P1 with Matt and Tommy - Azerbaijan GP Race Review

Episode Date: September 21, 2025

The CRAZIEST of starts in Baku meant some Championship contenders were given a great chance to close the gap - but did they take it? The Delusion Tour is just around the corner! We're heading to North America in a few weeks and there are still a few tickets available - click here to grab yours: tix.to/p1liveYou can listen to an extended version of every race review episode over on our Patreon! You'll also access to every P1 episode ad-free, early access to tickets & merch, and access to our Discord server where you can chat with us and other F1 fans! Click here to sign up now: http://patreon.com/mattp1tommyFollow us on socials! You can find us on Twitter, Instagram, Twitch, YouTube and TikTok. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello everybody and welcome back to the B1 podcast with Matt and Max Verstappen fanboy, Tom Bellingham, who, if you're listening on audio, is dripped head to toe in swag of Max Verstappen swag. He's got the number one hat on, he's got the Max Cape on and the Max Verstappen T-shirt. So I have a feeling Tommy's in a reasonably good mood today. A little bit, yeah, but still also just like that was such a one. weird race. We kind of got the race that we thought it might be where it didn't deliver as much of carnage as qualifying, but at the same time, it's created some incredible and spicy talking points, particularly about the championship. Now, before we get into all of that,

a quick shout out to our P1 Live Show tickets. There will be a link at the top of the description on YouTube, as well as they'll be in the episode notes as well. If you want to come see us in Australia, or if you want to see us in the US or Canada or Manchester, in England, plenty of venues, plenty of opportunities. We'd love to see you. And it'll be, it's always fun. It's always a lot of fun. Okay. Also, our wonderful patrons will be getting extra chat at the end of every single race review this season. And we have a lot to talk about. So if you want to go join our patron, it's patreon.com for slash Matt P1, Tommy, to get more exclusive stuff, including ad free listening as well. Righty-ho then, Tommy. Shall we begin with your most memorable moment? wonder what it might be. Yes, for a second week in a row, it's about Maxis Tappen winning the race, and this time having the same conversation of his championship back on, and I've gone from, well, absolutely not, there's no chance to slightly believing,

hence the clothes. Look, there's obviously something in my being that started to believe in some way because I was so nervous watching that race thinking, oh my God, like if Max wins this, I was constantly like thinking, oh my God, if he wins this and watching like where Lando's going to finish and obviously Piastri was at the race which we'll talk about later. We joked about that scenario, didn't we?

Where it said like, oh, in the next race it would have to be for Stepan winning again and then Oscar Piastri DNFing and as if it's actually happened immediately. And yeah, I look back, I'm still very much it's going to be a huge ask to do it but it's certainly you know it's going to ramp the pressure up

on McLaren now that he's kind of lurking in the background a little bit like they already said yesterday that you know we do have to kind of take his championship seriously and I was kind of like he's not he's not in it but he's bagged you know 25 points on

on Piastri in this one in one go so my god yeah it's it's making me nervous now. I swear you change the Baku wind you do. Like during the race watch along, nah, it doesn't matter. I'm still nervous, you know, but it's not even 1% and then you come off the stream and you're like

well actually I feel like it's more like 2%, maybe 10%. 2%. Yeah, 2%. Yeah. So Singapore is going to be the biggest one, I think. It's on. It's absolutely on. It's absolutely on. There's, if you also consider, right, so we've got seven races

to go, 69 points. Max Verstappen is behind Oscar Piastri in the championship, which means he can win every single one of the races from here on to the end of the season. Piaestry finishes third and Max's world champion. So there are more realistic scenarios happening each and every race weekend, it seems. And the other point I wanted to make about this was that not only are we talking about Max the resurgence, perhaps Red Bull have got a car that can win at tracks for the rest of the season, but you've got Oscar and Lando, who are going for their first ever world championship.

Now, Max isn't close enough in the rearview mirror right now to get, like, particularly shaky. But what a mistake for Oscar Piastri to make on lap one. We'll talk about that in a little bit. But, you know, McLaren barely scored. Lando finished where he started the race. Crazy. It's fumble city for McLaren at the moment. You know, with the pit stops, with the whole nicely, nicey, nicely stuff,

which I don't agree with. It just feels like something could and may go wrong. It has changed in Monza after all that pressure, all those questions that they were getting. Because we said like, oh, you know, Monser's an outlier, Max's is going to, you know, he's won the race by a comfortable margin. But I didn't believe that Red Bull had the fastest car.

I think the reason I'm still quite pessimistic to a point about it is the fact that it's not a scenario last year where it feels like McLaren have fallen off a cliff. You know, if you look at last year and how that kind of, it switched actually between them, but Lando when he was chasing Max Astapen, it felt like Max was hanging on to the championship lead by, you know, dear life, whereas this one feels like Max is just over delivering and he's chipping away at it. Whereas the situation here is that McLaren are still incredibly quick, you know, despite them saying that, oh, you know, Red Bull look quick.

weekend. I don't for a second believe Red Bull suddenly have the fastest car and they're well clear of McLaren. Now, if that was the case and McLaren were starting to like fall off a bit in performance, I would definitely be backing Max to do something incredible. It would still take an absolute miracle, I think, for him to do it. But he's there and it's two in a row now. And as we say, like the more late the later it goes on into the season if he keeps doing this, the pressure is going to just ramp up more and more for the McLaren drivers of, you know, you can't make mistakes in qualifying, you can't, can't do this, can't do that. Yeah, and as well, look, we're talking about the whole McLaren fight between Lando and Oscar for the World Championship. Break it down a little bit

more. Max is only 44 points behind Lando Norris, with seven races to go. That seems more bite-size. You know, when you break down the numbers between second and first, you're like, well, Oswald is in charge. Inchal, Clare's 30 points behind Leroux and 60 points. I was doing the was doing the math and, you know, Shal was 161, I think it was coming into this behind Oscar and when Oscar crashed out, I start believing, no. But it's an interesting thing to talk about. It's something that, you know, as a Formula One fan that prioritises just awesome racing and a championship battle first, just the thought of that scenario of match chipping away.

