2 Soft Compounds

British GP: Rain, Rage & Redemption - Norris Doubles Up, Red Bull Slides & Hulk Pops His Podium Cherry.

• W4 Podcast Studio & GrandPrix247 • Season 1 • Episode 23

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British GP: Rain, Rage & Redemption - Norris Doubles Up, Red Bull Slides & Hulk Pops His Podium Cherry.

This week on Two Soft Compounds, Rick is joined by Grandprix247 editor Jad Malek alongside motorsport journalist and F1 TV commentator, Damien Reid, as the three dive into a soaked Silverstone showdown that flipped the championship script and gave fans one of the best races of the season. With rain clouds looming and strategies unraveling, it was Lando Norris who danced through the chaos to take back-to-back wins and lead a commanding McLaren 1-2 - cementing their rise from underdogs to undisputed title contenders.

The guys discuss how it wasn’t all smooth sailing at McLaren. Oscar Piastri’s uncharacteristic frustration over a 10-second penalty exposed rare emotion from the Australian and leave Rick asking if the iceman has lost his cool? Congratultions from Rick also for one of his favorites, Nico Hülkenberg who finally ditched his “nearly man” tag with a fairytale podium. There's plenty of chat about whether the Jonathan Wheatley effect has kicked in already at Sauber.

Lots to talk about with Red Bull also as the guys discuss how Verstappen’s low-downforce gamble backfired in the rain. And Ferrari fumbled (again), losing GPS tracking on Hamilton mid-race and Mercedes made tire choices even Rick's nan would’ve questioned. Plus, with Adrian Newey lurking on Aston Martin’s pit wall the 2026 driver and tech market just got juicier.

Next up: Spa. A legendary track, a tightening title fight and a McLaren team that suddenly looks unstoppable. Buckle up and catch it all on Two Soft Compounds.

Production Credits:

Presented by: Rick Houghton & Paul Velasco
Studio Engineer & Editor: Roy D'Monte
Executive Producer: Ian Carless
Produced by: W4 Podcast Studio & GrandPrix247

Rick Houghton:

Hey, welcome to another two soft compounds podcast with me. Rick Jad Malik, the editor of Grand Prix247.com, is with us again this week Always nice to have Jad back on the podcast. And my old friend Damien Reid, motorway journalist and broadcaster, former Formula One commentator, is on the line with us as well. Damien and Jad, hello and welcome to you both. Great to see you guys.

Jad Mallak:

It's been a bit of a long time, hortenny. It's been many, many years. But good up, get back in touch again.

Damien Ried:

Yeah, definitely and jad good to be back.

Jad Mallak:

Yeah, yeah and there's a special hello from paul velasco to damien. It's been a while, he says. I'm surprised you say hello, I've known him that people say he's getting soft.

Rick Houghton:

Yeah, we are, of course, here to talk about the british grand prix uh, one of the most iconic circuits of the season. Of course, and whenever we have have differing weather at the British Grand Prix, it always brings out amazing results. Qualifying, the two McLaren boys rocked up looking really strong and powerful, but it was Max Verstappen, with his lower downforce setting that really stole the show in qualifying, and he really laid down a statement there, didn't he? Jad?

Damien Ried:

Yeah, exactly. Look, max was struggling with the car from day one on Friday. I think the car had too much load on the backside and so it was understeering all over the place. And then they went radical and they just took out all the downforce and then the car was drivable for him. We know Max enjoys a pointy front end. He doesn't have an issue with the rear end of the car playing around, so he kept it in check. Honestly, I think everyone's still scratching their heads after that qualifying lap. No one could understand how he did it, gaining time in the fast corners where you need downforce the most, and you know he had the advantage on the straights.

Rick Houghton:

It was a fantastic, fantastic lap from max I think max and the number of other teams on the grid kind of didn't read the weather properly, would you? Would you agree, damien?

Jad Mallak:

there were a couple of teams Williams is one of them who kind of set up for a dry race despite the forecast yeah, look, I was really surprised with that and I was surprised with with the way that the Verstappen team went on their car as well with with the low downforce, because there was predictions of rain as early as Thursday saying and it was, it was unfolding pretty much the way it was predicted on Thursday, that Friday would be good, it'd be a bit cooler on Saturday and then Sunday I think there was about a 40% chance of rain. So to put all your eggs in one basket and go right, we're going to have a complete dry setup, especially at Silverstone, of all places. I was very surprised that they did that. I mean, it worked on Saturday for Red Bull, for Max, but jeez, as Jad said, it all came undone on Sunday.

