Transcript
Eric Price: And we are live. Welcome everybody to another episode of the, sadly I have not gotten back to naming it, Eric and Joy Racing Show.
Eric Price: I promise. Joy made a graphic and sent it to me. I'm going to put it in.
Joy: I do.
Eric Price: It's going to happen.
Joy: i did. i have faith in you.
Eric Price: It's happening, I promise. It's gonna get there. I am, once again, as always, your semi-quasi-sort of host, Eric. And I am joined today again by my co-host, ah the The currently still, I guess, learning F1 fan, Joyous.
Joy: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Let's go. What's up, everybody?
Eric Price: Flexbomb, flexbomb.
Joy: but
Joy: We're here. We're doing it. We're talking about racing. Immediately, i was like, I got a question. Because y'all missed it when we jumped on. I said, and we're off to the races. And in my head, I saw the checkered flag. And I said, wait a minute.
Joy: Is that just NASCAR? NASCAR?
Eric Price: ah No, there is also hey Let me see if I have...
Joy: I must have always missed... If there is some type of flag, I'd have missed it every time. I think when I'm watching, i hear the commentators go, and we're, you know, and the race has started or whatever. They don't say off to the races, I don't think. I feel like I might be showing my age, but I don't even think they say that. so I'm like, huh. Huh.
Joy: Or checkered flag, checkered stripe.
Eric Price: Okay, so... ah Checkered flag. So, at the beginning of the race, depending on... what you're watching will kind of determine it.
Eric Price: The main kind of English broadcast used in the UK and just kind of carried in the US, the usual person who calls it um goes with and lights out and away they go his usual call for the start of the race.
Eric Price: This is because they have them line up and they have a light board over the top of the um circuit.
Joy: Ah, yes.
Eric Price: And they will light up like five lights. And then when they turn off, that is the sign that the race has begun. And so it's lights out and away they go. And then at the very end, there is a checkered flag that gets waved. That is the signal of the race ending.
Eric Price: um Who gets to wave the checkered flag is, you know, it can vary. um It will often either be like a dignitary or a celebrity or a high ranking FIA official or something because there's supposed to be something special and unique about it.
Eric Price: As you will note, it is not necessarily really highlighted a lot of the time. Who's waving the checkered flag? There have been some instances like Serena waved it for um Monaco.
Joy: Oh, okay.
Eric Price: A couple of years back, um that kind of thing. Like, it I mean, they they occasionally have celebrities do it, but that is. um And what you will probably usually note is that actually when the person crosses the finish line, usually they set off like fireworks and all that kind of thing.
Joy: Yes.
Eric Price: And that's probably what you notice more than the fact that, yes, off in the corner of the screen, also a little flag is waving.
Joy: Teeny tiny with my binoculars. Is that a checkered flag? Huh. I guess the race is over.
Eric Price: ah But yes, they have all kinds of flags. There's the yellow flag or waved yellows, which say in a section you need to be cautious, slow down.
Eric Price: There are red flags, which when red flags are waved, that means that they are suspending the race. There's the meatball flag, I believe a black flag with a red dot.
Eric Price: um which is waived if a driver is um unsafe. That is, you need to like bring your car in for repairs or get it off of the track. um There is the half black, half white flag, which I don't remember exactly what that one is.
Eric Price: And then there is, I believe, the all black flag, ah which if you get black flag, means that you are being told to be removed from the race, I believe is all black flag.
Joy: Oh, like if you did something wrong, like you've got to get out.
Eric Price: Yes, you did. um When Max hit George Russell, um ah ah Nico Rosberg said he should have been black flagged. That means that when he passes, they should wave a black flag, which would signal to him, you are out of the race.
Joy: Oh.
Joy: Oh, okay. All right. The flags mean so much. the
Eric Price: Yes.
Joy: The flags mean so much. Okay. Got it should we start we Should we start saying like lights out and but what is the end? We're off to... Nevermind.
Eric Price: He says, long it's out and away we go.
Joy: Nevermind.
Eric Price: Well, I mean, we can come up with our own.
Joy: Nevermind. I couldn't even get it right.
Eric Price: You got to let it evolve over time. it's it's it's We don't have to force anything.
Joy: Okay. You're right.
Eric Price: Let it develop.
Joy: You're right. Okay. Okay. You're right. But it's good to be back. Another episode.
Eric Price: It is. We just saw the Canadian Grand Prix off. As I told you, there were there were groundhogs.
Joy: yeah Let me say this. The last episode, I'm i'm so concerned. Oh, no, the groundhogs. Hopefully, everybody stays in the ground. As soon as I turned on the race of groundhog, I said, now what?
Joy: Why would this be the first scene of groundhog scurrying away for its life? I was like, I'm not gonna mention the animals no more because they pop out. They pop out and and everybody's got to stay safe.
Eric Price: No, this this is a known thing. This is a known thing about Canada because the circuit is in part of park. And so it's not used year round. And so there's like a bunch of wildlife. um Sadly for our boy Lewis, he picked up some damage early.
Eric Price: That was apparently due to him unknowingly running over a groundhog, um which is not believed to have survived the encounter. um As a ah animal lover, and I believe vegan, ah Lewis was rather upset when he found out ah that he had killed a ground hawk during his race.
Joy: Distraught.
Joy: Distraught.
Eric Price: And also it like ruined the floor of his car and messed up his race as well.
Joy: Yikes. I mean, and I, and it's really, I guess nothing you can do about it. You know, like, unless they're moving a race elsewhere, it it is what it is. a Groundhog Day got a whole different meaning when F1 is around.
Joy: Yeah.
Eric Price: Yeah, I mean, there's not much, not much you can do about it.
Joy: Yeah. Poor Louis. lewis Louis, Louis, Louis. You know, i really
Joy: i really want him to do something, but we discussed he really ain't going to do nothing because the car is bouncy, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, what's a groundhog? You know what I mean? Like, sure. Add a groundhog to the list at this point.
Eric Price: Yeah.
Joy: Ah, Louis. Yeah.
