They’re talking about the Monaco Grand Prix coming back. Monaco is a famous street race, and it tends to make driving and passing much more difficult than on normal tracks.
DRS is a system in Formula 1 that helps cars pass each other. It briefly reduces drag so the car can go faster on a straight, but only when the rules allow it.
Mercedes-AMG is Mercedes’ performance brand, and in Formula 1 it’s tied to the Mercedes team. The hosts are talking about how well that team has been doing this season.
George Russell is a Formula 1 race driver. In this episode, they’re talking about his results for Mercedes and how unlucky or frustrated he’s been at times.
Ferrari is the racing team/brand in Formula 1. In this segment, they’re being talked about as possibly the fastest team for Monaco because of how their car behaves in corners and at the start.
“Trick wings” are special aerodynamic parts on a race car’s front or rear. They’re designed to push the car down for better grip, but they don’t always help as much on every track.
Aston is referring to Aston Martin’s Formula 1 team. The host is basically saying they might have trouble finishing, but they could still score if things go their way.
The rear wing is the spoiler-like part on the back of a race car. It helps press the car onto the road so the tires can grip better, particularly when you’re accelerating out of corners.
A turbo is a device that uses the engine’s exhaust to spin a compressor that pushes extra air into the engine. That can make the car feel more responsive—especially when you’re trying to accelerate out of slow corners.
Lewis is a Formula 1 driver (Lewis Hamilton). The hosts are saying he seems more comfortable this year and might be able to win, especially compared to how he’s done at this track historically.
“Ground effect” is when a race car sticks to the track using airflow under the car, not just wings. When the rules or car design emphasize that, the car can feel very different to drive.
Charles refers to Charles Leclerc, a Ferrari driver often highlighted for his qualifying speed and strong performances at specific circuits. Here, the discussion frames Monaco as a track where he tends to do well, and contrasts that with Lewis’s potential to challenge him.
Practice sessions let teams and drivers test setups, tire behavior, and car balance before qualifying and the race. It’s also when drivers learn the circuit’s grip level and how the car responds through different corners.
Qualifying is the session where drivers set their fastest laps to determine the starting grid for the race. On tracks like Monaco, qualifying position heavily influences race outcome because passing is so hard.
They’re talking about Formula One, the top level of open-wheel racing. The discussion is about where F1 races in the US and whether the events feel affordable and welcoming to regular fans.
The FIA is the main international motorsport rule-making body. “Grade one” means the track has to meet strict safety and infrastructure requirements, even if it’s a street circuit instead of a purpose-built race track.
F1 is Formula 1, the highest level of race car competition. Cars race on tracks, and teams make strategy choices like tires and timing during the race.
“Kota” refers to the race track in Austin, Texas where Formula 1 races. It’s a well-designed track with lots of different kinds of turns, so it’s fun to watch in person.
“Detroit GP” is an IndyCar race in Detroit. It’s usually run on city streets, which makes the track tight and unforgiving—so drivers have to be precise.
Will Power is a professional IndyCar driver. Here, the hosts talk about how his racing actions affected other drivers and how his season has been going.
An “attenuator” is a crash-safety barrier designed to slow a car down more safely. If there are “attenuator issues,” it means that safety setup didn’t work as expected, which can affect what happens in the race.
The “timing stand” is where officials track the race timing—like lap times and who’s where on track. It’s an important control point for race decisions.
Penske here means Team Penske, a big professional racing team. The hosts are talking about how the drivers’ relationship may have formed while they were both with that team.
“Elbows out racing” means racing very aggressively for position. It usually leaves less room for other cars, which can lead to tense moments or contact.
Pit stops are when the car pulls into the pit lane during the race to change tires and reset for the next stint. If you do it at the wrong time, you can lose positions even if you drive well.
Phoenix is another oval racetrack IndyCar races at. The hosts are using it as an example of where the driver was competitive on a similar type of circuit.
A multi-year contract is a driver’s employment agreement that ties them to a team for multiple seasons. The hosts use it to discuss whether Will Power might retire only after the contract and season are fully completed.
Person
Malukas
Malukas is a race driver being talked about in the show. The host is basically asking him to deliver a strong finish.
Fuel management is the computer-controlled way the car decides how much fuel to inject. The goal is to make sure the engine gets the right amount at the right time so it runs strong and efficient under racing conditions.
Engine mapping is basically the engine’s “settings” inside the computer. It tells the car how to respond—like how much power you get when you press the gas—so it can be tuned for racing.
Torque settings are how the car’s computer controls how much “pull” the engine makes. Adjusting it can help the car accelerate harder and feel smoother when you’re driving fast.
Chevy is mentioned as a major automotive brand involved in the engineering side of the race program. They’re associated with tuning and development work that affects how the car makes power.
A hybrid race car uses extra electrical power in addition to the normal engine. That extra system can help performance, but it also makes the car more expensive and complicated to run.
Scott Dixon is a very successful IndyCar driver. The hosts are talking about how he’s usually fighting near the front, but a problem can still force him to retire from a race.
Ganassi is an IndyCar racing team. The hosts are saying the team’s choices about the hybrid system can affect whether the car stays competitive or suffers costly failures.
Road America is a famous race track in the U.S. It has extra space around the track called runoff. Runoff is there to help cars slow down safely if they miss a turn or spin.
Runoff is the extra space next to the track. If a driver goes off the racing line, runoff helps slow the car down more safely than hitting a wall. It can change how aggressively drivers take corners.
The throttle pedal is what the driver presses to control how much power the engine makes. If it fails, the driver can’t properly command acceleration, and the car may stop being able to drive under its own power.
Concept
safety trucks
Safety trucks are track support vehicles used during cautions to help manage incidents, such as recovering a car or assisting with on-track safety. Their presence on track is a key reason race control may keep a caution active to protect both drivers and crew.
A local yellow is a caution that only affects part of the track. Instead of everyone slowing down everywhere, drivers slow down only where the problem is. Race officials decide this based on how dangerous the situation is and where it is.
The braking zone is the part of the track where drivers slow down before a turn. It’s where you decide how late you can brake safely. If something happens before that zone, it may be easier to avoid than if it’s right at the last moment.
A green flag means the race is still “on” and cars are supposed to drive normally at speed. The concern here is that if a car is stopped and the flag is still green, other drivers may not have time to react safely.
“Excessive caution” means calling slow-down periods more than needed. The argument is that IndyCar has to balance safety with not ruining the race by stopping it too often.
