Driver of the Day and Closing

Part two point nine liter V six engine part one hundred and thirty kilowatts electric motor Unmistakably Audi . The all new Audi RS five , harnessed by Quatro, the first RS hybrid model . Audi Vorce Rungachn Teique for his second Grand Prix victory of the season . George Russell wins, the Austrian Grand Prix It's gonna take that pressure off to a certain extent . Once you release some of that pressure, you can start performing at a very high level again . Toi said it was a cold blooded victory. I could very conceivably see George Russell pull up the silverstone and absolutely dominate. I wonder if Kimmy hadn't made those mistakes, I think he could have won this grumpy. You've got to have him believe he could have won that race if it wasn't for outside factors and then he'll go to Silverstone with confidence. Max Verstappen saying after the race that he's finally got a car that he can fight with he went off into his Chrysalis and now has become a beautiful butterfly. What aspect of this car's performance impressed you guys the most? The driver? The seven time world champion and the four time world champion separated by millimeters the very limit of acceptable, wasn't it? I love the fact that they're so aggressive on strategy now, but I just want to wonder whether they did overcook it a little bit today . It's a bit like doing a bicycle kick into the back of the net in a school football match, isn't it? You're gonna try and do it again next match, but Ferrari couldn't keep hold of its type . Hello everyone and welcome to Spielberg for F one Nations review of the Austrian Grand Prix . I'm Tom Clarkson and joining me in the Red Bull ring in the Red Bull Energy Station are two F one TV experts, indie car racewinner James Hinchliff and two Tim La More Podium finisher Alex Brundel. Now guys , I thought that was a hum dinger of a grandprix. What are your headlines? What are your takeaways from that? I think takeaways are Russell back on top. You know, finally getting that second victory this season . Verstappen once again just proving why he is really on another level at times from the rest of the field . And then I think some of the other headlines are more the misses, right? Ferrari not having the pace we were expecting, McLaren really just kind of missing the mark a little bit this weekend. So a couple pluses, maybe a couple minuses. I think it's a race that got away for Antonelli firstly with, the braking issues at the start and then secondly they didn't manage to capitalise whether it was by positioning of the cars on track for the VSC where science stopped or not quite calling it as quickly enough. But when you look at his pace towards the end of the race, actually he was relatively quick. He maybe could have been past for stappen, whether it could have challenged Russell. I don't know, but that would have meant the point swing would have been considerably different . Russell back on top but under heavy pressure from Verstappen who appeared to come from nowhere in a red bull which has been upgraded but demonstrate the pace of an upgraded car until he delivered that lap he didn't finish in qualifying which converted into speed in the race and we've got a hell of a season on our hands if that's going to be the battle for the rest of the year , which I don't think it will be because this circuit is so specific and we're onto some very different ones next. Right. Let's break it down driver by driver. Can we start with Russell ? He opened up in the press conference after the race talking about all the mental pressures he'd been through over the last two months, Canada, Monaco, and what a release this race was. It's been a tough couple of months. Some really tricky races, you know, with races that felt like everything was going against me, then some races with some tough performances. You know, obviously I've got a really incredible teammate next to me who week in week out is delivering some pretty spectacular performances. So for me, you know, going into Canada, going into Barcelona from quite a low point , it was needed a lot of resilience to be able to get back and deliver some strong performances so to get the last two polls, to get the win here this weekend , especially on a track, which I don't think is so suited to me. I'm really, really proud about. How emphatic was this win by George Russell, or have you guys alluded to it already in that in slightly different circumstances? You know, if Max maybe had pitted for his second stop a little bit earlier, could it have been different for George? It wasn't a it wasn't a dominant performance , right? He didn't, he didn't mean he led lights to flag, but he didn't walk away with that. As Alec said, under heavy pressure, caught considerably by both Max and Kimmy in that in that final stint . Maybe he's just managing, maybe he had, you know, pace up the sleeve. I think regardless, if you can get a win, you can get back on top after what he's been through. It is going to help. It's going to take that pressure off to a certain extent. He'll sleep well tonight . And once you release some of that pressure , you can start performing at a very high level again. And if there's been something that's been holding him back, something that's been sitting in the back of his mind be. at May that 's been a little bit of, you know, maybe he was stressing about throwing the win away in that last thing because he was quite strong in the beginning of the race. As you get closer to the end and you can see that it's just around the corner, you know, you start tightening up and maybe that was some of it with that win now, that second win two races in a row. He's taking a good haul of points out of Kimmy's lead . Maybe we can