2 Soft Compounds
2 Soft Compounds is a weekly podcast focusing on Formula 1, hosted by radio broadcaster Rick Houghton and motorsport journalist and GrandPrix247 founder, Paul Velasco.
With a focus on unfiltered analysis, behind-the-scenes insights and expert commentary, the podcast offers fans an entertaining and informative take on the fastest sport in the world.
2 Soft Compounds
Genltemen, Start Your Engines: Will The Gloves Come Off At Zandvoort?
Genltemen, Start Your Engines: Will The Gloves Come Off At Zandvoort?
This week on 2 Soft Compounds, Formula 1 roars back from the summer break and Rick and Paul kick off by discussing whether McLaren’s drivers are about to go from mates to mortal rivals.
With Oscar Piastri holding a slender nine-point lead over Lando Norris, the guys dive into one of the most intense intra-team title fights in years. Respectful? For now. But with ten races left, how long before gloves hit the tarmac?
The guys also take a look at Max Verstappen who returns to Zandvoort under massive pressure. Red Bull’s early-season dominance has evaporated, and with a 97-point gap to Piastri, the reigning champ needs more than home advantage to keep his hopes alive. Can Max deliver, or is this officially McLaren’s world now?
Plus, the lads unpack Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari struggles after a rocky first half, Cadillac’s driver lineup announcement, Williams’ quiet pivot to 2026, and growing uncertainty over Alpine’s future.
It’s all brewing into a blockbuster run-in - where friendships, contracts, and championship dreams are all on the line.
Production Credits:
Presented by: Rick Houghton & Paul Velasco
Studio Engineer & Editor: Roy D'Monte
Executive Producer: Ian Carless
Produced by: W4 Podcast Studio & GrandPrix247
I don't make mistakes. I make prophecies that immediately turn out to be wrong.
Speaker 2:Anything can happen in Formula One, and it usually does. Hey, welcome to a brand new podcast at Two Soft Compounds. It's me, rick, with Paul Velasco, the editor-in-chief and founder of GrandPrix247.com. We have a race weekend coming up at long last after the summer break. But on the day we're recording this, a few hours ago breaking news about the Cadillac driver lineup. Paul's got all the details.
Speaker 1:Yes, it was definitely the worst-kept secret in the Formula 1 paddock. We've been calling it for months now that if Cadillac are serious, they're going to hire the two most experienced guys, guys with wins, guys who've worked with the best teams, and that's Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas. They've got no one else to pick from and, honestly, if they'd gone with Guan Yuzu, who's, like you know, involved with the team, graham Loudon, actually it would have been a bad call. So this was absolutely they've ticked the right boxes. They're serious. They're obviously going to build a base with these veterans and hopefully they'll. You know it's a second chance for both of them. Yeah, let's see how it goes. I mean, like I said, it ticks the right boxes for Cadillac. You know, if they'd gone with any other driver pairing like Mick Schumacher was bandied to be part of it it would have been wrong.
Speaker 2:he just doesn't have the experience yeah, I think with a new team they need experience on on the, on the in the garage, I should say, because these guys will know how to work closely with the engineers, they'll know how to get the best out of the machinery they've been given, because they've had many, many years of working in top teams, being able to convey the feeling they're getting from driving a car in the cockpit, whereas, you know, a young rookie American, for instance, wouldn't have a clue on how to feed that information back.
Speaker 2:I mean, I was never a big fan of Valtteri Bottas, I have to admit. I thought he could be quick in a qualifying lap and then I also thought he was not great at overtaking and he was not great at defending overtakes either. Checo Perez, even though he scored less points in his Formula One career than Valtteri and had less victories, I think he showed moments in his career, especially when he was at Force India, of just absolute brilliance, and he showed little glinting moments in his first season at Red Bull as partner of Max Verstappen that he was the real deal, and then it all sort of fell away. So it's two guys with, I think, something to prove as they come back into the front line of the sport. Part of me feels a little bit sorry for Danny Rick, but as we said last week, you know he's finished, so these two, I think, represent the best option for Cadillac.
