Hearts Rangers Celtic Title Race 2026: F1 Regs Breakdown

It's lights out and away we go.

55 years of age, his first ever World Cup. Podcasting from Studio 2520.

Somewhere near Akron, Ohio, bringing you all the latest chat in motorsport and soccer. This is Tackling the Chicane.

Ah, I feel like this needs to cook a little bit longer.

The John Rundfeldt Five.

Oh, nice. Mind if I take a solo here?

If this indeed is AI-generated music, then we're in big trouble because this is not too shabby. I hope not. I, I'll have to do a little research.

Then we're in trouble. I've never heard an— usually AI music is, is very easy to tell, but you never really know. Hopefully it's not. It could be a guy with a keyboard. Yeah, I mean, but still.

You can do a lot with just a computer these days.

All right, extended intro. Better and better. How long is it? Uh, it doesn't say, but maybe it just goes probably like 4 minutes or something. Oh, all right.

See you, John.

Their, uh, rate is $10,000 per show, by the way, ladies and gentlemen. Well, it is a 12-piecer, so there's— I mean, you heard the, the horn section alone is 5 guys, a couple trumpets. A little tough to get them squeezed in here as we have, uh, trombone muted space at 25/20, but Uh, maybe someday we'll do like what every podcast of late has done and they, they tape, they tape, they film it and post it on YouTube. It requires so much fucking, uh, equipment. A stand and this phone would do just fine.

Well, yeah, we'd have to figure out how to sync the audio. That's what every podcast I've listened to for the last 5 or 6 years has gone. Well, to broadcast, we actually do have a good setup for the audio or the visual medium down here. Yeah, we could spin this around and— yeah, I guess never say never if you want to. I don't know, buy a camera.

I don't like looking at myself that much. Yeah, true. All right, well, I feel like we've bullshitted enough. Uh, here, what is this, episode 152, I believe, if you're keeping score at home. We've got a lot to get into.

Uh, we're going to be talking more about the new power unit, is what I'm told. Um, on the F1 side of things, uh, we do have the first car unveiling for the 2026 season. Courtesy of Red Bull, which we can get into as well. On the soccer side of things, a full Scottish program, uh, discussing the title race and the contenders in which, uh, are a part of it. Rangers getting a big win, Celtic, uh, winning if not looking all that impressive, and Hearts also winning as well.

So yes, and we Uh, I'm introducing a subsegment in the introduct— the introductory phase of the podcast called Fueled By. And this particular podcast is fueled by Guinness Zero. So whatever I'll be, um, imbibing will be the Fueled By. Okay. For the podcast.

Right now it's Guinness 0.0. Uh, there's a non-alcoholic, uh, version of— as we record, yes, uh, 9:50 AM, so probably a good choice. And, uh, not too bad actually. Yeah, like I said off air, uh, the local watering hole seems to never, uh, have it in stock because of its popularity. Although, you know, it is a dry January, a lot of people partake in that.

Yeah. By this time next month, everybody will be back on the wagon. The booze train. Uh, yeah. I mean, you've, you've been testing out quite a few NAs recently.

Yes. Uh, for 2 reasons. Number one, um, Monday through Friday-ish. Thursday. Thursday-ish.

Probably just best to, uh, placebo. Have a quote unquote beer or two and it seems to be working. So good for that. And I've also noticed, uh, at our local grocer that the NA section is starting to expand. Yeah.

It used to be like maybe 2 or 3 options. Now, I don't know. There's, uh, I dare, dare I say 15 to 20 that I saw the other day. Um, again, I don't know why we shill for people who don't pay us to do so, but Athletic Brewing is one that has 5 different styles of beer, IPAs included. And if you set it next to a regular IPA, you would probably be able to tell the difference, but not notably.

I did try that there. It's mostly like on the back end that I realize, okay, I don't— you can kind of tell it's not alcoholic, but the actual flavor profile is pretty much the same. Yeah, yeah. So there you have it. Now let me ask you one more question about the NAs.

You mentioned placebo. Do, do you get like a placebo buzz?

No, it's funny because, uh, We, your mom and I went to Cleveland last weekend and saw, uh, Greg Fitzsimmons, a comedian at Hilarities. Um, and he, he's the same age as me and he's on the NA train as well. And he, he had a joke or a series of jokes that basically goes a little bit like this. He's like, yeah, so I started drinking, uh, you know, the NAs, non-alcoholic beer. He's like, is it any fun?

