Barcelona Catalunya GP Preview

Are all batteries the same That's like asking if all soccer players are the same Take Messi, the most decorated player ever Is there any other player who has achieved that? No, just him. Now take Duracl. Is there any other battery with power boost ingredients inside? No, just Duracl. Remember, goats only trust goats because they're built different. And Messi only trusts Duracl This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a fifty page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online makes sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set upp required compatibility and availability varies eighteen plus Puscar laa Qinta pat algato and welcome to Shift one a podcast about spepeedy race cars. That by the way is Spanish for to look for the fifth leg of the cat Meaning to make something more complicated than it needs to be, nothing is supposed to happen. In Monaco Rob, fiveive legged cats all over the place Uh Dre Sanl,.'s RobZack. How are you Not bad. Yeah, lots to keep track of with that Monaco GP. Not a ton of like racing racing stuff to keep track of. but fans of the Stewards had a lot to cheer for at this Monaco GP. U If you are new to this podcast, very warm welcome to you and if you are new to Formula One itself. We've got an episode just for you, our preseason primer episode assumes no prior F one knowledge and explains how this spore works and who everybody is. So if you'd like to go back and listen to that's episode three hundred and thirty eight. alsoso this show would not be possible without our audience over at patreon dot com slash shift F one, where every month we release ad free versions of this podcast early, extra early this week along with bonus pods and videos exclusively for our patrons. that cover racing documentaries and films, F one video games, experiments with other racing series and a lot of weird things. So if you would like to support the show and get access to all that fun stuff, head over to patreon. com slash shift F one or click the link in the show notes. Daniel Odwyer is still on assignment this week. so I shall read the title sponsor. Patrons, of course, as we mentioned last week, we will be having for the patrons U Review, coverage coverage of death r. you watch me I've not watched it no. Oh boy. Oh boy. pleasant surprise. Great, great. this this we did not have a patron exclusive episode go up last month, so we're doing a double This month Death race two thousand and the remake So stay tuned for that once Danny is back in the country. But yes, our title sponsors, including a new one here, which I'm sorry about this pronunciation Ziander, Algaswari Dupots do prodduce Thank you back up The military industrial complex, Warrizle, RIP Eberto, and I said orIP like Danny and Egor Firman That video game podcast TVGp. Tv. Let's Margo Racing, Ching Wells, Dr. V, Dinge Itsumi Ferrario, cryptocurrency, Mojo Nixon, G Rich at Di Ryan, Agave ATX, Cypus training Turf SES. Michael Maves, cigarettes teelemetrydck. com Butas calendar twenty twenty six. Drew Stewart Charlotte Clair's therapist M I guess you've got money to spend now U Bailey Foot, Abraham Getchell. E three mysteries. Hhtag money for work, Snigs, Alex Gouche, Max Voltar keyboards, Jeff Foster, Troy Stammer William Romf, Lacklin, the maddened man Samurai love story, Anne. Jason Kelly Whew, all right Bred This is gonna be a bit of a weird show today. I, as mentioned in the last episode, am dealing with newborn twins Danny is on another continent U you have prior commitments. So this is the only time this week that the two of us, any two of us could record. And it's Monday Meaning that one, we will be missing any news that breaks in the next twenty four hours I say what else is new Um kind of park for the course for this spr. Imost guaranteed that this's going be an action packed week in F one Newsland And number two, that means I also have not had time to prepare my play by play notes. So here's what we're going to do I feel like this is a little unprofessional, but I'm going to pull up the F one YouTube highlights to sort of jog my memory of what happened in this race, and we're just going to wing it kind of from there I won't put it on screen or anything, so if you're just listening to the audio version, you're not going to miss anything Um But yeah, we're going we're going we're going to roll with this Starting with the grid hereere Um As we mentioned in the last episode, Qalifying super important in Monaco because it is extraordinarily difficult to pass because it's so narrow. So where you qualify is re pretty good into a care about where you're gonna finish. Mbe not this time, but usually U But on pole position with a an emphatic timeim. U Kimmy An andelle. He's He's hot folks In second, Max Verstappen in third. Lewis Hamilton and fourth Charlotte Clire, Rob. So the qualifying three. was one of the wildest the the the end stages of that. was some of the most ridiculous qualifying stuff of the year. I do think Monaco I saw a pitch, I think it was on I was not on the race for autosport. This is the one I'm usually reading, but basically that F one just needs to embrace the fact that it's the best qualifying of the year. It's not the best race, but the real thing that you're watching is the qualifying because You know, as we've talked about, it is a sort of deeath star trench run type experience and every every mistake is like instantly fatal for the car And Q three ended. with a series of People pulling times out of thin air within like I think at one point, the difference between P one and P two was literally a thousandth of a second And P four was covered by like zero point zero two five seconds. Yeah. Right. So it was like that top four, if you ever needed a demonstration of How ridiculous the execution level is at the top of the F one grid This was it. Nonellies Lap was really good. and crucially, especially for a driver this young He shows out when he needs to, right? that like he gets that He has the best car this year He needs to be on that on that poll. It is clear that like Russell doesn't have that in him. He doesn't he doesn't have that like perfection he's lost that quality quality magic that he used to have u back back at Williams, but but Antonlli has it. And it's key at moments like this that it not desert you And so he showed up at a big moment because he was under incredible pressure from For me, like maybe the best driving performance of the weekend was Verstappen and qualifying U because we know he doesn't have the best car. And he damnier took that poll from Monlli U And so if you ever like need a demonstration of just like what is what is sort of the max X factor here? It's this, it's that he is a guy who can be, you know, arguably not even the second best car, mayaybe the third, maybe the fourth best car on the grid and be challenging for the poll at Monaco because he is just that good also, you know Um, The reports of Lse Hamilton's death greatly exaggerated, I think over the course of this of this Monaca weekend hisis return to form has been reallyally, really something U It's something people are less interested in talking about than being with Kim Kardashian right now, which you got a lot of coverage of over the course of the of the weekend. But yeah, the tail end of Q three was really, really incredible as you just watched you know, drivers all within a knife's edge and really driving home just how You know, there's the phrase like being, you know, driving a car ten tenths, right? Like getting getting maximum pace out of it Um They have to have that dialed up especially this track, you have to be able to do it You can't just like run a bunch laps and like hopefully get one good one out of it. you have to be able to do it again and again and again as the track evolves. And you got that this this weekend, but also at the tail end of qualifying in a bit of foreshadowing you had that you had that session running Uh, you you had that session like going Caution due due to like literal last second hits with hits with the wall Yes. I mean, like we said, at the I think at the end of the first runs of Q Three The top four were covered by twenty five thousandths of a second. So it really it was a complete toss up And u It was looking like Charlotte Clair might actually do it. likeike he we know he can be good around here. It's his home race. U and honestly, that first Ah qualifying lab It's not often that a qualifying lap can give me goosebumps, but something about the way that he was just barely hanging on I I I hesitate to put it up there with that Max Verstappen lap of Saudi Arabia where it's like I he's he's going to plid And then he crashed Um Both of those were just like, I feel like I'm witnessing something non human. but at the end, that was not enough. He tried in the second round of laps. Um, and u and ended up in