Speaker 1:Yeah, indeed, no think represent the best option for Cadillac. Yeah, indeed, no, danny Rick would have been just. Yeah, I mean, they gave him far too long anyway before we move on from Cadillac.
Speaker 2:It's. It's on your website, grand Prix247.com. They've basically ruled out a conversation with Christian Horner as team principal.
Speaker 1:That's correct absolutely, there was talk of that. Now, these plans have been done a long time ago. I'm sure they've been talking to Checo for a long, long time and, yeah, I'm super pleased that he's getting a second chance. Look, he deserves it. You know he got a really rough deal from Red Bull. That number two car is a horrible thing to drive, as we know, and, let's be honest, he did a far better job than the guys that they've tried. You know Liam and Yuki Tsunoda, definitely. So, yeah, good call.
Speaker 2:Okay, let's move on to preview. We are back in action at Zandvoort this coming weekend for the Dutch Grand Prix Obviously a fan's favourite for Max Verstappen. Looking at the table, though, and the stats so far this season, as we enter after the summer break, I mean it is a two-horse race between the two McLaren drivers Piastri on top with 284 points at the moment, lando Norris keeping keen in second place with 275. And then Max Verstappen can only hope for miracles 187 points in third place. Interestingly, we heard a changed tone from Lewis Hamilton during his summer vacation. Looks as though he's mellowed. Whether he's had a serious chat with Fred Vasseur, we don't know. But now the statements coming from the Hamilton camp are more positive. We've all had knockbacks, we've all had setbacks. It's time to plough forward and make the best of what we've got. That's what we're hearing from the Hamilton side going into the Dutch Grand Prix this weekend.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but you know, you've sort of jumped the gun. You've gone from like McLaren straight to Ferrari. Really, your true colours show, honestly. Let's go back to McLaren. I'll rewind to McLaren and say first, look, the reason I've got you to get the coin is because I'm going to write down here heads and I'm going going to put a name and tails. I'm going to put a name because that's how close it is. If we toss a coin now, toss it, just tell me who it is. It is heads, norris. So you flip the coin because that's it.
Speaker 1:It could be Norris, it could be Piastri, these two guys it's thankfully we're not like MotoGP, where Marc Marquez is just running away, sort of Max Verstappen style in 2023 or 2022, was it when he just won everything? Well, anyway, I watched MotoGP this weekend in between Formula 1 and I must say they're having a bit of a problem because there's one guy dominating every single race, every single session. It's quite disturbing actually. So it's good that we've got these two guys going all the way down to the wire. Same car. So it's all about the drivers. I'm going to put it out there that at the moment, piaget's got one more victory than Norris, and I'm going to say that this World Championship, 10 rounds to go, is going to be like 10 rounds of playing chess your move, my move, your move, my move and, um yeah, the guy with the most wins at the end of it all will be the world champion. I really do believe that, and that might mean it goes all the way down to abu dhabi. The big questions we have to ask always with this is and uh, you know we reported, I think jean, uh, juan pablo montoya, he thinks there's going to be an explosion between this is, you know we reported, I think, juan Pablo Montoya, he thinks there's going to be an explosion between the two.
Speaker 1:You know everyone's talking Prost-Sena, rosberg-hamilton. You know Hamilton-Alonso clash between the pair, and I'm going to give them a pass until actually that happens, because you know each guy that we mentioned there. They carved their own niche. They carve their own way of going racing. This is a new generation, two young guys in their early 20s, early mid-20s, and Piastri even younger, and really they're carving their own unique championship. You don't have to refer to Senna and Prost. No, this is Norris Piastri, and always remember it as Norris Piastri, and if it can end up clean, good, I've never seen two teammates battling for the championship and it ending up clean, so I'm going to leave it open there, and this is what's the beauty of the season that lies ahead. Forget Senna Prost, forget, forget Hamilton Alonso, forget all those. This is Norris Piastri, and let's give them the blank canvas to paint a great finale to this championship.