Nah.

Do I get a buzz? Nah. He's like, why am I drinking this stuff then? It was not a good representation of the joke, but, uh, it's basically, it just takes a placeholder for, you know, it's a habit. Yeah.

So, and, uh, it's, it's working out well for me, so I'll just, uh, I'll continue on. And I'm training to do the powerlifting meet in February, so these are— at least the Athletic Brews are like 60 calories. Yeah, you know, so you have a couple of those, that's nothing. Um, but anyhow, we'll get it— get off the topic of that. Uh, let's get down to business here.

We've mucked about enough at this point.

Um, you want to discuss some power unit stuff for 2026? I see you got a sheet in front of you with information, so go ahead and dive in. Yeah, so we'll continue the power unit sort of discussion that we started last podcast.

And firstly, we'll talk about how many people are kind of in the pool as far as power units for 2026. We'll start with Mercedes, who will be powering the Williams, Alpine, and McLaren teams. I don't think there's too much difference in that. I'm not sure what Williams was last year. They've, they've always been Mercedes.

Okay. So not, not a whole lot different. The, the big difference is Alpine. Alpine is new. They're not Renault anymore.

Okay. Yep. So Alpine, McLaren, and Williams. Ferrari obviously will power the Ferrari team plus Haas again. And notably the new entry in Cadillac will be a Ferrari powertrain.

Should be noted that they are in developing their own. Powertrain. It will be a General Motors sourced unit, but not for probably 2 to 3 seasons. Um, new collaboration. This is exciting.

We talked about this about 2 years ago. Um, I don't remember which podcast it was, but pretty excited that Red Bull and Ford have partnered up.

Now, from what I understand, Ford is sort of overseeing the development of the powertrain because Red Bull kind of always touted themselves as having their own, even though their former partner was Honda. Yeah. But nice to see the blue oval on the new Red Bull livery. Yes. Which is pretty striking, I have to say.

Yeah, it was funny. Uh, I know last podcast you had mentioned that, you know, Red Bull's coming out first with their livery, but don't expect anything special basically. And then they actually did kind of change it up. Um, a little glossier look for one, and then sort of like a Ford blue rear of the chassis. Yeah, I think that was intentional.

Yeah. But, uh, I hope the rest of the teams are going to be the same. I mean, this, it's, this is the first livery in the last 2 to 3 years where it's markedly different. And it just looks, it looks good. I mean, frankly, it's, it looks great.

I'm excited. I would love to see Haas get off of the white, maybe do something a little bit different. Yeah, we'll see. But we'll see.

So, so Ferrari powers Ferrari plus Haas and Cadillac and then Ford with Red Bull and RB. Honda return with Aston Martin who took over for the Sauber Group and Audi is going to have their own. Audi, Audi took over. Audi took over for Saudi, or Sauber, sorry. Sauber.

Yeah. So anyhow, a little bit of interest there.

3 buttons will be on the wheel this year: boost, recharge, and overtake. And since the exit of DRS, boost will probably— that's probably going to Overtake, the, the old DRS system.

Recharge, I mean, these cars have always harvested energy on braking, so that won't be much difference. The boost button is energy deployment, so it's going to give you a little bit more oomph. And then Overtake is probably taking over for the old DRS. So I, I read this 5 times and I'm not exactly sure what the difference between boost and overtake is, but it's— your guess is as good as mine, honestly. And I don't know if we will— I think it's really— no, I think it has a lot to do with when you can deploy it.

So as you remember, DRS was relegated to certain zones. Yeah. In the— in on the course. And I believe overtake is going to be relegated to certain zones on the course. And within that 1 second, remember the time save, you had to be within 1 second of the car in front of you.

So overtake is probably going to follow those same 2 rules according to what I've read here. And so boost is Wild West. Whenever I want to use it, I can use it. Now remember, that's going to de-energize your, the battery. So trade-offs.

Yeah. Yep. And I said this before and I'll say it again if, and they're not listening, but F1 needs to make sure that as part of the digital dashboard, we want to see what state that battery is in charge, like they do in IndyCar. I mean, you would think they're gonna, especially this season, really lean into the new stuff. So I find it hard to believe that F1 wouldn't feature in the in-car graphics all the new stuff.

So I'm looking at the last paragraph of these notes and it does say overtake will do the same as DRS, can only be activated when a driver is within Uh, 1 second of the car in front. So that's the difference between overtake and boost and recharge. That's been happening for over— yeah, a long time. So, uh, overarching, the new car, the profile of the new car is, is much more attractive, I think, than the last campaign as far as I'm concerned. Um, a little less insect looking, a little shorter.

