Austrian GP: Lift & Let Live!

This week on 2 Soft Compounds, hosts Rick and Damien jump straight into the Styrian Grand Prix story that left the paddock shaking their heads: the single waved yellow at the Red Bull Ring that decides pole, and the uncomfortable reality that the rules demand a "lift" without ever defining one. George Russell plays the rulebook perfectly, race control hesitates to escalate, and everyone's left asking the same thing: is the system rewarding safety, or interpretation?

From there, the guys dig into the bigger 2026 stories: Aston Martin's brutal pace drop, Adrian Newey's candid take, Fernando Alonso's future, the cost cap and upgrade credits arms race, Russell's tyre management, Ferrari's puzzling tyre sequence, and a proper Lewis Hamilton vs Max Verstappen throwback fight.

Plus, Silverstone is next, where long straights and fast corners could expose the regulation limits even more.

Production Credits:

Presented by: Rick Houghton & Damien Reid
Studio Engineer & Editor: Ben Dover
Executive Producer: Ian Carless 
Produced by: Poddworx Dubai

Transcript

Welcome And Styrian Setup

Rick 0:02

I don't make mistakes, I make prophecies that immediately turn out to be wrong.

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Anything can happen in Formula One, and it usually does.

Rick 0:14

Hey, welcome to another episode of Two Soft Compounds. It's Rick and it's Damo, and we are taking a look back at the Styrian Grand Prix in the Alpine Hills. The Red Bull circuit, of course, owned by the company.

Yellow Flags And A Controversial Pole

Rick 0:28

And uh, well, it started with an interesting qualifying Damien, didn't it?

SPEAKER_01 0:32

Yeah, it was all a bit quiet until right at the very end when it wasn't. And uh you gotta say, George Russell called it perfectly with uh with with with the double yellow versus single yellow situation, and and Kimmy was just unfortunately caught out. But you know, it it raises a question with me, Rick. I was thinking about it racing in 2026 style. Is lifting for a yellow flag the same as a lift and coast, which you do on that corner anyway? And if so, if it's a list of if it's a lift and coast corner on a single wave yellow, it's almost like you don't have to do anything to change your driving style and you still get oh. I thought of it afterwards going, well, yeah, you lift it off, but then you lift off anyway to to charge the battery for the start of the next lap.

Rick 1:13

I mean my my initial thoughts on Russell, I I thought, well, hang on a minute. Okay, there's a yellow flag on the circuit with a car and a barrier on the on the exit zone of that particular corner, turn nine. And I thought, okay, well, surely you can't you can't give a pole position to someone in that situation. All right, he's lifted, and no one knows the rules better than George Russell, I don't think. So he's lifted, and that was was shown on the data. He'd obviously had an amazing lap just before that point. But I'm thinking, is that right that they they go go ahead with a poll? I mean, ultimately it was race control who messed it up, really, because a car in the barrier in a dangerous position on the exit of a corner, that should have been a double wave yellow straight away, and it wasn't. So George Russell, who knows the rules, thought, well, I'll just lift a little bit earlier than I normally would. And the lap's been that good anyway, I could still bag this, which is exactly what happened. Um Kimmy Antonelli was on a was on a hot lap and could have easily got pole position. He saw the single flash in yellow and assumed it was a double where it where it wasn't. And actually, when it first happened, it was just the light panel. There were no marshals with physical flags waving at that point. So the whole thing was a little bit confusing, and that's down to race control, surely.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

