cover of What went wrong at the 2005 US Grand Prix?

What went wrong at the 2005 US Grand Prix?

What went wrong at the 2005 US Grand Prix?

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In 2005, the US Grand Prix in Indianapolis was marred by a tire issue. Michelin teams experienced tire failures during practice, and it was discovered that the newly resurfaced track was causing excessive heat and pressure on the tires. Michelin teams were concerned about the safety of running the race, and various solutions were proposed, including pit stops with penalties. Ultimately, only six cars from Bridgestone teams started the race, and fans were disappointed. Ferrari's Michael Schumacher won the race, but it didn't have a significant impact on the championship standings. The incident highlighted the challenges of balancing safety and competition in Formula One. Welcome back to the F1 FunCast. We're here to make Formula One fun for all you new, medium, and old time fans. I am James at F1FunCast on Gmail, Instagram, and Twitter. Joined as always, or as usually, by the crew chief, Connor Gagnon, at Connor Gagnon on Instagram. Give him a shout. And we're gonna be talking to you about the 2005 US Grand Prix debacle today with a little taste of what's to come in Baku. So thanks for joining us, Connor. Thanks for jumping on. How's it going? It's going pretty good. It's good to be back. It's good to have, it's good to be race week again. I'm so happy it's race week. It felt like forever. That's, yeah, that's really what I, let's talk about that. How did you get through the last few weeks without? I watched a lot of Formula One videos as far as different pages that I follow or different, obviously, the F1 YouTube channel. Tons of good videos on there. Honestly, just kind of counting down the days. It's been a struggle. But I've been watching IndyCar, had their race in Long Beach last weekend. So I was watching that. And the, yeah, so that was really it. I wish I'd gotten up to that. That would have been a good time, right up my rear. It was awesome. And then Garjan came in second again, for like the third or fourth time. So is he knocking on the door of a win? Yes, absolutely. He's been knocking on the door of a win every year that he's been in the sport. He's only been in for two or three, I think this is his third year in IndyCar. He's been knocking on the door of a win every season, pretty much. He doesn't have one yet, huh? That's crazy. No. That's crazy. It's coming, though. It's coming. So yeah, I mean, I noticed online a lot of people just having, not meltdowns, I would say, but maybe like starting to meltdown a little bit over the last couple weeks of not having a race, not having anything to look forward to. You start to run out of things to talk about. It's true. There's only so much, I mean, even on the social media pages for all the different teams, like they were even running out of stuff to post. They were like, yup, I don't know. I don't know what to post anymore, so. I know, it's like, here's Charles Leclerc playing the piano for a little bit. Enjoy that, you know? It's like. The thing is that last weekend, I think it was last weekend, was supposed to be the Chinese Grand Prix, but they had to cancel that again this year, unfortunately. I mean, I can't wait to go back there. I love that track. So do a lot of the drivers. What about that track do you like so much? What is it that appeals to you? It has a lot of good flow to it. It doesn't always provide the best racing, but it's fun to watch the cars drive around that track. It has a very, very long back straight. The first couple of corners, two, three corners, the complex is very tricky and requires a lot of skill. It kind of, I think it's what we call a decreasing radius corner, where it starts out, you know, you can go into it pretty quick, but as it goes to the right, it slowly gets tighter and tighter and tighter until you have to be really, really slow going through the second part of it. It drops you down into a really sharp left-hander that kicks you out onto a little high-speed section before a hairpin. So it's fun to watch the cars tackle that. Wow, wow. And they didn't have it, is it on the schedule for next year or is it kind of on hiatus, do you know? It should be. It's been on hiatus since the COVID outbreak. Oh, right, right. Yeah. Interesting. Well, we're not here talking about China today. No. We're talking, even worse in this situation was the 2005 U.S. Grand Prix, maybe a race that should have been canceled, actually, now that we're talking about canceled races, but. That was definitely, you know, it could have been a possibility, but I think given the circumstances and given how late that it was, you know, they had practice and qualifying, they couldn't just cancel it on the day of the race with everybody there. It's 400,000 people that are waiting for a race that they're not gonna get. Oh, man. Right, and all those tickets and all those, I mean, so let's kind of, let's talk about that. I'll set the scene here. Well, for Sunday, I know that the race was held on June 19th, 2005. It was a balmy 77 degrees or 25 degrees Celsius for our, for our. Non-American people. Yeah, our non-American, for the rest of the world, it was 25 degrees Celsius. Yeah, everybody but us. And they were in Indianapolis for this one, at the, was it the Indy Motor Speedway, is that the? Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Yeah, yeah, and so at the time, heading into, well, what do you know about the practices and the qualifying leading up to Sunday? I've got a lot on Sunday, but what was the? There was a lot of, you know, going back the previous year, in 2004, Ralph Schumacher had another accident when he was driving for Williams at the time. In the same corner, same kind of situation where the left rear tire failed, and he ended up having a really bad accident and got pretty severely injured, if I remember correctly. So I didn't know that, I didn't know that there had been a previous year. It was a mirror image of the accident that he had in practice in 2005. And so again, 2005, same corner, turn 13, coming out of the infield section, up onto the banking, through Indianapolis, turn one, left rear tire failure, sends him into the wall, and he's out for the rest of the weekend. So that was during practice? That was, or was that qualifying? That was during practice, and then, oddly enough, his backup, Ricardo Zonta, he had the same issue, again, in another practice, where he had a left rear tire failure, and he went up into the wall. And at that point, it was kind of like, holy crap, we need to pay attention to this as far as all the Michelin teams went. So that was the triggering incident that kind of got everyone's eyes open, seeing there's something wrong here, and. Yeah, I think that that really got Michelin's attention as far as what was going on with their tires. There was a lot that was involved with that. It's fascinating, because as I'm looking at it, and I see that heading into the weekend, we had Fernando Alonso was leading the way in the drivers, and Renault was leading for the constructors, and those are both, those are teams and drivers that didn't make it through the weekend, right? Those are both Michelin-sponsored cars, so. So there was only, there was only three teams running Bridgestones, Ferrari, Jordan, and Minardi were the only teams running Bridgestones. McLaren, Toyota, Renault, BAR, Honda, Sauber, Red Bull, and BMW Williams were all running Michelins. So they were all running Michelins, and they, so the practice crash happens, and they all realize immediately there's something with the tires. So what was it, the banking on that turn was too steep, too much of a grade for the tires they came with, or what was the exact issue? So the year before the asphalt had been redone, I'm not sure if it was just in that corner, or if it was the entire circuit. I would assume the entire circuit. I think it was, I saw they were diamond grinding, right? That's what they did? Yes, diamond grinding. And by doing so, the surface gets a little bit more abrasive than it was the year before. And when you're going through a corner like that, the speeds that they were, there's a lot of force and a lot of pressure that's generated on those outside tires. So like, if you're turning right, a lot of the pressure is on that left rear and left front tire. So it generates a lot of heat going, not just through the tread itself, but up into the sidewalls. And those sidewalls can only take so much before something catastrophic happens. When you get tires too hot, you can either lose a lot of grip, which is what we see a lot of these days or in previous generation of cars, where they'd overheat the tires, you lose a lot of grip. Another thing that happens is you affect the structural integrity of the sidewalls and of just the tire itself. Means they weren't really designed for running on a baking like that because there's just a little bit extra forces at play. And is that the only track in general that had that steep of a bank that, you know, was it an issue anywhere else in general or was this a uniquely American problem? It was a unique issue to Indianapolis. Indianapolis runs 9.2 degree bankings in all four corners. So, you know, it doesn't sound like it's that big of a incline, but if you look at the footage from that event, or if you look at any like current Indy 500, you can see that, you know, those cars are at a decent incline. It's not just like they're level on the ground. So there's a little bit extra involved. What an interesting place to be in after that practice when we're realizing the Michelin tires are no good for this weekend. And they've got to, we've got to figure out how are we gonna get through the weekend to satisfy the fans and also be safe and, you know, try to put your product, put your teams out there, but also knowing that you have this fatal flaw. I can't imagine the conversations going on behind the scenes trying to get this Grand Prix underway. So did each, but then, so that doesn't pose a problem for qualifying, right? Because you're not going out running 10, 15 laps during qualifying. You're running a couple hot laps and, because I was looking at the qualifying and it seems like they had a full, a full grid, everybody participated. Yeah, everybody participated in qualifying. I think just because of the low risk as far as running one or two laps, but you have to remember in 2005, the regulations had changed and you were only allowed to run one set of tires the entire race. So whatever tires you qualify on, you had to run during the race the entire way. Right, right. So there is a lot of talk with Michelin saying, hey, our tires are not going to last this race distance. They went to the FIA and Bernie Ecclestone and they were talking about, you know, trying to work a deal as far as what they can do. And one of the things that they came up with, or the FIA suggested is that they can, all the Michelin teams are allowed to take pit stops, but it's going to come with a penalty since you're not technically supposed to be able to do that. But in the interest of safety, you'd be allowed to do a couple