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Monza, Weddings, and Snipping
Monza, Weddings, and Snipping
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About this episode
The hosts dive into a mix of personal stories and racing insights, starting with hat struggles and birthday brunches at Cracker Barrel, then moving to Tim's experience at an Oasis concert with wild crowd behavior. The main focus is the recent Italian Grand Prix at Monza, highlighting Max Verstappen's dominant win and the complex team dynamics at McLaren involving Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri. They debate team orders, pit stop mishaps, and the impact on driver championships. The episode wraps with travel tales, wedding celebrations in Italy, and a teaser about an upcoming horse racing update.
Topics:
hat fitting struggles
birthday brunch at cracker barrel
oasis concert experience
italian grand prix monza
max verstappen performance
mclaren team orders controversy
lando norris vs oscar piastri
pit stop issues
team dynamics in f1
travel and wedding stories
Cars:
Chevrolet Nova
Hinch went to Italy for a wedding and took in an F1 race as a fan. The guys go into depth about the Lando-Oscar pit situation, and Castle Run had a medical procedure that may actually help some IndyCar drivers.
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Chevrolet Nova
"...Wonderwall? Because I don't know, champagne Super Nova. Yeah, that's a good one. What's the other one? W..."
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This is off track, Guys.
I have some pretty big news.
Oh, do you gotta start the show now?
I do on this one. Is
It, is this better?
Should I do that? Oh my God.
It doesn't, it doesn't matter.
I have some pretty big news. I found another hat
that fits my giant head.
And now since the last one, one Cowboy, is it Cowboy esque?
Oh, did Mark Miles give you that?
I, I was expecting when it said one size fits all.
I think I even said something along the lines of, we'll see, you see, that does not apply.
But, uh, happy to say this thing fits my giant noggin.
What I wanna know is what that looks like on a normal person's head.
It's gotta be giant. I wanna know, is that
what we're calling fits?
Like, it, it looks like it's still, I Mean, Is it just a hair?
Arguably it fits, it fits much closer than anything else he is ever put on his head.
Yeah, it's Do you Have that, that IMS hat nearby for a comparison?
Please don't. Please don't put it on If you do.
It's in the car. It's in the car.
Yeah, you're right. It does fit better than
any other hat that he's had.
It's just, it's so tough. 'cause he is got such an unruly
amount of hair on top of his head that, that fills up. And he
Have a giant head too.
Yeah. Oh no. It's, uh, the combination is just,
it is bound to be exposed to the elements.
Tim, you're just not meant to be wearing hats.
Yeah. But, and, and I'm gonna take this off
because I don't, I don't feel like wearing a hat right now, but I'm very happy that, uh, that I found something that fits.
Good. I'm glad. Um, how do like TKs fit on you?
Beanies as you would call them? Mm.
I, I can't even think of the last time I've worn one.
It would look just, it would look round and he couldn't have a knit one because then the hair would, Oh, I would just, yeah.
And it would also just stretch and never come back to shape. Yeah. Um,
I'd be okay if you guys wanted to gimme one to try on, just to see how it would fit.
So like, have you ever been skiing? Yeah.
Yeah. Since, since your adulthood?
Yeah. But I have enough hair
that I don't really feel the need to wear a hat.
So you literally, that, that thing on your head just keeps your head warm and you don't even wear a hat.
It's pretty, it keeps me pretty warm. That's
Incredible.
You must wear helmet. I'm so jealous. Because
That's not, there's offering much protection.
Um, I mean, there's probably a lot of cushion there.
I mean, they, they make helmets that fit, like they do make ex like whoever's making the size charts for helmets is very separate from the person making size charts for hats.
Interesting. Okay. Is that
because an extra large helmet fits fine, but an extra large hat barely fits at all? I
Think they just know that like a helmet really needs to fit.
Mm. Like mm-hmm.
They looked, looked at the market share for me and they're like, Yeah, like, like, like a race car helmet I've seen you in.
Do you have a bicycle helmet by chance?
No, but I also don't have a bike anymore because I could imagine, imagine I had a bike in college Sit, it must sit like four inches above your head.
So if you fell off your bike, it wouldn't actually, probably not hurt your hair, but not your Bike.
You would have to fall like exactly 180 degrees upside down.
Yeah. And land perfectly straight for it to really have any,
Because like if you fell on your side or along your back, you'd be hose. Yeah.
I had a bike in college and you know, US C's not in like the best neighborhood.
And so like, I was very intense about keeping my bike locked up and I would run the bike lock through the front and back tire and spokes to make sure everything was gone. I
Can see you doing this. Yeah. Say
Somebody stole my bike seat and I was like, what are you getting out of this?
Like, what's, what's your game here? And so then I was .
I just said to myself like, I'm never gonna ride a bike again.
Like that's just, that was the end of my bike career.
But Tim, if you moved back to Indiana, you could have a bike.