Eric Price: The car is where it is. um this is This is what he's dealing with this year. Hopefully, the car next year is better. um We're going to find out. ah But we had a race.
Eric Price: I will run down very quickly the finishing order for the last race.
Joy: you
Eric Price: In first position, George Russell for Mercedes. ah He finished in first place. ah He received 25 points for that. um followed by Max Verstappen of Red Bull Racing in second.
Eric Price: Third, Kimi Antonelli, Georgia's teammate. Fourth, Oscar Piastri of McLaren, the current championship leader, followed by Charles Leclerc of Ferrari, followed by Lewis Hamilton, his teammate at Ferrari, followed by Fernando Alonso in seventh.
Joy: Thank you.
Eric Price: Nico Hulkenberg in 8th, Esteban Ocon in 9th, and Carlos Sainz finishing out the point-awarding positions in 10th for Williams. Following him was Oliver Behrman in 11th, Yuki Sonoda in 12th, Franco Colopinto in 13th, Gabrielle Bortoleto in 14th, Pierre Gasly in 15th, Isaac Hajar in 16th, Lance Stroll in 17th, and did not finish Lando Norris, Liam Lawson, and Alexander Bortolet.
Eric Price: Albin, who all left the race early.
Joy: Dang. All right. Oh, Canada.
Eric Price: ah Yes, I think probably ah the biggest event of the Canadian GP was towards the very end when Lando Norris ah crashed into his teammate.
Joy: Now, why? How?
Joy: Why? but So many questions.
Eric Price: So an importantant and important thing to remember about Formula One is that there are two connected but separate championships taking place at the same time.
Eric Price: There is the Drivers' Championship and the Constructors' Championship.
Joy: Okay.
Eric Price: The Drivers' Championship is awarded to the single driver with the most points at the end of the season.
Joy: Okay. I follow.
Eric Price: The Constructors' Championship is awarded to the team with the most points at the end of the season across all of their drivers.
Joy: then you
Joy: Okay, best team, best driver.
Eric Price: Yes. Now, generally, these championships will be connected, ah if not you know that loosely, if not entirely. um For a period of years, Mercedes would win the Drivers' Championship and the Constructors' Championship because they had two great drivers in Valtteri Bottas, who is currently not driving,
Eric Price: And Lewis Hamilton. and so they would rack up so many wins in so many first second third fourth places that they would just run away with both championships and the championship race was generally just between the two of them
Joy: got it.
Eric Price: um more recently we have seen those disconnect such as last year with ah Max Verstappen taking the Drivers' Championship, but McLaren, between their two drivers, combining for enough points to win the Constructors' Championship.
Joy: got it
Eric Price: because these two championships are connected but not directly, while Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri are trying to win the constructors for their team, and to do that they must maximize their points every race so that they come but home in the highest positions they can, they are also competing pretty much at this point only against each other for the driver's individual championship.
Joy: Oh, well. Okay, well. So basically he was trying to get around him and tapped him.
Eric Price: Yes, because... And he ah he was trying to get around Oscar because Oscar oscar is currently leading the Drivers' Championship. If Lando wants to stay in this fight, he needs to start finishing ahead of Oscar.
Joy: Did Lando know where in the world this crazy question Ostra's car was? It just he just re-ended him.
Eric Price: He...
Joy: Like, you know, like it was a rear ending type shit.
Eric Price: He thought he he the way he made it sound initially is that he thought there was a gap there. He thought that he could like get the move done around the outside and like quickly found out. No, the gap is not there.
Eric Price: I don't know if he thought Oscar would move over if he put his nose in there. I don't know if he thought that, you know, Oscar was going to move over.
Joy: Yeah.
Eric Price: As part of setting up for his next move going into the next turn, if he thought Oscar was going to move and take a different line. ah But whatever whatever gap he thought was there, whatever move he thought was on, it was not the entire time.
Joy: yeah
Eric Price: It was never there. If he thought it was there, it's because he convinced himself it was there. It was a mirage. It was not real. There was no gap. And he just put his rear wing up against Oscar's tire and fortunate for him ah did not appear at least to damage Oscar's tire and then brought out a, I believe, safety car that allowed Oscar to pit for new tires and finish anyway.
Joy: What would have happened if they both went out?
Eric Price: McLaren would have gotten no points for that race. ah Let me look at what the driver standings are.
Joy: Like, imagine... Imagine... These two dudes going at it and they both crashed. So then there are no points for the constructors ah race at all.
Joy: Would the driver still get some points or no? Like if no points for the drivers, no point, nothing.
Eric Price: No, you get points based off of your finishing position. So the points that McLaren gets are.
Joy: Okay. Okay.
Eric Price: It's the same points, basically. So for like finishing first, George Russell gets 25 points towards the ah championship, right?
Joy: Got
Eric Price: That 25 points also gets added to Mercedes total. Kimi Antonelli got 15 points towards the driver championship. That also gets added to Mercedes. So for George finishing first and Kimi finishing third, Mercedes gets 40 points.
Eric Price: The combination of their 25 and 15 points.
Joy: it.
Joy: got it
Eric Price: So instead of McLaren getting 22 points for fourth and fifth, they instead get 12.
Joy: Okay. So they still got Oscars points, but Lando, not so much.
Eric Price: Not so much. Yes.
Joy: He was doing too much. that He was in the zone too hard.
Eric Price: Yes, he pushed too hard. He dug too deep. um Now McLaren is in a pretty good place. McLaren has 374 points in first in Ferrari a mercedes has a hundred and ninety nine points and second
Joy: Ooh, yikes. So how does one come back?
Eric Price: ferrari has a
Joy: Like, geez. So I feel like numbers like that, both of your drivers would need to finish high, right?
Eric Price: Yes, so the maximum points you can get is finish first and second, which would be 25 and 18. That's three carry the one. 43 points. Don't check my math on that.
Joy: Sounds like not enough points to catch up with McLaren.
Eric Price: I mean, 43 points a race. We are on, I don't know what race we're on. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. We're on race 10. This think, 22, 23 race season.