Like, if he hadn't have taken Russell to the cleaners at Spice, he'd be 60 points behind potentially. Yeah. There's so many scenarios that that is the painful thing for me is like looking back on these tiny little moments of like the, yeah, like the head loss in Spain. But you could even go further back and say that, you know, it's very unfortunate for that whole situation to happen with him running out of ties and then putting the hard ties on. It was on for an easy P3 at that situation.

Antonelli taking him out of Austria. Of course, you know, everyone will say, well, McCleon have had their fair share of issues as well. I think I'm separating those instance to like things that of course out of his control, Antonelli yeating him and then him seeing red and going Russell. And that was in his control. You're coming with me. And we will know at the end of the season whether this is something that is genuinely going to end. I think we'll know in Singapore to a point.

I think if Maxis Stappen wins in Singapore and even if the McCleons finish seconds and third, it will be like, oh my God, okay, like Red Bulls. can win at all these kind of circuits. Whereas I know it's an insane thing because we said it after Red Bull, sorry, after Monzo when we said Red Bull, you know, that yeah, they've won by 20 seconds, but, you know, back is a very different circuit

and they've won again. I do generally think that the Singapore will be a much better outlier of like where we are with this because it's a very different circuit because if he manages to eke out the points, this is something you said on the watch along. You look at the circuits coming up, Mexico he's brilliant at

Inter Lagos he's brilliant at you know these these circuits that it has been good at and Singapore he's never won at No I think it's the only one on the calendar is not not one I believe so yeah so yeah it's we'll see

Singapore I think is going to be very very interesting indeed exactly we'll know whether it's a three horse race or a two horse race I think after Singapore after Singapore question from P1 Patreon member Tony Prano, how close would Max need to be in the standings for McLaren to start considering

favouring their lead driver? Oh no, papyrals is coming. Oh no, not the talk about papyrals again, please. How close would he need to be? I think, honestly, McLaren seemed to be very much, it's difficult, right? We've had this whole shenanigans in Monza, which wasn't a case of favouring their lead driver. although some people might say it was because, you know, people think that Lando has a McLaren bias there.

But it wasn't a case of Lando is the championship leader, Oscar let him through, because obviously Lando is behind Oscar. When do I think McLaren would have to do that? I think if Max was to pass Lando in the championship, then it's Oscar, it's Oscars to win. And I think that's probably, I don't think McLaren have an argument until then to say,

okay, Oscar, we have to back you. This is again another big scenario in my head that, you know, may well not happen. 44 points, that's two wins. True. And you do wonder, people will say this is insane, but I think, you know, Lando at that point might even be like, well, I'll do everything for the team because he has been very, the way he's kind of said that as he's kind of gone on. I would actually weirdly wouldn't put it past Lando.

If he does say that, he better be more than two race wins behind Oskine. Yeah, yeah, but... If he says it with one race, when I'll fall off my chair. Yeah, I know, but I also can... I can also see that happening based on, you know, how this season's gone so far. And Lando, the character that he is that, you know, he's many times said that even last year, he was kind of like, well, I want to win the title in the right way and all this kind of stuff. So, yeah, he... I do think that, yeah, if Max managed to surpass Lando, which would again be a stretch, but they say 44 points,

isn't absolutely kind of insane, then maybe it does get to a bit more like they need to like really panic. But also at the same time, you know, this is, this is McLaren. We, we had this conversation about Hungary and Monza last year when Lando realistically was the only one that could have caught Max. And that time they did have a brilliant car, the best car in the field and Red Bull were falling off a cliff and couldn't, you know, really score many results. And they still didn't go, yeah, Lando all the way. So I also wouldn't put it past McLaren just letting them to it. And I mean, imagine the scenario where we get a Kimmy Reichenon versus Fernando

Alonzo and Lewis Hamilton. But the Fernando Alonzo and Lewis Hamilton is because they've been too nice to each other rather than hating each other. I think as well, not as much as myself and yourself, Tommy, we've watched Formula One that way, but maybe we need to add a bit of context to that just for people. that haven't seen 2007. So for the people that haven't watched it, 2007, basically, the championship had basically been won by Lewis Hamilton. It seemed like you'd won it from Fernando Alonzo. There was a lot of kind of controversy during that season, and basically Hamilton had a couple of failures towards

the end of the season, and Kimmer-Rikinen nicked it off both of them. It felt like it was very much going to be McLaren's win, and which McLaren drive would do it. And Kimmerichan snuck in and got the W by a single point. The last Ferrari driver's world champion. Wow, yeah. And you've had to explain how long ago it was. Fun times. People literally won't remember the last time Ferrari

were world champions in the driver's category. Okie dokey. Next question, let's go to people on Patreon member, Marjo. What has Lauren Mecky's done, or were the tensions inside Red Bull affecting racing that much? I don't know if he's like, you can say that it's Lauren Mecky's coming in,

that suddenly they're now, you know, really quick and Max is challenging for the title, because of course they won races at the start of the year as well. Hold on. Did you just say Max is challenging for the title? Did they just come out of your mouth? Oh no. Sorry, Mr. 1%. Sorry, Mr. 1%. Max is challenging for the title. Wow. 2%.

