George Russell Is Unc

Come join us as we look over the latest F1 Miami GP, discussing some race incidents, team strategies, individual driver performances, and the upcoming races!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello everyone and welcome back to the fourth episode of the Into the Chicane podcast. We're your hosts. I'm Tasha, and with me I have I'm Alicia. Hey everyone, happy to be back. And uh we're we're excited to chat a little bit about Miami this weekend. It's been it's been a weekend. Like it's been really fun to have F1 back. I'm really glad it was a sprint weekend because it just feels like there was so much F1 happening this weekend. And yeah, I gave it was just right back into things, which is great.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Yeah, I agree. It felt like no time had passed in a way, just right back to the chaos of a regular race weekend, hearing all sorts of news before the races. After the race, we got some news that we'll get to as well in our recap. But yeah, I'm just so happy to be back. Truthfully, it was a long five weeks.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

It was, yeah. It's it was nice to have this race as kind of the the first one back, just like timing-wise with us being in Canada. Like, you know, we went weren't didn't have to be up in the middle of the night to watch it. This one for me was supposed to be at 2 p.m., but it ended up being at 11 a.m. But it was like you know, in my like optimal, like wake awake window, you know, like at the I'm happy to be awake at 11 a.m.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

versus like what completely agree. Yeah, it was great timing for me too. I had finished my meal prep. It was in between the other sports that I was planning to watch today, so no complaints.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

But like you said, Alicia, we had a little bit of breaking news that came out after the race. And if you if you want to chat a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

Yeah, absolutely. Maybe just a quick podium update for the GP today. So following the race today, we had Kimi Antonelli taking the top spot, followed by Lando Norris in P2 and Oscar Piastri in P3. And we originally had Charles Leclerc in P6, but shortly after the race, we found out that Leclerc was actually handed a 20-second penalty for leaving the track and gaining an advantage and labeled by the stewards as no justifiable reason for doing so. And this is really unfortunate because if you watched the race, you know that in the last, truly the last sector of the last lap, Leclerc ran into some issues. He ended up spinning onto the track, didn't end up hitting the barriers or anything. He was able to continue, which is a little bit of a miracle in and of itself. But because he did have a little bit of car damage, he was kind of cutting the corners of some chicanes, and stewards were very unhappy about that. And he got into moted two additional places with that 20-second penalty. So for a guy that was fighting for a podium spot for most of the race, ending up in P8 is pretty disappointing, I would say, to say the least.

SPEAKER_00 2:57

Yeah, that was that was rough. I uh I remember seeing, like as soon as that happened, at right at the end, I was like, this cannot be happening right now. Like it's already been just not a great race for Ferrari overall. But I like how he saved that car from going into the wall, I have no idea. Like that was so impressive. Um, because I think I so I was watching um the Sky Sports um broadcast of it, and Crofty was even like, well, that's the like I don't I can't remember exactly what he said, but he basically called that the race for for sharp. He's like, oh, he's not finishing. And then watching like the the names on the side, which also I don't know why Sky Sports has to like you know, go like they were. I think we were following George Russell at that point. I was like, can we just see what's happening with like the exciting part of like what's going on here? Yeah, I agree with Sky Sports with that one. But but yeah, like I I don't know, I truly don't know how he saved that. And I just like saw him still in I think it was P6, right? And I was like, wait, yeah, how is he still going? Like, did he not crash? Like, is this not updating? But no, he like finished and like got across the finish line there um and checkered flagged with damage to his car. And from what I read, it was just he couldn't make those turns with the damage to his car, which is really unfortunate that he gets a 20-second penalty on that.

