The 2025 Formula 1 Effy Awards

It's that time of year again! The annual "Effys." Our completely non-official Formula 1 awards for best driver, best team, worst driver, worst team, best rookie, best cry, dumbest move, favorite race, and more! 

Join Patrick and Brian on the Hard Compound. Relive F1 2025 before the new season lines up. 

And as always, thank you for listening to everybody's most beloved father and son F1 podcast!  

Transcript

Brian S Hall (00:01.07)
Hey, that new drive to survive poster goes pretty hard. Got Alonzo, Charles, Lewis in. Premieres February 27th here in the U S on Netflix. Every year I get a month of Netflix just to enjoy, but this should be a good one. We got Lewis switching to Ferrari, all that drama. Warner getting fired. Championship comes down to the final race. I don't even think Netflix can screw this one up.

I think you know, there's just too much drama.

Patrick (00:32.126)
Look, I don't think they realized when they started Drive to Survive how easily they could make this show. They don't need to add any additional drama. Everything that happens in F1 just is... Maybe it's scripted. Who knows? Maybe the sport is scripted.

Brian S Hall (00:47.02)
Right, or get everything out of place.

Brian S Hall (00:56.642)
This was a good one. All are you ready to go,

Patrick (00:58.858)
I'm ready to go.

Brian S Hall (01:00.962)
Hello, welcome to Hard Compound American Take on Formula One. No race this weekend. Testing soon. We'll be in Melbourne the start of the season in about a month. March 8th, I believe. Two new teams, an 11th team. Whole new series of regulations. And already rumors that Mercedes has completely violated the regulations. And they're going to have a dominant power unit.

Patrick (01:26.7)
You

Brian S Hall (01:29.966)
Plus we get increased spending camp, no rookies this year, but lots of promise, lots of promise. Now, Patrick, son, before we focus on F1 2026, it's time to take a look back at F1 2025, our annual FE awards.

Brian S Hall (01:56.654)
Nice. All right. The Effies, our celebration of the races, the racers, the teams, the tracks. It's surprise. It's the heart crushing moments, the joyous flashes from a sport that travels around the world. All right, son, as always, the show opening went on much too long. So let's get to it. Who do you have best driver F1 2025? Who gets the best driver Effy?

Patrick (01:57.579)
haha

Patrick (02:23.02)
best driver. Wow. Jumping right into it. I don't know if the Oscars work like that, but here we are. This is the Effies. The thing everybody wants to know who is the best driver this year. Well, we've got several, I think pretty good nominations, right? Obviously Lando driver champion. What more can you say about that? Beat out his teammate.

you a little come from behind action. Pretty good, pretty good candidate. And we've got the man who's taken home this Effie in the last three years, Max. I mean, unreal this season. Probably, probably.

since this is a little bit hard to do any kind of research on. The greatest season by a non-champion ever.

Brian S Hall (03:26.702)
Right, I mean, thinking that car, was down 104 points.

Patrick (03:34.124)
I yeah, he had 93 % of his team's points. And he beat out Ferrari by himself. That's ridiculous.

Brian S Hall (03:35.287)
It is homeless.

Brian S Hall (03:42.869)
yeah, that's right.

Right, a Ferrari with Lewis Hamilton, Charles Leclerc, damn.

Patrick (03:49.756)
and basically came down to the last lap of the last race and frankly if Kimi Antonelli hadn't screwed up in the previous race Max might have won. But you know and then we have some other good candidates right we've got guys like George Russell, Leclerc had a good season.

I would even go so far as to, you know, maybe even throw signs up there just, you know, for the amount of stuff he went through and then getting two podiums for Williams this season. that's nothing to scoff at, but we can open the envelope here and, I am reading Max Verstappen as once again, the winner of the best driver, Effie. I mean,

Just an incredible season You can look back at everything that he did all of his drives I mean by halfway through the season it looked like he was Nowhere gonna be way way way way way back and I you know, even had conversations about well should he just sort of give up on the season? You know, he's doing his his fun

races on the weekends in his GP cars, you know, just getting his license. Maybe he's going to jump to a different, different, you know, motorsport series. But yeah, but he came back, stormed back and very, very nearly snatched that world driver championship when there was no reason for him to be anywhere close.

Brian S Hall (05:31.214)
Like Michael Jordan going to baseball. Yeah.

Brian S Hall (05:46.602)
It was amazing. mean, this might've been his best season ever and he did not win. He did not win the drivers' championship. mean, McLaren's stupid papaya rules, anti-competitive papaya rules helped him, but nonetheless, he shouldn't have even whiffed the championship. So I'm with you. And though they deserve to be nominated, I don't think the rest.

should have gotten the award. Landau, I had Landau, George and Charles, similar to you. I did not have Carlos. All right, best team. I've got for the nominees, McLaren, Racing Bulls. I don't know what the other thing in there. Oh, cause it's team. know, how they have to, given with what they have, what that's put together and Williams. You can always nominate somebody else, but what do you got?

