Episode 20 - Max Verstappen, Kimi Antonelli

Show Notes

Chuck Hayes and David Gould cover Max Verstappen, Kimi Antonelli, Ferrari, Lewis Hamilton, and Lando Norris on this episode of The Chequered Flag Report.

• Max Verstappen
• Kimi Antonelli
• Ferrari
• Lewis Hamilton
• Lando Norris
• Cadillac F1
• Mercedes
• George Russell

What is Chequered Flag Report?

The Chequered Flag Report is the fastest hour in Formula 1 — a weekly podcast and radio show built for fans who want more than the highlight reel.

Co-hosts David Gould and Chuck "Iron Man" Hayes break down every Grand Prix the way it's talked about in the paddock: race previews and predictions, post-race analysis, driver market rumors, betting lines, sponsorship and the business of the sport, and the storylines the mainstream coverage doesn't get to. Bahrain to Abu Dhabi, Monaco to Vegas — wherever the lights go out, the Chequered Flag Report is calling the race.

David brings 30+ years across business, radio, and the worlds of luxury and sponsorship — the voice behind the business of Formula 1. Chuck brings three decades in Las Vegas media, a CBS Sports Radio chair, and a deep motorsport pedigree from a family that co-owned race teams alongside legends like Dale Earnhardt and Mark Martin.

New episodes every race week. Broadcast on KMET 1490 AM in Southern California and K-DAWN 101.5 FM in Las Vegas. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

The Chequered Flag Report Transcript
AssemblyAI transcript ID: dcbb9001-87f3-4255-8a23-a39c7a6c87f3
Status: completed
Duration: 2403 seconds
Speaker mapping: A = Chuck Hayes, B = David Gould

[0:00] Chuck Hayes: Welcome to the Checkered Flag Report. This is Chuck Hayes with David Gould, and we're here talking Formula 1. And David, it's great to be with you. Another off week, but we're getting ready for a run at Baku. It's going to be outstanding. It's old world mixed with horsepower and great brands. And first of all, it's just great to see you here.
[0:20] David Gould: Yeah, I hate these week offs, these, these, these, these breaks. They leave me without anything to— they leave me without a charge, you know? So I got a self-charge. Anyway, yeah, Baku is going to be interesting. You know, lots of castles, lots of old history, lots of no room to make mistakes. Another one of these courses that there's a lot of walls. So these guys better be on their toes.
[0:46] Chuck Hayes: And reminder, this race will be on Saturday. There's a lot of graphics out there that say the race will be on, on Sunday, but is run on the 26th because it's a national holiday. on Sunday for that country. And we want to remind everyone that Chavez Realty Development Apartments, Business Affairs, Real Estate Assessment is our presenting sponsor. Call 626-440-1545. That's Chavez Realty Development. All right. So, David, when they tucked young Kimi Antonelli in at night, he was still the leader and having dreams of conquering the world with 8 wins, 292 points. His teammate, George Hamilton, 211 points in 2nd. Sir Lewis Hamilton is in 3rd with 191. Lando Norris, the defending world champion from McLaren, 186. Charles Leclerc, who's Lewis's teammate, 167. Max Verstappen with 145 is 6th. Oscar Piastri, 7th with 120. Isaac Hadjar with 71. He'll be back in the car. His wrist is healed up.
[1:55] David Gould: Good.
[1:56] Chuck Hayes: Missed 2 races. Liam Lawson will go back down to race to Racing Bulls, uh, Pierre Gasly is 10th with 41, and that means Yuki Tsunoda will be in the sim and doing all the things necessary as the backup. So again, as we continue to describe what's going on in the world, um, I don't think you can say it enough times that what Antonelli is on path to do is unprecedented.
[2:25] David Gould: Oh yeah.
[2:25] Chuck Hayes: And again, how he handles the pressure for the remaining races that we look at. It's going to be the storyline, and then the fact that his teammate George Russell is 2nd, who expected to be the leader of that team, will be watched very closely on how he handles it. But the fact that Mercedes is just on top, 503 to 358 in Constructors.
[2:51] David Gould: Yes.
[2:51] Chuck Hayes: That their organization is saying win Win, win. Be careful how you win. We don't want any mess-ups because we want that championship, because we are competing against Ferrari on a daily basis on many, many, many levels.
[3:08] David Gould: Yeah. And what's interesting to me is when I look at the constructors, which we'll get to, there's only 4 teams, only 4 teams out of all, out of all the 11 teams that have ever reached a podium, only 3 have wins. So it's very, very lopsided. It's very, very, um, you know, you want to see more, uh, balance than that, uh, in racing. Um, as far as Kimi's concerned, it's, you know, part of me, part of me wants— it's almost like I want him to learn a lesson. In other words, I don't wish the kid any ill, But when you have success like this in your second year, right out of the box, um, you don't, you don't have, you don't have an obstacle to overcome. It seems like he did, you know, he's just lighting everything on fire, which he is. And part of me is, I think it makes for a very interesting storyline. Uh, and the other part of me is kind of upset because there's so many other drivers that have put their lives into this thing. that really, frankly, deserve some credit as well. And they're not getting it. They're not getting the love because Kimmy's eating it all up.
