Italian GP: A Proper Head-Scratcher!

Monza gave us a proper head scratcher: the speed traps and lap times say slower, but the racing looked busier than ever. 

This week on 2 Soft Compounds, hosts Rick and Damien dig into why purists hate and casual fans love the recent hybrid deployments, battery tactics and  "yo yo" overtakes now prevalent in F1. 

The boys also celebrate Pierre Gasly's properly earned pole for Alpine, and get stuck into Ferrari's upgrades, the murky rules between Hamilton and Leclerc, and whether Leclerc's crash was really about energy deployment. 

Plus Antonelli's charge through the field, a race defining Virtual Safety Car, McLaren's Norris–Piastri drama, Verstappen's rear end woes, and the shuffle after Hadjar's injury. And finally, a look ahead to the Madrid Mad Ring: close walls, a red flag heavy history, and almost no data to lean on.

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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Monza Purists Versus The New Racing

Damien Reid 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. Hey, welcome to another edition of Two Stop Compounds, me, Rick, and him Damien. We are looking back at the Italian Grand Prix of the historic Monza in the Royal Park, one of my favourite races of the year. Now, uh Damo, I'm we've been talking about Formula One purists all season long with these rule changes. And as a purist, I just thought it was a yo-yo race, and the speeds were nothing like uh they normally are at Monza. But I suppose I'm gonna have to drop my snootiness and start admitting that some of these races can be quite spectacular to watch with all of the overtaking that was going on during the Grand Prix. Um, yes, I'm in two minds about all of this because like you, yeah, I can see through the uh the the charade that they try to present to say that this is this is amazing racing. Um, when when it's basically as Lando Norris said it says whoever pushes the button first. Uh however, yeah, I mean there it was actually entertaining to watch. And if you're here for the entertainment, then you've got entertaining uh uh racing. But it doesn't take away the fact that yeah, the speeds were down. You know, you're looking at uh George Russell was was what 345 kilometres per hour through the speed trap last year. Nico Holkenberg was 358 kilometres per hour through the speed trap. So, you know, there there were some some pretty big differences in terms of uh the speeds, the lat times you're looking back to to last year. I think Max Verstappen was a 118-7, Pierre Gasly was a 121-7 for his polls. So it's you know, three seconds uh off the pace compared to last year. However, um it was entertaining racing, I'll give you that. Yeah, the big shock of the weekend came on Saturday when Pierre Gasly put his Alpine on pole position, his first ever in Formula One. Uh but Mons is a circuit he likes. That was where he got his first ever victory. Uh, and that was a pretty amazing thing to pull off, I thought. It was fantastic. I was so happy for him. He's he's one of the nice guys of Formula One, and um and he's certainly earned his stripes, and he's always been um uh been in uncompetitive cars with the exception of the the early days at Red Bull when he was very young. But but you know, yeah, I mean, and the thing is he didn't fluke it, it didn't just come out on the day. He was genuinely on the pace, and to be fair, so was Franco Colapinto. The Alpines were on the pace right from Friday, and uh and he put it all together when it counted, and it was under the radar. No one was really, even though he was his time was sort of up there and every everything else, we're thinking, okay, well, when it gets serious, the usual guys will come to the top. But Pierre stayed there and uh and and he hammered it home, and it was a thoroughly, thoroughly well-deserved pole position. It wasn't through a safety car or a yellow flag or anything like that. Pure pace and his pure ability around that Monza Trope. And of course, uh most of us uh on Saturday thought, well, he's not gonna hold on to pole position for very long during the race. He's got a great qualifying setup, uh, but race pace is always gonna be a little bit less than uh than he was able to achieve over one lap.

