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Return From Hiatus
31 Plays1 year ago
After dealing with loss in the family and moving. Eric and Joy return to catch up on some of Joy's questions about F1 and discuss the upcoming race.
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Transcript
Podcast Comeback and Personal Updates
00:00:00
Eric Price
and we are live welcome everybody to the as currently named eric and joy's racing show which we'll be getting updated information here soon but i have not done that yet so that is not what it is called at this moment i am as always your host eric and joining me once again i have my dear friend joyous
00:00:24
Joy
The person that is just here for a good time, I don't know what's going on in F1, but I'm learning.
00:00:32
Eric Price
Yes, yes you are. It has been a minute since we have been back. um I was just going back through our episodes ah because our last recording was recapping Australia and then looking forward to China, which took place March 21st through the twenty third
00:00:54
Joy
Oh, okay. Yeah, we we got to get back in.
00:00:58
Eric Price
Um, there's no reason any of you all would know this, but, uh, I had a death in the family around this time, uh, in March, uh, which is part of the reason we went on hiatus.
00:01:11
Eric Price
Uh, Julius has also been going through some life changes. And so, um, it was not practical for us to be recording at these times. However, life, uh, has evened out some and moved forward.
00:01:22
Eric Price
And so we are now rejoining the podcasting ranks, um,
00:01:30
Eric Price
We're not going to do a race by race recap or blow by blow recap of each race because obviously it's been several races now um and we have about an hour to record. So that just wouldn't make sense and probably wouldn't be very good content for us to go play by play through one, two, three, four, five.
00:01:52
Eric Price
six, seven races inside of an hour. It might be a fun feat, but I don't know that it would necessarily be useful information for you, Joy, or that much fun for anyone to listen to who didn't already kind of know what happened.
Race Highlights and Viewer Questions
00:02:08
Eric Price
So um I know you did watch ah some of the races. um I usually ask you to write down any questions that you have um So rather than kind of go blow by blow through each of these, um do you have any oh major pressing or large questions that you had coming out of these races?
00:02:31
Eric Price
um And from there, we will kind of dive into what's coming up next. ah So um did you have anything that stood out to you as a question, concern or comment?
00:02:46
Joy
So I don't know if there's anything specifically, a couple of little things, but I mean, in the in the spirit of our mid-season catch-up, I feel like this is a mid-season
Technical Insights: Gravel on Tracks
00:02:58
Joy
catch-up. So this episode might be just like a little ah mayhem-y, right? Because we're in the middle of F1 season.
00:03:05
Joy
In my mind... If one never stops. But um through... Okay, so i of course I tried to catch up, do the highlights every race.
00:03:19
Joy
And I just had technical questions. And if you you might think the first question is silly. But yeah hey, it's why I'm here. It's a safe space.
00:03:30
Joy
So I was watching one race. And...
00:03:37
Joy
i don't I can't remember if it was Spain. I don't know. One of the races, they drove off, they got bumped off into the side wall or a median or gravel area. It was a gravel area.
00:03:56
Joy
Okay. And I thought to myself, do those rocks just fly up in their faces?
00:03:57
Eric Price
yes
00:04:01
Joy
Okay.
00:04:02
Eric Price
Yes. Yes, they do. And they will tell you they hurt. um The rocks will fly up into their faces when people accidentally touch the gravel.
00:04:13
Eric Price
It can get sprayed onto the track. um And generally because of where you're going to like go off and hit gravel, um when it gets sprayed onto the track, it gets sprayed onto what we call the racing line.
00:04:25
Eric Price
This is the kind of primary path cars follow that is um kind of the optimal ah place to be on the track.
00:04:30
Joy
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:04:36
Eric Price
um This is very important, obviously, when you're trying to like, past somebody, usually you will have to go off of the racing line, um which is a less optimal pathway. But if you're faster means you may be able to get around them.
00:04:50
Eric Price
um But having gravel or ah stuff like that on there means that as cars drive through it, yes, they will clear it away. But if you're directly behind the cars, that's happening.
00:05:01
Eric Price
then they are just spraying those rocks and gravel and all of that at you. And drivers have talked about it, like plinking off of their helmets.
00:05:06
Joy
okay
00:05:10
Eric Price
um Drivers have talked about it, like hitting their hands and fingers and like really hurting, stinging, cutting.
00:05:13
Joy
oh
00:05:15
Eric Price
um So yes, no, that that is 100% what happens. And it's just that the nature of the cars um will pick up and throw that stuff so that eventually it will all clear off.
00:05:29
Eric Price
of the racing line, but it will dirty up their tires and get blown into the air, um, a few times around as that happens. And if others are following them, then yes, it will, ah hit them.
00:05:42
Joy
They don't send one of those little cars out there. you know I feel like it's a little boogie. I'm like, y'all can't send a little boogie out there to get to sweep it off the racing line or something like that?