[4:23] Chuck Hayes: As they say, timing is everything in life. And we want to remind everybody to follow the Checkered Flag Report @LVCheckerFlag, @LVCheckerFlag. And David, you wanted to remind me, because there's a lot of switches on our steering wheel.
[4:36] David Gould: Yes.
[4:36] Chuck Hayes: That we can activate a couple other switches and you can listen to the show on that platform.
[4:41] David Gould: Yes, you can follow this show. You can listen to this show if you don't catch the radio or listen to it on iHeartRadio. You can follow it on any of the major podcast platforms— Apple, Amazon, all of them. We're up on all of them. And please, when you see us on Twitter, please give us some love. Give us a like and please retweet.
[5:02] Chuck Hayes: Yeah, this is a great world. We are international. We want to thank everyone at F1 for all they do in regards to promoting this. And I think it's interesting when you start looking across the storylines, and sometimes, David, I wonder, you know, are we being redundant when we're talking about a guy that's won 8 times? That's out of, you know, round 15, the guy's won almost half of them, right? So he's on the curve.
[5:27] David Gould: Yep.
[5:28] Chuck Hayes: That everyone in the sport really is struggling for that little step to find out where the next part of this is going to go.
[5:36] David Gould: Yes.
[5:37] Chuck Hayes: Including the folks at McLaren, where their defending world champion, Lando Norris, Norris has to remind himself that he's running behind a 20-year-old kid when he was dominant along with Oscar. And you just think about that. And then, of course, Sir Lewis Hamilton, who is saying, well, I left to go to Ferrari, and now the kid that took my place is beating all of us.
[6:00] David Gould: Yes, it's, it's, it's a fantastic story. It really is a fantastic story and something you couldn't anticipate. You couldn't, you couldn't even I mean, how would you even bet on this if you were a betting person? Because this is— there's no, there's no history there. There's no, you know, you can bet on Max, you can bet on, on Lewis. It's just there's no history. So how do you, how do you judge this? It's just so— it's hard to get your— get grounded in thinking about it.
[6:30] Chuck Hayes: And when you say that, I'm reminded of F1: The Movie and Sonny Hayes in regards to that storyline. And that's pretty standard. Uh, driver had an incident, comes back, kind of the, the Top Gun, uh, format or the Days of Thunder format.
[6:46] David Gould: Yeah.
[6:46] Chuck Hayes: But if you were to bring a script in where you said there's this kid that lives at home in Italy and, uh, he's only raced in a certain level, but he's— after his first year, he's going to literally dominate the sport, you would have said, I don't know, it's, it just seems— and, and the fact that his name is Kimi Antonelli and he looks like He does.
[7:08] David Gould: Yes.
[7:08] Chuck Hayes: And again, uh, not wanting to tie it all into age and identification, but he's only 20 right now. I think Kimi's going to be carded for the next decade. Yeah, he has that look about him. I mean, I know. Goodness. I mean, when he turns 30, uh, you know, we're gonna hopefully see him in a, in a, in a role of, uh, where he's broken every record known to, known to man in F1. So these are all these things that we look at. And then we say, well, how long does Lewis Hamilton want to do this for Ferrari?
[7:40] David Gould: Right.
[7:40] Chuck Hayes: And then Charles Leclerc— and I know you have notes coming up on Leclerc after we go inside Dave's brain— but there's a whole bunch of guys, and we talk about this week in and week out, the middle part of this 22-driver grid.
[7:54] David Gould: Yeah.
[7:54] Chuck Hayes: And their futures. And, you know, the conversations that they were having when Hadjar hurt his wrist, right? because he was in Max Verstappen's second seat. He was the guy to take care of Max. And obviously—
[8:08] David Gould: And he was doing a great job too.
[8:10] Chuck Hayes: Liam didn't do it, and they sent him packing. And Yuki didn't do it, so they sent him packing.
[8:15] David Gould: And no, Hadjar's the real deal. He's a great driver. And he's been, up until hurting his wrist, he's done well. But truth is stranger than fiction. And if you brought this into a movie studio and said, OK, You F1, uh, F1 the movie guys, here's a story about a kid who looks like this and came from obscurity to, you know, didn't even, didn't even race in F2, uh, came from obscurity to, uh, come in here and win 8, uh, 8 races in a, you know, not in a row, but, but win 8 races out of, uh, out of the dozen or so that are in there, uh, that they've, that they've done. Um, Hey, and, and also, this is why— and I know we're coming up against a break— but this is why I mentioned this, uh, thing with the, um, with the 3 teams that are dominating everything, and only 4 teams have even seen podiums. It's just zeros, uh, down the line. So it's, it's, it's very— it's just, you know, again, you can't make this, this stuff up.
