S7 E4: 2006 Hungarian GP - Button's first F1 win

The Athletic Jensen Button finally ended his long wait for a first F1 win in memorable style at the 2006 Hungarian Grand Prix, coming through from 14th on the grid to win a chaotic and rare rein-effective race at the Hungarering. As we'll explore, there was more to this victory than just sheer good fortune and beyond Button's eye-balling celebrations in Park Fermé. This was a race with plenty of other storylines, including an escalation in what was becoming an increasingly tense championship battle between Renault's Fernando Alonzo and Ferrari's Michael Schumacher. To join me, Glenn Freeman to look back on everything going on in F1, around the time of this race from F1's V8 era, Plastel the action that took place once the lights went out on the Sunday, Red Straw and Scott Mitchell, who will hopefully avoid turning this episode of Bring Back V10s into a takeover for the race F1 podcast, where you can normally hear them together. So, Ed, I will come to you first, basically, to tell you not to default into hosting the show and asking Scott questions about F1 in 2023. When you think of the 2006 Hungarian Grand Prix, what's the first thing that comes to mind? Well, it wasn't a race I saw alive because I was racing in MX5 at Snetaton at the time, but what I remember about it, I think I'd probably watch the highlights in the evening, because I was at auto sport at the time, and the wait for buttons first win, because obviously a British driver doing well on the covers always popular, and he'd had mounts, or lineage had hill, and button had been around for years, and everyone was waiting for that breakthrough. And so, it was almost a feeling of relief that finally that waiting for it to actually happen, because it had been planned for years, had finally come through, and the cover line was he's done it, exclamation mark, for that particular match. So that's what I always remember that it was just this thing that had been waited for for so long, and it wasn't so much a celebration or anything, it was just alright, finally, that's out of the way. So it was slightly unusual experience, that particular one, but of course you had the green-mast head north sport and everything, because it was a big moment for having another British driver winning a Grand Prix again. And Scott, nice to have you along for a rare bringback V10's appearance, what's your stand-out memory? I think everyone will know what I mean when I say the eyes. Do you know, do you? Yeah. Yeah, I think everyone's got that image in their head. It's gents and getting out of the calf, the image through the visor, and he just looks absolutely mad. It's so good. And I think it was, I think it's enshrined in my memory now, because I think that also became the freeze frame behind the results. Remember how the graphics used to play out on the broadcast at the time, and it would freeze for a bit. And that would be it. You'd have his eyes wide open. So there's that. But there's also, I've got an honorary mention for this one. And it's Anthony Davidson mocking Martin Brando for missing the race in the seconds after Gents and Crosses the line. And he's like, and he's just just like, yes, yes, Martin Brando, what are you doing? Not being here for this. I thought that was absolutely exceptional. It just, because you're already at the time, I've said this before, I think when I've been on, bring back the tense, being a, Gents was the only driver I was a fan of when I was a kid. And there's already an element there of you. Just like super happy, because he's just won the race. And then you've just got like a little bit of like commentator on commentator mockery going on. And it just feels super happy. And it was just, given everything else that was going on at the time, it was a, it was a rare moment of joy for a British F1 fan. Yeah, that was excellent from Davidson. I thought that was absolutely superb. There were a few shout outs for that from our audience as well. I don't normally share any first memories of mine, but lots of people who got in touch were talking about missing the race live, as Ed mentioned. Being at other events, it was obviously in the middle of summer, people on holiday. I was on holiday for this race on a very, very classy holiday in Malia. And I did watch it live. I found a bar that was showing it live, only one of the ten of us that were there or whatever came with me to watch it. And when I walked back onto the beach during the day, I just sort of said aloud, you'll never guess who won the Grand Prix. And one of my friends just turned around and went, I don't know, Jensen Botten. And I was like, yeah, I was like, I'll come on, how did you get that? That ruins everything. Were you missing it? Were you missing it out of protest because a certain driver wasn't actually competing in this Grand Prix? Well, obviously, well, having been on holiday, I think I only realized when they started showing the race, that Bill Nerv was going to win the Grand Prix. There's no come two. But I'm sure my friend who won't listen to this podcast won't thank me for that impression of him. And I will remind him that even though he didn't watch that race, he's now one of the biggest Jensen Botten fans I know. But enough from me. Let's hear from our audience. Yet again, the number of replies to this on Twitter went into three figures. Thank you so much to everyone who joins in with these. It's so much fun seeing what you all come up with. There were lots of shout outs for Fernando Alonzo stunning drive in this race. Steve Whitfield said the onboard footage in the first few laps was incredible to watch. Adam Callett called it possibly Alonzo's greatest drive in F1. Kazanaki was another to shout out Alonzo's opening laps, which Antonio Santa Maria says were better than Erton Senna in Donington 93. And Rob says Alonzo was on fire. Black Mask picked Kimi Raikon as dramatic collision with Tony Oliot C's Tororosso as did WRJ Patterson and F1 Henry. Johnny O says watching an entertaining race at the hungara ring for the first time. I feel like we've had better races in Hungary since then, but back then it was a rarity to enjoy the Hungarian Grand Prix. Lots of you picked as Scott mentioned Jensen Botten's eyeballs in Park Fermat thanks to just Han, a very own Oliver Card, Simon M's, Katie Fairman, Mark Vincelhorst, Michael Goldson and Mr. Liam among many others. And so many people mentioned the commentary at the end of this race, not only Anthony Davidson as we've already discussed, but James Allen screaming Jensen Botten wins, which I won't try to do justice. Thank you to everyone who mentioned those two behind the mic, including Louis Studaby, Dan Mason, Wookie, Freddie Coates, Gavin Richardson, Rob Young and Ashley Woodhouse. As we crack on with Series 7 of Bring Back V10s, make sure you get your questions in for the end of the series. Or will we answer whatever you send us about F1's V10 era from 1989 to 2005? As always, you can submit them using the hashtag bringbackv10s on Twitter, or you can email bringbackv10s at thehyfromrace.com. And thank you to everyone who just emails in to tell us how much you love the show. I promise I read them all even if I don't have time to reply to every single one. If you'd like to get another exclusive opportunity to submit a question, and frankly to significantly increase your odds of getting your answer given we always receive over 100 questions over the course of a series, then you can join the race members club. We will get an episode after the series that is dedicated just to questions from our members. And as well as other bonuses from the race, you'll also get early access to every episode to bring back V10s with no adverts. But let's start things off for Hungry 06 with how the championship battle was shaping up. Michael Schumacher would won the previous three races to close a 25 point deficit to Fernando Alonzo to 11 points heading into Hungary. No one on either side was getting too overexcited at this stage. Schumacher said the reduced gap was good because now it meant his fate was in his own hands, rather than needing Alonzo to drop points. Renault were firmly in, don't write a soft mode. Alonzo said he was calm, adding, I was never overconfident when I was far ahead and I'm not panicking now. He also said he felt Renault and Ferrari were both operating at the maximum capacity on car development and the real difference maker between them was the tire war between Michelin and Bridgestone. Renault boss Flavio Brier Tori said it was too soon to talk about a Ferrari comeback and he rather colorfully said, let's wait. We bury the dead only when they are cold. Brier Tori and Renault's Pat Simmons also drew comparisons with 2005 when McLaren got into its stride with the fastest car as the season went on, but Renault still managed to claim a championship double. Scott, how would you assess the state of the title battle in the middle of 2006? Had Ferrari put Renault on the back foot? Well, first of all, I wanted to point out that I always think it's surprising to remember just how late in the season hungry was back then. Did my automatic response when I was looking at this question was, obviously, as you say, in the middle of 2006, was just actually was like, wow, it was so close to the end of the season. I'm so in modern F1 mode now, it's quite depressing. But I believe in momentum and I know that some drivers and teams only believe it either when they have it or when they don't have it, depending on what's convenient to claim. But it's clear that Schumacher and Ferrari were in great form and it was vital because not only did it slash the points deficit, but the hat trick of wind had come off the back of I think four in a row for a for a long zone Renault. So it was an absolute reversal of fortunes. And Schumacher said at the time that one of the key things here was it flipped it from him needing a helping hand to win the championship to it suddenly being in his control. Mathematically, he could win the championship himself if that makes sense. And I think psychologically on both sides, that absolutely makes a big difference. I think the way I would describe it is Rena Monz, I weren't on the back foot necessarily, but they were definitely looking in their mirrors a lot more. It was quite a strange battle between those two as well because it looks from the outside if you look at the point scoring that Renault starts strongly then Ferrari comes back and that was the case with the results but I think it was always closer than it looked certainly at the start of the season. Ferrari found quite a few ways to underachieve early on there, a few reliability problems, a few grid panel sees, but I think could easily have been a win for Schumacher. So there was an execution element there as well, Hockenheim for various reasons we'll get on to later. Renault wasn't at its best so that was the previous race. So