Carlos signs in victory. Australia 2024. And George Russell crashes. Singapore 2023. He wins another race. George Russell crashes. Silverstone 2022. Carlos's first win, big win. And George Russell crashed at that race, too. A tough stat for George Russell. But you know what? What a great win for Carlos signs two weeks after appendicitis surgery, which is just absolutely crazy. He was talking about how his guts felt as they rolled around in the car, and he said, It's not like it hurts, but he's like, You're aware of it. You know it's there, Tim. That alone was enough to make me a little bit queezy.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, man. Imagine Can you imagine feeling that and dealing with that during a race weekend or even during a Grand Prix? That would be so uncomfortable. It's very intense. It would be so uncomfortable, Adam. It'd be the worst, dude. Absolutely the worst.

Absolutely. A weird feeling. And you know what? The thing was Carlos signs... There was a bit of a battle with Max for stopping. And I think we should talk about that because Carlos seemed to pass Max pretty easily with DRS early on in the race. But I think what was interesting is obviously Max's problem. So can you explain why Max's back break caught on fire?

Yeah, it was a weird one. I I don't know if it had to do with some changes that they may have made to the car for that particular weekend, but then also before qualifying as well. But it just seemed like it was that rear drum, for some reason, just overheated. And then obviously, there's a... They call it a cake tin, and it literally looks like a cake tin. It's basically clamped over top of the actual wheel and then obviously the break caliper as well. Then there's a lot of heat in there that gets built up and generated, and that thing just exploded when he was coming down into pit lane. I don't think it had anything to do with a power unit issue. He did take on new power unit elements for this weekend. Max did. So did Danny Ricardo, so did Yuki Sonoda, so did Sergio Perez. But I don't think it had anything to actually do with that. But it was funny watching some of the cutaway When he was in the garage, obviously upset, he had his helmet off and he was pointing at his head just saying, This was really stupid or something was really stupid.

I read his lips there. I wonder if they may have tried something that probably may have not been a good idea to start the race with.

I wondered about that, too. Or is that just Max being intense and you got your testosterone's up, you're fired up, and that can happen.

Yeah, for sure. It could have been something like that as as well. I think it would have been tough either way for Max to win this race, Adam, really do. I think Ferrari had the advantage. I just think Carlos Sainz screwed up in qualifying, and so did Charles Leclerc. Another one of them could really put the laptop together that they needed to out-qualify Max. Ferrari was on it this weekend, and I'd said it coming into this race. I'd said it during the race weekend. And saying it again, Ferrari was legit the fastest team. And I think even Sergio Perez, at the end of the race, he even acknowledged the fact that if Max hadn't have been out of the race, Carlos would have beaten him.

Yeah, which is, I think, a big thing to say. Now, if I were Sergio Perez, and I'm talking to the press about that, I don't want to go see Max right away afterwards because I'm sure he wouldn't react well to a comment like that. He'd probably have something to say. But you're right, Tim. Carlos signs in that last lap that he put in in qualifying this weekend, had a purple sector in sector one, a green in sector two. Had he not gone yellow in sector three, right? I think he had messed something up in that turn 9, 10 complex, which is an extremely fast left hand or right hander.

And that's where we saw... I think I sent it to you, but I posted this rate qualifying simulator that literally had both cars, their laps, their lines, what they were doing in their final push lap. And that's exactly where Max had gained the advantage. And I think, yeah, it just was just a little bit of a mistake in between that 9, 10 complex, which is really, actually really tricky to navigate when you're going at those speeds. But I mean, yeah, Ferrari was right there, Adam. I mean, even hearing from Andrea Stella after this one, he even said, Ferrari had the pace this weekend, and he felt that even McLaren could have given Red Bull trouble during the race as well. And then clearly, obviously did with Lando and Oscar.

Oscar being ahead of Perez.

Yeah, being ahead of Perez.

Yeah. And sticking to Carlos for a bit because I want to talk... Sorry. I want to put Carlos to the side for a second, which is difficult because he won the race, and this is a big deal. I want to talk about Ferrari, and I want to talk about their step forward. We'll get to McLaren later. But Ferrari has an unbelievably talented driver lineup, but we already knew that, right? Obviously, next year with Lewis Hamilton coming in, that remains the case. How big How big is it? How much of an accomplishment is it? And I don't think people will realize this for a few weeks until we start to see more things go Ferrari's way. How big is it that there's going to be a battle here? Because it seemed like even in preseason testing, that Red Bull were ahead. And last year, they were way ahead.

It's huge. I think at the beginning of the season, there was a lot of just doom and gloom, even being in Bahrain and covering that first race of the season, covering testing, and then seeing what the Red Bull could do up close and personal was a little shocking. I was even saying, This isn't going to go well for anyone this year. And as we rolled into Jetta, and then I started to do a little bit of data research on comparisons between years, between tracks, between drivers, between teams, really started to bleed out that, oh, dang, Ferrari actually isn't as far behind as they were this time last year, and they're still not that far behind from where they left off from last year, which they left off quite strongly. And I thought, okay, well, let's see some more tracks. I said it on the pod. We need more data. We need more data points. We need to understand where is Red Bull's advantage, how much is that advantage, and can they be brought back? Once we get to Australia, I wasn't expecting Ferrari or anyone to really pressure Red Bull. I wasn't really expecting pressure on Red Bull, especially from Ferrari.

Not until we got to the European leg, like round seven, round eight. And all of a sudden, the Red Bull couldn't handle the graining issues that everybody was having trouble with all weekend, which is quite surprising because Red Bull is actually really good tire. And Ferrari just seemed to really hit the ground running with their setup. They really came to the track. They were so prepared, which is hard to say sometimes about Ferrari, right? Because they put up a lot of mistakes. They put out a lot of mistakes. And not always is that the driver's fault. A lot of it's internal. A lot of it has to do with the team behind the scenes. But we got to give credit to Frederick Vasseur. That's probably a conversation for a little later in the pod. But he's really pulled that team together because they hit the ground running at him. And I think Japan, that may be Red Bull track for sure. China as well. But I think once we start to maybe Miami, Ferrari could be there. And then I think also Canada could be a really good track for Ferrari at the same time.

And then once we start to get those big upgrades at him, I mean, look out. Who knows? The The crazy thing about all this, Adam, is when the race was over, I wasn't like, Hey, like, Charles, Claire, and Ferrari are in contention for absolutely nothing. And I was like, I wonder what that points gap looks like. And then going through and seeing that Ferrari is only four points back of Red Bull in the constructor standing. So I was like, What the hell?