But this is the scenario now where people are kind of saying this and going, oh, look, he's won two in a row. They're really good. but they did win races at the start of the season as well, but it certainly can't be a bad thing to have much better kind of team harmony, you know, look at Yuki Sanoda getting his best result as well and finally getting some big points on the board for the team

and Red Bull kind of even having conversations and Mekke's having conversations of like, you know, we could get second in the championship, which was never thought would possibly be happening. I still think it's a massive stretch, of course. but yeah i think he's he's clearly done a great job and deserves deserves credit and maybe it's what what red bull need going into these these new regulations and yeah maybe maybe it isn't a case of like counting them out from it yeah i don't know if we can

just say that laurent has gone in and changed everything for you know completely overhauled what's going on in red ball obviously tensions don't help and we don't exactly know what was going on behind the scenes and how all the staff members on the ground were feeling with everything going on. But what it can do now potentially, especially with a few wins now under the belt, is just bring a bit of stability to Red Bull. Whether Loron will be the one to stay as the figurehead for, you know, a sufficient, a long amount of time. We don't know that either yet.

But he is the CEO, which is, he's gone straight in at the top. But no, he's clearly doing a very good job. And he's got the engineering background. He knows. and that I think is really something that we're going to see more and more of as Formula One continues to go into the 2030s and the James Vows is the Lauren Macon, you know, the ones that really know Formula One cars inside and out. And if they have that natural leadership skill as well, then they can take teams to the front, I think. So, yeah, a phenomenal job from Laurent so far.

And if he wins the championship, then he'll be lauded the greatest team principle of all time. So yeah, there you go. Yeah. Right, let's go to my most memorable moment. And it has to be the Oscar Piastri Crash. Again. I can't really believe what I've witnessed just from Oscar's entire weekend in Baku.

Practice struggling, clipping walls. Pretty lucky you'd have to say to not have had at least a Lando-crabbing incident in practice. Then crash is in Qualified. qualifying, jumps the start, and then crashes on lap one. I was genuinely worried as to whether Oscar Piastri's car had been hijacked by a fan that was just wearing the same outfit and overalls. Zach Brown was driving it or something or, yeah, crazy.

Yeah, I mean, that won't have the McLaren bias allegations if it was. But at such an out-of-sorts Piastri we saw today, utterly shocking. The mistake to make as the championship leader was, I was going to say unforgivable, he may well be forgiven because he lost less points crashing and Lando finishing where he was than if he was to finish second

to Lando finishing first. That is madness. Which is absolutely mad. Yeah, it is. It is absolutely madness. But we'll get on to Lando later. But in terms of Piaastri, the most insane thing for me is that Piazori and rightly so so far this season has kind of got this Iceman, you know, persona,

and we've said that his kind of very chill, nothing phases him, is going to really do him wonders going into these final few races. And to me, it's insane that it's not only just one incident. If he'd had the crash in qualifying and he started at the back or something had gone wrong, would have said, oh, you know, that's a big moment in the championship. But for him to then jump the start is insane and then crash immediately. I don't remember a world championship leader. You know, we've seen in the past, like a world championship leader have moments where, I'm thinking Sebastian Vettel, where, you know, the infamous incident at Hockenheim,

where he went off. And it's like, oh, this is huge for the championship. He's gone off. And many other incidents years gone by. but for three massive incidents all to happen in the same weekend I guess count himself lucky that one the points that Lando picked up and two that for his sake you'll be hoping that all his bad bad kind of it's not even fortune because it's his own error

as kind of all happened in one concentrated weekend of pure floppiness because he was in such an insane finishing streak as well wasn't he I think he had like the third longest streak of finishing races. And then it ended like this, which is, ah, yeah, I can't believe it. A question from P-1 Patreon member Moreno 8. Will Oscar's penalty be transferred to Singapore? I seem to remember some shenanigans in Mexico when Red Bull sent Perez out after being in the garage for 10 laps just to do a pit stop and take the penalty he received.

So to clarify on this one, because it was a five-second penalty, the stewards are not carrying over. and don't carry over penalties to the next race. People might be questioning, well, but Hamilton had one, but that was for a double-waved yellow flag infringement, and that was a 10-second penalty that they would have given Lewis, had it been even the start of the race, so I don't know how you, anyway,

it would have been a 10-second penalty, which is something you do carry over. So that was my initial thought as well. So you're very fair to have thought this of, like, oh, will Oscar carry this over? Because I had to check as well, and I thought maybe he would. But no, he will not carry any penalties over

and it's, yeah, it was never going to be more than five seconds anyway, but it's a good thing for him that he doesn't have to carry over this absolutely horrendous weekend to the next one. Yeah, imagine if he'd like taken a car out on his, late on the brakes, and taking a car out, got 10 seconds, carried on. You know, that's the only way this weekend could have got any worse for him if he'd then carried a penalty over into the next one. Because, yeah, a complete shocker for Piastri. certainly was. Next question, P1Petri member, Rebecca, people are constantly expressing concerns about Lando's mental strength. Should we really be concerned about Oscars?

I think both. We'll talk about Lando and I think he deserves, you know, Lando deserves some criticism. But like yesterday, we've, we've had, it's weird how we're going to have the same conversation of Oscar Piastri is the one. that's crashed. Lando is one that's not capitalised. So yeah, you've got to, we'll talk about Lando in a bit, but you also have to, you know, talk about Piastri. And there'll be a lot of question marks of like, what on earth has gone wrong this weekend with a driver that seemed so confident. Maybe this is, this is unfair to mention, but, you know, we, all, all this kind of chatter around the last race in Monza and should he have let Lando go? Is it? going to cost him in the championship. Has that got in his head?

