Dutch GP: Zandvoort - The Last Hoorah!

Zandvoort was supposed to be Max's home turf party - instead it all went Pete Tong! 

This week on 2 Soft Compounds, hosts Rick Houghton and Damien Reid dig into the slippery patch warning, the unusual line into Turn 3, and how Liam Lawson's pressure tipped a rare driver error at the worst possible moment. They also unpack Max's Red Bull extension through 2030, Red Bull's off weekend pace, Ferrari's habit of arguing strategy over the radio, and a tense Mercedes podium fight as Russell holds off a charging Hamilton.

Plus there's a McLaren deep dive with Norris looking unstoppable while Piastri's dip becomes the real story and a driver of the weekend that came down to a one split-second call in a cloud of smoke.

Production Credits:

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

Transcript

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Welcome And Zandvoort’s Farewell;

SPEAKER_01 0:02

I don't make mistakes, I make prophecies that immediately turn out to be wrong. Anything can happen in Formula One, and it usually does.

Damien Reid 0:14

Hey, welcome to another edition of Two Stuff Compounds, the Formula One podcast with me, Rick, and him. Damien, who's now back safe in the UAE after his trip to Australia. I'm uh tucked away in Liverpool, North West England, and our producer isn't Kuala Lumpa, a truly international affair. Uh so we're reflecting on the uh the antics of the weekend in Formula One, the last ever race at Zandvoort for the Dutch Grand Prix. Damien, are you gonna miss the race? Yeah, you know what? As a viewer, I am gonna miss it. As a spectator or someone who worked there never in a million years. The facilities are horrendous. The paddocks are split in half, they're a mile apart, it's in the middle of sand dunes. It takes forever to get in there. But you know what, I'm not there. Um, so and I and I love the the atmosphere that it that it gives across on TV to the viewers and and the music and the the Dutch fans are amazing. So, yeah, I am gonna miss it. I would agree with the atmosphere without a doubt. And I think because it is so compact and everyone's sort of squeezed into a small place and it generates the crowd atmosphere that you crave at these Grand Prix meetings. Uh, the one thing I would say about the track is that on paper it looks as though it should be a really good and exciting track, and then in reality, it doesn't quite live up to expectation. Um, and I think, you know, we're not gonna dwell too much on the sprint, but that was a key example of why this track can be a little bit mundane. You see the bank corners and you think, wow, this is gonna be exciting. And in the sprint race, I think there was one major overtake in the sprint race which uh caught my eye, um, which was I can't remember who it was, but they went down the outside into turn six, I think. And, you know, that was the the the highlight moment for me.

Why The Track Often Underwhelms;

Damien Reid 1:49

I was hoping for rain across the weekend because that always spices things up, and we didn't really get any, um, apart from a downpour before the main race on Sunday, which saw Max Verstappen come acropper. And I've been through the stats here, by the way. This is the first time in ten years that Max Verstappen has taken himself out of a race, not been involved with another car, has made a spin which has removed him from the lineup. The last time it happened was 2016 at the Monaco Grand Prix. Um he was under the weather, though, I think. He was suffering with a cold when he went into the weekend. He looked a little bit lackluster in the media pen, and then obviously uh made a very, very rare error at the end of lap one. Incredibly rare, incredibly rare. And I think you know, you just come back to your point. I think the fact that the the why the sprint was was pretty boring, to be honest, um, was because of the weather, as you pointed out. I think no one wanted to take a risk on bending and breaking machinery on a Saturday when the big race is coming up on Sunday. So they kind of tended to follow the leader a bit because it was if he wasn't gonna rain, was it not gonna rain and just get through it. So that yeah, that kind of I think might have explained why it wasn't the best race on Saturday. But coming around to Sunday, yeah. I mean, you know, I heard Max over the radio on the on the on the warm-up lap uh telling GP when he was doing his burnouts uh heading up to the track that it was slippery right where he went off. So um he was aware of it, but uh but yeah. I I was thinking about it, I think maybe, you know, as you say, it's incredibly rare for Max Verstappen to make that to make a driver error a completely his own fault. And uh, you know, if you go back and look at the start of the race, he he took an unusual line going into that parabolic or into turn three. He went down on the inside instead of going up high. And if you remember, that allowed Liam Lawson to get beside him and rattle him a little bit. Now, maybe he was he was had that thought that Mac that that that

