V8 Engines BACK in F1?! & Max Verstappen's Mercedes GT3 Masterclass | Ep 189

The global F1 news wire is on fire, and Greeny and the Cheese are breaking down a massive week in the paddock! We kick things off with Cheese’s absolute meltdown over the upcoming motorsport calendar—why are we forcing fans to choose between Monaco and the Indy 500?!

Then, we get into the heavy hitters: Honda just posted a historic $2.6 Billion financial loss. Could this massive EV market failure force Formula 1 executives to finally bring back roaring V8 engines by 2031? Plus, Max Verstappen is officially driving a Mercedes (at the Nürburgring 24 Hours), and the GT grid is in absolute awe of his masterclass.

Finally, the guys run through the wildest paddock rumors in our Quick Shifts segment:

• Are Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso being pushed toward retirement?
• Is Gucci preparing for a massive 2027 Alpine livery takeover?
• Why in the world is the FBI actively investigating Valtteri Bottas?!

📺 IN THE PADDOCK 2.0 IS HERE! We are now dropping daily F1 vertical videos. If you are listening on audio, you are missing half the show! Subscribe to our YouTube channel right now for daily news updates and exclusive visual clips: 

https://www.youtube.com/@InThePaddockF1Podcast

Transcript

Yes, yes, yes.

You know what that sound means?

Time for in the paddock.

F1 Greeny and the cheese.

No race this weekend,

but a race next weekend.

So that means it's time for an in

the news special news spot

of news actually out there this week.

Let's kick it off right off the bat.

We are caffeinated.

We are medicated.

Greedy.

Good day, sir.

Just got back from Brooklyn.

I got rolls.

Actually, I got

them

where

I got fresh Italian rolls.

We're gonna make some sausage

and peppers on the week off.

Here I

am

pumped and ready to freaking roll.

That's for.

It's sure in the Patek.

F1 Greenie and the cheese.

Thanks for checking in.

Thanks for everyone hitting us up

on YouTube, all our new subscribers there.

If you haven't checked it out

in the paddock USA or in the paddock

USA gmail.com, hit us up via email.

You can always, always hit us up on our many

shorts we throw out there up on the YouTube.

Subscribe there if you haven't already.

And away we go.

Sir, we got some lot of news,

for everything from the FBI to to Gucci.

So we're all over the place this week,

but I think, we might leave, kick it off

with a little Max Verstappen news because

they're going a little wild at the nerm.

Max is at the ring for the 24 hours

at the Nuremberg ring.

How about that?

It's finally come and it is sold out.

How about them apples?

Let me see.

Let me bring it up here.

Had it on my phone.

Max is currently running

second at the moment.

So six seconds back or sorry, eight seconds

back still, of course, early day things.

Only a couple hours in here.

So when we are recording

the program this week.

But Max, the ring could,

be his future career, to be honest.

You

know, if he decides to walk away from

F1 after this engine debacle that F1 has.

And this is definitely the direction

he'd probably end up going.

So how about it?

It's finally here.

It's a sideshow.

As he's done this before.

It's the man wants to race.

He's in his prime.

I mean he's in his absolute prime

of his life.

You don't get your prime back.

That's why it's called the prime.

You, you know, and that's really,

that, that's really where he's at.

So he's going to do whatever he can do.

He's going to take advantage

of whatever he

could

Take advantage of.

He knows in 10 plus years from now he's

not going to be doing any of this.

And so all the retirement news, everything

else, I think it's ridiculous.

All the walking away news, unless he has

something else he's going to do right now.

He's a race car driver.

He rides, drives cars, he likes to go

fast and, and he does it better

than anyone else on the planet.

And that's why people love Max Verstappen.

And if you are at the ring this

weekend or if you've seen the ring,

they are out in absolute droves.

Cheese.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Lunacy.

And that, that is probably

because of Max Verstapp.

100%.

It's because of Max.

Absolutely.

They don't sell out the 24

hour race at the Nurburgring.

This

isn't Le Mans.

I mean they wouldn't have announced it

if, you know, if it wasn't a big thing.

And they are packing it in there.

It is packed.

It looks like a music festival

is what it looks like.

I mean, I wish I

took

us to the ring

this weekend to be honest, just

for that party because that's going

to be a scene, man, absolute scene.

But I, you know, Max does have his, you know,

outside things that he's already started to

work on with the online racing thing and you

know, owning his own race team as well.

So I mean, he wants to do this, he wants

to eventually race Lama as well.

So he said it, he likes this racing.

He probably likes it more than

the Formula one cars at the moment.

So I mean, that's for damn sure

because, you know, he could, he'd like

to

better, you know, after Miami.

But it's also, he was a little further

up the, up the grid there too.