the wall so he will start forth. Not not the only one who did, you know, as you know, as we get on the grid. Well I'm just f I should talk you about Bortotto when when we get to him. So ye, continue Okay. so fifth place Isaac Hadjar again, getting it up there with close to his teammate, which is something that we U haven't often seen out of Red Bowble in the past I don't know, decade George Russell will start sixth And then the two McLarens of Oscar Piastri in seventh and Landonorus eighth Pieter Gastlely, best of the rest in ninth and then Liam Lawson in the racing Bows in tenth. Another one, another name that we are kind of seeing up there frequently. In eleventh, Alex Albon and then Carlos Signs in twelfth in both Williams cars. Nico Holkenberg thirteenth and I heard David Kroft saying that that is his worst qualifying this year, which is impressive I think he I think every other race he has qualified eleventh Frankco Callapinto fourteenth, Arvid Lyn Blad is fifteenth, and then Gabrielle Bordellto in sixteenth Rp Yeah, so he got through into Q two, but had a had a hit of the wall there at the end of Q one. So he never returned to lap in Q two. So he was he was showing a great deal of pace But he, you know, brought out I he brought out a red at the end of Q three and was and had to be like towed back to the pits. and so therefore was ineligible to start in sorry in Q two in Q one. He was ineligible to start in Q Q two Behind him, Estban Okon In seventeenth, followed by Sergio Perez, Oliver Bermman, both Haskars not having a great weekend. Valtteri Botas in twentieth U and then Fro Alono and Lance Stroll. Two boys love in life Uh, Okaykay, so here we go Thanks to Formula One for the highlights. Well, yeah, I guess we can talk about the most deflating moment of the weekend because this is the big note off the start I mean, yeah, you're you're sitting there primed for Max Verstappen just pulled out that God tier lap on Saturday. He is he is like parked up right behind Antonlli well he's offset. he's he's in the P two grid boox, but you know, he's right there and if there's one moment you can get this done at Monaco, it's that race to the first corner U And so you're just sitting there being like, man, here's here's Antonelli going up against Uh, you know, but one of his mentors and also one like An absolute killer, onene of the elite drivers, one of the most fearless like This is going to be high pressure high steakes. We're going to see some fworks in the first corner lightights go out Max's car lurches and then the emergency lights come on, the little orange w wing mirror lights and the wing indicator lights. Max to his credit has the presence of mind immediately sort of with what little what little driveability he has left in the car, he lurches it off to the left hand side everyveryone has cat like reflexes getting around him. There's there's there's no incidence from that. But yeah, Kimy Aonlli drives off while everyone else is navigating a stationary max erstappen And that is the moment that like, well, Kimano just like drove off into the win, which is always the most probable outcome of this But your hope that it might be lap after lap of, you know, can the young can the young buck survive the pressure because there's two ways you can win Monaco, right? Like it's one you could you could pull off the first turnover take But then this thing, you live and die a pit stop deltas And so you can imagine lap after lap, the version of this race where a bit like Russell Lance Ey Adam at Montreal where it's just like the pressure r ratcheting it up and who's going to blink first and you know, how's the pit cycle going to work? And all of that just goes away just the air goes rushing out of the Monaco Grand Prix as as Verstappen, you know, stall has the has the power unit fail there on the pits. And there were in retrospect, there was maybe even the suggestion that He might have known something was wrong. He left the line very sluggishly for the formation lap. and the commentator's initial thought was Was he finding the clutch by point and trying to like get a feel for the for the grip in his in his in his grid box But now you sort of look back at that moment and Oh, wasas that already? he is struggling with what feels like a badly compromised power unit Yeah, I think he said as much in a mid race interview when he went and talked to the media pen that he had he knew something was wrong on the formation lap Um, and then it uh It turned out that C don't When lights went out. I had a moment where I'm like he is so quitting F one right veryry might have dropped the mic if it comes down to, you know, apparently they were already planning this is going to be the last race on this power unit according to Autosport that Laurent Meckys like The engine was nearing the end of its service life They were planning on retiring it after this because as any players of the F one video games know Power units as they wear out and they run distance, they lose power So the way the games model this is like you only get one hundred percent power off your engine for the first the race where it's installed. After that, you're a little bit down on power. And you're sort of encouraged to and this is what the F one teams do, they kind of run They tend to run engines that are near the end of their tether at Monaco because it is not a very fast track So they already knew like This is this this is this engine's like last, last race. But if it is an issue that is traced back to u you know, just the hybrid power, you know, construction of the engines It feels like it'd be one of those things. You know how like, once you identify a nuisance, Every time you encounter it again, it pisses you off more. becausecause you have the anticipated irritation of like dealing with it. And so it makes it hit much, much worse I gott to believe Max is sort of in that zone of he's already kind of like annoyed by Th power these power unit regulations. this weekend is a huge pain in the ass for for someone who get a strong sensus kind of an introvert. And then your race is over at the start. We've got a taste of this in indndy carar. whenever They have big capacitor units that give them a boost of hybrpower ever something happens with those The drivers lose their shit in the in the in the interview after, where it's like, well, I guess, engine broke because of a thing that we didn't want the stupid hybrid they added to it that doesn't do anything. So I can easily imagine how Max would feel at the tail end of that. I was actually surprised. his interview was really Oh Very thorough and laid back. He was he was not heated at all. So, you know, kind of unusual Mbe he's given us that's's a little bit of that, Drew. Yeah The other big move, I think on the opening lap is so Lando Norris is trying to go around the outside of Oscar Piastri up ahead of him in turn one and then gets pinched has to slow down to avoid hitting the wall. That compromises his momentum, which allows Pier Gasly to steam by him up the hill Uh and then u now now we're into Now we're into Drew watching YouTube. So I twenty o, go. So things also start cropping up from the first We get our first notice and this is a taste of how this whole race is going to go for Russell. He's noted for a false start on lap three, Norris had been on the radio saying that George was not in his pit box. They did clear him of that, but Russell would be in the crosshairs of the Stewards the the rest of the race Uh, Perez somewhere in there apppparently gets an overtake done on the outside of Mirabao. I could they never showed the they never showed the overtake as far as I can tell in the broadcast So maybe it's in the highlights, but yeah, so somewhere near the start of the race, Perez does what Pz does best, but also it's like he's like a Pokemon. likeike that's his move is you pass around the outside and if it works, if it's super effective, that's cool. If it's not, it's a tragedy But but but here it kind of worked out. So he so he has a bit of heroics there at the start Um And then yeah, it's around lap twenty where And this sets up, I think what the what you're about to see there on the highlights. Lap twenty Hajar reports his power unit is way off the mark that he is he is down on power U and he is Not the most poised over the radio his radio calls are U everything's exaggerated because The surface at Monaco is really, really bumpy So everyone's radio calls sound like rebel pilots on the Death Star run where it's like kind of this weird buzz as they're being bounced along the track service. So Hatchark sounds maybe a little exaggeratedly panicky But also he just sounds legitimately panicky. You know, he's he's calling the radio, he's calling on the radio saying that his his power unit is down And he gets the response, you know Okay, we're looking into it And then he gets confirmation, Oh, we