00:05:53
Joy
That guy got sprayed by those rocks, and you can see his hand. like He kind of tried to deflect them, but it just made me think, oh, snap. Yeah, there are projectile objects if you go onto the side.
00:06:08
Joy
And I didn't realize. I think I was just thinking... It was like sand or like those bumps
Monaco Track: Beauty and Strategy
00:06:16
Joy
um to get you to slow down or whatever.
00:06:19
Joy
I'm sure you can clear that up.
00:06:20
Eric Price
Yeah.
00:06:21
Joy
Like, you know, when you're driving, you have the lines where you just, I guess they put them there so you can wake up you don't drive off the road. And i was like, oh, those are rocks. Oh, those are hitting him in the face.
00:06:34
Joy
I can't imagine getting hit by a rock in the face from a car that just went 180 per hour
00:06:41
Eric Price
Yeah, ah it's um it's no fun. ah the i mean The truth of it is that if it is something that would be large enough to like damage one of the cars, um you will see this a lot after crashes when they're behind safety car or um or in like a virtual safety car.
00:06:48
Joy
Thank
00:07:02
Eric Price
part of why they can take so long is that they are clearing the track. So they are getting any large pieces of debris that could cause punctures or damage floors or, you know, fly up and hit another driver. Uh, they're getting that stuff off the track.
00:07:19
Eric Price
They might do some sweeping to remove, ah some gravel, and then they are often repairing barriers. So if someone has like hit a barrier,
00:07:27
Joy
Thank you.
00:07:28
Eric Price
then they may be replacing or repairing it because obviously if now a car has hit that part of the the barrier or runoff or whatever, then that is now less structurally sound and less safe. So they may need to put in new barrels.
00:07:44
Eric Price
They may need to put on new padding. They may need to rearrange the barrels and padding um to continue to provide you know the best safety um post being hit by a car.
00:07:56
Eric Price
And so that is part of what can take so long for them to get restarted, even if all the cars have kind of bunched up and even if you know The car that was that you know caused the stoppage is you know off of the track or has been repaired.
00:08:11
Eric Price
If they have not finished repairing the barriers and then removing any debris, um that can you know take more time. And then you have to have people you know physically on the track doing that kind of thing. And so that also...
00:08:23
Eric Price
is part of why they, you know, slow them down or put them behind a safety car so that they all kind of bunch up and it leaves, you know, part of that part of the track clear for a longer period of time.
00:08:36
Joy
Speaking of the barrier, okay, let me just say i understand why people want to drive in Monaco. It was so pretty.
00:08:48
Joy
I said, oh, well, I get it. You're okay. Well, you're driving through these like historic streets or whatever, and it's just really pretty. Also, it looks quite tight, quite just quite tight, like a lane and a half of space, and you're still...
00:09:05
Joy
going the same speed, and possibly. So that's one of my questions. One, the barrier thing, somebody ran into a barrier and it was soft. And i was thinking, how fast were they running into that barrier? Because it looked like bumper cars. It made it look so I don't know, simple, like an easy run in. Like, oh, I ran in. Somebody, let me back up and get out. But I know this is F1. That car was going fast, but it looked so easy. Just like running into a pile of cotton. So I was thinking, now, what are those barriers made out of? Two, is the Monaco a slower speed because the track is so tight?
00:09:54
Joy
Even though... Obviously, it's still racing, but do we is that a thing to where, okay, if you have,
00:10:06
Joy
ah I don't know, I feel like Japan might be tight too, but like ah the different width of the track, you're going to go a different speed?
00:10:15
Eric Price
Um, not so strictly the width of the track.
00:10:15
Joy
Everything would be
00:10:20
Eric Price
Um, though Monaco is a slower race for a slightly different reason. Um, in particular this year, because they had this, um, new requirement for them to use, uh, basically two different, um,
00:10:40
Eric Price
that that required them basically to pit stop twice is really kind of what happened. um I don't remember if it was exactly that they had to use all three compounds or if it was um that they had to like stop twice. The, the regulations are, you know, very specifically written.
00:10:58
Eric Price
um And it is designed to say that you have the the the design of it was for Monaco specifically, you need to do two pit stops instead of one Um, and this was to try and create more strategy because, um, the combination of the way that the streets of Monaco are just arranged, um,
00:11:23
Joy
Mm-hmm.
00:11:24
Eric Price
combined with the speed of the cars. There, there is some debate about the width of the cars and length of them. ah Some fans will tell you that, no, it's the length of the cars. They're too big. They need to be smaller.
00:11:38
Eric Price
Other people will tell you, no, that's not the problem. They could still pass if they had ah better as a zone to do that in. And that they it's just that there's no good, uh, breaking zone with multiple lines that you could take into it that allows for passing unless someone makes a, you know, huge mistake or something, um, that there's no good place for them to pass. And that's the real problem. The cars could stay the same size. Other people tell you it's not the size of the cars. It's the weight of the cars because they use these, um,
00:12:17
Eric Price
ah electric batteries that um provide extra power to the motors. And so um you will see the little flashing lights on the back of the F1 cars.
