P1 with Matt and Tommy - Belgian GP Race Review

Episode Date: July 27, 2025

The changing conditions at Spa didn't throw up the chaotic race we expected - but don't worry, there are plenty of rants to get into...You can listen to an extended version of today's Race Review over on our Patreon! You'll get access to extended Race Review episodes, 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 Tommy. Yes, Belgian Grand Prix edition. The addition of the rain delays and then the racing, if we can call it that. We got some things to talk about, Tommy, today for sure. We do. And I know where to begin. I know where we are going to begin. But first and foremost, how are you feeling after that, sir?

I'm feeling, yeah, disappointed with the race for sure, many reasons. I kind of felt like at least when the race was started, it might be good, but unfortunately then other problems persisted. So, yeah, it's always disappointing when you get to spa, say so many times about what a great track it is on paper and through history and things like that. But unfortunately, it's just not delivering, is it? It certainly is not but who is delivering are the P1 patrons

Big shout out to you look Oh that's beautiful You always deliver Yeah Who will be getting Extra chat at the end of this Race Review and every single race review

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At the end of this one So let's do it Let's dive in Head first My Most Memorable Moments And I say this with, there's a bit of

a bit of jest, I suppose. The McLaren battle, or lack of for 43 of the 44 laps, but it was still a battle, there was still intrigue, maybe not as much intrigue as perhaps the commentary were suggesting that there might be towards the end of that one. But of course,

Piastri versus Norris, we had somewhat of a side-by-side slash change of positions at the start. Once we finally got underway, don't worry. We'll talk about the rain delay with Tommy's much memorable moment, I think. Yeah, there will be rants coming.

But let's start with the actual bit of action that was interesting. And it was, of course, Lando Norris off a pole position, but not really off a pole position, was in first because we didn't even get a starting good. No, don't, Matt, don't kick off. No, we're not talking about the rain delay. Of course, we had a rolling start. We didn't have a grid start.

And Oscar got through. Oscar got through on lap one. There's a lot of things to sort of highlight here. Firstly, I guess if we're talking chronologically, the loss of the position on lap one and the battery issue that Lando faced. Now I was looking into sort of post-race interviews and things like that. And as of our understanding and of Zach Brown sharing his thoughts, Lando did have a battery issue. It was kind of communicated maybe slightly differently during the race where we thought perhaps Lando had used his battery too early, perhaps even behind the safety. I don't think that's the case.

And it's whether the wording of Zach Brand means an issue or the issue was he used it. I guess. Well, he kind of said we need to look into it and we need to do homework and this, that and the other. So it's, of course, he's going to defend his guys. But it does lean more towards, because Lando is a fantastic driver. He knows how to race. And I'm sure he knows when to use his battery. Perhaps unless he was in a different mode.

I hope they will clarify it fully. But what I am going to do is assume what Zach has said. said is the fact that Lando had an issue. And of course, that meant Oscar got a phenomenal run on Lando, who I think was a little bit tentative out of term one. And that was essentially the race done. That was how it was decided. Yeah, it certainly was. Yeah, the battery issue, we don't know as of yet how much that was driver or just an issue with the car. But even even with that aside, I think firstly, I think we need to go even back before that. And I do think it's a questionable tactic in my opinion.

And I don't know if it's hindsight, but I'm sure we said it on the watch long, actually, that to accelerate so early before that final corner when, of course, you can't overtake, seemed very strange to kind of go there because it just meant that everyone was still close. You'd think you'd boot the throttle at the exit of the corner, catch everyone, by surprise there because they like to leave it as late as possible. But for Lando to go there, just kind of kept Oscar with him. And then Lando made a little mistake going out of turn one, of course, as well. So even without the battery, he was under a lot of, without the battery issue.

He was under a lot of pressure because he got slightly, you know, on the power, sliding a little bit. And it gave Oscar Piastri an amazing run up the hill. And I guess, you know, credit Oscar Piacore. Piastri for taking that one moment because of course it's crucial and this this is exactly what happened later on and we said this during the race that when you've got two drivers in the same team fighting for the victory and you're going to have a crossover you want to be the one ahead because you get the preferential stop and that's exactly what happened Oscar knew I need to get

ahead because then I will be able to pit first and that he did a question from P1 on Patreon member Leak Rain. Do you think that the mistakes we saw from Lando today will cost him the championship? Or are they just more highlighted? So let's kind of run through the mistakes or some, obviously, I don't think were mistakes and perhaps due to the team or things like that. So Lando, and I guess all of his ailments that he had today. So he had a slowish pit stop, three and a half seconds where I think he joked by Oscar in the call-down room when he was watching this one back in slow-mo. And then, of course, through losing the lead at the start, he would have had a, we did have,

a lap later stop. And I think there's a question which we'll dive into maybe shortly about could they have double stacked rather than let Lando go for an extra lap. But either or, Lando didn't have the preferential treatment there because he was the second car on the road. Then the actual mistakes, of course, were the two turn one lock. lockups and then the Poo-on mistake, I'm not really counting the last lockup, which was like a lap or two before the end, because there was no real chance to catch him. But the other two, I think, cost him somewhere within the region of two and a half to three seconds, which I think could have been an interesting factor had he not made those mistakes. But of course, he did. The battery issues, which we, battery issue at the start, which we mentioned. But then on the flip side of that and things that I think did help Lando was the hard's decision over the mediums. Now, whether that was the fact that the team were trying to not allow the two to fight on track

and wanted to give them completely different strategies because they expected Oscar to pit again, probably at the time, or whether it was a case of, I don't know, that's the one that mainly, that's what I lean towards, that the team were just trying to keep these two away from each other. Not that they have bad blood or anything, but from a team's perspective, it makes the most sense. So that kind of gives you, I think, an overarching overview of what happened.

