A Scooby Doo Mystery at the 2026 British Grand Prix

No yellow flag violation. An errant umbrella. A most peculiar safety car software glitch. And who was that mysterious fellow hawking his new book? Well, gang. It looks like we've got another F1 mystery on our hands. Join Brian and Patrick on the Hard Compound to uncover exactly what happened at the 2026 British Grand Prix. 

As always, there's plenty more. 

• Where does Max Verstappen end up after Red Bull? 
• Will the American takeover of Formula 1 put an end to the European summer break? 
• What's worse, World Cup VAR orF1 AI?
• And who in F1 gets the Caitlin Clark treatment? 

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

Transcript

Brian (00:02.071)
Man, I was hoping Lewis would get a penalty for that yellow flag infringement. Lewis's podium at Silverstone. And not because I I wish any ill about Lewis, as if that would matter. But man, can you imagine the Brits, the fans? The the the consp the conspiracy theories? God that would been great.

Patrick (00:20.494)
You

Brian (00:22.498)
And it I mean just it all would add up it ends under safety car. Louis with inference. Then there was a safety car error message, you know. There w there was some umbrella thing earlier that did cause a little bit of chaos. A freaking umbrella, of course, in England. But man, that would have been great. I I I I need a I need we need a mystery, you know? You know? Us Scoobies, we need a mystery. All right, you ready to go, son?

Patrick (00:45.503)
yeah.

I'm ready to go.

Brian (00:50.052)
Hello, welcome to Hard Compound FC with your host Brian and Patrick. Silverstone, England, race nine. Charles Leclair, finally, first winning since 2024. Damn. Robbed us of an all-British podium. Love seeing Charles there, up there. Okay, Patrick's son, who gets the flowers for the British Grand Prix?

Patrick (01:14.114)
Yeah, that pretty good from Charles. He's now got the same number wins as Lewis this season. He's got just one less win than George this season. Which, I don't know, is that good for Charles or bad for George? Who's to say? But I think, you know, he really needed a bounce back and I think he did pretty well. It wasn't looking so great on Friday.

Brian (01:31.343)
Yeah.

Patrick (01:43.882)
and early Saturday, but when it really counted his qualifying, his race qualifying was very good. Obviously beat out Lewis by a little bit there. And then he pretty much led from start to finish more or less in the race. Who's to say what would happen if

Brian (02:05.709)
Basically.

Patrick (02:12.311)
Kimmy didn't have a suspension failure or whatever it was. but other than Kimmy, which I feel like we say this pretty much every weekend, you know, nobody else was actually really matching LeClair. Antonelli this season has been insane. He's just by far the fastest basically everywhere. It seems like.

which has been super impressive to watch. And again, he was pretty much here as well. You know, he's still young and then some things go against him that are out of his control and you know, stuff happens. But I think on the whole LeClair had best Sunday of anybody, obviously top step of the podium, but to have that kind of bounce back after.

The last few races was really important, I think.

Brian (03:12.333)
Yeah. I mean, and Kimmy Antonelli, he sometimes has these episodes where he's a little bit petulant, but he's nineteen and he's in a race, you know. I mean, really he's looking I still think Max is the best driver in the grid, but but he's looking really good and seasoned beyond his years. It's it's it's it's been really impressive to watch him overall this year.

Georgia's first podium at Silverstone though. That caught me by surprise. I I hadn't really thought of that. They had never been on the podium in Silverstone. I was a bit bit shocked by that. Similarly, we had predicted, or I had predicted, I think it was after the Canadian Grand Prix. Because Kimmy was on a roll. And I was thinking, you know what? Charles has eight wins, Oscar has nine.

I think Kimmy gets the ten wins before either of them. But now Charles and Oscar are both at nine. We don't know. Ferrari's looking good. The last few weeks. It it hasn't worked out perfectly for them in any race for the whole team. But this was close. I mean, you know, we had Charles and Lewis both on the podium. Ferrari looked pretty decent all weekend. Mercedes were nine races in. They still have

Patrick (04:11.277)
You

Brian (04:37.961)
various reliability issues. It it's it's looking it's looking good this season.

Patrick (04:44.605)
Yeah, I mean, it's definitely looking a lot better, a lot more promising than last season was for Ferrari. It's been fun, I think, to kind of watch the season as a whole at the front. I think everyone is sort of aware Mercedes absolutely has the upper hand on essentially every track, but Ferrari is close enough to cause a lot of problems.

