McLaren Struggles and Race Predictions

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Hello and welcome to the Checkered Flag podcast here in Barcelona where we saw a much needed poll position for George Russell, who had a tricky run around the streets of Monaco last time out. Lewis Hamilton makes an all British front row with Hamilton getting his first Grand Prix front row start since Silverstone twenty twenty four. Before we get stuck in, we'll quickly run through top ten and as mentioned already, George Russell on pole position from Lewis Hamilton Championship leader Kimmy Antonelli starts in third Lando Norris in fourth, Max Verstappen rounding out the top five from Isac Hjar, Oscar Piastri, Liam Lawson the top eight, Nico Holkenberg in ninth and Charl Cler who took a heavy impact into the wall in the middle of that final part of qualifying will start in tenth. Alongside me, I've got BBC F one correspondent Andrew Benson and the twenty twenty four F one Academy champion, Abby Pulling and Abby That was quite an exciting qualifying session. Yeah, and it's going to make for exciting Grand Prix tomorrow. It's looking really great. and I mean, it was kind of disaster on one end for Ferrari, but success on the other with having Lewis Hamilton have such a great session. his first front row start for Ferrari. Yeah and you said a disaster on one side of the garage for Ferrari. Of course, Charl le Cler heavy impact into the wall at turn three with around about nine minutes of Q three remaining. He got out okay. a lot of damage to the front end of his Ferrari, but just had a snap of oversteer and that shot him left into the war, but Andrew That's an important I feel that's quite an important poll position for George Russell. He alost mentioned already that he had a tricky runout last time, but he's been drifting further and further away from Antonelli who's at the top of the championship standing. So he almost really desperately needed this poll position. Well it's especially important, isn't it? because he came into the weekend talking about having a kind of reset, you know wanting to you know, get back to basics and not look at the data so much Um felt at the time like he maybe was overthinking the fact that he was trying not to overthink But he he's actually looked really, really quick all weekend. He's been the guy to beat. It's been pretty clear in every session pretty much so far and he delivered in qualifying and he's gone and sort of reconfirmed what he was saying afterwards. um, about, uh admitting that they'd made some mistakes on his side of the garage in terms of engineering and setup in the last couple of races. So You're right, He he needed it for a whole bunch of different reasons, but particularly that one, I think to sort of if he'd done that reset and then notock got poll again That would have been particularly bad so I think this will give him a big psychological boost going into the race but also for the rest of the season certainly win that's his tenth poll position of his career for George Russell. And also Mercedes is one hundred fiftieth in their formula one history. And we touched on Anton Nelly before we start talking about Lewis Hamilton Third place I mean, for any nineteen year old racing in Formula one, Abby,'d be thinking That's a great result He looked disappointed of course because his championship rivals are in front of him, but it's his lowest starting position of the season. He hasn't he hasn't qualified outside of the top two Yeah, that that in itself is an incredible achievement. I mean, being third for him, he did look really frustrated. I think he knows that he's on a run of good form and he doesn't want it to kind of end you know, good things must come to an end at some point unfortunately, but you know, if he does manage to make a good start in the Grand Prix, he can kind of be there, pick up the points and I think at the end of the day, he needs to remember what makes a world Champion is the consistency. Of course he wants to win everything under the sun as he's done the past five races. But he needs to remember he just needs the points and he's got the margin to George. George is going to have his moments and this weekend is looking positive for him and That's where you need to kind of bite the bullet and and really home in and and just minimize the damage. And I think George Russell, he's been stabbing his authority, hasn't he all over Antonlli all weekend. o. in all fairness, Anton has had some traffic that's hampered his progression through the practice sessions. But for example, George last podium was in China Last win was the first round this year in Australia, Andrew. and I think the margin that he's out qualified his teammate a one fourteen point six for him in a one fourteen point nine frrantinelli. That's three tenths clear. And when we've been looking at the gaps between certainly around a track that everyone knows like the back of their hand, that's quite a big margin It really is. it's a statement margin. It's the sort of margin that Antonlli had over Russell in Miami which was rare because generally this year it's been very close between the two of them So it's exactly what Russell needed. And I think it underlines as well that as big as that