see it. we see it. We're trying to fix it. And then a minute later you hear Ajar Fix it faster because in on his tail is George Russell u whose car is not walking wounded And so Russell is as this duel goes on orre not really a dual. He's just trying to get around a slower car. There's two seconds off the pace. so Hjar is really compromised. And Russell is all over Hajar and they keep having these close calls at the Chane exiting the exiting the tunnel Um And There's a moment where you know Hadjar cuts the Chicane to stay ahead of Russell and then continues on in front No action taken. Russell complains about it on the radio. It's it's It's one of those things where I do kind of wish the Stus were faster for things like that where it's this guy should not still be holding up traffic if he's cutting the chane. But either way, you know, they they let that one go. Maybe they didn't decide he got he gained a sufficient advantage But it is a long close race as Hazjar is just trying to hang out of that position while Um while Red Bull is trying to do something from the pit lane to figure out settings they can bounce or something to fix that power unit issue The other thing that's looming in all this is They're being caught by a lot of traffic as this goes on And Hjar his race begins to impact Liam Lawson's if if this goes on. So it becomes a jockeyking for position about the pit cycle between him and Russell But then also Red Bull doesn't really want on to hold up Lawson, who is who is showing a lot of good pace. Uh And meanwhile, Russell's Russell's just in hell here for for a number of laps And I think So I think it's Russell who pits first Um . Let's Yeahah, let's take a quick break and then we will come back to the pits This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most Learn more at Acenture d. com slash Spotify Cs trust the Home Depot for heavy duty storage solutions for any job site or garage. Right now, get up to fifteen percent off select storage and organization, imppact in water resistant toes, and shelving built to hold up to two thousand five hundred pounds. Storage systems have space for all your tools and protect them in the garage, on the job site, and everywhere in between. Save time and maximize efficiency with adjustable shelving customized to your business's needs Shop and save on prograde storage at the Home Depot, how pros get more done. So the first pit I'm seeing here is lap twenty nine Hamilton comes into the pits. And is this the first of our speeding penalties It is the story of the weekend is pit lane speeding violations Um And it becomes super relevant here. So so Hamilton gets the five second penalty for pit lane speeding And then when Russell comes in trying to beat Hjar during this pit cycle since he hasn't been able to do it on the track. He also gets dinged for pit lane speeding. I'm trying to see how many violations were there. It became comical Because at a certain point on the timing and scoring screen, if you're watching it live On the onn the bar to the left hand side of the frame, we have all the timing bar It was like two thirds of the field had that little red exclamation point by them to indicate there's a penalty being there's an investigation or a penalty being assessed I'm seeing a total of six. racefans. net has a great. They have a whole article. everyvery penalty noted, investigated and served in a crazy Monaco Grand Prix I'm seeing six and some of those, I mean, Rob, there were so many penalties here. You were getting the same penalty. per driver and therefore the FIA had to start putting timestamps on penalties to distinguish them from one another. But yes Yeah. so they also tried to and I don't I don't fully foollow the visual like I can't fully visualize what was caausing this, but u Scott Mitchell Malm at Race Fans. explains that U'mm yeah, I'm just going to quote here Uh Albin wasned late in the Grand Prix that several drivers were getting penalties and it was related to cutting the line around the Cadillac area Cadillac is positioned at the end of the pit lane, which is slightly more open this year than when it was funneled more tightly by barriers on both sides. This seems to have invited drivers to cut the white line that denotes the fast lane which is done at both ends of the pit here It is allowed from a regulatory perspective, but can create an unusual problem. The speed of a car in the pit lane in F one is measured using electronic timing loops and the FIA transponders Rather than through a camera or a gun, okay, this is what because I had been assuming the whole race that a gun was aligned oddly or something, that something on maybe pit entrance was misaligned Okay, so they're using timing loops and transponders The car was going back quoting The car will pass over multiple loops in the pit lane, and then the system calculates its speed Based on the time taken to travel that distance. the thing all drivers live in fear of with fast past tolling is at some point they'll figure out how fast you travel between those two tollways and realize that, oh, that doesn't add up if you're observing the speed limit. apparently that's what's happening here. As the fast lane is used to calculate the pit lane distance, even a marginally too aggressive cut of the line would shorten it So car traveling at exactly sixty kilometers an hour would complete the distance slightly too quickly for how it should be measured and be very fractionally over the speed limit. hence the tiny margin seen in practice. It is understood that this was discussed between teams and the FIA during the weekend and some drivers were even warned before the race to be careful of their positioning down the pit lane Wow. Yes. Okay. So the limiter would not save you if you took the line. that you just ended up shaving enough distance off your your your path down the pit lane that you picked up a penalty And so Okay, the palnces were a little ridiculous. I do feel like if they were briefed on it and warned about this That changed my feeling about the penalties a little bit because again, like the driver's briefings are supposed to flag things exactly like this And so Yes, usually the drivers are just going to rely on the pit lane speed limiter to keep them U safe from the rules perspective They didn't. Yeah, and this became, you know, an obvious problem during the race and then onene would imagine, and in fact, Race fans does have a confirmation that Pier Gasty, for example was told even to undershoot it And still He was one that had two speeding in the pit lan. u in foractions And Alpine has apparently requested a right of review for the second which we will get to because it impacted the end of the race But yes, back to lap thirty two here is when Russell finally does pit. He still stuck behind Hadjar who as you mentioned, Rob because of his engine troubles his gap to he was in fourth and his gap to Hamilton in third At this stage was seventeen seconds, but it had been over twenty at other parts of the race And therefore, the gap Um from Lawson in ninth to Norris who was ahead of him was shrinking. and therefore, they didn't want to to back Norris into Lawson Um And so Russell Pittits on lab thirty two from fifth place Mm pututs on hard tires Um, Did he get a speed? He did R. So he's already down. L this is so unbeknownst to him, even though he gets his undercut works Yeah. and he goes get he just barely beats Hajar out of the pits when when Hajar stops It stops a lap later. Yeah, and then But Russell's fate is already sealed effectively, but well, it's it's going to take one other thing to go horribly wrong for him to truly to to truly seal his fate U, but yes, he picked up the speed the pitlane speeding violation as well as I think he had gotten noted for u maybe crossing the white line at Pit exit, but he when they reviewed the footage, I guess he was found in the clear on that. So look Ver a series of near misses there for him, but he does get he does get tagged with the with the speeding violation. Yes Next up in the highlight reel, lap forty five is Russell going past a slowing Llando Norris U this is another one Rob that was Um Gosh Tough to take for McLaren on their one hundredth Grand P weekend U, that's two retirements. u due to technical Problems for Norris in a row U and then another retirement, Lap sixty Lance straw, Do you have anything in between these Two incidents, Rob? Not really. I guess a little bit of drama with Albin and signigns, which is that yes Uh you've got Williams trying to Signs is on a different strategy and so they ask Albin to let signs through so that he can run ahead. I think he's on aging mediums. At that point he needs to go and build a gap so he can stop and at that point, Williams has two cars in the top town So if if Albin can hold up the field and create a gap for Ss. Signs can get his tire change in there safely