Can Ferrari win the constructors championship? Mexico City GP Review

Published Oct 29, 2024, 4:46 AM

Carlos Sainz's controlled victory in Mexico moves Ferrari to second on the teams table after another Sergio Pérez shocker leaves Red Bull Racing languishing in third. With only 29 points to McLaren ahead, is the constructors championship battle really on?

Hello and welcome to Pit Talk, a Fox Sports and Speed Cafe Formula one podcast. On today's episode, Ferrari wins again with Carlos Science, triumphing from pol at the Mexico City Grand Prix, and controversy rains again with another Max for Staffen and Lando Norris Jewel attracting yet more penalty controversy. My name is Michael Lamonato, motorsport rider for Fox Sports Australia. It's great to have your company and the company of my co host from Speed Cafe. He regularly flips off other drivers when he's in the car, but has never felt the need to apologize. It's Matt Coosh.

I don't apologize. I'm sorry. That's just the way I am.

That's part of your character. That's okay. And you don't have helmet Marco standing over your shoulder, I suppose threatening to take away your car.

Yeah, this is also very true. I mean, who would want helmet Marco stood over them threatening to take away the car. I mean it's a big threat.

Really, isn't it.

It can make or break your entire life.

Yeah, it can. There's no overestimating it really is.

So that one fingered salute could be the last year given.

Well, at least you went down in style. I suppose cut something off his chest on the way that was of course, Liam Lawson in the closing stages of the Grand Prix again flipping off Sergio Periz.

He's got some spunk. I like it.

Yeah, I know.

He's already started two rivalries and two Grand Prix.

Well, in fairness, one won't last long and the other can't really have much longer statistically.

Yeah, so he's really making ways. I'm glad to see it. We'll talk about the Mexico City Grand Prix in just a moment, but we're in the middle of a triple header and so news is flowing thick and fast, and let's catch you up with the top five stories from the last week, and the biggest one matt Is Piastree to Red Bull. Well, it's not that that's not happened, but Red Bull Motors sport advisor Helbert Marco, his second reference of the day, has claimed that Oscar Piastri's manager Mark Webber is enthusiastically seeking talks with Red Bull about the possibility of taking the Australian too. Milton Keynes. Piastri, of course was asked about this in Mexico. It's gone tract to McClaren for at least another two years, and has denied he's looking for a move.

Because he's not. Yeah, it's that simple. It is that simple. This has nothing to do with Oscar past and I must have been I reported on this with Oscar's comments refuting Helmet Marco because it was put to Oscar. But I did some thinking on this. It has nothing to do with Oscar. Mark Webbert is seeking a meeting with Helmet Marco, but it is completely disconnected from Oscar piastre. Take that to me and what you like.

It's also not surprising that we've seen a real ramping up in the last month. I'm willing to say of just red Bull and McLaren what I would describe as blatant shit stirring.

This is This isn't shit stirring. This is not shit stirring whatsoever. This is Helmut Marco has said something that is factually.

Correct, deliberately out of context. Way.

Well, we don't know that what the full quote was. We don't know if it's been taken and misconstrued or whatever, because it came out of the German press. But Mark is one chasing conversations with helmet Marco about a driver. There you go, more will more will come out?

Yes, well let's move on to another reedid Yes, right, yes, another Red Bull driver and that is Yuki Sonoda because Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner says Yuki will get his long awaited test in an up to date Red Bull Racing car at the end of season ABU Dhrby test. It's reportedly down to Honda pressure, but Horner says it's been in the works for a long time, probably not though quite the four years it's known as a big part of the family.

Yeah, I got accused of clickbait with this. I wrote, that's all right, Sonoda gets Red Bull call up. I think it's the headline that I put on it, which it absolutely does. It's just we're also predisposed to expecting that Sergio Perryz is going to be dumped. That we just assumed that that there means that's just going to get the race dry, which of course it doesn't. He's going to get the call up for the ABU Dhaby test that will make him the senior driver there. So what we know therefore, is that neither Maxwsappan nor so Jo Perez will be part of that test alongside him. In the junior car, you would therefore expect someone like Isaac Hadja, which then almost certainly therefore means that Liam Lawson will be in action at RB. He's no longer a junior driver. So in the other car there you probably have someone like Arviad Lindlad. He's not ready for formulae, but give him some exposure. I dare say at some point we'll talk about Franco Colopinto as well, but he wouldn't be eligible for that Young Driver test also because you've got to compete. I think it's fewer than three core prix, which is why Liam's out of it and why he hasn't been doing the Friday sessions. But yeah, Snodo getting that test. Honda have been pushing him pretty heavily, not just this year but in previous years. It's just Red Bull has been able to say no with justifiable reason, and that reason is very hard to justify this year.

Let's move on to in a way Sergio, and we're talking more about him later on, but organizers of the Mexico City Grand Prix entering negotiations for a contract extension beyond the end of next season, and they're expressing optimism, and the context is pretty obvious that the race can be successful with or without Joe Perez on the grid point of the fact tickets sold out extremely quickly just days after he crashed out on the first lap of last year's race, and the fact that demand is just so high in this drive to survive era.