Gasly’s Surprise Pole On Pure Pace

Damien Reid 3:15

Um so I I think I would sum up the Italian Grand Prix by saying it was embarrassing for many people. And I say that because, first of all, Ferrari have got their problems. Fred Russell has come out since the race and talked about them still not having the right sort of power modes that they need. Um, they brought some upgrades to the Italian Grand Prix, which didn't seem to make much of a difference. Um, and embarrassing because Ferrari are unable to manage their drivers. Uh Lewis Hamilton says at Mercedes they had rules of engagement that were very, very clear. He said the Le Klerk thing on the opening lap would never have happened at Mercedes because they both knew what the rules of engagement were. There are none at Ferrari. And I think it's about time Ferrari started listening a little bit to Lewis Hamilton. If you look at Charles Leclerc, again, embarrassing. His fourth crash of the season, his damage bill is now two million dollars for the damage he's done to those Ferrari cars so far this season. Um I think it was not a rookie mistake by any means. He lost grip on the outside of the parabolica. Um but the way he tried to recover that car, I think most drivers would have saved it. And Charlotte Clerk wasn't able to with his steering input. You could say it was unlucky, uh, but he hit the wall, and you know, that was the end of the Ferrari mission for the afternoon, really, because what they did with Lewis Hamilton after that uh we'll come on to in the next few minutes. But Charlotte Clerk needs to shape up, doesn't he? Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's there's a couple of things to unpack out of all that for sure. As I said, as uh $2 million he's now cost the team in crash damage. Um I did hear talk just very, very recently that Antonio Giovanazzi is on standby for Madrid in case Charlotte Clerk is physically not well enough to race this weekend. So uh there is still something lingering about that. Uh, but I just want to go back to yeah, he his incident uh in in the race is uh I'm I'm I'm not entirely convinced it was 100% his fault because I think this might be a situation, and I'm sure that we it it might be unpacked over the next few weeks, but might be a situation of the car deploying its energy in unusual ways. And and we've not seen uh we're we're this is not unusual. We've seen this a few times before. Um, you know, you look back at Oscar Piastri in Melbourne, at Max in Austria and in Spa, George Russell at Silverstone, because there was something that came out on it wasn't with his car, it was with Pierre Gasly. And his team engineer, team engineer, said on Saturday, uh, when Pierre Gasly said, Look, I've got no power out of turn seven, and his engineer replied saying, Don't worry, it's just the deployment shifting around a little bit. Now, straight away my my alarm bells went up and went, hang on, what do you mean deployment is shifting around? And and Charles Leclerc said something when he after the crash, he said he he he got on the power and then he lifted and feathered, which he did the exact same movement the previous lap, and he was expecting the same result, but it gave a very different result. So I'm wondering whether there was some kind of issue with the power deployment of the car to make it suddenly snap and and go off like that. Um so I'm not I'm not quite ready to sort of throw the daggers into Charlot just yet on that one. Uh but yeah, I mean when you talk about team you know T uh who's number one at Ferrari, uh it's something I kind of predicted or or leaned on at the end of last week because when you're looking at going into last weekend's race, um clearly there was Kimmy Antonelli taking his grid penalty, so he was therefore going to help George Russell get as high as he could. And uh with Liam Lawson and at Red Bull, he was gonna help Max do what he could, Oscar supporting Lando. Well, that's that's that's kind of normal at McLaren, so that was gonna be the case. But the two Ferrari guys, you're right, there's no team orders with those two guys. Um and my my question is so I kind of predict that on Friday, but my question is who at Ferrari has the guts to tell Lewis Hamilton to stand down at any particular point, considering they're paid so much money to get him on board, and if they're side by side coming through a corner, who who I'm not sure if Fred Visur has has the has the guts to do it, but who's got the guts to say to Lewis Hamilton, step aside and let Charles take the corner? That's probably where the issue is. There's no Toto Wolf type of person, Ed Ferrari, who's got the guts to tell one driver that they should step aside for the other. Isn't it as simple as the the way Mercedes do it, where them you know they were on the radio constantly to both of their drivers in Monza saying race cleanly? Isn't it as simple as you know doing that in the in the uh in the brief before the race? You know, we know it's gonna be tight into term one. You guys need to look after each other's cars and you need to do it cleanly. And clearly both Leclerc and Hamilton were focused on nailing that that chicane ahead of the other one. So, you know, the race cleanly thing kind of went out of the window. Yeah, I mean, someone someone's got to step up to the plate at Ferrari and and say, at least this is the way it is. The problem with Ferrari is that Charles Leclerc uh is still the the anointed one at Marinello. He's been a Ferrari junior driver since a young boy. His brother is also a Ferrari junior driver after LeClerc as well, and he's got a long-term contract there. And and Lewis is still the new boy that that's been drafted in at enormous expense. So the difference uh compared to say Mercedes is that uh um sure, Lewis was drafted in there as well, but it's but but he had a very different relationship with Toto Wolf, and and Toto could sort of uh you know drag the line out a little bit, but it was always Lewis's team to be fair. Um there was never a situation, I don't think, where they said to Lewis, look, do you want to step aside and let Valkyrie take the win in this one? Um But yeah, with this situation, I'm not sure to be honest, Freddie Vassur is a lovely guy. I'm not sure he's got the he's got the medal to actually put his foot down and say, if if it favors Charles Klerk to say, listen, Lewis, do not challenge Charles Klerk. I can't imagine that coming over the team radio at any point at Ferrari. Uh we'll come back to Ferrari a little bit later on with the strange decision um with Lewis Hamilton during the race, which I picked up on whilst I was watching, I was like, what? Anyway, we'll come

