This is a downbeat on ninety seven to one the freak. It is the
Downbeat. Nine oh five is the time, Wednesday, October eighteenth. Appreciate
you listen. We've got an hour left in the show Hot Mop coming up
at nine to thirty. Your talkbacks via the iHeartRadio app. Here's a microphone
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to us. We'll play those in about a half an hour or so.
So all eyes on Arlington, Texas this evening. We got Ranger baseball.
Max Sure's are taking the Mound Rangers leading to zip over the Astros unbelievable.
But the eyes of the world are also on the state of Texas because we
have Formula one racing down in Austin. It's the United States Grand Prix at
Circuit of the America's. The next four F one races are actually in the
Americas. We have Austin and Mexico City and then Brazil and then a week
off and then the inaugural race in Las Vegas and I really hope this is
gonna work. We will see in one second, because I would like to
welcome to the program a couple of guys who are joining us. They are
on the late breaking Formula one podcast. I believe they live in London.
I listen to their podcast religiously. I find them very funny, and they
have traveled all the way to Sweet Texas. They're in Austin, Texas right
now. I don't know if they can hear me, Sam Sage, Ben
Hawking, Hello, Hello, do you have us? I see them on
zoom and it does not appear they are hearing our voices. Hello, Testing
one? Two? No, Hey you hear us? Yeah? Yeah?
They don't have on headphones though, Can you guys hear us? Hello?
Hello? Let's just listen to BRIT's talk and get ready to dump them if
we need to. It's real cool. That's a whole podcast. They're wearing
headphones earlier, because I don't think they can hear us headphones? Did it?
Don't anyone anyone? Hello? Hello? We should have we should have
dueling podcasts. Hey guys, Hey guys, can you hear us? Hello?
It's flood off? Try yelling louder and Kevio. Hey, guys,
give you hear that here? I just text him. So look, he's
pulling out his phone. He's looking at his phone. Okay, they're ready.
Okay, now we can't hear them. Hey do they need headphone?
Okay. He's turning things, checking settings. We can't see you audio on
checking check check check check. Hello, Hello, Hello. We decided we
just did a lovely introduction, by the way, and you missed the whole
thing. I'm not doing it again. I trust it was. It was
incredible. I had Statman references in there. It was per perfect. But
then we brought you up and you couldn't hear us, but we could hear
you discussing factor crap. So we're like, let's just listen to Britz che
Oh. Yeah, we're balancing the laptop on the board game or whatever gaming
is called fact or crap. We've never played. We think we might bring
it onto the podcast. There you go. Well, if you interview us
poorly, just open it up and pull some cards out and we'll play a
quick round of factor crap and we'll figure out if it works or not.
Great. How are you game? We're doing awesome? Sam again, Sam
Sage and Ben Hawking from the Late Breaking Formula one podcast, and we had
Sam on about a year ago. It was just this week to sort of
preview the United States Grand Prix down at CODA. And last year you're on
the phone from I believe London, England. But this year you guys are
sitting comfortably in an Airbnb in Austin, Texas. Correct. Correct, We
are in northern Austin at the moment we meet him McNeil and we are enjoying
the sunny rays of Texas has been really nice. Yeah, it's unnatural.
Our British skins can't code. Where's the rain? Yeah, we don't have
a camera in here, but we can see you. And Danny, my
co host, was like, wow, look how British they look. Yeah,
yeah, pretty much the standard two guys you could think of that look
like English. Do the tea comes out of the face, you know?
We Yeah, you were a sweating tea. So I'm a big fan of
your podcast again, Late Breaking F one podcast. I think you guys are
hilarious. I listen to you every week. I really enjoy it. That's
why we wanted to have you on last year. And I'm like, screw
it. They're coming to Austin this year. Let me ask, do you
guys do an annual left one trip? Why Austin? Have you ever been
to Texas before? We don't. We've never done a proper F one trip,
have we. Yeah, so we decided the first one obviously go across
the whole Atlantic to do it. You know, start small and work up
from there. But yeah, this is a bit of a first time round
certainly something we're looking to do more often. The reason why we chose Austin
is because you lovely Texans are actually our largest demographic of listeners in the world,
Bigger than England, bigger than Europe, and the highest percentage America makes
up o biggest population of listeners. Texas is number one. Holy crap,
And now what I wonder why that is? Yeah? Have you done the
analytics and figure that out? Is just because F one's blowing up here the
last few years or how does that work? Fascination of the accent? Yeah,
just silly crazy, and you Texans just seemed to get that. Yeah,
I mean that's why we have you on. Let's be honest, just
say funny stuff. Maybe our ratings will go up A silly voice. Yeah,
maybe we need to start using the British accent and our ratings will go
up. We know all of our works. It'll be great in London.
