Transcript
Eric Price: and we are live welcome everybody back to eric and joy's as yet not fully named racing podcast uh i am as always your host uh eric and joining me once again today is my expert co-host uh joyous
Joy: Expert-ish. You know, I'm just willing to learn. I'm here. I'm a good time. ah like fast stuff, shiny stuff. I signed up for the job.
Eric Price: Yes. And we're all glad that you did. So you've now watched the first race of 2025. Not your first F1 race, but ah the first one this year.
Eric Price: How was it?
Joy: Um, okay. So let me just say, so everybody knowing I started, and so everybody knows I started watching it while I was at a bar.
Joy: Okay. Um, it was, it was the crash outs of the crash outs. It was, the it was the crash outs of the crash outs.
Joy: I, was like, what's happening? What's happening? Everybody's just like out, out, out, out. I hit a wall. I hit a puddle. I hit the rubble. I hit the, I was like, what is this?
Joy: Just, you would think it was a scrimmage or something like that. You know what I mean? Where you get all the kinks out. No, this was the first race. I felt bad for the people, but it was crash out.
Joy: was crazy.
Eric Price: Yes. Well, that actually is an important ah factor about f one um So the way that a season works, um especially under the new rules, you have kind of your um testing for three days.
Eric Price: You get to go out to a track. Everyone goes to the same track. Everyone brings one car. and you run that car for ah eight hours a day, or you have eight hours a day in which you can run the car, four in the morning, an hour for lunch, and then four in the evening.
Eric Price: You are to split that between your two drivers, and that is all of the time the drivers are allowed to spend in the car before the first practice, before the first race.
Joy: That's like no time at all. Do they, do they, okay, if it were me, I'd be like, let's, I don't know. You can't recreate the track because the track is so big and, and like practice somewhere else. Right.
Eric Price: Well, they use a simulator. um So they have like a big racing rig kind of video game that's as responsive and realistic as they can make it that has all the different tracks programmed into it and has a model kind of of the car and how they think it behaves um programmed into it.
Eric Price: And you run on the simulator and... part of what they are doing with that practice time um during testing is like making sure the car works because they effectively build a new car every year.
Eric Price: Well, two new cars every year for that season, even if the rules don't change. um When we say there's like a regulation change, what we generally mean is like they're doing a big overhaul where they're like introducing what's basically brand new cars um in a much larger sense as opposed to ah season to season.
Eric Price: There's always rule changes and tweaks and that kind of thing, but they don't like completely change the rules about like how you can build the suspension or the the aerodynamic body work.
Joy: And
Eric Price: Those don't usually change wholesale season to season. That's usually like a big buildup. And so they they have an idea of how the car works.
Joy: and
Eric Price: And then, ah but in order to keep costs down and to make it more competitive, they severely limit how much time ah the teams get to run the cars on the track and how much time the drivers can spend in the cars.
Eric Price: So for the like rookies um who this is their first year in they literally had probably about what? ah well 12, 13, 14, 15, yeah, maybe about 16 in those cars before
Joy: Oh no.
Joy: Oh no.
Eric Price: um the race started, and very little of it was in rain, because the testing takes place is in ah Bahrain, which doesn't get a lot of rain.
Joy: oh no.
Eric Price: It actually did rain this year, funny enough, but ah not all the teams even brought wet weather ah tires because, again, it's the middle of the desert and it almost never rains.
Joy: What happens, okay, what happens, okay, there are two drivers, and you said they build two cars.
Eric Price: Yes.
Joy: Does each driver get two cars?
Eric Price: No. One car for each driver.
Joy: isn
Joy: And if you mess up your car, like, the who's the guy that crashed out first and when I text you and said, who the crashed? Like, who crashed?
Eric Price: Uh, the very first one, Isaac Hajar, uh, is a rookie this year. He was in, uh, formula two. ah he actually lost the last race.
Eric Price: I'd lost the championship because of it, because he got down to the grid and his car, like the engine shut off and wouldn't start or something like that. And so he could not get off the line.
Eric Price: And, ah that was it. Championship lost.
Joy: That's brutal. That's brutal. Okay, so they just get one car.
Eric Price: And then,
Eric Price: Yes. So when you crash that car, whether it is in practice or at the race, um, they ah They bring out you know ah tow truck or a you know lift or something. They pick it up, they drag it back, and then they have to rebuild it.
Eric Price: um They actually had last year where um Williams, um Logan Sargent, who is now no longer a Formula One race car driver, crashed.
Eric Price: um So often, basically, that um he he had a decent number of crashes and Williams doesn't have a lot of money.
Joy: So often.
Eric Price: And so he had crashed his car a fair number of times and didn't have the best results. um To the point that Alex Albon, I believe, actually crashed a car during practice.
Eric Price: And Williams had to come out and be like, hey, we don't have the parts to rebuild this. your car so we can only put one car out and Logan we're giving your car to Alex
Joy: yeah diabolical you know when i think of f1 i just think of unlimited money that's not real but also kinda i'm like if this is gonna be a luxury sport find the parts i don't know like do something you
Eric Price: Well, it's a combination of things. One, um again, it's all bespoke. You have to manufacture ah everything or purchase it from, ah you know, somebody else.
Eric Price: ah Like we discussed with like Haas buys a bunch of their stuff from Ferrari.
Joy: yeah yeah
Eric Price: Everything else, there are certain things you have to manufacture.
