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
Azerbaijan GP: Is Verstappen Back? Baku Shakes Up the F1 Title Fight
This week on Two Soft Compounds, Rick and Paul dive into Baku’s chaos, from six red flags in qualifying to Verstappen’s flawless grand slam, and debate whether McLaren’s nightmare weekend has reopened the title fight.
The streets of Baku delivered chaos in qualifying and domination in the race. Rick Hutton and Paul Velasco dive into a record-breaking six red flags, Oscar Piastri’s nightmare weekend, and McLaren’s puzzling strategy calls. From Carlos Sainz’s career-defining podium with Williams to George Russell’s gritty drive through illness, the guys unpack all the highs, lows, and head-scratchers of the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.
They debate Ferrari’s continued inconsistencies, Mercedes’ struggles to understand their car, and why Max Verstappen’s latest grand slam signals a frightening return to form. Plus: Leclerc’s Baku curse, Antonelli’s resilience under pressure, and a blunt take on Lewis Hamilton’s “art over cars” comment. With stats, strong opinions, and plenty of laughs, it’s another unfiltered look at the world of Formula One.
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 3:Anything can happen in Formula One, and it usually does. Hey, welcome to another Two Soft Compounds podcast on the back end of the Baku Grand Prix, with me, rick, and Paul Velasco, the editor-in-chief and founder of Grand Prix247.com. Well, what a weekend Baku normally is. But we have to start looking back at the weekend by talking about well. Practice was okay, a couple of people hit the wall, but qualifying Paul was fairly unique.
Speaker 1:Yes, I think a world record of crashes happened that day in qualifying. I'm just going to try to get the qualifying report up, which Jad does. He does a really good job and he's got everything like moment by moment. So just indulge me here while I find that Don't worry.
Speaker 3:This, of course, saw a record number of red flags for a qualifying session Six red flags in total, ruining many people's runs. I thought there were actually a few red flags too many, like, for instance you know you break down because you've hit the wall on one of the back straights. That doesn't need a red flag. Does it in qualifying? It needs double-waved yellows, surely?
Speaker 1:No, I think safety is paramount on that. I think that place is you can really get hurt on a piece of track. The problem with walls is the debris stays within the track on a piece of track. Problem with walls is the debris stays within the track, it doesn't fling off into the sand, you know. So I think you've got to keep all that in mind and I think once there's, safety is compromised Because those cars I mean even on the first lap there was a Piastri's broken wing. I mean there was a lot of litter, so a lot of litter. So no, I'm good with that. It just shows you what an intense session it was. I mean I don't think I've ever encountered. I can remember there were six red flags and all of them some pretty big hits by guys. You know. I mean yeah, I mean there's so much to unpack in terms of qualifying, I don't know really where you want to start.
Speaker 3:But let's start with Oscar Piastri, because we've always seen him as mr cool. He's uh, he's just, you know, unaffected by virtually anything from uh, from drama on the track to radio messages, to all this sort of thing. And he just seemed to collapse like a flannel in an oven one of my favorite comments for the whole weekend. You know he, you know I, I know lando put it into the, into the wall on practice on Friday. But then Oscar just had a nightmare in qualifying, binning it, and also, as we'll talk about later, a nightmare in the race. It was just like very uncharacteristic for him, wow yes, I must say I'm kind of flummoxed.
Speaker 1:I've really tried to think. You know what happened with Oscar. Maybe we saw a slight bit of that happening at monza, but he definitely slid off and uh, like you say, we'll talk about the race. The mistakes he made in the race were absolutely, but he was the last crash, right, if I remember correctly, in, uh, in qualifying, yeah, and again, you know he just he overdid it and he put his hand up. It was a mistake, but uh, really, kind of like it's an on off switch. You know he's become like daniel ricciardo. You know he's like where is oscar? We know. So I'm not sure what.
Speaker 1:What's going on there at mclaren was a really poor weekend for mclaren, you have to say that. I mean even norris. You know that's the thing about norris. He's such a nice guy. He lacks that killer instinct. He needed to finish p2. If not, if he couldn't beat Max today, because no one is going to beat Max on on on that on the day, you know, but he needed to finish P2 and he didn't. He labored it around and I'm surprised I don't know what happened with McLaren.
Speaker 1:I I've this era, especially now that the, the it's mature to its full. I just don't understand that sometimes these cars are very good at some places and other good. Maybe they're tweaking them too much and they take them over the edge. But I mean it looks like the McLaren just fell off the cliff in the last race. Okay, monza was also a bit of a wake-up call, which will bring me to Verstappen. Max, of course, is just Max. I mean, we just cannot stop utilizing the guy. I mean again, yeah, but I'm not just saying it's max, the rb21 is just, it's a new car. I tell you what I'm gonna put this out and I spoke to jade because we sort of always have these debates after the grand prix if this red bull was at spa, they would have won at spa. This is not the same Red Bull that was at Spa, you know it's yeah.