Race control is the group that runs the race from an official/safety standpoint. They decide things like when the race should slow down because of a problem on track.
Graham Rahall is an IndyCar driver mentioned in the context of recovering from a serious health situation. The hosts also talk about how his car and race strategy helped him perform well.
The hosts break down how a caution period changes the plan for when to pit. They also connect it to IndyCar rules about using a different tire type on street courses.
A full course yellow means the whole race slows down because of something on the track. Drivers have to be careful, and teams often use that moment to make pit stops with less penalty.
Brian Barnhart is mentioned as the person who made a smart call about when to pit. The timing mattered because the race was under caution and it helped the driver’s strategy.
An alternate tire is a different type of tire than the one you start with. IndyCar can require teams to use it, so you have to plan the switch carefully during the race.
A street course is a race track made from regular city streets. It’s usually tighter and more enclosed than a normal race track, so it can be harder to drive fast safely.
“Alternates” are alternate tire compounds (or tire options) teams choose during a race, usually to manage grip and wear. Switching to alternates can be part of a strategy to stay competitive through different track conditions and stint lengths.
The “preferred tire” is the tire option teams expect to perform best for the next stint, often because it’s the most grippy or best suited to current conditions. Strategy discussions often revolve around when to use the preferred tire versus alternatives.
“Fuel saved up” means the team is using less fuel than expected. That can let them avoid an extra pit stop later in the race.
Term
four-course yellow
This sounds like a “full-course yellow,” meaning the whole track is under caution because of an incident. That changes how fast everyone can go and often reshuffles pit strategy.
A livery is the car’s paint scheme and graphic design—colors, numbers, sponsor placement, and styling. In racing, liveries are often a big part of the team’s identity and can become memorable year-to-year.
Qualifying is when drivers race against the clock before the main race to earn their starting spot. The host is saying the driver did well enough to be near the front or at least not at the back.
“Silly season” is what fans call the off-season when teams and drivers are constantly negotiating and rumors fly. It’s basically the busy time of year for driver moves.
A road course is a type of race track with lots of turns and braking, like you’d see at a typical road-racing circuit. It’s not an oval where you mostly go left or right in circles.
An oval is a track that’s basically a loop with mostly one kind of turn. Racing there often comes down to timing your pass and managing tires so the car stays fast.
In this context, “Sprint Cup” means a set of shorter races. It’s the opposite of the long endurance races, so teams can focus on the quicker events instead of the multi-hour ones.
GTD is a category in IMSA racing for cars that are based on real, street-legal models. Cars in GTD race against each other under a shared set of rules, even while other faster classes run in the same event.
Petite Le Mans is a long endurance race, similar in spirit to the famous 24 Hours of Le Mans. Teams have to manage the car carefully and plan pit stops because it’s not just about one fast lap.
Daytona is mentioned as one of the endurance races that GTD teams could skip if they only ran the Sprint Cup. Daytona is a major IMSA/road-racing venue where endurance events emphasize consistency, pit strategy, and managing tire and brake wear over long stints.
Watkins Glen is a road course that hosts endurance races. In long races like these, teams care a lot about brakes and tires because the car has to last while drivers rotate through stints.
IMSA is the big North American organization that runs sports car races. When they talk about IMSA radio and IMSA classes, they mean the rules and race structure used in those events.
GTP cars are the fastest prototype race cars in IMSA. They’re purpose-built for racing, so driving them is a big step up from slower classes and usually requires more specialized experience.
WEC is a world championship for endurance racing—long races where teams and drivers have to manage the car for hours. The host is saying some top factory drivers from WEC might also help with IMSA endurance events.
LIVE
Good evening, everyone. Welcome to another edition of the Pit Straight. I'm Kyle Benjamin, along with Alex Gins, Peter Malloy, and Michael Finley. And we are here to discuss the return of the Monaco Grand Prix a couple of weeks late.
But, you know, we've already kind of hashed and litigated that one. F1 returns to a classic street course and some changes this year.
No DRS or DRS equivalent, which I find very interesting. But, you know, the topic of the day really is what's going on with Mercedes AMG.
Hey, George Russell seemed to be the guy there to preseason. But it is his young upstart, Kimmy Antonelli, who's kind of taken over F1, which at the tender age of what is he, 18, 19? Pretty impressive.
Yeah, it's, it's, it reminds me a little bit of Lewis, even if, you know, like Kimmy did have a year last year at the very least, but like, I remember Lewis came in and was just fast off the bat and Kimmy's been like that this year.
I think it's really helps that we have these new regulations that have kind of wits the gap a little bit between him and other more experienced drivers.
I'm interested what peoples, what everyone's feelings are. I would personally, if you ask me who is favourite, this might raise some eyebrows, I would say still George.
That's my opinion. Reasons being he was the most consistent driver last year. He's had three races, three of the four races that Kimmy has won. George has been afflicted by bad luck.
I mean, George in a Mercedes that wasn't particularly good last year finished in the top six out of 23 out of 24 races. George finished in the top six last year.
The other thing we'd have to remember, short memories in this game, but last year Piastri was ahead by only 34 points with nine races to go and he was overhauled by the more experienced driver.
The points difference at the moment is a little bit bigger, 43, but there's 17 races remaining. George has the experience behind him.
So I would say on the flip side, I would say Canada was the first time we saw them really go head to head this year sharing the same place on track and I was actually surprised by how good Kimmy Antonelli was.
If you'd asked me before Canada, I would have said George was a strong favorite. Now I'm not so strongly on that side. I think George is still a slight favorite for me, but what are everyone else's views?
I want to know, Peter, if you look at what happened to George and the display of emotion that we saw of him in the display of frustration and you mentioned the repeated afflictions he's had.
You know, it's really tempting for me for the sake of the drama to say this is just George Russell's lot in life because he was, like Kyle said, the guy that needed to get to Mercedes, the dominant team.
He gets to Mercedes, the 2022 regulations, you know, put them on their ass, he wins that one race in Brazil. And I think for a lot of people, the glory that was waiting for George Russell when he finally got to this team really hasn't materialized.
And so do you think that what we saw out of him, the frustration out of him in Canada, was indicative of a larger frustration or a larger weight that George was carrying or just, you know, a driver being frustrated in an unfortunate moment in a very emotionally and mentally taxing sport?
I think it was a boil over of frustration from this year. Some of the, as I said, he's had bad luck for a couple of races, the car not being right for qualifying and things like that.
So I think it's this year. I think saying that it's the greater frustration. No, I don't really believe that. I mean, he went up against Lewis Hamilton for three years and beat Lewis Hamilton.
