2 Soft Compounds

Austrian GP: Orange You Glad It's Not Red Bull Again? Norris Silences The Sceptics!

• W4 Podcast Studio & GrandPrix247 • Season 1 • Episode 22

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Austrian GP: Orange You Glad It's Not Red Bull Again? Norris Silences The Sceptics!

This week on 2 Soft Compounds, Rick and Paul disect the sensational Austrian Grand Prix which saw Lando Norris turn up the heat at the Red Bull Ring and throw down the gauntlet in the championship fight!

The guys break down every twist in McLaren’s high-speed team battle -including how Norris bounced back after missing FP1 and whether Piastri is quietly shaping up to be F1’s next ice-cold killer.

Plus no F1 podcast would be complete without mentioning Max Verstappen’s despite his weekend being over before it began. With Red Bull rattled and Horner calling it a “two-horse race,” Rick and Paul arent the only ones asking if we're witnessing the end of Red Bull’s dominance?

There’s also plenty of love for the midfield mayhem. Big shout out from Rick for Liam Lawson and plenty of chat about Hamilton and Leclerc, Bortoletto and Alonso and whether Mercedes need to fire a few of their design team! 

Plus, there's a quick look ahead to the British GP as the circus rolls into Silverstone. All that, plus a few spicy takes from Rick on F1: The Movie. Spoiler: it may not win Best Picture. Catch it all on 2 Soft Compounds!


Production Credits:

Presented by: Rick Houghton & Paul Velasco
Studio Engineer & Editor: Roy D'Monte
Executive Producer: Ian Carless
Produced by: W4 Podcast Studio & GrandPrix247

Rick Houghton:

Hey, welcome to another Two Soft Compounds podcast with me, rick and Paul Velasco, the founder and chief editor of Grand Prix247.com. And what an Austrian Grand Prix we all witnessed I think my favourite race of the year so far, for many, many reasons, but it was fabulous. And I mentioned in the last podcast that Lando Norris, paul, was going to have to sit out of FP1 to let the young Alex Dunn have a go, and I said after his crash in Canada that might knock his confidence, but it didn't One little bit did it?

Paul Velasco:

No, mate, he was on fire. You know, really, lando, it's probably Lando's greatest race and I'm going to say this Before the race I actually pondered it because I have to do like a preview, and I actually came up with this. It was the most important race of his career thus far. He had to do exactly what he did. He won. I felt some people will argue with me. I felt he dominated Piastri in the sense that he didn't do FP1. He was quickest and quicker in FP2, fp3, qualifying, that lap, six tenths, okay. Granted, piastri was hampered by the yellow flag, but I don't think he would have come within two to three tenths of Norris. Norris was absolutely on fire in qualifying. And then in the race, I had trepidation because I, like I want a nice guy to win. Norris is a nice guy. And then when I thought man don't mess up the start, he didn't mess up the start.

Rick Houghton:

The start was genius, because not only did he get away for himself, but he also blocked Leclerc so that Piastri could come through. It was beautiful beautiful.

Paul Velasco:

It immediately became a McLaren race. I'm going to you know what. It would have made it the greatest race we've probably ever seen, as if Antonelli didn't have brain fade and take out Max, because Max is always a factor. You know that right? Yeah, I will agree with you, it was a fantastic race. They gave it everything. Why I say Norris dominated Piastri is that whatever Piastri threw at him, he had he had an answer to. He didn't do anything stupid. In fact, piastri nearly took them both out. So the roles were kind of reversed. And I must say that one week between the guy Lando's got I mean, you know we've always questioned his strength of mind and that he's growing, he's growing. It was his greatest race, a beautiful race and, like I said, it was a super wake-up call for Piastri.

Rick Houghton:

Yeah, it really was. I was fearful in the opening laps that A they would crash into each other and B Norris would crumble under the pressure. When Piastri got past him briefly, lando remained ultra-cool in that cockpit and he knew he had a better line going into the next turn. He was able to take the position back. And then, you're right, piastri locked up, missed the rear wing of Lando Norris by literally millimetres and then was told on the radio listen, we're not going to try that sort of move again.

