Is Max Verstappen the only F1 driver who would dare race Nurburgring 24hr mid-season?

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0:39It's Will. It's David. It's Jolie. Welcome to Up to Speed. Now we've got a fourth guest in the studio today. DC has brought his very lovely, probably partially sweaty, helmet in. Has Jolie finally got her race helmet for our karting race? Yeah, which I will win. Because DC and I are on a team and it's you and Naomi. me. Actually, the helmet in comparison to Julie, it looks like it would actually go halfway over your body. You would need to get you a tiny little helmet. See, you're surprised I've got a big head, a big forehead. I shouldn't probably say this on a podcast because now I'm inviting the comments of my big forehead.

1:16But that would fit me just right. Is that the one you wore in Monaco, DC? Yes, it is indeed. I saw the videos. Yeah, well, it's been used a couple of times. So the weekend before, I was at Paul Ricard driving the RB7, which was Sebastian Verdel's world championship winning car. And then a week later, I'm slipping into my Nomex again to drive the Generation 4 Formula E car at the Formula E race weekend, which actually started to feel a lot like it was a sort of Formula 1 warm-up because we had a bunch of F1 drivers there. There were so many. We had Lando, Carlos, Gabi, Hulkenberg. All of them were there.

1:54You were driving. I mean, it was like a mix of past, future. I felt like I was in a simulation. Yeah, you know, it's a weird thing because I normally only really see them with a microphone. And, you know, I'm obviously of a much, much older generation. Suddenly they're there talking to me going, how did the car feel? And I'm having to go, yeah, this is a role reversal. So I had to just make some stuff up because I basically had one eye closed most of the way. It's amazing how many F1 drivers turn up to things when it's literally a minute from their door. you know like the tennis in monaco or you know do things in money if you want to get f1 drivers to turn up do your event in monaco and they will be there my birthday party is going to be there this summer oh really a bunch of drivers there giving you the bumps pulling your hair that was the plan or you you don't pull hair for birthdays do you what is that not a thing no that must be a scottish thing well you know you can like pull pull the hair for the age of the person never heard of that okay giving the bumps throwing them up in the air yes the bumps bumps yeah okay thank god for that so i thought i'd gone down some sort of weird rabbit hole here i think you could have okay but there was also i mean there was loads going on this weekend given there wasn't an f1 race i feel like we still got our daily dose yeah max out of the ring oh he was so close to pulling off the dream 24 hour win so the number going 24 hours the green hell the number going used to be used for Formula One racing back in the 70s.

3:20Nicky Lauda, who people may know from the movie Rush if they're not Formula One fans, famously had a fiery crash there which burned his face and he was back in the car a few weeks later to win the World Championship. I think that was 1976. Will, the fountain of all knowledge, will pull me up if I'm getting any of these stats wrong. It is indeed, 76. So it is a scary, revered racetrack where crazy people go and race GT cars and crazy people, being Max Verstappen, was out there with his own team, came within a few hours of winning the event, which would have been amazing. But with a 30 second lead, he broke a drive shaft and it was just basically it would take too long to fix that.

4:00I mean, what I found mega interesting, and I think a lot of people online as well, is almost how emotional he was for Max. He reportedly said he was absolutely gutted with what happened. I mean, obviously, understanding given the circumstances, but we don't really see that side as much in F1 you know when things don't go his way he kind of picks up and he carries on with it and it was quite interesting to see the difference in emotions with Max this weekend I felt. I think I think a big part of this is you know it's Max's team and it's got his name on it and look there's the emotions of a 24-hour race are very very different to you know an hour and a half a two-hour race the the the sort of emotional investment that goes along with that both from the driver's perspective and also from everybody at the team the mechanics the engineers is such a massive effort to get a car into and get it through 24 hours that to come within three hours of even just completing the race let alone winning the race is a massive massive achievement um so i can totally understand the emotions for max on that um not least because it's got his name above the door you know um but what an incredible what an incredible thing to do what an incredible um magnet max has been for this event uh um i think they reported over 300 000 people turned up at the nurberg ring at the weekend we had a rain delay over at the indy 500 qualifying weekend all of saturday was was washed out and the first thing that we said when we we got in from the commentary box into our little trailer back in the the broadcast um kind of uh paddock we were like right we'll put on the nurberg ring 24 and so you literally just jump on youtube stick it on and there were hundreds of thousands of people watching it online from around the world you know and that interest came ostensibly and you've got to be honest you know because max was there would we have asked to put the nurberg ring 24 on if max hadn't been racing in it probably not and it was brilliant.