Rick Houghton:

Yeah, it certainly did. Let's concentrate on the race, then, because there's plenty to talk about here. Obviously, Max was on pole position. The rain had come down very heavily on Sunday morning. In fact, at one point Williams had flooded their garage. The car was sat in about three inches of water and I saw. At that point I thought this is not going to start. This is going to be like another Belgium. They're going to do two laps behind the safety car and that'll be it. But it cleared up, and we've seen so many times at Silverstone how quickly the track can dry. So we got going. First controversial decision for me was the real cautiousness of the race director starting the parade lap under the safety car. I just thought, oh, that didn't seem right to me. You wanted those cars to find their way in the damp conditions without being as controlled as they were behind the safety car on the parade lap. Would you agree, Jan?

Damien Ried:

Yeah, well, look honestly, the way the FIA now are dealing with the weather conditions in races has always been up to question. Sometimes they take it too safe, sometimes they take it too risky, but I think they're just always edging towards the safety part too much. I mean, end of the day, we need to watch some serious racing. The guys need to go out there, find the grip, try to find the grip and see where it is, find the limits and, you know, get their tires ready and up to the temperature in those conditions. So it's, it's not like it's. These are the 20 best drivers in the world. You can't hold their hands every time there's rain or something. But yeah, this is something that has been repeated all over now. People, some people agree, some people don't agree, I don't, but yeah, it is what it is with these days uh, regulating of the races, let's say, I suppose they might have been thinking back to the opening race of the season in australia when several cars went off on the parade lap.

Rick Houghton:

But you know, I think from my point of view a little bit too cautious. The fans, especially the british fans, very knowledgeable and they want to just get get things going. So we started um after the safety car had lined them up and it was a good start for max for step and good start for oscar piastri who was p2, and norris held with them into turn one as well. A little bit more chaos behind, perhaps. I noticed alonso went fairly wide in the first lap, but overall it was a fairly decent start for all of the teams, I thought.

Jad Mallak:

It was actually, and it was a good breakaway and it shows you how much water that these tyres dispersed, because you couldn't see anything behind pretty much Oscar, and certainly not behind Lando. So those guys were fighting behind in a sea of spray. So the benefit certainly was to the benefit of the lead driver, of Max and then Oscar. But to get to your point on the start, I mean I totally agree with both of you on that one, because I mean these cars are designed to go quick in wet conditions as well, probably make a wet weather tire for a reason. The wet weather tire makes the ride height sit a little bit about five millimeters higher than the dry weather tires. So in order to get the car going, it's got to squash down. If you're not traveling at speed, you're not getting downforce, you're not getting temperature in your tires, you're not getting temperature in your brakes, and so you're creating in my opinion you're creating a more dangerous situation by following the safety car around with a car that's sitting too high, going too slow and nothing's up to temperature. So get that safety car out of the way, get on with the racing.

Jad Mallak:

And we saw in those opening laps that the first 20-25 minutes some amazing racing in very damp conditions and you know those guys hung on to it by and large. There were a few that did go, but by and large those, those guys hung on to it. The cars are capable and I agree with you both. I think you know we've got to look at how we're being too cautious with safety cars to kick off in weathers like this, because we're going to have Australia again, we're going to have Silverstone again, we're going to have I hope we don't have Spa again. You know it's crazy.

Rick Houghton:

Yeah, Go on, Chad, you were going to add something.

Damien Ried:

You know, yeah, the first couple of laps showed some composure from the guys. I think the first incident was the Liam Lawson and Ocon. They got together and they crashed, which brought out the virtual safety car. But other than that, yeah, it showed that it again proved the point that we were just talking about with the safety car. These guys can handle themselves okay. They're big boys, they know how to drive these cars. The cars are safe enough these days so you can take risks with them and, yeah, I think it was a decent start. I have to say that Piastri maybe had a bit of a better jump off the line than Max, but then Max closed the line in and then Norris had to fend Lewis. Lewis was on it from lap one and, yeah a it was a great start, uh, for for the race, you know, and in very tricky conditions. Is it gonna still dry up? Is the rain coming back?

Rick Houghton:

so the thinking process on the pit walls was starting from lap one, which is very interesting, honestly it always amazed me, with the technology we have in formula one these days and the advanced weather radar, just how wrong teams can still get it. I mean leclerc and and Russell coming in for slicks in the pit lane before the race had even started. A number of other drivers further down the grid did that as well, and it was quite clear from lap one, two and three that those decisions were completely wrong. If they thought the track was going to dry, they should have realized it was going to take a lot longer to dry than it did. And then, of course, more rain was in that forecast, which was going to hamper the efforts of anyone who went to slick tyres as well.

Rick Houghton:

In fact, I mean, without delving too deeply into Ferrari right now, because we'll cover them in a bit more depth later it was a race to forget for Leclerc. I mean, he was just, you know, he was spinning, his pit stops were out of sync. His pit stops were out of sync. I mean, it was just a bit of a mess to be honest, let's talk about the opening laps.

Rick Houghton:

Then we had great battles between the top three, and then it was obvious that Piastri was going to get past Verstappen on the back straight, which he did with relative ease, and then it continued with Norris, who was able to then challenge. I'm trying to remember where we had virtual safety cars and full safety cars, because it was a mismatch of so many things. Yeah, you're right.