And he'll be then then then look at a double points finish, which they which they badly need this year Albin is not the most composed about it over the radio. It's a vibe we picked up from him a lot. saying quite pointedly, we're being too smart about this. U We're really risking my race here. Uh, and Apparently there's something to that because as Albin is trying to create this huge accordion of cars stuck behind him and create the space Um He does get overtaken by Lyblod on the on the Star fininish straight and Lindblog goes ahead. And so now with that cycle, it would be Albin be dropped out of the points if sign stops and comes out ahead. So It. Albin was not happy with the decision, but also the Lindblad overtake was sort of set up by a bit of a miscQ by him in the final corner complex So not not Albin's finest hour, but also just another moment that really underscores like Williams can be a really feel good story and a lot of charismatic personalities on it on there who all seem to get along as individuals But on race dayay, you often get the sense that like there's a They major discontent with between Albin and the team And there' been a little hints of that with signcience too that I think both these drivers are just kind of emotionally gutted to be finding themselves in cars that are once again borderline backmarkers. Yeah. And I could easily imagine Bows being a guy who' a race strategy guy as a matter of course, I could see the drivers feeling like The team has a predisposition to overthink and overstategize. or you know, to be ruthless in the pursuit of these very, very valuable points. Remember, this is the team and the team principal who when Logan Sargeant crashed or no, when Alex Albin crashed They put Alex Albin in Logan Sergeant's car. That's true becausecause Albone's the better driver. Like absolutely mercenary behavior U So what this said to me is not necessarily that Albin is hot on the radio, which, you know is is maybe part of the case, but that he doesn't necessarily trust that the team has notot only his interests, team's interests at heart. and that I think is the more concerning takeaway for me that the driver is just why can't the engineer just say, trust me This is what This is the right thing to do. There wass another I can't bring to mind, but there was some other strategy call that another driver was doubting that was very clearly clear for us to see Um Maybe it was Lecler. I'm not sure. But yeah, it's that's that's When I hear those rado messages, that's what I think Yeah, it is it's it's a tough place because again, I guess it's you know, as I say all this, it's easy to overanalyze radio Cs at Monaco. from the spectator perspective, again I can't imagine trying to carry on a conversation at a track where the marginals do this then Like Monaco is a that is a full concentration, maximum effort like every every lap is the hardest lap of your life. I cannot imagine it's a concept you bring up a lot, Drew. Like task saturation And I think Monaco, the baseline requirements for an F one driver, your tasks your borderline tasks saturated just driving the car, like in perfect silence, having to then manage settings, break bias, and then try to carry on a conversation and think about race state Um I feel like Once you once youre trying and juggle all that You're like a one hundred and twenty percent of task task load. And so I do suspect maybe some of this is also Drivers and you hear it throughout this weekend, drivers engineers not really understanding what the other is saying And it becomes quite consequential here at the at this next moment you flagged Because lap sixty, we see Stral has buried the car in the wall And that triggers a whole lot of chaos as people are are trying he's in the final corner And so they're going to have to deviate traffic through the pit lane, but also it brings out they bring out the safety car fast But you know, there's a question of like, will this end up being red flagged? What's going on? And then Wh everyveryone's going through the pits, Wh's going to stop for tires? And this is where you hear a lot of cs breakdowns between the pit wall and the drivers Uh, And You know, what's get into the reason for Strolll's accident after this. Okay I think And let's just talk about the pit cycle here because this is where Russell's race becomes irretrievable Um Mercedes calls in Antonlli to two box to get fresh tires. It's effectively a free stop here Yeah, he actually They call him in too late and he has to go around again. U He still has enough margin to make it somewhat safe, but is it is now chanccier. Rly because Hamilton behind him has a five second penalty to serve. so he serves it Meanwhile, Leclc is stacked up behind him Lecler actually does a good job of like backing up, like knowing that this is going to happen. So he's not actually stationary behind Hamilton in the pits for too long Russell It's super unclear exactly what happens here a little bit of color on that. Yeah Because to me it looks like there's simultaneous cross talkal on the radio and everything flows from that, but go ahead for what you see Right. So again, race fans doing the good work over here, trying to untangle what exactly happened here U So Russell has a five second penalty to serve Um He Let's see He comes in and effectively, So he comes in and stacks behind Anntonelli as they are pitting. So he he is waiting while Anonelli gets his pit stop done Then He moves up into his pit box and the crew attacks his car and changes his tires. They do not wait five seconds before they do so. The right front crew hesitates. Brndle notes that on the video that one tire crew out the whole set seems to realize that They should not be doing this Um But then everyone changed it. And I think I'm not even sure Savi and salvage this or or remembered belatedly. If they service the car and then hold in five seconds Is that kosher? because they always do the don't touch the car for five seconds And then You take action So another thing to note here is that when you are handed and I didn't know this for sure, and neither did the commentators, at least the sky team that I listened to We did finally get confirmation from I think Anthony Davidson When you are handed a five second penalty, you must serve it at the next available opportunity So you could not as George Russell did elect not to serve it and then say, just append it to the end of the race not kosher However The fact that they botched this They did have one more opportunity to fix it So U numberber one, apparently they Mercedes thought that because George Russell was stationary behind Antonelli while Antoneelli pitstop was happening, they thought That was okay That was five seconds. therefore that we didn't touch the car And therefore, we've served our penalty. I admire this feels that feels like board game night. That feels like somebody just board game night technically Never, never play Katan with Toto Wolf. I think is is the lesson there or something because like that is I admire the creativity of that. Well hold on He was totally stationary for five seconds. And then it's like, well did somebody actually write this? All right, let's check online and see if there's a rada in the manual to see if this has been addressed.obody this has never occurred to anybody. But yeah, I don't It shouldn't fly because a double stack The time delta is not being penalized. The time delta is just a function of your strategy U That's why your stationary is you're double stacking. You can't count that against the penalty But it's creative to try Yes. So U they think Mercedes thinks that they're good Russell doesn't And he's like if He he proposes the idea because the cars because of where stroll crashed, the cars are now going through the pit lane behind the safety car So Russell's like Well, why don't I just pull over Serve my five second penalty. the pits But in his pit box. as the cars are again. So he leaves his pit stop And then they have to come back around through the pit lane to follow the safety car. Russell's like, whyy don't I just pull in here again and serve my pit stop? And he gets overruled by that as well. I am curious whether that would have made a difference because at that point going around again behind the safety car He pulls over and serves five seconds He's still can be buried, right? because at this point the field is is stacked up. So he's still going to the back Right So he would still be at you know, he would have lost a lot of positions more so than if he would have had he served the p the penalty in his actual pit stop. Right. Because at that point the field is still strung out. He still has trap position in a way that allap later can longer Right But perhaps not it wouldn't be as bad as what actually happened, which was The FA the steward said this no hereere have a drive through penalty. So onnce the