00:12:29
Eric Price
That is not a braking system. That is power harvesting. That is signaling to the car behind them that I'm going to be braking more and more often because I am using power recovery.
00:12:40
Joy
Mm-hmm.
00:12:45
Eric Price
ah from a system from a braking and, and oh the heat from the brakes and then the kinetic of, you know, the actual discs is, is being fed back into charge up a battery that then I can use later to um boost the car's speed.
00:13:07
Eric Price
And um because it has those batteries and those electrical systems, the cars are also heavier. than if you just had a slightly more or significantly more powerful straight engine, the cars would be actually a little bit lighter.
00:13:24
Eric Price
But um many of the engine manufacturers have basically said, we don't want to participate if there is not like electrical battery. Like if we can't use it to develop new electrical battery technology and new you know battery, electrical supercharging technology, and we can't tell people about how we're you know developing all this new great stuff for electric cars, then we don't know that we would want to continue participating in this.
00:13:55
Eric Price
this. And so even though some people would like to bring back ah the V10 engines, engine manufacturers have said, look, the thing that we're using this sport um to paint over ah requires that we be at least appearing to develop new, better electric engines and, you know, new, better electricity recovery for cars. And if we can't use this to do that, then what's the point?
00:14:28
Joy
I see. Okay.
00:14:28
Eric Price
um And so that is that is kind of the the problem with Monaco is there is no good place really to pass anybody. Because of that, when they introduced two stops, what some teams figured out was we just need to have our drivers one in front of the other to some degree.
00:14:56
Eric Price
And who whichever driver is behind, whether they're one place behind or five places behind, just needs to drive slow enough to back everybody else up because...
00:15:00
Joy
Mm-hmm.
00:15:09
Eric Price
You know, there's there's nowhere to pass. You won't be able to get around them. And then they just back everybody up. Our driver does their pit, comes back out ahead of their teammate who keeps everybody backed up. Our guys, you know, runs off a little bit farther, you know, speeds up some, builds another gap, and then pits again and comes back out ahead of his teammate.
00:15:31
Eric Price
When it's safe, we swap them, and then we do the whole thing again.
00:15:36
Joy
Okay. I mean, that's smart.
00:15:38
Eric Price
Which... It is smart. It is not that fun to watch. It is not that fun to do. ah During the broadcast, James Vowles, one of the team principals who had his drivers doing that ah for Williams, um basically said, I don't like it. It's not good racing.
00:15:59
Eric Price
But the way these rules are written and the way this track is laid out, it is the optimal strategy. And so we're going to do it.
00:16:10
Joy
yeah
00:16:10
Eric Price
Mood.
00:16:11
Joy
He said, it's quite boring, and I wouldn't do it if it you know if it was up to me, but here we are.
00:16:11
Eric Price
We don't really have any other choice.
00:16:17
Joy
We want to win. This is it. Okay, I get that. okay Explain. ah
00:16:24
Joy
I was watching the Spanish highlights, and, um man, the McLaren dude.
00:16:27
Eric Price
Yes.
00:16:34
Joy
Is it McLaren?
00:16:37
Joy
Lambisi or something? was trying to get by and they rammed each other. Van... Van or stopping? Van...
00:16:47
Eric Price
Verstappen.
00:16:48
Joy
Verse stopping.
00:16:48
Eric Price
um
00:16:50
Joy
So they had a little powwow, okay? The girls were fighting and I was like, okay, is it... I know you get points taken away and stuff like that. I saw somebody... I don't know if he rammed him or he bumped him.
00:17:08
Joy
And he went into the the median, but still came out ahead. Is that legal? You know what I'm talking about?
00:17:16
Eric Price
Um, the, the one that you're probably probably,
Race Incident Analysis: Verstappen and Piastri
00:17:20
Eric Price
okay. So during that restart, um, max, um, goes in and pits because it is, um, I believe a safety car.
00:17:29
Eric Price
And so everyone is pitting for new tires and max has to pit for hard tires. Um, he is very unhappy about this, not wrongly, um, restarting on hard tires with everybody else on softs, um, maybe a couple of mediums is, is going to be bad.
00:17:40
Joy
you
00:17:48
Eric Price
And he knows it and his team knows it, but he doesn't have any other tires that they trust, uh, available. So he has to go onto these hard tires. Um, the thing with the tires as the hardness increases is that they last longer,
00:18:03
Eric Price
but they take more time to get up to temperature and they are just generally slower. The soft tire, um, is heats up faster is, you know, faster, um, on the track, but degrades the fastest medium is obviously in between hard, you know, takes the longest to heat up, but, um, will last longer.