[9:14] Chuck Hayes: And the fact that Mr. Antonelli is Italian, and, uh, everyone is counting the days, I'm sure, in Italy as they Very passionate about this. As to what would it take to get Mr. Antonelli in a Ferrari? What can we do to put you in a Ferrari today, Mr. Antonelli? That's down the road. We're going to look at that. Now, it's not going to happen now.
[9:36] David Gould: No.
[9:37] Chuck Hayes: The people at Mercedes are going to go like, just please stay away.
[9:40] David Gould: No.
[9:40] Chuck Hayes: We don't even want to see you around. Don't wear a red shirt. This is Chuck Hayes with David Gould. Follow us @LVCheckerFlag. We want to thank Coach Harvey Hyde, Football Promotions of Nevada, For powering the fastest hour of radio. Stay tuned with us. We're going to box, box, box for 4 fresh Pirellis. We come back, we go inside Dave's brain. Welcome back, Checkered Flag Report. This is Chuck Hayes with David Gould. We're talking Formula 1 and getting everybody set because they're going to get a chance to get out there on the grid in Baku City. And that's going to be this Saturday. So pay close attention to your Apple TV coverage and all that goes on. Follow us on X. @LVCheckeredFlag, @LVCheckeredFlag. And again, we want to thank our title sponsor, presenting sponsor, Chavez Realty Development Apartments, Business Affairs, Real Estate Assessment at 626-440-1545. Let's go inside Dave's brain.
[10:34] David Gould: Yeah, well, Charles Leclerc— Charles Leclerc, as I should say— signed a new deal with Ferrari and it was announced on June 3rd. Excuse me, but Ferrari did deliberately did not disclose the full contract terms. Ferrari officially calls it a multi-year renewal and said Leclerc will remain with the team for the coming seasons, plural. It looks like he got something till 2028 with their well, we're getting mixed reports. No one knows what the actual thing is, but it looks like he got in till 2028 with options to go to. And possibly beyond 2030. And it just dawned on me that when I was reading this, how there's— it's kind of like musical chairs with drivers. You know, there has to be— for a driver to leave, there has to be a space. There has to be a spot. And so you would think, okay, well, Lewis is going to retire. Well, guess what? Lewis didn't retire. Lewis, in fact, re-upped his contract. For another few years, couple years, I think till 2028, and maybe beyond that. And so that that that path is out. But and then Max announced that he's going to stay with Red Bull and signed another re-upped his contract. So what ends up happening is there's no place for these guys to go. So even if you're disgruntled, it's kind of like what what was the motivating factor? Was it Was it show me the money? Was it the fact that there's nowhere to go? Was it, you know, what motivated Leclerc to come to the table? Because they said, according to reports, that there were other teams, Aston Martin, Mercedes. And although I don't know why Mercedes would even approach him, to what, to replace George?
[12:26] Chuck Hayes: I don't—
[12:28] David Gould: that didn't make any sense to me. but that there were other teams that were, uh, in the, in the, in the mix. So, uh, I'd like to get your thoughts on that, man.
[12:37] Chuck Hayes: Yeah, well, I guess whenever I, um, think of where and why and how— and I hate to point this out because he's just been struggling this year— is Carlos Sainz at Williams.
[12:50] David Gould: And that's what I was going to bring up too.
[12:52] Chuck Hayes: Yeah. And, you know, he had the number 2 ride at Ferrari, and then, um, there was, you know, Lewis coming in and he said, okay, there's no room for me, so I gotta go. And he had his choices.
[13:06] David Gould: Yes.
[13:07] Chuck Hayes: And I'm sure that Cadillac may have been one of them. I'm sure that, uh, he thought by going to Williams, um, you know, he wasn't going to go to Racing Bulls. And, you know, I don't believe that he thought that he was going to be in a place where if he wasn't one completely, that was his, you know, number one deal. Because if you're going to leave and you're going to leave a brand like Ferrari, you better go somewhere you're going to be the guy. And they got to believe in you that way. They have to look at you and say, okay, we're going to take you to that next step that we know you can, you can do that.
[13:45] David Gould: Yeah.
[13:45] Chuck Hayes: And whether you started at, at Cadillac from ground zero. I'm wondering if he's looking at that and saying maybe that would have been a better long-term play, but maybe they already had Sergio Perez there and his backing.
[14:03] David Gould: Yeah, we'll never really know.
[14:04] Chuck Hayes: And Bottas was the test driver for Mercedes, so I know that Cadillac was looking at that going, okay, we know Perez is out of the year. Yeah, he's out for a full year out of out of Red Bull. We don't need that. We need a guy that was in there for the whole year of a team that was very competitive. And, uh, so they brought him in. But I think of the first guys to leave— and nothing— I'm not asking this to happen, and I certainly don't want it to happen. I don't want anyone ever to lose their job, ever.
[14:33] David Gould: Yeah.
