Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:04] Speaker B: What's up, everybody? This is Rome. We got Aaron and our F1 resident, our director of racing, Jason Zinke, with us. We're going to recap the Signapore Grand Prix for F1, which occurred this past Sunday. We're recording Monday night.
Pretty fun race. Lots of controversy for a qualifying. You saw, what was it, Williams being disqualified, both their drivers for cheating or something like that. With the wing, which Sainz did pretty well. Climbed up all the way up to number 10. But you had some controversy starting off the race with Norris starting at fifth, kind of bumping, a slight little wheel bump to avoid Verstappen, I guess. And then Piastri almost going to the wall. Piastri so pissed off, dude, and complained the whole race. And Twitter was going crazy. And it is so weird, man. It depends on who you find on. On X, not Twitter. X. And they either say, like, dude, Pia such a crybaby, or like, Norris is such a little. Or there's, like, comments all over the place. And no one likes Verstappen, apparently.
But Russell had a great race, led from start to finish, and was almost up by, like, I think, like, at one point, like 10 or 11 seconds, 20 seconds.
[00:01:25] Speaker A: I forget.
[00:01:26] Speaker B: It was a lot, man. And then Norris, I couldn't understand why, like, he got really close to Verstappen, was within a half a second or so, and just could not pass him. But that was like, for like, what, like 20 or so laps? Like, it just bought, like, what. What the hell happened? Like, how come you couldn't pass him? And, like, for example, with stressing and, you know, you know, then McLaren, they clinch the Constructors Championship. There's people saying that Piastri didn't show up to the celebrations. All these rumors and all these things. Like, he's gonna have a talk because, you know, he also had a slow pit stop as well. That was five seconds. He thought he could have did like, a switcheroo with. With Norris, but Norris, actually, I thought he raced pretty well, except I felt like he should have got second, would have been better for the standings.
[00:02:10] Speaker A: But just.
[00:02:11] Speaker B: Jason, I'll let you take first stabs at it, man. Tell us, like, what the hell happened?
[00:02:15] Speaker C: Yeah, I think just right out of the gate, Norris didn't have the probably qualifying start that he definitely wanted because he was down in fifth place right behind Piastri. But he got a. He got a great start, which is, I think, is typical. Not typical of Lando. Like, Lando's usually on the front run.
He lose. Yeah, well, I mean, just slow off the gates really has really been his MO Last year as he was, you know, kind of behind Verstappen and making the late charge in the 2024 season, it was like, hey, he loses it right off. And then once he's behind Verstappen, he can never get past him. But yeah, in this race he got the jump on it and you know, that's, it's an interesting turn. One, you know, left, quick right back left.
And you know, he got into the back of her staff and slightly took, you know, basically tore knee and tear it off. But he bented, you know, the, the left front of his front wing on the. On the rear tire of her staffing. But as you mentioned, got clo. Close tap Piastri on his right side. Piastri kind of maneuvered, didn't hit the wall. But yeah, Piastri was all. He was all over the radio about the Papaya rules or this is not what the. What team friendly? Yeah, the radio was, you know, the radio is very interesting. Like, oh, yeah, like, because they told me Orlando had to avoid, you know, hitting Verstappen. And you know, his, his response was like, well, it's not very team like if you gotta like run into your teammate to avoid somebody else or some. Some passive aggressive stuff. But I Honestly, I blame McLaren. This is McLaren's fault. I love Zach Brown and you know, Andres Stella, the team principal for what they've done. But the Papaya rules thing, since last year, man, has created this drama amongst these two drivers because there's been instances where they haven't let him out to race. They try to do cutesy things, you know, with different pit stop stuff. And then, you know, things happen. They ask him to switch places and it creates all this stuff. And you know, it looks like, you know, you know, I've been the favor in Lando with you Rome, and Aaron was the Piastri guy. So. But it's. It totally looks in a lot of instances like they are favoring land over Piastri because, okay, this week it's this, but this is not the reason. And like, it's almost like we're like, we're hearing a court case at a certain point because they're citing like precedence from the 2024 season in Hungary. You remember this happened in Hungary just like that. And so we're going to do this and switch everything back and you know, whatever it might be. So it's it. McLaren has created this situation. They were far and away going to win the Constructors Championship. There's what, five.
