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

On today's episode, Formula One resumes with the Las Vegas Grand Prix this weekend, the first race of the final triple header to end the season and decide the world championship, and we look back on the Mona GP season and ahead to the first ever Supercars Grand Final.

My name's Michael Lamonato.

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

He knows the best way to achieve team unity is to throw as many people under the bus as possible.

It's Matt Clayton.

You only throw them under the bus, Michael, if you're going to put the bus and reverse and have another crack and go backwards over them after you have to throw them under.

But yes, we love a good bit of blood letting and Ferrari, Ferrari, I'll give them this.

They're consistent if nothing else.

But yeah, this was the story that absolutely everybody saw coming, isn't it.

Yes, predictable, but probably in all the worst ways, particularly if you have any kind of interest in Ferrari being successful.

Because that's where we're starting this weekend's podcast.

We will get into some of the questions out of the Las Vegas pri and those other items.

But the story of this fortnight off, the weekend off in the Formula one world before we head to that final tripleheader, was Ferrari chairman John Elkin appearing to throw his drivers under the bus, along with us some unnamed others who are, in his words, not up to par.

These are quotes he gave to the Italian media at an unrelated press event, so are completely off the cuff.

We can only assume this is what he really thinks.

And I'm going to read you some quotes to launch this one off, and you can tell me how many of these you think.

Tally with reality, we can say that our mechanics are winning the championship with their performance and everything they've done on the pit stops.

If we look at our engineers, there's no doubt the car has improved.

If we look at the rest, it's not up to par.

We certainly have drivers for whom it's important to focus on driving and talk less.

I will note here that in only a few hours after these comments came to like Charlotte Claire posted something on social media in which he said only unity can help us turn that situation around and Hamilton said, I back my team, I back myself.

I will not give up, not now, not then, not ever.

Sounds a bit like a children's nursery rhyme.

Actually, I really like that, some strange commentary from a Ferrari chairman at a time the team is under pressure to actually win a race this season and of course to get the rules right next to you in twenty twenty six, to suddenly and somewhat inexplicably start blaming people for the team's underperformance.

Yes, it's always the It's the old football sack, the manager routie, isn't it when things aren't going very very well.

But you know when you mentioned before that, you know Hamilton and Leclair have been instructed to focus on driving and talk less like Charlotte Clare has been at Ferrari for a long time now, are there any words left?

Probably run out of things to say at this point.

He's been there for so long, and you know it always ends up seeing it being a different journey to the same outcome, doesn't it with someone like him?

But I just I sigh here in exasperation.

Also because this feels like a story as old as time.

Does any of this help and it's just no.

And I think maybe the contrast between this not being very helpful, and then we talked about this last week because of what happened in Sarpolo with a double DNF for Ferrari, they're fourth in the constructor's standings, which you know doesn't sound great in and of itself, but you look at me in context.

They're behind a team that sometimes forgets that it has a second car in Formula one in Red Bull.

This is how bad it's got.

And if you were going to look at the strengths of Ferrari on paper, this driver lineup is as good, if not better, than any driver lineup they've had for a considerably long time.

So the mechanics are doing a great job.

That's ononderfully.

You keep the soldiers on the shop floor happy, well, that sort of thing, that's fine.

Is it really a product of two guys who are clearly two of the best five six drivers in Formula One that it's going like this pointing the finger at a time where unity, as Charlott clur said, is required, is a very Ferrari thing to do and not particularly helpful.

And from your point of view, I mean, you must have just looked at this and said, well, of course this is going to be the way it goes because.

Ferrari, Yeah, one hundred percent.

But it's just confusing that we're not confusing.

It's completely predictable, isn't it, As you've I think aptly said.

But this year they've been through so many ups and downs off the track.

You know, we started the year with the disappointment of the car not really being there, then some hope obviously in China where Lewis Hamilton won the Sprint, and then disappointment the cars squalor and the Grand Prix, and then it was sort of in that after that first quarter of the season, let's say that speculation really mounted in the Italian media that Frederic Vassu was going to be replaced.

That normally comes from it as much as there telling me that loves a good rumor story.

When they all come out on the same page, it usually suggests something is going on inside, whether or not it's on hundreds and accurate or not.

Turns out he then re signed his contract, but now the chairman after saying he fully backed the way that fred Vassis set up the team and everything well, actually, well, maybe it's the drivers the problem.

It's all just a little bit unnecessarily chaotic in a year in which, okay, the disappointment is palpable.

This is a team that expected to contend for titles this year after falling only fourteen points short of the Constructors Championship last year.

But it's more important, argue than ever ever, to focus not simply because of the year has been disappointing, but because next year the rule changes are a massive opportunity to get them right or to get them wrong and be condemned to maybe another half decade of not winning titles.

We don't know how the new rules are going to go in sense of development and all that kind of thing, but it's important to hit the ground running, particularly for Ferrari, and to have this off track nonsense happening can only distract from that very important goal.

Yeah, the next year thing you mentioned is the key point here, because anyone other than the team that's been dominant all season is one of the constructors by Myles I A.