As everyone reminds us time and time again, the seven time world champion. So I would say if I was George, I would have come out of that period feeling pretty good. I just beat Lewis Hamilton two out of three years.
So I think definitely he's frustrated this year that the car hasn't, that he's had a run of bad luck. But no, I don't think he's feeling entitled or anything like that.
What do you think, Alex? Who do you think is the favorite this year? Would you say Kimmy or?
You know, Peter, last year, I tried to really put myself out there on social media and say that I thought Oscar was going to hold it together.
And I said this after like three races, the third race of the season or something, and it didn't really go my way. So I'm going to kind of stick to my guns and say, George, just because I've tried this once before.
But I agree with your point about what we saw in Canada. I was kind of surprised to see the composure and the forward nature of Antonelli's driving wheel to wheel with his senior teammate.
He's certainly a full attack, no doubt, and a very exuberant number two driver. And that's kind of how Mercedes built it. It's George's team. He's the guy and Kimmy's here to learn.
And, you know, as we've seen in other disciplines, young racers who step into a new rules package, figure it out much quicker than their veteran counterparts.
You know, referencing Alex Palau and David Malukas in the IndyCar side, stepped into an entirely new formula their rookie seasons and like, hey, all right, cool, this is how this car drives.
I do believe, you know, George's run of bad luck. That's, you know, sports are weird like that racing, especially, you know, again, we're seeing it on the IndyCar side with Will Power, who's without bad luck, the guy would have zero luck at all.
And if you're, you know, I think if you're Mercedes, you know, I think you kind of need to sit them both down and go, okay, fellas, we're clearly the best team in the paddock right now.
Can't have any internal distractions. You know, I don't know if that discussion is you guys figured out on the track, or if there's going to end up having to be kind of a more firm running order discussion there on behalf of Mercedes leadership.
Yeah.
I don't think there's any indication yet that they're going to stop them fighting unless it gets too scrappy.
If there's any team principle in the paddock that knows about having teammates that need intervention, it's total wolf.
So I actually don't think my personal pick right now, it isn't George Orkemi.
Oh, Lando.
Left failed.
Lando because so McLaren is really good at developing in season.
Oh, it'd be cool if Max can do it, but I don't know about Max.
Lando has got the same engine.
So he's got all the advantages the Mercedes guys have.
He was very close to Miami.
He's driving without he is, he said in a few interviews now that like all of his boys, all of his, like the press was gone from him, essentially, since he's just driving like he's already accomplished what he wanted to do, like everything else is just extra now.
And I just like that mindset for him.
He is only like 80 points away from Kimmy.
I do agree with you, Peter, that George absolutely isn't out of this because if you look, if you look back last year, Kimmy had an awful summer.
Like, when with the York swing started, it was so bad. I do remember people were talking at the summer break. Hey, like, are we going to move him to Williams and bring signs up somehow and make that, you know, make that switch who happen.
That didn't that didn't end up happening, but like, it was like, for some reason, Kimmy was bad at the European tracks last year and pretty good at the non European tracks.
So he's going to need to reverse that in the next few months if he wants to potentially try to win a championship.
Well, and he's, you know, he's heading to a track where passing is at a premium.
But, you know, the rumblings are that Ferrari might actually be the front runner this weekend and I kind of want to try to understand that a little bit.
They don't, you know, they're not really going to have an arrow advantage per se everything we saw in the off season with their trick wings is nullified here because you can't use that, you know, engineering trick at Monaco this weekend.
So now it's just it's literally just driver, driver ability.
Do we get a little, you know, home field advantage for the Ferrari drivers.
I will say that like with Monaco, the engines also don't mean anything, or not nearly as much.
So, yes, Mercedes big advantage is also kind of thrown away.
So it's really just about who can get the most grip at the end of the day who can accelerate out of the corner quick enough.
I mean, we might see Alonzo said today that he doesn't think Aston is going to finish the race of course.
But I could definitely see Aston Moldin even like if new if that new design call has any like mechanical do it.
I mean, they even they could potentially compete for points.
You know, Ferrari is also very strong in slow corners.
Not 100%. Well, there's two elements to it.
Firstly, they have a little trick plate at the back behind the exhaust that's throwing some of the exhaust up onto the rear wing.
That's actually giving them more grip in slow corners.
And everyone said that they were the strongest car in the opening sector in Canada for that reason.
The other thing is the Ferrari engine.
As Michael said, they don't have any straight line deficit to worry about here because there aren't any particularly long straights.
But the Ferrari engine also has a smaller turbo than most other cars, which makes it easier to spin the turbo up, which is why they're good off the start line.
That's the reason that they're so fast is because they don't have to work so hard to get their turbo working because it's small.
But the other advantage that gives them is that they're fast out of slow corners.
Their car gets away quite quickly.
So that's all it's like a perfect storm for the Ferrari car in Monica.
No straights because their engine is down on power.
No straights to worry about and pretty strong cornering speed.
And you got to imagine.
And Monica is just one big slow corner.
Yeah.
And I was going to add to the Choles and Lewis.
I mean, they all formal Monica winters.
Like they've got the confidence, definitely.
Well, this is another interesting battle that we haven't really talked about or the media is all focusing on Kimmy and George, but Lewis is resurgent this year.
He looks a lot more comfortable than he ever did in the previous ground effect era.
So that'll be really interesting because Charles, if I read somewhere if if Canada was Charles's worst track, which it often is and was this year, then Monica is his best.
He's been on pole position.
I think I can't remember the stat five out of the last six races.
He's he's a monster.
Because it's his home.
And so he walked to school on this track.
You know, he caught school buses on this track and he's he's a monster.
So it'll be if Ferrari do have the edge, it'll be really interesting and exciting.
I think to see if there's a fight between Charles and Lewis.
Is this where Lewis, you know, breaks through and gets his first actual non non sprint race weekend win with Ferrari?
It's not his favorite track.
He historically hasn't done super duper well here and it is Charles's favorite track.
So I don't know.
Never discount Lewis.
And never discount Max.
I'm not sure what the Red Bull is going to be like here.
But as as for every year, Monaco is going to be all about qualifying and that's going to be super exciting to watch and practice to see who's fast.
Yeah, practice starts tomorrow at 7am, 730am Eastern time, which is 230 local.
Give it to you.
Good.
You know, you can wake up and have your coffee, watch some F1 cars.
Peter, I can't quite do the math off the top of my head to figure out what time that would be where you are.