Patrick (06:43.646)
Yeah, I like that. mean, McLaren definitely is pretty obvious they won everything. Racing Bulls, that's interesting. I mean, they had quite a bit of ups and downs and a couple of rookies on their team for basically the entire season and, you know, proved themselves pretty well. Yeah, I mean, halfway through the season, less than halfway through the season.

Brian S Hall (07:04.286)
swap drivers, swap team principals, right? I mean...

Brian S Hall (07:10.126)
through.

Patrick (07:12.138)
Mechies moved up to Red Bull after the whole Warner ordeal, right? So Williams I like, know, they came on strong and kind of, it was interesting. Albon sort of first half of the season was really quite impressive. And then second half of the season, was more Carlos Sainz doing all the work. I will put in another sort of...

Brian S Hall (07:16.395)
in.

Patrick (07:41.344)
bottom feeder that I thought was more impressive than I expected them to be. I'm going to throw in Haas. I think they actually acquitted themselves quite well. Oli Baerman did a great job this season. You know, we got some really solid finishes from them. They looked like a team that actually belonged in F1.

Brian S Hall (08:10.658)
Yeah, good point.

Patrick (08:10.688)
Like they weren't just middling around. So that was quite nice to see.

Brian S Hall (08:17.518)
You know, and it's funny because I think actually you're right, the Aas deserves to get nominated. I think their weakest link was O'Conn, a veteran driver who I think, you he got booted from Alpine. I don't know if he'd last beyond 2026. I mean, I just am not seeing anything from him. I thought Bearman jumped in and did better.

Patrick (08:37.994)
Yeah, I think that's fair. But, you know, that said, I think, I think naturally this has to go to the team that just swept everything, dominated basically the entire season in McLaren. Frankly, there was no reason for them.

to be basically twice as good as every other team on the grid. mean, what the hell are Red Bull for Harvey and Mercedes doing if they can't, they can't, can't be half as good as McLaren. mean, that's.

Brian S Hall (09:10.284)
Yeah, that was a surprise.

Brian S Hall (09:20.046)
Right, no one is spending more money than Mercedes. And it's their power unit. then, know, okay, a rookie can be, but George is a solid driver. And yeah, it was more than double, right? I mean, it was close. I think it was close. But it's like, how does that happen? That was, yeah, so McLaren did something right. So, all right. Okay, so yay for McLaren. I agree with that one. Best rookie.

Patrick (09:36.788)
It was close, yeah, it close.

Patrick (09:46.709)
you

Brian S Hall (09:49.976)
We talked about Olly Beerman, so we've got Hajar, Kim Antonelli, Olly Beerman, got Bordoletto. Those are our nominees.

Patrick (09:59.776)
Yeah, I mean, it's tricky. think, you know, the only other rookie there technically this year was, was Lawson and he was fine. I think got a little bit undermined by his first couple of races there at, at Red Bull.

Brian S Hall (10:19.35)
I mean, you know, Right, They are, they are. Right, they did not get nominated.

Patrick (10:20.956)
and well yeah I guess doing in Colo Pinto too but Alpine is just so shamefully embarrassing that it's tough to consider them yeah but yeah those those four Hajar, Antonelli, Behrman and Boudeletto I think at different points in the season different races all of them really proved that they had

talent that they had, speed, did some really good things. I really, you know, think that bareman proved he was actually better than his teammate Ocon, like you had mentioned. So I think that puts him up there in contention. Antonelli off and on, but you can kind of see.

If he just continues to grow and improve, he'll be a very solid driver at Mercedes. I think the most consistent though, and the driver I'm going to give this award to was Isaac Hadjar. Aside from literally the formation lap of the very first race of this season, every other thing he did during the season was quite...

good and you know definitely looked like he he belonged and and should have the seat that he does now pretty much so

Brian S Hall (12:00.748)
Yeah, I wanted to give this to Olly Behrman, but I think you're right. It belongs to Isaac Hedjar.

Patrick (12:11.052)
You

Brian S Hall (12:20.606)
Speaking of Isaac Hedjar, I'll do this one. Best cry in F1.

Patrick (12:27.98)
You

Brian S Hall (12:31.06)
I've got Isaac spinning out in the formation lap, crashing a car. His first moment in F1. How do you recover from that? Get his balling. And then I got at the end Lando winning the World Drivers Championship and his mom out there and all that stuff. I'm going to make this one and I'm going to go with Best Cry.