It's also a really cheap event for us. Perhaps that's different if you're in Mexico. I'm not averse to what you're not across, rather what the average income is over there and how big a hit the tickets are. But my recollection, is there any like eighty dollars for a general admission ticket, which is the cheapest of the year. But yeah, they expect that if Sergio is not there, I guess there'll be a drop in interest. But Formula one is such that tickets almost everywhere at the moment of selling out. The Australian Grand Prix sold out within so it's not localized to one market. I expect that there's enough demand there, given just the size of Mexico City was at twenty million people, it was about the size of Australia in terms of populous population. So yeah, I don't imagine I'll have too many dramas. Selling was one hundred and something thousand tickets. There was a record crowd on the weekend.

It is one of the great events as well. Have you ever in the area of Mexico worth getting along to the Mexico City Grand Prix? Moving to a couple of days before the race at the weekend, McLaren lodged a right of a review against Lando Norris's penalty from the United States Grand Prix the week earlier, but after Friday hearing, the stuarts found the team didn't bring any new or relevant information to the table, the information having been the ruling document itself.

Yeah. I was having stopping some messages with a few people over the weekend on this one. And you remember Ferrari was at Canada. They introduced a carin Chandoo Hi analysis guy. That was the significant, relevant, new piece of information which got thrown out. There is a high bar that you need to meet to hit that threshold in terms of what is new and relevant. Mcclarence has perhaps set a new low bar for that.

Hang on. But there are lower bars, but god are they?

I mean, yeah, don't you remember twenty twenty one British Grandfrix when Christian Horners and Alex Elvon around in a red book car to prove that Lewis Hamilton wouldn't have been able to make the corner at cops.

That for me remains the lowest bar.

But there they have just gone. You spelt that word wrong. This is the Grammar Police getting out there and having a go at this, and that's what it's got thrown out on effectively a technicality in terms of process rather than the actual content of the argument itself. And that all goes to the racing guidelines, which themselves are interesting. I've written the piece on Speak Cafe about those. That's the documents evolved in the last two or three years. For some reason, it's not publicly available. I do have a copy. I have read it. It's six pages long. It's very boring, and there is a lot of self importance about the document. It's going to be included in the International Sporting Code article as appendix and LO or something I think next year. But at the moment you've got the racing guidelines that feed sort of into the race director's notes that sort of feed into the sporting regulations that sort of feed into the International Sporting Code and underpinning all out of the statutes. It's an excessively complicated system that guidelines are not rules either. They just designed to help and offer some consistency, which has worked really well.

Guidelines sounds a lot like a high to the Caribbean plotline, doesn't it. Finally to the European Union, where the competition regulator has been asked for a second time to look into Formula one and or Liberty Media, the owner of the commercial rights, following calls from a Belgian member of parliament earlier this year to look into Liberty's planned acquisition of MotoGP. Now a German MAP is asked for an investigation into whether the sports denial of Andretti's bid to join F one could amount to cartel like behavior by the existing teams. And it's worth saying that Liberty Media is already facing an anti trust investigation in the US over the same matter.

Yeah, it's the EU stuff. It's important to clarify that there are two different things that have been us One is the MotoGP and the dawner stuff, which would give them effectively a monopoly. That's one element. The other is whether of exercised rights that perhaps they shouldn't have. And this speaks to a piece that I wrote a couple of weeks ago looking at Formula one the commercial rights holders involvement in the entry process. Back in two thousand and one, Formula one, the FIA found themselves in front of the EU Commission. It was a three year investigation over exactly the point that this Brazilian German meb because Brazil is in the Europe, isn't it people? It has been a long weekend. This has been heard and tested previously, and it was insisted by the European Commission that there was complete separation of the commercial rights of Formula one, the commercial aspect of it and the regulatory aspect. That was tested in court the year after in two thousand and two and proved to exist because there are agreements that were drawn up at that period at that point in time. Since then, we've had there was a ten year agreement in terms of TV commercial rights, one hundred year agreement that now exists somewhere along the line. That complete separation has been diluted and if you really want to know what's quite fascinating this stuff really interests me that article is on to speak. Cafe I titled it something like the contract clause that could cost Formula one or Liberty Media billions because the penalty for it can be quite significant in the US, where the same challenge is being made. Basically, is Formula one right to have any say, not that it blockedown Trette or ANDREADI in particular, but have any say in the admission of new entrants into the championship.

It will be an interesting story to see it rumble on over years, probably, but look, you never know. Sometimes these things move surprisingly quickly. Matt. Let's look now at the Mexico City Grand Prix. Quite a big weekend in the story of this season. As we hurdle towards the conclusion of twenty twenty four, it actually feels like things are getting less and less predictable, more and more interesting, which isn't always the way things go. In Formuda one, Carloss signs one for Ferrari, their second consecutive victory, and he had a great weekend, dominated in qualifying two laps good enough for pole position after keeping his head down actually in the first two segments when it looked like it might all go McLaren's way, and certainly Ferrari wasn't super optimistic about getting pole positioned, but he's a wonderful job there and then really controlled this race even despite losing the lead off the line Max was staff and he said afterwards he anticipated that knew he was going to get him back eventually. It was a great move that got him back as well into turn one after the safety car, and just controlled the race from there. I want to start with Carlos science before we look at the broader implications here, because he said afterwards, this is quite an emotional victory for him. Not only do you have his family there and this is the first race he won with his mum in attendance. But said afterwards, of course, as we all know that this could be his last race win with Ferraris is his last season with the team. Orthough car looks competitive enough now they could be in contention for many more wins. But also in his head, Matt must be that this could be his last win full stop, because we know he's going to Williams from next year, and while that team is on the up somewhat, He's not going to be on the up such to the point that they'll be winning races in the next couple of years unless they really pull a blinder with the new rules in twenty twenty six. And beyond that, of course, who knows drivers of great caliber found themselves pushed to the margins of the sport just because of how quickly things move in the driver market, how importants old for Carla Science was this in his career before even considering the fact this was obviously quite an important win for Ferrari's title hopes.

