P1 with Matt and Tommy - Brazil GP Sprint Race review

Episode Date: November 2, 2024

With Matt away, Tommy's delighted to welcome back F1 YouTuber - and friend of the pod - Tommo!Who cares if qualifying was cancelled, that sprint was absolutely epic. Join us as we get stuck into the chaos, confusion and controversy! Join us for our End of Season tour across the UK this December! Get your tickets here!Sign up to our Patreon here! You'll get access to bonus episodes, our classic race podcast series, every P1 episode ad-free, early access to live tickets and merch, and access to our Discord server where you can chat with other F1 fans!Follow 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 P1 podcast with Matt and Tommy, although as you will probably hear and see, it is not Matt hosting today. I am joined by Tomo once again. It's been a while, Tomo. How are you doing? It's been a while Tommy. Thank you for having me. I did actually drop a pretty decent Matt impression last time, didn't I? But I feel like that was a one in one. I don't want to make this too kind of regular, right? I'll hold off on the Matt slander for now. Yeah, shall manage to make the formation lap. this time. He did. No need for the Matt impression this time. Right, let's get into it, shall we? Although it's going to be a slightly shorter podcast than we expected because of qualifying,

of course, being postponed, which we were waiting for. But thankfully, the sprint was so, so good. And lots of controversy, as always, lots of things to talk about. I thought it was an absolutely fantastic race, to be honest, watching four cars in three different teams separated by absolutely nothing just flat out going for the win I thought I was dreaming

this is the thing we've been dreaming for for so long right surely I could completely agree I mean I talked about this on my live stream and I was getting cooked for giving this sprint a seven out of ten I thought it was like a really good sprint I know like we had like you say four cars at the front We had kind of Czecho, you know, battling through and getting a bit elbows out. We had him and Lawson, which we didn't see on the coverage, obviously, because we never do.

You had Behrmann and Holkenberg having their little ding-dong. I thought it was as a sprint goes as well, Tommy, because we've had some stinky sprints, didn't we over the years? But that was a good one, definitely. And the Interlagos is always a viable. It is. I don't know about you. There's something about, I think, shorter tracks where it feels a bit more frantic and quick.

I think works better for a sprint. just something that I really enjoy about it and yeah I'm surprised that you said that a lot of people didn't think it was that good because like what more do people expect you've also got the kind of drama of the championship and every point counting now at this point as well I thought it was brilliant like what more can you really ask for

to have all these drivers you knew they were you were never getting a battle for the lead as such because of what Piestri was maybe going to do, but then again, like, I think he kept us guessing just the way it all panned out. Yeah, I think if Max had gotten past show a little bit sooner, maybe, because I feel like Rebel were kind of surprised with their, and I know it's a sprint race, so they're, you know, munching their tires isn't going to get punished so badly, but I feel like there was, yeah, if Max had a clear show, a bit earlier, and there were times where Lando was quite considerably outside of a second from Oscar,

I don't know. I just feel like there was, of course, yeah, we never got that proper scrap for a race win. And it's never nice. It's never nice seeing a win decided by a team order. Like, but at the end of the day, I feel like the overall entertainment of the, and the what could have been, right? I mean, God, when Lando, not Lando, when Max locked a break going into term one, by the way, I don't know about you, Tommy, but I was like, oh, God, it's happening, but fortunately it didn't.

Yeah, I mean, if Max had gone into the back of Lando, the amount. of people. It's funny, isn't it? And we'll get into this later with conspiracy theories and narrative based on things that had happened. But the fact that Max didn't go into the back of Lando, it was a genuine lockup and he misjudged his breaking. Had you hit the back of him, I don't think, I think you'd have struggled to convince anyone that it wasn't on purpose, right? That is just funny how Formula One works that way because everyone would have jumped on it, wouldn't there, and gone,

oh, Max has taken him out because he knew who's going to win? It's funny how it... I feel like, I don't know, not to the extent of 2021, not at all, but I feel like once you get to a point in the title fight where, you know, it's getting closer and it's getting more intense

and it's getting more real, yes, it's still a very, very long shot for Lando, but one D&F, Evil Way could properly swing it. you do start to then get the realms of people on both sides really, really stretching and these narratives kind of form and it's hard to kind of like navigate it on and find your own way and find, you know, does correlation always equal causation? Typically life not, but you see certain things happen. You see certain timings of certain VCs and then all of a sudden, hang on a second. It's like in Zambor when Yuki pulled over and Max ended up.

