The F1 Pod

After a legally required three day cooling-off period the pod reconvenes to share their thoughts on the finish to a tumultuous '21 F1 campaign which ended with Max Verstappen being crowned as World Champion in Abu Dhabi. We share our thoughts on FIA regulations, and the race deciding call made by Race Director Michael Masi before musing about our favorite moments of the season as well as wildly speculating about which teams and drivers will come out on top next year. And a big 'Thank you' to our fans, friends and family who've stuck with us and listened to our often deranged, but always entertaining, banter!

The penultimate race of the longest season saw the two title contenders draw level on points taking this year's championship down to the last race of the season. But inaugural Saudi Arabian GP wasn't without controversy both on and off the track so join us as we calmly and respectfully discuss in one of our longest pods to date. 0:00 - 4:00 Intro to the circuit and some of the drama both pre and during the race. Whitney sows the seeds of impending chaos. 4:01 - 19:30 Still pretty tame as we go over Practice and Quali incidents. LEC's unfortunate accident, a precursor of things to come. MAZ's excellent save (not sarcasm). GIO's excellent qualifying in contrast to VET and STR's abysmal run of luck. VER's Q3 heroics are for naught as he crashes out and has to settle for the third slot on the grid behind HAM and BOT. 19:31 -  We get set to be mean to each other, battle lines are drawn, emotions run high and it's Red Bull vs Mercedes fans. We debate the merits of the track, safety vs speed and excitement. MSC's crash and the ensuing Yellow Flag to Red Flag chaos. Opinions diverge on whether tyre changes be permitted under a red-flag. We discuss the unusual 'negotiation' between Michael Masi and RB before proceeding to argue whether Max's "strategic" attempt to give his place back as instructed by the stewards was a fair racing move.

With no race to recap, we spend this week's track walk talking about the current state of F1 with hot takes, pour one out for legend Frank Williams, and discuss what F1 leaders would thrive in college football.  Join us for one of our longest track walks as we get closer to wrapping up the season!

We're a little late getting this one out with the holiday last week, but finally we recap the Qatar Grand Prix, discuss Alonso sneaking into the podium, Ferrari and Alpine separating themselves in 3rd and 5th respectively, and is Lewis and Mercedes going to pull it off again?

Brazil saw a spectacular HAM performance during both the sprint race and the main event as he passed every single driver over both events to secure a win. The championship battle isn't over yet with only Hamilton and Verstappen now in contention! We cover the heroes (Ga4ly, Sainz and LeClerc) and the losers (Tsunoda, Stroll and Ricciardo). We also go slightly insane and have our most deranged, but funny, podcast to date!

00 - 3:12 Mexico Intro and Fast Facts. We invent a new multi-sport discipline that takes advantage of F1 venues that host baseball, football and racing. Also Miami listeners apologies as we disparage your sports franchises. 3:12 - 4:32  We lament our cancelled trip to MX after the race was moved by a week. Whitney  recounts tales of out-running Mexican law enforcement in her youth. 4:33 - 18:19  We jump into quali which we were able to see live for a change and discuss the impact of the dust and low grip on drivers like Stroll and Perez who spun. And poor Yuki who did nothing wrong!! (Also we say "gravel" but we mean "run-off" 19:45 We jump into the race and disucss the post-race fall out from split second decisions made by Bottas, Verstappen, Ricciardo and others going into the first corner. The discourse covers the growing popularity of F1 in the US, Lewis' chances of winning the title and, of course, buggies... (if you know, you know).

In this episode we recap the United States Grand Prix weekend in Austin, Texas!  Finally a race in our timezone. We talk about Ricciardo leaning into his Texan personality, Red Bull's magnificent strategy, and of course discuss the helmets, plus much more.

The squad is back (minus Ash) to discuss Turkey and relive the tire strategy madness!

The gang discusses the positives and negatives of Netflix's "Schumacher" documentary and provides their extremely objective ratings. Then we chat about the latest addition to the '21 calendar, Qatar, and discuss the overwhelming 23 race schedule for '22.

2021 Sochi Grand Prix, 2 races for the price of one! Lap 1 through 48 in the dry and then 49 to 53 in the wet! Drama!