race actually gets going again, Russell now has to serve a drive through penalty. He does so and it drops into the back of the grid. But not before we get some radio where Russell is asking the team like, Hey I didn't I didn't serve my my my penalty And Total was like, dude, shut up sh No, we're gonna talk about this after the race Uh, that was So There is one the one part of this that I can't work out over assigning responsibility is Mercedes tells George to stay out But he is already saying as that message is coming in from the pit wall U stay out, stay out, you know, in the reaction to the stroll, Cash Russell is saying something on the radio And he wants to come in. And also everyone is heading in because they're now deviating traffic through the pit lane. But It also but also at a crucial moment, it seems like coms just go dead Wellus also pulls in behind Antonelli and it's not clear to me that Mer erroneous actually set up to, okay? Yes. that is another wrinkle here when they did not mean to double stack So Russell is was told to stay out But then the safety car needed to go through the pits So Mercedes is like here. Race Fans has the actual transcription here So his engineer Dudley says, we are in the safety car window, staying out, staying out, and Russells has confirmed, staying out U And then later U stay on your delta, staying out Then the safety c goes into the pits. Russell follows it, of course. Yeah Then they talk over each other.. Russell saying, we have to go into the pit lane to get tires. His engineer says, safety car in the pit lane, saafety car in the pit lane. Russell says Uh, get tires ready to swap. What am I doing Th then pulls up behind Antonelllli. Later he asks, was I meant to be boxing then for tires or not? And and Dudley says a negative We'll discuss that later though. So they had anticipated Anonlli doing the stop while Russell continued And then when the safety car came back around again through the lane, that's when Russell would have stopped presumably also to serve his penalty. But since he pulled in behind Aonelli and stopped for a little bit, Mercedes was like, well, I guess I guess we're good. Change his tires. There's an interesting wrinkle there. He'd already changed tires. So you have to serve the penalty if you stop But if he hadn't stopped if just they're going through the pit land, he never stops He doesn't have to take a five second penalty, right? It's only if he goes in the pits in his pit box Right. So there's a version of this where he gets past Antoneelle during that pit cycle. Um Because Antonelli missed the first Antelli loses all his time missing the like not being able to get in the pits at the first call. Russells there. That's why stacked up behind him So Russell does have this brief window where if he doesn't take tires Because the tires would have been good to the end. I think I think somebody was at Lindblod never actually had a tire change, except for the red flag But I think somebody never had a pit stop under racing conditions was apparently legit for the rules. You're right. And so there is a world where Russell could have actually like Boy, that would have been fun. Having Russell end up. I do suspect Russell gives that spot back. I don't think Russell would would have wanted that smoke at all. but it would have been a very funny moment. but it's For me the things is the thing that is illustrative here is One, sometimes I think Gege talks too fucking much on the radio U I think he is discursive that's sort of Uh, Validictorian like energy teacher's pet Like Vibe he sometimes gives is I think He can be too gearless over the radio to show like Hey, I just want to pull up a chair next to you and like let let's strategize together and look how on top of all this I am. I want to sort of be the executive in charge of the race And I think sometimes there's moments where it's like, no, you just need to be quiet and wait to be told what to do U And I think here this is that moment of bike If there's not cross talk, if he's just sort of waiting to receive command, I think some of the issues are cleaned up On the other hand It is undeniable that Mercedes fucks up all the time around Russell. And again, these are the like which came first chicken or the egg type situations of does Russell over commommunicate with that pit wall because he's not entirely confident that they know what is going on or that they are like paying close attention to his race. Witness the fact that, okay, maybe he shouldn't have stopped and Mercedes was caught flat foootated by that Nobody in Mercedes was and put the word out to the pit crew that like, hey, next time you see Russell's car, you have to hold five seconds got penalty Like that is a like that is not on George. when they serviced his car and released him. Um That is That is a thing that like Mercedes was supposed to make sure that that penalty that five second penalty doesn't become a catastrophic one Um, and Mercedes blew that And were they caught flat footed because there's a misommunication between George and the pitwall Yeah, certainly, it certainly seems like it Um, George seemems like he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do at that moment and kind of guess wrong and left his team in the lurch. But on the other hand, like kind of yet again Mercedes. misplays the situation and you know, snatches disaster from the jaws of a setback Yeah We're going to get to the reason This all kicked off the reason for Strolls crash in a second. but let's do the restart here. Antonellie's colossal lead was eliminated by the safety car So now Hamilton is breathing down his neck on the restart But Anstonelli does a great job at the restart and stays comfortably ahead, but then immediately Yellow flag. It's so sad because all right, Antonelli, Hamilton, Lecler. restart. Here we go. Oh, only Antonelli and Hamilton have come around this corner. yellow flag. What has happened to Charlotte Clair He's in the wall. at the stroll zone and what they find on the replay is that with the stroll incident, it looked like he went he was a bit wide in the final corner and got on to marbles And the car just straight up didn't turn and he goes into the wall on the restart when he's still basically under safety c pace, Leclerc has the exact same issue happen. the car is is wide through that final corner and then just like go straight into the wall at the exact same point. But on the replay Uh Rundal notes at that point. I don't know when they got onto it on F one TV, but on the replay, Rundal realizes, hey, wait a second. Is that a pothole basically? that that is not that what is what is out there is a huge bit of track abrasion. So at the outside of the the outside left of the final corner There's a huge, big black square tarmac patch on the road. Um, you know, like you find in any city, right? L like a huge bit of fresh to port asphalt to like level things off. And the track is full of these. look it looks very tighty in most places But in the center of it Um, It almost looks like a divot left by a golf club, right? L a huge bit of track has been abred and is crumbling apart the way asphalt does, right? When you see like that black that black top fall apart, it falls apart in chunks. It doesn't like skim away. It just comes up in chunks. And then they pull up the stroll incident and they realize it wasn't marbles that stroll hit It was big chunks of asphalt Uh that like got under the car. And so what was happening for Stroll and then happened to Leclair is that you had the left hand side of the car hit this pothole where effectively you have no grip And then you a totaland balance is the car And then you bounce back up onto the tarmac, but you still can't make full contact with the road surface because there's huge chunks of roadway under the tire. And so now you're just kind of a passenger. that there's just not enough the car is skidding and there's not enough grip to actually get the turn through. so Two drivers, the exact same incident happens and now you have this this this clear sign the road surface is not okay And so they red flagg the race so that they can go assess what they're going to do about this, which gives us a great moment of like You know, various dads and uncles of Monaco heading out to the dads and uncles of of Monaco, volunteering at the race, heading out there to like sort of stare at the stare at the tarmac, kick it with their feet a little bit of street sweeeeper comes by. There's nothing they can do. They can't like, you know, there's there's only like ten laps left in this race or so U So, you know, they're not going to pour fresh, you know asphalt in here. You don't have time for that So it becomes a they're red flagging the race and they're just going have to tell the drivers be wary of that Now So with strong. It's interesting actually Both drivers Um, Leclaren Stral Not having