00:18:30
Eric Price
Um, so max is already mad. that he has to go onto these tires because he knows at restart, he's going to start losing places as everybody else's tires warm up faster. And he is still, you know, forced to wait until his tires get enough energy in them to warm up properly to become, um, once they're up to temperature and speed, the tire surface becomes kind of like a bubble gummy.
00:18:53
Joy
Mm-hmm.
00:18:56
Eric Price
And that's kind of how it sticks down to the track. um And then it'll throw little bits off, which they call marbles, which is what goes and is ah when they talk about getting your tires dirty.
00:19:08
Eric Price
ah They mean going off the racing line to the side. Your so tires are really sticky. They pick up this discarded rubber and discarded tire stuff, and that coats the surface of the tire.
00:19:21
Eric Price
And it takes a while for you to then work that stuff back off and bring your tire back up to a kind of an even surface temperature. And so he knows that he's going to start losing places.
00:19:32
Eric Price
He's already angry.
00:19:33
Joy
Thank you.
00:19:34
Eric Price
They restart. He... you know, gets caught a little bit napping by Piastri, who sort of brake checks him a little bit. Like he slows down really hard when Max is not necessarily expecting it in part because Max is distracted and then speeds off. And so Max gets onto the power and has ah the rear end of the car steps out and it steps out to the point that he thinks he's been that he may think he was hit there. He was not.
00:20:03
Eric Price
The car just snapped on him. And then LeClaire comes around and gets past him and he thinks LeClaire may have hit him. um He didn't. But so now he's lost a place to LeClaire.
00:20:14
Eric Price
He comes back in and, you know, George Russell is hounding him and um he
00:20:17
Joy
Dad.
00:20:26
Eric Price
begins a debate with his ah ah ah race engineer, about whether or not he needs to give George Russell this place. Um, the way that the rules are written, if you leave the track and gain an advantage, that is you pass somebody, you have to give that place back or you will be given a penalty.
00:20:36
Joy
dad
00:20:51
Eric Price
Um, This came up in Monaco where George Russell maybe a little intentionally went off the track and passed someone and said into his microphone into to his race engineer um over the airwaves that everyone can listen to that um he would rather take the penalty.
00:21:13
Joy
Okay.
00:21:13
Eric Price
and this is frowned upon. You are not supposed to admit that, you know, you broke a rule and that you would rather take the penalty than give back the place.
00:21:25
Eric Price
Um, and so they actually gave him a worse penalty, uh, fort. Um, so Max is arguing with his, uh, race engineer.
00:21:35
Eric Price
um the race engineer tells him to give the place back. Max begins slowing down like he's going to give the place back. And George Russell's team would have told him, yeah, uh, GP told him, give the place back.
00:21:44
Joy
Oh.
00:21:48
Eric Price
He's letting you buy.
Nico Rosberg: Career and Legacy
00:21:50
Eric Price
And so George goes to pass him and then Max, uh, hits him.
00:21:56
Joy
oh
00:21:57
Eric Price
Uh, that is not okay. You can't do that. Uh, during the broadcast, Nico Rosberg, um, former, ah Formula One driver, Lewis Hamilton's old teammate and a former F1 world champion.
00:22:12
Eric Price
He actually won the world championship and then immediately quit. um he
00:22:18
Joy
Why?
00:22:21
Joy
He's like, that's it. I'm...
00:22:23
Eric Price
Yes, he was Lewis Hamilton's teammate for years. They grew up karting together. They grew up racing together. They dreamed about being at the same team together and they got there. And Lewis ate his lunch for years.
00:22:37
Eric Price
um It is also worth noting that um ah Nico Rosberg's father is a Formula One champion. And so ah Nico decided he was going to to lay it all out on the line.
00:22:46
Joy
Oh, okay.
00:22:53
Eric Price
um His wife um was pregnant and had their first child, and he basically disappeared from their lives for a year. He slept in a separate bedroom. Yeah. so that he could maximize his sleep and so that he could start acclimating to the time zone of wherever they were going to earlier.
00:23:13
Eric Price
He stopped working out as much so he would lose muscle mass so that he would weigh less. He started doing psychological games with Lewis, picking at him, trying to make him paranoid, um picking the fights.
00:23:28
Eric Price
He... says he did literally anything and everything he possibly could to give him even the slightest advantage.
00:23:40
Joy
you
00:23:40
Eric Price
And he did it for a year. um He talks about that it damaged his mental health. It severely damaged him and Lewis's what had been a near lifelong friendship to that point ah was severely damaged by his behavior ah but he won an F1 world championship and was like I will if I stay in F1 I will lose my wife and child and I do not like the place that This brought me to.
00:24:10
Eric Price
And so I am done. I wanted to win a one world championship like my dad.
00:24:16
Eric Price
I did it. I quit.
00:24:16
Joy
I did that.