with Lando's race. And so then do you think the mistakes we saw from Lando today will cost him the championship? And I'm obviously with the battery issue

I am putting that towards being a car issue from what I have understood of Zach Brown's quote. Yes, Lando made a couple of mistakes today but I don't, I think a lot of it

was literally a byproduct from lap one and losing the lead. A lot of these things happened because of him losing the lead at the start, which can you really blame him.

There was, it definitely affected him. Zach Brown said it himself. Lando lost the lead because of that battery issue. Without that, Lando keeps the lead, probably wins the race. But he didn't, of course. I mean, I think he's made, I think the mistakes are costing him for sure. The thing with Lando this year, I think, we've shown that he's shown that he's got the speed, but he seems to make more errors during.

kind of normal conditions, if you like. I know he's obviously chasing, it was chasing Piastri and pushing and that's why he went off. But we've not tended to see that that kind of from Piastri as much. So this is definitely Lando's Achilles heel, I think, this this season is a few errors here and there costing him when he needs to catch up. Yeah, we'll give him the benefit of the doubt at the start. But then also, you know, like I said, he did make a mistake into turn one as well, which has put Piastri on it. So these, we said this at Silverstone, because of course Piastri made the error at Silverstone,

that mistakes are going to cost. Whichever McLaren driver doesn't end up winning the title, we will look back on moments. And at the moment, they're very, very close. Piastri has extended his lead. and at the end of the season, if Piastri wins the championship, we'll go, oh, God, if only Lando had done this, or if he hadn't have crushed at Canada or whatever, and then equally if Lando wins the championship,

we'll go, oh, if Oscar hadn't have made that error at Silverstone, because these are going to be the crucial moments, and it will come down to mistakes. I think it's not just the mistakes from Lando that have cost in the championship, but it's both of them. And today, Piastri was the one that was faultless, and that's what won in the race. It was.

I think, yeah, of course, he did make those mistakes. The biggest mistake for me, and it's to touch upon what you had said, Tommy, which I hadn't really commented on, was the start of the race, was the decision to accelerate so early. I think that, you put Max Verstappen in that situation, I can see exactly what he does,

where he bolts off of the final shift. He will literally take a really wide line around the second part of the final chican and he will just bolt because you can't follow his line. You can't get too close. And then he's got five, six tenths in the bag and he's absolutely fine. And even with Norris's issues, he probably could have kept the lead. So that I think was the biggest error. Of course, yeah, the other small errors of him costing two and a half three seconds were big. It's, yeah, it's hard to, you can't really like for like, Norris.

Norris versus Piastri in terms of the pace today, just purely because Norris was on the hard tires, who I think actually drove really well in terms of his pace, considering the Porelli graphic, was saying that the hard tires compared to the softs were nearly two seconds a lapse slower, and the mediums weren't much of a step down. But then you've got Piastri on the other side of that, trying to manage the mediums to the end. So it's very difficult to compare the two as to know which was the better strategy, but I'm leaning more towards the hard. That was such an interesting moment of the race, I think, as well, because you have

had initially you had Lando and you know we can talk about this now because we actually I think disagreed on the watch long about it of should McLaren have just double stacked them because I don't think they'd have lost that much time personally with Lando being what was the second and a half pit stop to take two and a half seconds you don't want to do an extra lap at the longest track on the calendar when you're when clearly you know Lewis Hamilton on those drives showed that that's the way to go but it's very interesting that when we got to that second lap, the initial reaction was, what McLaren doing? Why have they put them on huds? That's silly. And then actually,

it ended up completely flipping. And then this is where you get, you know, the fans that go, oh, they're favouring Lando or, oh, they've screwed Lando. And I think it was just, it's very interesting to watch a different team split something with their cars. And this is going to be fascinating going into the season later on now, where two sides of the garages will do something different because they are now, they're competitors. They're not, they're not teammates, but they're not, they're not playing friendly anymore. The, it's two cars and two teams within a team that want to win the championship. For sure. I think, you know, going back to your double stacking point, I think the reason why I disagreed was one, a double

stack is not easy to do. It's not just to click your fingers and you'll bash out two and a half, two two and a half second pit stops without an element of risk. And also as well, like the track wasn't bone dry. Don't get me wrong, Hamilton was flying out there. And I guess perhaps from a McLaren standpoint, it's just safeguarding ever so slightly there of,

okay, we'll just do another lap with Lando. The track will be slightly drier. We're not going to lose. In terms of the battle between the two of them, I can see, and I can see the argument for double stacking as well. But I guess against that the worst case scenario is probably, you know, they botched the pit stop

and then you have a Lecler, who to be fair was eight seconds back. One or the other, it was very much both viable, I think, in my opinion. It wasn't like an absolute stone cold you need to double stack, what the hell are you doing. It's not like an Oscar Piastri

Silverstone like we saw, which was a disaster from McLaren. I don't think it was as bad as that. I think they could have saved maybe two, three seconds with a good couple of pit stops for the double stack. That's Piastri in 2024 for Context, not this year.