the best time. Strol also seemed to come out of it like yeah, fighting with the car the whole weekend. you know, not surpriseding it ended up this way But Leclerc U The second his car hit the wall He was on the radio, actually even before that, when Stroll went into the wall. Leclair was on the radio complaining at the Ferrari Pitwall about like their strategy. He't under he didn't understand what they were doing And then when the car ended up in the wall Ys on the radio and says I'm not even taking the blame for this. This isn't on me I told you, And thenen in the in the lengthy red flag, they get a chance to interview Leclerc And he just unloads on uh on the team effectively Um A speech basically out of the Godfather, right? where he's like I am always very honest I am the first person to hold myself to account. I am the first person to blame myself when I have truly made a mistake But in exchange for that, I am also I amm not going to hesitate to call out you know other people's mistakes. I'm not going to pretend that you know, this has not happened. And so then he just like goes off on the team where the interviewer basasically said like, hey, that rough that you hit that pothole, right? You know, that nothing you could do. And he was like it wasn't that It was the brakes. This whole weekend I've been saying the brakes. and like basically says that whatever caused that incident The hell with that. As far as Leclire is concerned, it is the fact that Ferrari were ignoring his like complaints, like ignoring his concerns around the tires and did nothing to sort of fix his brake issues this this entire weekend. And that is really what what caused the incident U And so he he was just fully like, I lay it at the feet of the team U and then the only crack of like optimism daylight he left there was u basasically Well, at least we know now We we just need to follow Lewis' spec. He was like we were doing something different than Lewis. You can see it's worked out really well for Lewis We need to stop doing what we are doing And hopefully we will just sort of match what What Lis decide of the garage is doing and move on from there. But it was the u Another entry in our growing genre of Leclerire Fing like he is mentally and emotionally broken by Ferrari Uh Ver, very good bit I also like that I guess due to the constrained nature of the Monaco garages that when the camera follows Leclair, he can't disappear into his trailer. He just has to go into the corner where he rips off his helmet and starts wildly gesticulating. Very rare to see that. Yeah, I wonder because it's tough to tell Because no one else, I mean, the only other driver that did that is stroll. Everyone else navigated through it okay. So if Leclerc's brakes had been working optimally, would he have made that crash? Who knows So I'll just say this U Th these are things that don't happen very often F one in F one U This is coming from the race But Brembo who make all the brerakes in F one and the way this works is all braakes are designed by the teams engineering departments I think Brembo even consults on all the braks. But Brmbo has like a series of internal like like almost like watertight doors between the brerakes that they're making for each team. They're not a spec part. But Brembo is like the leading performance brake manufacturer in the world. So they're the ones who fab all the brakes that are fit for F one So to a degree, Brembo is an engineering partner for every team. So Leclerc saying that it was the brakes that, you know, as soon as the safety car was out there, three of the four brakes on his car stopped working Bremo came out and said Brembo Group is really surprised by the statements made by Charles Leclerc after F one's Monaco Grand Prix. The partnership between Brembo and Scoteria Ferrari has continued for more than fifty years and also extends to other brands within the group, including AP racing, cllutches, and Olenss dampers, confirming the strength and breadth of his longstanding collaboration At present, the company does not know the causes of the issues experienced by Charles LeClerc and therefore considers it premature to draw definitive technical conclusions before the available data has been analyzed In such cases as this, it is necessary to examine the telemetry together with the teams of engineers in order to accurately determine the origin of the incident U, Again, these statements aren't usual. that's like so much boilerplate but also is rare of that Rembo or a part supplier like that feels moved to come out and be like, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey Don't look at us just yet. L we don't know what's going on. And I think they're will be the same thing you are, Drew, which is Yeah, but the same thing happened in Stroll. It's so clear what happened is the car hit a bad patch of tarmac and then slid off Um, but you know, Lecler was out there in front of a microphone saying, no That was a coincidence next to the real problem, which was these shitty brakes Well, we eventually get going again standing start Antonelly again, leads off the line from Lewis Hamilton behind him is George Russell in third spot for now And then Isaac Hadjar, who is still dealing with those engine power unit problems allowing Per Gasy to challenge him around the outside of turn one and get into fourth place U this is lap seventy one seven laps to go Damn Um And Hadjar also under investigation at that point for, o boy, what is it at this point? Let me consult The Race Fans article Uh, that I think was the red flag infringement. which usually means that the team has worked on the car in an illegal way during the red flag So that's that's a big question mark hanging over this race. Gastly also working on his second Five second penalty for speeding in the pit lane and Russell on that drive through penalty for u not serving his Initial five second penalty, but we head into the hairpin And this is where things continued to go bad for the Williams team they have actually their their gambit to get both cars into the points. hadad worked. Album now back ahead of signs in ninth place with signs in tenth, but Going through the hairpin, it is real tight. cars are side by side and Nico Holkenberg just clips the back of Carlos Signs Um who bumps into the wall but keeps going And then is tagged by Franco Colapinto and spun around. And at this point he just drives into a runoff and retires from the race. Cola Pinzo is handed Here we go in real time Um A penalty for No, he is under investigation for causing a collision with Cus signcis, but that is eventually cleared Nice Who wants to give call up into a penalty? Look at what you're letting yourself in for you know these days. Lap seventy three Russell serves his drive through penalty, comes out in basically the back of the field U and then we cut two in this highlights. Lap seventy eight of seventy eight. Kimmy Antonlli coming across the line as the victor of the twenty twenty six Monaco Grand Prix. Hamilton in second and then as on on track Pier Gastly in third But because Isaac Kajar was within F seconds Um, Gasolly drops down and Hjar gets third place He, as I said, is cleared. Hadjar is of his red flag infringement. so he keeps that third place. U oh gosh. let me let me run down the the actual finishing order here. As I said, Kimmy Antonlli in first. And guys, I think Antinelli might be good Your thoughts Rb Seems very, very good Lewis Hamilton in second Isaac Haj our third, Oscar, Patastry, will come home in fourth really a salvage, I think for McLaren this weekend. Liam Lawson finishes fifth And behind him his racing bows teammate Arvid Lindblad, incredible, as you said, Rob, did not pit. until he changed his tires on during the sa the red flag Pier Ghastly ended up seventh after his five second penalty. Alex Albun comes home eighth ended up with some decent points for Williams. Estean Okan in the Has. is ninth and remember, he started seventeenth in Monaco. Pretty amazing Um, Poor Sergio Perez had finished in tenth which would have meant the very first points for the Cadillac team h, but he was apparently out of position Again, this is another one that they had to timestamp because he was at a position at the start. once before, but at the restart and this earned him a ten second penalty dropping him out of the points He was then replaced by The other pointless team Aston Martin with Fernando Alonso. So they now have one point. Gabriel Borlltto comes home eleventh George Russell twelfth, Nico Holenberg, thirteenth, Franca Colapinto his fourteenth and then Sergio Perez in fifteenth and Carlos signigns classified as sixteenth, but I do not believe he crossed. The wine Pew, but just to recap here, Colap Pento got five seconds for speeding in the pit lane, Gastly. U he got two five second penalties for speeding in the pit lane Oh Huckenberg received a ten