Jad Mallak:

And you know, I think I mean that was where the downfall of Red Bull started to come in. I think that once they realized, once they got the green flag and away they went. They just weren't set up for it because Max just wasn't getting temperature in those tires, because there wasn't enough downforce on that car to put any heat into the tires. And as you said, jet, he loves a pointy car, he loves the back to move around a little bit. But even under those conditions, I can't remember too many times seeing Max Verstappen lose control of his car so often in one race. It was something that is an absolute rarity to see.

Damien Ried:

Yes, exactly. Look, the writing was on the wall just before the race started. I don't know if you watched the interview on F1 TV with Christian Horner and the way he was answering questions said it all. He knew they were in trouble and every way they tried to ask him a question he just tried to avoid it and change the subject. And yeah, maybe, and we don't know and it was very clear just even before the racing started they were in trouble. That car was not going to drive nicely in those conditions.

Jad Mallak:

Yeah, I think maybe they were looking at the weather situation, hoping that that second cell of rain wasn't going to come through, because if that had stayed dry, they box go into a set of dry tires then that car would have been a rocket. That car would have been five, six seconds a lap quicker than the others whilst they were still trying to get at that crossover point on inters and it could have been a very different story. But obviously that second downpour came and I think maybe that's probably where Ferrari and Mercedes also lost out as well, because it was right on the cusp of do you keep these inters on or do they overheat, do they chunk up or do you switch to something else? And yeah, they zig when they should have zagged.

Rick Houghton:

But you know they probably didn't see or didn't anticipate that second cell of rain coming yeah, talking about that second cell of rain, I noticed, you know, it was really really heavy. At one point everyone stayed on the inters because, let's face it, the full wets don't work, uh. But yeah, everyone stayed on the inters. Ge George Russell was calling for a red flag. I think we came pretty close to red flag conditions at one time or another, but then, of course, that was muted by the safety car, which eventually came out. Why is it, jad, that we don't use the full wets in Formula One anymore? Everyone seems adverse to putting them on.

Damien Ried:

Well, this is the conundrum with the Pirelli full wets. Ever since those tyres were made and with all the changes that have been going on, these tires are no good to race, simple as that. I know maybe they can clear more water from the track, but I think they can't put any heat into these tires, and this is the issue of Pirelli that they couldn't even solve over all these years. It's beyond me why this is the situation, you know, and that's why we have to deal with safety cars coming in when it's raining too much, or even red flags. I think this is the situation. If you had proper, proper full wet tires, you didn't need to deal with these kind of situations, which just ruined the show. Honestly.

Rick Houghton:

Yeah, it did, and I think everyone was glad when we got back to drier conditions halfway through that we could actually have a half-decent Formula One race. Just on the intermediates, though, that's another thing I've noticed over the years is that if you run the intermediates on a drying surface these days and Damien correct me if I'm wrong but if you run the intermediates for longer than we would have seen maybe four or five years ago, those intermediates eventually become slicks because the tread disappears but it doesn't expose the canvas. So it's just kind of no point anymore.

Jad Mallak:

You know, some of those teams I think could have probably stayed on the interns for the rest of the race yeah, I mean, I mean phil anson and I, when we're doing the tv coverage here we, we came up with our own term. We call them inter slicks, because they reached that point where they became. They got rid of whatever tiny bit of tread they had and then they became quite a useful soft compound tyre that you could run for more laps than the dry. But 100% right. And previously, yeah, you'd get two laps maximum in the old days with the inters, before they would just chunk up and turn to canvas. But these ones, you can squeeze another, another six, seven laps out of them if you, if you, if you, you know if you're looking after it as well, but you can get there okay, well, let's, let's go down the uh, the teams and the results in order.

Rick Houghton:

Then, of course, we know it was a mclaren one two. A good day for norris, actually. In fact, this is his first back-to-back win in formula one. Um, if you discount the fact that he won the last race of 24 and the first race of 25, which is, you know, showing some more consistency there, he held his own, he drove like everyone else did in very difficult circumstances. And then we move on to Oscar Piastri, who of course had the lead of the race, and then, when it came to the safety car restart, this was controversial.

Rick Houghton:

I understand why they gave him a 10 second penalty, but there are some mitigating circumstances here. First of all, they put the lights out on the safety car too late. In my opinion, they should have done that at the start of the back straight, which they often do when the safety car is coming in, because the car, the lead car, then effectively becomes the de facto safety car and he has to leave a gap between himself and the safety car, otherwise when they go racing, he's going to catch the safety car before it enters the pits. So I understand what he said when he said okay, well, I have to leave the gap. So I did hit the brakes.

