Smoothie Soup & F1 Tests

This is, is off track.

We just had to cut the first minute 17 of this episode because Tim thinks he's funny, which for the teenth time we've established he is not.

But welcome to Off Track with Hin Rossi.

Rossi breathing heavily into the microphone as he does.

I just love making work for Tim. Scratch your bait on it.

I can't do it on this one. Do the beers crash?

He hates that.

Not in a mood. Um, oh no.

To do that. Are you in a bad mood?

I'm not in a bad mood. I'm just a little bit, I'm,

I I've just, I'm a little, I'm a little indifferent about this show today, but that's, that's fine.

Um, mostly because I, I feel like we're gonna really struggle to find things to talk about.

Um, but, but that's not for you guys to worry about. Well,

We'll get, we'll get to Nashville next week, but we, It's more Yeah.

Before we, before we focus on not having enough stuff to talk about.

Right. What, what is,

what model iPhone do you guys have? Ooh,

I don't know. Okay.

Let, don't know what it is. Let's,

let's ask this an easier way.

Does your, is your silence switch still a switch?

Or is it now a button? Switch a button. Okay.

So you've upgraded to the button, Alex, you still have the switch?

Yes. I, I'm gonna urge you as strongly as I can

to never upgrade your iPhone for the rest of time unless they bring back the switch.

'cause the silence button is the dumbest thing that I think iPhone's ever done.

Interesting. Okay.

Like you can put your hand into your pocket and silence your iPhone with the switch and you know, because you know that the switch, this direction is silent in this direction.

Sure. It's not silent. It also vibrates in a fun

way when it's silent.

Right. The button.

What makes it fun? It does like it does

because it's a click.

Like it's a satisfying, like sure. Right. Like it's right.

Yeah. Now the new ones just have like a button

that vibrates on both silencing and not silencing.

And if you, I'll never, I'll never Change.

It vibrates a lot more on silence.

It's a built-in fidget spinner for me.

Do you like that sound, Tim? Oh yeah.

Like I'll never, I'll never.

I've actually had to get a new one because I've broken off the switch.

Yeah. You're gonna hate the new funnel.

Well, I won't do it. That Yes. It vibrate more good to

Know more.

Yeah. Does it vibrate more on on silent or on on loud.

It vibrates more when you go to silent. Right?

Right. So why does it vi Here's the thing.

It, it's confusing you also.

It's like an acknowledgement of receipt.

Little buts just letting you know, Hey, you hit it, you got it right, you're Good. And it also,

Oh, you're silent then.

Yeah. It's not differentiated enough.

And it's harder to remember which is, which also, if you turn your phone off and then turn it back on, you have to do it again.

I don't think it, like remembers what position it was in.

'cause now it, because it's not a real position, it's just a stupid button.

And like you can click it once and you don't hold it for enough.

And so it doesn't go. We're like,

I always knew a hundred percent that my phone was on silent with the switch. So,

So speaking of iPhone it are, are we just gonna continue, I think we touched on this before.

Are we just gonna go for numbers forever?

Like the new one that came out Is the iPhone 17?

Are we gonna at one point be at the iPhone 136? Like is it just,

Honestly, I would rather that than trying to come up with clever names for everyone.

Okay. Because like, yeah, 30 years from now,

what are we gonna like, we can, there's only so many, like, Society's going to have collapsed long by then. . That

Is true.

It's not gonna be iPhones. In 30

Years, a AI will have rendered us all useless and taken over the world.

Wait, have you guys seen the, the new meta glasses with the hand switch thing and like the heads up display and the lens and everything?

Have you seen that? Mm-hmm .

No. Dude. So it's like those,

those ray band meta glasses with the cameras and stuff, but now there was a heads up display on the lens mm-hmm .

And you wear like a whoop style wristband. Mm-hmm .

And you can do like, hand movements to control like messages, maps.

So it's augmented reality like Yes.

At your fingertips now. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I dunno if it actually works or not,

but in theory it's trippy.

I don't know. I still think the greatest

technology innovation, um, Was the automobile Was no, in 10 60, when you get verification codes sent to your phone, it automatically like copies it.

So you just have to hit paste and it goes in. That is

Absolutely a game changer.

That's a great point. Yeah.

That's the greatest thing that, that like All this ai smartphones augmented reality.

Yeah, exactly. Without a doubt.

And the, the shake to unsend an email, that's pretty cool. You could do that.

That's cool. Not as cool. Yeah. Yeah. You can shake. I

Didn't know you could do that Typing and then you can shake.

You have to do it within like two minutes, right?

Yeah. So if you hit send

and then in 90 seconds, two minutes, you're like, I shouldn't have done that.

If you shake it, it'll take it back.

So what does that mean though? Does that mean

that they're like waiting two minutes to send my email?

Yes. Basically.

Huh. They're not like pulling it back from an

inbox if it already got to someone.

So, so they're just so, they're just like, it goes into an email purgatory for a second or two minutes. I dunno if I

Like that when I send my email, I want it sent.

Here's the thing. If it's, it might save you one day if

matter to the point of two minutes being the difference, you should not be able pick the somebody you should have a phone call at the very laziest a text message. Good

Point.

What if it's like a deadline thing?

Like if, if somebody's gotta turn in a paper by midnight and they send it at 1159, be I made It.

Well then you need to know it needs to be turned in by 1157. I don't

Like that.

No one, I'm against it. One asked

You. Right.