McLaren, everyone else should be looking at next year because you get this once in a however many years chance to completely flip the script on what the pecking order is in Formula one that just a continual renewal of previous season's rules, and you get these incremental changes but nothing seismic, and you look at what's coming next year, you look back at big previous rule changes.

The pecking order of Formula one can change dramatically.

I mean, I always go back to twenty fourteen when you think what proceded twenty fourteen with Red Bulls winning everything for years and then suddenly they were absolutely nowhere and Mercedes cleaned up for the best part of five years after that because it was that chance for a big reset.

The last thing you need going into an opportunity like this, and this is what it is.

It's an opportunity for the teams that aren't doing so well.

The last thing you need is distractions and disunity and just throwing unnecessary questions up here where you look at the other teams that are in this mix to potentially step forward for next year, you don't see that same amount of chaos being created unnecessarily.

Now you can have some hard conversations behind closed doors and all that sort of thing.

It's also not the Ferrari way, And this is the crazy part.

For me is if history is any guide, this is tactic by Ferrari.

The way they're handling this, it doesn't work because we're starting to get to the point now where we're approaching historical levels of title droughts for both constructor and driver.

Doing this would be probably the last thing that you should be doing internally ahead of such a big opportunity for next year.

It would be bad enough at any time.

It's certainly not a great look now when to me twenty twenty six is for anyone other than McLaren, twenty twenty six is this thing that you should be looking at as this is our chance here.

If we get this right, we can go on a run, because history has taught us that it's just the wrong message and at the wrong time.

Yeah.

Well, this is the longest constructors Championship drought, as you said in prior's history, not quite the longest driver's title drought, but with any more interventions perhaps they can reach that in the next couple of years.

The timing was also kind of interesting.

Obviously, Brazil was very disappointing and that was sort of the launching point for this.

With the double DNF in the Grand Prix but the pace was pretty ordinary all weekend, but Charlotte Clair had qualified very well in the sprint that they both drivers had performed well.

Hamilton from outside into the points LaClair maybe could have finished on the podium and not been the poor innocent bystander in the piastri Antonelli incident early in the race.

Hamilton probably not to be hit the back of Franco colop Into, but nonetheless it just seems a strange way to try and pick your team up.

I note that John Elkin also was saying this in direct parallel to Ferrari's World Endurance Championship team, which one on the same weekend I think, or last week.

In anyway, the drivers and constructors world title in that series also a very prestigious series, also a world championship by FIA standards neglected notably, I think to mention two important things.

One is that the Ferrari factory team there is operated by an independent team of course, not Ferrari in house, which I think could be relevant.

But also World Endurance Championship operates under a balance of performance regulations, which means the field is equalized to ensure every front running team as a chance of winning.

One could cynically argue maybe that's what Ferrari needs to win again in Formula one.

If we want to draw that direct parallel.

Well, perhaps they need some help to mitigate some of the self inflicted wounds that they seem to create on the Formula one side.

So yes, balance of performance, which are three words that I don't particularly like in motorsport.

Maybe that's what they're angling for here.

But I think the frustrating part about this from a media point of view and just from a fan point of view, is it feels they are lacking in nothing in terms of resource and talent and pedigree and history and all of these things that stand in the way from other more inverted commas normal teams from taking this step up.

Everything's there for them to succeed, and they don't succeed because of themselves, not because of any other external factor.

And it's, like I said, it's a story as old as time, and you can, yeah, you can roll your eyes and say, of course Ferrari.

It's immensely frustrating because you know there's certain teams in any sport where the sport is in a better place if they are good, and they are fighting for something meaningful.

You can pick your favorite football league, or you know, I always think of like the New York Knicks in the NBA when they're good, like the American basket was so much better, when the biggest media market is right up the front of that formula ones in a great place, when Ferrari is good and all the ingredients are there for them to be good except themselves, and they just get in their own way all the time.

And I just you know, I'm a bit of a broken record here, But twenty twenty six if any time you need unity and pushing forward is like, we've got this.

It's now.

We are three rounds from the end.

Never rule set that goes in the bin after Abu Dhabi, This is not the time.

Yeah.

I think there's also this interesting element as well if we look forward to twenty twenty six.

They're taking, as you've said, probably the most competitive driver line up, at least on paper into that ear as they've had this year.

We can't can't really doubt Charlotte Clair in very many ways at all.

At this point, one.

Lap speed is there.

He's increasingly a really canny Grand Prix operator as well.

Lewis Hamilton on paper should be right up there.

He's a seven time champion.

The last few of the years have left question marks over exactly where he's operating at.

I think we can also say that at a minimum he hasn't gelled with this generation of car, this ground effect generation.

So next year perhaps an opportunity for him as well.

But this year has been notable that well, Charlotte Claire anyway, who it's almost like a little bit of a joke in the paddic about how he can be absolutely battered and bruised by a dreadful Ferrari weekend and you'll bounce back the next week and say how much he loves the team and how much he loves being a Ferrari driver.

Nothing bad ever happens there.

This year has been notably more pessimistic I think about his lot, been more willing to criticize openly a little bit.

I think a driver has been there for seven years like he has and who has given everything to Ferrari probably earns a little bit of latitude in that respect.

But perhaps there's an element of that here.