[14:34] Chuck Hayes: That's not what I'm about. I don't call for that. I don't say that. I never believe in that. But I gotta think that that seat, the number 2 seat at Cadillac after this year. And I'm not putting it on him. I mean, there's, you know, they could have gone younger, but what would they have gotten out of it? That's the question. They got a steady hand, a guy that's been around, a guy that's won. And the funny part about this, and we'll talk about this in the, in the, in the third segment, that, you know, Sergio Perez won at Baku in '21 and '23.
[15:07] David Gould: Yeah.
[15:07] Chuck Hayes: So here's the guy at Cadillac who hasn't scored a point. If this isn't a referendum on their season this week because he's been to Victory Lane, I mean, when he walks through into the paddock, he's remembering him standing on the, on the, on the number 1 stand, right? 2 times less than, you know, 3 and 5 years.
[15:31] David Gould: You're talking about Checo?
[15:32] Chuck Hayes: I'm talking about Sergio Perez.
[15:34] David Gould: Yeah. Okay. And, uh, and, uh, You know, back to Carlos, which kind of shows you the downside of thinking, well, I'm Carlos Sainz, man. I mean, I can go any one of these teams and make them great. And the reality is, hey, man, it doesn't necessarily work like that. And look at him now. I mean, he's really struggling and the team's struggling. And, and then there's, there's the— then there's this aspect of like Cadillac. What do they have to lose to change drivers? I mean, how— it can't get any worse for them. So for them to, to, uh, you know, get, get a different set, to get a different lineup, so what?
[16:15] Chuck Hayes: And then we talked about the youth of Kimi Antonelli, right? Now we talk about the other side of the coin, the experience. And that's the experience of Fernando Alonso, who is the oldest driver who drives at Aston Martin, who they've Had zero success except for his, you know, placement in, in Monaco. And we heard, you know, what his attitude was during World Cup, like, hey, I just want this race to be over at Spa so that I can get back and watch the World Cup.
[16:46] David Gould: As far as I'm concerned, and I don't care who you are, if that stuff becomes public, you know, that you're, you're thinking this way, hey man, you're, you're, you're done. You're— you, you—
[16:57] Chuck Hayes: so if you were Mr. Stroll, would you have had a conversation with him about that after that? Absolutely.
[17:03] David Gould: I mean, this is—
[17:04] Chuck Hayes: And how would it go, David? I need to know so that I'm prepared for this when you decide to take this show in another direction.
[17:10] David Gould: And, and he can tell me how it goes.
[17:12] Chuck Hayes: What's it gonna feel like?
[17:13] David Gould: Chuck, that brings up a good point. Who is the number one driver and who's the second seater? See, I see myself as a second seater.
[17:21] Chuck Hayes: Why do you say that? You're going to be outbroke. We're going to out-break each other going into that corner?
[17:26] David Gould: No, because they're paying you all the money. So they're—
[17:30] Chuck Hayes: All I know is when I look over, the lights are on where you sit, and you can turn the lights out at any time where I sit. Chuck Hayes with David Gould, and we're having fun talking about this because this is at that point in the year where we get what they call in NASCAR the silly season. Yeah. And it happens in college football for coaches. It happens in the NFL for coaches too. And, um, it happens on all levels of motorsport, but in NASCAR, because there are, you know, 40 teams and there's teams with charters and there's multiple cars and multiple seats. And our great friend Riley Herbst, uh, just picked up a Legacy Motorsports ride for Jimmie Johnson.
[18:09] David Gould: That's good.
[18:10] Chuck Hayes: Which is an awesome ride for him. And he's going to be driving, I believe, the, uh, 84, which is the switch number. Jimmie Johnson was the 48. And he's a 7-time champ. And so they gave that number of 84 to Riley kind of as a motivator. And he said it was a motivator, but that's where we're at in regards to these guys. And so, you know, they have the same agent, a lot of them, as Fernando Alonso.
[18:35] David Gould: I know.
[18:36] Chuck Hayes: These management companies are the ones pulling the strings.
[18:39] David Gould: Yeah. I'm going to talk to my agent and the guy leaves his garage, walks down 2 garages and talks to his agent.
[18:46] Chuck Hayes: That's amazing.
[18:46] David Gould: I know. It's just like you can't— you think there'd be rules about that, but I guess not. It's, it's, it's strange. There's, there's, there's a lot of strangeness. And, and again, when I see all those zeros, when I see that only 3 teams have, have, have managed— 4 teams have managed podiums and 3 teams have managed wins, uh, I think there— it just shows me there's something, there's something odd, there's something wrong going on with racing right now. And I think they need to hash this out. And maybe, maybe it's the cars, uh, maybe it's the structure of the teams, who knows? But it's weird.
[19:21] Chuck Hayes: Does Alonso have enough clout at Aston Martin to pick his own replacement? And I'm wondering this because we know that Lance Stroll, because his dad is the principal, is not really going anywhere unless his dad says, Lance, I got another project for you.
[19:37] David Gould: Yeah.
[19:38] Chuck Hayes: And, and And we're not going to blow up the whole deal because we've got too much invested in it.
