The Challenge of Turn Three

You are listening to Miss Apex podcast. Don't worry, it's the spanner's non canon Saturday stream just reacting to what we've seen on our screens here on a Saturday as they set up for qualifying in the Austrian Grand Prix in the hills of Austria. And if you are watching on the Skype broadcast, you will have heard references to the sound of music seventeen minutes and we'll try to keep up that tradition. So normally I would react to the qualifying session in a kind of oh here's a stream of consciousness way and because I will lock in, I've been watching FP three , I will watch the qualifying. I've kept up with all the information around the weekend , I can sit and waffle here on my own. This weekend , I have not been able to keep up with anything and I did watch the qualifying kind of late and and boy was I confused by how it ended , therefore I have to bring on and I know I know this is like a law break s like we know Saturdays is where spanners just waffles on with no information. However, I have called in the cavalry and I've called in Matt Trumpets. Welcome to Saturday Missed Apex, Matt. This is entirely disorienting. I don't know what the first one I think. I think I did one on my own, but that was okay because it was on my own. Yeah, so it was on a Saturday. What? If you just do it on your own, it's just Trump. It's non canon. And I would have no reason to acknowledge that or have heard it. Yeah, I mean, I think we could still call this non canon I think you managed to watch Quality before I did, so I was really catching up. I will ask it's a sunny Saturday in the summer or June, you know, June is summer adjacent. I'm going to ask you a question, Matt, are you drunk? Are you intoxicated? Have you been imbiing? Power and lack of sleep one hundred percent. But it's well, two different questions. Have I been imbiing? Yes, I did have a beer, but only when I was mostly done with work, which is where I was up until right when I messaged you. So I had had a gig this morning , which made my life interesting. It made me identify because you know what I did at work? No. watched a whole bunch of motorsports on my phone. No, I don't normally do that. Why? Because when you're on the trumpet, you only have to press one button like every forty minutes and then that's it . Be itcause was lots of sitting around waiting to play a few small things. So I had my earbuds in, I had my phone out, and I watched FP three, I watched some motoGP stuff, and I was like, Nope, I don't have time to get through quality so I'll wait u Int getil home. Yeah , because you don't have any commitments on a Saturday , that silly half Englishman just waffles on a Saturday. You can relax. Right. I don't have to worry about it. There's no deadline. I don't have to be, I don't have to look up all the results. I don't have to analyze lap s. I can just sort of like enjoy. Okay, welcome. I would say welcome to Saturdays just so you know you don't have to analyze anything . I love this, but I got to ask, okay. Mostly because you ask me, so this is set my spidy sense going all the way. So how drunk are you Well, I shouldn't drive right now. That would be my , you know, I could physically drive , but I probably shouldn't. Yeah. But we all we all have this discussion and I will just say if you were at a certain age. Beer maths. Yeah. In the eighties and nineties, beer maths was a thing for sure. And I remember actually there was an interview in Britain when they brought in the drink driving laws and people were outraged. They were like, this is ridiculous. Like how were people meant to get home? Sure, you'll save a few lives, but millions will be have to deal with it pubs or deal with their own feelings so Yeah, no horrible. Yeah so I'm very happy I've had a lovely social but I was playing I was playing tennis in a tournament until three o'clock and here's the choice I had to make. So I was looking for phone but it was like five to three. I could sprint home in the car and catch qualifying or I could my friend said, Hey, come on, let's sit down and let's catch up. We haven't seen each other for a while . So I chose that over rushing home to watch Quality Live. And in my mind, I was like, Well, it doesn't matter if I if I go home a little later. I can watch qualifying which I had recorded on my sky box and then I'll watch that and I'll jump straight on the stream and do my normal waffle. So here's here's the things that messed with that plan Matt. So A it was a very interesting chat and once the first beer turns up, oh that's lovely. Obviously you have to have another and then the time comes it needs friends. It needs friends. The time drifts on a very valuable social catch up and I'm on a terrace so there's no there's no risk my phone is in my pocket not going to get any spoilers but it's okay because I know I've recorded it on Skyglass and that will be absolutely fine, right? We're all good . Get home and my wife and daughter have spent all day being cooked alive in a dance studio. And so the one room in our house where I know Americans you're going to find this shocking, the one room in the house where I do have Echon I had cooled down the living room and that's where the skybox is. They had bagsied it to watch Freaky Friday and therefore I could not then get to my recording So am I going to have to tell you what happened? Is that why you were so why you wanted me on so badly? Close, actually, close. So there are certain streams where you can download qualifying and it just wasn't happening. There was threads of people on red going, why isn't this available? Why can't I find it? So it was kind of delayed. And then the circumstances, which you now know, having caught up as well around qualifying , the last few minutes were very relevant and there was a lot of misinformation. So when I finally caught up with what had happened at the end of Q three, I'm like, Well, this is outrageous. And I'm typing in the discord and I'm like, this is terrible. Of course R,ussell should have his lap deleted, but how can this possibly sound? I assume it was deleted and Leclerc is on poll. And then thank goodness for our patrons in the F one chat who'd had