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, last year. which I'm sure a lot of Piastri fans will remember and not want to remember, to be honest with you. Lou underscore F1 should have McLaren kept both drivers on the same strategy. They gave Lando a good chance with that strategy. They don't need to, and I think it comes back to your point, Tommy,

of the constructors is wrapped up, and there's kind of this inter-team battle now where both race engineers want, of course, their driver to do the best they possibly can in every race and to win the championship. And it did feel like a very last-minute call as well because they went over the team radio to Lando and said, do you want the hard? Yes or no?

Like we need to make a decision right now. And Lando was like, yes. And it was like a snap decision. Lando came into the pits and went on the hards. I'm not completely against McLaren doing this from a fan perspective as well. I like the fact that it was a difference in strategy. Had they both been on the mediums, it's game over.

It's GGs. Piastri would have won that without any element of intrigue. Yeah. But from a McLaren point of view, perhaps they felt, and maybe they didn't have time to do this, but I'm thinking from like an emotional level, they felt a little bit sorry for how Lando was kind of screwed in that whole situation

and gave them an opportunity. And it's a really fascinating. They had an extra lap to think about it as well, of course. They did, yeah. Because that, yeah, and it is fascinating because no doubt fans will jump on the fact that, oh, they're giving, you know, their lead driver, the better strategy and all things like that. But they didn't know that at the time, of course.

You had no idea what was going to happen. Lead driver being who just for context. For Lando. Like people obviously seem to think that Lando's favored by McLaren. Yeah, yeah. Favored by McLaren and they'd put him on hards because they knew he'd catch up Oscar. May I add, please, nobody else went on the hard tires. That was not an obvious strategy by any stretch.

I think that for me, that call was because they knew that Lando's finishing second regardless. And this is what McLaren can do now. And it's going to be fascinating as the season goes on that you have this garage split now where the McLaren is light years ahead. They know that they're going to finish one, two, pretty much every race if nothing goes wrong. And they, or Max Verstappen gets in the way every like five rounds. But the fact is these two drivers can now try and risk things,

do things a little bit different. And that's going to be really interesting going forward because you're going to hear like, I can already see the, you know, on the radio, just not even referring to the teammates by name anymore because that is the mentality. They already do. The other car, yeah.

Yeah, the other car, yeah. You're going to have to sort of get that in your head now. And this is, this, we've said it so many times, this could be, I hope it's not for, for both of their sakes because they're both great drivers. But you never know with Formula One and we're having a regulation change coming up. This could be the best opportunity these two will ever get to win a world championship. and at this moment in time it is a 50-50 chance pretty much because this also screams to me that McLaren know that this is it now is between us two we can take risks we can go for it

and that's quite an exciting thing to look forward to and I didn't think I'd use the word exciting in this Belgian Grand Prix review but there we go yeah you said exciting but it's for future things not actually what happened in around spa. Okay, cool. So that is McLaren kind of wrapped up for now. Tommy, let's go to your

most memorable moment. My most memorable and depressing moment was the rain delay. And, well, what a delay it was. I understand that they need to

prioritize safety. We had an awful crash here in F2 a few years ago, losing the life, a few bare. And it's a really, really dangerous circuit.

And that has to, you have to remember that visibility is everything. It's not just the rain. It's the visibility. And people not being able to see through a very scary corner in Eurasian Radion where they're going flat out. If a car goes off, it's very dangerous. So I get that. But the frustration for me, I was kind of defending the decision at the start, really,

to basically say, delay it. Okay, I understand. They're very unfortunate. They're never going to move the start time, but it's always very frustrating when you see the perfect conditions. I do. Move the start time forward. Yeah. They said this after SPAR 2021, that they could do that.

Because I'm sure as a fan, you're probably very frustrated watching a Formula 2 race that goes ahead and is perfect. Then you watch the driver's braid in dry conditions, everything. And then as soon as the Formula 1 starts, chucks it down with rain and we're not getting any action. So that is really frustrating. But what annoys me the most is when you can see the rain start. And then we have to have the, okay, we'll get the safety car out and the safety car drives around for a while. And then it's really, and then it's, yeah, medical car. And then it gets drier and drier.

And then the drivers are still, you know, having a cup of tea and the cameras just showing them all at the back of the garages. And then we go, okay, 20 minutes. Yeah, we'll think about starting. Okay, 20 minutes. And then there's a 20 minute countdown. And you think we could have Formula One cars out there drying the track. right now. There needs to be some kind of preparation of the rain is like drizzling and about to stop now. We can see on the radar no more rain is coming. Let's get them in the car ready to go. You're just

wasting 20 minutes of time there, if not arguably more. annoying. Oh, we love a Tommy rant. Wow, you can see the steam coming out of his ears. I was of a similar opinion when we were doing our watch along. That was the most frustrating part was the clunky procedures that we have in Formula One where it isn't a case of preparing for when the rain's stopping. It's the rain has stopped. Let's press the big red button that now allows everybody to go do what they need to do to prepare to start the race. Like 15 minute countdown here and there and you know, I get putting out the medical car, checking the track conditions, cool, whatever, like it, fine. but it

I just don't really understand it it does just feel like a very procedural thing that they're just set in their ways and they've done it for many many years and that's just the way they'll do it but you know it's 2025 we've got enough technology to know roughly when when thing

when sort of rain clouds will be coming in when it will stop when the sun will come out I know spa is probably the most difficult place of all but there's a great point they should be more prepared because they have all this technology so you know when the weather's coming And it did. They knew that this is the most frustrating thing is going, oh, there's going to be rain at 3 o'clock. And boy, at 3 o'clock, it absolutely choked it down. So do something. Yes. I do still feel some sympathy for the race director because of what you said around Spa being a very dangerous track. And also the visibility I think here is it just hangs in the air.