I think we sort of saw two teams having strong runs operationally when they weren't shooting themselves in the foot as well and then you kind of get a more reflective balance for the rest of the season. So it's one of those really interesting ones that when you dig into the detail a bit it's it's slightly more complicated almost than it looks but it's got's absolutely right about the way the momentum are transformed that season. Renault's mid season form had been helped by the controversy surrounding mass dampers, a clever technical area where Renault had been the pioneer in late 2005. However, the mass damper had been banned a few weeks earlier by the FIA on the grounds that it constituted a movable aerodynamic device. Renault challenged that ban at the German Grand Prix where the race stewards declared it was legal. That led to the FIA appealing the verdict of its own stewards. Then we had a hearing arranged which would take place after Hungary. Renault pushed to be allowed to run the system until the hearing but in the end it made a last minute decision not to race with it in Hungary as it feared there could be retrospective punishments if the FIA won its appeal hearing. Renault understandably didn't take this well. Breitori said they were being penalised for inventing something and he said there was a commitment by the FIA with the help of some teams to play against us to give a false result to the championship. Bizarre. Breitori accused McLaren publicly rather than Ferrari and McLaren denied this saying it wouldn't do anything to Harmon Lanzo's title bid given it had signed him for 2007 and wanted him to bring the number one with him and to arrive as a double world champion. Pat Simmons called the FIA's decision to change its mind on the legality of mass dampers a very strange state of affairs adding it suggests they didn't understand what they were doing. I would argue they still don't understand now. Scott you've we're not talking about modern F1 but when you cover model F1 you deal with a fair few FIA related messes over the years. Does this just show they're always capable of creating confusion when it comes to these legal wranglings? Oh yeah 100 percent this is a it's probably a much more extreme example than what I'm used to but there was part of this that there's a there's a Pat Simmons quite where he talks about initially receiving notification that the FIA would recommend to the court of appeal that there should not be retrospective penalties so they make the decision initially to go ahead and use it in in in Hungary keep using it because okay like worst case scenario we're not going to lose anything we gained we'll just have to stop using it from here on and then obviously that changes so you can totally see where the confusion comes from on on the Renault side and I love that within this as well there's that there's that element of political need all between the teams so you've got teams pointing fingers at other teams instead of just attacking the FIA I mean the FIA is getting both barrels as well but this is I think this is a real classic FIA F1 technical row I think I made it did get me thinking about some of the ones in more recent years and they're so small fry by comparison to something like this for it to have descended to this point where you have just a total amount of confusion and everything's just shrouded in a bit of fog you've got conflicting not instructions but advice from the FIA I love I love it when the FIA is at war with itself where you have the technical department or senior figures within the FIA argue with the FIA pointed stewards and it does look like civil war is breaking out so this was I'm sure for the people involved it was an absolute nightmare I think because of the great sporting narrative you had on track possibly at the time and maybe in hindsight this becomes very much a footnote in the rest of the season but it's absolutely the sort of things just ratchet everything up a little bit especially because while you had that dynamic on track of the the form shifting I remember at one point during this race the Hungary race where Alonzo and Stumac are actually battling and you realize actually this hasn't happened much this year just because of the way that it's played out they haven't gone wheel to wheel that much so a bit of off-track need was well was just a perfect thing to throw a little bit more spice into the pot and it was more of that to come this weekend as we'll get to the ed you've studied the mass damper rail previously including for videos on our YouTube channel so knowing what you know about it everything you've looked up about it what did you make of it and do you think it should have remained legal yeah it's quite an interesting one from both the political and a technical regulations case I mean the mass damper tuned mass damper it should be called TMD as it was known so it's basically a weight five to ten kilos in a little cylinder mounted on two springs in the nose cone of the car it's all about controlling damping the vertical forces creates a more stable car holds it in the right arrow window good for consistency and it was great for evening up the variation in front grip under breaking run I reckoned it was worth about three tenths of a second pull out that's where Pat Simmons put it on average so the mass damper is a movable device and it had an impact on aerodynamics but it's not something that's exposed to the airflow so a conventional movable arrow device would be an adjustable wing or something that that's an obvious version now the FIA or should I say well the FIA themselves not the not the stewards at Hockenheim who they disagreed with but the FIA argued the mass damper did impact aero performance and couldn't be part of suspension on the basis it was integrated into the bodywork and it argued that the aero benefit was independent of other benefits and was the main thing so it got into the whole primary purpose thing so Renault were claiming it was only a small aero advantage and the primary purpose was vibration control now we have to remember that the movable aero regulation doesn't just say you're not allowed movable aero Article 3.15 applies to any specific part of the car influencing its aerodynamic performance now there was some influence on the aero performance from the mass damper so that does open up it for consideration under the rule the rule also says that such parts have to be rigidly secured and obviously they're moving parts within the mass damper that weren't rigidly secured so it comes down to whether it's primarily an aero benefit or it's for mechanical platform and vibration control etc now the political avenue the political dimension is that the mass damper was a variable benefit to different cars others had copied it Renault pioneered it in late 2005 Ferrari had copied it but because of the stiffer sidewall bridge don'tires it didn't get as much a benefit so Ferrari was definitely lobbying against this when it realized its version wasn't so so efficient and so effective so it's a great idea by Renault well implemented the Hockenheim stewards did accept that they were legitimate concerns about this tech so probably the correct approach would have been so if they if I didn't want to do what would have been done now which would say actually by the rules now it's probably legal but we'll ban it for for next year or whatever kind of take the DAS style approach but this argument over primary purpose there was no easy answer to it to use a simple example to fancar debate you could measure how much was cooling for the radiator and how much was aero impact and it was more than 50% for the radiator because that's exactly what Bravan designed us so you could measure that this you couldn't I do think primarily it was a mechanical benefit in terms of the platform and the vibration control etc but it did have an aero benefits so it was arguable both ways I would say but I completely understand why Renault were quite frustrated at the nature of the ban and the way it happened because there was a big big political dimension I think if Ferrari had got the mass-dample working well they'd have shut up about it but it just wasn't as beneficial so it's a really interesting one where it was legitimately under consideration as aero but it then comes down to how you measure up the balance but yeah we've been better not to ban it out of hand immediately certainly the primary purpose thing which obviously is something that we hear about a lot now in modern F1 that the fact that that was obviously such an issue at the time it makes it and I think this was at the heart of a lot of the Renault frustration that the time it makes it really surprising that the FAA would go as far as initially making a binary decision on it because when you read back at and look at what the likes of Simmons or even Ross Braun said there were very much indications that the FAA had decided its primary purpose and that the primary purpose was mechanical which is why everyone kind of thought you get away with it and that led to what I think in from Glen's research was I think probably my favorite quote that got dug up which was Pat Simmons saying you can't change your mind about something factual if Flavio Shirt is blue it's blue as I well yes but I don't want to get bogged down into into too much here but by and large what humans consider to be colors that's pretty binary like what's blue I know there was this thing a few years ago I was what color was this shirt was actually blue but I love that was classic F1 for me that oversimplification oversimplification of something is complicated and nuanced as the primary purpose discussion and it comes down to technical. director or a senior team figure just saying, "Yeah, but blue is blue." It's also one of those things that you can make a good case for it being a good sensible thing. Pat Simmons made the case that this is exactly what everyone should be doing because it was a really simple device. It was a weight between a couple of springs in a tube. It was that simple, obviously, the artistry and how you tune it, etc. is there. But you should have worked for Ferrari if it was that easy. Well, it was easy to do. Just didn't work with other bits of the car, but it's an interesting one because Simmons also said, "This is a great idea for the automotive industry." You know, tune mass dampers as a concept existed 100 years before that. They were used in building and that kind of thing. So the kind of idea existed, but they were under exploited in terms of the automotive industry. So also from that technology transfer, there was a good argument for them existing. So I think all of this points me towards the fact that it was primarily the way it was done politically driven in terms of the way they made the decision. We almost decided what outcome they wanted rather than looking at it in a flat way. But it wasn't quite as outrageous