So we'll see, we'll see how it goes.

But I mean, it's exciting, it's exciting to

see him there and he's, he's also like

rushing it compared to like dudes that this

is their usual job, this is the car they

race and he's popping in here and he is just

rushing it.

So I mean, I think he's like, you know,

some laps I saw, he was doing like a couple

seconds faster than his teammates were.

So he's just the best driver

on the planet, plain and simple.

I mean there's no other, there's

no ifs and buts about it.

Plain and simple.

Best driver on the planet, Max Verstappen.

No matter what he puts his, whatever he

sits in, it's going to Be near the front.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

I got nothing more to say about that.

We'll see what happens in 24, in 21

hours from now, or 20

and

a half hours

from now as we're recording.

But it looks like Max has got a pretty

good shot to win this early on.

So we will see.

And the fans, that's what they want to see.

And let's get back to,

like, the roots of this.

This is all entertainment.

It's all about entertainment.

And the fans want to be entertained.

When you see the greatest driver

in a celebrity, in Max Verstappen, crossover

celebrity now, he gets a lot more,

a lot more news coverage than Lewis

Hamilton does for sure these days.

Yeah.

And I'm sure we'll get to a little, little

Lewis Hamilton rumors in a little bit.

All right, so let's move on.

Unless you got anything else for the,

Max situation here, because the word is out.

Honda lost $2.68 billion due

to the

EV

market struggles as well as

what's going on in Formula one.

They, massive struggles.

I mean, that's, that's billions of dollars.

Again, this is a many, many

hundred billion dollar company.

But any loss in the, with the big B

behind it is always newsworthy for sure.

What's going on with Honda Cheese?

What's haunted future in F1?

And, what's all this talk

about the return of the V8 engine?

As I'm sure you've been following closely,

part

of the V8s will be coming back.

I mean, next time they do an engine

change, it's definitely going to the V8.

They're done with the battery stuff.

The fans don't want it.

Plain and simple.

That's what it really comes down to.

The fans don't want it.

They want the roar back.

The drivers want it because

the cars are lighter.

The battery

has

thrown so much

damn weight into the cars.

It's taken a lot away from what a Formula

one car was, to be dead honest.

The EV market has definitely struggled

with some administration around

the world changes and things like that.

So that's definitely played into it as well.

Getting it away from battery,

the hybrid battery thing.

Honda is a mess with their engine.

I've heard other teams and other

suppliers or engine suppliers

or

helping them out a bit because it's so bad.

So that's something.

I've never seen that before.

I mean, usually if a team or engine supplier

struggling, there's no team hopping

in there to give them a helping hand.

Let's be dead honest.

It's like, yeah, well, that's

tough noogies for you.

You could stink all you want.

So for to hear that teams might be helping

a little bit, that's eye opening to me.

Their engine's been a mess.

They finally just got the,

you know, the shaking thing down

with the, the power unit.

So the driver's hands were and feet

and everything were vibrating like crazy.

So Honda's been a mess with.

When they came back here, you know, we talked

about this prior episodes when they made

changes to the organizational structure.

Is this something that they just do?

They rotate teams around?

It's just something normal they do

and they change teams and this team

definitely spit the bit big time.

So they spit to be losing

$2.6 billion in EV market.

That's a lot of schnell.

That's a lot of

scholars.

That's a lot of money.

And it's.

That's the only way you learn,

the only way a big corporation

corrects itself and creates.

Goes back to this sustainable fuel v8 which

they're talking about is through failure.

If this worked out in the end,

and maybe it had a brand new Fan base

to Formula one which might have replaced

the old fan base for Formula one,

they might have not made any change.

Right.

So the pushback because money talks

and the loss of billions of dollars because.

And we'll get to it in, in a few minutes here

about the other side, which we mentioned

last week, which the 53% Q1, but we'll see

what's going to happen here in Q2, with the

loss of two races and the massive fan base

loss.

They did.

The fans gave it the first

three races out of respect.

They really did.

And obviously you had no control

of what was going on

in the Middle east and Iran and the Strait

of Hormuz and everything else.

You had absolutely no control over that.

And the closing of two races.

Right.

No one had any power over that,

within the Formula one or any.

Right, we can all agree on that.

But at the same time it was.

The timing was absolutely terrible

because it gave the opportunity for this

open wave of people just talking.

We've had one race in the last seven weeks.

We had one race.

Yeah.

In a parking lot.

Gets off.

We've had in seven weeks.

Dude.

I, mean, I know.

No, so absolutely you're not wrong.

You're not wrong whatsoever.

No, no, you're absolutely right.

I mean, they've had one

damn race to separate.

I mean.

Yeah.

You can't control what, you can't control

with what happened in the world there.