Eric Price: ten we're on race ten this is i a twenty tea two twenty three race season
Joy: Hmm.
Eric Price: So, if McLaren, you know, has some more missteps, has some more mess-ups, continues to not maximize their points, Lando and Oscar take each other out some more, and that results in, say, Mercedes getting a lot more 1-2 finishes,
Eric Price: it's unlikely that but certainly possible for McLaren to end up finishing second. I will say last year, at the beginning of the year, people would have told you that Max and Red Bull were going to run away with it again.
Eric Price: They were going to run away with it. No one was going to be close. It's going to be the Max Verstappen victory parade every race again. And McLaren was able to mount a challenge to, you know, push Lando um towards the end.
Eric Price: Lando obviously did not ah get it done, and it was a long shot for him to overtake Max in the Drivers' Championship, but it was more than enough for them to overtake Red Bull in the ah Constructors, especially because the second driver for Red Bull was ah Sergio Perez could not manage the car and was just not really finishing in the points.
Joy: Mm-hmm.
Eric Price: And if you have a one driver, even if they're finishing first every race, um but your other two drivers are finishing, you know, second and third,
Joy: hey
Eric Price: If, you know, that's 25 points for finishing first, but if the other two are finishing second and third, that's 233 points to their 25.
Eric Price: The other driver's not even in the points. Well, 33 every race versus 25 every race. If you don't have a big enough lead, and then you start dropping down and start getting some second places, some third places, and all of a sudden, the math ain't mathin' no more.
Joy: yeah you could
Joy: you could okay.
Eric Price: Yes. So it is it is not over. Formula One, especially now, is a long season. We are coming up on the halfway point, but that means that there's as many points available as have already been ganked.
Eric Price: And so if a team can figure out what's wrong with their car to start putting it on par with McLaren, if their drivers can start pulling some stuff out, if McLaren's drivers just start fighting too much and, you know, start squandering their leads and victories, lots of things can happen.
Eric Price: ah It wouldn't be the first time an inter-team squabble opened up the door for someone else.
Joy: Yikes. All right. Do they go back with their coaches and teams and say, hey, man. Okay. I might have screwed the pooch on that one. We're going to get along and I'm going to stop trying to
Joy: you know, pass.
Eric Price: Oh, no, absolutely not. Lando put his hand up and said, yeah, that was me. Move wasn't there. That's my fault, guys. That's it.
Joy: All right.
Eric Price: No, I'm going to try to pass him the next race. If he's in front of me again, I'm going for it again.
Joy: Yeah.
Eric Price: McLaren wouldn't want Lando if he wasn't the kind of person who would go for it.
Joy: a
Eric Price: That is what you need in your F1 driver, by all accounts. that like And especially for a lot of the kind of old school, hard racing guys.
Joy: yeah okay
Eric Price: They would rather Lando go for it every time until it becomes, you know, like, okay, man, look, it's not going to happen. But if it's reasonable that you could make it happen, he would be heavily looked down on by other racers, by his team, by other teams, if he wasn't willing to put himself down.
Joy: okay
Eric Price: in there That's part of what people appreciate about Oscar Piastri is that he seems to just have ice in his veins.
Joy: Thank you.
Eric Price: That Max is pushing wide and seems like he's not going to make the turn. Oscar's going to put his car there. And look, man, either you control your car and make this turn or both of us are going out.
Eric Price: But I'm not backing out. I'm not afraid of you. And i'll I'll let us both go out of this race. I will. And if I'm in the lead, I will manage it. I will back off when I need to back off. I'll speed up when I need to speed up.
Eric Price: But he he seems very unflappable and he seems to be more than willing to fight when he needs to fight. Um... I personally think the kid has it.
Eric Price: I've only been watching since you know around the pandemic, like just before the pandemic. So you know my maybe I don't have the experience of other people. But from what I see of Oscar, he the the kid seems like he's got the...
Joy: Mm-hmm.
Eric Price: The thing you need to be a champion. He seems like he has the combination of temperament and car that results in world championships. And so it's also my belief personally.
Eric Price: that if Lando wants to be a world champion at McLaren, he needs to get it done this year because I think Oscar Piastri, with another year in McLaren, ah because Lando's been at this team longer than him, with another year in with this team and with a competitive car, is an incredibly difficult person to And if Lando doesn't get it done this year, A, I don't know if he gets a chance really next year with another year of experience under Oscar's belt.
Eric Price: And psychologically, the knock on Lando is that he deals with a lot more anxiety, a lot more depression, a lot like he he he he has been very open about the fact that he does have some mental health struggles.
Eric Price: And so it does also make me wonder if he doesn't get it done this year, is he able to stay in the right mental space to go up against a guy who just never seems to ever be blown too far off his game?
Joy: Yikes.
Joy: I would put my money on no, so he better do it this year. I'm with you. Do it this year. I mean, dang. Do it and then, well I was going to say do and then retire.
Eric Price: He's a young guy. They're the same basic age.
Joy: Oh, I mean, but... Who wants to fall back? Who wants to be the world champion and then fall back to second and then immediately get beat on second? I don't know.
Eric Price: I mean, the other part is if he does beat Oscar and and, you know, wins the driver championship this year, that's also the kind of high and the kind of like, you know,
Eric Price: rally around the flag potential that could result in him getting another win. like Part of it is definitely, to me, I worry what Lando's mental state will be. Like, if Lando doesn't win it this year, are there too many cracks for him to overcome it next year?
Joy: Yeah.
Eric Price: Not that he wouldn't be in a position to, not that he wouldn't have the chance, but it's that kind of... um
Eric Price: When you like see an NBA player shooting free throws, and if they make the first one, it feels like they're more likely to make the second one, versus if they miss that first one, you're like, oh, he's missing both.
Joy: Got you.
Joy: Yeah. got you
Eric Price: Like, I feel like Lando feels a little more like that, where like, if he gets this one, i can see him gutting out another one or two.
Joy: yeah
Eric Price: But if he doesn't get this one, i think it becomes a much more mentally challenging and demanding task to not only overcome this same teammate wall, but also whatever's going on in your own head after not doing it the first time.
