The Pit Talk

Monaco gave us ten overtakes this year. Madrid, a brand new circuit with a ten year deal and a World Champion as its ambassador, gave us four.

Robert Doornbos was there, and he is not sugarcoating it. An industrial estate 50 minutes outside the city, a build-up that promised Macau, Monaco and Jeddah rolled into one, and then a Sunday where nothing happened in F3, nothing happened in F2 and nothing happened in F1.

Plus: Robert's five takeaways, why he is calling the title for Kimi Antonelli right now, how Lando Norris lost the race by going too fast, Carlos Sainz driving like a rookie in his own back yard, Lance Stroll's record laid out race by race, and the six foot four American F3 champion who steers with one hand.

And Ollie Millroy joins us from his hospital bed in Shanghai for his first interview since the crash. Six broken ribs, a fractured vertebra and a rib through his lung, and he cannot remember a second of it. He talks about the Dutch driver who pulled him out of a burning car, the marshals who did not, and whether he wants to get back in.

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Nineteenth on the grid. First at the flag. At the Temple of Speed, in front of a Ferrari crowd, in a Mercedes.

Chris McHardy and former F1 driver Robert Doornbos break down the Italian Grand Prix, and Robert spotted something on the onboards that the broadcast never showed you. One driver used more of the circuit than anybody else all weekend.

Plus: Charles Leclerc puts it in the wall at Parabolica again. George Russell gets beaten by a teammate who started 19th. Ferrari have no rules of engagement and it's tearing them apart. Robert reveals the real cost of reaching Formula 1 — and it's eight million dollars. The Jacques Villeneuve story. And the GT crash in China that should have killed a driver, and the rival who drove towards the fireball to pull him out.

Madrid is next. Both of them have made the same prediction.

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What does it cost to crash a Formula 1 car? Seventeen million dollars, if you do it properly. Fourteen of that is the engine alone.

Robert Doornbos takes the lid off the money in this one. What's really written into a driver contract — including the clause that said he had to stay within two tenths of David Coulthard, and the bonus he tried to renegotiate before his boss told him to name any number he liked, because he'd never collect it. He didn't.

He also takes us back to the F1 that made the budget cap necessary: one power steering unit, two Minardis, and a coin flip to decide who went without.

Plus Max signed to 2030 and what half a billion actually buys, whether Mercedes have simply run out of money, Ferrari's ego problem, and the argument the sport can't settle — Alonso is only the second man over 45 to score a point, and a 20-year-old is leading the championship. Which one is the better story?

Robert Doornbos and Chris McHardy. The Pit Talk Podcast.

The Etihad Airways Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, 3–6 December. Tickets at AbuDhabiGP.com

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Robert Doornbos drops the biggest call of the season so far — Max Verstappen’s options are gone, and Red Bull is the only door left open.

Lando Norris and McLaren are BACK, the new floor works, and the number one on the car suddenly looks earned again. Max produces the overtake of the year on Lewis Hamilton. Kimi Antonelli somehow finds the podium from nowhere and inches closer to a title he no longer needs to win races for. And Carlos Sainz? Nine blue flags. NINE.

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The morning after the night before in Spa, and Kimi Antonelli’s made it SIX wins in ten races. But the real story? George Russell might be talking himself out of Mercedes.

 

Chris McHardy and ex-F1 driver Robert Doornbos break down the Belgian Grand Prix fallout: Toto Wolff’s brutal “half of it is on the driving” verdict, why Robert says George is “hanging on like a cat on the mirror,” and whether Kimi is genuinely the next Max Verstappen.

 

Plus: the pole time that dropped 3.8 SECONDS on last year (“that’s F2, not F1”), Alonso and Aston’s absolute mess, the truth behind Max’s Red Bull future, Isack Hadjar’s P21-to-P6 masterclass, and Carlos Sainz’s radical plan to blow up the F1 format.

 

Chris also revisits his own plan to supercharge F1, and it involves revolutionising qualifying. Robert’s onboard. Are you?

 

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