[19:43] David Gould: Yeah. Well, I'll tell you, I don't find Lance to be a great driver, to be honest with you. I don't think— I think he's okay, but he is certainly not— you know, they've brought in— they've spent so much money bringing in talent into the garage, engineering talent. And it's just— it doesn't seem to be working. And Alonso, they keep saying, like, you know, because people are chatting about the guy is an older cat and they keep talking about, well, when's he going to retire? When's he going to retire? And they're being adamant. The team is being adamant. It's like, we're not looking for him to retire anytime soon. He's got a home here with us. They're basically, you know, they're backing it. But I don't necessarily know if I think— believe that's true.
[20:29] Chuck Hayes: And all part of what you talked about was Leclerc getting upped. That closed it down for Ferrari for as long as Lewis and him are there. And then when they look at what's going on and where it's at— This is Chuck Hayes with David Gould. Follow us @LVCheckerFlag, @LVCheckerFlag, and we'll follow you back. And David, hit us again with the multitude of, you know, they always have these things on the front of the car, which you call sponsor rewards in the sponsor program. How many different outlets can you find The Checkered Flag Report on?
[21:04] David Gould: Well, I think that there's at least 4 platforms that we're on, which would be Apple, would be Amazon, would be Spotify, Spotify, and one other that does not come to mind right now. I'm having a bit of a brain fart. So anyway, look for us. We're on all the platforms. And we, we, you know, if you don't catch the show on the radio, Then by all means check us out on the platforms.
[21:31] Chuck Hayes: It's an awfully fun time, and if you follow us on X, we'll guide you through that process. And as we get ready, David, I guess the one question mark is on on F1 is that whether or not Qatar and Abu Dhabi for whether the season will end with what's been going on in the Middle East. We'll still look at that. We know that there was another race added. We'll get you up to date on that. We're going to get four fresh prellies. Follow us at LV Checker Flag. We're going to box box box. Welcome to the Checkered Flag Report. We're in segment number 3. Chuck Hayes with David Gould. We want to thank our presenting sponsor Chavez Realty Development Apartments, Business Affairs, Real Estate Assessment at 626-440-1545. 626-440-1545. So here's where we at in regards to this weekend, in regards to, um, Baku. Uh, they've run 8 races. This will be race number 9. In regards to the history of the of the racing grid there. Sergio Perez is a 2-time winner, '21 and '23. Max Verstappen, '22 and '25. Red Bull has 5 wins out of the 8 races. And when you look at it and you know that what we've seen in Monaco— and I know from your strong opinion that you're not the biggest fan of how Monaco is run.
[22:54] David Gould: No.
[22:55] Chuck Hayes: In regards to the size of the cars, and everyone kind of goes with it, but they say the environment is so great. And we had that discussion last week about why do we do this?
[23:07] David Gould: Yeah.
[23:08] Chuck Hayes: Why do we bring these cars and these drivers?
[23:10] David Gould: Why have a sprint race?
[23:11] Chuck Hayes: And do all that can do? Well, if we had our sound machine, it would say cha-ching, cha-ching. Well, yeah, cha-ching. Ring it up. I guess maybe now when they do, when they scan, it would be like a beep, right?
[23:25] David Gould: Right.
[23:25] Chuck Hayes: Beep, beep, beep. And then they give you the tally. Um, I always liked that when the lights go out, how they worked that sound in there. What did that sound like in IMAX when you heard the lights go out? Was that really pronounced? And, uh, you know, when the lights of the grid—
[23:39] David Gould: Where they're making the noise.
[23:41] Chuck Hayes: Beep, beep, beep. And you're ready to go. Do they hear that in their helmet? I wonder.
[23:45] David Gould: I don't know. 'Cause there's, I think that's strictly an optical thing. They're just looking at the lights.
[23:50] Chuck Hayes: But you think inside their helmet that there's that countdown, that beep?
[23:54] David Gould: I doubt it.
[23:55] Chuck Hayes: You think so? Okay, well, well, that's another subject for another day. Audiovisual class that they're dealing with, right? Okay. I mean, do you think when you come to Baku that you have to race the track, or do you have to race the other drivers? How do you see that, David?
[24:13] David Gould: Well, I see it as whoever, whoever gets pole has a distinct advantage, as they do in every race, but especially in races like this where passing is so difficult. And, uh, I think that there is the, uh, probability for a lot of, um, not necessarily crashes, but a lot of bumps in the walls and a lot of, uh, tires banging into each other. Because these guys, uh, there's very little— it's very difficult to do side-by-side action in a lot of these walled, uh, areas. Um, uh, difficult to pass. Uh, so it makes— it doesn't necessarily make for great racing. Um, in, in, in these old cities where they have to, you know, they got street— there's street-level stuff and they're going around castles and it wasn't really— these, these roads were never designed. for that kind of use. So I think it's— I think it could— it has a potential to be very messy or very boring or very both.
[25:15] Chuck Hayes: You know, I'm wondering, and I never really checked this out, on how many times you can change a front wing. Like Baku, do they bring extra wings in there? Oh yeah. You know, the clip, you know, you know that happens. Of course, carbon fiber is just part of the run there, and it's more often than not something happens in regards to that.