Clearly. Well, let's,

Let's undo that undo feature for Tim as long as we can bring back the switch for the do it human jager.

I sent you guys what, what I saw.

Apparently it was only news to me.

Everybody else had already seen it.

That they, like they're doing the live translate in your AirPods now.

Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Yeah.

Again, it's way more helpful if the person you're talking to also has AirPods in Yeah.

And is doing the same thing.

Or else it's a very one-sided conversation. I,

I saw a pretty funny, I don't even know if it's a meme, but reaction to this announcement.

And it was like, nail salons are gonna be, uh, very different now because you're gonna be able to hear what the Oh yeah.

Are saying that. I Did see that. Mm-hmm . Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. . I did see that

The nail techs are saying it.

Yeah. When they're speaking, speaking their language.

Now on that translation note, so what we were just in France at the Canada House that I was telling you guys about last time.

The wonderful woman who owns a place, she spoke decent English, much better than my French, but like wanted to tell certain stories at a level and into a, a detail that she was not comfortable doing in English.

So I brought up like the Google Translate app and it was phenomenal.

Like I would hit it, she would talk, tell a story, you know, two, three minutes long, it would transcribe the whole thing.

I could then relay it to the rest of the group and it was like spot on accurate.

And then it was also really cool because I wanted to make sure that I could go back and sort of transcribe that conversation or like pick out some of the points to like, make sure that everybody that was there had some sort of record of it.

And you're gonna save the entire transcript of the conversation.

So that's been a super helpful app.

And like even just traveling to all these weird places, like taking a picture of a menu and having it just instantly be translated.

Very helpful when you're in a country whose language you don't speak.

Because like, I think I was mentioning this when I got off the plane in Hungary in August.

It was the first time I've ever gotten off the plane in a country where I knew literally zero words of the language.

Not a single one. And it happened again last weekend.

I don't know a single word in Azerbaijani.

Do you guys think anybody's ever actually learned a language using Duolingo?

It's a great question. Assume

I feel like, no.

I'm gonna assume they learned enough that once they were immersed in the place, they could start to actually pick up enough to become fluent. I don't think you

Could.

I'm like, I do, I do my Duolingo every day.

'cause I like, I just, I have, Hazel does it and my mom and I, she does it.

And we all just try to compete on who can do it first.

'cause then you get to nudge the others and be like, Hey, do your Duolingo.

Like there's an option in the app that says nudge them to like annoy them for not doing it.

So I purely do it for that reason to annoy Hazel and my mom.

But like, I've been doing it for a year and a half now with Spanish.

And I don't know how to say I've been doing Duolingo in Spanish. What?

Do you know how to say? Very little.

Yeah. It's not set a stone

.

I, well but you know, I don't know if I wanna actually learn the language. I think I just like the app.

So you know this about me. I'm not a soup guy. Okay.

Right. I'm not a big soup guy.

There's like one kind of soup that I like and even then I don't love it.

I just clam Chow. Right?

It is, no, it's not clam. It's not French onion.

It's chicken tortilla.

Okay. We can all agree he's wrong. Definitely

Wrong.

'cause that's not even like in the top five soups.

No. Right. I wouldn't say it's

Onion soup Top 10.

Ah. It's not top 10 soup.

It's a top 10 soup. Chicken tortilla is a 10 soup.

No, it's not every, it is not even week. Every stink.

It might not even be top 15. No.

You can't even name 15 soups, Bro.

Sure can can French onion. Definitely. No. Hold

On.

Stop. No, no, don't help him. Let's hear 15 soups.

But I agree with him. Okay. No

One cares. .

French, onion, tomato, basil, lobster bisque, clam chowder.

Chili. Uh oh.

No potato. I'm not giving you chili soup.

No, I'm not giving chili soup. Why?

Because it's not a soup. It's a stew. It's

More a collectional, a chili.

It's its own. It's, yeah.

Okay. Yeah. That Does a count. Uh,

Lee and potato. Okay.

Bean. That's five. Um,

Bean with six Lee and potato bean.

You missing some good ones?

Only nine to go, bro.

Tim said nothing. Okay. I mean, no, Tim,

I wanna say so many.

Okay. Well, okay.

You haven't even gotten to a continent yet.

There's a continent of other soups that you're missing. Really big

Soups. .

Okay. I mean, all right. I named six soups. Any

Of the Asian soups you could, but, But like, oh, mis Miso soup.

Hot and sour miso. Come on.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, egg drop soup.

Um, I don't like hot and sour soup. All right. I'm at eight.

I'm at eight. It's easily, I can think of many more

before I get to chicken tortilla soup.

Broccoli. So it's not a good, so

Soup.

Mushroom soup. Could've thought it's a great soup

anyway. No, look, all sos

Mushroom soups great. Are

Not great soups.

You didn't even say chicken noodle.

You didn't say, uh, cream mushroom.

You, you get a chicken noodle, Which is pretty funny. .

Alright, look, point is I don't like soup. Okay.

But I also don't like hot drinks. Right. We know this.

I don't like coffee. I don't really drink tea.

I don't like hot chocolate. So maybe that plays into it

because somebody once put it to me, they were like, you don't like soups?

And I was like, no.

And I was like, well, like what about it?

Like a gpac? I'm like, no, that's even grosser.

That's like a cold soup.

That's like the only thing good about soup is that it's warm.

And then he was like, well, do you like smoothies?