of pit stops during the race. And would they still have penalized them? Like, okay, but we're all going to take these penalties, so it kind of brings all our times. Or was it like they were going to give them a free pass on it just that weekend? Do you know about that? Because they had a lot of funky ideas of how they were going to try to make it work. Yeah, I mean, I'm not so sure on that, but I did see that, you know, they were going to suggest putting in a chicane. Between turns 12 and 13. The FIA really put their foot down on that one, right? FIA did, but the only, the other part of that was that Bridgestone wouldn't agree to it because they were probably thinking, hey, our tires are fine. We can, you know, we can run the track as it is. Why do we feel the need to change it? Because, you know, obviously, because Bridgestone's main supplier, or Bridgestone's main customer was Ferrari, and Michelin's main customer was Renault. So those are the two top dogs in the championship. So of course, yeah, Bridgestone's going to go, hey, we don't want to change this up and potentially give them an advantage or a way to gain points. Like, that's just not going to work. So they put a stop on it immediately. Right, as they should, because, you know, if you show up with an engine part that's failing on you, you've got to adjust or withdraw. Why do tires, I mean, I know it's a safety thing, but suppose it was, you know, you had some sort of, I don't know, anything else wrong with the car. It's on you to figure out a way to work it. It's not on the other teams to help you out or to make concessions, yeah. Exactly, it wasn't Bridgestone's fault that Michelin couldn't provide a tire that would be able to handle that. I mean, Bridgestone hadn't had any issues that year or the year before. Michelin was the only ones that had these issues. So it was obviously something to do with either the way that they were setting up the car or the tire itself. I remember there also being discussion about Michelin telling the teams that they had to be limited to a certain speed through that corner in order to not destroy the tire or generate too much heat. But then you're driving at a handicap, really, compared to the teams. And it was, you're in a title fight. You're trying to, it's a competitive sport. It's not something where you're just out there for fun. And especially on that corner, too, because that's, you're coming out of that corner onto the main straightaway of Indianapolis. So you've got a long street coming out of that corner. And you don't wanna sacrifice any speed. You don't wanna be laying off the throttle at all because that's gonna allow people to just blow right by you. Right past you, and yeah. And one of the funkier ideas I was reading up on that they had was to use the pit lane and the pit row as kind of a workaround. And because the pit is right on turn 13, right where this was all happening. So it was suggested at one point that the cars could just use the pit lane as a drive-through and just, you know, they'd have to mind their speeds through there. But I mean, what a dangerous, ridiculous idea to think, you know, 14 cars. It's like they were just trying to throw everything in the kitchen sink at this issue to try and get Michelin teams to run the race. Right, right. So they say no to all that, right? We head into Sunday, and we're shut down. There's 130,000 Tex, or not Tex, I think it's in Texas for some reason, Indianans. Is that where we are in Indiana? Would they be in Indiana? Indiana, yep. Yeah, and so they're packed in. I mean, it was sold out. I saw between 100 and 130,000 on hand for Sunday afternoon. Oh yeah, I mean, look back at the pictures from that event and the grandstands there just jam-packed with people. Jam-packed, it's kind of, I just, so why did they, here's my question. They show up on Sunday, and we've got, we know there's this issue, and we know that these teams aren't gonna run the race. Why even come out for the formation lap? Why not announce it before people get to the track that, hey, this is gonna be different, you can? Because I think it was kind of an inside job. A lot of the Michelin teams kind of got, all the team principals got together, and they were like, hey, this is obviously gonna be a safety issue for us, and there's no really other way of getting around this other than taking penalties during the race for changing our tires during pit stops, which we can't do, so let's do the formation lap, and then come in at the end of the formation lap, and just pack the cars up, and that's eventually what happens, and that's what you see, is six cars pulling up to the starting grid. If you look at the videos or any pictures of it or anything, it looks surreal. It looks like, I don't know what the equivalent would be, whatever sport you wanna take. I think the only equivalent that I can think of is Hamilton in Hungary in 2021, when it had started to rain, and so the track was wet, everybody was in intermediates, and they do the formation lap, but the sun's out, and the track is getting super dry. There's no water in the track anymore, and everybody ducks into the pits to get dry tires on and start from the pit lane, but Hamilton's the only one who doesn't, and he's sitting there on the grid all alone to start the race. Really, when was this? I'm writing that down. Hungary in 2021. That's too funny. Oh, I think, yeah. It's when Eszter and Ocon guys raced victory for Alpine. That's incredible. I mean, it's bizarre, and any time you see a starting grid with less than all the cars out there, it just feels weird, and it