George Russell Pole and McLaren Pace

Hello everybody and welcome back to the B one podcast with Matt and Tommy . I don't want to do this one I don't I don't fancy it. I'm not I'm not in the mood. I'm really not in the mood Tommy. I don't shut up. I don't see this is why you know , you know, you're P five and you're you're stratting around the place like you 're happy as Larry, but I'll take a B five right now, that's for sure. But welcome everybody. We're going to talk about qualifying for the Barcelona Catalonia Grand Prix and a great qualifying session to some degree . It was depending on who you support of course. And yeah, it was surprisingly entertaining. I think qualifying has obviously been under quite a lot of scrutiny this year, but good battle for Pole and very close battle for Pole indeed. Indeed, but we begin at the very beginning with Q one where the bottom six were Ocon, Albon, Perez, Botas, Stroll , and Alon So by the emphasis on stroll , this is the first time in forty three Grand Prix that Lance Stroll has outqualified Fernando Alonso for the main weekend, right? That's my understanding. Like spiritual weekend break qualifying yeah for the proper one, the big boy one so that is a record that is now shattered in pieces . It was a small margin between Stroll and Alonso literally in their own league but in a bad league. I'm talking about the bottom league. They were league a second off cadillac those two fighting around in quite literally the Dustbin League. But Lance Stroll mate, Fernando Alonso's home track to be out qualified is simply to be fair, as much as we're kind of like jesting like ha ving I reckon Fernando was actually devast ated. Yeah, Alonso will be hurt by it because he loves to share the fact that he absolutely whitewashed his people in qualifying and things . Have you seen what Lance Troll said afterwards? He was absolutely buzz about it. He was asked in the media pen . This is from Nate Saunders. He asked Lance Stroll how he felt about Fran Dolante's forty two race qualifying street being over and Lance Starl's reaction was, I don't care. And then he asked what it would mean if it would mean more if the team were up in Q two or Q three and he said, I don't know, I don't give an S. Ah, so that's very someone that does give an S in like a it's quite an embarrassing record to have finally broken rather than just obviously just how bad Aster Mine are. They're just all sick of it, aren't they? Yeah, they really are. And if the rumour is anything to go by, Alonzo might be off to Alpine, which again, back to Alpine , to be reunited with Flavio Briatori. That's the last thing that we've heard is that they're pushing very hard to get Fernando at that team, but that is a question in itself, isn't it? Of to be fair, there is a question around the Fernando Longsa retirement, which we'll go into now from PON Patreon member Rosie R angetu , what are the chances we see a Fernando retirement announcement in the near future? Aston is still at the back of the pack and I have no doubt he's gutted qualifying last at his home r ace. I think it would have been a very sobering experience for Fernando to just be there qualifying literally last. That's something he's even at Minardi, he was doing great things and able to not start on the back row of the grid . But in this car , it's impossible. In this current regulation, it's impossible . So I don't see him retiring off the back of this season as much as, you know, my pre season prediction was around Aston being terrible and Flander retiring . You can't be turning your back on the, you know, the career that you love so dearly on worst season , not from his, you know, it's not his fault but just the worst season he could have possibly imagined . Now the question is around you know does he go to Alpine Is that even an option? Does he stay with Aston Martin? Because you know, you go to Alpine if that is a genuine possibility which seems to be the case , you are solidifying like maybe a chance of some scraps of points . Or do you stick with Aston Martin and Adrian Newie, who Lawrence Stroll has brought in specially to try and keep Fernando there , to then bin them off after a season because they're terrible . I don't know, I feel as though Fernando would probably still lean more towards staying at Aston Martin because he wants to win a world championship. He wants to win races. He wants to be on the podium. And are Alpine going to be able to do that in the next year? I don't think so . No, they're certainly not going to be able to. And let's not forget Fernand o Alonso left in the first place. His first retirement was because and doing Lemon and Indicar and things like that was because he wanted to just win again and he wanted to know what that feeling was like because he himself said, well, if you're not driving a Mercedes or a McLaren or a Red Bull, you can't win or whatever so like any of those top cars and he's not going to have an option to go to any of those top cars again . And Alpine is basically yeah, him fighting for maybe he can still show what he can do