championship gap is, sixty eight points, there's not even a third of the season has gone so far And if they finished in this order, that would be ten points that Russell got back. And you know, all he's got to do is just keep doing that. and that's the way he's got to look at it. I just have to take it one race at a time. Keep delivering what I can do. And it seems like whatever hass gone wrong in the last two or three races on his side of the garage in terms of him and his engineers Maybe they were outthinking themselves. It seems from reading between the lines of his comments that he was kind of following Antonellie's set upp direction and has now changed that approach if he can if this is genuinely a reset and he can carry this forward into the next few races He could start closing that gap and the season would look start to look very different if he did I mean I mean, exactly And E everyone's been hyping up Kimy Antonlli saying the season' done. you know, he's got such a big points gap now. How can people bring it back? But It's fully possible if George can find his feet and get some momentum in this championship, he can take it to Kimmy. I mean, we saw last year the Max was able to come back from a big deficit. So it's definitely not out the question. I mean, we're only a third of the way really through this season. so it just takes kind of Biv sacrifice and a lot of mental strength from George, I think. be able to really, really screw his head on and knuckle down for this next two thirds of the championship And of course, we can't forget Louis Hamilton, who splits the two Merades. He's had a bit of a tough weekend so far. He's not really had the pace during the free practice sessions was almost a bit lost over the radio in free practice thing three, saying I just don't know where the pace has gone, but just missed out on taking pole position by six hundredths of a second. You can't even blink that quickly. What a joke by him, Abby, because As a driver when you've been struggling on a race weekend, okay, his form has been really strong in the last few races, but particularly when you've been struggling in free practice sessions to then come out and deliver like that. that's impressive. I know we're it's Louis Hamilton we're talking about, but still Yeah, I mean, I think it's so In practice for him, he was so frustrated. And the most annoying thing about Barcelona is you can see your deficits because you have that massive gantry going down the pitch straight. So you can see that you've got a time deficit and he's been saying all weekend he's been half a second off and has no clue where it is and obviously went away and went to his motor home, he said between threeree practice three and qualifying kind of screwed his head on and got things and alignine basically and in Q one was the fastest. so he knew that the balance was somewhere where he was happy told the team going into Q three after the red flag of his teammate Charles, I want to do another bank lab on this set of tyres no matter You know, the team wanted to send him straight out and give him one lap but he wanted that kind of confidence and additional laps to just getet the job done and yeah, he did a brilliant job and it's exciting to see Hamilton in this new era and he looks like he's got a new kind of spring of life into him. So we'll continue to chat about the top three shortly, but let's hear from them who were talking to Naomi Schiff after qualifying George, a big congratulations.' poll position for you out here in Barcelona. Momentum hasn't been on your side lately, but you've come back to the European season and you're coming swinging. So how does it feel It's been a great weekend so far. kind of feel like my old self again where sort of every lap I'm doing a job always fighting at those top positions, obviously for the last few races for numerous reasons haven't quite been on our side, but I came in this weekend Weith just a clean slate, felt good and yeah, it's great to be on Ple It's obviously a very different track here. It's a traditional circuit. We've also got a step softer on the tyres this yearo tell us. how is your experience during qualifying there in the car? Yeah I think it's going to be an interesting race tomorrow. You know Lewis did an amazing job to get up there. I think that was a real surprise. We thought a fight was with ourself for McLaren and then you know Lewis has been really quick all his sessions. So I'm sure there's going to be a fight on our hands. Obviously, Kimy's been doing an amazing job so Tomorrow is not going to be easy from every spoint, but I feel feeling ready Kime just coming over to you. Conggratulations, It's P three here. This is actually the first time this season you've qualified not on the front row. so that just goes to show how well your season's gone so far. But tell us how it was in the car for you out there. Yeah, it's been a little bit of a difficult weekend so far for me. D didnn't really have the feeling with the car, but Yeah, longong run was strong yesterday. so definitely we can You know that's a positive, but today ave been lacking a little bit, but looking forward to tomorrow. It's a long hard race tomorrow as I was just saying to George, but also one of the longest runs to turn