looks weird. It really feels weird. And can you imagine, though, you're a fan, and you've spent all this money and time and effort, and you get in there, and you look down. So I was reading that by lap 10, people were leaving the track and going. Oh, yeah, and I don't blame them. I mean, it was a two-horse race, unless some mechanical fault happened with both Ferraris, which just was not gonna happen. You know, it was just a race between the two Ferraris, and it ended up being actually pretty close. And Schumacher got Barrichello on his last pit stop and forced him onto the grass at turn one in order to take the lead back. And from that point on, the team principal and whomever else was on the pit wall was like, hey, we need to calm down. We're like, we're the only two cars that are really competing here, so let's not take each other out. We're gonna crash out. We'll be the only two out. This is a freebie as far as points go to get back in the championship fight. Well, that's it. And you don't wanna let that go. That's it. In a way, it kind of compromises the whole season. Oh, yeah. And I don't know, you might know better than I do what the impact was on the end result of the season, but when you're only playing with half the deck, it definitely has an impact on the rest of the year. So ultimately, it didn't really affect the championship. Alonzo and Renault still pulled off a double in 2005, a double being driver's championship and a constructor's championship in the same year. But can you imagine had it been the other way around? Had Ferrari and Michael Schumacher been able to win the championships by, I don't know, like five, six points or less? Just from one race, from one moment. And the only reason being was because Renault decided to not run in one of the events. Unbelievable. That would have been crazy. I can't imagine. And it's crazy to me how bungled the whole thing was kind of from top to bottom. It seemed like there were a lot of- Yeah, it was very, very messy. Yeah, like sometimes things like this happen and there's a workaround. And I was wondering, and maybe you know, but why couldn't they just, for one weekend, slap some Bridgestones on those cars and say, is that just, would it be a breach of contract, you think? Or was there, they don't fit the car? I'm sure there was a little bit of both, to be honest. And I'm sure that, you know, the Michelins, kind of like how Bridgestone, the year before, designed the, had designed the Bridgestones really specifically for Ferrari to be able to use and no other team could get them to work right. It was kind of the same thing with the Michelins the next year, in 2005. They were really, really good on the Renault just because they were geared more towards Alonso's driving style. And if you watch Alonso's driving style from back in those days, and he does it a little bit now and then currently, but definitely back then, he would kind of induce a lot of understeer in the beginning phase of the corner. So like when he would arrive at a corner, like a sharp, like a hairpin, for instance, you can watch him turn the steering wheel all the way to one side, like really quick. And the car looks like it's gonna kind of keep going straight, like you get a lot of understeer. And then what that does is you load up the tire on the outside and generate a lot of heat into it. And then by the time you get it slowed down, it just bites and it can turn really quick on a dime. And he was able to just get this thing to just snap around like really quick and get it pointed where he wanted to go and get on the throttle before anybody else was able to. That's a huge advantage. That's a huge. Oh, it was huge. And especially for custom make. It's a very unique driving style. I mean, I urge you to go and look at some of his older onboard stuff, and you'll see what I mean, where he arrives at a corner and he just cranks the wheel to one side. And you can kind of see the car wanting to go straight for a second, and then you can see it bite. Really? It's really interesting. So then that would not work on turn 13 in Indianapolis. He'd be blowing that tire out in no time. So that's interesting. I didn't realize that tires could be made, set for kind of specific drivers and their styles. You know, I'm the guy that thinks that, hey, I'm gonna help Mercedes by 3D printing a new side pod for him. So it's the same thing with tires. I didn't realize they could be so specifically geared down to a driver, a driver's style. It's like what I mentioned before. I think I've said it before in one of the other podcasts, where Bridgestone made these tires for Ferrari that they were meant to do qualifying laps the entire race. They were like a very soft compound, but they were made to give you a ton of grip. And they wore out pretty quick, but it didn't matter, because they could come in and do three or four stops in a race. I think they had a four-stop race and still won, which you don't hear of anymore, but it was because they could put as little amount of fuel in the car as possible to get them to the next pit stop. So they just do qualifying lap after qualifying lap. What about in today's Formula One? Are those compounds? That would be impossible. Yeah, and those are, everyone's running the same soft, medium, hards, right? There's not any different. Everybody's been running Pirellis since, I think it was like 2011 when they took over. So do you think that's better to have everyone on the same tire? There's definitely pros and cons. I mean, I think a lot of people missed the whole tire wars that were going on. It was very interesting, and