Hello, and welcome to Pit Talk, brought to you by Shannon's.

On today's episode, Formula one is back for the Belgian Grand Prix, with Oscar Piastre leading Landon Norris by just eight points in the driver's Championship, and can the season's third sprint weekend help inject some optimism back into Ferrari and Lewis Hamilton.

My name is Michael Lomonado.

It's great to have your company and the company of my co host.

If you think you have strong views about sprint racing, just ask him about half points.

It's Matt Clayton.

Oh, now, come on half points, Michael Lamonado as a man who likes an orderly spreadsheet.

It's funny you bring this up ahead of the Belgian Grand Prix, because it was the Belgian Grand Prix that wasn't in twenty one.

I believe that was where you and I were waiting for a two lap race to finish at four o'clock in the morning, where we were adorning us there We're going to be half points and your beautifully symmetrical spreadsheet was going to be a mess for the rest of the season because of it.

But if you have strong views on half points.

I have several strong views on sprint races.

Perhaps that's something we should get to a little bit later, I think so.

But the twenty twenty one Belgian Grand Prix should never be mentioned again, I think, And it won't be my me, No, certainly not.

But I thought it'd be good to reset the scene a little bit because we're coming off her mini mid season break just two weeks before the actual mid season break.

Not sure who made the decision on the sessions with this one, but that's the way it was, and I don't think anyone in Formula One was too upset though to have an extra weekend off in this early summer time.

But we resume with Formula One in a pretty delicate championship position.

After victory the British Grand Prix, Landon Norris has slashed his title deficit to Oscar Piastri to just eight points.

It was his second win in a row as well, Matt off the back of that pretty straightforward Austrian Grand Prix, at least after that first stint battle with Oscar Piastre.

So what's your appraisal of I guess the status of the momentum between these two title contenders heading into this next two races before the break, do you feel like Norris has a real bit of a run here.

It's interesting in that because we've had the two weeks between, there's more time for more opinions and more podcasts and more written content.

And I've read a lot of views that seemed to think this was some sort of, you know, seismic shift in the piastre versus Norris battle.

I wasn't prepared to go that far, and that might be a product of my passport relative to the passports of the people that I was reading or listening to, because you have to remember that the British Grand Prix was won by Oscar Piastri until he committed a safety car infrigement and then basically lost a race with his ten second penalty.

He had that race one, Let's be honest.

The one thing I will say about Norris is I've been really impressed with the bounce back after Canada because Canada and the mistake he made there, and it wasn't just a mistake, it was a mistake in battle with his teammate where he scored ero points.

That felt like a very sort of Lando Norris thing to do quite frankly, and you did wonder, given what's happened with him in the past and similar situations, how long that was going to linger for.

And the answer is that it hasn't linked at all, because he was the best McLaren driver at the Red Bull Ring, and he had the winning the British Grand Prix even though he was probably the second fastest of the two McLaren drivers.

And as this championship effectively becomes a two car fight for the title, with everybody either having their own struggles or looking ahead to twenty twenty six, I'm impressed by the fact that he's managed to arrest the momentum because to my mind, Canada felt like one of those real tenth pole.

Okay, this is a self inflicted wound here, how is he going to recover from that?

We know that he beats himself up publicly quite a bit.

He wears his heart in his sleep with these sorts of things.

What was interesting to me with Sylveston.

I don't know that you thought about this as well, but Piastre is very much a product of his manager, Mark Webber, and one of Mark Weber's famous comments used to say all the time was I will give nothing, and it says better in Mark's accent with a very good Adam Zapple as well, but Piastre is very similarly cut in that respect.

He's giving you absolutely nothing.

And yes there was the points lost from what happened at Sylveston, but the fact that it was something that he whether he agreed penalty or not, it was something that he gave Norris, and I think that really stuck in his craw.

The disappointing part about it for us is that we didn't get that immediate chance to see the response because there hasn't been a race for a couple of weeks since.

So in terms of the momentum within the championship, this margin now feels about right to me, and it feels like it's been rebalanced a little bit by what's happened in these past two races.

Sets us up for a fantastic second half of the season.

But I'm not prepared to buy the narrative that, look, Norris has won two races in a row, this is this huge momentum shift here he comes, get your royal family details out.

I'm not quite prepared to do that, but I do think it sets up the remainder of the season really nicely and coming to a run of circuits now where I mean, you can't imagine another car necessarily being able to lay a glove on McLaren at this particular layout ASPA this weekend.

So if it comes down to an intense head to head with these two again, then bring it up, because we've seen some good examples of it already.

But it feels like the reset.

This does feel like the second half of the championship starts now.

I know we've got the break coming up very shortly, but it feels like this is like ground ero for the rest of the championship and it's a championship that only evolves to McLaren cars.

Yeah, it's sort of funny.

I don't think anyone INFORMUTA one wishes any more triple headers, but it felt like, if you were ever going to have one, it would have been good to have another race after Silverstone to see that play out a little bit, because it's the first time we've really seen Piastre feel aggrieved by anything or feel not wronged I suppose, or he felt wrong by the penalty, but like you say, he'd given something away.

It's very rare that that happens, and was as strong as this word sounds, probably not really exactly a good match for Piastri, but emotional about it.