and get the odd P seven or maybe like a crazy podium like Gasly has done in those moments , but is that enough for him? I personally think it is. I could see him leaving Aston Martin. He loves to hop around teams. It would be his fourth time at Alpine. He's got the connection there with Flavio Briatore and he doesn't want to end his career. I think Ash Martin is an absolute dumpster fire at the moment. I think this is just getting worse and worse. They're not going anywhere. They are so far behind Cadillac . I don't see any progress, the mood of both drivers and just everyone in the team makes it feel like they're not going anywhere. So I don't think even the joy of thinking about Oh, Adrian knew he's going to find this magic thing like a double diffuser and suddenly we're going to be amazing. I just I really don't see that happening even with Fernando Alonso's luck. I mean, watch Alonso's luck that they're amazing next year if he does leave. But I just don't don't see it happening and Naser Martin are getting worse if not better . They've not made any improvement and Cadillac are there fighting almost getting into that kind of Williams territory and house . Naser Martin are doing absolutely nothing, so it's a shame for him to end his career this way and even more embarrassing for it to happen at Barcelona because he'd been dreaming about this moment, probably thinking that I could win this race in January, for example, when everyone was actually hyping them up, Adrian knew a, what can they do? And now he's last literally last First time in his career, qualified last, obviously without any technical issues and so on and so forth , which is not a stat I think he ever would have wanted to have . And then also, you know, with this whole Aston Martin thing, like it's just that the whole situation within the team is that it's so unclear, isn't it as to whether they will find a solution? Because it's such a massive solution they need to find and you mentioned the rear diffuser or like coming up with something crazy. It's an engine rig. Like there's only so much you can do with the aero these days to make up the time. It's all about the power really. The chassis not great either for Aston Martin as we know . But yeah, they've just got so many limitations at the moment that I think they can make big improvements, you know they 're a second behind Kadillac around the track where no car can hide. So they are clearly miles off and I feel like they can make big steps towards the midfield , but then to get to take that extra step towards the top four teams seems nigh on impossible. So it's a very difficult decision for Fernando to make. That is for sure. Let's now go to Q two where the bottom six was Lindblad, Botoleto, Colopinto, Gasly, Behmann, and Signs . Big talking point of course Nikol Holmberg not mentioned because he made it to Q three for the first time this season very, very well deserved after all of those eleventh places. He finally made it . Avid Limblad, I think will be a little bit disappointed albeit, you know , P eleven , P ten , that's kind of all he was going to be maybe fighting Lawson for P nine. That's all that was on the on the table for for the midfield today because the top four teams again miles clear. So I don't think Arguably too disappointed but I think he made a mistake on his final lap because he was sitting very pretty ahead of Lawson after the first runs but then wasn't able to improve because of that last lap . Novicab looked very strong this year. Lawson has been brilliant. Has to be said. And yeah, I think Limblad would have definitely got through had it worked out for him and had the pace to . But yeah, Holkenberg snuck through and yeah it's a missed opportunity of course he is eleventh so still not outrageously bad because had he got through he's probably finishing well some,one finished tenth. We'll talk about him later, but obviously like at the back end of God I love him about the top four teams and yeah it was a fight for P nine and P ten was actually fighting Lawson got PS sorry exactly cool cool. for Thanks reminding me really. I genuinely had popped out of my head for a second . But yeah , it was interesting to see that of course Bortoleto P twelve for him, not too disappointing. Then the two alpines Colopinto of course out qualifying Gazley which in the head to head there looking Colopinto's looking pretty pretty good this this season especially when we thought of the pressure that he might be feeling coming into twenty twenty six. Then you have Berman who out qualified Occan we didn't mention in Q one actually Occan of course out in the first part of qualifying and feel as though again that pressure will start to ramp up on his shoulders. I think neither of us Tomm,y can, feel like we will see Esteban on the grid next year. That is a really horrible and sad thing for us to say because we both really like him, but it seems that is the case just when you look at the performances he's putting down in comparison to Ollie . Definitely. I really can't see how Ocon turns us around and if he's