2022 Austrian GP w/ Craig Scarborough

This episode is a special one because we have a celebrity on the show. Craig Scarborough aka @ScarbsTech is in the house. Craig Scarboroughis an institution of technical knowledge in F1. He hosts the F1's official Tech Talk show on F1TV and has been an lifelong F1 fan too! He is the "go to" person for tech in F1 and has been a powerhouse on Twitter answering everyone's questions.

The 2022 Austrian GP sees some great battles. The Ferrari of Charles wins but other other Ferrari ends up in literal flames. The RBR of Max makes it through the finish line but Perez DNF’s. Mick’s best finish, Strolls great drive and the super amazing 5 way battle. 

We have special insights from Scarbs on the race events and beyond. Stick to the end to get future of F1 insights too!!! 

In this Episode we discuss:

1. Scarb's Tech Corner 🤓 

Follow Scarbs on his socials:

Instagram: @scarbstech 

Twitter: @ScarbsTech 

Reddit: u/scarbstech

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Music:

Intro: Howling (Sting) - Gunnar Olsen

Outro: Your Intro by Audionautix

**Introduction**

* This episode of the F1 Fan Fiction podcast features a special guest, Craig Scarborough, also known as Scarbs Tech, a renowned F1 journalist and technical expert.

**Race Highlights**

* The Austrian Grand Prix witnessed exciting battles throughout the race.
* Ferrari's Charles Leclerc secured the victory, while his teammate Carlos Sainz suffered a fiery retirement.
* Max Verstappen finished the race, but his teammate Sergio Perez faced a DNF.
* Mick Schumacher achieved his best finish of sixth place and was awarded Driver of the Day.
* Lewis Hamilton's winless streak extended to 12 races, marking his longest drought in Formula One.

**Scarb's Favorite Moment**

* Scarbs highlights the entertaining five-way battle in the midfield, resembling a Moto3 race, as his favorite moment of the race.

**Technical Insights from Scarbs**

* Scarbs emphasizes the importance of overtaking in Formula One, given the difficulty in getting close to other cars due to the new regulations.
* He commends the two recent races for delivering fantastic racing, showcasing the positive impact of the regulation changes.

**Stats and Trivia**

* Esteban Ocon reached his 100th Grand Prix and climbed to eighth place in the Driver's Championship, surpassing Valtteri Bottas.
* Alain Prost's record of wins at the Styrian Grand Prix remains unbroken.
* Mick Schumacher's sixth-place finish was his best career result.
* Lewis Hamilton's winless streak reached 12 races, the longest in his career.
* Michael Schumacher is the only Austrian to have won on this track.

**Scarb's Perspective on Stats**

* Scarbs downplays the significance of certain statistics, as they can be manipulated to fit narratives.
* He finds Ocon's rise in the Driver's Championship surprising, given Alpine's disappointing season.

**Alonso's Strategy and Sainz's Retirement**

* Scarbs acknowledges Alonso's effective strategy of forming trains, allowing him to gain points consistently.
* He attributes Sainz's retirement to a turbocharger failure, similar to the issue Leclerc experienced in Baku.
* Scarbs expresses concern about the reliability issues faced by both Ferrari and Red Bull, which have opened the door for Mercedes to challenge for the championship.

**Max Verstappen's Car Issues**

* Scarbs explains Verstappen's inconsistent performance during the race, attributing it to the Red Bull car's sensitivity to track conditions and wind changes.
* He contrasts Verstappen's ability to cope with a challenging car with Perez's preference for a more predictable car.

**Flex Floor Controversy**

* Scarbs discusses the upcoming technical directive aimed at addressing the flex floor controversy, which involves teams using disappearing skid blocks and two-piece floor planks to gain an aerodynamic advantage.
* He highlights the difficulty in determining which teams are exploiting these loopholes, as the regulations are ambiguous.
* Scarbs emphasizes the need for clarification and enforcement of the regulations to ensure fair competition.

**Conclusion**

* The podcast concludes with a reminder of the upcoming Belgian Grand Prix, where the new technical directive will come into effect. # Austrian Grand Prix: Analyzing the Action

**Introduction:**

This episode of the podcast features a special guest, Craig Scarborough, also known as ScarbsTech. ScarbsTech is a renowned expert in Formula One technical knowledge, hosting the official F1 Tech Talk show on F1TV and sharing his insights on social media platforms. In this episode, ScarbsTech joins the hosts to discuss the Austrian Grand Prix, offering unique perspectives on the race events and providing insights into the future of Formula One.

**Race Highlights and Insights:**

- Charles Leclerc's victory in the Austrian GP, despite damage to his front wing endplate, is attributed to the reduced impact of the endplate on downforce due to the new regulations.

- Mick Schumacher's improved performance is seen as a culmination of his one-and-a-half-year learning process, similar to his career trajectory in lower categories.

- Stroll's strong race is attributed to his comfort with the Aston Martin car, which suits his driving style and allows the team to optimize setups and tire strategies.

- The battle royale involving Alonso, Ocon, Schumacher, Norris, and Magnussen is hailed as a testament to the improved racing facilitated by the new regulations.

- The DRS system is discussed, with ScarbsTech suggesting a potential rule change to limit the number of DRS applications per race to make it more tactical.

**Technical Insights and Innovations:**

- ScarbsTech highlights the Ferrari side pods as the most interesting innovation of the season, as their unconventional design has proven effective.

- The trend of teams adopting and adapting ideas from other constructors is noted, leading to a convergence of designs and potentially two distinct camps next year.

- The challenge of science communication in Formula One is addressed, with ScarbsTech emphasizing the need to strike a balance between simplifying concepts and maintaining technical accuracy.

- The upcoming gearbox regulation changes are discussed, with ScarbsTech speculating that teams may make adjustments to their gear ratios, particularly those that have significantly altered their philosophies.

**Future of Formula One:**

- ScarbsTech shares his thoughts on the future of Formula One, suggesting that the sport may move towards more standardized components and a focus on sustainability.

- The potential impact of new technologies, such as active suspension and AI, on Formula One is also explored.

**Overall:**

This episode provides a comprehensive analysis of the Austrian Grand Prix, featuring expert insights from ScarbsTech on various aspects of the race, technical innovations, and the future of Formula One. The discussion is informative, engaging, and offers a unique perspective on the sport. # Formula One: Austrian Grand Prix Recap and Future of F1 Insights

## Overview:

* The Austrian Grand Prix featured exciting battles, including Charles Leclerc's victory, Carlos Sainz's unfortunate retirement, and Max Verstappen's successful finish despite Sergio Perez's DNF.
* Special guest Craig Scarborough, also known as ScarbsTech, provided expert insights on the race events and offered his perspective on the future of Formula One.

## Scarb's Tech Corner:

* ScarbsTech highlighted the technical aspects of the race, such as the potential impact of teams changing final drive gearing ratios for Monza and the challenges of managing fuel consumption and tire wear.

## Engine Regulation Changes for 2026:

* Formula One is introducing significant engine regulation changes in 2026, aiming for more sustainable fuels and a focus on electric power.
* The new regulations will eliminate the NGUH hybrid motor and enhance the MG UK's power, resulting in a more balanced power distribution between combustion and recovered energy.
* Cost-saving measures will include a spec crankcase and a focus on developing cylinder heads.

## Chassis Regulation Changes for 2026:

* The 2026 regulations aim to make cars shorter, lighter, and more sustainable.
* Reducing the wheelbase and implementing active suspension and active aero are being considered to improve performance and efficiency.
* The goal is to create cars that are more agile, fuel-efficient, and environmentally friendly.

## ScarbsTech's Concluding Remarks:

* ScarbsTech expressed his enthusiasm for the upcoming changes and emphasized the importance of looking beyond 2026 to explore innovative powertrain options and drive configurations.
* He encouraged fans to continue following Formula One and enjoying the exciting racing action.

## Overall Message:

The podcast provided an in-depth analysis of the Austrian Grand Prix and offered valuable insights into the future of Formula One. ScarbsTech's expertise and passion for the sport made this episode informative and engaging for Formula One enthusiasts.