Oh yeah, 100%. Remember that one? Like, come on. There's so many examples, Tommy. There's so many examples, countless ones. It's just navigating it through all of the tin foil. You know, there's a lot of tin foil knocking about at the minute. There is. I mean, we'll get into this later, but I find it slightly hilarious that after the US Grand Prix,

the whole narrative was that for Stappan, the Flappin, the Fassappan, and he never gets a penalty, and he's the golden boy, and he's the favourite, and they'll never penalise him for anything. literally one race later British bias the FAA hate him he's got the wrong passport he needs to leave the sport because they all hate him and it is it's funny how one penalty either way that can just change people's complete mind on it but let's get into the first question from P1 patron Alan Endopay

why didn't McLaren swap sooner rather than later yes I mean my opinion they were at Absolutely playing with fire there. I can't believe they didn't do it sooner. I understand why they didn't do it straight away on the first lap. But I think, I think Andreas Stella mentioned afterwards, you know,

it was very close between the top four and there was never really an opportunity. I don't really buy that argument because there were plenty of times where there was maybe a two-second gap between second and third and they could have switched the cars. of course when Charles and Max were right behind Lando there's no way Oscar's ever going to let him through because he could easily lose a bunch of places

but the second that gap opened up I cannot believe they didn't switch them immediately because you're playing with fire there that you don't know if there's going to be a red flag a safety car I mean there was we'll get into that later but the embarrassment for McLaren if it had gone to a red flag or they hadn't had time to switch them, why they didn't do it sooner for me was a big surprise.

Well, to me it's trying to understand why they wouldn't because the pragmatic thing to do is like, right, okay, and they'd have gone through all of the scenarios beforehand. Right. Oscar, if it's one, two, you're ahead of Lando. As soon as Lando drops DRS, or if he drops DRS of the car behind him, down the main straight, then on the next DRS zone, you swap positions and then that gives you the middle sector if whoever is in third is close behind, it gives you the middle sector to kind of escape away a bit because McLaren's seemed pretty good in that middle sector.

That feels like a... And obviously Oscar's not going to know himself how far the car behind Lando is the job of the team to tell him that. But I feel like that is just a very simple, clean, fair, because it's in Lando's best interest that Oscar stays pretty close behind as well, right? Because any points that Oscar can take off of Max benefits Max. the only way I can understand why McLaren wouldn't just do something like that,

which is pretty simple. And, look, Oscar's got nothing to fight for now in the championship. He's mathematically possible, but it's not going to happen, is this sense of, I don't know if it's ego or this attachment to the McLaren way. You talk about it in football all the time. You hear about the West Ham way. I'm like, what the hell is that like to lose? That's the West Ham way like we did today.

Look, it's this whole like, oh, we won't prioritize one driver. And then it's like, okay, okay, we will prioritize, but we'll just leave it really late so Oscar can feel like his wand because we don't want to. Like, McLaren, stop faffing about. Either do team orders and just, and be clear and concise. Because every time Oscar's been given a clear, concise instruction, he's followed through. He's given that team no reason to believe. It's because they're faffing about, like what happened in Monza, because they weren't clear. They were just like, oh, papyrals, shut up.

Like, oh my God. Just either do it or I'd respect it more, Tommy. if they were just like, no, no team orders Landau has to fight for every position, including with Oscar. Pick a lane. Don't try and like do this middle ground where you're like trying to, because they just make themselves look like they're not ready to fight for a title as far as I'm concerned.

It's embarrassing, to be honest. It is so true. We've said this many times on the podcast that McLaren, you do wonder, of course, a very popular team and have a very popular fan base. And we all want to see racing in Formula One. Like, that's what we live for. but as a, if you were a McLaren fan, and from a team perspective,

at the end of the day, it's a team sport. And I know a lot of people will go, oh, you know, don't you want to see racing? Of course I want to see racing. I'd much rather there'd be no team orders at all, but that's not what a team sport is in Formula One. You have to maximise every point. And McLaren themselves have lost the world title by a point before.

So it can happen. This question from Jopo blog, should team orders be banned from the sport? No. You can't. They tried to do this before after what happened in Austria 2002 with Michael Schumacher. They were like, no, you can't do team orders anymore. And all that happened was we got ridiculous coded messages because the teams still want to do it. The teams and the drivers are never going to.