SPEAKER_01 4:21

Yeah, it really sucks. Although once the news came out, I was thinking a little bit more, and I guess the options that he had at that point were you drop down much further in the standings and make all of the turns properly, really slowly, or you just go for it and you hope that the stewards are kind to you. So I don't know, it was a really rough race for him, and um it just felt really unlucky that this happened, but I I do think that he did the best he could following that situation. I don't know, hopefully Canada's better to him. I don't really know what else to say.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

Yeah, no, I I agree. I uh I think it's note to to all drivers to wait for it, go into the chicane. Um, I've been holding on to that one for a little bit there. Perfectly executed. Uh but yeah, it was like, yeah, you you kind of had to choose, right? What's the the better of the two evils here and doing what he he did what he had to do, and you know, even with the penalty, like it sucks, but at least you got some points. Because had he, you know, driven really slowly and going into all the chicanes, he you're right, like he probably would have fallen uh well out of the points there. It sucks, but at least he still got some points. But yeah, it was just I feel like it was just a day of bad luck for Ferrari. Like you had Lewis who had that uh that contact with Colo Pinto right in in the first lap, like right at the beginning there, and gave him damage, which I wasn't 100% sure what got damage, so I was really throwed off what because I thought it was like front wing damage, but it must have not been because they didn't change his his wing or pit him during the the first safety car there. But that sucked because that basically was kind of you know, Lewis wasn't gonna be able to be competitive with the damage that was on his car. And they had two utterly terrible pits for both Char and Lewis.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

Yeah, let's actually, that's a good, good segue into the Ferrari of it all, this race. Let's talk about those two pit stops. So I think it was Lewis uh who we were expecting to pit first. We didn't get a pit stop for Lewis, but then we got a pit stop for Leclerc, I think maybe four to five laps before the rain came in. And even he said it himself like, why are we pitting right now? Isn't the rain coming in? And I think even on the broadcast on Sky Sports, they said the same thing. So I was very confused as well as to what the strategy is there because just seemed like a no-brainer. Like, surely he can wait it out.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

What Mercedes did with Russell, where they were trying to get him into like some sort of undercut situation, because I believe Russell pitted, I want to say like three laps maybe before Char. Like it was a few laps. I think that's right. Shar pitted. We saw George go in, and it was like, okay, this I can kind of see how this will end up playing out. But with Shar, I was very lost. I was like, why yeah, why are they pitting him now? Like you might as well just wait for the rain and see how bad the rain's gonna be. And you know, if you need to pull out the inters or the wets or whatever, like you can do that. But exactly it just it didn't, it's I didn't understand the strategy. I don't think Ferrari understood the strategy. And then he goes in and has like, what was it? I think his was 3.8, and Lewis's it was a slow thing.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

Yeah. You were really slow, so hugely disappointing, and he ended up losing, I think, an additional spot coming out of the pit lane. I don't remember who he lost that spot to, but he ended up in P9 out of the pits, but then managed to battle all the way back up to P3 again at some point. So just yeah, like what could have been if he was better set up? Um I don't know. That that seems to be a common theme we have going here.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

Ferrari strategy, right? Like it's just every every race like here. I I don't know, it's gonna be something with them, right?

SPEAKER_01 8:27

Yeah, I think it's equal parts. An unlucky day for Leclerc, and also just really fumbled the bag on strategy. So just unfortunate all around. And yet he continues to be in the fight. At one point, he was leading the pack, he had come ahead of Kimmy. So clearly the speed is there, the driver talent is there, and it just hasn't quite come together yet. But we are early in the season still, uh, even though it doesn't feel like it since it's already May. But we have a lot of racing left. So hopefully things can come together for him in one race and he can get the result he deserves.

SPEAKER_00 9:08

Yeah, fingers crossed. Like for Ferrari as a team, right? Like you have two phenomenal drivers in LeClaire and Hamilton, and uh you you seem to have a good car this year, right? You seem to have a competitive car this year. So again, this has been the case for years, I feel like with Ferrari of they just can't figure the strategy piece out. I mean, they really need to do that to be able to compete at the top of the podium.

SPEAKER_01 9:34

Yep. Agreed. And I think this race was a good example of there being many teams just waiting in the wings for the opportunity to go ahead of them in the standings. Like we had, well, McLaren had an amazing weekend. It's night and day from the first few races of the season. So it almost in a way felt like we were back in 2025 again. McLaren just dominating the Miami uh circuit, sprint race, the Grand Prix. They were just a mainstay all weekends. I mean, huge kudos to them. They were very productive over the break, uh, but it just becomes even more important for a team like Ferrari to stay ahead of the pack and not let poor strategy uh overshadow how good your car is and how good your drivers are.

