0:00
/
0:00
Saltines, Testing, and Seasoned Steaks
Saltines, Testing, and Seasoned Steaks
0:00
0:00
0:00
0:00
About this episode
The hosts dive into a lighthearted saltine cracker eating challenge before sharing stories from recent steakhouse dinners, including mixed experiences at Del Frisco's. James recounts a touching Easter surprise visit to his family, while Tim discusses becoming a godfather. The conversation shifts to IndyCar testing, focusing on new hybrid boost strategies and their impact on qualifying. They then analyze Formula 1, highlighting Max Verstappen's impressive pole lap and the intense teammate rivalry between Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri. The episode wraps with a humorous debate on iPhone autocorrect improvements.
Topics:
saltine challenge
steakhouse dining experiences
family Easter stories
godfather role
IndyCar hybrid testing
boost strategy
Formula 1 qualifying
Max Verstappen performance
Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri rivalry
iPhone autocorrect
Cars:
Volkswagen Jetta
Alex tries the Saltine challenge on a whim, then the guys talk about their Easters. Hinch surprised his mom, Tim became a Godfather, and Alex got annoyed with Tim. Plus, there's testing at IMS this week, and the weather may actually be similar to race day, plus they dive into the latest in the F1 world.
+++
Off Track is part of the SiriusXM Sports Podcast Network. If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more, please give a 5-star rating and leave a review. Subscribe today wherever you stream your podcasts.
Want some Off Track swag? Check out our store!
Check out our website, www.askofftrack.com
Subscribe to our YouTube Channel.
Want some advice? Send your questions in for Ask Alex to [email protected]
Follow us on Twitter at @askofftrack. Or individually at @Hinchtown, @AlexanderRossi, and @TheTimDurham.
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Filter:
|
Technical
Too Afraid to Ask
Car
Volkswagen Jetta
"..., there are elements to consider. Yes. Suzuka and Jetta both very smooth, very high speed tracks. The Red..."
Select text to request an explanation
This is, is off track.
Happy week after Easter.
I am house saltine crackers. 'cause I haven't eaten today.
Dude. That's a good move. I'm kind of jealous.
I don't know if I might even have some saltines. Dude. Are are you
Pulling like, except an underrated snack.
I don't know if they're underrated or not.
I feel like they're rated pretty highly.
Are you what's in 'em? Are you
Saliva?
Sorry. You put like two in at once.
Yeah. It looks like you would sandwich them like there
was peanut butter or something and you just literally can't have one at a time.
You have to have two at a time.
Well that's why I get more in, I feel like, I remember When I was in high school, there was like the saltine challenge.
It was like, yeah, like you can't eat four in a minute.
I think it was like something Like that. I can for sure. I
Think it was fewer or it was like six and 30 seconds or something. Oh, whatever. Can
I do remember that? I don't know man. It's tough. I
Can right now. you want me to,
Well, hold on.
What is it Tim? What's the challenge? Look it up. . Okay.
I like how at no points cannot It, it, the saltine challenge is to try to eat six saltines in 60 seconds without any liquid With no water. So
No.
Okay. Start a timer. .
Alright, there we go.
But you have to like, you gotta have him swallowed mouth open.
Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Hang on.
So Green.
This is two in 60 seconds no water in 3, 2, 1, go.
So the first two guys have gone in. He's now chewing.
Uh, he's still chewing. Don't talk. Alex's folks
Don't commentate.
I'm gonna commentate one. He does. It's
Literally his job.
It's what I do. You should focus on your job right now,
which is housing saltine crackers.
All right. Number three's going in.
He's got the first two pretty much down.
Oh, he, he went for one this time.
He didn't do the double. I think
It's losing pace.
I think it's around four when your mouth starts to dry out and it starts to feel Like it just dries up so much.
I remember kids doing this in high school Almost my time.
You got 31 seconds on the board.
Fourth one is in, so he is passed halfway.
Passed halfway on time and crackers.
He's got the fifth one in his hand.
He's his head's Bob back and forth as he's trying to keep the chewing pace up.
Alright. Fifth one is in 47 seconds down
and now he's put, you know, he is chewing chewing.
It's so pasty in your mouth right now. It's so pasty.
Last one is in 3, 2, 1, open. No.
Ah, no. That does not count. That does not count. I
Think I give him, I think that's close enough.
That's in value effort. This is close enough.
I've ever seen anyone else to It. I've never seen it.
It closes down more than you think.
Yeah. . No, Alex, that's why it's like on the internet.
Huh? Like, it's weird
because I don't know that I drink much while I eat them, but I don't eat them that fast. .
Like, I obviously consume food at quite a rate of speed.
But Yeah.
The, the Best. I think there's some
performance anxiety as well.
It's true. And you'd already,
you had already eaten like seven of 'em.