The sport is far too complex. It's like when they tried to ban. driver communication with their engineers and they weren't allowed to tell them which buttons to press on the steering wheel. The sport's too complicated now. It's too far down the line to have this dream of kind of just shut the engineers down and they can't talk to them. Because they literally can't drive the cars anymore without the engineers. So to ban team orders from the sport, in theory, we all want to see racing. But this is what happened before where we had.

Fernando's faster than you, like it just got a bit silly. It's not possible, is it? Fernando is fast as you. That is the, like, you just get that every week. What's the, there's no point trying to enforce a rule that is ininforcible because you can't stop teams having conversations behind closed doors and deciding on things beforehand. So, yeah, I mean, I get the premise, but you're right, Tommy, is it, unless you have

20 constructors with one car each, you're not going to get team orders. Exactly. and just think how McLaren have been with their coded messages this year and papaya rules what insane jargon they'd come up with to say swap the cars swap the papyrs I don't know they'd make something up and they'd make something up and they P1 patron Ronek Oscar was clearly the faster driver today and wasn't happy about swapping around with Lando does this have the makings of a Hamilton-Rosbeg-type rivalry down the line, maybe even in 2025? Now, this is the beauty of the sport.

There's good and bad sides to having two very quick drivers. We've seen that thanks to having two very quick drivers, them or Ferrari are going to win the Constructors title. But when you have two drivers, when it comes to the driver's title that are very competitive, that's where it gets tricky. Oscar was faster. Was he not happy? I wouldn't say he wasn't happy.

I think that's unfair. He always knew what he was going to do. But I do think he drove in a way where maybe this is unfair to him. But his move at the start, the way he covered Lando off, then waited for a long time. Maybe it was the fact that McLaren weren't telling him and saying it's safer to do it yet. To me, that spells Oscar basically. I think Oscar was driving in a long time. way that he could have basically been in the lead for as long as possible. And then if Lando

did get overtaken at the start or overtaken later by Charlotte-Clauva Stappen, he could be like, oh, well, we can't swap now, can we? That's how I sort of saw that potentially happening. I think, I'm not actually sure. Was Oscar actually faster? The thing is, you know, clean air is king. That was literally Oscar's line, right? And obviously Lando is not going to go for an absolute how it's a dive bomb on his teammate when they're obviously they've spoken and oscar's openly been like i will give up a victory uh to help landau out in the title so given the fact that on obviously lando was getting dres to oscar but i'm not necessarily convinced that oscar was you know if lando hadn't been in the same position that gap wouldn't have been in my opinion i don't know right i think clean air is

is a big mitigating factor as as these regulations get older these cars start to kick out more and more dirty air and that has more of a detrimental effect to the cars behind. But yeah, I feel like Hamilton Rosberg is like a, I mean, that's a, because Hampton Rosberg was quite personal and they obviously had a lot of, but the difference as well with them is that their car was far and beyond ahead of everyone else, right? So if a Hamilton-Rosberg was to happen in 2014, but if the Red Bull was right up there, then Daniel Ricardo would have won the title. So they can't afford for that to happen.

McLaren and again they've got they've got history for it with Lewis and Fernando in 2007 and Kimmy picked up the pieces so I wouldn't this was always the challenge if McLaren were going to you know drop Daniel Ricardo where there was a

clear one too with Lando and Daniel to go for two number ones which again the McLaren way they love having two number ones the centre and Prost back in the day prime example you're inviting this problem and then you've got to learn you've got to deal with it

McLaren like this is a problem of their, it's a good problem to have in some ways, but also if you're fighting in a competitive constructors fight where there's going to be at least three cars capable of winning races next year, if Mercedes butt their ideas up maybe four, you know, it's not going to be easy for them. Yeah, it's very true. McLaren have always had this philosophy of the two fastest drivers is what you want in the sport, but I would argue that the championship results haven't really shown that. Look what happened with Proston Center. Look what happened. with Lewis and Fernando,

it could happen again. So yeah, going to be very, very fascinating in 2025. And we've already seen Lando and how he's approached this world title, maybe a little bit, kind of, he's not been happy with,

you know, constantly being asked about it. And, you know, he's definitely felt the pressure of the world title. And yeah, is going to be really fascinating next year to see if Oscar is as good as he has been this latter part of the year, how they're going to handle it?