not happy with being beaten by Bearman, which I imagine he's not, you know, I don't think he's I think he's kind of this this was his opportunity to, you know, move away from Alpi and find a new team that he could settle into and really enjoy. And I don't think that's happening at House and obviously Behman has been comfortably better this the season and it was a huge margin in qualifying again. So yeah, I really can't see Ocon kind of being in Formula One next year sadly for him and his fans but yeah you mentioned Colop into, they're now level Colopinto and Gasly and the head in qualifying if you include the Sprints which I think is a great achievement for Colopinto when qualifying was the thing that really let him down beforehand and was kind of meant he had such poor races before and having quite a strong season, but still it's not really where Alpine want to be when it looked like they were on the fringes. There's been some races where Alpien are just in a league of their own that being ahead of the midfield obviously still know where near the top teams , but yeah , not where they want to be down in like thirteenth and fourteenth. Right. Let's move on to Williams. Signs, of course, just scraping through the Q two. Albon did not make it. Poo on Patreon member Tony Soprano asks are we allowed to criticize James vows yet? He sells a good message, but it's debatable whether Williams are really much better than when he took over. I think Williams were completely in the mud. You've got to think how bad it was was for Williams. They were the kind of laughing stock of Formula One very much at the back . And I do think they've improved even if you hadn't seen what they've done last year and the year before , even taking it taking that out of it. There is some slight improvement. That being said, I think James Vows , yeah, it is an embarrassing look that they really kind of sold the dream of this season incredible , you know, of course the infamous quote of break everything. It doesn't matter it's all about twenty six and now they've gone into twenty six and they are the worst team with a Mercedes Engine by far. They're really struggling . I think I think Aston Martin in a weird way are saving the blushes of Williams a little bit because they would be the biggest talking point for maybe like the biggest flop of the season so far had it not been for Aston Martin . I've got to say we spoke about kind of Ocon and we're talking about Van Dolonso moving on. I think science is an interesting piece in the puzzle as well because I could see him already kind of thinking about a move and thinking that he doesn't want to be wasting his talents at the back because this was a big promise for Williams to improve. And if seats do start opening up elsewhere , I could also see Carlos moving on . Yeah, so could I. I feel like Williams unless they came out the blocks close to podiums , Carlos was always going to look around. I think it was always going to be a stop gap unless Williams and James Fowles were able to do something incredibly incredibly good, but they've not. They've gone massively backwards from a season where Carlos was on the podium literally last year of course very different regulations but, twice Yeah, Carlos was probably thinking , all right, maybe maybe I have cooked here. Maybe maybe I am in the right spot . You then come to this year, you know, they miss the start of pre season testing. They're on the back foot . I don't think it's a case. It's not like it's news to us though, right? Williams have been on the backfoot and I feel as though the criticism came at the start of the year and I think we were accepting of the fact that Williams will be bad this year. To sort of start slandering them now when they are still bad, I think is I don't know it's not like much has changed. So we knew they were going to be pretty poor. They are going to be poor. Let's sort of I think for James Vowles , he has so many qual ities that are excellent as a team leader because we don't know what goes on behind the scenes. We don't know what he's like at actually dividing the teams up into an efficient way of pushing a team forward but everything you see outside of that he's you know, he's fantastic on camera. Everything's you know seems like he can communicate really well which is obviously very important . I would say we judge him more so for next year now like we have judged him. We've said , God, that's terrible. What have you done? If he can sort of get them on a decent trajectory, and Williams have shown a small amount of pace for a team that we both just wrote off at the start of the year like they're just going to be awful and they also accepted coming into this weekend that it would probably be a bad weekend for them. So I don't know. I'm not here to critic maybe because I just really like James Valves, but I also I don't think it's the time yet to kind of heap another load of it on where nothing really can change in this small amount of time No, they need to they need to improve though throughout the season, particularly if they want to