Speaker 1:Sorry, can I just finish on that number? Yeah, and apart from that, they found a competitive window in that car that not Obviously Max extracts the Max out of it, because that's Max, right, but even Yuki could drive the car this weekend. I felt you know what I mean, and that made a substantial difference. And we'll talk about Singapore maybe next time. But I'm predicting this that if first time Monza, okay, he got lucky, or whatever he didn't get lucky, he just dominated Twice, again he did it here in Baku, dominated, really, that's a coincidence. Okay, third time, singapore, if he does it again, I'm telling you this guy could win the championship.
Speaker 3:That's what my call yep, I totally agree with you a masterclass from Max in qualifying again. They've just unlocked something in that car and, like you say, for Yuki to be able to drive it as well was just something completely different. Carlos Sainz played a blinder the Williams team certainly did by getting him out early in Q3, which meant that he set a lap before the light drizzle of rain came down. But having said that, it wasn't just luck for Williams. They had a fast car all weekend, and that was demonstrated by the fact that Sainz was able to withhold the second position for much of the race. We'll go on to the race in full in just a bit. I want to mention, though the Norris thing just baffled me that when they finally set their final runs in Q3, they put Norris on used tyres. They knew Verstappen was on brand new softs and they chose to put Norris on used tyres. I do not get that at all. It's like they scuppered his weekend from that very decision onwards. He also clipped the wall slightly on his.
Speaker 1:Is that why he moaned afterwards? He moaned Because you're probably more into that than I was. I know he did castigate the team. He did say you guys messed up.
Speaker 3:Just correct me on that. Yeah, I know I think that is what he was talking about. I mean, I do not understand that at all Whether they thought the track was still slippery so they wanted to save a set of tyres for the race. But you know you're qualifying. Your teammate's crashed out so he's not going to start up the order. You've got the chance to put it on pole. He was fastest in most of the practice sessions, norris, don't forget that. So they send him out on used tyres against a Max Verstappen who we know is phenomenal on brand new softs.
Speaker 3:Most of the teams will have known they were never going to use softs in the race. It was not a race tyre. I think Jad said that on our feed yesterday. It wasn't a race tyre. They weren't even going to gamble with softs for a very late pit stop towards the end of the race. It was always going to be the mediums and the hards. So why did they put them out on used tyres for qualifying? Because they wanted to save a set of softs. What for? To eat their dinner off after the race.
Speaker 2:I don't get it, it's just baffling to me.
Speaker 3:And then his low qualifying position. You know that was a chance for him to close the gap on Oscar Piastri. That was a chance for everyone to you know.
Speaker 1:Well, he did. You know, he did get points and Oscar got no points, and I think that is important. End of the day, it was only six. You know what I mean. But they've got to look behind them because Max is just coming at them. I agree with you to a point. I don't think Williams is that good. I mean it did flatter them because he put on a monster lap when no one else did. Sorry, he put in a monster lap when nobody did and he looked like he was going to be on pole. At one stage I actually thought, wow, he's going to take pole. But he didn't.
Speaker 1:But in my preview, when I looked at that grid with Lawson there too and Antonelli, I thought to myself Max is just going to go. There's none of that front row that can catch him, apart from George Russell. And in the end that's what happened. George was the best of the rest. So in my opinion, yeah, the Williams was good. They were fortunate. I think that car was probably good for top team. I don't think it was good for front row. That was, again, conditions. But Carlos delivered and he's really turned his form around and he's been pretty transparent about it. They didn't understand where his form went, but now he's back there and it was a good result for William, I think it was. You know, the fact that he went on and delivered in the race is superb, but the reality is, for me, the big failing in qualifying was Ferrari, mate.
Speaker 3:Yeah definitely.
Speaker 1:Lewis even said I thought I was going for pole and he was actually having an early shower by Q2. So you know, they just dropped the ball constantly. I mean the car was really good and yeah, where did it go?
Speaker 3:It went nowhere you know, yeah, both Ferraris ran phenomenally well in practice. It was actually a joy to see. I thought, well, maybe they've turned the corner here. This is fantastic. And then Lewis said afterwards that they got the setup wrong for qualifying because it was all over the place. Leclerc, of course, binned it in qualifying, trying to set a fast lap, and then Hamilton just couldn't bring it up the order.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which brings it back. I mean, is there a guy who's crashed more at Baku than Charles Leclerc Crashed a lot?
Speaker 3:but he's won a lot at Baku, don't forget.