Yeah, yeah. So with the Digipanels, the single wave yellow is just the is just the whole thing's just yellow. If it's a double wave yellow, it's sort of yellow and black diagonal, broken into a diagonal, and and it and it and it flickers. But uh so so so yeah, so the basic the rule for this is if it's a if you get shown a single yellow, single waved yellow, you have to lift off. You have to show that you lift off. It doesn't say by how much, you just have to show that you lift off. If it's a double waved yellow, you've got to be prepared to bring the car to a stop. Um so you've got to significantly lift off. So that that was where the that was where the ambiguity was. And yeah, I mean, like say for instance in in Moto GP racing and superbikes, if you when you see a yellow flag, you have to abandon, they remove that lap time regardless. So you can't benefit. And and to an extent, maybe that's something they should look at. Now, if it's a single yellow and it's on a on the exit of say a hairpin and you can see the the the the accident miles ahead, and you go, okay, I can see there, I can see through the corner, I can see what it is, and that's fine. But to give to give Kimmy the the benefit of the doubt in this one, uh it was over a blind crest and around a corner, and then bam, suddenly there's a car there's a car there. So you you could argue in Kimmy's favour saying, hey, that should have been a little bit more than that, but regardless, that's the rules as they are right now. So, you know, maybe yeah, you you need maybe you need to look at the rules. Certainly, George did nothing wrong. George played it, played the rule book perfectly and and got the result. But uh yeah, I mean, I mean that also too, it helps that he was so much quicker in the first sector and the micro sectors leading up to that, that he had that benefit up his sleeve. He was half a second up. If he had been, you know, two or three tenths up and he lifted, he would have lost pole. But the fact was he was dynamite through the first part of the lap, which gave him that buffer to still lift and still be the and still get polled. But I, like Todo and like everyone else, couldn't believe that he still got pole position when yellow flags came out. It's uh yeah, it does leave a bit of a question mark over the whole uh over the way the whole thing plays

Aston Martin Crisis And Alonso Rumours

SPEAKER_01 4:23

out.

Rick 4:23

Uh, before we get into the race, let's uh continue a little bit on qualifying. It's it's clear now that the Aston Martin team are at least 3.2 seconds off the pace, which is an absolute valley in Formula One terms, isn't it? We've got Adrian Newey coming clean on his health issues in the last couple of days. Uh looks as though he's had a bit of a battle. And you've got the update that they say is coming in Hungary, which they say is going to be transformative for the Aston Martin team. I can't believe Fernando Alonso is is still seems engaged with the bag of bolts he's driving round at the moment, but Aston Martin, real problems. And also this weekend highlighted more problems for Williams as well.

SPEAKER_01 4:58

Yeah, I mean, you know, I yeah, I I know Fernando does talk and people I've been speaking to with it. He is talking maybe to Flavio about moving on to Alpine. Because time's not on his side. He's not looking at his future in terms of Formula One, that's gone. He just wants to bag some wins now and do something. So he is shopping around. But uh the yeah, I mean the Aston Mann thing, Blanche Roll was 106.4% over the qualifying time. And as you know, it's 107% cutoff where they would have had to go and ask the FIA for permission to even start the race. This reminds me of going back to the like the 1980s when you got teams like Oseller and Life and all those guys who were five seconds a lap off the pace. Well, they were three seconds a lap off the pace. They were Fernando was lapped a couple of times. It's humiliating. And and and if you if you got the Aston Martin, if you don't if you made up a wish list and said, I want to build the perfect Formula One team, get Adrian Newey, get an endless bounty of money, get a factory behind you, get a thousand employees behind you, and they're still shocking. You know, it's just unbelievable.

Rick 6:00

Yeah, and they've got their own wind tunnel now as well. I mean, they've got all the ingredients they need. I mean, obviously the integration of the Honda engine was not ideal, but surely they could have seen that coming. For goodness sake. I mean, they could have they could have done a bit of research and gone, well hang on. These these guys, most like you said in a previous podcast, most of the Honda race engineers had left to do other things, some of them working in aerospace because effectively the Honda engine plan had had had gone gone to grass. So, I mean, it it's just it's unbelievably frustrating.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

It's crazy, but uh but I think you know from hearing from from Adrian Newey after the weekend as well, is it read he reiterated what he said before Spain, and that is that there is a massive upgrade coming for uh I think it's Belgium for Spa, so after Silverstone, unfortunately, it'll be Aero, it'll be Chasszy, it'll be power unit, and they've decided to hold back and he's and he basically said you've just got to take your medicine right now. No one's enjoying life at Aston Martin right now. He said that, but uh he believes that it's all gonna come together at one big hit. And I'll tell you what, if it doesn't, bye-bye Fernando, he'll be looking at something. He will be. Flavio will be on the phone be before his first cappuccino, and and he'll he'll be looking at a seat at Alpine with with all that Gucci money. There's there's an endless amount of money to to buy Fernando out of that contract and put him in a nice seat and you know, probably move, I don't know, Franco on, I guess, I'm not sure. Or maybe Pierre's getting a bit old now, but anyway, we're speculating about that. But but certainly the the door is half open at Alpine with Gucci money if if Fernando wants to jump ship.