keep someone like Carlos Science on board. I think I think we need to see improve ments of them potentially getting ahead of like an alpine or looking like they can score regular points Absolutely right, if we have to, it is now time for Q three . Where the top ten were Russell, Hamilton, Antonelli, Norris, Verstappen, Hagar, Piatri, Lawson, Hulkenberg , Leclerc Hm , no time for Leclerc Yeah, Charlac rashed? He did . He crashed He said crash in two weeks . , this one I don't really have any defense. I really don't I think this was an incredibly poor showing from Leclerc this weekend Monaco , you know, and Canada to a degree, right? You know, he's very vocal on the brakes are just not working. The brakes are really inconsistent and when we've sort of rolled through practice this weekend, it's clear that Leclerc has a lot more confidence under braking and was competitive from his times. Like he was in with a shout of poll position today . The mistake that he made , he's he said in the post race post quality interview sorry, several times that he was ashamed of what he put down . And yeah, it is an incredibly poor show ing on the first run to Binnett. He has one small correction , but he commits to it. He think he took ten kilometers now more speed into that right hander to try and gain a bit of time that Ferrari were losing in turn four . Don't mind that. He's pushing it's Q three, you're on the limit . But something that I know that he will also regret massively is committing after that first snap, he tries to commit again to that same lap despite it being his bank collap territory . This is make sure you're in the top five. Then we go then we go ham punch then did go ham Yeah Yeah. Yeah, well like yeah, like Monaco exactly . And instead he goes flying into the wall and loses any opportunity to have a shout at winning the race tomorrow. Who knows what Ferrari's race pace is going to be like, but I think it's going to be quite an interesting chaotic one. You got the two Mercedes drivers that I feel like they're going to fight. You've got Hamilton right up there with a phenomenal performance and Leclerc's down in tenth and he's got so much work to do just to get through the other drivers that aren't necessarily that much slower. McLaren aren't that much slower, Max isn't that much slower. I think even Hadgar put a decent lap on the board to cause a lot of problems for Leclerc trying to come through tomorrow. So yeah, that was one of the worst mistakes he's made in a while because there's nothing there's no cope. I can't cope with this one literally because he's gone flying into the wall for a driver error. Yeah, there's no excuses with this one, which obviously we've heard a handful of excuses for the most recent races and things. But as you mentioned, it's, I think, even more shocking that in Monaco, we had this discussion of like a well he goes for his banker lap and then he just throws it all on the table and kind of goes crazy with it and he is the kind of driver that in this is how he seems to drive is like risk versus reward, all risk. If I crash, I crash. And he does that in Monaco , but this is his kind of banker lap to get in, and it's insane that he's gone that crazy that early on and I think that's a very good point there that it's the kind of thing it's a big error to do that so early in the session when you've not even got a time on the board because had you got a time on the board and he does it later on, you know, at least that there's such a chasm between the other cars that at least he's kind of making up a good few spots and it might even go from bad to worse because the state of the car he, might have to start from the pit lane. I don't know, right? You know, his gearbox might be munched, even though of course it's you know, he went in nose first but still it was still a big impact. I think it was over twenty five G because the medical car was called out. So it was a big crash. Glad to see him walk away unharmed and you know the only thing he was concerned about was the fact he'd crash. So glad to see he's all fit and healthy . But yeah a really tough one to kind of try and process. There's a question from People on Patreon member Cubitza would save Ferrari . Seriously, is it a time to worry about all Sharl crashes ? I think it's been a thing to worry about for a while and I think it's even more extreme now . A lot of people are saying that this is his third crash in three competitive sessions. It's his fourth and four weekends if you include Miami as well. And the only weekend that he's not crashed in recently is Canada, which was of course a horrendous race and he almost went into the world championship. The one where we would have kind of fair enough, you went into the war in Canada because you hated your brakes, but that's the one place he didn't crash. Exactly. And he's had an absolute shocker and can't sugarcoat it. I've defended Charlotte think he's an incredibly top driver, but no other top driver crashes anywhere near as much as he does. There's no other driver that has such an enormous kind of