it added an extra dynamic, because both tires had pros and cons, and things that they were good at, and things that they weren't as good at. I think that going with one compound, or one tire supplier, being Pirelli, is really kind of taking one of those strategy elements out of Formula One. I'm just glad that they've been given more fuel to use, because in the early stages of the turbo hybrid era, they had a little bit less fuel on board to last a race, and all the drivers were always complaining, I can't push the car 100%, the entire race I had to manage the fuel, manage the fuel, manage the fuel, manage the tires, manage the fuel. It was just like, it became more of a race of who's managing things the best, as far as who has the best outright pace. And they finally gave them more fuel, and they could actually just ring the neck of the thing the entire race. I was looking at, like you said about Schumacher, just, I saw that they said, he took pit stops in 2005, and it said something like it was really quick, 33 seconds or something like that, and my eyes rolled back in my head, because these days it's like three seconds. So what happened during a pit stop back then? So I think that time is taking into the account, like from the moment you enter the pit lane to the moment that you leave it. This is normally referred to as the pit stop delta. You'll hear Brundle and Crofty say it on the broadcast every now and then. But I think that's really just referring to how long it takes for you to get from the entrance of the pit lane, make your stop, and then once you're off the pit limiter. Back then, you're running one set of tires. What are you doing at a pit stop? What was happening? Just refueling. That's it, just refueling. They were just doing however many gallons of fuel, or liters, and sending you on your way. That's crazy. I watched that guy, I saw a NASCAR. I was watching pit stops on YouTube for some reason the other night, and watching NASCAR, it's like, why don't they just take a nap and let them know when the pit stop's over? Crazy. Crazy how different that was. I will say that I watched those NASCAR pit stops. It was pretty fun. At least when they were using the five lugs instead of the single lug that they've been running the past couple of years, where you have all the tire changes, pew, pew, pew, pew, pew, and just going like crazy. Pretty precise and skillful work. Anyways, we get back to Indianapolis. We got a little sidetracked there, I think for the betterment, though. Oh, it won't be the first or the last time. No, definitely not. So that was Schumacher's only win of the year, too, right? 2005? Because I'm looking at it. I don't think so. Said it was Schumacher's only win of 2005. And he went from fifth to third at the Drivers. But he had won the Indy Grand Prix three consecutive years, so he really did like that track. Yes. But it's interesting, because when I think of Schumacher, I think he was just dominating. And 2005 seems to be right in his, is that a little late in the career? Is that the window's closing? Yeah, that was when the tide started to shift to Alonso and Renault, which is 2005. And I think, in my first podcast, I think I said something along the lines of everybody kind of compares his Ferrari years compared to how Hamilton was so dominant with Mercedes for eight years. But it wasn't at all the same. I mean, yeah, they had arguably the best car, but the competition was usually a lot closer. And like Montoya with Williams and McLaren was always challenging for polls and for wins. Same with Raikkonen when he was there. But like, if you look back, it was a lot closer than a lot of people say. Certainly a lot closer than what it was from like 2014 to 2018, when all you had to really guess was which Mercedes teammate was gonna be who wins. Right, right, that's true. And one thing I thought was kind of neat was I think the last name was Monteiro. Yep, Diego Monteiro. Yeah, he stayed behind. He was like the only guy at the podium celebrating, having a good time, because it was his first and only podium finish. First and only. Yeah, so I mean, imagine that being your first and only podium, and it's like. You know what? In a sport like Formula One, as cutthroat as it is, you never know, you're probably never gonna get that chance again. I would celebrate like it's a victory. Soak it up, yeah, soak it up. Oh yeah, absolutely soak it up. It's just, you wish those people didn't leave the stands and have a few more there to celebrate with them, but, so. Can't blame them for leaving at the same time. I mean, the minorities in fifth and sixth place were two laps down at the end of the race. And that's what they were saying was that people started leaving and the police had to deal with like crowd control at the ticket offices. People were stampeding to try to get refunds. And what happened was they announced that they would have compensation to anyone who purchased tickets. Michelin did, so Michelin actually refunded anyone who went to that. Oh, Michelin, really? Yeah, yeah, Michelin on June 28th. Yeah, so a few weeks later. And then the 2005 Champ Car World Series, do you know what this is? Yeah, that was kind of, they were at war with IndyCar for a little while, Champ Car, and Indy, they were at war for a little bit. They gave everybody free admission to the Cleveland Grand Prix if they had a Formula One stub from this race. So I thought that was pretty cool. See, now that's cool because Champ Car back in the day was fantastic to watch. There was a lot of, it was kind of, it was pretty close to being the same as IndyCar