00:24:17
Joy
Wow. Wow. I mean, it's something to be said about like being like, I'm going to go full throttle and now I'm going to walk away because I'm going to lose everything and be a basket case. But I get to say it paid off.
00:24:40
Eric Price
I get to say f one world champion who beat Lewis Hamilton in the same car.
00:24:46
Joy
being
00:24:48
Eric Price
That's on my CV for the rest of my life. And I get to be an F1 world champ like my dad. And I have fulfilled all of my dreams to this point.
00:25:01
Eric Price
And all it cost me was a bit of my sanity, a chunk of my health, and one of my closest friends.
00:25:09
Joy
Well, maybe Lewis will forgive him one day.
00:25:12
Eric Price
Um, word is that they have started kind of you know, talking a bit against some, like, I wouldn't say that, you know, they're palling around, but it does seem like as each of them has gotten older, um,
00:25:29
Eric Price
overtures of some type of repairing of the relationship may have happened. um yeah I mean, it's also tough to tell from the outside. But Nico was doing commentary for this, and he saw it and was immediately like, he hit him on purpose. That is, using the car as a weapon that is unacceptable. He should be black flagged, which means basically he should be immediately removed from the race.
00:25:54
Joy
Okay.
00:25:56
Eric Price
um That is not what they did. They gave him like three penalty points and like a 10 second penalty, um which because of the restart dropped him several places, um maybe out of the points, but certainly well down the order.
00:26:14
Eric Price
And those points mean that if he gets, I believe, one more penalty point, he will be banned from a race.
00:26:23
Joy
oh
00:26:25
Eric Price
um points accrue over 12 months and fall off in that same way. So it's not calendar year. It's cyclical. But that means every time you like complete a month, there's potential for whatever points you accrued for some of them to fall off, right?
00:26:45
Joy
Got it.
00:26:45
Eric Price
So if you got three points in March, the and one you know the previous season, then when you get to like May the next season, those three points fall off.
00:26:56
Joy
Yeah, understandable. i don't know if that was a I don't know if that was a good idea, taking the point, but whatever. Okay. All right. That explains it, though.
00:27:06
Eric Price
um Well, those are ah those are penalty points. So that that's like a points against their, like in the same way you can get points against your driver's license.
00:27:11
Joy
Oh.
00:27:17
Joy
Yeah.
00:27:18
Eric Price
Like if you speed and all that, and if you accrue enough points, then they will take your license. These are those points.
00:27:25
Joy
Got it.
00:27:26
Eric Price
ah So not necessarily his championship points, though, because of the time penalty. That will drop him down the racing order, which means he will also get fewer points in the race.
00:27:39
Eric Price
ah But he separately got points against his license that if he accrues enough of them will cause him to be removed from a race. um He will have some points fall off over the course of the next couple of months, but actually not a lot. So if he continues, you know, or if he ends up, you know, in a bad scrape or something, if he, you know, has a mistake or something, he could potentially still stay in this space where if he, you know, messes around, he could still end up being ah bumped.
00:28:17
Joy
Okay.
00:28:17
Eric Price
ah um It's not likely the stewards say that they don't take these kinds of things into account, but people have noted that less popular drivers have been in a position where one more point would
00:28:25
Joy
he
Current F1 Standings and Team Dynamics
00:28:33
Eric Price
knock them out of a race and suddenly their infractions aren't getting them you know points against their license anymore until they do something really egregious.
00:28:45
Eric Price
um And that's kind of anticipated what is actually going to happen here with Max is that unless Max does something so obviously egregious that we just have to, you know, penalize you ah put points against your F1 super license, um then.
00:29:03
Eric Price
they're going to basically just kind of hand wave and ignore it is what everyone kind of suspects. But um the threat is there that if he did say something like this again, um you would, he would get a race ban.
00:29:17
Joy
Okay. Okay. Now, okay, maybe I had more questions than I thought. I feel like Lewis has been quiet. You know, I'm i'm new to F1. I'm watching. I know at our first pod um episode, we talked about how Lewis switched teams so he doesn't drive for Mercedes anymore, all that jazz. Okay, he's with Ferrari now.
00:29:45
Joy
I feel like he's been in the same sixth spot forever. Should I be looking forward to any razzle-dazzle? He's quiet to me.
00:29:54
Eric Price
Um, look, and honestly, uh, Lewis has said, ah in response to people saying, Hey, you know, when should we expect, you know, some Hamilton magic? And that his reply was don't, um, the car isn't really to his liking and they know some of the problems and they are fixing them. There seem to be other problems. They do not,
00:30:24
Eric Price
fully understand that they are um trying to you know understand well enough to bring solutions. um When the car is working for him, like it was in China, like it was in, you know, at moments in ah Spain,
00:30:44
Eric Price
he can really do something with it when it is not in that optimal window. He is a little bit behind his teammate, Charles. And that's kind of the reality just of the car right now.