But I mean it's, it's, it's definitely

a struggle for that for sure to.

And then you come back, you have one race

and

you

have a three week break again.

I mean, that's a little,

a little ridiculous to be honest.

To have a three week break right after,

I mean, even, even before that.

Just to have a three week

break when you're in Miami.

Three weeks to go to Canada.

I mean, all right, maybe two at,

Max, but not three.

That's a little,

that's a scheduling snafu, I would say.

But you know, they wanted

to have their race on Memorial Day

weekend, which they should have.

I want to get Monaco should goddamn be

on Memorial Day weekend.

Plain and fricking simple.

In the US you got

to

have your whole

setup for the whole goddamn day.

Now with this race, the Canada, you know,

the Canadian Grand Prix now on Memorial,

it screws, it screws fricking everything

up because now you got the Indy 500 and

the Formula One race at the same goddamn

time.

It was supposed to be Monaco in the morning,

Indy in the afternoon, and really wanted to.

And you can handle it.

And you weren't too sloshed

by that time of the day.

You could then, you know, watch

the Coca Cola 600 at night.

I mean, that was your day.

That was

a.

The.

If you're a racing fan

in the United States, that was it.

You wake up at 7 o' clock in the morning

and go to like midnight and

why.

And have nothing but cars

racing all fricking day long.

It was freaking.

The greatest goddamn weekend of the year for

Race Van outside of like Lamar Weekend or

something like that, to be goddamn honest.

So this whole thing

makes me want to freaking puke.

Like I can't stand it.

It's supposed to be Monaco Memorial

Day weekend for, you know, here

in the States, plain and simple.

Screwed the calendar up and you're

gonna take three goddamn weeks for.

You want to talk about the logistics?

Crap.

They want to talk about, you

know,

let alone you're going to go.

Some of the logistics just don't

work out like they're supposed to.

To be honest, some of the decisions

in the calendar were a little ridiculous,

but this is one of them too.

You can't have three weeks

when you're right here.

That's stupid.

It's fricking stupid.

It obviously is not working out

in their favor right now.

And again there's the massive gap of nothing

to talk about except criticizing them,

but they left the hole open.

I mean, even if it.

We went through the regular

schedule between Miami and.

And, Canada right now.

You had the two big weeks where you knew

hit the fan a little bit, and, oh, boy, did.

Boy, did it.

Listen, we're gonna start a little

something new here in our.

In the news because we have so much news to

talk about, especially on weeks like this.

We're going to do a little rapid fire here.

Cheese.

So, we're going to spend a few minutes

on each of these topics.

I got a few, you got a few.

Hit it off, dude.

Let's go with this one.

Cracked me up when I saw it, to be honest.

Gucci is in talks with Alpine to take over

as the main title sponsor from bwt.

So if that comes through, there

ain't gonna be no more pink

on the car, that's for damn sure.

But I, I just thought it was.

I just thought it was funny.

I mean, let's.

Let's go.

Let's go everything.

Let's go.

The Gucci car people are gonna miss the pink.

Obviously.

There's always been around somewhere.

Let's see what turns pink next.

You know, we're missing, you know, like,

like back in the day, I think we've had

for the last, like, 12 seasons some team,

whether it's Force India or someone pink.

That's because they have bw.

They

have

BWT as the sponsor.

So we'll resurface somewhere.

But for now, it's Gucci time, baby.

And Gucci and Formula one

are just the perfect fit.

And Alpine, I don't know what's that, what

this has to do with the racing, whether

it's going to make it better or worse.

But it is a spicy meatball, and,

it looks like it's going to happen.

I think the rumors are more than rumors.

Speaking of the R word rumors, that is,

European media has been chattering away

Lewis Hamilton, Fernando Alonso,

both could retire at the end of the season.

It is a time for both guys to go.

Is this it or is he just big fat rumors?

Anything behind him?

I mean, there could be.

There definitely could be.

I mean, they're both, you know,

getting a little long in the tooth,

as they say for racing drivers.

You know, if they still want

to race, I'm sure

go

find a seat.

To be dead honest, I mean, if

you

want

to raise them, I don't see

anybody turning away either of them.

You know, Fernando, I'm sure

probably would want us.

Maybe he doesn't want to stay around

because of where he's at right now.

You know, that could definitely play

into it for gosh darn sure.

You know, is there, there's been talk

about this for, you know, every year going

for the last few years.

So, I mean, talk is cheap until it's facts.

As you, as you like to say, talk is cheap.

So, you know, you know, we like to, you

know what, and you get, you got to

sell those newspapers and get those clicks

on your news, your news somehow.

So you got to say something sometimes.

Stir that pot a little bit.

Stir that pot of it.

Get that big spoon and start

stirring that bad boy.