as some might remember it. There was at least a case to be answered. Yeah, Ferrari were very clear that they felt it was illegal and they were pretty honest that they weren't getting much benefit from it. So perhaps you can join the dots on those two things. Let's move on to the driver market. Mark Weber's future was in doubt over the summer of 2006, as it was known that Williams wouldn't be taking up an option in his contract to extend it. The reason given at the time was that the option would trigger a big pay hike that Williams now couldn't really afford. There was talk of a renegotiation, but as we'll get to in a minute, that was actually never on the cards. Instead Weber signed for Red Bull, which was announced in the days after the Hungarian GP. Weber said he was joining the team, which he'd raced for previously when it was Jaguar, at exactly the right time for success in the future. Certainly proved to be true. He praised the work Red Bull had done since taking over Jaguar at the end of 2004, which was when he left, and he expected them to be the most improved team in 2007. Weber said in his book that the Red Bull move was Flavio Bria Tori's idea, and that after Mark had gone against Flavio's suggestion to join Alonzo at Renault for 2005, just let that sink him for a moment, Weber understandably didn't want to argue again this time. He said the main attraction about Red Bull was that it had lured Adrian Neue away from McLaren, and the 2007 RB3 would be Neue's first car for the team. But Weber also felt he didn't have any other options as his stock had taken a big hit at Williams. So Scott, Red Bull, this is very early in the Red Bull story, they had a long way to go before becoming the force they are today in F1. So despite the building blocks that were there, being put in place, and the benefit of hindsight we have now, was there an element of this being a gamble for Weber when he made the decision in mid 2006? I don't know if I call it a gamble, so I think maybe calculated risk because whenever a driver makes a decision like this, you've got your push and your pull factors. It's right, what's making you want to leave the team you're at now, what is attracting you to the team that you might join in the future, and we'll go to the push factors in a bit because there were a hell of a lot of Williams as a time time would subsequently show. But if you look at just purely what the pull factors were and the position that Weber was in, I love the fact that he was honest enough to just be like, no big team is going to come in for me. So there's just an element of realism underpinning the decision that he wants to make. So then you're looking at, actually, funnily enough considering Alonzo, I guess kind of part of this because of that Renault decision that Brie Toria suggested to Weber. It's kind of where Alonzo has just found himself for the last 10 years in Formula One, where you're then looking at, right, okay, if I can't get into one of the biggest teams, what's the best project? What's the team in the medium to long terms going to benefit me the most? And there it's, you know, there's an irony that Weber then looks at and just goes, ah, the team that I left is actually on the right trajectory. So I think I might be better off to go back to that. He's obviously been able to avoid the sort of the two year interimperiod where they're growing pains with Jaguar becoming Red Bull. So he's not there for that bit. I think certainly for before 2006 really played out, you could say that Williams was at least working in the short term as a move for him. And I think he just had a really good outlook for what Red Bull's potential was, but also what timeline that would come in for. So he was talking about, you know, in an ideal world fighting for top five in the Constructors Championship in 2007 with a new E-car, which he admitted that still were a very hard challenge for us to meet. But that's, that's okay. That's logical. That's ambitious, but not fanatical, like, you know, been drawn into fantasy. So I think he just had a really good balance when he was looking at what Red Bull offered. Short term medium long term is like, well, short term is probably not going to be any worse. Medium term. Actually, I think there's some low hanging fruit here. Long term, I think this could be one of the biggest teams in Formula One. And I think it's fair to say that history is on mark Webber's side there. Yeah, he got that right. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the impact he felt it had on his career, Webber doesn't have many nice things to say about his time at Williams. He certainly didn't in his book where he said that Williams should have suited him because from the outside, it looked like a team of doers. But once he was there, he realised something didn't feel right and no one seemed to enjoy working there. He said Frank Williams and Patrick Hed never listened to anything he said because in his words, they didn't need help. They were still living off their past successes. Webber tried to tell Frank that senior people in the team, such as Sam Michael, who was leading the technical side by this point, were overworked. But that cut no ice. And he soon realised he was banging my head against a concrete wall. He added that after Frank and Patrick had told him in the middle of 2005 that they were disappointed with his performances, they told him it would be fine if he left, rather than doing the second season of his original deal, but he stayed because he had no other options and no one else wanted to drive for Williams. He described the team's wind tunnel calibration problems as having two watches, but they didn't know which one was telling the right time. And he said it's amazing how fast a phenomenal team can implode when success isn't happening anymore. I was there for the first phase of that implosion at Williams. Scott in terms of what was going wrong for Williams quite early in its decline and everything we've seen actually of Williams since then. How telling is what Webber laid out for us here? Yeah, it's a very clear sign of just how early the rock was setting in at Williams. And it is frightening how familiar what Webber says actually is to what we've heard countless times in recent years. I think at the time it would have been particularly galling for him to realise just how quickly the we've won doing it our way before so we can continue doing it our way. Mentality was holding Williams back. I think we tend to think of that now as probably something that struck Williams in the 2010s. You know, when you've had a sustained period of not winning, not really fighting for podiums. And I consider that much more of a recent thing for Williams where they're just like, no, no, we can get back to the front by just doing it the way we always did it. The fact that Webber was already feeling this in 2005, 2006 when they'd only just come off the back of still being, you know, race winners and having tight ambitions is really worrying and shows just how deep rooted the problems were. And I think the other thing that was telling from what Webber said in his book, which was absolutely flat out, was talking about the dynamic within the team and the lack of joy that was in there. And he just said that he got the impression that people at their desk didn't want to be there. They don't want to be part of this team. Just a miserable environment that must have been to be a part of. And then when you've got the finger pointing as well that immediately starts and, you know, I'm sure Webber wasn't perfect as a driver and that there were things he could have been doing better. But when you've, I can see why he would have felt, and this goes back to what I said about the push factors before, I can see why he would have felt, well, this is a team going nowhere. And if it's going anywhere, it's going backwards, it's going downhill and other directions that I seem to just be mentioning. But there would also have been an element of like, there's no way he feels the love there. And you've got a team that clearly wants to get out of a contract that's going to cost him an absolute ton of money that they can't afford to pay because of the way it's backloaded if he takes up the option. It's an absolute no-brainer for me in that situation to want to get out of that team in environment as soon as possible. And yet it was absolutely a precursor of all of the negativity that was to come at Williams and that they're still trying to get out of now. And the most starting thing is what he reflects of the culture at Williams, because there's obvious problems like they party company from BMW, they knew that was going to create financial problems. They lost their title sponsorship with HP as a direct result of it, etc. So they're going through this period of financial retrenchment that followed. You know, we're not far away from them taking the option of having, because Eukinakajima in the car, so they get free Toyota engines rather than having to pay for them. That's what happened for 2008 and 2009. So there were those wider problems, but the fact that they not realised how our form was changing and reacted to it. And I also see the teams were getting bigger and bigger and bigger and you have to work with your company culture, et cetera, to actually make it work and integrate departments, et cetera. And it was just an example of F1 moving along a lot and how Williams multiplied their problems. There were certain things that they had to deal with. It was a manufacturer era. They were an independent team by choice, ultimately, having a party company with BMW. But that meant they needed to be incredibly sharp with how they operated. And ultimately, they weren't. I think there was still this feeling that we are mighty Williams. And it's other external factors. It's not completely dissimilar to what McLaren went through five, six years ago in the Honda era where you can point to legitimate problems, but then ignore all your own ones. So yeah, it's pretty damning from Weber who talks about compiling regular reports about what he felt should be done. And they just weren't taken seriously by Williams. It was very much like we're doing everything right. And all our weaknesses are other people's fault. The drivers are external problems. And that's why Williams, although it did a pretty good job in this period to go through the financial retrenchment over the next couple of years. It could easily have gone under at this time. I think they just didn't work well culturally and technically to actually make the most of what they had. I'm Paul Tenerio. I cover soccer for the athletic. And I made me Lawrence. I cover football for the athletic. Whatever you call it, the biggest competition in the sport is happening right now. And the athletics World Cup coverage has everything you need to follow the tournament. We've got more than 70 obsessive reporters on the