Not a lot of emotions in there, but as emotionals I've ever seen him.

Would have been good to see how that would have affected him with an immediate race afterwards, you feel a little bit like with two weekends off, I don't know how motivating that incident will be now.

It just feels like we're starting from scratch after a long break, so that doesn't necessarily play a point.

Think something that perhaps we mentioned at the time is that momentum.

We use this word a lot, probably overstated it a little bit, but it doesn't have to be ero sum.

You know, Norris getting a bit of a roll and he does feel like he's got a bit of a run out doesn't have to come at Piastre's expense.

And that's actually how I feel like after these two races, because while he won in Austria dominated that weekend, in the race, Piastre was probably at least as quick as him, unexpectedly so, considering how far behind relatively he was all the way up until the start of the Grand Prix and then, as you say, the British Grand Prix should have won that race, had that race one, until he made a mistake of his own and then finished behind his team.

And it does feel like they start as far apart in momentum terms as they are in the championship table, which is eight points practically nothing effectively with twelve rounds still to go.

I think that is really exciting because we've seen so many ups and downs this season, particularly for Norris.

You know, boscar has been pretty consistently good.

Norris has been up and down, had some really great weekends and some really ordinary ones, but in ways that I don't want to say they're separate to Norris's ability, because his ability to get the most out of the car is integral to winning a championship.

But there's always been this idea that he's not quite jelling with the car, and maybe now actually he's solved that, and now maybe for the last twelve rounds of this season, we see as close as you can get to a pure head to head of two drivers pretty comfortable with the where they are in the car, understanding how to get the most out of it, and just racing head to head.

Maybe we circuit will suit someone the next will suit someone else.

Should be really fascinating.

Well, and this is one of the great parts about this in that you've got a car that's clearly the best in the field.

You've got a team that's prepared to let us drivers race, which we can appreciate that.

And you mentioned the thing about momentum.

It's not one driver has it and the other one doesn't.

You can have degrees of momentum, and I think both of them do have that.

The thing that's so fascinating about how this should run into the rest of the season given the car advantage they have in the fact that team's going to let them race, They're both trying to achieve the same end from very very different means, and you know, both in terms of their emotional makeup and even their respective strengths and weaknesses as drivers.

I think the contrast of styles, given that all of the other parameters in all of this are going to be pretty actualized.

You know, we know what the car is going to do.

We know that.

You know there's a you look back at the British Grand Prix, there was a chance for perhaps PSTRE to be put on a different strategy that would have mitigated that penalty, but McLaren is like, no, no, we're not going to start changing strategies here.

They're going out of their way to try and be fair and even handed and you know, may the best drive a win sort of maxim which I actually really appreciate, Like it's really simple to say that, but it's harder to do when you know your odds on to win your first Driver's Championship since two thousand and seven.

It's been a very very long time.

I like the way they've set this up, and so this points gap between the two of them right now feels accurate.

There were times during the season where it felt a little bit skewed one way or the other because Pastre had put himself on the back foot because of what had happened in Australia, and then he took that you know, advantage to that big run of races he won those three in a row there.

I think this feels like an appropriate reset.

If you were to ask me which has been the better McLaren driver over the bounce of the season so far, I would say Piastre just and that's what the points table represents.

Yeah, I think that's a good call.

It'll be interesting to see how it all unfolds from here, particularly given that there is this little frenetic doppleheader and then we've got a break, how that might affect the narrative whether there'll be any change at all by the time week to the end of the Hungarian Grand Pray in a week or so.

I want to move on to Red Bull Racing now, obviously quite a big talking point over the last couple of weeks.

With Christian Horner sacked shortly after the British Grand Prix, Laura Mechiez has taken his place as CEO and team principal at Red Bull Racing.

This will be his first weekend in charge, the team's first weekend without Christian Horner running the show.

I don't expect to see any real changes this weekend, obviously in the way this team performs, because there's not really It's something I've been asked a couple of times.

It's not really such a thing as a new manager bounce in Formula One, because our sport is too complex for one man to come in and make a big change on one weekend, short of changing drivers.

I guess maybe that one would have effect, but that's not happening.

But what do you.

See as the early days of this new era of Red Bull Racing, Because it really is a new era with not only a new team principle, but departing from the guy who's are on the show the entire time, what feels like it must be a little bit of a strategic change in the way that Red Bull sees its Formula One asset.

Obviously the background being Max Forstappen could leave the team if he's not satisfied.

What are you going to be looking for?

Not just obviously this weekend because then he's going to be so much there, but in the next few months.

In this Mechias era.

I'm not even necessarily looking at what Mechiez is doing, or necessarily even what the car is doing.

The car has proven to be hugely problematic.

As we know, they're not going to win either championship this year, so they'll go championship list for the first time in a long time.

I think the thing that quietens the noise around this team, and then they can just get on with seeing out this season and therefore the rules set and get that chance to reboot for twenty twenty six.

Once there is some sort of clarity or even leaning either way on the verstap and decisions staying or he's not, it's a yes no question.

Once we get the answer to that, it's like, well, he's leaving it is a complete hard reset for this set of regulations, or he's staying, which I think is the more likely outcome at this point, and that just turns the volume down on their season because there's not really a whole lot to talk about now because a head at the top of the story has rolled with Christian Horner.