Hmm. Because I don't think people still bikes
as often in Indiana.
It's a, Where I'm Now in Indiana.
Yeah. That's like road biking.
I don't think he's gonna get into like, proper road biking.
Why? I bet he, I mean, listen, if you don't think
a hat fits him, what happens when he puts on spandex? Mm.
Again, I used to wear a lot of spandex in high school, rowing my Extracurricular activities.
Oh. Not for like, just Thursdays
Fun.
Well, you know, when you go to the Rocky Horror Picture show midnight showing you wanna, you wanna go and think you gotta Dress the part.
Yeah. And Anticip
Don't do it.
Wait, I feel like we've actually seen you in spandex when you dressed as Peter Pan or something for Halloween.
I don't think I've ever dressed as Peter Pan For.
Didn't you wear green leggings at some point? No,
Those were green pants.
I was, uh, I was shaggy from, from, uh, Scooby-Doo .
Oh my God. I thought those were like yoga pants.
They were just pants. Just pants.
Like regular, Just from regular pants. .
So apparently the people that do the hat size, you know, say people that do the pants. I,
But the important thing here is patient Can't believe you did it. .
There are kids that listen to this show, Tim, get your act together. What's wrong
With the anticipation?
No, it's just the entire show. The entire movie. Oh.
Just always my parents let me watch Rocky Horror Picture Show when I was like six I think for the first time.
And I gotta say that was not a good idea. Yeah.
My mom did the same thing with deliverance.
Oh yeah. That's a weird one.
Yeah, I think we've talked about that with your mom actually. Yeah. But, uh,
She stands by it.
Yeah, I definitely, I didn't eat, I didn't eat meatloaf ever again.
I'm on the fence on Jaws with Hazel because we live around the corner from the Academy Museum and they're doing this big Jaws exhibit that I really wanna go to, but she hadn't seen it yet.
I'm like, I don't think it'd be too scary.
But she's getting into surfing and I just feel like it could end badly.
She's like a champion winning surfer.
You know what award-winning, award-winning surfer? Yeah.
At the one, the one camp.
Hey, it's an award. How is everybody's weekend?
Well, it was Kelly's birthday last weekend.
It was, And um, I was asking her for quite a few days leading up to her birthday, which was on a Sunday.
Like, what do you want? What do you wanna do?
What we can do anything. The world is ours.
Let's do something.
And she was always kind of like having an <inaudible> because a ben and it's hard to go do fun adult birthday things when you have a four month old.
Right. Which is understandable. Um,
Sorry, quick interjection.
Is it hemming and hawing or humming and hawing?
Hemming. I'm Pretty sure it's hemming and hawing. Yeah.
Yeah. That makes sense. But I'm just realizing
as you said it, I'm like, oh wow.
I've been saying humming I think my entire life.
But hemming makes sense. I
just, are you looking this up, Tim? Yeah.
It's heming and high. Yeah.
She finally, she finally, uh, decided what she wanted and it was a diner breakfast.
And I was like, okay, well we could go to like, we could go to Westfield.
There's a diner. I know. There we could go find something.
Like I was thinking, um, that diner by the track in Speedway, um, the famous one, I'm forgetting it.
Working man's friend. No, no, no. That's not a diner.
Um, like for breakfast. Oh
Yeah, yeah. Charlie Browns.
Charlie Browns, yeah. Yeah. And
I was like, nah, that's not the vibe.
And we decided to go to Cracker Barrel.
Um, cracker Barrel's been forward facing in the news lately, and I wanted to see what the new stores were like.
Um, 'cause I hadn't actually seen one in person.
So we got our friend Steven and Laura and their baby, and we all went to Cracker Barrel.
Let me tell you, the news does not depict reality.
We got there and they were like, cool. 45 minute wait.
Awesome. So we kind of hung out in the general store
and then outside and everything and, and, and got seated.
Um, and the new, the new stores are not nearly as, uh, far of a departure from the old ones as people were making it out to be.
And we had a great breakfast.
We just, I just, I, this is not, this is not an ad.
We all had a great time. They serve Bloody Mary's now.
So we all had some Buddy Mary's and some pancakes that's new and some biscuits and some bacon.
And it was, it was almost like a restaurant, Brunner of sorts.
And we did some shopping for some candy and we left.
And so I just wanna say it was a great, she was, she left there being thrilled with her birthday.
And I was like, that's also, I'm confused though.
Be great for the bank account. How,
How are you, how do they, aren't you like the Cracker Barrel guy?
How do you have a 45 minute wait?
Can't you just call up like Philip k Cracker Barrel and be like, yeah, yeah.
Didn't they give you the Cracker Barrel black card and you could just Yeah.
Swipe that and you get to go to the front line. Well,
So Uncle Herschel, um, has been on an extended leave of absence.
He's coming back Good.