Like even after all of the waiting we did and the complaining and the sun that we saw and some parts of the track were. were reasonably dry, there were parts of the track where, you know, we rode on board with signs and things like that. And we saw that yet the visibility is still pretty poor, like even then. So I still think that, you know, the best drivers in the world, we have incredible safety parameters in place now that they should have gone racing slightly earlier. But I also do understand to a degree why they take the precaution that they do. Because it's not. it's no, in the moment we get frustrated. In the moment we're like, just go racing.

And there are some archaic procedures that need slightly tightening up, I think, to take advantage of weather conditions. But SPAR is such a unique track. It's such a difficult one to get right when it's been raining. Yeah, and this unfortunately keeps happening, but that's the problem. They're not learning. They should learn about these decisions and do something

because it keeps happening again and it will happen again. We'll see it again at other tracks where it just gets delayed too long. Tiago underscore Meck asks, why are the FIA such cowards towards wet conditions? Such a waste and such a boring race after the dries came on. They are the best drivers in the world. Let them struggle a bit in the wet. I do agree that they could have been in slightly more treacherous,

not treacherous, but just slightly more difficult conditions than what they were in. Don't get me wrong. The visibility is something that we can only judge to a degree. from being at home in the comfort of our own lounges or wherever we are watching on television. Coward is harsh. I think that's going a step too far to call the FIA and race control cowards.

But I think there needs to be more discussion about how they improve the procedure in these types of races because we're going to have them in the future. And I feel like this is not the first, not the second, not the third, not the fifth time we have discussed just how slow the procedure is

when it comes to this sort of stuff. And that is the most frustrating thing. It may sound a bit cliche, and it's always the same rant, but you understand why that the fans, that these Formula One drivers are meant to be the best drivers in the world. That's what is pushed on the tag of Formula One again and again, again. These are the best drivers in the world. And then you watch a Formula 2 race,

where they're in worse conditions. They're meant to be the worst drivers that aren't ready for Formula One yet. And they're the ones going out doing a race that didn't get delayed, didn't get stopped. There were no safety cars. they just, in terms of safety cars because of the weather, they just went out and did the race in treacherous conditions. And when Formula One comes about,

I totally understand why fans get annoyed that everyone's set in the pit lane with their brolleys and then they don't start the race until there's only like three laps of wet running and then they're all on the dries. It's annoying as hell. What lap was it that they moved to the dries? 10, 9, 10, something like that.

So lap 12, Hamilton, into the pits to change over to the tries, which roughly, what, 20, 25 minutes into the race. Interesting stuff.

Next question from 1337 PLMNO. Why are they doing four laps behind the safety car on a drying track in order to do a rolling start instead of one and a standing start? Yeah, it's frustrating, isn't it? I think that this is also something that

feels very archaic in the procedures that we do and the health and health, health and safety, whatever the FIA race control want to call it. Like, yes, they've waited for the track to be ready

and then gone, we'll do a rolling start. No, you either wait for the track to be as dry as it is and we get a standing start which is probably, if not,

definitely the best part of a Formula One race is the standing start and the excitement of lap one when the five lights go out. So I agree that it needed to be slightly more difficult conditions and a rolling start.

or what we had and a standing start. Yeah, absolutely. If you're waiting that long, you might as well have a standing start. And I can already hear people yelling at the screen, because of course it doesn't matter now because he lost the lead anyway. But obviously what could have been a big controversy had he had gone on and won the race and something would have talked about, was the fact that Lando Norris was on the radio going,

well, actually my side of the grid, and I'm on pole position is wet. So I'm going to have a really bad start here if we do a standing start. and then they chose to do a rolling start. So that's one of those... Whether that was the reason that they did it? No, I'm not saying it's the reason, but obviously they literally did do that. So like, I'm not saying it's because they did,

and some people, of course, will argue, oh, British buyers, of course they did. But this is what happened. But that shouldn't factor in and into it anyway. And yeah, you always want to see a standing site in Formula One. I think that's the frustrating thing for fans. That is the most exciting part of a Grand Prix is a standing start. And I thought there were procedures in place and things to make sure that they kind of did that as much as possible.

But they chose to do a rolling start, of course. And that other than obviously Piastri making the move made it very difficult for people to pass and things because that's the big opportunity, isn't it, in those conditions? Yeah, I do wonder, and obviously this is speculative, whether the race control did decide to do a rolling start because of the fact it was maybe seen as an unfair advantage for the drivers that are on the racing lines compared to compared to pulse it to it wouldn't have been no so that's what I'm saying so it would have been an unfair advantage for the ones not on poles

and second and all the even numbers which I don't agree with personally I'm like how do you ever measure fair and unfair you know in dry conditions the drivers on the pole third, fifth, seventh, ninth, etc., etc., have grip because it's usually on the racing line. So, like, if they're doing it because it's slightly more wet on one side than other, I would say, you know, that's just luck of the draw. You know, you put the standing start first over, oh, well, actually, three milliliters more on poles than there is from second.