2026 Upgrades Credits And Cost Cap Heat

Rick 7:30

Uh before we get onto the race yourself, I want to go through a well, I suppose a little bit of housekeeping here with you. You probably know better than me, but the development during the 2020 26 season has been fairly phenomenal in that new teams are bringing new components, and we've got these uh upgrade credits. Now, Red Bull have been told they've got the fastest or best combustion engines, so they haven't been awarded any credits. Ferrari seem to have spent them on some pretty decent updates and upgrades in the first part of the season. And Red Bull um had a big upgrade package for this weekend that we were talking about in Austria. Um but I saw an article, Toto Wolf said Ferrari are gonna run out of money because they're spending that much they're gonna breach the cost cap.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

Yeah, well, this is kind of where we're where we are at the moment. I mean, we're we're still under the cost cap situation. And uh and you're right, you know, Red Bull with uh with the Ford power unit, they can't do anything, but they do have a lot of error upgrades that are they're there and they're still coming. And I understand too that Ford and Red Bull are still in the process of disputing this situation where they don't get any power unit upgrades as well. But yeah, I mean everyone's talking about cost cap throwing that that at each other right now. As you say, Toto was sort of saying Ferrari are gonna run out because they've they've they've had a whole lot of upgrades. But likewise, people are saying that about the Mercedes power units, saying, well, they've spent a fair bit of money on those and they're gonna start hitting their cost cap limit too with the with the Mercedes power units. So yeah, we're all getting to that situation right now. The the money situation, the the money race, the money Grand Prix for who can spend on what is starting to become the big issue. But certainly, yeah, Ferrari came out with a with a power unit upgrade. They went straight in first up. As soon as they heard that they got it, they had one ready for last weekend. A slightly larger turbo, I understand. So the reason they got such great starts in the first few races of the season had a small turbo, so less mass to spool up, power instantly, away you go. The downside of that, it doesn't work in high altitude and thinner air, which is what Austria is. So apparently that's what they brought to Austria was it was a larger turbo, which gave them a bit more reliability, but they just lost that initial edge off the start line.

Russell Controls The Race As Ferrari Falters

Rick 9:40

Okay, on to the race. George Russell started in pole and drove a perfect race by all accounts. His tire management was was good, often referred to as the tire whisperer. Uh tell you whose tire management was not good, and they were the Ferraris. First of all, Charles Leclerc didn't have a great opening lap. Either did Antonelli, who went off track twice during lap one. But I noticed the Ferrari of Charles Leclerc was it's like he's not used to the new rules and rags now with the power clipping and all that, because twice he was overtaken by basically running out of battery before the final turn. Yeah, and this is the thing, you know, this is the thing that these guys have to be have to be so mindful of.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

And this is one of the smallest, shortest laps that we get. In fact, I think there's the second shortest after Monaco. So, you know, 90 seconds, bam, they're crossing the start-finish line again, and you and you get more battery. And and Charles still can't get his head around that situation right now. God help him, and next weekend in Silverstone, from what Max was saying, that yeah, basically the car's going to be flat. The battery's gonna be flat for for seven tenths of the lap. Uh but yeah, I mean, you know, Charles got monstered by uh by Lewis off the start line and Oscar Piastri with the underperforming McLaren. Piastri still managed to get up there and and give both LeClerc and Hamilton a hard time in the bit before end of turn three, banging wheels and getting away with it. But uh I just think Charles Leclerc's headspace is still getting over what happened in Monaco when he crashed into the wall. I I really, really do. He's you know, he he's always one of these guys who who blames himself first and foremost on the radio, except he didn't in Monaco. He just said it's Brembo's problem, I did nothing wrong. But it had just has that impact on on Charles more than the than a lot of other drivers. And I just still think he's I think we talked about it last time where you've got drivers, you know, you when when a new guy comes into the team and suddenly outperforms you and you've been in that team for a while, a little bit like Lando Norris last year with Oscar, and and it rattled Lando for a while, and it then he got on top of it. And I think that's still the same situation at Ferrari. I think he's he's rattled by having Lewis Hamilton doing what he's doing right now.