ground. If you're eager to know more about the teams, the matches, all the stories on and off the pitch, we've got you sorted. Throughout the tournament, you have free access to all the coverage in our app. Download the athletic app and see you there. Williams decided to promote Test Driver Alex Verse to replace Weber for 2007. This would mark Vertsy's return to full-time F1 racing for the first time since his 2000 season with Beneton. As since then, he'd been a test driver first with McLaren and then Williams. Frank Williams praised Vertsy's technical understanding and the way he communicated with the engineers. He said Vertsy was popular in the team and stood out above the other candidates. I assume that's not just because he was so tall. So the choice was automatic to pick him as Weber's replacement. Frank admitted to a few doubts about how race ready Verts would be after so long out of full-time competition that he recalled Vertsy being an aggressive racer during his Beneton years, so Williams felt taking a chance would pay off. Vertsy said he was delighted to return to his natural habitat of racing and thanked Williams for the vote of confidence in promoting him. Ed Vertsy only did one season for Williams. Had his time passed by this point? Well, he was still only 32 at the time, so he turned 33 before 2007, so there was life in him, but he had spent six seasons almost entirely on the sidelines immense reputation as a test driver. So it's perhaps less that his time had passed and more that time had changed what he was partly as well. There was an element of it being a marriage of convenience. Verts obviously won another cracker F1. Williams needed to avoid spending too much on a driver he was already there, so I think it worked for them financially and he had done a great job as a Friday driver. His race pace, his stint pace was very, very good and as we saw the following year, his race performances often were pretty strong. He had some very good races that year. Canada and Erbe Ring Monaco was good, so he did driver, but qualifying was the issue. I don't think Vertsy was ever outright the quickest driver in the world, but Frank Williams mentioned the word aggressive. I think he was really thinking about Vertsy's clash with Schumacher at Monaco all those years ago, but the problem was as a single lap driver as well. Verts wanted to be quite aggressive and hustle the car and the tyres the following year didn't allow that, so qualifying was an absolute nightmare for him, which made it really, really difficult. No matter how well you're driving in the race, it's very difficult to make up for that. So I don't think he was without value as an F1 driver, but that lack of qualifying ability was a problem and I think it's all connected to what was motivating Williams at that time. They had him on their books as a test driver. It made sense to use that money as for him as a race driver so that they didn't have to spend too much because this was increasingly becoming a problem. Frank mentioned that Vertsy, Schumacher, battle at Monaco on two separate occasions. As we've heard from Frank's son Jonathan, Frank was always enamored with any driver who was willing to bang wheels with Michael Schumacher. That was definitely a tick in the Verts column. Unfortunately, there were some other more immediate driver market stories heading into Hungary or one more immediate one. BMW test driver Robert Kubitsa was called up for his F1 debut to replace Jack Villnerve. Initially, BMW said this was because Villnerve hadn't recovered from his crash in the German Grand Prix and that no decision had been taken on who would drive for the rest of the year. However, BMW boss Mario Tyson said the team was starting to think about its lineup for 2007 and it was pleased to have a chance to see how Kubitsa got on during a race weekend. Kubitsa had been driving a third car on the Friday's of race weekends and said he had been preparing all year for this chance. He was determined not to let BMW down but he didn't expect it to be easy learning about the parts of an F1 weekend. He hadn't contested yet, especially as he hadn't raced at all since competing at Macau in an F3 car at the end of 2005. When he was asked in Hungary, why BMW should choose him over Villnerve for the seat full time, Kubitsa joked maybe the pace? Ouch, Ed, when you've got a driver like Kubitsa sat on the sidelines and I'd been to a few races in 2006 and he was always mega to watch from trackside on the Fridays. When he's doing that, does it just become too tempting to ignore if you're BMW? Yeah, it does. And when you've got, as you say, the situation when it's there right in front of you, it's not off-testing a marathon or quiet when say afternoon or something. It's every single race weekend. It's so easy to make that direct comparison. If you've got a young driver with a level of ability of a Kubitsa who had his career panned out differently, it couldn't well have been a well champion. Certainly you would have won a lot of Grand Prix without the ready crash. Then of course he's going to make that impression. And no matter how illustrious the driver you've got on your book says, as Villnerve was the former well champion, he says someone that appears quicker than a team will get behind them very, very quickly. And Kubitsa's performance is once in the car proved absolutely. It was the right decision. And it's very telling a cabitzi. You will know he will have gone into that season aiming to do this. He will have thought, right, I've got to make an absolutely compelling case. I've got to make this happen. So it's kind of the plan coming together for him. And he wasn't afraid to strongly make his case as you commented from the press conference three word, but telling answers. So yeah, BMW had to put him in the car, no matter who they had in the other car. And Villnerve hadn't been too bad. That is the season. He'd been decent. He wasn't stunning. It wasn't old Villnerve. But he wasn't a complete disaster. And they had to get him out and put anyone in. It was because Kubitsa was so strong. I'll take that. After the Hungary weekend, it was announced that Villnerve and BMW had properly split. Tyson said in a statement that BMW's desire to evaluate Kubitsa had naturally impacted Jack's position for the remainder of the season. And that BMW understood it was difficult for Jack to maintain his natural level of commitment in circumstances of uncertainty. Villnerve released his own statement saying he'd been given no assurances about getting the seat back after the team had tried out Kubitsa. So it was agreed that they should just split. Years later in various interviews, Villnerve has said that he was told by Tyson at the start of 2006 that BMW didn't want him. And he was given the option to either take the matter to court to protect his original contract, which he'd signed with Sourbara of course, or he could sign a new contract which gave BMW the right to take him out of the race seat at any time they wanted. So he signed that rather than getting into a legal battle. Scott, this was the end of Villnerve's F1 career that the crash at Hockenheim was his last action as an F1 race driver. Was he treated unfairly here by BMW? Obviously, I have to be careful why I say here, otherwise I'm not going to be invited back. You won't finish the show. Yes, we replaced halfway through by a younger better pod of stuff. Robert Kubitsa. What I would say is that there is an element here of BMW just being, I think actually quite straight about it from the start. If they've made it clear to Villnerve that look, we're kind of inheriting this guy as a driver from the team that we've taken over that he had a contract, we don't want him longer term. So actually, this is the situation. We're probably going to want to replace you at some point. We can even fight this or you can just accept that you're here for basically as long as you last, but there's no guarantee beyond that. So from that point of view, actually think maybe they pounded it quite well very firmly, very strong with their position, not giving Jack much wiggle room at all, but just saying that this is a situation you can either fight it or just go along with it and see what happens. But the other side of it is that it's not a particularly, it's a very corporate way of doing things. It's not a very personable way. Villnerve probably commanded a bit more respect than he was given. As Ed said, it's not like he had either done a bad job with Sal, but the previous year or did a bad job in the first half of the season. But there was obviously a trend, I think in 2005, for example, if you look at the balance of Villnerve versus Massa over the course of the year, it actually looks about the same. But then when you look at the second half of of the season. There's a trend to massagate in the most out of it and qualifying, coming back to that qubits thing about maybe the pace. So I think you've got a downward trend for Villeneuve in terms of pace. Everyone knows at the time and now sort of his reputation and sort of how difficult he can be, how peaky he can be as a driver. You've brought in Nick Hydefeld, you've got your German driver who's performing quite well for BMW, that's good from a corporate point of view and you've got this mega driver on the sidelines as well. I just think when you consider how ruthless F1 is and can be and the ambition that BMW had for its F1 project, I think you've just got to be harsh and blunt about it. Villeneuve didn't really fit into that vision. BMW were quite clear about that. They were probably a bit nastier with it than they needed to be but in the end the history has shown that they made the right decision and at least they didn't do anything. It doesn't feel like they did anything cloak and daggersy with Villeneuve. It was brutal but it was very much brutal to his face which you would like to think that someone like Jack might at least appreciate even if it's only a tiny percent. It's interesting what he said about it. He said he felt that the stint with a team, obviously joined the previous year, had cleansed his image because he proved he could work well with teams. Wasn't so difficult to work with that he could still perform at a decent level. So Villeneuve had quite an interesting attitude to that whole thing. He felt that that year and a half, well almost two seasons. Goodness. What Scott said earlier, Hungary was pretty close to the end of the season with that team had served its purpose. I want to know where the Glenn thinks it was the right decision though. You can't deny how good Robert Cubitz it was. They should have got rid of Hydefield. I'm not going to try and argue. If you're BMW, you've got this guy. As I say, I'd seen Hyde, Cubitz, a trackside a few times on those Fridays in 2006 and he every time I saw him, he was blowing me away at the races. So he, I think he was becoming an irresistible force and