F1's Battery Problem and Rick's Red Flag Protocol

Silverstone should have been a classic, but instead it became another Formula One battery-management argument. 

This week on 2 Soft Compounds, Rick and Damien dig into the British Grand Prix weekend, from boost games and artificial overtaking to Kimi Antonelli’s championship grit, Max Verstappen’s Red Bull frustration, Christian Horner rumours and an FIA safety car finish that short-changed the crowd. 

Plus theres Lego chaos, loose aero bits and the introduction of Rick’s genius “Red Flag Protocol”, the Pinot Noir-fuelled rule change that might just fix messy race endings once and for all.

Production Credits:

Presented by: Rick Houghton & Damien Reid
Studio Engineer & Editor: Ben Dover
Executive Producer: Ian Carless 
Produced by: Poddworx Dubai

Transcript

Damien Reid 0:02

I don't make mistakes, I make prophecies that immediately turn out to be wrong.

SPEAKER_02 0:07

Anything can happen in Formula One, and it usually does.

Welcome And Weekend First Impressions

Damien Reid 0:14

Welcome to another edition of Two Stoffed Compounds, the Formula One podcast with me, Rick, and him, Damien. We are reviewing the British Grand Prix 2026.

Sprint Race And Battery Clipping Returns

Damien Reid 0:24

I thought it was a fairly mundane weekend as we went into it. A sprint race I thought was very good. Antonelli, of course, winning the sprint after Lewis Hamilton put it on pole for that particular event. Demo, the battery clipping we feared before this weekend came true, didn't it, on the sprint? I mean, Antonelli was able to breeze past Lewis Hamilton. It seemed that if you used your boost to defend, it was pretty much useless by the end of the lap and anyone could get past you, even in the Lego cars.

SPEAKER_02 0:52

Yeah, we kind of got sucked into thinking things were happening after after the Austrian race and the smaller tracks. This was not F1's finest hour at the birthplace of the F1 World Championship. Yeah, it came back to haunt us from Melbourne. It was a power deployment race. And uh, you know, we we saw the super clipping, we saw the all the all the terminology that we hate, the super clipping, lift and coast, harvesting. It was all back. Cars were looking slow through fast corners, cops, maggots, beckett, stow. I mean, come on, these are these are these are corners that we absolutely love. And it was just like, really? Come on, guys, lift your

Purists Versus Netflix Style Action

SPEAKER_02 1:28

game. You know what? I was watching it with some people uh who are not F1 fans at at an event and they loved it. So I don't know whether it was wrong. This is my issue.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:38

Have we got it wrong? Have they got it right? I don't know, because they saw the artificial overtaking and thought it was brilliant. And I'm sitting there ripping my hair out, going, guys, if only you knew the truth.

Damien Reid 1:49

Yeah, it's exactly the same for me when I watch races like that. I'm like, as a purist, I'm like, come on, this is ridiculous. But then, you know, to the uh to the need for speed Netflix uh viewers, you know, it's it's great because there's lots of action. And you know, we get to the main race, and there was some brilliant action between uh Lewis Hamilton and George Russell, former uh former teammates. Yeah, but you know, it was the action was fantastic, but then of course it's all false because it's all about who's got more charge in the battery, it's all about uh how how you can recharge during the lapse. So it becomes almost a game of chess for the drivers, figuring out where's best to recharge and where's best to deploy. And the ones that get it right, you know, do well, and the ones that don't, you know, don't. But I thought in that in that terms of that for the weekend it was very frustrating. So we move on from the sprint race because in the main race we've got lots of stuff to unpack, including my genius idea for the FIA.

Lego Parade Chaos With Bin Sulayem

Damien Reid 2:46

And it doesn't involve Mohamed Bin Salem driving a driving a go-kart in front of the Lego cars. What the hell was that about? And you know what he did? You know, do you remember when he crashed the Renault Formula One car at the Dubai Autodrome? I was working at that event, yes. Hilarious. You know what he did at the uh in the Lego? He was leading uh the FIA president was leading the Lego driver's parade cars in what looked like a regular go-kart to me. And uh he took them all into the sand trap and they all got beached. I did see that. Yes, it is. Typical Binsalem.