SPEAKER_00 10:27

Kudos to McLaren. I I agree, yeah. It was a great race for McLaren. And they they're right, they really did they really did something during that break and took advantage of that time and learned a lot about their car and and what they needed to change coming into Miami and and they did great. And Ferrari really needs to step it up. I think it'll be interesting to see what happens in Canada because I know Mercedes, like the car's been the same. They didn't bring in an upgrade package for Miami, but they are for um for Montreal. So it'll be interesting to see kind of like if McLaren and Mercedes, like today, you know, we saw a lot of back and forth between the Mercedes and the McLaren, if that's gonna continue in Montreal, or is, you know, again, is Mercedes gonna be well ahead of the pack or or what's gonna happen there with with their upgrade package coming in.

SPEAKER_01 11:16

Yeah, that'll be very interesting to see. I think maybe Mercedes is feeling a little bit more pressure now. I think even Norris said it on the radio after he passed the checkered flag, despite how successful of a day it was for McLaren, like they were definitely threatening for the win. Like there were many opportunities where they could have overtaken Antonelli, and he did an amazing job defending his position. So good job to him. But with a couple more McLaren upgrades under their belt, maybe Norris gets by. So Mercedes should be taking a long look at how the race went today and making sure they can still stay at the top and and still be there.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

Yeah. And you know, speak we're you know, talking about Mercedes and McLaren, and we're not talking a lot about George Russell here. Yeah. I was like truly, I was shocked this weekend between the sprint and um and and the and the Grand Prix. Like, where was George Russell? Like, I'm really surprised because going into this season, my prediction was, you know, it's gonna be George Russell's year. They have like like a rocket ship of a car. They have a phenomenal car. And like Kimmy's like 20 points ahead of George. Like, that's crazy. And and again, you know, we we did see this last year with with like Lando and Oscar, right? Where Lando was the favorite and Oscar definitely pulled up ahead for the first half of the season, and then Lando came back. And maybe that'll happen this year, but it's crazy to see this happening, and yeah, it's a little baffling to me.

SPEAKER_01 12:54

Yeah, I completely agree. And I think George is being really neutral about it in the media, and he's just talking about how like he has a lot of confidence in himself and it's gonna gonna come together. And I do think it will come together for him, but just the experience discrepancy the two of them have, I think is what is the most shocking of it all. Like, we hardly even saw George's car, I feel like, on the broadcast today because it just wasn't really the story of the race. And it seems insane that in the year 2026, George Russell in a Mercedes is not the story of the race. Like, what are we doing?

SPEAKER_00 13:33

How is this possible? Yeah, we saw Max like all the time, who also I went back and forth on this one, and like I'm still not quite convinced because he ended lower than where he started of Max being voted driver of the day, driver of the day. You know, I I get it, right? He was uh started at P2, I think, right? And then had the spin out, dropped to the bottom, made his way back up. Great, but he still made a massive error that caused him to spin out the way he did. So for that, I still don't not convinced. And there was a lot of debates going on while we were watching the race today on on whether it should have been Max. Um I think it should have been Kimmy. I thought Kimmy's defending today was really good. I'm just continually impressed by this guy. But yeah, we like we didn't see George. George isn't on that list. Yeah, I don't know what's going on.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

Yeah, I don't know what's going on. And I think if you're Kimmy, this is maybe the most exciting but the most terrifying thing that's ever happened to you. You're the face of your team right now, everybody's talking about how you're overperforming, you're um you're maybe not necessarily overperforming your potential, but this is definitely like the best possible result he could have expected at this early in the season. And I think if you're a younger driver and you're a little less experienced, maybe that pressure builds. We even heard it at times on the radio today where his engineer, credit to his engineer for doing a really good job at like helping him stay calm and navigate uh a lot of the yo-yoing that was going on at the top. It takes a toll. And I think ideally you have a driver that has a few more years of experience so that they can continue to like go through the next few races and and not feel that insane amount of pressure. But I don't think anyone at Team Mercedes expected this to be happening. And if you have George in that number one position, maybe you feel a little bit better about going into Canada the next couple weeks and being able to fend off Ferrari and McLaren again. But it's it feels like a nail biter every time with Kimmy, just because like obviously he's so talented, he's doing amazing, but he is very young, and there's always going to be a lot of things that you don't necessarily have the experience doing it, and that can impact any race, any conditions, like any situation you're in. And you just don't have that extra layer of security if you have like a two-year experience driver leading your team to victory all the time.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