unfortunately, as you mentioned, BMW had one guy that they'd brought in in Hydefield who had the nationality thing on his side as well and they had a guy they didn't want. So Cubitz, very quickly became I think the the higher performing BMW driver alongside Hydefield. I could make a hilarious case for why they should have kept to be all nerve, but that it yeah, it would have to be that. Let's move on. Because it wasn't only the driver market that was high on the news agenda heading into Hungary. Stories began to emerge first in Italy. The Ross Brawn was going to leave Ferrari at the end of 2006. Brawn gave a not very subtle non-denial in Hungary saying just saying Ferrari would make its plans known at the end of the season and would focus on trying to win the championship until then. However, in Ross's book with Adam Parr, a total competition, he said he told Ferrari in 2004 that he planned to step down at the end of 2006 so the team had plenty of time to work out a succession plan. Brawn said I had the view that 10 years was a great time to have at Ferrari. Remember Ross had joined for 97. A nice round number it was time to move on to face a new challenge. Give plenty of notice and let's develop the organization to work without me. He said team boss John Totten Ferrari, president Luca de Montezemolo, couldn't see the logic so they tried to convince him to stay but had no joy. Ross went on to say that in his mind it was a sabbatical so he could travel the world with his wife for a year and he met with Ferrari bosses again in the summer of 2007 to discuss coming back but he only wanted to do it as team principal and by then Stefano Domenicale was being lined up for that role. Ed would you have liked to see Brawn have a stint as Ferrari team boss? It's not one of those things that I think I wish that had happened because obviously Brawn's career was pretty interesting after that so it was stopped all sorts of things that did happen. We wouldn't have had Brawn Grand Prix in that in that particular form so probably it's for the better he did move on. It potentially could have been good for Ferrari. It would have been a slightly different team principal role to the one he had later on initially Todd would still have been around because it was end of 2007 that Domenicale became team principal but there were all sorts of problems with Ferrari and the way de Montezemolo wanted to operate things that made life difficult for Domenicale as well so I'm not sure it's as simple as had Brawn continued Ferrari would have lived up to its potential in the ensuing years I don't think it's that simple it was always about the collective there the whole group of them and obviously Todd moved on to chase the FI presidency quite soon after that so I suspect it wouldn't quite have been as delightful as you might automatically assume had he stayed on and obviously he was very much a technical a technical manager at that point rather than a team boss so I think probably it was the right decision for him to move on but who knows it might have completely changed the future in Ferrari would have won four five six world championships over the next half dozen years but I don't feel it would have transformed Ferrari's destiny and it would probably been worse for Brawn himself. Let's get into the race weekend then and there was drama during the practice sessions we don't always say that as both Alonzo and Schumacher picked up penalties for committing various offences we'll start with Alonzo's first penalty which was for brake testing Robert Dornboss after feeling the Red Bull driver had held him up Alonzo had pulled alongside Dornboss to gesticulate towards him on the start finish straight then pulled in front and clearly hit the brakes hard in the middle of turn one Alonzo said he was surprised by the penalty because what he did happened all the time when drivers get held up by slower cars who take too long to get out of the way he added when you overtake them you always say something to them to look in the mirror this happens at every race there was no accident no yellow flags and no touching of cars this is the first time in history that you get a penalty for having discussions with another driver on one corner. Nicky Louder called what Alonzo did stupid and ridiculous adding it was not the way a world champion should drive. Alonzo also picked up penalty for overtaking under yellow flags which were briefly thrown at the end of one of the sessions seemingly for no reason or certainly a few corners too early and that one did seem a bit unfortunate but Scott let's focus on this Dornboss incident did Alonzo deserve to be penalised for what he called basically having a chat? Yeah he did absolutely and his interpretation of the event is just classical Alonzo he just he emits things that happened and he reinvents what the bit that he's talking about because I when I've read comments from people like this where you know the louder stuff is pretty flat out even Bernie Eckelston was in favour of the penalty that Alonzo got and you hear Alonzo's version like everyone seems to overlook the fact that he also moves across before they even go down to turn one obviously he's going past him and he just moves into them and it's like that's so dangerous that the brake test mid corner I mean it's pretty obviously slows down and look you can it's if you were being super generous you could argue that and just say well maybe he's just completed his push lap and therefore he's backing off but that's even that's a massive stretch but he can't claim he's re-challenged in the hybrid can he? No exactly exactly so you just got everything about it I think I think if it was limited to he's really annoyed he's you know he's he's flipped in the bird as a driven past on the straights and he's door-doured a little bit through turn one or something like that I think that's fine because that's just a racing driver being annoyed behind the cockpit but the move in a straight line the pointless brake test it's stupid and it's dangerous so I think it's I think it's valid to penalise it but there's another thing that loud ran Eckelston both flagged which is you know this was the world champion as well and I know that some people don't agree with this kind of thing but that there absolutely has to be a consideration for the example that gets set because one of the things that I've seen over the years especially in junior categories is you can see incidents in Formula One just be mirrored in the junior categories I don't think it's as much a problem now but I remember a few years ago I think this was something that wound you up Glenn but there was a proliferation in junior categories of the pole man just sweeping across to squeeze the other car the second the start sort of happened and you'd have people squeezing towards the track edge or even the pit wall and that comes from Formula One and I don't think anyone wants to see something like if you don't want to let a driver get away with if you're annoyed use your car as a weapon or use your car to threaten someone else that is ultimately what Alonso did so the the penalty was absolutely justified it's also just really stupid Alonso's part isn't it because what's the relevance of Dawnbos he's a completely irrelevant driver he's not making a point against a title rival or something Dawnbos is a good driver but he's just not he shouldn't really be in Alonso's thinking it just shouldn't matter so why get yourself a penalty for trying to make a point against someone that just doesn't matter to you why what's what's the point of Robert Dawnbos yeah that's the next t-shirt on the bringback v10 shop title rival Schumacher also picked up a penalty of his own which was for overtaking under a red flag on his way back to the pits during Saturday practice when gents and buttons Honda engine expired Schumacher accepted that he was responsible for the mistake but he quite critically said if you watch the pictures you may understand why I was doing what I did they explain more than I can with words he could have as we're about to explain he could have explained with words perfectly fine because when that footage emerged and it's in the 2006 f1 season review It became clear what Schumacher was talking about, at the penultimate corner of the lap, which was the last one before the pit entry. Alonzo suddenly slows right down on track. Kubits' BMW hits the brakes to stay behind him, but they then go so slowly that Schumacher drives around the outside of them both on his way back to the pit. Alonzo played innocent at the time, saying he had no idea what had happened, and it was a surprise to him and to Renault. However, that F1 season review also featured his radio communication from the time, so let's have a listen for ourselves. I think we can establish that clear that Alonzo certainly knew what had happened immediately, and while it's not very clear because the pit entry siren goes off at the same time, I'm pretty sure you can hear his engineer say fantastic when Alonzo confirms it was Schumacher that overtook him. Alonzo later denied slowing down too much, saying the stewards had seen all the data, and he said that if you decide to overtake two cars around the outside, as Schumacher did, it's because you decided to do it, not because they slowed down too much and it happened by accident. What do you think of all this? We're at Alonzo and Renault playing games here. It was a pretty simple game, if they were, and Alonzo might well have known Schumacher was there and tried to create those conditions, certainly he was going very slow, you can see from the on board from Cabitzer, Cabitzer sought behind him wanting to go, but he just left off and breaks and just accepts that he's got to sit behind him. Regardless of how consciously Alonzo set that up, it was a very, very simple trap. We talked before how Schumacher had difficulty coming to terms of making a mistake. I think that's reflected in his comments as well. He almost wasn't able to say to himself, well that's a bit stupid, regardless of what Alonzo was doing. Alonzo was driving slowly back to the pits under the red flag, which is what you're meant to do. It's not like he suddenly stamped on the brakes when Schumacher was right behind him and shaved off 150 kilometres an hour, I went, it was there. Not the greatest trap in the world, is that? I mean, I said Alonzo was stupid for getting caught up with Dawn Boss. I think Schumacher was pretty stupid to get tricked into this ultimately and no wonder Alonzo and Renault were pretty happy with it. I mean, you could say Alfares in Love, War and F1 on that, aren't you? Alonzo didn't fundamentally do anything wrong. If he created the conditions to lay that trap, very possible he did, then he was probably absolutely delighted and probably found it quite funny that Schumacher fell into it because Schumacher just had done what Cabitza did and just stayed behind. Yeah, he