Speaker 2:I think we saw earlier in the season Oscar Piastri we've always said is super cool. He's the new Iceman. We've heard him on team radio in the heat of battle on track and he's just so cool. I think the first cracks I started to notice was when he was wronged at the British Grand Prix and then he was an angry man and he got out of the car angry and he remained angry into the press conference after the race. Norris hasn't really changed his temperament too much. I think Norris and we've talked about this before Norris wants to be the gentleman Formula One champion and we've both said I think how many gentlemen Formula One champions have there been? You know they're ruthless? Both said I think how many gentlemen Formula One champions have there been? You know they're ruthless. Once the visor goes down, so does the red mist. Norris doesn't really have that, but I think we saw signs of the British Grand Prix that Piastri's got an anger streak in him and that's really yet to reveal itself mid-race.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but I've got to take it a step further. The brake testing thing on Max Verstappen where was that? That's the British Grand Prix, right, yeah yeah. But he also we forget because nothing happened. But man, he nearly took Norris out too. You know, in Hungary there was that moment where he hit the brakes far too late. They actually had to come on the radio and say, hey, bro, that's not how we go battle. So there are cracks. I mean, he's very young, he's 60 Grand Prixs into his career. You're talking Landon Norris with 200 plus, you know. So you really got to respect Piastri.
Speaker 1:I actually wrote a piece during the break saying I'm in awe of him and I am in awe of him. I mean, you know, the guy is just and I'm sad that the heads and tails ended up with Norris because I don't mind PSG winning. This is the sad thing. I mean, if you're neutral and you're a McLaren fan, like I am and like you are, I'll be happy if either of them win and I'll be sad if either of them lose, you know. So it's Chess man, win, that's all I can say for McLaren, and there's going to be 10 amazing rounds of chess coming up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there certainly is Max Verstappen's home race then this coming weekend. He'll be looking forward to getting back to this one because obviously he's won here before. It's a circuit he knows very well and if I remember rightly I mean you will definitely correct me if I'm wrong, paul, because you like doing that but the Dutch Grand you like doing that. Uh, but the dutch grand prix suits different cars over others in that there are some unique corners that on this circuit which really suit cars, that like slow speed corners. I'm talking about that bank corner, that left hander, that has caught many drivers out in the past. Danny rick had the crash there where he damaged his wrist, if you remember. It's caught other drivers out. I remember alon, for instance, had a great first lap because he decided he was going to take the most people go wide through that corner. He thought, no, I'm going to go right close to the apex and he overtook about four cars. So there's a number of different teams that might find themselves with an advantage because of the nature of this circuit this weekend.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm curious to see how it goes. Like you said it's. It's a kind of a strange sort of hungary, hungary on steroids kind of track, you know. So, yeah, I'm look, it's max for step in territory, but really he doesn't have the car at the moment. Red bull all over the place got a new, so ah, man. But you know, if any guy can you know, take defeat and turn it into victory, it's Max In front of his home crowd. It'll be electric. This is the second last race at Sanford. They're going to can it after this, another legacy track that they're going to kill. If Max is going to win anywhere, the car in the current state is going to be here.
Speaker 1:But at the same time I'd say, look, it's like the story of this season's been every track you go to, the McLaren is great, okay, but never is a rival consistently great. Also, you have sometimes the Red Bulls being great at the beginning of the season. Then the higher ground went to Mercedes. But there's never been one challenger. There's always been three different guys at different times. No one's actually sort of. They've never pincer attacked McLaren. They've never all been as good as each other.
