On Track Incidents and Qualifying Expectations

Hello everybody and welcome to the P one podcast with Matt and Tommy , notable Red Bull and Mercedes fans of the P one podcast. Wow Yeah, if you're listening on audio, come and check us out on YouTube because listening on audio put Le Clair in the bin already . What do you mean? I've never been off We'll get into all of that depression and much more , but it's great to have Formula One back once again, a very hot. Feels like everybody's talking about how hot it is. It's massively hot in the UK at the moment. I know some people will be like, What thirty, thirty two? That's a winter's day for me. I'm already preparing myself for the comments for that. But for me , my God, it is Melt City . But yeah, it's very hot in Australia as well, isn't it? Tommy and sure is lots of upgrades, lots of question marks and maybe more question marks because we're seeing things that deep down we didn't think maybe well , we thought it might happen, but the surface level delusion took over in our predictions at least so far. Yeah, certainly with a certain someone, but I think the heat is a huge thing in this race , there's been a lot of reliability issues during practice already . And we could see a situation where if you watched our predictions and we had P Watt and we guessed who was going to finish seventeenth, that could be like quite a decent they could be one of the first people to retire based on how many problems we're having basically already in this in this session and weekend so far because these cars don't seem to like the hot weather No, so as much as it might look like a foregone conclusion , reliability can throw in a massive spanner in the worst sorry that wasn,'t meant to be a joke, but then as I was saying, I was bad. Anyway , free practice one, let's get into it. The top three were Antonelli Russell Piestri, Mercedes one, two , Norris Issues again, like it's basically just the se recapped, the fact that Mercedes were fastest. Lando Norris immediately had problems, which I think took him out of the session for a good forty five minutes. Standard stuff, really for Lando. And I got' tove apologize. It's clearly because I didn't predict him to not have issues because every single time I've done that once it hasn't happened. So Lando I'll be back for you. Don't worry for the British Grand Prix is a crazy prediction because I've already seen the open ing there . But yeah, issues plaguing the grid across the two sessions . Very much so Landa, you just can't write it really with how his season's gone. It's just every time seems to be his car with an iss ue and the fact that it was immediately the second, you know, the second we started the session , he's in the garage not able to leave the garage hydraulic issue again and it's just adding up all these like failures that his cars keep having . And of course they have a very limited number of parts and allocations as well which he's flying through like crazy . Well, yeah, I think he's pretty much done for some of the parts. And there's a question from Mad Dog Claire, when will Lando take his grid penalty so he can get the new and supposedly improved slash more reliable , battery . Look, I think if you look at the calendar , Belgian Grand Prix is usually one of those where they love to do it seen . Teams will not yeah, it's an actual spa day, you know, for their for their new parts because that is always it's so funny though, isn't it? It's deemed as a place you could overtake and one of those circuits where in the last few years we've really struggled to have any kind of , you know, fr antic overtaking race, unless you're Max Verstappen, of course, when you had, you know, the car of dreams and the driver of your dreams as a as a hybrid combination is like you can start anywhere and still win. It screams like a one eight screams like a data thing where like an algorithm says like this is the best track because of these parameters yet sometimes you see like crazy other tracks that you don't think you get lots of overtaking, you see loads or gives you more opportunities and as you say spa it's not delivered the greatest racing in kind of the last few years but I guess they just see it as a place where you could in theory with a new engine fly past people down the Kemel Strait, particularly the midfielders and things and make up ground for like kind of damage limitation, I guess. Yeah, 'cause he's not going to do it unless he absolute ly has to at the British Grand Prix next weekend because it's his home race. He's going to want to try and win it. So yeah, I think probably Spa is the next sort of logical for him to do it. Should he be able to get to there? I think that was probably it's only two races time, which my brain cannot compute that that's the case because that was always after the summer break and kind of like an August race where we kind of kind of later into the season . So yeah, maybe we'll see Lando being that kind of first driver to do