Why is Flavio Briatore going to WAR with McLaren?!

0:02This is a global production. What was it like? Something like a thousand to one? I'm amazed it was even that close. A thousand to one. I would have said a hundred thousand to one. Pierre Gasly was using comments like, I've been robbed. 24 hours later, they're on pole position and it's like, there is a God. That was a lap of the gods. This season is kind of like the Formula One season that just keeps on giving on and off track. What did you guys in the paddock make of Flavio dropping that bombshell? Hit the nuclear button in the middle of a press conference, like in public, no warning.

0:48It's Will. It's David. Welcome to Up to Speed. Brilliant weekend, mate, in Monza. Loved watching it. Obviously, big storyline with the race winner, but there were so many over the course of the weekend. There was the brilliance of Antonelli kind of took away from that Saturday brilliance for Gasly. And that in and of itself was just such a glorious, like glorious headline, just a wonderful moment. And the odds against it was something like, what was it like, something like a thousand to one, the odds on Gasly getting pole? I'm amazed it was even that close. A thousand to one. I would have said a hundred thousand to one.

1:27there's got to be a betting company somewhere that's licking their wounds you know after the weekend we'll get on to it we'll get into the research of it but yeah what what uh you know actually just on that poll i spoke to flavio on the grid and i expected him to be a little bit yeah you were going for the podium he was very clear he went very happy with what he did on saturday today we want just points so he was really playing down to the reality and i think that's the thing you've known him for a long time as well he is he is a realist he can be blunt at times and doesn't always you know pander to to the common behavior but he's a realist through and through yeah no very very much so and i think recognized the sort of the positive advantages that the car had that allowed it and pierre to fight for pole and that those weren't necessarily going to be the strengths that it had in the in the race and when you're up against the mercedes Mercedes and the Red Bulls and even the Ferraris on the on the day and the McLarens like it was never going to be never going to be easy for them but just what what I've got to say like Pierre's lap we can talk about the car and we probably will talk about the car but Pierre's lap was that was a lap of the gods it was it had to be perfect and it was just it was wonderful I've got I've got a headline here in the you know in our notes and and uh and producers are like most surprising poll ever question mark and which i think is quite an interesting discussion point um because it was unexpected but the great thing with with unexpected polls is is that they are unexpected and so trying to find like is it the most unexpected poll ever is quite difficult because unexpected polls by their nature are unexpected yeah so they so they all feel um unique in their in their own right but But, you know, I think I kind of think back to when Lance Stroll got the pole and we went to Turkey that year.

3:25Yeah, that's right, in damp conditions, yeah. Or Rubens Barrichello was in pole in a Jordan and Spa. But in 94, yeah, in Spa. But that was two-day quality, wasn't it? Like he got it on the Friday and then the Saturday was a washout, so it kind of held over. Or Hulkenberg. Do you remember Hulkenberg getting the pole for Williams? Oh, in Brazil. In Tel Argos. Yeah, well remembered. And that was amazing because it started to spit with rain on his pole lap. And he just... We'll go with this then. This is the most unexpected dry lap pole. Because a lot of the ones we just mentioned there involved the rain where you can have a bit of an upset.

4:02So let's go with that. But here's the other thing. We heard George talking about playing chess ahead of the qualifying session with Pierre Gasly. And he got beat by Pierre in chess 15 minutes before qualifying. He then goes out and qualify and gets beaten again. Then he goes out and gets beaten again. It's almost feeling that George can win at the moment. Yeah, bless him. You almost start to feel kind of bad for him. Every game he goes into, everything he does, he's getting beat at the last. Not by much, just getting done at the end. Oh, man. Yeah, that was fun. But no, it was a brilliant lap from Gasly.

4:43And I love those moments of, you know, sensational driving, pulling together. You know, the Mercedes engine clearly was always going to be very strong at Monza, right? Always going to be strong. But then you needed a car that could maximize it, a driver that could pull everything out from it. And it was just one of those glorious moments of giant killing. And they don't happen all that often, which is why I think it's important that you celebrate them when they do happen. I was thinking of other big ones, like if you go way back, I'm going way back to the year I was born, Teo Fabi getting pole in Austria, completely against the run of form for Tolman, which is, if you go back through history, the history of time, Tolman became Benetton, which became Renault, which became Alpine.