In the context of his career, this has more personal value than professional value. And I say that because we know what he's going to do for the next two years, three years. He's going to Williams and he's going to struggle. And that's that's a sad thought. Because I rate Carla Science. I rate Carla Science greater than Charlotte Claire. If I had the two Ferrari drivers, I could only keep one, I would choose Carlo Science. Shah is quicker of a single lap, but Carlos is just he's so reliable, he's so dependent, he's so consistent, he's so intelligent as well. You know, if the car and team strike troubles, I'd back Carlos to be able to help engineer it out of that. That's the value that he has, and it's it's a travesty that he's being taken out of a race winning, potentially championship winning car to go and scrap away for a handful of points. You know, he's going to be fighting, realistically at best for ninth, assuming the top four teams are any good, and then if Aston Martin lifts its game, which it should, that there's no points left on offer, so he's fighting for eleventh. That's We've seen it before. It's not unique. I mean, just look at Voucheri Botas. You know, he's won what ten rols pre and he's last in the in the drivers championship, he's technically below Logan Sergeant. He's got no points.

Only twenty fourth of twenty twenty fourth is here in the twenty time he's.

Twenty third in a twenty car championship. There are three drivers in that who've not scored one new Joe Logan Sergeant and Valeri Botas. Liam Lawson is ahead of him. Franko Colopinto is ahead of him, but focusing on on Carlos absolutely right. This could be the last win of his career, and it was an impressive win. He was calm under pressure, he was composed. He then controlled the race, He understood what was happening and then just did what he needed to do. Didn't make a mistake under that pressure. It was another great drive. A little bit like Singapore last year, Melbourne started this year was a little bit different because he sort of inherited that in many respects. But to think that he may well never win another Grand Prix is a disgusting thought because he's too good for that. It's a little bit like Fernando Alonso retiring as a two time world champion, when and if he ever does retire, you know, that's a disgusting thought because there's a guy who deserves so much more. He has a talent for so much more, and for one reason or other, much of it self inflicted. He won't get that. The difference for Carlos is this isn't self inflicted.

Yes, I was going to say that is the principal difference here is that it's not through bad decision making or you know, he might be a falling out with the team or whatever. He would Yeah, and something I've been saying all week, Ferrari would have loved to have kept him had Lewis Hamilton not been on the market. And that's a highly unusual situation, not just it being Lewis Hamilton, but any massive name, multiple champion driver suddenly being on the market unexpectedly and this happening in this way, which is a terrible And I can't help but think after this win, because this was much in the style of almost all these wins. Really, you know, it was hard, it was worked through cleverly. It showed great speed, but showed that great harness of all the race details. It was a classic Science win in that respect. It's such I mean, it's absurd, isn't it That he's known all year that he's not going to be in a front running car, but none of the other front running teams found room for him. And we'll talk about Red Bull Racing in a second, but I mean that should have just been the obvious move, Carlos Science going to Red Bull, But of course, because there's tension between former tension between their fathers, he's not going there. And of course, Red Bull Racing is so focused on keeping the verstaff and camp happy that it was not possible for them. You know, Mercedes, I understand they're bringing in the next generation driver, but they accelerated that plan. It wasn't always the plan. Obviously they thought that gonn have Lewis Hamilton next year, but surely there would have been a short teram option for him there. McClaren's obviously the only front running team that's all tied up, so that's fine, but there were so many seats available in which he could have had a more competitive short to medium term future. And just remarkably, and this is a look the sport moves very quickly. It's not an indictment on the sport or the situation, probably an indictment on Red Bull, but it's just remarkable that the driver views caliber has not been able to find a seat in the top eight teams on the Grims. It's a real pity and it's something that it's going to be a storyline for the coming years of how he fares there, whether or not Williams can take a meaningful step forward, and then of course after two or three years, whether or not he can put himself back into the driver market for a more competitive seat if Williams is not achieving a great trajectory. But let's look at for Auri more broadly now, because this is the second win in a row after the United States, which was an important marker for that team's development its struggles in the middle of the year. This was a completely different type of circuit. The layout on paper should have suited the car, but traditionally, or in the last few years anyway, the high altitude hasn't always worked for that package. But they nailed it. Car was fast than qualifying, as I said, Charlotte Maleclair took that point for fastest slap he had the pit stop distance behind him. Nonetheless, very complete performance from the team, now up to second in the Constructor's Championship, only twenty nine points behind McLaren and twenty five ahead of Red Bull Racing tout Scot McLaren ninety six to fifty in the last two rounds. It's closed the gap quite dramatically. The championship fields on. I know you tell thirty points against the team that's probably at least as good as Ferrari. We don't know, of course, form guys changing all the time will take some closing, but Ferrari certainly feels like it's got the wind in its sales.