Do you think of the amount of standing starts we've had in the past in Formula One, and I'm looking back towards the glorious, you know, naughties and, you know, whatever, where it's much wetter than that and we've had standing starts. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so very odd that they didn't choose to do it because, yeah, that's the frustrating thing for fans was that you look at it and go, well, they started the F2 in these conditions

and it didn't look that bad and they were running in these conditions in F2 and that shouldn't be the case. Of course, F2 do go slightly slower than Formula 1 cars, which maybe is another factor. But we move on to the next question. P.1Petraimbaugh, Anastasia W. you, what's the real solution to finding the balance between safety and racing in the wet?

We keep having the same conversation, but nothing changes. Look, we, it's 2025. Why are we still, to this day, relying on tractors and like hair dryers or whatever we're doing? How do we not have a more modern solution to drying a track out? I really don't understand it. Now, I don't know what that technology would be, but there are much cleverer people out there. And I've seen people in our watch-along chat saying,

we literally have the most, the cleverest engineers in the world working in Formula One, how are we still relying on farming machinery to go and sort the track out? It's so true. It is so true. Yeah, this is the frustrating thing that we've said so many times, is there's, they can't seem to find a solution, you know, the biggest brains in the sport and everything.

And we're still in this situation. And we've had races like this for years and years and years now where it's just robbing the fans of entertainment and people that pay their money to, you know, there's plenty of talk of Pirelli should bring a wet tire. But, you know, in this case, it's the visibility and things. and trying to clear the water. And it's just not good enough to have this situation. And the problem is, they know that we're probably not going to have a situation like this again for a while. So they kind of get away with it because we have a race. Okay, whatever, we talk about the race.

And then, you know, there'll be a summer break or we'll forgotten about it. And then maybe at some point later in the season, it will happen again. And we'll go, what can they do? What can they do? And they just don't seem to do anything. they try all these things about getting rid of the spray. Maybe it's better when we get a change of regulations and it's not so much about the floor. Who knows?

But yeah, it's a real, real frustrating thing of modern Formula One that, you know, we're not NASCAR. We should be able to race in wet conditions. It's not an oval. Certainly isn't, Tommy. That's a very good point. Perhaps the new cars in 2026 will be better and less sprayy. For many reasons, better. Yeah, fingers crossed, please.

Next question from P1Petri member, Edith is my middle name. Is Leclair's drive going unnoticed? Holding Vastappen at bay for that long, surely has to be commended. Edith, your £5 is in the post. I was going to say how much of you paid much. I appreciate that, appreciate that.

I think, I don't know if it's going on noticed as such. I mean, the race has only just happened, but I will commend Leclair for a brilliant P3. I thought, especially Vastappen, Vastappen in the wet and he's right behind you. I thought LeClair was going to lose the position to Max every day of the week. I'd given up. I'd given up hope.

My delusion levels are waning right now. But he held on. Vastappen's tyres then started to cook a little bit, I think, towards the end of that intermediate stint. And then in the dry, Leclair was great. He was as good as Max in terms of the pace. There were times, I think, especially at the end of the race where Max was mounting an assault. But Leclair held him at bay and I think it was a brilliant drive.

as much as he could have done today in a Ferrari which is not known for being particularly good in the wet and to hold on and you know and I know Tommy you on the watch long get out the way shal don't know why you're racing max because you know he's going to be going after the McLaren's and I was like no Charles he's going to stay there and he did and it was absolutely worth the fight because as much as Charles looked like in the wet especially towards the end of that stint like he was the slowest man on track he was still faster than everybody else behind him. It's just that the McLaren's were in a different league. But I'm glad he held on because Lecler, it was a very, very good drive. Yes, it certainly was Lecler got everything out of that car

this race to be able to, you know, much of it was done in qualifying to be ahead of Max because it was incredibly hard to overtake. But it's not to take away from Leclair how he how we drove because I think it's a lesson in to many many drivers and you see this up and down the grid and in many other motorsport series that a lot of drivers it's becoming more and more common and maybe it's the engineer's influence and this does sound a bit old man yells at cloud but I like drivers a rainy cloud yeah I like drivers that will defend and they don't think about Delta time. And LeCler quite easily could have gone, I'm losing too much time here, I'll let Max go, and I'll finish about fourth. And he's been rewarded by hanging on here, giving it everything,

driving in those wet conditions when, you know, it's hard to pass, but he's still done a great job to keep Max behind. And then when it gets to dry, it's even more weirdly difficult to overtake. and he had the pace to be able to pull away and finish third on the podium. So in a weird way, I'm glad that that's been rewarded because I don't like seeing drivers just go, I'm losing too much time here. It's better for my race if I just let people go and then think about my delta time and I'm losing time because I'm battling and things like that. So yeah, LeCler did a fantastic job and very rare to see Ferrari because we say there's so many times

get a good result in these kind of conditions because normally the car's not too suited for it. Of course we saw Lewis Hamilton who would have been praying for those conditions because we know how good he is and he shared that as well. He certainly did. Back to the Delta time point, I think that, yeah, I completely agree that it's great to see when drivers do throw that out the window. I think in Charles case, this one, as much as I love to commend him for literally everything he does, there was no Delta time thoughts.