Joy: yeah
Eric Price: You have to build it or you have to work with an outside partner or a company to build it. And so... um That is obviously very expensive. Now, for the big teams like Ferrari or Mercedes, um the cost cap is in some ways a hindrance. It used to be they could spend unlimited money making the car as fast as they you know possibly wanted.
Eric Price: And they did um to the point that it was starting to put a huge amount of pressure on the other teams. Whereas now there is a cost cap somewhere around like 300 million dollars.
Eric Price: i Not counting driver salaries, not counting your three highest salaries.
Joy: you know what
Joy: oh okay okay this
Eric Price: ah And so, but for teams like Williams, they struggle to get the money and support to reach the cost cap. Like that's really one of the big things for ah Williams for the last few years, for Haas for the last few years,
Eric Price: It's why Sauber is Steak Kick Sauber, because Steak and Kick are two different companies that gave them bunches of money to slap their logos on the car and for their names to come before the name of the team.
Joy: Oh, well, well.
Eric Price: why it's Atlassian Williams Racing, um because that that's the that's the money situation for them. ah You know, at the top of it, you got McLaren, Mercedes, Mercedes, Red Bull Racing, Honda, Red Bull Powertrains, Williams, Mercedes, um and then Aston Martin, Aramco, Mercedes, Kick Sauber, Ferrari, um Ferrari,
Eric Price: Alpine, Renault, um the Racing Bulls, the Visa Cash app, Racing a Bulls, Honda, Red Bull, Powertrain.
Joy: They said we gonna give the money and you gonna put our name on here. And you gonna, and it's gonna be fine.
Eric Price: Yes, and there's a that reason everything has a name or a logo on it. It's because it's hundreds of millions of dollars to run these teams.
Joy: Got it.
Eric Price: And manufacture these parts and fly people all over the world and and and maintain these bespoke cars. And it still gets to the point where like a team like Williams ah will potentially still be like, hey, ah if you guys crash again, we don't have the parts to repair both cars.
Joy: What happens when... They crash out. like you Somebody got to pay that back, and it ain't enough oil changes in the world for Mercedes to get that money back.
Joy: You get what I'm saying? like What happens when you full-blown crash out? Like the first guy, I feel like it was so soon, all the money down the drain.
Eric Price: They come, they pick up the car, they drag it back, ah they start taking it apart or putting it back together as is appropriate if it's like practice.
Joy: Yeah.
Eric Price: then they start putting it back together because you got to get back out there. If it's like after a race, they start taking it apart to probably ship those parts back to base um to figure out which what can be salvaged and what needs to be you know manufactured again to replace it.
Eric Price: um Because they actually have like varying pieces and parts, like
Eric Price: they don't necessarily always have like enough parts to build like four cars, but like all of the stuff that you see down there in the garages, the the chairs, the extra wings, the, all of that stuff. There's multiple sets of a bunch of that float floating around.
Eric Price: Um, because like, ah You know, ah yesterday they were in Australia and Friday they start practice in China and then they have a week off and then they have another race in Japan.
Eric Price: and then they're going to be off again to another part of the world. And so certain things you have copies of because um they'll take and they'll put like one of their big motorhome pop-out kits and a bunch of parts onto boat, and it'll very slowly tug its way across the Pacific Ocean, and, you know, eventually will land in, you know,
Eric Price: southern europe or asia somewhere and okay we put this on a boat three months ago and we're shipping it incredibly slowly but it will arrive in time for us to pull everything off in order to do our race in china and we're gonna fly this stuff from ah australia over to japan and so we need to like get the car packed up and we need to start flying its parts over to China. We need to pack up everything here and put it onto a boat to start tugging away off toward like Miami.
Eric Price: And then ah we have another set that is ah back at our home base that we're getting ready to send off to, you know, somewhere else in Europe.
Joy: This sounds like the the slowest swap meet pick apart place.
Eric Price: um Now that's,
Joy: yeah The most expensive version though. Like we will we just going to see what we
Eric Price: Yes. Again, it's least true for the like major car parts. Those they have like more limited numbers of. They generally kind of manufacture it and then ah send it kind of directly.
Eric Price: But for a lot of the additional stuff, a lot of the motorhomes, all that kind of thing, they usually have like two or three of them that are just constantly traveling around the world ah to be available when they arrive for a race.
Eric Price: um But the answer is they're going to pick up the car. They're going take it back to the garage. They're going to start, you know, taking it apart. ah They'll get rid of the stuff that they can't reuse.
Eric Price: Or, you know, recycle it.
Joy: Thank you.
Eric Price: And they're going to have Isaac stand with them and watch the race so that he can learn, you know, strategy and ah monitor what's going on. And then on Friday, they're going to put the car back together. Well, Thursday, probably they'll put the car back together. Friday, they're going to put a minute and say, all right, ah don't do that again.
Joy: Oh, wow. Okay. And he gets, does he get that same short amount of practice time on each track?
Eric Price: ah You get, well, this is another fun part. So the regular weekend is practice one for like an hour, hour and a half, something like that.
Eric Price: Practice two, same length. Practice three, same length. Then qualifying, which we kind of went over. And then the race.
Eric Price: um China, the upcoming race is what we call a sprint weekend.
Joy: And
Eric Price: ah So they've been developing this alternate format for Formula One to try and make it more exciting.
Eric Price: And so on Friday, they will have practice one.
Eric Price: Then they will, instead of having a second practice session on Friday, which is what would usually happen, they will instead have sprint qualifying sessions.