Yeah, absolutely. I think it's it's an interesting sort of like thought here, but in a way, this kind of feels deja vu-y to me of Red Bull when Max came into Red Bull. And like it's way too, it's way too soon to say that this is what's gonna happen, but the s the similarities are a little bit like unsettling here of what happened with Danny Rick when Max came into Red Bull. And, you know, Danny Rick was driver one, and he was the one who was gonna win the UDC, and he was the favorite, and Max came in as this, you know, like new young rookie who all of a sudden started taking the attention away at Red Bull, right? And all of the attention ended up on Max. And Danny then, you know, went to different teams and you went to Reynolds and so on and so forth, and we saw how that played out. And there's a little part of me, there's a little voice in the back of my head being like, Is this gonna happen to George as well? I hope not. I hope George wins, you know, a a driver's championship. I think he's a super talented driver who very much deserves it. But you you you now have Kimmy also in a rocket ship, and Kimmy is performing really, really well. So I I'm almost like, if George doesn't win it this year, I don't I don't know if he will.

SPEAKER_01 17:34

Yeah, that's so true. I mean, F1 is for sure, I would say the most cutthroat sport in the world. And if you're off your game even by a little bit, there's somebody who is right up there that can take your your place. So I I think George is being uh really smart with the comments he's making to the media, but I feel like there's no way he's not having that weigh on him a little bit. And you know, we know these guys are really competitive, they care about winning in a sport where you have to be the top 22 in the world to even be eligible to compete. Uh he has the desire in him to to win, and sometimes um you know, you can have like all of that desire and just the cards won't align for you. So hoping he can figure it out, and I agree, I would love to see him win a driver's championship, but sometimes you don't know that it's your time and you won't get another opportunity until it's too late. So we're gonna have to see what happens, but I hope he can start turning things around.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

I think that George really needs to kind of figure out how to start winning essentially and how to start outperforming Kimmy. And I think for Kimmy, one of the areas that every every race, every sprint, like all Kimmy's start is awful. And I think it's really impressive to see Kimmy like just completely fuck up his start and then like come back and do like and still win, which is nuts to me. But can someone teach this guy how to start? Because then like I feel like the races would be so much less stressful if he just had a good start and would continue it on. And I feel like if he doesn't figure that piece out, that's George's window. Or that's, I mean, we'll see, you know, how McLaren does, how Ferrari does in the coming races, but that's always their window to get him because he just has awful starts.

SPEAKER_01 19:38

Yeah, absolutely. And I think it was maybe less apparent before Miami, but we've now seen a sprint race where he's messed up his start and another GP where he's messed up his start, albeit a little less horribly. But it doesn't take away from the fact that he's consistently losing places after working so hard to get pole position in the qualifying before. It feels almost useless for him to have pull position now because it's immediately taken over. By the time we get out of the first turn, he's already out of pole, which I'm sure Toto is not very happy about. I'm sure Kimmy isn't happy about that either. But yeah, he really needs to start figuring that out, or everybody's just going to use that against him, whether it's Ferrari, McLaren, his teammate, Max, it doesn't matter who's up there. They've all shown that they can they can capitalize on his poor starts. So that's a problem for Kimmy. And I think it's something that they need to start addressing with him.

SPEAKER_00 20:36

Yeah, I agree. I think it was interesting in this, like I was interested to see how the new um regulations were gonna play out in this race. And I, maybe I was naive, but I assumed that there would be less yo-yoing happening of the drivers, particularly in a week, I think we saw it with Kimmy and and Lando so many times, and they would just kind of yo-yo back and forth. And I definitely saw it with I think it was Char and George, maybe it was Char and or and Piastri. I can't remember who it was, but I vividly just recall seeing the yo-yo-ing happening. And so I'm a little confused by the the new regulations, and and I know it was to help stop some of that happening, but I didn't really feel like it did.