Notable as well that in Brazil Lewis Hamilton described this year as a nightmare for him at Ferrari.

I think he was talking more about his own results than the team for sale.

There's a little bit of that in there, but I was interesting, and I point to an ESPN report here that we all remember.

Around the mid season he talked about how he prepared a document for the team about things he thinks needs to be changed a little bit to be more competitive next year, both for his comfort in the team, but also the team generally, and that that has gone down in some parts of the team quite poorly.

They haven't been receptive to some of his ideas.

And I think, to go back to the concept that we've seen this movie before, this fields like everything that is wrong with a team that refuses to adapt in ways that have been proven to win titles.

If they're not going to listen to the guy they've paid the big bucks to bring those ideas over to.

Them, well it's you know, it's what the Dictionary definition of the insanity is, just doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.

When you've got someone with Hamilton's pedigree and the success that he's had and said, hey, I've I've moved enough to create something here that I think might help for that not to go down well, or to be dismissed because he's come from the outside, or whatever it might be.

At the very least you look at it and consider it and maybe consider implementing some of it, because it's a chance to change a predictable narrative.

Part of the worst part about this for me with Ferrari this year was that you could see it coming a mile off what's happened with these comments in the last few weeks, and there was nothing that necessarily steerd those comments away from just their inevitable airing in public.

It was coming ages ago, and you know, the very Ferrari thing is like, well, of course it's going to endlight this.

He didn't have to, and this is the reason you bring someone like Lewis Hamilton in from the outside.

Okay, yes he may not be the driver that he once was, but he certainly got the presence and the pedigree and there's a proven track record of success there By hiring someone like him, there's a bit of an admission that, yeah, we need to change, we need to look at what's happened elsewhere and try and bring some of that into Ferrari and then for it just to sort of heater out the way that it has.

I mean, in his forties now, he's not going to be the same driver he was at thirty two or thirty five or what have you.

But all the benefit of that experience and the success, it feels like that's not necessarily been taken into account.

And then so the question begs a question, why not just keep car hoost sites or hire anybody else?

Quite frankly, yeah, this is why you bring someone like him in and spend the money that you're doing, because it's an admission that you need something else from outside.

And it doesn't feel like it's really gelt at all.

Yeah, I mean, it's what's working, at least theoretically working at Aston Martin with Fernando Orlans.

They've got him there.

He's clearly performing at a very good level, but he's bringing his expertise to a team that's coming from a low base and needing to reach a high one according to the objective set by the team owner.

There Ferrari isn't coming from as lower base, but it clearly needs some help getting at least those final percentage points of performance to close that gap.

That's part of the reason that got him there.

It'll be interesting to see how this one evolves.

You can read a little bit more about this at the Fox Sports website as well about why this might be happening and what it means for the team.

But I just want to look briefly ahead to this weekend's Las Vegas Grand Prix and also to the final three rounds of the year, because whether or not Lewis Hamilton, quite aside from this, can get back onto the podium for the first time as a Ferrari driver is something that I think we'll be watching for in these last three rounds.

No Ferrari driver has gone this long before claiming their first Ferrari podium.

He's had fourth a couple of times.

Vegas might be the opportunity as supposed because this feels like the wild card circuit.

I guess remaining on the calendar because it is such an outlier.

Yeah, I'd agree.

I mean, this is the one that has the least predictable outcome.

We'll probably get to this in our crystal ball section where I make up with something completely outlandished by the end of this podcast.

We'll have to see, but it's certainly in a season that's been you know, the Constructor's title was wrapped up ages ago.

It's been a season that's been dominated by I guess you could say three drivers because the Stappans come so good late in the season.

This does feel like an unusual wildcard, and it's not because necessarily you're talking about whether or just one of those crazy calamitous sorts of Grand Prix.

It's a track layout because of the amount of trip wise around this place, and we've we've not had the races in Vegas have been pretty intriguing because they don't conform to a script.

And I think you've got a live championship fight going on as well, of course, which we're going to touch on.

But this feels like the race with the most jeopardy and there's a lot of people with a lot of lot to lose in a race weekend like this.

Ferrari, as we've discussed in the last fifteen minutes, have absolutely nothing to lose really because it's you know, the only way is up when you're fourth in the constructors Championship and your high price siding hasn't stood on a Grand Prix podium yet.

This is an opportunity.

And so if there's one of these last three races of the season that's going to perhaps put a result in their favor, it strikes me that this is the one.

But it's a bit of a strange race weekend.

I haven't really you know, you watch these over a number of years, you get a feel for how these things are going to play out.

Who might be strong, certain drivers, have affinities with certain places.

This one still feels like the first time we've been to Las Vegas three years.

It doesn't really seem to follow any sort of script, and a lot of the time you've just got the palms upturn and say, well, I don't know what's going to happen here, and so I mean, it's great for the unpredictability factor for the viewers, and it's great that it's in an Australian time zone of course, But if something whack is going to happen, and something good for Ferrari, because God knows they need some good news at this point, maybe this is it.

Yeah, exactly.

They need their first win, Lewis Hamilton needs his first podium.

Big question of course going into this weekend is what's going to happen with the driver's championship battle.

Lando Norris leeds Oscar Piastri by twenty four points.

