High Tire Degradation and Strategy

Hello everybody and welcome back to the People Podcast with Matt and Tommy Friday Barcelona does it get more frantic ? Well, to be fair, it actually has been. It's been a chaotic day. That's for news, for arguments with the teams and all sorts of stuff, mainly because of Monaco. Let's be real. And a lot to talk about as well free practice one, of course, having seven rookies on track and just generally trying to figure out the pecking order for this weekend's grandprix may be a little bit more difficult than it usually would be . Now before we get into all of that, as I just mentioned, there's been some monoco drama. We've actually done a separate podcast and a video on P one Extra to talk about the Gazley penalty or penalties and that they were both overturned in a lovely special bonus episode. However , it's not done. It's not over because of recording when we did it, of course it was very much reacting to the news. How will the teams feel? Well, the teams feel dreadful as we're about to tell you, because the drama has continued . McLaren and Red Bull have submitted a notification of their intention to appeal. So not appealed but they're going to tell everyone that they are going to appeal. Yeah. So they get ninety six , ninety two, ninety six, twenty four, forty eight, ninety six hours, four days to basically work out whether they're going to actually appeal. They get together all of their information and evidence and so on and so forth, but this is kind of like a heads up by the way guys, we're not happy and we're coming for you and I can see why because of course Red Bull , their protest is because Hydj lost his podium. Oscar Piastry , you know, obviously recorded our reaction to the news, but you know, it's come out now where McLaren obviously appealing as well . And of course, if Piastry gets his penalty overturned, which was five seconds , he would be third place in third place. So can't get it overturned because he served it pretty served it , but they're obviously they're unhappy with with that kind of situation and also the fact that yeah, how do you how do you overturn a penalty because it's been served? Also that Oscar's been shuffled back in the order . So that's that's an issue there . So I guess it has opened a kind of worms to a point , but the argument here will be well , they actually serve the penalty , of course. And that's the kind of issue here . And then of course Russell as well, which we did mention in the video being understandably a bit peeved because of the situation there . Yeah, and there was mention of Toto Wolf, I think in the press conference for team principals mentioning that he was chatting to their lawyers about the whole Russell drive through situation . That seems to me like we want to look like we're doing something about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, rather because they can't really do anything. They can't really do anything, but it's almost like a message to be like yeah, we know. So let's go into a little bit more detail about that because we have some breakdown of what Red Bull have said and what McLaren have said and it's slightly different between the two of them. So Red Bull have said that the timing was consistent all weekend , that the normal process was followed , that teams adjusted their systems according to the process in place and that teams know the method of calculating the pit lane's speed is imperfect. That's Rebels argument or at least headline highlight arguments . As for McLaren, they said there is a well known risk of discrepancies in the pit lane speed calculations. Teams coach their drivers on how to manage this . All teams adjust their processes accordingly and there was conjecture on the issue of shortest distance. And this is a team that literally got penalised for speeding in the pit lane. Yeah, which is crazy because they 're more it's more of the argum ent of fair enough. Oscar got a penalty. So they're not arguing take the five seconds off Oscar. They're saying, well, Oscar served his penalty because it was possible because it was there wasn't trying to argue they're almost saying weirdly, yes, our driver did get a penalty and we served it. And then Red Bull of course . The argument from Red Bull is , well, we did it fine . And there's been no issue there and I guess the argument there is seventeen or however many other drivers didn't get a penalty and that was fine. It's it's a difficult one and yeah I guess the can of worms has been opened in that sense but I would be amazed if anything else changes again and of course we know that it's not the appeal yet it's just the intention to appeal. So yeah I understand why they're they're kind of bummed by the situation , but I think this result will stay but then I thought that last time and it changed. Yeah, the kind of worms we discussed