SPEAKER_02 3:17

The thing is that they on the driver parade, they're no they're never in shot, but on the driver parade, as uh himself and Stefano and and all the head honchos always go around in the last car, um, you know, tail end Charlie's. So they thought, well, let's do it with the with the go-karts, but um the Lego Karts. But yeah, I saw him trying to bump draft Esteban Ocorn a few times, and and then I think about six of them ended up in the sand. And somehow, was it Franco Colapinto? Somehow Franco Colapinto even managed to make his electric Lego go-kart smoke. I don't know how, but there was wisps of smoke coming out of the back of Colapinto's electric Lego made of plastic go-kart. The only guy I know who could do it, and probably the Alpine livery was the only thing that I don't know, it was it was bizarre, but but I don't know, I it was fun.

Damien Reid 4:03

Hey, it was fun for the kids. Yeah, it was fun. It was

Silverstone Atmosphere And Celebrity Grid Walk

Damien Reid 4:06

uh it was fun. Silverstone, uh the biggest attendant of any Formula One event ever, 564,000 people across the weekend. Uh the Lando stand looks absolutely superb with the fluorescent yellow and uh lots of great atmosphere bits to pick out, and there was uh some brilliant celebrities on the grid. And I noticed the British Grand Prix is the only Grand Prix where the celebrities who are uh are there for the grid walk that Martin Brundle does so well, they're actually knowledgeable about Formula One. They know what they're talking about, they don't get chewed at Martin Brundle doesn't get shooed away by their security, they're willing to talk. Uh Jeremy Clarkson was there, some Hugh Graham was there, some real nice celebrities who actually had an invested uh thought into how the race was going to pan out and who they were going to support. Knowledgeable people, which is great to see. I think in in terms of atmosphere and everything else, the British Grand Prix is my favourite of the year and has been for a long time. And of course, the uh the gorgeous weather, blue skies and sunshine really helped across the weekend as well. So

Antonelli’s Qualifying Pace And Title Mindset

Damien Reid 5:06

uh let's mention qualifying for the main race. Um Kimmy Antonelli is the real deal. I mean, how cool, calm, and collected is he when he's behind the wheel. We saw last year he had a nightmare European season. Okay, the last three races haven't gone his way in in this season, but he's still leading the drivers' championship. But that that qualification lap was something else.

SPEAKER_02 5:26

Yeah, I mean the the guy has got a is is is got a very wise head on his shoulders for a young fellow now, and and and you know he did that in qualifying. But the thing that really impressed me about about Kimi Antonelli was during the during the actual course of the race, when he had that trouble with the car, which we'll probably get to later on, but you brought him up now, so I'll bring it up now. But the fact is he's he he set the team, they said, Look, we're gonna bring the car in to retire, box the car to retire. And he's like, No, let me keep going, let me keep going, let me see what I can do. Because if now he's obviously thinking world championship at this stage, and every point counts. And you know, Lando only won the championship by two points last year, and and for such a young guy to go, no, no, let me keep going, and and didn't spit his dummy out and and box it and just see what I can do because every point counts. And to me, there's like wow, this this kid is intelligent, he's thinking ahead, he's thinking big, big picture already, and he's still a teenager. I I'm so impressed with with Kimmy Antonelli in in a lot of areas and in the way he drives, the way he carries himself. He's obviously very liked amongst the drivers. You just look at the the the off-camera stuff and and and in the background, you know, when he's doing the parade lap or getting out of his car in the car parking. Everyone's happy to see him. And he's the you know, you never say that about someone who's leading the world championship.