The timing of it's interesting because as you said, there's not that new manager bounce.

I think you'll more see the impact of Horna not being there for twenty twenty six and beyond.

I think this season the narrative is kind of told to a point.

The only intrigue for me is there going to be any sort of inkling one way or the other in does the Hornet departure confirm that Verastapan is staying and or going.

Once that decision happens, I think they just go along with being frankly the fourth best team in Formula One and with someone like Vastapan that will turn in a ridiculous performance and win a race or two before the end of the season when it rains it into Lagos, or if he's at Zanvor and he's got that sorted, or there'll be a track somewhere where the circumstances will conspire that he will be able to transcend the machinery and win races.

And I say that pretty confidently because we've seen it this year.

You look at things like Suzuka, that race looks even better now in retrospect.

He probably had absolutely no business winning that but one with a brilliant lap on the Saturday and then didn't make a mistake on the Sunday.

So there's a chance that's going to happen in these final twelve races.

But the is he staying?

Is he going question with Verstapan to me is the final sort of domino in quite frankly level of interest in this team because it is not a front running team right now.

It's a team that can occasionally snipe for wins, but that's about it.

They're not in the championship picture.

Once we get an answer on for Stappan, then I think they start to not fade from a view, because they're a big presence in Formula One, but they're certainly not going to be the headliner, particularly as this McLaren Championship battle intensifies, as the racist stick down.

I think, yeah, I think that's a good call.

I think as well, what will be interesting to observe as this season goes on is how Mechi and the team interacts with Yuki Sonoda, because that's really the sort of side story of their campaign.

Because we say they have the fourth fastest or the fourth best team, and that's accurate.

That fourth in the Constructors Championship, that's what their points score says.

That is because the second car just is not scoring most weekends.

That's literal down, it is not scoring points.

If it was scoring even I think at three quarters of verstapans rate, they'd be intersecond in the Constructor's Championship, still way off McLaren, but they'd be thereabouts even with a problematic car.

The relationship Mechiez has with Sonoda, it was a big backer of him at Racing Bulls last year and early this year, was really on the front foot in congratulating him publicly and presumably privately.

When that promotion came so it he's very proud to see his hard work rewarded, all that sort of thing, but also seems to have really quite a let's just say, Unhorner like relationship with the drives.

And I don't mean that to be critical, but really it does feel very different to the way Horner dealt with his drivers.

If we go back and remember the way he welcomed Leam Lawson back into the team at Japanese Grandfrit like has been going out of his way in that first month, let's say, but that first race, in particular to make laws and feel welcomed back to try and brush over those bad memories of the first two rounds.

I wonder what effect he can have a on maybe Sonoda's confidence if that is starting to become a factor at this team, particularly if now that he's in that seat and has presumably a significant say on the drivers next year without it probably being a total say on the driver's next year, whether that also buys him time and then time equals confidence.

Knowing that Mechi has knows how good Sonoda can be, knows that this is not his potential theory's ceiling because before this, this this management change, so before the recent weeks, the assumption had been that Sonoda would probably be out of the team by the end of the year, simply because we now assume that he's probably not going to get the terms with his car.

That I think is an interesting side story to all of this driver market that's focused on Max with Stafford.

So how much of this then, and this is a coming I've openly ponded, so Imo as we'll share it with you, how much of this is going to be the difference between having a data driven team head in Laura Meckey's, who is an engineer by trade, that's what he is, as opposed to someone who is a personality driven and often a personality that's as big or bigger than his drivers, in Christian Horner.

Because I look at the way McLaren are running at the moment, the Andrea Stellar element to McLaren in terms of him being a public facing spokesperson and someone that we always hear from with the team.

That's a management style that's created out of data and being an engineer first and then being a media performer second.

And that's certainly not Christian And that's just the truth.

I mean, that's certainly not Christian Horner, and it's certainly not lots of team principles.

So getting back to your point about Sonoda, perhaps there'll be a more data driven appraisal of what it is that Sonoda is doing.

And it may not even be data that's public accessible or something that we see.

It might be something that they're noticing internally.

To my mind, I think it strengthens his case because the last element you need for Red Bull right now is even more turnover and more turmoil.

There's enough of that going on as it is, with key people leaving the team, and they've got a new engine coming in for next year, you've got a new rule set, and for the first time ever, you've got another team principal in charge of this team.

Sonoda right now is a fixed element, and yes the performances have not been good, but you do wonder if the performances of anybody in that second car would be good, and the aswer is probably no.

Is that another element they could change but perhaps shouldn't change, given that there's so much change going on elsewhere, And to my mind that goes back to the Verstappen question.

If the Stappin is staying, why would you not just roll that driver lineup out roll out their driver line it rather for the first season of a new set of regulations in twenty twenty six, because that takes other variables out of the equation.

Now, what happens after twenty six if the car's no good and vstap and leaves or so on and so forth, that's up for debate.

But right now, perhaps the drivers should be the fixed focus and the continuity, and you try and fix all of the other stuff, because goodness knows, there's a long list of other stuff that.

The Yeah, I think so, because I think unless you can get your hands on a genuine, race winning, proven driver, the answer to this question actually sailed last year.

Carlo Science was bad to say.

But they're not going to get him for next year because there's no real driver that meets that criteria on the market next year.

