So the summer break is finally upon us and we have to endure what feels like eons until we see cars go racing again.

However, it was only a few races ago that we had what some called a mini-summer break where there were multiple weeks off between races.

That was not an official break though and quite what the rules are of this break can be heard on the pod this weekend when we pull apart quite what this downtime entails for the teams.

As we have nothing on track to report on then it’s that time of year when we have to dig deep into the recesses of our notes and see what we have left on the page labelled “Off season ideas” (we use Notion by the way and think it’s quite splendid).

It’s fair to say that we haven’t been topping that up recently so when we opened it up we saw a heap of ideas with strike throughs as they’ve already been done.

Then Brian, to his credit, came up with the idea of looking ahead to the 2026 tracks and giving them our ratings of 1 through 26.

Tune in this week to see what our combined ratings look like and also hear us debate some of the tracks where we had the biggest difference of opinion.

In other news it seems hash browns are trending on Threads because why not. Even the team admin accounts have got in on the act.

Speaking of team admins, we had this little interaction with the Mercedes account which basically confirms that George, Kimi, & Toto listen to us while they travel around the world. Valtteri probably passed the pod onto them.

You’ll notice we redacted the track info as to not spoil the episode this weekend so don’t go looking for this post!!!

Right, that’s it for this part - Next up are last weeks video vault entries then join us down in the marbles for a few random thoughts from this first part of the season.

Oh, and tell your friends about the pod……pretty please :-)

What’s in the vault this week?

F1 Driver Alex Albon Rates Food From Thailand And The UK | Snack Wars | SPORTbible. 8 mins. This is like the 3rd installment of this edition. This was a variety of foods Thai v Brit. He just seems such a good guy.

Max Verstappen And Chris Harris Drive ALL NEW Ford Mustang GTD! | Ford Performance. 38 mins!! Loved this. These two are the combo I never knew I needed! His view on whether he likes the RB the way it is setup is very interesting as are all the insights. Track part is epic.

Which Driver would make the BEST Strategist? | Bernie Collins F1 Unpacked. Sky Sports F1. 7 mins. This was way more fun than I anticipated and i was shocked by two things when Bernie asked who her driver turned strategist would be. That i assumed the answer and that I forgot she worked with the person she picked.

“It’s Great to Walk Away with 11 More Points!” | The Vowles Verdict | Belgian GP. Atlassian Williams Racing. 9 mins. This was great. Love the access to folks like James so he can have a Vowels movement for us all to listen to.

Diving into the marbles that make up the dirty side of the track is where you’ll find some subscriber only content!