one. So do you think being in third might be of an advantage to tuck up behind the others and get a bit of a slipstream Yeah, I mean, we'll try to get a good start and then for sure we'll try to make the best use of the toe alsoso without using we won't use any SM. So definitely the sleep st is going to be even stronger. Yeah, now obviously a lot of work to do in order to be ready for tomorrow. Fantastic. Lewis coming over to you. Conggratulations. It's P two for you. So a front row start whichich just goes to continue another great run of form. So tell us about how this weekend has gone so far for you and how it was out there for you in the car Are you speaking South African to me? I mean, English with a South African accent. I can't hear, I can't hear anything so much here. I'd love to come over but the cameras are gonna have to follow me. We've got a great crowd here, by the way. Always, the weather's incredible out here in Barcelona, so got yes Um Its feels great to be up here with them. Honestly, this weekend's been So difficult missing P one was Normally it's okay to miss B one But it had a huge offset. So every time we went into Pe Tw I was a second over a second off And then we just didn't feel quite comfortable and up to it. And these tres only last one lap, right? So you only have two shots at it in each session. And even if you do a coold down lap and go again, the car balance is completely off. so it's not a good reference. Sena went to P three And again, I was Easily four tenth, five th off and I was thinking Jeez, where I'm going to get that pace and I went and left the track between qualifying and between P three and qualifying. Where did you go? I went back to my motor home. Okay. cameame back and then Q one, I was first. And so I knew that I had a good balance and good I was really comfortable on that first session. Q two is a little bit harder with traffic and everything And then right, know, these guys did a great laugh. naturally. cononggrats to George But we're in a good position. we have to fight for tomorrow So we have a race. Well, even though it hasn't been a very straightforward weekend, as you've just pointed out for you, you're in the front row. you're pe two. And this is a track that we often say is sort of shows us exactly what the pecking order is, a traditional circuit and we get a great balance of what the teams have. Would you say even though we've seen you up here quite a few times lately, that this is the true position of where Ferrari is at ready to take on Mercedes every time. But again, I think all weekend, we've been kindind of like four tents off these guys. And so we really even with the upgrade, we thought that maybe That's where we were. So for us to be that close, less than the tenth between us shows just it's a real showing of the hard work everyone at the factory has done to bring these upgrades to this track. And so big, big, big thank you to everyone back in Marineello. And yeah, we just got to keep pushing. keep keep pushing, keep developing And I'm hoping tomorrow we can squeeze some more out of this and hopefully keep up with these guys for once. OkayK, well, that's all we have time for. Thankk you so much, gentlemen. Well done, and a great race ahead of us tomorrow.. Thank you So that was our top three talking to Naomi Schiff And Hamilton has been talking in the press conference Andrew, but I just want your opinion on whether that dynamic at Ferrari is starting to take a shift. towards Louis Hamilton's side of the garage. Well, there ebs and flows through every season, aren't there? But it certainly looks like that's the case at the moment. This is, you know he look L I was struggling in Canada and Monaco. He's gone to Hamilson's brake set upp for this race weekend And he has been looking quite quick, but Hamilton said something really interesting in the press conference. He was talking about Lecler's crash, which actually affected him andlando Norrison in qualifying because they were both on laps at the time And and Hamilton said, I've been breaking really late into turn four all weekend And the data has been pretty clear on that. and I think maybe Charles just sort of overcooked it on the entry and he was sort of saying that was the reason for the accident. I don't know what you thought about that Abby, but I thought that was a really interesting. Itightly it felt a little bit like a game he was playing as well as an interesting factual observation. Yeah, I mean, he At the end of the day, thenoy thing is is When you have a strength, which is Lewis has been breaking so late into turn four, your teammate gets to see that. So Charles would have known and Charles has pushed that entry and got a bit of a snap, gone a bit wide. And then to me, it looked like the end result of the crash was more down to the torque. and on the exit, of course, it happened late in the corner. So he's gotten the power of this new hybrid engine a bit too much whilst he's offline, not as much traction and sent him into the wall. So yeah as you say it's an interesting mental game that being able to know where you're stronger and where your teammates is weaker because You know they're pushing there and potentially he's just oversstet the mark And I think that's that's an interesting