Rick 11:44

Yeah, he's been making his fair share of errors, hasn't he, with Crash at Barcelona and yeah, it's just been a bit poor. I just thought, you know, watching the race, I was like, come on, Sean, what are you doing, man? You know how these these cars work by now. He was just getting whizzed past into turn nine on several several laps. Lewis Hamilton, they started him on the soft tire, which I thought was weird, but I mean you know maybe they were hoping for a turn three safety car in the first few opening laps. And but when they put him on the hard tire, that hard tire was not working on the Ferrari this weekend, was it, at all? I mean it started graining up even on the outlap. Yeah, you're right.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

And and and I thought the tire situation with with Hamilton and Ferrari in general was just a was just a very strange place to go. Because, you know, when they when they came in under the safety car and they boxed him again, and uh they they put the soft tires on in the in the middle part of in the middle stint. And I just thought, oh, why yeah surely you've got a set of mediums there or or maybe even go to the hards again, because you're gonna have to stop again anyway, and then put the softs on the car when the car's at its lightest with the least amount of fuel, and then you get the time. I thought it was a very, very odd decision by Ferrari, not for the first time in life, that that they decided to to put the soft tires on in the middle of the race and then give him the harder ties for the end when the car was arguably at its most power, you know, most potent. That's when they the the last stint is when the car's performing its best. It has not much fuel and still has a lot of performance.

Rick 13:09

Yeah, vibes of 2021 for me when we saw the close racing between Hamilton and Verstappen it was great. I thought, you know, I I was thinking back to Silverstone, you know, when they when they tangled. Um I was thinking this is gonna end in tears. But actually both of them played it fairly clean, didn't they? And Max was calling for a penalty on Hamilton, but of course he would do that. Um he was slightly off track at one point, but it was fascinating to see. I loved it. I absolutely loved it.

SPEAKER_01 13:34

And yeah, you're right. I mean, as a Max calling the professional foul on the ref to try and to try and get something on Lewis. But it just re I I just I did enjoy the fact that throw Fernando in there, and you've got the three oldest guys in Formula One who are giving us the best racing. Uh Fernando wasn't there, of course, but but you know what I mean. Lewis and Max, it did bring back memories of of 2021 again. But I think now with uh a bit more age, a bit more wisdom, a bit more respect between the two of them, but they gave us really good racing and and uh and I just thought it was ironic that it was a the the the two two of the three oldest guys on the grid are giving us the best fighting out there, but both of them have got a renewed flame under their seat in terms of their competitiveness this year because Lewis coming off the back of the win. That's the best performance that we've seen from Max and the Red Bull this season, and he was just getting an i an inkling going, hang on, I still remember how to do this. Let's hope that brings something on for the rest of the season between those two guys with it with it with a bit more energy and and uh and nerve to sort of keep fighting

Battery Clipping Fears For Silverstone

SPEAKER_01 14:36

that way.

Rick 14:36

Talking of Max Verstappen, obviously the upgrades they took to the Red Bull ring worked because obviously he finished the race in second place. The first three, top three, by the way, split by less than three seconds, which is great. Now that's the sort of close racing we want to see. Max Verstappen, you uh made note of the fact that he's not looking forward to Silverstone. He's been very vocal about these new rules and the batteries and the clipping and all that sort of stuff. I love the quote. He said, I got into the simulator, did four laps of Silverstone, left my head off inside the helmet, and then got out and went home. He said he said it's gonna be absolutely catastrophic, and that's a real pity. Silverstone's probably my favourite race of the season. I just love the speed, I love the atmosphere. It's a great circuit. It's a driver's circuit. And if they're in cars where they can't deploy their maximum to make the overtakes and to and to get stuff sorted, then it's gonna be a real letdown this weekend.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

Yeah, and that this has been my fear right from the start. Circuits that have got your big long straights. Azerbaijan was I was fearful of that, but then you've got the really tight sort of you know middle and last sector. But Silverstone and Monza are the two ones that I'm I'm quite concerned that we're gonna get really dull racing, and I hope not, because you just don't get a chance to uh to put some energy back into the car. Uh, you know, you you these long straights, they're gonna run out of puff by about 30% down the strait, then it's just gonna plateau out, then you're then you're gonna be harvesting, but there's nowhere really to harvest at places like Silverstone, you've got so many fast corners. It's probably gonna be the last sector, you've got the tight, twisty infield bit before you come onto the strait. But yeah, I mean I you know I thought that uh that it was interesting that Max sort of said that because there's no there's no there there was no secret. Max is talking about his contract again at the Red Bull circuit. He was talking, he had a meeting with uh the both the Red Bull owners, Mark Matasich and Shalom Yuvida, I'll get that right, the uh the Thai 51% owner of Red Bull. And they they had a they had a chat, I believe, on the Friday, and they were looking Red Bull were looking at ways to buy Max out of his bailout clause because Red Bull are not hitting those those uh key points and need to hit to to keep him in there. So the fact that that sparked a bit of interest back into him for that race certainly gave Red Bull something, you know, something to cheer about. But if it's not looking good at Silverston, if he if it really is that laughable for for Max, he will be he will go and talk to Zach Brown. I mean he's already had one chat, and uh JP is going there next year, he's engineer, and uh I believe that that one is uh is is definitely one of the shit one of the options that's on the table.