But I know we'll all be tuned in of other, you know, kind of a quiet news week for F1, other than the announcement that the biggest race is going to be extended.
You know, that's good.
I guess F1 is not going anywhere.
This isn't like IndyCar and NASCAR announcing a 10 year extension with a with a city for a race that then speaks to the health of the series.
The F1s here, you know, they're not disappearing.
The only, my only critique on that would be like, Vegas really isn't a destination.
It, I, you know, you can read all kinds of economic articles and tourism articles.
It never bounced back from the pandemic.
You know, say like, hey, we're going to keep racing for 10 years.
It's like, why though?
What's the, you know,
this is a race for people who know about Vegas.
Yeah.
It's not even really a race for people who know about F1.
The race isn't that great.
And it's a terrible time of day.
So a big part of the difference here is that F1 built a lot of the Pullman structures around the Vegas track.
And they also promote it.
So they don't pay like.
So there's no local partner for that.
No, I think I believe it is just formula.
Yeah, it's just FOM, Liberty Media to be exact.
Yeah.
It's one of the rare, rare tracks that they do that.
I'm fine with Vegas being on the schedule, but I'm not fine with Miami.
I think Miami is on the schedule to like 2035 or something.
And it's like Vegas fulfills everything Miami is supposed to be better.
I think this is symptomatic of the larger frustration that's growing with some people.
And I could just be like trying to stir the pot for the sake of my own.
Hey, that's what we're here for.
Yeah, I'm trying to distract from my own insecurities by going after formula one.
I feel like Vegas and Miami in the, in the discourse often get lumped together as these examples of F1 trying to chase this elite crowd with these unaffordable three day passes and these $45 hamburgers in the concession.
And Michael Massia, I'm not going to advise anything he does in his life because it's such a disaster anyway.
It's actually not insane for one practice.
For general admission, it's actually not crazy, but yeah, everything else.
It does appear a little cliche that two of the US markets F1 has entered into are both Miami and Las Vegas.
Right.
You know, there are, okay, where there are plenty of other places in the US where you could throw a, you know, FIA grade one street race.
You know, there's probably some reasons why they're not in Long Beach, but you know, throw it back to the original Long Beach GP.
You know, could you put a street course together in LA?
For sure. There's plenty of, and it would be gorgeous.
The, you know, the Hollywood Hills is a backdrop for a racetrack would be awesome.
But you know, New York, Boston, you know, large media markets that aren't necessarily we're going to come party all weekend vibes like F1 has an opportunity to go into different US markets and make their race more accessible.
To race fans in the US as a whole.
Like you look at, you know, and I don't have the economic numbers off the top of my head or in front of me or even know how to dig them up quickly.
But you look at crowd shots of the Belgian GP or, or, you know, anything in Europe, Japan, all those.
There are normal people at those races or what appear for the most part to enter packed.
Just race fans have been a grand old time what you would expect it in NASCAR racer and Indy car race.
Normal race fans are priced out of going to Miami and Vegas.
And that's a problem for growth, I think.
But then again, Liberty Media may just not care.
I think, I think the idea around Vegas is playing into funnily enough part of the myth of Formula One, which is this weekend, Monaco.
I think the Vegas idea is trying the glitz and glamour of Monaco.
They're trying to recreate that with the glitz and glamour of Vegas.
That I'm not sure about Miami, but certainly Vegas, I think is, is there I go so far as to say trying to create the US Monaco.
That's really interesting.
That was the way I saw it.
It's part of the F1 brand is the whole Monaco glitz and glamour sort of stuff.
Should people be worried about their marriage if their spouse takes a solo trip to Monaco?
Because they should if their spouse is taking a solo trip to Vegas or Miami.
I don't know. I think if my wife went solo to Monaco, I'd have a raised eyebrow.
Well, like it's cheaper to go.
It's literally there are people that all like Americans that are flying to Baku for the weekend instead of buying tickets for Vegas for the weekend.
Yeah, Hungary too.
Yeah.
I mean, even tickets for Circuit of the Americas are relatively inexpensive.
Yeah, I'm sorry to interrupt you, Kyle, but I am concerned about Kota.
Everybody's always concerned about Kota.
Yeah.
Did you know there's a contingency plan to turn it into a landfill?
Is that a joke?
No, I'm serious.
Wow.
That was part of the like agreement to build the track.
Is it if like if it runs into trouble, the backup plan, there's money set aside to bulldoze the place and turn it into a landfill?
I think that is a great trick.
It is. It's phenomenal. It's great.
And again, that's a place where tickets are affordable.
I've got friends here in East Tennessee and we've already started discussions like, okay, what would it look like to go?
Because they like F1. They've never actually been to an open wheel race in person.
They're like, let's go to Kota. It's cool. I've never seen F1 in person either.
Let's rock and roll. Been to Kota. Great facility.
And it's, you know, Austin in October is fantastic. It's not the surface of the sun like it is, you know, most of the year.
That I think should be the model for, you know, for Vegas and Miami.
You know, but that also means kind of changing, you know, Vegas can't be at 2am Eastern time.
Please God.
You know, run it at night, dusk.
You know, there's really no reason logically it seems to have that race as late as it is.
But, you know, good for Vegas and that's at least we have kind of part of the puzzle of F1 for the next decade that there's going to be at least one US Grand Prix, which, you know, again, they're trying to grow here.
Liberty Media is a US company. So that makes sense.
Yeah, you know.
Well, good. So my tips are on Chancellor Clerk for Monaco.
There you go. You know, hard to argue with that too.
Yeah, it'd be cool to see Choles win again. Although it's a fun fact, I think it's like, actually, I got, I do have a fun family fun fact real quick.
There have been five passes in the last three years at Monaco. Three of those passes were by one driver.
Who wasn't? Lance Stroll.
Yep.
Really?
Yep. And I think all of them were out of the tunnel.
It died bombs at a Nouvelle.
Yeah.
Wow. That's terrible.
Lance Stroll. He's, he is the next center, maybe five laps every year.
Finley, you were just so good for the sport.
That's a, that's a hardy-esque.
Yeah, no kidding. No kidding.
Well, and also, also too, we haven't had a repeat win at Monaco since Nico in 2016.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
So we're due.
Which would mean Lando would win this week, this year.
Well, hopefully.
Well, that race starts at 9 a.m. Eastern on June 7th, qualifying Saturday at 10 a.m. Eastern.
And that, but your practices are tomorrow at 7 30 11 and then again on Saturday at 6 30.
So if you are up with the birds, you can catch practice three for F one.