only had to wait one corner. Now you may have noticed I've not been very clear on what these penalties were for these offenses and there's a good reason for that. Alonzo and Schumacher were given two second time penalties that applied to each segment of qualifying. So whatever time they did in Q1 would then have two seconds added and they would only progress to Q2 if they still made the cut after the penalty was applied and then the same would happen again in Q2 and if they made it to Q3, it would happen again there. They both made it through to Q2 even with the penalties but were both knocked out in the middle segment with Schumacher 12 fastest and Alonzo 15th. Meanwhile, buttons, engine failure and practice meant he got the traditional 10-place grid penalty for an engine change that we're all more familiar with. So that put him 14th which also bumped Schumacher up a place to 11th but especially given you two both still cover Q1 where we have plenty of grid penalties but they are all position based. Let's talk about these. I'm interested to know what you both think of them. We'll come to you first Scott. Are these time penalties for the qualifying segments a good idea and should we use them today in some form? The bit I like about them is that they bring the penalty front and center so it's very obvious what a driver has to overcome the consequence of it and known straight away. One of the issues I think with the grid penalty system is that you're always then trying to work out the grid in hindsight and we know that modern F1 has a particularly complicated way of setting a grid with working from an empty grid as a starting point and leaving gaps and it's very, it kind of makes sense but also doesn't. So there's that element to it that I like, the immediacy of it that just sort of resolves it. How you'd actually implement it now I think is tougher to work out because I don't want this to sound like a slightly lazy comparison but I think it's fair to say that the gap from front to back now is a lot more condensed than it was in 2006 for example. So if you slapped a two second penalty on someone now I think that has a bigger consequence for example. So you'd have to work out like what would be a sort of acceptable reference for it, whether it's a per se I think percentage base might be the way to go because obviously different tracks are so many different links. A half second penalty in one track is nothing but one another track is the difference between Q1, Q2 or Q3 progression. So that would maybe need a bit of fettling whether you could have something sort of was flexible that would just cause her open another can of worms entirely. I'm sure with how F1 is these days but not against it in principle purely because I do like that immediacy of it and it's so easy for you to judge and I actually think in a way would heighten a little bit of the jeopardy and enjoyment of a qualifying session if you can see with how closer driver is as it happens to negate in their penalty or being eliminated. It's one of those ideas that's sort of quite appealing isn't it but the Scots absolute you write about the gaps would need to be fettled a bit for example in Hungary this year in order to have got out of Q1 if you had a two second time penalty you didn't need to eclipse the poll time from Q3 which would be pretty unlikely with track evolution etc. The one danger with this sort of thing is if you have a tariff in a certain amount sometimes people will spend these depends how you use these penalties. I don't think Alonzo if we would have been thinking oh I can spend two seconds on getting point to see an oil robot dawn boss but if you start using it for engine penalties and that kind of thing you'll still get a strategy because people think I'm actually this race we could still do this because of the pace of the lap etc and our pace there and not lose out so much with it but it did make qualifying quite interesting because then you had you had drivers who could advance through sessions and still had to decide whether they wanted to try and get into Q3 and have the starting feel locked in etc so it's sort of one of those ideas that's quite nice just as a basic prince well when let me think about the detail it can be quite complicated but it does have the potential to make qualifying quite interesting for a penalized driver. I suspect that yeah the devil is in a detail and it wouldn't quite work as you'd hope in reality. Yeah I think I agree nice idea very difficult to tune track track and possibly with the with the divide we still have between the big teams and small teams I think you'd need to be you'd have to give you know Red Bull a bigger tie a Red Bull driver a bigger time penalty than a midfield driver so maybe it wouldn't work but it was fun here definitely. Let's go on to race day which was wet which I don't think we'd ever seen in hungry before then and Kimmy Reichenunds McLaren led the first 17 laps from pole position but behind a Lonzo and Schumacher initially and then certain he at Lonzo after that we're putting on a masterclass in the opening laps Schumacher went from 11th to 4th on the first lap while a Lonzo went from 15th to 6th. A Lonzo's charge continued while Schumacher's stalled once his bridge don't into immediate tires started to overheat. Behind them button was making more steady progress he climbed from 14th to 11th on the opening lap but then he started getting his head down he was up to 4th by lap 7 behind a Lonzo and they'd both passed Schumacher by this point both putting pretty good moves on him as well. A Lonzo wasn't done yet though and by lap 18 he took the lead when Reichenum pitted and to be honest then a Lonzo just disappeared up the road Reichenum rejoined 23 seconds off the lead but by the time he crashed out just a handful of laps later he was already 39 seconds behind a Lonzo. Ed Schumacher's early laps were impressive before his tires went off but as our listeners said at the start how good was this opening stint from a Lonzo someone recommended watching the onboards I've done that you watch it and to me it's like he's playing a video game and he's got the difficulty setting wrong. Yeah it was outstanding and if you watch the the on board you had a decent start the initial launch wasn't great initially he was following Schumacher up the outside line Schumacher got up to to 4th place but there's a point where David Koolthar just squeezes across and that robs him of the momentum so actually Lonzo still only 10th really approaching turn 4 because he's had to battle with Ralph Schumacher and that kind of thing but it's particularly that second half of the lap when he's he does have that feel of the difficulty setting because you can see he can carry more speed than people into corners and he's getting on the power way earlier the way passes Kibitsa is just basically getting the power down and just passing him in a place where there's no space to pass in that sequence towards the end of the lap of the left and right after the chicane. Now there were factors at play here. The Michelin Intermediates worked very, very well. There was actually quite a lot of uncertainty before the race about that. I think this is the first white race. They'd been for about a year. Bridgestone historically had the advantage in those conditions. So the feeling wasn't that necessary that the Michelinans would be great, but clearly the Michelinans were working. They got their tire pressures right. And Alonzo, of course, was able to hustle the car, get the tires working, and he had the absolute confidence to go for the grip using some of those karting lines on the outside where there's a little bit more grip. And you can also see the way he's driving. He's able to attack the corner. And then there's a little bit of understeer that comes in and he can just wait for the understeer to dial out. And then when the understeer goes, it doesn't just suddenly switch to a big moment. The grip just comes and he can get on the power. So it's a combination of the car tires and driver working really, really well. And this is just such a memorable start. Classic Alonzo. And I think it's something that would be remembered even more how the lawns are actually, as we'll get on to later, should have done one this race, which we'll actually go down as one of his classic victories, I think. So just brilliant from Alonzo and much, much more difficult to execute than what Schumacher did in jumping to fourth. Because Schumacher, to his credit, he was able to do it all basically in the first few seconds of the race. But Alonzo really had to work hard. And obviously that was an advantage because the bridge stone intermediates, they were too hard to compound. They're expecting higher temperatures. So the bridge stone short cars were struggling as well. But fundamentally, it was a long so that made the most of the opportunity that was there. Absolutely brilliant. Let's talk about Rikenden's crash next. It's a pretty scary one to watch back. Tony Leutzie slowed down, coming out of turn five to let Rikenden through, shout out for the tall Rossos. They were the only V10 cars in this race. But Leutzie stayed on the racing line. And Rikenden spotted too late. What was going on? So he slams into the back of Leutzie and goes up over the side of his car, right in front of the other McLaren, a Pedro Delarosa, actually. Rikenden said he could do nothing to avoid the accident. And there was nowhere to go once Leutzie slowed down so much. Leutzie apologized saying Rikenden probably hadn't expected him to slow down where he did. But he was trying to get out of the way as quickly as possible because overtaking is so difficult at the hungarering. Scott, how would you assess this one? Should Rikenden have been paying more attention or was it Leutzie's fault? Yeah, it was a scary one. And initially it looked like when I remember thinking this at the time and watching it back still have the same initial opinion. It just looks like Rikenden has been careless. But you can see him actually try to move to avoid Leutzie at the absolute last minute. That's how unexpected it was. And there's a reasonable gap between the two cars before them. But I think it's fair for Rikenden to think that that gap's not just going to disappear that quickly. I think it's fair for him to probably think that he's too close for that to be where Leutzie is just going to move aside. And I can see what Leutzie was saying trying to get out of the way as quickly as possible. But if he wants to do that, just move offline. If you're going to, that's the way I see it. If you're going to slow down on any kind of straight or in a straight line, you have to get out of the way to do it because there's no brake lights on a Formula One car. You can't see what they're doing. So yeah, you have a degree of sympathy for Leutzie and that you can see he's trying to do the right thing, but he just does it in a