start to see George really hit that sort of early season stride. I think for me it was more it was more the middle stint, you know , where he's not managing it to the end. He's not got a buffer. He's not got a gap. He's got Verstappen closing in on him and actually Verstappen manages to drive the red bull into undercut range of Russell having been, you know, having started further back on the grid and not being in proximity with him at the start , which is a pace deficit that shouldn't exist. And I'm not convinced that that red bull is a better car in that phase of the race than the Mercedes. In fact, I think probably the opposite might have been true . So the tale of the tape will read George Russell P,o Glleorge Russell victory , but the Poll position was very clever . Usage, understanding of the rules, management of the situation, lightning fast thought process. Can't deny in that, even still , you know, I think he probably still had the lap underneath him in the race as Hincher said he was under heavy pressure lights to flag. Can you elaborate a little bit more on the racing IQ if that's the right expression? It took to get that pole to see that it was a single wave yellow when all around him, not all around him, but Kim he specifically didn't . When you're doing three hundred kp , how hard is it to process all that . You know, we sat there after the session and I looked at Hinch and I said, Would you have lifted fully? And he said, yeah, and I would have lifted I'd have seen yellow and lifted to display he did as well. He did do that. Yeah, I mean, I'm talking about abo theard lab. Okay, right I'd have aboard the lab. We would have kimmied. We would have kimmied it. We both would have kimmied it, right? So to look at that and go, oh, that's interesting. So bearing out the waist probably about its ring curve as well as completely blind on the entry. So it's not like you can see the incident either, right? And take a view. Yet, what he actually said, which I think is probably a fortunate thought , is he thought somebody had gone wide in Rincurve and then contained and that's what the single yellow flag was for, which is which is an entirely logical thought process and a beneficial thought process. But yeah, to understand those rules, a longer period of time in Formula One as well , right? So in junior formulas don't get me wrong, Kimmy's been in formula two and so on and so forth. But in junior formulas, most of that's dealt with by flags. You don't get the clever light panels so to understand exactly how the light panels are. George has been through a couple of those scenarios with qualifying sessions ending, not ending so on. But yeah, a huge IQ. And I think the other thing and look, we've talked about this with George Russell for years, you know, his ability to call strategy from within the car during a race. I mean, he is a very al cerebr driver . And I think that there are a few examples, you know, once this happened, everybody started coming out of the woodworks with examples that had set the precedent, right? So there were other examples where a driver gave up a tenth one two and were able to keep the lap. George would have known that. That was before Kimmy was in Formula One. I don't expect a guy in his second year to know all those historical, you know, situations that Russell was around for. So he knows that in the past a driver has given up a tenth and kept a lap. And he saw that he was over two tenths up on what pole would have been. So in that moment, yes, to process all that in that split second is phenomenal, but that's what racing drivers do. It's probably there's a big part of that that's pure experience, a big part of it. But there was a moment in the race as well where, Verstappen had got close, Mercedes had done the right thing, I think, which is to box Russell and defend from the undercut. Then Antonelli and Verstappen are tweet are tw elve seconds up the road from George Russell . He sitting there with two cars he can't see goes imagines the positioning of both cars and goes if we pit Kimmy now , it'll force Verstappen to pit, which will reduce the tire offset that I have at the end. There's no way around. It was if you keep if you keep Kimmy out it's going to make it harder for us to make it. Yeah, he presented it that way. But what he meant was Pitt Kimmy to force Verstappen to pit to prevent yeah, like he can't he's imagining two cars on a different part of the race track there while driving his Zagar. My question is this if he just drove , would he be quicker? Very good. Look to quote Toto Wolf again , right? Toto said it was a cold blooded victory this one by George . I don't really know what he meant by that. Do you guys have any idea? I think it's the absorption of the pressure of, you know , and not making mistakes. And there were a couple of mistakes in there, but he didn't make one big enough to actually cost him a position . So do we think George Russell still acting the team leader at Mercedes? You talk about, you know, thinking about the strategy, even though he's still forty points behind his teammate in the world championship, do you think they still defer to him more than Kimmy Yeah, I think so. I would. I mean, I think that experience crucial. It so is so important. It's such a valuable asset to have. And look, Kimmy still made a bunch of mistakes today, right? That those first two laps were scrappy and cost him positions. So and Toto even acknowledged that he was on our post race show and said, you know, his scrappy first lap from Kimmy and that probably hurt his race. There are there are still those you know, the youthful exuberance, you know, issues and errors that are sneaking into to his game . George has just so much experience