Did you do that? That'll be huge in London. I know Norm from
Texas is a regular discord user for you guys. So if you guys are
in town, you have a live podcast broadcast? Is that tomorrow? And
I don't know pub that because we do have a handful of Austin listeners.
Yeah, we'll do our normal preview episode for a Grand Prix, but it
will happen yeah, tomorrow with a live audience, which is equal parts exciting
and absolutely terrifying. That's another first for us. But yeah, we've got
a good crowd coming along. We were absolutely baffled at how quickly it's sold
out, so twenty four hours. Yeah, massively excited for it. If
you turn up to listen, you know, if you want to go on
Spotify or iTunes or if you get your podcasts to have a listen. We
do all sorts of stuff, so we talk serious stuff about them, normal
topics, We do our race predictions, and then we also have a number
of very silly but factually correct formula one game. So if you're new to
the sport or want to learn or play along or have a laugh, then
we do loads of silly games like f one back and forth. We're making
a big appearance on the show this week that soundstanding here. Are you guys
are music fans? Of course? Obviously? Do you guys have some pretty
good entertainment this week? For the Arston Race they have The Killers Friday night
and then Queen is playing Saturday night. You're going to catch any of that
stuff? Yeah? Yeah, we're there for and we've got toi Esta on
the Sunday. They are three artists that I have always wanted to see and
never thought I would get to see you Now it's all rolled up into one
big fat Texas Grand Prix. Yeah between us, I don't think you could
have put together a better lineup for us and we love it. Yeah yeah.
Any fans are the Killers? Yeah yeah, they crossed were young,
They crossed over really well Overseas secret show tonight at Emos. Tickets go on
selling about forty eight minutes. Just a pro tip if you want to see
them in an intimate venue tonight. We've only got to pick up Harry later,
so you know, there's nothing else to do because he turns up.
If he turns up. How long have you guys been in the state.
When did you arrive? So we arrived Monday afternoons, so not all that
long. We're very much over the chat lag now, so we've we've sorted
that out and we've settled them. Okay, so we're here till Wednesday morning,
Tuesday evenings when we kind of leave and we're we're we're glad we get
to spend so long here. Actually we didn't want to rush it. So
what did you do on your I guess you had maybe after recovering from jet
lag, you had yesterday to kind of goof around. Did you get in
anything? And what was your kind of your first impression of this ridiculous state
that we live in? Big cars? Big cars? That was just a
number one say. We actually went to we went to the circuit of the
America's yesterday and had had a look around. We were lucky enough to go
in the pit lane, take a trip around the track, do some do
some recording at turn one, which is just absolutely epic. It was.
It was basically two hours of pinch yourself. One Earth's going on. Yeah,
I'm pretty amazed that they let this stupid English cowboy stand in the starter
box and shout yeha across the start finish line. But it was great fun,
and then we got treated to a wonderful full plate of barbecue for lunchtime.
We had brisket, we had ribs, we had sausage. It was
some of the best, maybe the best meat I've ever just put us to
shape. It was so good. That's amazing because one of my I was
telling these guys yesterday when I found out that you that that Mikey had secured
this interview, that one of my favorite things to do is when these viral
videos on my Facebook feed come on and it's these group but she's like two
or three Brits, and it's them in America reviewing American food that they've never
had for the first time, and when they get to barbecue. It's incredible
to watch the orgasmic delight that they have when they stuff their mouths full of
these smoky, succulent meats and they're like, oh my god, I love
this country. We don't have anything back there like that kind of like your
experience, Well, we're so used to things like a pie, and no
disrespect to the pie. It's an amazing big of food. Don't When we
do barbecue, for example, we'll have like a burnt singular sausage in a
cold garden. I am back at home shivering over a single file while we
eat it. And you come here and you have this meat that just so
easily falls away from the bone with such flavor, no source needed, because
it's got so much richness to it. Immediately I was blown away. I
really thought I was gonna go. I don't get the hype, but I
get the hype. It was incredible. It was pretty much a case of
yeah, that'll do us for the week, pretty much, only any more
food now, that's great. Yeah, I give it a few more hours,
though, and you'll be back at it. When I went to London,
I try to check, you know, whatever trip advised, where should
I go? You know, there's no real great source. And I imagine
you guys did the same. So barbecue had to be one of the first
boxes you wanted to check on your Texas adventure, other than racing, which
we will get to in a second. What are their boxes need check in?
