have an argument before the race or even during the race weekend than it is to develop your car.
And so everybody has the argument and you have to rely on physics to be able to get it right.
But then you have a base car, whichever that is, with Mercedes or the Ferrari, you balance everybody to that.
That car is the most comfortable of the lot because that's running in its sweet spot.
Everyone else has to run outside of their sweet spot to run with that car.
And so, yeah, and it's just so complicated and it's got to the point now where certainly in the World Endurance Championship,
we even stopped talking about it.
And I think in the GT3 championship, if you balanced it with all pro drivers as you do in DTM,
you can get to a very tight BOP.
If you do it where you've got customer drivers, Silver, Bronze or whatever, then you're looking at something completely different.
Then you balance the car and it's up to the driver.
And I'm afraid you have to say to your driver, whether he's a Platinum or a Silver or Bronze,
you have to say sorry mate, you didn't cut the mustard this weekend.
I want to finish at this so much, I want to talk about that and perhaps another time.
It'd be good fun, wouldn't it?
Yeah, perhaps another time we can talk about whether GT3 in its current form has run its course
and whether we should be looking for something entirely different.
And we need one of those resets that we seem to get every few years.
It's 20 years of GT3.
I know Gary Watkins has got a book out which I'm looking forward to looking through.
I want to finish on a high note though.
That as to say we'll save for another.
That might actually just be you and me sitting down with a glass of water or something
and having a chat about that as we did with our Le Mans technical
when we were sitting in the sunshine and having every piece of equipment from the ACO drive past us, which was quite fun.
We were missing the gin that went in the water.
Yes, or the whiskey, yes, absolutely.
Other beverages are available and remember alcohol doesn't hydrate you
when the sun is as hot as it is in the UK at the moment.
What are you particularly looking forward to? Let's finish on a high note.
What are you particularly looking forward to in the crowdstrike 24 hours of spa this weekend, Andrew?
Something technical? Are you looking forward to the racing?
Are you looking forward to the atmosphere?
You're sitting down with Stefan. What do you think you're going to get out of him if you do that?
What is it that you're schlepping out to Brussels and then down to spa?
What are you doing that for to get out of it?
It is the biggest GT3 race in the world. Probably the biggest GT race in the world.
Does it numbers?
The size of... sorry?
The size in numbers. Do you think it still is in now that there's a world championship for GT3 and it's at Le Mans?
Do you think it still is?
Yes. We did a story about this last year in race engineering looking at the three different races,
the Spa 24 hours Le Mans and Nobergring, because they're on successive weekends.
In the world endurance championship, GT3 is the slowest of the classes.
At Nobergring, it's the fastest of the classes and at Spa, it's the only class.
Yes.
And to see 69 cars, 70 cars or 72 cars last year going through a route for the first time,
you just think, yeah, you're at the start of something special. It's a festival.
And I think all of these endurance races have turned into festivals now.
I agree.
Of fantastic racing, very high quality teams throughout from first to 69th.
The cars are, as you say, proper racing cars.
And it's great to see them all going and then just seeing how the race unfolds.
I don't know what's going to happen with the weather or which team is going to react best to it.
If WR team managed to get it wrong a couple of years ago, anybody, anyone could get it wrong.
Everybody could get it wrong.
And anyone of them could guess right.
So it's going to be a fascinating strategic battle, I think.
And not because of the regulations.
I think it's going to be a proper old school endurance race.
Yeah, I agree with that.
And given everything else we've been talking about, we might not have this current rule set or these current races to get excited about.
I just can't help think because I'm old.
I just can't help think of this bar 24 as anything else other than a touring car race rather than a GT3 race.
But that's just because I'm old.
It's been 25 years, isn't it?
I know, but that's two minutes.
That's two minutes in my life.
Don't forget I'm much older than you.
Andrew, enjoy the weekend.
Try not to drink too much of the Belgian hydration liquid.
I'll give it a go.
All right, OK.
You can have my allocation as well.
And we'll speak to you in the next couple of weeks because I'm sure you're going to find out something interesting from Stefan Rotel.
He's almost always do.
Thank you.
Andrew Cotton with us on midweek motorsport CrowdStrike Spa 24 this weekend, of course, and covered adequately for you around the world on the GT World Platform,
SR or will be streaming that at the weekend.
We'll have Andrew back in a couple of weeks time to find out what shook out from that race and all of the machinations around it.
Well, that's how I was a bit disappointing.
Let's hope it improves for the second half.
Sorry, I'm here in the second half of tonight's program.
As we head in, we've got team by team.
We've got John De Geese for double stint, but we'll kick off the second hour with some Master MX-5.
A long break and we had a great race at mid-Ohio.
Let's check in.
Sorry, unbelievable.
I was conversing with the responsible out on there.
So we'll kick off the second hour tonight with Justin Adiconis, who's standing by right now.
Midweek Motorsport on RS1.
Time now to take a look at one of our favorite series, the wheel and Mazda MX-5 Cup presented by Michelin tyres.
We had a wait quite a long time from St. Petersburg on the streets until a couple of weekends ago now.
And the annual, what seems to be annual visit to mid-Ohio sports car course, it was worth the wait to cracking races.
And as we leave that and we wait for the next round, well, two or three weeks time, at Canadian Time Motorsport Park,
it is Justin Adiconis who is on top of the championship standings and he joins us now.
Justin, welcome back to the program. First of all, welcome back to Midweek Motorsport.
Thanks, John. Thanks for having me again. It's supposed to be back here on the show.
Yeah, and is it, I mean, is it slightly churlish for me to say to you, maybe a bit cheeky, that you're leading the championship
and you got two great results at mid-Ohio, but are you slightly disappointed that you, I mean, great win in race two,
but fourth in race one and actually could have been any of the positions ahead or probably three or four positions behind.
It was crazy racing again.
Yeah, yeah, the race was definitely crazy. You know, I think we had one of the faster cars in that field,
but I think I could have made some moves to get up towards the front on the podium,
but I was kind of thinking long term for the championship and just wanted to not risk anything.
Yeah, it's definitely a little disappointing. I mean, that's how you know things are going well for you if you're disappointed at finishing fifth.
So it was a good race, though. I mean, really good weekend overall.
I think just kind of carried over a lot of momentum from St. Petersburg.
We know we know we've got a really fast car, so it's a lot of confidence going forward.
It was a long break. It was a very long break.
You said you had the momentum from St. Petersburg to the Old Adages of the Union as good as your last race,
but how do you keep your concentration? How do you keep that big more?
We talked about this in sports and particularly American sports a lot.
How do you keep that momentum going with such a big gap going into mid-Ohio?
Yeah, it's just kind of all about never taking your foot off the gas.
Concentrate pretty much every week from that point on of this prep from mid-Ohio,
whether it's going for runs outside or looking at video and data and just prepping for the next one.
Just kind of staying with it, keep my mind active with it.
It's always hard when you have such a long break like that.
It's kind of like another offseason pretty much.
There's about the same gap from Atlanta to Daytona.
But it's pretty much all about staying active with the sport and whether that's coaching or looking at mid-Ohio video, prepping for the next one.
But yeah, just keep my mind active in it. That's kind of how all I had to do.
An inordinately large amount of rookies this year, half the field pretty much.
And we had another four debutants over the mid-Ohio weekend.
How easy or difficult is it to work with that?
Particularly, I suspect if you don't qualify where you want to, you're in amongst people that perhaps you don't know so well.
And I think she and I said it in the commentary.
Rookies aren't just minding their own business for a couple of seasons.
Now they want to mix it at the front.
In fact, you had a cracking battle in the second race with one of those rookies.
Yeah, the rookies are definitely falling to the race with, you know, I was a rookie last year.
So I kind of get where they're coming from with wanting to make an impression pretty quick.
But this series is so difficult if you're a rookie.
I mean, if you're a rookie, no one really wants to work with you.
You're kind of on your own in that aspect.
So I was very impressed with how Ethan Jacobs ran all weekend, really.
He ran up front really well and managed his pace and his gaps really well in the race.
So I was really impressed with that.
You know, I've raced with Ethan for a long time now.
We've raced in Speck and X5.
We actually battled for the championship in Speck and X5 back in 2024.
So I've got a lot of history with him.
And it's very nice to see him up there.
You know, he's a great kid, a great driver.
So I'm sure that's not going to be the last time you see him up front this year.
I think you're right there.
Ultimately, that second race came down to a tremendous grab between you two in the closing laps.
How did the thought process go for you as you were setting up for those last,
let's say the last two or three laps, because it was obviously going to be, I think, between you two.
And then he goes through and then you went through, then he went through.