and and we just we've talked so many times about how good he is at reading races from inside the car . I do think the team still does lean on him tremendously in those situations. It's a quirk of sort of the amount of resource available to drivers and the amount of resource engaged in the cars in modern Formula One though that actually when you've got so much information as the team and I remember Daniel Ricciardo for example in his last couple of years as a Formula One driver . And the team was saying he's trying to apply experience and he's trying to guide the engineering direction and he's trying to use all of the information he has for being in championship winning teams and and actually what we'd love them to do is just drive the racing car because we are capable of setting up. We're capable of engineering it. We know how much each different component bends per temperature . So do they need that amount of info back from George? And when you actually listen to the comments from George and you listen to the comments from Lewis of Late, they've both taken a step back , right? Lewis, not using the simulator anymore, focusing more on data, George Focusing less on other people's data, just focusing on his own. So I do think we're in this interesting era of the sport where there is information overload. Like we use a term all the time. It's over engineering the car, right? Engineers can over engineer the car. They've got too many sensors, they've got too many settings, too many options back to me. Just in layman's terms, you're overthinking. Basically, yes . And so for a driver, you can pump too much information into your brain. Ultimately, you've got to rely on that gut instinct, that seat of the pants feel, that made you good and got you to this place in the , they don't have that enough to. They've got data, but they don't have anywhere near the resource that you do in Formula One. So kind of take a step back and just go back to basics a little bit. Engineers will say in as many words, I just need to in fact, Toto Wolfe said it over the radio to George Russell in qualifying. Just drive , just drive. And I've had engineers to me say to me in the past , you know, in driving with a lot of information , I need you to be considerably more stupid than you are, please . And just drive the racing car and stop trying to engineer it. That's my job. So George actually admitted, didn't he that he's been overdriving? Overthinking, overdriving , just let it come naturally, do what you do. Trying sometimes is the worst thing you can do. Yeah , right. Racing, driving quickly in a race car is such a second nature thing. It's an innate ability at this point, right? It's pre programmed. It's muscle memory, it's instinct . And sometimes as soon as you mentally start trying to go f aster, you immediately go slower . But when you are getting beat by someone, it's really hard to not try harder, right? So it is such a delicate balance. And guys, that's why it's hard. This is Formula One. It is very difficult. These are top level athletes in an incredibly mental game. I'm still fascinated by how twenty twenty six cars suits some drivers more than others, right? Max Verstappen doesn't seem to matter what sort of car you put in, but you know, George is struggling more , Lewis is happier I'm still fascinated as to why that's the case. I think what we saw, particularly, for example, from Max at the beginning of this year is sort of the pain of transition though , you know , because he's on it now, isn't he? You know, he really didn't like these cars at the beginning beginning of this year, but he went off into his chrysalis and now has become a beautiful butterfly in this era in this era of Formula One car . And exactly as Hinch was saying, it's such a muscle memory for a driver who's been driving a certain type of way for a number of years and then you have to change everything and it kind of like it feels awkward and it feels unpleasant but all the time you're being evaluated it's not like you can go away and learn a new skill, you can go and hide and learn how to play the piano differently in a room and no one will listen to the piece until you come out and show them. You're being evaluated every step of the way, which means that drivers are being, as they're learning to adapt to these new cars are being asked to continuously account for their performance. We ask them so they tell us I don't like it. It's hard and horrible, but they get there, they get there. And there's also there's no testing. So to practice, to refine a skill, you have to do it on race weekends. You have to do it in one of three one hour sessions and then you go into quality. Every lap in a Formula One car counts for something. It means something . There's no meaningless running anymore. There's no extra time to play around with your natural style and that is what I think changed. There are certain drivers that get the speed, they get the laptime a certain way. Different faces of the corner suit different styles , different cars, different regulation sets, get the lap time through different phases of the corner and being driven in a different style. And the, you know, the real grates, the maxes can seemingly adapt much easier. But for a driver that's been doing it a certain way for ten years at this level, not just, I mean, never mind all their junior career at this level to try to ask them to change when every lap is televised and covered by media and mean something and making a mistake costs valuable track time on a race weekend. It is so different. It's like asking a basketball player's right handed to start shooting with their left. It's also kind of a moving target as well, right? You know, go to Barcelona, all of a