Rick Houghton:

In the eyes of the fia, he hit the brakes too hard. I think he decelerated by 100 miles an hour, and that was their point. They said listen, it's dangerous. It was a damp track. Verstappen could have gone into the back of you. We could have had carnage after the race. Nicole Hülkenberg said they felt the concertina effect of that heavy braking much further down the order. So what are your opinions on the penalty? What are your opinions on what Oscar did? Do you think, for instance, he was trying to take the heat out of Verstappen's tires by doing what he did?

Damien Ried:

yes, I do, wow, okay, look, look Oscar, look. Let me start by saying this I love Oscar, he's a great driver. I love his calmness, I love the way he races, you know he's he's just a great driver for the future, a future world champion, if you ask me, and he's just ticked all the boxes since he joined McLaren, especially in this season. Now. But honestly, I think and this is me speculating, analyzing stuff the situation that happened between Oscar and Max. Max was being, you know, swarming around Oscar all over the place, trying to, you know, distract him at the restart, which is what Max usually does in these conditions, and Oscar said, ok, I'm going to teach you a lesson, okay, so he went and hit the brakes so hard and yeah, the braking, because immediately when the decision came out, I went and I read the text and I saw, you know the number. I think it went from over 200 kph to 50 something kph, which is a huge deceleration. So that's one thing, and if you keep in mind that the same situation somehow came up back in canada with russell and max, so there's a common denominator here, which is max, because we know he's one penalty away from getting a ban, and I think the rivals, especially russell and I think, oscar now, because oscar is trying to get into max's mind. Max destroyed norris mentally, but Oscar, he's doing the same, he's playing with Max now, and they both tried to do this thing and I think the FIA kept that in mind. They don't want to allow the drivers to keep doing these kinds of things. So they made it pass, I think in Canada. But now when they saw it happening again in Silverstone in such dangerous conditions, I think they took action. Now, 10 seconds Now there's something you can debate about.

Damien Ried:

Okay, because I think if they did five seconds, maybe Oscar would have been able to maybe to retake the place. I'm not sure, because I think he was in the region of five point something behind North India. So, but this is, yeah, this is the way I saw it. You know, and the thing is these days, with the wording of the rules, there are so many gray areas which allow the stewards to take any decision they want. When they just tell you doing driving erratically, define that, please. What do you mean by driving erratically? Some would say and we were discussing this over the group that, yeah, they don't want the driver to be accelerating and decelerating, trying to trick the driver behind him that he restarted or not. So they want to prevent this. But then, going at this very high speed, you know, and braking this hard, max almost avoided him. But, like you said, what Nico Hockenberg said about the effect they had at the back of the grid, I think it kind of justifies that decision. But yeah, oscar was being naughty.

Jad Mallak:

I think, yeah, there's a couple of things I agree with most of it. I think Oscar was playing a game to a certain extent. So when we look at the braking pressure and the speed reduction it was afterwards it was pretty much line ball to what he did in the first under the first safety car. So he was saying, okay, I've hit the brakes, done the same pressure, got away with it, I'll do it again. Didn't get away with it. I think he is trying it on a little bit to try and fox out, fox, uh, max. Because he thought, well, george did it in canada and got away with it, uh, but the but the.

Jad Mallak:

The main mitigating factor I'm thinking my mind, it goes back to what I was saying before about the start of the race is the temperature, and that is, as you say, the safety car lights went out very late at the end of it, so there wasn't a huge amount of time to build up heat into your tires or into your brakes. So to jump on the anchors as hard as you can. I mean, you look at the temperature difference between Montreal and Silverstone. You're probably talking 25, 28 degrees Celsius difference. So it was a very hot day in Montreal and it was a cool day yesterday. So maybe you could say that might have been one of the mitigating circumstances of trying to get heat into the brakes as quickly as you can and then, because you know, get away from it because of how late the lights went out. But yeah, there was that concertina effect and we saw it in the foot. And I think Nick, I was referring to the first one, because you can see it in the first one Definitely there was nearly contact at the back and I thought, wow, he's lucky to get away with that, oscar Um, and then got caught the second time.

Jad Mallak:

So I think, to be honest with you, I think the penalty is justified, um, but I don't think 10 seconds is justified. I think maybe five seconds, I think, you know. Maybe because George got with zero penalty. So you know, meet the common ground in the middle there. He also got penalty points on his license as well yesterday for that as well. So, yeah, look, and then at five seconds, you know he finished second by 6.8. So it still would have been a Lando win if he had given up the chase. If it was a five-second penalty, I think he probably would have, I mean. But then the red mist settled in with Oscar and for the first time yesterday I thought he's not in control of his senses. He's too angry and that's where he made a few mistakes. Who knows, yeah.

Rick Houghton:

I think, yeah, the first time this season I thought he's lost the Iceman tag that I've given him.

Jad Mallak:

Well, when he asked to change the positions back. I thought, Oscar, focus on the race. You're not thinking straight right now, because there's no way that they would have even done that.

Rick Houghton:

With Norris six seconds ahead. You ain't changing those positions.

Jad Mallak:

I ain't changing.