hours to disseminate and catch all that information. We're like, Spanners , Richard, if we may , you need, sir, you need to calm down. This is a discord, not a Wendy's. And then we've got all that information like trickling through , but I was watching it live as of twenty minutes ago in my mind and fully filled with conspiracy theories and why are they stopping Ferrari now when I finally support them? Yeah Yeah., and this is the thing, especially situations like that , even watching live, even going back and looking like, you know, so just to break it down. So if you haven't actually seen Quality yet, but you're enjoying the chat, just like next thirty seconds and years. Lock in. Very, very basically there are two questions to ask, there's three questions to ask. One , was there a lift in the affected sector, where the flags were , two , what flags were actually flying , and three, most importantly and most I don't know subjectively , was it sufficient to satisfy what the Stewards expect to see from a Formula One driver . And the first one? Yes, it was a lift. Second one couldn't see the dash, don't know, but by the outcome was not double waved. Otherwise the lap would have just been tossed. Third, result stands, boom, there you go . It was a sufficient lift. And what catches people out a lot is what is considered sufficient at the formula one level is a lot different than what you'd think it would be because we just drive around in road cars everywhere. Well, also a car track, they say to you with a yellow, slow down to half speed, put your hand in the air. And what happens in reality is you put your hand in the air and boot it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you you absolutely you do not lose any time to the person ahead of you and then you've you've fulfilled your obligations. Yeah. Stewart in our Patreon discord says Matt, can you do an analysis of Spanner's emotional state? And that is because I knew we were coming on air and I knew it was like controversial. And I was I was typing in the channel was like, someone tell me why Russell hasn't had his damn laptime deleted. What is this? And I have to admit though, that there is the flash to bang. I've talked about the flash to bang before, haven't I? A feel . A feeling is something that happens to you . You can't be held responsible for having a feeling, right? Correct. We're allowed to feel feelings, right? Apparently. It's a new thing. Like in the nineties , it's a modern invention there. Yes, technically we all possess feelings and we are allowed to have them now. I'm not like necessarily like opposed to it. All I'm saying is there is there is an adjustment obviously like yeah as you get into modern times. So when you get a feeling like this is an injustice, it is completely tempered by your biases . So in that moment that flash , obviously when you go to flashbank, so you have the feeling flash that's tempered by your lizard brain and your emotions and your biases . And then it's up to you to decide whether that turns into a bang, an explosion. And so people have experienced that sport. So because I've got tennis on my mind, I hit the sweetest swinging ace from the from the juice side , swung out towards the outside, spun, hit the line, got a kick off the line, went outside, opponent called out. Right? And my feeling is you son of a goat . I know that's in. I will murder you, I will murder your family. I will tear you limb from limb and your ancestors. Your descendants will regret will curse your name and ban it. And then you have that little settling period where we go, it's a social game. Yeah, dude, there are friends in mixed social doubles , you don't have to kill anyone right now . So when the Russell thing came up Cleater when no one's looking Yeah, Karun Chandlock fully said well there's double waved yellows on the dash, therefore that will be deleted. And then when I found out it wasn't deleted, obviously I could think, well why wasn't that deleted? But it is tempered by this bias against George Russell that I have, that I'm not fully aware that I have, but every time there's a situation like this , I spark and I go, I know that my opinion there was affected by an irrational bias against George Russell, which I don't think I feed it. I don't particularly want it. I just know it's there. All right, I'm putting on my doctor of psychiatry now for Should I lie down? Can I lie on the couch? Yes, if you have a hey got the aircon going so you're mostly winning for your neck of the woods right now. No, so this is interesting . George is definitely someone who has like you either like him or you don't like him. Like he has the ability to without wanting to really be off putting you and that can actually be you can really empathize like he was a poor person trying to make friends and they just' goingre about the most horrible way and they know something's wrong but they're they're trying is the wrong way to deal with what is making everyone get that vibe about it. Russell is not setting out to make anyone dislike him. He's not going I wound that guy up and he doesn't like me. Yes, that's a win. People would like him more if he actually did that, I think. You know, but he's someone who's had years of observing how other people have been successful successful socially sorry. I guess that was that single beer I had three hours ago talking . He's seen people be successful and he does his best to follow what he thinks of are the white lines of social obligations. Now this is me just making stuff up. Not he never met Russell in real life it sounds like he might sit down and be best chums. And in fact, George, should you be listening to this show? No doubt. You know where to find us ? Anytime any place, we'll sit down, no recording, we'll just have a beer. Tell me your life story. Now we'll chat. But in sporting terms, you are allowed to have biases against for your people and against people. And I just I can't put my finger on why when he got that poll and there was controversy, I jumped straight to this this is an injustice. This can't be allowed to stand . Yeah. Well, I think I think in simple terms , I would suggest that at various points throughout your