Five races left or something? They, they. It's probably one of the earliest clinches there's been in a while. I mean, Red Bull, yeah, six races left. So, I mean, there's ton left in the season, these guys, but. And so now the gloves should be off at this point from now to the end of the season. Like, they need.
[00:05:04] Speaker B: I think they're off now.
[00:05:05] Speaker C: I mean, they're definitely off now at this point after what happened.
[00:05:08] Speaker B: Josh is going to play team, team friendly anymore?
[00:05:11] Speaker C: No, I don't think so. And the other thing about this thing, too, is McLaren clearly is not the car they were in the first half of the year. They're good, but the Mercedes, I, I would have said Mercedes wasn't going to win this. George Russell has not been great in Singapore. He know he had a bad crash when he was aiming for a victory two years ago.
You know, he had, I think he was getting, you know, heat illness last year when he was at this race or something like that. And the Mercedes car we talked through sucks in the heat, but all of a sudden this is like the hottest race of the year, and all of a sudden this car's flying during qualifying and you have two Mercedes in the top five. Red Bull's car has gotten better as well. You've seen Aston Martin slightly improved, but, I mean, they're Nowhere near. But McLaren's car is not above and away everybody else. So between now and the end of the year, I, I don't think it's a slam dunk where the McLarens are 12 in every race. And that adds interesting stuff to the driver's championship because the team overall doesn't care. Because we talked about this before. It's a, It's a weird team sport because the team cares about winning the constructors. That's where the money is. There's nothing in the driver's championship. You know, from the team's perspective, it's just kind of a pride and career thing for the, for the drivers and what they want personally for personal career goes and their dream of being the world champion.
So it'll be interesting in the gloves or us. Piastri's still the betting favorite, still has the upper hand. I mean, at this point, he could just crash Outlando every race and take each other out and he wins the driver's championship. You mentioned people not liking Verstappen. I'll be honest. I'm one of the, you know, people online, you know, people that would say, like, hey, Verstappen's not my favorite. Don't really love how the way he goes about things, but he's the best driver in the world.
But McLaren's turning him into a sympathetic figure because I think, for the most part, the Internet is so divided over. Over the two McLaren drivers between Norris and Piastri, it's crazy. They hate each other. You know, they're lucky enough. I don't think it could happen. But if they battle too much, Verstappen can sneak up and just snatch the championship from him. I don't think it's likely, but it's possible. So the only storyline of this season basically, has been between these two guys. McLaren has done it themselves, and it'll be interesting going the rest of the way because McLaren doesn't have the best car, and we'll see what happens. But that was the biggest story, I think, of the race. I think it sucked for George Russell because you're talking about him being so dominant. I think he got like the first lap on the camera and then the last lap. I don't know if they. The camera went back to him the entire rest of the race.
[00:07:28] Speaker B: Yeah, he did. He didn't get a lot of air time.
[00:07:30] Speaker A: No, I mean, he had a good pace, so I think they were just. He was on. He was on cruise control, Russell. But, yeah, I mean, going back, you know, turn one, lap one. I mean, a lot happened there. I mean, if you're Oscar, what, you lost, what, three points? I. I think you're fine with that. I mean, you lose three points, two points here, it's not the end of the world. But Jason said these guys have not been racing one, two, I believe. What, did Lando get third last? I don't even. Lando got third the last race previous and got on the podium. So you think he got like, what, a seventh, eighth place? Sixth place. Whatever it was, he only got like six points on them.