Verstappen’s Rare Lap One Crash;

Damien Reid 3:40

Liam is over his shoulder, he's he's pressuring him. That might have been part of the reason because it was an unusual line, and and you know, they did bang wheels coming out of that turn, which has showed tremendous guts from Liam Lawson, but it proves that Max is human after all. Um, driver error in front of his home crowd, something that uh well we've never seen it in front of his home crowd ever, as you say, it's been 10 years since he has a has actually made a mistake. The other time I remember him making a mistake, but I think it was because of a delaminating tire, was at Baku on the front straight. But that wasn't entirely his own fault. That was a tire that was coming apart as well. So incredibly rare for him to uh yeah, to to end up in the wall on his own. Been announced today that he's gonna race go-karts to Silverstone with a hundred other drivers um in a in a race coming up in the next uh few weeks and months, which should be quite interesting. And also, of course, before uh Zanvolt, we got the news that the contract for Max Verstappen's been extended till 2030. I was convinced at the start of the summer break he was gonna join Mercedes. I mean, within a few days of the summer break, he's on uh Toto Wolf's yacht um having fun with jet skis. I thought, well, that's it, it's a it's a done deal. Um George Russell's on his way out, Max Verstappen's gonna get the Mercedes seat, and then of course he extends the Red Bull contract. But I'm reading today that even though he's committed to 2030, Red Bull still have to

Verstappen’s Contract And Exit Clauses;

Damien Reid 4:55

deliver on their KPIs, which means he he has got a get-out clause if the performance isn't there. Guaranteed there'll there'll be get out clauses if the team doesn't perform uh and he doesn't you know get onto a podium or he doesn't hit get a certain number of points by the summer break. There's all the all these clauses that are in these contracts, and contracts are there to be broken if you're in the world of F1, let's be honest. So I think basically what it's done is it's um it's a two-year extension on what was already a contract going extending out to what was it, 27, I think. So I think what it's really done is it's uh in my mind, he's still on the market for other teams. It's just that they've raised the bar an awful lot higher in order to get him away from from Red Bull. If you want, if Mercedes or any other team now wants Max Verstappen, I'm sure he'll still pick up the phone. Just that now they've got to add those extra numbers onto the end of the contract to to get him out of the Red Bull deal. I think that's probably what Red Bull has done. But uh yeah, I I can't see that there wouldn't be breakout clauses for him, uh, you know, if if if the car wasn't performing and the power unit wasn't performing. And also don't forget, now with the with the financial might of Ford behind them, I'm absolutely certain that they would have gone to Detroit and say, listen, you got into this team to to have Max Verstappen, a four-time world champion on your team. If you want to keep him, we need you to cough up as well, match those numbers, and we'll we'll we'll make sure he stays.

Red Bull Pace Wobbles And Strategy;

Damien Reid 6:16

Yeah, an interesting weekend for the other teams. Um, Red Bull obviously struggling with pace of the weekend. You could tell that. I mean, Liam Lawson I thought did a great job jumping back into that car, finishing in seventh. Obviously, Max crashed out at the end of uh lap one. Uh but the Red Bull looked really off it all weekend, as it did in in Budapest to a certain extent as well. Um it was all about the Mercedes, the McLaren's and the Ferraris, and it looked as though when we went into qualifying, it was going to be really very, very close indeed. The race panned out in a slightly different way. I thought Ferrari could have done better in the race, but um there were some highlights for them out of this weekend, I think. Yeah, for sure. You know, I think I think absolutely. But going back to the Red Bull situation, I think it would have been fascinating to see what Max would have done because I was watching him during Friday and Saturday, and he he didn't run the new softs, you know, he nearly missed Q2, nearly missed getting into Q2 because he didn't run the new softs. See, there's only too many uh new mediums. So he started with one new set of softs, two sets of mediums, which meant that he could have actually avoided the hard tires, which was not a good tire. And that's the combination that Liam Lawson ended up running to get his P7 or P8, whatever it was, at the end of the day. So, you know, I can see where Red Bull was thinking they were sacrificing their qualifying pace in order to make sure that they didn't have to run on those hard tires, which weren't really all that good in the in the race. Um, and we saw that play out with Lawson's result, and so it would have been interesting to see what Max could have gotten out of