Three rounds remain.

That's three Grand Prix plus one sprint in Kata.

This for me feels like I think we've said this before, an important round for the title, not just because they're running out of time more Oscar Piastri is running out of time if he wants to overhaul that gap, but because this doesn't feel like it's going to be a strong McLaren circuit now.

The team thinks it's improved the weaknesses that have made this such a weak circuit over the last couple of years, but nonetheless we've seen similar tracks and at some other tracks this year as well, its advantage can be muted by track characteristics like long straits and cool temperatures, which is mostly what Las Vegas is.

And I can't help but think that that means it's not simply a matter of maybe fewer points being on the table for the McLaren drivers this weekend than we've come to expect, but the potential for a big swing if one of them gets it right, or maybe perhaps if one of them gets it very wrong.

Well, and also the chance for more interlopers from other teams to figure into the mix.

Like you know, there's been tracks this season where if you're in a McLaren you're having a bit of an off day, you could still finish on the podium, and I don't think that's the case here.

And there's a bit of an optical illution with this race.

I think there's so many of these night races we see now and less.

I remind you Formula one's done its last daytime lapse of the season three rounds from the end, but that'll make you feel good.

But this we have these things.

With all the night races that we have on the calendar these days, they're characterized by being in hot climates and so they do play out kinder similarly in a way you think of the way Bahrain works and Saudi andav is generally hot.

Vegas in November at a certain time of night is properly cold.

It's a it's a curve ball that we don't necessarily take into account because so many of these races we see are under lights, are very very hot runs, and yet it's not a track both climate and characteristics.

It's going to necessarily suit McLaren.

That's the interesting thing for me in that, Yeah, there's been races this season where if you're Piastri or Norris and you can finish it, So so sort of a fourth on a day where you don't really have it.

If you have one of those days this weekend, you might be seventh.

There's absolutely a chance for other people to get in the mix here.

Mercedes had a strong record here, they'll be probably stronger relative to other tracks that they've been at Ferrari, who knows.

And then you've got the for stapp In factor because he's now right on the precipice of being out of the World Championship fights.

Forty nine points off the lead.

It must win is probably a bit much, but he's certainly he has to have a really strong weekend relative to the two guys that he's fighting against to at least be part of the narrative for the two rounds that follow.

So there's a lot of moving parts here.

But yeah, the tractor characteristics and the cold temperatures.

McLaren will feel vulnerable here despite the fact that they feel they're going to be stronger than they were last year.

But what were they sixth and seventh in the Grand Prix last year and never really factored into it.

And yeah, we've got such a limited database of information with Vegas because he's so new that it's hard to imagine there's going to be a dramatic turnaround on that front.

So I'm all for a bit of chaos because we want this to stay live for as long as we possibly can.

But it's who gets in the mix potentially between the two McClaren drivers and what order those McClaren drivers are in.

That's the really interesting part of this weekend, I.

Think, particularly when you consider I think a couple of things.

One is the chance of a safety car here, which you'd have to think is pretty high considering that the nature of the circuit.

But also we've seen, as only his last week, that you don't have to qualify that far down the grid for incidents to affect your race.

Oscopiastri obviously his race completely undone by an incident while battling for a spot on the podium, so not even very low at all.

He qualified only on the second row, So you don't have to qualify that far down.

If we're working with the assumption that McLaren won't be as potent as usual for your race to be heavily compromised and only by strategy, but perhaps by incidents.

The first turn in Vegas, Okay, there's a lot of wall right right out the outside, but we see cars go off there regularly, particularly given the temperatures, cold, ties and breaks, all that kind of thing at the start, So there's a pretty high potential for chaos.

Having said all that, just because the first two races are very interesting, I feel like every race is due a bad one, Like I think back to Aservaijan.

Well, it was due a bad one straight off the bat and then the good races came.

I certainly hope that's not the case, but it should be interesting nonetheless, because I think, as you said, the form guide doesn't feel like it really applies here.

Yeah, a little bit.

It's a bit of an outlawer.

And the safety card thing you just said, then that's super real that you look down the list of entrance for this weekend and we could probably have a discussion about this off there.

But I could give you three people right now who are most likely to create a safety car over the course of the weekend.

I mean and it might not necessarily could get a poorly time red flag in qualifying, it's got potential for that too.

So it's not just in Sunday's race.

It's what happens through the rest of the weekend.

Are people taking gred penalties for new gearboxes and other such and what happens at crucial points of qualifying because qualifying has is a chance that qualifying could be pretty chaotic here because people are pushing so hard.

I think if that the last corner coming off the strait, I think as we're even coming on to the big straight where colpinto bindit in the Williams and shifted one of the barriers, that was a lengthy delay.

So there are a lot of tripwise around this place, and you add cold temperatures and some curb writing and yeah, lookout.

A great thing is though, that at three pm Eastern daylight time, we can afford lengthy delays for a nice change.

Bring on the delays water time.

They can have eleven red flags and the lights can go out and they can fill in potholes or whatever they want to do.

At Las Vegas we've seen that in the past.

Bring it on, because Australia will still be awake wonderful times.

Absolutely.

Let's move out a Move of the week brought to you by Shannon's.