If they get their deployment strategies right, if they get, you know, a few things that go well for them. And then if, you know, Charles and Lewis are driving well, that puts a lot of pressure on Mercedes. And I think we've seen that over the last several races, right? We've had two Ferrari wins in the last three races, I want to say. so they're obviously looking pretty good. They're still a ways.

back in the overall constructor standings but to watch them be able to battle at the front and we're not just seeing the two Mercedes drivers run away at the front like we were you know from 2014 to 2019 and then just those two battle it out this has been a lot a lot more fun to watch so to all you haters

Brian (06:00.419)
Yeah.

Brian (06:10.005)
Yeah, it hasn't I've Right, right. I've always yeah, we got all these haters meeting that's well we've too much hybrid, that's not it's artificial, it shouldn't have passed. There's battery management. It's like you know in in just I'm not even talking the distant past. Like you were saying in twenty fourteen to twenty twenty practically it was like Mercedes doesn't see who

they don't see anybody because they they they win qualifying and they take off and it's Hamilton and it's Botas and we never they it was that way every race for years. I mean I think that's really the only mark on Lewis Hamilton is he has all those championships under Mercedes when the car was like look if it wasn't for you or if it wasn't you, Botas would have won those. You know, that's how good that car was.

Alright, let's look at the driver standings real quick. Kimmy, 179. He still is in the lead despite zero points. George 154. But there's 13 races to go. That's that's you know, that's doable. Also doable. Lewis Hamilton, 147. Then Charles Bitmore back, 108.

Lando and Oscar, ninety seven, eighty two. Max is at seventy six. Max is in seventh place. I mean, I know he's pushing the hell out that car.

I don't know. I mean is this is this the end of the Max Red Bull relationship? Is he has he had enough? Where is he gonna go?

Patrick (07:44.418)
Well, mean, he's, I think the relationship has been deteriorating for some time. At least that's what it seemed like. And I think that's a lot of that is due to kind of the dissolution of that sort of like, I don't know what to call it, but you know, the click that was there at Red Bull with Horner and

Brian (08:12.718)
Yeah.

Patrick (08:13.897)
Nui and you know Helmut and everybody right and that is all gone so everything that Max knew at Red Bull is all gone. I don't know if anybody listens to him anymore. I don't know if he even wants to any feedback or anything like that at this point so it kind of doesn't seem like it at least not in a lot of the radio messages that we get to hear and some of the

Brian (08:15.993)
G P

Patrick (08:43.445)
You know, press conferences that he gives, he kind of just says everything is shit, right? It's like, well, that's not really helpful, right? We had this conversation about Lewis last year. It's like, that's maybe not helpful. That's not really pushing the team forward. That's not getting you anywhere. so I think, you know, it feels like his, sort of relationship with, with,

Brian (09:00.215)
Right, just complaining.

Patrick (09:12.553)
management at Red Bull is not ideal at this point. We'll see where all that goes. You know, there's been plenty of rumors already starting up about him in talks with McLaren. So we'll see if any of that pans out. I can't imagine McLaren being like, yeah, Max, come join Lando, you know, our golden boy. Like, really?

Brian (09:39.915)
Right, right. Funny.

Brian (09:44.026)
For starters, I think some of Max's criticism, well, I mean hey, divas are gonna diva. I get it, and he wants the best car. Okay, so push for that, of course. Lewis Hamilton is doing that at Ferrari. But the fact that and also it wasn't lost on me this week again, a wing issue, boom, he's out of the race while Horner is there, you know, shaking hands, talking about his new book, you know, like

the best team principal in history. I mean, Max has gotta say what's going on here. Although then to be fair to Red Bull though, Mackeys has only been there a year, essentially. Ford Ford Red Bull power was a works team. This is it. This is their very first entry. I think that's, you know, pretty damn impressive. I know Max disagrees. But yeah, you mentioned him joining McLaren.

Todo does not want drama and has already locked up George and Kimmy. Max Max has got baggage. He's gonna bring Joe's. He's he's gonna, you know, and and Jos is gonna bitch. Yos is gonna constantly try and get more for his boy. I understand that, but Toto doesn't want that. You know. Lewis Hamilton's dad was kind of a quiet presence. Yos for stopping is not. Ferrari, I mean, unless Lewis were to shock us and retire.

Patrick (11:05.069)
You

Brian (11:11.843)
They want Lewis and Leclerc. And you know, Max is gonna he's gonna kinda outshine the brand a bit. Then so next you think, okay, well then it's McLaren, obviously. But like you pointed out, Lando's their golden boy. Zach Brown absolutely does not like Yos for stopping. I don't think he likes Max terribly, you know. So where is he gonna go if not Red Bull? And you're now at the four team, so that's Red Bull. So where is he gonna go?