life , you have run up against people who Russell reminds you of have absolutely and I know I see this I don't participate in business because I just, whatever. I knew I was never going to be good at it so I didn't want to play, but I have read books about people who are very, very good at business and it is absolute ly a thing. They train you to just completely steal all the credit at the last second and get that promotion . And I know you've had some corporate issues experience private private shoot. Well, no, I mean, just like you have had some business experience in your life that I have not. Yeah, I would just suggest you met people who remind you of Russell who may have behaved like that and therefore anytime anymore remotely reminds you of that person who really did a bad thing. Yeah. Sure. So in this case, see what I'm saying? In this case, like having reviewed what all the patrons said with the benefit of all the hindsight and having seen all the affirmation. So obviously in this case my initial reaction was wrong. All I'll say is Matt and this is non canon so this cannot be used against me in any regular content guys right now is just don't bring it up at Altima. Quietly check are you really irrationally angry about this decision or do you just for no reason are against George Russell? And can we just check why? Yeah. I think look , you are required to treat people well regardless of whether or not you like them. You have to learn to work with people that you absolutely despise oftentimes in a professional setting , but under no circumstances are you required to then actually like them and turn. So yeah, you know, your bias is fine. You've acknowledged it, you understand it. Therefore there is some space between the flash and the bang. I do not understand my bias against George Russell. I don't admit you understand you have one. That it exists. Yeah. Honestly , the important confidence. So Maria says that it will come up in regular content. So Mods, can we can we? I know Marie has been part of our community for like a decade. I think it's time. If we could just boot her, that would be absolutely fantastic. So can you just explain or go through why George Russell's lap definitely stands and why some other people perhaps didn't get a lap in at that same time . Well , it's because so here's what I think I will go back and review the information , but as I said, the decision tree here is pretty simple. If I'm a steward , there was a yellow throne. We did have a driver in the wall. The fact that it was Max at Austria, well, you know, that's a narrative that they're writing right now that is pretty incredible . I love it. Nice job guys. Keep up the good work. That means anyone behind that now has to deal with some kind of flag . Now you could see on the light panel a yellow and so he knew there was a yellow and under a yellow you do have to lift in the sector or in the mini sector where the yellow is being flung. If there's not a double waved yellow , you're not required until you see a double waved yellow to be prepared to slow down and stop . And if you were through the affected sector, so I'm guessing he was close enough behind Max, too far for him to see it direct ly, but far enough that , you know, close enough that the I'm guessing a double wave yellow eventually came out for that sector behind him . And so he didn't get caught by the double wave yellow because that takes a little bit of extra time, I think, going through race control and everything. They have to look at the camera, see what's going on, decide what the deal is . So the yellow goes out immediately , they evaluate it and they throw the double yellow, but by the time they get to the double ye llow, he's through to the green sectors on the other side . So then the question becomes, this is a bit of me guessing because like I said, I didn't have time to look up fast. If he lifted enough, then he's in the clear and the lap is allowed to stand and they probably would have just looked at his previous sectors and the percentage of improvement that had happened up until that sector and then compared them. And if it was a Charlie Whiting back in the day , pre Jules Bianke did a thing where he set an actual percentage a double wave yellow is exactly has to be this much if you see it because he said the drivers always complained when he said they didn't slow down enough. So he said it's going to be twenty percent. You got to show me twenty. But then everyone complained. They didn't think it was enough, so they got rid of it it and just went back to sort of what it is today . And yeah, so that's the story. Yeah. He lifted. There wasn't a double yellow when he went past backs. He was in green sectors and was allowed to finish setting his lap. Boom. There you go. And he didn't lose enough time. This is the part that really gets people . He gave an honest lift and lost time, but still had so much time in hand. And let's think about Mercedes margins on their last runs three tents, four tents had enough time in hand to still eak ahead of the two Ferrari . So there you go. That's that is that is that, is the story, but he made it worse by immediately or at least they played his radio call. I lifted. I slowed it down. I did this. I did that. I'm like, oh no, George, you've just made everyone think that you're totally you totally you're skating it and you're just trying to plead your case in advance, which you got. Stop protesting, stop protesting, y'all. Yeah, yeah, you're making it way worse. Just let the COMS guys do it. Yeah, I've got two points. The first one is the Coms Guys like threw me under the bus and made me look like a fool in the discord . And I only typically look like a fool when I'm talking about Formula One in our Patreon discord. And so Kuranchander gone the thing just said, Well, you know, we're looking at on board, yep, yeah. We've seen the double wave yellows on his dash at that time. That won't that won't count, that'll be taken away and you go okay, that's fine. That's an in the moment call . But that obviously then if you're going to be that definitive on the COMS, that lets' the cat amongst the pin pigeons. So also Hayden says I guess