I don't see the point in changing Sonoda, knowing as Mechiaz does, and really as anyone does, that he's much better than this, because we have evidence not just from previous seasons but from earlier this season that that is the case.

I don't see any value in changing him, or preemptively deciding to change him as felt like the team was moving towards So I think that's a good news, not just obviously for the driver, but for the team as well that, like you say, that stability element can lead into next year if they are going to have a slow start to the regulation, which is a rumor that obviously cannot be substantiated until next year, but it will help to have stability, to have someone who already knows how to work with key elements of the team.

And as before we even consider whether or not Mechiez by the end of the year might make changes to the team that don't involve the drivers.

Whether that staff, personnel, bringing people, letting people go, we don't know.

So I think there's value in that.

It will be interesting to watch just seeing a different face on the pitwall for the first time ever at red Bull Racing.

Yeah, this weekend, let's change tack now and move to Move of the Week, brought to you by Shannon's There's been no Formula One last couple of weeks, no Supercars this weekend either, but there was Moto GP with their final race before their real mid season break, and while you could predict what happened, Markes won, but move of the week isn't about who won't necessarily, it's about best move and Matt, why did you kick us off?

Move of the week for me?

He came in the sprint at the Czech Republic GP.

Also amazing to see Motor GP back at Bruno, just one of the great Moto GP tracks, big and wide and open and undulating and just fantastic to see those bikes around there for the first time in five years.

But Mark Marquez in the sprint gave up the lead because he thought he was about to breach Burder GP's tire pressure regulations, which is a separate podcast in itself, and sat behind Pedro Acosta to get his front tire temperature up and then decide with a lap and a half to go or I've had enough of this.

I'm not going to be penalized.

Now, here's nine tenths of a second on you in one lap because I can, And that to me was the This is the evolution of Mark.

Now.

In the past, you know, the old Mark would have just tried to beat you by a sheer speed.

He's got this amazing combination now of speed and smart and when to deploy the pace, not just deploying it for the sake of deploying it, And to my mind, that was just it summed up the way he's approaching twenty twenty five in a nutshell.

He's writing smarter than he's ever ridden, and he's writing just as fast as he ever has.

And that was movie of the Week for me because of the inevitability of it, but also the sheer cunning and execution of something that we saw coming a mile off.

But it still takes a pretty special writer to execute it.

Yeah, not the first time he's had to do something similar.

I mean, yeah, Alex was it early in this season all Thailand?

Yes now, but yeah, Thailand.

So it's remarkable considering that that hasn't really had to be part of what it's relatively new part of any writer's repertoire.

I guess this tire management.

It's very specific tire pressure management.

But he's clearly nailed it, and he's got the confidence that he can do pretty much whatever he likes to make sure those tires are under control.

I was going to pick a Marcus move as well, taking the lead from Bedzechi in the race, just because it was muscular in a way that it didn't have to be Like you've said, the pace was clear there all weekend, but I enjoyed it.

But I actually going to pick Bedzechi for the move of the week, and this was him into the lead, threading the needle between Marquees and Banyaya, and then getting really enjoyed it because watching it really looked like if you're playing a video game, any racing video game, and you've set the difficulty just a little bit easier than the AI is, and every move just.

Looks kind of easy.

Just the way he slots between them makes it look very straightforward, very under control.

A little bit like on the brakes that came a little wabble, but just really great judgment, and I think particularly given them more recently now we're talking about this resurgence of Bears and a pretty good looking now like the second best bike out there, long way behind the Ka Even nonetheless, I just thought that was a great little moment where some people might have been like, oh, maybe he maybe he'll win it, and then he didn't fat and still I thought it was great well.

And also to see the Ducati riders have their nose bloodied for the first time in a while, because it doesn't often happen to see one of them.

To see a non Ducati muscle through to take the lead and then scamper off for a bit of that race was really good to see.

And as you said, like, yes, it's a distant race for second place in Motor GP, but it's a race right now that a Prillier is winning.

And now that Jorgey Martinez back because perhaps he's realized that the Aprellier actually is quite decent after all, or all is forgiven, it would not surprise me at all to see a Prellier riders win one or two races before the end of this season.

I don't think this is going to be a Ducatti sweep for the rest of the year.

And I can see Jorge Martine once he gets back up to full fitness.

We're seeing what Bozeki's doing on that bike, and ninety nine people out of one hundred would say that Jogey Martine is a superior rider.

So I think once he gets back up to speed, I think that's that bike's going to fight at the front with Ducatties more often.

But I do like your move.

I want to move on to Ferrari briefly, We'll come back to Ferrari a little bit later on as well when we talk a bit about the Sprint week prospects.

But this could be a big weekend the Italian team, considering that they're bringing what I think will be the last major upgrade for this car.

It's getting late in the day for big upgrades anyway.

I don't think we'll see too many after this next double header.

But this is rear suspension which has been pretty significant and the team struggles, particularly since the Chinese Grand Prix.

The last weekend they looked good for both cars were just qualified, and that is related here.

A lot of hope is being pinned on this, particularly after that floor upgrade in Austria seemed to deliver a little bit more than they were expecting at the time.

How important I think it is or is it important at all what Ferrari does for the rest of this year, considering he hasn't been a championship winning year.