Patrick (11:38.976)
Yeah, I think the only, I think everyone just sort of assumes like, Max is just going to follow GP, right? Like his, his race engineer to McLaren. It's like, well, Max is his own person and I don't think that he fits in at McLaren. Like the way people just sort of expect it to happen. So yeah, I think.

Brian (11:48.887)
Right.

Patrick (12:05.889)
I don't know where he goes. I almost think, you know, he's like, well, I just won't race in F1 for a little bit, maybe. Who's to say?

Brian (12:16.259)
Maybe he could say that, but you know, I mean to me Mac's not an F1. That's that's Michael Jordan playing baseball. It's like, sure, you can be fine elsewhere, but that's that's not where you're gonna shine. What's the point? I also thought it was interesting this week when you start looking at all the young young drivers, how well they did, you know, s a long while ago you mentioned how with these new cars, new regulations, the the advancement of technologies and materials, computing

and just the way of the world, that we're moving away in Formula One from that fighter pilot, like a Max Verstappen, and more into the younger, sort of well connected engineer, the from fighter pilot to space shuttle engineer. And I I mean it results seem to be bearing this out. These young guys, you know, th they seem to be figuring out these cars, not

losing out to their veteran teammates. Hadjar is you know, I mean he's he he he's not beating Max, but he's hanging.

Patrick (13:26.775)
Yeah, I mean, it's been a lot of fun to see and watch some of the young guys and how they're performing. you know, I don't know exactly what it is. Maybe it is that there is some...

innate ability to adapt more quickly from kind of younger, less experienced drivers to this sort of new

driving style, I guess. So, you know, that may very well be the case or, you know, just kind of the, the stubborn nature of, of some of the veteran drivers. I'm not sure exactly what it is, but it's, it's kind of fascinating to see how a lot of these results are, are kind of, I guess, showing us.

who really is capable of adapting more quickly or better than others. you know, it's been quite interesting to see. think Lewis is sort of the one driver where you go, wow, I maybe didn't expect him to be able to adapt as quickly as he has to these types of...

kind of, or this driving style. It seems like so many others are finding it difficult and just sort of complaining to no end, but maybe he got all of his complaints out last season and now he's over it and he's just getting on with it, so.

Brian (15:09.913)
Right, right. Right, right.

Yeah. But yeah, like for example, Alonzo has been just complaining he he doesn't like these rules, he doesn't like these regulations. And I feel for him it's like he's from the old school, you know. He he's the fighter pilot. He's he he he's he doesn't want to be the space shuttle engineer, you know, the scientist in the back seat just sort of looking out a window. and

I mean geez, I it's hard to blame him given that car. I mean, there's really no excuses for how bad Aston Martin is. I mean they're just terrible, but it is interesting, you know, wow, seeing how the the dinosaurs adapt and evolve to this to this new world. Let me look at team standings real quick. Mercedes, 333. It seems at this point they can only beat themselves. Ferrari, 255.

Patrick (15:50.157)
Hahaha

Brian (16:10.041)
McLaren 179. Red Bull way back 128. Then Alpine at 60. But look at Racing Bulls, the young guys. How about that? At 59. Just a point back. Huh, weird. Every every Ford Red Bull driver this week got points except for Max.

Patrick (16:32.333)
That might be the second time this season that that has happened. But yeah, mean, some of these, some of these results are pretty cool to see, especially given how last season went. you know, you get a big regulations change and look, a whole lot of shakeup happens. So that's kind of neat. But yeah, Mercedes out front, there's basically no way that

Brian (16:35.009)
Yeah.

Patrick (17:01.953)
that anyone catches them, think at this point. they've had so many, you know, DNFs this season. it's quite surprising. The first several, I think went to George and now several have gone to Kimi. know he didn't technically DNF, but got no points because of, because of, some reliability issues on his car. So,

Brian (17:25.741)
Yeah. Suspension, yeah.

Patrick (17:31.51)
You know that that definitely hurts. And you know, we were talking about, well, George has gotten so unlucky through the first like five races of season or whatever, but the last several races, like Kimmy has gotten outrageously unlucky, seemingly unlucky, I guess. and yet he's still what 40 points or whatever it is ahead of, ahead of George.

Brian (17:58.862)
It it's surprising how how the lead he has on George.