[25:36] David Gould: So with that said, who's going to dive for a corner and then get run off the— run off the track?
[25:43] Chuck Hayes: You know, Max Verstappen is kind of the guy that really made his mark.
[25:47] David Gould: 2 races ago.
[25:48] Chuck Hayes: You know, sometimes.
[25:49] David Gould: Yeah, 2 races ago it was Kimi. Yeah.
[25:51] Chuck Hayes: Well, I mean, this is 2025. I'm talking specifically at Baku.
[25:56] David Gould: Yes.
[25:56] Chuck Hayes: That, you know, he It fit him, you know what I mean? This track seems like he— you don't— you can't take a moment, and I'm not saying on any track you could take a moment off at the speed that they go, right? But it just seemed like a place like this is a place that Max really carved people up. Yeah, this was his kind of place.
[26:16] David Gould: Well, because they're telling everybody tire management, tire management, and that's— I'm sorry, I just don't want to hear that too much. I don't want to hear it at all.
[26:24] Chuck Hayes: I'll remind— I'll remind you of that when we're—
[26:26] David Gould: Yeah, I don't want to hear about tire management when you come into your car and you check your Your lights and see how your tire inflation is. It's like, it's so absurd.
[26:34] Chuck Hayes: Tire management.
[26:36] David Gould: Tire management.
[26:38] Chuck Hayes: God. Degradation, right?
[26:39] David Gould: Right.
[26:39] Chuck Hayes: Is that the greatest? Degradation. Between quali and degradation, I think those are my 2 favorite F1 terms. How's your quali today, David?
[26:49] David Gould: Uh, my quali is rather high.
[26:52] Chuck Hayes: Okay, so that's good. So you're looking for that pole position?
[26:55] David Gould: Yes.
[26:55] Chuck Hayes: And then at the time when you did that, The engineers are going to say, well, David, you were fast, but we have a lot of degradation on the tires. So I don't know how, how far you can go into this. And maybe we're going to have to look at that.
[27:08] David Gould: I hear a lot of metaphors here, Chuck.
[27:10] Chuck Hayes: When you're in the sim and that showed up and you said, I don't care. Yeah, I'm going for it.
[27:17] David Gould: Yeah. And that's Max. So that's the difference because Max is going to tell him, Max is going to get on the radio and say, I'm not going to manage tires. I'm going for it because that's the kind of guy he is.
[27:28] Chuck Hayes: All right. So with that said, do you think in a course like this that you could start and finish with it, with the hards and not, and not have to do a stop?
[27:37] David Gould: You have to do a stop. You have to do one stop.
[27:40] Chuck Hayes: You understand what I mean by that?
[27:41] David Gould: No, no. I understand what you're saying that you do the one mandatory stop and you go quick, real quick. Or now what I think that there'll be a lot of stuff. A lot of draft, uh, uh, drafting, a lot of guys, uh, hugging, hugging the clean air, if you will, and hoping for, uh, safety cars in order to gain advantage, in order to maybe, you know, uh, maybe in the last third of the race, diving in, uh, diving into the pits to get a, get a set of softs on and then try and rip it up for the rest of the race. I could see that happening.
[28:15] Chuck Hayes: Um, you know, I've talked about this with you before, and I think a track like this begs to not have multiple cars on the track during qualification. Yeah, I think this is one of those where you go out and you go lay your best lap down. Maybe they give you 3 chances, you know?
[28:33] David Gould: Right.
[28:33] Chuck Hayes: NASCAR used to be 2. You had a hot lap, and then if you wanted your time, you stood on that time. You would just wave off the second lap.
[28:42] David Gould: Yeah.
[28:42] Chuck Hayes: Wouldn't that be better to do this than this circus of staying out of people. And how about, is there more complaining on the radio than in qualifying where someone is on a run and they go, what is he looking at? Or he does it all the time. Or, you know, and you see the hand signals coming out of the car.
[29:00] David Gould: And you gotta, you got a guy who's, who's hugging the inside, inside, uh, part of the track so that the guy can pass him. And I, I just, there's, it's, it's, it's definitely messy. Now, maybe they do that for entertainment reasons. that it's more entertaining to have all these multiple cars on the track, uh, for the crowd, because now quali is, is a, is a big draw too.
[29:22] Chuck Hayes: So it's very rough to watch, honestly. I watch where they pick them up and where the lap starts and how it goes and, and where you're at.
[29:29] David Gould: All over the place.
[29:30] Chuck Hayes: You don't know.
[29:31] David Gould: I mean, yeah.
[29:32] Chuck Hayes: And then ultimately, you, you know, you want to get in through the first group and you don't want to get eliminated. When you get eliminated, it's like, it's like They point at you and go, you're a failure. Yeah, yeah, you're bad.
[29:44] David Gould: 0.0.
[29:46] Chuck Hayes: Please don't, don't trouble us anymore today.
