P1 with Matt and Tommy - Chinese GP Race Review

Episode Date: March 23, 2025

We're back for our second race review of the season! Join us as we see some impressive performances from various midfielders, an underrated title challenge and another damning performance from one young driver...Stay tuned for a post-credits reaction to some SPICY news!You can listen to an extended version of this episode over on our Patreon! Sign up to get every P1 episode ad-free, extended versions of every race review podcast, early access to live tickets and merch, and access to our Discord server where you can chat with us and other F1 fans! Click here to sign up now!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. What a race we have had 10 out of 10, stone cold banger. Like I am on cloud nine, Charlotte Claire winning from 20th on the grid with a broken front. Oh, no, that's not what happened. I do also enjoy the fact that, you know, everyone that's been a big podcast, a fan of ours, listen to a lot. You'll know that we have a sheet. and Tommy, Tommy likes to write things that I occasionally read out.

I've actually stopped myself this time because it says that we're talking about the Australian Grand Prix today. So I'm glad that I've managed to stop myself. I wish we were. And it is, yeah, I wish as well. Shall we just reflect on Australia again? Shall we just do that? That would be much more fun.

Of course, the Chinese Grand Prix. First and foremost, a quick shout out to our wonderful patrons. A lot more of you flying in. You're seeing the benefits, aren't you? Add free listening. You get the wonderful access. to our Discord. You get early access to tickets. You get extra waffle at the end of this podcast where you can ask more questions. We dive into a few other things that we haven't covered in the

main pod, but don't worry, lots of content coming away. If you're not a Patreon either, and we still have a lot to talk about as much. And it's funny as well. I feel as though the more boring ones is when we actually give you more content and rant about things a little bit longer. So if anything, you're sad that the race was bad, but you get more P1 with Matt and Tommy. You do. And I do think there is actually a surprising amount to talk about from that race, even though on track, yes, it was very much, the fears of the sprint were very much came to light, didn't they, of the fact that the dirty air was so problematic that it was very difficult to overtake. And even when every single Pirelli graphic was saying, it's a two-stop, it's a two-stop, it's a two-stop,

it was quite clear that a one stop was possible, apart from one team, but we'll get into them later because I'm ready to go on. Ferrari and Hamilton made it as well, don't worry. But yes, there's a few things that I know that we're going to pop off about, which is good fun. But first and foremost, let's go into my most memorable moment. And it, of course, was that Ferrari, Sherlock Claire,

faster with a broken front wing. Now, we had the sprint, Lewis Hamilton was incredible. Charles said he was trying to make some set up changes to go more towards what Hamilton was doing and he was slightly more hopeful for the race on Sunday. Of course, into turn one we go. And Charles very nearly wipes out both of them

with a little move down the inside, which he wasn't trying to pass Hamilton, but he was also being obviously quite eager to stay on the inside. Didn't expect Hamilton to come across, which Hamilton did slightly. Of course, no blame on Hamilton whatsoever. And then a clip that we've seen much less cause a puncture. So Hamilton got away with that.

Charle Lecler, I thought his race was done when I saw that front wing. It was slightly slanted. It was an end plate missing. And yet he became the greatest driver of all time after that and was quicker than his teammate for the first time this weekend. we were so close to eating our words of no charl and lewis will never collide uh you know it's never going to happen they're two of the best wheel to wheel races they always give room and respect and we were literally about another 10 centimetres away from the second race of the season then plowing

into each other and essentially um yeah so lucky not to have been more of an instant Charles just lost the car on the curb. And what kind of has ended up being quite a nothing incident has ended up kind of was so close to disaster. But thankfully for Ferrari it wasn't. Am I remembering correctly that in my season predictions, I said that teammates would come together in some form? So are you having the point or not?

100%. Because I'm pretty sure I said contact of any description. So that's a little tick box in that one. I'll remember that later on in the year. But it obviously was quite a strange thing to see Charlotte Claire be so quick out there. Question from P1 Patreon, yo, it's Logan. Should Ferrari consider removing Charles' left front wing M-plate for future Grand Prix? Now, I know this is done as a joke.