Yeah. Yes. Beatable, catchable, all possible, right?

Because we could be in like that. We could I don't want to jinks it or anything, but we could be in this year where Red Bull is going to really punch a lot of teams in the face at some tracks, but there's going to be, I think, some tracks where those other teams are just going to counter punch and punch them in the face. I think it's all going to come down to the upgrades like I was talking about last episode.

Right. And how you harvest points. Really, where I see there being an advantage to Ferrari because... So So let's just say, Suzuki and the Chinese Grand Prix are Red Bull-centric tracks. The one thing that I can see happening is that even though Perez did finish second in the first two races of the year, I want to grant you that, I can see Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz, or one of the two, beating Perez at those tracks anyway. And what it comes down to is maybe they don't win, maybe they're not in contention. If Carlos and Charles are neck neck with each other. Maybe they're not beating Max Verstaoven for the driver's championship, but we could be talking about a team championship. And if Carlos continues the racing the way he does, then, yeah, we could be talking about a driver A, driver B situation. And I think that is what people wanted. Last year, obviously, You saw greatness in a way, and I think it's a little unfair to Max for stopping, how he was treated in that victory, because I still think there was some holdover from a couple of years before that in 2021, which he won under dubious circumstances.

I think everybody can agree on that, but he did win. He is recognized as his world champion, and there's been this thing that followed them afterwards ever since. It's been this like, well, even though they put together the greatest season of all time, I believe in 20 years, People are going to look back at that at Marvel and just go, That's the craziest Formula One team of all time. How did that even happen? And so saying all that, Tim, what I'm looking for for Ferrari is, how do you pad as many points as you as you can. How can you get with your two drivers the most amount of points so that Red Bull, maybe they've got the win, but their second driver can't get on the podium. Lock him out of the podium, put him down there. Let him fight with McLaren, let him fight with Mercedes if they're in it, or Aston Martin if they're in it. Let him fight with them, not with us.

I think a big part of it's on Sergio's shoulders to show up every single weekend and to make sure that he's delivering as best he can. Look, I don't like crapping on drivers, not unless they really deserve it. I don't really think Sergio deserves a ton of crap being thrown at him. But at the moment, he's a bit of the weak link within Red Bull Racing when we talk about the on track performances, because he hasn't closed that gap to max enough just yet. I mean, is it better than where he was last season? Yes. Does it need to be even better? Yes, it does. And that's one of the things with that second Red Bull seat. And we heard Christian Horner talk about it last year. We heard also Helmut Marco talk about it last year. A big component of that is making sure that whoever is in that second seat is close to max, not qualifying further towards the rear, but making sure that they're close by so they can cover off, undercut, overcut, cover off another driver, trying to make up a move to gain position on Max. So I think we're going to start to really see that, Adam, as this season keeps progressing.

I mean, there's no question, Max is the favorite almost every race we go to, But we now see that there is another team here that's really going to be able to put pressure on them, can really challenge them for race victories, but at the same time, they actually can really challenge them in the constructors' standings. But at the same time, for Ferrari, Adam, they have to be perfect every weekend, both drivers. And I really feel that they have that driver lineup. Whenever, in a good part of the report, You can see this is last season. Whenever Carlos has a really great weekend, Leclerc counterpunches and he has a really great weekend the next week. Then Carlos comes back the week after that, and then Leclerc will come back the week after that. And what they're doing, that pushes the team forward in terms of the development, but it also pushes the drivers to make sure that they're outdoing each other, but pushing each other at the same time, which is huge because with Red Bull, you're not getting that, right? It's Max. Sergio, Max. Sergio, Max. Sergio. So it makes things a little more difficult when you're trying to win a constructors, when you have something like that happening at a team.

Right. And I think that that plays in nicely to our next conversation piece, and I'm just pulling it up here. Is Christian Horner talking about what they want out of this driver or out of that secondary spot? And what he What he said today, which was very interesting, is we want to feel the best pairing that we can. And sometimes you got to look outside the pool. You've got a very fast unemployed driver win today's race. So the market is reasonably fluid. So it's fair to say that, and I believe they've already met, Red Bull and Carlos signs are on each other's radar. I think Carlos signs senior was seen in the Red Bull paddock in the first couple of weeks to have a meeting.

Yeah. I actually saw Carlos's dad having lunch with with Helmut and Christian during Beraine. I actually saw that. So that's-So you can confirm that. They're definitely having conversations. Let's just say I think Carlos's dad is probably having conversations with everybody down in Fiddling.

100%, 100%. And Tim, wouldn't you? I mean, you got to talk to everybody, especially after winning a race. It's a pretty spectacular endorsement. And I look at this situation, and I think it's hilarious because Carlos Sines has now been booted off three teams for other drivers. Toro Rosso, then Renault, then he left McLaren, went to Ferrari, but he wasn't booted off there. And then Ferrari, he's been booted, right? This guy has had to go everywhere and perform everywhere, and he has. And so part of me was thinking, if you're going to move Checo out of that spot for Red Bull, obviously, Daniel Riccardo would be great because Daniel and Max love each other and they have a good time. But Daniel, who we can talk about later, hasn't performed to the level that I think Red Bull we're hoping. And so if you're going to look outside of the driver pool, Carlos signs as a guy that's always fast and has seen a ton of adversity and a ton of change. And Probably wouldn't be as intimidated with Max for stopping since he knows him. I don't know how well they got along at Torre Rossa, but it really doesn't matter because they were kids too, right?

So I feel like Carlos could be able to handle Max's quirks.

Yeah, I think it's a question of, do you want to go back to that program? They may have a really good car in 2025, five. But who's to say that their power unit program for 2026 is going to be really good? I think for Carlos, even though he sits there and he jokes like, Hey, I'm jobless. And then you've got both Lando and Charlotte Claire singing his praises post-race about what a great teammate he is. He's such a hard worker. Someone needs to hire him. And you have Carlos joking like, Hey, these are my two best two favorite teammates. I think a few more performances like this, Adam. And yeah, it's like I said, I could see him in that Mercedes seat. It's like, why would you want to go? Why would you want to go back to Red Bull? You got out of there. You got to Formula One. You got the opportunity. You're able to get out of there. You're able to move around. You landed with Ferrari, which is like a driver's dream. You got to win with Ferrari, which is a driver's dream.

Three races so far.