Was it better to be following rather than leading at stages in that scrap?
Yeah, it's always hard to say in this series.
You know, it can really go either way.
I was after Saturday, I was sitting with Jeremy and watching his video.
Jeremy Fletcher.
Jeremy Fletcher, yes.
And I was watching his video from his win the day before.
And I was able to see how well he was able to control the lead on the last lap.
You know, normally you don't really want to be leading in the last lap,
especially when we go to CTMP coming up, K&T, Bridgeport, Park.
You don't really want to be leading in the last lap there,
just because there's a big long back straight away that you'll get past.
But I was able to see how Jeremy was able to manage it with Gresham Jared behind him.
And so I thought back to that on the last lap and I was like,
I think I want to be leading here.
And maybe if I can get through turn four in the lead, I should be fine.
But I saw Ethan set up for the run and I already made one defensive move,
so I couldn't make another one.
And I saw him peek to the inside.
And I thought back to that move I made on Jared that could save Peter Spurikin.
So I actually lifted out of it way more than I should have.
I think looking back at the video, I probably could have sailed around the outside
and held it there, but I tried to cross him back over and get a run down
and turned five on the outside because I've made that move a few times in the race.
But I was unable to make that one stick.
So at that point I was like, I messed it up.
I can just get it set off for second place here, get some points for the championship and move on.
And then next thing you know, he opened up for turn nine.
And I didn't really think about setting up for it there.
It just kind of worked out.
I lifted a little bit coming out through eight, set up and point the nose and then just went for it.
That's really not a spot where you see a whole lot of passing.
I guess in the MX-5 Cup cars you can pass anywhere.
I had that going for me, but there's lots of options in these MX-5 Cup races.
There's no planning at all.
It just kind of stuff pops up, stuff happens.
It's so unique compared to other series that you see.
People set up for a few corners and make moves, but this stuff happens every corner that you're never expecting.
You see a new situation every race you're in.
So that's one of the last laps.
It's definitely one that I'm going to have to add to my book for later on.
But yeah, that was such a fun race.
These cars are a blast, especially in Mid-Ohio.
I feel like these cars are made for tracks like St. Petersburg and Mid-Ohio,
which makes it so incredible to race on those places.
So you would have been, so what it sounds like to me, you would have been,
or obviously not happy, but you would have been content with the points for second place,
with your championship rivals behind you.
Ethan ran a great race.
Will he be part of the overall championship?
He might be, actually.
I think he's pretty decent, Ethan Jacobs, as you've mentioned.
But what you're seeing is when the opportunity presented itself, you went there.
I've got to say, both of you, excellent racing.
Absolute respect between the pair of you as well.
And that makes, I mean, you had the confidence, even with a rookie, to make that move,
which I think says a lot about both of you, to be honest.
Yeah, yeah, I was very happy that he didn't try to do anything stupid.
Not that he would.
I've done it forever, like I said earlier.
But when you're racing a rookie, it's very unpredictable.
Sometimes, for the most part, they're pretty good with it.
Especially after Daytona and St. Petersburg, they've learned a little bit.
They really don't know a whole lot about the race craft aspect of it.
That's kind of the main thing that you see with the rookies, that they'll be really fast,
and then they get into a race, and they're not really sure how to use the draft,
and how to push people, and how to pop for air, and all that.
That's the main thing with these rookies.
But I was very impressed with how Ethan raced, especially that last lap.
Yeah, I think we're going to see a lot more of them, actually.
As you see, you're only in your second year, and we're marking you out.
We have marked you out, and you are sitting at the top of the championship.
10th to the 12th of July, Canadian Time Motorsport Park.
Not unlike the race that you've just done,
a kind of longer version of Mid-Ohio, more drafting opportunities.
Because I always think of Mid-Ohio as almost three distinct parts.
There's the start line to the keyhole, there's the keyhole.
Well, actually, probably the start line to turn four, China Beach.
Then from there to probably to turn nine, Thunder Valley, and then from there back home again.
So there's quite a few places you can get a bit of a draft on.
CTMP is similar, or is it somewhere that's a bit different?
There's obviously a very long straight, curving straight on the far side of the circuit.
Yeah, it's definitely a little bit similar.
I think you've got very unique corners.
I think it's turned six is the one coming down the hill.
That sharp double right corner, and then you've also got a lot of high speed corners
that you really don't use the brakes a whole lot at CTMP in these cars.
You're kind of just sending it through a lot of these corners,
you know, pretty much just left out of gas.
It's a huge commitment track.
I hope all these rickies do well, but I think this is a track that if they're going to struggle at,
it's going to be this one.
Interesting.
Just because it's such a, you know, how comfortable you are in the car kind of track
where you have to know the limit of the car very well.
And if you're not comfortable with the limit, it's very easy to make mistakes and go in the wall here.
That's one thing I learned last year is that you have to be fully committed,
like you go through turn one and you're pretty much not breaking through turn one.
You're just kind of rolling off the throttle and you might give it a touch of brake
just to get the nose to turn maybe on like an older set of tires
or whether you're in the draft or something,
but you're really not doing a whole lot of breaking through turn one
and it's kind of just lifting off and hoping for the best.
And there's a lot of times that you'll see guys will, you know, hit a curb wrong
or they'll lift out of their throttle coming off the corner and just in the car gets light and they lose it.
So it's such a difficult track.
So turn one, is that top gear? Is that fifth or sixth?
I believe we're in, I want to say we're in fourth gear.
Fourth, okay, so fourth gear.
I'll have to take a look.
Off and back on again, maybe a feather on the throttle and back on again.
Then you go up over that little kink over the brow
and that diving left-hander down at the bottom of the hill,
which has got that awful bump exactly where you want to turn in from memory.
Then you climb up over the back again and then you're coming down that hill towards most corner,
which is that big commitment.
It always looks easier than it is that,
but you've kind of got to keep your foot in all the way through there
because it's quite a steep run up to most corner, that double right.
And I presume you can use the hill to slow yourself down a little bit there
as you're going up to that double right at the far side of the track.
Yeah, you definitely can, but it's always difficult when you're braking for that corner
because the car likes to move around so much.
Just because there's so much going on between coming down the hill
and then going back up the hill and there's some bumps down there now as well.
So it's difficult.
That's why we don't see a lot of passes in that corner.
I mean, it probably will, and it's 5-cup.
You can never rule on the corners out for passing,
but the car moves around so much there and it's towards the middle of the track anyway.
But that's a fun braking zone.
It's definitely one of the more unique braking zones that we go to.
And then it's out of that through the little double left.
Get out of there as quickly as you can.
Two risers on that long back straight.
And coming to, I think it's turned 8-9, isn't it, at the far end.
I remember talking to a Roman Dumart who told me that in the old Porsche RS Spider,
the Altman Top prototype, that in qualifying he was flat through there,
the first part of that, and that blew my mind absolutely completely.
You're coming from a very high speed, and again, actually the entry to that corner,
I don't think there's very much slowing down going on, is there Justin?
No, not really.
You've got a decent amount of braking, but for the most part it's not like a hard brake in long release.
It's kind of just like a quick hit just to get the nose to set and just scrub some speed off.
But you're carrying a ton of speed through that corner and that whole section in general.
It's really all about just being smooth with the wheel.
If you have any little moment where you start to, the car starts to get away from you,
there's really no saving it.
It gets free and it gets tricky quick there.
It's another one that I think the rookie's got to learn at that track,
but it's a fun place.
I mean, it's all high commitment stuff, and that's what I love about the Altman Top racing.
I love that place just for that, the big draft down the back straight as well as we mentioned.
Who's good there then? Who are you? Do you watch other people? Do you watch other teams?
You're a great team and obviously there's shared data if you need it,
but who out of your competitors do you think, well, I know he's good around here.
I'll keep an eye on him.
Yeah, definitely always going to be the big three you could call.
You got Jeremy Fletcher, my teammate.
He's been good there.
I believe he actually won there two years ago, but he got penalty, he got knockback.
He'll be good there, and then they got Jared and Gresham.
They'll be good everywhere you go.
I can't remember exactly who was fast there last year.
I haven't really taken a whole look back at the broadcast yet, but I was actually pretty good there.
You were good at that.
I had unfortunate motor failure.
We were running in third place last year, but I think our pace there last year is really good,
and I felt comfortable with that track, so I'm hoping that we should be as good or even better this year.
We've been talking about, you were talking about mindset when you're leading the championship.
Do you have to be careful, Justin, that you still race?
You can't be overly conservative.
You can't be too careful because the difference between fourth or fifth, as you were at Middle Ohio,
and tenth and eleventh in a park finish could literally be under half a second.