[00:08:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:04] Speaker A: So, I mean, yeah, if you're Oscar. I mean, they've won the constructors cup, McLaren, so that's. You don't have to worry about that. Romy's mentioned, you know, the friendship. Hey, we're. Buddy, buddy. Throw that out the door. You got what would be six races left, seven races, whatever it was. I think if Oscar can win two of the six or at least get second or better, he probably takes this thing home. As long as he doesn't go, like, crashing the wall and has something bad happen to Jason's point. Verstappen is, you know, he's Been sneaking up. He's just kind of like you know, hanging around, hanging around, hoping these two, you know, get stupid, do something dumb.
[00:08:38] Speaker B: And then come and steal it. Verstappen now has two first place finishes and two second place finishes in the last four races.
[00:08:45] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean he's quietly, he's been quietly kind of moving up.
I don't think he can win it. But if Lando or somebody kind of falls off he can come and get second.
And you know, George Russell, like, you know, when are they ever going to announce this new contract in Mercedes? It's like, you know, every, every week it's like, oh, it's, it's coming, it' coming. I'm still waiting for it to be announced and released because I mean all the guy does is, you know, as Jason said, he's one of the better racers out there. I, I think he's maybe right now the second best racer in the world behind Verstappen. But you know, he's been doing good. So I, I, we got to give him the new contract.
[00:09:21] Speaker C: I don't know if Aaron was, you know, just taking my takes in the dream because I 100 agree with him right now. I think George Russell is number two beside behind Verstappen. This Mercedes car has never been there as long as he's been with the team. When he replaced Valtteri Botas. It's been like Mercedes's worst era since their first couple years in the, you know, the early part of the 2010s.
But this car has gotten a little bit better and when it has pace he makes the most of it and has the best qualifying runs. I remember early in the year like he was finishing a third and fourth in pretty much every race when the car, you know, probably shouldn't have been there and he's placed in the right way. So I agree with Aaron. Like where's his contract? I think, you know, total Wolf probably still has that Verstappen dream. We've been talking about it probably every other pod. You know, where's it going to be. So he wants the one in one deal. But there's a time where George is going to get paid. And I think George wants to be with Mercedes. This is the premier team. It's probably one of his, you know, it's one of the teams that could win the can win the championship for you. There's very, there's maybe four of them out of the, out of the grid that can give you a driver's championship. So he wants to be at Mercedes. But he also wants his worth too. You know, I hear he, you know, he wants kind of the Lando contract, ish, which I don't know if you read out there, it's like maybe 20 plus mil or something a year, whatever it might be. And so not unreasonable because I think he's every bit but better than Lando because I, I think if, I think if George is in a McLaren right now, he's number one in the, in the driver's championship. And it's not as close. You know, I, I Piastri's gotten better this year. Like if you looked at his, the progression year over year, Lando's gotten a little bit better, but it hasn't been there. I think George best of the bunch has just been quietly there. And if this Mercedes car next year is as good as everyone says it should be, we'll see. You know, the powertrain is allegedly the big part of it, but yeah, it's a great win by George and starting to put momentum and I think not putting anything passes Mercedes teammate with Kimi Antonelli because back to back, I think top five finishes or something like that for them, I don't know. But, but Kimi had a really bad kind of Europe tour of the calendar. The only thing he really had was I think that third place in Canada, but all the Europe races he was pretty bad in, but has come on strong the past couple weeks and I think getting more comfortable in the car too. So you know, the Mercedes car and the driver lineup has gotten a little more out of it. I think the biggest disaster you're talking about right now is Ferrari because no team has fallen off pace year over year. They were equal with McLaren at the end of the 2024 season. And this car has just been an absolute disaster all year.
You know, you can compare like Lewis not doing well, but Charles is even complaining about the car now as well.
Lewis's car lost its brakes with three laps to go or something like that.
[00:12:00] Speaker A: He was hard to get a five second penalty, right?