Ferrari’s Pit Wall And Driver Tension;

Damien Reid 7:43

that. But yeah, I mean, Ferrari, I mean, yeah, interesting tactics from from Ferrari was with them, and uh it showed, you know, you've got two number one drivers. I thought, you know, we're starting to think there is this car built more for Charles than than Lewis, but Lewis really deliberated to the point where, as you as we all heard on the radio, he felt it was being held up by Sharle and probably would have had a crack at at being on the podium if he had been had a chance to get through maybe one or two laps earlier to get past Sharle to uh to try and hunt down George Russell. But you know, encouraging for Ferrari fans anyway, that those two cars do have a bit of pace, they've just got to get their pit wall right. Yeah, I think um uh he apologised for his stroppy radio messages um after the race. So I think basically he was a little bit in the dark, and they'd actually asked Sharle to come in and pit, and he'd questioned it on the radio and decided by himself to stay out. So Hamilton's screaming at his engineer, his engineer really should have said, Well, we asked him, he he he decided he didn't want to, and I guess they covered all that in the debrief, and the lap after that, Charles Leclerc finally comes in, releasing Lewis Hamilton. I mean, this race in Zamvolt this weekend was all about tire deficit, and that made the difference for so many teams. Yeah, absolutely. And I think one of the things with with Ferrari is that, and we've heard this from Charles, and we've heard it from from Lewis as well, there's too much discussion going on with the drivers. Yeah, to be fair, half the time that the drivers are actually correct in calling the shots that there's there's no one at Ferrari, and it hasn't been for a long time, that sort of just says you do it this way and that's it, and that's what you do. Like a bit like we would have had, say, Patrick Head at Williams, you know, that no one questioned Patrick Head in the in the in the glory days of Williams or Nigel Mansell and Damon Hill. It was just that's what you did. And and it there seems to be too much conversation and discussion and open things open for interpretation of Ferrari, and that allows this sort of you know, what when when Lewis is sort of saying, Well, how about we do this? Or tell me what what you've got, just give him the answers and away you go, really. It's uh yeah, I I just think that this is one of the things that that is one of the one of the things that that's clouding Ferrari's forward

Mercedes Podium And Russell’s Complaints;

Damien Reid 9:52

movement. Yeah, um let's talk about Mercedes then. So Antonini finishes second. He had a pretty decent race. I think he was surprised almost by the pace of the McLaren, especially when he was overtaken by them. And George Russell was the same. Now, George Russell, I've always said this, I think, on the podcast, he comes across sometimes a bit of a crybaby. And the same thing again happened in this race when he questioned the team and he said um when when they asked uh Antonelli, sorry, when when George asked uh about team rules when it when it came to um well if Kimmy hasn't got a chance at the win, then he should let me stay in second place. And I just thought, here we go again, that's just George Russell spitting his dummy out. In fact, George did a brilliant job to keep Hamilton behind him in the closing laps of the race. Um there was only about a second in it between him in third and Hamilton in fourth when they crossed the line. Uh, but ultimately, sometimes I think George just needs to swallow his his ego a little a little bit and and let the race pan out the way the engineers see it. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, he he he had a great Saturday, he got a got a brilliant start in the sprint, went on, led every lap, and won that race. So, you know, he he was he was on a high heading into Sunday. But uh but yeah, you're right. I mean, you know, he he had Lewis Hamilton uh chasing him down, pulling in seconds per lap, thanks to to Lewis sort of doing the hard yards in the middle stint and and running those tires for as long as he could, pitted, got onto the good rubber and then chased him down. But George, to his credit, as you say, um managed to park that car beautifully in the middle of the track and and do his best to keep him there. But uh but yeah, I mean he's is you're right. I think he's just gotta realize that he's just got to get knuckled down and and and and get on with it. You know, he's he's under understanding now that that Kimmy has got the better of him uh in the car so far this year, despite the fact that he got that win on Saturday, and he's just got to sort of you know focus, put his head down and go for it because he was yeah, he was in he was very close to being gobbled up by both Ferraris there at one point. Yeah, he was questioned on the radio, I think he was just blown a double podium, and you know, he was wrong ultimately, which would have put a smile on his face when he was on the third step

Piastri’s Dip And McLaren Politics;