Right, let's get into the big question. This is from Mike Boos. Was the VSC all part of the Papaya Master Plan or just a lucky coincidence? Right, so here we go. So basically, Nico Ockonberg had his engine failure of course and put to the side of the track

and when you were watching it you know I said this there was no sort of I think after Abu Dhabi 2021 everyone wants to jump on a conspiracy right and was it as best possible timing for McLaren as they possibly could yes I mean if you literally

had a McLaren employee controlling the VSC button they would have waited until Lando could have got past Oscar, then they would have waited for Max to get a run down the straight and gone, no, now we're going to do the VSC, then you'd have waited a whole lap, and then as soon as they got to the final lap

and waited past the point where Max could have overtaken again, they would have continued. And that's exactly what happened. Is it a lucky coincidence? I mean, I've seen a lot of people online, of course, always jumping on conspiracies and saying, what's Johnny Herbert doing and all this kind of stuff Johnny Herbert doesn't control the VSC for a start

that is Zach Brown isn't it Zach Brown's got his little manual override in his place in Indiana he's just waiting for it like go on exactly and what I would say is it is very convenient for McLaren

but there have been examples of it in the past I think Formula One in general have been extremely slow with the VSC saw it with the the the Carlos and Sergio crash in Baku I remember I think it was China you had that shot of Bottas getting out his car when cars were coming up and they immediately it's almost like they see it on the screen themselves and panic and press the button and go oh that does look a bit dangerous actually and that happens a lot yeah so whether whether it is just

coincidental it's very easy to jump on a conspiracy but I do think they've just delayed it for a long time? I mean even what Suzuki when Ghazly had that. Was it Gasly who had the shun? Oh no, Gazley almost took Carlos out when it was coming down with rain. Like, yeah, I think there's lots of examples of where there's been seemingly an unnecessary delay to these flags getting dropped. And what, I mean, with George when he had his accident in Australia and he was like stressing

about there being a red flag because he didn't want someone crashing into the underside of his car. because that would have been horrific. And it's, yeah, there's clearly, I know if it's a lack of faith that is understandable from the fan base and even the drivers, right, to how promptly these, because the idea of a VSC is to neutralise the race and, you know, make things safe at the end of the day. And, you know, the weather's dry and there's, you know, it's a slow part of the track. I get that.

I think it was too delayed for what a VSC should be able to do because, you know, it just takes Oscar to get a bit too, you know, happy on his throttle and Nico's right there with his car, you know, these things can happen and there's certain, you know, there's a responsibility of the rules enforcers to keep the drivers safe. It's hard, it's hard to look at why it was delayed by as much as it has, but again, for this to be some kind of conspiracy where there is this, like, because McLaren put themselves in this position themselves, like, they're the ones who chose to not swap positions earlier. And you know what, Toby, I wish the VSC had come out earlier, not just from a safety point of view, but then it would have taught McLaren a lesson.

Because them faffing about, they got lucky, really. They did get lucky, right? This VSC didn't keep Oscar ahead of Lando. And it's almost like they need to learn this lesson to actually be like, right, we're not going to again start faffing about trying to do it in the McLaren way. you do or you don't and you know I get why also like Lando's kind of annoyed he's not

whatever that you'd think they've discussed every single potential eventuality He even kind of alluded to the fact that I thought we were going to so he had it yeah people have been saying that he's been moaning on the radio

and all this kind of begging for it but I think he had every right to kind of question the decision because it very much sounded like they'd had this discussion in a driver a meeting or ever and you're going to get the place back. Matt always

brings up this point that in Hungary they said are you going to need Oscar for the championship and then he's driving around the outside of him at Monza so yes it's I'd love to

I'd love to sit here as a Maxisthap and basically be like yes they have rigged the safety car to basically favour McLaren and McLaren are controlling it. But it's just not the case. I think just coincidences sometimes do happen.