Damien Reid 6:41

I think uh I think the passion was there for everyone to see when he pulled up at the end of the race. He was clearly emotional. But that effort he put in just to try and secure one world championship point I thought was was thoroughly amazing. Whilst we're talking about him, we may as well talk about exactly what happened.

The Broken Brake Duct Piece Drama

Damien Reid 6:55

So he's uh he's going along in the race, he's chasing Charles Leclerc for the lead, almost certainly would have caught the clerk in about four laps time when a piece of uh they call it the they call it the cake tin, don't they? It's the uh piece of aerodynamics on the inside of the brake ducts. Um he went over the serrated curb at Cops and this thing snapped and basically started affecting his aerodynamics. He thought something on the car had broken, which indeed it has, but it wasn't a mechanical issue. I think the problem the problem was that he came into the pit straight away, which most young drivers would do as a natural course of of how to proceed, but he came into the pit straight away, and at that time the team hadn't had long enough to figure out what it was, so they replaced his nose, not his nose, the cars obviously, and then he went out again, and he's saying, the problem's still here, guys, it's still here, and then by that time they had figured out what it was, and they brought him in again and manually ripped off that piece of carbon fibre and sent him out, and that's where the determination continued for him to try and get that one point, because by that time he was down in tenth place. I think if he'd have stayed out initially, he would have caused himself less damage in terms of falling down the order, and it would have given the team a chance to figure out using data or whatever, what actually was happening with the car.

SPEAKER_02 8:10

Yeah, and and I've got to say, this is one of the good things that we're seeing out of the out of this year's championship with the new cars, is there is a lot of unpredictability with the cars and the construction. We're seeing we're seeing power unit failures, good old-fashioned engine blow-ups we haven't seen for a long time, and we're also seeing components falling off the cars. We saw that with Lando's car during qualifying, where he lost a very important piece of of uh down force. And hats off to the guy. He did an amazing job to pull it out of the hat right at the end and and get the result that he did in front of his teammate. And we see and we saw it again with with Kimmy's car with that bit coming off the car. But, you know, I mean, yeah, we we said after Monaco that Kimmy, you know, he has a lead. He he had such a lead after Monaco, he had two complete race wins up his sleeve, should he, should he DNF. Well, he's used up those two now. But the good news is that he's still leading the championship, even though he's almost run out of lives, and somehow the kid has eked out one more race win gap. He's still got a 25-point buffer on the on the other guys. So he's just doing the right thing. You know, he's he's being intelligent, he's being aggressive when he needs to be, he's he's he's taking what he's got when he needs to, and he's outperforming his teammate. He's just ticking every box in the book.

Horner Reappears And BYD Rumours

Damien Reid 9:24

Um, I want to talk about Christian Horner for a little bit because he turned up at the British Grand Prix, first time he's been seen a race since he was sacked by Red Bull. The amazing thing for me is he's very tight-lipped about what he was going to do in the future. But the amazing thing for me was he went straight over to the Red Bull team on the grid and they were hugging and shaking hands for someone they'd sacked. I thought that was quite amazing. Apparently he didn't speak to Max Verstappen, and I've got a whole load of stuff to talk about, Max coming up. Uh but the Christian Horner thing I find fascinating. And uh Will Buxton, who was uh a former Formula One pundit and commentator, now works at the NASCAR series in America, tweeted this morning that he he thinks there's a massive announcement gonna happen by the end of play today, which is kind of around about now. And he said, if it's the news I think it's gonna be, this is absolutely massive, and of course fans have been speculating is Horner gonna go to Aston Martin? Um they're also speculating over Max Verstappen, I'll we'll come to him next. Uh but I just thought it was really interesting to see Christian on the grid mingling with the Red Bull team like he was still their boss.

