Formula One brought its high-octane circus to town last week for the Las Vegas Grand Prix and PokerGO Studios played host to one of the many sideshows — an episode of Global Poker's GP Table Talk with F1's Scuderia Ferrari drivers Charles Leclerc and Carlos Sainz Jr.
The drivers split up and paired with poker pro Antonio Esfandiari and Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps for a tag team-style heads-up battle for intrasquad bragging rights. Esfandari joined Leclerc on Team Red and Phelps linked up with Sainz on Team Black. The drivers were green and full of questions, but they came ready to gamble and their teammates provided important advice throughout the short match.
Ali Nejad presided over the affair as emcee and it was laid back and full of conversation — until it wasn't. What started out as an innocent gathering of friends for fun and conversation ended in a vicious cooler.
Antonio Esfandari mentors teammate Charles Leclerc on the finer points of poker. Brutal cooler ends it
The match came to a head when the team of Sainz and Phelps held a slight lead over Esfandiari and Leclerc.
"Now it's time to play smart," Sainz said as the cards were dealt out. He looked down at 
and tossed out a raise. Leclerc called with 
and the flop was 
.
Leclerc bet 15K and Sainz called. The turn was a 
, giving Sainz and Phelps the better flush over Leclerc and Esfandiari — Leclerc tossed out 20K.
Sainz and Phelps sent Leclerc and Esfandari to their doom with the slow played cooler. Sainz smooth-called the 20K bet and 
fell on the river. Leclerc cut out a stone-faced bet of 70,000 with the second-best flush and Sainz did some acting. "So many choices," Sainz said before he went all in with the nuts.
Leclerc snap-called and saw the bad news. The match was over.
"Let's go!" Phelps yelled. "The nutter butters!" The others stared at the board in shock.
'Why didn't we just call?'
After Phelps and Sainz enjoyed a short celebration with the Global Poker G.O.A.T. trophies, the show went off the air and the drivers had a few questions for their experienced counterparts.
"I was so excited," Sainz said about the flush. "Why didn't we just call?"
"He's already hook, line, and sinker," Phelps answered.
Phelps knows a thing or two about winning. "If we are bluffing, you want us to bluff again," explained Esfandari. "You can't be losing. If the board pairs on the river, that would change things, but it didn't."
Sainz put it all together. "Ah, so we just called to reel them in."
And with that, Sainz and Leclerc returned to their race week duties. The Scuderia Ferrari team went on to finish back-to-back in third and fourth in the Las Vegas Grand Prix.
Check out the full video above and head over to Global Poker's website for more on GP Table Talk.
Photos courtesy of PokerGO/Global Poker/Antonio Abrego