crash compilation . And there's all for him trying to overcome the deficit maybe of Ferrari not quite being there or things like that. They were there today. They were there. They were there and you see they were exactly. And you see what Lewis Hamilton has done. And Charlotte Cler , this form and this amount of crashing is something we expect from drivers in maybe their second like first, second or third season. Like he is far too much of an experienced driver to be crashing this much and it's not a good look at all and I don't think it helps anyone because it piles even more pressure on him and there's just nothing to I know it's crashing on purpose but it's literally a case of like you need to like reign it back even if you're three tenths off Hamilton or a couple of tenths off Hamilton. You don't need to be flying into corners like ten kilometers an hour quicker than you did last time try and make up a defic it because you're risk crushing and it just keeps happening again and again and again. And this is , I have to say like probably one of like the lowest moments in Leclerc's career I think for these racism. There's a lot of question marks that have come out of it and people that questioning is he as good as people have been saying because his form has been really poor . Yes, he is excellent . I will say that . One of the reasons why , you know , I support Chaude Clare and love to see him drive is the fact that he will risk it all in qualifying in particular, right? You know, he is on his day probably the fastest driver over one lap. The problem is his days are not particularly they're very few and far between this season . Whether he's just not getting on with these new regs of cars or whatever it might be, it's it's a lot of crashes. I think that if he was at any other team, I'd be like, God, he really needs to stop doing that otherwise his seat might be under threat. I feel like Charlie's very much Ferrari's golden boy that he'd have to do so much in order for Ferrari to even cont emplate getting rid of him. I don't know, if as much as we talk about credit in the bank with Max Verstappen and Lewis Hamilton, this that and the other, Charlac doesn't have enormous amount of credit in the bank when it comes to actual accolades. You know, he's on eight vict ories. It's not like he has an insane amount but then he's also been up against Ferrari and the cars that they've given him for many seasons . So I'm not yeah, I'm kind of worried for this season with how much he's crashing. I'm not worried for like his career as such , but I would just like to see a consistent run of just competitive sessions now where he doesn't crash just a nice clean race tomorrow P ten to P four Great ten out of two drive rings . Yeah, I mean I would I would argue it helps him being at Ferrari because he's almost gets like a little bit of a free pass sometimes of like oh classic Ferrari even when he's made mistakes himself and I think like in a weird way sometimes he can like lean on that whole like a ferrari haven't delivered the best car and it kind of like saves him a little bit from that side and I think that's probably what a lot of people will be thinking as well . Speaking of what people might be thinking question from the v ocal hero . How must Brembo be feeling right now? Brembo breaks, of course , they're getting so much publicity at the moment because of Charles's comments about them over the last couple of weekends and now Charles changing over to Lewis Hamilton's breaks for this weekend. How must they be feeling? Well, look , they will probably just be feeling quite vulnerable and hurt anyway because of what Char l saidotte about them. And it's not as petty as are sharles in the wall Brembo brakes on top . That's not what they're thinking. That would be insane. And also slander tweet from them . But also it's nothing to do with the brakes. It's not like he locked up and went in the wall. It was all about power delivery and how eager he was on the throttle. So the Brembo Brakes conversation, there's nothing to be said here or anything to really be gained from Bremb o because it was not an under braking mistake . Yeah, yeah, exactly right. It was nothing to do with the brakes. So Brembo aren't going to be there going, Oh, we feel really smug or anything like that. They don't want to see a driver crashing. They'd much rather have a team to supply brakes for and they'd much rather have Charlotte using their brakes than equally Lewis Hamilton using their brakes, which he's chosen not to do. But yeah, it's one of those things where a lot of people jumped on that fact I think rightly so because I guess the crashes in Monaco , however you how much you contribute to driver error or things there were plenty of videos of him locking up into corners and things and really struggling with them , but the fact that he's changed it and then gone into the wall , yes, it's not anything to do with those, but it kind of it's not a bit of an embarrassing look when it's kind of a, you know, there aren't any excuses this time nothing to do with the brakes, so