To see some kind of some kind of success this weekend, well.

This is all part of the late season charge to an honorable second in the Constructors Championship, isn't it.

This is how Ferrari rolls.

It's like, hey, look how good we are at the end of the season, how the season's over, Whereas this season it'll be, oh, look how good we are at the end of the season and the rule set is over and we start again.

So it would be a very Ferrari thing to do to suddenly become the best, second best team before one for the remaining twelve rounds of the season and then who they hell knows once we get to Melbourne next year.

But it is significant, I think in isolation for what Ferrari are doing, and like you said, China was the last weekend they looked legitimately quick and legitimately in the fight for something meaningful before the let's mutter a disqualification of both cars for the first time ever.

I think that's significant in isolation for Ferrari, but I think it's also significant in the wider context of what everyone else is now doing, because there's an established order now that McLaren's clearly the best car in Formula One, and if you're anyone other than McLaren, not to say that McLaren aren't looking at twenty twenty six, but everyone else now there's something about this season slipping into its second half where it's like, all right, this rule set is just about over, and we've seen very publicly teams like Williams turned the tap off quite a while ago.

There'll be other teams higher up in the Constructor's table that it was like, why are we throwing good money and resource and effort behind a rule set that's going to be expiring very soon And there'll be this sort of status quo that's settles at some point in these last twelve races.

So by virtue of Ferrari bringing performance upgrades and everyone else either choosing not to or really turning the tap off, it wouldn't surprise me at all to see them rise up and finish the I was taking the piss before, but the honorable second in the Constructor's Championship.

It is a bit what they do, but it's very much in play this year.

If they are going to go down this road, it would be nice to see them in the fight, simply because I think we haven't really seen what that driver lineup can deliver.

When there's something really, really meaningful.

That's one of the great intrigue points at the start of this season.

We've not quite seen it for many reasons.

So yeah, significant in and of itself, but perhaps significant in what everybody else is choosing to not do as we get closer towards the end of this season and the clean sheet of paper that is twenty twenty six.

Yeah, and I think as well.

I mean, not that it really matters so much at the end of the day, considering there's so much change next year, and considering that there's nothing substantive on the line this year, now that the championships pretty much rather than dud, at least from the Ferrari perspective, I do want to see something finally click there for a change.

I want to see this Hamilton Vassa Leclair relationship work a little bit, if not just because I think it is important to particularly considering Lewis Hamilton is there now.

I think this is an important storyline for Ferrari to achieve something, because I think the risk is that if the team does, as has been rumored quite heavily in the Italian press, decide to make a move on the team principle if results are not forthcoming.

I don't think anyone informud one really sees that as a path to anything other than another few years backward step success.

Later down the line rather than next year as it could potentially be, or at least in the first few years of this regulatory set.

And I don't you know, I don't think Hamilton has that kind of time.

And while I'm not, I don't feel I'm particularly attached Hamilton either way.

I just think that for him to go to Ferrari and to just fizzle out into nothing because the team's a bit no good just doesn't really satisfy in any way.

I mean much such more satisfied either obviously he's seeing him win an eighth title would be pretty spectacular, or just seeing him definitively beaten in a car that is good, beaten through the championship by Charlot Clair would at least tell us something out of this experiment.

Seeing him retire after Ferrari finished third a few times the constructors chamis he gets a winnie or there just doesn't do anything for me.

You know, it's not a great story.

You know, I'm interested in the story, so I'd like to see something.

He's saying that he didn't win an eighth World Championship depends on which flag you're flying outside your house.

What you're basically setting up there is it's going to be a Ferrari one too at Monza, and then I'll probably do nothing for the rest of the season.

That's pretty much what you're asking for, Rothie.

Let's talk about me Sadi's briefly before we move on.

Won this race last year with both drivers I think I'm allowed to see.

Of course, took the check a flag and was disqualified.

Lewis Hamilton inherited the win.

He was probably the fastest driver on the weekend, but we said he's accident.

They gave George Russell the fastest strategy they didn't think would work.

It did work.

He executed it very well.

We should say too well, it turns out because the car ended up being underweight for not having enough diet changes and he was disqualified.

Oscar Piastri a close second in the end.

But this was in that period last year when Mercedes was unexpectedly and it turned out inexplicably competitive, because they stopped being competitive shortly after this, except for Las Vegas.

What do we feel like It's hard to get a.

Grip on Mercedes in the first half of the season.

They've had some good weekends where you felt like they're going somewhere then more of those anonymous weekends we've become used to really in this rule set where they don't really know why they're not performing, and dre Kimi Antonio, I guess as a rookie wood I said some really big ups and downs.

Hard to know exactly where he's on that progress trail.

I think he's doing okay, though.

Do you expect anything much this weekend or you're just going to be keeping an eye on the weather forecast To answer that question.

Well, probably the weather forecast and the actual temperature, because we know it's still a good car in the cool weather.

But I've looked at Mercedes the whole year through a really different lens and it's amazing what's swapping out one driver for another.

The most successful driver in the history of Formula One with a teenage rookie does for the way US sess a team and how it's going.

And you look at the seasons of their two drivers.