Just albeit by just a margin. Um, the front wing is a bit more attractive and the rear wing is also a little bit better than the last one as far as I'm concerned. So yeah, they, they've just gone way out of control with the dimensions of these cars since the 2010s really. Um, there's— I just don't— and I get it, Power units. Well, have power units gotten bigger?

I don't know. I really don't understand why these cars have just continued to get— they're monstrosities. The only thing I can think of is there's so much other ancillary stuff that needs to be in the chassis as far as the hybrid powertrain goes, because the, the actual ICE part, or internal combustion engine part, of these cars is is relatively small. We talked about, uh, cubic displacement or liters last week. It's, it's quite small.

I mean, open the hood of your Honda Civic and that power unit is smaller. Yeah. Albeit slightly. But, um, I, I don't know how they got to the point where these cars got so, so long and so wide that they can't negotiate the courses anymore. Yeah, I mean, so I mean, marginal step in the right direction with this new set of regulations, but I think the cars still need to get a lot smaller.

I do too. I think they need to take their— take note of what the F2 cars wheelbase are because they're way more attractive. Way more suited for the courses that these, that F1 runs. And the IndyCar is notably smaller. I mean, that's one of the things.

And I think you realize this when you first went to Indianapolis and hadn't seen a car in person before, or possibly, uh, Mid-Ohio. Mid-Ohio. They are They're not big. They're not, they're not long. They're not wide.

They're, they're pretty compact. So, um, yeah, I don't know. I'm hoping racing gets better this time around. We were lucky to have a really good title race last year, but the actual racing wasn't really, I would say, good. Uh, There's just— they've got to figure out how to get more overtakes on track.

And I think potentially they're, they're getting there. Step in the right direction. Um, and like I, like I've said a few times now, a car has to get smaller. Just does it. You know, if you want to continue running these, these compact street events, um, your car has to be suitable for it.

Yeah, I don't disagree.

Um, I think this, like you said, it's a step in the right direction for 2026, albeit they were marginally smaller in width and length.

Um, but it, it's going, it's going to be Interesting to see if, if this— these new regs, if, if we're gonna see more competition between the teams with new regs, or have they already figured it out? I mean, what we don't see is the num— the amount of testing and development that's been going on for probably 2 years since this new reg has been announced. So in the background, teams with a lot of money and even teams with not so much money have been developing a new, completely new car for, um, this upcoming campaign. So looking forward to the rest of the reveals. And I don't know, is everybody going to do it?

Last year it was like a weird, they had like a reveal function or whatever. It was the 75th year. They all did it at once, 75 years of F1. Not this year, it's normal where teams do it whenever they want, basically. Um, not that really any of them will be cool at all, maybe outside of Audi and Cadillac, just because they're new, right?

Um, but there could be a surprise in there. Yeah, looking forward to— and I've seen some pre- I don't know, some renderings of the Cadillac livery. Um, there's not— what are you supposed to do with the Cadillac? Well, the only thing they have is the crest. Yeah.

And they don't have like a known color scheme. Also not that great of a logo to begin with. No, you're not wrong. I mean, they're going to use the crest from what I've seen. That'll be the largest most dominating part of the livery will be the crest, but the crest isn't really all that interesting, at least to me.

Now Audi has the 5 circles, and that's what you're gonna see on that car for sure. I feel like Cadillac should just make their car a weird color. That'll just be different from everyone else. Just what the hell else are you going to do? Like, it's probably going to be black or something like just kind of boring.

Right. Just make it freaking yellow or something. Gold. Like a gold, like a yellow gold because there is gold in the crest. Yeah.

Um, but we're not paid, we're not paid to, to design liveries, although Sometimes I, I think maybe if teams would take input from regular people, it might be a good thing because there is nothing really super great. I hope Alpine get, get rid of the fucking pink. You don't like the pink? I don't like the pink. I'm sorry.

Stands out. I guess. At least.

I would say that, uh, Aston Martin has one of the better colors as far as the green goes. Um, and Haas needs to reverse— less white, more black, or possibly— of course they're not going to do red because nobody wants to compete with Ferrari. But, um, yeah, I mean, I think Audi is going to be— you're going to see Audi is going to look My estimation is going to look a lot like, um, sort of, uh, a white and blue possibly, but we'll see. Cadillac, you're going to see white and white and black from what I've seen in the pre-renderings, but it needs some, like you said, some yellow or possibly some gold would be nice. Yeah.