Rick Houghton:

So I love the way McLaren allowed them both to race as frantically as they were in those opening laps. I thought that was a really good way of managing their drivers, saying to Oscar listen, you can win this if you can pass him. If you can pass him, then that's down to you. And then what I also loved about lando norris's performance was he was kind of asking for a little bit of coaching from the pit wall, which I thought was a sign that he's now he's not the gung-ho racer that he we've sometimes seen in the past. He's not making those mistakes we've sometimes seen in the past. He's actually asking for some constructive help on how to open the gap between himself and Oscar. The pit wall were coming back and saying just be a little tighter on the apex into turn six, and we think that should do the trick. He did that and it did do the trick. That was great to see the whole team working together as a collective.

Paul Velasco:

Yeah, I know, mclaren ticked every box. They got the result that they, you know they'd really deserved on the day. And Norris, like I said you know I've said, I've been saying this since the beginning of the season these two guys keep on. You know, it's like a seesaw, but the seesaw never goes down. It keeps on going up. One goes up, the other guy goes up.

Paul Velasco:

The next one, canada was all Piaget and no Norris, and this was all Norris following with him. Not that Piaget capitulated, he got P2, so nothing wrong with that. But on the day, he will have to accept on the weekend that the better man was Norris. On all fronts he was quicker. Like I said, I really felt he. He handled the battle with Piastri, piastri was, gave it everything and in the end it was a much deserved victory and really the kind of victory this championship needed. With Max Verstappen now out and now you remember, he's not trailing with 61 points. I mean that's a huge, huge deficit. However, norris and Piastri, it's 15 points now, seven points he made with this great drive of his, and I'm going to quote Christian Horner it's a two-horse race for the title.

Rick Houghton:

Yeah, without a doubt. And we have to remember just how superb Lando Norris was in qualifying. I mean, he was half a second faster than anyone else on the grid. Let's be honest.

Paul Velasco:

Verstappen suffered a little bit with the yellow flag. Well, he suffered with the yellow flag, and so did Piastri. So I think it would have been closer, I think it would have been a 1-2 McLaren, but I don't think Piastri had what Norris had.

Rick Houghton:

Yeah, I think you're right and I think the yellow flag brought us some qualifying drama which made a change. Actually, the whole weekend, I think, had elements of drama. I have to mention Alex Dunn, the young McLaren Academy driver that came in to take over Norris' car in FP1. I mean, he was only a tenth slower than Piastri, which I think is fairly remarkable. Wouldn't you say he didn't put a foot wrong. He was excellent.

Paul Velasco:

Yeah, I know, I mean that session is a very, very strange session for the guys because they can't break the cars. They want to shine, they want to show themselves and, yeah, dunn impressed everybody and yeah, I mean that team's in a very, very, very solid place at the moment. Zac Brown, andrea Stella they've really built a winning machine of the kind that we saw with Red Bull in their heyday, mercedes in their heyday and Ferrari in their heyday. This is a good McLaren team. This is a very strong, solid, got depth, two great drivers and I'm so glad that they're being allowed to race because, trust me, it's the nature of Norris and the nature of Piastri that combines and creates a chemistry that these guys can race in this kind of manner. If you put Sainz in there or put in a Leclerc or whatever against any of that, it could be dirty, it could be, you know, I don't know. I just feel that it's almost like Zach's really got himself a really good squad.

Rick Houghton:

Yeah, without a doubt. And of course we moved to Silverstone this weekend, which is going to be fantastic. Lando Norris has his own stand at Silverstone, a bit like Max has in Austria and, of course, Zandvoort, so that's going to be amazing. The atmosphere is going to be great. We'll look ahead to Silverstone a little bit later on. If that's all right, let's briefly touch on Max Verstappen. Race ended going into turn three. A massive mistake from Antonelli. Mistake from Antonelli. I think he was unsighted, a little bit Antonelli, I think. One of the cars in front of him moved out of the way and then he realised oh, I'm actually much nearer the apex than I thought. I was slammed on the brakes, locked the rear up and the rest, of course, was history.

