News and Previewing the Spanish Grand Prix

Key takeaways

• Hamilton went unusually public with his frustration after Monza, insisting he was ahead at the apex during the Leclerc clash ("there was no we in it"), saying Ferrari has "no rules" of engagement between its drivers, and arguing that any decision to back his title bid is "many, many weeks too late." The hosts read this as a deliberate media strategy, possibly encouraged by John Elkann, to pressure the team from outside because Hamilton feels unheard internally.
• Vasseur's defense drew scorn. He compared holding off on team orders to McLaren not backing Piastri in 2024, which the hosts call "complete hogwash" since Leclerc is nowhere near a title fight and McLaren still enforced its "papaya rules." They suspect a split between Elkann, who spent heavily on Hamilton as a marquee signing, and Vasseur, who inherited Leclerc and is closer to him.
• Reports suggest Ferrari's leadership was unhappy with Monza and is questioning Vasseur's position despite last summer's extension. Points of concern: caving on the start-procedure change that erased Ferrari's turbo-spooling advantage off the line, sacrificing engine power to game the A-duo rankings, poor qualifying and strategy execution, and the unmanaged driver rivalry. Christian Horner's name is circulating as a potential replacement.
• The hosts argue Ferrari's real problem is management, not a single bad call. They cite Friday pace that evaporates by Sunday, positions lost in qualifying, and the medium-tire strategy blunder where Ferrari tried to eke out dead tires hoping McLaren would slow. Spanners concedes Ferrari's strategic weakness predates Vasseur.
• Leclerc's crash registered 60 G and both the FIA and Ferrari are monitoring him, though he says he is fine. Isack Hadjar misses a third straight race, keeping Liam Lawson in the Red Bull and Yuki Tsunoda in the Racing Bull; the hosts suspect Red Bull wants another Lawson data point on a demanding new track.
• Both hosts are pessimistic about the Madring. An F3 test produced 19 red flags, three broken chassis and six broken suspensions, and James Vowles called it a "car wrecking track" while flagging four and a half seconds of sustained G-force on the banking. Spanners delivers an extended argument that street circuits use drainage-profiled surfaces, generic barriers that trap turbulent air, and wall-lined corners that punish risk, so racing suffers; he wants Pirelli to develop a street-specific tire and resents losing Barcelona every other year for this.

Notable moments

• "Well, you know what Formula One really needed was another kind of temporary street circuit."
• The "red flag" dating metaphor: every detail heard about the track is ominous, "that doesn't mean he's not a good guy, but the portents are ominous."
• Hamilton on Mercedes versus Ferrari: "When I was at Mercedes, we had a written rule of engagement... Here there are no rules."
• Spanners admits he has stewed over Vasseur's Piastri comparison "on three separate showers."
• The joke that Ferrari "raised Charles Leclerc since they found him under a pool table in a bar in Maranello."
• Red Bull's petty A-duo social posts, including "Red Bull and ice, what an A duo."
• A tangent on the F1 romance novel "Throttled" being adapted by Amazon MGM, and Spanners recounting abandoning a friend's racing romance novel after reading the word "bulge."
• Spanners on the banked La Monumental: spectacular to watch, but "that's only good if it then creates an overtaking opportunity," and it feeds into a flat street-circuit corner instead.
• "We'll sacrifice them to the madring so that all the F1 drivers will be fine," on the F3 test carnage.
• Schuster hopes she and Spanners are "reverse jinxing this" after two straight races where his pessimism preceded a good show.

Time saved: 50 minutes.