second penalty for causing that collision with signs and Perez that ten second penalty for a false start. Um, Wow A crazy Monaco Grand Prix, again, I will put a link in the show notes to that that Russell back and forth with his team and a coalation of every penalty served and handed down in Monaco both from race fans U Anything you'd like to note about the Monaco Grand Prix before we get to the news Rob U Yeah, two small things. O Um, Friday of Sor during that race weekend was missed missqualifying day, I think it was to head in for medical checks for for something So I assume it was something somewhat urgent to cause him to miss a miss an important day at Monaco, but he was back on Sunday. Ls lookooks fine. doesnesn't seem likes any sort of consequences. but U yeah,' hoping everything's Good with him you know, he's a big personality. and, you know, we we would hate to hate for someone to beome sort of overcome or let down by their body over the course this over the course of this season Um The other thing is When you're doing round upps of the celebrities and F at racing events and everything, look who allall is here You' need the show, Patrick Dumpssey We know Patrick Dempy is there. Pr Dempsey doesn't Patrick Dempsey just lives out the track. He's going to be there no matter what. Patrick Dempsey would be there if he wasn't Patrick Dempsey. He did acting basically to finance his racing addiction. But like, yeah, we know we know Patrick Demppsy' here. It's great to see him. But I think at this point, it's kind of like It's like showing a fueling rig And being like, look at this thing. Yep. yeep, there it is. Oh, the safety cars here. ammazing. Wha Uh All right, well, u That's it for Monaco. Do you want to hit this ADUO news thing? Yes. Have you seen any of it A little bit. Okay. So okay. you want to reset a little bit what this is? D because I was going to ask I was going ask you a question. Okay, please which was before getting into this How would you have ranked the engines on the F one grid Right, so for the context here, ADUO is basically additional development upgrade opportunity, which is the most severance ass way of describing a catch up mechanic in F one Yes, because we have the new power units this year, the thinking was, well Let's everything is going to be new. We might have some gross disparities here between the power units. We want the racing to be close. Therefore, we're going to assess Who has the best power unit And therefore, anyone who is u below that thresh or that below that performance u in level. We are going to allow them to catch up a little bit. Crucially, I said power unit, that's not actually what they're measuring. Wh you're measuringuring the internal combustion engine part of the entire power unit, power unit encompassing the hybrid parts as well So yeah, Rob, if you would to had me guess who has the strongest combustion element I probably would have said Mercedes because they are just, you know pulling away from the to me to ask comomustion because I didn't know I didn't realize was going to be about the the ice basically Yeah, like But if you're asking me the power unit, it's like, well, clearly, Mercedes has had the best power unit on the grid since the start of the year Um And then probably, you know, it's Probably I would have said Then it is Ferrari And then it's probably Red Ball U Red Bull Honda Audi you know, I guess. What is Yeah. so that's probably what what I would have said going into this And so Race day, race morning They announce Who's getting what out of the ADUO U like midseason check in. and Red Bull. Red Bll. is identified as the benchmark They're allowed no ADUO opportunities Mercedes gets to make one upgrade. And then Ferrari, Audi and Honda get two upgrades Amazing. I am This is I don't I'm not an engineer I don't know how this is one of those things where it's like This is beyond my ken. I'mond this is beyond my expertise. but I guess my initial feeling is We have had to we treat the power unit. We're even discouraged from saying engine anymore, right? That it is the whole power unit. It is a It is a system. is multiple multiple elements But taken together, that is what supplies power in the F one car The notion that you would only analyze like one third of that entire package, notot in terms of power per se, but like, you know, in terms of like the overall, you know mechanical share of what's going on. The fact that you would dish this out based just on analyzing The power unit, the combustion engine is kind of bonkers to me. Like, have we been in a hybrid system And they don't really have a convincing way to measure overall power unit performance. So they are just Be to me, Drew, the way this feels is We have really good systems for analyzing how an engine is performing. You know, we've had things being able to run on dynometers for ages But moving to this hybrid world the def one is at That no longer tells you the story. It almost feels like, well, hang out, we have a perfectly good ruler right here. And so we're going to use that even though that is no longer the relevant measurement, right? That you know we're using a ruler and we're supposed to be taking a volume measurement is kind of how it feels U So I'm kind of perplexed by this that we're this far because yes, this is a new enginine spec But turbohybrid is not. We we've been in turbohybrid land for a decade now. U so I'm kind of baffled It's one of the most like In NFL terms, this was football, this is like the Patriots, right? This is the like how the fuck does Mercedes get an upgrade out of this Yeah. yeep The FIA works in mysterious ways. I guess is all I can say Yeah, hang on. there's one, one last thing that last thing I was saying about AO Um So apparently like they kind of knew this was not going to be a popular outcome. But Nick Timbazas pointed out The FIA did propose a more holistic approach to measuring engine performance The manufacturer shot it down Hm Now now that crucially he says the car makers. and I don't entirely know does he mean like the corporate stakeholders like Ford, Honda, Audi, is it them? or was the teams? Usually that when they say the team shot something down, that's who they mean. But if it was the car makers who all this was like built around U then this really does highlight the degree to which the wheels are coming off this like this spec Because all of this was engineered to sort of satisfy the car makers And this is sort of the spec they wanted And then they were also the ones to veto The thing that would have allowed a more holistic analysis that was going to be crucial for letting their partner teams catch up Jesus, that's gonna that is bad news for the relationship between the teams and their engine manufacturers. and it is bad news for like how this entire spec has been managed Yeah, but I get it, right? because you don't want if you are Uh I not internal combustion engine manufacture, you want to be judged on your merits, not by you don't want to be you don't want a A you know, its a team that's not you maybe botching the execution of the rest of the power unit, right? So yeah, in this case, maybe maybe it has backfired. U All right. Spain, Rob, let's talk about it Yeah. So this has been a sort of standby on the F one circuit U it is a It is in every racing game. you have if you've played any sort of racing game in the last like fifteen years, you know this circuit. you've been on it. There's also a famous MotoGP track, scen of some of the most iconic MotoGP races you know in in history And maybe not as successful a F one facility. It is it has not generated quite the same level of drama. as as it has in Moto GP. They amended the track a few years ago to try and spice things up and sort of make for a more dynamic final sector that appear to not accomplish a whole lot. But This is also this is also a track that is nearing the tail end of its tenure as like a standby on the F one calendar. I think from here it might be moving to a alternating role with, you know, some of the other classic tracks, but with the Madring, I think Okay, so is that right? I remember during Rin is going to be like there every year and then Catalonia will be cycling between with Sa maybe. Yeah. Yeah, this F one doing a lot of a lot of things to like F one wants to be racing want to have destination races as much as possible, like in cities. that is the direction they want the sport to go. And they kind of resent the classic purpose built like racing facilities and they're trying to move those to a sort of supporting role. And Catalonia is the latest to fall victim to this But it is a it is a famous well known track you know, as far as how it tends to go for for F one, you know, you get a lot of action. It's got a very long like Runway scale, mainstreet Long rundown to turn one and two where you see a ton of action through. It's a right and then a