I personally don't think so. I think he just had an absolutely awful weekend. But this has shown that Oscar Piastri, whether it continues, whether we see another mistake we don't know, but it shows that he isn't going to be like completely invincible and nothing will phase him. Because, yeah, it's an absolutely shocking weekend.

And it's all self-inflicted. It's not like he had a mechanical failure or something. something like that is that all three mistakes were completely his own doing. For sure. I think that being concerned about both of them, the mental strength, I don't know, I think for Oscar, it's one, as you said, Tommy, concentrated weekend of disaster. Like this was an absolute disaster for Oscar, gets away with it in the championship to some degree, although Max Verstappen gaining 25 points and he was never a good thing to hear, I think, for any driver.

I am going to be this next weekend in Singapore, I mean, which is a very difficult track to maintain focus and it's incredibly hot, one of if not the hardest alongside with Qatar, physical challenge as well. Oscar has to bounce back in Singapore, in my opinion.

Otherwise, this could snowball into something really quite bad. So for me, I'm definitely more concerned about Oscar, just in terms of it being a bit of a question mark as to how he will bounce back from this because it will have knocked his confidence quite drastically, I would say, because it's not just one incident.

It's the jump start. Jumping the start. That in itself, we rarely see that anymore, do we? Yeah, that's not something, especially from Oscar, who's in ninth place. It's not like he was on the front row and really needed to win the race to gain in the championship. It's just have a clean start and then try and use the car that you've got underneath you to get a good result.

Especially because he had that moment, didn't he yesterday? where, you know, he had the big crash and it was like, oh, is this going to cost me loads? And then, of course, Lando was only a couple of places higher on the grid. So if anything, that kind of pressure was off then, that, okay, we're back to almost like square one. It's not really hugely different for me in my championship battle. So then to, yeah, jump the start and crash madness. Yeah. So for me, the answer is definitely Oscars.

I'm very interested, as I say, in a couple of weeks' time when we go to Singapore. and with Lando, we'll get into it in this next question. P1Pitch, remember Pickle-Nick. Norris had two shots this weekend after Piastri mistakes, but has he thrown it? He's left a lot on the table as Lando. I think for qualifying, I lent on the side of, you know, I don't think that being the first out there was the best time to be out there.

But he, in my opinion, just kept it very much within the, within the sort of proximity of the track, try to put in a good benchmark of a lap time and get in the top five. That did not work. He started seventh. Today had a slow pit stop, 4.1 seconds.

Had that been 2.1, maybe even 2.6, I think he comes out, side by side with Lawson. Does he keep that position? It's a question mark because clearly there was a lap of tire warm up in this race that put drivers on the back foot. So I'm not convinced,

even with a good pit stop, he would have been ahead, like slam dunk. But then the thing for me that was just so difficult to watch was him getting to within about three tenths of Sonoda into term one and just not going for a move. I feel like it's something that we consistently see with Lando is that he will play,

he will very much be very sort of cautious. He'll be very cautious with his overtakes. He has had the occasional really good overtake. Don't get me wrong. He's not completely, it's not impossible that he can't make those moves. but it was a point where I sat there going, you can't be finishing seventh in what we would say is the best car on the grid,

finishing in the same position that you had, you started in, when your championship rival has shown a massive, massive dent in his armour, it was just, I couldn't believe it. You, Tommy,

you were saying in the watch long, he's going to finish on the podium easy. I thought on the run up to the race, yeah, surely Lando's going to finish on the podium. I think everybody believed that. Yeah, yeah. It was difficult to over it. a take. I'm not saying it was impossible and he was stuck in a DRS train. But for me, I don't know,

he got close enough to be able to throw one to the inside at least once. Every time he got close enough, he allowed Yuki to just shape a little move to the inside, Lando gets forced to the outside, and then he doesn't get through. Yeah, I can't, I can't defend him with some of the things this weekend. He's sort of himself has tried to say in the media like, oh, you know, we just weren't quick this weekend, the Red Bulls quick, you know, you go back to qualifying, I know we've already spoken about it yesterday, but

you know, he's also kind of trying to say that, oh, it was all undone in qualifying. And I know he mentioned like going out first, but you know, I know he's gone out first, but equally Carlos Sites in a Williams is up there, Liam Lawson, has put it P3 in a racing balls. so you know

he had his championship rival out of the way he should have done a better result there he made a mistake on his lap as well so definitely in that situation then we come to the race and again

you know he's he said in his post race interviews we weren't quick this weekend we would you know we just finished seven that's kind of where we were he had a bad start for a start you know he's he messed up his start and again we were kind of thinking yeah he was and we're thinking like how how are you losing a place at the start

you're on the clean side as well um you know he he should be making making these moves uh he he was then completely asleep on the restart which made uh which got the clerk got back back past him and you know you look at these people ahead of him you've got antonelli's having uh who had a great race but has had a pretty stinker of a season uh leum lorsson in a racing balls and carlo's you should be passing these people and yeah then we get to to the bit at the end yes he's had a slow pit stop which is unfortunate and he's then ended up behind yuki snowda but he had so many chances to make that move and people will say like and he himself said it's incredibly hard to overtake but people did overtake during during that race there were people overtaking and this

is the world's championship that you're trying to win here and your championship you're relationship rival is not scoring any point. Every single point matters. And you can say, and maybe it's unfair to go, or Max Verstappen would have made that move. I think George Russell would have made that move. Charlotte Clay would have made that move. He's in a McLaren and he's battling, you know, Yuki Snowda that's not had a particularly great season, a racing ball. He had to capitalize. It's not unfair to criticize Lando for that weekend because he, at the absolutely should have capitalised. And he can say all he likes that the Red Bull was quick this weekend.