at the same point in time. The cars were a little bit different, but the kind of, the DNA was the same in a sense. It was just a split as far as Champ Car and IndyCar. And they eventually merged back together, but there was definitely a split for a long time. Oh, I didn't know they merged after that. I wasn't sure if they just faded or, oh, that's cool, that's interesting. Because they did, they gave everyone free admission. And that's like, you know, that's huge to get people to watch your product and to show them that we care about what's going on. It's a big deal. And I believe that the Champ Car Cleveland race was on an airfield, like an airport. So it was on runways and stuff like that. Oh, wow. I have to go back and look at the YouTube of it again, but you know, being on a runway, going to a sharp corner, you can have like eight cars wide and get through no problem. So the racing was pretty spectacular. Oh, that's cool. I'm gonna have to go back and check out some Champ Car stuff, see what that was all about. Just something, you know, I saw that today and said, I've never heard of it. And it must have come and gone pretty quickly, but I thought it was neat that they were around. Yeah, it wasn't around for a long time. But a lot of the IndyCar fans today look back on it and think, yeah, that was some pretty awesome stuff back in the day. Interesting. Kind of like the XFL or something like that. Came and went, but there was cool stuff going on. Exactly. So how did this all, what happened, like the fallout, as far as you know, with like the future of Formula One in the U.S., did this put a dent in the? Put a huge dent in, I mean, the last race in Indianapolis was 2007. And we didn't get a race in the States again for five years after that in 2012. Oh, wow. At Austin. But there was a lot of like, oh man, like if we go back, like where are we gonna go? Because we could go back to Indianapolis, but you know, we have some bad history there. Yeah, bad taste in everyone's mouth kind of, yeah. Exactly, exactly. So there's a lot of hesitance from not just the FIA and Formula One, but also from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway as well, as far as do we want, do we even want these guys to come back? Because what if something like that happens again? Like then we're screwed. Right, right, we've got a real fire festival on our hands or something if that happens again, it's gonna be a disaster. And, but now it's amazing to think we have, we're gonna have three Grand Prix's in the States this year, is that? Yep. Austin, Miami, and Vegas, right? Yep, and a lot, you know, a lot, I see a lot of complaints about that on like Instagram and Facebook about people saying, oh, the United States has three races now, oh my God. But you have to remember that the United States is geographically the same size as Europe, so when you think about like each country in Europe is basically like a state in the United States. Right, right, and I mean, right, if you think about Las Vegas, Austin, and Miami, they really kind of represent the west, the east, and the center of the country, so it wouldn't be any different. Yeah, it is, because it doesn't. Now, would I like to have a race somewhere else other than, I don't know, Miami or Vegas? Sure, I think there's definitely a lot of tracks to select from as far as, you know, could host Formula One, but they have to get up to an FIA grade one standard. Right. But for the time being, I like the fact that it's in Vegas because I think that that's gonna be an awesome night race. It's gonna look fantastic going down the strip at night. Oh, crazy. I think visually it's gonna be one of the greatest spectacles of the season. You know, Miami, it's a pretty good race. I think that the circuit could use some tweaking, but for being built around hard rock stadium, it's pretty good, and obviously Circuit of the Americas is just, it's a great racetrack. It's a blend of a bunch of different circuits that all drivers love, and obviously has that iconic first turn that climbs the hill and goes into the hairpin. You know, there's a lot to like about that track, too, so I think that the more popular that Formula One becomes in the United States, the more you're gonna see fans wanting Grand Prix's in different areas, too. Right, no, and that makes sense because these are, I mean, we're talking about some of the most expensive cities in the country, and expensive weekends. You know, I know that, I looked at the Vegas, just trying to get in for the weekend. It's exorbitant, but I was thinking about maybe trying to book a hotel room that's facing the track and just watching from 20 stories up or something, but I'm sure. That'd be pretty cool, but I think it's gonna be pretty expensive. It's crazy, but you know, the one thing I do know about Vegas is it's fairly cheap to fly into, and the hotels are fairly cheap, so if you're there. Really? Yeah, because they want you there, right? They want you to spend your money otherwise. They want you to get there, stay there, and then spend your money on everything else, so. I took a brief look at it, and I think I saw like Caesars putting a package together with like $100,000 for the whole weekend or stuff like that. I was like, holy moly. Jeez, and I don't know, yeah. So you're getting $25,000 worth of value every day. My God, that's crazy, that's crazy. I better be able to sit and drive in the car at that point, you know? Get a car, just take one home with you after the race. You get your pick. Take home a McLaren or something. You know, there's a guy that lives right around the