Well, no, I had already eaten.
Like I, I opened this pack and we started recording and it's halfway gone.
So yeah. Okay. So yeah, you already had 10 in you,
so I'm not surprised that it was hard to do on the tail end.
Um, whatever. Whatever you you've done is a
<crosstalk>.
It's the first time I've lost is something.
Uh, that's true.
It's funny 'cause we, we had dinner the other night and you, you you like started eating and had to stop for a second and uh, and, and you were like, no worry.
It's not like I'm gonna, what did you say?
You're like, it's not like I'm gonna fall behind or something.
And like you took like a five minute break for meeting and then you were still done your meal a solid 13 minutes before.
At least 10 minutes before you bro.
Yeah. At least then you do
Eat at a phenomenal rate.
But here's the thing, you know, you and I and your wife and my wife had dinner and we had a great time and it was awesome.
And then you, Tim, your wife, no, sorry, me, your wife Tim and my wife went out to dinner and we all had a great time.
But Tim bitched and moaned about every single missed single thing.
What happened, Tim, that he ordered, he complained about every drink, every app.
Okay. Every side. You tried every one of them.
Every, and they were all, I didn't complain about the all The sides.
I complained about the steak and the drinks.
Where did we, where did we where did you go? Where did this
Happen?
Oh, I don't want to name anything. We went
to Del Frisco's in Indianapolis.
Oh yeah. I don't want to name it either,
but it was Del Frisco's . It starts with
D Andro and ends with El Frisco's.
And here's the thing, here's the thing.
If Colton doesn't listen to this show, but um, I was introduced to Del Frisco's once, uh, by a young Marco Andretti.
Mm-hmm . That's right. And that is like one of his favorite,
like it's one of his go-to steakhouse chains.
I mean it's not, I'm not saying that he's saying it's the best steakhouse in the world, but it's like, as far as chain goes, chains go.
It's, it's up there. And I would tend to agree with him.
Yeah. Um, and so Texas one year, uh, Colton and I
and Brian Herda went out to dinner and I was like, oh, let's go to Del Frisco's.
'cause like I've been there once before with Marco and Scottsdale and had a great experience and we went, it was a disgusting meal.
Like it was horrible really to the point where Co Colton was like WTF like Yeah.
And he's still, this is probably 20 20, 20 21. Mm-hmm .
And to this day he still like comments on how bad that meal was.
And anytime that he has anything that we ordered, he sends like a picture being like better in Del Frisco's. Anyways, so
Supply chain issues, well they supply chain issues.
So they opened a, they have like a, like a step above their normal, excuse me, Del Frisco's chain called the Double Eagle.
And they're in like six different cities and very rare this open in indie.
It is not, um, this opened in indie, I want to say It was a bourbon joke, Tim, October-ish time.
'cause I went there during football season October, November time, went there with some buddies, we sat at the bar and we had an awesome meal.
Like it was, it was like bam.
This immediately vaults to like one of my favorite steakhouse, Mindy, which we have no shortage of.
And so fast forward, what is it?
I mean, six months, five, six months.
And I was like, oh, Tim was downtown, wanted to go to dinner.
So the four of us went and grabbed dinner and I was like, let's go there.
And I had to agree with Tim.
Like I don't, I'm not gonna agree to the level of complaining that he did, but like, I'm a complaint. It wasn't
Awesome. I'm a
Complainant.
Um, but I've never seen it's, Tim's changed recently and uh, yeah, something's he's changed.
I don't know what it is specifically.
Yeah. And now, now he goes to nice steakhouse.
He is like very picky.
Just a little, not a, not, uh, not refined enough for me.
Not quite curated enough for my, I this isn't artisanal as I was hoping it was gonna be.
I have eaten eating nice steakhouse for much longer than I've had any right to eat at nice steak houses. .
I have not paid for dinner at nice House.
Yeah, but you haven't complained because this Was No, this was an objectively bad steak.
You tried it, you know that it wasn't good.
Anyways, we've now done this saltine challenge Talking about my steak.
I don't, that's not true. The steak, the steak was not bad.
It was over seasoned.
And Tim, despite his obsession with dirty martinis apparently doesn't like salt.
And so like, it was too salty for him. .
But then, but then get this James cocktail, his martini wasn't salty enough.
Was too sweet. No, his first cocktail was too sweet.
And then the other food was, was too Hot. Okay. Too
Hot.
Yes. Ah, Tim, how was your meal, Alex?
My meal was Slightly over seasoned on the steak.
My meal was good. Um, the starters were good.
My, my, my drink was good.
Um, I forgot to order a salad, so that wasn't their fault.
It didn't come. Your wife
and I actually both did the same thing.
We both in our minds thought.