[00:12:02] Speaker C: Yeah, he was all over the track. The last, the last thing the Fernando Alonzo radio, if you, if you, if listeners want to go and listen to Fernando Alonso just going crazy on the rail. I think Philando Alonso was like a whole minute behind Lewis for seventh place. And Lewis loses the brakes to his car and he is just trying to like nurse this thing and not smash into these walls in this tight Singapore track. And so you're just watching that time clock like and this last lap go where it's like, it's 40 seconds, it's 30 seconds, it's 20 seconds, it's 10. And then, of course, the F1 broadcast, which sucks sometimes, is like, it's on. George Russell won the race, and he's doing parade laps, waving and like, hey, there's a real battle going down where a guy's got no brakes on the track and someone's chasing him down, complaining like crazy. Like, is this guy even allow to be on the track? This is insane. This is crazy. I think Lewis was even trolling Fernando on Instagram today. If you look on one of his reels where he had this, like, highlit video of just, like, just complaining about stuff, but just crazy stuff going on. Lewis ended up getting a penalty and losing the position. But, man, the Ferrari car just utter trash the entire year. And that's. That's a team to worry about, I think, going forward on what the 2026 car looks like, I would agree.
[00:13:13] Speaker A: I mean, Ferrari's had a terrible year, man. I mean, terrible. I mean, based off, you know, we. We just renewing an F1 Rome, so we didn't see the 2024 year, but he's saying this car was basically on pace with McLaren, and now it's McLaren's light years ahead of him right now. Based off what I'm seeing. I mean, Ferrari, Lewis, I mean, it's been a nightmare. It's been a tough year for him, and Charles hasn't been much better. I mean, they've had a few races where they've gotten to the podium, but most of the time it's, you know, I'd say 90 of the radio talk is just complaints from both these guys that they're not happy, that, you know, I told you not to do this. I told you not to do that. This is shit.
It's been rough. It's been rough for those guys whose.
[00:13:56] Speaker B: Engine was having some failure. It was like the Mercedes.
[00:14:01] Speaker C: The Mercedes engine earlier in the years had failures because they had Kimi blow up a couple times. Obviously, Lando had it. There was a couple Aston Martins out of the Mercedes engine that was there.
[00:14:09] Speaker B: Maybe it was Hajar that was having issues.
[00:14:11] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. Oh, in this race you're talking about. Yeah, Hajar. Hajar said there was something wrong with this car. There was actually a pretty good duel with Hajar and Fernando Alonzo, because I think Alonzo was trying to get around Hajar.
[00:14:21] Speaker B: They were just passing each other.
[00:14:23] Speaker A: Right?
[00:14:23] Speaker C: Well, Hajar was holding him up, and then finally Fernando Alonzo got him, and I couldn't tell, like, whether he was being passive aggressive about hajar or just talking about himself, where he's like, he, like, goes to the radio and is just, like, trophy to the greatest driver ever or something like that.
[00:14:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:14:40] Speaker C: Absurd. Alonzo was comedy the entire time. He also told his guys, like, if you're gonna talk to me every lap, I'm just gonna turn the radio off. Yeah.
[00:14:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
So, yeah.
[00:14:51] Speaker A: What was. Yeah. What was going on with the. The steering wheel? With what? Kimmy Antonelli. Like, they were saying, like, something about being, like, off balance or not centered or something.
[00:15:00] Speaker C: Yeah, I think it was Kimi. Basically where you watch his hands in the drive. Yeah, he's tilted to the right Going down the straightaway, and it's going straight.
So, I mean, it happens in nascar actually, quite a bit, Whether the car is loose or tight and you're not kind of there. But, yeah, it was interesting how much they pointed that out and. Yeah, I think you're right, Aaron. It was Kimi. I want to go back to a little bit of point Rome. You were talking just at the beginning and intro about, like, Lando not being able to pass verstappen. I think it's very astute point.
[00:15:27] Speaker B: And I think that was, like, 20 something laps. It was like. Like he was right there, and then nothing ever happened.
[00:15:33] Speaker C: It is the problem with the modern F1 car, I will say, is, you know, you guys being new to the sport. And then if you looked over the evolution of, you know, the past decade or so, as these cars gotten bigger and the technology's been there, it gets into a situation now where these guys get behind the dirty air of the car in front of them. They just lose the pace. Like, you get close enough, I get all this.