If you look at any given weekend, the points differences between first and second, second and so their greatest. At the top end of town, there's what seven points between first and second twenty five to eighteen, So yes, there's thirty points there. But in the United States Ferriri claw back twenty seven or twenty eight. So that points gap between McLaren and Ferrari at the top of the standings now that could go this weekend potentially, So in the driver's championship, thirty points is far more comfortable than it will ever be in the constructors Championship. Also, you've got Ferrari, with both drivers scoring points. I've both won races in the last two events. Oscar Piastre has had a couple of weaker weekends, let's be perfectly honest about it. So while Lando is firing and delivering good results, Oscar is currently the weakest link of those four drivers, which is a ridiculous thing to say, because he's still a bloody good driver and I'd like him in my car. But that is just where we're at, and we've got four races to go, you know, that's what's the top of my head. Eightish points to really swing that. It's very very doable. That's first and second. That's basically having you know, a Ferrari first and McLaren second, a Ferrari third, McLaren fourth. There's your eight points. It's it's not not difficult. So we do legitimately have a proper constructors Championship battle. I don't think the drivers is really even what we're talking about anymore. I'm sure we'll broach it in a little bit. But red Bull now fifty four points behind. I mean, a team that dominated what was at the first seven races of the year, the first ten weeks, and they're not going to finish in the top two. And I love your stat from the other weekend. It'd be the worst constructor's performance relative to the driver's performance in forty years, forty one years, nineteen eighty three, I think you said, with murder Racing developments to their proper name, and because that's the sort of ann rash I am. And there's some PK. Yeah, So it's it's fascinating to see we're not just watching for Max Vilando. We're now watching Ferrari v. McLaren. There's two very different battles going on. And what we also now know, and this is what I said last week. It was a little bit presumptuous to expect it on one weekend Ferrari to have transformed. Let's give them another weekend or two. The odds are now suggesting that whatever Ferrari introduced in Singapore, because it didn't bring anything to the United States, whatever I'm introduced in Singapore has brought genuine pace to that car, and I'll be more confident backing Ferrari going to Sar Paolo than I was going into Mexico. So I reckon Ferrari is a really, really good chance of stealing the Constructors' championship here.

I think for me, the bell weather is that Fred Vassa, the team principal, has a well for the first time. This is the first opportunity, I guess, but has actually sounded optimistic about things. He said, now we've seen enough tracks with this upgrade package, particularly Austin and now Mexico, that he's confident fer be in the mix for the rest of the season. He hasn't said they're gonna win every race, because he says it's just way too close to make prediction like that. But he said he's confident now that we're not going to get races where suddenly Ferrari's fourth and doesn't know what's going on, because we've got enough of a sample size with these new parts that he feels that confidence. He says the only thing he regrets is that now he's no longer flying under the raidar. He's enjoyed the last couple of months where Ferrari hasn't had focus on it, and he said he's very pleased that the Stafford and Norris keep running into one another because it means people are talking about something other than Ferrari. But it's going to be hard to continue to avoid that spotlight because the car looks like it's back to where it started the season essentially, and interestingly not just where it started the season, but it's almost as if it hasn't missed out on the development progress that for example, it feels like red Bull is missed out on right. All that troubleshooting time means they they've got the car in a good place again, at least with Max, but it's not dominant like it was at the start of the year, because it's missed months of development. So a really good job by Ferrari.

Is that car in the good place though? Is it?

Well, it's a podium contender, and I think that that means it's it's in the mix, which is all anyone can seem to hope for at this point in the season. You know it is all relative. But let's not forget Matt. To bring us to the final point of this Grand Prix, Max still pretty comfortably leads the Driver's Championship. Despite all its problems. The gaff has barely changed what is it has been a five point swing I think since the Miami Grand Prix, so throughout all the troubles, Max has been able to keep his head above water. The reason it's down to third in the Constructor's Championship is, as we've said before, Sergio Periz, He's underperformances have continued, if anything, have become more dire. Azerbaijan stands as this unusual outlier of a good weekend for him, although he did he did crash out of the race, so it didn't gore any points, but he was at least competitive that weekend. This was a real shock of him in the context of this being his home race. He arrived admitting it had a terrible season so far, but that one result can turn it around. He said he wanted to do it at home, bombed out of qualifying eighteenth, it was more than eight tenths of a second slower than the staff, and finished seventeenth and last. Slightly inflated result because, of course he went for that fastest lap late in the and to be fair to him, I suppose let's start with not the positives but the ameliorating factors. The damage he picked up battling with Lim Lawson meant the second half of the race he was never gonna be anyhe any of the points anyway. The flip side of that is, of course, he was forced into a recovery battle because he started outside of his good spot, which he curd a five second penalty which kind of undid that great start he did, and he couldn't put a clean move on Liam Lawson in a much slower car.

Now.

Lawson was battling hard, but that's his job. He's a racing driver, even if both cars are owned by Red Bull. And it feels like Matt the the vibe has changed slightly now like red Bull's obviously clearly been running out of patients with Perez since it was clear that there's been no recovery since the mid season break, but it's kind of talked a kind of good game around him. Christian Horner keeps saying it's just a stack with the fact but he's got a contract from next year. It's I guess it's not really positive, but has tried to not buy into this idea that Peeris could be out of the team after this race though, did no such thing. Refused to commit to him, not even be on the end of next year, but beyond the end of this weekend's a race in Brazil. It feels like that's as close as confirmation we've got that Red Bull's preparing for a Parees less future, and it's not surprising to see why.