you know an embarrassing look for something completely unrealistic Yeah. So let's go to another question. Springbird seven has a rejuvenated Lewis gotten into Charles' head? Is he pushing too hard in an attempt to prove something . Maybe it's a bit of Lewis's improvement and how Charl can see what can be got out of that car and maybe based on last year and maybe his performance against someone like Sebastian Bell that may be deep down, he truly believes that while I can elevate that even further and be able to go even quicker . And obviously with that he is over driving the car massively. I do think Hamilton's form has got something to do with it, but I don't think it's the complete absolute number one factor. I think it's just that Schulz is over driving the car . He's trying to hard probably the fact that this season started so well with the whole like race starts. It could have potentially won the first race. There's a lot of hy pe over testing and it's kind of same old story with his season and not able to challenge for the championship . So I don't think it's all because of Lewis Hamilton, but I do think it 's certainly a factor that Hamilton being able to get more out of the car is making Schull push even more and knowing that he can find more of what he's doing. Yeah, definitely. I think the fact is, yes, he is pushing too hard, otherwise he wouldn't be making these mistakes . And Hamilton has to be a factor. I agree that there's a multitude of things going on here. I think Charlotte just generally wants to win. He wants to take it to the Mercedes that do have a competitive advantage in my opinion that even around here with the fact Lewis got close still think Mercedes are the car to be. So Leclerc offer run a back of poor weekends . He wants to do something big. He wants to make a statement and a standout performance and this is what's happened. Another mistake and the, you know, the headlines for the wrong reasons continue. So yeah, I think I think Hamilton being quick absolutely is putting pressure on Leclerc. It'd be I think it'd be silly to say otherwise because it's Charles' backyard. Hamilton's come into Charleclerc's team and he's already doing a brilliant job this year is Lewis. So let's talk a little bit more about him with a question from Mr Bear fifteen . Where did that final lap from L ewis Hamilton come from? It was a lap of the ages. Hamilton could well have been on poll. I think there was a small discrepancy in energy deployment towards the line. I know you'll be enjoying that one. Ben a superclipic no. We won't say that word , but it was when you look at the onboard, when you look at the comparison between Hamilton and Russell, Hamilton's lap was better. Of course Ferrari pretty good in the slower speed corners, there's not many of them around Barcelona, but you could see there was a bit of an advantage there . It was just on the straits where Hamilton loses a bit of time I think in turn ten. I think it is the left hander . He lost a bit of time, had a bit of a correction, which one hundred percent cost him poll, but even out of there he was up going into the final corner he was marginally ahead of Russell , but you can hear it and Kurin Chandok I think took us through it really nicely in the fact that you can hear the engine note between Hamilton and Russell . There was kind of the consideration that it was because Hamilton lifted a bit too much around the final corner. I think it might well be that and also the fact that he didn't have as much energy to deploy to the line is difficult because I think both would cause the same engine note to sort of have that bogged down sort of sound. Could you compare it to Russell and it's and it is totally very different . So yeah, a shame for Hamilton would have been an awesome thing to see him on pole position for tomorrow but I mean look he has a front row start in a fast starting Ferrari that maybe isn't as far starting as they were at the start of the season, but I am intrigued to see if any of that advantage still exists when it is such a massively long run down towards turn one . Definitely his lap was absolutely incredible. You know, we saw in FP three . He was a long way off, did not realize that his straight mode was a problem there because we didn't get to see what actually he could do with the NFP three . And it was a surprise that we kind of went into the session thinking it was probably going to be a case of Mercedes going for poll position and could McLaren ch allenge them and it's Hamilton that almost yeah got Poll , not even just the closest challenger to Mercedes, you know, well clear of Antonelli and so nearly pipping Russell who was phenomenal and kind of almost looked a little bit unbeatable, I think Russell with how it was kind of going that that session . So Hamilton again, like his race pace and him on a Sunday is the best of Lewis Hamilton. Qualifying, he's got so many polls, but it's not like his strongest asset, I guess. So the fact that he's now qualifying well as well is incredible for him because I think he's going to definitely