Rick Houghton:

Worth a shot. Worth a shot, I suppose. Yeah, you're quite right. I, uh, I, I spend quite a lot of time during the races. What I'm so geeky? I watch the, uh, the individual driver feeds and listen to the individual driver radios that sometimes you don't hear on the broadcast. And so far this season, no matter what you know, oscar has been the coolest cucumber on the radio you've ever heard.

Rick Houghton:

I mean going through some tricky high speed corners and, just you know, hitting the radio button've ever heard, I mean going through some tricky high-speed corners and, just you know, hitting the radio button and going OK, guys think this is what I'd like to do with the tyre. You know, I mean just so cool. You don't hear it very often, I think you know Raikkonen was probably the last Iceman that we had in Formula 1, and Oscar does a brilliant job of it too. We have to mention this 23 139 races. Nico Hülkenberg finally gets a podium in Formula 1. You know he started in 19th. By the end of lap one he was in 10th. He made up nine places in the first lap. Now no one's saying Sauber have the second quickest car on the grid, but the fact that he made the podium just shows that he didn't put a foot wrong.

Rick Houghton:

And brilliant strategy from Sauber. They predicted the weather perfectly. They knew when to bring him in. They weather perfectly. They knew when to bring him in. They knew when to send him out into the right gaps, they knew the tire choice was perfect. Pretty much no one put a foot wrong and it was brilliant to see one of my favorite drivers in terms of his attitude and his commitment and his passion for the sport. What would you say to that, damien?

Jad Mallak:

I mean a thousand percent. I agree with you. But also, too, we've also got to give a lot of praise to Jonathan Wheatley because he has transformed that team in such a short space of time. And you can I don't want to say you can see the power shift changing out of Red Bull. But when you look at Adrian going to Aston Martin, jonathan going to Sauber and you're looking at what's happening on the pit wall at Sauber and their pit stops have gone from zero to 100 in the time that he's been there they're absolutely braining it with their pit stops for precision most of the time.

Jad Mallak:

And, just as you say, the call, the strategy call yesterday was fantastic. So I mean, jonathan's been a huge asset and Nico is always on the pace. He somehow always seems to drag that car through the field and you know, I think at the end of the year we'd love to go back and look at the stats and see who's made up the most positions over the course of the season. I think it'll be Nico, because he just I mean, fair enough, he starts down the back all the time but he drags that car through and a cool head on old shoulders, you know, he kept his sense about him in really bad conditions and it paid off for him. It was fantastic to see. I think everyone enjoyed seeing him up on the podium yesterday.

Rick Houghton:

Yeah, definitely. I mean just to give you some stats before I get your opinion, jad. In the past two races alone, hulkenberg has risen 27 places. That's pretty remarkable. I mean your view on all that, jad.

Damien Ried:

Yeah, look, I agree. First of all, whatever Damien said, especially about Jonathan Wheatley joining the team. He just whipped them into shape. You know, operation-wise they're doing a great job and you can see his presence missing on the Red Bull pit wall. You can see recent issues with Red Bull strategies and operations and they miss Jonathan Wheatley, they miss Adrian Newey, they miss Rob Marshall in the engineering section. Okay, because all those trickeries with the McLaren car, you can thank Rob Marshall for that.

Damien Ried:

In terms of Nico Hülkenberg, yeah, it's about time, honestly, and I really enjoyed seeing him taking that podium. You can see, with age he's lost a bit of his qualifying edge because we know he remember in his rookie season he that williams on pole in brazil in the wet. It was a great lap but he lost a bit of that edge. But he makes up for it. You know, in the race with his experience, with the way he drives the car. Don't forget he was defending from lewis hamilton and you know lewis hamilton, he has a few extra horses pushing the car at silverstone and he he managed to keep Lewis at bay. He didn't put a foot wrong all race long. I think the Sauber, like you said, it's not the second fastest car on the grid. But I think they took that podium on merit, despite all conditions, the decisions they took on the pit wall, the way he drove that car yeah, good for them, it was a great result.

Rick Houghton:

I think the only problem Sauber and possibly Audi have next season is Bonotto, but that's for a different conversation.

Jad Mallak:

I nearly dropped the B word in that one, but I thought no, let's.

Rick Houghton:

He's just looking at the monitors at Silverstone thinking where am I? Again Lewis Hamilton. Not a comfortable ride for lewis by any means, uh, but he shows just how good he can be at silverstone. I think he could have challenged hulkenberg at the end, but I think his tires are just completely gone. I feared the worst on saturday with lewis uh, once again, with ferrari and their strategy and their team calls, when he said am I going for another run? And they went no pit and he went well, I know I need to go for another run. And they hadn't fueled him for a second run, you know.