Spanner's dislike of Russell comes down to him spending three years straight doing anything he could to beat Lewis in every race. Hayden, can I add another line? Well Lewis Hamilton was trying to build beat the rest of the field and develop the car. But no, my rational myrational dislike of George Russell is also started at Williams yeah, again look we can do some psychiatry me and figure out where that happened. Yeah, so George Russell, you said , he was nervous point nine up, which is absolutely massive. Do we know if Antonelli was also on a lap? Because every other time I looked in practice and qual ifying and he was fast as well . He was definitely on a lap. I don't know. Like this again, this is one of these things where if you if I knew I'd taken ten minutes and gone back and looked at like the compare the laps and see where they were in any sector. Oh this is Matt, this is Saturday. We can just be on Saturday. Yeah, I'm making this better because it's less less work for sure. If there's a comment that goes, you guys are wrong, my comment will be . Oh, Maria , right? Maria's the opposite of me with my rational anti Russell bias . She's saying Antony was slower . Oh, marginally oh I see how you took a long time to add and caveat marginally Maria okay but you also don't have to factor in the George Russell like Barcelona lap where everyone was saying, Oh, look, this is like a this is a this is a stebbing of the wound. He's got a pad on, he's he's got a torn aquete on. He's not going to lose the limb. It's going to be okay. This is how he saves his championship and then during the race at Barcelona, my goodness, there is no doubt Antonelli was the faster of those two drivers. So if you are a George Russell fan now , why are you getting excited about him being a slight bit faster? Sorry, Maria that sounds like a full attack on you. But yeah, I wouldn't if I was a George Russell fan, I would not be excited about a slight qualifying pace advantage over Antonelli . I think for Russell, at least, it's going to be down to yeah, look, everyone is acknowledging that Antonelli's faster. So if you listen to howed the Com talkbsed about him all the way through FP three, which I did watch on my phone, which surprisingly was a really great way to watch it. Yeah, they were like Russell's Rands. He's done. He's done. Oh wait, he's just gone faster. So he's going to acknowledge that Antonelli is quicker in this car under these circumstances on average . But the thing about Russell and this is sort of a yeah, you do got a handle to him, much like the professor , he doesn't quit and he continues continues to work it out and get far closer than anyone gave him credit for. And that is not a nothing burger and really is kind of to his credit if I'm being honest. Discord, can you stop posting shirtless pictures of George Russell? I understand that that ops is kind of stuck as a human. Like they're all great photos by you, fair play, fair play. Scott says, I'm not excited about the poll. It's just better than not being on poll . So Scott, because you are very challenging to me and you don't mind disagreeing and challenging my points. I will challenge yours . So I actually think that him being on poll is not better than him not being on poll. I know that sounds silly, bear with me, if there is an inherent trait of how George Russell sets up his car that he will prioritize a grid position over race pace, then no, it would be better to not be on poll than be on poll. Le Clerk made an interesting observation, so people were asking him, do you think that the Ferrari progress is down to just Hamilton's input? And do you think that you are struggling because they've developed the car towards Hamilton? And I think Leclerk, who, by it seems to speak in a fairly , you know , fairly valid and intellectual way, said, Why sounded quite old fashioned will , said , No, these cars have lots of room to set up for each driver. So you have the baseline car, but there's a lot of room for each driver to then set up for what they prefer and what they like. And that's an interesting observation. So now the setup becomes a much more important part of the weekend and maybe are they less hobbled then by a car being developed towards one driver or another? Yeah, yeah, I suppose there is still room to go well, the window of setup could still be favoured towards one driver or another, so it's more likely that one driver will find a good setup . But when you when you put that into a George Russell spectrum, that means there could be room for Antonelli to look at the whole weekend and George Russell to do what I feel like he does, which is let's get me ahead. Get me on poll, get me ahead. And I think in the ground effect era, in the twenty seventeen regulation era where clean air is king , aero full aero dominance and aero wash behind is a factor you can't follow . So in those situations, get me ahead at all costs and I will deal with it. Yeah . So I don't care . Make sure I'm ahead of everyone and then I'll find a way. And those ways could be blocking ruining the arrow behind , making sure I'm controlling the pace so I can tie a save, I can control the strategy or whatever. Or it could be if it's your teammate, I can be ahead and if my teammate attacks me I can say, Hey guys, come on, what are we doing? What are we doing? Why? Why are we fighting? Let's do we not want to win this race and George Russell did that in twenty twenty three . twenty twenty three with Intersuka with Hamilton behind him. Hamilton tried to make a movie. He's like, guys, come on, come on, what are we doing here? Yeah. So that's all I in my opinion, that's always been Russell's thing. Like get me ahead and then I'll deal with it from there . So if the setups are much more driver specific within team now, then you can see those varying tactics between drivers. So is George Russell on Pole necessarily something to be excited about . Barcelona on the Saturday, all the talk was right. The bleeding has been stemmed. This is the comeback but when it came to race day, Antonelli was faster, like much faster. And could it be that the more Russell probably has a corpse? Let's say he just went the same exact setup, the