Brian S Hall (13:02.97)
Lando Lando because we saw all of it, you know was just Isaac was just kind of weeping in his helmet for minutes on end. So, all right, we're going to go with Lando for best cry. Best demotion. Now, our nominees are Yuki, now going to be a reserve driver. He got demoted at end of season. Liam, during the season, got demoted from Red Bull to Racing Bulls, which may have been a good thing for him.

I don't have any other nominees for this, do you?

Patrick (13:34.188)
I mean, you know, we just mentioned doing I gotta say dude He wasn't even really demoted. He was just kicked the hell out because Alpine decided they were gonna sign another rookie that had No business being

Brian S Hall (13:38.829)
too.

Brian S Hall (13:56.534)
All right. He also had no business being there. Less personality, maybe some more sponsor money though. So, and I'm not even sure about that. It's just another inexplicable LP decision.

So who do you have? Who wins best emotion?

Patrick (14:13.59)
Best demotion. Boy. I think...

Patrick (14:23.84)
This is a tough one because...

For me, it's kind of between Liam and Jack doing because they didn't even get a fair shot. know, so to me, that's like the best emotion because you just go in and you're all happy to be there and then immediately you get kicked to the curb. Yuki at least is like, well, you've had years at Racing Bowls.

Brian S Hall (14:50.318)
Okay.

Patrick (14:57.544)
And then you get basically an entire season at Red Bull and didn't do anything. you know, it's fair. It's deserved.

Brian S Hall (15:05.765)
But it's interesting because Liam, I think, is better off at racing bold than Red Bull, so that worked in his favor. Dewan is now a reserve driver for who? Is Haas? I think he's a reserve driver for Haas. And really that's probably best for him. I'm not sure he should be out there on a weekly basis, so.

Patrick (15:22.664)
haha

Patrick (15:27.69)
Yeah, I mean, it's, it's fair. They may have worked better, or more in, those drivers' favors, but I think...

I think... because...

because it happened so soon into the season because he was he was basically put in the seat over somebody else who should have already been there i'm gonna give this to Liam for best emotion he was he was named the red bull driver for the start of this season over yuki and

Brian S Hall (16:04.495)
Nice.

Ha ha ha.

Patrick (16:17.586)
Realistically, everyone realized like, yeah, Yuki is just not good enough to have that seat. So they put Liam in there and then two races in, went, you know what? Nah, nevermind. We'll put Yuki in there. What are you doing, Red Bull? That's so stupid.

Brian S Hall (16:35.93)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, oh well. Okay, your favorite moment. Now we have to keep this F1 because I don't know my favorite moment of the year in racing might have been Kubitsa. Did he win Le Mans in 2025? I think he did. Oh man, Kubitsa. That might have been my favorite moment. we're keeping it on F1. So the nominees, Nico getting on the podium at last.

after 239th race he made it out of the podium. You mentioned this earlier. Sines. Sines got booted out of Ferrari. All the ladies loved Carlos Sines and that did not help him. He still got booted out and he had a tough time finding a seat. Finally had to go to Lowell Williams. Boom.

Lewis Hamilton gets nothing at Ferrari. Carlo signs at Williams. Two podiums, in fact. Love it. And then it's not a single race or single moment, but Land O's championship run, the second half of the season. So our favorite moment. guess maybe that's, yeah. I'm kind of playing a little fast and loose here.

Patrick (17:45.323)
favorite moment.

Patrick (17:50.028)
Yeah, I mean all of those are quite good nominees. I

I think probably the single most exciting moment that pretty much all F1 fans loved was Hulk getting his first podium. And so I'm going to say that was probably

at the very least, the most loved moment of the F1 season.

Brian S Hall (18:34.542)
Right, right, right. There were a few hardcore Lewis fanatics who were like, man, Lewis didn't get an appointment with Silverstone. I'm like, shut the hell up. You know, he almost prevented Hulk from making it.

Patrick (18:44.733)
Yeah.

Patrick (18:49.034)
So I think, you know, that's gonna be...

Patrick (18:58.12)
I think that'll be sort of in most people's memories as easily like the best moment of the season.

Brian S Hall (19:08.366)
Here's a big one. Worst driver. Now, my nominees include Lance Stroll, Franco Colapinto, and Jack Dewan. I do not have Esteban Ocon on there, but the nominees are still open. There's still time to get your nominations in. So, but I have Lance Stroll, Franco Colapinto, Jack Dewan.

Patrick (19:13.771)
Oof.

Patrick (19:28.022)
Ha

Patrick (19:32.53)
boy, let's see. Lance Stroll, that's fair.

Brian S Hall (19:37.632)
And surprise, none of them are showing up to accept this award.

Patrick (19:40.67)
Yeah.

Patrick (19:44.14)
You know?

I, the only other nominee that I'll put in there and feel maybe a little bit bad about this, I'm putting in Yuki. Lowly Yuki. I mean...