5:35So it's the same team out of the same factory. Which is where Yersin Senna started his career in the Tolman. And Alton has won the Monaco Grand Prix in 84 in wet conditions. Back in 84. Exactly that, man. Exactly that. So, yeah. Yeah, it's... And back in 84, Flavio Briatore was selling shirts, I think, for Benetton. He was nowhere near Formula One at that point. Nope. Nope. And apparently should never have been ever again after telling Nelson Piquet Jr. to crash his car in Singapore all those years ago. Banned for life, and yet here he is, larger than life, and back in the sport and throwing the cat amongst the pigeons as only Flavio can do.

6:16What did you guys in the paddock make of Flavio dropping that bombshell in the middle of that press conference? Because obviously part of the brilliant story of Gasly getting pole was the fact that the podium that he'd been handed because of the penalties during the Monaco Grand Prix that he never got to stand on got taken back away from him again because the appeals were upheld. And so he lost that podium, that Monaco podium. And then 24 hours later, he takes his first ever F1 pole position. There was that lovely ebb and flow. Yeah. But Flavio clearly unhappy about the manner in which that appeal had been heard.

6:55Yeah, and he chose to voice those concerns or frustrations in a press conference sitting beside Andrea Stella from McLaren, who benefited from the findings of the Court of Appeal. And Flavio basically said that one of the judges had links with McLaren because he'd spoken at some event for McLaren several years before, which, you know, it'd be a bit like saying, well, you sat at a dinner table with somebody at a certain point or you were beside them on a bus or a plane. I think that you've got to trust in the professionalism of individuals to separate moments in their life. And it didn't really, it didn't land well with Andrea.

7:36He was actually, for me, I was impressed with how strong he was in his rebuttal in front of the media in these accusations and how, you know, there's consequences for making accusations like that. And then outside of that conference, Pierre Gasly was using comments like, I've been robbed. So you could feel, not just feel, you heard the bitterness out of that result, which then, as you say, 24 hours later, they're on pole position. And it's like, there is a God. Yeah, totally. It felt very old. Flav operates in a very old school way. And that felt like a very 1990s old school way of doing things.

8:19Just like hit the nuclear button in the middle of a press conference. like in public, no warning, bam, hits the button, expecting the whole thing to blow up. Back in the day, you'd get pulled up on, what was it, Article 141C, bringing the sport into disrepute, you know? Not familiar with that? Never been there.

8:42Yeah, you'd get pulled up on that. It's an interesting way of doing things. It's not necessarily, I think, the way that a lot of people would do it in this day and age, throwing out an accusation like that. And that's a big one to throw out, like willy-nilly. So, yeah, even for Flav, that surprised me that he'd go in that hard and with that big an accusation, sitting right next to Andrea. But as you say, like Andrea batting it away as forcefully as he did and not kind of almost like he – that must have taken, you know, the air out of his lungs in a massive way because you don't you don't see that coming yeah absolutely i think that um this is why this season is kind of like you know the formula one season that just keeps on giving on and off track from the i don't want to say the low of melbourne because clearly that was a wonderful start for george russell and and a new era of formula one but by that you uh of course i mean i understand that i mean you know the confusion over the engines and the and what sort of racing are we going to see?

9:51And then basically since Miami on, there's been just something for the headline writers constantly, whether it's on track or off track. So Ferrari, we can't not touch on them. Yeah, man, like what do you talk about with Ferrari? I think the admission afterwards that they hadn't discussed it before the race in the aftermath of, you know, what we saw at Zandvoort and team orders, well, you don't, you don't discuss going into the biggest race of the year, how your drivers are going to race one another and how they're going to deal with one another. If they find themselves side by side, find that odd.

10:31And that it does pull into Lewis's gripes and Lewis's words that they're not ready to fight for a championship yet. And they need to, to get their head in the game and think about these kinds of things. It's yeah. Hold on. But let me just pull you up. Ferrari not ready to win a world championship. They've been in the world championship since the beginning. Yeah, but you know what I mean, right? Like, do they have their head in the game? And we've discussed this on the pod. Like, do they have the wherewithal to make the killer decision when they absolutely have to make the killer decision? To not even discuss team orders and how you're going to race each other at Monza, when you've got that as very front and center in your mind after recent races.