same exact tactics as Antonellius Hamilton, then maybe there's a let's say he was behind by two tenths , but he can try to politic, you can try to use different sabs and that can get him to half a second now that can get him ahead on track but half a second behind in overall pace. So that's the equation that he's making. So it's almost as if oh you notice my wheelbase I'm going to talk about this about that in a second yeah on the video it's almost as if you go right the, more he uses his George Russell tactics , the more the core race pace will dissipate. So he if you are losing to him five races in a row, which was happening in Barcelona , then he goes, right , well, I know the tactics I can use. What if I crank the George Russellness of it all up to eleven ? And then that's how you get the Barcelona poll. You get the Barcelona poll and then things start to go wrong in the race, but he was there. He was fighting in the race and then eventually yeah, yeah, Antonelli got the overtaken. But in his mind, maybe he's like, oh, well, that's because such and such a thing. Maybe Antoneli had slightly newer tyres and he goes, right, let's come to Austria . It kind of worked. I was in the lead for a good while. I was in control of that race and it was kind of robbed for me because we covered off Hamilton and then we didn't cover off Hamilton and we were too focused on Norris. So maybe that's the thing that really messed it up. Let's come to Austria and let's let's really crank that up. Let's give me give me all the qualifying. I don't care if this car explodes on lap three , get me poll position because was he so far up in Q three? Now Matt has had a technical fault because he's just he's not as good as me to be honest. Like, you know, you struggle, you try to keep up, but we're all back now, Matt. Yeah, I tell myself working, we are all back. How much of my expert analysis on the Russell versus Antonelli mindset did you pick up on? Just enough to understand how wrong you were about it all. Excellent. Continue . Well, I think I think for me, you know, you were complaining about Karoon leading you into a dark place immediately with a double wave. Yes, that bastard. So I think problem number one is that the calms naturally tend to over they over project what they're seeing in front of them, and there's much more uncertainty about it. Like you could say, Oh, I think Antonelle's faster than Russell . Yeah, but being faster and winning championships aren't always exactly the same thing. This is a great one. Like they were talking to Kamatsu and they were like, oh yeah, wow, you must be super happy to see Behrmann, you know, like just a second off and in tenth place. I'm like, but it's Q one and there's a whole nother run coming up. Maybe you want to wait and sure enough, like what do you want up like thirteenth, thirteenth, maybe I think, you know, so like, yeah, actually they went up exactly where Hawes thought they were. You just had a particularly good second run compared to some other people who are probably on scrubbed tires or whatever . So broadly speaking , I think George knows that he's going to have to think his way around Antony not just around but think his way to being close enough for it to be a legitimate battle , but I think he thinks he can make it close enough that it is a legitimate battle, that the potential exists for him in across a single season to win. Rosberg certainly took out Hamilton and they'd known each other forever, which is part of why I think he was so successful. Oh, Matthew Matinelli still a kid. The other thing and this is always the thing to remember , right? Antonelle is going great now. Well what happens when an update suddenly takes his speed away? Okay . And he's never brought himself back from that before. No, true, true, true. Russell probably has so so, there's some unexplored question that's not Antonelli's fault and maybe he'll never find that. But I think most people who wind up being multiple champions , you do. You go into a dark place. You're like, why is nothing working? How do I solve this problem? I've never been here before. And then you do have to have the mind, the strength to work it out. If fifteen people tell me to correct Matt about Rosberg Hamilton twenty sixteen season . I will . However, for now, I'm going to brush that off. Okay, twenty sixteen . Yeah, but it's really like so yeah, I don't think Russell is kayaking. I thought this was a noncanon anyway, so I'm not like I, just think but I'm in the moment, I'm in the moment, Matt, I'm gonna find until I interrupted it and ruined it to make what I'm saying funny. Yeah, I think I just think Russell is overthinking. He's over I think he's overthinking it right now. Like we like it's we've I think we've all done this in sport and I think everyone loves when I compare F one to tennis or golf. So I'm going to just continue doing that. But you have a choice to play your high percentage game. So what is the shot that I can do the best most often? But what is that shot where you go? I know it's so tantalizing. Like today, today , today I ripped a top spin forehand and I ripped my whole body, my body twisted, my body twisted like a toy story toy and honestly like I spun it was like it was like I was a trebuchet with a counterweight I ripped the sp in and this ball it hurtled towards the head of my opponent on the baseline and then just dropped down dead, hit their racket, went off into the car park and I felt like a god. And I was like and, I looked at their face . They look confused. So I know I'm capable of doing that shot . But I also know that that shot works like one time in maybe eight And I think that's the situation Russell is finding him in. I think he's he's doing low percentage plays that when they come off, my God, they're satisfying. All right, quickly before my camera eats itself, Tin Cup is the movie you're thinking of. Oh, Tin Cup's amazing. So Kirk Kevin Costner . Right. And he has a chance to like tie or something by clearing a river to get on the green. He 's he could drop the ball , take the penalty and win the masters, which is like winning the world drivers championship in Formula one, but yeah, not quite