Speaker 1:No, he doesn't. I think only Perez has won more than twice. No, it's Max. Only Max and Perez have won it twice. So anyway, to cut a long story short, I'm not impressed with Charles. I mean again, another mistake. Seriously, guy, you don't see Max doing these mistakes anymore. You know, okay, I'll probably eat my words and he'll do it, but I don't see it. I just don't see these basic errors coming through. And you know, max is the benchmark. And unfortunately, yeah, I'm not impressed with Ferrari on a qualifying that even, like I said, lewis looking for a pole. When a driver goes into qualifying thinking he's going to go into pole and he doesn't actually make it into Q3, something's wrong, man, something's seriously wrong. You normally know when you go into qualifying okay, I'm going for P8, p9 if I'm lucky. You know what I mean. I mean also Ferrari, pitwall made a mistake going to qualify. Okay, I'm going for p8, p9 if I'm lucky.
Speaker 3:You know what I mean, and they also the ferrari pit wall made a mistake because he could have done a second uh, a second lap, but they missed times, put him out onto the track. I mean I don't know if he had enough fuel to do a second lap, but he made a mistake and came across the line literally three seconds, um after the checkered flag had gone out for the end of q2. So I think they made a bit of a strategy mistake there as well, although I can't be sure.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about the other crashes too, because there were some pretty telling ones and ones that are going to have huge, huge impact on drivers' careers. Okay, okay, nico Hülkenberg. I mean seriously, it was him, right, he brought out the first. Was it Nico who brought out the first one? No, albon brought out the first one. Albon, yeah, he clipped the wall, remember inside boom, that was like super rookie era. What were you thinking? And he'll be torn up about it because I think he probably even might have had the edge on Carlos here. So, yeah, a silly rookie era. And then you've mentioned Leclerc, we've mentioned Piastri, then Berman Do you remember Berman's one?
Speaker 1:Yeah, basically Berman, I think clipped the wall and Hülkenberg lost a nose. I mean Hülkenberg with his four million Grand Prixs on his CV, still making these rookie errors. And then, of course, colapento mate. You know Colapento seriously. I think Gasly made a mistake. Colapento was watching him and he went into the wall. Do you remember that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, did you see Flavio Breitori in the garage after that, you see the look on his face.
Speaker 1:I think I did some lip reading then and I think he shook his head and said finito. You know what I mean, because that was, yeah, I know, look, the kid's just totally out of his depth, totally out of his depth. And uh, which brings us to Kimi Antonelli. I think he did a really good job in P4, if you think about it. But just the last thing on qualifying, you know Toto was on the phone to him. Hey, mate, you know, just do Toto shouldn't be speaking to these drivers.
Speaker 1:As far as I'm concerned, you know, I mean, it just adds pressure on the kid and the kid was under huge, huge, huge pressure to come out of Q1, I mean, you know, remember it was like he had one lap, he hadn't set a time, he had one lap and he popped. I think he popped it into fourth or fifth. That, to me, shows that the kid is special. But why are you giving him this kind of pressure? Let him just deliver liver. He's there, there's nothing more you can do.
Speaker 1:You come on the phone and say, kimi, just put in a good lap, because you won't chance. Fuck off, toto. You know what I'm saying. Please let the guy drive, you make money. So I was impressed with Kimi, I think, like I said, I think he's got the character. It's a very big character building year. I think he's still out of his depth and we saw it in the race. He went backwards but George went forward. But that's the cross they've got to bear with putting such a young guy in the top team. But for me that was the moment of qualifying is when Kimi actually put that lap down when he was going to go out.
Speaker 3:Okay, let's move on to the race then. Just a masterclass for Max Verstappen. All weekend long it was a six grand slam for him, another completely flawless drive. Probably the chaos of qualifying showed Max, or Max fans, exactly why they follow the Dutchman, because he was absolutely superb putting that red bull on pole. And then the race. He enjoyed the benefit of clean air to be able to dictate the length of his stints, but Verstappen could have stepped or stopped at the side of the road for 14 seconds before anyone caught him. He was that far ahead. It was a flawless performance, paul.
Speaker 1:Ominous, absolutely ominous, and I'll tell you what big wake-up call for McLaren. If they have another one or two weekends like this, he's on them. He's absolutely on them, and I'm going to stick to what I said earlier. I think Max has now found if they've unlocked what I think we've had two instances where he's been untouchable. This is like the 2023 car Winning races by 14 seconds and just going away taking pole. This is 2023 Max Red Bull. I'm sorry, I'm seeing that and, interestingly, he didn't win Azerbaijan. Last year. I think he was fourth, and the year before that, perez beat him in Baku. I'm hoping. I'm a McLaren fan and I would love Oscar or Lando to win it. Really, just don't discount Max. People say, oh, it's too far, too much. Mate, if he goes on a blitz of four or five wins in a row and he's already on two and I'm going to put my money on him in Singapore right now he will win Singapore. I think we're going to go Abu Dhabi. It might just not be a foregone conclusion for McLaren.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean I would agree with you. He's firmly back in the title race and we've seen him produce stuff that no one thought possible in the past many times. I mean this one's going to be an uphill battle, but definitely he has wounded McLaren this weekend in Baku they are wounded. I mean even Norris was talking after the race. He said well, singapore next. He said you know, we're hoping for good things, but our car might not perform well there. Why are they talking like that already? It's just bizarre.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know I don't get this. They've been too woke, Just fucking race man.