But he's been, he was demoted for a few days, so.
Right. So, so I do have a question then about
that whole forward facing news situation.
Earlier. I thought they like went back on
that stuff and so like, so, So they did, as you Said, the stores are different.
Well, they first went back on the logo and then they, a couple days ago announced that they were pausing all further renovations, But Okay.
That wanted to do You went to one of the store Right.
That had been renovated. Got it. But like Got it.
Also, it's the same thing. Like it's the same.
It, it's, it's just painted white really.
It's like they slapped a fresh coat of paint on it.
Like it's still, the walls are full of the stuff and the floors are still, the, the brick and the chairs are still rickety Most importantly.
Mm-hmm. Did you play the Triangle game and did you Yes.
Own Steven how to do it because you know how to do it?
Um, Steven was, uh, Steven had a, a friend of ours opened a bar over the weekend.
Um, so Steven was, his brain wasn't working at full capacity, so we'll Got it.
We'll have to get him back at another time. Got
It.
Yeah. Fair. Well that sounds like a lovely way
to spend a birthday breakfast brunch, brother.
It was type thing. Yeah. Mm-hmm .
Yeah. Tim, what'd you get up to?
Oh, I went to the Oasis concert.
I had to think about that for a little bit.
How did you just forget that? How does that
We don't record on Thursdays ever.
I don't who can remember that far away?
Third point. I just feel like most people that have been
to the Oasis concert have been so excited about going to the Oasis concert.
This feels a lot like someone had a ticket and you're like, yeah, right. I guess I'll go.
No, I had, okay, so shockingly this wasn't my idea.
Um, right. , so went to the Oasis concert, a lot of people,
and I had gotten tickets a long time ago back when everybody thought there was no way that the tour would last this long.
'cause apparently those brothers hate each other a lot.
Um, so I'd got 'em pretty cheap and uh, and Ken said, you know, don't get the floor seats.
And I didn't even ask why.
I was just like, yeah, no problem. And then we,
we got there, we sat down and we're looking down and, and she goes, were here.
Why? I said Not to get the floor seats. I go, no.
She goes, oh, well I heard people throw cups of piss on the floor seats.
And I was like, I'm sorry, you're gonna need to back all the way up.
That's like a thing. And apparently it's like an Oasis thing
and some British festival things where people will throw beer and if they run out of beer, they just pee in the cup and they just throw cups of piss over the crowd.
And through the entirety of the show, there were just splashes of what I can only pray was beer just being thrown over this, the whole group of, of people on the, on the like floor section of the concert.
So I looked it up afterwards.
It's a thing, it seems like Liam Gallagher has had to come out and apologize to people for getting tea thrown on them.
And uh, yeah, really glad I wasn't in the floor seats Cool.
Concert. I knew three of their songs.
Yeah. I was gonna say, I, I,
I am a lukewarm Oasis fan at best.
And I never got, I never understood the hype.
Are you a piss warm Oasis fan?
And I never got the hype of this comeback tour, but I, I get roughly like 98 degrees.
It wasn't my, like it was my air necessarily, so I shouldn't, but now I like them considerably less.
Like I weigh way less.
What Song, what song did you know besides Wonderwall?
Because I don't know, champagne Super Nova.
Yeah, that's a good one. What's the other one? What's
So I guess I knew two songs. .
It was like, I, yeah.
Okay. I could have used, honest to God,
I could have used subtitles for when they were talking in between the songs though.
Because whatever Engle variant of the English accent they have, it was incomprehensible.
I didn't, I couldn't understand a word they were saying.
Hmm. Interesting. And very
Interest.
They still seem like they hate each other.
Yeah. But they love money. I think they love money. Yeah.
They seem them making quite a bit of it.
Yeah, that's, I think I looked it up.
They're making 50 to a hundred billion dollars each on this tour.
And I was like, there is, I can't think of a single person in the world.
I wouldn't pretend to get along with No.
For that amount of money. Yeah.
I would do it for considerably less.
There's a lot of people I don't like and I would hang out with them for six Months.
I mean, we do it, we do it for less than that for free on this show.
I was, I was gonna say the show, but yeah, We know, we know where you were over the weekend, James, but I don't wanna talk about that quite yet.
I want to talk about where you just came from, the wedding that everyone in IndyCar was at. Sorry, Tim
And I, I thought that's what you were referring to, not wanting to talk about yet.
Um, yes. Yes. The wedding.
So you say that there wasn't actually as many IndyCar people there as you think?
Oh, we were just, we were just all congregated together.
So all of like, we were all, you know, in each other's pictures and stuff, it seemed a little more concentrated.
Uh, but no. Yes. Uh, Becky
and I were over in Italy for the wedding of Marcus and Iris Erickson.
Was that not, was that on a weekday?
It was on, it was on a Monday. It was on a Monday. Right.