Yeah, you definitely have to think about it when you're racing, but also at the same time, you can't get complacent in the series.
I think that's one thing that we've been working on.
You've had a 250-point lead, but that can evaporate in one race, so it's like you just can't get complacent,
and you have to keep going until the checkered flag falls at race two at Red Atlanta.
You can't take your foot off the gas, so our mentality doesn't change.
We're always going for wins in every race, but if the opportunity pops up, I'm finishing fifth.
I'm not going to be mad about finishing fifth at a race.
I'll take that every day, but the mentality going into a race doesn't change.
The expectation doesn't change.
It's just keeping our foot on the gas and still going for wins.
I wish you well in all of that.
I've been talking about this racing for a long time in the wheel of Mazda MX-5 Cup presented by Michelin tyres,
and we have, as you rightly see, gone all the way down to Motul Patila Monwig and Michelin Road, Atlanta,
and literally one place change down the field can make a difference to the championship, and in fact has done in the past.
In fact, a penalty for somebody else who wasn't in the championship once decided it.
That was a crazy one where we were having to do the arithmetic on the fly.
We wish you the best mate. Thank you very much indeed for coming on.
Listen, I know you talk to all your competitors. There's a really good...
I know you're competitors, but there's a good atmosphere in that paddock.
When you see the Mcumby-Mackalaya team and indeed all the guys you race with, please thank them for us
and on behalf of all of you who are listeners, for the superb racing entertainment that you give us,
because I keep thinking it can't get better, and then you pull off a move like you did.
I said it was a power pass. I said it was a pass that was worthy of winning the race, and if that...
those extra points will win you the championship.
My friend, that was a great way to do it. Thanks very much indeed.
Thanks John. We'll keep it entertaining for you guys.
I know we try our best every time we hit the track, but we'll keep entertaining you and all the fans watching back at home.
Thanks for having me on the show. It was a pleasure being back on here.
Just another connoisseur.
And we are going to bring back Nick Damon.
He's not being aware.
Has he not?
Hello. I made a cup of coffee.
Did you?
Yeah.
It's time Nick for...
I was being...
No, no, no. None of this. It's time for Nick's team by team review of the Grand Prix of Barcelona, Catalonia.
Barcelona!
And we start with Aston Martin.
Well, at least they started.
What's damning them with fan prayers?
Well, Aston Martin have now fallen to being the worst team of all. They've fallen behind Cadillac.
The only thing you can say about Aston Martin is that there was a major moment within the Aston Martin team
because Lance Stroll out qualified for the second time ever.
Apart from that, it's just kicking people when they're down. It's kicking a puppy.
It's like anything more about Aston Martin than that.
Let's move on to Cadillac.
All their hopes are...
Yes, the Valtteri Bottas got a bit closer to Sergio Perez.
He managed to avoid getting penalty this week. Well done Sergio.
He's got a pretty free left style.
Yes, but the inability to run two cars efficiently is still hitting Cadillac.
And they've yet to really seem like they're going to run two cars. They're breaking problems.
Valtteri Bottas was pitched off in one of the later practices.
Perez was the last of the runners, again with a plethora of minor issues.
The issue that Perez was mostly having was that this was the first time on a high-degradation tyre track.
And the Cadillac was eating its tyres at a ridiculous rate.
So lots and lots of work to do. They do have an upgrade package for this weekend in Austria.
So let's see if that gets them anywhere closer to the real back of the field rather than the absolute back of the field.
Aston Martin.
Haas.
Yeah, Haas are in a bit of a problem really and it's not much due to their drivers.
So once again they had a real dichotomy between the two of them.
Oli Bearman, who in the end didn't feel it was a race because the technical issue was having quite a reasonable run on the edge of the point,
which was outside the point, and not having particular issues with his tyres,
whereas Espen Ocon was chewing through the tyres at a rate of not.
The problem with Haas is all the other midfield teams, the traditional midfield teams,
are doing a much better job.
And after the good start that Haas had, their development hasn't really come on.
And they're now training at the back and not looking like they're going to pick up the points when points are available.
So that's a long-term issue.
It doesn't help obviously the value of either of the drivers,
because they're touring the back, but Bearman still is going to do a reasonable job.
But of course, as we know, as we'll see we get to the best team,
his focus for next year is now definitely not going to be next year.
Williams.
Still too heavy, still unreliable, and still...
Well, we had two odd retirements.
One was unique, this one has happened before.
Our one was taken out by a wobbly camera.
The camera came loose.
No, it's not as bad as 1996 when the camera off, I think,
Berger's car came off and smashed a lazy and broke both cars.
That's it, both as well, exactly.
And one would have won, apparently.
Well, it should have could have.
But this time it just got loose.
It just made the thing very safe.
And of course, you've got this quite heavy weight wobbling about at the top of the car,
which makes it a bit weird.
Also, they weren't doing an awful lot.
Carlos Sainz didn't manage to get any points in his home Grand Prix.
Actually, he's got two this year, hasn't he?
I'm not sure which one he's got in his home Grand Prix.
Does he?
Because between Monica and Barcelona,
a load of F1 journalists were taken to the mad ring
to report on the wonderful progress that's been made
and everything I've seen tells me this is not going to be ready.
I thought there was a lot of puff-pacing going on
and they were talking about the one corner they'd finished tarmac in.
I was thinking, what about the rest of the corners?
And why it wasn't the same as...
The fit garages that haven't been built and the grandstands that haven't been built
and there's no landscaping being done.
Let's get rid of this.
Let's remember, this is Spain.
This isn't somewhere in the Middle East where they can throw
20,000 subcontinent workers at it.
This is a place where you've got to...
Yes, subcontinent workers from the subcontinent.
You can get more but your people over.
You can't do that in Spain.
The corner they were talking about, they were mostly talking about
why it wasn't the same as the bank corner at Zamfort.
Well, it goes the other way.
It was a lot worse, doesn't it?
Well, yes.
But yes, I agree with you.
I think this is a brave PR stunt.
They'll race on something.
Whether it's really good, who knows.
And whether they'll be able to see it, who knows.
What's the time? July?
September, isn't it?
Is it? No, I'm sure.
I think it's September.
Let me look at the schedule.
Oh, yes, you're right. It's after the Italian Grand Prix.
Yes, yes.
Oh, thank goodness for that.
It's time.
It's the middle of the summer.
Manana, John.
Manana.
And holidays.
And we are almost in July.
Take your Lord of British Brickies down there.
It'll be fine. It'll be sort of.
I don't know.
That's 11 all right.
Let's move on to Audi.
I'm not sure if it was.
So Audi suffered the second unbelievably strange retirement.
Because basically,
they've been a bit rubbish and underachievey.
With Nico Hogenberg,
who without this situation would definitely be in the points.
He was following Liam Lawson
and poised to overtake him.
Lawson goes off into a gravel,
slightly into the gravel.
Spits a load of gravel up
and the gravel hits the kill switch
and turns the car off.
So now you know why
whoever it was who got penalised for this
had tape over the kill switch.
That was McLaren.
Yes, exactly.
They had tape over the neutral switch.
Still makes it look sensible.
I know.
Apparently it's a million to one chance.
It's not a million to one.
It used to be the first time it's happened.
So now we need to count from now to the next time.
There needs to be a million things happen first.
Gary Bordletta was a bit disappointing to be honest.
But again, I do feel sigh for Audi
because they don't seem to be able to buy a break
and they are languishing
with nothing to show for their season so far.
Despite some relatively positive performances.
But they are
not having the reliability
that they need and they're not having the luck either.
So that's not a great combination.
RB.
Yes, so RB benefited
from the
disappearance of various cars
who would normally score points.
One Mercedes, one Ferrari.
They also benefitted from the fact that one Alpine got
demoted.
The Lawson feared to have Limbaba.
Limbaba was heavily handicap
by the fact that he had
a deployment issue
in Q2, which stopped him getting to Q3
which he was on for.
So he ended up being further back in the grid.
Fort through Welfare scored some points
and they got what, six points for the team.
So RB again,
are producing a car that seems to get...
Weird thing is, with a completely different set of regulation,
they once again produced a car that's quite benign
and relatively easy to drive and relatively good at everything.
We're not great at anything.
But it is there. It's doing that mopping up thing.
The points we've moped up,
they get moped by RB.
Alpine?
Well, Alpine are also doing a good job
of mopping up points. They are very definitely
the fifth best team.
There's an absolute gap
between fourth and fifth.
It's really weird how those four teams have just
got this...
It's like the Premier League.
It's not even the Premier League to the Champions. Premier League to Division One.
That's how far the gap is.