Speaker 3:George Russell came second. He had a respiratory infection all weekend, so that's not an easy task when you're strapped into a formula one car driving at 200 miles an hour, but he overcame those ailments to provide a much needed result for a mercedes team who are still really struggling to understand the car, and that's fairly obvious. I thought they would do quite well here this weekend because the track temperature was a lot lower 10 degrees lower than it was last year, and we know the Mercedes perform much better in cooler conditions. Everything overheats when it's a little bit warmer. So I was hoping for a decent result and George Russell proved it. I mean, let me talk about the race in general for a moment, if I may.
Speaker 3:Yeah, of course, in that Baku normally provides us with some very exciting races. We normally, as we saw in qualifying, we see people hit the wall. It only happened once in the entire race and that was Oscar Piastri in lap one. The other thing is that Baku normally provides some really spectacular overtaking. This time it didn't. People weren't able to get past. There was DRS trains all around the circuit. There was only a few glorious spectacular overtaking moves and that was normally a fast car overtaking a very slow one. Um, you know, you saw towards the end of the race the drs train that lando could do nothing about. So it was uncharacteristic for baku. I thought we have had mundane races here before, but this one was not just sort of mundane, but the overtaking was was really really low, and I don't really know what that's about yeah, no, I'll tell you what.
Speaker 1:I was ambushed too because in my preview I have this sort of a virtual grid war before the the race, which I published on grand prix 247 and, um, it sort of previews what was happening. I was gonna say, look, this is gonna be a crash fest probably. You know it's gonna be two, two and a half hour race, whatever the case. But uh, it wasn't and and I wrote the piece and I posted it and I went with it. Then I was listening to the coverage in the build-up and monty montoya juan pablo montoya made a very, very valid point. He says you'll see what happens now, because there was so much carnage in the first in qualifying, they'll all behave themselves in the race and pretty much that's what happened.
Speaker 3:They kind of did. I thought there was some very skillful driving across the field in the race. Actually I don't think anyone drove particularly badly. You know you're threading it through the castle section at baku. That's man. I mean, you've got to be precise.
Speaker 1:That's a hair rising that's a hair raising prospect, honestly, that those, those walls, and that's like, yeah, no, full admiration. This is where you see. You know these guys, because formula one cars are not made to go through ancient cities. Let's be honest.
Speaker 3:Carlos Sainz. We've mentioned already from his qualifying performance, but he describes coming third as the best podium of his entire career and obviously it meant a great deal to him. Yes, because we were writing him off.
Speaker 1:You know we were writing him off. We were saying, well, I was. I said, carlos, you've got Ricardo disease. You've got to get your act together. You've got to beat Albon. You know what I mean. Albon's a good driver, but he was destroyed by Max. Okay. So any guy who doesn't have Albon, you've got to be substantially better than him, and it was a good one. I hope it's not a flash in the pan. The very you know. The thing you love about James Vowles is he just can't stop talking, he can't shut them up and he's like Singapore will even be better. So let's see, look, you hit the nail on the head. Mercedes haven't understood their car and I think this whole past five years, this sort of period that we've gone through now in the last year of these rules, no team ever understood it. I think Red Bull got it right when Nui was there, because they had Nui right. 2022, 23,. Those cars were amazing, but I think, now that they're at the very edge of their development cycle, I think Mercedes never understood their car, never.
Speaker 1:I don't think Ferrari understand their car. I don't think any of them understand their car, because I don't know why. I think maybe just and I know I'm going to get flack for this maybe engineers have just got more stupid as time moves on. I don't know.
Speaker 3:Talking about Antonelli, well, the European season's now over, which may be a return to his best form, because before we entered the European arena he was doing pretty well in his Mercedes as a rookie. We were all kind of blown away. We thought maybe it was a year or two too soon for him to jump up to Formula One, Started the season really well and really promising and then we got to Europe and it all sort of collapsed a little bit for him, but qualified in fourth. He was asked to let George Russell pass, which you can understand, but you know he could have finished higher up the order if he hadn't have let George pass, but fourth is a pretty good result for him.
