Austria Wrap Up

The Austrian Grand Prix delivered another incredible chapter in the 2026 Formula 1 season, and we’re breaking it all down on this week’s episode of P22.

Join me as I recap the biggest moments from Spielberg, including George Russell’s standout weekend, Max Verstappen’s charge through the field, Kimi Antonelli’s championship consistency, and where Ferrari and McLaren stand after another action-packed race. I’ll also share a few personal life updates, talk coffee, and look ahead to what promises to be an exciting British Grand Prix at Silverstone.

If you’re looking for honest race reactions, Formula 1 news, and a laid-back conversation from the back of the grid, you’ve found your home.

Transcript

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Kimmy got robbed. What's up everybody and welcome back to P22, your F1 podcast. We are everything F1, all the beefs, all the hot takes, all the car upgrades, all the movement with principals and drivers, all the tea, everything you can find it right here on P22, where we are back of the pack, front of the vibes. Thanks so much for hopping in with us today. If you're listening on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Audible, whatever it is, thank you so much. Go ahead and give us a follow on Instagram. That is the best way to stay connected and to stay on top of my life and of the life of P22. So thank you so much. I appreciate y'all. I am exhausted. I just got back from Atlanta. What a weekend. I have truly like had one of the busiest couple summers of my life or a couple weeks of my life. And every weekend is something else, or a holiday, or an event, or traveling, on top of the construction at the shop, and on top of uh trying to keep the businesses afloat. So it's just been a lot and there's been a lot going on. But Atlanta was sick, the cruise was sick, and the coffee shop is on its freaking way, bro. We uh had a really cool training in Atlanta. We kind of didn't needed it for morale, needed it for leadership, needed it for overall basic training. So a lot of positives came out of the trip, but your boy is exhausted. I woke up this morning and was like, dang, I am feeling this trip right now. It is dragging on, and I have to record an episode today, and we have another race this week, baby. Back-to-back races for the first time, who knows when? So that's awesome. We will be in Great Britain this week, the British Grand Prix, so that's awesome. I'm excited for that. Bunch of home races for like five or six of the drivers, which is cool. So let's just get right into it, man. I need to do a little yoga session, I need to make some coffee. I've been reading a bunch um Unreasonable Hospitality, Lean Learning, Setting the Table, Leaders Eat Last, Super Fans, all highly recommend. Great books. I have been on a huge leadership uh, I don't know, trend right now, or a huge uh motivation trend and trying to clear up the mind, trying to loosen up the thoughts and focus more on what you already have inside your brain is what's gonna make you successful. You don't need to necessarily need more knowledge and more input, and uh just harping on hospitality as well. So it's been a cool um different perspective for me to kind of turn into and try to lock into. And I've read more books over the last month than I had in the last like year and a half, so it's definitely been interesting me. And um, or I've definitely been interested in it, I should say. But the reason you guys are here, F1, baby, F1 News, the recap of the Austrian Grand Prix. It was a little wild, man. It was we had some silly rumors leading up into it. I see uh had some c a couple weird little rumors that popped up right before race. Let me see if I can find them. Red Bull's chief engineer, Paul Mahoganen, is set to leave and join Cadillac, which is nuts. They're already cleaning house on everybody, so it's just um I guess it makes sense for them to keep going, but it's just pretty weird, man. Red Bull is gonna be a whole new organization next year. Um Lando Norris got his new monster can released. His uh white monster can is actually now gonna be orange with uh his or yellow with its helmet, and they also released a gold version of it for his being a champion. So if you guys see those, pick them up pretty cool. And you know what? Actually, we're not even gonna talk about the Grand Prix yet. We're gonna I'm gonna freaking snap right now. Okay. I almost did a live reaction video because I'm pissed. Qualifying was bullshit. Okay, so Timmy had good free practice all week, right? He led free practice, George had a good one toward the end of the week. The Ferraris were not necessarily in the pace this week, I think. They think they had something a little bit wrong, but they were still flying. And Max was getting it too. His home race, he was going pedal to the metal. Whatever. We get through Q1, Q2, we're in Q3 with a minute