Interesting. Um, I think partly
because, so like, so it was in Italy, it was in, uh, like Lake Como and obviously that's pretty close to Monza, which was Italian Grand Prix weekend.
And I think maybe it was so that people from his F1 group could come because they were in town. And
That's kind of cool. That's
Smart planning.
Yeah. That's kind of cool. Smart planning.
And I also like, let's call a spade a spade man.
It's probably gonna save you a little bit of money doing a wedding on a Monday compared to like a Saturday in that kind of area. So
mm-hmm .
I feel like if you're doing a Lake Como wedding, you're probably not Super worried about The price concerned with saving the money. Like Yeah,
Totally fair.
And yeah, it was, it was, it was lights.
I mean that I've, I love Italy.
I've said before, like I probably could have been born Italian and been just fine with it.
Love the food, love the country, love the, the wine, love the cars.
There's not much I don't like about Italy, but I'd never been to Lake Como.
And man, what a part of the world. Holy crap.
I get why Clooney lives there or has a place there or whatever it is he does there.
So yeah, just remarkable. And so, yes, got to hang out
with a bunch of our IndyCar friends, which was great.
And it was a beautiful ceremony and it was a beautiful reception and it was beautiful, everything.
Uh, and had a, had a heck of a time, man, wish I had had more time to just hang out in Como and, and enjoy.
Um, but I had to jump on a plane.
I left Becky over there, her dad came over to visit her 'cause I'm going back over there.
But I had to run to Montreal for a sponsor appearance for Canadian Tire for a couple of days.
So I'm Montreal now. And then in
Man, A day or two I get back on a plane to Europe and go meet Becky and her dad. You
Must, you must really, you must really love this sponsor.
Dude. Canadian Tire is a terrific partner and I love them.
But this was, this was the only date they could do, huh?
Yeah. Yeah. It's a big like, conference for 'em.
A big dealer conference for them. Okay. Okay.
So, uh, tell me Big brownie points.
Well, hey man, it's, you gotta do, it's the job.
It's the job. So, uh, so yeah, have,
uh, a few days here in Montreal.
Montreal and then back to France.
And then the whirlwind European adventure continues.
'cause I will be gone for, I'll be on the, I think I, I dunno if I said this.
I'm on the road for like a month.
I left on September 5th I think.
And I get home on October 6th, which means I had to check a bag.
And Alex, I'm furious about it. Furious about it.
Did you by chance, like buy a carry-on while you're over there and you can like travel out of the carry-on?
I guess you don't have a really like a home base over there, so Probably not.
Exactly. So I, I, that was my original plan,
but then I realized I would've been leaving Becky to like carry my stuff on top of all her stuff around.
Mm-hmm. And it's like she would have to go to like,
on a plane and then on a train and it was a whole thing. Mm-hmm. So it wasn't worth it.
So, and an automobile and Yeah.
And then an automobile and the whole thing. Yeah.
And John Candy would've been proud, but it would've been impractical and equally as chaotic.
So I just, I just bit the bullet checked a bag, it showed up.
So I was happy about that 'cause it would've been bad otherwise.
Um, but yes, the, the cool thing about having a wedding in Italy near Manza, the Monday after the Italian Grand Prix is What Yet to go check out the Italian Grand Prix. Come on man.
Oh. Oh, but you went there for work?
No, I wasn't working that one. So because I was
Gonna be, oh, I'm sorry.
No, I was very Okay, got It.
No, no, no. Even though I was in town
and I did offer my services, they had a full roster and so I just got to, I got some passes from, uh, the kind people at Sparko and the kind people at Haas Formula one team and went and got just kind a hang out.
You were just a fan, just a fan's. Great.
Becky and I were just fangirling and um, it was great.
It was great. I mean, we were there, you know, we were there
with our friends, Dan and Cass who had some meetings to attend to during the day. So Becky and I just kind
Of, why, what do they have going on ?
They've got some stuff in the, that space happening I think.
Hmm. And then, um, so yeah, I just got to kind of be a fan
and catch up with some people and it's so weird being at a racetrack without a purpose. Mm-hmm.
I, It's really hard. Yeah.
Well your purpose Tim, is to consume. Yeah.
Just consume, you could have just ended to consume, right?
Yeah. Did you go out to, like,
did you just hang out in the paddock or did you go out to like corners and watch or what did you do?
We, no, we mainly were paddock in in suite area type stuff.
We didn't get to like too much. Just real
High roller stuff.
Yeah. Yeah. I'm not gonna lie,
it wasn't like the full Mazda experience, but there were reasons for that.
But it's, you know, I would've loved to have gone out there a little bit, walk the old banking Right.
Do all that, you know, kind of quintessentially Mazda stuff.
But I guess I just have to go back and do that.
Did you get to stay in town? At
Least we stayed in, no, we stayed in Milan, um, which was beautiful.
I'd also never been to Milan and that was great.