Speaker 1:No, I think so. But George had more pace, there's no doubt about it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1:Look, like I said in the qualifying he's definitely got. He's a special talent. I'm going to still say it's a year too early. But for Mercedes, the logic for me, if I go now in retrospect, and I think I mentioned it in an outside line of mine at the time Toto had a choice. He could put Sainz or Bottas in the car that Lewis left and he could stick Antonelli in the Williams you understand what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but he didn't. He took a gamble and he put Antonelli one year too soon in the big car. It's Mercedes, mate. You can't put a rookie of this he's 18 years old on top of it, but he's risen to the occasion. He's done it a lot better than I expected. He's no match to George at the moment, but you can't expect that. I think you'll see him get better the second year, In the third year. That we will know if he's the real deal, like when I say real deal Max Verstappen, Piastri, Norris level real deal or if he's just going to be another guy, those Italians who just cruise. So we'll see. Time will tell. But, like I said, I think P4, again, it's very good for him. For him, we do not doubt his outright speed. He needs to work on finishing races at a good pace and he did it. He ticked the box.
Speaker 3:Next to cross the chequered flag was Liam Lawson. He had a great qualifying session. He would have done better. He had a delayed pit stop which allowed a number of drivers to pass him, but I think he can probably be quite happy with p5. It was a good and I was watching him on on track and, as I mentioned earlier, with all the drivers, I just thought their driving technique was superb. Most of the cars looked like they were on rails. There was the odd uh oversteer moments, of course, which is always exciting at baku um, but none of them really made any major errors. In fact, if anyone made, it looked as though it was the team, the pit crew, that were making errors. The drivers, I thought, were spot on and Liam Lawson, I thought, delivered a great P5.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I know, look Liam, it's strange about Liam because I don't. I find him really. I actually like Liam Lawson a lot. I think he's a really nice guy. But I know guys in our group and I would call Jad out for this too, because he gives me a hard time about it. But he doesn't offend me, liam, like he offends some people. They say he's got a bad attitude, whatever. But I don't think so. I think he's a good driver. He's hard to get past and I think he lost ground to Hadja because you must remember he was thrust out of the Red Bull team after two races and, honestly, that was super unfair, so that must have been that floored him. So from a knockout punch he gets up, hadja's getting all the attention, but he's slowly turning back the tide and I think you know Hajar's excellent, of course, but I don't think he's supremely better than Liam.
Speaker 3:That's a good point. I thought I was very impressed by Liam's defense when he was being attacked by Yuki Tsunoda. For the last 10 laps he placed that car perfectly in every single apex. It made it really difficult for Yuki to do anything about it Well, it was Yuki's best weekend wasn't it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean best results since arriving at Red Bull, which is quite frightening. But, as you mentioned earlier, it looks as though they've unlocked that Red Bull car now I mean towards the back end of the season, but if Yuki Tsunoda can now drive it, then something has definitely changed there. No, like I said, I won't repeat it, but definitely the car has taken to another level. It's absolutely and we've mentioned lando norris many times already but it was a total missed opportunity. He said after the race I don't care what other people think, but I think he probably cares massively that the uh, the performance wasn't there, uh, the car wasn't as fast as we've been used to and, of course, he would have finished far higher up the grid order if they hadn't have had that disastrous pit stop. And that's the second race in a row they've had a wheel gun problem on the McLaren. Yeah, like.
Speaker 1:I said, mclaren dropped the ball this weekend big time. Drivers, car, everything. It was their worst performance in terms of self-inflicted that I've ever seen. You have situations where it's out of their control, but if you do them, it was just a very bad week. It was their worst weekend of the season, without doubt, and they've only brought home six points and they haven't been under double figures all the season. So you know it's like no seriously, they dropped the ball big time.
Speaker 3:And then Lewis Hamilton. So he moved up to finish in eighth from 12th. He failed to follow team orders in the final lap. He was supposed to let Charles Leclerc past and you've got to be in your bonnet. A little bit, Paul, about Lewis Hamilton and some of the statements he's been making recently.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, yes, your bonnet a little bit paul about lewis hamilton and some of the statements he's been making recently. Yeah, well, yes, uh, honestly, I love lewis. It's like, he's like family, you know, I mean, he's uh followed lewis since he was in formula two it was actually called gp2 series at the time and, um, yeah, always been an advocate of his, loved his story, loved his father's story and he's the icon. You can't disagree. Lewis is probably the most important character in modern Formula One history. You know, he's galvanized the whole sport. Yeah, I mean, he's been amazing and an absolutely fantastic driver. But along the way we've also grown with Lewis. We've seen him grow. We've grown older. He's grown older. When we met him he was 20. Now he's 40. And we've seen him, we've seen his foibles.