I don't think just purely going back to my point of the fact that he was the, well, fourth fastest car, if you're counting Max and the two McLarens, because everyone else wasn't catching him. It's not like he was creating a Lecler train because he was fighting Max. Despite fighting Max, he was still quicker than Russell, Albon and everyone else behind. But yeah, Charles is a beautiful man, and I will completely agree with that. Next question, Mr. Bear 15. How in the world did Hamilton go from P18 to P7, but still remain in the same position after? that.

Because sparse sucks in the dry. Yeah. Hamilton did a fantastic job with the strategy. I think a lot

of experience came there. Holkenberg, I think came in on the same lap as well and was thrust up the order

initially until deciding to do one of the strangest strategy calls I think I've ever seen for Hulk, maybe just

fully securing the flop that I had predicted for him. But back to Hamilton, yeah, it was a brilliant

choice to go there. He was setting purple sectors that lap, which then caught, you know, brought everybody else into the pits. But even that one lap around such a long lap like Spa, he was able to really take advantage and get all the way up to, yeah, as you say, P7, Mr. Bear 15.

So after that, spa, spa happened, where nobody can overtake. Albon was pretty fast in the straight line, I think, as well. And he was able to hold him. And it's annoying because, you know, Hamilton looked really quick, but could do nothing about it. So then just decided, hey, I'm just going to chill here until an off. opportunity arises. He got close to Albon. He was within half a second in DRS, but still spa. It was a weird situation where it kind of felt like a throwback to old school Formula One where it's

impossible to overtake in the dry and in the wet is your actually opportunity because in recent years, normally the wet conditions are where you can't overtake because you don't want to go offline and things like that. But it just allowed Hamilton to be able to basically make moves in non-DRS zones and make moves into the bus stop and things like that, which is what I personally love seeing rather than DRS passes and stuff. So he made all his moves then. And then unfortunately, when we got to dry, when it got to the dry conditions, we had exactly the same situation that we saw in the sprint race of just it's too hard to pass. And then, that's really, really depressing because my word was the race.

Like watching Sonoda and Bearman, I think it was, behind Gasly for just lap after lap, after lap, after lap, and as much as DRS is like lauded on certain other tracks, it's awful. It's actually awful at kind of your spars and things because the trains are just probably the most frustrating thing to watch as a Formula One fan, to just watch lap after lap of people that can do nothing because you have the car behind that has DRS, so then they can't be able taken either, and you just have this knock-on effect, and it's just dreadful. It is dreadful. That is a great word for it.

Question, and this is about the circuits from people on Patreon member Cody. When is the F1 community going to stop being nostalgic about SPAR and admit that it's just not suitable for modern Formula One? We wouldn't lose much entertainment-wise from it dropping off the calendar. I think the reason why a lot of Formula One fans that have been watching for, you know, quite a long time in their lives, have this nostalgic because SPAR is a phenomenal circuit. But also, I don't know whether this question is going to be particularly relevant with the fact that we do have new cars coming next year, where I'm hoping Slipstream will be more effective even at low downforce tracks. and overtaking will be more possible. Who knows? That is just a dreamland right now.

But, you know, we're coming to a point now where it's not the circuit. The circuit is phenomenal. It's amazing to watch. I love it. A lot of people love it. It's the cars. The cars are the problem. The cars are ruining iconic circuits, not the other way around.

The circuit's not changed. Spa has not changed. It's still awesome. But sadly, we rely on the cars to do things. with each other, that sounds sus. And they haven't been because they can't get anywhere near each other. No, there's too many circuits on the calendar

that we're having this conversation about. If this was one circuit a year where you can't overtake, you'd go, actually, Spar is terrible and needs to be got. But this is happening up and down the Formula One calendar. I think it was after Japan, we had this conversation

where we went through the entire calendar and minus like Vegas Austria and a few others, there weren't really many that are known for overtaking now because the cars are just... Brazil, I can't believe you didn't say Brazil, of course, of course. Got the goat. And weirdly, one of the only old school circuits and Silverstone that delivers. But there's not, there really aren't many and it's unfortunate that these tracks are just getting lost.

And, you know, we are going to see Spa drop off the calendar into and rotate. if you like, every other year. And maybe that will help us maybe appreciate it more rather than just getting to the end of every single season going, well, that was every race there going, oh, what can they do? Maybe, you know, I'm literally just spitballing here and it could be a terrible suggestion. But one of the problems for the likes of spa, for the likes of Monza,

is low downforce cars. So could Formula One, could the FIA, almost kind of have like a minimum rear wing angle. Like something that will force slipstream, force the DRS to be more powerful than it than it is because we saw that a little bit, didn't we?

At one point in the race, drivers were able to overtake each other. And I was like, oh, hold on a second. Even with DRS, it's like, oh, they've got bigger wings on. It's looking slightly more promising. But the problem is they then spread out

and then they couldn't get close to each other again. But I do wonder if there are things like that that can be put in place, which I don't know where that sits. Well, the slipstream used to be so good, didn't they, in the previous cars? And that's why you had these ridiculous situations that like Monsa, where you had what they do in Formula 3, where they're all trying to get a slip stream from each other.

