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Hello. Hello and a very one welcome to the late breaking F1 podcast presented by Harry Eid, Sam Sage, and me, Ben Hocking.

It's been a real quiet week, Sam. I've heard many people refer to it as a real smack in the face by a map in Oxford. Yeah, folks, if you haven't heard this story, because this is definitely the first time we've tried to record this. I was walking around Oxford the other day, and much like the news with Lewis Hamilton that came out earlier, you know, strolling down the road, a bit of a blustery day and a poor gentleman is touring the city in front of me, the swoops up his map bam it's caught on his face and he can't get it off it's a real comical moment and I laughed right at him I'm sure he was really happy with that but equally that's how I felt when lewis hamilton announced that he was leaving Mercedes for ferrari and you can go and check out our emergency episode it's the one before this on on the recording. Harry, you weren't there. Are you doing all right, mate? Yeah. Sorry for this on Thursday, everyone. Lewis Hamilton, stop releasing news on Thursdays as a rule. Good stuff. But also,

it was big news. So thank you, Lewis. Yeah, it's, thank you for joining us today, Mr. Harry Ead.

We are today, unfortunately, not at the mercy of our usual soundboard. So we'll see how well this

goes over the next hour or so. I'm sure it will go really smooth, given, you know, this is the

second time we've tried to do this already. Coming up on today's episode, better news, though, brand new game,

brand new game that I will let you know about a little bit later on in the episode.

Suzuki is staying on the F1 calendar for a further five years until 2029, so our thoughts on that.

Should Lewis Hamilton try and take Pete Bonington

with him to Ferrari? But let's start with this. A lot of different contenders for this very

question. Who should Lewis Hamilton be replaced by at Mercedes in 2025? Sam, start us off. Right. Who's kicking off the Mercedes seat? There's a lot of options.

There's a lot of different variations of what you can look for, I think, throughout the grid.

And Toto Wolf has come out and said already in a comment that it gives him the opportunity to do something bold, which, you know, I love that from Toto and Mercedes. I love that they're looking at options that aren't super safe, super easy, that just, you know, walk the line for them and George Russell could be the main man. I do think that George is going to have a bit more of a difficult time being number one than he expects. First option that comes to mind, and I tweeted about this, and there's been been rumors flying around already, is the menace himself, Fernando Alonso, of course. And why does his name get thrown into

that? Well, firstly, Fernando Alonso will run and jump across any bridge that he's previously burnt

down to ensure that he can get the best drive known to man. And I imagine that George Russell, Fernando Alonkso partnership at

the saying is under Toto Wolf, who I think is such a strong manager, could maybe wrangle

hold Fernando Alonso, could be a really potent pairing for a couple of years. The other reason it

works so well is because it's only going to be for a couple of years, I think, until the,

maybe the start of 2026, potentially 2027. Alonso is getting on a little bit. He's not going to want to be here for, I don't think, anyway, seven, eight years, like someone else who's younger might expect. So I'd also have a couple of glory years at Mercedes. And you never know, if the car does work, and Lewis Hamilton has judged this horribly, he could be underway

for an absolute winner. On the flip side, totally on the flip side, if you're going to look at

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