I understand golfers, but for our larger general audience purposes, we'll just call it that so everyone understanding. Do you lay up for the easier shot and take the pretty good result or do you go no, I know I can do this shot and in Tincup doesn't he take like eight shots and his cadi eventually says 've only got one more ball in the back. Yeah. Yeah. So if you run out of balls, you can't go buy more in the pro shop. So if you lose your last ball, you're out of the whole tournament, which also means you mean you win no money or yeah . I think I'm the catalyst thing is like you could you could win the whole thing or you could insist that you can make this one shot that nobody ever makes anyway and he's just like, yeah, give me the last ball because I'd rather make this shot than win the tournament and that's sort of like a mindset. I'm not sure if it's exactly that with . No, but here's why it is. Now you're gonna get the watching stuff . I'm going to give you Scott's comment. Scott says it's possible it's not a setup thing and Russell just is not good on tyres , which is a criticism I've leveled at other drivers and have never leveled at Russell. Yeah, well, I mean, it might be a setup thing , but it's a head thing. Here's what you've got in FP three, which I watched on my phone while I was at work . He kept on running over and over again into turn three because Antony, according again to the coms guys who I assume are looking at something that might be legitimate ish telemetry or like he's just Antonelli is just massively outbreaking him into turn three and he kept on trying to find the time and turn three . And even then when they said like, oh he's breaking so deep, he's upright. I'm like, yeah, but like remind me what puts energy back in the battery again. Oh ye,ah. So yeah, he might be out breaking me, but then I have more energy, more cleverly spent. And Russell in a very ten cup fashion, continue to try and match Antonelli's breaking into turn three. And that is his weakness. Yeah, he cut his weakness . That's why he brought up ten cups. Well also with Hamilton as well, folks we said this the whole time focused on Hamilton, not on what he's doing. Bingo. Yeah, Yah same sort of blindness, it's not enough to just win a way , a clever way, a post versus sent away . I have to prove that I can match Yeah . Now it may have just been the lowest hanging fruit left in the lap. I don't know, but it was almost like you know how you miss that put on the green but there's nowhere to go. So you drop the ball and you take five or ten or you miss the chip and you go back and take some extra practices that's what he' doings in FP three . And it's exactly that is his weakness . If he can get over it, he might legitimately be much more of a threat to Antonelli. If he's like, okay, I'm not going to bother to try and out Antonelli Anton elli. He won't, where does that cost him? And how do I take advantage of that? And that's what I'm going to use to beat him. He won't do it. And this is the overthinking. Like he could just go out and set his best race weekend Yas since Antonelli clearly seems faster than Russell, he's trying to get every advantage he can and part of that is prioritizing qualifying. It's the most rational choice. So Yar's saying the same thing as me but saying it's the correct decision. But by doing that, you are sort of admitting defeat on the core on the fundamentals. Matt, I only wanted to do this many time on this, but we have other subjects. So why don't we just do I'll do this as if like I know you're not the expert. I know I'm the expert. I'm the best one, but I'll do it as if you're the expert and I'm firing quick fire questions at you. Should you know that would work? Okay, okay. I can make up things with an astounding amount of authority. Okay, I know we're not supposed to criticize Max Verstappen ever or you get fired or you get a veto or you get boycotted by Red Bull. Verstappen crash when he looked like he was really on the pace on the ragged y edge challenging the big boys, was that a choke? Nah, that was winner bin. That's okay. But isn't isn't when you're win or bin and you go over the line so it's either the choke or you 've said I accept the odds of that's what you're saying. I accept the odds that I may end up in the wall or pole. Yeah. I think in his mind I don't care if I'm tenth. Yeah . But if I can smell pole , I will give everything up to even get that close to it. And he did it. And it was like until until that happened. It was in a wow, it was very fun to watch. That whole end of qualifying was very, very fun to watch. Yes. And yeah, I mean in a different once upon a time, I'm gonna bring up i racing. Oh my god the tree guys at that spot I was ahead of you. You were very hungry about it passed you and it was enraged something terrible happened into the last how much they dominate how many times they don't was in I was on for a really good finish , I but had a bad exit because my tires were gone and I shifted someplace I'd never shifted before and absolutely lost a whole car and I think this is what happened to Max because he was going so much faster , he was waiting later. He downshifted at just the wrong moment and maybe it was a battery plus. No yeah, yeah. Killed the balance of the car, sent the rear end around and ruined his lap. So I would love to blame him entirely for it, but there's a there's a degree of unpredictability with how the energy system plays with the rest of the car. Do you remember Australia that that crash he had into turn one, I think, in qualifying as well . So it was fairly similar. So he was coming down the gears and it looked like in one of the lower gears there's either a mist time or but certainly it was on entry. So it wasn't like on paddle on entry the, car's kind of slightly over rotated than he expected and then the amount of power he puts down just sends it round. Yeah, yeah. And it's a little thing because you do use those down shifts to help rotate the car. But if you are going faster and you are braking later, then you're applying that balance shift at a different point in your turn and it might be a point at which your tires had no extra grip to aid you, you