left, and Verstappen takes, I think, turn seven right into the wall. Like it doesn't look that bad till he hits the wall, and then it's like, wow, it's a bad crash. And Kimmy was on his fastest lap. Charles Leclerc, I think, would have improved as well. Like the Ferrari both Ferraris, Lewis and Ham and uh Charles and Antonelli and George were all gonna approve on this lap. Possibly even Lando. And they get a yellow flag call, so they all decrease speed and get pissed and give up on the lap. Meanwhile, George is literally on the corner where you can see Verstappen's car crashed, and you can see George getting not only a green flat, like he first got a single yellow, and then he gets a green. So he's flat out. He's trying to claim that he saw this flag and he knew that it was safe and legal to proceed, and that's why he improved and got pulled. That's that's total bullshit. He did not care that Verstappen was over there for one. He noticed late, and the FIA is the one that messed up. The FIA should have double yellowed or red flagged it just like they did two weeks ago. If George takes this turn wide just like Max did, he's killing Max or blowing up both of their cars. Like you say, oh well, these guys don't crash. The best driver in the world just went off milliseconds before that. So, like, there could be gravel, there could be debris, there could be multiple things going on. You end the session and then you restart it when it's cleaned up. You don't let one driver improve his time and the rest of the field gets screwed because George's, well, if they know the rules, then they would know there was a single yellow flag. Fuck you, bro. It wasn't about if they knew the rules or not. The FIA, the one that set the rules, had it wrong. You shouldn't have been able to prove your time. I have a I have a screenshot where all the cars that got reduced are in one bunch for their quality time, and then George is 0.6 seconds ahead of them in his bunch. Like, I wonder who got slowed down by the FIA. Are you kidding me, bro? I'm pissed. It's been over it's been almost a week, and I'm still pissed. It's ridiculous that this hasn't been brought back up. It's ridiculous that people think that Kimmy was being immature and overreacted to the yellow. Like, that's insane. And it's ridiculous that the Ferraris had to take the blunt end of this, that Max had to take the blunt end of this, that two weeks ago when they canceled that session, what about those guys that didn't get to improve their time during that session? It can't be a different rule regulation every single freaking week, bro. That would be I'm pissed. It's it literally lost Kimmy the weekend. It lost him pole, which in hindsight lost him the race because he still almost came back and beat George. He has way more pace than George, he's way more aggressive than George. He messed up his whole first three laps for horrible, and he still finished in second with a worse strategy plan, with being sandwiched between the McLaren's, being sandwiched between the Ferraris, and still managed to get second place. He has everything against him and all the strategies going for George right now, and he still manages to be a pointed flawless dude. Like, uh, you know what? Whatever. We're gonna move past this. He's gonna win next week, and it'll be fine. And he's still in the Legend Drivers Championship. But I do think that between the DNF and clearly getting screwed, now they've opened this wide open for George, for Lewis, for Charles, like for Oscar. Like there are there are guys that can make runs at this. And even three weeks ago we were talking about is Kimmy going to run away far enough that no one would ever be able to catch him. So I was pretty upset. I I think that there was a lot of things that went wrong with that whole qualifying session, and I think that it clearly shows you how important qualifying is in F1. Like George got pulled and didn't look back, and he you know, he tried to stick strong to his strategy and play a clean race. I think we could have used uh another double yellow at some point to you know take advantage of it strategy-wise. I think that would have helped Kimmy, but there was only the one, and he was already pitted when the the flag came out, so that was kind of a bummer. He could have probably possibly won the race there if he waited one more lap to pit and then got the safety car. We're not gonna harp on the what-ifs. It was hard for me to watch. But to show you that people are on our side of this, the next day when there was a yellow flag out, Max got the call. Uh yellows, yellows at T10, and Max said, That means flat out, right? I'm joking, ha ha ha. So it's like, yeah, that is the joke because George full on. If you hear Kimmy's radio, yellow, yellow, yellow, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. That was the lap, man. That was the lap. Russell's yellow, yellow. And