Other open wheel racing on the calendar.
Peter, you are more than welcome to stick around and talk Indy car.
But we always, you know, appreciate your F one insight from, from the other side of the globe.
Thank you for getting up with that, speaking of the crack of dawn to join us.
Don has cracked.
Awesome.
I'll, I'll lurk in the background.
And if I have something to say, then I'll pop back in by all means lurk in the background.
Okay.
So Indy car, you know, wrapped up the Detroit GP.
Alex blow did Alex blow things kind of as we all suspected.
Will powers disastrous season continues.
What do you say there of note and I was watching the race with my dad who's, you know,
spent a lot of time covering open wheel racing in the U.S. and we were kicking around the idea that.
Oh, something else, something else.
Ken ski has struggled.
In various facets of their motorsports program, they haven't won anything in the U.S.
since March.
Due to the fall out of the attenuator issues and everybody getting fired.
Tim S Principal is back, you know, on the timing stand.
But he just flies in for the races.
He's not involved in the day to day ops of the of the race team.
This leads into my next thought, the RG Bargy, for lack of a better term between Scott McLaughlin
and Will Power, is that indicative of the relationship they had at Penske and why Will
Power left?
I think Scott was conciliatory enough in the post race that I would treat it with some
skepticism.
So it was just elbows out racing?
I think so.
He did say a couple of times that he felt Will had pushed him wide a few times early
in the race and he left him no option verbatim is how he described it.
And that's all fine and well.
It was kind of an uncharacteristic move from Scott McLaughlin, I think, to be kind of,
he's talking like his car was floating and pushing Will further wide than he would have
liked to.
I mean, he cost Grosjean a potential win at St. Pete doing that in 2023, to be fair,
but I hesitate to attribute any kind of intent or deliberate nature to it, but it's such
a horrid, horrid, I mean Kyle Powers showed up that race and was doing everything right
as well as he possibly could have aside from, you know, maybe timing his pit stops a bit
poorly and again, for one reason or another, leaves with nothing to show up for it.
I'm not going to count him out this weekend at Gateway.
He's very good at that track and Dreddy has a good short oval program they have historically
and power was in contention at Phoenix.
You know, similar ish tracks.
You know, I got to think at this point, you know, Will's under a multi-year contract
with Dreddy.
If the season continues the way it does, is he just hanging up when everything's all
said and done?
I don't want to imagine an Indy car without Will power in it.
That's just, that's a devastating thought, but what did he see now?
Is he 43?
42?
44.
Okay.
There you go.
I mean, it's a, a physically, it's not NASCAR, you know, that is old and
who wants to, who wants to ride around in a season like this at his age?
I don't know.
Yeah.
Well, you know, I definitely want to see Indreddy bounce back, you know, apart from
Kyle Kirkwood, they, you know, Erickson has been invisible all season long, more or less.
So you do, you know, for the good of the sport and the people who are still watching
Indy car because the Dreddy name is attached to it, like that's a good thing.
And it's good for Indy car for Will power to be competitive because as we saw on Sunday,
homeboy is still very feisty and, you know, and, and takes no prisoners, which is again,
good for the sport.
And in an era where the nicest guy in the paddock is winning weekend and week out.
Indy car kind of needs a bit of a prickly villain and not to say that will is a villain,
but you need, you kind of need that in wrestling parlance, a heel.
Yeah.
And that's, there's nobody else in the paddock.
I mean, Joseph Newgarde kind of, but that's more or less the, I think the Penske swagger
and the chiseled John the blonde hair and the, you know, that vibe, not just like, exactly.
Not, you know, not I'm elbows out and I'm a fiery Aussie and, you know, I'm, again,
I'm giving no quarter and I'm taking them as well.
So, you know, we'll see.
Joseph Newgarden has never been caught on camera screaming up bombs and double flipping
double birds at the TV crew.
He has not. No, he is not on camera, at least.
He's not like a whole.
Oh, he's more like a Hulk Hogan.
No, he's more like a homelando Ivan Drago type villain.
Rather than, you know, just kind of, yeah, I've never, ever thought of that.
From from from a purely aesthetic standpoint.
OK, yeah, yeah, I can, I can see it.
Well, like that he went, he went as homelando following when you.
Of course, that's tone deaf.
You know, and there's another guy who needs to write the ship.
Physically, though, I think, and the broadcast alluded to it,
was not a hundred percent on Sunday.
Pit strategy got him to where he needed to be.
You know, he kind of flirted with the top 10.
But, you know, Penske by and large, they've been relatively invisible
aside from some flashes of brilliance here and there.
I will, you know, going to go out on a limb.
I think it's Malukas's race to lose Sunday night
as good as he is at that track and as good as he was in non Penske equipment.
Yeah, at that track.
He is now in and probably the most dominant
short oval car in the pack.
If you can get through, sorry.
Yeah. If you can get through his dominant short oval teammate.
Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
Some guy named Joseph Newgarden, who's also pretty good and Scott McLaughlin,
not bad on ovals.
Malukas, I've asked Scott McLaughlin for that second place in 22.
Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of the things we are seeing right now
were like, Palo is just the man to beat our world courses.
Penske's really good at the ovals.
I wouldn't be surprised if that's kind of locked in for the next year and a half
until we get that new chance to come into them.
Because, like, I don't know if I'm an Indy call owner,
like why are we putting money into trying to get faster right now
when we could just wait, not spend the money.
And, you know, use it to try to get faster on the next set of regulations.
Well, there's really not much more they can do with this car and engine combination.
I mean, right now, the engineering that happens is everything
that Chevy, Ilmore and HRC are doing behind the scenes
with fuel management, engine mapping, torque settings, all that stuff.
Unfortunately, they're kind of just they're all handcuffed to the hybrid.
I mean, we learned, you know, on Sunday,
Scott Dixon, who was in contention, I mean, the Iceman is in contention every week.
But he falls out because Ganassi didn't want to have to buy a hybrid.
A DNF, because there's price tag attached to a failure.
That's bananas.
This I consider this to be a political DNF.
Yeah, it's also a tragedy to see Scott Dixon not waste.
That will be a sad day for Indy car when when he eventually walks away.
But he both he and power will walk away as two of the greatest ever,
you know, to ever strap on one of these race cars.
So other Indy car news and notes, some officiating changes again.
This season, yeah, a long time chief technical inspector.
Let me find his nickname, Rocket.
Let me find the exact Kevin Blanche release.
Kevin Blanche, thank you very much.
The name escapee nice guy.