sudden not pushing the front left tire in turn three is really important because that'll elongate the stint, turn up at Red Bull rings, suddenly it's the rear left or the rear right or none of that matters it. And's actually now the break temperatures of the problem that you need to make sure those are right. That wasn't a problem in Barcelona, it wasn't a problem in Monaco, wasn't a problem. And so these continuously moving targets, it's going to take really the full season before we actually find out who can really drive these cars? So we're seeing who can engineer them. We're seeing who's got the best one, but who can really drive these cars is still playing out on track? And a win from Pole and closing the guy, what is he? He's taken twenty eight points out of Kimmy Antonelli in the last couple of races. All that helps, doesn't it? And then your boss comes out and says, yeah, yeah, we're going to keep the same driver line up for twenty twenty seven. Surely it's a confidence game, isn't it? And it always has been, it always will be. And that's why I said, I mean, this win now, even if it did seem at times in the race, he was maybe driving a bit tight. I can I could very conceivably see George Russell pull up to Silverstone and absolutely dominate that event, lead every practice, qualify and poll and dominate the race. That is the kind of thing that a weekend like this that he fully executed. Barcelona , he nearly fully executed. This one was a true full execution, start to finish. Right. What about Kimmy Antony? Let's just deal with all things merc before we come onto Max Verstappen. What about Kimmy? As I just said , George has closed the gap to him by quite a margin over the last couple of races. Kimmy's making a lot of mistakes . As he's on his way back this evening, what's he going to be thinking on the plane . He got beat by George in qualifying, right? I think we looked at the data even without backing off. He wasn't going to be George. That lap, George made it happen . In the other races where George has done that, kind of think back to Montreal , certainly late in the race in Barcelona. Kimmy's race pace is kind of been better. His race craft has been a little bit better. His race pace has been a little bit better, but it's peppered in with all these mistakes . Kimmy can look at this weekend and think in his head he's going to think, oh I would have got pole if that yellow hadn't happened. He's not right , but he's also going to look at that first lap and the positions that it cost him. Even if winning wasn't really on the cards for him today, he probably could have been second had he not made those mistakes. So he still just has to look at the little things that he's missing and giving up time on. It'll be interesting to see how Mercedes actually handle this because I think the right way to handle it with Kimmy would be for them to say the breaking issue at the beginning wasn't your fault. You've had a problem. We've tried to mitigate it to whatever percentage that's true . And then we maybe could have pitched you when Science stopped and maybe could have given you the opportunity to win the Grand Prix and you were faster than George Russell at the end. That's what I would tell Kimi Antonelli if I was his engineer, and I would try to have him leaving feeling like he won in terms of performance even if he didn't win in terms of finishing position . We saw from sort of after the early couple of races where George was super strong we saw that Kimmy was going to be lightning fast and I knew because I watched him in Formula two do exactly the same thing every so often he has and he's got better at recovering from them. He has a little mini meltdown on track where he loses a couple of positions or you know, he'll have a spin or a moment and then that always thought would be what cost him the championship in comparison to George if it played out who I think is way more experienced, consistent understandably . As Kimmy's engineer, you know, is Bono , you've got to have him believe he could have won that race if it wasn't for outside factors and then he'll go to Silverstone with confidence. I wonder if Kim my hadn't made those mistakes in those opening couple of laps, I think he could have won this Grand Prix. Me too . Me too. We looked very, very hard at the stop potentially for science around the virtual safety car and if they'd absolutely gunslinger called it, they might have got him in, which would have been the cheaper pit stop and would have put him in the would have put him in the battle at the front. Though honestly, if it absolutely fell for him, he could have battled George Russell for the win today. So what do you think he's thinking about the championship now, Kimmy? He still thinks he's leading it by a long way, I would imagine you know , he's not necessarily had this experience of just how far there is to go in a Formula One championship before. I mean, look, look at Formula two when you got to this position in the Formula two championship. It's almost over, right? So this number of events to have to defend a championship , you know, a championship lead is huge . So I suspect he's still feeling pretty calm about the whole thing, but like I said, he needs the people around him to manage the mind. Guys nineteen, you know, he's going to turn up to every single racetrack, send it and see what happens. He's got to get everyone around him taking his mind away from anyone closing in on him for the series . Right. We're in the Red Bull Energy Station because this is the team that seems to have taken the biggest jump forward this weekend with the upgrades Max Verstappen saying after the race that he's finally got a car that he can fight with what aspect of this car's