Australian Grand Prix recap (Red Flag x3!)

The host of the Formula One FunCast discusses the Australian Grand Prix and provides an update on the standings for both drivers and constructors. They also talk about the multiple red flags during the race and how it affected the outcome. The host expresses their excitement about being able to apply their knowledge of Formula One flags in real-time and mentions some of the drivers who did not finish the race. They also discuss the performance of Red Bull and speculate about potential changes in the team. Finally, they express their hope to see Fernando Alonso win a race after a long time. Welcome to the Formula One FunCast, the Formula One podcast where you teach the host everything he needs to know about Formula One racing. I'm James, you're riding on board with me, let's get started. Boy we've got a lot to talk about today regarding last night's Australian Grand Prix, huh? The race seemingly had more red flags than every person you see on those dating apps out there, you lonely heart. So I feel like we should just jump right into it, there's a lot to cover from last night. So let's start here with a little bit of a standings update for you after last night's race. As far as the drivers go, a little movement at the top, we still have Max Verstappen leading the way with 69 points, Sergio Perez his teammate on Red Bull just behind him with 54, Fernando Alonso of Aston Martin has 45 points, Lewis Hamilton jumped up a spot to 38 points, and Carlos Sainz rounds out the top five with 20 points. If we look over to the constructors, no major changes here either, Red Bull still atop the field with 123 points with three wins and five podiums, they've won every race so far this year. Aston Martin, 65 points, three podiums and zero wins. Mercedes 56 points, Ferrari 26, and McLaren rounds out the top five with 12 points, but what's really nice to see here is every team has a point at this point in the season. So Williams and AlphaTauri down there with one point each, Alfa Romeo up to six points, and Haas seven, and Alpine eight points. So pretty nice to see so early in the year, everybody's getting on the board, everybody's got a point, teams can find some silver linings and what's been happening for them early in the year, and it's pretty good to see, pretty good to see every team, everybody's got a point at least. As far as drivers go, the only two drivers without a point right now would be Williams' Logan Sargent and AlphaTauri's Nick DeVries. DeVries, DeVries, I never get it right so if you want to email me in at F1FunCast at gmail.com or at F1FunCast on Twitter, let me know how to spell the, I'm sorry, how to pronounce Nick DeVries' name, it'd be very helpful, since after all this is the podcast where you're going to help me learn more about the sport that you love. I'm learning, you out there are the, you're the teachers, you're the master, I need you to call in, write in and text me, however you want to get in touch, and let me know the things I'm missing when I'm watching Formula One, things to look out for, and ways to become a better fan. So with that little bit of housekeeping out of the way, you guys, do you want to talk about it? Do you want to talk about these red flags last night? I mean, three red flags throughout the race, one near the middle of the race, and two kind of near the back end. The last one I thought was really interesting. I was trying to figure out where they were going with it, and how they were going to sort the order, and this is another example of needing some, needing some backup from you guys out there to let me know what exactly went down on that third red flag. It seemed like we didn't quite get out of the first sector before the crash at the final restart, so they had to take the standings from the restart and apply them to the rolling restart at the end of the race, minus the cars that crashed out during that, after that third red flag. I think, I think that's right. I'm not entirely sure, but that sounds like what they did, because I think the race didn't quite make it out of sector one, so they had to, they had to go back to the original grid from the previous restart. But what did that mean? What does, what did all those red flags last night mean for everybody? And it's interesting for me, I found it really helpful to have these red flags, because if you listen to our last podcast, it was all about the different flags that can be used during a Formula One race, and one that I hadn't seen in a while was the red flag. So it was nice to be able to use some of my new knowledge that I've gained from this podcast and apply it to actual racing in real time. Although we don't like all those red flags, we'd like to see some clean racing, it was interesting for me to be able to, how should I say, to be able to apply my knowledge in real time and explain to nobody in particular, because I was here watching all by myself last night, that I knew what was going on when they waved those flags. I knew, I knew what it meant. It was, it was great. That's the power of podcasting, right? I was able to take some information that I learned from one of my Twitter followers here, they helped me out, we turned it into a podcast, and boom, next thing you know, next Grand Prix, there we are, we've got three red flags right in our face. So it was pretty nice, pretty fun seeing that come together. But the three red flags, then we had one, two, three, four did not finishes, DNFs. We had Kevin Magnussen, George Russell, Alex Albon, and Charles LeClair not finishing the race last night. And I thought, I felt particularly bad for Alex Albon. He seemed to be really running a great race and a really nice weekend. If you watch the qualifying on Saturday, although I guess it's hard to figure what day the qualifying was, depending on where you are and where the race was. I think for me, it was actually late