comment there because of course, Charlotte Clur is going to be starting down in tenth. place and he's going to be willing the team on, of course. he's got his own job to do, but I'm sure he'll be looking at Lewis Hamilon's time and thinking if only Only I didn't throw it into the wall and it was a heavy impact down turn for, but Lewis Hamilton, does he have the he's got a prime opportunity of course, but can he convert that front row start into a win? becausecause they are so fast off the line. I know there wasn't a big difference between them when we saw them at Monaco. but still a track that's actually got quite a long run from from the front row down to turn one. there'll be an opportunity down there. and I expect if an opening happens or appears, Andrew, Lewis Hamilton' is going to be taking it. Well, quite often, the guy who's third on the grid in Barcelona is in the best position at the start. Remember last year, George Russell swept away around into the lead, I think, from third place on the grid And of course it's Antonelli who's in third place, but of course that still second is better than first in that sense because of the slip stream on that long run down to the corner. and Antoneelli himself was talking about the slip stream and because you don't have straight line mode on the way to the first corner. So the drag and therefore slip stream effect is much bigger Yes, Anthonlli made a good start in Monaco twice, including in the after the reed flag period The fact is that Antonlli's lost put places off the ground every race this year apart from H. Monaco And the Ferraris have been consistently the fastest starter all year, even though Mercedes have been getting better. So I think there's a strong chance that Hamilton could lead into the first corner And then I think nobody really knows what's going to happen in this race. Tire degradation has been so high. Hamilton was saying in the press conference that it's been double what they were expecting Some of that's to do with the high pressures that Prell are making them run, someome of its to do with the high temperatures at the track, someome of it is to do with just the fact that this is a very demanding track They're saying at least two stops in the race, maybe three So I think it's anybody's, you know because you've also got Lando Norris in fourth place. He was only three thousandths behind Antonlli and the McLaren is really good on his tyres. so I be a really open race, which would be great to see. Kim Antonlli was mentioning there after qualify that Mercedes have the strongest race pace but you were having a look at the data, Andrew. and you think that actually Ferrari possibly have the stronger race pace, But of course, Hamilton mentioned that it's going to be tough on tyres. That's going to be the same for everyone we possibly see that once Lewis does get in front He's going to be able to keep the lead. Well, there seems to be a lot of kidology going on today because you're absolutely right, Alice, on the race runs on Friday afternoon at least. Now, of course the thing about the race runs on Friday is the cars have changed since then because everyone's modifying their setup all the way through the weekend until qualifying. But Leclerc definitely had the fastest run on a medium tyres And out of the two Mercedes drivers, although Antonelli was talking up his race pace, it was Russell, who was definitely quicker than Antonelli on Friday Hamilton did not have a good day on Friday and he's talked about that today having to he talked about having to reset before qualifying. He'd struggled to catch up after missing practice the the Ferrari development driver take part in that session. But if Hamilton can match the race pace that Le Cler was showing on Friday, there's every reason to believe he can take the fight to the Mercedes, even if he wasn't sounding that confident about it after qualifying That's what I mean by it feels like the most perhaps the most open race of the season so far, just because there's so much uncertainty about how the tyres are going to behave There was one stage in qualifying, we were talking about that there was a possibility of a McLaren position, but the highest starter for team McLaren is Lando Norris in fourth place and he was ye three and a half tenths off the pace of George Russell. So Abby, what happened to McLaren? It's been a bit disastrous for them really. I think they had really high hopes going into the weekend, especially this is the first time going on a more conventional circuit for the this twenty twenty six season and their car, they believed it would be performing in a bit of a better window. They can regulate their tyre temperatures a bit better around a circuit like this. so for them T be as far down as they are, I think was a shock to all of us. o, don't get me wrong, it was super close from P three down to where Oscar Piastro is in P seven. Not even a tenth separates them. So it was very small margins and a little mistake puts you many places down. It all just went a bit wrong for them and we thought they would be challenging for position and very much quickly went the opposite way. I think what was interesting was you can overlay in a way Norris is qualifying with Hamilton because they were