Rick Houghton:

And then I read afterwards that Fred Vasseur was asked about the lack of communication during the race with Hamilton and the. The answer was hilarious they came. But, damien, in this podcast I've always said during races, ferrari don't watch the race, they watch telemetry, they do not watch the race. So this is what he said. Afterwards he said, yeah, we had a bit of an issue. We lost GPS, so we didn't know where he was on the track. Oh, hello, pardon, what? Oh, come on Again. They're not watching the race, they are watching telemetry screens and they're looking at their strategy book, which was written in 1972, and they're going oh, this is what we'll do. That that worked. That that worked back when we had schumacher in the car let's do that now.

Jad Mallak:

It's just, you know, ridiculous. Yeah, listen to your drivers, okay, you, you can overrule them. You've got that, you've got that possibility at the end of the day, but at least hear them out. I mean, what, how about this? For an example, car Carlos Sainz, when he was at Ferrari look what he's doing he ran that team. He ran that Williams team a couple of races ago from behind the wheel, by calling strategy as well as sort of suggesting things for Albon as well. And Williams listened to him. Williams another tennis, massively on the rise.

Jad Mallak:

But this is what happens when you give the drivers a bit of respect for for the years and the experience that they've got out there. Just listen to. You know, when lewis says he wants to go for for another run, he's he's assuming that there's another five gallons in the tank so he can go and do one more lap of silverstone. To say that there's not as just like. I mean, at least discuss it before you put him in the car. Say, listen, you've only got enough fuel for one run. Make it count. Don't tell him at turn 12 or something Unbelievable.

Damien Ried:

Yeah, look, honestly, the problem with Ferrari sometimes sometimes they give their drivers too much control and sometimes they don't. Now I think they're in the phase that, no, we're not going to listen to them, we're the team, we're going to manage them. I remember at one point when Seb Vettel was driving for them and in one qualifying session he comes back into the garage and they tell him so how many clicks on your front wing do you need? He told them how many clicks on the front wing? He needs to get some more front end on that car. Okay, that's too much, guys, that's too much. But when someone like Lewis Hamilton tells you we need to do this much, guys, that's too much. But when someone like lewis hamilton tells you we need to do this, please listen. You know, please listen. Don't patronize this guy. He's a seven-time world champion, 105 wins. You know, he knows what he's doing. He nine at that track. Nine at that track, especially, you know, especially at silverstone yeah, um, we must mention max verstappen.

Rick Houghton:

I mean, you only need to watch the onboard to look at how difficult it was to control in the race. You can't take anything away from his qualifying performance on the Saturday. The cold tyres and possibly the fact that he'd been impeded in the safety car restart by Piastri meant that he span out and went well down the order. I think he did pretty well to claw it back up to fifth place in the end. Limit the points damage would, would you agree? He fought his way back.

Jad Mallak:

Very well, to be fair. But yeah, going back to what we were saying before, I've never seen him make more than one mistake in a race, certainly not that many on the weekend. But you know he did what he could with that car and you've only got to look at what was Yuki, who was the last qualified finisher. The difference between those guys it is a max car. It's a one-trick pony, that team now. But he did what he could. But it's just. Yeah, I still think that they were looking at the wrong weather chart before that race started.

Damien Ried:

Look, I think the way Red Bull went with the setup of the car, I think it came out of desperation. They're so desperate these days to try to push Max to the front. You know there's all this noise about him leaving for mercedes. Okay, he's, he could see his fifth championship slipping away. It's as good as done, honestly. And I over over 65 points now 69 points, I think he's down on piastre. So they're desperate to do something and I think this is why they're doing all these mistakes. They're pushing too hard, they're overthinking or I don't know. They're not thinking, they're just. You know they're having this knee-jerk reaction. Yeah, the car's understeering too much. Yeah, take out the downforce. Now, it's a pointy car. Matt can handle it Okay, but and I think they were just hoping that yeah, you'll get a few drops of rain before the race. You know, max can just keep the car in control for the first 10 laps. It dries up, you know, and then you go racing. I think this is what they were hoping for, but it didn't happen.

Damien Ried:

Look, the overall season for Red Bull is just a disaster, honestly. You know the way they dealt with Liam Lawson and now with Yuki Tsunoda who, sorry, sorry, I have to say it, I say it all the time. You know what I'm joking. This is the ever-improving Yuki Tsunoda. You know Honestly, honestly, what do they expect? Yuki Tsunoda every time, you know? I just like to see now how many races we have. I think we have 12 more races. I'd like to see how much excuses can Christian Horner come up with for Yuki's performance. Anyhow, so yeah, it's just not working now at Red Bull and I don't think it's gonna get any better yeah, I saw Johnny Herbert in the week made an interesting comment.

Rick Houghton:

He said don't let the Mercedes chatter with Max fool you. We think it's cover for the fact that he's going to Aston Martin. And I noticed it was quite interesting seeing Adrian Newey on the pit wall at Silverstone. And what was also interesting was that Aston Martin brought a major upgrade to the car halfway through the season. I mean, it's virtually a redesigned floor and side pod, which you have to have thought that Adrian Newey had something to do with Because it was interesting. He was on the pit wall he thinking I want to see how my new design works, even though we were told he wasn't concentrating on anything but the 2026 car. I mean at one point and this is unbelievable coming out of my lips at one point, lance straw looks though he could have been on for a podium.