But obviously they can't do that. That is literally within the rules that they have to have an M-plate on the front wing. I, it's going to sound like it's just Charlotte Claire fanboy. but just logically, if he has both front wing end plates, he's going to go quicker. I know that there is this whole discussion of the endplate maybe balancing out the car in some weird way, but he was also losing quite a bit of time.

Turn 12 was mentioned, and he said after the race that he was losing time because of that front wing damage. So I am fully of the opinion that Leclair has, finally got on top of his issues this weekend and done a really, really good job. Hamilton, on the other hand, I think, just struggled. It just struggled this on Sunday. For whatever reason, I'm not sure.

He said after the race and the post-race radio that, you know, well, to be fair, more the team just said, you did the maximum with the pace that we had. So what that actually was, or the problems that Hamilton had, remains slightly unclear, especially when you think of the fact that in the sprint, he was the tire whisperer. He was amazing, but then he wasn't clean air. A completely different story when he wasn't. But back to Shal, I just think he drove really well. And I know some people go, oh, yeah, but it's the front wing.

The end plates clearly made him go faster. Scientifically, that is not probably the case. And in my opinion, I'm thinking, damn, we could have maybe got a P4, P3. But we don't know what the loss is. 20 to 30 points of aero loss is massive. as much as it's fun to Rose Ferrari and pretend that their car is so bad that you know complete unbalancing of the front wing makes them quicker it's not an outrageous thing to think that Charlotte Claire

would have more pace than Lewis Hamilton I know what we saw from Lewis Hamilton in the kind of sprint and of course he was the the king of kind of being able to manage at the front you're never going to kind of once Hamilton was in the front he's done it so many times in his career on so many races it was just kind of a Saturday drive and not Sunday drive but Saturday drive for him

not to take anything away from it it was an amazing performance and for anyone to beat a McLaren at any point this year has to be massively applauded but we saw how difficult it was in the dirty air and Hamilton had his struggles and yeah

just LeClaire just seemed a little bit quicker in that situation and I have to say they did did swap the cars, which is clever tactic. Yeah, exactly. Very interesting. It's a different scenario perhaps to the last few years when Charlotte, Clair and Carlos Synes have been teammates.

Hamilton obviously volunteering that, which is pretty awesome. Of course, at the same time, said, I will make, I will know when to make the swap or, you know, something to that degree back to his team. It was very much. We should swap this lap. I know when does what? Yeah, it's still him controlling the situation

without it being a kind of like, oh yes, team, I'm bowing down to your move. Yeah, I'm not going to lift off. If Charles is a second back, I'm not going to just lift off and let him through because I'm not going to lose any race time. If he gets close, I'll let him through. And that's what he did and fair play to Hamilton for that,

playing very much the team game at the moment. Next question, P1, Patreon member Rebecca, are we going to see a serious teammate battle between the Ferraris? Yes. I think so. And I think it will chop and change. Hamilton, as we kind of mentioned,

you cannot fault his Saturday performance and obviously his Friday sprint as well. He maximised absolutely everything there. But on Sunday, Charles bounced back and done a really good job. It's not a case of one being terrible, one being great. I think that Charles just did slightly better

on the Sunday, despite the wing damage as well. And I can't wait to see how these two push each other forward. And with Hamilton's experience with his knowledge of setting up a car, I think that's going to be massive for Ferrari moving forward. And to have grabbed a sprint win is not something any of us expected coming into this weekend. So yeah, I think it's going to be a ding-dong battle between LeClaire and Hamilton this year. It sure is, and are we surprised that there's the case? Probably not. I'm certainly not.

I think they're going to, I feel like this could be a trend throughout lots of different tracks. and even between, we saw it even between a sprint and a main race, sometimes one of them's quicker, sometimes the other one is quicker, very evenly matched. And it is funny and it's something that we've spoken about so much and particularly going to the season that is it the right thing? Weirdly, the kind of position they're in now where they're kind of trying to go forward and they've not quite got the car there,

you'd be saying, well, actually, this is a good thing that they're willing to switch, they're going to push the car forward. If they were in McLaren's position, they'd probably be a lot more selfish and be like, no, I'm winning and it would be a bit more fireworks. But at this point, I think they know that the car is not quite there and they are kind of working together somewhat to deliver the maximum and it's not quite much of an issue.