performance impressed you guys the most? The driver ? I was going to say Red Bull have taken a step forward. I think Verstappen has we look at Hadjar's performance. I don't think you can separate the two though, can you? I think you can because you look at the other car. It didn't have anywhere near the performance that Max did. What's what's so interesting about Max it seems like when he's not one hundred percent happy with the balance , him and his teammate are much closer. Once he gets the car the way he wants, which now again still seems to be something that other drivers struggle to match, the gap tends to grow. And I think we saw it in twenty three. You know, I think we saw it in twenty four. I think we saw it in twenty five . When Red Bull was having an off weekend, they were closer, when Max felt comfortable, all of a sudden one of the Red Bulls was up there. Now, Hadgar is doing a phenomenal job next to one of the greatest to ever do it , but it was a much bigger gap this weekend , right? And we've seen that at a couple races. Whenever Max feels really on when Max qualifies sixth, Hadgar seventh, when Max can race his way up to second, Hydro still sixth. Why is that? What is the difference is the driver, I think at this point? The driver insofar as he melds with whatever it is that they've changed on the car. And I genuinely can't wait to get into that data understand what they've given him because I think it'll give us a huge answer to what has been going on at Red Bull for years. They clearly came with a car this year that again more parity between the dri vers and that but Max couldn't get that extreme ultimate performance like we've seen today . They've put whatever it is he wants back in and I think we'll be able to work out from the data set that we get from this race, what that thing . You know, it's been written all over Hadjah's face all weekend. I can't stop, I can't turn, I can't do this. You know , and it's been a lot of regions RPMs rebelled there's been a litany of issues with this upgrade back. It has, but you know, the main thing appears to be understood. When you look into the dataset, the main thing appears to be understeer that Max can overcome. I think he's hyper precise with the car . But for me, it could also be venue specific, Tom, because I've asked Max that question. I said, Is it track specific? And he said, Well no, I've got more grip everywhere. So it should be everywhere. Although he then did say, well, we're going to take it race by race. But if you've got more grip everywhere, it shouldn't be , but different compounds and different corners is just different chemistry, right? The way the tire engages with a race track. It's different load, it's different chemistry. For I brought the upgrade to Barcelona, it didn't translate to here quite the same way, did it? So there's definitely an element of that. I think more so this year, especially with this generation of car with the upgrade race, the development race being what it is. I think it's a lot harder to know at this point if something, you know, I think there are more track specific gains than we're used to seeing. That's a really disappointing weekend for Ferrar, isn't it? Because they've used one of two development tokens on the engine side that they've been given from the Audio . They've brought about something which they said, okay, they said it's not massive. It's marginal, but it's for performance and the differential on the straight to the Mercedes engine was monumental. Like fifteen kilometers per hour. That's the standout stat, isn't it? Isn't it? It's huge. And when you watch the qualifying ghost car or the qualifying back to back . It just doesn't matter what Leclerc does in the corners. The thing just takes off by three car lengths on every straight, up to turn three, down to turn four everywhere. It's incredible The sevente world champion and the four time world champion separated by millimeters nearly on the grass trying to go the long way around and turn number six and they're still continuing on he brushes the gravel and he still won't yield. This is magical as Hamilton stays ahead. Ask Max to back off no chance for Staffen goes again and he jumps across Hamilton and he gets by this time . How much did we enjoy seeing those two champs do what they do between was it four? Turns four, five, six, it just went on and on. Incredible and multiple times and I think there was just the right amount of respect. I mean, they ran each other as hard as you possibly could. First time, I thought the second time they did it Max was pretty harder . Yes. But I mean, when Lewis was on the inside in six, you know, Max did drop wheels on the exit, so he didn't give him a full car with. Max just didn't even give him the opportunity when he got to the inside to hang it on the outside. Different style, you know, different strokes, whatever. But look, those guys have been, they've been doing this for a long time. They've been fighting each other like that for a long time. And the beneficiaries are us and everybody watching at home. The very limit of acceptable, wasn't it? Between the two ? Like ninety nine point nine, your fingers just hovering over the investigation button. And then at the last minute you just lift it away. But that's the kind of racing we want to see. And it was never going to be anything but that between those two. You would be disappointed if it was anything else. Yeah, yeah. And Lewis is still up for the fight. It was, you know, I thought the difference between particularly , you know, in the race between Lewis and Leclerc was was pretty graphic again . Yeah That win that win is geled Hamilton with the team. I think he's now the team leader there. Is that the vibe you're