yeah, you don't even, he's just flying through. He's flat out through these turns trying to go improve his time. It's not fair, bro. So whatever. Okay, so that was my reaction to qualifying now that we're 10 minutes into this. Overall weekend. Clearly, Mercedes is still on top. Another reliability issue with the Williams that's that runs a Mercedes. So I don't know uh what's going on with the Mercedes engine, but it's not great, even though it's pumping speed. But George, pole position, controlled the race, good strategy, good tire management, and his first win since Australia, which was week one. So he has had a lot of um ups and downs, clearly a bunch of bad weeks. He definitely is good at qualifying, and this is his second poll he was able to turn into a win, which is nice. Um, tire degration, talk about that real quick. That was the theme of the last two weekends, just um really trying to control this heat along with trying to control your tires, and it just really makes these teams actually have to use some strategy throughout the whole weekend, not just on the race, because um I know that there was a team, I think it was, I want to say it was Max or Orlando that saved an extra pair of mediums for the race day because they didn't want to burn through them and qualify, and then they didn't even use them. They put them on the hards. I'm like, what the hell's the point of not using the mediums the earlier earlier in the day then? So whatever. But um Max, great recovery drive on the podium, third place podium. He came from the wreck and qualified from P5. Just a strong, clean race, and he, you know, he's uh he he's a he's a champ, man. He knows his track, he knows um what to do to get it done, and he's definitely back in the conversation. Red Bull is competitive again, man. They have pace and they are unveiling more and more upgrades every week. Hadjar is quick with it. I wish that they had another big dog like Max in there to kind of keep the things rolling, but hindsight, man, I did not think Red Bull was gonna be podium in or in contention, especially when you see the McLaren like back there with the Racing Bulls. So Kimmy, another podium, championship leader, still outright, didn't have the pace, but at least he kept the point um to a minimum for the other drivers. And you know, he's very cool, calm collected, very mature, and I just think that he just has to get his feet back in there a little bit. Get get back on pole, bro. You know, don't let anybody practice in your car. Don't let the session get red flagged. Like, once you have a clean weekend again, you'll be poll, you'll be on first place. Just uh it's just one of those nulls right now, Kimmy. Ferrari, great qualifying, great practice. Race day just wasn't enough. Lewis Hamilton's still killing it. Charles Leclerc. It's just not his season. Let's say that. He is having a rough season. The winners of the weekend, clearly Mercedes and George Russell. I think Maxim Red Bull will be on that list of winners as well. Mercedes, pretty much a f a nearly flawless execution. Like there was their hands were tied, they could only do so much, but then they won, you know, one-two or a one-three or whatever it was, but just wasn't um in the stars for Kimmy. And they're pretty much were gridlocked with their with their pit stop execution. So losers of the weekend, y'all already know Lance Troll, baby. Uh I also will say uh Lance Rolls are P22. So there you go, double whammy. I do think Ferrari's pace is a little um disappointing, like for how they've been running over the last couple weeks. So I think that's probably the biggest loser for the weekend as well. And um, overall championship thoughts, I just think that clearly Mercedes is going to win the constructors, but the drivers, I don't know, man. I'm just I'm getting more concerned that it's opening more and more up. If Kimmy has one more DNF, it's about to be a problem. And Silverstone is next. So the British Grand Prix will have F1 Academy there for the first time in like two months, which is sick, and it'll be their first F1 Academy ever. We'll also be able to see a lot of home races for the boys. And um we'll see if Mercedes can stay on top, we'll see if Red Bull can continue improving, we'll see if Ferrari can uh convert that speed into some results, get on the points again, and uh let's see if Kimmy can pull one in the bag, man. I'm excited. I'm gonna record that episode on Thursday or Friday, probably, and it's gonna be really exciting. You guys hear my predictions, you guys are here, tell me what I'm wrong, tell me how I'm right. I'll tell you right now, I have Kimmy winning it. Um little spoiler alert, you don't have to watch the next episode. But uh, I appreciate you guys hanging out with me. This is P22. Can't wait for the Great Britain Grand Prix, and we are back at the pack, front of the vibes, baby. Stay tuned, have a great day. Peace.