[29:48] David Gould: Just show up, which I think that that would be nice to eliminate that by just getting it, making it a straight time, straight time.
[29:55] Chuck Hayes: The humiliation of not making it to the next round, David.
[29:59] David Gould: Yeah, I'd rather—
[29:59] Chuck Hayes: it's on the board there and there's the cut line.
[30:01] David Gould: I'd rather be humiliated having the worst time.
[30:05] Chuck Hayes: Chuck Hayes with David Gold. Follow us at LV Checkered Flag, at LV Checkered Flag, and on all the And we want to thank Coach Harvey Hyde, Football Promotions of Nevada, for all the support that we get, and we appreciate his racing interests. Okay, so what— you know, we're talking about this, David.
[30:23] David Gould: Yeah.
[30:23] Chuck Hayes: And it kind of goes right into the thing of where they're saying they want to run 290 kilometers, lopping 2 or 3 laps, or about 5 minutes of action.
[30:34] David Gould: Gas use.
[30:35] Chuck Hayes: Lights, fuel.
[30:36] David Gould: Yep.
[30:37] Chuck Hayes: They have too much, actually. The 50/50 split between internal combustion and electric, the yo-yo racing, uh, combustion engine 58/42 in 2027, then 60/40 in 2028. It's, it's just sad, man.
[30:54] David Gould: Yeah.
[30:54] Chuck Hayes: It's just to listen to this and know, and they go, well, you know, TV wants a shortened endeavor, uh, the concentration, uh, uh, ability of people is lacking. Well, guess what? I see 300,000 people come a weekend.
[31:10] David Gould: Yeah.
[31:10] Chuck Hayes: And what do they want to see? More racing.
[31:12] David Gould: Yeah. I don't see them going, oh, it's the 3rd quarter and, and my driver's—
[31:17] Chuck Hayes: They haven't raced in Formula 1 in LA on a Friday night.
[31:19] David Gould: Right. Right. I guess not.
[31:21] Chuck Hayes: For fickle fans, that would be the Larry Scott special.
[31:25] David Gould: Right. Well, I just, you know, nobody's leaving. You're right. The stands are packed. In fact, even if your team doesn't win, they're run— they're running on the track. They're, you know, it's, They're selling more merch.
[31:39] Chuck Hayes: Yeah, the lines are long. Yeah, the drink lines, people are excited, the bathroom line.
[31:44] David Gould: I mean, listen, we're all part of it. I don't think— what, we gonna have an ADHD medication sponsor for one of the cars?
[31:50] Chuck Hayes: I think what you're talking about, you know, is real because until you go— and I say this respectfully. Yeah, because I remember I'd done it the night before to go from where we were off on the 15 freeway into downtown Las Vegas. And I said, David, you're going to be patient now. And we sat for over 55 minutes, perhaps.
[32:21] David Gould: Yeah. Trying to go 3 blocks.
[32:22] Chuck Hayes: Go to 3 blocks. But then I said, but David, think about all those people that pack it in at Silverstone or at other places in Austria at the Red Bull Ring.
[32:31] David Gould: Yeah.
[32:32] Chuck Hayes: are what they have to do to get there. And then you're telling them, oh, we're gonna cut like 5 laps out of your event, and you're gonna go, what, mate? Yeah, are you kidding me?
[32:43] David Gould: They're, they're— I think that they're kind of separated from the actual fan. They're just thinking about the, the structure of TV, and, and it's not— it's like, come on, man, this is racing. Stop it.
[32:55] Chuck Hayes: This is Chuck Hayes with David Gould. We're talking Formula 1 and These are all part of the things that happen during a bye week. Yeah, we don't have a race to really digest right now because we're going to get ready for one. And then when that happens, the next week of radio is just— I mean, not that this isn't stellar, David. I mean, but this is like taking practice laps or tire tests kind of thing. And we're in the simulator and just trying to get to the haulers to be able to make our way and get the travel arrangements ready and the passports done. Right.
[33:27] David Gould: You know, I just thought, why don't we get a phone holder for Fernando Alonso so he can watch soccer while he races in case there's a conflict.
[33:37] Chuck Hayes: You know what, I've seen the steering wheels. I think they can do that.
[33:40] David Gould: I think they can do that. Yeah, they just get a little phone, phone holder.
[33:44] Chuck Hayes: We don't want to ever have anyone who's driving in a car looking at their phone watching an F1 race, uh, live on Apple TV and IMAX. F1 Chuck Hayes with David Gould. Follow us. At LV checkered flag, we're going to— 4 fresh Pirellis and get back. Welcome back. Final segment, Checkered Flag Report. Chuck Hayes with David Gould. We're talking Formula 1, and we want to thank our presenting sponsor, Chavez Realty Development. That's apartments, business affairs, real estate assessment. 626-440-1545. That's 626-440-1545. And David, as we get into our final segment, we want to bring everyone up to date on Schedule talk. And, uh, we have this race now in Baku, uh, and then after that we are going to be having the makeup race for, uh, Bahrain, which will be in Malaysia. Then we're going to go to Singapore on October 9th to 11th, and then we come back to the United States for COTA, Circuit of the Americas, October 23rd to 25th. And then down to Mexico City for round number 20.