Ferrari’s Mess And Leclerc’s Crash

Damien Reid 9:24

back to that. Um I continue the theme of being embarrassing. Um that has to be an embarrassing weekend for George Russell, doesn't it? It has to be. I mean, he starts on the restart after the red flag, he starts on the front row and sort of dominates the opening laps of that restart. His teammate started in 19th after the engine penalty. At the end of lap one, he was up to 12th with some superlative driving on that first lap. He was aggressive when he needed to be, backed off when he needed to be, uh needed to. He was just sublime. And for your teammate to come from the back of the grid to eventually win the race, that has to be embarrassing for George Russell. Oh, I mean, you know, I mean, George Russell kind of admitted that himself in the pen after the race, says when he said, Look, I'm not even thinking about the championship now, I'm just gonna, you know, focus on race by race and do what I can. And um, and because that was sublime, one of the best races I've seen from any Grand Prix driver, uh, from Kimmy Antonelli coming through. Uh having said that though, because the team knew that he was going to take that back of the grid penalty from the start and end up starting P19, uh, they they started working on a strategy as early as Friday because if you go back and look at the tires that they used, some very clever strategy in in FP1 and two. And uh and and that meant that he was the uh uh he Kimmy Antielli was the only driver who had two sets of brand new mediums during the race. And uh George was was effectively on the hards. And when the race kicked off, you remember there was a there was the the red flag situation was very quickly, so they went to a brand brand new set of new uh mediums for for for Kimmy and a set of hards for uh for George. And George effectively had to sit it out for the rest of the race on those hards. It was a almost like a no-stop strategy for George Russell. He had to stick it out. Kimmy had to had to box again to go to a new set of mediums. Now the the pit box gods were shining on Kimmy Anselli because that VSC came out perfect timing when uh when when the Aston Martin, I think it was stopped and allowed him to go through a brand new set of set of mediums, um, chasing down a very doggy set of hard tires on George Russell. So he kind of knew that he was a sitting duck for the rest of the race. But you can't take anything away from the fact that you that strategy only works when you've got an absolute genius driver behind the wheel, and Kimmy Antonelli, my goodness, I mean that as I said, that is just one of the best drives I've ever seen. He was given the the ingredients he needed with the tires and the pit stove strategy, but boy did he make it effective. I mean, yeah, uh you could see George Russell had nothing to fight back, even with a new set of tires. I don't think George could have answered him anyway. Yeah, I mean, um before the VSC, we saw some great battles between George and Kimmy um overtaking each other and then uh doing swapping it round again in the the following lap, and again we've talked about battery deployment and super clipping and all that stuff. Um to the average fan, that looks amazing. It looks really spectacular to me as a purist, and I need to try and drop this, I just need to watch and enjoy, I think. Uh but to me as a purist, I'm like, oh come on, it's just yo-yo racing. Um but Kimmy Antonelli made 26 overtakes during that race, uh, which is just quite incredible, whether they've got battery deployment or not. His attitude is just I mean, he's only just turned 20. Um Toto Wolf said he's like AI, he continuously improves and learns. And you can see that, physically see it from race to race. Yeah, absolutely. And and that's the most number of pitch stops by overtakes by any driver in a single race in history. So, you know, um, uh, and he ever took, I think, with Lewis Hamilton to the record before that. So fantastic.