00:30:59
Eric Price
Um, the theory has been that because Lewis likes a very pointy car, that is when you, um,
00:31:12
Eric Price
A car that is very responsive to when you turn the wheel, it kind of immediately goes there.
00:31:16
Joy
Mm-hmm.
00:31:18
Eric Price
It is not kind of a slower, more kind of languid car where you like you turn and you got to really turn to get it to go. that He likes a car that is very responsive, but has like a very firm or very controlled kind of back end.
00:31:34
Eric Price
And then he will just kind of manage that. um And that that's where he gets a lot of his feel is through the seat and the back end of the car.
00:31:45
Eric Price
And that the Ferrari, the back end is very bouncy and shaky and also kind of steps out a lot and isn't really kind of uniform and controllable in that way.
00:31:57
Eric Price
And Charles has said, that is i like that I like a car that is just a little bit of a handful. And, and so I, I, that is the kind of car I want. That's, that is where I like it to be at. And that is what this Ferrari is, how it behaves, whether they want it to or not.
00:32:18
Eric Price
And, that is not how Lewis likes his car. This was a problem of one of many with Red Bull previously. Um, when Checo Perez was, uh, Verstappen's teammate that, uh, Max likes that very pointy car. This is a thing that people have noted about a lot of the champions.
00:32:40
Eric Price
A lot of them like a very responsive car. Um, And that Checo's driving style, actually, he prefers kind of a a little bit slower, kind of heavier car um that has more of that U-turn and it kind of very slowly responds. And it's kind of this very back end heavy car, not this kind of very on the point car.
00:33:03
Eric Price
um um front-end responsive car. And that part of why Checo did so poorly is that he would take Max's setup because that setup is faster.
00:33:17
Eric Price
And so if he ever wanted to beat Max, he would need to set his car up like Max does. But he can't drive that car particularly well that way. And so he would end up finishing 11th, 15th
00:33:31
Eric Price
When if he took just a slightly slower car, he would be second, third, fifth, you know, but he would never be first. There would be no possibility of him being first.
00:33:44
Joy
Got it. Okay.
00:33:46
Eric Price
And so he would take this suboptimal for his style setup, but one that um could potentially win. um Similarly, if Lewis is kind of setting up as much as he can for the best pace, that may mean leaning into some characteristics of the car that do not suit him.
00:34:05
Eric Price
And till they can figure out what, you know, kind of is causing some of the issues. with the car that have also meant that they can't necessarily run the car as close to the ground as they want.
00:34:18
Eric Price
um and And that is also impacting just their overall speed. And so, um yeah, the car is just not... where Lewis or Charles want it to be at or the team really.
00:34:33
Eric Price
Um, but the characteristics that the car has also don't really suit Lewis. And until they can find a good setup that, you know, leans away from the things that give him trouble and into the things that he likes, he's not going to, you know,
00:34:53
Eric Price
He's only going to do so much. It's going to be very track specific and very circumstance specific on the right day at the right temperature at the right barometric pressure.
00:35:05
Eric Price
ah You know, it'll come alive and he'll, you know, really knock out a great lap or have a solid race. But, you know, the next day or next week or at a different track, at a new elevation, at a different temperature.
00:35:20
Eric Price
Now it's, you know, back to being kind of a dead fish.
00:35:27
Joy
When do people usually retire? um
00:35:31
Eric Price
um Around Lewis and Fernando's age, I mean, there's a reason they're the oldest guys in Formula One. Like not a lot of people race into their forties and not a lot of people have success at that point. That is kind of the other question about Lewis right now is has, you know, father time is undefeated.
00:35:55
Eric Price
Has time come for him you know, You know, if the car was kind of in, you know, his wheelhouse a little bit more, a little more predictable, a little better understood, would he still be, you know, up there competing with the best of them?
00:36:10
Eric Price
I mean, he is not, you know, he is still right in the mix of, you know, Ferrari and Mercedes.
00:36:15
Joy
Thank you.
00:36:16
Eric Price
And ah but it is very obvious that McLaren is running away with this. um the other teams don't have the cars to compete. Mercedes also just came, you know, they have had a terrible run of races recently.
00:36:33
Eric Price
Um, and that has certainly helped Ferrari out a lot. Um, you know, with the driver change also at, uh, Red Bull and them kind of figuring some stuff out with that car, but not everything. And then Max's little misadventure this last race, um,
00:36:50
Eric Price
um It has made it pretty clear that unless something big happens here soon, it's probably going to just be um Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris competing for the championship.
00:37:02
Eric Price
And then ah Ferrari's real goal is going to be moving up in that Constructors' Championship. Yeah. to see if they can make a go of it there.
00:37:13
Eric Price
um But yeah, at present, it doesn't sound like the teams have really figured anything major out. And that kind of means um you're only going to hear so much from Lewis. Also, I mean, he's at a new team.