Damien Reid 12:02

of the podium. Um I want to talk about McLaren now because there's something going on at McLaren which baffles me a little bit, is the um is the complete absence of any real competitiveness from Oscar Piastri. We saw it in Budapest, we saw it again in the Dutch Grand Prix just gone. I noticed an article from Heike Kovalainen, who I used to work with when he was in the World Series, lovely, lovely man, of course, he's a former McLaren F1 driver, and he said that without a doubt, something's happening behind the scenes which is unsettling Oscar Piastri for his form to have dipped the way it has. We saw a dip in form from him last season, uh, but Heike Kovalainen was was basically alluding to the fact that something's happening in his personal life or there's something going on with the team management that he doesn't agree with, something's just not right, and I think that's becoming more apparent each race we go through this season. Well, there's there's a couple of things there that's and is and Heike is 100% correct, there's a couple of things there that have definitely gone in that direction. If you look at and you and it's this is going back to just just a touch over 12 months ago now, when um the first half of the season last year, Lando was struggling with McLaren, and and as we all know, Oscar had the the great lead in the championship that was turned around, and and there was a very decisive change in the way the car was built. Lando couldn't get that front end of the car to turn, it just wasn't behaving the way he liked it. They did a complete rebuild of the car and they made the car perfect for Lando, and it made a car that was almost impossible for Oscar to drive, and that's where we saw the uh the dive in points last year, as well as a few own goals from Oscar, most notably in Baku. And that's carried through to this year. This is a car that that Oscar can't drive as well as as Lando because they've made the car for Lando. Now you could argue that that's fair enough now. Lando's carrying number one on the car, and he should get the the car that he wants. So that's one part of the package. Then also you have to remember, too, that that Oscar's manager, uh Mark Weber, has effectively been locked out of the garage. Uh Zach Brown said he believes that Mark Weber is a bad influence on him and and doesn't want him in the garage. So, you know, and and again, just going back to something I was said before, that Zach Brown is a business partner of Oscar uh of uh of Lando Norris. So it's not a comfortable environment in there. When when I I can't remember any team principal telling a driver that he can't have his manager with him because he believes he's uh a bad influence or a distraction, I think was the actual word that Zach used. So these little things add up over the course of the year, and then of course, the you know, he Oscar doesn't have the confidence of the team. And I think that's fairly, fairly obvious. He's he's doing what he needs to do, he's playing the team role, but it's it's it's definitely Lando's team from the day that they decided to to rebuild the car to make it Lando's car and not Oscar, despite trailing him and the world championship at the time. So Heike's definitely onto something there for sure. Yeah, interesting how that pans out for the rest of the season. Uh Norris is on fire, wins in Budapest, wins in in um Holland. And you know, when he didn't come in for Fresh Rubber during the VSC, started questioning himself over the radio, he's like, oh, I'm a bit nervous about this, maybe we should have come in. Um he didn't, of course, but I was absolutely amazed that Antonelli on Fresh Rubber couldn't make a dent really in the time. I think the gap was 16 seconds when they crossed the finish line, it was 11 and a half seconds. Lando was just driving like a man possessed for the last part of that Grand Prix. Yeah, he drove an absolutely brilliant race. It was a great race for Norris and a great pass on both Kimmy and Lewis. I mean, that was phenomenal, you know. The um uh and it was a very good decision from the team management as well. We switched to the soft tires after the restart, and that helped him well. And again, going back to the other side of the garage at McLaren, I have no idea why they put Oscar onto two sets of hard tires, despite the fact he got an amazing start on those hard tires uh off the start line. And then I thought, okay, well, he's on the hard, he'll be out there for for for the long run now. But then they boxed him twice more and finished when mediums to finish. So, yeah, an interesting one, but but not taking nothing away at all from from Lando Norris, drove a faultless race. As you say, he stayed out on those tires, did what he needed to do, and and just controlled it. And he he is very, very comfortable, and you can see his confidence is growing, you know, with that car now and the way he talks after the race in the in the pen, that he's just feeling extremely comfortable with the car. And you know, is Kimmy Hansnelli safe for the for the championship or is is is Lando still a potential? I mean, I it's a big call to say, but uh the points deficit was uh was is less now than it was this time last year. Yeah, and of course we know that Antonelli's gonna start from the back of the grid for his home race in Monza because of an engine penalty, so that's gonna give Norris a a clear advantage. If he's still on the same form there as he was in Holland, then he's got every chance of closing that deficit to uh even tighter margin. Would you agree with me uh this year, Damo, that um tyre compounds don't seem to be making as much of a difference as they were last season. Maybe it's