Jad Mallak:

I nearly fell off my chair I, I, I was like who is this guy? Where did he, he come from? But yeah, I mean Lance was putting it in. But, yeah, a little bit surprised as well because he said Adrian said, he said it himself I'm not even touching this car, I'm not even looking at it, I'm working on a 26 car and getting the wind tunnel, you know, sort of set up and running. And that's partly also the issue with Red Bull as well, because they've lost about a third of their design and aerodynamic team to build this wind tunnel for next year. So they've lost a lot of people.

Jad Mallak:

But back to Aston. Yeah, I mean, you know, I had a theory and I published it early in the year that, or maybe even the end of last year, that I thought might go to Aston Martin, because there's a couple of things going there. One is, I believe, that one of the offers that I heard is that there's a percentage in the ownership of the team. Then there's also the Le Mans opportunity, which Max has never hidden. He wants to do that. And suddenly Aston Martin has a car, even his GT3 car, verstappencom is an Aston Martin and Adrian's there.

Jad Mallak:

And I just think, oh, he's not chasing the money, he doesn't need to, and he said that. But if there's opportunities beyond Formula One and beyond life of, because you know, I think that he will get bored very quickly and if he doesn't win a world champ, well, he's not going to win it this year. If he doesn't win it next year, I think he'll walk, because he's not one of these guys, is going to hang around forever. He said that if there's an opportunity to go and do the Le Mans 24-hour and do a few other things with a competitive team, one that he'd potentially have ownership in, you know, that's something I think Johnny Herbert is right. I think there's something in there. I know Toto's thrown the checkbook at him, we know that, but I think Laurence Stroll is doing the same thing with other. Carrots have been dangled beyond the world of motorsport.

Rick Houghton:

Yeah, very interesting. We I'm conscious that we uh we're coming towards the end of our time here, but uh, pierre, gasly, good quality jad and uh, pretty good race. He kept it in the points. Uh, probably not driving a particularly fast car, but he was deserving of the eight points he scored, I thought, especially after saturday yeah, look, gasly has been solid for Alpine in the past since the start of the season.

Damien Ried:

Honestly, like you know, especially with all the changes happening over there having a new teammate very soon you know the team boss going away and I think it's a good combined effort from the team as well, because we know that alpine didn't change their car from 24 to 25. That's basically the same chassis, so they stuck with it, they learned it more and now they're dealing with it in a better way and I think pierre gasly is maximizing the, maximizing the chances. They have the opportunities and I think flavio is really happy with him. Look, honestly, I was watching, I was watching driveive, and there was one episode when Flavio comes up to Gasly and tells him what meant. Like that was a monstrous drive which he did.

Damien Ried:

I don't know which race, I don't remember which episode, but I think Flavio, he believes in Gasly, he's a decent driver and, yeah, for now he's delivering. It was a great drive from him also as well. You know his fights with lewis, the way he was defending at one point when he passed lewis. It was a great drive by man. Yeah, he's, he's delivering some really nice drives these days uh, just a quick mention of the two mercedes cars.

Rick Houghton:

A race to forget for mercedes in britain. I mean, both of them came in at the end of the formation lap and put hard tyres on. Yes, I mean the tyre. You can't get temperature into on a track that was wet. I just, I mean, what kind of call is that? You know if you're going to try something in a medium, surely? But the hard tyre it doesn't make any sense.

Jad Mallak:

Yeah, I think maybe they chunked up their mediums on Friday and Saturday, because that's the only thing I could think of is because you would not use hard tires and if you, if you had the opportunity to to go with something else and I think that probably it's what they had left in the cupboard- I think you you know what you mentioned about Lance Stroll getting up to the podium positions at one point, because I remember early in the race they put them on slicks, but they put them on softs and that way he managed not to crash because they could get some heat into those tires.

Damien Ried:

And then afterwards they did a good timed pit stop to go into the slicks and that's what into the inters, I mean, and that's what put him up in third position. But uh, yeah, mercedes, look they were clumsy. They were clumsy in their decisions. I think george was erratic in his driving. Uh, also with his radio, with the pit. Yeah, I want to go now onto the side, you know, asking for the slicks and the radio coming back. I don't know if that was Toto Wolff who just told him to calm down. I don't remember who talked to him, but whenever he saw Fernando Alonso, I think, later in the race going for mediums, he called for that and he insisted on getting the slicks and then he spun one lap afterwards afterwards, yeah, they weren't, they weren't in the zone. Honestly, they weren't in the zone.