it and potentially maybe it's a McLaren twenty fifteen era McLaren Honda where he changes everything and gets a nine ninety place penalty and starts in a different country or something. Yeah, yeah, it may well do. So another thing to talk about from free practice one was the fact that we had lots of rookies again . So let me run you through what drivers we saw and for what teams. So for Aster Martin, Crawford replaced Stroll at Audi, Aron Replaced Bortileto, Ferrari Baganovich replaced Leclerc so already on the back foot. Can't believe I've good surprise lecler and he's not even taking part in free breath this one. I will blame that for the rest of the weekend if that is a reason had FP one he. would He have won. Yeah, it would have changed everything . Has Hirakawa who absolutely just loves driving for almost every team on the grid , replacing Okon racing balls Iwasa replaced Lawson and Williams Browning who gets another runout after we of course were very sad the last time he was literally got no running replacing Carlos Signs and I think when you look at the order, when you look at how Rookies were doing, there's a few standout performances that has to be said. I think Berganovic did a pretty good job up in P nine in the Ferrari, only six tenths behind what Hamilton managed in free practice one. Who took your your sort of eyeballs tell me for want of a better phrase . I think Berganovich, even though he's a long way off Hamilton, that's kind of expected going into that car and still getting a good amount out of it , but it's there wasn't maybe like a crazy standout like maybe we saw with Paul Aaron last time out where he was quicker than Botoleta, wasn't it? And really stood out. We didn't second behind Hulk. Crawford. Head of Alonso , you know ? I mean, I know I sort of set that up to see if you might just mention that Crawford was quicker than Alonso or just pretend it didn't happen. Yeah, and that's what you that's where you went down. How did it ? Modeling, Jack. The minute that Lanstra gets Enjoy the money . Yeah, enjoy the P twenty and FP one. Did you see actually there's a quote from Flander Alonzo this weekend where he's basically like ranting about the he kind of ranted about, oh, all these teams keep bringing these upgrades. Like if they got infinite money or something, it's like you drive for Lawrence Stroll Yeah, and you're complaining that the other teams have too much money what is going on here. And also I guess, you know, he's very much alluding to the cost cap element of Formula One where there is a limit for F one teams. You can't just constantly upgrade. But the difference I would probably say here is that teams most teams on the grid have a functional baseline package to add a little bit here, a little bit there. Aston Martin are creating a new car basically to roll out instantly whenever it is in the mid se . So I yeah, I get Alonso's point, but also there is a massive rework going on here because the Aston Martin Car is absolutely diabolical . So yeah, anyway, Crawford quick er than Alonzo, so probably the standout, even though he was P twenty in free practice one . Let's now head to FP two where all the big dogs were back in the car. Top three, Antonelli, Piestri and Norris two McLarens coming out of nowhere when they were absolutely writing themselves off. Lando in particular writing McLaren's chances off coming into this weekend saying they might even have the fifth fastest car. Well look , here they are looking very quick once again it has to be said . Let's go to a question from PON Patreon member Matthew Cole zero four Mercedes and McLaren top two teams this weekend . Do you think ? Potentially, I mean, I did think it would be this this way with Mercedes and McLaren in the fact that it is a power track, even though you don't look at on it paper and think it's anything like a monzer or something, it's one of those those circuits where it is very much like straight , a heavy braking zone. So Barcelona is very different in the sense that you know it was very much about cornering ability and that's why we saw Ferrari so good, as they've kind of mentioned before about how good their chassis is and how they probably got the best chassis on the grid . But it's fully believed despite what's the FIA say that the Mercedes do have the best grunt and the best power and at a track like this where it is very much heavy breaking zone and then just boosting and kind of pushing your engine to the limit down a straight and then heavy braking zone again . That's where a lot of the laptime is gained. So I'm surprised McLaren wrote themselves off so much. I know it's only practice and we have to be a little bit careful because in particular I remember Lewis Hamilton last time out in Spain wasn't really like up there or making any kind of headlines and then of course won the race so but I'm surprised McLaren downplayed their chances so much because I kind of thought going into this particularly Lando who's great around here