And your value and your stock is nice and high. I don't I don't know if I would want to go and play number two to Max. I don't know if I would want to do that if I'm him. I would look more along the lines of that Mercedes seat and is George really the number one guy there now?

Well, and so that brings us to, let's talk about Mercedes Day. Total Wolf said this. The big headline is, I want to punch myself in the nose. But it's a much longer quote than that. So he said, There were times in the race where we massively lacked pace, and there were times at the end where you compare yourself and you're like, Okay, we're still doing okay. We're still not where we want to be, though. But if you could see the second stint, Fernando was on medium tire and we couldn't come anywhere close. The lap times looked like a second off of McLaren's lap times. Suddenly, the last stint, we went for it, not worrying about too much, and the lap times were competitive, not for Carlos signs, but it was much, much better. So obviously on one side, he's like, I want to punch myself in the nose. On the other side, it's a testimony of that, when you get things right, you can turn it around pretty quickly. You've just got to continue to believe. But at this very moment, it's a tough time for us. So obviously, Lewis Hamilton's car just shutting off.

It does happen, but you don't want it to happen at one of the top teams, right? Especially Mercedes, especially Lewis. He's called at the worst start of his career. How much do you put on Lewis for that start?

Well, I mean, he is in the car, he is driving it, so he has to take part of the responsibility in that. I think also at the same time, though, Adam, they're still trying to learn and understand a totally new philosophy of race car for this regulation. One of the things that I've always found really interesting when watching these teams make these quick decisions to change their philosophies is how long it takes them to understand that there's a really small little sweet spot within the regulation and within the regulation and within the car that they've developed that they've got to find a nail so they can have decent performances. And then some tracks, have really, really, really great performances. The thing with Mercedes is it's so much learning right now. You're learning about a totally new car package. You've taken this massive step away from something that you were working at for a year and a half to go down this other direction, and it's just going to take some time. But for Louis, he's really struggled at him. It hasn't not been good for him. But George hasn't. Obviously, George had a huge crash today, but Sure.

Outside of that, both drivers, DNFing. George has done okay with this new car. I believe he's outqualified Lewis in every single race so far.

Well, and so, Tim, a couple of things I want to ask. First off, do you think Ferrari is concerned Are they concerned?

Not with Mercedes, I don't think.

No, are they concerned about Lewis?

I don't think so. I mean, he's a seven-time world champion.

You don't worry about that?

You don't really worry about things like that.

I think it's- He's probably looking at their car going, I can't wait.

I always look at when drivers get into Formula One, what are they given? Lewis hasn't had horrible cars since he's been in Formula One. He hasn't had really bad car. George Russell, Williams, 2019, that car was a monster that I don't know how he got in and drove it without being scared crapless because that thing was so unpredictable. The things that it was doing was... Oh, wow. Adam, honestly, Not a good car. I think for George, it's understanding that he's good at making a really bad car quick, or he's good at figuring that part of it out. But once I think Lewis gets stuck in, which he always does, spends the time, which he always does, he'll figure this thing out, and he'll be up there with George, no problem. It's just for him, it may take a couple more races to really learn the new responses with everything. But for Ferrari, you're getting a seven-time world champion. You don't worry about those things.

And George crashing towards the end of the race did lead to a penalty. So we'll talk about that in a second. Obviously, the car looks pretty mangled, but it didn't look like it was too bad for George. It was just very dangerous, obviously, where he ended in the field. Do you think Mercedes looks at that and goes, That was something out of our control, and there's not much that George could do there?

Yeah, I mean, a lot of that obviously happening with Fernando Alonso in front and Alonso getting 22nd penalty.

It's a huge penalty.

Yeah, it puts him back to eighth. That moves Lance and Yuki Sonoda up to sixth and seventh in the final standings. And for all of that, I mean, the stewards Essentially, what they had said was Fernando slowed up about 100 meters sooner than what he was doing during the race, during that battle with George. George was about five-tenths back and then was caught off a bit. I can see how you I can get caught off by that. It was a potential dangerous driving situation, but it wasn't like a break check. It was more along the lines of Fernando lifted to get a better exit out of that turn to get a faster shot down the straight away. I think he was worried that George was going to get him on the back straight. For George, it just caught him off guard. Fernando doesn't feel like it's very deserving to get that penalty. But I mean, if the stewards saw something and they weren't totally, totally happy with it, then, yeah, I guess you got to give him the penalty. But yeah, I don't know if for those listening or watching, you should go over to Fernando's social media account and check out what he wrote because he was thrilled.

He was pretty punchy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he said it's disappointing to get that penalty from the stewards for what was hard but fair racing. Still, I'm glad George is okay. It was not nice to see his car in the middle of the track. And back to Mercedes for a second here. For the time that Fernando wasn't penalized, Aston Martin had jumped ahead of them in the standings. And we We're going in this weekend talking about, Oh, there's a Mercedes- McLaren battle brewing up here early in the season. Well, not anymore. It looks like it's an Aston Martin Mercedes battle. If you're looking at the points, McLaren now have 55, which is almost double what Mercedes had. And with their double DNA. F, they're staying where they are. They've got Aston Martin past them with 28 points, but then with the lost points on the Fernando Alonso penalty, they're at 26. Mercedes is at 27. Tim, Mercedes in fifth place almost happened Race 3.

That's good.

The thing is that it's not like it's like a close third, right? You're talking about you would need McLaren to double DNF, and You would need both of your drivers high up in the standings in the next race or two to catch them.

Yeah, it's all going to come down. That's what I was saying. Season is going to be really close. It's going to be fine details, fine margins all over. We're going to be critiquing the smallest of errors that some people may look at and be like, Yeah, whatever. But when you look at the finer details, it does add up to a bigger problem. And so it was interesting listening to Total Wolf following the race on Sunday. It just sounds like they have some a correlation issue that they're having with something at the factory is not translating to what they're getting on the track. And for certain things like that, I always tend to wonder, do they have a bug in the system somewhere that is just not sorting it out for them, and they're having to run around with their chasing their tail, so to speak. And I think they are. That's exactly what's going on here, because I don't think they've got a horrible car at them. Yeah.

No, I don't think so either.

Speaking with Georgia in Berane, he was like, Hey, look, this car is actually not that bad. Not as bad as last year's, and we just got to learn it and figure it out. And so something that's happening back at the factory is not translating into what's going on out on the racetrack. Those are those fine details, man. You got to figure out if you want to start closing in on these teams and not finish fifth in the constructors because, yeah, like Aston Martin is one point back, man. Like they're one point back.