You only have to look and see how,
and then you can make up for a terrible start and get past everybody.
But, you know, so the best positions
they could have got were seventh and eighth,
because sixth to the top eighth finished.
And they finished seventh and eighth from the road, Alpine.
Unfortunately, Francois Le Pinto ignored the yellow flag
and got a tenth of a penalty, which dropped him down.
So basically what happened was both
racing balls outqualified Alpine,
Alpine outraced racing balls,
and the Alpine with the Mercedes engine,
and possibly, you know,
potentially, I've heard,
the rumors that Fernando Lonson had on the night back there next year
were seven times in endstone.
But, yeah, they are scoring points regularly,
and they're probably going to end up fifth in the championship.
And they are, you know, and it just goes to show
if you get an engine made in Bricksworth rather than
Villichatino, things are slightly improved.
Red ball.
So, red ball...
It's very hard to
pitch where red ball are at.
I mean, yeah, obviously they've apparently got the best engine,
which obviously has caused no end of arguments.
Max is a Max thing,
and then he managed to pull the best possible result,
which was fourth.
It would have been fifth or sixth if it hadn't been
for some other problems with other drivers.
But he was there, and he drove round.
He didn't cause any controversy or make any mistakes.
Isaac Hage, I should have been right behind him, to be honest,
but he had a terrible start.
I haven't heard whether it was him or the car.
Dropped back about 15, I think, or 14th.
But then just ease through the field,
and the track was not the easiest place to overtake
until he got to the, you know,
the end of the top eight.
And that's as far as he was going to go,
because the ninth pass this car,
which was Pierre Gasly or Liam Norse,
depending on where he passed him,
is so much slower than the top four cars.
So, yeah, I think red ball
have got some more upgrades for this weekend.
Obviously it's their home race, effectively,
at the Austrian Grand Prix,
so we'll see how they move forward.
But they've got a much better car
than they started with, but it still doesn't seem
particularly consistent from moment to moment.
And remember, the Max second was
40 seconds behind the winner at the end.
And that's not Max's driving.
That's the car not going very fast.
McClavin.
Well,
it's interesting because
with the car that was,
again, not as good as the Mercedes
and this week, not as good as the Ferrari,
maximized the result
with a very good third, not very far off the lead,
keeping it steady.
And actually putting in, I suppose you would say,
actually putting in the champion's drive
to actually maximize what you could get out of the car.
Oscar Piazzari,
not maybe we're saying this, but he's actually been quite
poor over the last few weeks.
He was 36 seconds behind,
35 seconds behind
Lando.
With an absolute identity of car,
I think any starting position was over behind him on the grid
and it was consistently
very, very slow.
And that happened in my car as well.
He was very, very slow. He was much slower than,
you know, when Russell was being held up by
Haja, wasn't he?
For two or three seconds
to lap in Monaco. Piazzari wasn't gaining either.
So Piazzari is absolutely not enjoying this car
at the moment.
You don't go from being a really good driver to a bad
driver in one week. It's just
interesting that he's on a little bit of a dip, but
no one's really talking about it.
Mercedes.
So, yeah, so George Russell
looked like he was the bear of the ball
all the way through Friday and Saturday.
He was afforded to the point to hand out on Sunday.
He had
the better
of
his young teammates
Kimmy Antonetti, right at the point where he
didn't, which was about six laps from them,
where the final
stint of the race,
and they had a lot more speed. It was interesting
about two days post-race.
Mercedes said that they'd actually made a mistake
on the final stop for Russell and give him too much
wing, which is why I was fighting over the steer,
which is fair enough. I mean, that would have saved the car
down.
But George, you know, was
again, was kind of outraced.
He was outraced by the Ferrari, and he was also
outraced by his teammates, to be honest with you.
And he was, could only sit
there, and I suppose,
thinking it's even, Steve is now for when he
ground to a halt, whilst ahead of Antonelli
in Canada. It's now happened to Antonelli.
So it's one off a mysterious
! Because the battery system's not working very well.
But again,
Antonelli, Russell
shouldn't have got, well, he's got a massive confidence boost
out of this, because when it all happened, Antonelli
was ahead and pulling away.
So we reached another track, and don't forget this
wasn't a very good track for Antonelli last year
in Hungary. He actually
clattered the Stapeloff in the first corner,
the third corner, sorry.
So it would be interesting how he picks up and runs, but so far,
he's just done a fantastic tear.
But obviously he's now got a new main challenger,
someone who's, you know,
who's actually done it before.
And that is Ferrari's Lewis Hamilton,
the oldest Formula 1 race winner
since Jack Brabham in 1970.
Fantastic start.
Yeah.
And, yes, who's now one,
I think it's his, the amount of time
between his first and his last
win is now longer by about four years,
than anyone else. Because his first win
was in 2007, and now he's won
19 years later. So, yeah,
Alonso could still beat that.
The record was broken left in the right car.
He wasn't driving, yeah, so that's not happening then.
But yeah, I mean, it was a great, I mean,
but first, Lewis, I mean, he's come
from two years, at least
in the Doldrums, he's seen signs
that things are getting better as he's managed to get the Ferrari more
in his own way. I think the most significant
thing, to be honest, is not
how well he's done, because, you know,
Formula's temporary class is permanent.
And I think that Hamilton still is, I think
Hamilton is still, with
Max, the best race driver
on in the field, in a race.
I don't think Hamilton's quite got that
blistering qualifying pace, and that's the first thing to go when he hit 40.
I think he has
100 something poles, but I think that's
a little bit awry.
The key point about
all this is not that he won, which is great
for him and great for PR.
It's not even that he's now in the championship, because he's not really,
to be honest about this, it's nice to talk about it,
but Mercedes will sort themselves out and start pulling away again.
The fact is he's got
he's got, you know,
he's got his team mate.
He's got, you know,
Charles Leclerc, Ferrari's gold were completely
in his pocket. Leclerc
is making mistakes. He
recently crashed in qualifying, which he was trying to replicate
what Lewis could do, turn four.
Even though over a lap he was slightly quicker.
He's got completely into Leclerc's head.
And then Leclerc starts making mistakes.
Leclerc wants to change his
brakes. Leclerc doesn't want to
do any sim work,
because that's what Lewis is doing.
He's completely blown his mind, doesn't he?
Yeah, and it's
interesting. Obviously Leclerc never had
someone, he's racing against signs and signs
beat him certain weekends, but that was
you know, I think Leclerc always felt, you know,
well, overseas and I've got an edge in him.
But when you find someone
like Lewis Hamilton suddenly coming back into form
and you're turning around and you go,
hang on, this is the guy who won seven more championships, should have won eight.
And I think it's just
that's the most interesting thing is what he's doing to Leclerc.
Now he absolutely needs to reset
it off the problems he had. In the middle he obviously
broke down different fears where he should have been in fourth place, because I think they had a
they also had an electrical issue
or a battery issue. But
you know, that's what's most interesting for me.
It's lovely to see Lewis win, it's great to see the Ferrari
and wave the thing and have three
English people, three British people on
English. When was the last time that
happened?
That was 58
years ago at Watkins Glen.
And here were the three drivers?
That would have been
Jackie Stewart.
It's Graham Hill, John Sertich.
Well first of all, Jackie Stewart is
Scottish, not English. So when was the last
three English?
I don't know if I'm the three English. I don't think there's ever been.
I don't think there's ever been three English.
Well, hang on a second, was there never a point
perhaps right back in the 50s
when you had Hawthorne, Brooks
and Marston and the other guys
back then, perhaps they got, I mean, I know
whether they all got a podium
back in the Van Wooldays.
I don't know, but yeah, I think three English
people. I mean, obviously you had periods when
you had Jim Clark and Graham Hill.
They don't race on English licenses, so it's a moot point.
No, but we're talking about English
people. It's never a moot point for us.
It's English. I mean, Clark Hill
and
who?
Sertichs were running around at the same time, so
they might, might, might, might don't.
But
if you know that
on the, on X or whatever it may be
just to aspect
before
I know Tim needs to move on because we've got
another guest coming because John
would have been really nice to say into that
because they did that
at Watkins Glen, which is
where we are.
Which is where we are this weekend.
We'll get John to geese on the
standing by at the moment
to talk about a bit of
among clats catch up some
new regulations I want to ask him about
as well. However, I do want
very quickly to talk about LeMond and
to let you know
that we have
that first tickets
have just opened
and Brian Sheehan has
just let us know that they have opened
their
pre-registration
for next year.
First tickets
first that is one
s t dash tickets dot co dot UK
and then
you go to event LeMond 24
eyes 20 27
so that is
a pre-registration
for next
year and it's going to be
a cracker. What's
coming up after us tonight Tim?