He wanted that Red Bull seat so bad, so bad. He got so upset when Liam Lawson was given the seat and And then, there you go, Yuki. Couple races into the season, here you go, it's your seat now, you're welcome. And then he proceeded to score like nine points or something like that throughout the rest of the season. I mean, oof.

Brian S Hall (20:22.848)
Ha

Brian S Hall (20:28.246)
Yeah, it was awful. That was brutal. Oof. Yeah, that was brutal.

Patrick (20:36.364)
So... I... I mean...

Patrick (20:43.872)
This is a tough one.

You know, we're gonna have to go with...

We're gonna have to go with the...

Colapinto on this one, I think. I mean, not only did he steal somebody else's seat for no good reason, he then proceeded to score zero points, never even with the points. And, you know, it was a terrible team. It was a terrible team. But guess what? Pierre Gasly scored like 20 some points or whatever it was.

Brian S Hall (21:15.618)
RIP IT

Brian S Hall (21:26.51)
I think that's a good one because Colapinto got brought in and still did nothing. So, all right, worst driver. Yeah, Franco Colapinto. Worst team here the nominees, Kick Salver. I do want to Kick Salver. Yeah, even the name is horrible. They've just been so bad for so long. They're gone now, but Alpine. I mean Alpine.

Patrick (21:27.996)
So

Brian S Hall (21:54.914)
Do the newer fans know that that's Renault? Do they know the history of Renault and Formula One? I mean this is just, you know, this is just horrible. And then our surprise nominee, Ferrari. Ferrari has Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc. And it's Ferrari. And they basically, outside of the marketing stuff, were a non-factor. I mean just nothing. had...

I they came in in China fifth and sixth, and then they were double disqualified for being, I think it was overweight or was, yeah. And you can't even cheat even when it's Ferrari and it's cheating. You still don't even, you fifth and sixth, big, you know, so I have to nominate Ferrari as worst team. So Ferrari, Alpine and kicks out.

Patrick (22:31.073)
He

Patrick (22:46.036)
Yeah, well, that's a fair. Those are fair nominees, I think. All of them proved to be a frustrating watch, I think, this season. mean, Ferrari should have been, should have been within touching distance of the top as they were last year. Lewis Hamilton didn't even get on the podium a single time.

Leclerc only went to this season. mean, look, that is not good enough for Ferrari.

Brian S Hall (23:24.214)
And it's not like they have Ocon and Colapinto driving for them. You know? I mean...

Patrick (23:27.819)
Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, that's tough. You got two very good drivers. You know, one of them will inevitably, once he retires, be considered among the greatest of all time. Already is, I guess. And yeah, that's tough luck for Ferrari. They looked nowhere this whole season. Sauber. I mean, I don't know if anybody expected much from them.

And I think there were a few moments throughout the season where we went, wow, good job. Obviously the Hulk podium, you know, Bordoletto a couple of times. Well, wow, he's pretty, you know, it was pretty good. So I think they were not a good team, but better than Alpine.

Brian S Hall (24:10.68)
Right.

Patrick (24:27.756)
Alpine I think is the clear winner here because of, inner team strife, turmoil, terrible on track performance, just an embarrassment in basically every way. So there are.

Brian S Hall (24:31.039)
Oof.

Patrick (24:52.224)
You know, they've basically been selling off bits and pieces of the team for several years now to different investment groups. So I don't even know really who the fuck owns the team anymore. and we'll, so we'll see. Yeah, we'll see, what happens in the future, but this year, this was easily the worst team as shown by.

Brian S Hall (25:08.31)
I'll it more than maybe soon.

Patrick (25:20.78)
you know, the final constructor standings. Uh, Pierre Gasly was the lone bright spot. And by bright, mean a dim flicker. Uh, so this was, yeah, I think by a long shot, Alpine wins this award for worst team of the 2025 season.

Brian S Hall (25:45.454)
I gave it to him in poor PR guys. He's like, he's one of those guys that's like in the NFL that would be like an offensive lineman on a bad team with no quarterback, no running back. just getting his ass beat every game, every week for no reason. You know, to take the paycheck. That's it. It's like, dear Lord, can I get on a good team?

Patrick (26:02.06)
You

Brian S Hall (26:07.758)
Alright, best race.

or I should say favorite race. I've got two nominees here. I Montreal. Georgia, Kimmy both get on the podium. It was a fun race. Lando hits his teammate and then Silverstone. That's always fun. Lando, Brick got, got the home win. Hulk made it on the podium. Lewis somehow getting that garbage car. it was in the fourth.

Patrick (26:25.809)
Brian S Hall (26:40.366)
And then I think soon after, Warner gets fired. So all of that was fun. Those were my nominees for favorite race.

Patrick (26:49.79)
Alright, well, here's two more.

Brian S Hall (26:55.47)
Ooh.