I said, well, yeah, I love smoothies.

And he goes, isn't that kind of a soup?

And then I got thinking, get out. Holy.

Isn't if you really think about it.

Isn't a smoothie just a cold soup in a cup?

So then why is chili not a soup?

I think there's an argument there.

If, if smoothies are a soup.

I think chili is, although, hold on, let me, because chili has like more of the solid stuff.

The smoothie is like pureed to a stable consistency where like chili is fruit.

A bunch, bunch of solids altogether. Right?

Right. Yes. Do you eat it with a spoon?

I usually have A Yeah, but ice cream is not a soup.

If it's melted. It is.

No. Yeah. It's actually really good when it's like cold.

Yeah, that's a good one. Just because

Just because the form is different doesn't mean it's any, Okay, let's forget chili for a second.

Let's focus on smoothie. Okay.

It's like going back to the whole, is a hotdog a sandwich debate?

Is this smoothie as soup or, Or So then is a milkshake a soup? No.

'cause it would, it would have to be Ingredient.

That logic. No, it has to

It.

Ice cream and milk. Definitely too.

Well, Yeah, sorry.

Plus flavors. Yeah. So it's a dessert soup.

Ice cream only really has two ingredients too. Ice and

Cream. Ice and

cream. .

Yeah.

Sugar. Um, okay. You can say no. Okay.

I'm just saying, I, I'm trying to acknowledge my own hypocrisy.

'cause I was like, I don't like soups, but I love smoothies.

I mean, so if you, is anything melted than a soup?

Is anything liquid? A soup? Is butter a soup?

Li melted butter. The corn popcorn a soup. Yeah,

But there's a difference, right?

Because it's not, it's, it's a, it's how you eat it.

It's a liquid that was made from the solids. I guess.

Does soup has to be cooked.

So liquid butter, Does a soup have to be cooked?

Is that part of the definition?

Is it the liquid that you cook's?

A good question. I'm trying to think if there's examples

where you don't 'cause like even a cold soup, like a GPAC cooked and You were worried we weren't gonna have anything to talk about. Alex. I don't

Think a gazpacho is cooked. .

That's what I'm trying to try.

I never had it. 'cause I don't like soup.

I thought a GPAC was cooked and then cooled all.

That's What I'm asking. Or it might just be a cold brew

or it just might be a tomato smoothie.

Iced coffee or cold brew. Very

Different.

No, a tomato smoothie is ketchup. So

It's ketchup soup. That's,

There's not even no ketchup's a condiment.

Relax. Ketchup's not a meal. Ketchup is

A tomato smoothie.

I sometimes have a knife to make Smoothie.

It's blended up tomatoes with a little bit of sugar in there.

Is peanut butter in a soup?

No. 'cause again, that's not an entire meal.

You don't just get a bowl of peanut butter.

Like if you took a smoothie and poured it into a bowl, Ben.

But a lot of times you don't have soup as a full meal. Hey Ben.

No, it Can Ben weigh in on this.

Ben, I got an honest question, buddy. I love you.

You are freaking adorable.

But where did all your hair go? Oh,

Oh yeah.

Baby's hair falls out. Sometimes

The the new ones have to grow in Uncle James.

It's so funny. You see so much

before now he looks like a baby.

Before he looked like a little man.

Oh, he's got some, he's got a little bit of a skull going on.

He's got the old man haircut going.

Oh, what's up buddy?

No, you okay. So you do not, you do not cook gpac Ben.

Right? I knew that. I, I was telling Ben. Oh,

Okay.

So that's still a soup then.

So dude, a smoothie's, a soup, a smoothie's, a soup.

If you put it into a bowl with a spoon.

Sorry Ben. I didn't realize your dad,

His ear earphones in or gazpacho is a smoothie.

I do. Oh, you have one in, or gazpacho is a smoothie.

That seems weirder to me.

But like if you just took a smoothie outta the blender and poured it into a bowl and ate it with a spoon, are you eating a soup or are you being a weirdo?

Eating a smoothie out of a bowl with a soup. With a spoon does.

Okay. No, here's where it, it all changes. Thank you. I

Don't think gimme something definitive here. 'cause I'm losing my mind.

I don't, I don't think there's a savory smoothie.

A smoothie has a sweet element to it.

It could be a, a very faint sweet element and just it's a banana or an acai berry or a little bit of honey if, if it's all spinach or something.

Right. It's got some element of sweet to it.

Whereas there's no sweet soups.

I mean a tomato soup is probably your closest thing to a sweet soup.

But it's still Yeah. Not served as a sweet item.

Whereas a smoothie is sweet.

Okay. And also no one is

eating no one.

If you are eating soup with a straw, you have mental problems unless you're in a hospital.

So there are sweet soups, dessert soups and Asian and Scandinavian cultures. There's

Not Cares. Warm or chill

Care?

No. No one cares about a population dessert.

A tiny little town that has a traditional thing that they make a fricking, I mean Asia Has population Soup.

But no, I'm saying it's like some small demographic of people do this weird thing.

Vietnam. Come On .

It's Not just a small thing. Alright.

Alright. Let's Just say's

Vietnamese have a dessert soup.

The Filipinos have a dessert. Soups.

Scandinavians have a dessert's Too far fact check.

Tim, a staple of this show is we do not fact check.

So you're going too far. Oh

No, we don't fact check racing. We fact check dumb

Stuff.