[00:00.000 -> 00:03.600] there's a feature on the Aston Martin, you know, everyone will go, well, they're so slow,
[00:03.600 -> 00:07.120] why would you copy them? But they've got a really interesting feature on their
[00:07.120 -> 00:11.840] tea tray support that is unlike any other team. So they may have the best
[00:11.840 -> 00:14.640] corpuscing solution, but doesn't make them the fastest car.
[00:26.160 -> 00:26.200] Hello, hello.
[00:32.240 -> 00:37.360] Welcome back to F1 Fan Fiction, a show about race weekend reviews and race community interviews. This episode is about the Austrian Grand Prix.
[00:37.440 -> 00:40.600] And if you've not read the title yet, oh my God,
[00:40.600 -> 00:44.200] it's going to be a banger because we've got a celebrity on the show this time.
[00:45.360 -> 00:46.920] We are your hosts.
[00:46.920 -> 00:47.920] I am Akash.
[00:47.920 -> 00:48.920] And I'm Saran.
[00:48.920 -> 00:51.920] And I am Craig Scarborough, F1 journalist.
[00:51.920 -> 00:53.920] That's being more distinct.
[00:53.920 -> 00:56.920] That's really underplaying it, I guess.
[00:56.920 -> 00:59.920] That's kind of what I do.
[00:59.920 -> 01:04.920] I could just call it F1 fan, it would be more accurate.
[01:04.920 -> 01:05.400] But yes, but yes.
[01:05.400 -> 01:06.240] Thank you.
[01:07.240 -> 01:10.520] So we've got Craig Scarborough in the house,
[01:10.520 -> 01:13.480] Scarbs Tech, Scarbs F1.
[01:13.480 -> 01:14.360] Just look him up.
[01:14.360 -> 01:16.640] If you've not heard this name,
[01:16.640 -> 01:21.160] you're missing out on some serious great tech stuff.
[01:21.160 -> 01:23.680] And if you're a geek and a nerd like us,
[01:23.680 -> 01:27.440] oh damn, you got to check him out. Into
[01:27.440 -> 01:32.520] the race, Scarb, I want to get your opinion first. What was your favorite moment of the
[01:32.520 -> 01:33.520] race?
[01:33.520 -> 01:38.600] Oh, I don't know, actually. I mean, I think probably the one thing I was reminded of it
[01:38.600 -> 01:43.760] this morning is we actually saw quite a lot of overtaking, particularly in the midfield.
[01:43.760 -> 01:50.200] And then there was that one point where there was like five cars abreast going through corners, and it was
[01:50.200 -> 01:53.960] like watching a Moto3 race in MotoGP.
[01:53.960 -> 02:00.400] This was technically shouldn't be possible, but then equally then you think, this must
[02:00.400 -> 02:01.880] end in tears, and it didn't.
[02:01.880 -> 02:06.480] And it was like, wow, Formula One is very different in 2022,
[02:06.480 -> 02:11.840] isn't it? You know, it's hard to get so close. And, you know, I think we've been rewarded,
[02:11.840 -> 02:16.880] certainly these past two races with two obviously very good circuits, really delivering,
[02:17.440 -> 02:20.800] fantastic racing and Formula One's all the better for it.
[02:22.160 -> 02:22.640] Definitely.
[02:23.280 -> 02:24.320] Sarang, for you?
[02:29.280 -> 02:29.840] all the better for it. Definitely. Saurav, how about you? I think for me it definitely has to be Alonso
[02:35.840 -> 02:36.880] wagging his finger at Snoda. I think there was a classic Alonso moment that we got out of this race.
[02:43.200 -> 02:43.840] I don't think I can ever forget it. Yeah, no, you don't put that cheekiness on me. Sure, sure, sure.
[02:48.000 -> 02:53.000] For myself, I think it was like that one Marshall, and I say this jokingly, but I mean it in no joking way, but like that one Marshall who got the,
[02:53.360 -> 02:56.440] the, uh, the fire exhaust, he, he,
[02:56.440 -> 02:59.200] he dropped it on the tire on the tarmac of the road,
[02:59.200 -> 03:02.840] just pulling up to Sainz's car and then went somewhere. I'm like,
[03:02.840 -> 03:05.360] he probably just noped out of the whole situation,
[03:05.360 -> 03:08.640] just looking at how the car was. Uh, but in all seriousness,
[03:08.640 -> 03:13.000] like that other Marshall who actually stopped the car for science to get out of
[03:13.020 -> 03:15.800] that moving car, cause for some reason it wasn't able to break,
[03:15.840 -> 03:20.360] just some brilliant stuff there. Um, so yeah, yeah.
[03:20.400 -> 03:25.040] With that, I just want to, I just want to lead with some stats for yesterday.
[03:25.040 -> 03:27.840] It was Ocon's 100th GP.
[03:27.840 -> 03:37.200] And he also climbs up in the driver championship table at P8 with 52 points, overtaking Botas at 46.
[03:37.200 -> 03:43.120] Yesterday, West Ham still tied with Alain Prost's number of wins at the Stadion Grand Prix.
[03:43.120 -> 03:47.080] Mick finishes his career best sixth place,
[03:47.280 -> 03:49.240] ends up getting driver of the day for some reason.
[03:49.240 -> 03:52.440] That was a lesser of a highlight for some reason. I don't know.
[03:53.120 -> 03:55.560] Hamilton's gone 12 races without a win,
[03:55.560 -> 03:57.640] the longest in his career that we know of.
[03:58.360 -> 04:02.840] And Mikel Loda still remains the only Austrian to win on this track.
[04:03.680 -> 04:04.000] Interesting.
[04:04.000 -> 04:09.920] So that's some stats. Scarb, you probably may know, I'm sort of putting you under the light here,
[04:09.920 -> 04:13.520] but any stats that stand out for you for the Steven Grob?
[04:13.680 -> 04:17.560] Uh, to be honest, I very rarely kind of go back and look at the stats because,
[04:17.720 -> 04:21.400] um, no, no, knowing some of the people that put these together, it's, um, you
[04:21.400 -> 04:24.080] can make stats out of just about any fact.
[04:24.120 -> 04:25.360] Um, but, um, yeah, I mean, you can make stats out of just about any fact.
[04:28.720 -> 04:32.480] But, yeah, I mean, actually probably the one that you mentioned there is actually realizing where Ocon had got to this year, up to eight.
[04:33.080 -> 04:35.960] And, you know, stepping past Bottas.
[04:35.960 -> 04:39.880] That actually, that caught my ear because I found it quite surprising
[04:39.880 -> 04:42.560] because I thought this year has been very disappointing for Alpine.
[04:43.120 -> 04:47.960] And I know Ocon has been, certainly been the more consistent, the more lucky,
[04:48.400 -> 04:50.000] should we say, of the two Alpine drivers.
[04:51.960 -> 04:54.800] So I guess that's just reward, but it just, you know,
[04:55.320 -> 04:58.240] it's strange that it surprises me that he's got P8, you know.
[04:59.040 -> 04:59.480] Right.
[05:00.160 -> 05:01.840] Tough year for them. True.
[05:02.040 -> 05:05.520] And do you think like Alonzo's sort of,
[05:10.320 -> 05:15.280] getting better at forming these trains? Cause it looks like, I mean, we've seen this, we've seen this over so many races now that one Alpine is always forming the trains and then the
[05:15.280 -> 05:20.320] other Alpine is charging through the field as you rightly mentioned. Yeah. I mean, it's clearly a
[05:20.320 -> 05:25.480] strategy that they've all agreed and that you could see someone with Alonso's
[05:25.480 -> 05:30.880] broad view of, you know, a race weekend and what's necessary to get points. Um, you know,
[05:30.880 -> 05:35.360] there's almost a kind of a lack of ego, which seems intuitive when you speak of Alonso,
[05:35.360 -> 05:41.960] but, uh, yeah, he's found a way of executing the race that really does give him, um, a
[05:41.960 -> 05:45.660] great opportunity to get those points in when all the other factors
[05:45.660 -> 05:47.680] around him allow him.
[05:47.680 -> 05:49.500] Yeah, it's interesting.
[05:49.500 -> 05:52.720] I don't think it's a sustainable model and really they should have more faith in that
[05:52.720 -> 05:58.520] car, but it's kind of working for him and it's certainly given us great, great entertainment.
[05:58.520 -> 05:59.520] For sure.
[05:59.520 -> 06:05.200] I think Alonso or I think Alpine in general, this season has been doing pretty decent, but of
[06:05.200 -> 06:07.680] course, like they've been having technical issues overall.
[06:07.680 -> 06:12.040] I mean, they haven't been able to convert it to points, but still, I think there's a
[06:12.040 -> 06:17.280] lot of potential here, especially looking at how well Alonso is able to, you know, overtake
[06:17.280 -> 06:22.220] other cars and, you know, even block other cars in fact from overtaking him.
[06:22.220 -> 06:25.880] So I think it's just a matter of Alpine trying to getting
[06:25.880 -> 06:31.840] better reliability, I guess. And then they can probably, you know, go ahead. Unfortunately,
[06:31.840 -> 06:36.760] I think for Alonso, it hasn't worked out that well as it has for Ocon. But let's see. He
[06:36.760 -> 06:42.200] still is providing us a lot of entertainment. So the highlight, I think yesterday for me,
[06:42.200 -> 06:48.880] again, like I'm switching gears now here is, but finally Charles is able to get out of his bad luck streak.
[06:48.880 -> 06:57.680] I'd say it's like, it's like maybe Binota sort of like envisioned this with his famous, you know, that, that frame that got it captured now.
[06:58.160 -> 07:02.840] And this was like, you know, this is coming for you and Steerian, like he got his reward.
[07:03.880 -> 07:10.580] Is it really broken though? I mean, he mean he somehow was limping across the finish line. Yeah he
[07:10.580 -> 07:15.000] wasn't without his bad luck was he with his throttle pedal sticking open which
[07:15.000 -> 07:20.700] is anyone that's had a mat in their car stick to their pedal is like trying to
[07:20.700 -> 07:24.220] win a Grand Prix with Max Verstappen just two seconds behind you.
[07:24.220 -> 07:30.240] Pretty stressful but yeah I mean I think ferrari i mean it will be interesting to see how much this
[07:30.240 -> 07:34.880] ferrari pace continues we've seen over the past two races obviously silverstone was a
[07:34.880 -> 07:40.320] particularly odd race because of strategy and lots of other reasons um austria i think it's the first
[07:40.320 -> 07:46.160] time we've seen since early season that Ferrari had a kind of a clear advantage.
[07:46.160 -> 07:52.080] And it'd be interesting to see if they are able to maintain this high top speed, which, you know,
[07:52.080 -> 07:57.840] they were able to go with, but equally with that better tyre management. And probably for the
[07:57.840 -> 08:02.000] majority of this season, that has been the opposite where Red Bull has had the better tyre
[08:02.000 -> 08:08.880] management, they've had the greater top speed in the race and Bruno's bring them two together and I think for the first time we've seen it switched
[08:08.880 -> 08:15.200] around so this could be maybe not a turning point but certainly a kink in the road of the
[08:15.200 -> 08:20.160] championship just to see if Ferrari can now come back at Red Bull a little bit more, albeit that
[08:20.160 -> 08:30.240] they do have reliability problems which goes much further than the throttle pedal as we saw with Carlos Nance. Fair enough, fair enough. The throttle was really scary though, I mean
[08:30.240 -> 08:35.840] when I first like heard him saying on the radio that this throttle is not you know disengaging
[08:35.840 -> 08:41.520] entirely I'm like wait what so basically he is at 300 miles per hour going into these corners with
[08:41.520 -> 08:49.000] like around 20 percent of his throttle always on, Wow. That's, I mean, I can't imagine racing and finishing the race that way.
[08:50.840 -> 08:54.840] Yeah. It's, um, I don't know what, what mechanism you use to actually, you know,
[08:54.840 -> 08:56.880] control the, the, the excess throttle,
[08:56.880 -> 09:01.320] whether if he puts the foot on the brake somehow it offsets that or if it is
[09:01.320 -> 09:04.800] literally just breaking against the engine to try and get the car stopped.
[09:04.840 -> 09:05.920] But, um, it's one of those things. that or if it is literally just braking against the engine to try and get the car stopped. But
[09:10.560 -> 09:11.360] it's one of those things. Some drivers are so much better at coping with something very unusual.
[09:15.120 -> 09:15.680] Some drivers like the car to be perfect or they like to be coached through the problem.
[09:20.560 -> 09:23.760] And you could see there that clearly Charles just understood what the issue was and just drove around it. He was telling the team that there's not much the team could have done about it at