Had some wicked meals as you do. 'cause that's just Italy.
But, um, God, I do love the food there. So
How was the race?
Well, that's the thing. We are at the
end of the day, a racing podcast.
So while we've talked about our travels now, 'cause we're all travel podcasts, um, Monza was, you know, by and large a fairly boring race.
Uh, minus two things that were particularly notable.
I wanna start with the, the old theme of the last couple years that's just returned is just the unbelievable ability of max for Steppen.
That guy is just so good at what he does and the fact that he qualified on Pole, the fact that he won the race by 20 seconds is baffling to me.
But Alex, did you read into kind of how and why they got there?
I did not. I only saw a quote from
Lauren. Lauren. Lauren.
Lauren. Lauren Meki. Lauren. Okay. My apologies.
Um, Che Lauren, uh, May way, saying that like Max really challenged them and pushed them in a uncomfortable setup direction, um, going into the weekend.
That's, that's the extent of my knowledge. Yeah.
So basically the long and short of it is, I guess, you know, the simulations and everything and the simulator were saying one thing and Max was just like, yeah, but that's not what's happening.
And like, let's not do that.
And so it was, it was encouraging the engineers to, to be bold enough to not listen to the Sims and all the software and all the predictive stuff and just go with what he was telling them.
And because there's obviously new leadership there.
Was this rooted, was this rooted in anything? Like where
Was the theory?
I imagine itd rooted coming from, I I imagine it was rooted in the fact that there's been races in the last however long where the sim says X and the car's undrivable and he would've rather gone a different way based on how he felt in the car.
Sure. And so, so historical. Yeah. Right.
So I guess because you know, d different leadership there with Lauren Al and, and not Horner.
And he was like, cool. And he comes from an engineering
background, he's like, yeah, let's give it a whirl.
They were debating about downforce levels for qualifying and for the race.
'cause obviously it's park for May and Max won the debate to go a little bit less.
And he just made the difference in qualifying Once again.
Once again, they were trimming, they were carving out rear wing like they were in Vegas a couple years ago, like taking a sawa essentially to it. Yeah.
So like he's got a COVID less grip, but he is like, I want the straight line speed, I'll make up the difference in the corners.
And sure enough, he did got pole and, and walked away with it.
Like, dude, such an incredible performance.
I know what was, what was wild and a tough look was, I think it was after practice two, um, you know, Yuki was 19th or something and said, yeah, you know, just, we don't have the pace in the car, you know, it's just the developments haven't worked and we're kind of, it's as a team, we've kind of just given up on the year.
There was a new floor that was brought and it, and that was also part of it.
But yeah, it worked okay. Yeah, it worked well. And so yeah.
Yeah. This is, this is now that,
that was a really bad weekend for Yuki because they did bring a new floor.
It obviously worked pretty well for one guy and the other guy was not in the points.
And so I don't think I forget. I don't think.
And so the excuses are kind of running out over there on the other side of the garage.
Mm. So It was,
it was fun kind of seeing Max win again and like seeing him actually be happy about winning.
Not that he wasn't happy when he was winning 20 races a year, but like you're obviously gonna get a little more used to it.
And this one was a little more of like a nice fist bump, especially 'cause they were so garbage there last year.
So like that was a terrible race for them last year.
And to completely turn everything around and win by that margin, it's pretty impressive.
Over two cars that normally are pretty good this year weren't as good, but they made headlines for different reasons.
They sure did James. They
Sure did.
I'm so, I'm so excited to get your take on this.
My take on it is it's bull.
Okay, well let's explain what happened.
So what happened was, uh, we can fast forward through the drama, you know, on Max, um, pushes Orlando onto the, not that really Max.
Max, max does his thing, right? Max? Yeah.
He has to nce the position to Lando as soon two laps later.
Once DS is active, he gets back by Lando and kind of drives the way off into the sunset.
So none of that really matters.
Um, and so essentially Lando was in second place.
Oscar was in third Lando, um, had track position.
You could argue that maybe one car was, Oscar was a little bit better than Lando.
You could maybe argue that Lando was in, uh, or was better than Oscar.
None of it really mattered.
They were kind of doing the same lab time.
They were second, third, um, and they weren't really racing to anybody else.
You know, max was off in the distance.
They were second, third, fourth wasn't a non-factor.
And we're going through pissed off cycles and, and all this sort of thing.
And, um, Lando has a slow stop and it was a, a trouble with the left front.
He, it was a four second time loss in pit lane, which was enough for Oscar to jump Lando in that pit cycle.
And what proceeded to happen was McLaren asked Oscar to give the position back and on the radio, you know, they referenced Hungary, um, from a year, that was last year, right?
Yeah. From, from last year.
And how, you know, things need to, to come back around and, and all that sort of thing.
And Oscar, uh, on the radio was very, um, very professional and very articulate.