challenge up there and if he gets a good run whether he can get into George Russell's slipstream or there I say the two mercs are thinking about each other and their championship fight . You never know Lewis Hamilton. I'm not going to I'm not going to say that you know',s going he to win the world championship, but I think it's a really interesting fact and a situation . If the Mercedes do keep fighting like this and Lewis Hamilton, we know how consistent he is and that is what he's been so good at why he's won so many world championships is that kind of consistency and how impressive he is over a full season . He might keep picking up a lot of points that the Mercedes drivers can't, you know , kind of get him out their head and can't just think, Oh well actually Mercedes are clear. It's just a two horse race. So I'm really intrigued to see what Hamilton can do tomorrow. I'm very excited for it. Yeah, I think he's probably the favorite to lead into turn one. I think Antoni is going to have a great shout as well because of starting P three long run down towards turn one can get in the slipstream if he gets a decent start. It's a question from people on Pat remreemberon RMB Sheep. Where is Antonelli's pace this week? Three tenths off Russell is the complete opposite of what we have seen recently. He's been on the back foot, absolutely for sure. Like Antonelli has not looked anywhere ne asar comfortable course. Of, he missed FP one because Vesti was doing that kind of rookie kind of allocation . But even for the rest of the weekend didn't look quite there yet. He thought he'd ramp up in FP three and then he got a lot of traffic in FP three which he was absolutely fuming about. He was really really frustrated by it and it obviously puts him on the backotfo a little bit again, but he just hasn't had the answer for Russell this weekend so far . And I think Antonelli needs to whether he does or not needs to think about the championship here that he's got an enormous lead . He's I think he's actually very fortunate that being that far off his teammate is only P three and not maybe like a P , six, seventh or something like that. So I think we're going to see what Antonelli can do and how much he's going to be thinking about the world championship. Will he get straight into the slipstream of Russell and go for the win or will he be thinking it doesn't matter if I lose a few points here and there. So he'll go for the guy you literally sweat him for he's no I know I think he will but whether he needs to is another question. Yeah, doesn't need to, but I guess, you know, I'm going to use a football term because it's the World Cup and stuff, but like it's too early to park the bus. You know, you can't be going, I'm sixty eight points clear of Russell, no problem. There's still so many races left where Russell goes on a streak , that that lead will diminish, especially if he settles for P three s P fours . Let's not forget as well with Antonelli. He did sit out of free practice one. So there might be a little small consideration there that the track running for whatever reason has meant that he can't get that same confidence in the car round here. Not that they were ever rushing out in practice. It's true. In FP one, I know you hate it, but they were out there quite a lot for FP one . It's just more towards the end of the free practice sessions FP three in particular there was like twenty five minutes of no running. So yeah, it's it's an interesting one. Yeah, this is the first time barring obviously A,ustralia where we've gone Oh , okay there's a deficit to Russell here, but it is all about, you know , the champions are how they deal with the sort of the poor weekend bad weekends. Exactly. It's not about how they go on five race win streaks. Yes, that's great, but he also can't have a stinker tomorrow and bring Russell back into this championship. So I think for Antonelli, he will have a little bit of pressure on him of course starting P three long run down towards turn one if he has a poor start which he has had many but not in recent times then he could be very much on the back foot where Mercedes actual pace advantage doesn't seem that big . So that's going to be yeah fascinating to watch. Can't wait for the race tomorrow of course we're going to be live streaming so make sure you come and join us there but yeah give me Antonelli slightly on the back foot but P, three is not a disaster. Sombershuffle eighty one asks does this mighty poll by George become an indication of how the rest of the European leg will turn out, especially since we are now returning to traditional tracks where he has always been strong. I said this from the beginning when George was losing loads of points I said I think Russell could well mount a charge when we get to the European leg of the season Monaco yeah that was not great. got It lapped, so on and so forth. But we now get to Spain, as we said, traditional track and he seems so much more at home . And we also said and tried to remind you all that he hasn't been off the pace that many times this season