I'm just gonna say, I'm just gonna say I was, I was very caught off guard by the question and I appreciate there's some hypocrisy on my side.

We can all establish. I think we can all agree

soups are not smoothies.

Smoothies are not soups. But it's a little bit weird

that I like one and not the other.

'cause I, it's not like I don't like savory stuff.

It's not like I've just got a sweet tooth to use your kind of, Okay.

I think, I think I know, I think I know what your problem is. I'm

Only one use for this.

You don't like hot liquid?

I don't, but I don't like gazpacho either.

No, I know. But you don't like gazpacho

because really no one likes gpac.

GPAC is not good. That's not true.

That's the reason that you don't like soups. Yeah. Um, yeah.

No that's, I'm saying you don't like hot liquid.

I don't, I don't, it's not my gym unless hot.

I do like a hot Todd. We kind of touched on that.

I kind of said that that was Oh, if that was part of the, because I don't drink coffee.

I don't drink tea. I don't drink hot chocolate.

Oh yeah, my bad. I wasn't listening. Yeah,

That's right.

You, you, you were picking up Ben actually I think when we started this.

Okay. Um, well anyways, we have 20 minutes left guys.

Uh, yeah, we got a lot to talk about.

But first off James, what have you been doing travel wise?

Yeah, so my background's changed again guys.

Uh, this podcast was supposed to be recorded from my hotel room in Baku, but an electric change in travel plans meant that rather than leaving Baku at 9:30 PM on Monday, I left at 2:20 AM Monday reason being the original flight would've got me to Italy where I am currently at noon on Tuesday on a red eye

with two layovers going through Doha and Frankfurt, which seemed like an ill-advised move where this one was just one layover and was half the length and got me in a full day sooner.

Still overnight, but full day sooner was important because later this week I have to drive a Formula One car and I figured the earlier I could have my overnight flight the better so that I can rest and be prepared to go drive that thing.

And yeah, we kind of alluded to this when you were getting your seat fit and you and I happened to be in London at the same time, but I don't think we've actually like talked about it much.

So what are doing? Why are doing

That?

So yeah, it kinda, I mean it's been out like they announced it I guess at some point on F1 tv, but it came out again this weekend because I guess it's coming up and all of a sudden everybody paid attention.

So yeah guys, I'm getting to do a a half day test in a 1-year-old, 2-year-old ha F1 car.

Uh, which is insane.

Which is incredible and which is awesome.

And it's all being done as part of a feature for F1 tv.

So, you know, I've obviously never embraced an F1.

I've never had the chance to test an F1 car.

Unlike my esteemed colleague here, Mr.

Rossi and just being someone that does a lot of work in F1 now I've been like trying to find a way to angle my way into a car for three and a half years now mm-hmm .

And it was always a long shot.

It was never something I ever thought I would actually get.

I thought maybe at some point someone would offer me the chance to test like some vintage F1 car.

I could still say I drove an F1 car or whatever, whatever.

This opportunity came up through a very good friend of mine named Stuart Morrison, who works for ha I've known Stu for a long time.

And he saw an opportunity through a day that they're doing at this track in Italy called ma, which is a bike track primarily.

But F1 did race there like once or twice in over COVID and hold some strings.

And I talked to the guys at F1 tv, he talked to the guys at Haas and we managed to put together a half day run for me in this thing, which is insane.

Like it's exciting for all the reasons that are obvious, like getting to drive an F1 car.

It's not like five laps on demo tires. It's like a half day.

There's a run plan, it's like a program.

We're gonna do a bunch of different stuff, which I'm really excited about.

But dude, I was thinking about it a little bit and I've got a feeling that like this has a chance, this has a potential to be the fastest era of formula one in history because the amount of downforce they generate now is insane.

Mm-hmm . The mm-hmm combustion engine.

Hybrid engine combo is like a thousand words.

It's a ton of power. And the

2026 regs are very different.

Faster straight line, way slower in the corners.

Probably gonna be slower over overlap in 2030 when they go back to V eight, the cars are gonna be smaller, probably less arrow and, and probably not as much downforce.

So there's a, there's a chance that this is like, at least the highest downforce, the hiring highest quartering speeds kind of F1 car that there will ever be.

And getting to, to test one of these in like a relatively current spec is a pretty cool proposition.

I, yeah, but here's, here's what, um, here's what's so cool about F1 cars and what you're gonna realize the moment you leave the garage for the first time.

And I want you to think about me telling you this because when you do it, you're gonna be like, oh, I get it now.

It doesn't matter if it's the current spec two years old, this generation, last generation, the future generation.

I think you're right. Like you're definitely driving

probably what will be the quickest.

But even driving the absolute heaps of <inaudible> that I was fortunate enough to race , it still was, it still was the greatest piece of machinery I've ever driven.

Yeah. Yeah. And it's just it,

and so like I'm just happy for you that you get to, you get to tick that box because Yeah, you can, you can thi you can hear about it and you, you are very intellectual obviously, and you've been around racing for a very long time, so you understand like what the capabilities are, but until you actually sit in the thing for the first time and you actually go do a day, it's, it's just cool.

You, you just can't help but have a smile on your face because it's like everything that you've been chasing as a professional race car driver, it finally happens.

You and you finally can come in and you're like, they're like, how's the balance?

And you're like, good. It's good.

What do you need More talent, tires Just, yeah.

Just, I need to be better.

Yeah. You tell me what, what do I need?

What do I need to do Better?