Joy: I get that. I mean,
Joy: oh it's like a hole, you know, just digging yourself out of a hole. is just a little bit harder if you know, like, hey, going jump in this hole. And then I'm going dig around a little bit.
Joy: And okay, let's get ready for the race. Like mentally, you're already like, oh, all right. Can I?
Eric Price: Yeah.
Joy: could Am I able to, you know, make it happen? So, okay. Yep.
Eric Price: Yeah.
Joy: That explains
Eric Price: And if you've fallen down and gotten back up once, it's a little bit easier to hey, hey, I did this before.
Joy: yeah yeah
Eric Price: I can do this again. If you've fallen down a couple of times and gotten back up and gotten back to where you you were trying to be at, that's one thing. But if you got knocked down, tried to get back up and it just didn't it didn't happen.
Eric Price: And then you got like a long shot and it didn't happen. And then you you like were right there and it didn't happen. That can start to play in your mind a little bit. And it takes a lot, even if you are still on that door, even if you still are on that cusp, even if you still have the same chance to make it.
Joy: yeah. yeah.
Joy: yeah
Eric Price: Your chance of making it didn't change.
Joy: yeah
Eric Price: But your mindset going into it now could be radically different. And that, I think, is the fear some Lando fans have for him is just if he doesn't do it this year, does it affect him so much that it becomes even more difficult for him to get, you know, over that hump versus, you know,
Eric Price: Also, I mean, maybe part of that openness is that he he is more comfortable with those struggles and is also able to go. You know what? Yes, I have some of those voices. I have some of those struggles, but they're wrong. I got this far.
Eric Price: Yeah, I didn't do it this last time, but I can do it this time. It's a new year, a fresh start. And, you know, maybe it doesn't doesn't really knock him or phase him at all. I mean, we can't know, obviously. like
Joy: we Yeah, unless he talks about it, we can't know.
Eric Price: But.
Joy: We can just see what the race has produced.
Eric Price: Yes, and so, but I think that is that is some of Lando's fans' fear, is Oscar seems to have a bit more of the kind of, like, buttoned-up, ice-in-the-veins...
Eric Price: unflappableness that a lot of ah traditionalists of F1 like Lando seems in some ways to have a little bit more Lewis in him where Lewis has always been a bit more hard on his sleeve a bit more up and down a bit more you know emotional comparatively um though Nico Rosberg I think pointed out that like When Lewis would get upset, he would talk about how like he made a mistake or how the car isn't there or how circumstances weren't good.
Eric Price: Lando will sometimes talk a bit more about how he wasn't good enough.
Joy: o
Eric Price: And not in a way where Lewis will be like, well, I didn't perform today, as a as it sometimes sounds a little bit more like you're not saying you didn't perform. You're saying you don't have it.
Eric Price: And I think that that has been kind of the concern, is that even when Lewis was kind of down, it's very rare that Lewis would say something that made you go, oh, Lewis doesn't believe he can be a champion or doesn't believe that he is a champion is the champion.
Eric Price: that That that wasn't necessarily what Lewis was saying. And that might be due to interpretation.
Joy: Got it.
Eric Price: That might be due to the fact that, like, um i was I was reading something the other day discussing the fact that, like, most of these guys didn't finish high school.
Joy: Hmm.
Eric Price: Like, ah because of how young they have to go into the sport and how much travel it demands, they might get their kind of equivalent of, like, ah kind of like GED. d
Joy: Oh, but they're like, okay, well, you got that. move on.
Eric Price: ah But I mean, Lando has said, like, I don't I don't have any other skills. I'm not good at anything else. And I don't think I'm that smart. This is all I have. This is it.
Eric Price: I have to be a successful race car driver because I do. I have spent my entire life from the age of like six or eight focused on this one goal. This is all I have.
Eric Price: I need to make it here or I got nothing.
Joy: yeah
Joy: That's when you just need to become a coach.
Joy: In my mind, that is absolutely when you become a coach.
Eric Price: Yes. No, that I mean, that is it like you would have to become. I mean, some of them do like sim racing of sim racing teams. There's other, you know, motorsport world endurance um during the Canadian GP.
Eric Price: There was also um the 24 hours of limo, the kind of big endurance race of the year. um The basic rundown is that they have basically kind of three levels, the hyper cars and then the slightly less hyper cars and then the almost stock cars.
Joy: Thank you.
Eric Price: I know they have names and such, but I don't watch enough World Endurance to know what they are. And um they all run at the same time. The hyper cars always win because they're hyper cars.
Eric Price: And but it's a race runs for 24 hours plus a one lap. You have three drivers and you have to make the car run for 24 hours or as close as you can get.
Eric Price: They count your number of laps. So you can't like go around five times, put the car in the garage, bring it out at the very end and then go around once and be like, yeah, we did it. Like you have you have to run.
Eric Price: You have to be on the same number of laps ah or more laps than everybody else. Um, but, uh, Robert Kubica, who was, I believe the winning driver for that. If not, he was, uh, the driver right before the win, but I think he was actually the one who was in the car, uh, when they won is a former formula one driver.
Eric Price: He was actually a rising star in Formula One until a very bad accident damaged his ah arm to the point where I believe he has very limited use of his right arm.
Joy: Got it.
Eric Price: And as like racing goes, it is almost useless. Like it is not completely useless, um but is not as useful as you would want to be able to drive a car at, you know, 200 miles an hour.
Joy: got it
Eric Price: And so he does world endurance.
Joy: oh
Eric Price: Carlos signs senior was a formula one driver. Carlos signs father. ah He does like, I think he still does a rally driving. Like there's, there's other types of driving you can do. There's Indy car, which some drivers will go over to like, he could still drive race cars, but he spent his entire childhood aimed at this.
Eric Price: And then, yeah, most of many of them go into like managing younger drivers, helping to prepare them for formula one, um you know, developing teams for other sports, commentating, you know, all all the all the fun stuff.
Joy: Well, I mean, you made it. At some point, the beginning and end, right? You're like, I started when I was a wee baby. And I got to grow old in racing or the sport.