Friday night. But Alex was having a nice weekend. He was having a good weekend for himself and for Williams, and he seemed to be running during the qualifying. He was into Q3, right in the middle of the pack, looking pretty strong. And his whole race, his whole Grand Prix just, I'm not sure what happened there with Albon, but it just, it all disappeared in a flash. It looked like maybe he had a soft tire, maybe a little contact on his rear left, I believe it was, that might have caused him some issues. But it was just unfortunate to see, and I'm sure Williams is just heartbroken. Because I don't know if it was the car setup, the track, or something they found in, you know, in the wind tunnels that got Williams a little bit of extra pace this week. I suspect it was the track, and the track setup was favorable to their car. But again, I'm not sure of that. And if you have any theories about why Alex Albon was running so well all weekend before his crash out, I'd love to hear about it. I'd love to know what your theories were. And it's interesting, isn't it, because his teammate, Logan Sargent, was down at the bottom of the pack, really had a tough, tough go of it. So, as much as I'd like to think it's the car, there's a good chance that it could have been Alex himself really getting the most out of it. And you hate to see a guy like Alex and a team like Williams with a car running in the top five have to bow out like that. But yesterday was a unique race for everybody. A unique race for pretty much everyone involved. I mean, even Max had a little drama, you know. He was out doing his usual cruising around, listening to his podcast, you know, calling his family on the car phone. But when we got that second red flag, we really brought some drama into his day, didn't we? Interesting to hear, too, because the first turn, at the start of the race, Max was complaining about being pushed wide by Lewis Hamilton. And it was just, I thought it was just great because Max is known for that maneuver himself. So, to get it back a little bit thrown in his direction, and he didn't make much of it after the race, and he didn't make much of it after the incident, but to hear him complaining about a move that he's so well-known for is really, was really nice. It was like akin to your favorite wrestler getting his own finishing move put on him, you know. Or someone, some baseball pitcher who's got a wicked curveball, teaching it to someone who strikes his other team out. I don't know, that's probably no good. But it was interesting. It was interesting to see Max have to fight a little bit to get back to the front. And then, after the second red flag, to see Max have to fight to stay in the front. Very interesting. Very, you know, Red Bull had an interesting week themselves with Checo starting in the pit and having to fight his way back, I think. Now, where did Checo finish? I believe fifth, which is a pretty good day, all the way from 20th. But Red Bull certainly doesn't look as overwhelming as they did, you know, just two weeks ago. They look like there could be some flaws, some intra-team drama could also be playing into this a little bit, where you take your focus off your work and your focus on the team squabbling. Across any sport, I find that to be the case, where if a team isn't focused all together on one goal and they're bickering with each other or there's internal turmoil, it tends to sap your results a little bit. It tends to drag you down. And maybe we're seeing a tiny bit of that out of Red Bull. I heard talk today, I was listening to a good podcast, and there's talk that Red Bull might be considering Danny Ricardo for next year or going forward to replace Sergio, if it's just not working with Sergio. I heard there was good pace coming out of Danny Rick out of the simulators. And the frustration with Sergio is clearly evident along the team wall. So it should be interesting. I'm sure Red Bull will pull it back together and get themselves right. But just, you know, the team that looked like the invincible death star seems to have a spot or two, a weak spot or two. And it's just interesting to me. And I think with those weak spots, I think there's a chance this year for Fernando Alonso to get a win. I think Fernando Alonso, after all these decades and his last win, I think, was the 1947 Grand Prix in Bahrain. No, but I mean, I think it's been about a decade since Fernando's won a race, from what I heard. And I'd love to see him up there. Because to be honest, since I've started my Formula One fandom, and I've started gaining this knowledge, it's been all Max. Max and Lewis, Lewis and Max. And it sure would be nice to see Fernando get up there and get a P1, end up in the center of the podium. I think it would be great. It would be great for him. It would be great for Aston Martin and Formula One. And boy, I didn't, who would have seen this coming for Aston Martin this year, except for Fernando Alonso, huh? Because it took some faith for him to make that jump to Aston Martin. And it certainly seems like he made a good decision, even if it was a bit, even if it was a bit risky at the time, it certainly seems to have paid off for Fernando and for the team. I think the team put in their faith in Alonso and giving him the maneuverability he needs and the say-so. And I think it's been a great move. And I'd love to see Fernando up on the top of a podium one of these weekends instead of Max or Red Bull or even Mercedes. I'd love to see, love to see an Aston Martin car up there. I think that would be pretty, pretty great. And boy, he knows how to pull out. He knows how to pull out those podiums though, doesn't he? He, um, Fernando, I think after that last red flag, he was looking at a P11 finish. But because of, like we talked about, the way they had to restart it because they didn't get into sector two, he was right back, he was put right back to third and they