Can Lando Norris still win the World Championship?

0:02This is a global production. Everyone can do better, quite frankly. It's got to be one of the dumbest things I've seen on a racetrack. Piastri was very vocal. This championship is so far from over. Disgraceful from some of the Teletubby engineers. He's got a very, very, very strong fandom and they're basically coming out saying it's ridiculous. Like him or not? He is a machine.

0:30Up to Speed.

0:35It's David. It's Jolie. And welcome to Up to Speed. Well, that's it, DC. The last race before the summer break is over. And what a race it was. It makes us, you know, really realise we don't actually want the break. I mean, I know all the teams and the drivers and you want the break. Yeah, Budapest, you were there. you were getting to sort of feel the energy and see another city. I really did enjoy. It was lovely. We had a lot of fun, didn't we? I mean, you'll probably tell by my voice, guys. I'm sorry. It is, I think, seven weeks of back-to-back work and it's kind of telling me to stop for a second.

1:17But what a race. I think the whole weekend, the energy. And Lando was just mega impressive. Max was mega impressive. I mean, there's so much to unpick. Where do we start? It feels only right to start with Lando. Yeah, what a man. What a man he is. That's his first win as a world champion since getting that world championship in Abu Dhabi. And, you know, let's start at the beginning. Pole position. The upgrades were working. Quick and free practice. But somehow we thought, well, maybe it's just them experimenting with fuel levels and things like that. but when he came down to it, pulled the lap together, showed his quality, was very calm in the post-qualifying interviews, and then lost the lead at the start to his teammate, was calm again as he was saying, look, guys, I can go faster.

2:05I'm just running in dirty air. And then when he got that opportunity, he took control of the Grand Prix and, yeah, he goes into the summer break happier than the rest. And, I mean, look, I loved it at the end where he signed the bottle saying, nice to see you again. You can see... you know, at the podium, his pure euphoria being back on that podium. And I think, look, like anything in life, when it becomes repetitive, almost, it loses a bit of spark. And, you know, we've even seen it, of course, Kimi's first win, where you had that amazing interview with him afterwards. And he was crying to see him on the podium week after week after week after week.

2:44And of course, he's still delighted, but it becomes more of a norm. And I think obviously last season, Lando was on top. I felt we saw a happier Lando than I can remember seeing for a really long time. And I'm not just talking because he hasn't won all season. But, you know, if we look at the back end of last season, him on the podium, looking at his expression, seeing him in the media. He, you know, really, when that national anthem went off, it had back the emotion in his face. his, again, I keep using this word, but his euphoria with his team mate out there. It was really lovely to see. And we've had five different winners in five different races.

3:30What more could we want? And we all know, we'll come on to it later, I am the world's biggest Kevin Antonelli fan. We were discussing it this weekend. But the championship is so far from over 50 points. in Formula One isn't lots. And I think, should everyone be slightly fearful for Lando and McLaren's pace? Well, look, I think the maturity of which Lando took into the weekend is the maturity of someone that's achieved his dream. He won that world championship last year. There was moments where it looked like he and McLaren, let's be honest, were making it difficult for themselves in trying to do the right thing.

4:11they very often look to be doing the wrong thing but all credit to their comeback this year the upgrades have been working it feels like a long time since we were interviewing them pretty much every week but yeah brilliant performance from him could have been a one-two of course had his teammate not had reliability issues but before his gearbox went we have to get into the blue flag scenario in Budapest it was like first day of school and I'm talking kindergarten in the way that drivers were reacting to blue flags. Now, some will say the timing screens had an issue, but there is such a thing as just being spatially aware and your engineers actually looking over the pit wall.

4:55And I made this comment in commentary. Very few of the teams now actually have a gap on their, what is affectionately known as the Pratt's perch, the engineering wall where the engineers and the team principal normally sit. In the case of Toto, of course, he's sitting back in the garage. But they look, and they did look, over the pit wall back in the day, and you have a certain awareness of where the other cars are. So you can't ever factor in qualifying on somebody coming out of the pit lane, but in a Grand Prix, when people are circulating at pace, you can usually tell, well, not usually, you absolutely can tell.