getting Elliot? Well, that's a quick change, isn't it? From, you know, from a Leclerc who's the incumbent . I made this comparison earlier on in the weekend and I think it stands, you know, when Piatri not immediately , but came into McLaren and you had Norris who was the incumbent and the team leader. Then Piastri came to form , and Lando had a little wobble , you know , just by sort of notion of having to suddenly deal with this guy across the garage who is in my team and now has parity with me and is actually performing. I think that's what you're seeing from Leclerc at the moment as well. Just sort of reestablishing the status quo and understanding that, you know, it's now him, Hamilton, and Hamilton has, you know, every time they turn up to a race weekend, there is a good chance Lewis Hamilton can be . They're for in qualifying throughout this year. Now, you know, you got to remember Leclerc out qualified him this weekend. So I don't think I don't think Hamilton 's team leader yet, but it's at least parody. I'm talking maybe off track in terms of, you know, the decisions that are being made . I don't know, I'm just getting the vibe at the minute that Charl is a bit flat and that he's probably thinking everything Lewis asked for he's being given. And I wonder whether that's one of the reasons why they renegotiated his contract and gave him a bit more money just to make him feel a bit of love because maybe they were sensing that slight change of momentum. The pendulum maybe swinging more towards Lewis. Yeah, I mean, I think it's certainly swinging more towards Lewis. I don't know if it's gone past the center point now and is fully on his side . Last year it was very clear. Lewis was far behind, right? Charlotte was the incumbent. He was outperforming him Saturdays, Sundays, whatever. Now I just think they're in a very fortunate position of having two incredibly quick drivers , two very capable drivers, you said it, they're for and qualifying. And that's against Lino Leclerc who's always kind of been considered his expertise was, you know, was Saturdays . So I think it shows how much of a jump that Hamilton's made. He's done a great job gelling with the team. It's just now they can have the conversation both ways rather than just one. I think it's the fact that Charlot is now taking setup suggestions and break configurations from the other side of the garage. That's almost a bigger indicator that it's Cheryl that's looking at him almost as the leader rather than the team even doing it. It's such an under the surface kind of battle though, isn't it? Because you put two younger drivers in the same situation, they might run into each other, right? These guys are established heads, they're calm on track. You see them battle wheel to wheel. It's fantastic to watch the battle wheel to wheel , but it's not a overt battle on track between the two of them so much as a sort of continuous political high ground seeking in the background of that of that team. I don't think Lewis has cleared him yet. I think that it's parity, but definitely the new relationship with his engineer is strength and strength, doesn't it? You can go back all to the way China. You remember the battle they had on track in China and Louis was not going to give, you know, an in it was that for me was like, oh wow, he's back. This is this is incredible to watch and it's just continued all season long.'s So a there tremendous amount of respect. I love watching them race each other because they take that that teammate , you know, the golden rule of, you know, race your teammate hard but fair. I think to that perfect level. There's always respect. There's always ro om, but it's always great racing. Bear in mind that some of the strategic mistakes Ferrari have made in recent race . I love the fact that they're so aggressive on strategy now, but I just want to wonder whether they did just overcook it a little bit today. Was the three stop the wrong thing to do? If they'd done something if they've done the two stop would have been different. I think I mean, Alex you said in our post show, I don't think they had a choice. I think their tire degradation was so poor. I don't think that was the plan. That was probably plan D , but by the time they got into it, they just they could not keep the tires under them. I think as a combo of things. Firstly, you know, they were so it's a bit like doing a bicycle kick into the back of the net in a school football match, isn't it? Like you're going to try and do it again next match and sit and sit and see if it works out. They were so delighted to have pulled that off and won the grandprix , you know , but there's that side of it, second side of it Ferrari couldn't keep hold of its dyes today . So it was a way of getting Lewis through that and I think that's what Hinch is alluding to. It was a way of getting Hamilton through the race without falling off a cliff on the second set of tyres that he was on and he and he took the VSC which gave him a cheaper stop and actually I think it was probably best case it looked like he lost positions but, I don't think they weren't positions he would wasn't going to lose anyway. Well, that's just it. The fact that Leclerc stopped with a handful of laps to go just to I mean, just to save the misery because he had enough time to do it. So it just shows that they were not going to make it work. They were going to be falling backwards. So yes, it looks on paper like he gambled from third and finished fifth. I think they save themselves from finishing eight ninth or tenth by doing that. Can we just throw it forward to Silverstone Lewis. has such a love affair with that police. Do we have reasons to believe that Ferrari will go better there than they