George Russell has become one of the most consistent, professional, dependable drivers in Formula One and Kimmie Antonelli has been really good some weekends and really anonymous other weekends and a bit crashy and a bit rookie and a bit eighteen year old because that's what he is.

So I've looked at their entire season through a really different lens last year, because I think you looked at the track record of that particular outfit and the drivers they had last year, you were always left a little bit disappointed or wanting more because you look at it and this should be better.

Whereas to my mind, this year, we've looked at it a bit more like, well, okay, like it makes a little bit more sense with what they're doing.

They've been good in some places, a bit in some other places.

Russell has been really really good.

I think he's I think he has been really the team leader in all but name there for the last couple of years, and he's really proven that this season.

But the way I've looked at Mercedes this year, and I know this doesn't answer the question of what we expect for the rest of this year, I just keep thinking back to rule changes and when they've got it right in the past.

And I've looked at a lot of what they're doing in twenty five as okay, but what are they going to do in twenty six?

And that's the team whether it's blind faith or whether it's just history telling me this.

If I was to have to, you know, set the market for who I expect to get a rule set more right out of the ten teams in Formula one by twenty twenty six, if Mercedes is not the top of my list, it's very, very close.

And so that's maybe clouded a lot of by judgments and views on how they've gone in twenty twenty five, because I feel like it's a bit of a waiting room for twenty twenty six where perhaps they might not become the absolute top dog again, but I can see them moving forwards.

So that's kind of how I've seen their season.

But going back to where we started this question, you know, it was you're right about Russell.

Last year they literally lucked into the winning strategy by him playing an absolute blinder and doing what everybody else didn't do, and it was one of those weekends like, oh, that's actually worked, and it went completely against it, It went completely against convention before he lost the win for the car being underweight.

This has been a good circuit for them in the past, so it wouldn't be surprising if we saw one of them on the podium this weekend, but I don't think it's a great portent of things to follow.

I think they'll have occasional flashes and it could be weather dependent.

Maybe a few tracks further on in the season that will suit them, But I think as the season progresses they seem to me to be a pretty nailed on third best team behind Ferrari.

Let's have a more specific look at this weekend's Formula one Belgian Grand Prix now, because matter surprised me and maybe it surprised you a little bit, and maybe that says something about the format, but it's a sprint weekend, the third sprint weekend of the year.

Formula one still does save up most of them or half of them right at the end of the season, so they are long stretches without a sprint, maybe fitting that.

We were talking about Voter Gpe just a few moments ago in mo of the week as well, because it is a sport that at the time was perceived to have copied the Formula one sprint move.

But to my mind does it much better because we get these random weekends in Formula one and we were like, oh, yes, that's right, it's a sprint race.

It's fun.

They'll get me wrong a little bit more racing.

No one's going to say no to that.

No one's going to say no toe some competitive sessions replacing otherwise largely publicly meaningless practice sessions.

But I'm still not convinced that in the grand scheme of the storyline of a season that they make any difference.

But maybe that doesn't matter.

Well, let's peel back the curtain here.

In the pre podcast production meeting, which is basically our WhatsApp chat, I said to you, it's a sprint weekend, and you went, oh, yeah, it's a sprint weekend.

And that's kind of how I feel Formula one feels about sprints.

It's a it's like a noise where you sort of just shrug your shoulders and go, it's a sprint weekend.

That's kind of how I feel about sprint weekends in Formula One.

The funny part about it is when Motor GP decided to bring sprints in in twenty twenty two, they had no sprints.

In twenty twenty three they had sprints all the time, so they went from ero to one hundred.

Whereas Formula One's done this like we'll have a few sprints because some promoters will pay a bit more money for them, and there's a bit of TV product on the Saturday, but there's only going to be six of them in a twenty four race schedule, which is why they do become forgettable.

And so we have to go all the way back to Miami since the last sprint, And if you're remembering the Miami Sprint, then congratulations to you, because it was about two o'clock in the morning Australian time, the only one.

The other one other than that was China.

And you're right, we have four of the six sprint shoehorn into this back half of the season.

There's certain sprints that I've grown to really enjoy, like I can't imagine the Brazilian Grand Prix now without one.

That seems to me like a classic place to have a sprint, And the races there have been really good on the Saturday, but there's a lot of them where there's just a bit of a collective shrug.

And part of it for me is that the points, the points for the risk that you need to get them for the top eight in the sprint are so negligible that I think it discourages proper racing.

It becomes a little bit precessional, maybe after the first lap and you might have gained yourself a position or two.

There's too much jeopardy for the points that are on offer.

But to my mind, if there was a slightly different format to the sprints, and I have a solution for this, if Formula one's listening would just add another element to set the sprinter part as, oh yeah, this is a bit different, and this is a bit special, and it's no format is perfect.

But what if we just had one shot qualifying for the sprints, just to differentiate it from regular qualifying, Because all you end up having is a qualifying session on Friday and then another quali qualifying session on Saturday, where the times are slightly different in terms of how long you've got in each segment, but it's effectively the same session.

Right, we get to see it twice over the course of a weekend.

If the sprints are going to be this outlier and set aside as something special, and given that there's only six of them, so it doesn't completely change the championship picture, maybe we should experiment with a different qualifying format.

I don't want to start going down through reverse grids and changing reversing the top ten on the grid like you do in GP two or something like that, orry F two, something like that, but just a different qualifying session to give the weekend a bit of a different cadence.