We told the waiter we ordered a salad . We
Both mentally ordered Minutes, realize, realize that we didn't.
And you're like, huh, we can't really hold that against them.
No, that would be unfair. Yeah. Um, my steak was good.
It was on the, on the overseas side, but it was still, it was still good.
I ate it all. Um, they, Becky
and Tim ordered this disgusting truffle potato dish and no wonder no one liked it.
I like that one. 'cause no one likes truffles.
Well, you didn't eat any of it, so color me. Shocked.
And that was our meal anyways. That was our Easter.
That was our Easter. James, you did something
that was much more noble than Tim whining at a, um, High end steakhouse.
High Steakhouse. Yeah.
Uh, so why don't you tell everyone what you did for Easter?
Uh, I flew home to Toronto and surprised my family.
So I guess we went to go surprise mom for Easter, basically.
Um, she had sent a message to the family saying, Hey, here's the plan, but like, understand that James and Becky probably can't make it.
We just got back from this marathon trip.
We've been on the road, we got the busy may coming up, all this stuff.
Family are very understanding about that stuff.
But, um, I knew I had to be up later in the week for some stuff anyway.
And I was like, I can come out early and I can surprise mom.
So I told my sister. So she was in on the joke, um, joke.
And I just needed to make sure that like the plans didn't change or something and I ended up at the wrong restaurant or the wrong time or something.
So, so she was in on it.
And it was funny because I, I showed up at my mom's house right as they were kind of ready to leave for the, uh, for lunch, right.
They were heading out to lunch and it was my mom, my aunt, my sister, and my niece and my sister had come out and she had like pulled my mom's car kind of out, like made a shuffle the driveway around because of my aunt's car or whatever.
And um, so my mom's car was sitting there.
It's got the car seat for my niece.
And so Becca's like, I'm gonna drive with Carol, who's our aunt, and you can ride with mom and Kaylee.
So like, just go wait in mom's car and I'll bring them out.
So I was just sitting in the driver's seat and mom comes out with Kalee and you know, Kalee sits in the back passenger seat in a car seat.
And so she opens the door and Kalee gets in and like kinda looks at me and is staring at me, but doesn't really react in any way.
And mom's just there just like, all right, let's get your seatbelt done up.
And it's probably, and I'm just, I'm just turned around staring.
I'm staring right at her face.
And it was probably a solid 30 seconds.
Her and Kaylee have this little back to back, all this stuff, whatever.
My sister and my aunt are getting into Becca's car and after about 30 seconds my mom like goes to shut the door and looks up and sees this person sitting in her car that she wasn't expecting.
And the noise that came out of her was hilarious.
Like, she just started screaming my aunt, like a whale came running over.
Yeah, right. My aunt came running over,
she was like, we found out afterwards.
She goes, I thought there was a snake in the car.
I'm like, okay. So that's, that's
what you jumped based on mom's reaction.
That's what she defaulted to was that there was a snake in the car. Well, 'cause that happens.
Snakes in the grass, bro. Yeah.
Tell you. Yeah. So it was funny.
So she was, yeah, she came running over.
It was very, she's very happy and whatever.
So we had a great lunch. My brother
and his wife came as well and then just went back to mom's house and just caught up.
Just hung out for the evening. And uh, some friends,
some neighborhood friends came over.
What a nice sun you are that so, yeah, I have my moments.
So man, you, you make the rest of us look like, I feel like I'm making up for probably a decade of not doing that stuff.
Mm. But um, you
Don't have to say that.
It was really, you can just take, you can just take the wind. Appreciate it.
I'll take it, I'll take it. Um, that was great.
I mean, Tim Tim's at his mom's house, but he didn't surprise her.
He either probably pick her up from the Airport.
I mean, go to my nephew's baptism.
I feel like that kind of counts for something That's Yeah, that's, that's noble. That's I feel like
I'll give you, I deserve like a good steak.
No, no. Well no. Listen Tim,
Did you, did you pay for your Steak?
Uh, I tried. Did you, Alex,
Did you send it back and ask for a free steak?
I did not. What, what did,
what did you do as said stake, just let Someone didn't like someone else pay for your, You said you loved it, you said no, no, no.
He did offer, he did offer.
I wouldn't let him 'cause he bought me dinner in Long Beach.
It's fine. Um, but he, uh, everyone came by.
I think even the GM stopped by and they were like, oh, how is everything?
He was like, oh, it's fantastic. . I want to go box, please.
I can't. I want it to
Go box.
Cant wait, come back. That's, I can't wait to What did do,
What did you do with the to box?
My, you know, it, it's not far from being beef jerky, so I might just see if I can push it over The edge.
Damn damn .
Oh goodness gracious Me. Well there's testing.
Well no, Tim, other than that, how was your Easter?