Exactly. Because the slip stream was so good. But unfortunately, now they're not as good. That's why Baku was so good in that 2017-2018 era, because you had massive wings, and then the DRS is so powerful, and you get a massive slipstream. Whereas now, yeah, you're finding it a lot more difficult.

So. Okay, big wangs. We've fixed it. We fixed Formula One. None of these skinny, you're basically banned skinny wings. You're not allowed to change. Skinny wings are done, done now. You need a shovel on the back of your car or nothing else. Okay, let's head to biggest winner, driver or team. I mean, McLaren have done rather well, haven't they? But, you know, this is to be expected from them. Albon's done a brilliant job in P6. you know he had a poor sprint and then of course qualified incredibly well in p5 and then to still finish ahead of a Ferrari that you know Hamilton had come through the field pretty early on is is no mean feat so I'm going to go with Albon yeah Albon's a

great shout because Williams just haven't seemed to have scored points big points in a long time science had the you know the dream sprint and then it flipped the other way. Yeah, Piastri is a good shout as well just from the fact that he managed to deliver to get a healthy-ish lead going into Hungary and then, you know, if he can extend it again, he'll be looking nice into the summer break. But just to be different, I go Piastri because... If I shouldn't say Boroletto, a little P9 from him.

Yeah, very impressive from Bortoletto, of course. He... Well, we'll talk about his teammate later. these days so. Wow, yeah, exactly. So it's actually an underperformance. Okay, moving to biggest loser. Hadjar had one of the worst races of, well, definitely the worst race of his Formula One career.

We're not including Australia that technically wasn't really a race because it crashed out before the start of it. But Hadjar, wow, could it have gone any worse? Could it have gone any worse for him? 20th and just miles off the back of anyone. I think the strategy went terrible. I don't really know what happened with Hadjar's race, but all I noted is that he was million miles behind.

This one is the easiest one in the world and it hurts me to say a bit as Kimmy Antonelli. The whole weekend has been absolutely appalling to have two mistakes in both qualifying sessions to finish 16th. You know, he's on the verge of tears. Doesn't matter anymore, does it? Not matter it matters anyway. No, true. But yeah, on the verge of tears, he needs to have a good Hungarian Grand Prix to go into the summer

break with a bit more of a positive mindset because it really does feel like he's spiraling at the moment. Bless him. Yeah, it's a very fair shout. Okay, let's have a look back at our predictions, shall we, that we made on Wednesday to see how we did. It is currently 31.29 to Tommy, but I am mounting a comeback. People thought it was over a few races ago, but now we are two points apart. A good surprise!

I went for Williams for a good surprise. And sadly, one of them did well, and the other one did not in both sprint and main race. So that's fun. Well, you're not going to take it. I would, I can't believe I'm actually arguing a point for you here. Wait, oh no, hold on. Hold on. Where did science finish in the sprint?

Sainz got a great result in the sprint, did you not? Where did he finish in the sprint, though? Let me just, hold on. Let me fight this. I'm going to fight this corner. Science got a sixth in the sprint. All right. Good surprise, locked in William Scor.

Two top sixes in both races. both drivers. I can't believe I'm arguing a point for you. No, it's lit my mind. I knew that signs had had a good sprint, didn't realize it was a P6. So we will lock that in, Tommy. It's been a very busy day today. So thank you for fighting my corner. That's two points. Two points. I forgot. I thought it was one. It's two points because of the team. You shouldn't have said anything. You now hate me. Yes. Maybe I'm just hoping you're going to be nice here. Pierre Gasley. P10, rare points. Didn't start the sprint.

No, but Alpine. I mean, how many points of Alpine? been got this year. How many points are they got? Talk to me. They have a whopping 20 points. I mean, he's the worst car on the grid now, aren't they?

And Gazley's strong. Asthma are the worst team with the grid this weekend. Oh, am I going to be nice for a tenth? Yeah, I mean, he did have a, he had a terrible car and he managed to just form a Gasly train

and then hold on. In a race where everyone's finished as well. I'll let you have it, because I nearly, nearly forgot my own one. So there you go. A big flop. I went for Nika Holkenberg. Absolutely.

Yeah. Lock it in. That's done. Yeah. I can't believe it. We haven't talked about this. What a ridiculous decision to just throw away points. A point for no reason.

In a point, it was playing position in P-10, wasn't he, behind his teammate Bortoletto. And then they just decided to pit him with like 11 laps to go. Now, I haven't seen anything to suggest that he had a tire failure, but they just went on a, ah, spa you can overtake, right? Did they just forget? I could run about this all day. This screams to me like engineers looking at delta times and things rather than actually what's happening on track. Because how many times have we seen this situation where we go, oh, they're going to hit a cliff.

That hasn't happened since like 2012. And this imaginary cliff that they keep going on about, they mentioned it, Charlerclair when he brilliantly won in Monza. George Russell last year, he got disqualified, obviously, but he was going to, he, he won it on track and everyone's waiting for the tyres to just give up. They just don't anymore. So why you'd sacrifice track position when you've basically seen

a ghastly train, why you'd want to be behind that at any point is absolutely mind-blowing. So I found what Holcomburg was saying after the race to counter your point. He said that they'd made a second stop with around 11 laps to go.