Are you going to roll in some of those
LeMond features
that we haven't played, got
up on the archive yet and we haven't played yet?
They've all been played
and they've been rotating
endlessly since the end of the race
but yes we'll play some of those
again after the show
tonight and we are going to
take some overtime because we're running
way behind schedule now
it's midweek motorsports here
on RS1
The Double Stint
with John Hyneth and John DeGees
Delighted to see
that we've got a Double Stint
feature for you tonight and
John DeGees, the man behind
Sportacar365
is joining us before
he travels to Watkins Glen
this weekend for the Sealand Six Hours. Talk about that in a little while
Mr DeGees
I
kind of almost
now realise
that I think I watched a classic LeMond
a couple of weekends ago
10.8 seconds or whatever
it was, 10.9 seconds
between first and second
which is
depending on which way you look at it
the closest timed finish
that we've had and actually we barely
even talked about that and even in the wash-up
we've barely even talked about that
it was actually a pretty
pretty damn good race
Yeah, I was
I think we all sort of just were in that mode
of covering it and following it
and then all of a sudden
it finished and then
we thought well Toyota won
but it was a surprise
because they
had a lot of different challenges through the race
and this was arguably
the one that they fought the most
to win out of their six LeMond wins
They got so close
10 years ago and of course
there was a lot of chat about that
in their build-up
they've had years when
even without very much
competition from other manufacturers
and other cars in the top class
that they've battled the race
the clock, the elements
gremlins
and this year
they had all of that
because they had probably
it is the strongest field in the top class
that we've had in this current rule set
the race was fast
very little interruption
the temperatures were
nowhere near where people expected, much warmer
they had failures in the race
is it true that
the car that won
actually had some issues
and they had to fix it on the fly
as they did with that field pump issue a few years ago
very similar to that
Kamui Kobayashi told me
post-race that they had to go in
the car had to go into safe mode
because they had a drive shaft torque sensor problem
so safe mode basically
this was something that was sort of built into the regulations
after I think
tour of probably
2022 was it a port-a-mau
one of the Toyotas had
completely changed its drive shaft because
the torque sensor failed
and since there's been advancements where if the torque sensor fails
cars can go into these
quote-unquote safe modes
where it reduces the power by
a certain percentage
we don't know exactly around 5-10%
and
that's what happened in like hour 6
in the race with the car
and ultimately it sort of
was on off throughout the race
and
the Toyota technical director
David Florey said that they sort of fixed
itself towards the end of the race
but this sort of explained why they had
a bit of a pace disadvantage to the sister
number 8 car
during the overnight hours
and it's just remarkable that the car got to the finish
it was fully
classified as far as we know the results are
official pending some parts
that have been impounded by
the FIA and ACO
but I think they would have flagged
something here with this car already
but
just remarkable that
again Toyota worked through an issue
in the race and they got this car
to the win and arguably they're the most
competitive
race win they've had at Le Mans
and pushed all the way
by team WRTBMW
who came in on the crest of a wave after that one
2 at Spa
and under 11 seconds as I said
at the end of the race there will be people say
there was a couple of safety cars
but not like 5 laps from the end of the race
there was a lot of green flag
running at pace
in the heat
tyres were part of the story as well
which Michelin never wanted to be
but I think in a good way
I think the Michelins probably outperformed
what they were expecting
particularly the mediums
because that's what most people
were using and they were right
on the upper edge of their operating window
but BMW so close
Andreas Rouss
said to me afterwards
he said I'm just not sure how far we've come
that I'm disappointed with second at Le Mans
but they really felt that there was
an opportunity there for them
and one or two other LMDH manufacturers
might have felt the same because Cadillac
were in the hunt as well for a lot of the race
Yeah I think if the 38 didn't
have its issues overnight
they would have probably been right there as well
So I
I think a lot of people were going into the event
thinking this could be LMDH's year
we were sort of thinking that last year too
and then the Porsche came so close to winning
this time the BMW came even closer
to winning
but I'd have to say this was
certainly one of the most exciting
Le Mans
I think 2023 still stands out to me as being
quite an epic race
but just to sort of see
what Toyota had a battle through
and
it sort of puts that team
and manufacturer up there as one of the
greatest
endurance racing operations
Gary Watkins wrote a column for us
for Sports Car 365 Plus
sort of arguing the point that
this win now sort of puts them
alongside the likes of Yoast
and TWR
and even WRT to some degree
because of all their GT3 success
but finally Toyota winning
a major race with competition
everybody sort of had that estrix
on those other wins
I think this really shows
how strong of an operation they really are
and again battling through that adversity
as you said I think
that year of the fuel pump
was the most incredible story
I sat with
I think it would have still been Pascal Vassalon
back in those days
and did a half hour interview with him
maybe a week or ten days after the race
and we put
I'm pretty certain we put that into midweek motorsport
at this sort of time of the year, the week after
we missed the Wednesday after
and when he explained the whole situation
of writing chords
sending it, uploading it to the car
and all of that stuff
that's proper endurance racing for me
and this year I think LeMond
particularly in the top class
it had so many storylines
there was obviously the Toyota victory
there was how close BMW were
there was that absolute
nightmare
for the 1938, they'd been quick all week
both of their Cadillacs had been
quick during the week
in some respects the 12s perhaps had done a little bit better
than the 38 in a while but in the race
and it only has to be
doesn't it, the man from LeMond
Sebastian Baudet
when it all went wrong
and what a week they had
I mean what a year he's had
he's one dear turner and had to give the watch back
he's been on pole position for LeMond
and they'd had to give the gold medals back
that was a bizarre situation
after we went through all of the presentations
and then he's in the car
when the power steering
fails and ultimately the car has to be
retired, albeit after
a few more laps, he's from LeMond
he's 47
he must be thinking
times, he's won everything else
he's won everything else, brilliant
brilliant save it
he's got to be wondering how many more opportunities
he has for LeMond
particularly as they went in this year
looking so strong
absolutely, obviously he has
at least one class win at LeMond with the 4 GT
but that's not an overall win
you know, you could
ask people that have
not one overall LeMond
one in class and it's
not the same thing, Wayne Taylor is an example
I think that it comes to mind
anyway, with Seb
I felt so bad for him
especially as he's
on a contract
negotiation year with the team
I'm sure he's willing
I'm sure there's probably all intent to continue
with him with Herzteem, Cadillac Herzteem
Joda, but maybe he's on that
fringe of looking at what his future could be
similar to what Jensen Button
was last year and who knows
I really don't know
but you don't get many
opportunities or chances to go
have the overall trophy
sort of there
looking at you straight in the face
and then to have that issue
it was just heartbreaking
Persia underperformed again
Alpine were pretty good
and Alpine
put themselves in the shop window, we still don't know
what's happening with them but the rumors
of a buyout continue
BYD were strongly
featured in the fun area
of LeMond and that
rumor will not go away, those talks
ongoing but nothing signed
in the other classes into Europol
into Europol, do it again
Nick Yellowly
loving his time with those guys
and
he said to me that
when I asked him why are they so good
he said it's the setup of the car
he said everybody in that car
has to drive to the car
you can't say I think
I'd rather have it this way or that way
than having that car the way it is
and whichever way it is
and he wouldn't tell me, of course he wouldn't
and whatever it is they do
they've got the sweet spot
in effectively a spec class
and they execute so well
there's not many people in that situation
who do it two years in a row John
Yeah, three in the last four as well
It's unbelievable
what a role they are on
at LeMond
there's sister car obviously finished
in a 1-2
not much to say
I think they're just a dominant force there
and
I think they're one of the deserving teams
to try to step up to hypercar
and we know they've been looking
they've been trying
but it's a tough one
out there in the market right now
but anyway I think
certainly it was great to see
the 43 crew back in the top step
Yeah, and what's interesting
somebody asked me this at LeMond
and said, yeah, I know it's in the Europol
and I know it's a firm
of bakers out
in their home city
in the metropolitan area
of Warsaw and Poland
but who runs the car for them
and I went, no, no, no
this is their team
it's not as if that is subcontracted out
to a WRT or somebody else John as far as I'm aware
Correct, yeah, they're based in Poland
Sasha Fassbender
the team principal, he lives there
and they work out of their shop there
Yeah, just brilliant
brilliant and you know they've had
success in everything that
they have done
the
pro-arm part of
of LMP2, hard fought
as ever
Yeah, absolutely
and I think
it came down to a little bit of a
I'm not sure if it was a mistake or not
I haven't spoken to Dane yet
but Dane Cameron had an off in the
in the 99 AO racing