SPEAKER_01 21:18

Yeah, I would agree with you. I was expecting to see significantly less yo-yoing. I feel like we really saw no difference at all. Or if there was a difference, it was pretty minor because yeah, I think that whole top three you mentioned, they were all switching places constantly up until Antonelli really started having to defend. But I I don't know that we've had enough changes yet. I feel like the tweaks maybe were a little bit more subtle or a little bit more conservative. Perhaps we'll see more amendments coming down the pipeline here, but I know there were some comments that a few of the drivers were making. Norris in particular, he was asked about the tweaks and had mentioned, like, we're not quite left to the level that we should be at yet. I know Lewis as well over the week has spoken about the importance of having drivers be at the forefront of these decisions. So to me, it sounds like the drivers are wanting a little bit more of a voice than they're currently getting, or they want their opinions to be taken a little bit more into account. And maybe we haven't quite done that yet. Um, but we'll see. We'll see if there's more tweaks that that they'll make.

SPEAKER_00 22:36

Yeah, and um, and with driver comments, there is the Piastri comment as well, right? On um, I believe it was George did like a hard break, I want to say in front of him or something like that. I remember him getting on the radio and and complaining about that. But then he came on to an interview afterwards, you know, saying he wasn't happy with what George did, but then found himself doing the same thing afterwards in in the race, right? And so I think there there have to be some changes that come. And and I don't know if it's gonna be this year, maybe it'll be next year or the year after or whatever, but I feel like there needs to be just safety things that come up, right? It sucks seeing some of the crashes that happen. And if we can help reduce some of those, I think that would be a Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:20

And I mean, look at the type of day we were expected to have weather-wise, right? We even moved the race up by a few hours to try to avoid a horrible storm. And thankfully, the weather did not really play too much of a safety factor. So thankful for that. But we're gonna continue to see more races like this where there's weather concerns, and we know that we're worried about safety with these new regulations, the sudden acceleration, the sudden deceleration. Why would we play with safety more when we don't have to do that? So yeah, I think that's a very real concern. And I hope that as the races go on, we're able to find a little bit more of that balance between competitive, exciting races and races where the drivers feel like they have good control over their car, and but we don't see more scary crashes like we saw with Ollie last month. I mean, even today, Gasly had a little bit of an interesting looking crash.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:20

And the car actually flipped over, which you don't really see too much of, I feel, in the modern F1 era, especially in the last five, five years or so. So it's never good to see a car flip over like that.

SPEAKER_00 24:34

Yeah, you saw a Pierce car do that, even uh like Isaac's crash, right? Like he didn't he didn't hit anyone, but that was it was a pretty scary one, right? When you're going at that speeds and it's hard to control and and your tires lock up the way they did, it it can be a lot worse than it was. So I'm glad to say that. And and with the disclaimer that I never want to see anyone get hurt ever, but like I personally do love a good wet race. But holy crap, like I just I can't imagine what it's gonna be like with like a proper like downpour of rain with these cars. Yeah. Like it'll be like as a as somebody watching, like I'm sure it'll be exciting to like watch all the chaos ensue, but uh I don't want anyone to get hurt, right? And I think right now, with the way it currently is, the risk of somebody getting hurt is quite high. Um, and the FIA need to do their jobs and and figure that out.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

Yeah, 100% agreed, and we definitely don't want it to come to that before we see more changes. So let's make those changes proactively before anything goes wrong.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

So the sprint race I personally found really boring. It was so boring. Nothing happened. You saw a little bit of overtaking, but I feel like almost everybody just finished essentially where they started. And it it just wasn't an entertaining race for me to watch at all.

SPEAKER_01 25:56

Yeah, I would agree with you. It was one of those races that felt like it could have been an email, honestly. Just not really all that exciting. We did have a couple unfortunate things happen right off the start with Hulkenberg and Lynnblad not able to start. And then after that, yeah, that was that was really horrible. It was a really rough weekend for a Hulkenberg.

SPEAKER_00 26:22

Just I was gonna say yeah. Yeah, it was a bad just DNF and DNS, you know. Like it just that sucks to have two of those in the same weekend. Yeah, just to bear and I think he like DNF'd for the uh the Grand Prix like pretty early on, right? Was it like very early?

SPEAKER_01 26:41

I think within the first 10 laps, maybe, or yeah, maybe even sooner than that. I think it was pretty early on.