Yeah. Yeah. It's really, really cool.

So I'm fun for you man. That's awesome. I'm excited.

It's like, it's like, and Fingers crossed the weather's good.

The region at the moment is not the greatest forecast, but I think it's one of those things where like it's gonna rain at some point in the day.

I just hope it's the afternoon and not the morning or I hope it's like overnight and my four hours of running is relatively fine.

Um, 'cause the other thing is mm-hmm.

It's at ma jello, which is hilarious.

'cause all the guys that I was talking to about this, they're like, oh man, when we raced there in 20 or 21, they're like, my neck's never been so sore.

And these guys are like career F1 drivers.

And it's like, why is this the first place?

Like I've not driven an open wheel car in anger since 2021.

I've been doing what I can in the gym, but as you know, there's nothing you can do in the gym that makes your neck ready for even an Indy car.

But honestly, honestly, honestly, burl, I wouldn't worry about it because it, you could be at fricking Mazda and your neck would be screwed.

So it doesn't matter. So like

It'd be less screwed at Monza than it will be a evangel, but Sure wouldn't. Nope.

Well, it's still the breaking Right?

Disagree. I disagree. Yeah.

There's nothing that you can do that will get you ready for it because it Yeah.

Just is gonna kick your ass.

So I'm just gonna pat it out.

But I've, that's working really hard On the coolness of it.

Right. I've been working really hard on like the

longitudinal element of my neck training because you can't stop your head from like looking down.

I can put pads on the side so laterally you can have some help, but like if you just hit the brake and don't do that, oh, I'm 100% doing that.

Absolutely. I'm not, I'm not,

Don't do that.

No, I'm not too proud to be like, no, I don't need a pad, I need a pad.

I'm gonna, I need a pet bro. I'm gonna pad it, dude.

Absolutely not. Absolutely not.

I'll be patting 1000% so disappointed.

Oh, that's devastating. You're the only one.

Everyone else is like, dude, totally pat up.

Like, don't even try . Oh, come on.

Either way, it's gonna be great.

It's gonna be a fun feature on F1 tv, so sign up for that if you don't already.

That's awesome. That's awesome. That's awesome.

Yeah. Um, so that's why we're in Elite. And then, yeah,

So last question I have on that, like obviously two years ago these cards are pretty advanced.

Like how has your homework and preparation and such been going into this Whole, so I got given situation a, um, pamphlet, a notebook, a document as you would imagine. Was it, um,

Is it as cool by chance as what I had um, with Penske and Acura?

No, with the DPI car? No, with like a

Bummer.

It's, there's not an iPad with like tests and uh, animated steering wheel.

No, no. Yeah, it's actually, it's actually

surprisingly straightforward for how complex the cars are because they've Yeah.

Automated so much of it. Right.

And I'm obviously not gonna be like tuning the thing to the nth degree of its life.

I know the basics. I know. Should I,

You should definitely, you should definitely dick around with the diff Yeah, because it's cool.

I'm gonna mess around with that. That's just the fact

that you can do that on the flip of, of a rotary is incredible. Yeah.

Yeah. Um, balance

And then you'll you'll to chase and break balance stuff For sure. Balance.

Yeah. So that stuff I'm excited to just try and,

and then like the other thing is like understanding the, the recharge and deployment.

'cause obviously it's quite a bit different than, than the IndyCar system.

You know, you can, you can burn it all over a lap to maximize a single lap.

You can do it so that it burns, it's, it regens exactly as much as it burns and you kind of keep the battery at a certain state.

So if you ever need like it for over.

So just kinda learning a little bit more about how those systems work.

'cause even after the race and backhoe, you know, talking to some of the guys in the post ratio, they were talking about energy management and how like, oh yeah, this guy got by me 'cause I I didn't have enough energy at this point or whatever.

Like it's a pretty big part of, of F1 racing right now is drivers being smart with their energy management.

So yeah, just, just learning about that side and that's the whole point of this, right? Like you mean

Every, everything that IndyCar hybrid should have been Correct.

So a huge part of this is so that I have a better understanding of what the drivers are going through as a quote unquote driver analyst in F1.

The more I can understand about what the drivers are going through and what they're dealing with and, and you know, what tools they have, uh, at their disposal, the better I can do my job.

So that was, uh, a big part of the push.

And F1 TV bought it suckers and Haass bought it suckers and, uh, no, I'm kidding.

It's gonna be great. I'm, I'm really, really excited.

Really, really excited. I just hope the weather holds out

so everybody do an anti rainin dance for Friday.

That would be greatly appreciated.

And, uh, deal, watch this space for more updates.

Um, but can't wait man.

Speaking of F1 while we're there, uh, the race is on the weekend, did you watch and you think, Ben, did you watch, were you watching with daddy?

I, um, I watched, uh, the last 14 laps, which is all I needed to see.

Did you watch qualifying?

'cause the race was actually quite dull because qualifying was insane. I

Fast forwarded through qualifying, so I saw the key moments. Yes. Well,

Yeah.

So you, you fast forward the hour of filling that we had to do because of the six red flags, correct? Yes,

Correct.

I think it's important.

I I didn't like how many memes and stuff afterwards we're talking about.

Like, like I saw this one, this one tweet of course that summed it up in the most dramatic way, which was after watching that, I never want to hear anybody say, these are the 20 best drivers in the world ever again.