know, like you sent them from being one hundred point five percent and just rotating to being one hundred three percent and backwards sideways into a wall. Well, I think we've seen that like a few times. So I think when we saw a Leclerc go out in one of the Q three's like one of the many Q three's that Leclerc has gone out in was at Barcelona. I think it was a it was a similar one where he got out of shape and so he was he on braking again he'd over rotated , real ized he'd overrotated, tried to open the steering up, but by that point it's sort of too late and then your weight has shifted and then he got on the power and ended up crashing. So it shows that these cars are a little bit more lively on entry and on rotation . No . You can really see it in some of the some of the world feed shots coming into turns just the rear like gazzly caught one, especially coming out into the last turn. Everyone's having to . In fact, that was one of the things when I saw Lewison and Leclerc come through. I was like, oh, that's so just like surgical compared to everybody else who even if they were faster was having having to do some opo on exit just to keep the car from, you know, going fully off the track. It is nice to see. So when I watch golf, I never see anyone just fully shank it off of the inside of the driver and you go, but like tennis, occasionally you'll see someone just frame it into the crowd and you go you don't see that in Formula One, but now we are kind of seeing it because one of the biggest errors that we make in our community is you get the braking pressure wrong, you get the combination of braking pressure and steering wrong or you get the downsif timing wrong and the rear doesn't do what you want. You're like, yay , they're just like us. They're just we are much less often. All right, going down the order now. The Ferrari's did look good . They seem to have the ability to now sandbag on Friday practice, which is a new skill that they have unlocked. Every time in practice I watched Hamilton, he didn't get a clean lap. So do we have a kind of rever se normal situation where Ferrari is fast but Leclerc is the more consistent driver and Hamilton maybe has some peak pace but is unable to put it together You know, data point of one, make of it what you will. I think overall , we're an opposite world . Leclerc on the absolute limit is now kind of matching Hamilton, who didn't seem from the off to be having the best of reality , no, just like you remember like in from Canada onwards we've been saying he looks like he's at one with a car and then this is the first time since then where we've gone Oh he, can definitely get some pace, but he's not connected connected. Yeah, no, this is definitely I have to sit down and do my homework kind of a weekend for him and Leclerc is mostly been faster, but by hundreds . This track is also this track is horrible Whereas in the past hundreds would be tenths. It would be four tenths, five tenths. And now they're both up there in second and third . And you know, across the whole race , you know, Boost's race consistency has been that ultimate weap and happily the car is full of fuel and doesn't go as fast. So you don't have to have mostly those hyper refined just raw pace of young people with no brain. Okay, can I just work this through? Why were we so many cars struggling in turn three? So you had you've got turn one , which is kind of up the hill . And then turn two is the kink. Turn three is a steep hill, I think a slightly sharper , slightly sharper just going from feelings and then you've got a sausage curb on the outside and then you've got a lot of stake then going down to turn four. We saw the Red Bulls really struggling in practice at doing that. Think of I saw Norris going off a bunch of times or Hamilton under steering into there as well . So like that corner has caused these regulation of cars more problem than in the past yeah. So it does seem like a very tricky track for the drivers to get a grip of. Yeah, so turn three is fascinating. If you get your entry to turn one right , there are no turns, although there is technically a turn two . Yeah, kink. Until you get to turn three. So you're first of all you're going to be arriving at that corner about as fast as you're going to go on this track, which is pretty fast. It is a very steep turn , not even elevation wise, just angle wise. It falls into the hairpin. It's probably the slowest turn on the corner . So if you take the elevation out of it, already, you're looking at it and going, okay, this is a big I'm gaininging or los lots of time depending upon how well I drive this turn . So you're already going to be tempted to wait, brake late, carry as much speed as possible, but it's also uphill, very steep , and if you get too deep trying to cut the curb, you are lifting parts of the car off the ground while other parts of the car are still going up the hill , and then you've got the problem of getting on the throttle , not being shot wide by all of the all of the bouncing over the various elevations and camers of the corner . But we did see at least on F one TV, at least on everyone TV, we saw like a lovely shot of Russell , like, you know, here's Russell. And here's Auntonelli and he had to be like ten or fifteen kilometers an hour faster. It was visible from the onboard how much faster he went through that one turn . And so it is, it is a big huge if you get it right because after turn three , everything is faster. So you lose all your momentum there or you carry more than anyone else and you've just got that in your pocket the rest of the lab. So yeah, it's a very, very big turn . Very challenging from a balance point of view and that's why everybody's been struggling with it is because they've really been trying to get the absolute most laptime out of it. They can because that is your biggest loss. Yeah. It's funny, isn't it? How I think this season in particular the approach to qualifying and the race is very different. So we're going into tomorrow and initially in this reg we have no clue what will happen in the relative pace from between Collie and now. So you saw the Mercedes struggling and then suddenly just kind of