Patrick (18:02.113)
But yeah, but then, yeah, going down kind of these team standing order, Ferrari, you know, is kind of holding their own. You know, that, that I think is a little surprising to a lot of people, maybe they've been doing really well, almost a hundred points, I guess, ahead of McLaren at this point, who have just been kind of.

nowhere to be seen. It's a little weird after a dominant championship performance last year.

Brian (18:35.895)
Yeah, they're just There's no point yeah, yeah, they're just what's what's the point of watching them, you know? They're not they're not kind of the the young guns and they're not and they're not at fighting for wins.

Patrick (18:46.963)
Yeah, that's weird. then Red Bull, Racing Bulls, Alpine, I think all of those teams have been kind of fun to watch actually. know, you know, Red Bull really wants to get up there and fight for podiums and whatnot. And I feel like at some point it'll maybe be a little bit more consistent towards the end of this season. But for now, know, Max being frustrated, Isaac.

has been holding his own like you said and doing well but that racing boats team the Alpine team is a lot of fun to watch generally young younger guys right I think Gasly is the only driver that's been on the grid for more than three years and you know they're constantly fighting in that mid pack like are they gonna finish top five or are they gonna finish bottom five you're not really sure so

Brian (19:41.018)
Right. No, I I was especially been enjoying watching Racing Bulls, but you know, Alpine too, I'm happy for Alpine. they're trying to salvage the team. That's good to see. A team that's sort of shocked me in just how bad they've been. Well no one has been as bad as Aston Martin. I did also expect more from Audi. Okay, they're they're new this year, but they're taking over Sauper. I I I did expect more.

I also and I'd say I expected more from Cadillac. I know it's their very first year. Everything's a struggle. But I I was hoping for a bit better. But man, Williams. I I'm not even sure f Jane Foles survives the year. It it this is just they're just so bad. I mean, is it is it just just such utter institutional rot? Was the team just just

barely holding on, the were they just so far behind? I I dun I mean this is they're just th they're not even worth watching.

Patrick (20:46.261)
Yeah, they're lame. I mean, it's tough. They seem like they kind of got it back on or Vols got it back on the right track. You know, after a couple of seasons, they're heading in the right direction and then you get this new regs change and it seems like they went straight back to square one. You're like, how does that really happen? Right.

You have been here for several years now. You knew you were getting a power unit from Mercedes, right? So you don't have that to worry about. Obviously you have to worry about it. There are a lot of things you have to learn about the engine or power unit and everything. But you can focus a lot on

other items I guess with your kind of manpower. It's weird to see how poor they have done this year. They're lost. mean they're kind of at best scrapping with Haas who's also been frankly poor this year. They expected more from them as well.

Brian (22:11.736)
Yeah.

Patrick (22:15.699)
It's tough. You think you got all this this influx of of cash when the team was sold and They're not really doing anything with it. It's weird. It would be interesting to see, you know kind of an all-access documentary or something about this team because This is

one of the more historic teams in Formula One and they were basically forced to sell because ownership was, let's face it, bad. And then, you know, they bring in the Toto-backed Vols to come and turn things around and it looks like maybe they are going in the right direction and then all of a sudden...

They're nowhere to be found again. It's tough. And Albon is just nothing also. I mean, I'm like, well, at this point, Albon can leave. He's...

Brian (23:20.971)
Yeah, he's he's not been a f right. Halbot's not been a factor all year in any way. Science has had a couple moments where he's was fun to watch. but yeah, and plus we've had you know we've had the spending cap in place for a few years now. I would have thought that would have worked itself through. Is that really propelling these winning teams so much further ahead? I don't know.

is the existing infrastructure of the teams, you know, Mercedes in twenty twenty compared to Williams in twenty twenty, Red Bull in twenty twenty compared to I don't know the equival Audi the equivalent of Saubert in twenty twenty. Was the advantage in the infrastructure and talent locked in and just so the the gap so large that even with a spending cap for several years there's there's still not even

Coming close. I I don't know. I don't know.

Patrick (24:24.237)
Yeah, it's hard to, yeah, I don't know. Williams is frustrating because it's one of those teams where historically you go, this is a team that needs to be doing well. And for them to have been a bottom feeder for well over a decade now, I mean, that's tough.

Brian (24:43.639)
Yeah. It is. related note, it's not even the summer break yet and we've already sort of entered a early silly season. who do you think is out at the end of the year? We've heard we've heard Ocon is going to be out. Well, I've heard Liam Lawson will be out. Gasly and Cole Pinto will be out.