Even if it was, fine. You should be finishing second behind Max then. Also, I will say as well, because I know some fans get a little bit up and a bit upset, don't they, at times. That two things can coexist where Piastri did terrible. Yeah, yeah, exactly. They've both messed up. Yeah. But it's exactly the same conversation as yesterday that you, the narrative should.

shouldn't be that Landon Ours has completely bottled it because Oscar Piastri has smashed it into the wall and done much worse and had the worst weekend ever. But the two things can coexist and both McLaren drivers, Oscars had the worst race, but that doesn't mean that Lando Norris shouldn't have capitalized on it because this was the dream ticket for him to see Piastri in the wall on the first lap and then the cars in front of you are George Russell with a stomachache, Kimi Antonelli, Carlos Sites and a Williams, Yuki Sanoda and Liam Lawson in a racing balls.

How have you finished in the same position you started? Yeah, it is madness. Question from Winap. Does Norris even want to win this championship? Didn't look like it. I mean, I guess this one is unfair because every driver's different. And you know, you said afterwards,

you know, I am trying, and I don't doubt that, and not everyone is going to send it down. I guess we have to think that, you know, we've watched Max Verstappen for years and other drivers make all these insane moves and stuff, and maybe we have to, like, readjust our brains of kind of like, not every driver is going to, like, absolutely go for it and be crazy and send it and stuff. And I don't think that means he doesn't want it. he's just not he's just not got that in him it feels like to throw caution to the wind and go for an absolute dive bomb and think this is everything i need to make make this move and he's just played the the percentages what i would say is he's still he's still in that he still has gained and he's still in the championship so you know he'll look like a genius for you know if he does

win the championship, we'll forget all this. Because you'll say, well, you know, you didn't need to make a silly move, dive bomb, potentially crush into Snowder and lose a bunch of points. But equally, if he loses the championship by two points, you'll look back on these moments and go, bro, like, go late on the brakes and overtake this move. So, yeah, this is F1 and this is a championship fight, isn't it? It's such fine margins. back to the question

I do think Lando wants to win the championship very very very much that's why he races I think that yeah what's frustrating for you know both myself and you tell me we've seen many a championship fought for but probably not one like this that I can think of for a very long time can't remember the last time we watched two drivers that neither had won the world championship

trying to you know I don't know you'll have to access your encyclopedia brain knowledge as to when that might have been but But it just feels like a different championship fight. It almost feels like they both are sort of making mistakes. And it's, either of you really want to win this one. I think Oscar, of course, before this weekend, you would say Oscar had the upper hand.

But it's just, it's tough to see. Yeah, you don't expect to see someone crowned a world champion being sort of very tentative when it comes to making overtakes. You can't be safe and win this one. I really don't think you can, especially from Landau's position, yes, he's gained six points on Oscar, but that's not going to be enough.

There's no guarantees that Landau's going to be quicker than Oscar when we go to the next races. And yeah, it just feels like a missed opportunity. But to further my point, Oscar did worse, but we can both just, they both deserve, I think, criticism to varying levels. Yeah, don't worry. We'll grade them in drive ratings,

and I'm sure you'll totally agree with what we've said and leave the most comment. Yeah, yeah. I'm sure you. I'm sure you'll be ready for Oscar Paster's grade. Next question from Blue Ranger 1993. Does Carlos now have to keep the unicorn sticker on his helmet for the rest of the season? Oh yeah.

You know that that's, he'll probably have a unicorn helmet made after this race. In celebration. For sure. You could see how much it meant to him. It was such a wholesome video, wasn't it, of putting that unicorn on in the first place? And just what a drive in general. You know, Carlos, to put it second on the, grid. Yes, there was a little bit of track conditions there, but he had to put the lap in,

and he did. And it was a phenomenal one at that because it put him right in the mix, started second. And then his pace was brilliant. George Russell, I think, deserves his own commendation shortly. But for Carlos, I think he extracted absolutely everything he could out of that. I think we all were kind of forgetting at times that he was in a Williams when he was just chilling in second on his own. He'd cleared off from Liam Lawson. He wasn't a massive amount behind Max in that first stint. So, yeah, I think that one, yes, you'll keep the unicorn sticker. And two, it was, he got everything out of that.

He did. Like, it's an absolutely brilliant drive. And what a reward for Carlos for what's been a really difficult season he's had. You know, he's not been the driver that we know he can be, but he's also had a terrible amount of bad luck as well in certain moments. and this it all came together you know in a brilliant qualifying and then to you know it's not like it's just been

completely impossible to overtake I know it was very difficult to overtake but not completely impossible where it's a Monaco situation or something and he's just got into term one and he's fine he had to dig deep he had to you know have great pace which he did

and it's awesome to see Carlos and I said this in the watch along what an insane thought it is when Carlos science got demoted to Williams and we said like how unfair it is that he doesn't deserve to be dropped from Ferrari that he would would be the one to score a podium before Lewis Hamilton gets one in a Ferrari. What an insane thing to think about that is. Absolutely ridiculous, isn't it? Absolutely. Amazing for Carlos and perhaps not so great for Lewis with the struggles he's had this year. P-1 Patreon member Edith is my middle name.

why is no one giving credit to George drove a brilliant race after a troubling weekend with sickness? I mean, I will give credit to George Russell. I think he was absolutely brilliant. He's done another, you know, maybe it's the fact that we've seen matchless up and win the race.