It's just logical. You know, the Constructors Championships gone, what are they fighting for now? You can put all your resources behind Max and then almost do whatever you like with the second car, but it's not been contributing anything for a long time. So if you make a change there and it gets worse, well what does it matter if you make a change and it gets better. Happy days? You know, the definition of insanity is to continue the same actions and the expectations of a different outcome. What they're therefore doing with Perez is insane. They can't carry on with that. And if you're going to introduce a variable and that variable is being entertained with a view towards next year, why not bring it in early and give yourself a little bit more time to bed that all down. Because there are things that each team will do differently, and each car will handle different And I think what we saw on Sunday in Mexico, across the whole weekend, even Sergio failed in qualifying, He was clumsy in the race on a couple of fronts. That was a desperate, desperate weekend for him. He wasn't his usual self. There was a huge amount of attention on him, and even earlier in the weekend, when Christian Horner was asked about Sergio and his plight and everything else, he turned the question around and started talking about the number of endorsements that Serjo was doing that weekend. He'd never actually directly answered the question. So the battle with Lim and the antagonization between those who it is one brilliant for us, we're watching a changing of the guards that that was personal between those two. And the reason it was is because, I mean, there's your next Red Bull driver. It's that simple. So that one fingered salute of limbs was a little bit more pointed towards Sergio, and that's perhaps why he's talking about you know, he doesn't have the right attitude and all sorts of things. You know, he's lashing out, he's desperate, he is watching his Formula one career disappear. Because if he drops out of the sport at the end of this year, where and how does he pop back in? Because the other guys who are out are the likes of Franco Colopinto, Isaac Hadjar, some other F two drivers who are knocking on the doors as well. All these other teams have junior programs. We don't even know if if Factory botas a more credential and more reliable driver is going to be on the grid next year. We think so, and we've had strong indications twice now, once they did signed at Williams and once they had signed it at SABA. Neither have obviously come true. Yet one might, but this is the desperate position that he finds himself. He's going to be forced into retirement exactly the same way that Daniel Ricardo was. But he's not going to get that glorious emotional send off where we all know what's happening but can't say it. He's just going to fall out the back door of Formula one, which is a shame because for a long time he has been a consistent, reliable performer in the midfield. He was a superstar. But when you're standing in that spotlight, there's no way to hide, and he's been found out. It's not to say he's a bad driver. He is an exceptional driver, and he's better than ninety nine point nine percent of drivers who will ever race a car of any sort. But being good enough, you know, being in the point zero one percentile is not good enough in formul on, and you've got to be in the point zero zero one percentile. That's where Max is, That's where Shao is, That's where Rebull clearly thinks Liam Lawson is.

Yeah, I thought the lashing out against Lawson was a little bit unseemly. It's not surprising when drivers obviously have difference of opinions about things that they criticize each other. That's fine, but he took it to an extent that I almost found a little bit breathtaking. There would have been a degree of, I guess, playing to the crowd, not that he were saying it to the audience, but it was his home race. Wants to sort of stick up for himself, g up the crowd a little bit, or gep the home fans. But I mean some of the stuff he said about not having the attitude for Formula one, not being cut out for a kind of thing, I just thought that, really did I think you've said it right? Reeked of desperation for a man who knows he was battling the guy who wants to take his seat and probably his odds on to take it. And if these are look, I've got to respect the fact that Sergio Perez is always fronted back up. Every season that he's ended badly, He's come back every race. It does feel like he turns up reset, even if when he's in the car it feels like the confidence does get bad and I feel like the confidence is now unrecoverable. But it's never really felt like he's put his head down too much outside of the car. I think that's to be commended, but I think someone probably needs to tell him that he's not going to be back next year, and he needs to probably a soak up these last races. I know it's hard for racing driver here. He keeps saying he's gonna be back next year, but even he has to at some point recognize that he's on the ropes and go out with a bit of dignity, because, like you say, it's very hard after you've battled with maximstaff On or even Botas against Hamilton, a front running team and being shown up to be less than great. But people will remember, you know, once his career has ended and people look back that actually was a really solid and slick performer in the midfield. And even look his first year or so at Red Bull Racing were decent at least did enough to win Max the twenty twenty one championship. You know deserves credit for the racing he did that year. Don't sully it with a petulant or desperate last few races like have go out there and hold your head up high.

One thing that I just wanted to throw into the mix as well, is that he saved which is currently the estimantin team. Yeah, he put that team into administration. He saved hundreds and hundreds of jobs at that team, And for that alone, the guy massively deserves all our respect. We make a bit of fun of him at times because you know, hey, we're we're all for experts, that's what we do. But for that alone, I mean, the guy, the guy deserves something, deserves our respect for that because you know how many drivers will go out there and put themselves on the line to do the right thing for the hundreds of people that support them. There's a couple that would. Sergio Perroz has absolutely gone on record and doing that. So for all of this aside, I do think he's going to exit the sport at the end of the season. You know, we deserve to applaud him and give him standing ovation for that because that was just way above and beyond.