[00:15:57] Speaker B: They were talking a lot about that.
[00:15:58] Speaker C: Yeah. And it's been constant. And I think that's the. That's the thing. As exciting as this race felt, there's, like, two passes the entire race. Like nothing really happened besides the first lap and Lewis losing his brakes. And then we're just talking about drama over the. Over the McLaren the entire time. So nothing really happened. And you've had a lot of these races throughout the entire year. The scary thing is, like, you know, you guys know, I'm going to wake up and watch. I think I might have gotten you guys the bug to wake up and watch this every week with the drama and the excitement. But we can't have races that are all complete duds. That doesn't have that drama and actually have real racing, because we get Into a. We're having a conversation of whether you let the two race drivers race. Like, that's really what we're talking about between Norris and Piastri. Can these two guys go out and race? Well, part of the problem is the cars almost aren't designed to race. It's who has the fastest qualifying, and then, hey, there's tracks I just can't get past you. There isn't a good place if there's.
[00:16:57] Speaker B: A. I think we talked about this last year because I think it was the Monte Carlo race when I started watching it. Right. Because I remember shortly after, I was drunk at a bar and I was telling everyone about what I knew about F1, and that's what kind of started my fandom there.
Feeling good. Pretty good about myself. But. Yeah, even at this track, though, or like, even, like the last one, just the.
The track doesn't look like it's made or it's.
[00:17:21] Speaker A: It seems like this. What, City? Street?
[00:17:25] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. The car is too big, and, like, it doesn't make sense if you're racing, but you can't race and you can't pass up is basically whoever did well on.
On the qualifying, and that's where it kind of loses me. Like, I heard there wasn't going to be a lot of passing here as well.
So it was really important that Lando, you know, did what he did, and he was aggressive for the first time. Lot of people were defending him on X, by the way, saying, like, you know, if he didn't do that, people are saying, like, well, that's why Lando's, you know, behind in the standings.
[00:17:55] Speaker C: Yeah, it's. It's an absolute fair point because this has been where Lando is, like, you know, he'd never. You know, they talk about getting your elbows out. It was always with him versus Max last year.
[00:18:02] Speaker B: He just wasn't. Piastre's like, hey, we should probably switch, right?
[00:18:06] Speaker C: We should probably switch back. So for. For. Between those two guys, they just need to let him race and do things like that. You know, make their own decisions on pit stuff. I know there's got to be some cohesion because they're using the same pit stop crew and stuff, but, yeah, the car size is crazy. I think I shared Rome with you, like, pictures before of, like, over the years, over the past, like, 20, 30 years of how much bigger these F1 cars get year over year. I'm fairly positive the 2026 car is smaller slightly, so it's getting a little more compact, and there's Going to be some changes and we can talk in the off season about like what, you know, it's gonna be new about the 20, 26 car. But yeah, I mean this is what I hope that, that hope hopefully with some of the regulation changes gives you more racing in some of these circuits because yeah, it sucks if it's just a qualifying fest and we're just kind of just going round and round and this just wasn't, doesn't give, you know, that type of excitement on a race weekend and next week. I think in Austin's a little bit different. There's some big stretches and some high speed corners. This may be a, this may be a track that McLaren does a little bit better because you know, it has high speed corners and that's where they've been most successful.
But you know, fans want to see passing in drama and not just kind of just riding behind someone. And yeah, to your point, Lando gets close to Verstappen and just he loses the pace as he gets closer because all the dirty air and it just, he runs out of space to be able to make a pass that isn't going to take himself out. Which at this point, hey, you got to finish ahead of the guy and get more points. So you want to be aggressive but not too aggressive because you wipe your chances out for anything. If you lose 15 points to Piastra in a weekend, that's crazy.
[00:19:44] Speaker B: Yeah, I guess.
Yeah. Austin's coming up in two weeks.