Antonelli’s Masterclass And Mercedes Strategy

Damien Reid 13:09

Uh, but but yeah, I just want to pick there was something that we talked about last time out, or you picked up on rather last time out. And I think I've found an answer to this which might get into this Mercedes situation. If you remember, you said last time you were talking about the tire deck, uh, and the lack of difference in times between a soft and a medium and a and a hard. Yeah. Um, because the cars are, you know, uh well, well, I think talking to a couple of people after after Sunday's race is that probably because the cars are going into corners now at a slower speed, there's less stress on the front axle and therefore less downforce. So therefore, there's less work for those tires to do mostly on the front. So that's that's why I think there's not much of a difference in the tide deck. And that's why also you're hearing a lot of chart uh chatter about, especially for Max, about how the rear tires are not working and and all that kind of thing. Because, you know, uh, don't forget us, it's it's the rears that are doing most of the braking thanks to the electric motor at the back now. Um, so I'm thinking now, piecing all that together, maybe that's why Mercedes, with had with that in mind, thought that George Russell could do the whole race on the hearts, because that difference is no longer there that we had last year between the various compounds. Because simply and just not going as fast into corners as they were last year and not putting the same amount of stress through the front tires as they go into a corner. Yeah, uh very interesting that, and I think that's something that we've both sort of focused on during this season. The tire dag's just not nothing like it was. Um, you know, last year, if you had a set of softs at Monza, they'd probably last you five laps, six laps before they started graining up. Um this year you get the you get the uh the the look the insight that those tires will last a lot longer, and it's the same for the mediums and the hards, it's just not as it was. And I think you've uh made a really good point

Tyre Delta Shrinks With Slower Corners

Damien Reid 14:57

with that. Let's go back to the VSC then. So virtual safety car comes out after Lan Stroll um stops on circuit. Uh, Lan Stroll, by the way, breaking the record this weekend for 100, uh not progressing past um qualifying one. So he's the is the first driver to hit the 100 milestones 100 times. He hasn't got out of Q1, uh, which is not the sort of record he wants to have on his TV. But still, he stopped on circuit. It brought out the virtual safety car. Kimmy Antonelli came into pits to change onto those new mediums. So did Max Verstappen. My point is, why did Ferrari not bring Lewis Hamilton in at the same time? Yeah, I I I'm not sure. I think it's probably because they didn't have anything to put on his car. I think they'd chew through them all during during Friday and Saturday practice and qualifying the same reason with uh George Russell being left out on those tires, which he said were were opening up towards the end of his uh his race as well. Um, there was nothing else left, but you know, you'd think that there's got to be something there. And and you know, it was as you say, it was a virtual zero stop strategy again for Lewis Hamilton on the medium tire, um, after dropping back to P10 when he went off the track. And I've got to say, it was a remarkable drive by Lewis Hamilton to give considering the fact that he had a virtual zero-stop strategy, he was on the medium tire, which was dead. He dropped back to P10 after being pushed off track and still managed to come through with you know, given given the tools that he had, uh, to to try and fight find out, you know, try and fight um his way back to the front. But um, yeah, I I I think when everyone saw the red flag come out after Charles crash, I think a lot of the team at team strategists were like, great, let's make this our pit stop. We'll put everyone onto onto hardzor, the best tie that we've got, and that'll take us to the end. And I don't think anyone thought that there might be another pit stop opportunity during the middle of the race, um, which came out with the VSC. And that just fell beautifully into Kimmy's hands, but everyone else is kind of left uh left with their trousers down. Yeah, definitely. Hamilton finishing eventually in sixth place. Let's talk about the McLaren