clumsy way. And I don't really think it's Rikenden's fault that he then plows into the sort of back quarter of the car, which is what then I think triggers it into such a dramatic one where it almost for a brief period looks like Rikenden's just going to go over and over. And it's going to be even more dramatic than it was in the end. It only ended up being really dramatic rather than extremely dramatic. I think probably De La Rosa's presence was a complicating factor because there was some discussion about him being in that past because he'd been absolutely closing in at a rate of knots on Rikenden. So I think Rikenden was also looking a little bit at that. Maybe if De La Rosa hadn't been there and he hadn't been thinking about whether he was going to let him pass, etc. He might have been a bit sharper on the Leutzie thing. So just one of those conditions when perhaps he was thinking about two things at once. Someone else you had there, his fair share of incidents in this race, what's Michael Schumacher's? We'll group them all together here early in the race when he was battling the Lonzo's teammate, Giancarlo Fisiquilla. He tries to get a switch back on the Renault at the first corner, but he clips the back of it and damaged his front wing. Then after the safety car for the Rikenden crash, he just wallops the side of David Coolthard's Red Bull and they both spin. And his race finally ended right near the end when he made contact with Nick Hydefeld as the BMW passed him in the closing stages of the race when Schumacher had stayed out on intermediates as the track dried. We'll discuss that later. Basically, he became a mobile. She came and then broke his suspension when he clashed with Hydefeld. Ed, what was going on here? Was this just Michael Schumacher having a not very Michael Schumacher kind of day? Yeah, there was a bit of that. It did seem absolutely tailor-made for Schumacher. He was the man on form. He'd had that run of success, the conditions were there. The confidence in the bridge stone wet tyre performance compared to Michelin, which was actually misplaced. Just meant that it all seemed to be points to him and he catapulted up the order instantly. It just seemed absolutely set up for him. But we should say there were circumstances that led to this in the race. As I mentioned, the bridge stone wet tyre, they were just too hard because they were expecting it to be summer in Budapest with this race given it was summer in Budapest. But it was not just wet, it was cold as well. So they struggled a lot. That meant there was a phase in the race where Schumacher on those tyres was really quick when the conditions were right. But early on, it was very, very difficult because they couldn't get the core of the compound switched on and they were getting surface overheating from sliding around. So a bit like the Alonso tyre situation created the conditions to do what he did. The tyre situation and the strategy as well that the way it played out created the conditions for Schumacher to have a messy race. He certainly didn't make the most of it. But I think if you kind of work back through it, that pre-race expectation that it could all go Schumacher's way was a bit misplaced. So you kind of have to set the bar this certain he wasn't Schumacher throwing away a race he should have won through just making lots of mistakes. I think it was Schumacher making some uncharacteristic errors and use off track several times, probably more than any other race I can think of because there were things that went against him. So he certainly didn't deal with it perfectly. But yeah, it just wasn't the opportunity that it looked like. But it does stand as one of the races that almost went worst for Schumacher and Ferrari. Sometimes you do get this in the way. Just things get away from you because just everything is wrong. At the front of the race, the safety car had wiped out Alonso's lead and Honda had kept button out to move him up to second as he'd taken on a lot of fuel at his first stop. Once button had dealt with some unhelpful back markers, he began to hunt Alonso down in what I think watching it back is brilliant flat out chase between the two of them. Button gave some great insight on this race during lockdown in 2020 when Sky Sports in the UK did a watch along with him and they've put that on their YouTube channel. So go and look for it. It's also I think it's on F1 TV as well. On the fight with Alonso, he said, we're in pretty good shape. The car feels good. I'm at one with the car, but I also don't know what Fernando and Rena are really up to. They're on a different strategy. I don't know how much fuel they have on board, but he's the guy out front that we're aiming for. The big part is the pressure. We're half a second quicker at the moment, so it's about piling that pressure on. Fernando probably thought he was on to an easy winner. Michael's far back in the field. He doesn't want me pushing him. It's a great feeling when you're the car behind and you're pushing the car in front. Pressure is king at that moment. So Scott, at the time, we didn't know the respective fuel loads, but was this the moment where suddenly it looked like button could really win this, even if it went all the way to the wire in a straight fight with Alonso because he caught him here, didn't he? Yeah, the way that the race is shifting, especially if it's going through different phases, a race like this isn't straightforward and it's very much a live thing just because you're quick when it's at the tracks that it's wetest or then as the track starts to dry or whatever, different phases on different tyres in different states. It's a moving target. So just because Alonso had looked so strong at the start, for example, and there was definitely a point in the first phase of the Grand Prix where you're like, well, he's got this race absolutely wrapped up. No one's going to get near him. Things play out slightly differently and suddenly button comes into the picture. And I think this was legitimate that the race was slowly coming towards him. You mentioned his slower progress early on, but obviously he did gradually pick his way through. He got ahead of Schumacher and I'm glad that you mentioned the back markers because I remember watching at the time and just being absolutely infuriated. Just be like, what are you doing? Let him go. He said, I think he was three seconds behind Alonso at the race or something like that. And it was just like, oh, come on, he's got to be able to just attack him. But once it played out or what once rather that had ended and it allowed the race to play out in a straight fight. He was so fast and started to really hound Alonso. So I think at this point at the very least, it looked like a straight fight as far as you can tell without actually knowing the fuel strategy. That direct fight at the front was paused briefly when button was the first to pit. So he was on the slightly lighter fuel load. And with the track almost ready for the switch from worn inters to frame. dry tires, we can't call them slicks because they had those horrible grooves in them. He was only given a splash and dash of fuel and he kept the same tires on. Buttons engineer Andrew Shuvlin, who is still at the same team now as Mercedes, explained on the sky watch along that the splash of fuel was only to get us through to dry conditions. Buttons said his concern at this point was if a Lonzo had enough fuel to hang on until it was time to switch to dry tires. Unfortunately, a Lonzo had to come in a few laps before the track was really ready for it. This was where a Lonzo's race ended. As he came out of the pits, his car looked very unstable approaching turn 1 now on the groove tires. But then he gathers it all up and when he gets to turn 2, you see his car shed a wheelnut and he spins into the barriers. Renault said it was a wheelnut failure rather than it simply not being tightened up enough. Buttons said on the sky watch along that the Lonzo's crash gifted him the race, but he added it's a shame because I think we would have had a great race. Ed, do you think we were robbed of a real showdown here and how do you think it would have played out if a Lonzo had got to the finish? We certainly robbed of the chance to see exactly how it would have played out. I think if you look at the way it was working, I suspect a Lonzo would have been fine. We don't really know because as soon as he came out of the pits on those slicks, he was well on the dry tires. As you say, I should say, he was doomed and he lost some time in the first corner having a big moment, but that's probably because the wheel wasn't attached. So if you look at it, a Lonzo was 14 and a half seconds clear at the start of the lap he came in on. The question was closing at about 1.5 seconds of lap at that point. So maybe it was 13 seconds when a Lonzo came in. So all of that. Then button was about 10 seconds ahead when a Lonzo comes out of the pits. Button said on the watch along that he reckoned a Lonzo would have lost 5 seconds on that lap. So maybe that's 15, 16 seconds, something like that. It was fractionally early, but I can't see button in that small window would have had enough pace relative to a Lonzo to open up the gap to pit and stay ahead. He only pitted three laps later based on what Shovelyn said there might have been another lap's worth of fuel. I think he said there were 12 laps of fuel there, but obviously once a Lonzo was out, they didn't have to worry about extending so they could just take it whenever. So I don't feel that button would have been able to do it in that stint. So it's had a question of how far behind a Lonzo he would have come out. I suspect a Lonzo would have made the slicks work pretty well. We know how good he was in those sorts of conditions. I think he'd have got tyres up to temperature pretty strongly and he's a very, very good person to have trying to find pace in slightly tricky conditions. So I think a Lonzo had this race one, but there's enough uncertainty to say it's not absolutely 100%, which is a shame because actually I think this race does have to go down or should be remembered as a potential great lost to Lonzo victory just as much as it was a button breakthrough. With a Lonzo out of the race, then the door was open for Schumacher to make inroads in the championship. And that led to Ferrari taking a strategy gamble once the track dried out and everyone else had come in for dry tyres, Schumacher stayed out. This got him back up to second when he'd been sick before the stops started with all of his incidents and adventures earlier, but by the closing stages of the race, we're on a fully dry track. And by this point, Schumacher became hopelessly slow. He somehow held McLaren standing in Delarosa at bay for lap after lap, helped a little by the track still being wet off line, so Delarosa couldn't just lunge him. But Delarosa wasn't impressed, saying afterwards