We had two categories in action over the weekend, both Murdo GP and Supercars.

We will get into them in a little bit more detail in a moment, but Matt, I caught your e this week move.

Of the Week.

I'm actually going to be partially sensible here, which I know is unlike me in this particular segment, but I'm going to take you to the second last lap of the Motor GP season in Valencia last weekend.

Notable because on that lap Ducatti's Fabio de jan Antonio took third place off Katm's Pedro Acosta and held that place to the check and flag.

That's the eighty eighth straight Grand Prix, Michael, that a Ducati has been on the podium.

If you can believe that, it extends the all time Moto GP record that goes back to the twenty twenty one British Grand Prix, and so de jan Antonio getting third on that penultimate lap of the season preserve that record.

And it was in interesting in that well, two things.

I mean, that's nearly what's over four years.

That's wild for a brand to have a bike on the podium and every Grand Prix for eighty eight straight races.

But it also shows you how hard it is for someone like Ducatti.

When Mark Marquez a sidelined as he was this weekend, you know, Alex Marquez was a bit lost in the race, had some entire life issues.

Yet another Peco DNF just pour out another had hardly a drink for Peco because he probably needs one at this point.

But it shows you that Katti can be vulnerable.

And the fact it took until a pass for the last podium place on the second last lap of the season for that record to be preserved, I thought was noteworthy.

But while we're on the Mark Marquez thing, by the way, this is a trivia question for you.

We had twenty two rounds in Motor GP this year, twenty two full time riders.

How many rounds do you think that we had the entire grid for the season fit and racing?

Good question.

That is a great question, I'm going to say, because we've had especially because I think of Juge Martin who didn't turn up until quite late in the year, I reckon it's going to be like three.

Okay, once if you can believe that I.

Thought I was low.

So once in twenty two rounds this year it was it was the Grand Prix of Catalunya in round fifteen.

Did we have all twenty two regular full time riders start the Grand Prix on the Sunday one in twenty two rounds?

Soay Motor GP longer seasons, not Horay Motor GP longer seasons.

One time, if you can believe.

That, good year for the on track medical team, which is not indeed, yes, remarkable always good year for that.

Well.

I've got move of the Week into useless trivia here, so you can choose to one or both of these, but I should probably ask you what your move of the week is, and I'm suspecting it's going to have two more wheels in mine.

Yes, So I regret that I didn't bring any fun trivia for you.

Set the bar high for this one.

Shannon's will be very pleased.

I'm going to go with almost a little bit of a left field Matt Clayton style move because it's not one, it's twenty seven moves, it's Will Brow.

I'm going to go I give pick my favorite on though it's will brew move on ryan Wood on Saturday afternoon in Sandown obviously Sandown five hundred to claim a second place as it was behind when it has most it that was up from fifteenth on the grid, remarkable, fifteenth on the grid where he qualified when we assumed, because he started this weekend, we're going to get in the Supercars final system in just a moment.

Started this weekend outside the top four, and only the four progressed to the Grand Final.

So qualifying fifteenth right there, then you were mentally riding him off as a championship defense.

Recovered to second, remarkable, then qualified seventeenth on Sunday, made fundamentally the same problem, which was he watched the end of Q two from his garage, never a great place to be finished back on the podium a double he was the only triple eight driver to score a double podium.

Just fuck qualifying there and despite brock Feeni continuing to lead that the championship table, the race pace was on another planet.

This wasn't a These weren't results that were born of you know, even though it was a bit wet and dry on on Sunday, that were born of you know, whacky.

Weren't even any safety guards in fact in the web on Sunday.

No, no whacky results, just very fast.

He is a very fast driver.

Made twenty seven passes, got two podiums.

He's through to the Grand Final, not even in fourth, in third place.

Just a remarkable weekend for him and I think maybe we will reflect just in time for his title defense.

Just an incredible performance.

Twenty seven moves of the week.

That's the highest ub we've had in this category.

For that is extraordinary because it's such a Sena.

Is not the easiest track for these things to pass mus be perfectly honest, even if you've got a car advantage, So to do it twice in twenty four hours is pretty impressive.

So I only have one move of the week.

I think your twenty seven tops MNE in terms of number and quality.

But yeah, that is quite a remarkable turnaround.

Considering again, dire it looked well.

Let's go back to Motor GP though in interested versus expert final time this year, I suppose because it was the final race of Moto GP for the season.

We are in that final month of motor racing pretty much unless him by the one of those random off season categories.

Final race of the we don't have as you mentioned, most of the full time riders or many of the full time riders were not there, but was beginning to look a little bit regular.

I suppose for Bacco Betzeki, who scored his second straight Grand Prix victory again in quite comfortable, dominating fashion.

What was your take on this this final weekend of racing, and I suppose a little bit of the season overall.

Yeah, super interesting that so Buzeki wins in Valencia, led every lap from pole, as he had done in Portermow the previous week seven days previously, and it just underlines how much Aprilia has improved this season.

It's the most successful season they've ever had.

It's the first time of the one back to back Grand Prix they finished one two in this race at Valencia, with Ralphernandez, the Australian Grand Prix winner, finishing six tenths of a second behind Betzeki.