SPEAKER_02 10:22

Yeah, well, I'm I mean, you know, let's let's face it, the guy has been there when the when the team was formed. So he's got he's got relationship with with mechanics and people who have been there for, you know, 25, 30 years nearly, and uh he still has a lot of frenzy. And I think the ones that wanted him out are the ones who are also now gone from Red Bull. You know, a lot of people left. And and you know, we're talking about Adrian Newy. There's a lot of talk about whether Paul Monahan will will hang around or or go, and then of course Helmut Marco, he's his protagonist, he's gone. Josfar Stappen is no longer part of the uh the inside team down there. He was he he he he was the cancer in the team as far as I'm concerned, and he's not there anymore. So yeah, I think it's just the people that that that he actually got on well with uh are the ones who are left in the team. And but yeah, I mean he hasn't been to a race. It was this race last year where he he had his it was his last Grand Prix, he got fired, you know, famously just a few days after, and he hasn't been back to a race since then, but he has been s speaking to people obviously involved in Formula. I don't think anything's gonna come out of Aston Martin because even though Adrian Newy did have a chat with him and s and was prepared to bury the hatchet, Christian one of the things that Christian is adamant about is that he's he's he's not gonna be an employee again as he was effectively with Red Bull. So that rules out Aston Martin, it rules out Ferrari, it rules, it rules out Mercedes. He wants to be another Toto Wolf, he wants to be a shareholder in a team. So that rules out Alpine and the chats that he's been having with Stella Lee at BYD, they're the ones to me that ring strongest and ring truest, because Stella Lee said that you know it's a different technology that they use mostly, but it's a fast track for BYD to get on the global stage as a marketing platform to show that they they can compete with the with the legacy brands on the world stage. And I I str and I and Bin Salaim and the FIA have said, look, we will expand the grid for another two cars if it's a Chinese manufacturer. He said that. He said we'll expand it by two. If it's an American one, Cadillac and General Motors came on board. He'll do it again if it's a Chinese one, and BYD is from what I'm hearing, is the strongest one and to be run and partly owned by Christian Horner. So let's see how that one

Verstappen Exit Clause And Silly Season Swaps

SPEAKER_02 12:33

plays out.

Damien Reid 12:33

Okay, uh lots to unpack about Max Verstappen, uh, not least his adventures on track, but behind the scenes stuff. We all knew that Max Verstappen has a get-out clause in his Red Bull contract, and it's based on the team's performance. It now emerges over the weekend uh that that clause involves him in the driver's standings, and apparently if he's not in the top two on the drivers' championship by the summer break, which is in two races time, then he can leave his contract and walk away from Red Bull. Now, with what happened on yesterday's race, recording this on a Monday, by the way, uh that now means it's mathematically impossible for Max Verstappen to be either first or second in the drivers' championship before the summer break, hence triggering the clause. And when Will Buxton talks about this massive announcement that could be happening today, you have to wonder, does it involve Max Verstappen? I'm hearing lots of rumours that Oscar Piastri could leave uh McLaren and go to Red Bull with Max Verstappen joining the orange team and replacing him there. And there's also, of course, been lots of discussions with Mercedes.

SPEAKER_02 13:39

Yeah, well, I mean that's that's kind of on the money. That's that's very ties up very closely with with with my intel after Austria leading into Silverstone. Now, I know that after uh in in Austria, if you remember, Max Verstappen had a meeting with with the with the Red Bull Powerhouse of Austria and uh and Thailand, and they were there to talk about buying Max out of his get out clauses because they knew the get-out clauses were coming, and saying, Well, what can we do to keep you here? We'll pay you how much money do you need for us to eliminate these get out clauses so that you stay with us. And Max wasn't ready to go with that. So uh obviously Zach has made it clear, Zach Brown from McLaren has made it clear that he he was talking to to uh to Max. Toto Wolf has spoken to Max, but that door is not really there to be open now with with Kimmy and George. I think they're they're pretty secure where they are. But Zach Brown definitely um there is something there. Zach and uh and Lando are are besties, are bros, they're they're they're inseparable um on holidays and weekends and stuff, so that's there. So yeah, it would be Oscar that would probably leave. And I don't think Oscar would be too upset, given the fact that that Zach is very clearly in Lando's corner and is still an employee of of Lando Norris's merchandising company and takes a takes a cut off the merch. So there's that. And you've got to remember Oscar's manager is Mark Weber, who is still on the Red Bull books. So in my mind, it makes it a very clear swap, if that happened, that Max would go to go to McLaren to be Lando's teammate, and Oscar would go to Red Bull, where he'd probably be more comfortable and more welcomed, given the fact that Mark Weber is is is part of the furniture at Red Bull. So yeah, I can definitely see something like that happening. And and you saw it and you heard it in Max's tone when he crashed that car into the gravel, and in the pen afterwards, he was disgusted with the car and the operation. And it's like in my mind, I'm thinking, well, that's it. He's he's basically saying, I'm done with you guys now because that was two rear wing failures in two weeks, same problem, very dangerous, and he just had enough. So yeah, I can definitely see.