We're going to shoot guns out in the field somewhere, what else.
We have a little part of me that would love to would love to fire
off some rifles. But I'm also equally terrified coming so alien to asked for
being in the UK, like guns as a whole. So I actually haven't
seen one yet. I thought I would have seen a gun by Yeah.
The day that Sam the gun is the day I go back to the UK.
Yeah that's no, it's not maldly terrifying, that's utterly terrifying. Yeah.
Yeah, it's a coin flip. Let's for your ill. Yeah,
from from the crime shows that I binge on on Acorn and brit box.
Your cops don't even get to carry guns. No. The only only police
that get guns are around national landmarks like Buckingham Palace or if they are airport
security. They're the only times you get any kind of firearm in the UK.
All right, So that was Danny just talking and he just found out
on some website. No, my mom did our genealogy. I've gone my
entire life thinking I was like seventy five percent Irish, and it turns out
that I am almost entirely My grandparents derived from the UK, from Great Britain,
whole life. I'm fifty five years old and I find out what I'm
not Irish. I'm English, Holy crap and Fleetwood at every golf tournament and
he loves lambdo Norris. When it comes to car racing, all he does
is act British now and act well, we apologize for your history because it's
it's dull and cold. Well do you know where in we're in England?
Because we will judge you. No, not specifically. We're still We're furthering
our research to get more specific. Okay next year when we come back on
next year, you need to tell us and then we can give you.
Well, give you a roasting. I love it where you'm I love it.
I love it. But he is addicted to British crime television shows.
We're not doing this for more than ninety seconds, but fires a titler do
what is a top boy? He won't show. I mean top Boys my
number one, but Happy Valley's probably number two. I just started, Uh
let's see. I just finished Shetland and now I'm off to Sherwood, which
is incredible. But I have a friend that's a ridiculous Anglo file and I'm
a huge fan of Top Boy, and I was like, hey, can
you give me a list? She gave me a list of like fifteen things,
and I think I've binged them all. Subscribe to Acorn, subscribe to
brit Box, donated money to PBS so I can watch their content for free.
So it's basically all I do is watch baseball and and freaking British crime
dramas diagrama that. Yeah, it's a mess. It's filmed relatively Gear,
where I used to live, and it's surprisingly accurate. Actually it's kind of
terrifying Top Boy, but it is. It's a good show, really really
good show. You don't want to find yourself fair in real life? Right,
all right? This is Sam Sage and Ben Hawking of the F one
Late Breaking podcast. I'm a big fan of theirs. I listened to multiple
podcasts a week that they drop. And you're in town for the Formula one
race, so I got a nerd out with you for a few minutes.
I know you guys are good with that. I'll start with a real easy
one, and again, some of this is catered to listeners who, like
F one, aren't quite psychos about it, you know, maybe have never
been to a race. But we are in a season of pure dominance from
Red Bull and Max for Stapping and you guys are kind of experts on this.
I mean, is this Max for Stapping season the most dominant of all
time? And if not, we're how close is it? It's up there.
It's one of those where it becomes more difficult to compare it, certainly
year to year, but definitely decades to a decade, because you'll look back
at some of the late eighties years and look at those as some really dominant
years for the likes of for the likes of McLaren. But certainly what the
Stappen is doing here over the longest season of all time, it's just the
pure consistency race to race. You can go back to the fifties and sixties
and say, well, statistically, percentage wise, there might be a year
that it's more dominant, but also any raced eight times a year, whereas
the Stappens doing almost three times that this year. So it is it's not
necessarily unprecedented, I would say, but it's absolutely up there if you're going
to make a list. And what is also incredibly fascinating about what the Stapping
is doing is it's not just driver that's importantly forming one. Of course,
it's the car that makes the difference as well. And whilst there have been
more dominant cars historically in terms of wing percentage throughout the year, you look
at how McClaren back in the eighties, the MP four dash Forward is still
pretty much up there as the most successful car of all time over one season.