did here? I can't see it myself . I think that Silverstone and his current guys. I mean, what the main thing I'm interested to see is if these and it's going to sound outlandishly specific, but if these twenty six Formula One cars are flat in Cop's corner and the reason why is because then the run from Wood cut all the way to Maggots and Becketts becomes a straight. And at that point, Silverstone's a totally different racetrack. So then Silverstone's a low down force racetrack. If they're not flat in Cops Corner, it's a high downforce race track. It changes on a dime and that changes completely the runners and riders of exactly which down force range it falls in. Mercedes will destroy them if Cops is flat. They'll have all the straight line speed, they'll have all of that performance. When was it last not flat? I mean I know that I know with the ground effect cars, but I'm going way before that we've locked for you we've lost a lot of downforce. I'm not going to suggest it's going to be flat for the whole Grand Prix. We've lost tire. We've lost some downforce . Yeah, I mean should be. I kind of expect it to be. But in which case, Merc, in which case Merc , see you later. See you later. Okay . Look last team I wanted to discuss get your thoughts on McLaren . They have a great record at this track. Landon Norris in particular won the race last year. I know it's all very different now, but surely they were all expecting more than a P four and a P seven . Yeah, I think they were. It was an interesting race. I think they were caught out a bit by the conditions because when you look at the pace of piestry right at the end wasn't actually bad . I think they got themselves. I don't think they engineered it particularly well that McLaren this weekend. What do you mean by that? Because they overcooked it a bit in practice gave quite a lot of way in terms of their performance. They were top four in every practice session up until qualifying. They looked like they were in the hunt, didn't they? Lando Norris's race run in FP two looked like the best of anyone, I think . But then the hot temperatures at the start, they weren't quite quick enough, but actually as the temperature fell away through the race, the pace of the McLaren look better . So I wonder if that gives me an inclination as a driver that actually they've missed the circuit condition slightly with how they've they've engineered the car and had to deal with it . And I think that, you know, Lando said after the race as well that this circuit specifically didn't really suit the car, but you know, if you're able to deliver pace at one phase of the race, you should be able to deliver pace through the rest of the race. It's just a case of where you biased the engineering. Unless it is that temperature sensitive, you know, this was the car, this was the team, I saved the car completely different car , but that had that massive tire advantage last year in terms of thermal control. And it seems like it's almost the opposite this year. The two hot tracks we've had, the two hot races, they've kind of lost a step, haven't they? It's tough to judge because in conjunction with that other teams have brought updates. You had Ferrari's big one in Barcelona, Red Bull's big one here . It's interesting to hear though. I mean, the comments from Lando and the Pen kind of defeatist almost. He's like, yeah, this is kind of where we're at. Andreas Stella is saying we're three months behind on development. We really got to push the factory to increase our speed of development here. I'm not sure that they're going to be able to dig themselves out of this hole in seven days time. They do feel like a team under pressure now. I think the expectations coming in at the start of the year are up here and for whatever reason especially performing at the level they are with a Mercedes PU in the pack, right? You know, we're earlier on in the conversation we're talking about fifteen kilometers per hour, we're talking about a tenth per straight over a Ferrari. How much down force extra the straight line deficit is not there with McLaren to be clear. So how much extra downforce are they having to carry to make the car work for not a lot of efficiency to actually not have that straight line delta and still not be delivering the laptime must be a long way away and I think that's what Andrea alludes to in terms of pure efficiency with the internet. I haven't heard the post race comments from Oscar Piastri, but if I'd been asking him the questions , I would have said to him, have you ever driven a better race than this one? Because I thought he was outstanding today . He was. I think he definitely outkicked his coverage, right? I mean, he exceeded, I think, with the potential of that car was capitalized on the fact that Ferrari weren't able to keep their tires under them . That's what you have to do on a day when it's not your day, right? So that was the that was the kind of that was the kind of race that a seasoned experienced championship caliber driver has to pull off, but it doesn't it doesn't make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside when you know that you're just working with such a speed deficit at the moment. It's one of those, isn't it, where he'll be on a stage when he's sixty five years old and someone will sit next to him and go what was the best race you ever drove? And he's going to go, I can tell you I finished fourth one. Hey, it happened The Red Bull Ring and it was probably the best I ever drove and nobody noticed and nobody gave me a drove. I'm not gonna ask you too. I bet you can relate to it and you can relate to it. I bet you there were races you didn't win where you did a cracking good job, right? Absolutely. Absolutely. That's