Paul Velasco:

I'm going to think of a more simple one. As you said, you've driven this track on the sim. You thought he was in a sim, you know I mean he's okay.

Paul Velasco:

You know these guys are slow, I'll just go on the inside and forget to break. I think he was going to break in vienna and then, uh boom, you know the the he took max. Max was totally innocent. The rear end of max and that was it. Max was, you know, obviously pissed off.

Paul Velasco:

But you know, credit to kimmy antonelli. He said I made a mistake, it was just, it was just us. Yeah, it was just a rookie move based on too much sim racing, on whatever iRacing or Seto Corsa or whatever, because that move was one of those. It's just you know what, if it didn't take Max out, it would have taken someone else out. You know that move was going to. It was like a lottery and unfortunately I really regret it because I think Max, in front of that crowd, at his home circuit, his track he's won so often at going to make it his sixth victory, if you want to know. I think we were denied. I mean Antonelli, naughty boy, you denied us what could have been at least an interesting battle with the Ferraris maybe, which brings us to Ferrari, which is Charles Leclerc in third.

Rick Houghton:

Off to you. So very unlucky for Max, very unlucky for us, because it would have been a really interesting battle to have witnessed. On to Ferrari then. Well, they were kind of in no man's land really racing themselves. Charles Leclerc, you know, had a decent enough race. He got caught behind Norris into the first corner and then, of course, piastri got past him. It got caught behind Norris into the first corner and then, of course, piastri got past him. It's another podium.

Rick Houghton:

They had some upgrades to the floor which, on paper, lewis Hamilton said didn't make much sense, but he said it was much more comfortable driving the car. He also complained, lewis Hamilton, about low-speed understeer and high-speed oversteer, which isn't great in terms of balance, but it was Hamilton's best qualifying so far for Ferrari, but he was kind of in no man's run for the race. Fred Fasso wasn't there for personal reasons. We now know that the, the guy that stepped into his shoes for the weekend, is defending the. The strategy call for Hamilton.

Rick Houghton:

Basically, hamilton wanted to stay out because he thought his tires were good and he could do a one-stop race and we worked out kind of if that had been good and he could do a one-stop race and we worked out kind of. If that had been the case, he did perhaps have a chance to leapfrog his teammate. But once again, you know Hamilton's on the radio questioning the tyres my tyres are good, I want to stay out. And they didn't even respond to that. They just completely ignored him and said box, box, box. You know this is another sign of the communication errors that Ferrari are bringing to nearly every single race this season. It's getting really frustrating.

Paul Velasco:

Yeah, I must say Fred Rassoud leaving on the day of the race. That was very, very weird, very strange, and I would sincerely hope that if it's you know, obviously they cite his personal reasons. I hope no one in his family is been afflicted and is not severe, but that was strange. As you mentioned, they were in no man's land and if you look at it, 20 seconds behind the winning two, that was Charles Leclerc and further 10 seconds back Hamilton, so basically a whole race. They're 20 seconds behind the leaders. That'll take some head scratching because they had updates to the car which the drivers liked.

Paul Velasco:

But again, you know the Ferrari need to win. You know Ferrari need to win and they're not winning and they're not even close to winning and they're not showing signs of any win in the future. So yeah, I think it's quite interesting times. I think we've got to keep an eye on Fred because you know, this whole disappearance sort of coincides with a lot of criticism in Italy. So yeah, I think under that cloud they did good. They were the next best team, but they were next best by quite far because McLarens were just on another planet.

Rick Houghton:

Let's move on and talk about Mercedes. Obviously, antonelli took himself out and Max Verstappen on lap one, so it was down to George Russell. It's looking increasingly like the success of Mercedes is based on a thermometer, because their dependence on temperature is massive. When it's cool, as it was in Canada, that W16 is one of the best cars on the grid, but anything hotter, like Austria, where we saw the air temperature get to about 30 Celsius, it just plummets down the order. So in the end he finished 62 seconds behind Norris. At one point towards the end of the race, the Mercedes was lapping one and a half seconds slower than the McLarens. So it's all about temperature conditions for Mercedes and they haven't got on top of it.