11:16I don't understand how that wasn't even a conversation. Yeah, that has to fall to the two drivers and the team principal. The conversation has to sit there. Yeah, 100%. You've got to expect the drivers to be smart when it comes to it. I didn't see too much in the opening lap, like between Charles and Lewis. Charles was a bit naughty. And if either one of you is, if the guy on the outside is cutting in on the apex, and if the guy on the inside is pushing out towards the exit curb, that's not racing. That's just being an arsehole. And I've never been a fan of that. Yeah. You know what, actually, there's a sort of symmetry to that.

11:56That's the second time in recent history we can remember Lewis having an issue at Turn 2. The first time being, of course, when Max tried to go around the outside and they ended up in Max on top of his car. Well, with Ferrari needing to pick up the pieces and redouble, it looks like Red Bull are going to still be without Isaac Hazjar, who obviously got reinstated on his podium as Gasly lost it over the weekend, but won't be in the car again this weekend in Madrid as he moves to heal his hand, his wrist, after that injury that he picked up over the summer break. feels like a smart move to me honestly like when they've got as many drivers as they have better not to rush a driver back and risk doing greater I think it was Mark Marquez MotoGP champion who was like dude don't rush it like there's going to be more races but if you rush coming back you'll do what I did and you'll just you'll have that injury and it'll never heal long term yeah it did normally take about six weeks for bones to knit and all be good especially in the younger generation so I guess missing a third race will be getting into that sort of timeline and yeah you've got power steering in a modern grand prix car so there's not the sort of vibrations that if you ever go on youtube and look at old classic races no power steering it was like a jackhammer in the yeah in the hands of the the driver but only he knows what level of discomfort he has and you know you are working the risks a lot when you're going over the top so look a decision to be made is an opportunity of course for Liam and also for Yuki assuming that that's the driver pairing I believe that's a driver pairing so Liam was let's say wrong place wrong time at the weekend so didn't get a result Red Bull really needs the the other car to be bringing home solid points because that's exactly what Max is doing you know should he really be on the podium as often as he has been given their performer's profile but somehow he manages to drive with what he calls a broken car yeah and again that drive in monza was otherworldly from max you know okay on the same kind of tire strategy as um as kimmy was um but with a car that was damaged or broken or you know however you want to describe it um to pull that off to fight for the lead with george as he did early on in the running and you know come home with the with the result that he did it's just another one of those exceptional days where you're like you know that's why he's a multiple champion that's why he's great and there was lovely there's there are becoming these these lovely moments between um max and kimmy just as there are kind of between lewis and kimmy and it's like game recognizing game you know like a great recognizing a great yeah um and max max is he's wonderful and he's you know he's brilliant and he's civil with with everybody and clearly gets on with with everybody because he's in that that rarefied air now where he doesn't really have anything to prove and i don't think there's anybody out there that he fears but i can i just saw again at monza in the conversations that we had and um and the way that he interacts with him there's a recognition of you're you're a real one like you're a special one yeah i think that's a good a good observation i hadn't really sort of picked up on but Kimi is is a lovely human being so although we can hear him sometimes be a little bit more strong in his vocals when when he's out on track when he takes the helmet off he defaults back into really you know the sort of kid you'd be quite happy to the doorbell rang and you had a daughter um you know he was there you go oh thank goodness he's lovely or the human being.

15:47What do you mean you're dating a racing driver? And then Antonelli turns up and you're like, oh, he's quite sweet. Yeah, he's fine. Yeah. So, yeah, a lot of respect there, which is good to see.

16:02George, we can't not talk about the difficulties he's experiencing. And I didn't actually hear the booing that apparently happened when he was on the podium, which I think was a reference to Kimi going off track at the first chicane, which in actual fact was the dust and the dirt that took him there. There wasn't any contact. It wasn't quite as close wheel-to-wheel stuff as we saw between Charles and Lewis. So, yeah, he's taking the punches from all sides at the moment. He is. He is. And I think he's taken a lot all the way through the year. but is this the knockout punch? Because when your teammate starts as far back as that and ultimately beats you, and I don't even think it's the fact that he beat him to the win because he had that second pit stop and George will likely feel aggrieved that they didn't stop him under VSC, but the reason they couldn't do that, as I understand it, is because he basically left himself susceptible to Max.