It's the same as like what you said right at the start of Zandvoort and Max Lestappen has benefited from a virtual safety car. That's racing. Sometimes things. Max literally said it himself, didn't he? It was like some things go against you. When Lando won in Miami, he said, this happens. sometimes he gets screwed over and sometimes

he gets lucky with it and sometimes he doesn't and sometimes your favourite driver does. It goes back to what I said you know the start that when it's against your favourite driver you want to scream that the stewards are biased against them when it goes in their favour suddenly they're the

favourite and all this kind of stuff so... It's funny how that works in it to me. Right now for the next contentious and controversial moment P1 Patreon Sir Brian is the five second penalty for Max warranted in your opinion? Yes, I do think it was warranted. I think a lot of people from my understanding is that they are misunderstanding what this penalty is actually being given for because after the initial moment, I watched it and thought, oh, that's a bit weird that Max is kind of going alongside. The safety car has not ended, but that's not what he got a penalty for.

he got a penalty because he was under the delta time. And if he'd been given a penalty for basically pulling alongside Oscar Piastri, and then they've kind of, because basically the talk was that you're not allowed to drive alongside during a safety car, which we know because much stuff when used to do that, and they've put in that role because of Max. but there's no rule about it happening in a virtual safety car. So people, I think a lot of people think that that's what Max got the penalty for and they've used it as an excuse to give him a penalty. But that's not, and if they had done that,

I'd probably be here saying, yes, they're trying to keep the title place by giving him a penalty and it's their chance to do it. However, it's a slam dunk penalty because rules are rules. And there's a minimum. delta time for a reason and that's what he he kind of breached it's a measurable quantifiable is 0.63 of a second he was under his delta you you watch the if you watch the highlights back it you see when the VSE comes out max is about seven and a half tenths I want to say about three quarters of a second behind Oscar um and you look at Oscar also Oscar

relative to Lando and then you look at when the VS VSC goes out maxes is right on Oscar's gearbox. So obviously Max's, you know, 0.63 of a second is a lot of time in Formula One. So Max has made a calculated, I think calculated decision to try and get that kind of momentum going in. And because the drivers don't know exactly

when the VSC is going to end. They know when it's about to end, but then there's kind of a range from when it actually ends. And Maxes, I think completely understandably, just tried to carry momentum in. there and it's it's not worked out and it's one of them that it's hard and fast it's measurable it's like any sport in regulation do go too fast in the pit lane even if you're a fraction over it's a

penalty it doesn't matter how much your if your dRS gap's too big like lewis got done in brazil in 21 it's a it's a penalty like it or you skip blobs too much yeah like and it's just one of them rules that that is just the rule and it's one it's a black hand white rule and unfortunately for him he was he got caught out by it. Yeah, exactly. For Formula One, Formula One is a very difficult sport. And I wouldn't, despite all the complaining that we do about decisions from the stewards, I wouldn't want to be doing those decisions because a lot of it is down to interpretation.

But when it is a literal, you know, it's almost like in football, the goal is the goal. If it doesn't go in, it's not a goal. It's literally as simple as, as simple as that. like those rules are in there and like you say if you speed in the pit lane it's a penalty and if you speed 20 miles an hour over the speed limit or 0.1 of a mile over at the speed limit it doesn't matter it's a penalty like that they they are literally the rules so yeah I think absolutely a warranted penalty and who knows what that extra point could do come the end

of the season at Wilkins I asked Martin genuinely the slowest car on the grid now. Maybe. Salber exists. I just remind you out there. Well, didn't Joe beat them, didn't he? Yeah, but they both started from the pit lane.

But so did Joe, so he won the pit lane race. I mean, I guess there's something there. I thought they said that this was going to be like a test session for that. I'm sure Fernando said that after qualifying, spring qualifying. So I'm not massively surprised. No, I'm not. And, you know, it's a, it's a, I've just basically slated all conspiracy theories and now going to drop one, but I'm still convinced that they are deliberately giving Adrian Nui as much winter on time as possible by just making sure they finish as low down as possible in the contractors. Yeah, but they were never going to catch Mercedes.

You were never going to catch Mercedes and I guess they're not going to be, they're not going to be beaten by Hass and less Hass are the goats, which maybe, um, who, who, knows but yeah i i think they're just struggling aren't they big time with uh with development and um i'm sure they are desperate to get mr newie in because yeah their downfall has been crazy it's it's it's mad to think that fernando lonte uh was basically challenging for well got a podium last year and was battling literally perors 11 months ago like it's it's let's you the mcclaren and astamartan trajectory has just been polar opposite um yeah i mean mclair and alexer and alexer and made a lot of these teams, you know, Alpine, who've got plenty of budget, of course, because they're Renault backed and they are Renault. And Aster Martin, it's almost made their struggle

even worse. Because I think part of Aster Martin starting well last year was that Ferrari, I think it was other teams as well, just not turning up and not making them, McLaren was slow to start last year. Ferrari were still just all at sea. Mercedes, I mean, they've been the most inconsistent team of these new regulations. So that kind of, but then, you know, Alonso literally could have won a Monaco last year. But he actually could have won around Monaco. Don't. Still thinking about it.