Tyres Feeling Too Similar This Year;

Damien Reid 17:08

the new cars, maybe it's the electrical power that is helping things along. But you know, last season you pretty much knew that you were going to be uh half a second faster on a soft tire than you would be on a medium, and then and the medium would be uh half a second to seven tenths faster than the hard tire. It doesn't seem to be panning out that that way this season. The tires seem fairly equal in most circumstances. Yeah, no, you're right. You know, uh it it was. Last year it was this half to seven tenths or even one second a lap difference in Abu Dhabi between the between the three compounded tires. Um and then, yeah, you're 100% right. Because you go back, there was a radio message to to Piastri when he was on the hard tires, uh you know, the second set, I think it was, and I was saying, How are the how are the tires? Are there? And he goes, Yeah, yeah, not much different to the mediums. And in my mind, I thought, oh, well, that that sums it up, really, doesn't it? Um unless you're talking about the soft tyres, that they probably are the biggest difference. But the mediums, the hard's not it, not too much of a difference between the two of them. And forget about the inters and the wets. As soon as there's a slight chance of drizzle, it's safety car stuff. So I don't even know why we bother with inters and wets, to be honest, other than using them as transport tires to wheel the cars on in and out of the trucks. Yeah, I would totally agree with you, Damon. I think yeah, it is strange. I mean, you would expect the soft tyre just not to last as long as the others, but performance-wise, it doesn't seem to be a massive amount of difference this season. Um, and they seem to be able to eke out the tyre life. Um obviously, these drivers have become very skilled about sort of saving the tires, they call it. Um, but mediums are lasting a lot longer than they really should, and even Perelli is saying, yeah,

Hulkenberg’s Smoke Escape And Audi Rise;

Damien Reid 18:40

you know, if you've got 32 laps out of a medium, then on paper that should never happen, but it starts to happen, you know, so it makes it fascinating. I want to um talk about my driver of the weekend. Um, I know the rest of the the guys that we've talked about all did superb jobs, especially Lando Norris. Um, but my driver of the weekend's Nico Hulkenberg. I just thought he got so much out of that car, it was unbelievable. And then going back to the uh Max Verstappen incident at the end of Lap 1, same happened to uh Hulkenberg's teammate Bortilto, who had his own spin um just behind Verstappen, it looked as though they may have come together when I first saw it, but that they didn't, it was completely separate incidents. And the reaction from Hulkenberg to avoid T-boning his teammate in that hail of smoke where he couldn't see a thing, I just thought was absolute genius. Someone said it was luck. I think it was Karoon Chanduk said it was luck, and I thought, no, it's not. If you looked at the steering wheel during that instant, he clearly pushes it to the left, um, and he's literally made a split, it was like a daze of thunder scene. He's literally made a split second decision thinking I can't see a thing, I'm in a cloud of smoke. Will he go up the track or will he go down it? And he made the right call and he missed him by literal millimetres. It was an amazing thing to see. And then I thought for the rest of the race, Holkenberg had a really good outing. He had some great little battles in the midfield. Yeah, no, no, yeah. Absolutely, you know, I think he he drove that race beautifully. That the way he got around that incident was phenomenal, and you're right. I don't think it was luck at all. I think he he came through, it was a definite, it was a daze of thunder scene with the onboard camera just going into a a wall of of white tire smoke. And you and you you're right, you saw his wheel sort of turned down and then turned up, and uh, and you know, his mind is obviously thinking, well, it's it's slightly banked, so that makes sense the car's gonna go down. So he went up in in you know, thousandths of a second decision to to come out of that. But you know, the team put him on the right set of tires, as you say, going back to the tire situation, he got he got two runs out of the softs. He was the only guy who ran two sets of soft um tires for the race. Then he put a set of hards on right at the end. Well, why not? McCar was light on fuel, it was it was the lightest it's going to be. He'd run out of mediums during during qualifying, and that combination worked. So, you know, um, and and he just drove a very sensible race. And I think these guys, the Audi team of the team of the, you know, they started off climbing well as a as a first, you know, as a as a Debut team, effectively, plutto'd out a little bit, but I think they're actually just going to be the quiet achievers as the the way this this one plans plays out this year, because you know, Gabby is is a is a mature young guy as well. Holkenberg is a world of experience, uh, you know, Lamont winner, and and uh and he's been in F1 since forever. I think that's got a really good, you know, sensible head on their shoulders. Alan McNish is running it, he's a he's a pretty pretty sensible guy. These are the guys to watch. I think they're gonna give racing balls a run for their money towards the end of the year in Alpine.