Speaker 1:You know, it's those weekends when the Mercedes is really good. They don't understand why the Ferrari's bad. We always understand why they're bad, but you know so. And the Red Bull is just getting worse and worse. So, yeah, but it's just getting worse and worse, so yeah, but I think, ultimately, the world champions look, they're constructors champions we can give it to them now. Well done, mclaren. Zac Brown, you are world champions. They're going to win the constructors championship for the second time in a row, and that's a big thing. But, yeah, end of the day, the championship is being saved by the fact that there's no team orders. This is not Schumacher, rubens, barry Keller. This is may the best man win. Just don't break the cars. And I love that.
Speaker 2:I do. I mean, do you think if cracks start to appear and one of those drivers takes the other one out through negligent driving, do you think Zac Brown and the boys on the McLaren seats will start saying right, piastri, you took Norris out and you ruined both your races. Now we're going to impose some sort of rules that you're not allowed to go racing the way we intended? I mean that could happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah well, canada they were super, super lucky that only Norris took himself out. It would have been a totally different story in Canada if Norris had taken Piastri out too and they'd both DNFs. That would have been terrible. It would have been like Hamilton and Rosberg in Barcelona. Do you remember that year? Yeah, that allowed Max to win the race because the Mercedes were on another planet altogether, but they took each other out on the like third or fourth turn.
Speaker 1:And yeah, look, it's, history shows Odds are every expert saying these two guys are going to have a coming together. I'm just going to say, well, let's just sit back and rather just watch, because before guys came together, you know people didn't say that oh look, senna and Prost are going to have a Niki Lauda and a James Hunt. No, they don't. You know people didn't drive like that in those days. You know Senna took the dark art of driving to another level. Then Michael took it to the next and next and you know it just got worse and worse and to to in the.
Speaker 1:In these days, it's just nice to see two really, really good young drivers having a refreshingly different attitude towards racing, and that's what we old-timers, boomers, must embrace.
Speaker 1:You know, do you always have to hate your rival. No, you know, you don't really, because in the end you don't really hate your rival, because if you look at boxing and you look at center prost, even when the rivalry was over, they became really close mates. You know, have you ever seen a real boxer where they've actually just pounded each other for like a whole hour and they're like bleeding and then they finish and they just hug each other and at the end, you know, and I feel that's that's the kind of thing. That's that. That that people forget is that it's a love-hate relationship. I guess because people forget that when there was a huge rivalry between Senna and Prost, when Prost left the sport, senna used to phone him and have a chat. Unless you're in that kind of and you've experienced that which none of us have and few actually ever will be a world championship title fight like this, it's beautiful. I think it's just probably one of the most beautiful ones I've witnessed in Formula 1.
Speaker 2:I'm going to go further down the stats that you sent me. I've got to say that what I love about these stats you sent me is that 18th place is Yuki Tsunoda, and then below him is Oli Berman, colapinto and Jack Doohan Jack Doohan Jack Doohan's not in the sport anymore, but he did race and scored no points. Colopinto no points. Oli Berman he's got eight points and then above that it's a line and it says the drivers below this line cannot be world champions anymore, which suggests that Yuki Tsunoda still could be world champion. Paul, okay, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, you'd have to win every single race and the McLarens have to finish last, and it would just crash out.
Speaker 2:But you'd have to win every race and no one else score any points. I think would be the only way he could do that.
Speaker 1:Look, I don't even think Max. Unless they can find the switch on that Red Bull that had it going the way it did earlier in the season, then maybe Max can steal two or three races along the way. He's always going to be a thorn in their side and you can't write off George. George in the Mercedes, he's always there, not so much Antonelli, but George is capable of sneaking something, and not even he knows what it will be. You know what I mean, because he doesn't know what kind of car is going to rock up for him at Zandvoort. Like you said, it's going to be quite car-specific. So I think cars that I enjoy, like Spa-Francorchamps, are probably not going to be as good around Zandvoort as maybe cars that enjoy Barcelona, let's say so yeah, but at the end of the day you can't get away from it.
Speaker 1:It's the best car in the history of the sport, really. Maybe there's one track that's an anomaly. I think they had theirs. Where did they have their bad result? Anyway, they had a bit of an anomaly track that didn't work for them, but generally speaking, out of 24 races they've been spot on for 22. They're going to. You know that's a good car.