[34:57] David Gould: That's a good one.
[34:58] Chuck Hayes: That is the great one. October 30th, November 1st. And I believe all attendance records will be smashed by that race. And to see Sergio Perez in a Cadillac, wow, it's going to be wild.
[35:10] David Gould: Crazy.
[35:10] Chuck Hayes: And then we go down to Brazil, São Paulo, November 6th to 8th. And then round number 21, Viva Las Vegas. November 19th to 21st. Remember, that's a Saturday night. Same thing, it's going to go on in Baku.
[35:25] David Gould: So we'll be there.
[35:26] Chuck Hayes: As we look at this, David, yeah, and we see that, uh, we have the momentum of Mr. Antonelli, but we have 3 tracks right now that are going to be very telling. That's Baku. I'm going to have to get up to speed on Malaysia to be able to find out what's going on there. And then we know Singapore weather can be an issue in regards to heat and rain. Weather will be just phenomenal and the barbecue is great and everything is just always special in COTA. Remember, this is the second of 3 America Formula One races. We have one in Miami, which was round 6, and that was back in May. And then after we get through our South America-Mexico deal, we go to Vegas and then Qatar and then Abu Dhabi at the end of the year. So I always ask you this, David, in regards to where you see things that we know that Mercedes right now has 503 points. Can you see podiums For Kimi and George, Baku, Singapore, and COTA, the next 3 races. Would you venture to say that by the time they get to, um, to Mexico, that everything will be clinched?
[36:52] David Gould: Uh, I think that there's a very strong possibility that that's going to happen. I think, uh, Kimi can— I think technically he can, he can lock it up, I think, in 3 races. In 3 races, mathematically, he could lock it up. But, um, you know, the problem is that George can lead a race for 90% of it, and then for whatever reason, he gets caught. He gets— somebody catches him, whether it's Max, whether it's Kimi. Uh, and I don't know if it's— what— I, I have no reason why.
[37:27] Chuck Hayes: What is more likely? Antonelli getting to double-digit wins or Max Verstappen going on a 3-run bender and picking up number 1 slots on the top of the podium? Oh, what do you think? Which way would you go on that?
[37:49] David Gould: I think Kimi has more of a chance of winning the— tying up the championship before Max does getting 3 wins in a row. That would be pretty— I mean, frankly, I'd love to see it because it'd be a great story.
[38:01] Chuck Hayes: All right. So what is more likely?
[38:03] David Gould: Kimi.
[38:04] Chuck Hayes: Than that. You're saying Kimi, but let's take it down a notch. Not because he's the defending champion. I know I'm not bringing him down.
[38:11] David Gould: Okay.
[38:12] Chuck Hayes: Who will be more successful in the next 3 races, Max Verstappen or Lando Norris?
[38:17] David Gould: Tough one. I think Max has been struggling, so I see Lando having a little bit more of an advantage there. Um, I think Max is the better driver, but for whatever reason, uh, the car has not been performing for him the way he likes.
[38:32] Chuck Hayes: In the days of guys that have been having— if bad luck was luck, no luck at all— George Russell and Oscar Piastri, they've had same kind of fast, fast cars, inability to close it off.
[38:46] David Gould: Has Oscar won one this year?
[38:47] Chuck Hayes: No, I don't think he has.
[38:49] David Gould: See, George—
[38:50] Chuck Hayes: but he's been very competitive.
[38:51] David Gould: Yeah, but George has won 2. Okay, he's won 2 and he's, he's, he's podiumed several times. So I, I, I see George taking that.
[39:00] Chuck Hayes: All right, so you, you're thinking that George will outpace Oscar?
[39:04] David Gould: Yes.
[39:05] Chuck Hayes: Just in the next 3 races? I'm not saying overall. Yes, I'm just saying if we were to look at matchups and we're not keeping score because we're playing this out as we have less than a minute to go in this one before we get to Baku and— right, we don't know who's going to be on the pole, so We're just saying, hey, let's put it out there and let's just say, is there one of these gentlemen that's in the top 10 that we haven't spoken about? Charles, Oscar, Isaac, Liam, Pierre?
[39:32] David Gould: No, we've—
[39:32] Chuck Hayes: that would win? Yeah, we've talked about Oscar, but anybody of this top 10?
[39:37] David Gould: I'd say the wild card would be Hadjar.
[39:39] Chuck Hayes: You think Isaac Hadjar?
[39:42] David Gould: If you have a wild card podium, I'd say podium.
[39:45] Chuck Hayes: Just a podium, not a win?
[39:46] David Gould: Not a win.
[39:46] Chuck Hayes: Okay. Chuck Hayes with David Gould. We want to thank you, and we look forward to next week where we talk about results. Why? Because it's a result-driven business. This is Chuck Hayes for David Gould. Follow us @LVCheckerFlag, and thank you for your participation.