You know, there's a lot of these rumors spreading. Some of these I think, for example, an Alpine Redor likes to stir the pot. He likes, you know, make shit. And you know, he thinks he's you know, he likes to move the pieces on the chessboard. He he likes to believe everybody's a piece on chessboard and he's moving them about. And so I think he actually puts out some of these rumors. But I don't know, you are do you expecting any big moves during the year or by the end of the year?

Patrick (25:37.966)
I don't know about big moves. I could certainly see Okon being out at Haas. I don't know if Haas really has anyone in mind to bring in. I think that's what a lot of this hinges on. Well, if you're getting rid of somebody for let's call it

lack of performance, then who are you bringing in that you are pretty sure is going to better that? Is Haas really gonna attract anyone that's bettering what Okon can do? I don't know. So I'm like, yeah, I could see Okon going out, but like, who then comes in? Is that really beneficial for Haas?

Brian (26:17.805)
Right.

Brian (26:22.521)
Right. That's a good point. Yeah. That's cool.

Patrick (26:34.485)
I think having kind of stability for several years in a row is going to be really important for that team. And I think Ayo Komatsu is kind of clear on that. unless like Toyota goes, Hey, if you want our money, you're going to have to put somebody else in that seat. Then I don't see Okan actually leaving Haas.

But I mean, there's several other other guys you mentioned, right? mean, who's to say Albon sticks around at Williams realistically or the Cadillac drivers, right? Maybe there's a change there. So we'll see. I'm not anticipating like a massive change. Like

Verstappen leaving or, you know, the Hamilton to Ferrari move. I don't really expect anything like that to happen. So we'll see.

Brian (27:36.525)
Switching to the soft compound.

The Caitlin Clark Treatment. I don't watch basketball and don't know anything about women's basketball, except I know Caitlin Clark because every American knows Caitlin Clark because she's a huge superstar in women's basketball. She's the reason why they all now fly in private jets and they fill out arenas and there's games on television because of one person, Caitlin Clark. But it seems as if they actu the entire league

And all the players hate her. Near as I can tell, they hate her because she's just way better than them. Okay, she's essentially the Michael Jordan of women's basketball. Whereas Michael Jordan, they're all like, we gotta defeat this guy, but man, he's he's bringing down cash on the league. In women's basketball, they're all like, we can't just defeat her. We must get rid of her, even though that will be to our great detriment.

I I you know, I don't want to get involved in women being irrational in their in their thought processes here. I'm just just saying I'm just putting out the facts. But I wonder, is there anybody in F1 where you think, people just kind of hate them? I mean, because the only person I can see is George Russell.

I don't know. I I'm not sure the other peop maybe the other drivers hate him, the other team seems to hate him. The British fa even the Brits. And I think this is because when he joined Mercedes, he didn't bow down to Lewis. But I don't know. Is there anybody even remotely analogous in F one to Caitlin Clark, Patrick?

Patrick (29:26.271)
I mean...

I know very little about Caitlin Clark, but I mean, I'll say nobody likes a disruptor. So, you know, getting on the bandwagon of, of hating the, the disruptor that comes in and, and changes everything, whether those changes actually benefit you or not, people hate that.

Brian (29:57.56)
Right.

Patrick (29:59.372)
Right. They don't see the benefit. They only see the disruption. And so I think there are

Patrick (30:15.053)
three main people that kind of fall into that category. And then like a couple others that maybe people just hate to hate, um, or for different reasons, but I'll say like disruptors, right? It's Max, it's Horner, it's Zach Brown, right? People hate them because they, they changed the status quo and they

They didn't care what you thought. They made the sport better, but have clearly ruffled feathers, with, with, know, their actions and how they treated others, spoke to others, whatever. and you can hate that. That's fine. I don't think there's anything wrong with like, just hating.

Brian (31:11.897)
it's what's what makes us alive. It's what makes us human.

Patrick (31:12.581)
And I'm not, and I don't, and I don't, yeah, and I don't necessarily think like, everybody else on the grid hates these guys. I'm not sure that anybody really like hates anyone else. think, I think that's, that's an inherent, an inherently like American thing to voice our hate. Right. The Brits really love to keep it inside.

You know, they just hold it in and do backhanded nasty shit, right? Americans will do it to your face. That's why everybody in NASCAR gets into actual fights.

Brian (31:40.313)
Do they?

Brian (31:49.486)
Yeah.

