You are listening to Mist Apex Podcast. We live F1.

Welcome to Mist Apex Podcast. It's inside F1 with Josie with today. I'm your host Richard

Reddy, but my friends call me Spanner. So let's be friends today. As always on inside F1, I am joined by one of the most experienced F1 journalists in F1 history.

He's reported on every Grand Prix since before there was last a plank related disqualification. It's Joe Seward. Hey, Joe. Hello, good evening.

Actually, no, it's only good afternoon where I am. So it's evening where you are, isn't it?

Due to a discrepancy in time zones, it is 10 p.m., and I am definitely in the sleepy and sherry zone of the UK.

But it's an honor and fantastic joy to speak to you. And I've got some listener questions to throw out you as well.

But can you believe none of them have asked about scrutineering? So the first question is from young Richard Reddy in Essex now.

I was so surprised, Joe, by the scrutineering process. I didn't understand any of it. I didn't know it wasn't random.

I didn't know they didn't check everything. I had no idea. And then I went back and I read all the F1 airports because I was just so surprised by the whole process.

I went and read all the reports from every Grand Prix. And they really do provide a lot of information. And it's nothing like I thought it was.

That's true. I mean, scrutineering is, well, there's various bits of scrutineering. There's pre-raised scrutineering and post-raised scrutineering.

And the sole intention is to find out if anyone's been up to no good. Now in the case of Austin, we found that the planks had been worn out, which is actually probably the fault of the sprint format.

Because there's only one hour of time in which to get everything done. And I think some of the teams probably didn't. And Austin's a very bumpy track.

So as they go whizzing over those curbs and bumps, they grind bits off the car, the bottom end of the car. And that's what the problem was. And it wasn't a huge amount in terms of milled meters.

But you know, these are, there's a reason that the planks are there. And that is to stop the cars riding low because obviously that has advantages.

So, and if you're out, you're out. And I don't know what would have happened if they tested more cars, they probably would have found a lot more that had been ground down too.

But they only tested four, I believe. So do you speak to them?

Yeah, unfortunately, they did test Lewis Hamilton and Charles DeClaire. So you wipe out two of the tops.

Yeah, runners.

Well, I, you know, I was, I was chatting with the scarbs because he knows more than me. And I, I said to him, is it random?

Or do they, how do they decide who they screwed in here? And he went, oh, I don't, I don't know either. And I think like not many people did know, his best guess was if you're in a fast car, you're more likely to get checked.

...