And the interesting part for me is that you know, we mentioned before that Mark Marquez has been out and it's the last four rounds have been pretty interesting where you see the reliance that Decati has on the biggest difference maker in the sport.

But it also shows that I don't think there's any doubt now that the Aprilia is the second best bike on the grid, and you look at the turmoil that Aprili has gone through this season.

They spent a lot of money signing Jorge Martin after he basically just cracked THEU SADS and left your canty, which was understandable to go to a Prillier and the guy they spent all the money on and they had all the high hopes for has basically not featured at all because he did seven Grand Prix for the entire year, because he just lurched from one injury to the next.

The Bozeki things interesting for me because we saw a bit of this in twenty twenty three.

He won three Grand Prix that year's third in the championship.

Last year he was twelve.

He was just kind of not really out the races.

Last year he was signed with a Prillier very much to be their second rider.

I don't even think he was their second or third choice.

They wanted Maverick Vinalez to stay.

They probably wanted an Italian on the second seat.

In Abasien.

He was possibly going there, Bazeki was kind of a consolation prize.

And while we're talking stats, hit for you this back half of the season, so two round season, the final eleven rounds of the season after the German Grand Prix in July, Berzeki was the highest point scorer in the back half of the season out of anyone on the entire grid.

Now, the astor Is scare courses that Mark Marquez missed the final four rounds, but over the last eleven rounds of the season, Berzeki two hundred and twenty three points, second rider in that category.

Interestingly enough, also not a Ducati Pedro Acosta two hundred and eight points on a KTM in those final eleven rounds, Alex Marquez two hundred and six just behind on a Ducati Mark Marquez two hundred and one points and missed the last four Grand Prix of the year.

So I mean, does that stat change if Mark is upright for the final four?

Yeah, probably does.

But it shows you that in a championship that Ducati's won again, Aprili has made massive steps forward and a Costa is just proving to be this enormous and difference maker on a bike that nobody else really seems to be able to ride at the moment, so really interesting into the season.

Also a couple of little shout outs Jack Miller fifth top ten finish of the season.

He was ninth in the race, qualified on third rowing.

It's really quite solid.

You look at jack season and the points in the championship finishing position don't look great relative to his previous seasons.

But I think he you know, he proved himself to be the second best Yamaha rider all year.

He secured a contract for twenty twenty six, and we know Yamaha is moving to that V four engine for next year.

And Jack spent all but this year riding V fours for Honda and Decatti and Katim beforehand.

So Jack's a hugely valuable asset there.

And then in the wacky races corner of interested versus expert this week, which I've just invented, can we talk about Franco Morbidelli.

Oh, please, Franko Morbidelli.

He usually dawdles on the racing line or hits people during races, but he was actually able to do something even he'd never done before, pulling into his grid spot before the Grand Prix on Sunday, got distracted or something and ran into the back of Honda's Aleisha Spargaro, who was stationary on the grid awaiting the start.

If anyone that follows murdor GP knows that the Morbidelli Aspargaro beef is one of sports more underrated ones because it's got many, many chapters.

The worst part for Morbidelli he falls off his own bike and breaks his left hand at about two kilometers an hour and the bike falls on top of him.

He's now out of the postseason test in Valencia, which is happening Tuesday Australian time, because he's broken his own hand in a two kilometer an hour accident and now can't test the twenty twenty six bike.

And that is the most Franco Morbidelli story that I could possibly come up with to sum up the season.

One of the weirdest things I think I've seen in about twenty odd years of Motor GP, and certainly the slow speed crash.

But yeah, of all the things we're going to remember Valencia, for a guy falling off his own bike on the grid, breaking his own hand is going to be right up there.

A remarkable way to end the season, not with a bang, but with a crunch.

I suppose just to crash.

Well, and just a pathetically slow one at that.

But yeah, probably no such a grid silliness at Sandown, but I must have been when we approach interested versus expert.

I thought to myself, I wonder what the weather was like in Sandown.

Then I remembered it was Sandown in Melbourne in November.

So it's going to rain at some point, it's just a matter of when.

But you mentioned the Will Brown entry into the Grand Finalists before.

What I'm interested in is this, three of the names that are in the Grand Final for Adelaide that I would have predicted before the season and one that I absolutely would not have.

Yes, and this is the most interesting part.

And I feel like, if you are Supercars, you are getting one hundred percent what you wanted out of this final.

Absolutely it is delivering precisely what you wanted.

Not only because we've had some really great jeopardy over the last two rounds on the Gold Coast and Sanddown, will Brown being a great example of having to get into that final four, but you've got three drivers who absolutely you would expect to be there and have been standout performers for the year or late in the year.

In brock Feene, unsurprisingly he top the title standings chas mostts.

Really strong late finish really just in the finals has got him into second place.

In fact, he was briefly in top spot on Saturday night after winning that race, and then Will brown sneaking into third.

Fourth though, is the rookie Kai Allen from Grove not his teammate Matt Paine who ended the Guess what we call the regular season the home and away season doesn't make any sense.

In second is the championship standings.

He's out.

He's out of the finals, somewhat controversially after a variety or one class anyway, with Cam Borders who's also out, another driver you might have expected to have taken that fourth place if not Matt Payne.