eat everyone up. You see Antonelli drop back to P seventy four and then they go on and win. So but now we've got a bit more information. So now I think Hamilton didn't do good in qualifying hardcore pays will definitely be setting up for the race. Hamilton's going to win. Hamilton will win again . He will close the gap. It's happening again. My expectations could not be higher. And what have I always said the secret to a happy life is incredibly high and unrealistic expectations . That's why you have me here, my friend. Let's do it. Let's go and they go Russell , it's so unlikely that he would have been like would have just been clear a second . The last time we saw cars being a second clear and qualifying was twenty thirteen and that 's when you're doing something seriously wrong because you know qualifying versus race pace. We have I don't think we've seen a race where George Russell is faster on race pace than Antonelli this season Australia maybe ? China arguably . But again, there was a problem there . We've had a long run of Antonelli being faster on race pace. What are the chances that Hamilton that Russell was suddenly that much faster was about to have a like a monster quality lap and that has no consequences for Sunday Low, low, low to an Elliot couldn't respond to it. But I mean that you 've definitely put your put your money on red thirty seven and yeah. Yeah , red thirty seven my favorite I know really well. Oh yeah, so obviously Hamilton w who and then Antonelli P two . Russell P four because a resurgent. Where did Versnappen qualify in the end? This is the question I was about to ask you 's banker lap was pretty darn good. Oh, he looked fast. Yeah, he looked fast. Yeah. I'm guessing fourth or fifth and he was he was well on to be front row until discord, chat, where is our qualifying order? Come on guys. All the time in the one time we really need them, they're off getting something out of the fridge. They correct us an awful lot and given that they have not provided this information that we have become accustomed to, I think we can chastise them. What the hell is a matriarchal Jazz Bruce, I'm glad you're at a Montreal jazz festival, but you have a phone, you could look it up for us. That's what I'm saying. Bruce, that is lazy. You could have you could have honestly. The term is concurrent activity. You could have done that. So yeah , yeah, I know. So we've got through this qualifying review not knowing the order of qualifying. That's that's a new low. So that's good. Matt, I will see you tomorrow. I think we're going to go for seven PM UK time because John O's going to join us as well. We haven't had time for anything else and I'm very, very warm and hot. I think I might be hitting my wet bulb temperature if I'm honest, Matt def Iinitely hit mine a little while ago I'm Schwitzen I can't have every pore I possess. I'm trying to type in Austria and I'm just I'm getting it Os tria alifying not replay . Five. Result five. Result? Okay, like there we go. We'll formula one, have it? Yes, here we go. View all standings for the Austrian Grand Prix tomorrow. We'll be George Russell on Pole C?ontrovers ially Leclerc Not by much at all by Hamilton? Antonelli. So we have got Mercedes versus Ferrari again, but this time you're ignoring McLaren though. No, no, for now, I'm ignoring McLaren. Don't forget how much Norris is around this track. I don't care right No, I've not seen Norris take turn three properly the entire weekend, so I'm discounting him entirely . But we've got the Mercedes Ferrari battle again except this time Ferrari do have Le Clerk. forty two point gap or like there's a big gap between Hamilton and Le Clerk. Obviously too obviously too soon to ask Le Clerk to help out Hamilton shoot No, you've done it . God help us if Lewis should actually do better than Looks like it's gonna be team orders from half the people on social media. It was team orders it's well I don't know maybe it was, but what would you do in this instance? What if Leclerc gets a good start and he goes ahead or whatever and then Hamilton is catching seems to have a better race pace ? You can see a situation and by the way, that that isn't crazy based on the last few races. So what do Ferrari do they say your paces are different? Let Hamilton through so he can go and charge down Russell because Mercedes really did kind of hobble Antonelli a little at Barcelona. They logically speaking Russell Gataway. Gataway, see what Antonelli can do get on the way. Yeah I think the hobble was the strategy the Hobble was them switching strategies. That was the hobble and it was for both the drivers . Letting them fight was the lesser problem Brussels was holding up Antonelli. If they if they could ghost, if there was a ghost car there, Antonelli would have absolutely gapped Russell which well does once again proves why they didn't think Ferrari was going to beat them . They were just thinking, well, it doesn't matter if they get slowed down. It'll be a wonderful. It'll be one of the two of them and that's fair. Don't you love that? I wonder. I wonder I wonder I wonder will there be team orders at Ferrari? That's my that's a big question big, quest ion. But it's a question for tomorrow, Matt let's go away. It's very hot, sweaty. We'll meet up tomorrow and we'll talk about the race car race follow Matt at all the things blah blah blah. We don't really do that on a Saturday. Until next time work hard, be kind and have fun. This was Mr. Apex podcast spanners just waffle noncanon completely ruined by Matt's facts and information . But I did ask him to guys . Which I needed today because and thank you to the patrons for giving me information as well and talking me down off my Anti Russell ledge . Why don't people get in touch with me and say here's seventeen reasons why you should George Russell. Right ? If a thousand people get in touch with me with seventeen reasons why I should like George Russell taping in the jail. Yeah, if did I say a thousand? Yeah, that feels great. If a thousand you can have an Excel spreadsheet full of resources like five people will email. If a thousand people email me, I'll issue a full of emails from Maria. Goodbye. Home is Mongol.