Let's talk about Easter. Like was it good? Yeah.
Did you have a nice Easter?
Oh, are you talking to me? Yeah.
Um, I'm, I became a godfather, which was kind of cool.
My, my nephew Bo.
Um, and then we did an Easter egg hunt over at my, my mom's place.
And uh, then I had a mediocre place.
Did you find any Easter egg?
I found 'em. All those kids are terrible.
I think it's like, you know, It's pretty cruel what You were doing there.
Hazel bow Owen. They were just, you know, they,
they brought a certain amateurs to it that I, it just, I didn't appreciate they weren't there to win. It's
An amateur vibe. Yeah, it's an amateur
Vibe.
They weren't there. Um, I have a question.
So you're a godfather. Congrats. Thank you.
Um, do you, like in your, I don't wanna say in your family in this very specific relationship, um, 'cause it could be different for others I guess, in your family, but like, is this like a ceremonial kind of post?
Or like, are you, are you, like if something happens to your brother, you get the kid kinda like, is this like the, I don't know, the true sense of the, The God there was also like, there's also like a godmother in the mix.
So, and she seemed way more responsible than me.
So I think like if anything actually happens, Is she single?
Uh, she's not. Um,
So I just didn't know, like, are godfather and godmother supposed to be a, like a, I Don't know what that makes sense. I don't know.
Yeah, well 'cause 'cause you're, you're, yeah, you're a God couple, I guess.
Yeah. You're God
Dated.
So like it's so, it, it's, correct me if I'm wrong, is this in case, God forbid something were to happen to the parents, That's how I understood it. You would take over.
That's like a, you know. So then, so then how do
You decide who Takes priority?
Godfather, godmother?
Do you just get half or, I dunno, how does it work? I mean,
Hopefully my brother and sister-in-law will be fine. Um,
Right, well, yeah, no, obviously you Don't sign up for that.
But like we, so we did this, you know, we have a goddaughter and we, like, we were told very explicitly, they're like, Hey, just so you know, we mean it like in the biblical sense, like this is, we are choosing you guys in case something happens to us to raise our kid.
So like when you say, oh yes, we'd love to be like, we, we need you to, to really know what you're signing up for.
This isn't like sending your birthday cards and, and you know, some money for Christmas.
Like this is, there's a thing Here.
See, but now you got me thinking about it because I had that conversation with my brother, with my nephew's dad, where I was just like, Hey, just let know, like in my will, like you're the guy in case anything goes wrong.
And he was like, he was very naive, said thank you.
And it was like an honor. But there was no point
where he asked me that back.
Like, , you know, So, so sorry.
So the G So B'S going to the godmother got, yeah. Okay.
Moving on. Cake. Uh, probably a smart move. Probably
A smart move.
She seems like she has it more together than I do.
That is a low bar my friend. Yeah.
Okay. Well there's testing this week.
Should we talk about that?
Yes. No, . Oh
Well you were, so you tested in October and we covered that and that was with the hybrid.
So now let's just, well this comes out, this comes out Thursday and we've already gonna have been on track.
So like it's hard to talk about. Um,
We just have to tune in next week.
Yeah, I mean it, yeah, we have a test.
It's irrelevant in a lot of ways.
Um, although the weather will be the caveat, the caveat to that is the weather will be probably decently representative.
It looks to be fairly warm on Thursday.
I think the most interesting thing about this test is gonna be big boost, um, big boost Thursday morning, which is not normal for a test.
Usually, uh, the big boost doesn't come until Friday, fast Friday, Friday before qualifying.
And you only have it for those three days and you've never seen it except for last year.
So this is a little bit of a new thing that they're doing.
Um, just to see quite honestly how fast the cars are gonna go with the extra drag from the hybrid.
Um, so James and I were talking about, it's a little, it's a little disappointing because yeah, you're not gonna have the mystique around like the pecking order and everything.
'cause all of practice week is dictated by toes and all this sort of thing.
And, and when you get to Friday, everyone focuses on clean air and it's the first time everyone's seen big booths and it's the first time people start to trim and you really have an understanding of who good, who's good and who isn't.
While we're not gonna see like full transparency of that on Thursday, you're gonna get an indication, which is kind of sad.
I think it is kind of sad.
'cause like you can have even, even you can do enough, you know, no to lap analysis during the practice week to kind of see like, okay, by themselves out front at whatever downforce they're running, this is what Car X, Y, Z can do and whatever.
But the engines are different when you put the boost up and the manufacturers, you know, if, if one guy, if one has an edge in race trim, that doesn't necessarily mean they've got a speed edge in, in qualifying trim.
And we've seen that yo-yo and go back and forth over the last, you know, dozen years or whatever.
But, and we just don't get that now.
Like we're, we're gonna know.