And it's like, okay, first of all, we all acknowledge there's a lot of very good drivers that aren't in Formula one, but you're insinuation is that these guys aren't that good.

And that's why there were so many accidents.

It's like, dude, trying to understand what driving a car like that around a track like that with 30 mile an hour gusts of wind is like, it's so infuriating hearing people try to Monday morning quarterback that stuff.

I mean it was hard like you were standing in Penland, you could feel the gust.

Like imagine going into turn one at Baku 340 kilometers an hour and then right before you hit the brakes there's just a 30, 30 mile an hour tailwind gust.

Nobody's making that corner.

Nope. No, no, no.

It's the, I watched the onboards, I never got to race there, but I watched the onboards, um, from these guys and it's just like, I don't even understand, I don't understand how they make it through a third of the corners.

Yeah. Like it is so tight, but it's so quick

and committed at the same time. Um,

That castle section isn't the same.

The fact, oh it's an, it's ridiculous man.

So once again, like the internet's full of a bunch of idiots.

Uh, but I don't, I I wouldn't even, I wouldn't have even thought that as like a, that wouldn't even be something that came to mind is like, oh, I can't believe these guys suck so much.

There were so many red flags.

Like the first thing that would come to my mind and I'm pretty judgmental , the first thing that come to my mind is like, it's hard.

And like when you have sprinkles of rain as well, like people forget that you're on like slick tires and they don't do well with any sort of moisture whatsoever and you're driving a race car at 160 miles an hour, three inches from a wall, it's pretty easy to have a little mistake and to uh, put in the tires.

I will say it is surprising to see And and this is just a affirmation of how difficult it is because how often do you see Oscar ptri make a mistake?

Right? How often do you see Char make a mistake,

especially at Baku, like that's kind of his backyard in terms of what the success more consecutive run that he's been on lately.

Yeah. And qualifying, he had like a 15 mile an hour

tailwind, which is not nothing.

So that contributed to that the race.

He just made a mistake on the start and then kind of just made a misjudgment it I think on the actual lap where he went out.

Um, but those things compound a little bit.

The McLaren did not have the pa like the race was supposed to be.

It was expected to be a lot sportier with all those cars outta position, but it was just so hard to race because there was no day.

So everybody could just cruise around, hit a lap time, go faster as a fuel burned off and, and there was no real opportunity for people to pass.

What's crazy to me is you can have a two kilometer long straight with a DRS zone and still it's impossible to pass.

So like the DRS zone, there's clearly not Big enough.

Let's, let's fast, let's fast forward, let's fast forward or I don't know, let's fast forward to that part of the race.

Well, okay, no, let's do a quick summary of qualifying.

So Max curb stomped everyone.

Um, yeah, a lot of quick cars that were in contention were not in contention 'cause they had three corners on them.

Um, it was also very disrupted session with all of the reds as we said.

But Max, um, as he does capitalize when everyone else can't, Carlos signs starting on the front row with him.

Incredible. Uh, Liam Lawson starting third right.

Was a huge result for him, especially in a time where he's under serious pressure to continue having a career in Formula One.

And I would say those were the high.

Oh, the other thing that was very surprising and disappointing for me in, in some ways, so, so Ptri crashed in Q3, he had put a lap time on the board.

Um, so he was only gonna be ninth, is that correct? Did he start ninth? Yes.

Because because, uh, LA Clara already crashed before That.

Yeah. And, and I, and I was expecting, all right,

this ISO's shot, you know, he's, he's miles back in the championship at this point.

His teammates out in qualifying his biggest threat, like he needs to start at least on the front row.

Like, okay, he might not be Max, but he's got the, the tools to, to start on the front row and he only qualified seventh.

So already there, you know, Oscar was breathing, breathing a sigh of relief that Lando hadn't capitalized more on Saturday when, when he was a bystander watching at that point.

Yes. It's a, it's an interesting point.

I mean, part of me and I, I kind of made this argument in the post show that I don't think the McLaren was that good in those conditions, right?

What McLaren's been so good at this year is managing tires.

And that comes into play when there's de and it's hot and there's no dig.

And it was cool. So I don't think they

had the massive advantage.

He did make a mistake on his qualifying lap.

So like, yes, he did not maximize Q3.

Yeah, I don't think he was gonna, even if he hadn't brushed the wall, he wasn't gonna be Max's pace, he wasn't gonna be Carlos's pace, but I don't think the McLaren was actually as strong in those conditions.

He led, he led P three though, bro, which was that morning.

Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know that I agree with that.

He did, Devin got a lot cooler in, uh, in qualifying.

Okay. Um, but yes, no, he did not maximize. Okay.

He did not maximize. That is true. That is true.

So then we go to the race and everyone's expecting all the cars outta position, both McLaren, both Ferraris to make headway and the other cars conversely outta position the science and the Lawsons of the world to maybe fall back a little bit.

Not exactly how it happened.

Max again stormed everybody and made it look easy as Max does.

George Russell, your favorite actually drove a really good race, sick all weekend, did a great job.

I hate to say it, I don't wanna upset you, but you did a good job.

But how about Carlos signs?

Listen, credit work credits due, credit work credits do.

Um, Carlos signs, man, I'm, I'm happy for him.

You know, it was, uh, it was one of those weird situations, um, very willpower and Penske esque in the sense that, well, I guess the one difference is Carlos was replaced by Louis Hamilton and Will was replaced by David Lucas.