But I don't know. All right, well, time will tell with deliveries.

There it goes, your sheet. Yeah, I'm finished with it. So, all right, uh, anything else in the world of F1? No, we, we can transition to soccer, which would be the next, uh, subject here. So yes indeed, here we go.

A little, uh, ASMR here.

And into the glass it goes with the hard pour. It's not really picking that up.

Not sponsored, by the way. This is an unsponsored segment where the Guinness 0.0 flows out of its vessel. Yes, and it should be noted that we— when we were at that comedy club in Cleveland last weekend They had Guinness, regular Guinness in a can, and I poured it as I just did. And the guy next to me at the next table who was also drinking a Guinness was like, wow, yours looks a lot better than mine. I was like, it's— yeah, this is how you do it.

Trust the can. You tip it 100% over itself and just bring it up through the glass. Don't pour it like a regular beer. It never works.

Seems like someone told you how to do that, and it might be me. Yes, and whoever told you, thank you. So, uh, my friend Michael showed me that, and I also saw it on Instagram. So, so there you go. Yes.

All right, so yet another Guinness segment on the show, but let's get rolling here. We gotta Got some Scottish football to talk about. It's— it was an interesting past week for a number of reasons, not only because there was a little bit of midweek action to discuss, but it was sort of as you were in the actual table. No one made up any ground on anyone because Hearts Celtic and Rangers have won all their games since the last time that we recorded, some in more spectacular fashion than others. Celtic last Saturday now, uh, pretty much demolished Dundee United 4-0 at home.

That was Martin O'Neill's first game back and seemed like a more classic Celtic performance. Uh, just quick-paced, ball was pinging around, defense was very solid. No more back 3, uh, which is of course notable. Um, and then I guess I inadvertently transitioned into Celtic-Falkirk here, but that game midweek was the complete opposite. And I would say shit.

Um, 1-0 win, but my God, that was a fucking terrible performance. Well, and the first thing I, I couldn't help but think was, okay, so this is what we're going to do for the rest of the fucking year. Yep. Is Martin O'Neal ball where you get up by one fucking score and then, well, I think it's, it's basically back to just the way it was with Brendan Rogers before he resigned. Yeah, because this squad isn't fucking good.

So you just have to fucking drag them across the line 9 times out of 10. And what I like— what I miss about the other style of play was it was at least you could watch. There was something to watch. Oh, and I guess it's weird because While it was fun to watch, it didn't net any fucking wins. No.

Right? No. So that's the hard part. It was fun to watch because it was kind of just a fucking, it was like, it's like they all did a line of coke before they went out on the fucking pitch. Yeah.

And this is back to the old, you know, the same old, same old, but we have 4 points to make up or 6 points, 6 points, which I don't know that we'll get there. I guess it just depends on how the rest of these matches play out. Uh, Sunday is v who? Well, Sunday is a Scottish Cup match, so different tournament. Um, first round that the big clubs get involved in, which is the 4th round.

Uh, this is very interesting actually. Celtic are taking on Auchinleck Talbot. German? No, it's— they're a Scottish team. It's a Scottish Cup.

However, Auchinleck Talbot currently play in the West of Scotland League, which is the 6th tier of Scottish football. Now, England very easily has the most robust pyramid going from level 1 all the way down. Uh, in terms of quality, in terms of fanfare, in terms of money. Scotland does not have that. So after you get down to, I would say, Tier 3, it's semi-pro.

These guys usually have jobs outside of playing football. They don't practice every day. So then let's think about the 6th tier of Scottish football. I think I could maybe get a game for this team. Not actually, but like, these are complete amateurs or, you know, young kids.

Yeah. Um, and that is who Celtic are taking on, so it should be easy, you would think, win. If that— it'll be interesting nonetheless. Yeah, I mean, I— it will be interesting, and that's why I kind of love when the Cup comes around, because you can get drawn against complete, you know, amateurs, and it's not even like a derogatory term, like they literally are. Um, that's at Kilmarnock Park because, uh, Auchinleck Talbots team is not— or stadium is not at all fit for purpose.

But, um, that is who we are playing. Um, I really hope that the match against Falkirk is not how the rest of the season plays out for Celtic for a number of reasons. Now obviously they get the win. I don't think they should have. Um, Falkirk had pretty much all of the good scoring chances and we just happened to score off of a corner, um, sort of randomly, completely against the run of play, I would say.