corner from, I sent you a picture before, but he's got a McLaren supercar, and it is, boy, it definitely, it's the show pony going down the street. It's the head turner, man. It's pretty nice, but. Oh yeah, I don't know what those cars are. I don't know how, why he drives it around town, because he's just putting miles on it. Anyway, but it's a nice car, and speaking of nice cars and race cars and going fast, we do have a Grand Prix finally this weekend in. Oh my God, it's about time. I know, I know. Felt like forever. It did, and I had mentally kind of checked it off as last weekend, so I was disappointed when I kind of looked at the calendar and realized we have to skip ahead. I think I did that, too. I was like, oh man, one more week, and you told me two more weeks. I was like, oh my God. Yeah, I know, but then I think they start coming back. But it's finally race week. It is race week, people. We are here. It's the Isle of Island Grand Prix. We've made it. So what are you looking for this weekend? Yeah, we are. What are you looking for? What do you expect to see out of, I guess everybody? I'm excited for the sprint race. I think the new setup for the sprint race is gonna be very intriguing. I think that we'll, I've done some more looking into it. I think it will get more out of the drivers in the sprint race. They'll be able to push a little bit more in the sprint race and kind of not have to be reserved so much to save their starting position for the Grand Prix. It's kind of just a bonus race, and they get to go for it. That's all going down on Saturday, right? That's the qualifying and sprint happen on the same, that's awesome. Let me clarify that. I like that too, because I think that, I think it's only a 60-minute session for qualifying. I don't know if they're modifying the Q1, Q2, Q3. They are. I saw that they're going 12 minutes, 10 minutes, eight minutes for Q, yeah. That makes it spicy. Right, right. So, and I think it's going to be fascinating having the qualifying for the Grand Prix on Friday. So you're running qualifying laps on Friday and Saturday and a sprint. I mean, you're going to see some movement, and even if you have a bad qualifying Friday, you still have a lot to drive for on Saturday. I think I like the one practice before qualifying, because it gives teams a lot less time to really get set up for the whole weekend. And like I think we said the last time, it gives people an incentive to tune in, because it's not just an hour of cars cruising around the track doing race simulations, because not everybody's interested in that stuff. People just want to see these cars going fast and being pushed to the limit. And I think that a lot of these teams are going to want to get out of the trailers and get these things like spot-on qualifying trim almost right away, like some quick racing simulations, and then just go straight into qualifying mode. Well, and I think it's a great way to break out of the four-week gap here. You know, everyone's been waiting for some action. They're like, you want the action, here it comes. You know, it's not going to be waiting around. So what time's that Grand Prix start for you on the East Coast, do you know? I would have to look at it again. I usually just check like the day before and make sure that I'm ready for it, or I go based off of the practices and qualifying sessions. Yeah, I think it's an early one for us out here, like four or five in the morning. So it looks like the sprint is at 9.30 in the morning on Saturday, and then the race is at 7 a.m. on Sunday. Oh, wow, that's not bad. If you're like the morning, it's, you know, I've got to say, I've come to like the mornings with Formula One, you know? We make a little breakfast, we set up, we hang out. It's a nice way to start your Sunday morning or Saturday morning now. I'll tell you what, though, watching that Vegas Grand Prix from the East Coast is going to be a little bit challenging. Oh, I bet. Oh, I didn't even think of that. Well, welcome to my world. It's like how, you know, if a race starts, you know, like the British Grand Prix, it's wonderful. I mean, it's like, it's around the time I'm getting up in the morning. I can just, you know, I can get up and take my time getting ready for the day, and then I can just come in here and watch the race. But some of the races that are over, like, in Asia, like Japan and stuff like that, those are going to be some, those are going to be like early, early morning races. It's tough. Like 1.30 in the morning, Saturday night, you know? The issue I'm having now, too, is last year, I would just record them, watch them in the morning, but now I've got so many alerts and so many friends that are into it, there's no way I can get through it spoiler-free, you know? That's what I've had to kind of adapt to, is because, like, I always, you know, if I haven't watched the race live, I'm always like, all right, I'm just going to, I'm going to block out all the notifications, and then, like, I jump on, like, Facebook, and, of course, it's like the first thing that loads is Hamilton wins, or Verstappen wins. I'm just like, oh, God. You don't even consciously do it. You just hit the app, and then, boom, it's right in your face, yeah. Yep. You almost have to, like, scream and scroll, like, ah, no, you know? You can't look for any information that day. You kind of have to just be ignorant to everything, because you could go on a news website, a non-sports, and you still, it's becoming such a part of the popular culture that, you know, I know I text you all the time, hey, I'm not watching this race live, so