was more looking to the future of how it would maybe change the precedent that's set for penalties where it's actually happened is that the teams have kicked off about this decision. So fascinated to see what happens from here because maybe it's not over, but there's this whole talk of the trophy being transferred over to Alpine, what happens then if this gets overturned then Alpine have to give the trophy back to Hadjar and it could just be a constant game of tennis with this troph y until you know you appeal the appeal they do every weekend when they turn up to the Grand Prix they keep swapping the trophy back Be like us with our award where we were like, You have it for a bit then you, can have it for a bit. That's what it was. Isn't it? So good. Now that's obviously big news, but the biggest news of all is the change to the predictions championship on P one . So of course , Tommy's dad had the most insane prediction that Gasly would be third place in the Monica Grandpur predictions we put out on Wednesday and it came in . I out of the goodness of my own heart gave an allowed two points for that prediction because it is generational , which means it is now six five to the Bellinghams, but no one cares about that. That's the constructive championship The drivers has also changed. The Matt versus Tommy has also changed because Oscar Piasri has now been put down to P five , which means I get a bang on Foot P what that's good. So now twenty two So you initially got one point now it's two points so the extra point will take it will take it like if I lose the constructors everyone talks about the drivers right so look that, that's's what we've always said . So yeah, twenty two, nineteen to you, Tommy. The comeback is on and screw all of you that's head on social after I had the absolute howling weekend and Tommy was amazing. Was it Japan? And it was like, oh, it's all over. It's done. The championship's finished, well the comeback is on and I've never been more competitive in my life So let's get into free practice one shall we? We're the top three we're Russell Piatri Leclerc but of course lot of drivers missing, full time drivers that is and rookie drivers in their place. So we had Dina Baganovich in the Ferrari, Leonardo Funeroli at McLaren, Colton Herter went into the Cadillac, Frederick Vesti was in, I should say, in Kim Yantinelli's car, I think it was Hamilton that sat out, it was Arlando Norris that sat out, it was Sergio Perez that sat out. Kimi Antonelli, and then you have Auma Uasa who took the place of Hada Hagar . Luke Browning in the Williams he took the place of Albon, I believe. And then finally Paul Aron who, took the place of Nika Holkenberg for Audi. So lots of changes and I love to see it. I actually really enjoy. And I don't know if it's because they kind of struggle a bit and they don't just look on rails like most of the drivers do , but I love riding on board with a rookie just figuring out a Formula One car. Like it just it just is really fun to watch . Like Colton Herter in the, of course, dust bin that is the Cadillac currently, you know, and especially around this track as well that is appearing to be very, very difficult for the drivers to be on the limit, which is exactly what we want to see. That nimbleness that we've discussed since the start of the season, I feel like we're seeing this more than ever around here. Yeah, definitely onboard the drivers we used to kind of see this now where drivers make their debut and FP one session . But perhaps you know in the eras of kind of infinite downforce and the ground effect , we didn't see as many crosy moments and now yeah, they're really wrestling the cars thrown at the deep end an era obv,iously a lot of them will have been on simulators and things, but a lot of them of course wouldn't have driven this style of car at all . So it's fascinating to watch. And yeah, the most part part and unsurprisingly, you know , a long way off their their full time teammates, apart from Paul Aaron who did a fantastic job in the audi has to be said . Yes, he was quite literally on the ragged edge. I remember seeing the lap that he put in or at least the off board of him coming over the line he finished P six in that session which is phenomenal work less than a second off russell, but my God he was driving quite literally like his career depended on it. And it kind of does, right? These kind of moments are something that's so few and far between . But Aaron did a brilliant job. Meanwhile, Bortileto was complaining of all kinds of problems in his audi of lack of grip and so on. So brilliant performance. Love the way of good surprise waterless and he's been outpaced by someone in . I think the point the appointment will be if he wins the race winner it's over. And also I want to say a little heartfelt shout out to Luke Browning, who had his opportunity , but didn't