In an episode powered by the speculative Italian media, we ask why Sebastian Vettel’s contract talks have stalled and why Bill Gates is suddenly despised.
Australia and New Zealand are the same place. We talk a shocking amount of IndyCar for an F1 podcast. And tenpin bowling gets a mention.
The 2020 French Grand Prix gets stuck in traffic, F1 buys into Helmut Marko’s coronacamp at the Red Bull Ring and Michael and Rob are too old for TikTok.
Is Austria the New Zealand of Germany? Is Australia the Malaysia of F1? Who is Samuel Newman? These are men, they are orange and something has happened to my brain and I have to go.
We catch up with Mat Walker and Rhys Gardiner from the Race for Relief to debrief Rob’s highly noteworthy iRacing debut, plus we cross live to our cryptocurrency correspondent and old podcast rival.
Replay: Race for ReliefThe gossip edition of Box of Neutrals asks these burning F1 questions: Is Rob still in the toilet? Who’s pregnant now? And where have you camped unusual?
The F1 teams are putting their engineering nous to good use, so we ask: where have you baked carbon fibre unusual? And we get around Race for Relief to support Australia’s bushfire-ravaged regions.
Michael and Rob use the power of the internet and some suspicious trial software to record the podcast in the comfort of surprisingly echolike self-isolation.
Formula One gambled and lost on trying to start its 2020 season amid the worsening coronavirus pandemic, but its handling of a potential outbreak has called into question the judgement of those running the sport at its highest levels.
The appearance of the highly contagious COVID-19 virus inside the paddock was inevitable for a sport that was due to travel to 22 countries this year. The amount of international transit puts those working in Formula One among the most at risk of contracting the disease, and the confined working environment of each circuit is ideal for rapid transmission.
It was always a matter of when, not if.
McLaren has withdrawn from the Formula One Australian Grand Prix after a team member tested positive for COVID-19, plunging the season-opening round into doubt.
The member of staff self-isolated on Wednesday after reporting coronavirus symptoms, and the team announced late on Thursday night that tests had confirmed they are infected with the virus.
“McLaren Racing has confirmed this evening in Melbourne that it has withdrawn from the 2020 Formula One Australian Grand Prix, following the positive test of a team member for the coronavirus,” the team said in a statement. “The team member was tested and self-isolated as soon as they started to show symptoms and will now be treated by local healthcare authorities.”
Never before has a Formula One season opened to such a plethora of unknowns heading into the first round of the season.
Six days of preseason testing revealed few concrete answers to consider in the weeks leading to the Australian Grand Prix.
Mercedes, the reigning six-time constructors champion, was quickest, but the German marque was uncharacteristically unreliable. Power unit problems plagued not only the works team across both three-day sessions but customer Williams too, which endured three frustrating stoppages.
I preview the upcoming Australian and Bahrain grands prix with last year’s podcast guests Rob James from Box of Neutrals and Peter Anderson from theredline.com.au.