Is to separate it as being something inverted Cobb as special wouldn't be the worst idea, I reckon.

Yeah, And I'm sympathetic to some extent to organizers, although having sprints at all was that their behets and maybe not, But because I do think we've now arrived at the least offensive format.

You know, We've gone through a variety of them, and they're all they're all problematic in different ways, but I think the format they've arrived a now is, you know, is the least interrupting to the weekend overall.

You still get what feels like a pure Grand Prix result in terms of qualifying, and the race doesn't feel like that affects that and the flow of the weekend too.

I think it's fine, but it does alternatively mean you just have something that feels like it needs to be got out of the way so we can get to the real Grand Prix later on.

Yeah, completely and I think you know.

I wonder whether or not you know, notwithstanding that, and notwithstanding like you say it does, a little bit of differentiation might be good because obviously the sprint differentiates itself enough.

It's a very short race, but qualifying does feel pretty much exactly the same.

It's just a bit shorter the fine.

But we could do with it.

But I wonder whether or not just implementing maybe you won't like to said, do you so much, but just more sprints.

I don't think we're ever going to get to a place where we have one at every weekend, because you just simply wouldn't want one at some way like Monaco, even for the same even though I like you in my brain, the consistency of having one at every weekend is appealing.

Realistically, that wouldn't contribute anything to any spectacle.

I'm not a qualifying session, but I guess.

But just more of them so that it doesn't feel like every few months we have to re establish the rules and purposes of a sprint weekend.

If we talked about them every two or three or even four weekends, at least, we'd say, okay, every month, you've got a sprint, and then that at least contributes to the narrative in a way that at the moment they just don't really I guess the way they've done it where they've got I think, is it three sprints in the last I'm going to sort of make up this number last five or six.

Races mainly, that's correct.

Yeah, the championship does go down to the why, then those sprints do become meaningful, But even then that feels a bit like you're injecting jeopardy a little bit too artificially because you've put them all there for a reason.

At a it doesn't even matter.

Yeah, I think so.

I agree with you.

You'll be surprised with my take on sprints here because you kind of preempted what I was going to say.

The biggest problem with them in a lot of respects is that there aren't enough of them.

So we either need to have twelve of them or none of them, not sort of halfway house of being six, where you have to re equate yourself with the points and the rules and why is this important and why should I care?

And oh, certain promoters have got deeper pockets than others, so they're prepared to pay for them I don't know if it necessarily changes with the way Formula one races are the patronage of races these days, I don't know if having a sprint race on a Saturday necessarily moves the needle in terms of spectator numbers either.

I remember reading something about Kota deciding why they weren't going to have a sprint after they'd had a few before because it didn't really make much difference on the gate for them.

And so given that, the spectator numbers are probably going to be what they are regardless of whether you have a sprint or not.

Because this is Formula one in twenty twenty five, six feels too few and twenty four is clearly too many.

Could we just set a lot?

Is it forty?

Is it fifty percent?

What is it?

So that's perhaps more of them would help us to embrace the format a little bit more.

But I'm with you here that stacking the deck of them later in the season, where okay, you may not have a championship up for grabs, this year we're clearly going to have a championship up for grabs between the two McLaren drivers.

It's a little bit, you know, put sprinklers on the side of the track to whet the tracks, so fake jeopardy here, like it's a little bit contrived for mine.

And so it's where they're placed as much as how many of them there are.

I'd be all for there being six to me is too few.

Twelve is about the absolute limit that you'd want to go.

I reckon somewhere between six and twelve.

But you also have to remember that so many of the decisions and where these are aren't necessarily based on where they are in the calendar or what the race tracks are like.

And if they're good for sprint racing, it's who's prepared to pay for them, And that's part of the reason that perhaps we have this unbalanced view of where they are and when they're held at the moment.

So I can't believe I'm actually saying this.

I'm an advocate for more Formula one springs, but not too many more.

So maybe the sweet spot is I don't own nine or something.

Maybe we can have nine.

Sprints, yes, enjoy in moderation, I think the point of view, but you can afford to have a few more than that we do at the moment.

Yeah, I think that it'll be interesting to see how this evolves, if in fact it does evolve over the next few seasons, because I mean, this will be off the top of my head, second or third year in a row with this format, since we moved from the all Saturday waste of time nonsense a sprint sweet day that you could just forget about, to being sort of, you know, part of the part of the weekend build up.

So it'll be interesting to see if there any changes in the next couple of years, particularly with maybe with new regulations of cars, maybe the racing will be so much more improved that we will be able to feel more comfortable about sprint racing at more circuits that typically maybe at the moment we feel like wouldn't be appropriate for a short race.

But just briefly related to the sprints, I said we'd mentioned this again.

Ferrari's position on sprints must be certainly pro sprint.

Yes, the team and Lewis Hamilton particularly has been doing quite well in these short races.

This year.

We have only had two, but of course Lewis Hamilton one the sprint in Chi only the second week end of the season, and then Miami was on the podium finished third behind the McLaren drivers.

I think I haven't done the calculation on this, but off the top of my head, that would make him the current leader of the sprint championship.

I think they used the phrase speed king, didn't they.

I certainly did.