Carlos Sites brilliantly get on the podium that maybe George goes a little bit under the radar maybe he's a victim of his own success just because he's been doing so brilliantly this year that you almost expect it of George Russell now and him to deliver a good performance. But yeah, a fantastic drive from him as well. Again, just, you know, one of the, quietly one of the drivers of the season that I think a lot of people would maybe go, George Russell, drive of the season.

But then when you actually look back at like what he's done this year and the results, you go, oh yeah, fair enough. And he's been very consistently good. And yeah, another great result from him. Yeah, exactly. Definitely very close to drive of the day. I know Carlos got it. Of course, that's very, very deserving. But George, now, he was stuck in traffic, didn't have the best of qualifying, was outqualified by Kimmy. But he chose the right tire at the start for sure. And so did Max. There was a bit of a chatter afterwards. And Max was the one that really pushed to start on the hard tires to Red Bull. George, you know, going for that same tire allowed him to just go long and to, I guess, keep his tires in a good condition whilst he was stuck and then obviously got through on Kimmy. But he then was able to put in some absolutely awesome lap times, very similar to Max Verstappen out in front, to get the gap to be able to come out ahead of

Carlos, despite having, wearing hard tires towards the end of that first stint. So yeah, brilliant drive from George. I can't believe he's been able to do that through the illness that he has been suffering and he has been suffering this weekend and what a reward it has been to finish second and something that yeah i don't think if when we heard his team radio on friday where it was basically like it was a completely different person uh it's it's hard to believe he he finished p2 okay we now go to m crickers did lawson just defend his seat for next season i think that was what we were seeing before our very eyes lawson versus sonoda i think sonoda had a pretty good weekend for his standards with how he's been able to manage that red ball up until Baku.

I think he finished, what, 33 seconds behind Max, which is not great. But he was fighting in the points, and you have to kind of be happy about that. Lawson, on the other hand, great qualifying. And for me, Lawson's won in that fight, not only just in position, but of course he's in the racing balls, which is supposed to be the inferior car of the Red Bull, but who knows where that really lies. but Lawson did a great job Sonoda needs much more of this

fighting for P6s to be able to even have a shout of defending A-seat not even as Red Bull seat just A-seat in Formula One in either of the Red Bull camps but Liam did a great job and I bet Yuki was sat there going

why is it Lawson up here in P-5 why can't he just be in like 11th and I can just be the star of the show for once had Lawson and Sonoda collided and there'd been a safety car and it cost Max the win. I think neither of them would have been in Red Bull next year. But joking aside, yeah, it is getting for Sonoda because he's had the best result, although probably not in terms of time behind Vastappen,

because we've had races where he's been 30 seconds off max and he's finished 17th or something or whatever. And in this one, he's got good points, but unfortunately for him, Liam Lawson's had a brilliant race in that. that RB and it's going to be a difficult decision for them to make but unfortunately I think unless Sonoda goes on this

amazing run hopefully it's a confidence boost for him it might make it a bit closer between the two of them of who they they pick but I still believe that Lawson will get the nod there so do I so do I at Joe Formula 6p

why didn't we get a lot of crashes after what happened in qualifying yesterday because people leave more on the table in the race and I see Oscar Piastri on lap one apparently. Oh, too soon. Too soon. Too soon. But it's, but it's true. Yeah, the drivers, yeah, lap one is where you can kind of make moves. We saw a little collision, didn't we, between, I want to say Holkenberg and Ockon as well. Correct. In that, in that moment, that is the moment that we know is going to be the chance where you can make up a couple of

positions and have a fantastic start and move up the order, but that when you settle into that rhythm of like DRS trains and you're sticking to the times that you need from your, your tires and stuff, you're not pushing like crazy like you are in a qualifying situation where you're trying to get the best of every single lap time. So that's why we've not seen, you know, drivers going into the wall and a hundred red flags like we did yesterday. Exactly. Yeah, they're very much entire management. They want to make their hards go 40-odd laps, or if you lando, your mediums, almost 40-odd laps. And they're stuck in a train. They're going a handful of seconds slower than they are in qualifying. So they leave some margin for error for sure. And that's probably about it. Although, you know, we talk about this as if we didn't get one singular crash. We had Albonne on Colopinto. We had Holkenberg and Ocon. We had Hamilton very nearly going to. to the wall, didn't we? Before the castle section. And plenty of drivers skimming the walls. But yeah, I mean, thankfully, good. I'm glad because every time I rode on board with a driver

going into the pits, I winced. Oh my word. That pit entry is insane. Absolutely nuts. I know we've been racing at this track for so long. I'm still sat there going one day that's going to go wrong. One day someone's going to clip a wheel on the inside wall, going to have a tiny bit of a car loss slide, not car loss signs, car loss or a slide or something. I was thinking Carlos slide. I was like, what's Carlos done? Why is it, why you singling out Carlos, you hate her? The Carlos slide.

Yeah, the, I do think as well, I know we've had it many times, but this brilliant new onboard that's slightly further back and gives that kind of field of view where the cars look so much quicker. And I think that is one of the best things we've seen introduced Formula One in terms of like TV direction, that that onboard looks so much quicker that when we watch that footage of George Russell going into the pits, oh my word, that that is, that is spectacular. Say what you like, that is spectacular. It's crazy. It's insane and I do, yeah, you do worry that like how is that even legal that that entry? I don't know, but you would think they're,

because they cut it as well, don't they as well? Yeah, those lines are absolutely non-existent. Yeah, they are optional. You know, bring the pit entry sort of speed limit sooner and then they'd have to break a little bit earlier. But nope, they just take it like a fast chicane. I'm going to show my age now. But like back when I was watching like Formula One as a kid in like the 90s, in the 70s, yeah.