His front tyres was dropping off significantly and was having front locking and understeer. He said that staying out wasn't really an option, especially with our higher downforce set up compared to Pierre Ghazdi behind, who was running lower downforce. We therefore opted for the stop and tried to fight back,

but unfortunately it didn't quite work out. Still the wrong choice. Yeah, just, Tommy's like, just let the tire just fall off before you come in. Well, you're running in 10th place. Why would you not? If you're in a points, like you don't get anything.

Yeah, I think, you know, with 11 laps to go, it was worth the try. but they decided against it. So there you go. They sure did. Anyway, big flop. I went for Salba and of course Portletto became the game.

That's mental, isn't it? Because I think I saw a comment on the predictions that was like, oh, Matt didn't realize that Tommy's gone for Salba, which basically means if Nico is a flop, then Salba will be a flop as well because Bortolezzo is not going to do anything special. Boom, Bottoletto Pinaletto.

And Portletto had a fantastic weekend, we'll mention the driver ratings, but really good in qualifying. Got some points as well. So, yeah. but no, the fact that even Nika Holkenberg managed to drop out of the point to get you a big flop point as well is outrageous. Let's go to Sprint pole, where I went for Lando Norris, incorrect. And I went for Max Verstappen, incorrect.

Incorrect. Sprint winner, I went for Lando Norris, incorrect. And I went for Oscar Piaastri. I said that basically Vestappen would get pole position and then not win the sprint, sprint and the exact opposite happened. Wheel knowledge. Oh dearly me. And speaking of will knowledge,

pole position I went for Charles LeClerler. Oh dear. And I went for Max Ostappen. No. No, well, we really did well on that one. What about our top three? In third position, I went for Charlotte Claire.

Mm. Yeah. That's so annoying because I went for Max. And that battle, we said this in the watch-long, there was not only our favourite drivers battling out but also a prediction point so made it extra spicy that was that was tense that was the only tense point of the entire grand prix was mine and your prediction fighting it out in second place i went for max for stappen which was incorrect i went

for lando norris and then beautifully the way that i have changed it up because you were of course going to go for oscar piastri weren't you but instead i have locked it in first and foremost and it's Oscar Piestri right there and then for me. Was that, no, is that how it worked? I'm trying to remember. What did you stole my, yeah, you did. You stole my prediction for going for Piaastri, even though you were going to go for Norris just to block me.

Yeah. It's basically been the double block because not only have you blocked me, you've also got it then correct, which is really, really irritating. That's a double year. So that is a double year. So I went for Oscar Piastri and you went for George Russell. Don't ruin it yet.

Don't ruin it. As my sister just decides to leave the room as I'm mid-podcast recording this. That's great. You know, yeah. Have a great time, Gina. Take care. All right, bye. Okay.

One crazy prediction. I went for Sonoda makes Q3. Oh, another one. Another one. Cooking. And yours was? Mine was Frankie Colopinto first points. Dreadful.

Yeah, not ideal. Patreon prediction I went for you. You want to have the drink, which was both Ferrari's finish in the top five for both sprint and main race and sadly that did not happen. Nope and I went for Zingies which was three different instructors on the podiums. I obviously forgot McLaren existed and you did. Yeah not going to happen. You did. So you've got one two. I was two behind.

Five and I got two. Oh my word. You got five points. Okay so why I'm one ahead. 34. Oh my God. I've taken the lead. That is unbelievable. This is why Landoys can still win the world championship because everyone broke me off just like that. They did Lando and here we are. We're back. We're so back, baby.

Okay, speaking of being so back, will the Gallagher's be so back? Let's see. Tommy's just done a massive inhale. So the family top three is currently seven four to the boring Bellingham's. In third position, my dad went for George Russell.

Cheers, mate. Cheers, dad. Appreciate that one. No. My dad went for Antonelli very much wrong. I think that's actually a negative point. I'm not going to lie to you.

That was so wrong. In second place, my dad went for Piastri. Wrong. And my dad went for the Stepan. Which was also wrong. In first place, obviously my dad's got it wrong. He went for Norris. So thanks, Dad.

Zero points for you. Cheers. And my dad went for Oscar Piastri. So the Bellingham's have extended their leads. Oh my God. You've got a whole race victory ahead of me now. Even if I get three. Grace for hungry it is.

Although Grace actually is getting wheel knowledge now. She knows driver's name. So maybe I'm in big trouble. I think Gasley might win. George Russell and stuff. To be fair, she will say Max Verstappen and she will say Pierre Gasley. So who that third driver will be, who knows. George Russell, she knows the name of and that's about it.

So might be those three. We'll find out. Right. That is the main race podcast, all done and dusted. Remember, if you appear on Patreon, we're going to continue for some extra chat right now, patreon.com forward slash Matt P1, Tommy. But apart from that, Tommy,

all we have left to do is to get your final thoughts. Final thoughts? I'm glad we're going to a race. We can overtake. Oh, wait, it's hungry. Yeah, see you next week. Probably get more overtakes than what we do. Yeah, we probably will actually.

Fingers crossed. So slipstream will work, maybe. Fingers crossed. We'll see. Okay, thank you everybody. We'll see you soon. Thanks for tuning in, as always, for our watchalongs.

Remember to go buy some P1 live show tickets if you haven't already, and we'll be continuing the chat with patrons. But apart from that, take care. See you soon. Adios. Love you lots. Goodbye. Bye!

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