[09:23.760 -> 09:29.360] all really. You can't just turn the throttle pedal sensor off because the car would
[09:29.920 -> 09:35.840] run to a halt. So yeah, it was a tricky situation. But again, that overcoming things like that is
[09:35.840 -> 09:41.360] what builds you up to becoming a world champion. Simply just pulling to the side of the circuit or
[09:41.360 -> 09:45.520] going flying off on a corner, as some drivers may
[09:45.520 -> 09:51.040] would, just shows that, you know, there's an element of class in his driving that we've
[09:51.040 -> 09:55.200] seen a few times this year. Yeah, that too, like he's probably like the, I'd still call him like
[09:55.200 -> 10:01.520] the next generation driver on the grid. So that's beautiful to see someone who's still learning the
[10:01.520 -> 10:08.940] ropes of climbing and getting, you know, so good with the adverse situation. Obviously now you can explain us better Scarb on what
[10:08.940 -> 10:13.440] actually was happening because on the radio what we heard was the revs were
[10:13.440 -> 10:18.600] still high because of the event that we just discussed which because of some
[10:18.600 -> 10:26.960] algorithms was affecting downshifts of gears on Charles's car and he wasn't able to downshift. What's more to
[10:26.960 -> 10:32.880] the meat here on what was happening under the car's hood? Well, the main problem that was
[10:32.880 -> 10:38.320] happening is that the throttle pedal doesn't have a cable like you have with your old road car going
[10:38.320 -> 10:45.600] straight to the engine. It has two sensors in it, which means that in order for the pedal to come back up to
[10:45.600 -> 10:50.480] its resting position, I'll kind of do it that way, you have a spring behind it.
[10:50.480 -> 10:55.240] It almost looks like a little mountain bike shock and spring behind.
[10:55.240 -> 10:58.720] Either something happened in the bearings in the pivot or more likely in that spring
[10:58.720 -> 10:59.720] damper.
[10:59.720 -> 11:03.440] And rather than it coming back to the closed position, it was coming back to like a 20%
[11:03.440 -> 11:04.440] off of one.
[11:04.440 -> 11:07.040] That's an issue.
[11:07.040 -> 11:10.480] And it means that he was going into the corner with some of the engine still wanting to push
[11:10.480 -> 11:14.920] onwards, which you can break against and you can kind of try and carry a bit of corner
[11:14.920 -> 11:17.960] speed and choose how you're working, but it is difficult.
[11:17.960 -> 11:22.240] But then the other problem that you have is within all of the software that the car runs
[11:22.240 -> 11:28.440] against, there's all these safeguards to stop drivers doing something silly, like going in eighth gear, suddenly changing down
[11:28.440 -> 11:29.600] to first or something.
[11:29.600 -> 11:35.160] So because the ECU was detecting that the throttle was on, it says, well, you can't
[11:35.160 -> 11:36.160] downchange now.
[11:36.160 -> 11:37.160] That's not the situation I'm expecting.
[11:37.160 -> 11:43.880] I'm going to ignore that downshift request, which means he was then obviously struggling
[11:43.880 -> 11:50.000] to get a downshift done at all. And you know, while they have lots of talk and you have the hybrid systems helping
[11:50.000 -> 11:55.680] with that talk, you really still do need to be able to shift down in order to still maintain a
[11:55.680 -> 12:01.600] reasonable pace around those last few laps. Interesting. One thing I thought about while
[12:01.600 -> 12:05.160] watching this going down in general was, was it that the
[12:05.160 -> 12:08.540] characteristics of this track kind of helped Charles a bit?
[12:08.540 -> 12:13.140] Because since this track comparatively doesn't have as many slow corners, you know, think
[12:13.140 -> 12:16.020] about this happening probably somewhere in Monaco or something.
[12:16.020 -> 12:21.180] I think it would be a lot more difficult to manage it over there than at Austria, I guess.
[12:21.180 -> 12:24.340] Yeah, I mean, it's definitely one of those because it's such an open circuit.
[12:24.340 -> 12:30.240] And as you say, there's a limited, you probably could get around the circuit, which Schumacher
[12:30.240 -> 12:37.280] did back in the 90s by just staying in one gear and just driving it. So yeah, so it did help.
[12:37.280 -> 12:40.880] And you're right, if this was a different track, then he probably would have lost
[12:40.880 -> 12:44.800] that position, indeed, probably crashed before the end of the race.
[12:45.160 -> 12:49.440] would have lost that position, indeed probably crashed before the end of the race. You just mentioned Monak, I'm thinking like imagine him going with this issue into the
[12:49.440 -> 12:52.640] hairpin, that's a no.
[12:52.640 -> 12:55.080] That's a big no from me.
[12:55.080 -> 12:56.080] Yes.
[12:56.080 -> 13:11.760] Well, talking about things blowing up, let's talk about Carlos's engine I guess. Yeah, it's interesting. Lots of people are asking me before the race, because Austria is at altitude,
[13:11.760 -> 13:16.320] not massive altitude, but it is over 500 meters above sea level. The air is that
[13:16.320 -> 13:19.280] little bit thinner and they were asking me the problems that it causes. One of the problems
[13:19.280 -> 13:24.080] that it causes is it makes the turbocharger spin much faster because the air is thinner.
[13:24.080 -> 13:30.320] In order to get power, you've really got to get that turbocharger up to its maximum speed which is 125,000 rpm,
[13:30.320 -> 13:35.520] which still kind of blows everyone's minds when you hear it. So I suspected that there was a
[13:35.520 -> 13:42.320] problem with the Ferrari turbo, it would be here and then again maybe in Monza and obviously Mexico
[13:42.320 -> 13:49.900] which would probably be the worst case. Because We saw Charles have a problem with his turbo in Baku, which is a very similar kind of circuit
[13:49.900 -> 13:53.680] where you're on the throttle full speed for long periods.
[13:53.680 -> 13:58.400] Now we've had no word from Ferrari, so this is just my assumption of what happened, but
[13:58.400 -> 14:04.200] I think the turbocharger failed again on the car because of the way the smoke came out,
[14:04.200 -> 14:05.920] because of the time of smoke came out because of the time that you had
[14:07.040 -> 14:11.680] even the bodywork you saw the air the air being released from the intercoolers and stuff yeah
[14:11.680 -> 14:16.480] with the fire started um i don't think it was actually a problem within the v6 engine it was
[14:16.480 -> 14:22.640] probably just limited to the turbocharger so ferrari do have a weakness in this area which
[14:22.640 -> 14:25.360] which is worrying because you've got lots of races
[14:25.360 -> 14:27.560] coming up that will really challenge it.
[14:27.560 -> 14:33.560] But they can make reliability changes to that turbocharger before those races in there.
[14:33.560 -> 14:38.280] They're allowed to do that, even though the engine is going to kind of design frozen until
[14:38.280 -> 14:39.760] four years.
[14:39.760 -> 14:45.760] But yeah, it's a concern that both the top two teams really have been struggling with reliability
[14:45.760 -> 14:52.200] and perhaps highlights that Mercedes have got so close to them in championships.
[14:52.200 -> 14:56.920] Because they've had so many DNFs and it's really unusual for two leading teams to have
[14:56.920 -> 15:00.640] so many failures over the first half of the season.
[15:00.640 -> 15:01.880] Yeah, that's true.
[15:01.880 -> 15:06.800] It's interesting to see how Mercedes is bringing that three-way fight actually into the whole mix here.
[15:06.800 -> 15:11.000] We heard Carlos' radio say,
[15:11.000 -> 15:14.000] Strat E or Plan E.
[15:14.000 -> 15:23.000] And then immediately, I forget if it was Krofty or Brundle or whoever it was on the commentary.
[15:23.000 -> 15:28.640] And they said, he's blowing past ABCD already.
[15:28.640 -> 15:34.840] But to his car is actually gonna blow up and I'm like oh this commentator's
[15:34.840 -> 15:40.000] curse is going to a whole new level at this point.
[15:40.720 -> 15:46.960] The point there really for me is just the level of preparation the teams therefore have and the
[15:47.520 -> 15:51.360] Memory that the drivers can have. Yeah, it's a special situation trying to remember
[15:52.160 -> 15:55.200] What he was compared with the other ones. It's one of those things
[15:55.200 -> 15:59.920] I'm sure it becomes much more natural when you've been doing, you know, so many races already what we have
[15:59.920 -> 16:06.480] This is 11th this year. Uh-huh. Yeah, um, right. Yeah, it just shows how much the teams have to plan for every eventuality,
[16:06.480 -> 16:10.400] you know, is there going to be a high deg race? And it certainly was a high degradation race.
[16:10.400 -> 16:14.720] Is there going to be safety cars? And you know, how are our competitors doing against this?
[16:14.720 -> 16:19.360] So yeah, they go all the way down to E to find what they thought would be the perfect strategy.
[16:19.360 -> 16:27.080] Yeah. But like, which is also interesting, because it's a very interesting argument that's going on the internet with like, quote unquote,
[16:27.080 -> 16:30.920] Ferrari clowns at this point because of all the strategy mixes up.
[16:31.280 -> 16:33.280] But then we hear this conversation where, you know,
[16:33.280 -> 16:34.960] they're planning all the way to, you know,
[16:34.960 -> 16:37.920] plan E and going and running through all these scenarios.
[16:37.920 -> 16:42.520] So even when like we think that they messed up on simplest of the
[16:42.540 -> 16:43.240] situations,
[16:43.240 -> 16:45.580] like these strategies are so
[16:45.580 -> 16:51.820] difficult to pan out and it just goes bonkers at times. I was trying to think
[16:51.820 -> 16:55.940] that through the races that I've seen I think this is kind of unique with
[16:55.940 -> 17:00.400] Ferrari that they have these many strategies like oftentimes we have heard
[17:00.400 -> 17:11.040] about you know plan B or something with other teams or we're gonna pit early something like that but only during the Ferrari radios I have generally noticed
[17:11.040 -> 17:14.560] that they have a lettering system and they often use it like thoroughly they
[17:14.560 -> 17:21.120] do go far into the letters quite a while and I don't know it somehow it always
[17:21.120 -> 17:27.280] brings up the image in my mind that the drivers like have a cheat sheet inside the car where they are, you know, quickly checking what the letter is.
[17:29.200 -> 17:30.320] But yeah.
[17:30.640 -> 17:38.280] On the note of the fight that is going on with these Ferraris, Max and Leclerc were going head to head.
[17:38.400 -> 17:42.920] At one point, Max totally gave up on that fight and he let Charles pass.
[17:42.800 -> 17:43.300] on that fight and he let Charles pass.
[17:46.300 -> 17:47.000] But after a pit stop that happened around lap 33-ish,
[17:49.500 -> 17:51.700] there was this interesting radio message which, Scobbs, I want to get your insights into is,
[17:52.000 -> 17:55.900] he says one lap there was a good front grip
[17:55.900 -> 17:57.900] and then the next lap he didn't have anything.
[17:57.900 -> 18:00.100] The car's getting pretty unreliable.
[18:00.400 -> 18:03.900] How does like lap over lap, it vary like a sine wave?
[18:03.900 -> 18:06.320] Because either you have a good one and then it just goes bad.
[18:06.320 -> 18:11.280] But it seemed like yesterday it was good, bad, good, bad and a complete jambalaya of things yesterday.
[18:11.360 -> 18:14.080] Yeah, that was particularly unusual in Max's case.
[18:14.080 -> 18:20.080] And certainly he found that that car was very inconsistent, which is the worst thing you want when you're a driver,
[18:20.080 -> 18:21.440] particularly when you want to be pushing.
[18:21.640 -> 18:24.160] And at a circuit that would punish you as much as Austria.
[18:24.160 -> 18:28.360] If you go off there, you're really going off into the scenery.
[18:28.360 -> 18:30.560] I think there's a couple of things.
[18:30.560 -> 18:34.480] First of all, you may look at the actual consistency of the tyre, which would be the first thing,