So we've got this tremendous random element in the Grand Final.

And the beauty, of course is when you crunch up all the points, as they do at every finals round, you close up all the drivers.

Kaion's only fifty points off the title lead, and we've got three races in Adelaide, which is in a fortnight so not this weekend, but the next.

That's entirely achievable if you know, only needs one weird result to happen to some of the other finalists and he wins, and suddenly he's going to be the favorite to be the champion out of nowhere in his rookie season.

And he has had a great rookie season.

It is worth saying he's really come on the second half of the year.

Now, you know, I love a spreadsheet.

I've been keeping my Supercar stat sheet up to date.

Spreadsheet World Champion.

You are unofficially but.

Yes, yes, even in the finals format, people will have been wondering, and they will wonder at the end of Adelaide no matter who wins the title.

Okay, brock Phenie wins the title, it's going to be pretty easy to say, well, he would have won it in the normal format anyway, presumably, although I will point out, considering how strong an ending chas Moster's had to the season, if we were to have regular points, he would be less than one hundred points off the leads.

Okay, a little bit distant, but very much still within the possibility of pinching it.

In Adelaide, it wouldn't be super comfortable for Phoenie, but you know, if he wins the title, we can say he's done it old way in the new way.

This is the standings.

If we had normal points, it would be Phoene mostered and Brown, so exactly as has happened.

So that sort of immediately eliminates anyone who'd be saying, wow, it's all artificial finals whatever, even if the points are closer.

Unsurprisingly it's then Matt Paine, who would have been in the top four under the normal points.

But then it's Kai Allen, so he's only moved up one place in the finals.

Whatever.

To call it the way we're doing the finals format and eliminations, that's how strong an end of the year.

He's had a guy who only just snuck in.

As we talked, I guess two months ago now whenever it was about as we went from Baptist into the finals and he just got into the ten.

He would have been on merit fifth in the standings and potentially could have finished fourth on merit as well in the finals.

He's now got a chance to win the championship.

So this isn't as as much as it's very much random if you'd looked even only a couple of months ago and Certney at the start of the season, he's there.

I'm willing to say pretty much just basically on season long merit, he's in that conversation.

Yeah, absolutely, And I think the reason we perhaps pause at that is at the start of the season, we wouldn't have necessarily thought he'd be one of the four that's still alive at this point.

But you mentioned it before, like if you were setting up a new format and you wanted to script what you wanted for these final four, the Grand Final with the final four drivers, it's absolutely perfect because you've got guys with championship pedigree, You've got someone in Moster who's come along really, really strong, and then you've got this I don't want to use wildcards.

That makes it sound like it's a bit fluky, but certainly not someone that expected.

We expected to be there.

And they all have an equal opportunity for the biggest prize in the last round, and you know that there's going to be peril and all sorts of silliness and controversy and everything else.

It's perfectly set up.

But I like the mix of the drivers that are in this because at the end of the day, we say this all the time, we cheer the narrative here.

Whoever wins out of this four it's a good story, right, it doesn't matter because in terms of where they've come from late season resurgence, you know, defending champion really digging his heels in with Sander and then someone who perhaps we wouldn't have seen coming at the start of the season.

Four really good storylines.

So yeah, it's going to be super intriguing.

And if you were going to draw up an idea way to finish this season, it would look a bit like this.

Yeah, I've just gone back through my trustee spreadsheet.

Kay Allen finished in Bathurst, so this is when the finals, the finalists were decided.

He finished tenth.

You've got into the finals by three points, three points away from missing the top ten completely and here he is with a shot at winning the championship in the Grand Final.

It is remarkable.

I just want to take you very quickly through those finalists and what I thought was interesting this weekend, well we talked about Ky Allen.

Remarkable, he capitalized on some bad luck from Matt Pain, just great results.

He's increasingly just his fall in the last couple of months.

He is just constantly there.

Shows very astute for Grove to have pinched him.

I suppose from Dick Johnson Racing's junior driver program for this year.

Chasmstad though, is the one I think is really interesting.

He's clearly defining peaking at the right time.

He really only started winning in a big way since we turned up to the finals.

He third winning a row was Saturday and Sandown, which meant he knew he was going to the Grand Final regardless of what happened on Sunday.

That's how the rules work.

I thought it was really interesting hearing him speak after the race.

As he said they then used Sunday to test some things for Adelaide, so essentially had a day's head start if you like, on the Grand Final, had good pace, was a little bit unlucky with the switch from drives to wets because his poor old team at bryan Wood, who did help him to victory on Saturday, had a pit stop problem.

He was stuck in the pit box, couldn't pit could moster it.

But that doesn't matter.

He was in the Grand Final anyway.

He's going to start second.

He's only how many points.

Is he going to start behind it's only twenty five points.

I think it is behind.

No twenty points.

I think you behind brock FENNI.

Brock Feennie though he's back to he's winning ways.

He hasn't won since Ipswitch, which was before even the Enduro's.

He's won again.

He's won from pole, so it looks like standard brock Feenie issued twenty twenty five.

That's good obviously for him coming into the Grand Final because he needed that little No one say he's been out of form, but just needed that little bit of momentum to charge in there.