Joy: and
Eric Price: So they're going to do a qualifying session. Everyone goes around, tries to set their fastest time, drop to the bottom five. Everyone goes around again, tries to set their fastest time, drop the bottom five.
Eric Price: Everyone goes around again, tries to set the fastest time. That sets your sprint order.
Joy: Okay.
Eric Price: Then they have the next day, instead of another practice session, they have the sprint. This is a like one quarter length race for like a third points or something like that.
Joy: And you still have to try not to crash your car?
Eric Price: Then.
Eric Price: After sprint, and they have ah regular qualifying when it would usually be. ah The evening of or afternoon to evening of ah the day before the race, they have qualifying where we do another qualifying session, but this time for the race.
Joy: Oh, goodness. Okay, okay.
Eric Price: And then Sunday, the race.
Joy: Okay.
Eric Price: So to answer your question, no, Isaac will get one practice session for one hour, and then he will do two qualifying and two races.
Joy: and
Joy: I bet Isaac don't want to see no more rain. Like, not a cloud in the sky. That man's gonna be nervous as hell.
Eric Price: ah Yep, but that's the deal. This is what it is.
Joy: That is weird.
Eric Price: This is how it works. um And he's... hes In probably a better situation, or at least as good a situation as you can be ah with Red Bull.
Eric Price: Red Bull's a very aggressive organization. So they want you to push. They want you to be as aggressive as possible. ah But he's a pretty well-rated guy. And so everyone at this point thinks that it was you know a momentary lapse, a little mistake.
Eric Price: ah You got caught out by the rain. So did Carlos Sainz, who's been driving for years. So did like like he was not the only person who would ultimately go out during this race under some like kind of, oh, yeah, the rain just caught you out in a weird way.
Eric Price: ah Circumstance. um It just is rough because the kid was having a pretty good weekend up to that point. And um while he was in control of the car, it's not like he did anything, especially like dumb or stupid or something like he was, you know, going around the track on the warm-up lap and hit a puddle weird and, you know, hit the gas right as the wheels kind of got into the water and ah may have also gone over some paint that made everything slicker and so power hits the wheels, they spin up faster than you expect and then wham, next thing you know, you're on the wall.
Joy: sucks oh well how many people crashed out how many people crashed out i feel like it was like six or like a lot
Eric Price: Not much to do about it. um But he's a better. see.
Eric Price: We had I don't know if these were all crashes. um But Isaac Hajar, Jack Doohan, Carlos Sainz, Fernando Alonso, Bortoleto, and Lawson all DNF'd.
Eric Price: Did not finish.
Joy: All right.
Joy: All right.
Eric Price: So what? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 drive? not No, one two three ah six drives
Joy: That's a lot of people.
Eric Price: Did not finish the race. That's a lot for an F1 race. that's That's actually getting pretty high. You don't usually see that. Though you are more likely to see that. At the beginning of the season.
Eric Price: ah Again. These cars have been running. Maybe you know.
Eric Price: what, like 40, 50 hours. um So a lot of the early races, you'll see people have engine issues. You'll see weird body work problems come up because again, these cars haven't really been driven at race pace and race speeds under, you know, the highest stresses that they can until now.
Eric Price: And you kind of find out some stuff about your construction and manufacturing and, you know, the natural flaws that kind of also come with that. So ah it's not uncommon.
Joy: Got it. You get out there and you're just like, you know what?
Eric Price: It's.
Joy: This might not work well.
Eric Price: Yeah, and sometimes they're just going around and all the sudden you just see smoke coming out of them. Like, oh, that's an oil leak, a hydraulic leak. ah The body work catches on fire.
Joy: Good grief.
Eric Price: ah stuff happens. So it's not uncommon these first few races for people to kind of go out. um And then you have ah a larger number of younger drivers than we've had lately.
Joy: Mm-hmm.
Eric Price: um It's been kind of the same people bouncing around back and forth between teams. And now we have Kajar, Duhan, Portoleto, Lawson, Bearman, and Antonelli.
Eric Price: who are all in their like first or second year in Formula One. Most of them, this is their first year. um So that's like kind of another part of it, is like a lot of those who went out were also... ah like Three of the like six new drivers also were out.
Joy: Oh, shoot.
Eric Price: Or four, I guess.
Joy: Okay.
Eric Price: though Lawson did do like some races last year, but like four of the seven were, uh, effective rookies.
Joy: Got it. Well, it's the name of the game, I guess. no
Eric Price: A little bit, um, overall, uh, entertaining, certainly. Um, go through a quick rundown, uh, of the people.
Eric Price: First place, Lando Norris, uh, great qualifying, great race, did everything he was supposed to do. Never really seemed like he was in much trouble at any point. Um, second place, Max Verstappen.
Eric Price: It's Max. Um, Red Bull's car doesn't seem that great, but Max is going to drive the wheels off of it um and did what he was supposed to do and is, you know, keeping the championship as close as he can one race in.
Joy: you
Eric Price: ah George Russell ah from Mercedes. I don't remember. i don't think the broadcast ever even really showed him or Kimi Antonelli that much, oh but.
Eric Price: they kind of stayed out of it, kept their noses clean and pitted at the right times and got away with a three and a four, which is a pretty good result.
Joy: What?
Eric Price: Um, uh, going down the rest of the order, uh, fifth album, sixth stroll, seventh Hulkenberg, eighth Leclerc, ninth Piastri, 10th Hamilton, uh, which is the last points paying position. You get one point for 10th, uh,
Eric Price: followed by Pierre Gasly, Yuki Sonoda, Esteban Ocon, Oliver Bearman, and bringing up...