VSC Pit Calls And Hamilton’s Recovery

Damien Reid 17:06

then. Uh this was not shown on the world feed, but Lando Norris overtook Oscar Piastri, his teammate, on the final lap and finished 0.1 seconds ahead of the Australian um when it came to the line. So that was incredibly tense and incredibly close. Uh Lando Norris, though, um dominated the last two Grand Prix. This time out just didn't have the car underneath him. Either did Oscar really. Uh, they showed some signs in practice, but I understand Lando Norris had a braking problem, which they simply couldn't fix uh before the Grand Prix. Yeah, it was it was a great, great battle between those two guys, uh very evenly matched cars. And you're right, it was right. I was keeping an eye in the uh you know, in the the little inset window to see what was happening with the two McLaren's and there was it was the yo-yoing again, and again, you know, it comes back to the deployment issue. They're they're obviously, even though they're identical cars, I think they're deploying their energy in different parts of the track. And it's not just the McLaren's, it's the other teams as well, because there was overtaking and repassing between the two um getting down there, and it was right down to the to the last lap where Lando uh he had the he had the better use of the tyres, he maintained them better and then got the pass. Uh, but the one thing though that's still it just just just gets up my nose a little bit is that again um Oscar Piastri got the radio warning to not even attempt to challenge his teammate, which which harks back to Austria last year, where he was told not to get within a chance of overtaking. Um and it just seems to me that Lando can crash into Oscar numerous times and that's fine. But if Oscar attempts to overtake Lando, uh he he gets the sort of, you know, Oscar, you'd know you know your position in the team and step back and and uh again he acquiesced and and and you know went along with it, but not take anything away from from from the pace that Lando Norris had. When it got down to it, he did pass him fair and square, and uh and it was really good racing between those two guys. Yeah, we mentioned this on the podcast last week. Uh I think it was Johnny Herbert that said Oscar Piastri's got something going on, something going on internally with the team in that he's he's being um ignored to a large degree in favour of Lando Norris. And he also said he he thinks there's something going on perhaps in his personal life, but he's just not a happy puppy at the moment, Oscar Piastri. Yeah, well not having a team manager uh being allowed to sit in the p in the in the pits in the uh in the garage is probably a major thing when Lando's got his dad and his mum there every race, um, and Oscar's pretty much on his own. So, you know, that's it kind of paints the picture as to where they place him in the team. Yeah, which is surprising to me. I think when when uh Oscar Piastri was leading the world championship last year, um it seemed as though Zach Brown and the guys were piling all the praise on his shoulders and saying he's brilliant, you know, he's the next world champion. And then as soon as Lando starts getting a sniff um and overtakes him in the standings and becomes world champion, all the ags are now in Lando's basket, would you agree? Yeah, well, if you've got to remember, we go back to the first third of last year and uh and and Lando was was I think it was after Baku maybe I can't quite remember, but Lando was going on about how the car is just undrivable and Oscar was walking away with the points and the and the the championship at that point, and they rebuilt they rebuilt both cars to to the way Lando drives the car, which is very different to the way Oscar drives the car. And uh from that point on, in fact, I think it was Baku, where Oscar had a few pretty disastrous owned goals um in that race, and uh and and from that point on it became a car that that Oscar could no longer drive, and Lando loved it. So um, and now of course, Lando is the world champion, so you can't really argue that kind of argument anymore. The papaya rules, we haven't heard that discussion come up at all this year um because he is the world champion. And to be fair, if I was the team owner, I'd be putting my eggs into the basket of the cat of the guy carrying the number one on the car as well. But uh, but how it got to being number one, that's a whole nother point of discussion. Yeah, definitely.