Eric Price: Yeah.
Joy: F1 and beyond. So I totally get that. I mean... I hope he's able to um get a win. See, now you done talked him up. Now I kind of put Louis on the back burner. I'm like, Louis, you have time.
Joy: Let this man with self-esteem issues i get a win. Yeah.
Eric Price: I mean, this is not Lewis's year.
Joy: and that's
Eric Price: that we Lewis did not come to Ferrari necessarily to immediately win this year. That would have been nice. But ah next year, in many ways, if we're really honest, is what Lewis came to this team for.
Joy: yeah
Eric Price: It is to... see if the car that they develop ah for the next set of regulations is a car that can compete for race wins and thereby the championship.
Eric Price: And if it is, then, you know, that's that's what really Lewis was coming here for. And if it is not, then we don't know if that a third year option ah will be exercised by him or the team. I don't remember if it's his option or the team's option, but Either way, ah that that is a lot of what Lewis made this change for.
Eric Price: And so I am comfortable waiting. It is pretty clear at this point that I don't think Ferrari is going to challenge ah either of their drivers is going to challenge for the driver's championship.
Eric Price: um You know, um Mercedes is at 199 in ah second place and the constructors. Ferrari is at 183. That is certainly doable.
Eric Price: Like, that's a 16-point swing. you You can definitely cover that. Ferrari could be second place in the Constructors' Championship. um The other thing to note about the two championships is that while the the glory, the prestige of being the best in the world is all hinged on the driver's individual championship, the money...
Eric Price: a is in the Constructors' Championship.
Joy: Oh.
Eric Price: ah Formula One has a prize money distribution system. And so where you finish in the order of the Constructors determines how many tens of millions of dollars Formula One gives your team.
Joy: And that goes to helping build the new car and, and of course, everybody else everything else, like salary and stuff like that.
Eric Price: Yes. And so for the lower ranking teams, getting up a single position or not can mean 5, 10, 15, 20, 30 million dollars.
Eric Price: Which if you are a low ranking team... that's a huge chunk of your budget that you don't have to go beg for sponsors for, or you don't have to go, you know, beg your owner for, or in, you know, for some teams that you're just not going to get, like, you're just not going to get that money if you don't get it out of, you know, your, uh, out of the championship prize pool for teams like McLaren, Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull,
Eric Price: they They have the money. they They have the budget. Now, if they don't have to put that money in, that's very nice. um There are some other things tied to it, like the higher you finish, the less wind tunnel time you get, the less um CAD fluid dynamics time you get, the higher you finish.
Eric Price: And so that also plays into it because since they added cost caps, So there's a maximum amount you're allowed to spend every year. um They also added caps on things like how much wind tunnel time you get, how much fluid dynamics time you get to try and even things out a little bit more.
Eric Price: And then the lower you are, the more time you get. So um the low ranking teams get a little extra time to in the wind tunnel and get some extra time doing fluid dynamics simulation to kind of try and figure out what's wrong with their car and the really high finishing teams that
Joy: Thank you.
Eric Price: have a little bit less time. So maybe you you don't have enough time to figure out what that issue with your car is, or maybe you don't have enough time to really optimize this thing or that thing. You have to go for maybe a little bit more low-hanging fruit.
Eric Price: And so to try and and introduce some parity and also keep those teams like Ferrari and Mercedes and Red Bull from just doing whatever they want, which is what happened for a number of years um They introduced cost caps.
Eric Price: ah Because one thing that I think Mercedes was pretty open about is that they would just spin up three, four, five, six teams to do development.
Eric Price: And they would just let them come up with ideas. And then... try them out. And then if an idea worked and and was showing progress, they'd keep funding it. If not, they'd cut it off.
Eric Price: But it was based off of the idea that, well, we can spend as much as we want. So if we spend $200, $300, $400, $500 million five hundred million dollars a year Who cares? We're going to spend that to be the champions.
Eric Price: And so it was, a ah by many accounts, a big change for Mercedes to have to move to a... No, you're cost-capped. You cannot have four different teams doing just wild expedition fishing expeditions on what are the problems in the car. You need to really focus in on what the issues are and really try to figure some things out.
Eric Price: um And that there are accounts that that was a a pretty big change to how Mercedes would operate versus Red Bull, where people who work at Red Bull said like, yeah, Red Bull kind of would give you some freedom and they would they would let you kind of do your thing.
Joy: yeah
Eric Price: But they operated those teams as if they were kind of like. small businesses almost.
Joy: and
Eric Price: So you would get like a really small budget and a small team.
Joy: I mean, would you? For ten tens of millions, I ah would... I would run that thing until the wheels fell off as a business.
Eric Price: Yes. And so that they were a bit more tight fisted with the money and you had to like really be creative with a small amount of cash and that that was more Red Bull's culture.
Eric Price: It's part of why they got into stuff like all of the extreme sports that they do, because for a really small buy in. You could become a pretty big player in, you know, the little like weird boxcar races or in, you know, the the giant wave surfing or having a dude jump out of ah a low orbit satellite and do the world's longest skydive.
Eric Price: For budget expenses, for like marketing, it wasn't really that much money, but garners international attention.
Eric Price: And that that is the culture of Red Bull is, we'll give you a little bit of money to try and make maximum bang.
Joy: Yeah.
Eric Price: And so it wasn't necessarily as much of a culture shift for them to have that cost cap come in.
Joy: Okay. It's a lot of money in F1. A wild amount.
Eric Price: Crazy money.
Joy: Oh, my goodness. Just...
Joy: I feel like F1 and FIFA or is it FIFA? Yeah.
Eric Price: Yes, FIFA. as
Joy: Yeah. I feel like it's a wild amount of money in both sports. And I'm just like, cause somebody slide me.
Eric Price: Crazy money.
Joy: Yeah.
Eric Price: Crazy corruption.
Joy: F1's gotten made though on the corruption, just the,
Joy: the amount of, I got the money so I can just appoint the driver or to just my son. Or like, I don't know if I hear that as much in other sports, but F1 just sounds like, hey, I got the juice. Who's going to check me, boo? Okay.