did that little drive around, little parade lap at the end there and he finished third. Which is really, he's really finding all sorts of ways to pull out, uh, podium finishes, which I think is great. It's great for him. It's great for the team. It's great for the sport, but boy, it would be, it would be nice to see him just get a nice clean victory because as smoothly as everything's going for Red Bull seemingly, like we said, there's some, there's some stuff going on behind the scenes that could open the door to some other teams grabbing some number one P1 finishes here in 2023. Another team I thought looked pretty strong all weekend was, uh, McLaren. I thought McLaren had a really nice, uh, go of it over the weekend and Oscar Piastri, the hometown boy, I believe he ended up with his first Formula One point at the, uh, at the end there after all the chaos had been cleared. I think Oscar Piastri coming away with a point was pretty nice for McLaren. And, um, again, I'm hoping with McLaren in the same way I was hoping for Alex Albon and the Williams, that these are real gains and not gains added by outside factors like track conditions or something along those lines. Um, but it's hard to say, and we won't really be able to tell for a few more weeks until we won't be able to, we won't be able to dig too much deeper into it. I mean, like I would like to be a Formula One chart nerd. I would like to know all the details of every high speed and low speed corner in every circuit. It's going to take some time to get there. So right now what I'm doing is watching with my eyeballs and I feel the same way my wife must've felt when I taught her all about baseball, American baseball, you know, just kind of eyes open looking at it, cheering for the things that I can understand. But over time, I hope that, that knowledge base will grow. And that's why I'm doing this. I want to hear from people who have good, good ideas. You can point me in the direction of your favorite Formula One podcast or YouTube channel or articles to read or anything like that is why I'm doing this. I want to go from being a noob to someone who actually knows a little bit what he's talking about. So again, if you know any, uh, have any good sites, any recommendations, send them along my way at F1funcast on Gmail or Twitter. Um, but with that said, I just, I thought last night was a lot of fun. You know, I, I hope you did too. I hope that's why we watch, right? We're watching for, for a fun race. And sometimes these races can be a slog when Max is out by, you know, he's gaining a second per lap and the podium positions are already essentially nailed down halfway through the race. I thought last night gave us a nice change of pace and I don't know how you feel about the red flags coming out just for gravel, just for debris on the, on the track, but it certainly means for what was an interesting final, you know, hour of race watching for me at least. Um, and I understand the red flags coming out for debris, but I always thought that that's kind of what they had the safety car for to kind of throttle things down for everybody and allow the cleanup crews to kind of work in the sectors where the cars are not. Um, I'm not sure if this is something that the FIA is changing. They want to just take every precaution and not allow anyone on the track where cars are out to race or why they seemed a little quick on those red flags in my opinion. But then again, I think safety should always be the priority and it was interesting too at the end of the race after that red flag, how they still finished and we still went around and did our fifth, 58th lap, but there was no passing cause we're behind the safety car and there was no, we just had to finish the race. I mean, could you imagine if there was some engine trouble or somebody broke down during that last parade lap? That would have been something, but I was, I was certain being a new fan that I am, I was certain that they were not going to restart the race. I was, I was sure they're going to say the race would not be restarted, but then listening to everybody talking about it, it does make sense, right? You, if you can finish the game, you finish the game. If you can finish the race, you finish the race. You don't pull the plug just because it's almost over. You know, you got to go out there and finish. You got a, a swimmer can't just stop halfway through a lap and say, Oh, I'm far enough ahead, you know? So I, it was interesting watching the reactions on Twitter and, um, people didn't like it. People didn't like the red flags, but I'll tell you, I did. Um, if only because it brought the competition, it's like a great equalizer in the middle of the race. Now, is that fair to your race leader? Probably not. Is that something you want happening every weekend? Probably not. But for one weekend here with, with Max, so far out ahead, those red flags pulled them back to the field. It was, it was fun. It was, it gave us some interesting high quality racing there near the end of the race. Usually we see those, those, uh, that kind of racing the first few laps and then it kind of dissipates and you're looking for moves in the DRS zones and things like that. But I thought that the red flag restarts really put a lot of pressure on those first two, two, three turns again in, uh, in Australia. So by the way, can we talk about Albert Park? That place, has anyone had any more fun than the people that were at Albert Park this weekend? I mean, I was following along on Twitter. I was on, you know, all the, all the sites, all the social media and boy, they, they look like they know how to do it right down there. Everyone seemed to be having a nice time. Good racing, beautiful place, interesting weather patterns. You can't predict it too far ahead. Keeps everybody on their toes. But boy, those, those Aussies really, really know how to have a good time. And I thought it