Joy: what
Joy: I was just going to say, what the heck happened to Hamilton? There was a period where, tell me if I'm crazy, he like he made it up.
Joy: He passed somebody and got up to higher placement seeing it placement i don't know position.
Eric Price: Yes.
Joy: so And then something happened, and I was like, what happened?
Eric Price: Yeah. Position.
Joy: He was at like... three or four or something.
Eric Price: Yes.
Joy: And then he was back, back at the bottom.
Eric Price: Um,
Joy: I said, now what the?
Eric Price: So they had a dry period where everyone was switching over to dry tires. And in those like changes between the dry tires and safety cars and all of that, there was a moment where a bunch of other people pitted from in front of him.
Eric Price: And so... Lewis came to be in the lead of the race. ah It's a little deceptive, though, because he was still, we well, Ferrari was hoping he didn't still need to change tires, but he very obviously did um because it was raining again.
Eric Price: And so he gained what we call track position, but not necessarily like race position. So like he was ahead on the track. But because he was going to have to go in and pit two, he was not gaining race position because by the time he goes in and comes back out, a bunch of people are going to pass him.
Eric Price: And now he's going to be you further back. um The. Flaw of it was that this was a bad strategy call by Ferrari because he had already moved up into like the top five or top six.
Eric Price: And if they had done basically what most of the other teams did and pit then about eight seconds behind Max, he would have come out and probably stayed in that top like.
Eric Price: ah eight. ah Certainly, yeah, certainly the top eight might have been able to stay in a top five, top four.
Joy: Okay.
Joy: a
Eric Price: They didn't do that.
Joy: ok
Eric Price: They left him out. ah The problem with that is that everybody else is on intermediate tires and it's raining. So they're able to drive faster than Lewis is on the regular slick tires that have no grip. And so he has to drive so slowly.
Eric Price: ah back around the track that everybody else is just passing him up. And by the time he gets back around the track, then goes into the pits, gets new tires on and comes back out.
Joy: Well,
Eric Price: Everybody has passed him again.
Joy: that's no fun.
Eric Price: No, it was a very bad strategy call by Ferrari. They messed up.
Joy: Got it.
Eric Price: They should not have left him out there. it was pretty obvious they shouldn't have left him out there. They were kind of just hoping the rain would stop and the track would immediately dry.
Joy: Mm-hmm.
Joy: are our Is he allowed to be like, hey, this is a bad idea. I'm doing my own thing. you know is Can he go rogue or no?
Eric Price: Uh, he can, um he has before, uh,
Eric Price: you It probably didn't come up as much during this broadcast, um but the strategist, the race engineer, the person who's talking to Lewis is on what they call the pit wall.
Joy: It's not a good idea.
Eric Price: So there's the team principal, the strategy team, and the engineers um and all kind of sit and have a bunch of different monitors and a bunch of
Joy: Thank you.
Eric Price: you know ah radio buttons for them to be able to talk to people ah set up. And ah the strategy team will you um obviously come up with strategies, run different scenarios, um communicate with the team principal, and then kind of, you know, they will, the engineers will then give that strategy information as well as other information about what's happening in the race to the driver.
Eric Price: um Things like the difference between their time and their teammates time, who's coming up behind them, if anybody is who they're coming up on. what the race pace of the leaders are is, um if you know rain is anticipated, how far away it's expected to be, all that kind of thing is is being communicated to them by their engineer.
Eric Price: um And one of the things their engineer will tell them is box box. um It comes from the German Boxenstaufen, and it means come into the pits generally for new tires.
Joy: What?
Joy: Okay.
Joy: I'm familiar with the hot box, not the box box.
Eric Price: um
Joy: Okay.
Eric Price: Yes, box, box. um
Joy: box box
Eric Price: And so that is them telling the driver, come in, bring the car into the pit so that we can change the tires or change the front wing or, you know, something is stuck in your vent, one of your vents, and so we need to pull it out, all that kind of thing.
Joy: you
Eric Price: ah And drivers have and can ignore that and just stay out.
Joy: What do they do when they stay out?
Eric Price: um
Joy: Like, are they like, oh, this, he's crazy. You know, like, what what happened?
Eric Price: ah They try to convince them that they should listen and come in.
Joy: ah
Eric Price: like He's driving the car and you, ah by rule, the driver has to drive the car unaided, as they call it. And so you cant like there's no button you can push to like stop their car or anything like that.
Eric Price: All of the control of what is happening in the car with the engine, all of that has to be ah only changeable by the driver.
Joy: So they're basically just hoping that, you know, hey, you know, you really you think you want to come back?
Eric Price: Hey, could you please?
Joy: oh
Eric Price: Uh, and, and sometimes the, the engineer will be like, Hey, we've run the numbers. We've done the scenarios. You need to come in for tires. Now, uh, it's the only way you will get to the end of the race, or it's, it's the best chance for you to catch the person in front of you.
Eric Price: We, we considered what you wanted. We don't think it'll work. Or they may say, okay, stay out. We will, we'll go with your strategy. We'll do what you want to do. um but they it's, it's a suggestion.
Eric Price: Um, Carlos signs who used to drive for Ferrari was known for calling a lot of his own strategy where he would be on the radio with them and be like, no, I'm not going to do that.
Joy: Oh.
Eric Price: Now where I'm staying out or no, I don't want to go to the hard tire. Put me on the medium tire. I don't want that tire.
Joy: Oh. Well.