Like, and I'm, I'm there the both days. Yeah.
I'm calling it for the, for the broadcast and I'll, we'll, I'll know exactly who because it's not like they can do much between April 24th or whatever. And, and,
And it's not even like, and it's not even like, so we're not, you, you're obviously not gonna have like full kill in, but it's not like you can, you can dick around in like full mixtures.
Like, because IndyCar needs representative numbers of like what it's gonna do because do they need to make a change before the month in terms of boost levels and that sort of thing?
So like you, you have to go out and do something fairly representative.
I mean, they're not gonna make you, you know, trim all the way, but like, they want you to do a fast lap and see what it does. Right.
And and unlike October, everyone's gonna have like their speedway cars and they're, they're good stuff.
Yep. For the most part. Yeah.
Like it's not gonna be all your like top, top tier qualifying no gear that you throw on, but it'll be good stuff.
Yeah. So you'll have a good idea.
Um, do you know, Alex, have you been told or has it been, you know, indicated to you that there's a chance they can or would change something like on the hybrid side, I guess like if Well, so there's nothing they Can change, Change, say on the hi.
So, so to to make it clear, it's not that they're slower because the hybrid is not making enough power per se.
It's the, because Indy, you're flat out obviously.
Um, so it's the parasitic drag that exists in the gearbox just because the, the final drive is going through another system and another layer before it gets to the drive shafts and the wheels and all that sort of thing.
So there's just an inherent power loss in that, right?
There's just a power reduction because it's going through another system.
Um, so I don't think there's, they're looking at tweaking the hybrids.
I think depending on how bad it is will be, how big the panic button reaction is.
Obviously when the arrow screen came, it was very slow and so we upped the boost, um, quite significantly for qualifying.
There is of course the possibility to do that again now to what magnitude?
I don't know. I don't know what the manufacturer's
comfortable with, but obviously it's not a concern from a tire standpoint because we know the tires will do a 2 33 average.
Um, so this will purely be if the engine manufacturers are good with more boost pressure in terms of their reliability and what they have to do for the rest of the year.
So the, the question I've got though is, you know, every track that we go to now with the hybrid system, IndyCar and the manufacturers, they, they designate a, um, an amount of energy in joules that you are allowed to expel per lap, right?
And that number is based on a lot of different factors and it changes track to track and it's even changed from, it will change from similar tracks this year.
It'll be higher at certain tracks than it was last year, whatever, when you're in qualifying obviously.
So, so part of the thing that you're looking at is the reliability of the system, right?
It needs to be able to do that amount of energy for a hour and a half to two hour race at Road America or St Pete or whatever.
But when you're talking about four laps for qualifying, you've got a little bit more of a margin in terms of, you know, the, the, the tolerance of the system, right?
How hot it gets and, and all that.
So is there a possibility, have you heard of any possibilities of rather than just crank an extra boost in maybe for qualifying being given a different energy amount than like you'll what you'll have in the race because the system can tolerate it for four laps?
Yeah, I don't know the answer to that.
I mean, I know the system, you know, we're not using it as to its capacity, but I don't know that it has enough in it to actually offset the, the existing drag.
The, the thing that I'm gonna be excited to see when we get to Thursday morning of the test and these, and the boost is up and the quality sims are starting is like, you know, this is a brand new toy for everybody.
We all know how tight indie qualifying is, right?
We're talking hundreds and thousands of a second, over four laps, 10 miles, all that stuff, right?
The strategy that teams use for the hybrid deployment is gonna be super fascinating.
'cause like you say, you're flat out the whole time, right?
So recharging it, if you wanna recharge, it takes speed away.
You have to manually hold the paddle, which is, which essentially is, is reducing the power that's going to the wheels because it's charging the system.
Do you use it, you know, coming to the green flag on, on the start of your first lap?
Do you use it on your last lap?
Do you use it once the tire once you see a drop off?
And it's like, and obviously I know you can't answer what you're gonna do, but it's, for me, it's gonna be super fascinating to watch everybody and try to get a grasp of who's doing what.
I know everybody's gonna be trying different things.
Like for the teams it's great.
'cause normally on Fast Friday, right, you budget a number of tires, you, you can only use 'em once.
And so it's five runs, it's six runs, maybe seven.
If you're not having a good day and you're worried about making the show, but that's all you get.
And if on top of tuning your car and trying to figure out balance and, and you know, arrow balance and whatever, you are also having to try four different strategies of, of hybrid usage.
I mean that's, that's really eating up your time and it's gonna be hard to then like figure out, okay, well we want this set up with this arrow balance and this hybrid deployment strategy.
Like, so Thursday's gonna be very helpful for all the teams. Um,
It's cute.
You think all that you do there are, you know, they're all, everyone uses the same simulation.
Everyone comes to the same conclusion.