Paul Velasco:

Yeah well, I think it's all about temperature conditions for Mercedes and they haven't got on top of it. Yeah well, I think it's all about them producing a shit car. You know the fact that their customer team, mclaren, have a car that's one minute quicker in a Grand Prix, an uninterrupted Grand Prix. Fire the entire aero department, they all got to go. Those people messed this thing up because if that's the benchmark, they're so far off it and again they switched that thing on. They don't know if it's going to go fast, they don't know if it's going to go slow. In Canada it wasn't that cold, by the way, if I might remind you. It was actually warmer than normal and it was all right. But again they're blaming it on temperature. I just blame it on that. I don't know what they're doing really seriously, and that's how Mercedes are going racing for a while now. They don't quite know what car is going to come out the bad one, the very bad one or the reasonably good one? I think with Russell, he just makes the most of it, and you know what I just want to point out, just because it's just dawned on me now.

Paul Velasco:

Well, quite interesting, the whole buildup of the Grand Prix was not about the Grand Prix, it was about Toto Wolff wanting Verstappen. Yeah, you know what I mean. And guess who spears who out? You know, antonelli in a Mercedes spears Max Verstappen. It's almost like saying, hey guys, shut the Verstappen talk. You know what I mean. It's like you can't script this stuff. I mean, if you wrote this in a script it's like, well, that would never happen. But there you go, you know, with all the Mercedes talk. And I think for Russell it can't be nice. It can't be nice. He should have a contract in his pocket already. Maybe they're keeping it for the British Grand Prix. I'm going to give them that If they don't announce it by the British Grand Prix, then Toto's playing silly games.

Rick Houghton:

Yeah, I would agree. Someone on Twitter made the joking comment that Antonelli was ordered to take out Max so that it would trigger the release clause in Max's contract. You see, you know what I'm saying?

Paul Velasco:

It's like that kind of shit goes down because you know, at the end of the day, like I said, you can't script it. You can't script that Antonelli, a Mercedes driver, is going to take out the guy that everyone's talking about being his teammate. Do you know what I mean?

Rick Houghton:

Yeah, next down the order, who'd have believed it? Liam Lawson More points. Yes, he not only got his best result of the season, but he was driver in Austria. Pretty good quali gave him a really good result. He converted his quali into a P6 finish. He was the final car not to be lapped by the leaders and one of two cars to make the one-stop work along with Fernando Alonso. It was a great result for Liam Lawson.

Paul Velasco:

Yes, indeed it was. I must tell you, he needed that result really badly because his shares were plummeting. They were talking about Lindblad sort of replacing him, so from my perspective, he really needed to deliver that. But now he's got to deliver that. He set the benchmark. Now, this is what he's got to do every Grand Prix. This is what a good driver will do. He will continue upping his trajectory now because there's no going back. You know, this is what Lawson is capable of. We want it now more regularly, liam. So let's see, let's see where it goes. It's like I think Bortoletto was the same, right? Yeah, would you agree?

Rick Houghton:

Yeah, I would. Bortoletto had a really good result in Austria. In fact, I saw one rating that was rating drivers out of 10, and they gave Bortoletto a nine. The interesting thing for me was that Fernando Alonso finished in P7, and they had a massive battle towards the end of the race. Alonso was the second driver to make the one-stop strategy work for him. But remember, gabriel, bortoletto is managed by Fernando Alonso and they had a great ding-dong towards the end of the race. Alonso was like you are not getting passed, but if you want to pass me, you're going to have to do it the hard way, and Bortoletto stuck on his rear wing. It was really good to see. So, yeah, sauber had a good weekend. Nico Hülkenberg qualified last, but brought it home in ninth. Hül last, but brought it home in ninth. You know Hulkenberg's having a decent season.

Paul Velasco:

Yeah, it's about time Hulkenberg had a decent season. He's had so many. But in terms of Bortoletto, yes, welcome to Formula 1, bortoletto, he's finally arrived Again. Like Lawson, he's shown what he's capable of. Now he's got to do that all the time. You know what I mean. You can't come and deliver one race a year, like Hulkenberg. You've got to deliver on an ongoing basis, especially if you're young. You've learned. Now You've got this, let's go. So that was a very good day for those two. I don't know if Lawson can be called a rookie, but definitely Bottoletto was a rookie. So the two young guys, it was good to see them, you know, up there.