SPEAKER_00 26:49

But yeah, I was just poor guy. That sucks. Like it was very little racing. It almost felt like um Piastri in the first few races there, where it's just he didn't he didn't get to like even really start, like he didn't race really at all. So what I'm hearing no didn't he have like no like laps or something like that, like at the like the first couple races. Yeah, he had I don't think he started a race until Suzuka.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

Yes, that's what it was. Which is so sad. But what I'm hearing from that is we're getting a Canadian Hulkin podium. That is the path that Pierre Street has has laid out for him. So really excited to see that come to fruition.

SPEAKER_00 27:31

Yeah, fingers crossed. But yeah, overall, just like a really, really boring sprint. Like nothing of any sort of note happened in that. Like I think if you're a McLaren fan, you were probably really excited to see a McLaren one too after, you know, the first three three races being pretty brutal for McLaren. So I'm sure that was exciting to see McLaren back up on the podium. But other than that, I can't think of anything of note that happened in the sprint, other than that.

SPEAKER_01 27:57

Yeah, I would agree. I think the point of the sprint race was really just for McLaren to firmly cement that they are not here to play around and they're very much still a threat for a title this year. So if that's what we were supposed to get out of Sprint, message received. So some fun, fun facts or fun tidbits coming out of Miami. Piastri, shout out to him after a really rough start to the season. He has a 100% podium success rate in every race that he has started this year. So he's doing something right. And perhaps his dreams were only delayed but not denied. Piastri World Drivers Championship 2026. We're up. We're up.

SPEAKER_00 28:41

I think it may be a little too early for that right now, but he's on the podium. He's he's back fighting, so we'll give him that.

SPEAKER_01 28:53

I can give him that. I'm so ready. I'm so ready for his first win of the season.

SPEAKER_00 28:59

But speaking of, you know, the UDC and Tanelli. So I think he's the third driver in history to win his first three races consecutively. But also, he broke some other record of like, I think he's the only driver of like that's won, was it three consecutive races or something like that, from starting from pole and winning those or something like that. So wow. There's another stat about that that I I was listening to Crofty talk about today. But he's just like killing it. This kid, I don't know what's in the air with Kimmy. I don't know if Bono is like mixing something into his water there or like what what's happening here.

SPEAKER_01 29:39

But holy crap, Kimmy. Yeah, he's really just impressed me so much. And that last stat that you mentioned, that all of those races have come, those wins have come from pole, is even more impressive, considering that he's so bad at starting and he's losing places at every race start, and he's still managing to figure it out. So once he fixes that issue, the sky's the limit for this guy, I think.

SPEAKER_00 30:04

100%. Yeah. Once he knows figures out how to start that car, there's gonna be a new spot. It's over. I love that. Shout out to Kimmy, he's just so fun to watch. 100%. I think we had, you know, a couple of winners and losers that came out of this this five-week break. Um, so I think that the two big losers this time around were Haas and Aston Martin. I think Haas they were doing really well. And for both drivers to not finish in the point is is is really shitty for Haas. But I think everyone expected a little bit more from them. And Aston Martin. Like the the expectations are like basically on the floor at this point, but in quality, I believe for this sprint, they were slower than the slowest F2 car, which is like for you to have been in the last place in F2, being an F1 car, I I just I don't like what did you guys do over the last five weeks? Like, did we all just hang out and like I don't know, like read novels or something? Like what like what what were we doing? You had five weeks to sure you probably wouldn't have been at the top or fighting for a podium or even in the top ten, but like how how were we how were they this bad?

SPEAKER_01 31:32

It was truly so sad reading that statistic. Yeah, just an abysmal performance. Like they got on Lewis's plane to Coachella, I guess. That's what they were doing over the break. Like, we we can't have that. It's it's truly unsafe for them to be so slow and be competing in F1. Thankfully, they they did figure it out a little bit more for the GP today. They weren't quite as slow, although definitely still probably the worst team on the track. But I think they've been pretty open about the fact that there are no upgrades coming anytime soon. And so to me, that feels like we're really not gonna see any improvement. I think if Aston Martin can score a point before the summer break, at this point I'll be surprised.