Yes. But you, you're telling me
that you're not gonna try anything that the simulation tools are telling you.
You're not gonna try one alternate strategy, right?
Yeah, of course you will.
But it's unfortunately, but it's also unfortunately that, that what you're explaining is the dream.
Unfortunately, this system just doesn't offer enough versatility to like be used in that manner.
It's just not, it's not there way To ruin now.
I don't care about Thursday morning. I hope you don't get
high boost running and everybody gets to Fast Friday and they're totally <inaudible> lost.
So there Well you have some attitude on you, don't you?
Well, only when you put it on me. Okay.
It's your attitude mm Hmm.
Phrasing. So it's what You did.
I don't know if that works then.
Um, It was close. It was close.
Only when you put it on me. Yeah.
Close to a phrasing objection.
Mm. It's border mine. I think I'll give it to him. Mm.
Okay, Well objection phrasing. .
See that was good. Uh, funny, funny, funny.
Um, all that's enough about the indie test. Let's talk about formula.
Formula. Uh, guys,
max Tappin is really good at driving race cars fast It, it's incredible, isn't it?
The pole thing was insane, dude.
It again, it was the last corner.
Like he just doesn't give up and everyone else does because he was down and like Oscar is in the better car, just like Lando is in the better car at Suzuka and Max, I don't know how he has the foreshadowing capability, but he is like, oh, I clearly need to get it all in this corner.
And he does again. And it's just the weight pulls it off.
It's mind boggling. Yeah.
Ridiculous. And like, look, I I,
and here's the thing, it's even hard to say that like yeah, maybe the Red Bull's not as bad as they think it is, or people say it is.
Or maybe the McLaren's not as far ahead as you know, people are saying it is.
There are, there are elements to consider. Yes.
Suzuka and Jetta both very smooth, very high speed tracks.
The Red Bull is good in high speed corners.
It's good on, you know, it's not good on bumpy tracks.
So these are two attributes that, that play into the favor.
Sure. McLaren is also good at all those things.
Um, the race is a different story.
Tire deck and whatever, but like in practice, right?
Everybody's pushing in practice, right?
You're not, you're not 11 tenths in practice, but you're pushing, you're trying to get your, your stuff together.
Yuki was like decently close to Max.
Like he had a, a reasonable kind of gap and, you know, made it into Q3 is the first time since like, it was like Azerbaijan a year ago that both Red Bulls were in Q3, which is nuts, but um, but then you get to qualifying, right?
So Yuki's done a good job.
He's been closest ish to to max and that's fine.
You get to qualifying and in Q3, UQ was a second slower.
So in q in qualifying in Q3 on that lap, like you're saying, max just is able to find some, it's not like Max isn't pushing in practice, right?
But the fact that he's able to find that amount of pace in comparison to the other guy in the same car.
Unreal. It was so fun to
Watch.
Did you, did you watch, did you watch the pole lap like the onboard of the whole lap? Yeah,
Of course.
It's like, it's Just his, his commitment, it's perfection.
His, his turn. Like the way he's just, he's got
so much confidence in that car, even when he doesn't have confidence in that car.
Ah, it's, it's incredible man.
It's so, and the road that he uses, like, it's just, you can't help but say yeah, you're the guy.
Yeah. Um, alright, so he pulls off a stunner,
he pulls off a stunner in, in qualifying Lando, uh, crashes through.
It wasn't like, he was pretty hard on himself.
Like it was a, it was a simple mistake. It happens. It
Was a small mistake, but just had a big Consequence, right?
I mean, he's not, anyways. Exactly.
Um, and I really need him to get over that.
I really need him because I like Lando.
I want Lando to win a championship.
And I don't, I don't know that that mentality is like the right one.
I don't, I don't know, maybe it is, but like he's, he's so hard on himself and so honest all of the time.
It's like, bro, people are gonna take advantage of that.
Like, so have a bit of a chip on your shoulder. Come on. No,
I'm glad you brought this up because by the time this comes out, I will have published an article on f one.com on this
very topic.
So let's chat about it because for the last year, let's call it, I've been in, I've been in that same boat, right?
I'm like, you don't have to air everything in a, in a post-race or post qualifying whatever posts session interview.
Like you, you beat up yourself a lot.
Look, when drivers make mistakes, when you do it, when I do it, when anybody does it, we're so hard on ourselves.
That's how, that's how athletes are, right?
You have to be like that to reach a certain level of the sport.
At the same time, athletes will just stick to drivers.
Drivers are also very good at like deflecting blame publicly.
You never wanna, unless it's just super blatant.
Like, but even then some guys try to get around it.
I won't mention anyone's name in particular.
God, I really want to say a couple names right now.
But the fact that Lando was, was always not just so publicly, you know, airing that stuff.