Paul Velasco:

And Alonso, man, alonso, man, alonso is just. I just love the guy in the way that he can take anything. He can take a wheelbarrow and he does well. And this car was reasonably good. I mean, stroll looked, you know, pretty feisty in practice, but then, when it came to crunch time, alonso made it 23-0. It's 23-0 to Alonso versus Stroll in qualifying, and I think Stroll I don't even watch Stroll, so versus Stroll in qualifying, and I think Stroll did I don't even watch Stroll, so I don't know I think he fell out in Q1. You know what I mean. And he had a horrible race. He was like the second last of the runners and yeah, I mean, you know it's chalk and cheese and Fernando, give him a sniff, give him a half decent car and he does this kind of thing. He took it from P11 to P7. You know, kudos, he's 43, mate. You know what I mean. And he's driven. Yeah, I don't know. I'm impressed with him.

Rick Houghton:

Yeah, definitely the Haas team. You know decent in the race. If they can sort out their qualifying issues, they'd probably be a decent candidate for consistently scoring some points in the Grand Prixs. They don't have a good car over one lap, but in the races they're fairly consistent. So Ocon, he came in 10th place and Oli Berman finished in 11th. It was very out of character, I thought, for Isaac Hadjar, who probably had one of his poorest race weekends. He qualified in 13th and only basically made up one place by the chequered flag. I mean, we know the Austrian Grand Prix is littered with traffic issues because the lap's so short, but he wasn't really able to do anything and that was quite a surprise to me, indeed it was.

Paul Velasco:

I mean, you know he's had a couple of bad races now and he's got to kind of like regroup also starting to get the better of him. But to me, more concerning was Yuki Tsunoda. I mean, you know he was so slow, he was just, yeah, involved in all the wrong battles. I mean a Red Bull fighting a Saba. I mean really, that number two seat remains cursed because Yuki's just not getting better. You know, six tenths of a second slower than Max in the shortest track. I mean it's shorter than him, this track, you know, I mean he was lapped twice.

Rick Houghton:

He was lapped twice. Let that sink in. It's just unbelievable.

Paul Velasco:

Yeah, it's unacceptable. And you know they've given him so much time in this car. Relative to Lawson, I mean they should give the guy a whole season, but they took Lawson out after two races. I mean, and they're carrying on with this guy. Tornado's going nowhere. Trust me, he's not going forward. He's not going to wake up one day and make this car go fast. Yeah, and there you saw it. With Max out, zero points for Red Bull. They're going to just free fall down the thing. They need two cars battling in there.

Rick Houghton:

You know what I'm saying, but anyway, it is what it is. Can we now finally say that it's the car, though, and not the driver? Because so car though and not the driver, because so many people have tried it? No, I'm not going to say that at all. Danny Rick was the last person who could turn that car on.

Paul Velasco:

really True, but then that's the thing. Then we just don't have a good enough driver to compare to Max, and Max is just a super alien. The key to success for that Red Bull car is you've just got to find the right driver. Go ask Sergio to come back. So please, sergio, yeah, 10 million in a race. Please come back. We're sorry. We're sorry.

Rick Houghton:

Or something.

Paul Velasco:

Or change the drivers, get another driver, I don't know, put Brad Pitt in the fucking thing, I don't know.

Rick Houghton:

I love it. Carlo Pinto a race to forget for him. In the Alpine Almost took Piastri out, got a penalty for that, said he didn't see him. A race to forget for Williams for that said he didn't see him. Race to forget for Williams. Carlos Sainz's car blew up before it even made the start. Delayed start there. So it was drama from the off. Couldn't get off the grid, said it was stuck in gear. Then he came into the pit lane to start from there and the car promptly caught fire and Alex Albon retired. It's the third time he's retired in the last three races. So absolute nightmare for Williams. They go to their home race at Silverstone next weekend, of course. Now I want to come on.