Speaker 1:And if you've been a fan when the British media bombarded him with like castigation and borderline hate, that he was, you know I remember jackie stewart making some absolutely bizarre statements about lewis going to mercedes. Do you know? I'm saying, and it was the right call and on my websites, ever since I covered that period, we're always on lewis's side, you know, and even when lewis walked around in those silly costumes of these, I mean those fashion brands that he used to do. I remember all that colorful stuff. I mean, obviously we weren't very successful I don't see any shops backing that stuff but we indulged him. I'm a fan mate. Have you seen your dude? He's walking around like he's a clown. I said, yeah, well, he's my dude. Shut the fuck up. You know what I mean, dude. Shut the fuck up. You know I mean it's lewis. Lewis can do it because he's winning, he's doing races and everything, and even you remember, he also likes to shoot himself in the foot the the whole nephew and the fairy godmother dress and got everyone up in arms and the whole woke community went ballistic and he took his, his whole social media off. We were back to him. We were there with Lewis.
Speaker 1:But now I've got beer in my bonnet because Lewis comes out during the Baku weekend and he says this I don't have any cars anymore. I got rid of all my cars. I'm all into art nowadays. If I was going to get a car, it would be a Ferrari F40. That's a nice piece of art. Sorry, lewis, this doesn't mean I'm his dad or his buddy like his buddy, lewis. What did you mean by that? You're more into art than cars. Seriously, the problem with being super condescending, the sounding super condescending. He saved himself by saying the f40 is is. Is art okay for me if I I'm going to spend $50 million on a Formula One car of the past, or $50 million on a picture that some stoner or drunk drew then he died of suicide and then they sell it for $80 million. I'm going to take the car.
Speaker 1:So what I say to Lewis if you're into art, mate, do you think your dad doing two shifts to get you into go-karting, you think you, as an artist? With his money you would have become a $350 million man. You wouldn't, mate, you'd be flipping burgers at McDonald's. Because you're not an artist, you're a Formula One driver. And I tell you this in closing, because I love you, lewis is, while you're looking at art and going to galleries and shit like that, max, who's the benchmark, is at Nordschleife breaking lap records.
Speaker 1:He's on his simulator finding a little millimeter here, a little millimeter there. His brain is only thinking about racing, the art of racing, not art on the wall. So please, mate, we made you, we love you. You're going to go soon, but don't shit on our veranda, because we've got to sit here and watch while you just departed a putty on the lawn here, not cool. So if that was not his intention, it was borderline. And I warn any driver and any sportsman who makes so much money, impresses, enchants so many people to turn around one day and say you know what? I don't really dig basketball so much, I prefer ballet, you know, come on, bro, it's not cool, I rest my case. Next, what were we talking about?
Speaker 3:Well-made point. Charlotte Clerk came in behind Lewis Hamilton after the team order was ignored by Lewis, but Charles in the end said well, it's not not a big deal. We were both fighting over the prestigious position of eighth in the race, so I'm happy with ninth um. He had a disastrous weekend. He put it into the wall in qualifying, as we've mentioned before, and rounding out. The top 10 was Isaac Hadja, outshone by his teammate, but I think his performances over the year have shown that when he gets P10 it's something of a disappointment because Hadja's been a breath of fresh air, I think. In Formula One he qualified well in eighth, but he got passed by both of the Ferraris in lap one, I think and I'm going to now bring in Nicky, our stats man, paul.
Speaker 1:Before you do, can I say something about Hadja, please? Yeah, go on. Look, Hadja is the kind of guy that I think if ever he sees his teammates in front of him, he's going to get red mist, okay. So the fact that Liam is raising the game, it means Hadja has to raise his game, and it's just very good for him, because I'm really believing and if you're hearing the chitter chatter that's going on in the paddock in Baku, specifically where Agnes Kalia is there for us, the chitter chatter is that they're not going to promote him this season, but they're definitely going to give him the drive next year, with Lawson sticking around and Lindblad getting the racing balls. So all AJ has to do now is just make sure that he can beat Lawson on a regular basis.
Speaker 3:Okay, let's bring in Nicky. Nicky runs a stats service which you can access on Twitter. It's called At Lights Out. He's continually tweeting through practice, qualifying and the race itself. He's got some stats and facts from the Baku Grand Prix.
Speaker 2:Verstappen wins back-to-back races for the first time in 15 months. Sainz secures the first podium finish for Williams in four years and Piastri's finishing streak finally comes to an end. Here are the top statistics from the 2025 Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Max Verstappen took the 67th victory of his Formula One career in Azerbaijan, recording consecutive wins for the first time since the 2024 Canadian and Spanish Grand Prix. Taking pole position, setting the fastest lap and leading every lap on his way to victory, verstappen equals Lewis Hamilton for second on the list of most Grand Slams in Formula 1. Only Jim Clark, with eight, has more. As well as being a Grand Slam, it was the 16th race which Verstappen led from start to finish. He overtook Sebastian Vettel in the list of most Grand Prix led from start to end. Only Lewis Hamilton and Ayrton Senna now sit ahead of him on the list. Carlos Sainz scored a podium finish for Williams, the team's first since the 2021 Belgian Grand Prix and their first in the full distance race since Lance Stroll finished third at the 2017 Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Sainz's third place finish brought Williams more points in one afternoon than they've scored in the last six Azerbaijan Grand Prix weekends combined. The last time Williams recorded a podium finish in Baku in 2017, a Red Bull driver led home a Mercedes driver, just like in 2025.