Um, and we just look like we were just— it was so laborious, like it was a chore to even be out there. Yeah, that's, that's a good description.

Um, there's 2 kinds of matches that I when I observe, uh, these soccer games. And one is I'm involved and watching, and then there's I'm doing something else. And this match was, I was doing something else.

Um, and that you can pick up that rhythm pretty quickly. You know, you can tell like within the first, I'd say 10 to 15 minutes. Usually if it's going to be that way or not. Currently in the background, we have Liverpool and Birmingham. Is that Birmingham?

Burnley. Burnley. Sorry. Yeah. Now Liverpool are always fairly interesting to watch.

Oh yeah. Saka is pretty fun to watch. Arsenal. Oh, okay. I'm terrible.

I'll just ignore it. Yes. But I try. Well, there's a lot to keep track of, in fairness. Yes, there are.

There is a lot to keep track of. It is a red team. Anyways, I would agree with your, your sentiment that, um, I was watching this at work, uh, because it was slow that day. And also, I, I was still finding myself not paying extreme amounts of attention a second Especially in the second half. And you know, this is where I'm kind of at right now, was like when we went up, I, you know, was like, okay, great, but we, we don't deserve that.

I actually found myself kind of feeling bad for Falkirk because they were playing so much better than us. Well, I have a note here that says Celtic was under fire early. Yeah, Falkirk was was really firing and Schmeichel did a pretty good job. He was under fire. Yeah, for once he actually played well.

I have to give it to him. They really came out shooting.

We didn't see a goal until the 44th minute. And that was Nygren. Which was the only, the lone goal really. Off of a set piece. So, and then after that, I have nothing.

Yeah. Well, nothing really happened. Yeah, Schmeichel made a huge save in the second half, which was Falkirk's kind of big chance. They had a ton of chances that they just didn't end up putting away. Uh, 1.72 expected goals for Falkirk compared to 0.6 for Celtic.

Falkirk had 11 total shots to 7, 6 on target to 2, 2 big chances created to 1. They missed both their big chances is why they lost in the end. But there's every reality in which Celtic would have lost this game. So I, I'm still, you know, I don't see any indication that Celtic win the title this year. I really don't.

I— in— at some point the form would have to turn around and consistently turnaround when teams are down in the table for most of the season or half the season and then come back to win a title. This is usually when you see the turnaround. That hasn't happened. I understand we beat Dundee United well over the weekend at home. I'm not giving O'Neill or the squad any flowers for that because that's exactly what should happen.

And then you turn around and play like shit against Falkirk. I know it was away, I know it was midweek, but Jesus Christ, I mean, you look terrible. So in, in meanwhile, and I guess we can transition, Rangers look way better. They look way fucking better than you. Um, Rangers, of course we know, kicked our ass, uh, almost 2 weeks ago.

Now, or exactly 2 weeks ago, and then have looked pretty fantastic since. What is the, I mean, so Hearts of Midlothian, when was the last time, if ever, that they won this league? '50s. So this would be, this would be game changer for Hearts if they, if they can pull this off. I mean, I hate to say it, but I love to root for the underdog a bit.

I mean, I won't root against my team, but if there was a team that was going to beat Celtic, that would be, it'd be pretty awesome. Well, like I said, I've, I've come on. I'd rather see them than Rangers. Well, obviously that I, I've come on here and said 100 times. That someone outside of Celtic or Rangers winning the title would be the best thing that's ever happened to Scottish football.

And that I— it's not that I'm actively rooting for them to win the title over Celtic, it's more that I feel like Celtic aren't going to win the title, so it might as well be Hearts and not Rangers. Yeah. Um, So I, you know, they continue to win, and this feels— I am starting to really get the sense that they feel kind of like a team of destiny because they keep pulling off these wins in odd fashion, if not incredible. We go back to Sunday, January 11th. They're away to Dundee.

They, um, they go up early, 27th minute, and then 45th minute, uh, get a red card. So they're down to 10 men. So they have to batten the hatches the whole second half. And then 43-year-old Craig Gordon, um, you'll have to look this up or something. He makes, in the very last second of the game, the one of the greatest saves I literally have ever seen.

43 years old, by the way. That's ancient in soccer, um, in any sport. But makes an incredible save to save all 3 points for Hearts, and they get the win. Then in the midweek against St. Mirren, they go down to 10 men again, this time in like 15 minutes or something. Um, yeah, the 15th minute.