5:29It just wasn't good enough. There was a lot of people not reacting to blue flags. In fairness to Carlos, in his little battle, he would have looked in his mutters going into turn two and thought, yeah he's too far back got wide and then you're sort of hanging on to the car as you're coming back and remember the angle and we'll get some scientists can write into as the refractive angle of light from the murders as the cars well it's just a big word I remember from from physics but anyway um I suspect at no point once he was in the corner were his murders actually showing a McLaren because McLaren was on a much tighter line and then when he's come out of the Turn 2, Sainz has come across and hit the front of Oscar Piastri's car, which could have put him out, didn't, but you can understand Piastri was very vocal.

6:20What was his, I think there's a few things I've seen online about Sainz that are on purpose. I think we've got to move that out of a narrative that I don't agree with but it's kind of a trail of blame Sainz is, you know, he took Tiny bit of responsibility, but he's blaming his team. And PS3 on the radio said, get out of the way, you effing idiot. And then after the race, said that's got to be one of the dumbest things I've seen on a racetrack. And one thing that you love or hate about Oscar, he's very mellow. He's very calm. We very rarely see this raging side of him. And look, during the race, I messaged on our up to speed chat like, wow, I'm loving this side of Oscar.

7:05but you can understand it. But I think what made matters worse, which I have an opinion on this, DC, I'm very interested in your opinion here. When, obviously, you know, Lando pitted and then he came out ahead of Oscar, the team went to speak to Piastri and Piastri said, oh mate, just don't talk shit to me now. Nice of you guys to factor that one in, by the way. Thanks. Now, I think that, you know, McLaren have very weird team orders we speak about it a lot, you know, papyrus, la-di-di-da-da. But what they meant to do, hold Lando there for, you know, an extra second, that's, this isn't Lando's battle, which is what's happened out on track.

7:47But Oscar, you know, whether he said it in the heat of the moment, said it, felt it. Zac Brown, you know, everyone was joking, he's turned his phone off. He wasn't here this weekend, he was thinking, oh God, I do not want to be dealing with this. Yeah, look, I get completely the frustration of the driver in the cockpit. it. You see the world through these eyes. You do have information on your screen in terms of flags if the flag system is working. But for the rest, unless you can see a big screen which shows where cars are relative to yourself, which in some tracks you can. Monaco would be a great example.

8:20As you rise up to Casino Square, there's a big screen that feeds the grandstand in the main harbour and you can see what's going on. And sometimes it gives you information that you just weren't aware of. So the bottom line is Oscar was struggling a little bit more with his pace. The team didn't react initially to Lando saying, I can go faster, I'm in the dirty air. They pitted Oscar first, of course, which was absolutely right of the lead car. And then Lando started unleashing his performance, clearly in a much happier place with the balance of his car. And at what could have been a double loss, actually ended up being a great victory for for McLaren.

8:56The reliability is an issue, of course. I just wanted to add in another quote to the wonderful group of quotes about drivers and blue flags. And this one was from Toto Wolf, where he went, it's disgraceful from some of the telly tubby engineers that sit on the pit wall at these teams, not telling drivers what is happening behind. You know what? It's a fair comment. And I have been quite vocal as to how I think I expect a race engineer to engage with me. I expect him to be 100%, you know, throw himself on the hot coals for performance and you go forward as a team. I never like when you hear a race engineer going, ah, you've got to do the team thing.

9:35I think that should always be the sporting director or the team principal who owns that moment. Because quite frankly, if that was my race engineer, I'd say, if you want to give away performance on this car, go and work on someone else's car. That's how I would see it. You know, we're in this together. there. And yes, there is the big picture of the team, but that's why you have a team principal. That's why you have a sporting director. Let them do big picture instructions. You know, it's like having a headmaster at a school. He's not in the English class or the physics class or whatever. If you go to the headmaster, it's because that is the final instruction.

10:08Yeah, exactly. It's about relationships being maintained. But a lot of frustration for everyone and a very simple one from Max Verstappen where he just went morons, which probably is a cancelled or somewhere in the world, but I think we can all relate to what he means there. So bottom line is you cannot blame the technology. There are marshals out there with blue flags. They are unpaid volunteers and they will wave that flag if they see fit. And also as a driver, you're glancing at your motors. You've got to be aware of cars round about you. So everyone can do better, quite frankly. Yeah, I completely agree.