because there was an electrical fault with his car, which meant he did zero laps, which is just devastating for him. You know, you wait, it's like a Christmas day and you wake up and there's no presence. That's quite literally just that just you're building yourself up, you're ready, you're ready for this moment to step up and try and show the world what you're capable of and then nothing . Yeah, it's absolutely getting for him Williams with problems again. Carlos broke down right at the start of the session with a problem and it's Mercedes powered car again having all these issues not Kim berly not Kim Antinelli which is something that yeah I've seen a lot of people mention on socialed media that pretty much every sing le car and driver combo in those Williams sorry in the Mercedes with the Mercedes Power have had quite a lot of issues this year. And Kimmy so far had zero but gutting for Luke Browning to basically have that moment where you get to go out, you get to drive a Formula One car during a weekend. Yes, it's not a competitive session, but you' re there in front of all the Formula One bosses and everything and showing what you can do and you look at something like Paul Aaron's lap and you know that is a chance to impress other teams and people will be taking not e and going oh wow that's you know really impressive and Paul Luke Browning didn't get to do any of that . I'm sure he'll have another opportunity yeah hopefully later on in the season of course I think it's four times that the drivers get all the rookies get an opportunity across the year. So fingers crossed Williams give him an opportunity later down the line and also I'm pretty sure these drivers have to pay for this opportunity as well. So I'm really hoping he gets a refund on his money because he literally didn't do any laps. So that would be crazy if not. Let's go to free practice two then where the three fastest drivers were Norris, Russell and Piastry and we have quite a interesting lineup right now. McLaren starting to stretch their legs a little bit showing signs of by the way, that Miami performance. Yeah, we'll do it again , but we'll wait a little bit and then we'll come back in Barcelona. Am I surprised to see them towards the front? No, I wanted to put Lando as my P three prediction, but you stole him away from me so went for Max and Rebel don't look as . There's a question from Craig Tilly ninety five . Are Mercedes sandbagging ? Or are we now expecting things to be this close between Mercedes and McLaren . Good . Honestly, I think just below just sorry, so this is probably my second most hated word now in a formula one. The first one also beginning with Super Clipping. And then you have sandbagging . They are not sandbagging. We had Kimmy Antonelli missing free practice once. Of course, he's kind of building up for free practice too . And then on the other side of the garage, you have George Russell who is quite literally nine thousand of a second off the fastest time Lando Norris and also we have seen moments where McLaren are incredibly quick. We need a new word for sandbagging where it's it's like unintentional where they're just kind of running their own program and they're like hiding not hiding, but they're not hiding what they've got, but it's like we've not seen the best of them yet because soundbagging makes it sound like they're deliberately kind of going really quick . They're not hiding performance necessarily. Yeah, I wonder what that word could be driving around and not pushing. Not pushing. Yeah. Yeah , let's just all say, Armos not pushing or are we now expecting and the answer is yes . Yeah, I mean, look, it's a very hot weekend in Barcelona. And we know I mean,, I say we know, from many years gone by , when Mercedes dominated back in the last sort of twenty fourteen onward start of the hybrid era, the one thing I always remember is when it was really hot , they were n't as good . So maybe they're back in the pack this weekend. What'd you say? Maybe it's the heat. Yeah, maybe but McLaren, I'm not surprised either that they're as good as they are. I think at the end of the day, Monaco is a complete outlier. It's so different to anything else there. We knew Ferrari would probably be the ones more likely to challenge Mercedes and McLaren, which of course was the case . And as for McLaren, you know, they were improving a lot throughout the season. And let's not forget that before they stuck on the inters at Canada, they were looking very good as well. And we were going McLaren are now the closest team to Mercedes. So McLaren had been catching up all the time . Maybe this is a case where they've found something a little more , but yeah, this is the case where like we've seen McLaren challenging for two victories this year in Miami and Japan. So they have an opportunity to do it again if they a great start or can get