Rick Houghton:

It was a really bad race for them yeah, I think, um, when it comes to george russell, we've been used to him over the years being up, being actually being able to make really decent tire calls behind the wheel, and I think, maybe, maybe mercedes thought we'll put our trust in george. He's delivered for us in the past. But you're right, it was the wrong call and I think you know, in hindsight, there was a lot of teams and I mentioned this before there was a few teams who would have had a much better finish if they'd have stayed on the intermediates. They knee-jerked when everyone else came in for the slicks and at first it was too early for the slicks and we saw the likes of Alonso spin out and a couple of others, but then it became, you know, within the window, so everyone opted for it. But there were a couple of teams there that would have finished higher up the order if they'd have what do you call them, damien if they'd have stayed on the interslicks, the interslicks.

Jad Mallak:

That would have worked the truth. But as soon as I saw the flat caps in the Mercedes garage, I thought they've fallen for the curse of dressing up again.

Rick Houghton:

Oh, I know.

Jad Mallak:

The German race in wet conditions Don the flat caps. Before the race started, I thought, oh, come on, guys. Soup, we're all superstitious in this game. Don't, don't try it.

Rick Houghton:

I don't know which, I don't know which commentary you guys have where you are, but, um, when there was a close-up of toto wolf in the flat cap uh, I think it was david croft said uh, toto wolf there in traditional summer attire? Uh, it's, like you know, just ridiculous. Uh, listen, um, I think we've covered everyone apart from the? Uh, the people who didn't finish particularly well franco colopinto, liam lawson, gabriel butaletto, um, isaac hadjar, who was one of my favorite upcoming drivers, um, difficult conditions caught him out. Um, he went straight into the back of kimmy antonelli and just couldn't see him, and antonelli subsequently retired with rear diffuser damage. The visibility at that point was incredibly poor. The closing distances were just nuts, but I do still think that Isaac Hadjar is probably, apart from Antonelli, is probably the best rookie that we have out there this season.

Damien Ried:

I think they all paid the price of being unexperienced. To be honest, Look at them. This is what's common with all of them All of to be honest, look at them this is what's common with all of them. All of them. Yeah, they're all inexperienced and I think they paid the price in such conditions.

Rick Houghton:

Yeah okay, well, we're moving forward, um, in a couple of weeks time to, uh, one of our favorite circuits of the year. I think it's. If you're a formula one fan, spa is the ultimate challenge for any driver, especially if you have, uh, changeable conditions. I mean, spa is the track. Remember that it can be bright and sunny at one end of the circuit and pouring with rain at the other end of the circuit. It makes strategy calls absolutely amazing, without making a firm prediction. Do we think that you know McLaren take all the aces heading into the next race, jad?

Damien Ried:

Yeah, I think it's going to be stupid to bet against them. Honestly, you know, even after a race like that at Silverstone and with one of their drivers getting a 10-second penalty, he finished second. What can I say more than this?

Rick Houghton:

Yeah, of course, the two McLarens over 30 seconds ahead of the rest of the pack, Damien, anything that you think might shock us in Spa, do you think? I mean, you know Ferrari had the upgrade, didn't they last weekend? And they, I mean Ferrari had the upgrade, didn't they last weekend? And Lewis Hamilton did a half-decent job. I think they could be contenders and, of course, if the weather conditions are on the cold side, then you can't rule out Mercedes having a decent run at Spa.

Jad Mallak:

Absolutely, I think for sure. I mean, yeah, it's a McLaren runaway, but behind that, if it's a sunny day and you've got an angry Max, he might redeem himself and put that car on the podium. But yeah, if the weather's cool, then Mercedes for sure. You never know, you never know. But yeah, I think you just can't bet against McLaren at this stage. It's reminding me so much of McLaren in 89, where they won 15 from 16. Are we going to repeat that this year? I mean, it's looking incredibly close.

Rick Houghton:

Okay, guys. Thank you so much. Mr Damien Reid, my friend of old from the Middle East, motoring journalist and broadcaster and former Formula One commentator and editor of GrandPrix247.com, jad Malik, thanks for your company on the podcast this week Always a pleasure, man. Thank you so much. Thank you, and if you want your latest fix of Formula One news, gossip, reviews and everything to look forward to in forthcoming races such as Spa, make sure you head over to GrandPrix247.com. I'm Rick. Thanks very much for listening. We'll see you next time on Two Soft Compounds.

Rick Houghton:

Two Soft Compounds was presented by myself, rick Hutton, alongside Paul Valesco. The studio engineer and editor was Roy DeMonte, the executive producer was Ian Carlos, and this podcast is a co-production between Grand Prix 24-7 and W4 podcast studio Dubai. Don't forget, if you want to join in the conversation, leave a comment on our Instagram page at Two Soft Compounds. We love getting comments, questions, and we'll give a shout out to some of the best ones on the podcast in the next few weeks. You can also email us at twosoftcompounds at gmailcom and if you haven't done so already, please do click that follow or subscribe button. See you next time.