Speaker 2:Liam Lawson impressed this weekend at Racing Bulls, recording a career-best fifth-place finish. It marked the first top-five result for a driver from New Zealand since Chris Ehrman finished fifth in the 1976 Spanish Grand Prix, almost 50 years ago. And finally, oscar Piastri had a weekend to forget. The championship leader crashed out on lap one, ending the third longest scoring streak in f1 history. It ended after 34 races, having started at the 2024 emilia romagna grand prix. His crash also ended a 44 race finishing streak dating back to the 2023 mexico city grand prix in piastri's maiden season. It was the second longest finished streak in the sports history. Piastri's DNF means that George Russell is now the only driver who has completed every Grand Prix in 2025.
Speaker 3:Thank you very much, Nicky.
Speaker 1:He's a boss, that man he really is Wow, there's some good numbers there, man.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and some throwbacks to 1976 as well, which is fascinating.
Speaker 1:Or even before, wasn't it with Chris Am throwbacks to 1976 as well, which is fascinating, or even before, wasn't it with Chris Amon, chris Amon won. Oh wow, jeez, wow. Good one, that is impressive.
Speaker 3:Okay, we're running out of time, so we're going to go over the drivers that finished from 11th down to 20th fairly quickly. Bortoletto finished in 11th. He didn't really look as though he was ever going to score points yeah, but you know what he was better?
Speaker 1:he beat his team mate. The fact that Nico's got to drive next year, I can't believe it anyway, but carry on.
Speaker 3:Oliver Berman described his race as damage limitation. After the safety car restart it caught him out and it dropped him into a DRS train. Also, it's good to hear it's worth mentioning that Lando Norris got caught out on the safety car restart. He was left napping on the main straight. Yeah, we was talking about the main straight.
Speaker 1:I was on the Berman streak, right, berman. You were on Berman, right? Yeah, go on, he's doing the same to Ocon, mate. That's happening to Hulkenberg with Bortoletto, as Ocon ever outqualified this kid. Honestly, I I'm getting that impression. You correct me, I'm wrong. You that you're the numbers guy yeah, no, I think you're right.
Speaker 3:I think, um, I think he's definitely outperforming Ocon at the moment. Got Alex Albon next. Um, he uh, good recovery driver. Yeah, he had the pay well, he had the pace Well, he got the 10-second penalty, didn't he, for sending Colapinto for a little bit of a spin.
Speaker 1:That's what I mean. Yeah, he would have finished almost just outside the points if he had not.
Speaker 3:Yeah, correct and, I think you know, based on Carlos Sainz as well, I think the Williams car had pace and it would be interesting again to see how they go in singapore with those, uh, those long straights. Esterman ocon, attempting to make up for lost ground. He started in p20, they put him on the hards and then did a double tire change, um, during the safety car, which I thought was brave and quite interesting. So they came, they brought him in. At the end of lap one he was on the hard tire, they put the medium on and at the end of lap two they brought him in again and put him back on a fresh set of hard tires, hoping that he would go to the end of the race. I thought at the time and I said it in our group I thought that was bound to be a couple of red flags and 17 safety cars. It's probably a wasted opportunity, but actually, you know, it was a gamble it didn't pay off in the end.
Speaker 3:Yeah uh, fernando alon, another careless mistake. He false started. I mean he said, and I get it he said his eyes were focused on Oscar Piastri in front of him, who also false started. So when he saw him move off, he let the clutch go.
Speaker 1:But he gave us a very good tactic there. Look, he's 43, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Piastri's like the best guy on the grid. He's leading the world championship. He's going to be a very good starter. He wasn't looking at the lights, he was looking at the back of the car. As soon as he saw, he said to himself mentally, I'm picturing him being in the thing. As soon as that thing moves, I'm going, because then his vision, the brain, has to make the decision on the car moving. He was taking it for granted that Piastri wasn't going to fluff these lines, but Piastri just fluffed it. I've never seen a guy fluff the lines like that. Honestly, oscar, he stalled like a rookie who's never driven the car. Then he came off the gas and he went on the gas and then the anti-stall kicked in. By the next thing he knew he was 20th. And then in catching up, he says he misread the dirty air because he's never in dirty air, he's always in the front.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And boom, he hit the wall. It was such a I don't know Nikita Mazepin kind of Nicholas Latifi, logan Sargent moment there. Really it was like a Lance Stroll moment. I don't get it. What did you make of that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, like I said at the top of the show, I I just thought it was so uncharacteristic. He's normally mr cool. He messed up in qualifying, he messed up in the, the start of the race and then crashing in lap one. And, and don't forget, as we mentioned before, he was the only person that crashed out in the entire race and you'd expect so much more from him.