[18:34.480 -> 18:38.280] which has been a criticism pointed at Pirelli in the past.
[18:38.280 -> 18:43.520] I doubt that was really what was going on here, something in the manufacturing of that
[18:43.520 -> 18:45.560] set of tyres that that was running.
[18:45.560 -> 18:48.320] Also, you have the wind, which was a factor in the,
[18:48.320 -> 18:51.320] certainly the crashes during, if I get that right,
[18:51.320 -> 18:53.480] qualifying, because it's,
[18:53.480 -> 18:55.080] I forget exactly what point that was now.
[18:55.080 -> 18:56.960] It was pretty messed up.
[18:56.960 -> 18:58.320] I think it was qualifying, yeah.
[18:58.320 -> 19:00.000] It was, yeah, it was the team stages anyway.
[19:00.000 -> 19:04.800] So, changing wind will suddenly make you go from
[19:04.800 -> 19:06.960] having lots of front downforce to having
[19:06.960 -> 19:09.040] no front downforce.
[19:09.040 -> 19:11.040] So that's a factor as well.
[19:11.040 -> 19:14.600] And I think that just kind of goes to show just how much of a knife edge that Red Bull
[19:14.600 -> 19:17.920] is to get the performance.
[19:17.920 -> 19:22.080] It's been, in some respects, a very consistent car because it's been quick all year long
[19:22.080 -> 19:30.400] and they're always kind of right in there unless there's some kind of reliability or penalty problem. But if you see Max who can kind of cope
[19:30.400 -> 19:35.840] with a car that is inconsistent and isn't ideal to drive compared with Perez who prefers a car to be
[19:36.560 -> 19:40.320] much more predictable through the course of a race so that he can get his kind of super long
[19:40.320 -> 19:48.360] strategies played out. You can just see how you know that the nature of that car compares between the two drivers and how they can exploit it in different
[19:48.360 -> 19:54.720] ways. So this weekend it was a bad one for Perez, it was almost a great one for
[19:54.720 -> 19:58.000] Max but Max seems to be able to deal with this car being under his knife
[19:58.000 -> 20:08.560] all the time. Although he does complain on the radio as you say. I mean and, I say this in a joking way, but like, as soon as Perez dropped off to
[20:08.560 -> 20:12.720] P20, I felt like it was again, going to be one of those moments where Perez knows if
[20:12.720 -> 20:16.560] he drops down to the table, he stands on the podium.
[20:16.560 -> 20:19.680] So I was like, maybe this is going to be one of those Perez comebacks.
[20:19.680 -> 20:20.680] Yeah.
[20:20.680 -> 20:21.680] Tough luck.
[20:21.680 -> 20:22.680] Tough luck.
[20:22.680 -> 20:26.760] Well, since we are on the topic of Red Bull and Ferrari, I think let's talk about the
[20:26.760 -> 20:30.960] flex flow drama that's going on.
[20:30.960 -> 20:35.840] So like my understanding basically is that F1 is bringing in a new technical director
[20:35.840 -> 20:40.080] from I think the French GP, I guess if I'm not wrong.
[20:40.080 -> 20:55.000] And basically it is to address two things from what I understand. One is that some teams are apparently using disappearing skid block on their underbelly.
[20:55.000 -> 21:00.040] And also Red Bull and Ferrari are using a two-piece floor plank, which kind of gives
[21:00.040 -> 21:09.040] them a little more flex on their center part of the car. So Craig, I want to get your opinion on
[21:09.040 -> 21:15.760] this as to just enlighten us. Okay, so I think you're right, a technical directive has come out.
[21:15.760 -> 21:20.640] We've had a number of these actually changing over so slightly. I think they've come into force for
[21:20.640 -> 21:25.120] the Belgian Grand Prix now, it's been pushed back a bit.
[21:25.120 -> 21:30.080] And yeah, it does all kind of relate to how close the floor is to the circuit and how
[21:30.080 -> 21:32.840] the teams are coping with that in different ways.
[21:32.840 -> 21:37.400] Now, with these current cars, what you really want to do is get the car as close to the
[21:37.400 -> 21:41.920] floor as possible to kind of get the edge of the floor against the track, really get
[21:41.920 -> 21:43.920] those ground effect tunnels working.
[21:43.920 -> 21:49.200] The problem that produces is porpoising and bouncing, as we've seen for most of the year.
[21:49.200 -> 21:53.920] As soon as the car's close to the track, if it hits a bump or if the aero stops working,
[21:53.920 -> 21:55.840] then it just starts going up and down.
[21:55.840 -> 21:59.920] That really wrecks the car's performance and the driver's health.
[21:59.920 -> 22:00.920] How do you get around that?
[22:00.920 -> 22:02.960] Well, there's various ways you can get around porpoising.
[22:02.960 -> 22:07.680] There's suspension, there's changing the shape of the aero. But one of the things that teams have
[22:07.680 -> 22:13.360] done is actually change how the floor hits the circuit. And they've done this in a number of
[22:13.360 -> 22:18.400] ways. And of course, the plank and the skid blocks underneath the floor have been there since what,
[22:18.400 -> 22:26.640] 94, and have been there to stop teams dragging the car along the track or having the floor impact the track.
[22:26.640 -> 22:30.520] So if you can flex that middle section where the plank is of the floor in different ways,
[22:30.520 -> 22:33.560] you potentially get closer to the track.
[22:33.560 -> 22:38.080] And if you do kind of hit a bump or, you know, the car doesn't get to the point where it
[22:38.080 -> 22:43.200] hits the circuit, it doesn't hit something rigid and it hits something flexible.
[22:43.200 -> 22:45.760] So that won't set off the corpus as much as other.
[22:46.400 -> 22:54.400] Now everyone's pointing their fingers at Red Bull and Ferrari. I don't think that is wholly correct.
[22:54.400 -> 23:00.240] Okay. Because there's lots of other teams that have got some similar designs as from what I can
[23:00.240 -> 23:05.120] see, particularly in the front, which we call the T-tray, where you're, uh, well,
[23:05.120 -> 23:08.360] if you normally would be the thing that would hit the track first, certainly last year when
[23:08.360 -> 23:12.280] the cars were running like this, it was that front bit of floor that would hit the circuit
[23:12.280 -> 23:15.880] first, but now because the cars are so much flatter, the back of the floor can hit the
[23:15.880 -> 23:16.880] circuit as well.
[23:16.880 -> 23:20.400] So there's all sorts of sort of flexibility tricks there.
[23:20.400 -> 23:28.160] There's also ways of actually making the edge of the floor bow downwards. Um, actually making a seal with the floor where you want it to, but
[23:28.160 -> 23:29.520] not where you don't want it to.
[23:29.920 -> 23:35.080] And that accusation could be pointed at teams other than Red Bull and Ferrari.
[23:35.560 -> 23:39.920] So it's, it's tricky to kind of point the fingers and to be honest, none of us,
[23:40.320 -> 23:43.720] I'm certainly in the FIA don't know who is doing what.
[23:44.240 -> 23:47.760] Um, I think the only exception to that is the thing that came up over the weekend, which
[23:47.760 -> 23:55.540] I hadn't heard of in the paddock was this disappearing skid block, which is quite interesting.
[23:55.540 -> 23:59.740] So normally you would have the floor of the car, you have the plank underneath it, and
[23:59.740 -> 24:04.600] then you would bolt these titanium skid blocks, things that make all the sound, up underneath
[24:04.600 -> 24:09.080] and that holds the plank against the car and prevents the plank wearing away.
[24:09.400 -> 24:12.000] Well, it seems as though they've done it the other way so that the skid
[24:12.000 -> 24:13.440] block goes in underneath.
[24:13.440 -> 24:16.000] So if it hits the track, it gets pushed up.
[24:17.240 -> 24:19.060] So the skid block won't wear away.
[24:19.060 -> 24:20.120] The plank won't wear away.
[24:20.120 -> 24:21.960] You can actually lean on it a bit more.
[24:22.020 -> 24:26.640] And this practice could easily have predated this season because if teams
[24:26.640 -> 24:29.160] were doing that front of the floor last year, it'd have been a real advantage.
[24:29.720 -> 24:32.480] Um, but that seems to have been, it's one of those quite easy
[24:32.480 -> 24:33.800] mechanical things to work out.
[24:33.800 -> 24:36.840] Once you've seen the floor and the parts in front of you as a scrutineer, you think,
[24:37.080 -> 24:43.400] ah, no, no, that's not how we want to change this.
[24:43.680 -> 24:45.760] And again, we don't know the team that's doing this. It could
[24:45.760 -> 24:54.800] be a team right at the back of the grid that we don't see the benefit from. So be careful which
[24:54.800 -> 25:00.000] teams we're mentioning here, but it's a problem across the grid. And I think it does need to be
[25:00.000 -> 25:06.080] cleared up because the regulations were ambiguous. They're still ambiguous. The technical director
[25:06.080 -> 25:10.960] doesn't cover everything that I know about that's on the car. And I think they just need to kind of
[25:10.960 -> 25:16.080] go through that entire area, straighten it out, then start enforcing it. And we'll go back to
[25:16.080 -> 25:20.720] hopefully everyone making the best of their cars without pushing the rules.
[25:20.720 -> 25:25.720] That's going to be very well put because it's always these front runners
[25:25.720 -> 25:32.200] that get mentioned in these sort of conversations but like Haas, unfortunately
[25:32.200 -> 25:36.680] it was Xiao's accident which sort of put all of this into the limelight when the
[25:36.680 -> 25:41.000] car was dragging on its head. But it seems like you're right, like the
[25:41.000 -> 25:45.120] whole grid is doing it and nobody sort of cares about what's happening.
[25:45.120 -> 25:50.040] Absolutely. There's a feature on the Aston Martin, you know, everyone will go, well,
[25:50.040 -> 25:53.440] they're so slow, why would you copy them? But they've got a really interesting feature
[25:53.440 -> 25:58.240] on their T-tray support that is unlike any other team. So, you know, they may have the
[25:58.240 -> 26:02.000] best corpusing solution, but doesn't make them the fastest car.
[26:02.000 -> 26:10.000] That's true. You know, it could be the Williams, it could be, you know, Sauber, I'm sorry, Alfa Romeo are doing very well,
[26:10.000 -> 26:13.000] but they don't have some of these clever tricks on the car that I can see.
[26:13.000 -> 26:22.000] So it's like, wow, you know, I think it's a lot of it is just the media kind of whipping it up into a Mercedes versus Ferrari versus Red Bull.
[26:22.000 -> 26:26.560] I think it's also like the curse of being at the front, like whenever
[26:26.560 -> 26:31.920] you are succeeding, people are gonna try and bring you down. So yeah, I think it's kind of a part and
[26:31.920 -> 26:36.880] parcel of that as well. That's part of the, you know, always been part of Formula 1 history.
[26:36.880 -> 26:41.920] Every time a team suddenly elevates itself to the front of the grid, almost immediately they'll
[26:41.920 -> 26:46.840] detect something. So Benetton, you know, Benetton had been in all one for a number of years
[26:46.840 -> 26:48.080] without really having a success.
[26:48.080 -> 26:51.360] Suddenly you have that, you know, early nineties spell
[26:51.360 -> 26:52.960] where they were really just getting it done.
[26:52.960 -> 26:55.520] And then everyone's suddenly thinking, hmm.
[26:56.120 -> 27:01.000] And then, you know, it carries on with all the teams that, you know,
[27:01.000 -> 27:03.240] kind of make that step upwards.
[27:03.240 -> 27:09.600] And it's just it's the nature of competition, I guess, that people point fingers at someone that's suddenly doing better, beating you.
[27:09.600 -> 27:14.960] Yeah. On a lighter note, because you mentioned Bennington in the 90s, I mean, I see the stereo
[27:14.960 -> 27:20.240] Grand Prix and I see like, it's a such a simple layout, but it's such a complicated track because
[27:20.240 -> 27:25.040] you have like so many avenues of oversteer and we saw that yesterday with
[27:25.040 -> 27:29.360] like cars running off many got penalties many got the flag. What I'm getting to is
[27:29.360 -> 27:35.920] you know the in the 90s we had this famous I think like the anti-roll bar