But for stapping is so much more dominant than it's teammates, then it
just shows that maybe the car itself was incredibly good in the wrong hands,
cannot pull out the results that that guy is able to pull out, can
we out? He's driving at a whole other level right now. It's incredibly
impressive. My lady friend is a massive Sergio Perez fan and she was going
to jump in here for the interview, but she's on the next show,
so she's prepping. But she will yell at me if I don't ask the
state of Checho Perez right now, because like you said, I mean,
he's got what should be the best car on the grid and he I think
I heard your most recent podcast has been in Q three less than fifty percent
of the times this year or something is checko in hot water for next year.
I mean he's crumbling. Right. In most instances, you'd say,
because he's got a contract secure for next year, there's no problems whatsoever.
But this is Red Bull, so I'm not quite sure. Yeah, if
they if they wanted him to go, he'd go. But yeah, he's
still second place in the championship, so in that respect, he's doing what
he needs to do. I think the problem for them is it's not anywhere
near as comfortable as they'd like it to be. The season started out well
enough for him. He won two of the first five races, and at
that point it was after Miami there was barely anything to choose between Perez and
the stap and points wise, but from then on out, the Stappan has
just been on another level, whereas Perez has constantly failed to delivering qualifying,
which is just leaving him too much to do on Sunday. Yeah, he
is, like we said, their great stat pool from fifty percent of Q
three, which in that car is a real shame. His mindset is clearly
crumbling as the season goes on, and the worst part is what he started
so well. You hope with that motivation behind him, I continue at least
that level of performance or what's stepped it up, and it is descended from
Miami pretty much to where we are now. And with Red Bull, they're
so historically ruthless that don't count out a change before the end of the season
come winter break time December, there might be an immediate cut. You don't
know. There's rumors floating around that he might be considering retirement at the end
of this year. It is all still up in the air despite him having
a contract. Are you were you saying I'm going to play f one fool
here for a second. Are you saying that when he's in trouble or at
risk that he could like get get relegated like you would in the EPL,
like maybe West brom I. I always saw Sergio Perez as the West Bromwich
Alba. He's a real bad things ever been saying about, No doubt that's
more insulting than anything I point. I mean relegated. Yeah, I think
I think he's too far don in his career for them to consider bringing him
down to Alpha TOWERI, which has been happening beforehand. Yeah, because they
did that with Pierre Gasli a few years back, where he was in Red
Bull. They put him back down to tour rosso as it was back then.
But Alpha Towers we know them now, you know that was that that
made sense. But he was much younger, he still had development, whereas
Perez is well into his thirties. I don't think that maybe three or four
drivers most who are older than it now. So yeah, it's tough to
see him. It's something that could do, but I don't know what the
benefit would be at this point. All right, these are my boys from
the Late Breaking podcast. We only have two or three or four minutes left,
so I'm gonna kind of speed round. We'll go back in fourth.
First one I'll give to Ben long run of dominance for Mercedes with mainly Lewis
and then one incredibly close year and now it appears to be the era of
Red Bull. How long can this go for? And is this a bit
of a nightmare for f one for as new fans are still flooding in and
now you have just everyone getting smacked and they're racing for a second until the
new power unit regulations come in in twenty twenty six, you could definitely see
Red Bull being dominant next year and the year after that, it is troublesome
for F one. They brought in the cost cap for a reason, and
that was to bring more parity to the sport, which I'm you know,
trying to get something closer to you know, the NBA or the NFL,
like something that is far more parity driven, and at the moment it's not
happening. So it is a bit of a headache for them, all right,
Sam McLaren heart right now. For whatever, If you had to pick
the next team to win a Constructors Championship other than Red Bull, who's your
money on? And when I mean, if we're going on form base McLaren
other boys, I think their driver pairing is close to becoming one of the
best on form on the whole grid, but it's so hard to look behind
Mesagi's. Despite having a couple bad years with their technical know how, the
lineup that they've got I still think is the best overall lineup in Formula One,
and I do believe that the likes of Toto Wharf will be able to
bring back the overall team to the top level. Let's just hope that they
sacrifice the end of this year to maximize development. On twenty twenty four and
then they can actually bring back, hopefully a race winging car. So I
would go in mercees overall McLaren on current form all right for either of both
of you. We got the first American on the grid in like eight years
with Logan Sergeant. He's driving for Williams. I was kind of excited to
keep an eye on it, but I'm getting some Latifi vibes that scare me
quite a bit. Should I be worried about the young American? And then
bigger question, why aren't Americans very good at the F one? Apparently?