Speaker 2:And exactly, and you know, with closely matched teammates. You know when Red Bull was going great guns with Max Verstappen at the helm, the second driver couldn't really dent him. But these two can dent each other and have been all season and, like you say, it's literally heads or tails. George Russell, in fourth place at the moment. He's had one DNF this season so far. If you look at Antonelli, his teammate one, two, three, four, five, six, seven DNFs or seven, sorry, seven times what he didn't score points. So Antonelli, definitely on the back foot After a promising start. He looked so good. When we started the season we both said, yeah, this kid's the real deal. They've made a great choice at Mercedes and I think long term term he probably will be. But George Russell, as we've said many times, stepped up to lead that team and if they get the car right for 2026, he could be right up there as a serious contender. George Russell, because he doesn't put many feet wrong, does he no?
Speaker 1:George is really. He's impressed me a lot. As I said, he was liberated after Lewis left Mercedes and we're seeing the real him come out and he's just an all-around good guy and I think he really loves the sport and he's very involved with the safety and all that kind of stuff, not scared to speak out, and he's a proper team leader, you know, and he's got the speed to go with it. He's not just talking the talk and, yeah, I think they're in very good hands. Antonelli was always going to be an issue, you know, in very good hands. Antonelli was always going to be an issue, 18-year-old, thrust into Formula 1. It's a big, big, big ask. He wasn't superb in Formula 2. You know what I mean. I'm not to say that he's not the prodigy that they think he is. I actually do believe he is, but I just I'm unsure that they're actually handling this right. Maybe he needed another season in Formula 2. I don't know, I mean I can't say, because the guy is an absolute talent, he's fantastic for the sport, but I hope he just doesn't become another one of those Italians that promised so much because there's been many, but never really quite delivered when it mattered. I'm glad he's not at Ferrari, let's see.
Speaker 1:I mean, the bottom line is this is Mercedes put their cards and put their money on the kid? Okay, they could have gone for signs, they could have put Bottas back in the car, but they went for the kid. It's a gamble, but now they can't just ditch him Now that they've put him in there. He didn't go there saying please put me in the car. I can bet you that. You know, toto thought you know what. This could be the next Max Verstappen. He's not the next Max Verstappen, that's for sure, but maybe he is.
Speaker 1:Thought Toto and he stuck him in the car and now they've got to give him at least three years because he's 18. You know what I mean. They've put him in a year too young, so let's just give him a pass this season and they've got to give him another full year and if they don't, then they destroyed this kid's career. You know what I mean. So it's yeah, and he's got a benchmark to follow. So all I've got to say about Antonelli is you've just got to get down there and try and get as close to George as possible, you know, and that's a big ask.
Speaker 2:It is, and I totally agree with you. Moving on to Ferrari, back to Ferrari, charles Leclerc's having a better season than Lewis Hamilton, that's for sure. Leclerc has scored some decent points so far this season. Hamilton, you know he won the sprint race in China, but that was about it. I mean, he hasn't really produced the goods.
Speaker 2:He's 52 points behind his teammate and, as I mentioned earlier, lewis Hamilton went into the summer break bemoaning the fact that he was a terrible driver, that ferrari should replace him some of the most negative comments I've ever heard a formula one driver come out with a sportsman I've never heard sportsman speak okay, um, and now, um, the summer break's obviously done him some good, because he's coming out with statements like yeah, it's tough, but we need to crack on, heads down, get on with it, stop moaning um, which had to happen because I mean and I'm sure fred viser has had some input or someone on the team must have gone lewis man, you're making yourself look terrible, you're making yourself look like a sulky school kid and you're bringing the team down with you. You can't carry on doing this. So I'm sure something behind the scenes has happened, but it's not. It's quite after the negativity, it's quite refreshing to hear him say yeah, it's a bit, it's tough, but we, you know, head down, we go again. I like that yeah, it's.