And that's something that nobody would have expected, right? Yeah. Along those lines, Sauber, I don't know if you saw this, were fined 5,000 pounds for a bad pit stop. They actually showed it on the SkySports/TSN broadcast where, and this is the second time this has happened, Botas had another 28-second pit stop that probably robbed him a shot of scoring points. I guess a wheel nut came out of the gun and rolled into pit lane, and therefore it was in the path of other cars. This is compounding on some problems they've had earlier. It seems like sloppy pit stopping, and they do have new pit stop guns, right? Yeah. Is Having never used a pit stop gun, would that be something that you have to get used to? Is that something that the techs are like, Now, this is completely different. I wasn't prepared for this.

I mean, it could be just a coincidence, but at the same time when it's happening, what is it, twice already? Or did they have one in Berain?

Twice in three races, yeah.

I can't remember if they have one in Berain or not. Anyways.

Yeah, Berain. The Wheelnut caused lengthy issues for Botas and Joe Grand, in Berain and in Jetta.

Yeah, I thought so. So Something with the new pit equipment is not working, right? And you've got to go back and you got to investigate what the hell is going on here because if I'm Valtry Botas or Joe Grandu, I'm flipping out, man. Absolutely. If I'm absolutely losing my marbles because of our races are being done in by faulty pit equipment, then you'd be totally frustrated. Now, granted, it's not like they're fighting for points, right? But they're still fighting for position or sniffing at the fact that if something happens just a little further up the field, they're going to be there just to capitalize on a point or a couple of points. So it's that type of stuff, Adam, that just sets you so far back because of it, right? It's really tough. And then you've got all this stuff with Audi coming in And you've really got to try and figure out how to sort yourself out with all that. I mean, they're just not in a great position, finishing whatever it was, 14th and 15th in the race.

They're just a bit messy.

It's not good, man.

It isn't. But obviously, that's got to change at some point here soon. A couple of the things I want to hit here, Tim, is Lando Norris is now the most successful driver to never win a race in terms of podiums. 14 podiums, no wins. We know that he came close in Russia a few years ago, back when there was a race in Russia. I remember he didn't put the wets on and he spun out. And it was heartbreaking. How close are we to a Lando Norris victory? He was third place today. He was second place a few times last year, although never close because of Max. How close has McLaren finally given this driver a car car that can win a race? Because I don't think he's ever had one before.

Not yet. The car is just not there just yet. But it is encouraging to see how competitive they were this weekend when we go back to Berraine and Jedda and we're like, oh, rough start for McLaren here. This may not turn around for a while. And now then you fast to Australia, and they looked really strong. The quality pace was really good, and they did a great job of managing the tire, managing the graining, and the car was quick in the race. And even Andrea Stella saying, We were right there to challenge Red Bull for podiums if they had stuck around in the race or if Sergio had been a little bit higher up, and Sergio couldn't get by them. So I thought their other driver, Oscar Piastri, was really remarkable. It's just shame that he had to move over for Lando, but I get it. Lando was on pressure tire. He was a quicker driver, and he was trying to make that push to track down Charles Leclerc, which if there had been some more laps left in this one, Adam, I think he would have done. Yeah, I agree. I do think Landall- I don't mind that team order.

I don't mind that at all.

No, no, no. But I guess if you're an Australian McLaren fan or Piastri fan, you're going to be a little pissed about it. But at the same time, I think Lando would have gotten by him anyways, even if they were just going to let them race. I think it was just to avoid that conflict and confrontation between the two of them. It was just to give them the order, just get Piastri out of the way so we don't have to deal with that and see what Lando can do here. I think those two are definitely going to have their moments, maybe this season, maybe next. But I think those two will definitely have their moments. Oscar is a very competitive driver. I think he's just watching his whole race unfold at him. It looks like he really has that understanding how to manage the tire now instead of going out on a new set of hard tires and then just really driving a ton of heat through them and have them degrade or grain faster than what they're supposed to. He actually brought them in properly. He got them up to speed properly. He really finessed them throughout the race.

And that's a really hard skill to master when you're in Formula One for just your second year in a row. I feel like I'm just sitting here talking about how good Oscar was and not talking about how good Lando was. But no, I mean, Lando was excellent, too. Okay, better question.

Who wins for McLaren first? Oscar or Lando?

Well, I mean, Oscar had that sprint race win last year in Qatar, right? Yes, he Did you say that counts? No, I mean, I guess not. It's a sprint race. It's a sprint race. It doesn't count. It's not a Grand Prix race, but that's a great question. Because Oscar is looking real good. I know, man. I don't want to say it. I would say I'm just going to take the safe bet and say Lando just because of the experience. All right.

Do they both win a race this year?

It depends on upgrades.

And by the way, a completely unfair question, but I'm going to ask anyway.

Yeah, no, that's good. I mean, It depends on upgrades. They haven't brought anything to this car yet. We have to remember that, too. They were really good, and they hadn't even brought anything to the car. And so they're understanding what they have, which is great because they're able to figure out what is weak on the car and what is strong. And that's what's only going to help that upgrade process speed up because they're going to know which directions to not push in. So when they bring big, big upgrades, we do see it happen out on the track. So I think if they're in the right situation, if they nail the first big upgrade, I can see McLaren potentially winning a race this season.

Okay. Now, I don't know- They look good in the race, Adam.

Again, they could have challenged... If Verstappen has stayed in the race and he didn't have a break issue, they were fairly confident that they could have challenged him for a podium place.

That's major. Yeah, it's huge. But it is going to take... I think there's going to be a mental hurdle there with Max because he's like, Darth Vader right now. He's just so undefeated. You're like, you do need to...

There's a car in front of him and he uses the force.

Yeah, it feels like that sometimes. I think you're going to have to with Max, there's going to be a mental hurdle for, I think, a few of these drivers, even if they're friends off the track. There's winning and then there's beating Max. And that's the thing is that Carlos may have beaten Max, in theory would have beaten Max, but didn't beat Max. I think that's going to be interesting. I mean, he beat him, but it wasn't Carlos's driving that beat him. It was the So this is the thing, right, Tim? What did they used to say, guys? Guys with Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods was always in the last pairing of the day. And if there were new guys that had come through that had a really good round two or round three in any a particular tournament and they were going against Tiger on the Sunday, a lot of the times they would just melt under the pressure of being next to Tiger. I wonder if Max is at that level where where Louis is, too, when he's got a good car, it's like, Okay, yes, I could win, but I'm going up against that guy.