McLaren Form And Verstappen Future Talk

Rick 17:06

Yeah, Zach Brown said at the weekend that it was only it would only be if uh someone fell on a banana skin that they would uh have Max in the team because he's really happy with Piastri and Norris, but of course, business, money, sponsorship, everything that Max brings with him uh plays a part in that. It wasn't a great race for the McLaren's. Oscar Piastri finishing in fourth and Lando Norris way down in seventh. It looked like a pretty miserable outing for Lando.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

Yeah, it was a it was a uh a pretty average uh one for Lando. However, I I I I sort of beg to differ with with a lot of the commentary and a lot of teams about about the McLaren efforts in general, because if you look at on Lando's side, yes, it was very boring, but you look at Oscar's situation. He passed three cars off the start line, including his teammate, on the outside of turn three. He, as I said, he was banging wheels with the Ferrari, both Ferraris, LeClerc and Hamilton, and and got ahead of them. Uh he jumped ahead of his teammate and his reigning world championship in the race and in the championship. He's held the fastest lap for most of the race. He gained the most places in the World Drivers Championship from the result, and that's with arguably the poor the poorest performing car of the front batch of the year. So, you know, it's a car that's gone backwards this year compared to last year, compared to those around it. Andreas Seller and Zach have kind of dropped the ball uh uh you know on this car, and and you know, I just thought that what Piastri did was it was a remarkable effort in that car under those situations, and yet they were, you know, the TV commentators were talking about every driver around him. And I don't think Piastri even got one mention, and yet, despite all that, gaining more positions in the world championship, picking up three places off the start line, finishing in front of his teammate, and was, you know, if it wasn't for just a tiny bit of good luck, would have been on the podium.

Rick 18:46

Yeah, very good point. Um I think Lando Norris said at the weekend he thinks they're now three months behind the other teams in terms of development. They've got some catching up to do. I think they're bringing some upgrades to this weekend in Silverstone, so that could be quite interesting. Silverston often lots of upgrades because most of the teams are based within half an hour's drive of the circuit, so that often helps. Let's talk about further afield

Cadillac Brakes Williams Woes And Audi Progress

Rick 19:08

then. It was a disastrous weekend for Cadillac. They've got massive overheating issues in that team, haven't they? Yeah, huge. And it's all to do with the brakes.

SPEAKER_01 19:15

And, you know, it it's it sort of goes back to well, the way these cars are built is that they're designed to pretty much not have rear brakes anymore. The rear braking, the the bait, the braking on the back wheels comes off the energy recovery from the power unit from the from the electric motor. So all the effort then is on the front brakes. And uh, you know, we saw it in we've had two situations. We had Spain when it was incredibly hot. We had Monaco where you don't go very fast anyway, so you don't get cooling running through the car, and then Austria, where you've got also we had a combination of incredibly high temperatures and thin altitude, nine in, what is it, nine, nine thousand feet or above sea level, something like that. And so therefore, you're not getting a lot of cooling through the front. So you've got we've had three races pretty much on the trot that have been temperature difficult on all the cars, and Cadillac just haven't got their cooling system sorted mainly for the front brakes, and that that that's the bit that's caught on fire. I think the pallium has been okay so far, but these are things that you can't work on a simulator, you can't you can do everything on a sim. Cadillac last year ran a complete phantom team with everyone in the technical centre and and a complete separate in a dummy car in the factory.

Rick 20:25

That's right, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

And they ran it lap by lap by lap every single race of the year. And it just this just proves nothing beats the real world and and they're they're struggling. They're having a hard time trying to get that car cool or the brakes cool.

Rick 20:36

Uh disappointed for Williams again. Carlos Sainz pulled up on the uh start-finish straight with what sounded like uh me throwing a brick into a washing machine. It was not good at all. Williams just can't get to grips with the new rags, they can't get to grips with the car they've got for 2026. Alvin finished, but he was two laps down in 17th. It's not very impressive.