[27:35.920 -> 27:41.640] right which which helped sort of with that adjustment of steerings with the
[27:41.640 -> 27:46.200] with either the front or the back and you could adjust your seat.
[27:46.200 -> 27:51.880] Have the cars gotten so much more sophisticated or would you like to see maybe like the anti-rollbar
[27:51.880 -> 27:56.480] sort of thing coming back at such high speed Grand Prix?
[27:56.480 -> 28:02.600] Well, the anti-rollbar adjuster, as you say, was banned in 94 as part of the active suspension
[28:02.600 -> 28:06.240] and driver rating, which seems very seems a very strange thing to do.
[28:06.240 -> 28:09.680] But they thought that that was,
[28:09.680 -> 28:11.640] lots of race cars have got adjustable anti-roll bars,
[28:11.640 -> 28:12.480] adjustable by the driver,
[28:12.480 -> 28:15.160] by the lever in the cockpit.
[28:15.160 -> 28:17.360] I can see no reason that they couldn't come back
[28:17.360 -> 28:19.640] as manual adjustments or even electronic adjustments,
[28:19.640 -> 28:20.840] as long as there was,
[28:20.840 -> 28:24.080] it wouldn't be changing the anti-roll bar for every corner,
[28:24.080 -> 28:25.760] like the brake bias or differential control. I wouldn't be changing the anti-roll bar for every corner like the brake bias or
[28:25.760 -> 28:30.880] you know differential control. I wouldn't mind that but to be honest in lots of respects nowadays
[28:30.880 -> 28:35.440] the that the balance of the car is adjusted through the differential at the you know on the
[28:35.440 -> 28:42.000] gearbox rather than with you know the systems that they had previously so I don't know how useful it
[28:42.000 -> 28:45.880] would be. I think things would have to do some simulations to see if it really would pay off.
[28:45.880 -> 28:49.720] But there is actually probably now, more than ever,
[28:49.720 -> 28:53.080] stuff that the driver can do to actually adjust
[28:53.080 -> 28:56.440] the car's balance on the go from the cockpit
[28:56.440 -> 28:59.800] that was never available to the drivers pre-94.
[28:59.800 -> 29:01.000] Yeah, interesting.
[29:02.360 -> 29:03.200] Yeah, all right.
[29:03.200 -> 29:05.120] I guess let's get back to the race a little
[29:06.080 -> 29:10.080] and let's discuss a little bit about the awesome battles that we saw.
[29:10.080 -> 29:13.120] I mean, there were battles pretty much everywhere yesterday.
[29:13.120 -> 29:16.960] And of course, like we cannot forget, of course, carbs, you mentioned that
[29:17.520 -> 29:23.600] the battle royale that we saw with Alonso Joe, Mick Norris and K-Mag
[29:24.160 -> 29:25.000] lap 26. Well, that was something to marvel at. Alonso Xiao, Nick Norris and K-Mag at Lab26.
[29:25.000 -> 29:26.560] Wow, that was something to marvel at.
[29:26.560 -> 29:32.120] I mean, it reminded me kind of two years back or three years back at SPA,
[29:32.120 -> 29:36.600] where I think there was 5W going into, you know, right after the chemistrate.
[29:37.040 -> 29:38.400] Yeah, this was nice.
[29:38.400 -> 29:42.960] I think this year with the new regulations, we can see that they're working.
[29:42.960 -> 29:44.280] We can see closer racing.
[29:44.280 -> 29:51.840] We can see that cars are not getting affected as much by following other cars. And I'm just glad to
[29:51.840 -> 29:58.320] be watching F1 during this time, very honestly, especially after the years that have been in the
[29:58.320 -> 30:06.480] last few years where racing was not kind of very interesting at points. yeah right now it's just too much fun.
[30:06.480 -> 30:11.360] Yeah no again it's interesting a lot of the drivers didn't say much about the new rules
[30:11.360 -> 30:16.080] and the ability to follow closely during testing but some of them were actually quite negative about
[30:16.080 -> 30:21.760] it. There has been no improvement but we've seen consistently this year that you know if someone
[30:21.760 -> 30:25.240] wants to go right behind another car, they can do so.
[30:25.240 -> 30:28.120] Um, and that then leads to either errors.
[30:28.120 -> 30:32.840] Um, like you saw when Schumacher initially got past, uh, Hamilton, Hamilton had gone
[30:32.840 -> 30:36.800] wide and Mick was close enough to actually monopolize on that without, I don't know if
[30:36.800 -> 30:41.240] he did have DRS, but it was effectively, it wasn't DRS that allowed that pass.
[30:41.240 -> 30:47.520] Um, and I think that's great because I think as a fan in a one and a half,
[30:47.520 -> 30:52.560] two hour Grand Prix, I think you want to be able to think that someone might be able to overtake.
[30:53.360 -> 30:59.120] I think that, that is, you know, that just that it's, it might happen is what kind of keeps us
[30:59.120 -> 31:02.160] on the edge of our seats. Now, I think if we literally just saw everyone just pass everyone
[31:02.160 -> 31:09.520] straight away, um, I think the sport would be a lot duller. But, and you still get an element of that with DRS,
[31:09.520 -> 31:14.720] particularly this weekend with three zones picking up so well for cars that could carry
[31:14.720 -> 31:20.960] that little bit more top speed. I still have, I still understand the need to keep DRS, but I just
[31:20.960 -> 31:26.080] wish you didn't have almost unlimited use of it. You could be someone for
[31:26.080 -> 31:31.040] every lap of a race and have it every lap. And that, you know, that just doesn't seem fair.
[31:31.040 -> 31:36.560] You know, it needs to be, maybe you have so many DRS applications available through the whole
[31:36.560 -> 31:39.920] weekend. So, you know, if you want to use it in qualifying, you use it in qualifying, but you'll
[31:39.920 -> 31:45.700] have less in the race or something like, just to make it a bit more
[31:45.700 -> 31:50.180] tactical rather than, um, you know, just a free pass, just to say, well, I'm going
[31:50.180 -> 31:54.820] to take you on the straights, which, you know, particularly when you've seen.
[31:55.140 -> 31:59.140] The, the leader or someone that's been in a great positional race, someone
[31:59.140 -> 32:02.720] then comes up and just gets all these opportunities, just the breeze past on
[32:02.720 -> 32:08.320] the straights and it kind of kills kills the towards the end of the race when you know that's like there's no coming back
[32:08.320 -> 32:12.960] from it so yeah that's right i think we've made some improvements i think formula one still maybe
[32:12.960 -> 32:17.680] needs to follow up these regulations with some other sporting and technical changes just to
[32:17.680 -> 32:23.680] really mount the racing that's an interesting one because i think i think after salvi we made
[32:23.680 -> 32:26.360] that adjustment where australia we were going to have three drs zones Saudi we made that adjustment where Australia we
[32:26.360 -> 32:30.360] were going to have three DRS zones but we made an adjustment and we only eventually
[32:30.360 -> 32:31.360] saw two.
[32:31.360 -> 32:38.380] But I have not seen this side of a take on where you know you essentially Ferrari ends
[32:38.380 -> 32:43.880] up creating a plan G for all we know where you know you can only limit your number of
[32:43.880 -> 32:45.440] DRSs.
[32:48.720 -> 32:53.360] That's a very interesting take. And is this a chatter that's also going on in the paddock or it's still just some people?
[32:53.920 -> 32:58.000] No, I mean, I think for the FIA, there's still no DRS.
[32:58.960 -> 33:02.080] I don't think there's any talk about playing with the sporting rules around it.
[33:02.080 -> 33:08.080] I know this is employed in some other categories and for the life of me, I've seen graphics on TV before.
[33:08.080 -> 33:11.840] It's something that I've, you know, I've kind of touted for many years and it
[33:11.840 -> 33:15.520] doesn't seem to have gained any traction anywhere with anyone else. So it's just
[33:15.520 -> 33:19.480] just an idea rather than something that maybe we might see in the next few years.
[33:19.480 -> 33:27.800] I think like with all the all the battle royales and the close racing that we've been talking,
[33:27.800 -> 33:34.920] something interesting that also ended up happening yesterday was a battle between the Haas and Stroll particularly.
[33:34.920 -> 33:39.000] I feel like Stroll yesterday was particularly on the top of his game.
[33:39.440 -> 33:45.360] Because earlier, I mean, he might be racing good, but there wasn't much footage or coverage he got
[33:45.360 -> 33:48.760] during the race yesterday because without the pit stop he climbed I think
[33:48.760 -> 33:53.120] all the way up to P4 at one point and then that just got like him in the
[33:53.120 -> 33:57.480] limelight there and especially some brilliant back-and-forth overtakes with
[33:57.480 -> 34:01.840] I think it was K-Mag but I could be wrong and could be right. There was something
[34:01.840 -> 34:08.200] brilliant too. Yeah I mean certainly the Aston Martin is a far better, everyone says it's a better race car than it is a better qualifying
[34:08.200 -> 34:15.040] car, because of the way it deals with its tyres. And equally you can see for someone like
[34:15.040 -> 34:20.360] Stroll, there's certain types of circuit that he seems to excel at, which tend to
[34:20.360 -> 34:24.720] be the much more wide open, you know, really stretch the race out
[34:24.720 -> 34:27.280] things. He always runs very well at Monza.
[34:27.840 -> 34:32.080] Um, and some of the other sort of fast tracks like that, but equally, you know,
[34:32.800 -> 34:36.800] although it's Aston Martin in, in our heads, it's still force India.
[34:37.360 -> 34:37.680] Yeah.
[34:37.680 -> 34:43.600] And you know, a lot of the people on the ground are still the force India people,
[34:43.600 -> 34:49.280] the people that are, you know, uh, Andy Stevens and Tom McCulloch and all of that doing the strategy, doing
[34:49.280 -> 34:50.640] the sporting side of it.
[34:50.640 -> 34:54.760] They know how to get a race result out a bit like it is with Alonso at Alpine.
[34:54.760 -> 35:00.280] They know that they can find a way of getting a setup on a car and the tire strategy to
[35:00.280 -> 35:02.080] get you that result at the end of the race.
[35:02.080 -> 35:04.280] And strong really has been kind of delivering that.
[35:04.280 -> 35:08.480] Um, as you saw in particular, Austria and no doubt will be again a few
[35:08.480 -> 35:13.160] races in the future over the year and yeah it's not all about just how good
[35:13.160 -> 35:17.040] the car is it's about you know that the team around it and how they plan to go
[35:17.040 -> 35:21.200] racing because you probably wouldn't have seen Stroll getting those results
[35:21.200 -> 35:25.080] if he'd gone for a more conventional setup in a conventional strategy.
[35:25.080 -> 35:26.080] Right.
[35:26.080 -> 35:27.080] Right.
[35:27.080 -> 35:31.800] There's this other thought that I've been having, because you mentioned Alonzo, which
[35:31.800 -> 35:33.560] is we have these veterans, right?
[35:33.560 -> 35:37.840] Like Vettel is obviously feeding the data back to their team, which is helping Aston
[35:37.840 -> 35:39.200] Martin grow.
[35:39.200 -> 35:46.560] But then how much of it is a back and forth between what Vettel is feeding back versus some of
[35:46.560 -> 35:49.720] these folks who've been around with their team since like Force India, right?
[35:49.720 -> 35:54.320] So how does that camaraderie work behind the garages?
[35:54.320 -> 35:59.280] Because we never as audience get to see what's happening, you know, so some insight there
[35:59.280 -> 36:01.480] from you because you might have seen some of these things happen.
[36:02.160 -> 36:07.080] Yeah, it's interesting when you chat to the engineers engineers and I don't tend to talk to them a lot about drivers
[36:07.080 -> 36:08.960] or even race engineering to be honest,
[36:08.960 -> 36:10.920] but when you do speak to them,
[36:10.920 -> 36:14.440] or you listen to all the various podcasts
[36:14.440 -> 36:15.920] where they do get a bit of time to talk
[36:15.920 -> 36:17.720] and how they understand a driver,
[36:17.720 -> 36:20.600] and part of their job is to understand
[36:20.600 -> 36:23.440] what the driver wants out of the car,
[36:23.440 -> 36:25.920] how it works, how it feels.