I think of Indianapolis and that really set them back
and it was going to
it was shaping up to be a good fight between them
and the crowd strike by APR
Orica
of George Kurtz, Alex Quinn
and Lauren Heinrich and
and ended up being those trio that ended up taking
the class honors in LMP2 pro-arm
again, another remarkable story for Lauren Heinrich
in his LeMau debut
he wins another big iconic
race this year
whatever, that's just
amazing
but for George to get another
win, I think this is a second class win
at LeMau in the last three years if I remember
correctly and the strength
of the Stuart and Samantha Cox led
APR team that just shows
yet another top team
that is on the brink of maybe doing a hypercar
Yeah, it's great stuff
I work for Alex Quinn as well
I had much dealings with Alex
but I was tremendously impressed with him
as
a driver and as
an individual the young Brit
did very well indeed
in GT3
another
long time entrance stalwart
celebrating I think it was their 10th
LeMau this year
10th in a row for Tom Furrier
and came home
with Ben Keating
rapidly making a case
for the best ever
arm driver in terms of LeMau
certainly in the modern
era when arm has been
a mandated part
of classes and another
win for Corvette
Yeah, amazing
story with this car because
this was Ben's first race back from
shattering his elbow
on a mountain biking accident
and I spoke to him at Scrutinyering
and he said, you know, I'm going to
do a day late coming into the race
because and to the event because of
all this travel issues
his flights were canceled and everything
and I asked him I said, you know, you
usually typically get all your driving
done at the beginning of the race
maybe doing a Quinn tuple stint
a quadruple stint whatever needed to be
done to do the six hours
do you think you can do that
and he says honestly, no, we're going to
have to change our strategy because
quite quite, you know,
I think that was a quite
reasonable thing not to do
but anyway
all of a sudden he goes into the race and does a
Quinn tuple stint at the start of the race
just like he normally does which is
an Ironman effort not only for
any bronze driver but for a driver
in his first race back after
a serious injury
and then to see Johnny Edgar
do the same thing at the end of the race
to deliver the win obviously
he's a silver graded
driver but
deserves to be a full on professional
so there's no surprise from his ability
but what an amazing
run there and then Nicky Katzberg
getting another 24 hour win as well
Ben and Nicky
shared their last Le Mans win
in 2023 with Corvette racing
in the last year of GTEM
amidst all of that I think we worked
out that Ben got his full six
hours in in the first
eight hours pretty much of the
race in amongst all of that
not going over four hours in any
six which is the big thing that
trips by a lot
logistically as well as
physically and mentally for Ben
but logistically for the team
that was actually really smart work
from all of them and we wished them all
the best
great race thoroughly enjoyed it
enjoyed the week we had a great
time on
Le Mans and Radio Le Mans dot com
there was a lot of
stories that came out of Le Mans
as they always do
I suppose the most important
one in some respects is this
2030
regulations change
for the top class
and whilst we didn't get
the
eyes dotted and the t's crossed in fact I'm not even
sure we've got the eyes written and the t's written
yet but what we got was a framework
a working document
if you will a white paper in British
parliamentary terms discussion
document call it what you will
for the FIA World Endurance
Championship and the Imza Weather
Text Border Card Championship
that has been put in
front of us the press
the fan base
around the world and of course the
manufacturers now
there's a lot of
now let me get this let me put this in a
bit of a dramatic way there are a lot
of very interested
parties in this each manufacturer
wants something specific
out of going racing
and therefore the regulations
have to be all things to all people
that normally means if it's been
designed by committee it's
not necessarily the best thing
however the ACO have pulled off
and the FIA who are heavily
involved
President Imza
President Soleim I noticed
was shaking hands
at the weekends of Le Bon
this seemed to have pulled another rabbit out the
hat because generally speaking
John it seems to have been
a positive reaction
at least for the framework
it's something to start with at least I think
fairly safe from the manufacturers
yeah I
would say almost every
manufacturer seems to be in support of this
and the devils in the details
of course sort of explain
that but from an overall
perspective speaking
to almost every OEM
representative after the announcement
except Cadillac
which we didn't have a chance to
because it was running out of time
but I believe they're on board with it too
speaking to Keely Bosen before
the announcement but
Ferrari declined to comment which is
okay very Ferrari interesting
yeah so
we don't really know their thoughts on it
we know Toyota is
not the happiest they were
expecting to still be able to
continue with 4WD
which is a bit odd in my opinion because
it was
sort of internally known months ago
that 4WD would go away
and then the hybrid system would be enforced on the rear wheels
so
our Jamie Klein spoke to their
global motorsport director
and he indicated that
it was a surprise to them that 4WD
has gone away and they're going to have to re-evaluate
things and
I find that a little bit out of line
but let's wait until the 2030s
what you said is that wasn't going to be a surprise
the gist of it all
John, to break it down into
into
very basic is that at the moment
we've got a variety of
sets of technical regulations
that permit people to build
bespoke racing cars
the LMDH Spines
with the spec gear
there's 2 and 4WD
the engine regulations
are quite different as well
and ultimately right now
we've got three different types
of cars that are competing
together in the FIA WEC
2 in IMSA
with Aston Martin being a non
hybrid
that competes in both
and what it boils down to
is at least a single set
of chassis regulations
that
gives at least some
commonality between
the regulations
from IMSA and
the FIA WEC
stroke Le Mans
is that too simple
for my bearer of small brain
no, the thing is
that there's a single set of technical
regulations that will be
based around a common
well, I shouldn't say common
because it's not going to be a spec
chassis but it'll be
a single set of chassis regulations
which is very important because the LMH cars
have very different
chassis than LMDH
and based on
the discussions I've had
the chassis regulations lean more
in the direction of LMDH
and even the possibility of maybe
some carryover in
parts
carryover in other things
there's going to be a new safety
cell regulation for
the cockpit for the cars
so everybody would need
new chassis but not maybe
built from the ground up
so if you're a BMW
or a Porsche
that are looking at maybe a more cost-effective program
where they currently are running
in LMDH
they could feasibly continue
what they have with some changes
and I think that's the real big selling
point. Again, things haven't been
fully defined but that's the
intention, that's the direction it's sort of going.
So we're not
seeing through everything
aware that we've got at the moment because clearly
LMDH has worked really well
that the LMH regulations
or the hypercar regulations
that allow for the
building of a bespoke
chassis, a bespoke racing car
from each of the manufacturers
who do that. How is
that going to work? Will there be
for... so
we're not necessarily saying we're going to keep
the current chassis
from the manufacturers
who are doing LMDH but there'll be some
commonality. How does that work for the likes
of Ferrari, Toyota
Peugeot
who compete with
a chassis that is of their
own design even if not
of their own manufacturer
manufacturer?
Yeah, you basically get a choice.
Either you create your own
chassis within those chassis
rules which are very similar to LMDH
and then also
make your own hybrid system
or you go with the
spec hybrid, one of the
four chassis constructors that are out there now
with Dallara, Multimatic
Li'je and Orica.
And there's actually some talk that there might be some mixing
and matching as well. So maybe you can create
your own chassis and run the spec
hybrid or vice-versa.
The slides that were presented
during the press conference made it look like either
or but there was some talk afterwards that it
could be a mixture of the both.
But the important thing with the hybrid system
as well and it hasn't been defined
the power levels for
that, battery capacity.
It could be a little larger.
Battery, maybe a little more power.
It seems like a few manufacturers are in favor
of that to show some advancement
from the first set of regulations which were
basically created in 2020.
This will be
2030, 10 years on.
So I think
there's still some stuff to be
sorted out but again,
the idea with the hybrid system
is to create the same amount of power
as the spec one and
based on what I've heard it could be regulated
in a similar way to torque sensors.
Some kind of device that sort of
limits the power or
measures the power output and make sure
it doesn't exceed the
single supplier option.
So a framework as I said
the key thing for this
is that
all the manufacturers who are involved at the minute
plus the ones who are still sniffing
around the edges and the ones who are going to come in
next year
who will only have
a couple, what three years potentially
possibly even, not three years
at the regulations
as they stand. The key thing
here is that everybody gets something out of it
that they want John but also the other thing
to my mind is cost
and the worry has to be
that cost can't
be controlled and I ask
myself why are
they changing what they've got and the only
reason I think that I've been able to
find for that is that
technically they feel
that they don't have enough control
with the current set of regulations
and somebody could run away
with it as it stands right now
as people are getting more used to
what they're doing, they're unlocking more performance
from
the current set of regulations and therefore
they need a reset.
I mean is that reasonable?