6:03It was just great. I mean, in racing he did. His driving, that airborne clip, he was driving as if he was driving in an F1 race, not in an endurance race. It was wild. The commentary, you know, they were saying they've never seen anything like it before. Super impressive. He's a machine. That is a scary racetrack. I've been around that and the commitment that at that level you need to have to be competitive, to be at the front like they were, is, sadly, we reported on this podcast a couple of weeks ago, actually, there was a driver who lost his life on that very track, such is the nature of the challenge of the racetrack.

6:41So, you know, we should not sort of just look at it as, oh, Max loves driving so much, he's just out having fun on the weekends. If he was doing that, he could go to any of the FIE regulated tracks, you know, that are very similar of the current Formula One tracks. But to go there, this is old school commitment. And that's what sets him apart from the others. The others are technically very good racing drivers. There's no question about it. I would question whether any other driver on the Formula One grid right now would accept the challenge to go and race at the Nürburgring. Anyone? Anyone? I thought you were going to come with my favourite woods.

7:23Kimmy. I think that's fair. I mean, Kimi's obviously got his dad's team as well. He said that he would love to be part of a team with Max as well, which I love to see generations. He wouldn't fit in the same car. Kimi's tiny and Max is a man's size. Yeah, this is awesome. I mean, I think it's just really interesting to see as well, tying it back to Formula One, how other drivers are preparing. Max is preparing with sleep deprivation and being in that green hell, whereas the others are with you in Monaco, having a nice walk around the paddock and others are playing paddle or watching the golf, what it might be.

7:56So he just doesn't stop. And I think, I love that side of Max. It's just winner, winner, winner mentality. There's no turning off. But how far can one take this? I can't imagine Formula One being too happy if all of the drivers in their spare time, race F1 weekends off, were doing this. Yeah, I think you're right. There's an element historically of Formula One. they would have the Monaco Grand Prix on the same weekend as the ND500 just to spite the ND500 and try and take some of their audience away. But I do think with Liberty, who are the owners of Formula One, an American company, and the growth that they've brought to Formula One, I think there is sort of an attitude of there's space for us all because the best is still the best.

8:44And Formula One is still considered the best form of motorsport. to anyone who's doing sports cars or GT or whatever it happens to be, they would stop that immediately if they were given a Formula One seat. But the big question actually would be physically, what sort of recovery time would Max need having attempted to do that 24 hours? Now, I've done a few 24-hour benders. And, you know, in my experience, it takes two or three days to sort of get back on the pitch. Not at this age. Now it takes five or six. No, no, no. I don't do bending anymore. I'll leave that to you kids. It's a really fascinating quandary, isn't it?

9:19You know, DC's right. There was a time when I think Formula One was very protectionist about its drivers. And it was the time when Formula One through the 90s and the 2000s was trying to establish itself as this singular, you know, greatest form of racing. but I'm of the mind that if you want your drivers to be held as the greatest in the world let them go and race anything anywhere on any given weekend and prove that they are the best in the world what I like about Max is that he is old school and that he is in many ways bigger than the team because while I'm sure Kimi Antonelli would be stopped from going and racing anything else by his contract Max is almost bigger than that and Max kind of lives for racing it's his oxygen he needs it you know if it's not an f1 weekend he'll go and race the nurburgring 24 or he'll do whatever because he just he needs it to survive like he just he lives for racing and that used to be the way back in the 50s and the 60s and the 70s you you had your great drivers would go and race anything on any given weekend you look at jim clark one of the greatest formula one world champions that britain has ever produced probably one of the greatest formula one world champions that has ever lived and jim would race everything formula one formula two formula three he'd go and race lotus cortinas he would like if it had an engine and wheels jim would go and drive it because he he was like a max just just lived for racing and actually whilst you're articulating that what it cements in my mind is the very reason if we go back a couple of podcasts ago where we were sort of speculating where max what would he do what's his future.

11:03You've crystallized in my mind, Max will not be going anywhere because there's no other Formula One team that would allow him to be Max. McLaren wouldn't be able to do it, Ferrari wouldn't be able to do it, Mercedes wouldn't be able to do it, despite the fact he was driving a Mercedes, just because of the investment that goes into the individual driver. But Red Bull do. And actually, in fairness and in the spirit of Mr. Mattis, the founder of Red Bull, that's exactly i remember that when i first met him before signing to drive for the team asked him what do you expect of me and he said be yourself max is being himself that's why that's it cut the speculation of a couple of weeks ago right now max is staying with red bull for the rest of his career what for the rest of the career rest of his career okay ford have already offered him the opportunity to go and race in other championships you know they've thought of basically turn around and said whatever we're competing in, Max, grab a car, go do it.