would do very well indeed. So here we are. Yeah, I was trying to find because I remember him talking about it in the pre weekend sort of buildup stuff whether it was fifth fastest in terms of fifth or fifth fastest cars because I can't imagine he would have meant fifth fastest car when I don't think there's another team entering the fray that would be filled team for . So maybe it was fifth fastest just in general, but either all they didn't expect to be right at the front and they seem to be there. I have to say that they've been really impressive. Oscar Piatri was of course up there as well in free practice one. Lando wasn't running . And when Lando has been running, he's been right up there. So definitely a good opportunity for them. But once again, we've saw so much reliability so many reliability issues for the Mercedes power units in particular. I think the Williams drivers were struggling as well. And we'll get onto the other issues for certain teams. One in particular that I said would have the best weekend of their entire season and they just couldn't stop being on fire or turning off Kadillak sorry we'll talk about you shortly. Let's go to a question from Puan Pitch Remember Piper MZMimic X Engine update for Ferrari and yet they look off the pace was Spain an outlier . Now I know you're all tuning in for this particular question and to understand Tommy's slander thoughts and my obviously Mercedes fan thoughts the The honestly , I could not be more we're so done. We're so over. It's so finished . After watching free practice two in particular Scorcha Clare was back in the car, I was praying for just a purple sector. Didn't see it once. Did not see a single purple sector miles off? Hamilton again, I'm hoping okay, maybe Hamilton with an extra practice session might be able to stick a lap in that's a couple of tenths off, gives us hope for tomorrow . No, no, that they right now it makes me feel sick that Tommy might well be getting two points as well in the predictions championship for going for Ferrari flop I can't believe we're talking about them bringing an engine upgrade using their token . They've brought other upgrades as well . And they look not fast at all. So I'm going to say the word that we all hate the sandbagging. They're they are sandbagging . We're so back No, no, we're so finished. We're so done I can't be bothered . I will actually be the positive one here and say that we're so surprised everyone that you are back and don't don't care too much because it's just an the question here is is Spain an outlier? I think Austria is an outlier personally. I think we go back to Silver you about to tell me the speed traps or something ? No, it doesn't matter about the speed traps. Ferrari are amazing round corners. They were last time out . Their whole kind of just because they got an engine upgrade , it's far too kind of hyped that suddenly just because they get an engine upgrade. It's not like a for mula one game where you press Yes, upgrade and suddenly you have the best engine and you kind of get more power. It's not how it works. They've got definitely got a deficit to Mercedes in terms of that kind of straight line speed and power . And the Ferrari the best of the Ferrari comes out round high speed corners and things like that like we saw in Spain and cornering and whether Chassis can do a lot of the work . So I think we get into Silverstone and it could flip back the other way and they're doing a lot better . I don't I'm not going to sit here because it's only Friday and say I told you so but I kind of did think that this could happen with Ferrari of the fact that they could be fourth fastest because they're not , you know, they've not built like an engine that seems like unbelievable. That's why they were towards the back of the kind of engine upgrade thing and why they've got an upgrade in the first place . So I do think that I wouldn't worry too much about this race and I do think this race is more of an outlier because it's going to be different to what we see on other circuits where it will suit Ferrari better personally . Okay, interesting. I mean, you use Silverstone as an example, which is also an incredibly power sensitive track. So it's not high speed corners. It's not it's not straight, is it? Ferrari, we've talked about slow speed with Ferrari. Since when we know it's high speed as well. Just corners, just corners. Like Silverstone's not Monza, is it? It's like there's the hanger's straight, but it's not like it's not straight up power like this track is where it's just every brake power out of it. Like I do think that you have to treat this circuit almost like a monster almost . Well, yeah, I mean, if that's the case which is sorry if you have FOCI that are all ready to go and cheer Ferrari on bad afraid prepare for monzer and monzer only. So or maybe they've done what they do at Monaco. Monaco didn't work and then they right on to Monza now. Let's update the car for that. Anyway, you know, you