And then they still pull off a 2-0 win. Yeah. So you always go back in these championship seasons, whatever sport it is, and you, you'll point to moments and you'll kind of be like, I don't know how we or whatever team won, but They just did. And it's starting to feel like they're just pulling shit off because they have the confidence and feel like we can, we can actually do this. Yeah.

It'll be interesting to see how the rest of the campaign plays out. But, um, as I said before, if there were a team that was going to seed us, Um, from the championship, I would rather, I would rather it be them, obviously. I mean, it's an obvious statement, right? So as you said, but we also have quite a few matches left to play and anything can happen. We've seen the collapse of said team before.

16 rounds left, which is a lot. Yeah, that's a lot. That's a lot of play left. So I see, I just feel like We are— we as in Celtic— are at best plateaued. Um, and I, you know, we're gonna drop points at some point, be it against Rangers or Hearts or whoever else.

Scraping by against Falkirk is not gonna win you the league. I would say incredibly lucky to get 3 points. That's not how you win leagues.

And like I said, meanwhile, Rangers last week, 2-0 winners at Aberdeen. It seems like they barely shifted out of first gear. Well, still got the win. We're also, we're not really, we haven't really discussed the turmoil within the organization as well. Um, this team has the most money in the entire league.

$150 million, I think. It's a lot.

When is that going to— when is it going to be spent? You're asking? Yeah. I don't fucking know. Well, I don't know what they're hoarding it for.

I don't know either. It's like, Jesus Christ. I mean, you could spend $50 million and still be in good shape. Yeah. I know.

I know. I don't know. It— there, there seems to be absolutely zero urgency from the Celtic board this season. I— do they realize that like we are currently losing a title fight here? Do they, do they understand that?

I mean, we already ceded a trophy to St. Mirren. Um, 6 points down in the league. Rangers look a lot better. Uh, Hearts obviously 6 points ahead. January is a window where you can buy players.

I— do they know that? Because we've signed one player, Julian Araujo, at the beginning of the, uh, year, the calendar year, and since then it's been crickets. Meanwhile, we need a new striker, we need a new right winger, we need another center back, probably need a left back. Like, what the fuck are we doing here? And there's been Nothing.

There's been no fucking real rumors or leads or anything. Honestly, what are we doing? Yeah, I don't know. It's frustrating at best as a fan, you know, and just as, as a young fan, just only A few years into this whole thing. It's like any other sport when you, you see gross mismanagement, gross, just stupid spending.

I mean, it's been my whole life. The Indians, now the Guardians. I don't talk about the Browns because I don't give a shit anymore. I haven't for years.

I was, they broke my heart so many times and when they left in '99, I was done. And that was it. I mean, that's 27 years ago and I could care less. Uh, albeit they're building a palatial stadium now. So, uh, I suppose I would like to see it once.

Get into that tangent at the end of the show. But yeah, you, you're, we're talking about however many millions in the bank for Celtic, which they seemingly refuse to spend, then just look across the city. Look across the city to Rangers, who are in way better form. Remember at the beginning of the year when they had their worst start to a season pretty much ever? They've completely erased the gap towards us.

Uh, they— I mean, they were terrible at the beginning of the year. And now it's like, obviously, you know, that doesn't even matter anymore. And then they've had a big-name signing, uh, this week. Andreas Skov Olsen from Denmark. He is a player that I've known about actually for a while.

Uh, he played for Bologna in Italy, Club Brugge, and Wolfsburg as well. And now he has been signed on loan for the rest of this season from Rangers, who clearly see an opportunity to win a title that 3 months ago they probably wrote off. And now, you know, when you see an opportunity to win trophies, all right, let's spend some fucking money here and actually get it done. I mean, that's not anything too egregious. It's pretty fucking wild.

I think looking at the table, you know, Rangers have as many losses as Hearts too. Where this thing is made up is in draws. They drew 8 times versus Celtic only drew 2 times, but Celtic has 6 losses, which, uh, I don't know what's going on. The hardware here. It's usually a sign that the soundboard's going to shit.

Yeah. Um, anyways, anyways, a team has not won the Scottish league in over 10 years if they've lost more than 5 times. That is a stat— that's a, a real statistic about this league. So it's Statistically speaking, of course you can always cherry-pick shit, but Celtic aren't really— they're not gonna win this league. They have 6 losses.