00:37:29
Eric Price
He's learning Italian. He's learning, you know, more about how the kind of team operates and, you know, working with people and all of that. So we will also see, how that goes. I know a lot of people are calling for his engineer's job right now.
00:37:43
Eric Price
Um, the guy who talks to him on the radio, um, just because they feel like he has a pattern of not really giving his drivers the best, most relevant information.
00:37:55
Eric Price
Um, and so, there's, there's been increasing calls, at least from fans for them to get rid of that guy and to give Lewis someone new, ah who he has a, you know, maybe a better rapport with, um, that,
00:38:08
Joy
But I mean, is the engineer, the engine, well, the problem sounds like it's the car. the the engineer, would need to, the new engineer or the old one, the current one, would need to figure out how to make the car not bouncy or whatever in the back? Or is that just how it's going to drive?
00:38:31
Eric Price
Um, the engineer would be a part of that working with like the crew. ah but I mean, they have like teams of aerodynamicists and all of that working on that part of the car.
00:38:41
Eric Price
A lot more of what your race engineer does is help you figure out what are relay to you, what settings you need to input. To turn on and off certain sensors and features in the car, relaying to you where other drivers are at, relaying the team strategy to you um and other relevant information about like, you know, if rain is coming, when it's expected to get there, where it's expected to be at.
00:39:08
Eric Price
how heavy they think it will be. It is really about communicating the driver, what they are feeling and their concerns back to the team and then relaying the team strategy and, uh, relevant information about where they are on the track and what the plan for their race is to them.
00:39:08
Joy
Thank
00:39:29
Eric Price
Um, and then also helping them kind of set up the car during practice and then, um, helping them with any like, you know, if a buy If a light is flashing inside of the car, helping them figure out, is this a real problem? Is it not? How do I turn it off?
00:39:43
Eric Price
How do I you know adjust for it? um All those types of things. And so that is what's people's concern about what appears to be a pretty weak rapport between them is that He is doesn't seem like he's giving that information in a way Lewis is you know understanding well and clearly ah that when Lewis is you know asking him questions, he doesn't seem to be responding to the question he's being asked all of the time, um or at least not responding in the way Lewis wants.
00:40:17
Joy
Thank you.
00:40:17
Eric Price
And so um that has been people's concern. Especially because, again, this guy has had similar communication issues with other drivers, Sebastian Vettel and Carlos Sainz, I believe he was the race engineer for.
00:40:33
Eric Price
And people clocked this same kind of communication issue. um Also, Lewis had the same... race engineer um Bono, ah Peter Bonington, for like a decade at Mercedes. It was one guy who knew Lewis very well, who was, you know, ah his race engineer and did a lot of not just, you know, helping with setup and all of those things, but helping Lewis to, you know,
00:41:03
Eric Price
get his head down and focus when he needed to, you know, pushing him a little bit when he needed it. And, and so he also just, you know, he doesn't have a decade of rapport with this guy either.
00:41:14
Eric Price
Um, but the question of our, is this guy's personality, uh, just maybe not as suited to being a race engineer as some people think is, you know, some people think that that is the case.
00:41:25
Joy
Yeah.
00:41:27
Eric Price
Lewis and the team right now are saying that that's not a problem, but, Again, we don't know how much of that, you know, all the time companies come out and say, no, we love this person. We support this person. They're so great.
00:41:40
Eric Price
ah There's no issues. They've been let go. And so ah how much of this is they really think that he's the guy and how much of this is? Well, I mean, we're not getting rid of him yet or we don't have a person to replace him with. So till then, ah we're just going to go ahead and ride this out.
00:42:00
Eric Price
That is anyone's guess because none of us work for Ferrari. So how would we know?
00:42:05
Joy
All right. That's that on that. Okay.
00:42:13
Joy
I don't know if I have. So I'm looking forward to actually catching up. Right. So actively watching the next races, which is ah Spain.
00:42:27
Joy
No, Canada.
00:42:27
Eric Price
Canada. We just had Spain.
00:42:29
Joy
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:42:29
Eric Price
ah The Canadian GP is ah Sunday. It will be broadcast on ABC because it is in the US time zone.
00:42:44
Eric Price
So we have the Miami GP, the Canadian GP, um the United States GP in October, and then the Las Vegas Grand Prix in November.
00:42:58
Eric Price
um along with Mexico City and Brazil. And all of those generally are broadcast on either ESPN or ABC um because they fall in the afternoon in ah the Eastern and Central time zones. Well, except for Las Vegas, which is the middle of the night, but that's a whole other thing.
00:43:15
Eric Price
um But because of that, they get broadcast on ABC. All the other races, you know, they get broadcast ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, um you know, kind of wherever they can kind of slot it in.