saying all this any free practice too mate, like relax yourself. Like you get well too ahead of yourself. Well, I told you so. Yeah, right, we'll come back. I did say that. I did say we'll see you tomorrow. I hate to tell you I told you so no, don't, you absolutely love it. Try to not say that with a smile on your face and then we can revisit. But anyway, I'm a Mercedes fan I'm top of the session Next question and away from Ferrari because I don't want to talk about it anymore. People want to remember silly car go fast. Are Red Bull finally competitive at the front or will their race pace fall behind? I don't feel like Red Bull may be taken a bigger step forward as maybe a lot of fans including myself hoped when we kind of saw that car and the kind of how skinny it was and crazy at the kind of rear of the car and how potentially like all rebels problems the dream was that it was all just because of the weight of the car and they get rid of that. And supposedly they've got the best engine and suddenly they're really good again. I just don't it's quite clear that that's not the case and they were still struggling. Yes, they're kind of nearer towards the front, but we've seen this before anyway before that, you know, Max has got front rows in things like Miami and Monaco. So it's not completely out of the question and Red Bull haven't always been forth and absolutely nowhere. So they're in the mix, but they're still a long way off, I think of Mercedes definitely and probably McLaren as well and mixing up with kind of maybe Ferrari on this track, but I don't know if that will continue throughout the season . Yeah, it's I mean, when they unveiled the car it looked aggressive. It looked like oh okay have they cooked it was like seeing the Aster Martin for the first time. Wow. By design. Wow. By design. Amazing. And then of course they had a lot of reliability issues. Max wasn't happy with his seat, I think in free practice too as well. There was a lot of things that were not clicking for both drivers throughout both of these sessions that we've seen today. So when I look at the times and how far they are behind, it does feel as though this might well be because it's such a big upgrade for them, it might take a little bit of tweaking here. And we could easily see like we,'ve seen in the past , a team step make a step forward overnight and then into tomorrow with the learnings that they've been able to digest. And I think maybe that could be the case for Max and Red Bull and could well be in sh aout for a podium. He's half a second off Antonelli , but he's still ahead of the Ferrari's Russell who's struggling, which we'll get on to, I'm sure and of course ahead of his teammate as well. So it's not a disaster. It's not like they've gone backwards. It's just more the fact that Kimmy is looking very, very quick once again. So I'm really glad we mentioned him in predictions . It's just like yeah, cool. I'll just dominate things right now as I just said back to can change especially and it could still get that P what P seventeen, you never know. He could well be. You just don't know. Another question from D Mill one twenty three four B ten drivers even finish the race . I think this is a perfect segue to talk about some of the problems that these drivers had and my most notable one is Cadillac . Wowi, they've brought a whole host of upgrades and they were just on fire but in the worst way possible. Botass was quite literally smoking Perez, went out the pit several times and his car just turned off . Absolute disaster for Cadillac where you kind of maybe think slightly understandable in a way if they're bringing these upgrades that they're hoping will take them forward. As a new team, I think they've learnt very, very quickly that changing parts of the car when they haven't had thorough test ing can lead to something like this in a very high temperature scenario like Austria. So it's not worked for them today for sure. And I want to retract my best weekend finish ever this season because it's been a disaster two laps for Perez, six laps for Botas in FP two . Perez did fourteen in free practice one and then when you look where is the other botass was actually up in thirteenth in free practice one, that's half a point because that P thirteen is in fact the best result this year where he did twenty one laps. So they got some , but there was a lot of a lot of smoky stuff going on as well . It was . Cadillac are a strange one because they deserve credit for being better than Astron Martin , which is a mad achievement but I think it's more on the Aston Martin at Awful . It's more the embarrassment of Aston Martin than the other way around . And Cadillac they do seem to have a situation where reliability is pretty crazy with that car. Like you do feel they give that vibe of they throw parts on and sometimes like no other car seems to have like bits that like fall off all the time or catch fire and we kind of saw that at the start where Perse seemed to his