Speaker 1:yeah, and one that didn't crash, but he did finish P17, was Lance. Yet again, 28th time he's been outqualified by Fernando, but you know what Credit to him. He finished P17. He didn't break anything this weekend. Well done, lance.
Speaker 3:Nico Hulkenberg finished just ahead of Lance Stroll. He hasn't scored a single point since he had the podium at Silverstone. He started 17th. He basically went up one spot and was, as we mentioned, beaten by his teammate. I'll tell you what.
Speaker 1:Nico Roggemoor would be a tactic to use. If I was his like manager, I'd say mate, you only drive good when you don't have a. You're going to make a contract, race by race, and make him drive like that, because the guy, honestly, I've said it throughout his career I love him. He's a fantastic man, he's a great driver, he won Le Mans first time of trying, but he's not an elite Formula One driver and with so many races to his name, you know, and getting beat and making a mistake like that, I don't know, mate. I don't know, mate, I don't know. There comes a time when you think you know, surely and he's part of the Audi effort, you know. So I don't know, I don't know.
Speaker 3:Final two finishers Pierre Gasly he said that there was a problem with an underpowered Renault engine in the back of his car he qualified in 18th and finished in exactly the same spot and Franco Colapinto, when it rains it pours he couldn't get any luck really. The Alpine car, I think, was slow, but then Albon sent him spinning and that was really the end of an unremarkable race for Franco, sadly, and as we mentioned, flavio Briatore looked very displeased.
Speaker 1:Yes, and he's been making all the wrong sounds of late. He's been saying I haven't delivered, it's not what I expected. Look, I'm going to put the blame firmly in the court of the Formula 1 paddock. This guy came in, he did one or two races and he was suddenly the cheese. Do you remember? That happened with Nick de Vries. They put him in the car at Monza and suddenly he had a, a Taro Rosso drive.
Speaker 1:One wraith does not maketh. These guys are all good, mate. They're all super, super fast. Nick DeFries is extremely fast. I'm sure Franco Colapinto is extremely fast, but you've got to harness that speed and you've got to harness, on the biggest stage in the world, the spotlight shining on you. It's not for the faint hearted. Some guys can make it, some guys can't. Franco Colapinto is definitely not the dude. You know what I mean, Simply as that, as much as what happened at Williams and James Vowles again just giving it. You know? Ah, this guy's the best thing and cut cheese, but they didn't sign him, they flogged him off to Alpine. If it was that good, they would have kept him, Trust me, but he wasn't that good, but James was giving it.
Speaker 1:Oh, this is the new, this is the thing. And the colopinto and in the end of the day, if you actually take away the fluff, he was breaking more cars than he did. Good for Williams. At the end of that, his tenure on the team and he's carried on straight here. There's nothing changes. Okay, so he was unlucky because he got tapped. Well, mate, why always you? Why do you always get tapped? Maybe you're driving like a granny. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:And then people tap you, you know. So at the end of the day, it's a supreme example that you know you don't always believe the hype.
Speaker 3:Okay, well, we've reached the end of the podcast. Before we go, though, one story that's been dominating the website GrandPrix247.com is the news that Christian Horner has now officially severed all ties with Red Bull and is walking away with over $100 million, and he's now free, if he wants to, to go and team principal for another team. I, if I was him, would just be sat with Jerry counting me money.
Speaker 1:To be honest, yeah, perhaps he is still young in terms of a team principal, but yeah, I mean, I probably wouldn't. I probably would. Yeah, I'd walk away. You know what more can he achieve, but again, you know, you don't know what this kind of success maybe he gets withdrawal from not being a team boss. This can happen. But yeah, good for him.
Speaker 1:End of the day, it was Team Horner. I don't care what anyone says about it. He built that team. He got the right people in there. He tried to maybe become too powerful after Dietrich Mateschus departed and his journey came to an inevitable end that it ended in his own undoing, that it was himself who pulled the trigger or, I don't know, sent the dick pics or whatever, Whatever the hell. We know what it was that caused his downfall and that, to me, is a shame that his legacy is sullied by that. But we have to ignore that and just know that this guy took a canning company, a fizz drink company, and turned it into a formula one team. That is probably the one of the greatest success stories of formula one of the 21st century yes.
Speaker 3:Uh well, good luck to christian, whatever he does. Um, if you want to get your latest take on formula One news, gossip and behind the scenes insights, then get over to GrandPrix247.com, which, as I mentioned at the top of the show, is expertly chief edited by Mr Paul Velasco. My name's Rick. We'll see you next time out on Two Soft Compounds. Cheers, guys, thank you. 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.