[36:25.920 -> 36:29.920] But equally, in the driver explaining what he wants,
[36:29.920 -> 36:31.360] they learn stuff.
[36:31.360 -> 36:37.320] It's not unusual that you would see a test driver at Red Bull,
[36:37.320 -> 36:40.000] I'm thinking of the Russian whose name's
[36:40.000 -> 36:42.160] just skipped my head now I've said that,
[36:42.160 -> 36:43.440] is picked up by Ferrari.
[36:43.440 -> 36:45.160] And they do that because they debrief them.
[36:45.160 -> 36:48.160] They understand about all the little strategies
[36:48.160 -> 36:49.720] and all the little bits of software
[36:49.720 -> 36:54.080] and all the little methods that they use in a team
[36:54.080 -> 36:56.000] in order for them to learn.
[36:56.000 -> 36:59.320] And it's this churning of information around the product,
[36:59.320 -> 37:02.160] which is, and I obviously keep getting better and better.
[37:02.160 -> 37:04.520] And also is a way of finding out how people are kind of,
[37:04.520 -> 37:10.160] not cheating, but certainly stretching regulations and rules as people move about. So it's a key part of
[37:10.160 -> 37:14.240] it. The first thing anyone will do from going from one team to another is to have a really big debrief
[37:15.600 -> 37:19.120] about what the other team were doing. And that's, you know, completely up all the path forward. And
[37:19.120 -> 37:23.680] that's part of the reason you're hired, isn't it? Let's face it, your experience. And then,
[37:23.680 -> 37:25.400] you know, all those other little thoughts
[37:25.400 -> 37:28.680] that you, you know, you then bring to the team
[37:28.680 -> 37:31.960] as you change teams, really allows them to move forward.
[37:31.960 -> 37:34.460] So certainly have someone like Vettel on board,
[37:34.460 -> 37:37.680] looking at the drivers that, you know,
[37:37.680 -> 37:40.340] Aston Martin, Racing Point, Force India,
[37:40.340 -> 37:42.440] all the other names have had over years.
[37:42.440 -> 37:44.880] Vettel really is kind of one of the biggest stars
[37:44.880 -> 37:46.300] that they've had back in there.
[37:46.300 -> 37:51.000] So they will have learned and no doubt lots of their practices will have changed
[37:51.000 -> 37:53.500] because of the feedback that Seb has given them.
[37:53.500 -> 37:55.000] Interesting, great insight.
[37:55.000 -> 38:00.500] So one thing I wanted to kind of point out before we move on to the other topics was,
[38:00.500 -> 38:06.460] and I saw this a lot on the internet as well, of course, we saw some great racing by Mick overall in this race.
[38:06.520 -> 38:10.340] And a lot of people have pointed out that suddenly it seems like, you know,
[38:10.340 -> 38:13.680] something inside Mick has, you know, suddenly turned on and he's just.
[38:14.200 -> 38:15.800] Gotten into the form, right?
[38:15.800 -> 38:19.960] Like we have what we're seeing from the last race and it, it matches up exactly
[38:19.960 -> 38:26.320] with this career in F3 and F2, where he spent his first one and a half year trying to understand the car
[38:26.320 -> 38:32.080] and then suddenly from there on his season just changed and I think that's exactly what's happening
[38:32.080 -> 38:36.080] again here as well. It's exactly one and a half year and we are suddenly seeing that he's performing
[38:36.080 -> 38:41.600] really well. It's really funny to see that. Yeah, it's interesting. I don't tend to watch a lot of
[38:41.600 -> 38:49.120] the racing in the GDN categories, I'll be honest, but I speak to all the people that do follow them and I'm always trying to
[38:49.120 -> 38:54.160] work out how good are some of these drivers coming up and certainly Schumacher, sometimes
[38:55.040 -> 38:59.360] a big name can actually be bad because you're elevated above your talent.
[39:00.080 -> 39:08.080] I think everyone suggested that Mick was there, Nick, Nick was there on. On talent, um, alone, uh, not just your surname, although I think maybe the
[39:08.080 -> 39:10.840] Ferrari link is almost inescapable.
[39:11.320 -> 39:16.080] And, uh, yeah, I mean, if you can see, you know, that house car hasn't changed,
[39:16.320 -> 39:19.600] you know, that's that much is definite, you know, it's not that they're
[39:19.600 -> 39:21.720] fucking new floor and it works for him.
[39:22.160 -> 39:25.120] So maybe he has just worked out how to get the best from
[39:25.120 -> 39:29.600] that car. Maybe he's just a bit of one of those drivers that's slower, you know, certainly his dad
[39:29.600 -> 39:36.080] Michael Schumacher was someone that could kind of get into any car and drive it. I'm sure if
[39:36.080 -> 39:41.120] when he was having a success at Ferrari, if they, if he'd gone out, you know, for lunch and come
[39:41.120 -> 39:47.340] back and they changed all of the settings on the car. He would, for a start, he would probably be able to say exactly the chain, all
[39:47.340 -> 39:50.800] of the changes and how big they were, but they still drive, still drive
[39:50.800 -> 39:52.320] the car as quickly.
[39:52.560 -> 39:53.920] Some drivers need more time.
[39:54.120 -> 39:55.480] You know, some drivers need to bed in.
[39:55.480 -> 39:59.400] Obviously last year, you can almost discount for Mick, uh, from a point of
[39:59.400 -> 40:03.340] view of fast driving, because the car was just so bad.
[40:03.640 -> 40:03.960] Yeah.
[40:04.040 -> 40:08.760] Um, so this is the first year where they've had the good car that he's been able to learn
[40:08.760 -> 40:11.640] and understand and now start to exploit.
[40:11.640 -> 40:16.440] So maybe, you know, your point is it stands up there and that it is, that's just the way
[40:16.440 -> 40:19.280] he goes racing.
[40:19.280 -> 40:22.160] Which is interesting, but also then makes you think about his future career.
[40:22.160 -> 40:25.040] I don't think it sounds like, it doesn't sound like a driver that needs to be
[40:28.880 -> 40:33.120] jumping from team to team, you know, every couple of years, I think he's someone that would certainly benefit from some stability in the team and the, you know,
[40:33.160 -> 40:35.720] literally the group of people around him as well.
[40:36.120 -> 40:38.880] And maybe that's what gets the best out of him, but certainly, you know, he's
[40:38.880 -> 40:44.520] racing over the past two, two Grands Prix has been fantastic, you know, as good
[40:44.520 -> 40:47.960] as anyone else out there, which is, you know, nice because,
[40:47.960 -> 40:51.760] you know, we all have a soft spot for Schumacher, whether he was a big fan or not.
[40:51.760 -> 40:57.960] You know, I think it would be a shame if his son came in and really just kind of faded out after two years.
[40:57.960 -> 41:01.640] I think in our hearts, I think we all want to see some success there,
[41:01.640 -> 41:03.960] just to see a bit of the old Schumacher there.
[41:03.960 -> 41:05.600] So, yeah, I think that's great.
[41:05.600 -> 41:13.280] True, true. I think like one person that we were actually talking about is Guan Yu Zhao.
[41:13.280 -> 41:18.880] Because his season is rookie at this point. He's blown our minds to be honest like this year.
[41:21.040 -> 41:25.600] I don't know how his confidence sort of staggered with like the incident last race,
[41:25.600 -> 41:29.600] but beyond the issues that Alfa Romeo has shown,
[41:29.600 -> 41:35.400] he's been giving promising results for a rookie season that he's been having.
[41:35.400 -> 41:40.400] So what's the environment like for like Guan Yu in the paddock?
[41:40.400 -> 41:47.040] Well, it's again, he's one of those people that really, uh, you know, I speak to people
[41:47.040 -> 41:49.640] that follow the things and, you know, it was Chinese guy.
[41:49.640 -> 41:53.560] I've done a lot of work with Chinese media over the years and I've always been kind of
[41:53.560 -> 41:55.920] a bit of a head on the upcoming names.
[41:55.920 -> 42:00.640] And while he was an upcoming name, it was never kind of flagged that he could be really
[42:00.640 -> 42:05.360] good, you know, not to be rude to him, but, um, you know, there are other
[42:05.360 -> 42:09.680] drivers in junior categories that maybe shine a brighter light than he had, but
[42:09.680 -> 42:11.240] he's coming to the alpha and my O-team.
[42:11.700 -> 42:13.480] Um, they've put out a very good car.
[42:14.080 -> 42:16.280] He's got someone that's a teammate.
[42:16.820 -> 42:20.580] And as you say, he's performed, you know, he's not coming and
[42:20.580 -> 42:22.620] played the understudy to, to Bata.
[42:22.680 -> 42:27.080] He's not coming in, made lots of big rookie errors like maybe Senoda has.
[42:27.560 -> 42:29.160] Um, he's got results.
[42:29.360 -> 42:35.040] Um, he had that obviously huge accident back in the paddock an hour later,
[42:35.160 -> 42:39.760] apparently quite calm, lucid talking to everyone, has given lots of interviews
[42:39.760 -> 42:43.840] about it almost immediately after and over the Austrian weekend and still put
[42:43.840 -> 42:45.760] in apart from reliability issues, a great weekend and still put in, apart from reliability
[42:45.760 -> 42:53.040] issues, a great weekend in Austria. So, where does the future go for him? I think, we're almost more
[42:53.040 -> 43:00.160] certain that Joe will be in Formula One and in a good position for the next handful of years.
[43:00.160 -> 43:09.000] Meanwhile, the Alfa Romeo-Salva team, I think I've got less confidence in where they're going to be next year and what they'll be called and what engine they're going to have in the car.
[43:09.000 -> 43:10.000] That's true.
[43:10.000 -> 43:26.880] Yeah, but yeah, certainly, you know, I think they've got a really great package there with the Ferrari engine, the chassis, Bontac and Augeo all together. And it's nice because they've had some tough years over in InVille.
[43:26.880 -> 43:30.960] And it's nice to see that they've really tackled these regulations really well.
[43:32.080 -> 43:36.800] Yeah. Let's switch gears a bit. There's one question that I wanted to ask Craig,
[43:37.600 -> 43:47.680] and I found this pretty interesting. So I noticed that in the previous race at Silverstone, Charles had damage on his front wing end plate.
[43:48.240 -> 43:53.920] And he pretty much was not affected by it almost at all because he was driving pretty well.
[43:54.560 -> 44:01.120] He gave up a good fight. But the same thing what we saw yesterday in the Austin GP was that Russell
[44:01.120 -> 44:10.900] also had a similar damage, but he seemed to be suffering from it a lot more and he had to instantly come into the pits to change his front wing pretty much.
[44:10.900 -> 44:15.420] So I think what I'm trying to get at is two, this is a two part question.
[44:15.420 -> 44:18.180] One is that, A, why is the difference?
[44:18.180 -> 44:25.080] I like, like, I don't understand because at least in the Silverstone GP, the commentators were saying that the front wing endplate with
[44:25.080 -> 44:31.240] the new aero kind of is not playing that much of a major role as it used to. So, you know,
[44:31.240 -> 44:33.120] kind of wanted to get your opinion on that.
[44:33.120 -> 44:38.400] Okay. Yeah. So I didn't actually see the damage to Russell's car, I'll be honest, but it wasn't
[44:38.400 -> 44:43.080] the same as what happened to Leclerc. So Leclerc had the endplate, the big vertical piece on
[44:43.080 -> 44:49.440] the end of the wing. Now, under any previous year in Formula One, certainly over the past maybe 10 years, losing
[44:49.440 -> 44:54.760] that vertical bit would have been a big impact on the way that it works because fundamentally
[44:54.760 -> 44:57.960] what it's trying to do is to try and keep the high pressure above the wind, the low
[44:57.960 -> 44:58.960] pressure below.
[44:58.960 -> 45:01.920] So it creates that downforce, that pressure differential.
[45:01.920 -> 45:07.100] But the way they've changed the regulations this year, they've almost kind of, um, negated the function of the
[45:07.100 -> 45:09.400] end plate, even though they're much bigger because
[45:09.400 -> 45:11.200] they kind of roll under the wing.
[45:11.200 -> 45:14.100] Now they do very little actually in separate
[45:14.100 -> 45:14.760] from the airflow.