Eric Price: Yeah, no, it's very much Yu-Gi-Oh!
Joy: Who's going to check
Eric Price: abridged Kaiba. Screw the rules.
Joy: me?
Eric Price: I'm rich.
Joy: Okay.
Eric Price: And that is, to a degree, the undertone of F1. They've tried to regulate it some. But, like, Lawrence Stroll still owns a team. And his son drives for them because he's his son. And that's why Lawrence owns the team. Like, we all get this.
Eric Price: ah Now, he's helped turn that team around. It went from being a like, mid-tier to failing team because the Indian billionaire was lying.
Joy: And then.
Eric Price: about the finances and after some success, couldn't actually really afford to keep operating the team, which is when Lawrence Stroll bought it. Um, and it went from, you know, racing point to whatever it was before that.
Eric Price: And then Lawrence bought Aston Martin and slapped that badge on it and started spinning stuff back up.
Joy: um and
Eric Price: And like, uh, cause Lawrence Stroll owner of Aston Martin, uh, racing team or whatever they're really called. Um, was a fashion billionaire. like he would be like I believe he would basically like buy up and turn around like fashion brands.
Eric Price: um But he was able to put together a group to purchase this F1 team, installed his son, and is now kind of combining that with Aston Martin and trying to do that same turnaround job now for this team.
Joy: And
Eric Price: a la McLaren and Zach Brown, who Zach Brown was brought in several years ago and took this team from being kind of a joke to now running away with the championship. And so that is the dream of a, you know, Lawrence Stroll or a you know, Williams or someone like that who's gotten kind of this influx of billionaire money and is now hoping to become competitive again.
Joy: Take the billionaire money. Go sit down.
Joy: I would not. I feel like I would just need.
Joy: You know, I don't know how much money you get by placing, you know, like seventh.
Joy: But I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna show up for the sprints. I think that's what you call them. And then the big races. And I don't have to be the best. Hey, it's okay. I'll do some meet and greets with some fans. You mean?
Joy: And I'm going to take a couple of billion to the house. Maybe. Million, not billion.
Eric Price: All right. So here's the estimate. In 2024, F1 reported an annual commercial revenue of $3.65 billion. This is from motorsportmagazine.com.
Eric Price: A 14% increase compared to 2023. And created an estimated prize pot of $1.27 billion for the teams. Based on that figure, here's how much Motorsport Magazine estimates each constructor will have received could have received in 2025, depending on where they finished in the final standings.
Joy: Okay.
Eric Price: so this is This is their estimate. For number one in the constructors, 106.3 million pounds, two,
Joy: Oh my God.
Eric Price: point nine million dollars in prize money for number two ferrari in this case $124.4 million, 99.5 million euro or pounds? four million dollars ninety nine point five million ah euro or Pounds. um pound Red Bull. million, million pounds. Mercedes,
Eric Price: hundred and seven point three million dollars eighty five point eight million pounds aston martin ninety eight point eight million dollars seventy nine point ah
Joy: good I'm rich.
Eric Price: million
Eric Price: Alpine, $90.2 million, $72.2 million yours, finishing 7th. $82.6 million, $66.1 million. You do have to spread that across entire team. eighty two point six million dollars sixty six point one million pounds
Joy: I'm rich.
Eric Price: you do have to spread that across the entire team
Joy: It's plenty of people.
Eric Price: Racing Bulls, $74.1 million, million Williams, pounds. sixty five point five million dollars fifty two point four million pounds and sober fifty seven point nine million dollars forty six point three million po
Joy: Wow.
Joy: Wow.
Joy: I mean, it doesn't sound anybody's it doesn't sound like anybody's going to be a thousandaire. You know, everybody get money off that.
Eric Price: Well, you got to keep in mind that the low people on the totem pole are not necessarily getting paid a lot. This is part of how the team principals try to justify why the cost cap needs to be pushed up.
Eric Price: Is because like the regular engineer working on tooling for like, I'm updating how the dropdown box works for when you input numbers to change the simulator for
Joy: Mm-hmm.
Eric Price: you know, that ah the reserve driver uses when we need to estimate how the car will behave at the next track and we can't get, you know, Charl and Lewis to come in and do it.
Eric Price: um That guy is not making a lot of money. That guy's probably making less money than he could some other place because it's in Formula One and so many people want to work there.
Joy: Yikes.
Eric Price: And and that that is also the trade-off is that, yeah, if you're a driver at like a good team, you're making huge money.
Eric Price: If you're a driver at to bad team for like a 20-year-old, you're making some pretty good cash. But if you're like a junior engineer in you know, mechanical design,
Eric Price: at Mercedes, you're putting in a lot of long hours for probably less than or maybe just at average pay.
Eric Price: And and that that is that is the other pressure because you have to keep in mind, there are massive teams that are designing these cars and these engines and figuring out engine modes because again,
Eric Price: That finishing place between fifth and 6th is $8 million, dollars which for you might be a $10,000 bonus.
Joy: Thanks. um
Eric Price: ah Because teams also often have bonuses for like where the drivers finish. In a given race. So that if you the drivers finish one, two.
Eric Price: You might be getting like a $3,000 bonus. For that race. If you're like their race engineer. The person on the on the ah radio with them.
Eric Price: If the team finishes. You know second in the constructors. That might mean. a you know $20,000 bonus. If they finish first. That might mean a $40,000 bonus.
Joy: Yo.
Eric Price: And without that, that might mean you're making less than the average salary for your industry. But with that bonus, suddenly now, yeah all these long, this is why we lifted all those weights.
Joy: It's so okay. It's looking better.
Eric Price: This is why we put in all that work.
Joy: ha ha.
Eric Price: Everything we did, we did it for the children. this is it. This is why I was, this is why I spent those long nights away from my family was for this. And so like that, that is part of where that all kind of comes in at where all that all kind of slots in.
Eric Price: Um, especially when you start talking about also like pit crews and, uh, in garage mechanics. Cause also that 23 race season If you're a driver, you don't have to show up till Thursday and you can leave Sunday.