All right, what else you got?

Go.

This was a spicy one.

Just to get a little, just pretty much

going right off of that, to be honest.

Will Buxton has come out and called

George Russell arrogant.

And he feels that George Russell

feels that he is entitled or he feels

that he's entitled to a championship

and claims that he would have won

titles if he arrived earlier.

Bucks, I don't know where we're getting

those titles from and I don't know where

he's getting them from either, because if

he's, if he's meeting that he's

going

to,

would have showed up at Mercedes earlier,

you know, during the glory days

of

Mercedes.

I mean, one, he wasn't ever

getting that seat at that time.

He wasn't beating out Rosberg

or probably Bottas at that

time, let's be goddamn honest.

So I don't know where he

gets that rubbish from.

Two, every F1 driver is arrogant.

Let's be frickin honest, if you're

not, if you're not arrogant,

being an F1 driver, you're not gonna

last in that jungle very long.

You have to be, you have to be overconfident

in your own goddamn abilities.

But I like this little, little stat

going on here, to be honest, from Will

Boxton and George Russell, which I can

also see where,

Will

Boxton might be

coming from in this as well, to be

honest.

I mean, if you hear sometimes George

Russell speak, he definitely has that

little bit of arrogance, like I'm

I'm, owed things for paying my dues,

but that's not how it works in

Formula one.

You gotta earn that shit.

George has always got that James

Bond vibe going on, you know it.

He's got that swagger, he's got the physique,

he's got the jawline for the fashion show

of Course, he's full of himself itself.

If I had 2% of what George Russell had, I'd

be an arrogant SOB, I'll tell you that much.

Which I don't.

I don't have that Riz

Cheese, as the kids say.

I got one more for you, Vault.

Speaking of

me,

what do you think about the.

What do you think about.

Would you.

Would you agree with what

he kind of said there?

That he would have been.

If he came earlier, he

would have won a title?

I don't.

You know.

What's your thoughts on that?

Boxed in.

Gonna win a title?

No.

Russell thinks he would

have won a title if he.

Russell said he would have probably

won a title if he showed up earlier,

cleaning out, like Lewis back then.

No freaking way.

No freaking way.

Just because it's true doesn't mean

you're gonna think that way, of course.

Well, every driver thinks

they're gonna win

a

title.

Talk to me after he retires.

That's when you have to talk.

Right?

Talk.

When both these guys retire and are

on the front porch in the rocking chair,

and that's when we can run our mouths

to talk about who was the best.

But when he's in it still against

Louis Hamilton competing with Lewis.

Of course he's gonna say he's the best.

That's his job.

You're not

going

to tell your boss?

I'm, mid.

Like, I wouldn't have won, you

know?

Toto Wolf's listening.

Hi.

Yeah.

Anyway, he might not even.

He might even be with Mercedes

next year, anyway, so.

Yeah, regardless, whatever he

could say, he can go back.

George Russell can put his head on the pillow

at night and not worry about shit.

Okay.

Anyway, speaking of someone who might have

to worry about shit, Valtteri Bottas had

to call the FBI because he decided the.

The Escalade, the Cadillac Escalade,

which was given to him in Miami.

He decided to not stay in Miami.

He got an Airbnb in Fort Lauderdale,

pulls up at Fort Lauderdale,

locks the car, goes to bed, gets up,

looks out the window, car's gone.

First of all, obviously,

you've never been to Florida.

Terry, he.

Which he has been, as you

remember, I think he didn't.

He tried to jump in the fake pool the first

year we were in Miami, back in 22.

I think so.

Or maybe his last year with Merc,

he did fall in the pool.

I think that was in Miami, anyway.

I think so.

I'm probably getting my tracks mixed up.

How to call the FBI getting involved

in this situation as it unfolds.

Local police and the FBI

stepped in because they.

He left his paddock pass and his VIP

credentials like in the, in, in the,

in the Escalade that got stolen.

So they were worried about security issues.

They did

find

it in a high crime area, so it

was probably used in another crime as well,

probably as a getaway car or something.

So.

But I mean, it's Florida, man.

What do you expect?

Not shocked.

Florida.

Speaking of which, we're gonna be on the same

time zone as Florida, but a little further

north, coming up here as we head to Canada.

But before that, anything else

you got to drop for us, Cheese?

That's all I got, man.

All, all great, great stuff.

Of course.

We will see you, next Sunday,

post race Canada, as we head into

the biggest racing weekend, the biggest

racing Sunday of the year.

Get pumped for that.

Say what you got to say, brother.

I

will see you guys next week for,

little post race.

Finally.

About

damn time.

Only had one of those

in the

last

seven weeks, so be nice

to have one of those again.

And as always, stay medicated, my friends.

Peace.