12:01Maybe the fastest around the dark side of the moon, you know, beat the Artemis record. How long were they away for? Six, seven days? Yeah, like a week. Yeah, like a week. It's not like it. I've been looking back over, you know, over F1 drivers doing other things in season. And obviously you had Hulkenberg who went and won Le Mans while he was still racing in Formula One. you had Alonso who went and did the Indy 500 while he was still doing F1 which was a big thing to do because he had to as DC said he had to you know same weekend as the Monaco Grand Prix he had to miss Monaco and so if you remember Jensen jumped into his seat and uh and they did the radio chat as Jensen was going to the grid and told Fernando he was going to pee in his seat which was brilliant um but it's very rare it's very very rare nowadays for that to for that to happen um we actually had a brilliant anniversary uh just this last week when i was commentating on on practice and qualifying for the indy 500 back in 1961 this is absolutely brilliant okay you want to talk about doing it's brilliant dude i love this so jack brabham okay jack brabham formula one world champion back in 1961 monaco and qualifying for the indy 500 were on the same weekend it wasn't the Indy 500 race that year.

13:22He practiced in Monaco for the Grand Prix on the Friday, flew to Indianapolis, qualified for the Indy 500 on Saturday, flew home and competed in the Monaco Grand Prix on the Sunday. That is amazing. I mean, that is a good one. That is brilliant. I'll give it to you. Was Concord available at that time? Or that was a long flight? I don't think it could have been. like it's 1961 Serious air miles I think yeah someone doing that nowadays you wouldn't ever see that happen but I think do you think one of those reasons could be because obviously the sport's got much bigger but it's now not just the teams and the racing it's the sponsors it's their deliverables as such for their media days it's what they have to do for their partners it's not just the race day I mean we see it when we're at a track everything that they have to do they're dragged from pillar to pillar there's no way they'd have a second to get on a plane or go do something else because they've got their other duties outside that funds the race.

14:22How much publicity, how much media time has Max, his sponsors, his team got out of the Nuburg Ring 24? It's huge, right? I, again, I think you've got to move away from the protectionism of all of this. If you're a sponsor of Max in F1 or if you're a sponsor of any driver in F1, how is having that driver going and doing other things and being front and centre? How is that bad for your brand? Because Max is exceptional. He is someone that you can watch and we see him literally fly into the air. We might lose a heartbeat or so, but we trust in Max. You can't say that for all the current F1 drivers.

15:04They're making mistakes. They're crashing. Which ones don't you trust? Name them. I don't know. How confident could you be about, DC said it himself about another driver that would take the challenge. Why wouldn't they take that challenge? because they don't necessarily have that confidence, nor, I guess you could argue, skill that Max has. Yeah. Max is just from wild stock, isn't he? I think, let's be honest, he comes from... He's a machine. Yeah, he comes from a racing family. How many of the Formula One drivers had both their mother and father race at a very high level? I can't think of any.

15:37I would like to see a scenario in which this is normalised and then we see who has got the guts and who has got the wherewithal to go and do this. You know, it's not the one-offs. It's not weird for us to be talking about it. If this became normalized again, that F1 drivers were multidisciplinary drivers, then you'll see who's real and who's not. Then you'll see who really can claim the moniker of being the greatest driver in the world because they aren't scared to go and compete in anything on any given Sunday. That's what I'd like. That's what I would absolutely love to see because I reckon Max could turn up and do a NASCAR Cup Series race and probably be quite competitive, you know?

16:26Max, he would never do that. He's already said he would never do the Indy 500, but I'd love to see Max come and do the Indy 500. But you're saying Max, Max, Max. What about the others? Yeah, but that's what I'm saying is like Max, we know Max would because we know that Max has the hunger for it. But if this was the norm again And if we were back at a place where we were in the 60s, 50s, 60s of racing drivers being multidisciplinary, then you would have a real stake to the claim that you're one of the greatest drivers in the world. Prove it by going and racing everything. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right.