Damien Reid 15:48

F this, F the team, F the car. Totally, totally. You know, on the on the team team radio. And and of course, you know, very similar. I mean, Max Verstappen doesn't make mistakes like that. That's a mechanical issue with the car, which he says is unsafe and of course could be very, very dangerous. And we'll we'll go on to the aftermath of his crash in just a bit.

Russell, Toto, And A Tense Relationship

Damien Reid 16:06

Um, I wanted to talk about George Russell because if you're listening to this podcast in the UK, by the way, the British Grand Prix is protected by a royal charter, which means it has to be free to air in the UK. Now, Channel 4, who normally play highlights of F1 races, always broadcast the full British Grand Prix in its entirety and live, as do Sky Sports F1. I I nipped across to Channel 4's coverage, which I don't really enjoy. They've got some decent elements to it, but I don't like the host and a couple of things I don't like. And they were interviewing Toto Wolf, and this was on the Saturday, and I couldn't believe what I was hearing. Toto Wolf was basically saying, talking about George Russell's downward spiral. And he said, I've pulled into one side and I've told him to grow up. I've also said that you're overthinking things, George. You know, and it was it was kind of a real negative outlook on George Russell as a driver from Toto, who's never been like that before with any of his drivers. And then I thought it was interesting that on the on the radio, on a cooldown lap, when George had managed to finish second, despite everything that happened, he got onto the team radio and he said, Well done, guys, thanks for everything. He said, you know, we had some straight line speed issues, and Toto immediately jumped on the radio and he said we had no straight line speed issues in the race, George. And I thought, wow, is this a driver who's falling out of favour with his team boss? And could that mean there could be a gap for Max Verstappen at Mercedes? Well, you never know.

SPEAKER_02 17:31

I mean, maybe maybe, you know, because yeah, it's obviously like like Zach with with Lando, Toto is is that with Kimmy. He's known Kimmy since he was a very young boy because because Toto knows his dad quite well from the GT racing. His dad's a customer of AMG, customer of Toto's. And uh, you know, so it's almost like a father-son relationship between Toto and and Kimmy, and you can see that he you know he's he's he's in his corner supporting him. Uh and yeah, Constable George, maybe that's maybe that's just getting on getting on their side, get, you know, rubbing him up the wrong way a little bit. How you know George is always trying to, you know, pick issues and and pick faults with the car and everything else. And and let's face it, you know, he's had the two wins, but they've been lucky wins. He hasn't been faster than Kimmy. It's just that things fell in his favour. And I say lucky because you know you look back that he was in the sand early, he had a deflating tire, and and and it came back to him. But if that had not finished under a safety car, he would have been monstered in his position because he was on 22 lap old medium tires. Lewis Hamilton was on a fresh set of of soft tires for only four laps old behind him, he would have slaughtered him. So, as Toto said afterwards, we're very glad for George's sake that the safety car stayed out till the checkered flag. So, yeah, it was it was a lucky podium. And he yeah, in my mind, mentally, Kimmy's got it got it over him. He's he's it's he's he's beaten George already in the in the Mercedes intra-team

Safety Car Ending Controversy

SPEAKER_02 18:56

rivalry.