left handnder where it's they're still relatively fast, but Breaking so hard coming off that that long long straight. that it tends to feel very slow, but they they're wide it's a wide corner complex. a lot of space for people to run off if they if they get it wrong and a lot of space to try to navigate two cars side by side through the whole thing. and that will set you up for a long sweeping right handnder u for a turn three that feeds you into the, you know, more twisting and technical downhill second sector where you know, you sort of head into the infield of the circuit and you get a lot of you know, really, really tight tight corners and almost like microscopic straits. before you head back down to turn ten, the sharpest corner on the on the race, it tends to it is a sharper corner, I think than circuit maps tend to indicate Uh The the way the drivers tend to attack it is is a fairly U sharp hairpin There is a lot of runway and a lot of tarmac, but they don't generally use the use all of that for the for the racing line. you're really cutting that apex hard. And then you are using the outside aprint of the track to sort of go speeding up to Turn eleven, a fast left handnder into a tight turn twelve and that feeds you into Uh a section where you're picking up speed through through fast corners heading back to that main street So so really like hitting that hitting that hairpin in ten and then getting that sector right is crucial for hitting the main straight with maximum power as you as you come around So, you know, its it's a track of that I think in previous years has not been shown to its best advantage because It would exaggerate the difficulties that a lot of cars had following each other due to arerro And you know, like a lot of tracks the story would completely change if you had rain. but in terms of like on track action, It became a circuit where outside of the DRSes could be a real struggle to get much action going. Obviously we have a totally different spec here. So it'd be ironic if the new spec effectively fixes what's wrong with Catalouonia, right? If they're about to remove it from full time presence on the calendar But hopefully we get a good one to bid it farewell. Well, last five winners here, most recently Oscar Piastri, then three appens and then Louis Hamilton historically in the last since twenty nineteen, George Russell is one of his better tracks It's not it's also a good track for racing bulls statistically Um But for Charlotte Claire, Lando Norris. And Alex Albun, it is in their bottom five in terms of performance as it is for McLaren. Statistically though, Mercedes is usually pretty good here and then Ferrari and then Red Bull You were right, It is literally a one to one swap between Catalonian and Ba so twenty thirty two is when that swapping arrangement You know, that's the last year we know that but from here, they're going to be alternating, which I'd be pissed to have a spa to because they sunk a ton of money into circuit upgrades. But I tend not to be we all remember what happens when F one starts swapping circuits. That is that is that is Hell's waiting room Uh think about how swapping venues for the German Grand Prix was the harbinger of there being no more German Grand Prix U My own personal ratings for this race have not been very high. I've rated it a two out of four the last three years and the year before that was a three Um But hey seems like Monaco could be Chaos, why not spin Um And so we have a we got a sprint this weekend No All right. Weatherwise, Saturday in qualifying time, warm at eighty four Fahrenheit or twenty nine Celsius, zero percent chance of precipitation and light wind seven miles an hour out of the south or eleven kilometers an hour on race day. U muchuch the same, slightly cooler temps, zero percent precipitation and similar wind. So St standandard weather. Heading into the weekend, Kimy Aenll is on top of the driververs Championship with one hundred and thirty one points George Russell eighty eight in second, that is quQite a margin But again, we are only what six races into the season. Anything can happen. Charlotte Clire in third with seventy five points, Lewis Hamilton in fourth with seventy two. Lanonoris is fifth with fifty eight and Oscar Piatry sixth with forty eight. Max Verstappen is in seventh with forty three. Pier Gastly in eight with twenty Oliver Behermman is in ninth with eighteen points and Liam Lawson Number ten with sixteen points Cola Pinto' got fifteen. Hadjar has fourteen, Signs has six. Lind Blad has five. Gabrielle Bordileto in fifteenth place has two points And then Estimont Okon and Alex Albon have oneon. Is this right because doesn't Alonso have a point That is a good question I'm looking at the official Oh wow. I just refreshed Y'all. And I have to do this again. Thanks for nothing formula onene d. comot Kimmy Aonlli one hundred and fifty six points in second place. Lewis Hamilton with ninety. George Russell is in third with eighty eight still. Charlte Claire and fourth with seventy five. Oscar Piastri is now in fifth with sixty points. see now we're getting here's here's how the Race changed the driver' championship. Lano Norris is in six with fifty eight points. Max Verstappen still seventh with forty three. Hjar now eight with twenty nine points, Liam Lawson twenty six tied on points with Pier Gasley in tenth Ollie Bhrman's got eighteen, Colapento's got fifteen, Lindblad has six, Sins has I'm sorry, Lindblad has thirteen. Signs has six and Alex Albin in fifteenth with five points. Then we have Okon in sixteenth with three, Bordileto with two and Alonso with one Behind him, the zeros of Hogenberg, Botas, Perez and Stroll Teams all right Refresh Uh, Mercedes is on top with two hundred and forty four points to Ferrari' one sixty five McLaren is in third with one hundred and eighteen points and Red Bull in fourth with seventy two. Alpine is in fifth with forty one points and then racing Bulls has U thirty nine points in six place. Gene Hasen team are seventh with twenty one. Williams has eleven Audi has two, Aston Martin has one in tenth place and Cadillac bringing up the rear with zero You can also join the standings yourself using the link in our show notes to join the official Shift of one Fantasy League. Here are the top three from Monaco In third Bridge on the river Kauaii S,, Very, very good U In second Lando the Victor and in first, Hambought Ver Pair Overall though, the picture looks like this. In third, Rich men of North Monaco. In second, the macarina and in first, cigarettes Beautiful. Yes. You can send us an email if you like ShiftFun podcasts jima dot com or go to F oneot c slash emails. You can also hit us up on the socials that is up around us around the internet. Now let's take it around the world of racing. Rob this weekend, the twenty four hours of LMas at Circuit LaSarth in Laa, France catch it The World Super Bue Championship is at Masano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli in Romini, Italy Formula two and Formula three will be supporting Formula One at the Circuit de Barcelona, Catalonia. The NASCAR O'Reilly Auto partarts series is in Pokono in Long Pond, Pennsylvania for the Miller Tech battery two hundred fifty presented by KOA U We've got the NHRA in Bristol, the Bristol Dragway in Bristol, Tennessee for the super Grip Thunder Valley nationals And we got gonna askkar Also at the Tricky Triangle in Pokono for the Great American Getaway four hundred presented by VisitPA Sorry You said Yes. Oh tricky triangle I it's said Turkey triangle. And so I was like imagining a Bermuda triangle like situation for like poultry this clarifies a lot for me. Thank you. ever seen a turkey and pookono I have not And forormula one, mayaybe you've heard of it kicks off this weekend. Friday, june twelfth, free practice one, seven thirty AM Eastern time followed by free practice two at eleven AM. Saturday, june thirteenth, free practice three starts at six thirty AM Eastern, followed by qualifying at ten AM But the race everyone Sunday, june fourteenth at nine AM Easter not on ESPN on Apple TV. Okay U we did it, Rob. We made it through Thank you for rearranging your schedule Mm. Fith than you were reriging yours All good. E'one been working together to make it happen That's right, Danny. Definitely back barring some flight mishaps in in the states Um Yeah, look forward too that Spanish Grand Prix, if you'd like to support the show And well I'm sorry. final thoughts, Rob, here after Monaco ahead of Spain. How're in for the gramoir Yeah, Daniel. Daniel'll be back with more news from history. If you'd like to support the show and get access to all of our bonus episodes, the early ad free version of the podcast and the official Shift F one discord, you can do so over at patreon dot com slash shhift F one. Have a good race weekend everyone. We will see you all next week. Nural