Alonso’s Points And Honda’s New Start;

Damien Reid 21:40

Yeah, and I have to give a mention to Fernando Alonso, finished in the points in ninth place with two points in his world championship uh battle this year. Um obviously they updated the power unit in the back of the Aston Martin. Alonso actually said they had made some progress on the power unit up until this point, and now they've put the new one in. Um he's kind Of like, well, we're back to square one, but it's unlocked a lot of potential. And if we can do what we did in the first half of the season with the tweaks that we made to the power unit, then it could be a a surprisingly good end to the season. Um and I just hope Alonso sticks with the team for next year because even though they're almost certainly at least six months behind in their development program with all of the issues that they initially had, that car could be um could be brilliant next year. Keep an eye on this one, really keep an eye on this one. We we we talked earlier uh about the uh the humiliation that Honda received at the Japanese Grand Prix and and how the how much they do not like being humiliated in Japanese culture. So, from my understanding, is that the internal combustion engine part component of the power unit is not a refresh. It is 100% brand new. There is not one component, not a spark plug, not not a spring, not a washer that carried it that is carried over from the previous Honda power unit. This is new from the absolute ground up in its wave distribution, in the the component the components it's using to make it the composite materials, everything on this on this power unit is 100% new. So they're starting again, Honda. And you know, we know what Honda can achieve when they get things right. And I and I think, yeah, I mean, Fernando's the oldest guy to get to score points in uh in in in God knows how many years. He's done a great thing, and it he absolutely showed up his teammate, who I believe retired with a sore wrist. I mean, that's a little embarrassing.

Alpine And Racing Bulls Midfield Fight;

Damien Reid 23:34

It just sums it up, doesn't it? Really daddy, my wrist is sore. Um yeah, so interesting. Interesting as well for Alpine and the Racing Bulls to know to jump back into the Racing Bulls' car. That's no mean feat, really, is it, when you think about it. He'll have done lots of simulator work as a reserve driver, but you know, he's jumped into these new cars vastly different than they were last year. He's finished in 11th. Limblad had a bit of a nightmare at the start and he finished in 12th. Alpine, Pierre Gasly had the upgrades on the car um where his teammate Colapinto didn't. So Gasly finished in 10th, Colapinto down in 14th. But it was disappointing for both those teams this weekend, wasn't it? Yeah, it was a bit. Um I was expecting a little bit more from from those guys, especially the upgrades in in Gasly's car. And I'm sure Pierre's probably not too too happy with that either. But I guess they're just, you know, it's it's so competitive. And and I guess now too, that there's part of part of the Alpine management are starting to already switch to next year. And with that, I'm talking about their budget and what they can build for next year, because they are going to be uh the richest team on the grid, without without a question of the doubt, with their their their massive sponsorship uh coming from from Louis Vuitton next, I think it was Louis Vuitton, isn't it? Next year. So uh no, Gucci, sorry, I'll get that right. Gucci to go against the Louis Vuitton sponsorship of of the category. So yeah, maybe they're they're sort of thinking, okay, well, this this will get us through for now, and we we're going to start focusing on on you know building a a a real good car for next year, because we are starting to get to that point of the season, but then you can't afford to drop the ball in the for the midfield teams at all because like last year, it's super competitive when you're talking about as I say, racing bulls there uh and uh Audi coming through as well. Um, they can really make some headway while other teams like Williams and Cadillac are falling backwards very quickly. Yeah, we've got to talk about Cadillac.