I'm curious to see how the Landos, the Oscars, Carlos signs, Charles Leclerc, how those guys react to going, Okay, we're going head-to-head with Max, and he doesn't have a mechanical problem today. How do I beat him?

That was qualifying. Yes. That's what qualifying was. I mean, that was two, three drivers battling one driver for pull position. It wasn't so much car-based. No. Obviously, the cars have to be good, and they have to be capable, and they have to do what the drivers needed to do so they can feel confident and be aggressive. But that That qualifying session was all driver, all of it. Every single part of that entire thing was Max Verstappen. Just taking Paul, being at the limit, being at his best, and then the other two just making a little bit of a mistake. So we don't really know what does their best actually look like. And we know what Charles Leclerc's best in qualifying looks like at him. I would say he's the fastest one lap quality driver in the field.

So last question before we go, because I know there's plenty to cover this week.

Oh, man, we got to talk about Lance. He had a good...

You want to talk about... Okay. All right. Well, I mean, no, you do your thing. I got a couple of things.

Let's go Lance.

Let's go Lance, because I have a question for the backfield. But let's talk Lance, because he did have a great day, and as usual, get zero credit for it.

He had a great weekend. I think this was one of his all-around... It's hard to It's hard for a driver to put a weekend together and be fast, quick, perfect in literally every single session. He bounced back well from the mistake in Jetta, and he was quick right out of the gates. He challenged Fernando in every single session. He probably would have beaten Fernando flat out in the race if it hadn't been for the VSC, for Lewis' stricken car. At the end of it, he did beat him, obviously, but that was because of Fernando getting the penalty. But I think for Lance, if he's able to... Whatever he was able to do for that entire weekend, if he just take that and put it into every single weekend moving forward, he's going to have quite a bit of success this season.

Yeah. This is the thing. Last year, he comes into the race, his first race with two broken wrists. Anybody that's ever broken anything will tell you it takes weeks to do it, weeks to come back from it. You saw the pain he was in on Drive to Survive and what he was able to do. I know that you're a Lance Stroll truther, Tim Marini. You are pro Lance and have always been. Can these next few races be his coming out party truly in Formula One?

Yeah, I think... And he said it himself. He said I said that openly to us on TV, and most recently in a sit-down interview I did with him in Berraine. If he's able to put everything together throughout the entire weekend, he knows what he's capable of doing and where he can be, he flat out said it. And that's exactly what he did this weekend. He took the car, which wasn't great this weekend, and he made it as good as that car could actually be for the entire weekend, not just for day. It was for the whole thing. I think, like I said, if he's able to just take all of that and try and gain that consistency of just trying to be as perfect as you possibly can for every single weekend, for the entire season, then you're going to have some really good success. But you're going up against Fernando Alonso. He's a two-time Formula One world champion. He's probably one of the greatest race car drivers of all time ever. He can make anything fast. So you've got the teammate.

And he was right there behind you.

He's going to push you, right? He's going to push you.

But he was right there in front of him. He was right there. Totally. Those two cars, it's a little bit weird how much they've been together in the early going in terms of placement, one after the other. They're right there with each other, which is last year was not always the case. And so that's That's exciting for Lance, I think.

Yeah, and a lot of the stuff with last year, like you had said, he was injured coming in. You lose all that time testing, so you're already starting on the backfoot coming in. And then you've got to scramble to learn and keep up with Fernando at the same time, which is another type of pressure. And then you've got the media on top of that adding the more pressure to it, but that's Formula One. And then you have the team making mistakes, and then you have Lance making mistakes, and then all of these things just start compounding itself, and then the car goes into a in a different direction, then you lose your way with that, and you've got to come back from that. And then the team starts experimenting with things. And as a driver, you're just trying to keep your feet on the ground and understand what you've got in front of you. I'm not making excuses for Lance, but there are other things with all these drivers on the grid that happen behind the scenes that we know nothing about. I mean, Danny Ricardo is a very good example of what the hell is going on in.

I do want to hit that I want to talk about that next.

But this is what I'm saying. It's like, we don't... Danny Ricardo is an incredible driver. We know that. So what's going on behind the scenes? What's happening with the car? Because he has said some stuff to Sky Sports that had me going like, What's that? So it's not always what we see on the track that we just quickly assume that a driver is junk. It's, well, okay, well, what What else is not allowing the driver to reach the potential?

Right. Now, I wanted to frame that Daniel Ricardo thing, if you don't mind us talking about it here. Yeah, for sure. In this particular way, because obviously, I forget. Tim, sometimes Because Tim and I, actually, if you're listening to this, Tim and I talk all the time on text, so I'm never sure if we mentioned it on the show or not, but the Logan sergeant sitting out for Alex Albon, did we talk about that on the show or was that after?

Well, we didn't get to talk. Well, so we just texted about Logan. Yeah, so we did text. We didn't get to actually like, yeah, we didn't get to talk about it because I think we taped on Thursday morning and that stuff didn't come out till Friday evening.

Right. And so I have my days blurred. But it was one of the most dramatic moments of the early season. Alex Albon getting into a really nasty crash around the same spot, actually, that George Russell did. And I believe anyway. I think so.

Yeah, same spot, same corner. Alex actually crashed in that corner last year during the Grand Prix. Oh, wow.

Okay. So it's not his favorite corner. So he crashed in the same corner.

He crashed in the corner last year, and then this year, he crashed just on the exit of the corner.

So I guess the first thing is the William's perspective, and then we'll bring it back to Daniel Ricardo for a second. The William's perspective has got to be sitting Logan Sargent out. It's pretty obvious. If you're being a Stone Cold killer, and these guys have to be, your best chance at points is Alex Albon. And as we saw today, he finished just outside. Magnuson and Halkinberg were able to hold him off, right? But he was 11th place, really, really close, right?

Yeah, Alvin finished in 11th, just behind Halkenberg and Magnuson. Yeah.

So how do you feel about his drive? Do you think he did right by his teammate who had to sit out on his behalf? And Then we'll talk about the Williams' perspective from a bigger... Because if you go out there and your teammate takes that for you, you want to go and deliver a good performance. Do you think that was a good performance?