Just great to great to be around always, you know, presence on Pit road has been for ages.
Yesterday news came out that he was departing Indy car today.
Indy car put out a release that he's retiring.
Your chief technical inspector retiring halfway through the season is curious.
Yes. Yeah, in the release, he said that he had been
contemplating retirement for a while and he informed he informed Indy car over the winter.
And he doesn't get into how he was convinced to do this,
but he was asked to stay on through the month of May.
And he was glad he did, which I mean, makes sense, I guess.
You know, I don't I don't know what it could be something as mundane
and uninteresting as we just don't have the time to do an executive search style
hiring or promotion process for a position like this to something.
As you see, this is this is why I'm glad we're on a podcast and not in print
because I can say where there's suspicions about another attenuator gate or something.
I mean, I yeah, it's I feel like if he were to retire halfway through the season unannounced,
that would be less curious than I tried to retire.
And they asked me to stay around and I did, but not for a whole year.
It's it's strange.
I think it's just so that because we have brand new
we have a brand new officiating system since on Indy call, correct?
Alex, yes, we have independent officiating this year.
I could see them going, hey, we want to just have
lock it here so, you know, we can try to get these new guys up to speed
and make sure all of the processes are good to go.
And then when it's time for him to go, he can just retire.
So I mean, I'm I'm guessing that's what the situation was here.
Though the Wednesday, what's we say?
Today's Thursday.
So announcing a retirement the Thursday of a race week.
I, you know, it raises it raises some eyebrows.
I do want to bring in good friend.
Indy car aficionado, the rain man of front stretch.
Christopher Daherty, welcome to the show, my friend.
It's dry outside.
That don't make sense.
All right. What's your take on Kevin Blanche?
You've known him for a while.
Oh, I think at some point
it's just one of those things where when you know you're done, you're done.
And I think, you know, I look back at AJ Foyt in 1993, you know,
at that point he knew it's time.
And I think after everything that took place in
push to pass gate versions one and two,
attenuator gate, insert scandal here gate.
I think he was just tired of it.
And then for Indy car officiating to come out now and say that
we have reports that are going to come out now about what happened
with this and that and all that.
That's just added more work.
And if I'm him, I don't want to deal with that extra stuff
that wasn't part of his job description originally.
So yeah, I don't blame him for saying it's time.
Yeah, fair enough.
It could we could be again trying to stir the pot and rabble rouse on a podcast.
And it could just be a hey, he's been he's been doing this for 30 years,
at least probably longer.
He was with Panther Racing in 1997.
That's a long time to be on the road.
Having done that grind myself for many years, it's hard to live it out of a suitcase.
So again, the panic will be be lesser because Kevin Blanche is not in it.
Interesting to see how Indy car kind of moves forward with those those technical things.
Those of you watching who may not know this, Ray Evernham is part of the Indy car
officiating the independent officiating board.
As he is, which I find fascinating.
Ray Evernham noted race engineer who always plays things exactly by the rulebook.
Now in charge of the car rulebook.
No, but Ray's a good guy and loves loves cars, loves racing.
I think that's a that's a great call.
And and and he's not an insider.
You know, when you're when your board is independent, that's a good thing.
Um, when Indy car transferred, not transferred,
they made the decision to throw yellows immediately
and not worry about pit cycles after the Indy GP to do the Alexander Rossi
a terrible horrible, no good, very bad month of May.
Yes.
There's a band talk about a guy who's had a bad five weeks.
He needs needs to find something, you know, in Lucky Rabbit's foot.
Burn some incense.
I don't place the other foot to replace the other.
But yeah, Rossi's had had a tough go since the Indy GP.
It interrupted.
I think Brian Hurd is point Sunday.
Is worth Indy car taking note of that throwing a yellow immediately in instances
where cars are still running, but just pointing the wrong direction
upsets the flow of the race.
The Santino Frucci incident, no wall contact, both cars.
I mean, they were so far back anyway, didn't interrupt the race,
but it punched the field back up and that happened a couple more times during the race
where there were incidents that would not necessarily trick.
They should have just been local yellows, car not in the fence,
driver not in danger, car still moving a little quick on the trigger.
I'm curious if that the next time we're in a road or street course, if that will
if that will be adjusted.
I think Detroit is such a unique case because of how tight and confined the spaces there.
Road America, you've got runoff.
You've got a decent amount of runoff around the entire track.
It's just like I said, it's just a feature of Detroit or a negative feature of Detroit, if you will.
That being said, I think they were underneath such a microscope
from what happened with Rossi that they felt like they didn't have a choice in the matter.
I think those were those things where in hindsight, if they look back at the race
and they see that they were at the back of the field, that no car was coming and that
you could see them, you know, Santino firing his car up and get going.
Same thing with Raines.
They would probably have not thrown that yellow,
but there were a couple of other situations where, OK, Santino's throttle pedal broke later on in the race.
You had to throw a yellow for that because the car was stranded.
It wasn't going to go under power again at all.
Grozion's car, I think it was in the hairpin runoff.
For that one, you have to throw a yellow.
The safety trucks were on the track, yeah.
That and I hate to be that guy, but if a car is in the turn three runoff and it is,
even if you have, if it's waiting to go, that is actually a situation where a local yellow might
work, but you're approaching that turn over 185 miles per hour before you get to the braking zone.
Heaven forbid, if a Louis Foster situation from last year happens again,
then race controls in a situation where, oh, why didn't they throw a yellow here?
Although, you know, it's like I said, we're all looking at this with the benefit of hindsight.
They were just in a no one situation in that regard.
So it's really the only one I can quibble with is the VK Ferrucci half spin.
You know, I think that might have cost Kyle Kirk with the race.
I don't know.
I think I don't think anybody had anything for blow at that point.
I'm going to play devil's advocate here too.
Play dead.
That's why we're here.
Play devil's advocate.
Wasn't it Brian Hurta, who had like 1996 at Road America wound up with a car on top of him
because he was stopped stationary in a runoff area facing the wrong way during a green flag?
I think that was like 90s eight.
But yeah, he was PJ Jones, whatever the top.
PJ Jones.
Yeah.
So like trying to approach this from a more like meta human nature.
I took a semester and a half of psychology in college.
So I understand Sigmund Freud.
Okay.
Oh, naturally.
Yeah, an expert.
I feel like this was perfectly handled by IndyCar because anything more than excessive caution
would not have been acceptable because what's going to happen here inevitably
is they're going to take this feedback and they're going to say, okay,
we have to be a little bit more loose and we're just going to get looser and
and looser every single race until I guarantee you, I'll put money on this right now.