Eric Price: But if you're a mechanic, that garage needs to be set up and the car needs to be assembled on Friday. So you need to be working.
Eric Price: maybe part of Wednesday and all day Thursday, getting the car together, and then you have to be there the entire time.
Joy: Be locked in.
Eric Price: Max, I think when he found out they were going up to 23 to 24 races, was like, oh, there's going to be a lot more divorces.
Joy: ah
Eric Price: Because for the mechanics, it's like, oh, you just added four more weeks. I have to be away from my family all week.
Eric Price: tra And that doesn't count travel time. So I've got to go from Japan to China to Bahrain to Saudi Arabia. to let let me let Let's pull up let's the let's let's pull up full schedule.
Joy: Next, we're at Austria.
Eric Price: If you want panic,
Joy: Sheesh.
Eric Price: Yes.
Joy: That's...
Eric Price: So you had to be in Australia the 14th to the 16th. Then China the 21st to the 23rd. car but Car has to be together on the 14th.
Eric Price: Car has to be assembled on the 21st. Then April 4th, car needs to be assembled in Japan. April 11th, assembled in Bahrain. April 18th, Saudi Arabia.
Eric Price: a May 2nd, Miami. May 16th, Emilia-Romagna in Italy. May 23rd, Monaco. Spain. June 13th, Canada. spainin june thirteenth canada Now, two weeks later, June 27th, Austria.
Eric Price: Now, July 4th, Great Britain. July 25th, Belgium. August 1st, Hungary. August 29th, you got the midseason break, the Netherlands. September 5th, Italy. September 19th, Azerbaijan. October 3rd, Singapore. October 17th, the U.S.,
Eric Price: October 24th, Mexico. November 7th, Brazil. November 20th, Las Vegas. November 28th, October. And ah December 5th, Dubai.
Joy: Yikes. You can't have no relationship.
Eric Price: Get a move on.
Joy: You can't have no boo, no kids. You can't even have a dog. You got to have a gigapet. At that point, you got to have a gigapet as a digital relationship because that is crazy.
Eric Price: And...
Eric Price: 24 races.
Joy: Listen, I tell you what, that money better come in and make it all better. It's not, but you get what I mean? Like, yeah, it's not.
Eric Price: It's not, though, because someone's working for Haas.
Joy: Yeah.
Eric Price: That's unfair. Haas is doing actually pretty good this year, but like they weren't for years.
Joy: and but
Eric Price: And so, I mean, someone's working for Alpine.
Joy: yeah
Eric Price: which I think it's fair in anyone's mind for us to trash Alpine right now. Someone is working for Alpine. You are spending 24 weeks away from your family, not counting travel time.
Joy: Sheesh.
Eric Price: For half of your cars to not finish the race.
Joy: That's rough.
Eric Price: And so, like, that's that's kind of the other part. That at least if you're working for, like, McLaren, Mercedes, for like you got something. But, like, Alpine, Sauber, it's just a death march.
Joy: Yeah.
Joy: You know, this is the first race where um
Joy: McLaren... Wasn't in top three.
Joy: Like at all. I'm just looking at the the finishing. I'm like, oh, no. You weren't there at all. Okay.
Joy: All right.
Eric Price: Yeah, no, mclaren McLaren has been doing it up the last like two years. ah
Eric Price: they've They've been on it. They've been at it. um This is ah upcoming. The Austrian Grand Prix. ah Which one is this?
Eric Price: I hate how they've changed this site.
Eric Price: F1.com has updated their site and I think it is worse, frankly.
Joy: Bye. Mm-hmm.
Eric Price: they They've gone for this like whole full screen, almost streaming oriented kind of a look and style. and i i don't like I feel like the previous version was geared towards being a website you were looking for information on. and
Joy: and
Eric Price: Whereas this feels like it's geared towards like trying to be you know almost Netflix-esque.
Joy: Mmm.
Eric Price: But that's not really what I'm coming to F1 for.
Joy: I get
Eric Price: I'm going to F1.com to read articles and look up info about upcoming races, not to watch the race. You have F1TV.com for people who want to stream the race.
Eric Price: So what are what are we doing here?
Joy: it. I get it. You got to be every everywhere. I feel like, well... Yeah, a lot of companies feel like they got to make it, you can get everything everywhere all at the same time.
Joy: It's like, hey, you don't have to do that.
Eric Price: Yeah.
Joy: we've made it We've made it so far. I'm looking at the um the actual circuit on the website, and i know we're about to wrap up, but tell me what the speed trap is again.
Eric Price: All right. So the speed trap. is just where they record the speed of the car based off of generally kind of where the curves and turns are at.
Eric Price: It's one of the points they think that the cars will be going their fastest or near their fastest.
Joy: Got it. And that is important just to log time.
Eric Price: Yeah, just so you know, oh, this is like the top speed or near top speed of the car for the track.
Joy: Got it. Okay. Okay. Okay. Yes.
Eric Price: um What is more important is you'll see DRS detection zone.
Joy: Yes.
Eric Price: So after the first lap, DRS will be enabled. um If you watch the cars, they have the rear wing.
Joy: yes
Eric Price: And at certain points, they're able to open that rear wing up so that instead of being a flat piece of fiberglass or carbon fiber, it opens and then wind can pass through the wing instead of being blocked by it.
Joy: yes yes
Eric Price: And that lets the car go faster. The DRS detection zone is basically the point on the track where they detect how fast you're going and how close you are to the car in front of you. and For your DRS to be able to open, you have to be within one second of the car in front of you. So like 0.99 seconds or closer and your rear wing will open so that you can go faster.
Eric Price: One second, I think, or more. It will not open. And this can give you anywhere from an additional ah like five kilometers an hour to like an additional 15 kilometers an hour, depending on the track and the conditions.
Eric Price: So getting DRS can be very important ah for your race. This was introduced because the design of cars that would make it tougher for people to pass each other.