Yeah, in a way but I think
the biggest reason is that
the platforms LMH and LMDH
are not as close together as
I think everybody expected at the beginning
and it's been really
really hard to balance these two platforms
both in the WBC and in IMSA
even just with the Valkyrie
and the WeatherTech Championship as a non-hybrid car
we're seeing continuous
BOP changes to try
to bring the two platforms together
enough for
the FIA and ACO to put the BOP
you know
in a secretive form or we don't have access
to it but you look at what happened
at Loma and it was a great show so
I sort of applaud
I think they've made some good gains
this year in particular
but the bottom line is that
if you have a single set of regulations
it's going to be a lot closer to manage
and we've seen that in IMSA before
the Valkyrie entered and how close things were
I think this is
the main driving force
and also costs, yeah absolutely
everything, every manufacturer
that I spoke to
except Ferrari
stressed that costs have to remain
at least the same if not
reduced in some way
and that is apparently
a pledge that has been made
by the ACO FIA and IMSA
to the OEMs
that there's no cost cap
there's no regulations that'll state that
some series have that
and that goes into a whole other can of worms
but I think the
situation here is that
the costs will remain the same
and those that have a little extra money
they could opt for their own chassis
they could opt for their own hybrid system
to develop their own technology
and showcase their own technology
but they won't be put at an advantage
or disadvantage by doing that
route
there's so much to go on that
there's a huge amount of reporting on this
on Sportscar 365
go and have a look at it
there's been a lot of
information coming out of Le Mans
and coming into this weekend
racing did stop last weekend
by the way there was plenty going on
so I recommend you go into Sportscar 365
and scroll back
to the end of Le Mans
and start catching up on all the things
we don't have time to talk about here
it is the sealant six hours of the Glen at the weekend
clashing again with CrowdStrike
SPA24
come to that little nugget
in a moment John
but you talked about the Aston Martin Valkyrie here
at the weekend
the Aston Martin Valkyrie is going to be
lighter than it's ever been before
and in fact it falls through
the lowest
area that we thought we'd see
a hypercar running in
yeah and to be clear
it's the lightest we think it's been
because we don't see the WEC VOV anymore
good point
maybe it's happened already I don't know
but in Insic Competition
yes
so 1030 is the minimum homologated weight
for
I believe LMDH and LMH
and this car will be running at
1020 this coming weekend
at Watkins Glen
I'm not super surprised
I know Imps has been working very hard
with Aston Martin
and Hard of Racing to try to get their car
to be a little more competitive
they've been moving around the
weights and the power levels for the LMDH cars
to try to balance it all
and I think this is the
next logical step as long as the car
can run at that minimum
weight I don't know if the cars
aren't only built for certain weights
but if they put it down to 1020 I would assume
it is able to do that
nonetheless it'll be interesting to see what happens
there both specs of Porsches
have lost a considerable amount of weight
as well which is interesting
all the cars in
GTP have but
it's a bigger proportion on
the Porsche side
the Porsches are still the heaviest cars
on the grid though aren't they
yeah but they're not as heavy as they were
earlier in the last couple races
they were 1100 kilos
so you're talking about almost an 80 kilos
swing
that's like putting a
a core driver in it
literally
I like the direction
Imps has headed but we'll have to see how it
fares for 6 hours
speaking of Porsche, Lauren Heinrich
we found out that Lauren won't be doing
CrowdStrike 24 this weekend
he's still in very much
with a championship opportunity
obviously he switched around and he's had
his points from two different teams so if he
was to win the championship he would win it
on his own
but he's back this weekend in the
seal in 6 hours of the
Glen, effectively fresh from
that Le Mans victory
I think this is really interesting Le Mans victory in LNP too
I think this is really interesting
I suspect
he's quite happy about it
I know the CrowdStrike
at 24 hours is a big GT race
but the opportunity to win
a championship like Imps
a championship doesn't come along
that often
that's exactly what he told me about that opportunity
so he's
he had mixed feelings I think
because he's really close to the team he was
supposed to run with Drew Makers CLTR
that's their big race of the year
the CrowdStrike 24 hours
of Spa and Fred McAvecchi
replaced him there in that lineup which is interesting
because Fred used to be a Porsche factory driver
but Porsche has no other factory drivers
available for this weekend because of the clash
and that's also hit BMW
anyways I digress
the situation with
JDC Miller is a really cool one because now
Lauren sitting second
in the championship after a bit of a challenging
Detroit race to say the least
he's still very much in the title
fight I think 140
something points behind Jack Aiken
who's solo in the
points in the number 31
Action Express Cadillac because of the clashes
with WVC
but I think
it's going to be really interesting to see how this unfolds
over the course of the year
especially as a get to Motul Petit Le Mans
and if Philippe Nasser and Julian Andlauer
who he'll return to
in the number 7
Penski Porsche for that race
if they're fighting for the championship
Heinrich
versus Nasser and Andlauer
will Porsche put him in the other car
the number 6 for Petit Le Mans
or will they keep him in the 7
because if Porsche wants to have 2 chances at the drivers title
you'd think you'd put him in the 7
so interesting implications
I know we're only halfway through the season
but you never know what could happen
but I think this is a really good storyline
heading into the rest of the year
if Porsche couldn't manufacture
the fact that they're all on the same number of points
going into the last round
I'll be tremendously impressed
that's difficult
with Imsa's point system though
exactly right, just on that
and we'll close on this John
because again I'm going to send everybody
to Sportacast365.com
because there's been so much happening
still
we have a clash this weekend
between the sale and 6 hours of the Glen
and the CrowdStrike 24 Hours this bar
we know Imsa's date for next year
and it's on
pretty much the same weekend
the last weekend in June
which has become
since the Formula 1 date change
at Spa, that's become
the CrowdStrike 24 Hours this bar
and you've been speaking to Stef and Retell
and he can't see a way to change this
so the likelihood is we'll have the same clash next year
we're expecting the calendar for
GT World Challenger
up in our Continental GT Challenge
to be released on Friday
and Stef on
indicated to me that the date
will most likely remain the same
for the 24 Hours of Spa next year
so it looks like we will have
this clash again unless
something can be done in the interim
this
clash was alleviated for
two consecutive years in 24 and 25
by Imsa the first year
specifically to move it off of
the Spa 24 weekend
and then last year it was officially
because of a better
network TV window for NBC
but based on what I've heard
I think it was largely influenced by
Mr. Kurtz whose company
is the title sponsor of the CrowdStrike 24 Hours
Spa and George
runs full time in Imsa in the LMP2 class
so
let's see what happens in the future
it's really
affected things this year
I count at least 30 drivers
that are impacted one way or another
that could have done Spa
that are at Watkins Glen or vice versa
a couple teams, manufacturers
like BMW Porsche
relying on non-works drivers
it's a difficult one and I really hope
it does get resolved in the future
and as it stands right now
it's even worse for next year
with Imsa's clash
with Le Mans
because again we've got
a test day clash
with Imsa
and potentially if everything stays the same
I believe we've got the 4 hour
middle high or Michelin
pilot challenge now I know
that's at a slightly different level
but I think that's Le Mans weekend next year
yeah, that's what it is
it's been confirmed on both calendars
so we'll see if maybe Imsa
considers moving that date
but like you said it's not as impactful
a huge 69 car
GT3 race
compared to the 6 hours
at a Glen, I consider this a bigger clash
yeah, I'd agree
Jon thank you very much, travel well
have a great weekend and we'll speak to you soon
and catch up on some of the stories
sounds good, thanks Jon
Jon Deguisse of
I suppose we've got 365
with this week's double stint
we're over time aren't we
sorry about that
I always talk too much
yeah well, Nick Damon talked too much
earlier as well
I've just been looking up
whilst I was talking to Jon
because somebody asked
Johannes was talking about looking number 7
at Le Mans which was Toyota this year
7, 6 and 5 this year
had all won
the great race
5 times
so now 7s won it 6 times
6 times
I think about 5 years ago
we had this
conversation about 7
being the most winning
number at Le Mans didn't we
well, it was tied up with 7, 6 and 5
until this year
it's not the easiest thing to find
actually
because the AI is not very useful
but it's brought
the tie now with 6 and 5
I haven't researched
4, 3, 2 and 1
because I was kind of
distracted while I was talking to Jon there
in the early years
the cars were numbered
and indeed lined up for the start
with number 1
is the biggest engine capacity
number 2 the second
etc etc
the cars at the front of the field
with the smallest numbers
were the biggest engine cars
so
they kind of had the best
so you know for year number 27
or number 42
you were probably in a 1.1
Simca or Alpine
or something and you weren't going to win overall
if anybody can tell me
how much better
the
lower cars
no numbered cars have done
I'd be interested
I'm sure there's somebody who can
so
it was all tied up
oh hang on the number 4 cars won the 24 hours of Le Mans
10 times
so that is
that's a runaway winner then
oh runaway winner so far
29, 39, 67,
82, 86, 92, 2001, 2, 3, 7 and 12
so now I need to
so that's massively
can I answer another question
we posed earlier
yes go on
the last time 3 English drivers
were on a Formula 1 podium
yes we thought there might not have been at all
58
but we should go on to create Silverstone
in third place
in the second place
in the Ferrari
Mike Hawthorne
and the winner
also in a Ferrari
Peter Collins
excellent
the number 3 car at Le Mans
has won 15 times
so as I go down
through the numbers
number 1 and 2
will be teens as well
surely
as I say
so the number 2 has won Le Mans 10 times
but 15 times for the number 3
at the moment
oh the number 1 cars won the 24 hours of Le Mans
19 times
there we go
I think that will be the winner
now
come on
we are massively over time
we are so won't matter if I did this story
Connor Zilich
the 8 cars won Le Mans 5 times
Jesse Love
Carson Hosevar
and Cletus McFarland
are starring
a new NASCAR film
as a boy band
the undult
except it's more of a rock band
than a boy band
and this is
to celebrate
first of its kind
collaboration
celebrating two years
of collaboration
celebrating two cultural icons
built on performance and life on the road
okay, I kind of get that
can you guess what those two cultural icons are?