Damien Reid 18:56

Uh let me talk about well, let's talk about the uh elephant in the room, Formula One shooting itself once again in the foot rather firmly uh with the safety car, which came out after Max Verstappen binned it going into Cops no, not Cops uh what's the name of the corner? Uh you've got me. Stowe, was it Stowe? Stowe, yeah. And the end of the hangar straight. Anyway, so he uh he bins it there. Safety car comes out, as you would expect. Then he needed to get some uh tractors on to uh drag his car out of the gravel. Nearly every single team uh pitted their car, including Lewis Hamilton, who switched to those soft tires, which meant on a restart he would have more than certainly beaten George Russell. But in coming into pit, it meant meant he came out behind George Russell in the safety car queue. And then, of course, everyone expected the safety guard to come in to give us one thrilling lap of racing at the end. And the FIA are now saying this is a software glitch. I say total rubbish to that. But the on-screen graphics did say safety car ending. And and he I was listening to Martin Brundle's commentary, and he's going, right, safety car's about to end, and I went, it's just gone past the pit lane entry. So I noticed it, but he didn't. But anyway, you know, I'm a far better commentator, obviously. So the safety car stayed out final lap and the and the cars finished under the safety car, which you know it was a thousand pounds a ticket for a three-day ticket at Silverstone. If you come with a family of four, that's four grand it's cost you. And whilst the atmosphere was brilliant, you want a proper race ending and especially an exciting one. So, Damo, brace yourself. I've come up with a brand new strategy. This involved a bottle of Pinot Noir and also the fact that the England game was delayed by an hour last night. Are you ready for this? A genius, I'm up for it. Let's go. It's a new rule change for the FIA to consider.

Rick’s Red Flag Protocol Explained

Damien Reid 20:45

It's called Rick's Red Flag Protocol. And this means, and this would have worked for Abu Dhabi brilliantly, by the way, in 2021, this means that when the race gets to 90 90% completion, which in the case of Silverstone, 52 lap race, so 10% of that is 5.2 laps, but you you go up, you you round it up instead of down. So six laps, within six laps from the end, if an incident occurs on track or on the circuit, which would normally trigger a full safety car, instead, it triggers a red flag. Everyone goes back to the pits, they all change tires, they make any tweaks to the arrow they need to make, and then they have a standing start for the last six laps of the race. It's a genius idea. I've uh been on to uh Mohamed bin Salem, I've been on to uh to many, many experts in the field of Formula One, and I mean this was at half past one in the morning this morning, after the wine. I've so far had zero response from the authorities. But I think this is a genius way of solving the problem. If they'd have done that when Latifi crashed in Abu Dhabi in twenty twenty one, we wouldn't have had the fiasco and we wouldn't have had the fiasco if they'd have done Rick's red flag protocol at the end of Silverstone yesterday. Yeah, I'm all I'm all up for that.