don't say anything, you know? I love the Australia race, where, you know, I think you watched it, like, the day before I did it, or something like that, and so I watched it later than you, and I was like, oh, my God, Ferrari again. Like, 30 seconds in. Oh, man. So, what do you think? And I know we'll get into it more in the future, but you think this is, in my opinion, I don't know if you saw my post, but I've got a feeling this is gonna be Red Bull, really, just putting a hurting on everyone this weekend. Yeah, I think that, given how straight-line heavy this track is, yes, it has the tighter sections once you get off the straights and whatever else, but that long front straight is heavily Red Bull-favored. I can see Aston Martin crawling some time back in the other areas of the track, but, I mean, I think Red Bull's gonna walk away with it. Yeah, yeah. I guess we'll see. We'll see. I mean, anything can happen in these races, and I think we've seen it so far this year, too. Oh, it's been nuts. It is, and it's, even the best-laid plans never go the way people, or teams, or drivers expect them to. It's pretty, it's been crazy already this year, really. It really has been. I mean, I know that it's been Red Bull domination, but aside from them, it's been really intriguing as far as Aston Martin jumping up and being the second-best car with Fernando Alonso, like right up there in the championship fight, and he's only a couple of bad race weekends from Aston for stepping away from being real tight in the championship. It's really amazing. That's really the story of the year so far. It's great. It's great for the sport, too, and it's, you know, when you watch, you're kind of watching for that chaos and watching for someone to shake things up, and he's definitely the shaker of things this year for sure, and yeah, I'm just like a forger. I'm just glad to have something back to watch. You know, we're inching our way there, too, which is five, 5.30 in the morning on Fridays when first practice starts, so. Oh, good, 2.30 in the morning. I'll be disclocking in the work. It's, you know, I've been looking forward to this one like longer than when I was a kid. I would look forward to Christmas. Me, too. You know, like I'd be like, oh, Christmas is in 25 days. This has been 28 days, you know. I'm so happy it's race week, and, you know, I look forward to just soaking in the whole weekend and really diving into, you know, what teams bring upgrades. I think Ferrari is bringing an upgrade, and I can't remember which teams are bringing upgrades. Maybe McLaren, too, are saving that for MLA. I know that a bunch of teams are bringing stuff to MLA for upgrades, but I think I remember seeing something about a couple of the teams bringing stuff for this weekend. That would be nice. It would be nice. I mean, we get set up, and all of a sudden, we've got new cars, new parts on the track, and it's been a. That could really change things up. You never know. Oh, man, I hope so. I hope so. Hopefully for your Ferrari squad over there, that they can. Oh, I'm praying to the Italian gods right now. What are you? Like every Tifosi member probably is, too. They're going, please don't let this be another one of these years. I know it. Just some consistency. Yeah, yeah. And then the other thing is, like on the Mercedes end of it, it's like they're consistent, but they're consistently just kind of slow, you know? They just reorganized their technical staff. Right. James Allison is the technical director now. He's gonna be the one who's in charge of all, or oversees the technical development of the car now. So I think that could be a good thing for them. I don't know how well he's gonna, or how quickly he'll be able to rescue that, but I think that it's definitely a step in the right direction. It's, you know, but when you're shaking things up this early in the year, too, it's a step in the direction of, they've been panicking all year, if I'm being honest. I think they. Well, they've been panicking since like last year, too. I mean, they knew they were gonna have the same problem as last year. They thought, they cried all year last year about, oh, our car is bouncing all the time. We can't get a handle on the porpoising. So they need the FIA to make some change to the floor height, and they're still slow. So, I mean. Yeah, and it's, Aston Martin is right there to pick up the pieces. Yep. It's beautiful. But I suppose until, I'll give you a couple days here to kind of decompress and get ready for race weekend. You got anything else you wanna add to any shout-outs or anything you wanna remiss? I don't know, but if Will Power keeps liking our posts, I think we're gonna have to try and get him on one of these episodes. I know he's an IndyCar guy, but I still think it'd be pretty awesome to have somebody with open-wheel experience on the show. We'll take anybody. If you're out there listening, and you wanna talk, if you wanna talk about anything motorsport, we'd love to have you send in questions or email questions. We've been getting some interaction, which is great. I love seeing people. That's fantastic. The more interaction, the better for us, so. Well, that's what we want. It's better for you guys, ultimately. Yeah, absolutely. So I guess with that, we will bid you adieu until next weekend, or this weekend. Sounds great. Or whenever. I'm looking forward to talking in a couple of days, getting ready for Baku, and see how this weekend goes. Sounds good. Until then, I guess we are gonna get on out of here. All right, see you, buddy. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.