Cadillac Collapse And Williams Worries;

Damien Reid 25:28

I mean, uh nightmare season continues, only one finisher, which was Perez in 15th. Uh but Williams, wow, you know, I mean, I I really quite like James Vows. I I d I do. I I like his attitude, I like the way he talks very cleanly and very simply and and doesn't, you know, sugarcoat anything. But uh the excuses have been thus far, it's a trap that's not for us, but these excuses continue. And Alban didn't finish the race. Um Sainz finished in last place of all the finishers in 16th. It was two laps down, both cars looked almost undriveable. What the hell's going on at Williams? I know, I know, and they just re-signed both drivers as well. And uh yeah, and and the fact that both drivers banged into each other. It's it is it's just a a a disaster, I think, at Williams at the moment. And and I don't know what's I don't know what's going through Carlos Sainz's head right now because he's just signed up with them, and I know it's great for them to push the PR spin saying, look, you know, I I I signed up for a for a task and I'm gonna you know make sure we get through and make this team competitive, but Carlos is not getting any younger and and and you know in my mind I'm thinking, well, he's put a price on his world championship, you know, he's taking the money because I I can't see Carlos Sainz competing for a world championship in the rest of his F1 career. He's he's he's taken the money to go with Williams to to do what he can with them, and I guess maybe that's because there's not too many other seats there, but they really, really need to do something about you know, this was supposed to be a a a better year for them, and and you look at their trajectory for the last three years, they've just gone back for the la backwards for the last three years. And I'm sure that the their owners, their owners, Doralton Capital, are gonna start asking questions because Doralton are not motorsport people, they're numbers people, they're finance people, they don't see a return on their investment, the old ROI and the book, they're gonna look elsewhere and and and start to ask some very, very difficult questions. Yep, they certainly are. Well, I thought overall Zamvoort's final appearance on the F1 calendar was much better than I'd anticipated. I thought the battle in the midfield was fascinating. There were some really good cheeky overtakes going on, and some real uh dri uh some drivers take some real risks shooting down the inside to get past other cars. I thought um in the large part it was uh it was a pretty good race, even though I'm still not a massive uh fan of the uh the rules. You didn't notice them as much because of the nature of the track. I think when we go to Monza, we're gonna notice it again one hell of a lot. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And uh I I I want to keep up, I want to I want to keep a positive spin on this. Monza, it's another fast track, and we've seen what this year's cars do to fast tracks. It makes slow tracks look good. And I'm just hoping that these cars are not gonna run out of battery before they even reach turn one because it's a very long straight and how they're gonna handle things like the parabolicus. So keeping fingers crossed on on that one. But very quickly, I've got to say, Rick, I don't know about what you're hearing over there, but there's

Monza Hopes And Qatar Abu Dhabi Uncertainty;

Damien Reid 28:25

been an enormous amount of talk over here about comments that Stefano Domenicali made about the fact that Qatar and Abu Dhabi are confirmed and and the local media have been jumping on that. I just want to pick up on something. It's not confirmed yet. It's confirmed insofar as the fact that it's on the calendar at the start of the year and that's the way things are. But the comments that were picked up by the by the media here saying that um Stefano said, as it stands today, the races in Qatar and Abu Dhabi are confirmed. What he said two seconds before that was that the moment we will announce it, it will not be before the middle of September. And then he said afterwards, he said, of course, the situation, if the situation is not cleared up the way that we believe it should be before the middle of September, we will take a decision. Now the alternative is obviously a European finale in Porto Mayo or maybe even Immler if it's not too cold. So he said, look, if the situation doesn't give us the information that we want, then we'll make a decision and inform where the European races will be hosted to close the season. This is information that the local media and the UAE is not hasn't been running. They've been they've been obsessed about the fact that he used the word confirmed. Just want to put it out there, it's definitely not confirmed. We're hoping, fingers crossed, it will be for our sake. But uh it's a dicey situation in the region right now. We've got to play it by year. Yeah, definitely, definitely. We want to keep everyone safe. Well,

Wrap Up And How To Follow

Damien Reid 29:45

Damo, thank you very much for uh appearing on this edition of Two Stuff Compounds. We'll do it again next time. Uh for now though, thanks very much for listening. Tell your friends, tell your family, if they're Formula One fans, to grab a dose of two stuff compounds a couple of days after each Formula One race. We'll see you next time. Thanks for listening. Two Stuff Compounds was presented by myself with Coach alongside Damien Reed, the executive producer with In College. Don't forget, if you want to join in the conversation, leave a comment on our Instagram page at Two Stuff Compounds. And if you haven't done so already, please do click that follow or subscribe button. See you next time.