Um, but still someone who is doing a very good job for the team that they're driving for is well liked amongst the team, is competitive with his superstar teammate in in Char.

Char loves him. Carlos is doing, they're doing nothing wrong

and, and really elevating the team when he can and has the opportunity and challenging for race wins and backing up char and, and all this sort of thing.

And he gets, he gets replaced, um, by somebody, uh, who ultimately once, as we've seen this year, once that somebody is in the car wasn't, isn't doing as good of a, of a job as Carlos had done.

And I think especially for Carlos having to take such a far step down, um, in the team that he ended up for and Williams this year.

Now Williams is obviously exceptionally better than they have been over the past three years, but still you're going from Ferrari to Williams.

You're not, not going from Ferrari to Mercedes or Ferrari to McLaren or whatever, right?

And so for him to have to come to terms with that and realize that he's gonna be a part of a rebuilding process and a rebuilding program, which has a lot of upside to it and has a huge amount of benefits to it, and clearly he's with a team that supports him massively and, and loves that he's a part of it.

So it's a good environment for him to be in.

But still as a racing driver, you know, James, that's a, that's a tough pill to swallow, especially as I kind of mentioned, when the guy that replaced you isn't really doing a better job than you were.

So for him to go out, for him to execute and qualifying and be outta position and still come away with a podium, still have hardware, you could hear it in his voice after the race.

He said, you guys, he said back to his team, he said, you don't even understand what this means to me.

This is the best moment in my career.

And that just goes to show you this is a multi-time race winner, right?

This goes to show you how challenging it's been and how much that was needed.

And that was really, really cool to see.

I completely agree. I mean, it was, it was amazing to see,

it was amazing to see his faith in Williams be repaid.

It was amazing to see James Vals and Williams faith in him be repaid crazy to think that he got a podium before Hamilton did for Ferrari.

Um, he's got a podium.

Alban does not have a podium for Williams.

So in so many ways I I completely understand why that was such a special moment for him.

And yeah, you could see in his face, you know, you could hear it in his voice.

He saw in the, the crew in park for me just like losing their mind before the car even got there.

You know, his manager, who's also his cousin was sitting there just like screaming to himself like, you know, like he was, he just kept, kept just like looking down and be like, yeah, he just couldn't believe that it had happened.

Um, it's probably a massive like, you know, podium bonus in that too, but whatever.

But no, it, it was great man. It was great.

And like, what I really like about it though, in all honesty is neither, neither Carlos nor Vals are sitting there being like, oh yeah, Williams is back.

We're gonna be on the podium every race of the rest of the year.

They completely understand the situation.

They are patting themselves on the back for executing brilliantly when those opportunities present themselves, which is what you always have to do in this sport, especially in F1 when you're a midfield team and they're like, yeah, the next couple races might be challenging.

We got one or two tracks left, we think we can be strong at maybe fifth, sixth place.

But like, this was, this was huge for everybody.

And uh, and it was awesome.

So Max was great, George was great, he was great.

Lewis actually had kind of a good race compared to everybody else.

Like he actually moved up a couple spots, but no one else really did.

And that was, that was sort of a coup. And then, and then

I mean the only other thing we gotta touch on is, um, is so Oscar goes out and again, golden opportunity for, for Lando to capitalize and he was outta position for sure.

Uh, I mean you might say that their car wasn't super suited to the tracking conditions, which might be fair, but still, I mean, Anna McLaren in seventh, he was outta position and he had a really bad stop on his last stop, which I think ultimately cost him two spots.

You know, I think he should have beat Lawson and Sonoda and maybe even had a run at Antonelli who was in fourth and McLaren just let him down in pit lane again.

So I mean that's, that could have been a big swing for, for Orlando and, and for whatever reason it wasn't again, and it is just shaping up to be one of those situations where it's, it might not be his year.

I mean there's still quite a few races left, but I mean it's just, it seems to be compounding a little bit at this point, especially when you think about Oscar had a big old goose egg and Orlando can't, can't close the gap that much. It's,

That's one of those things, right?

Where on the race where Lando has the DNF and Zandor, the McLaren Stout, their one two, so Oscar wins the race on a race where both were struggling, both struggled with qualifying, both started out a position.

Oscar has his problem, but it's not like it's a track where they had that massive advantage.

Orlando could just like bag the wind and, and close up 25 points.

So now the gap is 25 points, which is exactly the number of points that Oscar got over Orlando when his car failed him.

Oscar's issue this weekend was a DNF, but it was not a mechanical failure.

This was a driver mistake.

So now is when people can start doing the like, you know, woulda, coulda, shoulda math in their heads again.

Still a lot ofra. I mean Oscar might still beat him

by 50 points and so it's moot, but like if they stay tight, sure there's a lot of people that are playing that game, but that's racing, right?

Its something you do about that. I, yeah, I,

the, the team let him down.

There's no doubt about it.

He led the team down in Canada and gave away points there.

So that's, that's part of racing being a team sport at the end of the day.

Right. Good point. Good point.

Liam Laws got his best finish. Yep. Doing a good job.

Uh, Kimmy Antonelli off the back of being told he was underwhelming in Manza Elk qualifies George Russell and finishes force.

Not bad. Uh, we'll see if he can continue that sort of form

and yeah, I guess we'll cover national next week.

Oh wait, you mentioned them.

We should touch on Lil Dave signing with Penske.

Not that it's a shock, everybody kinda saw it coming, but it's now official and yeah man, time to step up into the, into the big leagues.