17:11So it's an underperformance against his teammates. It's an underperformance versus Max in a broken car. It's an underperformance, whichever way you look at it, on a day where his teammate pulled out a drive that people are comparing with the kind of drives that the all-time greats of the sport have put in. is it a day where we see that one driver is good and one driver is great and does you know and after that kind of a thing does George end up going home and looking in the mirror and asking him that question of shit am I you know am I as good as I thought I was I it's a it's a bloody hard one it is indeed well George is the seven-time Grand Prix winner who's now now so Kimi

18:25So is Kimi. teams down the pit lane where it would feel that was anything other than just a sort of story you know like a fairy tale result i'm i'm going to be really interested into what monza looks like in 2027 because forever it's been a sea of red yeah because ferrari is italy right and italy they haven't really had that many excellent drivers or drivers that could fight for world championships on their hands their last world champion was 1952-53 Alberto Ascari you know the last Italian winner of the Italian Grand Prix as we know was Scafioti back in 66 right it's been a while and so obviously when you go to Monza you root for the team because there isn't really a driver to root for okay you had Giancarlo Fisichella you had Jano Trulli within the last couple of decades um but they were never heralded as you know a a once in a generation type talent as kimmy is being touted so do we see next year at months of being not just red but a sea of red and silver and that's the fascinating thing that i'm really really can't wait to see yeah i think you're absolutely right uh speaking with with toto after the race he made the comment that there wasn't many Kimi capsules, but he said after the race, I think there will be now.

19:52Yeah, right. And, you know, isn't it ironic that it was when Ferrari last had the success, it was a German driving the Italian made car that took them to world champions. And now you have an Italian and a German owned team that is now giving them success. And has it been since the 50s, since Mercedes had an Italian driving for them? Rudy Caracciola? No. Caracciola sounded Italian. But he wasn't Italian, he was German. Are you sure he's not Scottish? It sounds Scottish, Caracciola. Yes, Dario Caracciola. I don't know. I don't know. Oh, speaking of Scottish. Speaking of Scottish, I'll bring some of these to the next recording session.

20:35Oh, Tunnock's Caramel Logs. I used to be sponsored by Tunnock's back in 1991. I went to the factory and I got to eat them straight off the end of the production line. Oh, my God. How were you not fatter than you were? I'm not saying you were fat. You were never fat, but how were you not huge being sponsored by tunnex? That's what bulimia will do. You can't say that. Well, I was bulimic. It's in my book. Oh, shit. But I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. Mate. And I'm no longer. Bloody hell. There we go. I was tall and I had to make weight. So the only way, in the same way a jockey would go into the sauna, I would go to the bathroom and um yeah it was tough but I was tall for my generation and I had to keep my weight down so that was my commitment so it wasn't for let's say mental health issues that I thought I needed to be slim it was for good old-fashioned like a boxer or a jockey I needed to make weight thankfully modern formula one accommodates drivers up to combined weight of 80 kilos so uh back in my day it was uh you know if you were much over 70 you were in you were in deficit jesus buddy i had no idea no wow the more you know it's a side effect of being a great lover right coming up we're going to discuss formula one's newest venue in madrid where we'll be racing this weekend in the meanwhile subscribe uh on social media at up to speed show email us up to speed at global.com uh hit the subscription send us the messages

22:19right folks new race this weekend the mad ring not saying i'm mad ring about the name um Mad for it. Mad for it. But are we mad for the layout? Is it a street course? Is it a road course? What are we calling it? So I went there a few weeks ago with my old buddy, Mika Hakkinen, and we were at a conference in the conferencing facility, which the Grand Prix track is built around. Right. You can see the airport. For anyone who's familiar with Madrid, basically it lies between the airport and the city and it feels because of the proximity of the metal barriers it does feel like a let's say it's kind of like a Baku without the really tight twisty street part so you've got back there all the way around yeah so I think we do call that a kind of street circuit so Jeddah?

23:19yeah Jeddah there you go okay but is Jeddah a street circuit? or is Jeddah a it's like it's a fast road course but with no runoff yeah that's what Madrid is going to be I think there's going to be a lot of fast sweepy energy limited areas of the racetrack but thankfully Monza taught us that that energy limitation didn't result in what felt like an artificial race it felt visually like there was some good decisions and racing going on I think it'll be a bit trickier in Madrid because these long sweepers will give defined lines that make it difficult to a lot of sort of Curva Grandes and the overtaking doesn't happen in the middle of Curva Grandes it happens either side of it and there's a big banked corner there as well which looks like a ton of fun, we know that when was it F4 went testing there a couple of weeks ago?