near the front and stick with the Mercedes. It's going to be incredibly tough and I do think Mercedes still have the best package and we've not seen the best of them, particularly Antonelli who has not had the greatest obsessions still trying to find his form a little bit after missing FP one , but I don't see it being a case famous last words, although I hope for the championship's sake it is that the Mercedes are kind of on the back foot. I don't see that at all. No, me neither, but if they are, if McLaren are in with a shout, then it's a great weekend ahead of us because I think we both believe that Mercedes were going to be pretty clear here because they always say a car can't hide around the circuit of Barcelona and Catalunia but that was the phrase I was looking for when I said car heavy . Yeah, I saw some people being like car dependent that's the house heavy is just yeah. That's that's like us using like podcasting as a preferred . Okay, let's move on to another question. P one Patreon member RNB She . Has Russell found his groove again? Think similar to the McLaren situation here, Monaco was a crazy race where he completely butchered qualifying and then everything went wrong for him after that with his penalties and his drivethrough and everything . And even at the start, you know, being stuck by Hadja, which meant he ended up a lap down, that wasn't due to pace at the end of the day. And you go back to Canada a more normal circuit and Russell was challenging he won the sprint. He's challenging for the victory. Do think Antonelli was fastest like faster in that Canadian grand prix but Russell was able to challenge for that win and could easily have won that race before his car broke down. So I do think like Russell being completely washed and finished is completely over exagger ated this year . He of course isn't driving his best. You cannot doubt that. Antony's been the better driver there definitely has . And it's not to discredit him, but I do think that Russell , you know, has been nowhere near as bad as people making out and obviously the points deficit in the championship. There's a lot more context to that than just Russell's ability and driving . Yeah, he's not been finishing on the road and and it like actually being sixty eight points behind Kim Yantinelli. He's he's not finished the last two races . Monaco I. mean he's so unlucky for what how it all unfolded and the fact that he scored no points. You know, without that and the crazy pitlane speed limit stuff, he's finishing third. Canada , second at worst and then all of a sudden the points gap is I don't know, like now thirty odd rather than sixty eight. So I think to set to talk about his groove it's hard to I don't think that's the right thing to analyse at this stage because he has shown a lot of pace this year. It's just not gone his way . So I firmly believe he'll be in with a shout of the win this weekend and is not necessarily finding his groove. I think it's just finding a bit of luck and just having a reliable car smooth weekend . Yeah, exactly. So fingers crossed for him and for the championship. He's able to do that. Next question, people on patreon remember Alara, does Charles look more on par with Lewis at this stage with his new breaks? Okay, it's Friday guys. It is Friday . Please can we all relax? I love this question. This person has to be a Charlie Leclerc fan because they've asked with Hamilton down in ninth one point two seconds offlando Norris and Charl er up in fourth, three tenths behind. It's a it's a pretty gargantuan gap . But that being said, I really am not going to go anywhere near this question until we've seen a qualifying session at the very least Yeah, it's I think it's from a Chauleclerc perspective, it's good in the fact that he didn't reach all the highlights of the free practice sessions today of him going into the gravel, snatching breaks and so on and so forth. Does he look lightning quick? No, doesn't look like Ferrari are lightning quick. But that being said, I would love to get hopeful that Charl can start to build some confidence again in that car after the last two Grand Prix being disasters , but it's a little too early to say, I think definitely you can't compare Hamilton's Lapatore. Obviously missed FP one and equally, you know, there's there's no way he's almost a second off Leclerc when they're actually, you know, competitive running absolutely no ch ance. So it's more the moral kind of question here is has Leclerc's brake troubles kind of turned it around for him and he's feeling more confident and I guess the only thing you can take from it is yeah we're not, having radio mess ages of him saying oh my god the brakes are awful. This is the worst thing ever like we were at Monica you know he was absolutely fuming about that and now he's changed it which is a huge thing to do and yeah he,' hes not's