McLaren Team Orders And Last Lap Pass

Damien Reid 21:02

Uh, let's touch on the Red Bulls, Max Verstappen, finished in third. He looked absolutely exhausted when the helmet came off. Um, I haven't seen him look that exhausted at a race before, so he was obviously uh working very hard behind the wheel. Um he was talking about uh rear axle issues for the entire race. In fact, for the entire weekend, uh they came back on the radio and said, listen, the data's telling us absolutely nothing. Everything is working as it should be. He just had a feeling that the rear axle wasn't behaving as he wanted it to. Yeah, there's something going on there, isn't there? I mean, he he I he used the term the rear end is broken. He's he used that in the last race as well, and I think even in uh in Zandvoort. And uh I'm I mean it's not physically broken, but that's how disjointed that the car feels. And I think it probably goes back to what we're talking about at the start of this chat about the fact that the rear end, the the electrical motor does most of the braking now. There's there's not much there's the the the physical disc brakes are very small. All on the back of a Formula One car now because it's it's it's the ne it's the negative charging, it's the rewinding of the electric motor that slows the car down. And so there is a disconnect there between, I think, between the electric motor and the combustion engine, which is giving him these issues. And you know, he Max started on the soft tires, he then went to the mediums on the red flag, and then he went switched to the hards where uh when the VSC came out. Um, so he did take that pit. Uh and you know, he was, I mean, he drove that car as hard as I've seen anyway. If you think going back to when he went straight ahead at turn one through the chicane um chasing, chasing I think it was Oscar, and uh he was flicking it through the chicane like Scando flicks, and he came out still on the gearbox of Oscar Piastri despite going through the chicanes. I thought that was absolutely brilliant. So, yeah, he was he he definitely had the angry pills, uh he was taking the angry pills to get through that race. And we have to say, poor old uh Isaac Hadjar, who's sat out the last two races with his wrist injury, it's been confirmed today that he's not going to make the Madrid Grand Prix either this coming weekend. So Liam Lawson stays in the Red Bull. Um uh Sonoda stays in the Racing Bulls as the uh the team switch things around because of Hadjar's injury. Uh horrible luck for him. Uh Liam Lawson didn't have a great race though this time out in Italy. He came 14th in the end um after a couple of uh issues during the race. Um but yeah, Hadjar, poor him. Yeah, it's it's a tough one. And I tell you what, you cannot afford to do this, to have this kind of time out when you're a Red Bull driver. It is the sausage machine, the sausage grinder factory, you know, if you if you if you don't perform, you're out. And uh we expected it maybe one race, not two, and certainly not three. So I understand he's a bit of a martial arts expert, and uh and he was doing I think might have been taekwondo or something like that, uh, where he uh injured his wrist during during the summer breaks. But yeah, I mean it's you know it's it's incredibly disappointing for Isaac. He's a he's a great talent. Um and uh and you know, on top of that too, he he had to hand his his third place Monaco trophy back to or did he get it? I can't remember now, but anyway, there was it was all swapped around again. Uh no, he got it, didn't he? Because Pierre had to surrender it and uh after Monaco. Um but but uh the person that has actually benefited out of all this is is as hey Liam Lawson's struggling a little bit, but but Yuki Sonoda, the the reserve driver, he gets another shot at at sitting in uh in the Liam's car in the RB. And from what I understand, is that he's actually impressing a few other people on Pit Wall. And I'm and in particular the guys at Haas are kind of interested in having a chat with him because Esteban Ocon is living on borrowed time at Haas. And let's not forget, Haas, they're a Toyota team in effect, and they would love to have a Japanese driver in their team. And I understand that he has been impressing the guys at Haas, and there isn't a bit of a chat going on that maybe he might be uh stepping in to replace Esteban Ocon once all this shakes itself out. Yeah, Okan's just not impressed me over the years. He really hasn't, even when he's had decent machinery underneath him, he's just not been a driver that's been able to break through and um and you would say he was an outstanding driver, he's just never delivered that. No, and he has cost he has cost the various teams a lot of money in crash damage over the years. Uh again, he's a nice guy, but you know, nice doesn't win world championships or win races, unfortunately. And uh his crash damage bill is is is up there. Um and he's just not he's just not delivering at the team. Oli Behrman is the is the young star again. Ollie is a Ferrari junior driver, they're Ferrari powered at the moment, but they do have that Toyota sponsorship with the GR signage on the car. It's an interesting way that Toyota is entering Formula One, not as a technical partner or a development partner, but as a pure sponsor, and with that, they get to choose their Friday driver. So um uh Hirokato is is is has done a couple of FP1s, and of course, he's sending that data straight back to Toyota, even though they're not a technical partner. Um so but I don't see him as a potential driver, but I but potentially I can see maybe Yuki Sonoda uh being a potential driver for Toyota if they decide to become a technical partner with that team down the track.

Verstappen’s Rear Issues And Driver Shuffle

Damien Reid 26:15

Yeah, so Audi finished 11th and 12th with Bortoleto and Hulkenberg. They've uh put a protest in because Sonoda they thought should have got a penalty, which would have uh removed him from 10th place and uh and advanced Bortolello into the points. Um so that's still ongoing. Um I want to touch briefly on Williams still having a torrid time out there, Cadillac still as well. Uh the Aston Martins, uh, we're running out of time, so I don't want to hover on this too much. But the Aston Martins again, two DNFs, uh so technical reliability issues and the power issues that were supposed to have been mostly resolved with the uh with the new upgraded Honda engine just haven't come to much. So they've still got lots of work to do. Um so disappointing for those teams that I've just mentioned. Audi, though, still looking very, very good. Um before we go, I want to talk about the Mad Ring.