If we get into 2026 and they're still this close and they've got the fastest car, oh boy, is it going to be good? I would take the fast car and Charlotte Clare having a serious battle on his hands against Lewis Hamilton. We will take the fastest car in 2026. Thank you very much. Let's go to your most memorable moment. There we go. Most memorable moment, Tommy. My most memorable moment is the V-Carb strategy and not for a good reason. I am honestly, as someone that loves Yuki and wants him to do well,

this has happened a lot, but especially this year it hurts even more. I'm sick to death of watching Yuki Sanoda be about six or seventh on the road. And then the second it comes to the team getting involved and doing some kind of pit stop, he finishes the race in 12th or 13th or something. How on earth V-Carb when yesterday we were talking of them as maybe even having the best of the midfield, maybe even more extreme saying it could be as good as the Red Bull, which may be a bit of an exaggeration, but they were close to Max at the very start of that stint.

And then once again, the strategy, they've just thrown it down the toilet, like a result down the toilet. And it's painful to watch because Yuki Sanoda, in the last race, I can give them a bit of credit for the fact that it's a difficult situation to manage with the rain and things like that. But they lost a great result,

maybe even a P5 from just leaving him out, hanging him out to dry. This one in a dry race, everyone else pretty much has kind of done the normal strategy and why they were in a great position. And I think it is an absolute joke that they have basically ended up with no points. Their best car is 14th when they should be where Hass was in that race with a seventh and a 10th, maybe even higher. It's insane. They're ninth in the championship.

They're just throwing points down the toilet with these awful, awful strategies. And, yeah, it's painful, painful to watch as someone that wants to see Yuki do well. Tommy, gosh, never than knew you had it in you. It's pretty crazy. I obviously echo your thoughts. I think it is unforgivable how V-Carb, R-B, whatever they call these days, go about their strategy. They are the worst team on the grid for strategy by a comfortable margin.

We race Ferrari, they are much worse. Yeah, and they just don't get the limelight because they're not fighting for wins and for podiums. It's as if they take the Porelli graphic that comes out before the race and goes, this is gospel. This is absolutely the only strategies available to us because all three of them were two stops.

And fair enough, it was marginal between a one and a two. But it's Formula One. how often do we see one-stop strategies all the time? And it's not even as if people can go, ah, well, actually, they committed to a two-stop, so therefore they were kind of screwed. There were drivers that pit on exactly the same lap,

Ocon, I believe being one of them, who then did the rest of the race on a one-stop and finish seventh. Why would you give up track position after you literally have evidence that overtaking is really, hard, despite, you know, sometimes having a tire delta to the car ahead, it's still difficult to overtake. Why would you give up track position thinking you can just fly through the field? It's insane.

And Lance Stroll did the research for them because he stayed out and showed that the one-stop was possible. Everyone else saw that and went, yes, it's a one-stop, apart from Hamilton and Ferrari, but it was a role of this ice, as much I'd like to think Lance Stroll is a trendsetter and everyone's looking at Lance Strauss race, I'm sure it's probably, teams are just working on the fly, right? They're just being fluid about it. They know that they don't want to stop, ideally, if they can. And they made it work.

The only two stops out there were obviously Hamilton, who I would say threw away. Didn't massively work. And to be fair, if anything, if he had stayed out, Max may have taken a bit longer to get through. Would he then have lost a, would Charles have then lost a position to Max? I think in hindsight, maybe the Ferrari had a better chance of scoring better. positions without the two stop. Obviously, Hadjar Lawson, two stops, Gabriotoletto, two stops, and Yuki snowed three stops because his front wing failed.

Whether that would have continued to, because it was in the slipstream, wasn't it, with Yuki, where his front wing just failed to work. You do wonder if, perhaps it, maybe all these combination of factors came together and that's why it failed and actually it would have been okay. Who knows? But V-Carb, you've literally got maybe the best of the rest car. Yes, definitely. S-Car and they are ninth in the championship with three points.

Salba are ahead of you. Yuki Sanoda could legitimate, this is not me being a Yuki fanboy, could legitimately be about seventh or eighth in the championship based on his, if they'd maximized Australia and the result. He could have got like a P5 in every single kind of result and then like P7 today or whatever. Yeah, because there's no coincidence that the sprint where there's no pitch. stop, they're delivered.