I'd say from Sergeant's perspective, he's clear of Latifi. I think it's better
than Latifi. But if that's the benchmark, that's not great. So you
know, he's Hopefully he gets a bit more time the rest of this season
to develop. Whether they give him a second season or not remain to be
seen. He had a pretty good junior career, so we know he can
drive, but something just isn't clicking at the moment. The reason why we're
not getting so many great young American talents coming through to Formula one as well
is the junior programs aren't very well connected in motorsports. So if you're coming
up through the junior ranks in the US, you're more likely to get poached
by someone and going indie indie lights something like that, Whereas you need to
make a lot of sacrifice. You essentially come over to Europe and move into
F four, F three, F two, and then you get the right
super points on your license, because, as we've discussed on the show beforehand,
for some reason, IndyCar barely picks you up any supercar points to allowing
you drive a Formula one car. It's pretty much what the same as F
two less than F two mybe less, which is really awful the way it's
staying out. So that's why I'm not seeing lots of young American youngsters come
into Formula one. They cannot get the right licenses to drive in the top
level without sacrificing a sanctuary retired childhood to move to Europe. All right,
last question, we talked food earlier. I just have to ask, what's
what the mushy peas? Oh, come on, fish chips and mushy peas
is unreal. I hate mushy peas. I'm with you, America, honestly,
If any of you are all coming to London. I will take you
out for fish, chips and mushy peas with a bit of curry sauce.
You will be It's like our barbecue. You will love it. It's so
so tasty. I didn't understand the mushy peas by themselves. I can see
where, like you said, with curry with fish and with fish and chips,
you could incorporate them into your your platter. I did make a trip
to London one time, and this was twenty some odd years ago, and
I used the Rick Steves Guide to London in search of the best fish and
chips in London. It sent me on a ridiculous train ride out to I
believe Marlin bone. Does that sounds? Is that HUD's pronounced? I guess?
And I ended up walking around this weird neighborhood, walked up to a
stand. It was served to me in a newspaper. I took one bite
and threw it in the trash. It was horrible, but the best bit
fish and chips I had was in the pubs for sure. But yeah,
this was like such a waste of day. You need to do is if
you ever come to the UK, you've got time to come down to where
Ben and I and Harry grew up in Cornwall, and you go get yourself
some proper fish and chips by the coast, by the beach, and that
is where you'll get the best food. It's fresh, it's tasty, it's
well batted. The London stuff is a little little yeah. All right,
Well on my future Silverstone trip, I will hit you up and you can.
You can prance me around much like you guys are prancing around Austin.
I can't thank you enough. That is Sam Sage, Ben Hawking the Late
Breaking Formula one podcast. If you are a F one fan, jump on
with these guys. They're funny, they make it digestible easy, but they
definitely know their stuff. You boys have a hell of a time in Austin.
Man, we're glad to have you here. There they go, Peers,
United States Grand Prix, Dakota cool dudes, right, hell yeah,
man, not fun. I don't know much about the sport, but I'm
gonna listen to that podcast. I'm not kidding. It's a good time,
especially this one as they review Austin. Hell yeah, in Texas. That's
awesome. I love that Hall and ass Yes, it's Hall and Ass,
also known as the late Breaking Formula One podcast Breaking b R a K.
Because if you break late into the corner, that's how you make up just
a little bit of time. That's what If John Oates dies, he should
add j LO and they could they could be Halling Ass. He's Kevin Turner,
He's Danny Bay. Let's my name is Mike Serroy, the hop mop
God. Coming up next to nineties having one of the Free That segment and
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