Eric Price: Um,
Joy: well
Eric Price: And I mean, the team can choose to ignore him, but ah at a point you guys have to kind of work together. And he is the one driving the car. And so you you you have some give and some take there.
Eric Price: ah And on occasion, drivers have said, no, I'm coming in. And there have been occasions where drivers have gone into the pits.
Joy: Oh.
Eric Price: And just told their team, no, give me new softs. And they just drive into the pit, into the pit lane and are like, I'm coming and stopping this car in our pit box.
Eric Price: You should better have some tires for me to put on.
Joy: oh All right. It gets a little spicy. Okay.
Eric Price: Yes. Um, It's rarer for the driver to like forcibly come in oh just because you generally need to have like the pit crew out there with the tires in position.
Joy: Yeah.
Eric Price: And if they aren't, ah that kind of delay can really ruin your race, ah which is why it's so aggressive of a move to do. um It's more common that drivers will be like, no, I don't want to pit yet.
Eric Price: I want to ah stay out. oh This is primarily because when you are... Formula 1 requires that you do at least one pit stop in a dry race.
Joy: Okay.
Eric Price: um
Joy: Because that's because the tires are burning?
Eric Price: There's...
Eric Price: It's because it creates more excitement, like is the real reason.
Joy: What?
Eric Price: They... um So there's two things at play.
Joy: Okay.
Eric Price: One... Especially on tracks where it's difficult to pass, the main way for you to get ahead of somebody is ah either jumping them in the pits or doing a different pit stop strategy to them.
Joy: Okay.
Eric Price: And so it creates more excitement by everyone has to come in and pit for new tires of another compound at some point.
Joy: that
Eric Price: um The caveat to that rule is if the race is red flagged, which is they stop the race. Everyone pulls and lines up their cars in the pit lane, and the race is just stopped.
Eric Price: um Especially bad crashes will cause this. If the rain had gotten significantly heavier to where drivers couldn't see, that would also potentially red flag the race.
Eric Price: ah And if the race is red flagged for some reason, you can change tires then, too
Eric Price: And that would count toward using two different compound of tire.
Joy: So they want you to have one pit stop in a dry race. Who calls?
Eric Price: At least one.
Joy: who can So anybody can, any team can have as many pit stops as they want. I mean, obviously you can't be pit stopping, pit stopping, stopping. But you can technically stop however many times you want.
Eric Price: Yes. um The key is that in the pit lane, you have to drive slower. There's a speed limit.
Joy: Okay, that's a skinny lane.
Eric Price: And so,
Joy: That's a skinny. It's like one Okay. Okay.
Eric Price: yes, it's one skinny lane, and then they veer off and stop, and then the guys rush out, and they change the tires, and then they veer back onto it.
Joy: Okay. okay
Eric Price: And then feeds them back out onto the track. And there's a speed limit that you're not allowed to go over if you're in the pit lane.
Joy: yeah
Eric Price: ah Which means you are going slower than everybody who's still out on the track. Yeah.
Joy: And that's safety reasons.
Eric Price: Yes, that is primarily for safety because you have people moving around, you have cars coming in and out. And so you need people to stay below a certain speed.
Eric Price: But that also means that whenever you pit, if it is, again, a dry race where, you know, everyone is able to go around the track, you can lose anywhere from like 20 to 24 seconds of time.
Joy: Oh.
Eric Price: pitting your car if you have a good clean pit stop.
Joy: Oh. That's a lot of time.
Eric Price: If you have a bad pit stop, you could lose even more. You could lose up to like 30, 40 seconds sometimes.
Joy: Oh.
Eric Price: And so that is why you would not just, you know, pit for fresh tires. I mean, also you have a limited number of tires for the entire weekend. So the number of like good, fresh, brand new tires that would help you go faster that you have is usually pretty limited.
Eric Price: You maybe have like one or two really new unused tires and then maybe one or two sets of like lightly used tires and then a bunch of tires that are basically useless now and so the strategy of which tires to use which tires to not use um
Joy: Well.
Eric Price: When to change them out is is a big part of it because the three compounds, you have soft, medium, and hard tires.
Joy: he
Eric Price: Soft tires are the fastest, but they wear out the quickest.
Joy: well
Eric Price: Medium tires are kind of the balance, and then hard tires are ah harder. They last longer, but they're slower.
Eric Price: generally each level is like another second. So for like the soft tire, if that's zero, then the mediums are usually like a second slower and the hards are a second slower than that per lap.
Joy: So complicated. Okay.
Eric Price: And so ah the reason for how you change how you pit is basically there's there's two
Joy: Okay.
Eric Price: maneuvers you'll generally be attempting. You either want to um undercut or overcut your opponent. And undercut is when you go, all right, I cannot get ahead of this car on the track. I can't pass them.
Eric Price: So I'm going to come in, pit my car, get new tires on, and
Joy: Okay. Okay.
Eric Price: come back out and then really just go for it on like my next lap or two laps.
Joy: Okay.
Eric Price: So that when they come in and pit and put on new tires, they come out behind me because I was going that much faster on my new tires than they were going on their old tires.
Joy: Oh, okay, you got to come out of the gate like...
Joy: i i end I thought of Scarface.
Eric Price: yes
Joy: You got to come out the gate like... When you coming out of the pit to really gun it, you know, to really, you know, make the moves.
Eric Price: Yes.
Eric Price: Yes. The other one is the overcut or going long, which is I'm going to let them pit put on
Joy: Mm-hmm.