not had that that kind of issue where we're hearing loads of radio messages . Speaking of radio messages though, something I would love to bring up that was Lewis Hamilton who felt like the rear part of his car was dragging along the straight and Ferrari decided to give us almost another it must be the water moment and said it must be the wind and it was like I do know what they were trying to say about the way when compressing the car and stuff, but like I did find it quite funny that it wasn't exactly it must be but it gave me it must be the water vibes massively . So yeah, Hamilton had a few struggles of his own trying to figure out what was going on with the car, but yeah, it's Ferrari just know how to just produce banging team radiation. I do feel a little sorry for them that obviously because of international broadcast ing, they have to speak in a language that they they're not chatting about all the time. Obviously they're all very competent English, but it does mean that sometimes like things are worded in such a way in the mistranslation and the kind of the way it's being said makes them very memable, doesn't it? Yeah, I don't even have a second language in the locker, so I can't even comment but exactly. It does make for some meme worthy moments, that's for sure. Next question, Polsky Poleak underscore two is a three stop on the cards. The tire deg across the field looks quite bad. It was very bad. We heard Lewis Hamilton, the engineer on the radio speaking of Ferrari radio saying that the deg is high for everyone three tenths per lap. You know, we were seeing we're seeing insane. It's insane. And the soft tyre tenth drop off a lap. Yeah, and the soft tyres were going in one lap. You know, so that we could see them potentially even doing the mediums. They're not going to want to use the hards didn't look great. But obviously equally if the softs only last like one lap, they can't they have to have to do the mediums. They can't just do both mediums because they need to use two compounds. So this is very fascinating. I think this is the most fascinating part of the race is that we are going to have a lot of strategy. It's going to , you know, if it continues to be this hot , please , and the tyre deg is as insane as we've seen it. I can confirm it is going to continue to be hot. So that scenario's out the window. So they are getting hot weather. So if they don't sort the tyre de dgreig out and it is the same as what they think, you know, we could be seeing like a F one twenty twelve Parelli race at this rate. The one stops coming, bro. After you said that now, the tyres are just going to miraculously be the greatest, most greatest thing ever . Yeah , accidentally will win, but doing like fifty seven laps on the media exactly. Yeah, it'd be fine. Yeah, so it very much seems like the Soft Tars will not be a race tire at all . So yeah, it's the mediums and the hards. Interestingly, Perelli to try and force this exact scenario brought a step softer this weekend . So it's in the mid range the C two C three C fours . So I like that. I like the fact they've done it because Parelli are very cautious when it comes to tire degradation. I think after they've seen today's running they'll be going, oh god we should have brought the harder compounds because yeah they were shredding . But that's what that from a viewer's perspective sign me up. If we can get a two, three stop , then yeah, we'll have a lot of moments in the race that we can look forward to. So yeah, let's keep an eye on that one, but it does very much look like it's going to be pretty warm the entire weekend . And that is it. That is our recap of practice done and dusted. Of course the chat as well about Pierre Gasly and the on going conversation there. Tommy , final thoughts, please. Final thoughts absolutely cannot wait for qualifying tomorrow. I think we've got a really fascinating race, which is not what you normally say about Barcelona and Catalonia and the circuit is a circuit that's obviously been heavily criticized by us . And yeah, I'm really looking forward to it because if it is the case where the soft tyres can't even do a lap, we maybe see people gambling on mediums and things and who knows what's going to happen. So yeah, bring it on and join us for the watch along tomorrow. Look forward. Indeed. Join us tomorrow. My final thought is pray for my inner lip because I accidentally bit it two days ago, eating dinner and it is getting slightly larger by the day. So hopefully you haven't noticed a slight lisp that's going on, but I've been trying to talk around it, Tommy. God, I wouldn't even noticed so good. That's good 'cause I notice it in my own face. So I'm glad I'm glad it's not. I just thought you had some lip what? Charming. I need some lip fillers. All right, see you soon. Bye D one is a stack production and part of the ACAS Creator Network