Patrick (26:58.188)
Late season race, Brazil. Uh, we had plenty of battles, plenty of craziness. Uh, Bordoletto first ever home race and F1, uh, has a first lap crash with Lance Stroll. Right. Just utter, utter shame and frustration. Uh, we had, uh,

Brian S Hall (27:17.708)
Yeah, right, Yes, I remember now, yes.

Patrick (27:25.632)
Behrman and Hulkenberg battling constantly. Piastri in his dire attempts to stop Lando from winning this drivers championship. He, Piastri knows he let it slip through his fingers. He takes out Antonelli and Leclerc in turn three, maybe.

Brian S Hall (27:48.68)
No.

Patrick (27:53.47)
After basically he fell behind Lando at the start. We had Lawson, Kenny and Max all battling with each other, hitting each other, taking each other out.

Brian S Hall (28:09.243)
I think Mag started in Pitt, something like that.

Patrick (28:12.254)
He did, yeah. Yeah. I mean, and, then he stormed all the way back into the podium positions. mean, just an incredible drive from him to keep within touching distance of that drivers championship. was, that was, just lots of crazy things happening in that race. And because it's so late on in the season, quite meaningful. and then I've got Baku.

Brian S Hall (28:29.326)
You may have convinced me here.

Patrick (28:42.422)
first Science podium of the season. Max, Max, George and Carlos on the podium there. When Oscar.

Brian S Hall (28:46.026)
over here and that's

Right, and then the McLaren's or no was Oscar Piastra. Yes. Yes, because actually I have something about him.

Patrick (28:55.436)
was like, yeah, just crashed on lap one. mean, I don't know what he was doing at the start. Fell all the way back at the start trying to make it up and just went straight off and crashed. We had both Mercedes drivers fighting each other. We had Lawson and Sunoda battling each other.

Brian S Hall (29:01.356)
All right.

I think we said DePaul McGrogan, yeah.

Brian S Hall (29:12.622)
also good ones.

Patrick (29:22.124)
and and keeping Lando behind them so that he couldn't storm up to to take a podium off of Carlos Sainz and we had three of the four red bulls two red bulls and racing bulls or I forget but three of them were in the top six of this race Baku always fun always crazy

So those are my two nominees.

Brian S Hall (29:52.332)
Nice. Nice. So who do you got? Since you've made the case, who do you have this winningness?

Patrick (29:57.42)
I think the most kind of chaotic and exciting race with a weird podium, I guess, I'm going to go with Baku. I think that was one of the fun ones.

Brian S Hall (30:18.382)
Thanks.

Brian S Hall (30:23.702)
Awesome. That was a surprise win. That's a surprise win. That was like when that British movie where the old guys are just running around beat out Reds in the Oscars way back in the day. Do a drive? I would nominate for me, Olly Behrman getting Pete Ford for Haas. That was in Mexico.

Lando like I said, I mentioned this earlier Hitting his teammate in Montreal. That was that was one of my fun max and Brazil the pit lane start Made it to be three as you mentioned before. I'm like, hey somehow he is still in this now. How is that possible? Brazil late season in that bad car pit lane start

Brian S Hall (31:19.436)
I don't know, that thing was my nominees for that one.

Patrick (31:23.252)
Nice. I would also nominate George Russell in Singapore. Just absolutely dominating.

dominating that race, just basically obliterating the field. Nobody came close. And I think that sort of solidified his, his.

just sort of overall.

dominance or control of the Mercedes team. So I thought that was great. And then maybe a little bit of a surprise, but I will go with Charles Euclare in Monaco. Home race, crazy, and Ferrari was just not very fast.

Brian S Hall (32:18.37)
Yeah, that's always nice to see. Yeah.

Patrick (32:28.608)
But Leclerc was very fast and almost, almost for I think second season in a row, came, yeah, he came very close to winning that race just behind Lando. Lando had to do everything in his power basically to hold off Leclerc. I mean, that was one of the better podiums of the season, I think so.

Brian S Hall (32:58.658)
Yep, yeah, we're rooting for Charles.

Patrick (32:59.506)
I those are all good nominees. And I don't know if we even mentioned Hulk's podium, but that was another great one. For this particular award, I think my favorite performance was Olly Bareman in Mexico in that Haas.

Best ever finish for Haas and best ever finish for Oli.

Brian S Hall (33:28.79)
awesome

Brian S Hall (33:34.836)
Awesome. That's a good one. I'm glad we did that one. Most embarrassing performance. Now we've already touched on these. Oscar and Baku. I mean, crashed out in qualifying. It's the one race. Hedger, formation lap in Melbourne. Those are the two main. And then surprise nominee. This somewhat skirts the rules.

Joshua Pierce, the old man, gets bested by, I'm sorry, Joshua Pierce beats the old man. Sonny Hayes, and I've won the movie.