Let's move on now mat to the other big talking point of this weekend, and that was maximstaff and versus Lando Norris again times two and times three in fact, all in space of one lap. The context of this is the championship battle, which may or may not be on regardless of whether or not it's a realistic they are the top two in the championship, and Max would at least recognize that had he not had such a great start to this season, it would have been much closer. They're much closer rival than the points suggest the context of this, as we already talked about that Lando Norris got the penalty at the end of the United States Grand Prix as well, so the battle was already sort of frothing a little bit, and that was the big talking point heading into this race. And lo and behold, on lap ten, they find themselves battling again at turn four in almost identical circumstances to what happened in the US Norris trying to pass around the outside, didn't get it done on the track, passed off the track. But this was a little bit different, didn't He really tried hard to keep himself on the track. I thought his approach was different in letting Max push him off rather than deciding he was going to be pushed off and then executing the pass. I think that was a key difference. But then Max taking him a way off track at turned seven with no intention of making the corner. Both those incidents earned Max ten second penalties added up to twenty seconds, which took him out of the podium contention entirely. But it felt like a little bit the tide turned a bit against for Staffan and he's driving in the last seven days was particularly after the Mexico City Grand Prix. I thought it was interesting too that Norris ventured that this was dirty driving against his friend. He was very pains to say, I respect Max, and I like Max, and I love battling with Max. But by the way, in brackets, driving bit dirty, isn't it? As well? On the weekend that the driving guidelines have come under the spotlight and will be changed in the next couple of weeks for review. It does feel like, after years of vestafen the Staffan's driving kind of being, for one of a better phrase, the lowest common denominator on how we adjudicate the sport, that actually those standards are changing a little bit.

It does seem that way, but it's all sort of coincidental because the changes and everything else we mentioned it earlier. You know, they're being incorporated into the International Sporting Coach, so the changes were always going to happen, there will be some nuance in that that changes, and that sort of routine. You know. The driving sands were introduced in twenty twenty two. It was a two page document that got changed a little bit for twenty twenty three and then largely rewritten for twenty twenty four. And there's a copy of them right there. I'm showing you, Michael. I've got them right here, and I've highlighted a bit here. It's it's note two to keep in mind. These just guideline. So I guess it's Article two A, Part three, and it specifically says, without in brackets, deliberately forcing the other car off the track at the exit. This includes leaving a fair and acceptable width for the car being overtaken from the apex to the exit of the corner. Now, that specifically relates to overtaking on the inside. So if the overtaking car is on the inside, would you say, Michael, that that has been applied consistent consistently or what a current the inside? Would it be commonplace for to sweep across the track on exit and crowd the other car off the road.

I think it's pretty common you see crowding off the road. I feel like that's become a pretty standard part of driving.

Yet this document was produced in February this year, and that line, in one way, shape or form, has been in the document since twenty twenty two. So these guidelines aren't being followed in a first point, the interpretation of them. You go back to the United States with Norris and Max and McLaren's argument sort of a side point to this, but you know, the rules are here, the rules are reasonably clear. I mean, they're not rules, they're guidelines. But you know the fact is it's all here, it's all documented, and yet we're seeing breaches of this or instances where this is clearly contradict what this says. So it's just for me, it's a stewarding thing that needs to be tightened up. And once you start tightening up on that sort of stuff and running drivers off the road gets penalized, even if you make the pass cleanly. You know, if you force another driver off the track at the exit, including leaving a fairy without leaving an acceptable width of the car being overtaken, yeah, punish them. It's how do we learn at school. We'd get detention or you lose a lunch or whatever it was, and would learn the lesson and we wouldn't do it again unless you're me, in which case you're doing many many But if you don't punish it, then you're going to normalize it. And that's where we've got to. This actually goes back, not I think to Max. It goes way back. I think to the eighties where we started to see some of this more aggressive, more desperate racing, where there were more liberties taken, there was more risk taken, and that has gradually, over the decades become normalized to the point where you look at what the way they racing Formula to Informat three and it's opening. Some of that stuff is just absolute madness. And then some of those guys reach reached Formula one and they bring that skill set with them and they just keep doing. Liam Lawson, arguably what he did with Fernando Lonzo was a great example of that. He learnt those skills racing and Formative two in Formula three and he transposed those into Formula one and it's just you can't do it in Formula one. Fernando had a point. You know, Liam didn't breach the guidelines, but Fernando equally had a point. You know, the risk is just higher. So the intent with these standards is that they're applied across the board, but they're not applied at all. They're not applied consistently, which opens a whole nother conversation. But bring it back to Max. He's just exploiting a weakness in the regulations. It's unsavory, but not everything that they're incentive did with Savory, not everything that Michael Schumacher did with Savory. Yet we look back and they're the greats of the sport.