Painful. Right. Before we move on to qualifying, we Matt kindly sent a little voice note of his thoughts after sprint. Hello, everybody. It's the, it's just ended. The sprint has just ended. And I thought I'd give my very brief thoughts on the. that, slightly shaking at the fact of whether Oscar and Lando were actually going to swap positions.

Oscar didn't make it easy. I think he wanted to send a message that he definitely could have won that sprint. But, look, he played the team game at the end. God, Max was close, wasn't he, to getting Oscar as well. But, look, if that's the same situation tomorrow, I don't think Oscar maybe will play as nice. But let's see. I think we've got a great race on our hands tomorrow. Of course, we're waiting.

well, I'm sending this voice note before, main qualifying. I'll watch that later. But as for the sprint, that was very solid. Sad to see Charle not be able to take the fight, but Ferrari shock slightly out of sorts. Oh, and also, McLaren have absolutely no idea how to execute a team order strategy because as much as Oscar did let him through,

there was no ease at all. And Lando was put under pressure by being the following car. You could argue that, of course, Oscar did beat him in qualifying, so why should Oscar get out of the way straight away? But there was a point early on in the sprint when the two McLaren drivers were two seconds clear after Shaal made a mistake.

That was the point, in my opinion, that they should have swapped and made it a lot easier for the bear of them. Okay, onto qualifying now, I say onto qualifying. Nothing happened in qualifying. Delayed due to, of course, huge rainstorm. I feel like this is a common occurrence more than any other track.

I feel like we've had a lot of moments where we're sat there waiting for Brazilian Grand Prix qualifying to start and there's been a long delay. It seems a very common thing. I feel like it's happened an awful lot. But yeah, no running today. We'll see what they can do tomorrow.

The inevitable question that always, of course, happens during these things. And that is from Shem 0275. what is the point of the full wet tires if they're not going to use them also the fans deserve a full refund for this this is BS I mean it's very easy to sort of jump on the oh they should be on wet tires but I don't think the helicopter could even fly because the conditions were so bad

which they need to it needs to happen it was very dark the conditions were awful it wasn't like don't get me wrong, when there's a sprinkling of rain, and we've seen it more often than not, it is very frustrating when they don't go out and have running. And I do feel desperately sorry for the fans, particularly. You know, you've heard people have taken a 30-hour coach trip from Argentina to be here, and they're not going to get to watch any of the running.

It's absolutely gutting. But they can't do anything about the weather, and the fact is it was absolutely abysmal weather. I don't think they were ever going to run in it. Yeah, I think as well, when is it, K-Mag put it on pole, isn't it, when the heavens opened and he was perfectly tired. But K-Meg's not been racing this weekend, so, you know, maybe the gods were like, no, you know what, no K-Meg, no party.

But yeah, like, sorry, it's a good point, right, the helicopter, if the helicopter can't run, then, again, look, these kind of conditions, you have a bad accident and the emergency situation. services can't be that, you know, the sport has a duty of care to the drivers and to upholding the kind of safety standards they have. Yeah, of course, it's really annoying. And you do sometimes look at these tracks and think, could there be, you know, better, you know, could there be better drainage? Could there be better facilities on track? I remember, was it in Turkey when they got loads of random people to, like, drive their own cars around the track to try and grip it up a bit? Maybe

you do the same but just let anyone drive around just to get rid of the water i don't know um but i i think that's that's certainly there's grounds to criticize on that front um that there maybe could and should be more and a formal one than the fia you know they're the sports in a very healthy place at the moment should there be more investment in these tracks like interlagos and suzuka um that are typically curtailed and often curtailed by by weather but outside of that there's not too much you can do. Like if it is just coming down like crazy, like you can't be sending the cars out.

It's not even so much. The wet tires might be able to handle the grip, but they can still aquaplane. The water kicked up out of the back is well talked about and well known. It's a shame, but it's one of them things that I don't know. Apart from better facilities at the track to displace the water, would that have even helped today? I'm not so sure.