[45:14.760 -> 45:17.160] It's also too easy for it to go under the wing
[45:17.160 -> 45:19.720] already, which is why you don't see steep wings
[45:19.800 -> 45:20.400] in front of it.
[45:21.000 -> 45:23.840] You can lose that, but it is much less influential.
[45:23.840 -> 45:27.100] He probably lost probably more drag because it comes with the way the
[45:27.100 -> 45:28.220] airflow goes over the wall.
[45:28.220 -> 45:31.220] Then he probably lost in downforce, but he would have had a small, you know,
[45:31.220 -> 45:32.900] there, there's not, you know, denied.
[45:32.900 -> 45:33.620] There is an impact.
[45:33.620 -> 45:38.820] I think Friar said five points of downforce, which is not a massive
[45:38.820 -> 45:40.860] amounts of the change of race, but certainly it's something that the
[45:40.860 -> 45:43.140] driver would feel if Russell had.
[45:43.180 -> 45:46.160] And again, I don't know the damage, but it wasn't the end plate.
[45:46.160 -> 45:49.040] So it was probably something more on one of the five wing elements.
[45:49.040 -> 45:49.680] So it's falling.
[45:51.600 -> 45:53.120] And that is much more sensitive.
[45:53.120 -> 45:59.200] So if you had, you know, if the gap between those elements closes up or opens up, then
[45:59.200 -> 46:00.880] the wing really stops working.
[46:00.880 -> 46:02.240] And that means you lose.
[46:02.800 -> 46:04.480] But downforce in a big way.
[46:07.760 -> 46:13.520] So it's, that's a much more sensitive area of the wing. Just like in the old days, you used to get a loser by the board. If the driver
[46:13.520 -> 46:17.760] was fired up, like, you know, again, we go back to Schumacher, don't we, could actually drive faster.
[46:18.800 -> 46:25.320] Max last year or the year before? Last year. Yeah. Because obviously half of the performance of the car is in the driver's head. So yeah because obviously half of the performance of the
[46:25.320 -> 46:30.200] car is in the driver's head so yeah some parts the car are really sensitive and
[46:30.200 -> 46:34.440] others aren't and you know it's just luck of the draw how you hit someone and
[46:34.440 -> 46:39.240] what bit breaks and what bit doesn't. While we're talking about these
[46:39.240 -> 46:46.920] changes right like off late we've seen notable changes on probably all constructors making the
[46:46.920 -> 46:52.360] side belly of their car. The side part sort of changed overall across the grid.
[46:52.360 -> 46:57.640] But beyond that, what sort of like that one innovation that stood out for you
[46:57.640 -> 47:03.560] for the car evolving over the past 12 races? Really, I mean a lot of the
[47:03.560 -> 47:10.640] innovation this year has been to people starting to follow other people's ideas. Um, for me, the most interesting thing of all this
[47:10.640 -> 47:14.480] year, um, that's been a success has been the Ferrari side pods. When I first looked at them,
[47:15.200 -> 47:19.680] something quite about their design, I couldn't understand quite what they were doing because
[47:19.680 -> 47:26.040] it was quite unconventional. Um, Red Bull and Alpine, Alfa T Alpha Tauri, they were kind of what I drew
[47:26.040 -> 47:31.880] as my prediction for the season. And then you come to Williams with the original side
[47:31.880 -> 47:36.200] pods, which made no sense to me at all. I could see what they were trying to do, but
[47:36.200 -> 47:39.760] it just... And in fact, the more I understood what they were actually doing, the less I
[47:39.760 -> 47:50.480] understood it. It just seems like it never made any sense. But then you look at the Mercedes solution, which is similar, but you could see that was
[47:50.480 -> 47:56.800] much more developed as an idea and it works very well, other than the other issues they're
[47:56.800 -> 47:57.800] having.
[47:57.800 -> 47:59.920] So I think for me, you know, people changing.
[47:59.920 -> 48:03.880] So Williams have obviously gone to a much more conventional cycle now.
[48:03.880 -> 48:07.680] Alpine have taken aspects of Ferrari and Red Bulls sideboards.
[48:07.680 -> 48:10.440] I think this is all these sort of changes are the things that
[48:10.440 -> 48:11.520] really kind of interest me.
[48:11.520 -> 48:13.080] You know, we're seeing lots of little details.
[48:13.080 -> 48:15.720] You sound the edge of floor on the entrance to the floor.
[48:15.880 -> 48:17.360] That's detailed stuff.
[48:17.360 -> 48:20.320] That's very hard to completely understand how it's working.
[48:20.800 -> 48:24.400] But I think this year, as it would normally be in a big year of regulation
[48:24.400 -> 48:26.920] changes is, you know, it's the big obvious
[48:26.920 -> 48:30.800] things that we're going to see change a lot. And I think as we
[48:30.800 -> 48:34.000] see the cars launched next year, I think we can see a lot more
[48:34.000 -> 48:38.180] similar looking cars. They may fall, they may fall into two
[48:38.180 -> 48:41.760] camps, people may go for a more Mercedes or more of a Red Bull
[48:41.760 -> 48:46.640] Ferrari solution. And I think both could work just as we've had
[48:46.640 -> 48:53.440] high rake and low rake or short wheelbase. So yeah, I think that's really is there hasn't
[48:53.440 -> 49:00.880] really for me been a one little feature that really kind of wowed me. You know, it really
[49:00.880 -> 49:04.840] has been just like in the big thinking, which tends to come into how you're dealing with
[49:04.840 -> 49:07.800] the side pods and the cooling packages and stuff like that.
[49:07.800 -> 49:13.480] Okay, I have to ask this and I think this has kind of become a meme all over the internet
[49:13.480 -> 49:18.120] and the term sticky up a bit.
[49:18.120 -> 49:20.840] That's how Gordon loves to use.
[49:20.840 -> 49:23.400] Two part question here.
[49:23.400 -> 49:27.240] So A, what's your opinion on that? And B is like, what's the
[49:27.240 -> 49:32.360] challenge in being a science communicator overall? And how do you strike a balance between
[49:32.360 -> 49:37.400] like dumbing down the topic, but at the same time trying to maintain the technical aspects
[49:37.400 -> 49:38.400] of it?
[49:38.400 -> 49:45.520] I mean, I think you're actually, your question answers itself in lots of respects.
[49:52.560 -> 49:58.320] I worked mostly with, I've known Sam for years and years before we started doing stuff on Tech Talk. We've got Albert Fabrega, a Spanish journalist who again I've not worked with, but you know,
[49:58.320 -> 50:01.360] we always sit and chat in the pit lane and we'll always kind of get something.
[50:01.920 -> 50:06.260] He has a different way of working and all of us have a different way of explaining things.
[50:06.260 -> 50:10.220] And there is such a broad audience in Formula One,
[50:10.220 -> 50:12.600] particularly in the trial of the drive to survive era
[50:12.600 -> 50:13.440] we're in now.
[50:13.440 -> 50:15.600] So many people don't know all of this history,
[50:15.600 -> 50:18.760] don't know all of the kind of the technicalities.
[50:18.760 -> 50:21.480] And everyone needs to explain things their own way.
[50:21.480 -> 50:23.100] Sam uses sticky up bits.
[50:23.980 -> 50:26.320] I've spent the past 20 plus years
[50:26.320 -> 50:32.720] trying to create names for things so that when I say the the side pod vein everyone knows what I'm
[50:32.720 -> 50:38.880] talking about even if it's just made up. I mean I probably have been guilty of actually naming
[50:38.880 -> 50:49.200] quite a few of the things over the years. I think the double-decision was probably me as well. So I think we've all got different
[50:49.200 -> 50:58.240] ways of explaining things and for us that is the challenge. My career outside of Formula One has
[50:58.240 -> 51:02.720] been very much about trying to explain technical things to non-technical people. I worked a lot in
[51:02.720 -> 51:06.800] IT and I think the other thing is, because I've been
[51:06.800 -> 51:10.960] doing this for quite a long time, but social media and blogs and things kind of came in halfway
[51:10.960 -> 51:17.840] through that, you know, and getting instant responses from people, instant questions,
[51:17.840 -> 51:22.480] actually helps you explain things in the first place, because you know that everyone is going
[51:22.480 -> 51:25.440] to ask, is that legal or who's doing that?
[51:26.960 -> 51:32.400] There's always lots of follow-up questions. So I think, you know, you kind of find your own
[51:32.400 -> 51:38.640] tempo for explaining things. Sam keeps things quite simple, although he is, you know,
[51:40.720 -> 51:46.320] he has qualifications in motorsport engineering, He's worked in the industry himself.
[51:46.320 -> 51:54.440] Equally, Albert has a way of explaining things, which tends to be showing parallels by putting
[51:54.440 -> 51:57.040] a light bulb inside a crash helmet and showing how a crash helmet works.
[51:57.040 -> 52:00.280] It doesn't shatter the light bulb.
[52:00.280 -> 52:06.960] He was a mechanic in Formula One and is an engineer and a mechanic in his own right.
[52:06.960 -> 52:10.320] I am somewhere in the middle.
[52:10.320 -> 52:15.760] I like to still keep things quite, I think I keep things still quite technical.
[52:15.760 -> 52:20.240] I'm not trying to dumb it down or wayfix trees or children's toys around.
[52:20.240 -> 52:21.560] That's not how I like to do things.
[52:21.560 -> 52:29.840] I like to be able to draw them or show a photo with arrows to explain what's going on. That's the way I communicate. And that works for some
[52:29.840 -> 52:35.200] people. And I'm sure the level of technicality I get into is too much for some people, but equally
[52:35.200 -> 52:41.440] people, particularly on Aero, which is quite a subjective subject about how it works and how
[52:41.440 -> 52:46.140] you explain it. You can explain the same solution in lots of different ways
[52:46.140 -> 52:47.980] and you probably could all be right,
[52:47.980 -> 52:49.700] but you've just got to have a viewpoint on it.
[52:49.700 -> 52:52.940] So yeah, maybe the more technical people
[52:52.940 -> 52:54.060] sometimes don't like it,
[52:54.060 -> 52:56.380] but I know certainly from working with people
[52:56.380 -> 52:58.580] within the sport, the designers,
[52:58.580 -> 53:02.380] the people that supply bits and pieces into the sport,
[53:02.380 -> 53:05.360] appreciate the work I do and give me lots and lots of help.
[53:05.360 -> 53:10.880] And yeah, I suppose at the end of the day, you know, it's, we're all finding our target market
[53:10.880 -> 53:16.800] and some people can understand it and some don't. We love geeking out, so continue doing what you're
[53:16.800 -> 53:25.400] doing and keep putting out that amazing graphical content. And you've laid a brilliant lead on for what I wanted to ask next.
[53:25.400 -> 53:32.200] You've got, you had this amazing thread about gearbox regulation changes coming into 2022
[53:32.200 -> 53:37.560] and like how pictorially you've showed how homologated it's becoming.
[53:37.560 -> 53:43.360] What I want to ask you is, mid-season is approaching in two races where these teams now get to
[53:43.360 -> 53:45.400] choose how they want to change up
[53:45.400 -> 53:50.860] their gear ratios. What's the talk of the town in the paddock and like what's
[53:50.860 -> 53:55.120] happening and what what do we expect going into the latter half of the year
[53:55.120 -> 54:00.360] where teams now make changes to their gear boxes? It's interesting, I was
[54:00.360 -> 54:11.680] thinking about that the other day while driving on the motorway and sat there in sixth gear and thinking, oh yeah, that's coming off, isn't it? I've heard almost no one comment on
[54:11.680 -> 54:17.200] that we need to change our gear ratios. You've got to remember that these six gear ratios have now
[54:17.200 -> 54:21.360] been in place for a number of years. The power units are well understood. The eight speed gearbox
[54:21.360 -> 54:25.040] is well understood. I think the question this year was how much
[54:25.040 -> 54:29.620] drag the cars could carry, and therefore how much top speed could you get out of these
[54:29.620 -> 54:34.560] cars with the wings, with the ground effect tunnels. And I think the team seems to be