24:18F3 19 red flags so it's clearly a challenge yes indeed it's going to be dusty, dirty it's all been finished the bit last minute dot com probably they would have liked a bit more time but Formula 1 is a immovable deadline we will start the Grand Prix at the prescribed time and that's what this industry does the whole world of motor racing Formula 1 the time is set and off we go i always love a new a new track you know it's that opportunity to have that that clean sheet of paper everybody's starting from the same point um learning it growing with it rubber getting laid down lap times getting faster knowledge improving um i there's nothing quite like a a first weekend on a brand new track because you can have your simulations and you can sit in the sim as many times as you want but when you actually get there you realize oh that wall's a little bit closer than we thought it was and actually there's you know the track isn't quite as smooth as we thought it was going to be there's a bloody great bump in the middle of the track where we weren't expecting there to be one and suddenly it becomes a very different animal to the one you thought it was going to be in the virtual world yeah yeah so they will be in the most professional sense of this expression they will be making it up as they go along exactly Exactly that.

25:44And that's a thrill. That's brilliant. Looking forward to the weekend for Carlos. Obviously a home race for him and he's having his throwback helmet, back to his helmet that he had when he was karting, which is great. So lovely for Carlos that he'll have a proper home Grand Prix in Madrid. That's always a nice thing to have. Yeah, you know, he's committed his future to Williams. Williams has obviously been a bit in the doldrums, but they presumably are very much focused on getting that right for next year. They've got the Mercedes engine, which was good enough to put the Alpine on poles. So there's no sort of customer tales of woe in that respect.

26:26Yeah, it's a curious one with Carlos, isn't it? Because he's been in five Formula One teams in his short career. Clearly got outmanoeuvred at Ferrari, probably holding on for a big contract because none of us saw Lewis Hamilton wanting to leave Mercedes. But anyway, he's in sort of an experienced phase of his career alongside another fast racer and Alex Albon. So let's see how they perform. Let's see if the livery changes the performance. How bizarre would that be? Stick a new colour scheme on there and it goes faster. Well, it's a new old colour scheme, isn't it? Because we used to race in Formula One at a track called Jarama.

27:06or harama harama which was near madrid cracking little track super fast up around the hills um tight twisty challenging great circuit race there in the 70s and 80s in in formula one um and it looks like williams have been teasing um a throwback livery to when they last raced there i'm i love the livery i love i you know me i love a throwback livery i'm not convinced the timing of it is wise in in any way shape or form why is that well so back in the 79 williams was sponsored by uh the bin laden family um father of of osama it was a huge family and And I think Osama had sort of been kicked out of the family at the time, but still Osama bin Laden's father and it carried bin Laden's name on the side.

28:07And then companies that he was associated with or funded were still sponsoring that team through 80, 81 into the early 1980s. And so that color scheme has an association with the family that was ultimately, you know, through Osama bin Laden, responsible for 9-11. and this weekend marks 25 years since 9-11 um and it is a very um still incredibly delicate moment of of world history um an incredibly impactful one and i'm not convinced that running that livery no matter how how well intentioned and how beautiful and how how magical that historic livery is any other weekend you'd be like oh that's pretty cool this weekend i think you know there's a focus group that's failed to focus really on that because to to to kind of forget that look beyond that and and there will be for right or wrong there will be people will make that link they will make that association um you know as i say for right or wrong i just that's a conversation that they they shouldn't be having and don't need to be having this weekend and they're going to be forced into having it um because of the choice to do it this weekend i just um it doesn't sit easily with me that i just you know i think they could have avoided it it's going to be a discussion it will you know it will be whether you know and we all know how social media works right and so i think they could have just removed anything around that by picking any other race weekend to run that livery than this one it just it just feels bloody short-sighted to me but you know there you go there we go there they are we well aware of your view on that.