both affected by Leclerc's crash. They were both on their first qualifying run When Lecler went off, the red flag came out, they had to have bought And they then took a different approach. Hamilton forced Ferrari to change their plan. allow him to go out and have another go on that same set of tyres. He said he wanted to have some kind of reference before he did his new tyre run at the end of the session Whereas Norris didn't do that. so he didn't have a full lapse reference. And he admitted in his session in his interview after the session As a consequence of that, he couldn't take the risks that he would have done on his first lap. and he thought his first lap was actually better than his second lap in that sense So I think there was probably some potential in Norris' McLaren that they didn't extrapolate because of that situation. Whether that would have been enough to close a more than three tenth gap to Russell is a different question could easily have got him ahead of Antonlli on into third place and And who knows what would have been the case after that? It just shows obviously that banker lap for Hamilton really worked for him because he really nailed that final lap and came so close to beating Russell to Ple Hey, it's Scotty B from Elvis Duran in the Morning Show O deemmand. You know how some people are dog people and some just aren't I don't really buy it. I think either you're a dog person or you just haven't met the right dog yet because when you do, they work their dog magic on you. And it's like, boom, you're a dog person now. D deal. I mean, just think back to when you were a kid and you had your first dog going on walks, playing in the lake. There was never any doubt. You were a dog person and you or your parents were probably feeding them Pedig For forty years, families have been feeding their dogs pedigree. It was good then, and it's better now. Every bowl serves up one hundred percent complete and balanced nutrition, supporting six health essentials that bring out the goodness in your dog. 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He was a driver that was in the top three in one or two the practice sessions. So again, disappointment for him, but it's so close betweenween fourth and seventh, which is where Oscar Piastri is going to be starting is less than tenth of a second. So just showing how close that section on the grid is and Norris, he'll be hoping to finish the race tomorrow because he didn't finish in Canada, didn't finish last time out in Monaco and he's completed the fewest Grand Prix racing laps of anyone this season Yeah, there are a lot of reliability issues with that Mercedes power unit and it's biten all of them in the boom at some point other than Kimmy Antonlli, he's the one that's managed to to finish the races in that that Mercedes powerower unit. But yeah, it's at the point where Lando just needs to finish finish races do the laps he's comple completed the least laps out of anyone this season, which is quite frustrating for him. I mean on the other side of the garage, Oscu Pasty, you know, he w here last year. He knows he's strong here so to qualify so far back. It's also frustrating for him. but you don't know actually what's going to happen within them four cars in a sense because Reliability is a thing this year. you know, everyone's learning, everyone's figuring it out and potentially play into the hands of of the Ferraris who have seemed to have been more reliable in that sense Max Verstappen will be starting in fifth place Isaac Hjer in sixth, five hundred separating. the two reed Bull drivers and Max actually was looking very strong. We were all getting excited on commentary because he set the fastest first sector and Abby, you mentioned during commentary Never rule out Max Verstappen because Max does max things, but it wasn't quite enough to continue him throughout the lap Yeah, I mean, I think it says a lot. He's always Um performing his teammates, let's say by quite some margin. He's only half a tenth foot on Isaac Hadjar, not even that there're sitting in fifth and sixth and Yeah, Max was setting purple sectors in his last sector was the only one he didn't set a personal best in and it was quite a large margin. He lost I think it was three or four tempts in that final sector. so it It almost seemed like it could have been something special and it all kind of went to pot We didn't actually see where the mistake come whether it was I would assume turn ten is that's been the corner that's been kind of getting on everyone's nerves this weekend with the additional talk coming out of that it's quite a lot of lateral load that you've got on the car and acceleration. so potentially a snap in there just hindered his chances of fighting for Ple Liam Nwson was in eighth for the racing Balls, but I think a special mention to Nico Holkenberg Andrew, who dragged the Audi up into Q three once more and actually he had his time deleted, didn't he in Q two. So was under pressure at some stage of that qualifying to put a lap that counted on the board. Yeah, they're getting consistently in that sort of position, aren't they Audie ninth, tenth, eleventh. Dad Well I think the surprise for me out of the sort the best of the rest fight, if you like this weekend is that