Take of that what you will, I think, well, I think there are a couple of different elements to that, and to what you said, the crowding a car off track as has become commonplace in overtaking, or rather the guidelines more broadly, I don't have such a problem with guidelines or rules being flexible. I mean, guidelines are a weird way, probably shouldn't be flexible because they're evolving so much. The sports should be stewarded based largely on precedent, and the sport should be willing to bend rules or reinterpret rules based on and I already think this should be the case. What drivers think. I think reg yearly drivers should come together twenty drivers who are lucky enough to be racing in Grand Prix and say this is what we believe the standard should be when we're racing one another. This is what we're comfortable with, and that might change over time, but at the end of the day, they're the ones taking the risks and they need to understand what the rules are to ensure we're not regularly having penalties thrown out or things aren't becoming controversies. If it's a sort of common ground between them, then we're likely to get better racing and less stuarding interventions. So I think there should be perhaps a more formal role in that. I think it's actually probably a little bit concerning the guidelines, as the intention has been for years to appear in the International Sporting Code, to any on how prescriptive the guidelines end up being in the Sporting Code, because I think they should be a little bit fluid. Of course, there are going to be some pretty hard principles in there, because at the end of the day, it's cars racing between white lines. There's only so many different ways you can say this is in or out. But the nuances of it should be really open to some flexibility about what the drivers think, whether that's going back three years incidents and coming up with what most people think is acceptable or not. Certainly or George Russell, who is the head of the GPDA, said nineteen out of the twenty drivers, the twentieth being Max Withstaffen all agreed that what happened in Austin was not in accordance with their understanding of how racing should be done, regardless what the guidelines say. So it situations like that where I feel like we should have sort of a bit of an alternative way of coming to an agreement of how the sport should be stewarded. Maybe that requires a smaller pool of stewards or one or two permanent ones that mix in with the rotating ones to ensure that precedence happens, because that's harder when the stewards are different week on week. Some people have suggested that's why the rules were not interpreted differently, but certainly punished Harsher this weekend. But that's just the matter of the sport. And look, you can say in football, the referee is different every week, even though they're professional. You're not going to get exactly the same calls, and maybe that's fine, But the other element is ver Staffan's driving. I largely don't have a problem with it, even turned for it and have a problem with it. I thought it was fine that he just got a penalty, and like, sometimes that's going to happen, sometimes drivers are just going to except the marks. But turn seven I did have an issue with it because I thought a was petulant, the fact that it really seemed to be retaliation, which should never really happen in racing. I feel like retaliation going off the track and breaking the rules is pretty dangerous. Even if this wasn't a super dangerous Well it wasn't dangerous because Norris avoided it, but anyway, but then second to that, it did. And maybe this is the clever part of him interpreting the rules and knowing he was going to get a penalty, but it did hamper Norris's race and prevented him from maybe winning the Grand Prix. So put him fifteen seconds behind the leader at the first stop, and he ended up five seconds behind Science at the end of the race or thereabout, so using the rules to his advantage, I guess he did. Maybe that really is the definition of a professional foul for the staff, and maybe that's good on him for knowing that. I don't know, but I think there is an element of yeah, you're right. All the great drivers really know the limit of the rules and push the envelope slightly. Maybe this is him pushing it a little bit too much. I don't know. It's up for debate. I suppose there's all these rules inevitably are but I just think there's got to be some flexibility or some in from the drivers here, because there's no point policing rules that none of the drivers agree with, because I think that everyone loses from that. Every race will get drivers grumpy, it'll be controversial thefi are we forced to defend themselves. I don't think anyone wins from that.

Yeah, there's a degree of that. The flip side is that controversy is also good because it generates headlines. You want a little bit of drama in there. And that's a conversation that's been had in the office of late looking at supercars and the fact that there is no controversy, there is no niggle there to really spark, and we've got that in Formula one in abundance. You know, we've got a deteriorating relationship between two mates, and Maxi Stap and Lando Norris now publicly having goes at one another, which is fabulous. We saw this with Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg back in the day. I don't want them to damage a personal relationship. I never want that, but it's great for us from a sporting spectacle because now you can throw yourself behind It turns motorsport into a football match. You know your your orange or you're blue, and that that's kind of where we are. And then increasingly we've got red coming as well. So it's fabulous and that we get this tribalism, you get this allegiance to an individual driver of personality who you can identify with in their enough there's enough information about their personalities that you can relate to one of them. I love that Max is so determined that he will do whatever it takes to win. I love that determination, and I hope that my kids have that when they grow up to the same extent, to the same way that he doesn't. Maybe not, but that's beside the point. I love that about him. I love the way that the lando gets so emotional about it. You know that we've got these characters that we can see human traits in them. It's a positive story that the rules perhaps push or promote a little bit of that to the fur is not necessarily a bad thing. I'd hate this to turn into something where it's just so clearly black and white that you don't have this drama, because for me, this is better than a soap opera. You've got the battles on track, the battles in the paddock, the technical fight, the political fight, the financial stuff that go on. There's so many elements of this that it's just another It's just another strand of that rich tapestry that is Formula one. And I will speak passionately about it, and I will I will criticize and lament the regulations, and then when they fix them, I'll probably do the same and call for it to be back the way it was because it was better in my day.

All right, Matt, Before we wrap this up, I'm going to go through the alternative championship picks. Getting close to the end of the year, I don't know how many weeks we've got left, but that means times running out. If you want to catch the leader, you're probably not going to there's a lot of points in the lead if you want to finish in the top three. Mainly, I think it's probably still possible. It's been it's been a controversial weeks. I think we probably have some good picks. Matt, do you want to start us?

I'm going to kick us off the alternative championship where the points really don't matter and we usually take more than we give. I'm going to start off with max for stappin ye, and I'm going to take twenty points away for obvious reasons, but not for the moves themselves, for the excuse I wouldn't have had to go and get the penalties if I had a faster car. My car was too slow, so I had to push people off the track. So I'm taking twenty points off max Forstappen for a poor excuse at trying to defend or deflect or whatever from those two transgressions.