mirror seemed to fall off like every session at one point at the start of the season . And yeah, it's showing that Formula One is difficult. I know that's a really stupid thing to say, but like Formula One was difficult Tom Billingham took twenty six. But we saw such amazing reliability in years gone by and used to all twenty cars finishing and it being absolutely fine. Cadillac have come into a new regulation which other teams are struggling with reliability. So it's maybe no surprise that they are struggling the most and yeah, they're having all sorts of problems . When their car actually finishes the race and is able to perform without any issues, they've actually got pretty decent car and pairs as kind of flirted with Q two a few times and obviously nearly would have got that point in Monaco without the grid position mishap . So they've got a good car , it's just if it all stays together , which is kind of not doing a lot of the time this season. Yeah, it's like it's a good car and Botash showed some signs of actual p ace in free practice one, but then it just kept breaking because we don't really know where they can stand. But I guess that is a slight if we're looking at positives here, the botsp thirteen and FP one is the best result of the season. So other drivers you want to talk about in terms of reliability issues across today, do we think ten drivers will actually finish? I think we will get ten. I think if I was to guess now, I reckon we're giving a good six that are out, which does mean PW would be determined by complete and utter just bad fortune for that certain driver . But yeah, I can't see I can't see a full twenty two making it to the end that's for sure. No, how many did we have last time out ? Probably similar seven I could see roughly like six or seven . We could easily see a surprise winner, I think, with the fact that it is similar conditions to Barcelona , but also cars do seem to struggle here more when it comes. What's the altitude like for I mean the hills, all that sort of stuff like I don't know if it actually is up in the hills or if it's just because it's like same reasons so I was just trying to think of why we see so many reliability issues around here as well as teammate clashes. Those are the two things you see so much around. I wonder if it is the nature of the circuit as well with the heavy braking . They years gone by, maybe not as much now they used to proper clatter the kerbs and it was quite it's always been quite a difficult track to stay within track limits, which could be an issue. Yeah, to be fair, you bounce off of the exit curbs and stuff and that can definitely cause maybe a few internals to start flying around and there is a five hundred eighty no four hundred and eighty one meter sea level difference Austria being higher than Barcelona. So that could make all the difference much way to listen to the P one podcast. I can tell you that one for free. Yeah, when there's when you're down the pub trat and your mates and there's been nine retirements tomorrow go well the sea level. Well, you know where I found out about the sea level it was on the PM podcast . Other silly things to talk about and before we get into this actually I wanted to do this before I mention because I hadn't written this down is the and this is another level of sadness for Charlot te is him realizing this weekend that Lewis Hamilton is allow ed to go skydiving but he's not in his contract . So maybe if he went a tile, he might get the opportunity. All right , okay, just thought I'd just thought I'd like add that in just a as bit of a like powership chat and you know I did see that. It was like, oh you get you get to do that. No . I mean it's privileges, isn't it? Of it's a bit like Max with his hole he does what he wants and goes race at the Nerbeg ring. Hamilton skydive can do that or take a Ferrari F forty around Tokyo, do some power slides and stuff and they don't care, whereas other drivers don't have that that luxury bit like kind of when we discussed with Kim Yanelli being like oh I quite fancy the noburgering they were like no , definitely not at the end of this year when he wins the tit le, so about that Nober win drive . Please, how many do I need? How many world championships? Speaking of world championships, Max Verstappen on track. I think we need to also talk about this because I don't know why it happened, but it did. But George Russell and Max Verstappen went side by side in the middle sector . Max went round the outside of George at the left hander just after the middle sector split and as you guess technically it's the last sector but went round the outside of that left hander. George is kind of running wide a little bit. Max is there's a car width and maybe a half left for him and he dropped in the middle finger. Just went, you know what? Here you go, take this one. Just reminding everyone about the underlying beef between the two of them. Even if they're all yeah, adding to the luck, even if