10:43And it's got to be something that's solved as soon as possible because we're lucky that there was no safety issues this weekend. But they're saying don't count your chickens. There's some saying with something, but we won't go there. Something to do with chickens, yeah. Exactly. And obviously it led to a penalty. And I feel like penalties is a reoccurring topic on this podcast and in Formula One lots at the minute. And there is one person at the centre of all these penalties being Sir Lewis Hamilton. I mean 0.1 kilometers an hour four penalties and four weekends for him now there's a load of like memes online tell me you know what a meme is by the way I'm familiar with the term I haven't seen the Lewis memes but um you're going to explain it to me yeah it's just loads on this you know what what you could do in 0.1 second if you had that time you know how fast 0.1 kilometer actually is all of these different things you know people taking the mick and a lot of people as we know Lewis Hamilton fans we'll call them the Hamminators is that what he calls them

11:59Kimi Antonelli:or I could just be making it up but we'll say it with confidence so it sounds right we know he's got a very very very strong fandom and they're basically coming out saying it's ridiculous but I sit on the side of the fence and I'm not shy and to admit it I feel like this is when you say something against Taylor Swift and all the Swifties come for you but rules are rules speed is speed you can't bend it yeah 100 % things like that I've got no problem with as harsh as it may seem for point one and clearly there was an issue in Monaco this year where the the distance that the FIA were using and the distance the drivers could actually pass through the pit lane were not correlated.

12:36But yeah, if you're 0.1 underweight, you're disqualified. If your plank is 0.1 too thin, you're disqualified. So these are just absolute data points of which you can't cheat it or bend the rules on that. So 0.1 may as well be 10 kilometres an hour because the outcome is the same. Yeah, I agree.

12:57Kimi Antonelli:I mean, I do feel for Lewis because it feels he's one step forward, five steps back at the minute. You know, pitting under the virtual safety car, I think really killed off his race. He was very downbeat. He came out afterwards and said, we definitely shouldn't have taken the stop. My tyres were fine. Comes down to, you know, what we were speaking about before, relationships, his trust with his team. It seems we think they have it figured out. And, you know, he's all Italian and loving it. And then he's coming out and saying this. It's obviously incredibly frustrating for him. but why do you think there's so much fluctuating between him and his team the decisions that they're making not being on the same page I mean I know this happens between every team and their driver but it seems so much more frequent for Lois yeah I think that clearly that was a big topic last year the relationship with his engineer he's a change of engineer they then come out and get some success together and you know everyone's in love again but if you recall I put forward the the theory or the belief that in my humble opinion, taking someone that you've worked with when you leave one team to join another team, it means that you're not building a relationship, the relationship's in place.

14:12So Lewis is effectively, I bow down to everything that he's achieved, but he's effectively made it more difficult for himself by having to build these relationships while learning a car, learning a language, learning a culture. and very often we hear him saying guys I told you not to do that or whatever and he described it where he got the call for pitting for the virtual safety cup just before the line and he didn't have time to debate it he basically heard them say pit now so he's like well they must know something that I don't he pits and then it obviously makes it a lot more difficult for him so with the benefit of hindsight he absolutely and even before the hindsight came in he was like guys we shouldn't pitted, which is what Verstappen did.

14:57He didn't pit. Now, at one point after the Voxer safety car came in, he was being caught a second a lap and you were going, hmm, this is going to get fruity about four laps on the end of the Grand Prix. But eventually the pace ran out of Antonelli's tyres and Max came home as a second out of a weekend where he was not happy. You know, the lesser spotted Max Verstappen spin happened in qualifying. In the beginning of the Grand Prix, although he made a great start he was going something's broken again rear end is really really difficult but like him or not he is able to pull results he is in the sheet i mean honestly a round of applause he is absolutely i mean that was such a pathetic round of applause i'm actually going to give him one because that overtake was sensational and it you know it was funny because Obviously, Hamilton came out on the radio, you know, before and said, slap him slow.