You did have more kind of pit entries where you had to like slow down. Whereas now on like most circuits, even one like that where you think you'd have it. like a chican or something you can just most of the entries are just you know you just fly into the pits hit the brakes um but back on a lot of more old school circuits you used to have that that kind of situation where yeah you'd go i remember in particular like um Suzuki where it would be before that final chicane you'd slow right down and you'd go around a bit and they were almost like a circuit in themselves the the pit lanes with with entries but i'm surprised they don't do something to try and make it slower,

but then is it more dangerous to put in almost like a corner when they're flying into it? It's difficult, isn't it? I think essentially F1 drivers will make up as much time as they possibly can, even if it is how they come into the pits. Right, let's head to biggest winner, driver or team. And, I mean, Carlos is very much up there. Max Verstappen is also a big winner if he ends up winning the championship.

joke. Yuki's notice half won it, but you know, a half win. Yeah, a half win for Yuki for his best result of the season. Antinelli needed that as well. Anthony needed that. I am going to say Max Verstappen because he's winning the World Championship after that. What's yours?

Carlos. Yeah, definitely Carlos. To get a podium after the year he's had, insane and a brilliant result, very pleased for him. Biggest loser. So you would think like it would just be straight. off the bat Oscar Piastri

but he lost six points that is mad isn't it six points in the driver's championship which is utterly insane and then you can't even

say McLaren because like I don't know can you say McLaren I think he can I mean they scored

six points as a as a two car best car team on the grid it's definitely it's definitely up there I think

Shao Lecler is a shout as well you know the Baku monster has had an absolute sting

anchor. Alpine were literally two dustbins at the back of the field, the only two to have been lapped. Of course, Colopinto got heated round. I'm going to say Oscar, it has to be. I think just in terms of what this can do from here on in, how does he bounce back? That is a massive question mark. And it's something that's going to be asked constantly. And of all the tracks to go to where you're like being constantly hammered about you know you're going to make a mistake. You're putting the wall. It's another street track. Exactly.

It's Singapore. Yeah, exactly. It's got to be Oscar, hasn't it? I know Lando's failed to capitalize, but it's not, I know we can say, oh,

it's only the equivalent of them finishing first and second, but for Oscar, it's not him finishing second. It's him putting it in the wall twice and jumping the start. And there will be many question marks of how he bounces back. And, you know, whether it is just a blip and he kind of is straight back into being kind of Oscar Piastri

chill mode we'll find out we will right let's now head to the predictions championship where we currently have it written down it's 42 41 is that correct tommy before I announced that and it's to you it is to me yes perfect okay you didn't write that bit down so I could have easily tried to skew the championship. But 42-41 to Tom Bellingham. And this might well be the strangest predictions to react to for a few reasons. So let's get into it with a good surprise. I went for Kimmy Antonelli, which absolutely P4 was very much on the pace.

Yes, George had a miraculous drive to finish second. But I think Kimmy can also be very happy with how he performed this weekend. Yeah, I'd love to race to him be like, didn't be his teammate, blah, blah, blah, blah. but no, Kimmy needed, he really needed a performance like that. I think the P4, hopefully for his sake, we talk about kind of pressure and how you bounce back from things. Hopefully that just kind of calms the nerves. And of course, this is the race after Toto Wolf kind of called him out for being a bit underwhelming and stuff.

And everyone said, is this where he spirals now that he's not, you know, Daddy Toto is not being kind to him anymore? And he's done a great job. so I'm pleased you got that point. Olly Bearman, no, disappointing. P-12. I think, yeah, which is what might have been, I think, without that crash. He was looking good in practice, but yeah, sadly not. A big flop!

I went for Charles LeCleurr and wow, wow, wow, did that come in. Creshing. More so than I thought. It didn't even get pole, crashed. And the fact that, yeah, I couldn't even. Beating by Hamilton. Yeah, I couldn't even get the, oh, well, actually, beat Lewis Hamilton. How was that a flop?

What I will say. Did you see as well, actually, before we go into what you were about to say, was that Hamilton was told to give Charles O'Claire the position back on the last lap. Really? Really? They were like, right, Charles 1.5 behind, whatever. Lewis starts slowing down, so he knows the order. Doesn't slow down quick enough, takes the position.

Did he actually? I did not see that? Oh my God, that's amazing. So, yeah, I don't know if he just misjudge where the line was, or he, he just didn't slow down in time. Or it's a, oh no, no, anyway. Yeah, I mean, for eighth and ninth, I don't think Hamilton really cares.

But yeah, it was, and some people have said, oh, but the team radio, Matt, they were, it was basically as he came over the line. No, it wasn't. He was clearly visibly slowing down with about 50 meters to go, 100 meters to go, whatever it might have been. But yeah, didn't press the brakes hard enough, and he kept the position anyway.

That's amazing. Oh, he clearly wanted your point to lock. It really meant everything to him. I say I wanted to argue a point, how I'm getting the same number of points as you for my prediction, because I can't get 100 points, but if you could, it would be 100 points. I went for Oscar Piastri. And I said, I've just got a funny feeling that something's going to happen this weekend. And boy, did he take that literally. And when, you know what, Tommy, I've got the bad vibes as well.