SPEAKER_02 21:58

I think yep, you and and And they could go, okay, we extend the race by four laps or whatever. So you make it a five lap sprint, you put enough fuel in for the five laps, you green up, take the lights, and you go for it. I think that's I think that's genius. I think it would have been absolutely genius. And I'll tell you what, I'll tell you one guy who's probably who was probably having a quiet chuckle about the way Silverstone ended, was one Michael Massey down there in down down there in Australia. Because I'm going to stand in his corner for this one. And the reason why I'm going to stand in his corner for this one is that, and I'm sure it was it was explained by the commentators in Silverstone that I was watching F1 TV, Alex Brundle and Jolly and Palmer, is that, and this is something that we knew before 2021, the incident, is that there is a an underlying current in the rule books where you must under as much as much as you possibly can finish under a green flag. The last thing you want is to finish under a safety car. So on top of everything else, there was the pressure on Michael Massey at the time to finish under a green flag. Now, how it all played out, I'm not going to go into all that. But that was that was one of the underlying uh currents of pressure that he had to face at the time to say, okay, this race has to finish under a green flag. And so everyone kicked off about the way Abu Dhabi ended because it was forced to finish under a green flag. Now everyone's kicking off in Silverstone about the way it ended because it was finishing under a safety car. You gotta pick your side. Which one do you want? And I'm with you, it should be yeah, ideally, red flag it, stop it, and let him go for for a green flag. No one wants to finish a race under a safety car. We had that so many times in the in the mid-2000s, which is why they brought this this this rule in. And you know, let them go. Now what happened under this situation? You're right, there was a there was a a stuff up with the with the graphics, safety car in this, it was it was ending, and it didn't. Now what happened was the safety car waves through the lap cars, but the rules say you need one more lap before you go green. And unfortunately, from what I understand is it, Charlotte Clerk had just crossed the start-finish line when they gave the safety car permission to wave them by. So they ran out of laps, and that's when they should have brought in Rick's red flag, and that would have fixed everything. We would have been fine, but you can't wave the lap cars through and the other thing too is you can't wave the lap cars through until the track is essentially clear because those lap cars, as we know, go absolutely flat out a hundred percent to get onto the back of the of the train, and you can't have cars going at that speed while they're still digging cars out of gravel and that kind of thing.

Damien Reid 24:33

So yeah, but in the Silverson instance yesterday, I mean the the the the track was clear, the car had been cleared, you know, and they um by the time they could have restarted it for one final lap, those lap cars were at least halfway around the circuit going full pelt. So the the restart meant that the leaders would not have caught them. So that was a bit of controversy. But you know, Michael Massey would still be in a job if he'd adopted uh Rick's red flag protocol. And exactly the same thing uh yesterday. Jensen Button said, you know, in America they extend the races. So they they say, well, we'll add another three laps to this. But the problem with that is they they run out of fuel because they're fueled very tightly. So the this red flag protocol stuff that I've I've invented very geniusly, this basically means that they can come in, they can top up the fuel tanks, they can adjust tire pressures, they can put a tweak of wing in, and they can replace tires. And then it's a standing start, which gives everyone who's paid thousands of pounds to be there an absolute grandstand finish. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 25:31

Everyone knows in Pit Lane to the absolute millimilligram how much fuel your car consumes over a lap. So if you multiply that by five, you allow the teams to run to pour that many litres of fuel into the car in the stock. And like there is when that whenever there's a red flag and you're not allowed to touch the car, but the one thing you are allowed to do is change the tires, and that's for a safety reason in case because a red flag would invariably comes out because of a crash, there's carbon fiber on the track, and you don't want a car going out to restart with a with a cut tire and not know about it. So that's why you're allowed to change tires. So if you're allowed to change tires, put them in the garage and put another three litres of fuel in, or whatever that is, to cover that five laps. You go out, every car goes out on a brand new set of soft tires, a little bit of fuel just to get you over the line, and it's game on. Let's do it. I the I I Rick's red flag, I'm I'm gonna vote for that. Let's do it.

Damien Reid 26:26

And of course, I think on the red flag situation, they can make minor repairs as well to the car, can't they? So they can gaffer tape up broken wings and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_02 26:33

They can replace, yeah, they so they can replace if there's something damaged, they can replace it, but it has to be absolutely like for like and the FIA has to have a steward standing in front to make sure that it's 100% exactly the same. Otherwise, yeah, they've got to

Race Results And Driver Reactions

SPEAKER_02 26:49

answer.