00:43:27
Eric Price
ah But for this handful, because they will all be between like one o'clock and four o'clock, basically um Eastern time, they all get broadcast on ABC. So this is one that will be fairly widely available, fairly easily for easy for people to see.
00:43:46
Eric Price
Cause again, it's, you know, one o'clock in the afternoon on a Sunday, not 8 a.m. m on Sunday, 9 a.m. on 12 at midnight, now you know, bouncing around like that.
00:43:57
Joy
Okay. um'm I'm here for it.
Canadian Grand Prix Excitement
00:44:00
Joy
I ah ah look forward to it. It'd be great if, I don't know, there was something that really shook the people up. But we'll see.
00:44:11
Eric Price
yeah Lewis generally does well at Canada. um McLaren seems to do pretty well everywhere ah right now.
00:44:21
Eric Price
So it, you know,
00:44:21
Joy
and so
00:44:25
Eric Price
uh, hopefully teams have figured some things out and we will actually get to see something competitive. Uh, I am not caught up on what happened in, practices at the moment.
00:44:37
Eric Price
Um, though, again, it's been practice one and practice two, which generally are just kind of like figuring out the best setup.
00:44:46
Joy
Thank you.
00:44:46
Eric Price
Um, is kind of race is kind of practice. One practice to generally is what they call long runs. That's where they may put a little more fuel into the car. um They'll put on the tires and they'll put them out there for,
00:45:01
Eric Price
you know, five laps, 10 laps, 15 laps in a row to kind of see how the tires wear and to kind of build up their projection of how the tires will do and how the car will handle um once you get into the actual race.
00:45:19
Eric Price
um And then practice three is going to be partially that. Again, some long runs, some race setup kind of stuff.
00:45:25
Joy
Thank you.
00:45:26
Eric Price
And then um the bulk of it, however, ah certainly towards the end, is going to be um qualifying setup. what what can we What do we want to optimize for qualifying versus what do we want to optimize toward um race setup? And then because after this point, the car is going to what's called Park Fermi, where you're not allowed to make major changes.
00:45:50
Eric Price
ah You can dial... The little front end wings, those can be ah adjusted. And the back end wing, I think, can be adjusted up or down.
00:46:01
Eric Price
But you can't like change any major components. You can't like add or remove things. you can't you know Sometimes you'll even see them with duct tape covering up um certain openings to kind of you know not let air flow through this part for this track.
00:46:13
Joy
Thank you.
00:46:15
Eric Price
um and you can't do any kind of changes like that um once ah practice three ends or kind of once qualifying starts.
00:46:26
Eric Price
You kind of are limited in your changes as to what you can do to the car. And so you're going to be Figuring out kind of the optimal balance between one lap pace and race pace.
00:46:39
Eric Price
um And then ah doing some qualifying simulations to kind of figure out what path you should be taking. What's kind of the best setup for you in the car and all of that.
00:46:53
Joy
All right, well, I look forward to it. Oh, Canada, here we come.
00:47:00
Eric Price
Yes. So i I look forward to it as well. See, you didn't think you had very many questions. and
00:47:05
Joy
I didn't, but i i feel like I was watching.
00:47:05
Eric Price
ah
00:47:09
Joy
I'm like, oh, what was that? Oh, my God. It was a lot of commentary. So, yeah, evidently I i did. Next time I pull out my my notepad and a pen and really get get down to it, but...
00:47:23
Joy
This should be good.
00:47:26
Eric Price
Yes. And Canada is a nice track. Uh, like I said, some good spots for passing. Um, it's in a like park on the river. Um, so it's actually very pretty too.
00:47:36
Eric Price
Um, and, uh, you'll occasionally see like groundhogs and some other stuff running around there, uh, that actually becomes a problem at times because the drivers generally try not to hit them.
00:47:48
Eric Price
Uh, but they're like, Hey guys, this is a park, uh, nine, you know,
00:47:49
Joy
Oh.
00:47:55
Eric Price
10, 11 months out of the year. And then for one month, uh, you have race cars, uh, going around here at like a couple hundred miles an hour. Um, I am a groundhog and did not anticipate this.
00:48:09
Joy
Well, hopefully all the groundhogs stay where they're supposed to stay for the race and everybody makes it out in one piece. Yikes. I thought I was talking about rocks flying.
00:48:20
Joy
Groundhogs getting run over 120? I mean, at least it would be fast.
00:48:27
Eric Price
Yeah, no, it would it would be over quickly.
00:48:29
Joy
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
00:48:30
Eric Price
But yes, hopefully all of the groundhogs are safe. Stay safe out there, you groundhogs.
00:48:36
Joy
Yeah.
00:48:36
Eric Price
But I think that has been a show. ah Thank you so much, Joyce, for joining me.
00:48:42
Joy
See
00:48:43
Eric Price
Thank you all for listening. And we will be back next week.
00:48:49
Joy
see you guys
00:48:51
Eric Price
Peace.