that Schumacher was defending his position a little too much for his pace and that he didn't expect Michael to battle that hard. Schumacher eventually went off and cut the chicane as Delarosa attacked him. Michael rejoined still in front, then appeared to back off to let Delarosa through, only to then turn in on him as they got to the next corner. When Delarosa attacked again at the chicane, Schumacher again went off and cut it, but this time he slotted in behind him. Scott, what did you think of Delarosa's complaint here? What Schumacher defending too much given how slow he was on those tyres? I have to question who Pedro thought he was racing to have that opinion. That Schumacher's tyre to rival's out of the race, the wind's not on the cards, he's hanging on to whatever he can get out of this and he knows that there's a chance here to gain some points back in the championship. You never know what's going to happen because the race has already been pretty chaotic up to this point. Of course, Schumacher's going to fight too per nail for it regardless of how quick he actually is because he's had some success so far, just about holding Delarosa off and there really isn't that much of the race left. You've got a combo of a driver who is what's the podcast for any way of saying this. It's difficult when defending anyway. The championship context, the track conditions that meant going offline would be difficult for Delarosa and that Schumacher yielding any ground could be a problem for him. I think, perfectly reasonable for him to do everything he can, which he did, but he did a bit more than that. I think it's mad to suggest he shouldn't have defended hard just because he was slow. He absolutely could have been more fair with it, but that's Michael Schumacher. Schumacher's pace got worse and worse from this point once Delarosa gets through. As we mentioned earlier, he retired right near the end after contact with Heidfeld broke his steering. For our big leaders, so that Schumacher, Totten Braun all described the race as a missed opportunity to make up ground on a Lonzo, but they all defended the strategy gamble. Schumacher said we could have surrendered a spot or two by hitting to get a few points, but that's the way I am. I always want to fight for the top, which is why I have won so often. Tot said it was easy to criticise with hindsight, but there was no point crying over spilled milk. Although he added that Ferrari could have told Schumacher not to fight so hard and just to pick up any points he could. And Braun said the Ferrari pit will thought Schumacher would be able to hold on. Bottom commented on this as well while watching the race back in 2020, saying Schumacher had passed the point of no return and he had to stay out and hope for the best. Ed, taking the strategy gamble in the first place with a Lonzo out of the race, was this a needless risk from Ferrari? I think in retrospect they perhaps should have changed course once a Lonzo was out. There was a point where they could have pitted and he probably still would have finished on the podium and taken quite a few points. Remember, with a point scoring system, then you're only gaining two points if you finished ahead of your championship rival and by winning the race. So, gaining five or six points is pretty significant. But I just think just that everything caught them out. They expected the tyres to hold up better and Schumacher didn't do the best job of managing the decline in the race. Ross Braun did admit at the end of the season that he just wished he told Schumacher just not to fight so hard, just said, just make sure you bring the car home. That's, yeah, when your title rival is out of the race through what was ultimately, the pit will ultimately appear to be a self-inflicted range. You've got to make sure you gain at least something and they didn't. And that was partly down to the strategy, but also partly down to Schumacher, just fighting that little bit too hard in that closing phase of the race. All of that drama was taking place a long way behind Button, who was cruising to his maiden victory by this point. Button said at the time that the final ten laps were the best of his career, as he had a massive lead and could just enjoy it and let the fact that he was about to take his first win sink in. Watching it back with Sky, he added, "The checkered flag came around too quickly. I had so much going through my mind in the last laps, it just went in the blink of an eye and I really wish the race was longer than it was. So many emotions over the last six years of Formula One, the good, the bad, the ugly, and then finally this was going to be it. The first win of my Formula One career with a team that had worked so hard for it. Scott, Jensen wanted the race to be even longer. As a button fan, were you enjoying these final laps as much as him or were you just desperate for it to end, or for him to see the checkered flag? Yeah, I just wanted to finish. Because, let's far be for me to question the authenticity of what Jensen said there. I'm sure there are parts of it where he's absolutely savoring the moment and that emotion is swirling as he goes towards the end. I also admire the honesty of saying that he was thinking, "This is it, this is my first win. I love that because so many drivers would just lie and say, "I know, you can't think about that because anything can happen blah, blah, blah." So I wasn't really letting myself believe it. That's nonsense. If your first win is on the line, of course you're thinking about it. What I do question is, were Jensen really wanted that to go on any longer? I just can't believe that any driver in that scenario does because like I say, it kind of with the Schumacher situation so much has happened in that race already. You've got no idea what's going to come next. You don't know if there's going to be more rain. You don't know if there's going to be a sudden safety car or a problem. You don't know if your engines are going to just suddenly blow up. So like it did in practice. Yeah, exactly. So I just refused to believe that he was at the twin club now. I could do another 10, 15 minutes or this is fine. Martin was on top of a very happy podium with Delarosa taking his first podium finish, standing in for the departed one-pullo Montoya at McLaren and Nick Heidefeld claimed BMW's first top three finish as a team owner. Further back, Kubitsa finished an event for an incident-packed debut in seventh, but he was excluded post-race for his car being two kilograms under weight. promoted shooting. B.M.W said Kubitsa's car was underweight because like Schumacher, he had stayed out on intermediates until the end, and he'd done 51 laps on them in drying conditions, so the tyres had lost so much rubber that it made the car underweight. B.M.W. boss Mario Tyson called Kubitsa's performance the perfect first race, although Kubitsa disagreed, criticising himself for spinning early on and then hitting the barriers later and losing his front wing, which he said forced him onto that strategy of not pitting again and keeping in to the finish. Kubitsa said, "The result was good, but my driving was not. I made too many mistakes." Scott was Robert being a bit harsh on himself there? Um, harsh but fair, because I think Tyson's summary of it is just a little bit, um, it's a bit too generous really. I mean, it just absolutely wasn't. First of all, from any context, that was not the perfect first race. First of all, it wasn't perfect from a, if you're just envisaging how your first race in Formula One is going to go, you don't pick a race that starts where it's absolutely chaotic, conditions are really hard to read, the best drivers in the world are making mistakes around you, and it's just a nightmare from start to finish. It's not perfect from a circumstance point of view, and as Robert completely rightly holds his hands up to, he wasn't perfect in how he dealt with that. There was the, there wasn't spin early on. There was the other one that broke the front wing. Um, but what I would say, and this is why I say it's harsh, is that while it was his debut, um, in tricky conditions, there's a reason he was so good and so good for so long, is that he has very high standards. So he would have looked at that and said, "Okay, it was difficult, but I expect myself to, to meet that challenge in a better way than I actually did." Um, in a race like that though, it is about as making as few mistakes as possible, and basically be as quick as you can when you're pointing in the right direction. And to keep it as credit, especially with the fact that he then ends up on that suboptimal strategy to try and salvage something, I think overall, I think you say he did at least as much right in that race as he did wrong. And yeah, with, with, with all respect, I think, I think Jack Villanode's not finishing higher than either of those two places in that car. Well, I mean, needless, needless, dick. We're getting to the end of the podcast, so I feel like I can actually, you can't kick me off at this point. I can, and I will. I think the funny thing is as well that Kabitza will have almost rolled his eyes at Tyson's description of that being the perfect W because Scott said he does set high standards to himself and those around him. If you speak to anyone who's worked with Robert Kabitza, he is a very, very hard taskmaster. He does go to extremes on that. So there's no way you can say to a driver who could easily have been out of the race early on, given the mistakes he made. He just survived it. But I think we also have to remember as well that just as with Schumacher and Alonso, there's always reasons for this and BMW got the tire pressures wrong for him in that first in which made life difficult. So he didn't deal with that so well. But it's always how you react to these little problems and things that come up. It wasn't that he was completely, suddenly, completely incompetent and incapable of driving the way there was something that was wrong that he didn't perhaps clock as quickly as he should have done. And that's probably what frustrated him that he realized he should have just dialed it back a little bit early on and accepted that the tires weren't where they needed to be. We'll leave it there for Hungary 2006 then, although that's not the last time we'll veer into the V8 era in this series. We've been doing one of these per series before, but they're always popular with our audience. So for this series we've added a second V8 race that you can hear in a few weeks time. Thanks to Ed and to Scott for joining us for this one. Next time out, we're sticking with a V8 related subject, but we're heading back 16 years to find it. As we revisit John Alacy's first full F1 season in 1990 with Tyrell, where he put in some memorable giant killing performances on track and off track, found himself at one point side with three different teams at the same time for 1991.