That's, uh, that's a crazy kind of moment for him.

Listen, we, we've, we've shared our thoughts and opinions on it because it, it is not a surprise to anyone, was a very poorly kept secret even, I don't even know if it was tried to be a secret to be fair with how many people knew about it.

So I'm gonna, I'm gonna hold, we should hold all future opinions and comments until, um, this time next year.

But I think an interesting nugget that has come out of this whole situation, and James, you being who you are with, you know, understanding the ins and outs of the, the various sides of this sport at this point, um, and always having a voice for the drivers and, and you've been very vocal about contracts and, and how they need to be honored and, and all this sort of thing in the past, usually on the team side, two drivers in terms of compensation and, and letting them see out the, the term of, of what their contract was signed for.

What, what, where do you stand on this situation where Penske is holding will to the term of his contract and not releasing him early and not allowing him to get to work with Andretti until his term is over? Well, you,

You phrased that in a very specific way, Alex, which makes me think that your opinion is contracts or contracts, you signed it, you know, it, and tough <inaudible>, which fundamentally that is a, that is a philosophy.

I do sort of, I do subscribe to that sort of, I do subscribe to that.

I think that if two parties are in agreement, there's opportunities and situations where it is appropriate for concessions to be made.

Where this one for me gets a little bit, a little bit tricky is by Penske not allowing, so, so powers contract goes until December 31st, right?

And there is a test at Indy on October somethings, and Andretti has requested Will's services.

Penske has flat denied them. This is not like a Oh is he?

Like it was, the request was made, the request was denied at that point.

I would, Ima so have you ev let me ask, let me ask you this, have you ever signed a contract that was termed through the end of the race season rather than the end of the calendar year?

I've done both. Okay.

Would you say that rightly or wrongly, it's more often done through the calendar year?

Yes. Right. So it's kind of industry standard

that that's how they do it.

So I've on, yes.

I've only had one that was through the race here. Right?

The rest were all through calendar year. Yes.

Right. So it's it's much more

typical that that's the case.

It's sort of understood that once the race season's over, if you're not going back to the team, your job there is kind of done.

Now if there's a situation where there was some previous sponsor commitments that you still had to, uh, fulfill, fine.

I totally get that. That's totally fair.

In a situation where there's no sponsor commitments to fulfill and nobody is ho I imagine Lucas's contract with Foyt was through the calendar year.

Let's ignore for a second the fact that Penske was paying for that deal and just, you know, , it seems to me that it in no way hurts Penske to release. Well

Sure it does.

No, sure it does. It benefits another team.

Why does not, that doesn't hurt his team.

It's a there's a difference.

Yeah, but they're competitors. Yeah.

So anything that benefits a competitor but like hurts you.

Correct? Correct.

Okay. Alex, real talk

by getting one day in the car at Indy in October at the track that you get 48 hours of practice in come April and May is one day in October gonna set will up for so much success at the Indie 500 that you as a competing team owner would be like, yeah, I'm worried about that. James.

James, you mean the one track where finite details matter, the one track that you spend the most amount of time preparing for on the track off the track in the wind tunnel.

Okay. You're getting a guy who has just recently been

with the team that in all honesty should have locked out the front row the past two years, but for various reasons that we all know did not and had a massive influx of information from a certain engineer that improved their speed dramatically overnight, seemingly, okay, you bring that person to the October test to allow them to start running through certain things to give you an offseason project and areas to focus on.

I think there's a benefit to that.

Now that being said, he's just a driver and him getting in car, and I was gonna say, if we're talking Engineers XY different Different conversation.

Here's my point is this is further reinforcing the fact that will told them no because I, I believe you, if the way, the way they handled this situation and, and, and everything, and not saying they handled it wrongly, but just in terms of the, the, again, the, the human element of willpower and what he's done for that organization and the fact that he was still doing a good job and all of this stuff and, and to be strung along as we, as we, as we've talked about.

And if then they said, all right, we're done, thank you, but no thank you.

I could see them having the, the sympathy of being like, all right, go, go get to work and go do your new thing.

Right? It now convinces me that they were like, we need you

to stay, please stay.

And he was like, no, get Ed.

And now they're like, oh, okay, well you're not driving your car until January one then.

I mean, that's just an assumption. Yeah.

That's just, uh, I'm theorizing, but I don't know.

Yeah, and you can argue tip for tap.

That's why he's won a million championships in 1,000,005 hundreds and that's the kind of mindset that you need.

I I think it's fine. I don't think it's, I saw

Something on Twitter saying that he should still just show up to Penske headquarters, grab coffee and just like chat with people in the break room. ,

Here's the thing. I am, I, um,

do I think it's gonna negatively affect Will's preparation for Indy next year or Andretti's preparation for next year?

I don't. Is it a big deal? No, it's not.

But that's why it seems unnecessary to hold him back, right?

If it was kind of industry standard to hold him back or to like not let people do that and they didn't let him do it and it's like, yeah, okay, fine, whatever.

But like, you know, ed Carpenter let Reus go and Reus was allowed to do the December or the October test with Coin and that led him get a new job.

It's kind of this much more common to let it happen, but you're right.

Maybe it was a function of Will telling them no and them wanting to just make a point.

We'll never know. Or maybe we'll,

since we're a breaking news podcast now, Yeah, news is fun.

Hopefully we have some next week, um, to talk about after we recap Nashville.

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