[54:34.560 -> 54:41.240] in quite a happy place. No doubt some teams will change. It'll probably be the teams that
[54:41.240 -> 54:45.120] have changed philosophy in a big way.
[54:45.120 -> 54:49.060] So I would expect potentially Williams would be in that position, maybe Mercedes as well.
[54:49.060 -> 54:53.660] And equally, you know, maybe even someone like Ferrari that really came out with what
[54:53.660 -> 54:58.260] was going to be a very low drag car, but ended up being, you know, to get the downforce,
[54:58.260 -> 54:59.380] they put on these big wings.
[54:59.380 -> 55:03.820] So you know, you wonder where they are in terms of managing final drive gearing and
[55:03.820 -> 55:05.200] the individual gears. So,
[55:05.840 -> 55:12.560] I don't think we're going to see everybody change immediately and certainly it would be,
[55:12.560 -> 55:16.720] I think a lot of people get tricked into thinking, well, Monza's coming up, they'll change it now.
[55:17.520 -> 55:21.520] But obviously that then means that they've got to carry those gears at Singapore and for, you know,
[55:22.080 -> 55:29.200] another year onward. So, yeah, it's, I don't think it's going to be. I think the last
[55:29.200 -> 55:34.720] time we had that may have been 2014. I think it may have been another one since. And there really
[55:34.720 -> 55:40.480] wasn't a lot of shuffling around of gear ratios compared with what you maybe would have expected,
[55:40.480 -> 55:50.560] which just goes to show how good these teams are at simulating this stuff. Interesting. Well, so as we're kind of coming to an end of the show, so there are a few
[55:50.560 -> 55:56.720] questions left that we wanted to ask. One would be about the engine regulation changes that are
[55:56.720 -> 56:05.580] coming up in 2026. And from what we have heard till now, there is an initiative to try and get to more sustainable
[56:05.580 -> 56:08.400] fuels into F1.
[56:08.400 -> 56:12.400] As well as from what I understand, apart from the engine changes, there are also some aero
[56:12.400 -> 56:17.520] changes targeted towards trying to make the cars a little lighter and smaller, as you
[56:17.520 -> 56:19.880] know, again, to improve racing.
[56:19.880 -> 56:30.080] So yeah, please give us some inside scoops from what's upcoming. So, you know, the immediate thing really, we've got regulations for next year, 2024,
[56:30.080 -> 56:34.560] 2025, and they're going to keep basically the same cars.
[56:34.560 -> 56:38.640] There are a few changes, tyre warmer blankets will be banned in two years time, or a year
[56:38.640 -> 56:43.600] and a half as it is now, which I think is long overdue and is good.
[56:43.600 -> 56:46.560] Pirelli and the teams are all getting themselves ready for that.
[56:46.560 -> 56:50.320] You know, it's not a massive shock to anybody.
[56:50.320 -> 56:52.520] Not much else is really going to change.
[56:52.520 -> 56:55.760] But then you have this sustainable fuel, this, you know,
[56:55.760 -> 56:59.840] e-fuel, if you want to call it, that will be coming in much sooner.
[56:59.840 -> 57:05.640] And I think that is a positive step in on one hand, because,
[57:05.680 -> 57:09.040] you know, what, what don't use fossil fuels, you can make it,
[57:09.520 -> 57:14.640] you know, sustainably ethically, without burning loads of energy.
[57:15.000 -> 57:16.560] So, you know, we should do that anyway.
[57:16.920 -> 57:20.040] I think my only concern about that is that it would still
[57:20.040 -> 57:22.040] produce his tailpipe emissions, or they are reduced.
[57:23.280 -> 57:27.600] And that does potentially lock us into combustion engines going
[57:27.640 -> 57:35.360] forwards a lot further, which I'm not so thrilled about. And
[57:35.360 -> 57:38.680] then you come to 2026, when you have the big regulation changes.
[57:38.680 -> 57:40.640] So there'll be two areas of this, we'll take the engine
[57:40.640 -> 57:46.360] first. So there'll be the sustainable biofuel. They're going to completely
[57:46.360 -> 57:52.800] change the engine regulation. I say completely change, they're going to take a knife to them
[57:52.800 -> 57:58.520] and we're going to probably lose the NGUH, which is the hybrid motor generator, which
[57:58.520 -> 58:03.880] goes on the turbocharger. And again, it's a very expensive piece of kit to develop and
[58:03.880 -> 58:06.760] you can see the problems that Honda in particular, how they're developing this.
[58:06.760 -> 58:09.360] But the technology's out there.
[58:09.360 -> 58:14.560] But I think that could be transferable to another new manufacturer entry if it wouldn't
[58:14.560 -> 58:15.560] be too difficult.
[58:15.560 -> 58:16.920] But they're going to lose that.
[58:16.920 -> 58:22.480] But what they will do is make the MG UK, which is the old KERS, the hybrid motor that actually
[58:22.480 -> 58:25.680] drives the car, much more powerful. So if we think
[58:25.680 -> 58:35.200] back to 2009, we had, what is it, 90 horsepower, 60 kilowatt motor, which wasn't a lot. 2014,
[58:35.200 -> 58:44.080] they effectively doubled that. So you now have 160 horsepower from the hybrid system. But when
[58:44.080 -> 58:47.080] you look at an engine that's kicking out completely over a thousand
[58:47.080 -> 58:51.680] horsepower, about one 60 hasn't changed in a long time, but by then it'll be over.
[58:51.680 -> 58:52.180] Okay.
[58:52.920 -> 58:54.000] Um, so it's a lot more juicy.
[58:54.000 -> 58:56.680] Then I was talking about taking up to about 350.
[58:57.560 -> 58:58.060] Mm.
[58:58.280 -> 58:58.780] Wow.
[59:00.240 -> 59:02.920] We're talking, we're talking about, you know, a double, double of that,
[59:03.280 -> 59:05.840] that now, which means that the physical
[59:05.840 -> 59:10.280] motor has to be bigger, the battery may have to be bigger.
[59:10.280 -> 59:14.600] But at the same time, the engine, the V6 engine, the combustion engine, will produce slightly
[59:14.600 -> 59:16.320] less power.
[59:16.320 -> 59:21.240] So you'll still end up with a thousand horsepower race car, but more of it from recovered energy,
[59:21.240 -> 59:23.840] which for me is where we should be headed towards.
[59:23.840 -> 59:29.840] They should be making that smaller and smaller and less powerful and recovering as much as you can get out.
[59:30.400 -> 59:35.360] But there will also be some other cost saving changes, which would probably be that the
[59:35.360 -> 59:41.040] crankcase, the bottom of the V6 will be a spec part or a spec design. Teams would just end up
[59:41.040 -> 59:49.760] developing the cylinder heads with all the clever combustion going inside it. So I think that's where it's going and as a stepping stone I think that's good but I think
[59:49.760 -> 59:57.520] sport does need to be looking more at 2035, 2040, what is the world going to look like in terms of
[59:58.240 -> 01:00:03.440] engines, ways of powering cars there, what is the final drive options, but I think they could be a
[01:00:03.440 -> 01:00:09.120] lot more creative with that and open up some really exciting development opportunities that just
[01:00:09.120 -> 01:00:14.160] doesn't seem to be discussed at this stage, certainly not openly. And then the other
[01:00:14.160 -> 01:00:21.680] regulation changes will come down to the chassis. So Formula One cars currently weigh 784 kilograms,
[01:00:21.680 -> 01:00:30.400] including the driver. You've got 110 kilos of fuel on board. They're 3.6 meters long as a maximum, which makes them 5.6 meters long in total.
[01:00:30.400 -> 01:00:36.080] I'm not worried about the width because Formula 1 cars have effectively always been two meters
[01:00:36.080 -> 01:00:41.280] wide apart from that brief time where they were slightly narrower in the late 90s and
[01:00:41.280 -> 01:00:42.280] 2000s.
[01:00:42.280 -> 01:00:44.280] So they do need to be made shorter.
[01:00:44.280 -> 01:00:46.480] They need to be made lighter. wide apart from that brief time where they were slightly narrower in the late 90s.
[01:00:49.440 -> 01:00:50.560] So they do need to be made shorter, they need to be made lighter,
[01:00:54.560 -> 01:00:55.680] and they need to look at sustainability of the car. So that's what they're looking at.
[01:01:02.000 -> 01:01:05.920] So the cars will be short, you could easily cut 50, maybe even 60 centimetres out of the wheelbase of a current Formula One car without really compromising
[01:01:05.920 -> 01:01:17.280] panics inside. It would certainly compromise the aero, but who cares? That's the team's jobs.
[01:01:18.800 -> 01:01:23.200] Taking weight out is a lot more difficult, and a lot of that will have to come from the power unit,
[01:01:24.080 -> 01:01:26.080] because surprisingly, cutting even just
[01:01:26.080 -> 01:01:31.280] 10 centimeters out of a Formula One car doesn't save you a lot of weight because a lot of that
[01:01:31.280 -> 01:01:37.360] is just kind of stretching the car out it's not the components so you know 10 centimeters might
[01:01:37.360 -> 01:01:43.520] mean five kilograms so making them shorter will save some weight but it's not really bringing
[01:01:43.520 -> 01:01:48.000] them back into that kind of sub 700 kilo range.
[01:01:48.000 -> 01:01:52.560] And then with some of the clever stuff now, I've always advocated bringing an active suspension
[01:01:52.560 -> 01:01:55.880] back in a controlled way.
[01:01:55.880 -> 01:01:58.960] That's been spoken about and has been part of the time being, but they're now talking
[01:01:58.960 -> 01:01:59.960] about active aero.
[01:01:59.960 -> 01:02:05.000] So if you think now aero is DRS.
[01:02:05.000 -> 01:02:12.000] So the car for the whole lap will carry the wing that it needs to get around the 8, 9,
[01:02:12.000 -> 01:02:17.520] 10 corners, which means on every straight that you don't have DRS, you're carrying that
[01:02:17.520 -> 01:02:21.840] wing and you're burning fuel, just carrying that wing through the air.
[01:02:21.840 -> 01:02:26.240] And as you can see, when DRS is open, the drag that the rear wing has is
[01:02:26.240 -> 01:02:31.840] enormous. So the theory would be is that you will have some kind of active aero. So the rear wing
[01:02:31.840 -> 01:02:36.080] would probably be closed most of the time, come up for corners, the same with the front wing.
[01:02:36.640 -> 01:02:42.000] And drag is produced from the brick cooling ducts, the side pod inlets as well. So these
[01:02:42.000 -> 01:02:45.760] may all have some kind of flap or louvers over them, letting the
[01:02:45.760 -> 01:02:49.600] air in when you need it and not when you need the air out, as long as there's some kind of safety
[01:02:49.600 -> 01:02:57.200] control that if anything fails, the wind comes up and everything. So that would really save a huge
[01:02:57.200 -> 01:03:03.680] amount of fuel and energy around a lap that is literally wasted. You can't recover that energy.
[01:03:03.680 -> 01:03:09.360] It's not like the engine, it's not kinetic energy. It's just drag. So you know you potentially can
[01:03:09.360 -> 01:03:13.440] make the car lighter because you're carrying less fuel to last the race and
[01:03:13.440 -> 01:03:17.680] stuff like that. So it's um that's that's the kind of direction that I know that
[01:03:17.680 -> 01:03:22.360] they're heading in for 2026. I don't think anything can follow follow that
[01:03:22.360 -> 01:03:25.000] level of detail, insights, explanations.
[01:03:25.000 -> 01:03:27.000] Folks, I hope you've had fun.
[01:03:27.000 -> 01:03:34.000] I hope you've had the level of insights that you were hoping to get when you read the title.
[01:03:34.000 -> 01:03:39.000] And all in all, I hope, Craig, Scarb, you had fun on the show.
[01:03:39.000 -> 01:03:43.000] These are your regular hosts signing off.
[01:03:43.000 -> 01:03:48.640] Off to Craig. Take us away. Well, this has been Greg Scarborough at Scarbstech, I hope you enjoyed listening
[01:03:48.640 -> 01:03:53.120] or watching to all of this, I've got some insights into Formula One, keep watching
[01:03:53.120 -> 01:03:58.860] please follow me on social media or on F1 TV, Driver 61 whichever if you find on
[01:03:58.860 -> 01:04:04.720] YouTube and just keep watching F1, enjoying the racing and thanks for
[01:04:04.720 -> 01:04:05.880] joining.
[01:04:05.880 -> 01:04:08.880] ♪♪♪