Brian S Hall (34:14.87)
So that would be embarrassing for Sonny Hayes, but the way they worked it, was kind of like, I don't know, did you let him do that? You know, I don't know. So those are my three nominees.

Patrick (34:24.906)
Yeah, well, I,

The F1 movie is a little confusing.

Brian S Hall (34:31.34)
No, no, I am confusing it. it was, it was, what was his name? Joshua Pierce was bested by Sonny Hays. That's right, that's right. Never just, didn't even walk down and get a seat. Forget the Super License points, forget anything about that.

Patrick (34:43.5)
He's like a he was like a 45 year old man supposedly That yeah, he hasn't raced in Formula One in decades basically has a bad back and He just kind of wants is in there and I Mean to be fair it wasn't only

Brian S Hall (34:49.11)
Right, right, right.

Brian S Hall (34:54.734)
Alright.

Patrick (35:10.858)
joshua pierce that got bested by this whole man it was literally the entire fucking grid was just embarrassed by this guy

Brian S Hall (35:12.846)
That's true. That's true. Olive F1. It's funny because I've seen the movie now twice, but it's just so ridiculous that I'm always confused. You know, like, wait, what is he doing? You know, like, it's like, just forget the rules. And it's funny because they bypass the rules only enough to just sort of like...

bug you. You know, I guess you could, guess you could, you know, but it's never happened. That's never happened, you know.

Patrick (35:44.04)
Yeah, well it's just like it's just like if I mean you mentioned Kubitsa earlier it's like if Kubitsa in 15 years came back to race in Formula One and then beat the shit out of everybody you go my god that's incredible wow what a talent you're like well this is stupid this is never gonna happen what are you talking about

Brian S Hall (35:56.238)
Right.

Brian S Hall (36:00.414)
Right, right,

Brian S Hall (36:08.142)
Right, right. This is true. This is true, right? So let me, because I just, the whole movie, just, he just sort of waltzes in. So I'm always confused because I try to apply F1 logic and rules to it. And I know it's Hollywood, but some of it is just like, well, this is just like, you know, I'm like, okay, let's say I didn't know anything about F1. Like, does anybody think, well, this is weird. He's way older than him.

And he hasn't driven in this for years and they have no money. also he just somehow keeps crashing. But they will rebuild the car and he somehow wins it. And like, I don't even know how any of this happens. know, I think it was taking maybe Sergio's victory from years ago. anyway, that's funny. All right. So most embarrassing performance. Joshua Pierce and the whole rest of the F1 field.

Patrick (36:56.812)
You

Brian S Hall (37:06.388)
loses to Sonny Hayes, Oscar's performance in Baikoo, and Hedger's performance in Melbourne. Most embarrassing.

Patrick (37:17.084)
boy. You know? You know what? I'm gonna add another one to this list because you already mentioned it. And it's not a driver, it's a team, the double disqualification in China by Ferrari. Because how embarrassing is that? I mean, I mean, obviously,

Brian S Hall (37:24.878)
Hmm.

Brian S Hall (37:36.93)
Right.

Brian S Hall (37:42.018)
Let's cheat to come in P5.

Patrick (37:45.696)
What was it Vegas where McLaren had a double D disqualification as well, but they had already wrapped everything up. mean, not the, not the drivers championship at that point, but like realistically they weren't too worried about anything. Ferrari was garbage and

didn't race particularly well in that race and then still got disqualified. So quite a disappointment for them. All that said, I gotta say...

Patrick (38:29.224)
Maybe the most embarrassing performance I'll give to Hajar. Formation lap race one and just goes off, crashes, gets out of the car, cries for like 10-15 minutes. I mean, the kid, that was a tough start to the season.

Brian S Hall (38:41.614)
It was, yes.

Brian S Hall (38:49.422)
You

camera following him.

Brian S Hall (38:56.608)
It wouldn't, and I know it wouldn't, it's like, it could be definitely his third race, know, it was formation lap of the first race.

Patrick (39:04.14)
He didn't even start the first race. Yeah.

Brian S Hall (39:07.478)
Yeah, my goodness, how you come back from that is, that's something.

Brian S Hall (39:15.182)
Alright, switching to the soft compound. Biggest failure of the year. My nominees. This is a good one. This is going to be controversial. Red Bull number two driver. That would be you, Geroleam. Ferrari. I mean, it's Ferrari and they were basically relevant. Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari. And then Dooham. Check Dooham. Get him.

Patrick (39:39.424)
oof

Brian S Hall (39:44.984)
booted out of F1 temporarily and Liam Lawson. Those are my nominees.

Patrick (39:52.97)
Alright, I... That's good. That's good. Biggest failure of the year.

Brian S Hall (39:55.566)
I'm gonna you pick the winner there.