Brian (31:53.394)
That's a good one. Well now here let me so the opposite. So I know I know dick about women's basketball. I also know dick about soccer. But just before we started recording, there we we found out that the literal president of the United States of America basically strong armed who does the World Cup, FIFA? FIFA, and says, hey, you you

You red carded our boy. Have you seen what we did to the president of Venezuela? Like y you may wish to rethink your your action. And they did. They actually un-red carded this guy. which is pretty badass in one way, but I'm also thinking like who would who could get that treatment in F1? Maybe Lewis Hamilton? Maybe Charles Charles it would have to be Charles, right? Is Monaco's boy?

Patrick (32:28.525)
Ha ha.

Brian (32:50.809)
Prince would maybe make a call, like who would get that treatment in F one?

Patrick (32:57.237)
Yeah, I think,

That's interesting. I mean...

Probably it would have to be Lewis or Kimmy, you know? I don't think anybody cares about Charles. Does anybody care about Charles?

Brian (33:11.464)
okay for that Charles, huh? yeah.

Brian (33:16.383)
No, no, maybe maybe what about Sergio? What 'cause you got you got his dad is super rich and they got the president of Mexico and they all love him. Sergio You know.

Patrick (33:24.139)
Yeah Sergio maybe. I don't know if Claudia can really wheel and deal like Donnie T so I don't know but maybe. I mean maybe. We'll see. I think I think it'd have to be Lewis. It would have to be Lewis. mean honestly I think Toto would even still would even still look out for Lewis. He would be like you know what no Lewis is my guy.

Brian (33:29.056)
Yeah.

Funny. Funny.

Brian (33:47.043)
King Charles putting a call.

Brian (33:54.137)
Maybe you're right.

Patrick (33:54.19)
Or Lando maybe. I don't know. The McLaren golden boy. Who's to say?

Brian (34:02.623)
Dirty Air segment. Not really dirty air, but I'm wondering, I brought this up maybe a year ago. Should Apple buy F1? Literally, the world's richest publicly traded corporation, worth many trillions of dollars, should buy Formula One. I was thinking about this because Fox Sports just bought a third of IndyCar.

So they're looking at how we're gonna promote this, how we gonna make deals with sponsors, how we gonna monetize it across all the various social media platforms. And I I think they got pretty good prices, $130 million. Said IndyCar is worth about $400 million. I think that's a I think that's a good price. Why not? Apple's looking at one say it's growing in popularity, it's growing in America, the demographics are

trending toward younger, toward women? Apple loves that shit.

Patrick (35:05.461)
Yeah, I mean, I I think that would be fascinating. And I think there would be tons of benefit for Apple to do such a thing. Potentially a lot of benefit for fans and teams involved. I just feel like the Europeans.

as they always do, would litigate the shit out of it. And it would just drag on and on and on and ultimately not be worth it for Apple to go through with that purchase. So, I don't know.

Brian (35:38.105)
Yeah.

Brian (35:50.645)
Okay, fair enough, fair enough.

Patrick (35:54.296)
I don't know. It seems like Europeans nations really don't, they seem to have a lot of issues with tech companies in particular and their acquis, like large acquisitions, especially of like

entertainment or media like things. So I don't know.

Brian (36:27.777)
Yeah. I mean i I I don't really fault I mean you got America on one side, China on the other side, you got six billion poor people trying to storm the gates. what's Europe gonna do? You know, and I I I get it. And so they they sort of create these very non transparent, many tentacled beasts.

FIFA FIA where where you're like, well who do we buy? Who do we own? That's why Bernie Eccleston ruled F1 for Solomon, because he he could wheel a deal that way. So maybe, you know, yeah, you're probably right. I I I would just be curious if if a corporation would literally just buy everything locked stock and barrel, that was that was its own media platform like Apple wants to be.

Patrick (37:12.247)
Mm-hmm.

Brian (37:14.593)
You brought up AI encroaching on Formula One in so many ways. And I and you mentioned, I think in last week's episode, that many of these ways are not good. And if we follow the progression, it's sort of an obvious progression of how AI could infiltrate F1, you know, we could have paddocks where you don't even need people. it's not fun. But

AI is powered by computing data. And I was thinking about this because the World Cup is going on right now. I'm watching the sprint. And was it Sprint or qualifying? But Lewis beat Kimmy. And it was like by 0.01 seconds or something like this. Essentially an imperceptible amount. And we want that. We want that.

technology that's like, who came in first? Who came in second? Lewis Lewis got the sprinter, Lewis got qualified you know, by the millisecond essentially. Well at the same time the whole world is howling because I don't know, Soccer, you'll have to tell me. some team was it Croatia?

where they had some issue where the guy was he had like a toe across a a toe across a virtual line and they had to look at it. And it's like, well that's harmful to the game. It's like we need to find a way where it's like data makes the sport better, like being able to determine who came at first and who came in second, and where data and virtual reality and AI are harming the sport. Where like a dude with a with a pinky toe

across an invisible line, now that disqualifies a goal. I think it was Croatia, by the way. I don't I don't follow soccer. You would know.