it's just not worked out for him. In Canada he had a DNF fighting for the win. Monaco could well have finished P three had it not been for the five second penalty disaster that turned into a drive through . So for George, I am not surpris ed to see him bounce back here and could well go on a run. Absolutely. And this will be, I hope for our sakes as fans , we can watch this sort of Russell come back and whether he can get himself back into this . I agree. I think Russell it's very overplayed how bad he's been. I don't think it's all been , you know, his his pace, he's had bad luck and he's not been as good as Antonelli, but this this weekend he looks much more comfortable and maybe yeah, maybe he goes on a run where he feels like maybe maybe that initial kind of panic as well of, oh, what's going wrong? Everything's going wrong . Maybe that kind of pressure, in a weird way of like Antonelli's so far ahead and in a weird way, maybe it helps him like a London Aris last year and he can just do his own thing and what happens happens. And yeah, he's been phenomenal this weekend so far able to just look the more comfortable Mercedes. Mercedes obviously look very quick as he always have done, but he's been the driver that you always think is going to be ahead this weekend Antoni hasn't really had a sniff of ever looking like he's going to beat George at all at this point of the weekend. So we'll see how it turns out, but he needs to just get his head down and just keep winning races now. And if he does, then it sort of all comes down to whether Antonelli how Antonelli plays it with finishing second or will he have worser races than that and drop further down the order. Yeah and reliability as we',ve already seen can play a massive part in this season and cause almighty swings in the championship. George Russell's literally lost fifty points in the last two races to Antonelli. So this can happen in the other direction as well for, sure. Let's now talk about McLaren. People on patreon member Spike asks what happened to McLaren? They looked so good in practice . Yeah, they did. We said in the kind of practice pod that I'd be amazed if they were that good and challenging for Paul position they were that being said worse than I expected. I didn't think it would be Ferrari or Lewis Hamilton as it were to be the one that's actually going for for Paul position and up there because McLaren , obviously there's only one Ferrari sorry to mention it to kind of compare here, but they were obviously three tenths off Ferrari. And we kind of thought McLaren are going to be the closest challengers now. Obviously Ferrari bought upgrades, which are working well . And yeah, McLaren, I think I've been reading that Lando seems very unhappy with how it's gone. Of course, fourth doesn't seem like an absolute disaster when you think how bad his luck's been, but they don't want to be fighting Red Bull because they were challenging for race victories in Miami and Japan. Yeah, Kimi a very fortunate man because had his time been twenty four thousand slower, he would have been two places further down the grid because Norris and Verstappen were tucked in very, very close behind Lando three thousandths of a second behind Antonelli. Something I found quite funny was that Norris was asked after qualifying . There some people were talking about the McLaren's fighting for Poll today and his response was really delusional. So there you go That's his reaction to that , which I think is fair because I don't think we expected them to coming into the weekend we thought, okay, McLaren could be really quick here and second best maybe on the sort of the heels of Mercedes, but when we went after FP three I don't think it was really all too much hype for them and they kind of ended up where we expected. So they could easily have a good race. They're not miles off. They have to keep an eye on Max Verstappen to see what he does . But yeah, it's not a disaster unlike what I'm currently experiencing. So there you go. That is it. Thank you everybody for tuning in. Lots, lots to chat about. We discussed lots of things. I hope you enjoyed it. We're very excited for tomorrow, as much as what's happened today. I am still excited for tomorrow. P ten to P one has ever been done at Barcelona? Well, I'll be researching it when I leave this podcast. Tommy, final thoughts . Final thoughts. Yeah, super excited for Tomorrow. I think it's a fascinating grid. How is it going to be with I think initially I kind of wanted to see the two Mercedes together but, I think Lewis Hamilton is going to go for it at the start. And if he gets ahead of the two Merchs, we could see a situation where maybe the two Mercks are fighting each other for P two and P three and we get a big old train again. So can't wait for it . It's going to be really exciting and of course you know we've not we mentioned it in the practice bod not mention it in this one but the strategy and the whole situation with the tyres and the heat could be a really, really interesting one with the fact that we don't tend to get two stoppers