Yeah, it's easy, isn't it, to sit here at home and criticise the decision, but sometimes, you know, it's just out of Formula One's control and they all want to be their racing, but sadly, they cannot. So this is a very interesting question, which is what happens if they can't qualify tomorrow? Because I've just read something very, very interesting. And, well, this is typical Formula One, really. yes so basically there's a rule and normal grand prix weekends of course that if you couldn't qualify you'd go off the FP3 result but FP3 does not exist on a sprint weekend and so there was a bit of confusion of what do they do because of course the sprint qualifying is probably the most accurate session but is it based on on a on a practice session

and I've just seen a tweet from John Noble that says looking at the sporting regulations the nearest guide to how the Brazilian grid will be formed a qualifying cannot take place is as follows drivers who are unclassified because of conditions will be allocated the top positions in accordance with the order they were classified in P3

or in the case of a sprint session P1 so that is the first practice session and if that happens let's cast our mind back to the order of free practice one which was Lando Norris first George Russell second

Olly Behrman third British that's British bias that is right there but that's not even the best bit is it Tom no it's not because Max Osteppen was 15th and he also has a penalty so he will be behind Jaguangu of course was twin here um wow i can't like if i was if you were zach brown you'd be getting helicopters flying over the

track pouring water on the circuit tomorrow morning wouldn't you because that is the dream scenario for mcclaren because they would have yeah lando in p1 max last max with a fresh engine would we see a repeat of a repeat of no no no no no no no no no no no no no no. Okay. Okay. The red, white and blue of Great Britain, Dutch is red white and blue on the flag as well, right? Coursing through my veins.

But there is no way you can justify that when it's not absolutely stipulated within the regulations, which it isn't. So I think, you know, that's fun to consider, but surely, I mean, it's either you take the sprint quality or the sprint race result. There's so much more representative, aren't they, when they're... Of course.

Yeah, yeah. Joking aside, like, you're right. You know, it's fun to speculate about it, but surely, surely you'd go on those. No, no, no. If they did the FP1, I would then be on board. Okay, maybe they are biased against bats, because that would be like some crazy reaching to like...

Because there isn't precedent for this. So, yeah, I think probably, I don't know what you'd say. I'd probably say the sprint... I'd probably say the sprint race results are probably the more... representative, I guess. I'd probably pick that personally. Yeah, you're right, though. If they went on the FP1 result,

I think Johnny Herbert would be banned from ever entering the Netherlands ever again. Because what a scenario that would be. Of course, you'd think that they'd be able to run tomorrow. I mean, what is the weather? The weather looks bad tomorrow as well. It looks not so bad in the morning. I had to look earlier. But yeah, if we can get an AM quality session, that would be nice.

Yeah, so, yeah, going to be very interesting to see what they do on that situation. And that is it. Tommy, thank you very much for going through the sprint or the controversy. You've picked a good one to join us. Give us your final thoughts, Senazam out with does it to me. Final thoughts? Oh, I think that, look, it's still going to. to take a herculean effort from McLaren and Lando to get, I think Max won the championship

in Singapore for me. That was the race that really did it. But, you know, Max has good race pace. So I expect him to see him, you know, pushing through the field, especially in the rain as well. Because although actually, it is one for you, Tommy. Who's a bad driver in the rain? Because I feel like every single driver, correct me if I'm wrong, has, apart from obviously the newbies, right, the Colopinot Pintinot, Behrman, has had a... pretty headline performance in the rain. So if it does rain, who do you think is going to get caught out by it? Yeah, it's very true.

You've kind of put me on the spot there, but yeah, it is funny because we always hear that Vestappen is the wet weather specialist, which he is, but then you hear Hamilton is a wet weather specialist, which he is, and Norris is a weather specialist, which he is, and George Russell is a wet weather special. It's so true, like, so much of the grid. And Fernando Alonzo, it is so much of the grid. I don't know if there's a particular driver that has struggled. I mean,

even Lance cooks in the rain and Lance gets no props from anyone. Like, he cooks in the rain. Once a year, he does sometimes. Yeah, it's going to be great. I'm looking forward to quality tomorrow, which hopefully does happen. If not, we might see Max fighting through from 20th, which would be equally as exciting and controversial.

And yeah, we'll see you tomorrow. Matt will be back on Twitch. Not sure, I haven't discussed yet, whether we'll be doing a live stream, maybe for Quali, if it happens. So join us then. But if not, join us for the race and our usual stuff. Tom May, thanks again for joining and we'll see you soon.

Goodbye. Bye. P1 is a Stack production and part of the ACAST creator network.