He would be the speed king of Formula One at the moment.

Remarkable phrase, and I wonder whether or not will see that again because while it seems a little bit well, why would he be, there is something about that Ferrari car that performs reasonably out of the box, perhaps when other cars are just not really up to speed.

But then again, considering those sprints were so early in the year, where so much further down the road.

Now, maybe that first mover advantage, if you want to call it, that doesn't really exist by now.

Well, look at how much the competitive picture has changed since Miami, and not just at the front of the field, up and down the field.

I mean, were we talking about sober in Miami.

It wo certainly worked, and so there's a lot that's changed right the way through the order since we last had a sprint.

So I'd be curious to see whether that translates and makes the product a little bit better perhaps, but I just think the format there's too much similarity to the rest of a Formula one normal Formula one weekend that we're trying to position sprints as being something special and different, and it's just a shorter version of the same thing.

And I think while we continue to go down that path, then I don't know if they're really going to differentiate themselves as something that we're really going to be that keen to tune into other than just occasionally.

Yeah, I think that's it, but it'll be the performance.

I mean, it's only middlingly interesting, I suppose, but the performance difference between sprint and the race is at least something to keep an eye on this weekend, particularly if we do get an unusual result in the Saturday short race.

But let's wrap this up now, Matt, with the crystal ball brought to you by Complete Home Filtration, let's forecast the weekend or next subsequent weekends, whatever you like really in motorsports thanks to Complete Home Filtration, Matt, why don't you kick us off.

I am going to give the crystal ball a rub, and it's going to show me that George Russell is going to finish second in Sunday's Grand Prix splitting the McLaren drivers.

Now, I'm not going to the crystal ball seems to have a glitch in it won't tell me which McLaren driver is winning, So I can't run down the cav after this.

But I have this feel I think you know George Russell was he made a very a topical strategy work very very well last year.

I think that car has been he and that car have been proven to be quite good at SPA over time.

I can see him having a very strong qualifying and being able to perhaps strategically Shoehorn's way in between the two McLaren's in the race.

And to me that's doubly interesting because as and Mercedes on the podium.

But the gap between first and third in the point standing is pretty significant, particularly we're on a race weekend here where if the McLarens don't finish first and second, you could potentially have a championship league change this weekend because of how narrow it is between Piastri and Norris.

So whichever order those McLaren's finished the race with Russelling between them, of course, could determine the championship picture.

And that's where I'm going out to the crystal walls telling me.

But I suspect, judging by the look on your face, which is great audio content for everyone listening, that you have something different in the crystal world.

Better audio condt Generally you don't see the face, though, I think it's just the rule of this podcast.

Mine's two part prediction.

Mine says that Lewis Hamilton's going to clock up his second sprint victory of the year that new suspension package brought to the Ferrari car.

He is the equal second most successful driver I think in Belgium, one win off the all time record, which is Michael Schumacher.

I think he's got correct six and he's in Hamilton's five off the top of my head, obviously having one last year sometime after the flag fell, but still the wind counts.

So I think he's going to do well on the sprint, but as is Ferrari's way, not to as well in the Grand Prix.

But I think, and I've looked at the forecast, Matt, as of you, there's a little bit of rain on the radar on Sunday, although this being spar Franko Schamp that almost doesn't mean anything could rain any day, could rain every day, could rain none of the days.

But I think that that new manager bounds I said didn't exist is going to happen this weekend and Max with staffan is going to get another great wet weather victory.

He does do very well at He's got four victories here.

I think, off the top of my head, he does well here.

It's a track where okay, it is a compromise circuit in terms of set up, but that might be a little bit more amenable to the changes or the compromises Red Bull Racing has to make to get any kind of performance out of its car, as we saw in Silverston.

Unlike in Silverston, there will be parts of this track where I low down force back it's does work for example.

So I think in the rain this will be a Max with staff and ultimately meaningless.

But for Red Bull Racing, heartening victory.

Well and a home win ge giving a kick and cool.

This is one of his two home Grand Prix.

Of course he's always done particularly well there.

But yeah, I think you're right when you've got a this is a track by its nature that you're going to be compromised in one sector or another based on how you set your car up.

So it's all about being able to mitigate the damage of the parts of the track that you're supposedly not strong in.

And I think he and Red Bull have done that in previous years because he is just a master it sometimes making the most of having the least.

And yeah, he had a few sprinkles of rain, which is go to have it at some point, let's be honest at SPA.

I do like that as a call, but it's probably better than I call.

But we'll soon see who's right on Sunday night.

Huh No, two very different race predictions though, so I like that one of us will have to be well, well, maybe not.

Neither of us could be close.

One of us will have a smug look on their face for next week's podcast.

Yes, which you also be able to see.

But that's all the time we have for bit talk today.

You can subscribe to Pittalk wherever you get your favorite podcasts, and you can leave us a rating and review as well.

This weekend is the Formula one Belgian Grand Prix, and I will give you the sprint time because it's eight pm on Saturday.

That's very pleasant before lights are out on the Grand Prix at eleven pm on Sunday.

You can keep up to date with all the latest Formula One, Murder, GP and supercars news at Foxsports dot com dot Au.

From Matt Clayton and be Michael Lomonado.

Thanks very much for your company.

We'll catch you next week.