He was even harder on himself than I thought.
A driver, an athlete, a competitor should be, right?
Like, he was so hard on himself in certain situations.
But then there's been a lot of chat about this recently and he, he, he did an interview and I read an interesting article, um, that came from it where he has sort of identified that that is kind of just who he is and getting that stuff out and saying it and getting it off his chest is part of how he deals with it, right?
Every, every driver has to learn how to get over incidents and, and get back on the horse, get back on the track and put it behind you.
I think it actually takes a tremendous amount of self-awareness to understand that for him, what helps him do that is not the like conventional, you know, belief of what a champion has to be.
They've gotta be like really stoic and brave and never, you know, self-deprecating or whatever.
But if, if you can do that to the camera, but then if you go back to your bus and like, that's not how your mind processes these things are, are you actually just hurting yourself and, and you're not really getting over it in the right way.
So if he's been able to identify that's what works for him, I think that's very smart and then also incredibly brave because the thing that works for him is like basically opening yourself up to global scrutiny.
Okay. Okay.
I I there's nothing that I can say to disagree with what you're saying.
I guess the thing the, the, the, the risk he runs is if all Oscar beats him Yeah, Forget Max because Max whatever, max, yeah.
Probably will beat them both because he's Max.
But yeah, let's say he doesn't, right, because the McLaren's just too strong.
Oscar beats him. Everyone is gonna look back on Oscar beat
Lando because he wasn't tough enough.
And whether that's true or not right?
Is, is might not be the case, right?
But do you really, wouldn't you rather, I don't know, wouldn't you rather ha not give people, I don't know.
You see what I'm saying? But if the best shot you have
to beat him is to do that, then yeah, you're gonna do whatever.
If you had a, if you, if you could, if you guaranteed that your best way to win the Indy 500 was to run a lap naked around the track on race morning, you would do it.
We, I mean, try it. If you thought, try,
if you believed in your heart, that's what would help you win the race.
And I don't know. Yeah, I don't, I've not spoken
to Lando about this, but like, just kind of, I don't these quotes and no, We're all, we're all, we're all hypothesizing here.
None of us know Lando on a personal level.
Um, and we're being critics from afar.
So it could all be, it could all be complete horse.
I guess my my point is it just, you look at Oscar and you look at how he conducts himself and how he has improved in the areas that he's weak so rapidly and ultimately, um, has now matched Lando on race wins and seems completely unfazed positively or negatively.
Like I'm not saying like he's this, this like angry guy or this super happy guy.
He's just like, he's just this guy that's driving race cars.
Right? He reminds me very much, honestly of,
of Alex Pale, right?
He's just, he's just excited to be there and the results that come of it are, they are what they are, right?
Yeah. And so it will just be interesting with, we know
how big the teammate battles are in F1, we know how that environment can be toxic at times.
Right now they're pals uh, what is that breaking point, right?
Oscar's leading the championship now.
Um, how long does does that go on?
Like, I think it's a very interesting storyline that'll develop because I think Oscar, while he still probably has a little bit of pace to find, to truly match Lando 'cause land if Lando hadn't crashed, I think Lando is on Pole and Oscar's third.
But if he does find that, like does does anything start to break down or does Lando change his approach or anything like I think it's just one of those storylines that we're following that's not only just, oh, red Bull versus McLaren.
It's very much the inner team papaya, Lando Oscar situation.
Which is, I mean, it's a, it's an amazing problem for a team to have to have two drivers that are of that caliber that can go 10th for 10th with each other every session and be fighting to win the race and win a world championship.
But also it's like the biggest nightmare.
Like it's, that's hard. That's a hard thing to manage.
It's gonna be very difficult and it's gonna be very fun to watch from the outside how it plays out and Yeah, you're, you're right.
Again, I don't disagree with what you're saying.
It's, it's, um, it's a, it's a tricky one.
You know, Lando had a quote that was like, I wanna win a championship the nice guy way.
Right? I don't the whole saying like,
nice guys finished last.
I don't buy into that and I think you could be a good human.
Do think, do you think that's possible?
Because you, you look at, you look at Nico Rossberg, right?
Who, yeah. When you, when you think of him as a person,
you think of him as this very nice, intelligent, well-spoken, mild mannered individual, but it's been openly to discussed like the games he had to play with Lewis to beat him that year.
Right? Right. Like he did not take the nice guy approach.
He tried to mind Lewis at every opportunity that he could and he won a world championship, right?
And then he retired 'cause he was like, I don't wanna do that again.
I I feel like Lewis might actually be one of the better examples here because you didn't hear the same outta Lewis when he was trying to beat, whether it was Nico look like Fernando his rookie year, right?
Like Fernando was the one that was the cutthroat killer that like, kind of follows that stereotype of what you have to do.