Eric Price: new tires and and go for it.
Joy: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Eric Price: But I think that I can stay fast enough on my tires and keep going such that by the time I come in and pit, I will have gone so much further on these tires that I will either one, still come out ahead of them or two, I will create what's called a tire delta where
Joy: here
Eric Price: Yes, you, Pitt, got ahead of me. But I'm going to stay out for another 10 laps.
Joy: Oh,
Eric Price: Then, Pitt, for softer tires than yours, so that when I come back out now, I have not only newer tires than you have, but also faster tires than you have, and I'm going to make the difference up.
Joy: oh no.
Eric Price: in our speed because I can push these newer tires further and harder than you can your old tires. So I'm going to go faster than you over the remaining distance and pass you and beat you that way.
Joy: Strategy. Okay. Okay. i'm I'm here for it. i I follow. ah
Eric Price: Yes. And so that is why the drivers will say, you know, no, I want to stay out. I think that either I can go long and create a tire offset, or I think that this is an overcut track where actually the longer you can wait before you pit for new tires, the better you are, the faster you'll actually be.
Eric Price: Whereas other tracks are undercut tracks. Um, the first one to pit and get on to new tires, uh, can make up a whole bunch of ground, but you don't want to pit so early that your tires are dead by the end of the race. And then they fall off what's known as the cliff, uh, which is the kind of point at which your performance not only drops, but then just craters.
Joy: Oh, okay. That's like driving on bald tires.
Eric Price: And,
Joy: Like just.
Eric Price: Yes, going from like good tires to like kind of worn tires and then bald tires that are about to like explode.
Joy: Got it. Okay.
Eric Price: And so that's the other part is you don't want to just slap on, keep slapping on softs because they're not going to get very far. You're going to have to keep pinning and they're going to fall off the cliff sooner and you're going to have to go so slow on them.
Eric Price: that everyone's going to pass you up.
Joy: Okay. You got to pit. Okay. Moral of the story, pit. Okay. And pick the right tire. And then when you get out of there, haul ass.
Joy: ah That's me as like the, the engineer person, haul ass.
Eric Price: Yes.
Eric Price: Yes, that is...
Joy: That's my advice.
Eric Price: That is one major strategy, though, again, ah because you can get tire deltas and that kind of thing, some people will really baby their tires because um it's basically said that, well, if you can go kind of slow your first five laps and then push the tires, you actually help preserve the life of the tire a lot more so that when you get to the end of the race,
Eric Price: Now, maybe our tires of the same age, but you came out and you just really pushed the tires as hard as you could those first few laps. Whereas i brought my tires in a little more gently.
Eric Price: And now at the end of the race, my tires are actually better than yours because you overdid it and your tires are barely hanging on and mine actually still have a little bit of life in them.
Eric Price: And now I can catch you at the end or I can hold you off. It's more often the case ah because this is usually a thing that the leader is able to do where they are able to actually kind of take it a little bit easier. They don't have to push as hard.
Eric Price: And so they can kind of baby their tires a little bit.
Joy: here
Eric Price: And then when you, the challenger who has been pushing your tires lap after lap, finally reach them, they go, oh, hey, yeah, no, I was actually taking it easy. Now I'm going to actually pull something out and push my tires a little bit and just leave you in my dust.
Joy: ah I say eat my dust. Okay. I mean, i could see that. Man.
Eric Price: So it's a lot of strategy. It's a lot of different ways to manipulate things.
Joy: Thank you.
Eric Price: um Yeah. Do you go long? Do you go short? Do you overcut? Do you undercut? ah Do we have the opportunity to bring the tires in gently or do we need to immediately just go, you know, hell for leather, ah push as hard as we can and then, you know, deal with the consequences later? Yeah.
Eric Price: Do you ah stay out to get track position? Do you pit in the hopes that you get it back later after everybody else pits? ah Do you hope that no safety car comes out?
Eric Price: oh This is kind of the last strategy thing um I'll throw at you because the other thing that you saw after people crashed is the safety car would come out. The one like sedan looking car that would be at the front and everybody else would be following it.
Joy: Yes, the Subaru looking car
Eric Price: Yes, that car is the safety car, and it's basically designed to slow everybody down. To give the people on the track more time to do all their cleanup and everything.
Eric Price: Move the car out the way, clean things up. um And that safety car um gathers everybody back up. So they come out in front of the leader.
Eric Price: The leader slows down and follows it. And then eventually everybody else gets backed up too. And they form a line behind it.
Joy: I don't know if I like that safety card. Because it's like being at the starting lineup again, right?
Eric Price: Yes.
Joy: Mm-hmm.
Eric Price: No, some people don't like the safety car. um Some people think that it should be all red flags. Other people think that it should be virtual safety cars. Where they just basically they put on a speed limit.
Joy: yeah
Eric Price: And tell everybody maintain position. But they don't bring out a physical car. To gather everyone together. But for bad enough races. Or bad enough accidents. You either need to gather everybody back up.
Eric Price: Or pull people off the track. One of the two. And so the safety car. Bunches everybody back up.
Eric Price: And then so the safety car period will end. The safety car will get off the track and go into the pits. And then the leader, um there's usually like a line, ah like the start finish line or something like that, that when they pass that line, you're allowed, once you pass that line, you're allowed to resume racing.
Joy: Mm-hmm.
Eric Price: So everyone has to follow the leader till he crosses that line. ah So usually the leader is trying to time it to like, drop everybody in like a corner where they don't expect it and then speed off.