By the end of 2027, there is another car left stationary on the racing surface with no caution.
I just think that this is too deeply long running and ingrained to practice that people are
subconsciously welding to the nature of IndyCar in their perception of the series.
I'm fully on race control side for how they handled Detroit.
Even if it was excessive, I think excessive was the right thing to do.
Yeah, you really can't muck with safety.
That's a fair point.
One other thing to touch on as we wind things down here this evening.
How about Graham Rahall?
Where is, I mean, not career resurgence, but certainly he's no longer in ICU.
They've moved him to stable condition.
He's driving like a guy who started doing yoga in the off season.
This is one of the situations where I just think back to one of those things that
they've always mentioned is a racing driver that is competent can drive fast if the car will let
him drive fast. This is a situation where Graham actually has a car that is working for him,
number one, and number two, the strategy worked out in his favor.
So I'm going to go ahead and plug my work for Front Stretch.
My first of two post-race sidebars was actually on Graham Rahall on the day that he had.
Now, he got tapped by Kiffin Simpson, which caused a full course yellow around like lap 40,
I want to say.
Brian Barnhart did a strategically genius move in bringing him in underneath that yellow,
which I think you might have mentioned this earlier.
I don't know.
IndyCar has the rule where you have to use two sets of alternatives on a street course
of the alternate tire on the street course.
So what Brian Barnhart did was underneath that yellow is two laps after they pitted
because he had stopped and then he got pushed back and that's why he was with Kiffin.
Two laps after the yellow came out, they pitted again for another set of alternates
and that satisfied their requirement.
So then the preferred tire, which was the primary,
they were going to make just one more pit stop and then let that ride out to the rest of the race.
Now, Graham and Brian Barnhart, Brian, which I probably should have introduced earlier since
you're a Graham strategist, they've made the gamble.
Hey, it's very likely there's going to be a lot of yellow in the later part of the race.
If we get two yellows, one or maybe two yellows at the most,
we're going to have enough fuel saved up to where we can run the rest of the race with no problem.
And they got like four yellows.
So Graham stopped for the last time on lap 62.
He started, that team started the last sequence of pit stops.
Five or six cars pitted and then that's when the Rena's VK and Santino Frucci accident took place
with the four-course yellow and then almost everybody in front of them pitted.
And then he was in fifth place, which effectively became fourth place because obviously had Rossi
had a penalty. And then after Rossi had the pit, or rather, let me rephrase, after Malukas and
Schumacher had their collision, that fifth became third, effectively second.
But I think actually Kyle Krueger had gotten by him at that point.
But yeah, it was just a matter of Graham having to defend because he had one second of push to
pass left. And Paddle Ward and Christian Willingard both had a lot of seconds left towards the end
of the race. And he was able to hold on and complete a Honda podium sweep in Detroit.
So yeah, Graham did a fantastic job. He's driven really well this year.
Three podiums. The most he's had in the season is 2020.
Dave, not everything has been executed perfectly this year for RLO.
But for Graham, things are working well right now.
And it's time to strike when the iron's hot for him.
Graham Rayholt, 2021-19500 winner.
Oh, man. Imagine that alternate universe.
Anyway. He had the best-looking car that year, or one of the best-looking cars that year.
Him and Sage Karam, in my opinion. That's another podcast, though.
That is a whole other one. We should do that one day.
Maybe in the off-season, we'll look at the best Indy 500 liveries of the last decade.
P1 goes to Marko Andretti in 2019, though.
Oh, look. Okay, we're not the best.
Alex is exhausted.
The thing is, with that car, after the start of the race, he just fell into the back.
So he was going slow enough on track where people could appreciate it.
Oh, man. I'm not saying that to be me, but I think I've ever listened to his radio that day
a couple of times, and it just went nowhere. I mean, what was wrong with it?
He qualified really well, too, didn't he?
I think midfield. I know 2020 was on the poll, but in 2019, I think it was just midfield,
but it was just...
I know the vibes were good that year. Everybody was kind of in Finley's out.
Finley was decided this isn't worth his time.
He's exhausted.
We're all exhausted.
Last thing before we sign off.
Christian Rasmussen signs an extension with ECR.
So that, I guess, takes one silly season chess piece off the board.
Not that there were probably that many to begin with.
I also, it's not exhausted.
If I had an ice cream bar, I'd be having one now, too.
Same.
This could be the gimmick.
I like the signing from Rasmussen to remain with ECR.
I think he has a very high ceiling, but I think he's right now...
I try to think of the right way to phrase this.
He's trying to do too much of that car.
And carbon racing has not traditionally been the strongest on street courses
and road courses for that matter, but they have their peaks at times.
And then with what he was doing at Phoenix this year.
My God, that was amazing to watch.
He won at Milwaukee last year.
He clearly is in that I'm going to pass you mentality on Oval.
He's got that killer instinct on Oval's.
It's just a matter of trying to not overwork it with the car too much on road and street courses.
If you can just dial it back a little bit, not try so hard.
Kind of like Colton Herna, when he was at Entretti.
Lot of speed, just tried too hard in my opinion.
If you could just dial it back just a little bit,
I think his performances would be even better.
But like I said, at Detroit, he tried too hard and he crashed.
Yeah, I think your winner this week at Gateway is going to come from the pool of New Garden,
Maluchus, Rasmussen, and Polo.
I mean, really, you can't ever count the guy out,
even though he's not like awesome, awesome on Oval's.
He's also not bad at Gateway.
I would add Paddle Award to that pool.
Oh yeah, Paddle likes Gateway.
Paddle loves Gateway.
Well, that race is a Sunday night this year and years past.
It has been on Saturday, but it is a Sunday night.
Sunday night race, which is the greatest race there can be under the lights on Sunday,
because we don't have football yet.
So we'll take IndyCar under the lights at Gateway.
Chris, are you going to that one?
Yes, I am.
I am leaving very early Saturday morning.
Okay. Well, Chris will be on site for Frenchstretcher.com.
Who's joining you this weekend?
Believe it or just Wyatt.
Yeah, just Wyatt.
Oh, just Wyatt.
Just Wyatt.
Why watch at Frenchstretch.com?
Not yet.
Wyatt, who bowed out of our festivities this evening,
but we will catch him again not next week,
but the week after when IndyCar returns,
to that we are all exhausted at this point.
Final thoughts?
Anybody?
It's not hard to take you all owe me money for using that phrase.
The check's in the mail.