[00:19:48] Speaker A: We got Austin.
[00:19:49] Speaker B: That's one.
[00:19:50] Speaker A: Andrew, want to go to Mexico City?
[00:19:52] Speaker C: So yeah, yeah, you get the good four ones in our hemisphere. So Mexico City down to Brazil and then back up for Vegas, you know, in that November weekend. So four pretty good, pretty good race tracks. I, I am a fan of all four of these races coming up. Coda where the US Grand Prix in Austin. It's a really, really great circuit. That's definitely one I want to go to as well one day.
Mexico City, you know, great track, you know, big, you know, turn one straightaway that goes there and some cool stuff in the stadium section, the seatings there. I think Brazil is always pretty competitive that one. The weather always kind of plays haywire with things going on. You get a rain race, you get two Alpines on the podium last year because of the chaos and the rain. And then Vegas, you know, again, some, a high speed track night race calling. It could be a good Mercedes track.
[00:20:47] Speaker A: I think you might be right. It's going to be cooler weather, so.
[00:20:50] Speaker C: Yep.
So yeah, there's stuff to come up Here, I don't think it's locked in for either zoo drivers or McLaren. But Oscar's definitely got the advantage. But can't sleep on max right now. I think that's the sleeping giant here. With these six races left to go, you can't give them too much slack.
[00:21:05] Speaker B: One thing I'm liking with the remaining races, 12 o' clock for Austin, 1:00pm in the afternoon for the Mexico City, 9:00am for the Brazil, 8:00pm for Las Vegas and then even Qatar, 8:00am in the morning.
[00:21:25] Speaker A: Yeah, there's. And then 5:00am wake up calls.
[00:21:28] Speaker B: That's the last one. Abu Dhabi at 5am so even might.
[00:21:33] Speaker A: Not even need to watch that one. It might already be decided. I don't know.
[00:21:36] Speaker B: Decided. So we'll see, man. I'm digging the ones coming up.
[00:21:39] Speaker C: Yeah, well, I mean, advantage for you. I will say on a football Sunday. Gonna have to add the triple screen box here between F1 and some football. But you know, that's the only complaint. No, it's the only complaint, but you know, got it. Got to make room. That's why you get the multi view screens in the. In the old den there or the man cave.
[00:21:58] Speaker B: Well, Vegas is. Is on a Saturday night, so that's kind of nice.
[00:22:02] Speaker C: I will be there.
[00:22:03] Speaker B: You're gonna be there?
[00:22:04] Speaker C: I will be there.
[00:22:06] Speaker B: Nice.
[00:22:07] Speaker C: I will be there. I can give live pre and post. And I don't mean live. I'm just. I'll tell you about it when I get back.
[00:22:13] Speaker B: Nah, take a mic, man.
[00:22:16] Speaker C: So I.
Yeah, it should be. It should be good. I've been looking. I want to go to the Vegas one. Just worried that doesn't wind up on the F1 calendar after a couple years. So I wanna, I want to hit this one while they're here. But Austin, I think is the trip. Maybe next year.
[00:22:30] Speaker B: Nice.
All right, I'll do it for F1 coverage for a source from the sofa.
Hopefully one day we'll get Andrew back to make a guest appearance.
[00:22:41] Speaker A: He's still studying his Spanish or what?
[00:22:43] Speaker C: He's just getting ready for the Mexican gp. You know, maybe he comes in, you know, does a segment in. In Spanish and you know, helps us out in the preview there.
[00:22:52] Speaker B: Is he taking Spanish? Was that the thing?
[00:22:54] Speaker A: I thought that's what you said.
[00:22:55] Speaker C: If he's taking Portuguese, that'll help us for the Brazilian Grand Prix.
[00:22:58] Speaker B: That's true.
All right, that'll do it. Catch all F1 coverage from the show on YouTube.
I got this dedicated own F1 playlist. You can watch clips there and clips on the socials x Instagram and TikTok coming soon, but I think that's all I got. We are out.