Yeah. And Lewis as a rookie nearly beat him just being the
kid that was happy to be there, right?
Yeah. When you think of Schumacher, like when I,
this is gonna be an unpopular opinion.
When I think of Schumacher, I think of Adelaide, I think of Herath, I think of all the dirty Monaco.
Oh six, same. Me too. I think of all the dirty trick me.
Hundred percent. Yeah. Before I think
of the seven championships.
Same. Um, so that guy was willing to do anything.
Vel has actually come out Max Yeah.
Max willing to do anything Stone Cold killer. Yeah.
Right. Pros Stone Cold killer. I
I, I would, I I actually think Vels gonna be a better argument that you have versus Lewis because I think as much as Lewis plays that that well not plays it, I think he's a very genuinely nice human that is trying to be in touch with his emotions and, and is very connected to his fans and his audience and everything.
I do believe that. But I, I also know behind closed doors,
that's not like he is very intense.
Right? I don't know
that I've ever heard that about Vel.
Right? So Maybe he's the example.
Yeah. And Sebs the one that came out recently
and was like praising Lando for this approach that he is taking and, and talking about his mental health and not shying away from that.
Because again, if that's what helps you beat it, Yeah.
Go. Absolutely man. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, um, I, I want him to be successful with this approach.
'cause I like when someone can break the mold And do it.
Look, listen, I, I love, I love Lando.
I want him to be successful.
I want Oscar to be successful. I like 'em
Both.
Oscar's phenomenal. Yeah.
I you can't lose in that, in that team right Now.
I mean, but, but you can because Max's gonna win. Sorry, .
That's my thought. at the end
of the day, neither one of 'em are Max.
So yeah. Um, thanks for playing.
Uh, better luck next year, . Yeah, yeah, yeah. Try again.
I'll get, you know. Yeah. Uh, cool. All right.
Um, that was fun.
I, so this, something happened to me the other day that I just wanna throw out there and it's, it's proof that I got into a big, like Apple Android argument with, uh, a friend over Easter.
Oh boy. Oh boy. The old green versus blue.
Yeah, the old green versus blue. Disgusting.
And, um, but I, I, I had to, I think I had the Trump card at the end of the day because very recently, I dunno if it was a recent update or whatever, but for the first time in, when did iPhones come out?
Oh, six, seven, eight, somewhere in there for the first time that I've owned an iPhone, autocorrect changed duck to <inaudible>.
And I was so incredible.
Like that is, that is Soci, that's civilization progressing.
And it makes me so happy because never once when it autocorrected it the other way.
Was it correct? And everybody knew that and Apple knew that.
And so they finally, they were like, look man, people are writing it anyway.
We're not the, we're not the language police here.
Let's just, when it's, it's no one's telling, no one's writing anyone to, to duck off, you know, or to duck themselves.
Let's just, let's just call it what it is and it actually autocorrected the right way.
And I was, I was blown away. How mad.
Very impressed. How, how mad would he be if you were
trying to type duck?
I-W-I-W-I would find it ironic and funny and I would not be mad.
I'd be like, you know what, that's fair.
That's okay for the, for the one time a year, I might write the word duck , which again, I think would be more of like the verb rather than the animal.
I don't think I've ever really written texts about ducks.
Wow. Anyway, I just wanted, I thought that was impressive
and I, I further win a further notch in the column for why iPhones are better than Androids.
Anyway, uh, have fun testing.
I know you're already doing it. You're literally on track
right now, as most people are probably listening to this.
But, um, I hope you're going fast and I hope you're staying safe.
Thanks. And go fast. Turn left. Yeah, go fast. Turn left.
Go fast. Take chances. This has been off
track with Hinch and Rossi.
Off Track is part of the SiriusXM Sports Podcast network.
If you enjoyed this episode and want to hear more, please give a five star rating and leave a review.
Subscribe today, wherever you stream your podcasts.
We are at Ask Offtrack on Twitter and Instagram.
And if you wanna follow us on Twitter, we're at Hinch Town and at Alexander Rossi.
If you wanna follow them though, we have no idea why you would.
He's at the Tim Durham on Twitter.
Find us on YouTube and subscribe to our channel for exclusive video content.
Off Track is produced by Tim Durham, and by that we mean fi.
Request an explanation for:
1 cars
1 cars featured
Request an Explanation
Heard something you'd like explained? We'll add it to this episode.
Sign in to request explanations for terms you heard.
Want to learn more?
Browse our glossary for plain-English explanations of automotive terms, jargon, and concepts.
Help improve this episode
See something that's not quite right? Our annotations are AI-generated and can sometimes miss the mark. Click the flag icon on any annotation to suggest a correction.
Report incorrect info
Suggest better explanations
Flag missing cars