Eric Price: So they're going top speed and kind of catch everybody else unaware. And, but that safety car also bunches everyone back, not only bunches everyone back together, but because everyone has to slow down for that safety car.
Joy: who
Eric Price: If you're able to pit your car during that period before everyone's gathered up, but after it's come out and everyone has to slow down. Now, instead of losing 20 seconds during your pit stop, you only lose 12, 14 seconds compared to everyone else.
Joy: Wait, you can pit your car? You can pit your car during the ah cleanup?
Eric Price: Yeah. Yes.
Joy: Oh, game changer.
Eric Price: And so ah now that's, again, some people feel like you shouldn't be allowed to. Other people are like, no, that's part of the strategy is sometimes you wait. um
Joy: Thank you.
Eric Price: You know, we know that there's usually two or three crashes at this track. I'm going to wait. I'm going I'm going to stay on my old tires, wait and see if somebody crashes or has an accident.
Eric Price: Wait for the safety car to come out or for the virtual safety car to be called. And then I'll dive into the pits. assuming I'm in a good position to, and pit my car then under more favorable circumstances where everybody else has to slow down.
Eric Price: And so instead of losing 20 seconds to the field, I only lose 12 or 14 seconds.
Joy: I personally like that strategy.
Eric Price: And I mean, it's a solid strategy, unless, of course, you have a race where no one crashes and then you're just out here an old tires.
Joy: ah
Eric Price: getting passed up by people and eventually you got to call it and go ahead and pit.
Joy: ah
Eric Price: um And so it it it's a risky strategy.
Joy: e
Eric Price: But when it pays off, it pays off.
Joy: When it pays off, it pays off.
Eric Price: You can also end up in cases where like, oh, they call the safety car, but right after you pass to the pit lane.
Joy: Oh, no.
Eric Price: So now you have to go do a full lap and everybody else is, you know know, your competitors are diving in and you potentially would lose, like now if I pit, I lose track position because now basically in front or near to the front.
Joy: And you...
Joy: Oh, no.
Eric Price: So do I just stay out and hope that I get a better opportunity to pit or that something else happens and do I just take
Joy: That's rough.
Eric Price: you know, the track position over newer tires.
Joy: Oh, that's rough.
Eric Price: Very.
Joy: Imagine you just passed. I don't know I would handle that well.
Eric Price: Yes.
Joy: Yeah, that's rude.
Eric Price: No, you see it happen every now and then. ah
Joy: Mm-hmm.
Eric Price: There was a period where people would get very upset because it felt like, the safety cars and virtual safety cars always seem to get called just before Hamilton got to the pit lane.
Eric Price: And it was like, every time he's right there to dive into the pits and get new tires.
Joy: and very
Eric Price: Uh, and, and some people got very, very annoyed with that. Um, he's been caught out by it before too, where he's on the wrong part of the track and someone else is able to pit and he isn't, um,
Eric Price: And so it it you know it's random.
Joy: Thanks.
Eric Price: It happens to everybody at some point. But there were definitely some pretty memorable lucky moments of him ah being able to dive into the pits or a virtual safety car being called because something is on the track.
Eric Price: And basically, like one person is in position to dive into the pits, change their tires. And right as they're coming out of the pits, the virtual safety car gets called off. And so like one or two people was able to get like a really cheap pit stop and everybody else was just stuck.
Joy: Dang. So now they got fresh tires cruising.
Eric Price: Yes.
Joy: oh
Eric Price: Yes.
Eric Price: yes I remember one. I think it was like three. well Well, now it was probably like four years ago where that happened to Hamilton, where like they called it right as he was coming near the pit lane. He dove in, got new tires. And right as he was coming out, they called the virtual safety car off because they had removed, you know, some carbon fiber that was on the field or on the track or something like that.
Eric Price: ah Animal had to be moved. And like it was just long enough. for him to get fresh tires and like basically save his strategy and the cries and lamentations that were had by others.
Joy: Everyone said, oh my God, it's not fair. Hey,
Eric Price: Hashtag blessed.
Joy: life ain't fair. That's nice. Okay. Okay. The idea of pitting during an issue, it makes sense. But I was thinking like, I feel like F1 is so many rules that i just didn't think they would allow it, but I'm here for it
Eric Price: Yes. The real one circumstance, arguably, that you wouldn't be able to is um with some of the crashes they had yesterday. They would take them through the pit lane.
Joy: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Eric Price: And so because there's like a crash on the main straightaway, rather than taking you past that, they'll take you through the pit lane. And under those circumstances, I think the rules can change a little bit. Or if there's a crash like at either end of the pit lane, then they may also close it.
Joy: he
Eric Price: um But that's the primary reason like you wouldn't be able to, is that they close the pit lane for some reason. ah But barring that, generally, yes, you can ah pit under safety car, virtual safety car,
Joy: all right nice
Eric Price: for part of your strategy. So...
Eric Price: Yes. So, uh, but I think, I mean, I think that was a good tire talk, good strategy talk, uh, or going to China. Uh, it's going to be interesting because there's a lot more racing because this is a sprint weekend. If you want to watch more racing, um, like I said, they're only doing one practice and then they're doing sprint qualifying the sprint.
Eric Price: regular qualifying and then the race. So there's two qualifies and two races as opposed to your usual one qualifying and one race.
Joy: Which is... All right. Which is crazy to me.
Eric Price: ah
Joy: I'm like, oh, they making them work. think
Eric Price: Yes.