I got mixed feelings about this one, and it's not Alex's It's not their fault. I mean, crashes are going to happen. Is the team prepared? Did they bring everything that they needed to bring to make sure they're not having to do what they did During the weekend. For those of you who don't know, Williams didn't have a backup chassis, a backup tub, because Alex tubbed it. So crashed the car beyond its repair, his safety cell. And they didn't have a backup for it because they weren't ready. They haven't had the time to put together a third tub. And that's concerning because you don't ever want to go professional racing without a backup car because crashes are going to happen and drivers are going to crash cars. And that's just part of the sport because you're taking things to the limit. Did Alex do what he could in the race? I think he did everything he could do The question is, did James Vallsas make the right decision?

Do you think he did?

You have to make the best decision for the team in that moment. That's a tough moment to be in. Alex is your number one driver. He is your star driver. So you have to give in to your star driver, right? It's like, okay, we're three seconds left in the game. We're down by three. You have Steph Curry on your team. And you have Draymond Green. Who are you giving the ball to? I'm not comparing Local Sergeant to Draymond Green. I'm just saying that, let's say you have a rookie, that's better. And Steph Curry, who's the ball going to in that time. It's going to staff. You got to give the car to Alex. Totally get that. Fair game. I think Alex did everything he could to hold on to that point position for as long as he could. Could the strategy have been a little bit better? Yeah, I probably think it could have. That was the other part of this, right? There's a lot of things going on at Williams, and I didn't even know we could talk about some of this stuff I saw that there were some articles floating around online about this Excel spreadsheet that Williams had been using to make race cars since 2003.

Tell us about this.

What is this?

We got to sit down and speak with... Well, we got to have breakfast with James Valls during the Beret Grand Prix. I can't remember if he let us know about this during just the breakfast portion because that was off the record. You You're there with him for like 45 minutes or whatever, and you're just shooting the breeze. Then you do a 10-minute on the record type deal. I couldn't remember if this story was actually on the record or off the record, but I guess it was on the record because there's articles that are now just starting to float around the Internet about what James has said. So essentially, the team had been using an Excel spreadsheet to build a race car, build a Formula One car. And the problem is It's because that Microsoft Excel has so many components to it, and you're entering thousands and thousands of pieces of data, parts, screws, everything into this Excel spreadsheet, you lose things. And you lose parts, and you can't find parts. And this was something that James had actually said to me during last time I got to sit down and have a meal with the guy, which is actually really cool.

And I'm glad William does do that because you learn a lot. But yeah, this was back in the British Grand Prix in July last year. Essentially it was like, yeah, we sometimes get to a point where we actually lose a part and we can't find it. What do you mean you can't find it? It's just like it's gone. We can't find where the part went to. I think a big part of all of that has to do with building things through an Excel spreadsheet where other teams are so far advanced. They have a way different like organized archival system that can locate everything that they need whenever they need it. So during the winter months, they basically had to go through and take everything that they had on Excel and start dumping it into newer programming to speed things up, to make things more streamlined, to bring more departments together so they can actually communicate and they can get things built and put to the car fast enough. But in doing all of that, Adam, it put them on the backfoot because they were too busy trying to do that instead of trying to get the car ready out the door.

They were really struggling to try and get one car on the track for testing in Bahrain. We didn't even see their race car, Adam, until it did a filming day. I think it was like two days. It was like one or two days before the rain testing kicked off. Wow.

And Tim, listen to that. It makes you wonder as a complete outsider, can they not walk and chew gum? Can they not do two things at the same time? Because to me, the car is paramount. The Excel document aside, can't you hire some interns to do that? Some kids right at a university who are in data analytics and let them do the transfer while everybody else works on the car because you had such great momentum last year. And they've started well. It's not like it's been terrible, except for this weekend, which was not great having neither one of the cars on the grid.

You're right. They actually are doing better this time compared to last season. But Tim, my question to you earlier this weekend was, how do you not have a third chassis? I know. This is it.

So they didn't have time to build a third chassis?

That's right. It's just getting lost in all of this, trying to... But you basically know you're going to take some pain as James Vallss looks at things. He knows we got a lot of work to do behind the scenes. That's something he has always said. And this was one of the things he was talking about. He just actually spoke to us about it, being like, This is what's going on. And it's like, Oh, wow. You just don't really know how bad things are behind a team when it comes to putting these cars together until someone actually comes out and explains. And now you see why they are, where they're where they're at. It's because of what they decided to do in the wintertime, which had to be done anyways. You just had to pick a time of when you were going to do it. And that's probably the only time you actually really had. And you knew that it was going to screw you up at some point. And sure enough, it's like a perfect storm. You have a big enough crash that caused the most amount of damage, that ruined a car, and now you're stuck.

And now you're trying to scramble to get another car ready for Japan. So that tub flew back to home base during the Australian Grand Prix weekend, so they can try and repair it, so they can get it to Japan. Meanwhile, you're still trying to build a third tub. You're also trying to build upgrades at the same time. So you have all of these things in a pipeline and in a system that's just not ready for it yet, but it will be. And that's why you come away with that It's frustrating because I really root for Williams.

Oh, yeah. And you got to root for Williams and you got to root for James, right?

Right. I think I'm probably different in the sense that I watch Jacques Villeneuve win a Formula One World Championship in a Williams in 1997 as a kid and sat there and I was like, I want to do that. Just whatever, eight, nine-year-old kid just sitting there watching Jacques do that. And so You have a piece of that stays with you as you get older, but you still root for these teams. You still root for your certain teams. And so watching Williams go through that, it's tough.

Yeah, it is. To me, they've been one of the more exciting teams, like I told you, I'm a McLaren fan through and through. But if there's a team in the back half of the field that I have a soft spot for, it's Williams. For sure. And it's because of what they stand for, where they were with Claire Williams three, four years ago versus where they are now. It's just so fundamentally different. And watching that unfold this weekend, part of me wonders, because in the middle of this, for at least from a media perspective, what I always look at is, what is this going to look like in a month? And what is this going to look like in several years? In a month, this might be one of those things, where damn, they wish they had that extra chastity because they could have had some points and Haas are pulling ahead of them. And Haas, who are surprisingly fast this year. In five years, I wonder if we look at a weekend like this as part of the growing pains that needed to happen to drag the Ghost of Williams into the 21st century. Really and truly, to pull them into-Yeah, I agree.

You actually could contend. You could get into the top five without there being some disaster on the track. This feels to me like, Okay, We took a risk. We had to take a risk because we couldn't keep building a car from an Excel sheet. We got burned for it. But at the end of the day, it is growing pains, and these things needed to happen, and the factory is outdated, and the guns are outdated, and this is outdated, that's outdated. Everything's outdated with Williams. I wonder, Tim, if they look at this and they go, Okay, we're accepting this right now. This will not be acceptable at Williams going forward, but it is growing pains, and we got to do it. Yeah.