17:03Unfortunately, I don't think it will happen. But what it does is highlight. Right. It's one of those things in sport, actually, which is if you think racquetball, racquet and ball sports, you think, well, if you're squash world champion, you'd think you'd have a fair chance, you know, playing a game of tennis against Sinner. But of course, you wouldn't. Sinner wouldn't win in squash. You've got to be a sort of specialist in your field to really be at the top. And then you have someone like a Max where he somehow, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if he's ambidextrous. He just seems to be good at everything he does that involves four wheels.

17:42But should there be a limit to what the drivers can do? I mean, well, you're saying you'd love to see them racing in, you know, multiple competitions. But where do you draw the line? Skiing? You know, we saw a couple of years ago Lance Stroll fell off his bike and then he missed testing. where do you draw the line of the extra extracurriculum extra I think extracurriculum activities yeah I mean the the biggest issue with all of this is going to just to be the fact that you know I think Robert Kubica's accident back in 2011 will still sit very much front and center with a lot of of teams um for those who don't know those are very new for the sport um Robert Kubica was a still is I mean he won Le Mans um brilliantly fast racing driver first Polish Formula One driver in history um and was very much seen as a future driver for Ferrari in fact it's it's understood now he had actually signed a pre-contract to race for Ferrari in 2012 he was a Renault driver in 2011 and he loved rallies and he went to compete uh in a rally at the start of 2011 pre-season and had an absolutely horrendous accident in which a piece of roadside arm co went through the road and severed his right arm um and he was was he raced again in formula one but was never quite the same again and if you talk to a fernando alonso lewis hamilton for them robert was that one driver of their generation who they thought was you know at that same level as as them could have been should have been a formula one world champion um and i think there's there's a lot of fear that you know if you let drivers go and go and race anything on any given weekend um that that you know something really really bad can happen and obviously and to your point joely you know sponsors teams the drivers are an investment for them and so naturally they're going to want to protect their investment yeah when i started my career with williams it was very tight on all the things that I wasn't allowed to do outside of a race car.

19:49McLaren, I have to say, Ron Dennis had a very relaxed approach to that. Ron Dennis was the team principal and shareholder at McLaren who'd worked with Prost and Senna and Lauda and some of the greats before. So you would imagine he would be quite strict, but he was like, if you're not able to race, I won't pay you. And maybe he thought that was incentive for a Scotsman not to be injured. You know, I'd want to be paid but we we would go winter training with him in the mountains in corcheville skiing and you'd think that would be something you wouldn't really encourage but so i think you can take two approaches you either trust people and allow them to be themselves or you restrict people and then they start doing little naughty trips and you know uh one pablo montoya who who raced for williams and mclaren fell off uh no he broke his collarbone or shoulder playing tennis when it was actually a motorbike that he'd fallen off.

20:41Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, one thing we will all agree on is that our socials are flying. So thank you very much, everyone that is following us. If you're not, it's at UpToSpeedShow. We've hit 50 ,000 subscribers on YouTube. And if you're not subscribing yet, go and press that red button. And next up, we are going to be discussing the biggest F1 scandals in history. And I already know we're about to all disagree again. So grab your tea, guys.

21:12well before we go on and answer one of your questions we wanted to take a second to read out this lovely email that we got from one of our listeners and I have to say when the team sent it through to our whatsapp group I was really taken back and it made my weekend and I know that Will who was feeling a little bit homesick also felt rather emotional and this is from Carmen in Melbourne who said I just wanted to let you all know how much your podcast means to a 10 year old boy in Melbourne. I lost my dad very unexpectedly two weeks before Christmas in 2024. He and my son were incredibly close and had a special bond around F1.

21:46After we lost dad, my son lost the ability to call him up to ask a random F1 question. But Up to Speed is now what we listen to together to help fill that gap. It helps keep his memory alive and reminds us of our favourite weekend of the year twice a week. I have to say even reading that again makes me, you know, brings tears to my eyes because it's so nice to know that the the nonsense that sometimes we chat and the little disagreements we have sometimes agreeing believe it or not you know is really making such difference so I'm so grateful when we all are the team behind the scenes as well not just the four of us that you sent that email in because it's you know very heartwarming and we hope to see your son and you at a race very soon yeah the the guy sent me the the full version of the email and um and I I bored my eyes out.