And his response, and his response was, if that's what you want me to do, that's fine.
Um, I just would've always believed that slow stops are a part of racing.
And let's be honest, these two are fighting each other in the championship.
Max isn't gonna be a factor in the championship.
It's a very close and narrow battle. Um,
And, and we've talked about before how this could very well be the only time that either one of them have the car and the opportunity to win a world championship.
Correct. And McLaren made Oscar
give the position back.
Um, and Lando finished second and Oscar finished third.
Lando closed up a little bit.
Obviously he took a big hit in Zandor last weekend when he, he had the, the, the retirement from the engine slash chassis failure, whatever you wanna call it.
Where I think it's bull is exactly kind of exactly what I just said.
Um, slow pit stops are a part of racing.
This wasn't a strategy call that ended up, you know, a strategy call that was used to protect, let, like, let me back up.
Let's say Oscar was in, um, third, he was under threat from fourth.
They made a decision to pit him early, to put him on fresh tires to basically undercut the car that he was racing.
And that whole sequence cycled him in front of Lando because of that decision.
Which is, which was exactly what had happened. Hungry
Relationship, which is exactly what happened in Budapest.
It was not a undercut to beat your teammate, it was an undercut to defend against a position.
And he just ended up cycling in front.
This was, um, a purely a a, a team failure in pit lane, not a land of failure.
He did nothing wrong and Oscar paid the penalty for it.
The same if, if they're gonna do things that way.
And of course they're not gonna do this.
Lando has a car failure and zandor isn't it tit for tat?
Like should Oscar just pull over?
Like we, why, why is this precedent being set that there was a racing situation that happened very similar to a mechanical failure.
This was a slow stop that we all live with day in and day out happens to everyone in every form of motor sports every single year.
That shouldn't be a position reversal.
End of discussion. That's
My take.
I'm very glad that I wasn't working Lonza this weekend because I would've had to have gone on the post-race show and had some opinion on this.
And I would've in the moment.
And I think my opinion on it's changed three or four times since that.
'cause there are a couple other things to consider, right?
One being that they actually called Lando to pit first. Hmm.
And, and Lando said, is Charles a threat to Ptri?
You can pit him first if you want, because the gap between them was like four or five seconds.
Right? So it was enough
that a one lap undercut was not gonna make the difference.
And so the team was like, oh, that's very good of you to offer that, to make sure that that La Claire doesn't undercut fine.
We'll pit him first. So they pit him first
and there's no problem with the gun.
So then Lando pits the next lap and it's that four second loss.
It was about a four second gap. And away you go.
So is the fact that Lando offered up his preferred pit sequence to his teammate affect that call, right?
Like does that some of your team, Like you're saying, you're saying usually, usually track position gets the preferred strategy.
Right? And he, he calls He
Would've in first he was running in front.
He, so he should have pit first and he set Lando sit on the radio, Hey, if you need to protect Oscar, just do him and I'll pick the next lap.
'cause he had enough of a gap, right?
I was not aware of that of Right.
So then, so then, so then the team's in a position were like, well man, he offered this up to help his teammate.
And it's, so the way you worded it was, so why did Oscar have to pay the price?
Well, Oscar didn't pay a price, he just didn't get a benefit.
Hmm. So it's, it's slightly different.
And so the questions are, are endless. Right?
If Budapest hadn't ha sorry, if Zandor hadn't happened last week and he had a mechanical failure, would they have been as inclined to like even it out, had Budapest last year not happened, would they have been able to use that, you know, as a reference point who told Oscar it was a slow stop because you don't know that from inside the cockpit.
How did he know that Lando didn't like drive off the track or that the undercut was actually just way more powerful than they thought?
Mm. You know, like how did he,
so like someone on the team must have said that Lando had a slow stop, which they didn't have to do.
Right? They could have just said, you know,
you undercut him same as Hungary.
Just give the position back.
What I like about what Oscar did was he didn't put up the fight that Lando did in, in Hungary last year.
And what that actually allowed him to do was try to race him.
'cause they were like, let him buy, but then you're free to race.
You got 20 laps to go chase him down.
If you think you're fast enough. We,
they go back to Hungary last year.
I always said that about Land's reaction to it is Lando was a lot faster than Oscar in Hungary last year in that final stint.
Oscar was not faster than Lando at the end of the race in Manza had Oscar as had Lando, sorry, led Oscar by immediately when they asked him to in Hungary last year, I think he had a shot at passing him legitimately and winning the race.
Anyway, that's all aside.
So when I look at it, you know, it was, it was Oscar trying to be a good team player, sorry, Orlando trying to be a good team player that kind of screwed him.
So is it fair that Oscar be a good team player in the reverse? So,
Okay, should, and and this is just a question, I don't know that I have the answer.
Should the pit wall have that much influence of the outcome of the sport?