Joy: ah Yeah, they're like, yeah, we're going to need to drum up some more excitement.
Eric Price: Yeah. They want more excitement. They want to sell more tickets because lots of people won't buy like the Friday tickets because they don't necessarily want to see practice.
Joy: you
Eric Price: um Maybe they'll get, you know, all day Saturday and all day Sunday tickets. But some people don't want to see the third practice. And so they really just want like qualifying and the race. And so this is a way to make every day have an event.
Eric Price: There's the sprint qualifying on the first day. there's the sprint race and qualifying on the second day. And then there's the race on the third day. And so it helps drum up ticket sales, drum up excitement, you know, better, uh, uh, commercial, uh, sales and all that kind of stuff.
Joy: ah yeah Yeah, that makes sense. It's a money game.
Eric Price: ah So it's yes. Um, it'll be interesting to see. They've kind of tried to improve the sprints. Um, So they let them now make changes to the car. It used to be you got one practice to set your car up, and then that's how your car had to be set up for the rest of the weekend.
Eric Price: Now they let you set it up for...
Joy: oh
Eric Price: Sprint qualifying, do sprint qualifying in the sprint. And then after the sprint, you're allowed to change your car if you want to ah ahead of qualifying. So if you set your car up, do the first qualifying, do the sprint race, and you're like, oh, no, we were wrong. We set the car up wrong. We need to change some stuff.
Eric Price: You're not just stuck for two more ah events.
Joy: That's nice of them.
Eric Price: Well, it made things really boring when they didn't because it meant that probably whoever was the leader and whoever won the sprint race was going to they're all going to come in with the same cars again and you're just going to do it longer.
Joy: you
Eric Price: So there wasn't really any excitement. It kind of ruined the excitement of the race because you kind of knew what was going to happen.
Joy: Yeah, I get that.
Eric Price: This way, by letting them change it now, Okay, we can drum up a little more excitement. They learned what their mistakes were. Now they can set the car up right and we can maybe see the field mix it up a little bit more.
Joy: I'm here for it. I'm ready to watch the sprints.
Joy: Because I feel like I want people to get out there you know, like make some moves.
Eric Price: So.
Joy: I don't know if that's realistic, but that's what I'm looking for.
Eric Price: Yes, you're going to see some movement during the sprint race. Ideally, this one is going to be a dry race, so you'll get to see some actual like competitive racing.
Eric Price: Like other than, I guess, Kimi Antonelli, not a lot of people were passing people ah during this race because it's in the rain. And so there's like one place you can put the car.
Joy: I mean, seems super risky.
Joy: So, yeah, I get it.
Eric Price: Yeah, but it should be a good one, hopefully. Ideally, we're not going to see, you know, five people go out, six people go out in the first handful of laps.
Joy: Man, I was like, what's happening? Me with tequila in my hand. What is going on? Like, yeah, yeah.
Joy: But okay. okay, tell me the schedule for next race. I know where we are. What's the schedule?
Joy: Where do I watch it?
Eric Price: All right.
Eric Price: Let's see. Broadcast information.
Eric Price: All right. This should be available through ESPN. um You're probably not going to watch these when they happen because I'm going to give you the times.
Joy: Okay, the ok the practice.
Eric Price: Local time for us in the central time zone. Practice one. 10.30 p.m. 11.30 to eleven thirty p m
Joy: Okay, okay.
Eric Price: On March the 20th.
Joy: Okay.
Eric Price: March the 21st. Sprint qualifying. 2.30 a.m. to 3.14 a.m.
Joy: Woo! Okay.
Eric Price: March the the sprint
Eric Price: ten p m to eleven p m
Joy: Okay, that might get watched.
Eric Price: March the 22nd, qualifying, 2 a.m. to 3 a.m. March the the race, 2 a.m.
Joy: Dang. Okay, it seems like I'm going to be running back a whole bunch of stuff.
Eric Price: march the twenty third the race two a m
Joy: Good grief. Well, you know what? I have to remember where it is. I don't know why I'm thinking like, why can't they have prom time seven o'clock? It's Japan. Okay. Yep.
Eric Price: Well, this one's China, but yes, it's in the afternoon in China.
Joy: I mean, China. Sorry. Yeah.
Eric Price: ah
Joy: Yeah.
Eric Price: This is the other fun part of F1 is dealing with all of the various global time zones. ah
Joy: i If one needs its own ticker or clock or. I don't know. Alarm system. I don't know.
Eric Price: Yes. So that those are the times um generally should be available through ESPN, ESPN plus. It always varies where they put it, especially these ones where it's at such odd hours, whether it's on ESPN two or ESPN three, ESPN college gate, you know, it just, it jumps around so much um until you get to like,
Eric Price: the kind of afternoon ones once they get to North America. And those will usually be about two or three o'clock and often carried on like ABC because they're like mid afternoon kind of prime.
Joy: Okay.
Eric Price: ah These other ones ah just kind of bounce around.
Joy: and ok
Eric Price: But no, it should be fun. I'm looking forward to it. ah Thank you for joining me.
Joy: yeah
Eric Price: And I think we actually had our time pretty much.
Joy: I'm shocked that I'm excited for the next race, especially the sprints. You know, I feel like they made the sprints for people like me. It's like, I don't know what's happening, but they're going fast for a short amount of time. Then I can like lock in on the long time.
Joy: So I'm here for it. I'm here for it. And hopefully no crash outs.
Eric Price: Yes, ideally no crashes. But it should be good. I will talk to you next week.
Joy: All right, bye.