29:56While we very much hope that we get a good Grand Prix. For Madrid as well, for a city that's invested in the future of the sports, you know, no small undertaking. Great that it's a European city when we look at how the sport has evolved around the world. So we've got to say thank you to them for that. Yeah, and as I said, I love a new track. Love a new track, love a new race weekend like that. we were really lucky in IndyCar this year. We had three brand new circuits and every one of them was a, was a cracking weekend. And it's, it's always, you know, as we say, make it up as you go along, step into the unknown.

30:32Who knows? You might get another surprise poll, a surprise win because somebody is going to unlock it in a way that nobody else does. One drive, you know, one driver, always on a new set. I remember when we first went to Sochi and it was like Valtteri was the one who just unlocked that place because there was, he could find a rhythm and a flow around that circuit that few other drivers could and just immediately spoke to him and that's the great thing with the new circuit is someone will unlock it um and will spring a surprise like they you know it might be who knows lance strong might get himself out of q1 um that's come on let's not get carried away right yeah maybe maybe it'll be an opportunity for mclaren to come back into that front running pack because monza clearly wasn't as strong as they've been in the previous two races.

31:19And whilst we wait to see if they are strong, what we do know is that Lando, you know, our current world champion, is doing his bit for the lower formulas. He already had a Lando kart. Yes. And that's something you see when you go to the kart tracks of the UK. But he's now set up LN4 Fusion, which is the junior race team, which sounds very much like that's going to be a sort of future source of talent.

31:51I think this is so great. And I've got to take my hat off to Lando for this because, you know, a lot of drivers... You're not wearing a hat. Take something else off. Take my metaphorical hat off. If I had a hat. You know, a lot of drivers talk the talk and Lando's actually walking the walk on this because, you know, a lot of drivers and world champions are like, you know, we've got to do more for the kids. We've got to help them to come through. we've got to establish a path to get to formula one and lando's actually done it from now from karting all the way up um i believe that he and his team have bought the assets from aix which currently races in formula three and um f2 and so they've they've got an f3 entry they've got an f4 entry i believe it is yep um they've got aiming for formula two and they're aiming for formula two they've put in a um a sort of a desire a request to have a team in formula two So that side of it is going to be run by René Rouchine, who used to run Prema.

32:49There's a whole lot of legal and political and financial nonsense going on with Prema at the moment. And the family, the Rouchine family, Angelo and René, Angelo's father, who set up Prema 40 odd years ago and now no longer a part of it. It's a really sad story, actually, what's been going on there. but Rene and you'll know this DC has been responsible for so much talent coming through along with his father over the last 40 years and reaching Formula 1 you look at the youngsters who raced with Premo on the way up you know not least Antoinette, Charles Leclerc, BEM and you know just to name three just off the top of your head you know the list kind of goes on he's going to be heading it up from a sporting perspective.

33:41And then Lando's brought in Julian Rouse, who came up through the junior formulas with Arden for a long time, ended up with Alpine in Formula One. He's going to be heading up the driver development programme. So it's not just that Lando's going to be running these teams. He's also got his own driver development programme, like McLaren has one and Ferrari has one and Mercedes have one. Now Lando has his own driver development programme. He's going to want to breed his own replacement 15 years from now. I love everything about this. And it's such a positive thing for a world champion to be doing.

34:14And I think it's so meritous. And I'm a big, big fan of this. Yeah. Well done, Lando. And let's see if he gets back into his winning ways in Madrid. Yeah, we're at the back end of the season now. And it feels like we're slipping our way out of Europe. yes and it always does doesn't it because you get those last couple of europeans and then as soon as you hit singapore and this year like malaysia as well and that whole run it's it's just triple header triple header triple header no time to stop no time to breathe and then before you know it mate it's going to be december and the season's going to be over and we'll have crowned another champion and we'll be an emola for the um the the the birth of a new italian formula one world champion if it takes them that long could you imagine if they if they do that that sort of proposed season finale because you can't go to the middle east so you're gonna have to do it in imola and you crown kimmy in in italy as a world champion that would be uh that would be something mate that would be something incredible right mate i think that's it for this week isn't it um as always folks you can get hold of us on social media at up to speed show follow us send us a message email uptospeed at global.com and as always new episodes every Monday and Thursday so subscribe leave us a review let us know what you want to see what you want to hear what you want us to discuss and we'll be back with you after Formula One's latest newest freshest Grand Prix in Madrid.