Speaker 1:you know, it's typical Lewis. We've known, we lived with him for two decades. We know him like well, we feel we know him like a brother, you know. I mean because we know he's yeah, he can be, yeah, he wears his heart on his sleeve. He says some very sort of weird little things that we've discussed already.
Speaker 1:But Lewis just got to do one thing it's got to beat Charles. He's got to stop with the writing documents and having meetings and shit like that. He's really just got to get down, shut up and drive. That's the most beautiful quote in Formula 1. It's like shut up and drive, and that's what he should do. Just drive the thing till he's got a handle on it that he can start beating Charles Leclerc.
Speaker 1:I'm like this. I'm Fred Vasseur, I know this. You know he's a jewel. Okay, he's got this amazing jewel and he's got Charles Leclerc and also a jewel, okay. So Lewis wants better stuff. He wants to change the whole organization and stuff. But why? We got a car on pole with the clerk and he was beat 12. You know what I mean. Honestly, lewis, if I was Fred, I'd say honestly, lewis, start beating Charles and then we'll change the team to whatever the fuck you like, but right now Charles is killing you and you've got to the team's gravitating in that direction. You know what I'm saying. So it's a reality check for Lewis. It's simple Just beat Charles. Look, there's two types of Lewis. There's Sue Lewis Hamilton, the sir the knight, and there's sad Lewis Hamilton, and we've got a bit of sad Lewis Hamilton going now because he just can't find a way to beat his teammate.
Speaker 2:There was an ex-driver it might have been Montoya or Jacques Villeneuve who said a few weeks ago they said when you look at it, when you analyze Hamilton's performance, he's never, ever got to grips with the ground effect cars.
Speaker 1:Yes, you mentioned that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, mercedes didn't have the strength of the car when they went to ground effect, but now he's driven for two teams with that ground effect car in in place. He's never really been able to master it. I don't know if it's his driving style that he hasn't been able to adapt, or or what. So again to try and put a positive spin on things, the ground effect will be much less of an issue in 2026, and ferrari may have designed a brilliant car with a brilliant power unit. You never know. So lewis needs to crack on head down. Uh, shut up and race, as you say. And ferrari is second in the constructors championship, don't forget yeah, and and the thing about lewis.
Speaker 1:Let's not forget one thing lewis has been beaten the last two years by george. Yeah, two years in a row he was beaten by george. Do you think if he was still at Mercedes now and he was getting the same let's say the positions were the same you think Lewis would be writing memos to Toto to change the team? No, you see, there's a problem is people think that this fall in form is now. It's not.
Speaker 1:I believe Lewis's form has dropped drastically in the last two years, quite substantially, to the point that he's the shade of the driver he used to be. He had moments where he can be that guy, but he's a seven-time world champion. The whole mindset of hunger and everything is just. I don't think it's enough now to carry through just because of his age. You get slower, the older you become. You can't be as consistently fast, you can't be as aggressive fast, you can't be as aggressive. And um, that's what I see. I see that lewis is. It's not a surprise to me that he's struggling at ferrari, but he's struggling relative to charles, pretty much like he struggled relative to george you know, so I don't know.
Speaker 1:I find that I'd really like someone to explain that to me. What do you conclude from that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, very, very interesting. Red Bull we've talked about Max this coming weekend. Yuki Tsunoda we don't need to talk about, he's just not there. Red Bull fourth in the constructors. Williams fifth Williams announced. James Vowles announced recently that that is it for any more development on the 2025 car. They're fully focused on next year's car. They've got drivers driving the 26 car in the simulator. Aston Martin come next in sixth place in the Constructors' Championship. They have brought recent upgrades and some of them have paid off, so it'll be interesting to see how they round off the final 10 rounds of the season. We've talked about Fernando Alonso many, many times. If he feels as though he's got a chance, he's still a great racing driver, but sometimes, when he arrives and he does a Friday and he goes not for me, really, I don't think he you know he kind of he's like yeah, I'll get through it and then go home.