NASCAR
and
rock and roll
the Rolling Stones
there you go
I kind of get honestly
I think that
NASCAR
is
a reasonable
sort of pulling together
particularly for NASCAR
when they're on the road for
40 weeks a year
30 whatever it is
38 weeks a year whatever it is
now in fairness
the collaboration includes
a NASCAR
Rolling Stones merchandise collection
featuring Kobe Randed Apparel
with his signature NASCAR racing jacket
2
limited edition NASCAR themed collector vinyl editions
of the new Rolling Stones studio album
foreign tongues
out on July 10th
have you heard that by the way?
no, it's out on July 10th
it's absolutely outstanding
how have you heard it?
not yet
who am I married to
Tim?
a custom NASCAR listening
lounge show car
appearing throughout Chicago
leading into the NASCAR
Chicago Land Race Weekend
on July 4th and 5th
and original content highlighting the parallels
between professional drivers
and touring musicians
can I give a
slightly controversial
but incontrovertible view
Rolling Stones
are, were, always
better than the Beatles
more enduring
better songs
and have gone on longer
I mean you can't argue with the gone on longer
and I know there's
various reasons for that
including people dying
which you know is not the Beatles fault
Brian Jones died so
that didn't stop the Rolling Stones
I
love the early Rolling Stones stuff
I love all the R&B stuff
I just think they've been
I was always even
even in the 60s when I was growing up
in the 60s yes I am that old
um
I
my sister went to see them live
in what was believed to be their farewell tour
when she was 14
which farewell tour was that
yeah exactly
exactly
I worked in a nightclub
in Sunderland
where we had
two and a half times
the Watts
um
on the PA system
that the Rolling Stones had
on their I Love White
famous I Love White concert
which was
pretty bleeding
loud, ear-bleedingly
loud
I want to say the Rolling Stones at
St. James's Park
um
yes I did have to have a pass to go to
that
in
was that the late 80s
maybe
yeah it would have been
ah just great
just great now
I will say that since
I saw the long
Disney
Beatles
um
yeah documentary
um
I picked up the guitar to play
more Beatles songs
but I would normally play more Rolling Stones songs
and Beatles songs on my guitar
and not just because the
the Beatles played a lot more D7s
and not just because
and not just because
um I can't play a D7
you can't play a D7
and that was a
D7s is
a very Beatles chord
um Rolling Stones tended to be
more natural chords but
it's not about that anyway
um come on let's finish this
show we've let Nick go already
by the way in case you had that
that's all we've got time for then
is it really
this weekend Tim
we have
we have Watkins Glen and that's everyone
we have the
the WeatherTech Sports Car Championship
we have the Michelin Pilot Challenge
we have the Porsche
Queer Recap North America
just two races
I thought there was going to be a third race
I thought there was going to be a make up race
for that and that's not on
TomTable no I thought that
no I got surprised about that
we also have the Mustang Challenge
Mustang Challenge
that's going to be magnificent
I'm really looking forward to that
thank you to all of our contributors
tonight Nick D'Amens
as I say we've let go
um thank you to
Andrew to John
who's about to jump well actually
not tonight but in the morning early
he'll be jumping on a plane to
Watkins Glen or Rochester
as I'm sure he'll be jumping
on to and then driving down
um from there
and thank you to Aaron as well
for setting up our
Will and Mazda
MX5
uh interview with just another connoisse
who leads the championship in the moment
we don't see them again until
CTMP
I'm I never cease to be impressed
with the Mazda
drivers that we have on the shore
to be honest because they are all
relatively young but they're
all clearly
love their racing
and are able
to talk to us about
a variety of subjects not just
what they do and it's
lovely um
what's up next? What's in the playlist
next come on we are going to hear
from Howard and Haynes
excellent Howard and Haynes
is the H of
Audi
sports who won them on
a bazillion times
and was made famous
as opposed by Truth
in 24 progressive motorsport
he and Dave Ward
originally and now Haynes
um running that on his own
um and and Ward
he's off to past his new
can't wait to see what Ward
he does next um I sat down
with him before them on and talked
about a variety of
subjects including Audi diesel
and drinks bottles is it
is it drinks bottles or diesel
it's drinks bottles this time
but if you uh hang around
for another
3,5,4,5,6,7
if you hang around for another 7 hours
15 minutes you'll get to hear the diesel one
excellent
um plenty of Le Mans content
features that
well I was going to say
they are there on
radioleman or radio
radio.co.uk
all of the features that we played at Le Mans
um if you're in the US
at the moment and it's the middle of the afternoon
anything and what am I going to do for the rest of the night
because I don't need to watch
the World Cup up sweets by the way
as my um
the Americans don't need to watch until tomorrow
when they play
who are they playing tomorrow
someone who's already qualified for the next round
so it's a bit of a dead rubber
well it was um it was Switzerland
Canada tonight and it's
Granite Sundlund's Granite Jacke
uh led the Swiss 2-2-1
victory sorry spoiler alert
and and I am contractually
obliged despite
the fact that my Swiss mother-in-law
is no longer with us um
near her memory but a blessing
to say hope swiss
on that um
thank you for your time tonight
thanks for your ears
as as Phil Hanson
famously once said
and we'll be back next week for
another round of
Midweek Motorsport we're closing in on our
one thousandth
episode 1000
episode um
well you should know that um
I reckon that's about 10 weeks time
I think it's a bit less than that
is it yeah okay
um and we'll have some
changes after that as well we're going to
slightly tweak what we do
with Midweek Motorsport not massively
and you'll still hear some of the same voices
as well
but um we will
celebrate I I'm expecting Tim
on our one thousandth
episode to
dig up some of the best bits
I'm just going to replay the 500th episode
ah
hahahaha
that's not not the worst thing
to do as long as it has the catering
um auction
auction I think
where we all just corpse
will just be game shows
how do you think yeah
that's actually not a bad idea
the best of the game shows
no brand new episodes
of the best game shows
we need to get some guest contestants in there
are you going to revive dancing with the
plas then we can revise
revive dancing with the plas yep
right boom episode tonight
nearly 90 minutes on the clock
um it's
super hot in the UK hopefully we've cooled
you down just a little bit
I need a rehydration
break at the moment
I'm sure Tim does
as well thank you to all our guests
we'll be back with you at 8 o'clock UK
pretty soon time next week
thanks for joining us no time to explain
ah rehydration in this house
means negroni as far as
I'm concerned and that's where I'm going next
thanks for being with us good night go bless
this program is a radio show
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subscribe to midweek motorsports
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About this episode
Back in the UK studio after Le Mans, the hosts set the midweek motorsport season in motion and tee up a team-by-team review of the Grand Prix of Barcelona, Catalonia. Along the way they cover vehicle previews like the Master 16 and Mazda CX-5, plus Formula E’s calendar, fan reach, and why modern street racing gets harder. The show also dives into endurance and GT3/GT4 parity, weather strategy, and a packed run of race dates and venue logistics.
Original notes
Andrew Cotton previews the Crowdstrike Spa 24 hours, there’s calendar news from the FIA WEC and Formula E, and John Dagys joins John Hindhaugh for another Double Stint, Plus Nick Daman’s team by team review of the Barcelona-Catalunya Grand Prix.
Midweek Motorsport
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