I'm going straight on the wall twice. A bit shaky, Tommy. After that big flop. Oh my God. I can't believe that. That must be, and I'm kind of reveling in it now because we're later on going to witness the worst prediction I've ever done. That might be the best prediction I've ever done.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You have the best and worst in the same podcast. This is, it's a shame that you're not finishing on the best. In fact, we're going to finish on the worst. So I look forward to reflecting on that. But it's the fact that you were like, I just have a feeling. Yeah, yeah. It's not like you just thought,

Oscar might finish six, not going to have a great race, whatever. You had a feeling something was going to go wrong and it could not have gone more wrong for Oscar Piastri. Utterly amazing stuff from you.

Well done for the point. Even I will accept that that is a point for you. Well, that is a point for you. Well, that was great, wasn't it? Yeah, no, not even close. I'm for Max Verstappen. Well done.

Hope you're happy with the money. So that's what I'm not so happy with. Screw you. No, I'm kidding. In third place, I went for Max Verstappen. That did not happen. I went for Charlotte Claire P3, no. No.

Second, I went for Charlotte Clare. And that was a new. And I went for Landon Orris P2. No. No. No, McLaren on the podium. Yeah. And there was us discussing that we'd gone for one McLaren on the podium.

Yeah, and we're like, it's so boring if we just go for McLaren one, two, all the time. So true. They're not even on the podium. And then in first, I went for Oscar Pastry, first to hit the wall. maybe. And you? I went for Max Verstappen. Unbelievable scenes. Yeah, yeah, that's good for me. Well done, Tommy.

I went for one crazy prediction. Lance Strollout qualifies Alonzo. That was a few seconds away from glory. That was literally about five seconds, if that, until the red flag was flown at the end of Q1, Y-Oh-Y. And I went for... We're having a drum roll for this. No red flags for a crash all weekend.

So that's minus five points because you got it wrong and then there were five more after that in qualifying. Actually, in Azerbaijan, a weekend is Sunday and Monday. So, it's not, it's not. I was going to say, what? So yeah, terrible, terrible prediction. Awful. The worst prediction you've ever made. The worst prediction and the best prediction, the same podcast is a world.

Yeah, record-breaking prediction. Yeah. Yeah, that's what you went for in the opposite way. That is crazy Okay, let's go to our Patreon prediction If you want to get involved With this

Join the P1 Patreon Support myself and Tommy On this wonderful adventure And you can put a prediction in Each race weekend And we select one of them To be part of our set Mine, Emma

Safety car at least two times My goodness How did we not get two safety cars After what happened in qualifying Just one And just an Oscar Piastri one And I went for Picklenick

Papaya Rules Play a part in the weekend And no Yeah. No, I'm not. Even though he joked about like them hitting the ball and then, uh, yes. No papaya rules because there was no rules to pay. You got two points and I got one, two, three.

Okay, so it's still very close. So you are two points clear now. Uh, yes. I don't know how you. Wait. Sorry. It's great adding from you. I'm literally watching you update this in the show. Wait, no, wait.

Because you were one point ahead and you scored one more point. So therefore you are two points ahead. Don't you dare. Sorry. It's because I fumbled. Your score. Yeah, you are fumbling the bag. I love how you tried to make it three points when you scored one more,

one plus one, Tommy. One plus one. Yeah, yeah. I just thought I'd done better. Yeah, it's fine. Yeah, you were very smug on the watch on. You're like, I've cooked. Even though I've had the worst prediction in the world, I'm going to score a lot of points.

Yeah, yeah. Especially because when we were kind of looking at the race as well, I was kind of thinking, oh, Norris P2, that looks like it could be on as well. and but alas, no. Alas, no. Let's go to the family top three where it's eight seven to the boring Bellingham's and a lot of points scored this week.

In third place, my girlfriend, Ellie, went for Charles Leclerc, which was of course not correct. My mum went for Lewis Hamilton. No. No. In second place, Ellie went for Vestappan,

not Piastri, that was first. Spoiler alert. My mum went for Lando Norris. And in first place, she went for Piastrian. and my mum went for piastri as well a whopping zero points from the family completely washed you will be redrafted

I literally might as well have got grace involved and actually I should have got grace involved because you probably would have said match the happen to win as well or a science podium yeah okay maybe grace is brought in for Singapore I've got a story to tell actually I said it on the watch along but for anyone that's not heard so if you remember right at the start of the season you've been following P1

and our journeys for quite a long time my daughter grace used to wear a max for step and wansy and every time she wore it as a baby max would win to the point where like it went on in this crazy winning streak and we got it signed by max and definitely put two grace on it which is amazing um i was so like championship back on after that race i ordered grace of max for step and t-shirt does that count as a wazzy though or does she need a maxf and trousers as well yeah maybe okay if they exist Just be head to toe in just Max merch. Okay, wow.

Well, let's see if that starts to work. And then you can get that one signed when Max wins the World Championship. Okay, there we go. Thank you, everybody. We're going to continue over now for a little bit with our wonderful patrons. Patreon.com for slash MapP1, Tommy, if you want some extra waffle from myself and Thomas Bellingham. Tommy, what are your final thoughts, please?

Final thoughts? Why do we have to wait for another couple of weeks until F1? because my God, I'm just so hype for the rest of the season now. Yeah, you're so excited to. I need to know. I need to know what's happening. I need to know, yeah, if it's championship on or if it's all over. Because we will know.

This time in two weeks, I will be head to turn, Ratsa's Hubbermach again or cry. One lap of free practice one. Tommy's like, Dream's dead. Yeah. It's over. Okay, thank you everybody. We will see you either now, if you're part of the people on Patreon, or we'll see you for driver ratings.

and funniest reactions, best reactions and everything else in between. So yeah, thank you for tuning in and we'll see you very soon. I'll love to take care. Bye. Bye. P1 is a Stack production

and part of the ACASTCREATAN network.