SPEAKER_01 20:57

Yeah, that that that's I mean, another team that's going backwards, isn't it, compared to last year, McLaren and Williams. You know, there was there was a bit of there was a glimmer of light on the horizon last year with what James Vows was doing into it with the money from the and from the the the capital investment that came into the into the company, and it's just not playing out for them this year. And you know, Carlos is a little bit like Fernando thinking, well, time's running out, where do I go? Yeah, um Alex Albon is is probably is just as frustrated, but really disappointing. And again, that impacted Kimmy's race, Kimmy Antonelli's race, because when that car stopped on the f on the start-finish straight, I saw it and I thought, here we go, yellow flag. It'll be a VOC at the very minimum, probably a full safety car within within seconds. And it seemed that it took like ha a lap and a half before they decided to bring it out. And uh and that cost Kimmy his chance, it cost Lewis his chance, I think, as well, from from making a a a pit stop and you know making something out of it.

Rick 21:52

Yeah, um Antonelli was very uh unfortunate with those with those yellows. You know, at the start of the season, me and you sat here on the podcast. We said, oh, it's going to be a great year for Aston Martin and Williams are going to be right up there as well. And what the hell do we know? I mean I'm just looking here. Stroll obviously was told to uh box the car to retire. Alonso was the final finisher at 18th place, three laps off the uh leaders, which is just unbelievable for a man of his experience. It was a mixed bag for some of the other teams. I thought Audi showed quite a lot of promise, just missing out on the points with Bortoletto in 11th and Hulkenberg in twelfth. But they seem to be a fairly solid team, don't they? I mean, they they've got you know good team management with them now. Uh the car seems reliable, if nothing else. They've got to extract some more speed from it. But for their first season with their bespoke power unit, you've got to say hats off.

SPEAKER_01 22:47

That's the big thing, isn't it? And uh they they seem to be the quiet achievers so far this year. When you look at, you say the likes of Aston Martin, I think Lance Stroll did that they did the right thing. They ordered the lobster and had the helicopter running by about lap seven and just said, just park it, your jet's waiting, get out of here. And Fernando's bashing around four seconds off the pace. But you know, uh it's it the Audi guys, and going back to what we've been saying a couple of times so far this season, their experience in building hybrid race cars, whether it be DACA or Formula E, which is full electric or you know, or or uh UEC cars and Lamont cars, is I think it's has it has a big impact on it. You know, that they know how to spend the money in the right areas, they know which technicians and engineers to get, they know which data to to to read correctly and how to put that into the car to make it go. And Alan McNish has got a huge amount of experience on that. So uh yeah, I I I think that has a lot to do with out his success. Uh and and Gabby Bordelletto, from what I understand, is a phenomenal young driver in terms of giving good feedback and not having a hot head. I've never heard him once on the radio kick off in the way that say Isaac Hadger does or others do, or Yuki used to do. You know, he's he's very analytical. So I think that's actually a good team it with with driver and engineers and Alan McNish running it all, and it's quietly it's delivering results.

Rick 24:12

Uh and the you know the only team we haven't mentioned so far is racing bulls. Uh good result for them. Uh Linblad in 10th and Liam Lawson in ninth. I'd love to see Linblad in a really top car. I think he's a special driver. I think he's got a big talent.

SPEAKER_01 24:24

Yeah, Ivan, Ivan Lindblad is uh, you know, considering he he didn't even jump into the car to the start of this year, he was outperforming his his his seasoned teammate, you know, uh Liam Lawson a couple of times now. Liam's now starting to come back. He's getting confidence back in the car again and doing great things. And and this team is, you know, there is a bit of a different situation now in Red Bull and the Red Bull Corporation because it was always the the number two team where you breed young drivers to put into the Red Bull uh and then the poison chalice of the Red Bull's second seed against Max. All that's gone now with the 2026 regs because they're all starting from square one from scratch. Both teams have the same power units, and I see them as being competitors to each other, and I and I see them both uh, you know, equally Lindblad. There's no reason why Lindblad or Liam Lawson can't really challenge Isaac Hadger uh in terms of getting the car up in the in the championship. And I think the new management at Red Bull wouldn't mind that at all. So good package, good power unit. Ivan Lindblad is a is a hungry young guy. I think that that that team is also one that we can really keep an eye on and watch because it's uh yeah, they're they're both pretty good

Friday Clues Russell Mindset And Wrap

SPEAKER_01 25:35

drivers.