Speaker 1:Okay, williams, look, they're doing good. I think James Vowell's delivering. He's rebuilding their team. You know, a once great team really hit on very, very hard times. I think it nearly closed down once or twice since then, since its golden days, but fortunately he's on the right track. Alex Albon has proven that he's. You know he's. I'm impressed with him. But again he's a guy who was pretty much owned by Max Verstappen and I don't know that he's got a lot better than in terms of improvement, in terms of Max. You know, when they were together, max he's drilled him and Max has obviously improved too. So I don't know, I'd like to see Albon in the car next to Max, but I don't think he'll be as good. But to me, one of the big disappointments of the season has been Carlos Sainz, and again he's having like a Lewis Hamilton kind of vibe. You know what I mean. He's talking a lot, he galvanized the team with a lot of publicity as he arrived and all this kind of thing, but he's not beating his teammate enough to actually be a guy who says I'm going to lead this team now Because Albon is owning him quite a lot and Carlos has only sort of come good now. He's had a lot of bad luck. The Williams, I think operationally leaves a lot to be desired. I'm prepared to bet that Carlos has had probably the least practice sessions official practice sessions at Grand Prix because the car's always broken, always stuck up in the thing and he's always waiting, and I find that the execution leaves a lot to be desired. I don't think they can do two cars effectively in one weekend. So I think they've got to look at that. So yeah, I mean I'd like Carlos to speak less and deliver, and that means beating Albon more often.
Speaker 1:In terms of Aston Martin, I'm absolutely on board with you. In terms of Fernando, he's been doing this for so, so long. If a car's bad, he'll be. You know he'll go through the motions. If the car's good, he'll deliver a good result. You know, as simple as that. He hasn't had a winning car in his hands for a very long time. So let's see, maybe next year it'll be his last hurrah and maybe we knew he delivers a car that laps the whole field. But uh, honestly, I don't see them. I see them maybe having an occasional very good race or something like that, but you know, as long as they got lance in the car and yeah, it's just. It's disappointing, asa martin's really disappointing. Forget that they've got rad. You knew he hasn't had a touch on the car. But the amount of money they've already spent up to now, you know, and they still can't get the car near the podium. You know they've got it once for a brief period of four or five races so yeah uh, disappointing Aston Martin.
Speaker 2:I'm going to cover some some of the uh the bat markers really quite quickly. Uh, Sauber um. Seventh in the constructors and that's mainly because of Nico Hulkenberg who's had some really good results. Ninth in the uh driver's table at moment. He's had some surprising results. You know he's been in the points many times so far this season. His best point score was 15th a couple of rounds ago. So he's producing things that we never thought he was capable of, because I think we both thought he kind of came back to the sport and was kind of finished and a bit frazzled. But he's done quite well. And then I want to talk about the racing balls and Haas kind of much of a muchness at the moment. But I want to talk about Alpine briefly because I saw you make a comment, Paul, a couple of days ago on one of our WhatsApp groups and you said you think they're finished.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think it's over. I mean the whole Renault thing. Renault was a fantastic, fantastic legacy in Formula 1. You know, they were the first team to try turbos and I remember they came in 77 or I think 77 or 78, 77. Silverstone, with a car that was just and the turbo just couldn't work. It couldn't make it work, very unreliable. But then they got it to work and the whole of Formula 1 changed to turbos. You know so. And they've had world champions. They've had Michael Schumacher, fernando Alonso.
Speaker 1:You know the fact that they've had they were tarnished by running with Flavio Briatore didn't even change the image. You know they were Renault were absolutely I'm a big Renault fan, honestly and it's gone. They've brought Alpine in. They've rebranded to Alpine, which I don't get that whole thing, and basically, what was once a very, very proud legacy is just gone. And next year it's not even going to be Renault-powered, it's just a branding exercise because it's going to be running Mercedes engines. So you know, alpine running Mercedes engines run by Renault, it's just like it's just look at the mayor by Renault. It's just like it's just look at the Mayo man. Honestly, I would throw eggs at that guy if I saw him in public because yellow eggs you know the real Renault eggs because he really, really detonated an unbelievable organization and you know what? Flavio's there to pick up the pieces.