Madrid Mad Ring Preview And AI Unknowns

Damien Reid 27:06

Um, this is the circuit we're ha we're coming to this weekend in in Madrid. Lewis Hamilton did a filming day there just after the tarmac had been laid, and he said, It's an interesting circuit, he said, but you're not going to get very many overtakes. And I'm having a look at the track plan myself, you can see some points where, okay, there's some very sharp right angle corners where you might be able to overtake, but because they're mid-speed corners, it's not like a hairpin. So that kind of takes that element away. And the other thing that is very, very interesting about this circuit is first of all, it looks like a building site because they definitely haven't completed all of the infrastructure work. We will have a tractor race on, but you know, the driver's motorhomes may be replaced by tents, we don't know. Um, but they did an F2 testing day there a few weeks ago. And this was a two-day test. How many times was the testing red flagged over the two days? It was a record number, I know that. I can't remember the exact numbers, two-digit number. It was 19, 19 times they threw the red flag. Um, so most people are expecting safety cars, red flags, virtual safety cars. There's an element on this track. If you don't get it millimeters correct on some of these corners, and several of them are very quick, then you're clipping the wall. No matter what you do, you are clipping the wall. Um, and I think this weekend's racing is going to be incredibly interesting from a point of view of just getting a lap done because the walls are very close. It's a bit like Monaco in certain respects. They've got this long, sweeping corner that everyone's talking about, but in actual fact, the only lines that really take through that corner is right on the apex, so it doesn't make much difference that it's banked. I think we're in for an interesting weekend. It's going to be absolutely incredibly interesting because this is the first track these new cars have gone on where they don't have any data or any background information on uh because they've not raced on it ever before. So there is, they're literally going into it completely blind, and and so they have no idea of of of of where they can use, you know, if they get to use things like super clipping or where they get to harvest energy, where they get to deploy energy. And and I think we're going to see a few embarrassing situations perhaps where cars are going to be pulling out of corners seemingly with zero power because they've completely got the engine mapping wrong as to where to put down the full horsepower or where to keep it as an ice unit. Um and likewise, potential disaster for cars flying into corners, carrying way too much power, trying to harvest as much any energy as they can, and realizing that the corners just a little bit too tight, a little bit too short. Um, so yeah, expect the unexpected. I I uh this who knows? This could be Aston Martin's weekend. Who knows? Um listen, um, we've talked about it before, but we talked about the the emergence of AI in Formula One and the fact that um, and this is a big one for this weekend because, like you say, no data on this track at all. So in previous tracks where they've been before, they pump all this information into the computer. Um, this is a very basic way of saying this, they put it all into computer, and then AI assists the deployment of the battery during the race because um the computer effectively knows when they'll need the deployment and when they won't. And this is built on lap by lap with thousands of uh gigabytes of data going back into the system, which is uh constantly monitoring and constantly adapting to the situation on track during the race. Now, without any initial baseline data, they won't have any of that. So the practice sessions on Friday, I think, are gonna be really quite interesting because they literally have a blank canvas in practice one, FP1, they won't have a clue how their engine mapping is going to work out. They'll learn more in FP2 and then they're into qualifying. And and you know, it I just think it's gonna be fascinating. And I think if you're a fan of watching Formula One because you like the crashes and the red flags, I think you might be in for a treat this weekend. Yeah, there's gonna be massive amounts of computations and and and uh theoretical examples going on right now, in fact, with the with the simulators, but you'll no one will know until we actually get out there on Friday for the first practice session. But you're right, this this whole AI thing of when to deploy and everything else. I actually think that's part of the reason of what caused Charles Leclerc's crash at Monster. And I that's why I'm waiting for another week or so to find out what if any news comes out about that. Uh, because some very weird things are happening to to some couple of cars out there uh from Mercedes and the Ferraris and the the McLaren's as well and the Red Bulls. Um and yeah, don't expect, don't be surprised if we see more of that happening this weekend uh in Madrid. If you're the sort of person that only watches Formula One on the race day itself, I would, even if you you tape it and you watch it back, I would watch FP1 and FP2 on Friday because I think it's going to be the one of the most important practice sessions that we'll see all year. Can't wait to unpack it on next week's podcast.

What To Watch Next Weekend

Damien Reid 32:06

Damo, thanks so much for joining me. Thanks, man. Looking forward to it. Okay, and enjoy the partially unfinished mad ring this weekend, and we'll see you next time on Two Stuffed Compounds. Two Stuff Compounds was presented by myself Rick Gorton alongside Damien Reid, the executive producer was in colours. 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.