Rick 25:35

Okay, let's look ahead to Silverstone then. We've already talked about the super clipping issues, which could spoil everyone's fun on Sunday. I had a quick look at the weather forecast earlier. It's gonna be 29 degrees on Sunday, so it's gonna be another warm one, slightly cooler on Friday and Saturday. Do you think we're gonna tell straight away from practice FP1 on Friday whether this super clipping thing is gonna be an issue for the weekend?

SPEAKER_01 25:56

Yeah, I think we'll I think we'll know pretty quickly at the end of FP1. I think they'll be doing some long runs, obviously trying some new aero packages on the on that track. McLaren is a big upgrade coming. I think they're gonna bring the old Macarena wing that they had in the in their pocket that they didn't use in Austria. So that'll be three teams out there with Red Bull and Ferrari doing the the the flippy upside-downy rear wing. So yeah, we'll see what happens there. And I'm I'm gonna be interested to see how George Russell comes in mentally into into this weekend. Obviously, he's a Brit. He's coming straight off the back of his first win in a long, long time. But he didn't I I don't know, how do you say that? It wasn't really a hard-fought win for for George Russell. The cards fell into his laps in a in a in a in a a lot of ways with the pit stops and everything else. So with that in mind, George needs to go into Silverson thinking that that that he's that he is invincible, uh just not just because he won the last time out, but because you know he's on a level playing field and he needs to go in with a with with a with a really strong attitude to say that he can beat these guys. Because if he doesn't, the other three guys, you know, you got Kimmy Lewis especially and Max will probably eat him alive if he thinks that he's going in thinking that he beat them fair and square last weekend.

Rick 27:12

Yeah, you know, something about George Russell. I've always liked George Russell, but then occasionally he does something that makes me think you're a spoilt crybaby, and it kind of spoils it a little bit for me. You get the idea that George Russell has been fed with a silver spoon from a very young age, and sometimes that spills across. Whereas he he puts effort into being the boy next door, but occasionally the the cracks show and you you can see a slightly different side to him. I may be in harsh by saying that. But it's okay, well that's good. I'm glad I'm not alone in that.

SPEAKER_01 27:42

He's he is the hallway monitor, isn't he? Where you know, like Smithers didn't finish his lunch, sir, you know. And and and he, you know, he picks up the cars in front of him, he checks them all out. And and a classic example of that was you know, when they were talking about pitch strategy, and and he's in and he had the gall to say on the radio, why don't you box Kimmy now because that will help me later on. Well, hang on, who's leading the world championship, Sunshine? Like, seriously, yeah, he's he's he's very quick to uh as well we we used to call him on TV, Constable George, you know. He'd he'd he'd he he'd be going around picking up mistakes by everyone else and and reporting back to his to his boss. I I get where you're coming from.

Rick 28:21

Yeah, definitely. Okay. So uh two soft compounds, the uh the podcast that talks about the pinnacle of world motorsport. And when we started this podcast earlier, we've always said it's an international affair. Damien's in Dubai, I'm in Liverpool, and our executive producer this week, who seems to have nine different homes around the world, is in Manchester. When we started the podcast, you know, with the mod cons and stuff at our disposal, it was, as I said earlier, a little bit like trying to get a podcast set up between three old people's homes. We we did one of us couldn't get a microphone to work, then I've never used a laptop in my life before. How does this do? What do I press? It was uh it was a calamity. But we've done the podcast again, which is good, a minor miracle, and we'll be back next week to talk about what happens at Silverstone this very weekend. Damo, thank you very much. No worries, I say, producer and that hits the right button to save this recording. Otherwise, we'll do it again tomorrow. Doing it again. I'm not doing it again. Right, have a great weekend, everyone. Enjoy Silverstone, and there is a possibility of a flash thunderstorm I'm hearing during the race on Sunday, which will make it not really interesting. I will see you next time on Two Stuffed Compounds. Thanks a lot. Two Stuff Compounds was presented by myself with Gorton alongside Damien Reed, the executive producer with InCollard. Don't forget, if you want to join in the conversation, leave a comment on our Instagram page at TwoStoff Compounds. And if you haven't done so already, please do click that follow or subscribe button. See you next time.