Damien Reid 26:49

Okay, uh we're running out of time, but let me go through uh the uh runners and riders. Charlotte Clerk back on form with Ferrari, didn't put a step wrong, really, did a did a great race and and would have finished 20 seconds in front of anyone else. Uh George Russell in second, very lucky, had the early puncher, then he had the uh the fact that he stayed out when the safety car came out and everyone else pitted, which included Lewis Hamilton, who finished the race on the podium in third. There was thought to be a yellow flag infringement for Hamilton, but it wasn't. The uh yellow flag notification came up on his steering wheel, but he'd actually passed the incident, and the following lightboard was green, so he was cleared of that. Um Lando Norris finished in fourth place. Um kind of lonely race for Norris, I thought, really. Isaac Hadja proved that he was uh more than a match for Max Verstappen over the weekend, finishing in fifth and outqualifying his Dutch compadre. Uh Liam Lawson had a great uh race and so did Limbad in the Racing Bulls, finishing sixth and seventh. Uh one person who had a pretty dreadful race, which happens quite a lot, was Lance Stroll, who was uh reprimanded, was it five times or six times for track limits? Just couldn't drive the thing, and basically, you know, he should just, I think, retire.

SPEAKER_02 28:01

He was half a lap off in the Lego car. Come on, man. The guy's the guy's shocking.

Damien Reid 28:05

Yeah. And the rest of the order was, you know, Williams, you look at Williams, Alex Albon, basically, they kept him out after some damage, they kept him out as a test session, and nearly every race they turn up at now, Williams is just doing a test session. Carlos Science did slightly better. Albon finished in 21st, Carlos Science in 17th. Um, I thought Alonso was okay, but of course that car's still three and a half seconds off the pace. They reckon it's the Hungaro ring, which is the race after next, where the upgrade is going to come, which is gonna have to be pretty fantastic for that car to do any decent races between now and the end of the season. Uh so yeah, it was uh it was a fun-packed, interesting British Grand Prix.

Spa Preview And Reliability Fears

Damien Reid 28:41

And next is Spa Frankersham, uh, which means of course that the FIA have shot themselves in the foot again because this is gonna be the final race at Spa for two years, and I just think it's criminal. It's the best track on the s on the on the calendar. And the yo-yo in between that track and Barcelona, it's just ridiculous. But we're gonna go there in two weeks' time, and I think Antonelli's gonna come out on top, and I think it's gonna be a great race.

SPEAKER_02 29:06

Well, yeah, let's wait and see. We we might actually be hopeful that it might be the last race, given how bad these cars are on tracks that have long straights. We they're not gonna make it down the back of the Camel Strait, they're gonna run out of puff. Yeah, you might. But one thing I will say, the reliability of the cars, and with with with Kimmy Antonelli, my goodness, if he's got concern about suspension failure at Silverstone, God help him in spa because the bottom of O Rouge is the toughest in the whole season in terms of compression on the car. I guarantee I'm gonna put it out there right now. The compression at Rouge is gonna break at least one or two cars.

Damien Reid 29:40

Yes, and Cadillac, of course, will set fire to their brakes. And uh and Max Verstappen will probably end up in a gravel chap again. It's gonna be fascinating. Uh I'm just checking, there's no massive announcement that we were promised uh by the end of play today, so uh we'll have to leave that for another time. Damo, thanks very much, my friend. Thank you, man. We're looking forward to the next one. Rick's red flag protocol, adopted by world motorsports bodies all over the globe, including the Americans. It's a genius. I should have I could make money off that, I think. Anyway, thanks for listening.

Thanks For Listening And Share The Show

Damien Reid 30:13

Thanks for listening to Two Soft Compounds. Tell your friends, tell your colleagues, tell your family if they've got a remote interest in Formula One and they want to see or listen to two old fools rabbit on about it, then uh we're here uh wherever you get your podcasts from, and we'll see you next time. Bye for now. TwoSoft Compounds was presented by myself Rick Corton, alongside Damien Reed, the executive producer with Incarlett. Don't forget, if you want to join in the conversation, leave a comment on our Instagram page at TwoStoft Compounds. And if you haven't done so already, please do click that follow or subscribe button. See you next time.