15:51And then he does that overtake, which was just, it was, it was Max.

15:57Kimi Antonelli:I don't think there's any other driver that you would see do that nowadays. He is absolutely phenomenal. And, like, I absolutely love his mentality. And I was so glad to see him get that P2. And again, look, Max is always chasing for a win. he's a four-time world champion he's not settling for P2 but I think if you would have said to him on a Saturday you know you're going to be on that podium he would have not winning but he would have absolutely taken that and there was a few people throwing out he should try different things and there's so much that they still need to learn but the car so much is going wrong they're wasting time but his team you know there's still where to go but strategically they know their stuff I think they made the right calls not again trying to be hindsight clever But track position, as we saw how difficult it was for Lando to overtake Oscar, despite the fact that he had a better balance and was quicker yesterday.

16:53So on a track where everyone sees really difficult to overtake, then why put yourself in a situation where you have to overtake? So I think that's probably was a fueling factor in their decision. And then if we look at Kimi Antonelli, you know, I think a well-driven, mature race for him in the recovery. we cannot mention Kimi without obviously talking about his teammate George who if he had no luck or bad luck I should say he would have no luck at all anti-stall now let me just explain what that is Julian if you're if you're not aware there is a system which was developed during my time that if the rate of engagement of the clutch the software would say under normal conditions what's going to happen is the engine is going to stall then it would basically pull the clutch in automatically for you and the way to reset that is you have to pull the clutch paddle in physicality and then you have control of the car again.

17:47So he's been sitting on the line spooling up the turbo watching the lights, releases the clutch as per the normal start procedure and it goes in and he'll immediately realise that of course because they're high performance athletes, he would have pulled the clutch, floored the throttle again and then basically blended the clutch out to get the car rolling. But of course, he's missed the launch, he's missed the start, he drops down to 21st place. And at that point, he would have been, you know, heart sinking, what do I need to do? Thereafter, he drove very well using the pace difference of that car, got himself back up into the points pretty quickly.

18:23And although still not running as fast in lap time times as Kimi, I think he'll take that as a save out of what could have been a horrible result.

18:35Kimi Antonelli:I agree with you. It's one thing after another, after another. And Toto's come out and said, it's just not good enough from us. You know, we need to do better. And look, fair play to George. As we said, he ended the race P7. It was a phenomenal recovery. But why is that happening to George's car and not Kimmy's? It's the racing gods. You can't explain everything in life. something's just fate, a guy walking along the street and a helicopter falls out of the sky, which sadly and tragically did happen in London. What are the chances of that? It's just what's for you won't go by you. And right now, George has the lion's share of difficulties.

19:17Some of that will be fueled by just the way he's been utilizing the tools. Maybe having experience is not a good thing, ultimately, with this formula. but the other side the reliability side unquestionably falls to just whatever reason the finger trouble or the mechanical trouble has been more often than not in his car Mercedes have been owning it and so full full credit to them no surprise to me that Mercedes as I've said before they're out there taking the plaudits and success and they're also out there answering the questions when things are not going well which is not the case for everybody you know when things are going well, you get some team principals that are out there ready to talk.

20:01And when things are going badly, they go, we're having, you know, we have to analyze and we don't like to answer tough questions. But yeah, tough on George. He will welcome this break. Gives everyone, even though there's two weeks where they're not allowed to actually be operational at the factory, they have a week now to analyze what happened in Budapest. Then they go on the two week break. They can't log in, but they can't log out their mind. creative people will keep being creative. You know, there's no law against Adrian Newey, the designer, team principal and technical director at Aston Martin, sketching on his drawing board at home as he does.

20:37He just can't send any of that information to the factory. And, you know, Lewis Hamilton said he's going, he's not seeing this as a break. He's seeing this as the point to ramp up his training. And I'm sure there's an element of, you know, say the right thing, but equally, I don't doubt for one minute when you look at him that the guy is a gym bunny. so a day off for him is probably one gym session rather than two.