Speaker 1:And I'm going to go one step further. I'm going to say I really see them flogging this operation because they don't have to do well, they can still get a billion dollars for this team. And I've put it out there. I might be wrong and I don't have anything to verify, just chitter-chatter and this. I think Cyril Abitabou wants to get back to Formula 1. He's heading the Hyundai WC project and he's getting you know, he did rally he's getting a step closer and I really do believe Hyundai would probably go to Alpine and say, listen, we'll take the whole operation and Renault will pull out, you know, which is be sad because, yeah, but anyway, that's what I'm seeing or a big manufacturer comes and buys them up because it's untenable. You can't have alpine powered by mercedes, owned by reno, partnered with nissan. You know, it's just. It just becomes too uh, yeah, I don't know too diluted.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're quite right, okay, uh, heading into, uh, the dutch grand prix this coming weekend. I'm going to ask for your predictions. I bet you're going to say the same as me, but you go first, because I'm a gentleman. Go, max. Yeah, I knew it. I knew you were going to say that. I was going to say Max, he's had two victories so far. This year he's due another one. It's his home circuit. He's got the home support, of course, and last year the car, even though it was starting to show problems last year, it was still supreme at this circuit. So I was going to say Max Verstappen, lando Norris, I think we could see a DNF from Piastri. I don't know why. Just get that feeling.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, maybe you and Nostradamus is….
Speaker 2:You know it'll be completely wrong. Next week you'll be berating me because of my lousy prediction.
Speaker 1:No, but listen, you haven't given me a winner. I basically said, max, because I went in doubt. I want to be in doubt every race because I don't know which one of the two. Honestly, I don't want to pick them because I jinx them. I don't want to jinx them, I want them to just have their own thing. But I think Max could do it. I mean, you know, yeah, max, the kind of driver that, uh, that can change. I want to just tell you a max story before we switch off. Okay, I know we're running over, but it doesn't matter, they can listen. If they don't want, they can switch off.
Speaker 1:You know, I've been. You know there's been no news, right? So I've been checking out a whole lot of videos and one guy did an interview with max and, you know, before the saudi grand prix, the first one was held I think it was 2021 or whatever there wasn't any. At this particular point, there was no data for the track. They knew the layout, they had the LiDAR data, they had all that, but they didn't have anything on the simulator. So Max got a guy and you won't believe it who built a set of Corsa tracks, okay, and he built him via the LiDAR data a replica of the Saudi track a Jetta, which Max had on his computer like a month before anyone else had the track. I can believe that.
Speaker 1:But you know what was quite interesting? Max loves iRacing because that's the pro platform, but his second favorite game, I believe, is Assetto Corsa, not Competizione, that GT3 thing, assetto Corsa original, you know, the one that we all dig. So I found that quite interesting, that he just leaves nothing to chance. You know he's always pushing the edge and as a sim racer, I think you'd appreciate that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely, and I think the other one from the top level is Lando Norris, who basically grew up with sim racing and go-karts, but he was of that era and the right age to embrace sim racing like the age of three, for Christ's sake, right, okay? Well, that's it for the podcast this week. We'll be back next week to review the Dutch Grand Prix. Hopefully it's exciting. I'm sure it will be my name's, rick. Thanks for listening very much to the podcast. He's Paul Velasco. Thank you, guys, and if you want to get your latest fix of Formula One news, reviews and gossip, head over to GrandPrix247.com. We'll see you next time on Two Soft Compounds Cheers.
Speaker 2: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 Two Soft Compounds, and if you haven't done so already, please do click that follow or subscribe button. See you next time.