SPEAKER_00 32:23

100%. I think that's wishful thinking at this point. When you have like a Cadillac that's going faster than the Aston Martins, and Cadillac is just here right now to like gain data, right? Like Cadillac knows they're not here to try and win anything. They don't care about points, they just care about data right now. And so they're just kind of throwing everything out there to see how things perform, right? But when like the test subject is doing better than an car that's built by Adrian Nui, like I I don't know what's happening. Like, I just don't get it.

SPEAKER_01 32:56

Yeah, it's just so shocking. I mean, even if we think about Alonzo's debut season with Aston Martin, it was a strong season. Like they were not down in the standings like this. Like he had several race wins under his belt. He got some podiums. I think the team finished maybe fifth place in constructors or something. Like, really promising result for the seasons to come. And like all of that is a wash now. Like we are so far away from that team. And the team on paper is better, right? We have Adrian Newey representing this team, and we're talking about them being slower than the slowest F2 car. It just it's not adding up here.

SPEAKER_00 33:39

Yeah, I I I don't know. I'm almost like, was like like somebody else doing Adrian Newey's homework here or something? Like what, like what what is happening, right? Like, how how is the car this bad? And I I don't get it. So I agree. I I just I don't even think they're gonna get a point before the summer break. And at this point, I'd be shocked if they got a point all year. You know, like that's kind of where I'm at.

SPEAKER_01 34:06

Yeah. I I hope they prove us wrong because it that would just feel wrong to see Alonzo so down bad in one, but they gotta get in together, and I don't even know where to start for them. So I I hope they have some ideas because I don't have any for them.

SPEAKER_00 34:22

Yeah, I hope I hope somebody there figures it out, but it's unlikely at this point. Yes. And then I would say the winners coming out of the break. I mean, obviously McLaren, right? Like you had double McLaren podiums for both the sprint and the the Grand Prix, which is incredible because they were not anywhere near that the first few races, but also Williams. I was genuinely surprised. You had both Williams in the points, which, yeah, holy crap. Well, whatever they did during the break, uh, they were not on the beach reading with the Aston Martins. They were they were actually doing something. So that was that was really nice to see for uh for signs and fun.

SPEAKER_01 35:03

Yeah, I agree. I was very pleasantly surprised to see them so competitive for this race. And I don't know that I would have expected like a complete disaster for them this weekend, but I really wasn't expecting to see any noticeable improvements, especially because they had talked about, you know, really taking things slow and steady. And we really did not see too much that looked good for them early on in the season. But I think they're they're maybe getting more familiar with these new regs. They've made potentially some good tweaks, and it was a pretty good race for both drivers, for both Albon uh and Science. So I think good things to take away from Miami for them, and hopefully they can continue to build on it and get right back into the middle of the table race.

SPEAKER_00 35:52

Yeah, fingers crossed. So our next race is uh is coming up in like three weeks, I want to say, right? Three weeks is yeah, I think maybe just under three weeks. Yeah. So I'm really sick of like the breaks I feel like we keep getting here, but we're on to another short break. So in three weeks we'll have our next race, but it's it's Montreal. I like to call it our home race, you know? It's our home race. So that'll be exciting. And I know I'm sure like George is gonna come back wanting that win. I think he's gonna be really hungry for that win. So we'll see what happens for that. But yeah, I'm I'm excited. Maybe some rain. I don't know. We'll see.

SPEAKER_01 36:34

Yeah, we'll see. And I know George has had uh some good luck in Canada. So if the stars align for him, uh it might be in Canada. And and that would be a nice full circle moment, I think, from races past.

SPEAKER_00 36:47

Yeah, I agree. George and Lewis, right? I believe Lewis's first Grand Prix win was Canada. So Yeah, it's so true. You know, you never know. Hopefully we we see them back up on the podium, maybe. But uh, but I I feel like if McLaren has anything to say about it, they're they're gonna try and not let that happen. So we'll we'll have to see.

SPEAKER_01 37:08

Yes, three weeks is time is gives some time for some additional upgrades. So we'll see what McLaren can bring to the table. But I'm excited for it. Okay, so thank you guys so much for listening. Uh, we'll be back soon with another episode. And in the meantime, please rate and review us on the podcast listening platform of your choice. And we will see you next time with another episode. Bye.