And then we've already talked about Will Brown.

I mean he he could also argue he's peaking at the right time, just not in qualifying.

The race pace is clearly there would be harder, I guess, as hard as it is to pass a sand down, but it's pretty difficult on the street circuit like Adelaide, much riskier anyway if you want to pull off moves like that.

But if he can sort out his qualifying you would almost notwithstanding the thirty five points is to brock Finil, that's not very much.

Is it almost call him to favorite?

I don't know.

I think we've got quite a few contenders for favorite, so it's really well set up.

You know, if anyone was skeptical about the Grand Final format, where you're entitled to be, obviously because it is a change.

But the outcome we've got, I think is simultaneously the jeopardy you'd want from this kind of format as well as being pretty representative of the form drivers at this point in the year.

Well, and you can make a case for all four and that's the beauty of all of these.

You didn't want it to be a situation where you're like, well, it's probably one of two guys, and now the guys are kind of making up the numbers.

The evolving nature of Adelaide's interesting too, because you mentioned the three races, all of these predictions and where's this going to go in points gap?

This is going to be something that shifts over the course of the event, which makes it really interesting as well.

So you know what happens early in the weekend, how does that change what each driver needs to get out of the subsequent races.

Yeah, it's like I said, if you're going to come up with a new format, you'd be pretty happy with the way it's come.

Out, absolutely right.

So the Grand Final is in a couple of weeks.

But before we get to the Grand Final, obviously, is this weekend's Las Vegas Grand Prix.

And of course the crystal ball, brought to you by Complete Home Filtration, doesn't have to be about this weekend's the race.

Of course, there's still a few weeks of racing to go.

But Matt, what's the crystal ball telling you?

Crystal ball's telling me that daytime Formula one is a great thing.

Actually, don't need a crystal ball to tell me that it is a wonderful, wonderful thing.

We mentioned before how this is the least predictable of the three Grand Prix we've got left to confirm a Formula One champion this year.

So my crystal ball is telling me that we're going to have three different teams each have one driver on the podium this weekend.

Oh, I like it.

And the reason I'm saying, and let's be honest, if you're choosing three team, there's going to be three teams out of four teams because the four teams that are clearly and that's at a category A of the championship I'm still thinking that Ferrari is going to have a driver on the podium this weekend, which is probably against the run of play, and certainly in obate.

John elkn will be pleased about that.

I think I think Ferrari is going to be that we're gonna have a Ferrari driver on the podium.

Now, you mentioned the Lewis Hamilton podium draft.

Wouldn't that be quite something?

But I'm going to basically say one of those top four teams is not going to have a driver on the podium this weekend.

And if the team that's not represented on the podium, if we don't see McLaren up there, or we don't see Max Bastappen up there, I won't mention Red Bulls other driver because we don't care they don't either.

If it's a McLaren or a red Ball that misses out on the podium, doesn't that shape what's going to come for Qatar and Abi Dhabi coming up after that?

But your that's quite a sensible crystal ball by my standards.

I'm wondering if you're going to go a little.

Bit whack you well.

I like to think that I've put some have I really put any sort of rational effort into my chrystal.

I've certainly made them genuinely, but have I thought deeply about them before?

Not always?

Sometimes, but not always.

And I can't believe I'm going to say this about this week's crystal Ball, but I had a dream yesterday that Lando Norris has one more DNF in him.

Oh boy, I'm not going to say when it's going to happen.

Doesn't have to, it doesn't have to be this weekend.

It may not happen at all.

It was just a dream.

But this is my crystal ball, is that Lando Norris's title campaign has one more DNF in it.

I wasn't the dream wasn't clear on the circumstances.

It was a very messy race.

The track it's unfamiliar to me, right, But that's that's my prediction, is that there's one more twist and it's going to be another failure to finish.

Did your dream have a sad Sky Sports commentary soundtrack and perhaps some violin explaining, because if it was that, I'm on board with this.

I don't know, because in my dream, I'd switch to the F one TV commentary feed, as you can do on.

You don't need a crystal borderside whether that's a good idea or not.

But I'm super interested in this because it does show that at the end of a season where you've done about forty million races, give or take, you're a little bit delirious at this point in November.

So I do like the fact that work is invading your subconscious in the rare time that a relatively new father gets to sleep.

But yeah, I'm more interested in the soundtrack, and there's just a bit of oh dear going on in the background when it all goes pair shape for our Lando.

So yeah, super interesting.

And if that happens, then I'm going to be mining whatever else you dream and perhaps go to toab or something because there could be something in that.

It will be very interesting.

I'm more invested than usual in the outcome of the next But that's all the time.

We have a bit talk today.

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

This weekend is the Las Vegas Grand Prix.

You'll like this, Matt.

The antipenultimate round of the Formula One season.

Oh, very good.

Qualifying is at a very comfortable three pm on Saturday, and the race also at three pm on Sunday.

That's Australian Eastern daylight time.

You can keep up to date with all the latestef one, Supercars and Moto TP news at Foxsports dot com dot Au from Matt Clayton and me Michael Lomonato.

Thanks very much for your company.

It'll catch you next week.