At some point, if you If you want to be a successful team and you want to compete with all of these other teams that are going up and down the grid now, and now you see how close the gaps are between the teams because of this new regulation. And so your stuff has to be dialed in, man. You can't have any holes anywhere. And so for this team to take a bit of pain now for maybe some long term gain, I I mean, either way, it's the right thing to do. Either way, what James and Pat Frey have had to do with that team so far is the right thing because they have actually shown progress. Even with a car that got slapped together at the last minute, it's still actually Performing. Not a bad race car. And who knows how well it'll develop later on down the road once they start learning more from it. So, yeah, totally agree with you, man. I think it's something you have to do. And And in hopes of this paying off like two, three years down the road, for sure.

Now, I want to talk about Daniel Riccardo because obviously the watch is on for him potentially as an outside shot now to be the Red Bull second driver next year. There's a lot of Yuki Sonoda fans out there who are very happy with the fact that Yuki's had two great races since the dust up in Bahrain. And Yuki did another great job today. He really did. I mean, sorry. Yeah, Sunday morning, I guess it happened super early this morning. So yeah, he did a great job. But I look at Daniel Ricardo's 12th place finish, which people are calling a failure. And I look at Alex Albon's 11th place finish, which people are saying, pretty good drive. And I understand that Yuki and Daniel are in the same car. But for me, I don't think there was ever going to be a realistic shot that Yuki Sonoda was going to the Red Bull big team. And I don't think there ever will be. I think that there is a Honda connection there. And I think Red Bull is moving away from Honda. And I think that Red Bull had him in there. And it was important for Honda to have Yuki on the grid, and Yuki belongs on the grid.

I just don't think Yuki's future is at Red Bull. I think Yuki knows it, and I think Red Bull does, too. Yeah.

I think now seeing... We still need to sample more races, but from just the first three races, it just feels like neither one of these drivers is a driver that this team is gearing to bring up. Right. Not yet. That's the sense anyways from what everybody is saying, because Helmut Marco is still going after both drivers this weekend in the media. And so it makes you really curious as to like, okay, well, I mean, he's really put the pressure on here. So they're trying to make a decision on what they're doing next year quite quickly here.

They're trying to put the pressure on. But Tim, I look at that and I go, okay, well, that's just Red Bull, though, right?

Yeah, but it does seem like a lot sooner than we've had in the past. Usually, we don't hear much from Red Bull racing on the junior team and the junior program until a little later in the season. And Who's doing well, who isn't doing well, who needs to do a little bit better, et cetera, et cetera. But now it's like, Hey, we're only three races in here. Actually, two, when Helmut Marco started to talk about it. And it doesn't sound like what you what I think he's doing is good enough, and it also doesn't sound like what Daniel's doing is good enough and fair enough. He's not driving really well right now. But Adam, I just thought the comments that Daniel made after qualifying were interesting. I'm paraphrasing here, but essentially He's being like, Hey, look, something's not right here. I think he's gearing towards like, there's something not right with the car because the lap that he did, he felt that that was a good lap in qualifying. Obviously, the lap time got deleted. I went back and rewatched his onboard camera, it was a really good lap.

It was a good lap.

Even I thought when I was watching it, How the hell did that guy not get out of Q1 with this? Obviously, he had track limits.

But even if he-That would have put him in 11th. He would have been in Q2, no problem.

Yeah, but even if he didn't have track limits on the exit of that corner, he still would have gotten into Q2. It still would have been enough. It wasn't enough of an advantage, but track limits are track limits. But still, for him to come out and be like, Look, if something's not right here, something's just not right because I'm putting in good laps, and for some reason it's not translating to lap time. Something we've never really heard Daniel actually really say is that, Hey, I know I'm doing a really good job here, and I know what I'm doing should be equaling lap time. So there is something else going on here. Usually, Ricardo is pretty transparent in that way where it's like, I'm not doing a good enough job. I remember his time at McLaren, he really beat himself up a lot.

Yeah. What do you What do you think that is? Do you think there's a legitimate issue with his car versus Yuki's, or is it adjusting to a new car, or what is it?

Yeah, it could be both, right? I mean, we don't... That's what I was saying about the stuff with other drivers when we were talking about Lance. We don't know everything that's going on behind the scenes. Sometimes there is one driver who remained nameless here, but that I knew was like, They're a really good driver. What the hell is going on here? It actually took them changing out a spare chassis for the car to turn right around and the car starts performing again. Really? Just things like that. And those stories are That goes on quite a bit behind the scenes where sometimes the driver is just like, Look, I'm doing a good job here, but the car, there's something wrong with it. I can't put a finger on it. And then sometimes they'll swap out the whole tub. They'll just get rid of the tub, bring a new one, build the car back up again, and then boom.

Interesting. Well, you know what? I'm not of the belief that Daniel Ricardo is a bad driver, and it's easy online for people to take shots at him.

I think-I mean, none of these guys are bad drivers. No, but I'm sorry. This is the thing I always get really upset about is the fact that like...

They're all elite. They're all elite. But what my point is, is that I'm not of the belief that Daniel's best days are behind him just yet.

I'm not. I don't think so.

I don't think so either. I think... And you know what, Tim? This is the great thing about Race 3 is it's only Race 3. We have 21 left. And so we could take these three race things seven different times before the season ends, before we really know.

A hundred %.

This guy could have got in a Q2, no problem. I'm not trying to denigrate Yuki here. To me, it's not Yuki versus Daniel in this scenario because I don't think Yuki is going to the Red Bull senior squad. It's Daniel versus, do they want to go a Carlos signs route? Well, does he want to go there? Not so sure. Do they want to go? Who else? If Carlos signs doesn't go there, Fernando Alonso- You try and bring Sergio back, or you have to maybe convince Fernando.

But if you're going to bring Fernando Alonso over your big team at Red Bull Racing, I'll tell you who's going to push you for number one position at that team.

It's going to be Fernando. He's going to be pushing. He's going to be pushing Max.

He's going to say... Fernando is going to He's going to tell you what he thinks. You're not going to be able to like, Hey, don't say that. He's going to tell you what he thinks. He's going to get in to you. Hey, I mean, if that's the direction you want to go in Sure. Again, if Sergio, like we started the podcast with, if Sergio is able to close that gap down, and then he would be the smarter decision to keep as your number two driver.