What I mean by that is if you look at, if you look at all sports championships, right?
And racing as we know is very unique than stick and ball, right?
And I, and I understand that, but there are factors at play in football games and basketball games where there's variables of referees and, and these sort of situations that come up, right?
Controversial decisions and there's no, there's no gimme or there's no do over, there's no, oh well next game we'll fix it sort of situation.
And the end result is, yeah, let's, the Golden State Warriors won X amount of NBA titles over this time period.
And I'm sure there's plenty of people that argue, oh, the 2000 whatever one was, there should be an asterisk by it because in that game and that ref made that call, that affected the outcome and it should have never happened.
Right? But it, but it did.
So why, why is Motorsport seen as this, this platform where the driver's careers and their mark on history is going to be changed or determined based on an individual or a couple individual's decisions that they don't ultimately have control over?
I don't think that should be, that should be the case that's happening This way.
I I, I'm not, I'm not sure that the Zandor thing played a part or not, right?
I think it was more that Lando had priority, which he sacrificed in order to help his teammate and it bit him.
You can say bad luck, you can say tough <inaudible>.
It is what, it's the point about the team having that kind of influence.
I think what's important to remember in Formula One kind of uniquely, but it's true of all racing to some extent, is Formula One is a manufacturer's championship. And so, but this
Wasn't affecting any of their points on the weekend for sure.
They were gonna give the same amount of points regardless.
A hundred percent. So, but how do, if you,
if you were gonna allow teams to switch driver positions and kind of have that influence in cases where it does affect the manufacturer's points, how do you draw the line on?
Well, you know, I'm not saying Case should be involved, but I'm saying McLaren is an organization in my mind, they should be apologetic to Lando and say we let you down.
Because ultimately if, if, if, let's use Indy cars as an example.
Dixon Palolo racing and Dixon has a slow stop because his guy doesn't get it done.
And Palo jumps him in the sequence Polo pulling over, See here, this is, this is what's, this is what's weird about it.
Let's say Lando did pit first and that was the slow stop.
Oscar pits the next lap and comes out in front.
No chance they switch him.
I don't think there's a chance they switch 'em because that's bad luck.
I think the fact that Lando gave up his first pit spot or first pit sequence, I, I don't know.
I don't know. That's the, that's like, I I would love
to know if they just boned him in the pits on the first stop rather than the second one if they would've done the same thing.
So is it, is it that they're trying to not make the team the difference in this driver's championship?
Or is it that because Lando sacrificed, they thought it was only fair to switch it back?
The, the, the thing about it is, is there's, now it's really tough to know what they're gonna do in future scenarios, right?
On one hand you're like, oh, they're clearly gonna just try to keep it as fair as possible and make up these weird scenarios and swap around whatever, whatever.
But there's also the good chance that like a very similar situation won't get treated the same way.
And then everyone's gonna be up in arms like, well hang on a minute, didn't you set this precedent back in Monza?
So they've, they've definitely made their lives a lot more difficult in a lot of ways, um, certainly externally.
But then that brings up the other question because the next thing that I started seeing a lot of talk about was 2016 when in Monaco Lewis was faster than Nico and somebody was driving away in front and they asked Nico to move him to move aside, let let Lewis try to go win the race, right?
'cause it's always about the team winning the race. Fine.
In this case, there was no chance that those guys were gonna win the race without Max just driving off.
And that case didn't matter which driver was in front.
But then later in the year in Abu Dhabi, they asked Lewis to do the same thing and he didn't do it.
'cause he's like, we've already won the manufacturer's championship, so I I'm gonna do anything I can to help myself in the driver's championship and letting him by was not gonna do that.
So did Lando Bone himself by being too nice and thinking about Oscar and thinking about the team, and did Oscar potentially bone himself by, by letting him go, like all these people online are saying a real champion would never have done that.
That's why you have guys like, like Max would never have done that.
Fernando would've never have done that.
Lewis would've never have done that.
So like, are you, are you calling these guys? I have, I
Have, I have no problem with what Oscar did.
I think that it was referenced on the broadcast, uh, a quote that he, that he said, and he said, I have no problem following the team orders, um, because ultimately I'm gonna need them for many years in the future.
And so what, whatever they tell me to do, I'm gonna do because I wanna be a McLaren driver for a long time and I'm thinking about my future here.
So I I have a huge amount of respect for that.
And I don't have any problem with, with Oscar doing what was asked of him.
My problem is with the pit wall.
And, and, and I think that there is an interesting and valid point for why Lando took that approach.
He's in a deficit in the championship, okay?
His teammate clearly is no slouch.
His teammate clearly is gonna have every capability of matching him and qualifying the race as we've talked about at length.
Why on earth is he offering?
Wouldn't land want Oscar to finish forth?
Why is he protect McLaren's not under threat from a manufacturer standpoint in the championship?
You can't say, oh, he is playing the team game.