Paul Velasco:

No, I want to talk about Williams, mate. Go on then. What did you say about Williams? You said they had a work A weekend to forget.

Paul Velasco:

Yeah, in Italian it's called shit show. It was a proper shit show. Think A proper shit show. Think about it. First of all, science is fire on the grid. This guy has one thing that he had a horrible qualifying. He's being humiliated by Albon. I'm sorry, this is a guy who's a Grand Prix winner. He's basically a rival of Williams and he can't drive this thing. Yeah, I think what happened is the brakes locked up. He finally got off the grid, but by the time he got back it was all on fire. So, yeah, I mean, you know, james Vowles just signed a new contract. He's going to have to raise their game, like by Silverstone, you know, because this is that was just like it looked like the Williams of Claire Williams. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, this wasn't the kind of Williams that we used to see. I don't I get suspect when form is so fragile. You know what I'm saying. So, yeah, that was one to note.

Rick Houghton:

Okay, we're going to move on to talk about Silverstone briefly in just a second. First of all, though, I want to mention this have you seen Paul the F1 movie yet?

Paul Velasco:

I haven't, but I'm in Manchester, believe it or not, basically arranged with a friend of mine, anthony Proffitt and his kids, and we're going to go watch the movie in Manchester provisionally. So I haven't.

Rick Houghton:

Have you? I have. I went to see it on opening day. I mainly went to see it because my son who's 19, said he saw it and thought it was good, and my son is a bit of a Formula One fan. I won't give you any spoilers. They were between a rock and a hard place with this movie. First of all, it's a movie, not a documentary. Secondly, they had to make it for people who knew nothing about Formula One and thirdly, they had to make it for people who were massive fans of Formula One, and we know that Formula One fans are very knowledgeable. So there are parts to the film that I think are good. The cinematography was superb, as you'd expect from the guy who did Top Gun. Maverick. Brad Pitt's character is, as you would predict, who did Top Gun. Maverick. Brad Pitt's character is, as you would predict. You know, it's the guy who's raced all his life. A struggling team in Formula One decides to reach out to him to bring him back for one final go and see if he can improve the team's fortunes.

Paul Velasco:

Yeah, look, I'm going to go watch it with an open mind, I am.

Rick Houghton:

Yeah, I think you have to, but there are some incredibly unrealistic scenes in it which you which will have you spitting your popcorn out because we're f1 fans yeah but I suppose you know, for the movie and the drama of it all and and everything else, the one thing I will point out I suppose this is a bit of a spoiler. It seems that every time brad pitt goes out on the track, he punches a tire. That's all I'll say, no more than that. Uh, you'll, you'll know exactly what I mean, right? Uh, silverstone. Next next one.

Rick Houghton:

For me personally, I have two favorite grand prixs of the season it's spa and it's silverstone. I love silverstone, I love the speed, I love the british crowds, I love the fact that it always produces thrilling racing. Uh, we get drama at silverstone as well. I've had a look at the long range weather forecast and they are predicting warm weather, but with the chance of some thunderstorms, which again could provide some brilliant drama for us.

Rick Houghton:

As I mentioned, lando Norris now has his own stand at the Silverstone Sturgeon. Even the curbs are painted orange and black, apparently, as you go past that stand, I think it's going to be a carnival atmosphere, as it always is, and I think you know, based on what we saw in Austria, it's going to be another great fight between the two McLaren boys, but hopefully we're going to see more of Lewis Hamilton in the mix Always does well at Silverstone, no matter how bad the car he's driving. And Max Verstappen, you know, like we said, if he was in the mix in Austria, we would have had an even better race than we did. So I've got high hopes for the British Grand Prix.

Paul Velasco:

Indeed, I'm not British so I'm not going to eulogize it like you did, but honestly, the British Grand Prix, silverstone is iconic. It's one of the great tracks. I agree with you 110%. If I had to put the list of two, three tracks, that would be top of it, because it's a shithole to get to and once you're there and it rains, it's going to be a bog. I've been there several times but man, the crowd, the atmosphere, the history, everything. It's one of the great Grand Prixs, one of the ones that can never leave the calendar. Yeah, I think it's everything to play for with the two McLaren guys I really like.