Patrick (40:05.622)
We were so close to having a Lando on this list, but... We don't. I- I mean...

This is a tough one. This is a tough one. And I think it's between... I think it is between the two Ferrari parts that you mentioned. Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari or just Ferrari as a whole. And...

Because... Because I want to give Lewis the benefit of the doubt, I'm gonna go with Ferrari as a whole. was the biggest failure of the year. I mean, they got beat by Max alone. And then obviously came in third, or in fourth, in the Constructors' Championship. I mean, they regressed by quite a lot.

Brian S Hall (40:53.538)
Yeah.

Brian S Hall (41:11.116)
Right. The final year of the regulations, they regressed that much. I would have, but only because I'm cheating and incorporating potential future information into this. I would've gone with Lewis because it's like, I don't know. What if Ferrari, they started these new regulations, does once again have a dominant power unit. mean, whew, Lewis left that behind. Damn. Oof. All right. Bye. I kind of agree with you, Ferrari. Saddest goodbye.

Patrick (41:39.382)
Hehehe.

Brian S Hall (41:39.564)
And that one I think is never truly a goodbye because some of these folks are still around or might be. But my nominees are Yuki, Helmut Markle, and Christian Horner, all connected to Red Bull.

Patrick (41:50.791)
You

Patrick (41:55.045)
yeah. saddest goodbye. You're not gonna put ESPN on there?

Brian S Hall (42:02.728)
that's a good one. Yeah. So in the U.S., we no longer will have ESPN. Just rebroadcasting the Sky Sports coverage. And then there are 23 hours of sports news every day and there's like four seconds of F1 news in there. So, yeah, it's not a sad goodbye. It's more like a goodbye.

Patrick (42:10.299)
Yeah.

Patrick (42:18.41)
Yeah, it's not a Sackabyte. Honestly, I am not sure that I'm particularly saddened by any of these, although I think the implication of

the Horner firing is a little bit sad and that, you know.

he was sort of the the last well him and helmet maybe the last sort of pillars of the the old f1 if you will that was just like

Brian S Hall (43:09.891)
Yeah.

Patrick (43:13.644)
a fun kind of gritty pick yourself up by the bootstrap sort of sport and not like the the corporate powerful like money hungry growth centered sort of sport endeavor that it is now

Brian S Hall (43:23.064)
Right, right.

Brian S Hall (43:41.71)
Yeah, no, I think that's a great point.

Patrick (43:44.212)
So for me, not that I'm necessarily sad about him leaving or Helmut leaving or whatever, but I think, yeah, those, the,

the implication of it and the sort of nature of the sport has changed. And I think that is maybe a little bit sad to see go.

Brian S Hall (44:14.786)
mean, here we have Cadillac dropping half a billion just for the seat at the table. know, Horner is there where it's like, hey, Red Bull guy, he's like, hey, let's buy the Ford is selling its Jaguar team for a dollar. We'll figure out how to get a wind tunnel. We'll figure out how to get an engine. We'll figure out how to put a team together. We'll figure out how to get a bunch of bad ass lads together and build a car and boom. It paid off. Yeah, those days are gone. So that's a great point.

Patrick (44:20.99)
Yeah.

Brian S Hall (44:46.157)
our dirty air segment.

Dumbest move. Ferrari paying Lewis a hundred million a year approximately and then he trash talks the team all year doesn't make a podium. Real smart business move there Ferrari. Another dumb move nominee. Lewis leaving Mercedes for Ferrari. A little bit more money, a little bit less work, less PR work. But Mercedes and Lewis, should be, you know.

Patrick (44:57.516)
You

Brian S Hall (45:20.078)
Ugh, Red Bull firing Horner. That, I don't know, Mechies did kind of turn it around. I don't want to say turned it around. They didn't win anything, but Mike got better. And another Ferrari nominee, Ferrari not firing Fred Visser.

Patrick (45:40.128)
Oof.

Brian S Hall (45:40.302)
So, that's pretty much all my nominees.

Patrick (45:48.01)
to move.

Patrick (45:53.79)
Yeah, I mean, I kinda, it's gotta be. It's gotta be.

Patrick (46:01.98)
something to do with Ferrari because I mean obviously Ferrari is is sort of you know the big the big club they're they're the team that everybody talks about you know they're the the golden standard basically in in f1

And man, they, they were bad. They were bad this year. And there were a lot of reasons I think that they were bad. And, you know, Lewis has been sort of the gold standard in F1 for, as a driver for the last, you know, 15 years, basically. and

Brian S Hall (46:31.374)
I know and

Patrick (46:55.966)
He was supposed to come in and I'm not sure that anybody necessarily expected him to win a championship or anything like that in the first year, but I think they certainly expected better on track performance and definitely did not anticipate him just trashing the team as consistently as he did.

Brian S Hall (47:25.358)
Friday.