Patrick (39:14.559)
Yeah, think the toe across an invisible line was somebody else. Croatia, think, the toe across the invisible line on the field, a referee with literal eyeballs called it offside. like to me, when they went back and actually confirmed that the call was correct, like, well, I don't know why people are upset about this because the literal call on the field was correct.

Brian (39:43.225)
Fair enough, but I mean but we wanna score. We don't want to watch a fucking episode of Forensic Files, you know. I mean, maybe we do wanna watch that, but for other reasons.

Patrick (39:43.445)
Like it wasn't not called, right?

I understand. understand. The Croatia thing was like another offside call, ball sort of grazed some guy. And if it didn't graze him, if it did not graze him, then it wouldn't have been offside, but it did graze him. So it was offside. anyways, that there are sensors in the ball that can tell

Brian (40:00.185)
yeah.

Patrick (40:16.145)
when it is touched even very slightly and you can't see it really with actually. and so they were able to determine that. I understand like, yeah, what is, what are the ways that we want this to be used in our sport? And what are the ways we, we don't want it. Right. And I think

I think soccer in general has gotten it very wrong. the implementation of, of how they, use that type of technology. think, you know, you talked about the, the red card that was given to the U S player ultimately took it away, which is kind of nice. but

It wasn't called on the field as a red card, but they went back and frame by frame, you know, at a play. And when you do that, you don't get any sense of what actually happened. You just look, frame by frame. Yeah, that's obviously a red card. So those kinds of things, think, ruin the intention and the integrity of the sport.

And so I think, you know, F1 needs to be a little bit careful about how they implement some of those changes. Whether it's, you know, just to timing or to, to some of these like penalties that get applied, right? You know, we've had a lot of issues, I think in the last several races.

with some kind of weird penalties being applied. was one in this race, Lewis's five second penalty for his sort of false start infringement that the way the rule is like they applied a five second penalty, but it's not like he actually gained an advantage, right? Kimi same thing. It's like, well, yeah, he's going off, but like that's cause he can't steer his car.

Patrick (42:36.749)
It's not like he's actually gaining anything from going off, but they give them a penalty for it. It's like, well, maybe we shouldn't let just like the black and white decide. Sometimes it's good to be completely objective. Sometimes you need a little bit of subjectivity in there. And so, yeah, it'll be interesting to see how the sport kind of progresses in, that direction and what they choose to.

apply and whether or not that makes the sport less enjoyable.

Brian (43:18.409)
The line. That is our segment where we predict the top five for the next race. The next race is in two weeks in Belgium. they're the ones that just got screwed by by America calling up and saying you're not gonna red card our boy. last year. Right, nice, nice, nice. That's good, that's good. Okay, so last year, well Max won the sprint, but in the race, McLaren was dominant, was Oscar Lando, then Charles.

Patrick (43:36.385)
wouldn't matter they're fucking going down anyways.

Brian (43:48.99)
it's a long rain delay. I mean, there's always rain delays. I mean it was twenty twenty one, our our infamous shaka when the walls fell episode where they did that, you know, that like two to three lap race and they said, we'll call it a race, we'll give everybody half points and th I mean

Patrick (44:04.535)
yeah, was that? That was George Russell's first points in F1, wasn't it? Cause he had some insane qualifying.

Brian (44:08.973)
Was it? Wow. Right right. wow. So in in right. In across the line, we choose the top five for the next race. If our driver comes in the top five, we get a point. If he comes in the exact right spot we chose, we get three points. Patch, what are the current standings of across the line?

Patrick (44:16.299)
with William Sear.

Patrick (44:31.757)
Alright, current standings. Coming in today, you had a lead, 34 points to my 20.

Patrick (44:43.415)
Top 5 from this race that ended under a crappy safety car was Leclerc, Russell, Hamilton, Norris, Hajar. Your picks for this week were Russell Verstappen, Hajar, Norris, Gasly. So you got a point each for Russell and Hajar and then three for Lando in P4. So five total. I had Hamilton, Antonelli, Piastri.