they're all friendly, off camera now and in social videos together. And oh, it's all fine. When they're in the car , if Max is going to be annoyed, anyone's going to be George Russell, isn't it? And probably vice versa as well . And yeah, a really weird moment where I'm not sure yet, we've not got the full information about whether Max is on a push lap. That's the reason he was getting blocked or what. But it looks like quite a crazy move from the clip that I'm seeing in terms of you just don't expect to see a car overtake. So I can only assume that he was maybe getting blocked because otherwise George would have been on the racing line in that moment . But yeah another moment I mean George probably should speak about him because his form it's only Friday, but the form has not really been there, has it with what we've kind of seen. He was close to Antonelli in FP one, but FP two a long way off. I know he had didn't have the best session with reliability and stuff, but he really needs a weekend when you have a car that was working, but come on, George, says Tom Burnham. Do the fastest lap time. He still had twenty three laps in the best car on the grid, so he shouldn't be six tents off. Yeah. I think he was yeah, I think he finished six tents off his flying lap on the last lap. I think he ran wide or at least the apex by a country mile in that penultimate corner, which would have lost him time , but I mean, look, let's not forget genuine last time out in Barcelona, he managed to get pole position. So overall 's he's definitely able to do it. It's just yeah, had a bit of a bit of a scruffy id Fayr . Also worth mentioning that the tyres for this weekend are the softest we could possibly ask for then I think Ostrich in general is I think a lower deg circuit than what we saw in Barcelona, but still interesting and something to keep an eye on in terms of how the tyres are going to behave. I think it did seem like they could do at least a couple of laps, a couple of flying laps on the soft tyre before it before they decided to melt away. So it's not going to be as extreme as perhaps we saw in Barcelona . Hopefully I don't know if I want to see crazy pit stops again or them pushing. I think it's set up nicely the fact that that McLaren look like they can challenge so yeah we'll see how it goes with pit stops because last time out obviously the race was made great with the different str ategies , but I'd be amazed at this track if we saw too many pit stops even though it is incredibly hot . Famous last words bring on an eight stop race now. I don't mind it. I don't mind it. It's going to be fascinating all the same because this track does seem to produce pretty good racing, so I'm hoping that we see lots of chaos in that turn three in particular because that is just breeds action doesn't it that place. So very much looking forward to it. Thank you everybody for tuning in. We are into now officially momentum month. I don't know what July will be if this is Mentum because it's the end of June. We're four races out of five weekends now . So I'm ready for Formula One and I think everybody else is as well. So we'll be live of course on Twitter YouTube, Matt Punton Tommy on Saturday and Sunday. So come and join us there where we watch along to all of the act ion. Tommy final thoughts. Final thoughts, bring on Quali because it's a great track for Quali where we see cars pushing to the limits and trying to stay within those limits, I think could be an exciting one . And yeah, I think FP the first few sessions has kept us guessing quite a bit even though maybe you look at it on paper and go while Antono's walking, see you later. But we shall see. Yeah, I'm sleeping well tonight as a Mercedes fan. Mercedes fan. I genuinely I've got so much free Mercedes merch. I have to wear it occasionally on the podcast. Otherwise I feel bad to not wear it. So here we go. We didn't actually mention that he was P eight , so he was last of the top runners . Oh , I love how you said hating your boy. Didn't clarify. Your boy. Why would I want to talk about that? I mean, we already kind of slightly touched upon it Yeah, it does not seem like he has the feel right now, which is really good. I came into this weekend utterly convinced that we were going to see a bounce back and we still can . All right, he was missing free practice one and I will say when we get to maybe like Singapore if he's still in a bad runner form, yeah, but do you remember free practice one from Austria where he didn't run and lost some really crucial track running? So 'll be like yeah the end of the season the, points deficit term was going to be like, if he hadn't had the only if he had had the FP one in Austria. If only he had, you know, sacrificed less FP one's than everybody else has to do as well. We're being silly. Lots of love. Take care Adios. Bye. Goodbye . Charlotte back was back. It's happening. We're so back. We're so back . P one is a stack production and part of the ACAS Creator Network.