22:34It was gorgeous. So thank you so much for that. It's just, I'm so glad that, you know, us talking nonsense and arguing with each other, you know, can sort of fill that gap. It's incredibly touching and very, very grateful for that. Yeah, look, it takes me back to my childhood. You know, I bonded with my grandfather and my father over racing. I remember, you're probably too young to remember, there was a scale electrics was a electric car game and i remember oh they're still around okay and i remember we we had one up in the loft and we'd go up there and my grandfather my father and we'd talk about the teams of the time and then we'd watch the grand prix so i completely get it if you're a fan of formula one it's usually because you've watched it with someone from your family and uh it takes us on a journey together and i always say although i had one of the best seats in the house for 15 years as a Grand Prix driver prior to that just a fan post that just a fan yeah I love it oh thank you again for sending that through and now it's time to hear what question we've got today hey all just to say uh loving the show um like the debates and discussions between the four of you generally means to say that I probably agree with at least one of you um particularly given I've been watching Formula One from before DC was was of racing in Formula 1.

23:57Question for you. What do you think is the biggest scandal that's hit Formula 1 over the recent years? Be that Hamilton and Verstappen back in, obviously, Abu Dhabi, Hill versus Schumacher in Australia way back in 1994, Spygate or Crashgate. Which one do you think's maybe tarnished Formula 1 the most? Do you think the right outcome was arrived at or do you think they should have been a different conclusion appreciate your thoughts what a great question a great question which this is going to um spark some fire you're looking quite scary now yeah sorry i got my teeth out can i not physically i'm not wearing dentures i just had my my lip went like that um what i would see uh you're going first i will i just want to clarify if we're going to pick one to debate on because i see a scandal as something that is cheating so crashgate spygate i don't see you know that sort of sporting did schumacher put hell into the wall and did he crash into field i see that as the the sporting side of the sport and the sporting ethics so for me if you've knowingly cheated that's a scandal so So what's your view on 2021?

25:18You wouldn't see that as a scandal? No, it's controversial. But nothing illegal was done. If it was, it would have been undone. So I'm not getting into whether, you know, we all know Lewis was the fastest guy all afternoon and was going to win that Grand Prix until what happened happened. That's clear for us all. But that was nothing that was unsporting in terms of the FIA breaking the sporting regulations. Scandal for me is cheating. Well, I think I've interpreted his question slightly differently. And as he gave 2021 as an example, that's what I'm going to be fighting in my corner. And I think scandal is something that divides as well.

26:01If you're going to fight, put my helmet on because I've got some big fists coming for you. And a big neck as well. Do you know what? I'm going to... Johnny came to fight! I know, bloody hell, now I'm scared. Can I put the helmet on? I'm going to go last. and I'm I know they're very comfy I'm in my comfy shoes I am I'm impressed you know what Uggs are have you got a pair I'm down with the kids no but I have a younger wife yeah they are comfy yeah and she's very cool okay I'm going to go last and I am bugseeing Abu Dhabi even though I don't think either of you are going to pick that anyway but you know that has defined such a big part of the generation I'm in and the sport so that's going to be mine who wants to go first I think Will this is your nature I'm with I'm with I'm with DC on the modern scandals, crash gate, Renault forcing Nelson Piquet Jr.

26:52to crash in Singapore to bring out a safety car that handed Fernando Alonso a victory. And this is a scandal that's still rumbling on as Felipe Massa tries to go through the courts to be awarded the world championship for that year. and that's a big one. But I like kind of going back even further than that. My favourite scandals are actually from the 1980s. Favourite scandals. Because there were some brilliant, brilliant scandals of just outright cheating where teams would... So this is absolutely mad. You used to be able to refill fluids from a car after a race. so um brabham they filled up they had huge water tanks in the car which they filled up um claiming they were for cooling their brakes and then when the race started they just dumped the water so the car would go so massively underweight that it was the fastest car on track and then they just refilled the water after the race because they they claimed it was fluids that had been used up during the race it was absolutely brilliant system was banned because of course it was because it was Because it was cheating.

28:03Tyrrell were once excluded from an entire championship season because they ran their cars underweight and then filled up with lead shot, like lead ballast during pit stops. And then they were banned from the entire season for doing it, which is just brilliant. My former manager and buddy Martin Brundle was the driver at the time. Do you think he knew? God. I'd say the car's handling changed quite significantly. Yeah, you've got to imagine the driver must have felt something. It's absolutely insane. Lotus created a car where the ride height of the car was obviously set, and this was during the ground effect here, and it was becoming quite dangerous.