Why is he protecting him from forth?
He needs to, that's what I'm saying, make up a points deficit.
Yeah, no, but but, but I'm saying Land's mentality is the weird one.
It's not Oscar pulling over and doing what he's saying to do.
Mm-hmm. Yes. I believe Max wouldn't have done that.
But that's not the point. Max does a lot of things
that a lot of people wouldn't do.
I think Oscar's in the right and Lando, like, there's questions about that.
That's kind of a weird approach to have.
I, I completely agree.
I agree with you on the Oscar side and, but my, my question is just do you think that the type of driver that's gonna win multiple formula one world championships in that scenario, would aist not answered on the radio, not replied and gone for it because like we said, no, this might be his only shot at it.
So the whole I wanna raise, I don't from McLaren for years and years and years.
Okay. I absolutely don't because agree with you,
but I, I don't, but that's, so many people in it are like, oh, multiple cha only multiple champions would've defied that rule and blah, blah blah, blah.
And I just don't buy that. No.
Nope. Good. Not in the slightest. I glad
We agree on that, but I wonder if, I wonder if Lando does change his tune a little bit, but I would, I would've been, I would've been super pumped if my teammate finished this spot behind me and I finished second. Yeah,
Yeah.
I'm confused though because I thought people that commented on stuff online were always right.
Well They have a, an interesting track record in that, in that discussion.
Mm-hmm. Tim. Yeah. They're,
They are pretty, they are pretty good at commenting their opinions for sure.
They, well, they have opinions and, and, and they want you to know 'em.
They're, they're big on that. Hmm. That's, that's for sure.
Hmm. Um, well yeah, it was interesting.
Anyway, Monza was, uh, not an, not a great race, but, uh, awesome to see Max do max things and just really interesting to see that team dynamic at Old Mac McLaren.
Who else did Well, I feel like someone Else, I mean, it's a high, it's a high class problem to have.
Like Yes. As much as we talk about, yes.
Oh, you wouldn't do this if you were in charge, blah, blah, blah.
This is the dream. Zach is living the dream to have his team
about to go defend a construction championship after all of the struggles that they have and have two badass drivers fighting tooth and nail for a championship for your brand.
Like it's what everyone in F1 wants guys, guys do you know what's hilarious?
And I just realized right in this very moment, we totally forgot to talk about Nashville .
That was supposed to be what we talked about this week was Nashville and we crapped on about Cracker Barrel and European vacations and whatever the <inaudible> was saying.
And then we went straight to Monza and never cups of piss.
I was talking about cups Of piss right?
Cups of piss at Oasis concerts. Wow.
Well look, I know what we're gonna cover next week 'cause there's no F1 race this weekend and we still haven't talked about Nashville. It's
Gonna be hard for me. Remember? We'll get to
Nashville at least a day or two before Nashville next year, .
I am, I am. Yeah.
I'm gonna have to go watch the recap, the 30 minute recap on YouTube. I'm
Gonna have to go like read my race notes.
Is there like a NASCAR race or something this weekend? Do I have to watch something?
There is a NASCAR race. Yeah. Is it, is it a cutoff race?
I don't, I don't know. I don't think so. I dunno,
Dunno, don't care.
fair. Well, somebody travels somewhere,
so we got more of that to talk about.
Well, yeah, I'm going to France, so I'll hopefully have a terrible experience. I'm
Gonna see my horse.
Oh, is is he racing? No, he got his chopped off.
Oh, so you're just gonna go bring him like a care package. See that he's doing all
Right.
Yeah. Some like some Advil and some ice packs. Yeah. What,
When uh, when is he allowed to race again?
How long before he can race again?
We have plenty. I'll have that answer for you next week.
Got it. And we can talk about it at length.
Yeah, I'll get pictures and everything.
Give old, give Old Castle Rock a nice pat on the nose for me.
Run No more rocks. Oh
Yeah, the rocks are gone.
Aren't you glad that hasn't made the jump from horse racing to car racing? What
Castle run The neu neutering the participants That No, that only happens to horses that are not doing well because they Oh yeah.
Yeah. So
I guess no stud there.
Yeah, I was, I was, I was gonna say, sorry Alex, We expect you to do better in the points this year.
So snip, snip, unrelated.
Do you have Ed's number? I wanna call him with an idea.
New incentive package.
Is there, you won't get your Cho off.
Is there some logic that like, that he'll run faster now that he's been Well, they're, they're hoping.
He's a, he's a moody.
He's a moody little guy, so they're hoping that he's more focused.
Chip off the old block. Now That
they're hoping He's a little more less distracted, let's say.
Oh, oh, oh, oh, okay. He didn't have his head in the game.
Yeah. Got
it. ,
no, his, he was thinking not with his head.
He'd say he was chasing tail, but the wrong kind.
on second though. Maybe it would help an IndyCar.
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