Well, we'll see see what happens, but I think we got to see both of those guys get better into their cars. Again, I say Alex Albon had a good drive, finished 11th. Daniel Ricardo, apparently had a bad drive, finished 12th. I'm not seeing that... And we're talking about Albon with one of the top four or five teams here soon. So I don't know if it's as much as people are framing it, if that makes any sense.

No, I totally get you. Okay, so we got two things left. We got grid rival and we got questions. Which one do you want to hit up first?

You go question second. What do we got first?

All right, so we'll head over to the debrief. We got a bunch of questions here from at Dan Klubine. Adam, can we acknowledge how fantastic a driver Carlos Sainz is? He works so hard to understand the car and can absolutely fly when he is locked in.

Can we acknowledge it? Of course, we can acknowledge it. I think the one person who has been acknowledging it for, and this is well before Lewis Hamilton, is Tim Horeani. Tim Horeani was talking about this last year. He was going, Carlos, Carlos, Carlos. He's fast. He's fast. Everybody's talking about Charlotte. Talk about Carlos. And not because you want to take away from Charlotte Claire, but because Carlos signs, as I mentioned earlier, keeps getting booted from these good teams where he's only come in and performed. And I don't know. I think what he's done with surgery and everything else, it's absolutely incredible. What an amazing story. And to be honest with you, I would love to see him just go hard charging the rest of the way and push Max every race and beat Charlotte in the points, because what a great story that would be for our podcast.

That'd be awesome, dude. Laurie Fuller. This was not the race we expected, but the one we needed.

Okay.

That's right. That's accurate, I think. I think this is the one that Formula One needed for sure. But also, Laurie, it's a great point. I think it shows that Once this set of regulation allows itself to really start to bet in, how competitive things will start to become. And we'll save this chat for another day, but that's why I think 2026 cars Our regulation may need to change a bit.

I am so with you on that, Tim.

I'll leave that for another day because that's a- Make them smaller, make them lighter. That's a whole can of worms. We didn't do that. Jay Money. Okay, so this guy actually gave me crap and thought that I was wrong in the fact that Carlos... Max wasn't going to win the race. And he admitted it. He admitted he was wrong. He was in the wrong. So I just wanted to make sure we put that in.

No, Jay Money He's always good about stepping up when he's wrong. Always good. He's a good guy.

Yeah, he's just a solid dude. Both Haas and the points, when did hell freeze over?

Well, you know what, man? They came to play, right? They Maybe they did need a change at the top. The one thing with Haas, Tim, that I always worry about, and this is the same thing, it's hilarious how many parallels there are between 2022 and 2024. You got a Ferrari Red Bull pushing each other at the top, and you got a surprise Haas team. Where they've always failed is their upgrades. They've always failed. They've always got slower. So I'm excited for them now. I want to see where they're at by Race 10.

And we had some questions from Angie gray. We answered it earlier in the pod, but thanks for the question, Angie. And thanks, Ryan Wedby, also for the question as well. We answered that earlier in the podcast at the same time. Grid Rival, Adam.

Bad day. Bad day on Grid Rival. I felt, Tim, get this. Okay.

Wait, you were at 15th, right?

I was at 14th.

14th.

What position do you think I'm in now? And I got better. I got more cap space. My money went up.

So you had a good day is what you're saying?

No. Well, I did have a good day, but not good enough because Max Verstoppen was out. So I have Verstoppen, Piastri, Leclerc, Botas, Albon, and Haas, and they all did well except for Max. So I am now in 48th.

Oh, how did you drop so much?

Because of Max. But you know what? Max has been money in the bank, but Max dropped me that much. Isn't that nuts? Isn't that crazy? A DNF for Max will put you in that spot.

And then you've had him since the start of the season?

Yes. Listen, he's been money in the bank. You can't really go wrong with Max for stopping. But damn, that really stung.

I think that was his first DNF out of him since the same race, 2022.

Yeah, when it overheated.

Yeah. Reliability, eh? Yes. Red Bull, reliability is unbelievable. What about you? Oh, dude, I'm just sinking like a stone, brother. To 211th, just absolutely.

Who was your lineup? Give me your lineup.

Who was your lineup, Tim? All right. I switched a couple of things around coming into this weekend. I probably shouldn't have. I lost a lot of money, but what the hell? Daniel Ricardo, Alex Albon, Oscar Piastri, me, George Russell. I got Williams as my team and Lance Stroll.

Okay. Rough go on Williams as your team. Rough go.

Yeah, that's a big time.

I'm looking at the grid rival chat right now. Somebody's like, Hey, I just jumped from the 220s to 75th.

How are we having such big swings?

I know. Well, it's early in the season, and I'm looking at the leaderboard, and the top three are Sunhar, MS18, and Michael, 5067722. They all got over a thousand points, and each of them gained something in the neighborhood of $8 to nine million dollars in their cap room in one race. The lineup to go with this race was Leclerc, signs, Stroll, Sonota, Ricardo, and Ferrari. All of those went up for Sunhar, and that's an enormous... That's the things you can't count on.

Yeah, that's huge. I'm going to jump into that chat and stir some stuff up.

Oh, yeah. I was talking a lot of I'm talking a lot of nonsense, and I'm looking terrible for it. So, Tim, thank you so much. And we're going to talk a little later this week because I'm sure there'll be more falling out.

Oh, we got Gavin Ward.

We got Gavin Ward this week, don't we?

We got Gavin Ward on And we got Gavin Ward for our Thursday pod.

Oh, my God. That's going to be great. I have so many Mark Webber questions for him.

Yeah. Indiecar just had their race at Thermal earlier, taping this on Sunday afternoon, earlier today.

Did you see what happened to Roman Groshan in the first corner? He was not happy about that.

And then he starts like... Well, he was a little too assertive with the medical crew. I got a thing about that. We'll talk to Gavin about it later. Okay. All right.

I'm looking forward to it. Tim, great show as always, my friend.

Yeah. Thanks, buddy. This has been a lot of fun, like always, dude.

Awesome. So Gavin Ward, who is the head of Aero McLaren for IndyCar, was also a key part of the early successful Red Bull years with Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber. He's joining us on Thursday show. Be around for it because you're going to want to get some questions in. And of course, hopefully we can spill a little tea about Red Bull, can't we? Do you think we might be able to spill a little? Like previous Red Bull?

We'll twist his arm a bit. We'll see if we can get out of him. He may not want to go too far down that path, but we'll see.

Understandable. All right. Thanks, Tim.

Thanks, buddy.