Patrick (47:26.39)
that I think the expectation was for him to come in and be that brand ambassador. And, you know, sell Ferrari as this incredible, you know, fashionable, striking, like Italian team. And he did not. So I think they, they got to, they got to work on that internally with their team.

But for now, because Mercedes wasn't that great either this year, to be fair. Maybe next year, who's to say. But I'm going to go with Ferrari bringing in Lewis, paying him an absolute ton of money and then having, you know, your newest

brand ambassador basically dump on your team for most of this season. yeah, that one, that one seems pretty dumb right now. So.

Brian S Hall (48:42.382)
How about best surprise? This is a good season F1 2025 and there were a lot of good surprises. Some bad surprises. I mean, Horn getting fired was a surprise, but there was some writing on the wall there. Liam getting demoted after two races, bit of a surprise, but this is Red Bull. Newly to Aston Martin.

That news broke during the season, I believe. That was a big surprise. My formal nominees though, for big a surprise, how good the rookies were overall. mean, doing that job, Cole Pinto didn't do anything, but overall the rookies, rookies in that one, you bypass a few moments like Hedge Art Melbourne that we talked about. They were good. Abu Dhabi, end of the season. There's still technically three drivers.

who could win the championship.

I mean, for me, those were the two big good, surprising stories. There were so many rookies, like in 2026, there's no rookies. were a number of who's, no, you're right, for racing bulls, Lynn Vlad, yep. But you know, all these rookies and then the championship coming down to the final race, and there's actually three in theory could win it.

Patrick (49:57.13)
Arvid. Yeah.

Patrick (50:12.638)
Yeah, those are good. I think there were there were quite a few, you know, good surprises like

Patrick (50:29.148)
you know, the Hulk podium. That was a surprise, but fun. You could say science getting more podiums than Lewis. pretty big surprise. And, and you could, you could say that was a good surprise or a bad surprise depending on your perspective, but, it was quite surprising.

Brian S Hall (50:34.04)
Yeah, that's true.

Brian S Hall (50:42.99)
How did I not nominate that? of course.

Brian S Hall (50:50.126)
Right.

Brian S Hall (50:56.174)
In fact, yeah, because Carlos getting two podiums with Williams is a surprise. Him getting booted from Ferrari so Lewis Hamilton can have that seat and getting the two podiums with Williams and Lewis getting nothing. You're right. That's that's that belongs up here.

Patrick (50:56.921)
I think nobody would have anticipated that.

Patrick (51:17.622)
mean, yeah, there's a lot more for sure, but I would say those are the podium kind of finishers this season. think that's quite surprising.

Patrick (51:36.788)
I-I-I-of all of those... I mean... I think...

Patrick (51:45.446)
it's tough because I think all of that is a lot of fun and and I think potentially the best surprise and what kept people most intrigued throughout the season was the fact that three drivers were in contention at the end of the season and depending on, you know,

What happened in that last race? Any, and you know, anything can happen. I think a lot of, a lot of drivers were quite nice and overly compliant in that race. But the fact that any one of those three could have come away with the drivers championship at the end of that race was, very cool. I think, you know, was, was one of the big reasons why.

the season as a whole was interesting to many many people so that's my that's my winner

Brian S Hall (52:53.922)
No, I agree. Best surprise. We came down to the final race and there were three drivers who could have won. All right. That wraps up this year's Effies. We are looking forward to the first race of 2026 in Milburn on March 8th.

Brian S Hall (53:14.208)
Any crazy predictions, Patrick?

Patrick (53:17.32)
any crazy predictions.

Brian S Hall (53:19.406)
for this upcoming season.

Patrick (53:22.9)
Well, here's my outrageous predictions. I'm going to say Antonelli finishes above George.

and McLaren finishes P4.

Brian S Hall (53:44.302)
Those are both big ones. Those are both good ones, Patrick. Antonelli finishes ahead of his teammate, George Russell. Wow, that would be something. And McLaren down to P4. Oof. Mine will be that second, that second seat at Red Bull. That's like Dead Man Walking, but not this year, not in 2026.

Isaac Hadjar flourishes. Doesn't beat up Max, but he does very well. He's too good. He's too young to know any better. It's a new card, new rules. This is not Ricardo or Yuki or Liam or Albon. I think it's a whole new world and Isaac Hadjar at Red Bull will flourish. All right. I want to thank you all for listening to everybody's most beloved father and son F1 podcast. It is much appreciated.

We are lights out.

Patrick (54:45.152)
See ya. Thanks for listening.

Brian S Hall (54:50.944)
Alright, that was a good show son and I have an idea for a second show. Mostly might just be me talking if you're up for it. Give me a few minutes, alright? Alright, see you around.

Patrick (54:59.454)
Mm-hmm.

Alrighty.