Paul Velasco:

I've been calling it for a while now, although I always believe Max has a chance. It's going to be between Piaget and Norris and I'm sure Norris will want to take this momentum through and he'll look. No more excuses for Norris Whenever he messes up. You just say mate, shush, austria. You know what I mean, because he's got to do everything like he did in Austria. Boom, that's it.

Paul Velasco:

And, trust me, piastri's going to sit with Mark Webber. They're going to scratch their heads and they think how are we going to beat this dude? And they're going to come up with an answer because, like I say, they keep on raising the bar and Max will be on fire to, I think, now his whole ban and all that thing's over for now and I think he's going to go to the UK and he's going to despite the fact that Max is Dutch. I do think, because I've been to the British Grand Prix, do think because I've been to the British Grand Prix, that the British fans at the Grand Prix have a lot of respect for Max. They have a boot in.

Paul Velasco:

Montemarie, but every non-Brit or non-Italian in Italy or whatever gets boot. But I think if any place respects drivers, it's the Silverstone crowd. So I expect Max to be in there and, as you said, with the Ferraris, lewis who I'm a bit cool on Lewis I don't want to raise my hopes because I really wanted this Ferrari story to be a beautiful story for him, but at the moment he's got one thing he's got to do he's got to beat Charles and he's not beating Charles. So until he starts doing that, I can't see him winning, unless it's a fortuitous thing. But again, as you said, maybe Silverstone brings out the Superman in him and he delivers one of those spellbindings that only he can. So, yeah, absolutely.

Paul Velasco:

But again, do we discount Mercedes? Will it be cold? Will it be warm? I mean, the weather forecast keeps on changing here on the island. I'm here so I can tell you that there was no rain forecast. Now there's rain forecast, so you don't know, it could be a miserable day. At the end of the day, mercedes could be in the gig too, and Silverstone, being Silverstone, could be anyone's race, you know.

Rick Houghton:

Yeah, it's going to be really interesting. I'll give you my top three prediction. I think Norris, british Grand Prix British driver, based on the weekend he's just had in Austria, I think can't carry him out. I think Piastri, but I think Hamilton might be on the podium. I think he normally he delivers at Silverstone. The crowd boys him up. I think you know he could do some decent stuff. And they've got those new upgrades which they're, you know, only just getting their heads around because they had them for Austria and now they can maybe improve more on those. But Max will be in the mix, without a shadow of a doubt. Max will be in the mix.

Paul Velasco:

Okay, I'm going to be like super out there because I'm a McLaren guy and I don't really mind who wins out of the two. I love both boys. I think they're great drivers and it would be great for Oscar Tewin and Landon Tewin. So I'm going to say Max Hamilton Russell.

Rick Houghton:

No McLaren, wow, Wow, that's a great prediction.

Paul Velasco:

They take each other out, turn one.

Rick Houghton:

Oh yeah you never know, right. Well, that's great. We've looked back at Austria. We've talked briefly about the F1 movie. We'll talk more about that when you've seen it, Paul, because I'm really interested in what to do, what you're going to say, and we've looked forward to Silverstone this weekend. Thanks for joining us, paul, on the podcast. Once again, excellent, thank you. If you want your latest fix of the latest F1 news and gossip and reports, then head over to GrandPrix247.com for your Formula One fix. We'll see you next time on Two Soft Compounds. Enjoy the British Grand Prix. It's going to be fabulous. Enjoy the British Grand Prix. It's going to be fabulous. See you later.

Rick Houghton:

Two Soft Compounds was presented by myself, rick Hutton, alongside Paul Valesco. The studio engineer and editor was Roy DeMonte, the executive producer was Ian Carlos, and this podcast is a co-production between Grand Prix 24-7 and W4 podcast studio Dubai. Don't forget, if you want to join in the conversation, leave a comment on our Instagram page at 2SoftCompounds. We love getting comments, questions, and we'll give a shout out to some of the best ones on the podcast in the next few weeks. You can also email us at 2SoftCompounds at gmailcom and if you haven't done so already, please do click that follow or subscribe button. See you next time.