I wanted on my desk by tomorrow.
And a great shirt's made.
Santino Frucci brought up a point with the media bullpen
saying that the week after the 500 should be for the crews.
There's been a lot of some pushback to that from the Detroit organizers
because with the kids being in school,
this race has to be this weekend.
Otherwise people are still traveling or going to be traveling
out of the city and everything else like that.
So I've actually got to, you know,
I hate to appropriate one of the greatest literary titles of all time,
but a modest proposal for future IndyCar schedules.
I know, Alex, it's so amazing.
So if IndyCar is going to mandate that we have the week after the Indy500 for Detroit,
would it be good to have two guaranteed weeks with no races after Detroit
with one full week of no shop activity for the crews?
Formula One has their summer break,
where they have three weeks where, like,
dealing with people that go inside the building are janitors, I think, right?
Basically.
Yeah, so like, why not have a mini summer break in IndyCar where, okay,
you have one week, no mechanics, engineers, drivers, go into the shop,
everyone go do whatever for a week, and then, okay, the next Monday,
then you can bring people back in, but we still don't have another race there.
That way you have two weekends for, like, a better term at home,
and then you continue the schedule.
That is another podcast.
That might be a far.
There you go.
I would say that if IndyCar wanted to do that,
they'd have to be okay with extending the season into October.
Or having more races in April.
Or just having more races in general,
and then you can spread them further out in the calendar.
On the other hand, the contrarian in me,
yeah, you've been at the track since the Indy GP weekend,
but you were in Indianapolis.
Everybody got to sleep in their own bed.
They went home at night.
There are no teams in weird places.
They're all in Indianapolis.
Everybody got to go home.
Del Coins in Chicago, and Team Penske's in Morrisville.
Okay, well, yes, all that aside.
It's not like Front Row coming from Denver to Charlotte.
Exactly, right, yeah.
I think Penske's, although most of the IndyCar guys fly commercial.
Yes, they fly coach.
Yeah, used to be on.
I sat in first class next to Will Power,
coming back from Road America in 2018.
Oh, really?
Really?
Yeah, good trick.
Will's a good dude.
Yeah.
Okay, Team Penske, I'm sure those guys were well taken care of.
Right, they're not in a Motel 6, somewhere out in Carmel.
Yeah, I guess you could, all right.
We're five weeks in a row now, or six weeks in a row.
Let's take a week off.
Put a week between Detroit and Gateway,
and then your Gateway, and were they after Gateway?
Road America.
Road America.
So you do Gateway, Road America, back to back, like you could,
again, you could spread it out, but you've got a,
I don't think you can do it this year with the World Cup being on Fox.
Yeah, well, the other thing I was thinking of too is,
if you have two straight weekends where there's no races after Detroit,
that leaves a ma open.
Yeah.
It does.
La Ma, totally unrelated to the topic of this podcast,
but next year, La Ma and the Imsa Detroit weekend overlap.
Oh, whoops.
Uh-oh.
Spaghetti-o.
I have a test day.
Test day is the Saturday of the Imsa race.
And I believe that might be Monaco weekend too.
That is not good.
That's terrible.
So how is Imsa going to make this work?
So would that just be like a, would that just be like a GT only?
It'd have to be.
That's terrible.
Like, I know they had like the Sprint Cup for a while.
I'm not sure if it's still a thing in GTD, but like, could they make,
I know several years ago when they had Belle Isle,
they had like the Sprint Cup only round where that race did not count for the
like full-blown championship, but just kind of for the Sprint Cup.
Somebody good for a while away on the line right now.
Now wait, the Sprint Cup, was it Michigan and Brooklyn, Michigan, right?
No.
So Imsa-
Not Sprint Cup.
Okay.
So what they had, so no, no, it technically was called the Sprint Cup.
It was for GTD, the GTD class only, and it was all of the non endurance races.
So it's the two hour and 40 minute races and you had the street race in Detroit as well.
And it's, you could actually have, if a new manufacturer was coming into the GTD class
and they just wanted to do the Sprint Cup, they could do just those races and skip all the endurance
races, you know, Daytona, Sebring, Watkins Glen and Petite Le Mans, and now Road America too.
I'm not sure if it's still a thing or not.
I have to look that up on online and I'm not going to do that right now because of timing and all,
but that, ooh, if I run into John Doonan, I might have to ask him that question.
You know, they posited on the IMSA radio broadcast on Saturday that it might be an
opportunity for junior drivers to step into the GTP cars in IMSA and, you know, the factory guys
who do run WEC and are kind of that extra set of hands on those endurance races,
you know, or the other thing they suggested was there's just going to be a charter flight out of
Detroit to get to Le Mans. But still, like, can you all please, every race series in America is
governed by the same set of rules. The FIA oversees everything. Like, y'all get in a room and figure
it out, send one representative from each series and go, okay, we're having races here, here, and here.
Man, this evening sure has gone to hell, hasn't it?
Here's Le Mans, you know, and I, that's my last, last digression. I'm in the runoff.
Yeah, we didn't even mention, mention McClellan's 1,000th Grand Prix this week,
kind of sold it. That's why I got, that's why I got the ice cream because of Kimmy.
He was driving for Ferrari at the time. Detail.
Minor, minor detail. Hey, you know, we're, we're an upstanding journalistic outfit here. We do
care about the details. I could have done another kind of tribute, but I didn't go to the bathroom
doing it. And on that note, we'll say goodnight. Thank you for all our coverage of Formula 180 car,
NASCAR, ARCA, IMSA, even some cars tour and grassroots stuff on frontstretch.com, Facebook,
Instagram, I believe we're now on threads. We're over on Twitter. Check us out and tune into our
YouTube to catch all of Christopher's and Wyatt's videos from the mean streets of worldwide technology
raceway. For Alex and Chris and Michael and Peter, he's still here, but he's in the, there he is.
Excellent timing, good sir. He did say he was going to pop in as necessary. We clearly weren't
talking about anything interesting. Boys, it's been fun, a pleasure as always. And we will talk
again next week, F1 and then the week after IndyCar. Have a good one. Adios.
About this episode
Monaco takes center stage as the hosts break down why overtaking is so hard and why the weekend can hinge on qualifying. They point to rule changes like “No DRS or DRS equivalent,” plus how tight streets can nullify aero tricks and elevate traction and turbo response. The conversation also widens to the U.S. calendar—Vegas, Miami, and FIA street-circuit standards—before pivoting into IndyCar and IMSA scheduling, cautions, and strategy.