was a lot of fun seeing Daniel Ricardo making a bit of a homecoming for Red Bull almost in like his senior spring or something. You know, there's no pressure on him to perform necessarily. So he got to soak up all the love from his hometown fans and that was really nice to see. Being the third driver on Red Bull certainly has its perks. I don't know if you saw it. He was driving one of the old, I forget what year it was, the RB9 I think maybe. He was driving it around the outback. There's some great stuff on, um, on the internet of Daniel Ricardo taking the old Red Bull F1 car all over Australia and getting some great shots. It was fun to watch and nobody has more fun than that guy. And I'm telling you, I'm telling you right now, as of right now, if there was a track, if there was a race I could go to, it probably as it stands would be Albert Park in Australia. It just, they look like they're having such a good time. Old fashioned barbecues and cookouts and I'm sure the sobriety was questionable and um, it just looked like a great time. Now, I'm planning on traveling to Las Vegas for this year's Vegas Grand Prix. I have friends in the city, so I'll be trying to hook up with them and see if they want to come out and check out some pre-practice or qualifying sessions. Not sure if I'll make it to the race itself, but I'm really looking forward to just being out there for the Grand Prix. And, uh, does anyone know if you're hearing this, I'm going to look later too, but has there been a Grand Prix in Las Vegas before? Is that something, um, or is this all new? You know, for me out here on the West Coast of the United States, where the closest Grand Prix before this was Austin, Texas, or probably, yeah, Austin I suppose, or Miami. Those are the two Grand Prix's here in the state. It's a big thrill to have a race coming a lot closer to me and to be able to get out there and check out these cars and these drivers and see, uh, see what a Formula 1 weekend is like for a fan. I have a feeling it's a lot like a football weekend, a NFL, college football type of tailgating party atmosphere, people having a good time, people just there for the environment as much as they are for the actual game. And I'm hoping that's the case when we get there because I love to tailgate, love to go hang out at these events, and a lot of times the, um, the party surrounding the event is just as much if not more fun, in my opinion, than, uh, than the race or the game or whatever it is you're going to yourself. Everyone's been there, right? Where you had a great time out tailgating at your car, in the parking lot, or with your friends, and you go to the show and it's kind of lame and you realize the best part of the whole event was hanging around, putting down a couple of beverages, or just spending time with your family outside of the actual arena rather than, uh, going to the event itself. Now, that's not to say that I think Formula 1 is going to be like that. I think if I, you know, if I was going to go to the race day, race Sunday, I would have just as much fun, if not more fun, than a tailgater, um, in that situation. You know, for me, I really am into, uh, learning about the sport, learning more about racing, learning more about Formula 1, the history of it, and the future of it, and where it's headed and where it's going, and, uh, at those tailgates, you know, if you come to Vegas and you're there, I'm going to try to find you to come chat up and talk about, and I want to hear about your favorite team and your favorite driver and your favorite driver of all time, your favorite driver currently. I'll be there. We'll be there. It's, uh, in November this year, so we've got a little time to look forward to it, but it should be a lot of fun. I'm really looking forward to that. So, um, we've got another two weeks off until our next race. I believe we're going to Baku in two weeks, two, three weeks even, so, uh, expect to hear a few weekly pit stop pods from me this week, and expect more content regarding the rules and regulations surrounding F1, if you have any ideas for, um, future topics, future things that can happen during a race that you think might be a good podcast, please let me know at F1Fundcasts at gmail.com or on Twitter at F1Fundcasts. I'd love to talk about all your ideas. If there's a particular person from Formula One history that you'd like to hear about, or if there's a track that you just love, or an innovation, or a change, or a team, all of these things are on the table, and you just let me know what it is you want to talk about, and I will, uh, I'll be all over it. I need the research. I need the homework. So, I'd really love to, uh, love to hear from you guys about what the next steps in growing my Formula One fandom should be. I'm not an expert. I'm not pretending to be. I'm not a perfect podcaster. I'm not pretending to be. This is going to be something that grows over a long period of time. It's something that I enjoy, and if you're listening to this, I'm sure it's something that you enjoy as well. So, um, yeah, it was a lot of fun yesterday, the Australian Grand Prix, the Aussie, uh, Aussie GP, and I'm really looking forward to Baku in a couple weeks, but between now and then, we're going to fill up some airwaves with some history of Formula One and some innovations of Formula One and things like that. So, please just, uh, email in, let me know, and I'd love to, if you do, I'll shout you out on the, on the podcast, and I'd love to have you come on as a guest or as a, uh, second host. We could use a second host in here. Right now, it's just me and my cat, and she is not the biggest fan of Formula One. So, um, if you're listening to this, thank you again for listening, and keep your ears open for next week, when we'll be coming back with another tip-top pod between Australia and Baku. Thank you so much for listening, everybody. We'll see you next time.