Leclerc Baerman. So I just got a point each for Hamilton and Leclerc, both in the top five, not in their exact position. So that means now, you're up 39, is it to my 22? Oof.

Brian (45:28.211)
Ooh, this is a Kimmy I got a I got the Kimmy Antonelli league going. Nice, nice. Alright, who goes first for Belgium Grand Prix? Alright, alright.

Patrick (45:32.245)
Yeah.

Well, I have first pick in this race.

So screw it, I'm take Kimmy.

Brian (45:43.331)
Nice.

I am gonna take his teammate because I think George is is is had enough. Similarly, I'm gonna take Charles LeClaire and P two because I think he's had enough. I think he's Saint Louis, this is my team.

Patrick (46:03.563)
Well, I'm gonna say Lewis says no and he comes in P2. And then I'm gonna say, you know, Max figures it out a little bit and his rear wing closes when it's time to turn the car. So I'm gonna say he takes the last spot on the podium.

Brian (46:18.037)
Right.

Nice, well I'm gonna take his teammate Hadjar, and then I'm gonna go McLaren with Lando.

Patrick (46:31.981)
Then you know what we'll keep it going. I'll take Oscar. I think he you know, he just had trouble today. It was not great. We'll see if he can turn it around in Belgium. Let's see, P5. I will take, I'll take one of the racing bulls maybe. Liam Lawson.

Brian (47:00.177)
I was gonna take Liam. Nice. So you got Kimmy, Lewis, Max, Oscar, and Liam for the Belgian Grand Prix. I have George, Charles, Isaac, Hajar, Lando, and I'm gonna go with Colopinto.

Patrick (47:16.087)
nice.

Brian (47:18.881)
Any crazy predictions, Patrick?

Patrick (47:21.783)
Well, I've got a bunch of predictions, but they're all crazy. and I'll just do two. The first one is we're not at the summer break yet, but it is coming, but not for long. The American takeover is truly the American takeover. We don't get summer breaks in this great country of ours.

Brian (47:28.334)
Yeah.

Patrick (47:49.1)
We will no longer have a summer break in F1 within the next five years. We're just not going to do that anymore. We're just going to say, look, what the hell is wrong? We're going to just keep working because obviously, so not going to be a big old break in the middle of summer anymore. We're going to have silly season throughout the year.

Brian (47:59.226)
Sacred sacred blue patrick.

Brian (48:05.433)
Right, right. Nice. Nice.

Patrick (48:16.819)
or at the end of the year, it's not going to happen in the middle of summer. then my next one is F1 is going to learn a thing or two about America from this World Cup. And they're going to change around the schedule pretty soon to have all American races together.

And we're going to get a merry band road trip going through the Americas. NF1 Miami to Austin, to Vegas, to Mexico city over, you know, a month and a half is going to be a party. They're going to do watch parties everywhere. You know, a driver kind of, appearances, all these different things all throughout America. mean, I don't know.

Brian (48:56.814)
Be awesome.

Patrick (49:14.507)
why this hasn't already happened, but I think it's gonna happen.

Brian (49:17.571)
Get on that is awesome. Get on the bus. This could be like a six-week like party. that's awesome. And it's like, hey, you don't have to keep flying back and forth. Yeah, hit Miami big party there. Boom. We're gonna roll the party into Austin, Texas. Boom. It's nighttime. We're heading to Las Vegas. I love this. This would be awesome. This would be awesome. Those are great ones. I finally have a great one.

Patrick (49:29.057)
Yeah, we just come out here.

Patrick (49:38.029)
You

Brian (49:44.697)
And it's truly crazy. 13 races left, you say? No. What I say is at the end of the 13 races, Lewis Hamilton will be in P2. But hold on. Two races were canceled. Somehow F1's gonna claw one race back. Have it in Bahrain. So we're gonna have 14 races, and because of that 14th race, Lewis Hamilton wins his eighth drivers championship.

Patrick (50:13.911)
Nice.

Brian (50:15.351)
Alright, I want to thank you all for listening to everybody's most beloved father and son F1 podcast. It is much appreciated. We hope you do subscribe and tell a friend, and we are lights out.

Patrick (50:24.653)
Thanks for listening.

Brian (50:28.621)
Did you know that race car spelled backwards is race car?

Patrick (50:32.053)
I did. It is the one palindrome that everybody gets taught in grade school.

Brian (50:36.863)
I did not know that.