a huge part of it. That's the thing about Motorsports. It's not a winner lose proposition, right? You're not up against one opponent. You're up against many and you can have a great day without winning the race. I was mostly brilliant all the time, I think It's hard to pick one of my particularly excellent , but oh God, I hope I hope that comes across the way it was intended . They can't see my face I've just realized. I can't wait for the article. Brundel Brundel says I've always been excellent. Can't wait for that to get ripped up and put on a slate on social media. That'll be great. Guys, what a wonderful chat. Thank you both very much. Before we go, we have to do our driver of the day. Now , Max Verstappen won the vote on the tele . What do we think? I'm having Max. Yeah. I'm having a second half. We all have yeah, okay can I put my towel on Max? And for because he's been throwing me difficult questions all weekend I have so you've been copping very well. I appreciate that. The magic was, is attrition going to be a factor within the top eight he was he was he was about to well yeah oh in the Oh I don't Max is my driver of the day. Piatri comes a close second. Yeah , I'd say yeah Max for sure to take a take a car with a deficit and be you know within a second of the win, I think is just an unbelievable performance. Okay, so Max is all of our driver of the day, but I think we need to have some just to continue the debate lads. What about let's have a mention in dispatches You say Oscar , but let's go further down my top ten, people we haven't mentioned, you know, Lawson, P nine, Limblad Pete. I mean, racing bulls are smashing it this week. This weekend, this year. And what's what's so impressive about today is, you know, Lindblad even said post qualifying and I've spoke to a couple different teams, you know, the midfield teams that are battling with racing bulls. They kind of said the same thing. Yeah, you know what, they're good overlap, but their race pace usually isn't as str ong. Started ninth and tenth, finished ninth and tenth on a day when degradation was a huge issue and temperatures like taking care of brakes, taking care of engines, like everything was an issue today. And we were joking about in the Post show. They probably had, you know, the most boring day of anybody. They started ninth and tenth. They did the kind of typical two stop strategy. They finished ninth and tenth there was no real drama. But in a field of two halves , they were in the middle of one. Exactly.. They were in the middle They were in the neutral zone. They were in the neutral zone and they were just good enough to be not challenged for those final two points. They were basically racing each other. They were in purgatory from the rest of the rest of the race. You guys get to the bottom of Liam Lawson's claims that he had a fire fire . Yeah, no, we never know. I mean, he seemed to be on fire for a good few laps there. And he wasn't alone either. Everyone was on fire for a minute there. It was very Talida night yeah, I mean I assume it was okay because he said I'm literally on fire. Yeah, it wasn't there . It wasn't there smoke in the cockpit. He said fire, which is an interesting comment to make unless he saw something on the front axle that was So the difficulty here is managing the brake system because of the regeneration which makes it really hard to manage the temperature of the brakes and obviously we're then going from cold to working temperat ure and there's a chance that you can like if you just got plain got it wrong, there's a chance you can overshoot to be clear, like you can overshoot and it's not just about blanking them. How you run the engines affects the brakes because they regenerate energy from the rear axle only. So you wonder if he's relating to a brake he's relating to a brake fire there because he's basically relied on one set of brakes too much. That's the only thing I can think of that it would be that you could then sort of put out with the brake duct by asking the engine system to do more. Anyway it is but good effort to make it last because that was early in the race and obviously they managed the issue finished ninth and was on fire on lap three. So yeah, that's that's impressive, isn't it? Brilliant stuff guys. Now for more reaction and analysis from Austria, please go to f one. com, the F one app or at F one on social media and we are heading straight to Silverstone. F one nation will be back on Thursday with our preview of the British Grandprix and don't forget to check out F one's other official podcast. This week's guest on F one beyond the grid is reigning world champion Lando Norris . I thoroughly enjoyed that one and that's out on Wednesday and you can watch our ch at on the F one YouTube channel and the latest episode of F one explains it's all about the role of driver managers with Carlos Sciences Manager Carlos Onoro. That's just below this episode on the F one Nation feed. So hinch, I never know when we're next gonna see you Hungary's my next one on the ground. Okay, well brilliant. But you're probably racing every weekend between now and then. Pretty much, yeah, yeah. One weekend off, but I got to travel for a family wedding. So I'm not home certainly between now and then and at a racetrack in all weeks but one. All right, well hitch it's brilliant to see you. Alex, we're going to see you at Silverstone. Yes, I'm doing. I've done my racing bit and now my yapping bit continues so I am Silverstone and then Spa and then something else. And are you racing doing ? Yeah, I did the N twenty four a couple of weeks ago and then it's the Silverstone Classic. Where are you driving there? Oh, all sorts of old tin boxes . Lola T two hundred and ninety two