Very good. I like that a lot. I'm going to start, unsurprisingly by taking points off fifty four points off Christian Horner, that being the gap between first and then the constructive standings, just for want of a milestone for literally but appearing unironically to have it literally printed out when he brought Lando Norris's telemetry to his post race press conference to prove that Vestappen didn't deserve a penalty a turn for because Norris was going too fast to make the corner, despite the fact that video footage showed Norris clearly making the corner. Notably, map he did not bring Vestappen's telemetry from turn seven.

It seems it's a bit of an oversight, doesn't it.

I mean, must have run out of me, which I thought was quite wasteful.

Or jammed or yeah, I mean princes are always jamming, aren't they. And you know, I want to know in the ink cartridges or the inside the cost company. That's the important question here.

That's that's what should have been asked at that present in general.

Laser Yeah, yes, all right, let's move seamlessly on. I'm for my second pick. I've got Liam Lawson and I'm going to give him just one single point for a tremendous display of dexterity.

A lot, very good, well sum. I think it was a highlight of the rays. I do love when those videos surface. I feel like I inevitably missed them in the race coverage and then you say, oh, someone's seen the footage I've been flipping off. It was a good one as well. It was a clear one. Yeah, I thought that was good.

Yeah, I'm just going to pass you one more time, so just once more.

I really like the way he's going about his business. Two races in and he's absolutely taking no prisoners. Very good.

Yeah, he's got some mongrel about him. It's good. I love it. Yes, he's fought hard to get there and he's leaving a few bruised eyes already. Good.

For my second pick, I'm going to take fifteen points off Christian Horner for the following quote. I think we're in danger of flipping the overtaking laws upside down, where drivers will just try to get their nose ahead at the apex. The problem is, I think we're going to get into very dangerous territory of it. What point is a dive bomb going to be? Okay, that wasn't in reference to what Max Withstaffan did in the United States. It was in reference to Lando Norris going around the outset dive bombing around the outside of a corner. I mean that just for me. Look, that was just superbly Disingenuoussian Horner, and he deserves fifteen points off for it.

It's just, yeah, I'm excited you've gone Christian Horning for your first year. Second, Bich, I'm very much looking forward to your third, and I'm going to be very disappointed it's not Christian Horner. Yeah, the irony in that statement is just tremendous.

Well, I think the problem is he had none problem.

There was none to him, but to everyone else. Yes, the irony was lost on him. The irony of that, Yeah, that's that's fantastic. I do love that. My last pick probably not on anyone's radar, but Perelli, I'm taking ninety points on free for having to watch free practice two.

No oh for Relly. I mean, it wasn't there. They're not allowed to do in season testing, wasn't there.

We've got we've got cost caps, we've got all of this stuff that surely there's a way that teams are making money now, unless you Williams needed one hundred million pound injection. But there's got to be a better way than forcing the watching world to absorb ninety minutes of And the thing is we didn't even know what we were watch. It was they had these predetermined plans. Share a bit more information with us. Is it going to impact. We're not going to sneak into your labs and mess with your data. Just tell us what's going on so that we can understand what we're watching. That was a painful ninety minutes. And then at the end with the red flag, you know, we didn't know when drivers could switch on. It was you know at the sixty minute mark they can switch over and do the testing that they didn't do an FP one or is it when they finished their run plan? And what ties are they allowed? It was just so ambiguous. It was really poorly done, and for that prarely ninety points, Thanks very much.

It was extremely boring, give you that more so THET.

I wonder if it was also just because of the timing, because we were both in Australia covering that that session, so it worked out to be like what five thirty or something in.

The now, Well, that's the worst part. I think that was. Actually it was like seven or eight am. It should have been good. Yeah, it was a good the sun was up, made myself a coffee perfect. I love these races if I'm at home for them, because it's breakfast Grand Prix. You make yourselfie breakfast, you watch the race.

I think maybe the energy levels were dropping in as a result. Yeah, the energy level was dropped.

Yeah, that's fair.

They fell off. The energy levels hit the cliff.

Yeah, there you go, very good. Ninety points off. That's fair enough. Look, I also did not really appreciate those ninety minutes. For the final pick for this week, my math serves me correctly, it's thirty one points off. Christian Horner for despite all of the aforementioned evidence that he said was in controvertible, in controvertible, said no, he would not be appealing any of the penalties, almost as if the evidence was nonsense. What a waste of everyone's time.

What a waste of its amendous waste.

And the air is thin in Mexico, it's precious.

Don't waste your I mean, I don't think about any more. Go faster than the craft for that. Ah, that's that is fantastic. So that works out to me around one year. I'm very very happy with that. I would have been disappointed if you're going anywhere else, you know, you slipped a cheeky Jonathan Wheatley or something in there. But that's that's fabulous. That is Yeah, it was a series of comments that didn't cover Christian hornering glory.

But you know what, we had to go one hundred points up. I will not be walked back from the hundred points. That's all the time we have for Pittalk today. We will be back next week to wrap up all the action from Brazil. You can subscribe to Pittalk wherever you get your favorite podcasts, and if you like us, leave us a rating and a review as well. You can keep up to date with all the latest ef on news throughout the round or the week at both Fox sports dot com dot Au and Speedcafe dot Com. From Matt Kosh and me Michael Lamonado, thanks very much for your company and we'll catch you next week.