You know they're gonna lose it again at some point. 16 matches to go. They'll lose at least 2 or 3 more times, I would say, because their— the squad hasn't improved. It's probably gotten worse since the beginning of the year. Uh, the board clearly has no desire to spend money, and your 2 title rivals are in much better form and spending money.

Yeah, I don't, uh, don't disagree with that. So now we, at least this weekend as we record, turn our attention to the Scottish Cup, which is a trophy that Celtic very much could win. Uh, 6th tier Auchinleck Talbot for Celtic. Rangers took down 4th tier Annan Athletic, uh, last night 5-0, which obviously not really a surprise. Um, let's see some other fixtures of note.

We've got, uh, they're playing right now. Oh, Hibs lost to Dunfermline Athletic, who are in the second tier. So that's a cup set. Um, and Hearts play at 3 PM against Falkirk, so they kind of— a tough draw for them. Um, but yeah, I— like I said, we could, we could come on the show every week and pretty much say the exact same thing about Celtic.

Um, the squad isn't good enough, we don't spend any money. Rivals are better currently, and I don't foresee that, uh, changing anytime soon.

So we will press on, I guess, as fans, and see. Yep. As for the Premier League, uh, they were off last weekend, and, uh, there was the FA Cup, uh, which I didn't really watch any of, uh, because I didn't have time and I was watching more Scottish football. So, uh, Premier League is back. We actually had, uh, the Manchester Derby early this morning, and Man United with a caretaker manager took down Man City.

So honestly, I kind of think if Arsenal especially win today, that I, I'm starting to think you can kiss that league goodbye. Um, I feel like Arsenal are in an incredibly prime position to win the Premier League for the first time since 2004, uh, for them. So that would be a huge deal. Um, looks like Liverpool are still knotted up with Burnley as we record. Um, I think they're more so battling for just a top 4 finish at this point, and We will go from there, uh, and we'll have more Premier League updates next show.

Anything else you wanted to discuss? Uh, I don't think so. Um, headed to the pub tomorrow for a little Celtic, uh, footy, so that'll be fun. Other than that, um, let's see, we're January, so just 60 days or so from the kickoff of the IndyCar Series. I believe it's in March.

Yeah, it's not even that, uh, beginning of March. So yeah, the very first weekend in March. So more like 45. Yeah, it'll go quick and we'll be back into racing, motorsport. And the like.

Yes. All right, so I believe it's March 1st is the St. Petersburg race, which is usually the kickoff of the season. Uh, they did just release their first, uh, what would you call it, IndyCar commercial thing. You remember last year they did with the drivers? Still Newgarden.

I don't know why they continue to milk that, uh, as he slips further into irrelevance in the series, in my opinion. I think it's because he's still a very popular driver, um, even though he hasn't actually— you know, he's won the 2 Indy 500s, hasn't actually won an IndyCar championship since before COVID right? Um, I don't know, but it was a kind of funny, uh, ad. Which he was focused in. We'll see.

I'm sure they'll do Pato again. Um, but he is not even close. He is by far the most popular driver. So, uh, it makes sense from a marketing standpoint. I suppose everyone loves a winner.

Uh, Pato doesn't really win that much though. Yeah, so I don't understand his— why he's— well A lot of Mexican acclaim. That could be. That's all. I mean, they're obviously very passionate about their sport.

Yeah, it's all so weird.

I don't know how you— I don't know how you're Mexican and have an O in your name, your last name, with an apostrophe. Well, I mean, people from different cultures can marry each other. Yeah, that's true. So that's kind of could explain that. Yeah, he does not look Mexican though, I will say that.

He could pass as white. Yeah, but he has a very pretty thick accent. So yeah, uh, all right, well, I think that'll do it for this time around. Uh, join us next time for some more Premier League talk and an update on where things are in Scotland. And, uh, I don't know if you'll pull out any more information on the new regulations, you give me a— Yeah, I think we'll— we've discussed power unit-wise.

We'll talk about some other subject matter as we traverse the offseason here. So, uh, I don't know, we'll see what, uh, information's out there for the next podcast, but maybe we'll focus on, uh, Cadillac, maybe see, give you some background on what's happening there and the like. All right. Well, that'll do it for this Saturday edition of Tackling the Chicane. Okay.

See you next time.

For executive producer Richard Tanaka, this has been Tackling the Chicane, copyright 2026, Studio 2520. We'll see you next time.