28:43So what they did was they created a second car inside the outside car that would drop itself down towards the ground. So the outside was basically just for show. So they had like a double chassis. It was just brilliant, just completely insane. but brilliant sort of method of cheating. So I quite like the 1980s for just ingenious methods of, and this wasn't, you know, exploiting a grey area or a loophole in the regulations. It was out and out cheating and it was absolutely brilliant. So I enjoyed those because it's part of the technical genius and, you know, innovation within the sport. but at the same time, it's just downright cheating, which I really like.

29:32I like those stories. I think they're great. Yeah, more recently, B.A.R. Honda, which became actually the foundations of what the famous Grand Prix is today, same factory, they had the double fuel cell. The hidden fuel cell, yeah. Within, and so another buddy, Anthony Davidson, who is famous for working the Skypad in Formula One broadcast, took the advantage of that particular vehicle. And yeah, but I think what's happened over time... Jensen got stripped, didn't he? It was Imola. Did he win it or was he on the podium back in 04, I want to say? Yeah. And they found it and they kicked him out. Yeah, absolutely.

30:14They found out that illegal system. That wasn't a loophole. That was full-on cheating. Yeah, that was just blatantly illegal. So there's many examples where I guess the team principal would have to say, oh, I didn't know. and the drivers would have to say, oh, we didn't know. But, you know, there's a point where you go, this is going a bit quicker than we thought, given the fuel we're supposed to have in the car. So, yeah, look, I have to believe in Formula One now. I think that the level of integrity of the teams and everything is such today that people will look for loopholes, but I don't think anyone cheats today.

30:51Am I being a bit soft or do you think that anyone would ever cheat? I mean, I would say with what you guys have picked is that most, I mean, the question wasn't, I'm ready to fight, I am. You've gone for cheating scandals. And I think most scandals stay within F1. The reason that I'm very passionate about what happened in 2021 is because that went into the world. You know, people that have never watched the sport, don't know anything about the sport, knew about what was going on within the sport. They coincide with you going from primary school to senior school. Is that why it's so memorable for you?

31:26And you went from grandpa to great-grandpa. One off. Sounds like a good one, didn't it? Jolie has come to fight and I am loving this. I'm loving this. I'm loving this. I'm loving this as well. This is actually getting a bit feisty. But look, it was huge because Hamilton was chasing his eighth title and you had Max there that was about to start an entire new generation of a winning streak that we've now come to see. And I think what was so massive and what is still so massive about that it's still discussed as if it was last weekend. You know, you'll have your media-trained answers that happen within the paddock.

31:59But fan-wise, there is always constant debate. If you put something out, you know, whether it's Lewis is better than Max or vice versa or Lewis should have won over Max, there will always be a split 50-50. And that's why, for me, within the recent sport, it literally defined a generation and a generation of conversation as well, which I think is so important. and it was a scandal that was much easier and is much easier to digest for your newer fans and for fans that maybe have come on from drive to survive rather than the more complex scandal so i think that's also why it was you know a bigger conversation and more of a conversation but also you know we we have the fia come out and say that it was down to human error which is as close to they're going to say as you know this was a bad mistake when you see that as well i think that's why I put myself in first position let it go let it go Jolie I love that because because what what I love is is is you're of that generation that was pulled into the sport around that time and for a lot of people probably because of that because you fell on one side of that fence over the other I'd compare it to and I know you love your football it's for me it's it's formula one's hand of God moment when Diego Maradona scored by punching the ball into the goal to, you know, the first goal against England in Mexico World Cup.

33:27When you look back on it, it was patently unfair. At the time, it wasn't seen and the result went, you know, the way that ultimately it did. And it's still debated and discussed to this day. When the whistle went, the result stood. and that's the same as Abu Dhabi. That's not going to change. But it was a scandal. It will be debated. And Jolie, I'm with you. It's a brilliant scandal and it's been massive for, you know, obviously for the sport in terms of bringing people in and creating discussion. But certainly the biggest scandal that we've had within the last, you know, five, ten years, it's absolutely enormous.

34:06Yeah, I get asked about it a lot when I'm travelling around the world and I always give this, what I believe, answer, which is Lewis was the fastest guy on that given day, but a Grand Prix is dictated by the checkered flag. And the checkered flag saw Max cross the line first because of a sequence of events that no one could foresee. And on reflection of the decision that was taken by the race director, Mercedes looked at whether they should appeal that and chose not to. They either chose not to based on the fact that they thought it was unlikely that it would be upheld in their favour, or they chose not to because they thought, well, we don't want to create a scandal in Formula One.