Eric Price: And so this was developed as a way to make it a little easier for cars to pass each other. As you can see right before each major turn into turn one, into turn three, and into turn four, into turn one, into three, and into turn out of turn nine and into turn 10 are the detection zones.
Eric Price: And those are what decide if you will be able to use DRS. So coming down the ah start straight, you see the little ah checkered flag, that's the start-finish line.
Joy: Yeah.
Eric Price: And then into the first turn, if you're within a second, but right before that turn, then when you come out of that turn, you will be able to open up your rear wing to get DRS.
Eric Price: You can actually see coming out of there into turn three, you get ah another detection there. So odds are if you had it going through the first one, you'll get it in the second one.
Eric Price: um This means that a lot of people are probably going to um hold off so that they are going to pick it up for DRS detection zone one coming out of turn one going from turn one into turn two they're actually going to try to stay behind maybe try to make a pass in the turn or wait pick up an extra dose of DRS coming from turns three to four down that back straight, pass there, and then go through ah four, five pass basically in turn four, and then go through five, six, seven, eight, nine, and hope they're far enough ahead ah by turn nine that their opponent cannot pick up DRS for the detection zone three between nine and 10. When you have those kind of stacked areas,
Eric Price: DRS detection points um because if you passed them going between turns one and turn three, then they're probably still going to be close enough where they would get DRS and then potentially be able to pass you in that second zone between three and four.
Eric Price: So that's probably going to become a gamesmanship point of do you actually want to pass in turn one or do you want to wait until turn four and just kind of use the other zones to kind of set them up, get it done in four and then try to break any toe or anything going through four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, and then just hope you're far enough ahead that they can't get you again um going out of turn 10 and into the start finish straight.
Joy: and
Joy: Okay. I got to pay attention to these turns because I feel like this is like prime passing time and the turns be so tight. I just be worried about people hitting the wall or running off or whatever. But okay, that makes more sense. The DRS zones, the speed traps, et cetera.
Eric Price: Yes. So this is at the Red Bull ring. This is a kind of home race for Red Bull. um I believe this is the track that they own.
Joy: Oh.
Eric Price: um There's like a there's literally like a big bull statue. um They have like a Max Verstappen,
Joy: Nice.
Eric Price: ah Grandstand, all kinds of stuff. It's basically here and then like the Netherlands. I don't know if we're going to continue going to Zandvoort, but we used to.
Eric Price: ah That was the other kind of like Max Verstappen. Everything is going to be orange. Um, the, they love their orange. Uh, Lando used to joke. I didn't know there were so many McLaren fans here since McLaren's car color is orange.
Eric Price: Um, but like the national national color for, I believe the Dutch is orange. And so they set off a lot of orange smoke, uh, uh, spewers.
Joy: Oh, they get into it.
Eric Price: I don't know what to go.
Joy: Yeah, they get into it.
Eric Price: Oh, it's awful.
Joy: Oh.
Eric Price: Uh,
Eric Price: Anyone who's not a Max Verstappen fan has discussed how much they dislike it. All the drivers have discussed how much they hate those smoke things um that they set off because it blows across the track.
Joy: oh
Eric Price: It ruins their vision. It stinks. like They hate people setting off those like little smokers that spray colored smoke. They all hate them.
Joy: Well, got to get used to it. Wipe your little helmet off and play the game. Drive the race. Run the race.
Eric Price: Yes, run the race.
Joy: Oh, crap.
Eric Price: Oh, they're also banned.
Joy: What? They do...
Eric Price: They're not supposed to do it. Like, they are not supposed to. those smoker things are. but I just told you they obscure the driver's vision. Those things that are banned. They're not supposed to do it. They just do it anyway.
Joy: Oh, wow. Okay. So see, that's different. I'm like, okay, well.
Joy: People celebrate how they celebrate. Not you're not supposed to do it for real. Like, hey, we asked you guys to stop. And they're like, hey, my favorite color is orange. I'm doing it anyway. like Okay. That's just hilarious then.
Eric Price: Yeah, no. The response is, fight me. You can't throw all of us out.
Eric Price: This is like when they tried to like limit the amount of alcohol ah that... Australians could bring to the GP. And so ah we word was that like a week to multiple weeks ahead, people went out to where it takes place at and buried boxes of like, ah ah you know, Coors or Fosters or whatever.
Eric Price: Like they just buried 12 packs and 24 packs so that then when the race was on and they got there, they could just dig them up.
Joy: That's crazy.
Joy: That's crazy.
Eric Price: yeah they look
Eric Price: It might be the sport of princes, but look, it's not that far from NASCAR.
Joy: yeah
Eric Price: It's still cargo, fast, go vroom.
Joy: ah Well, all right. I guess you can ah you can't hold people down. and That's funny.
Eric Price: You can't. Still we rise, as Lewis Hamilton has tattooed on his neck.
Joy: Yeah.
Joy: Yeah. All right.
Eric Price: ah
Joy: Well, I look forward to the...
Eric Price: But I think that's i think that's good.
Joy: I look forward to the smokes.
Eric Price: code It's Austrian. Austrian GP this weekend. It's usually entertaining. so So we should be hopeful that we're going to see some passing, some ah competitiveness. It's not...
Eric Price: It's not probably going to be a great race for Mercedes. This is looking to be kind of a hot weekend and their car usually doesn't do well in the heat.
Joy: and Oh no.
Eric Price: um But we'll see. ah McLaren, ah Ferrari may... um You know, Ferrari is very up and down. So who knows? This may be a good weekend for McLaren, Red Bull.
Eric Price: It's a home race. So there's a good chance that they could be very competitive at this one. um You know, we'll see how everybody else performs. But um this is usually a good one.
Eric Price: So we can be hopeful that we see some more interesting racing, a little bit of passing or something like that.
Joy: All right. I'm here for it.
Eric Price: All right. I think that is a recording and also my lovely family is back. So.
Joy: Woohoo. Let's go responsibility.
Eric Price: All right. Yeah, we will see you all next week.
Joy: All right.
Eric Price: ah Joy, thank you again for doing this with me and thank you all for listening.
Joy: Peace.