20:58Kimi Antonelli:Yeah, Kimi goes into this break and we've touched on George. It's funny, it's literally polar opposites. He's 50 points ahead of Hamilton, 59 ahead of George, recovered from P7 to P3 like a hero. It's a ninth podium finish in 11 Grands Prix. He is having a season he wouldn't have even imagined, do we know that i love this as well you know after the podium he came down he looks at his his team his family you can see how much it means to him and you know as these races go on the more that we tick off the more podiums he gets even you know not getting those race wins we we said earlier 50 points is not not a lot in an f1 championship but you can flip the coin and he'd be very comfortable.

21:52Kimi Antonelli:He's very happy. You know, no one wants to see their teammate. Oh, maybe I'm speaking as if I'm from experience. I'm being politically correct here. No one wants to see their teammates suffer like George has. But at the same time, this is really benefiting Kimi, you know, to be ahead of Lewis Hamilton, you know, his hero at one point, and I'm sure he's still a big hero of his. It's just phenomenal. and I think that's what I'm most excited about to see after this summer break. Kimi continued to shine and I've said it from day dot, I truly believe this is his year. Yeah indeed, look 50 points is incredibly healthy, yes it's a couple of non-finishes in a year where there have been reliability issues and the McLaren gearbox issue shows that it is not always plain sailing.

22:39So yeah it's not done but it's been a hell of a start to his year And actually, I hadn't really, I guess, put my head around the fact that you said George is 59 behind. I think Max came from bigger point deficit to Olmos winning the championship last year. So it's not all loss for George. He needs his break. He'll bounce back, I'm sure.

23:00Kimi Antonelli:Yeah, well, look, I'm lucky for one, but a little bit of luck for some and those being the men in green. some improvement for Aston Martin which we are going to be talking about a little later on and Lando Norris' summer break plans which is a whole nother conversation but do tell us what you think of Lando's win and Lewis' penalties on our socials at Up To Speed Show make sure you're subscribed to us on YouTube click that red button and leave us a comment

23:36Right, let's get into it Aston Martin, the most eagerly awaited upgrade of the year. They've been languishing at the back, three seconds off the pace. Second, apparently, of that down to Honda, a couple of seconds down to the car. A lot of spotlight on Adrian Newey and his technical team. And I've got to say, I think they delivered. They brought a very positive outcome. We had Fernando Alonso making it through to the second part of qualifying. and given where they've come from, I think we've got to say well done, Aston, on that. And actually all of the teams have been pretty impressive this year with introducing upgrades that seem to deliver performance.

24:14McLaren are a perfect example of that from where they started the year to winning the Grand Prix. So I believe in Zamfort, there's an engine upgrade coming from Honda and they expect that to be significant. So it's almost like we can expect to see Aston challenging just outside the top 10 by a couple of races, certainly by the time we get to Monza. So it'll be interesting to track that. And I suspect what it does is calm the rumours about Fernando Alonso's future. Some people were suggesting he might go to Alpine, where I think now he'll feel more comfortable that I know the team, I've put the efforts in in forming the group of people around me.

24:55So I may as well continue with that journey next year into his 45th year on planet Earth. Although he was there, like the eager new father at the weekend. His partner had their little baby in the paddock and it was fun to see Fernando taking the baby into the carriage. Not that I'm sure the baby will remember any of it, but yeah, he's a working dad.

25:19Kimi Antonelli:I have to say I'm so pleased, Vastin. A 13th and 14th finish. It was also Lance Stroll's 200th race. which is an impressive milestone and got a lot of comments on F1's graphic on Instagram. Oh really? It did, yeah. You can use your imagination there. But look, I think it's great to see I worked with Astrid on their season launch in Saudi in February. And look, they were, even before it started, kind of banging their heads against the wall. I think they all knew what was coming. It was going to be a long start to the season And it probably feels like this summer break Couldn't have come soon enough But to see them catch a little bit of a break I think everyone's so pleased I was watching Qualy With a few of the F1 TV presenters And they were like Everyone wants to see him do so well And look, in sport We age as such a big conversation You know, there's been so much around it Being Messi and Ronaldo's last World Cup because of their age, but I'm not saying in four years' time we're going to see Messi there, but when you're a great, when you're a GOAT, and Alonso, a two-time world champion, granted, yes, we haven't seen that level for a little while now, but you're wired completely differently when you've hit that high to give up.