Now, Christian Horner is obviously going to look at this classification, go Yuki Snowda one lap down. Yeah, his front wing fell off. He's not got it. He's not got it. Lawson, you know, finished four places ahead of him. Yeah, he's not only doesn't deserve the seat. Ridiculous. Anyway, moving away from V-Carb, I think they've got enough of a roasting.

Question from Manny underscore J Kim. Is Oscar Pastery going to surprise and prove himself as world champion material now? I think so, yes. I think that Oscar's proved that if he can sort qualifying, beat Lando. As much as Lando has had the advantage in qualifying, it's always been pretty close. Just Oscar's been that half a tenth, tenth back from Lando that he just hasn't been able to get track position. He got pole here and he was comfortable the entire race it felt like. So it is a championship worthy drive.

he's proving himself more and more into his third season now. And I feel as though if you can continue this trend, obviously he can position himself to potentially win the championship. But it does, and I said this, I think, at the start of the weekend, but it does feel like Oscar has taken another step forward in this kind of what we hear, five-year Oscar Piastri plan or whatever it might be, that by then he'll be a more finished driver and stuff like that.

Christ, I don't want to think about what Oscar Piazsche is going to be like in five, six years. Right now, he had Lando's number. He did. Of course, Lando did try to close in. Dirty air is difficult. But they're so close those two that if Oscar's ahead,

the race pace struggles that we saw in his early career have dissipated now by the looks of things. And probably helpful for that that McLaren is very good on its, on its tires as well. And Oscar has absolutely stepped up, of course. it's gutting to look back on Melbourne now and think that a normal race and without that mistake,

he's leading the championship. But he's absolutely there and he's not going to let Lando Norris just run away with it. You know, this is, he's absolutely taking the fight to him and in the sprint, he was the one, yes,

but both McLaren's under-delivered during qualifying, but he did enough to grab the points there and do a good job. And then in the main race, yeah, he just led away from the front. And I think even without Landau's car issue, there's nothing on Lando being able to, like, get past him, but I just don't think it was ever possible for him to get past with the dirty air when the cars are quite similar.

It just never looked in doubt for Piazri to win that race, really, from very early on. Yeah, speaking of the Lando car issue, probably want to dive into that slightly. Of course, a few laps from the end. And you hear this a lot, don't you, from, you know, perhaps when Hamilton was dominating or whatever. The league car, team radio engineer comes over. So we're managing a bit of a blah, blah, blah issue. Can you just make sure you do this?

And some of the times you just think, ah, it's the team being overcautious, trying to give us little bits of hope of all. We could get a battle for the win at some point. Obviously with Lando, again, he was continuing to push to try and catch Oscar Piastri, but then they started to realize that this long break pedal was getting worse and worse to the stage where it was critical and then with two laps to go

on the penultimate lap Lando was losing three seconds a lap to George Russell behind a few more corners not even a lap and George Russell's through Lando Lando could have if one more lap had happened

he might have lost a couple of positions we don't know how much slower he would have had to have gone because yeah a break issue is is massively scary. So Lando, you could almost see that he didn't really mind finishing P2. It's good points, but also the relief that he didn't have to DNF or go down to seventh or eighth, if that had happened, maybe three, four laps earlier.

An insane thing to think about as if Lando did retire from that race, George Russell would be leading the championship from Max Verstappen. How insane is that? but yeah the the fact that um lando i think it'd absolutely take take that result he's not going to be disappointed uh finishing p2 to oscar i think even without the issue he's absolutely taking that taking that result because he's the one that delivered in the first race and got got the big points and in a championship you know he's obviously going to be in a championship fight this year it's about picking up the maximum points and consistency is so

important. So he's absolutely taking up P2 every day of the week. It's just going to be how when we when we get it doesn't really matter at this stage him finishing second behind Oscar. It's when we get into the if we we get six, seven races time and it is a McLaren one to every single race. We've said it might be. It might also change like like we saw last year with what happened with Red Bull. He is he doesn't need to kind of go for like a hero win and catch Oscar. But yeah, he can be massively relieved

that that didn't affect his result at all in the end because genuinely, it wasn't even another lap. It was two more corners and Russell would have been in. Let's go now to a question from P1PITR member,

Anastasia W. Should we start worrying about Max's chances in the championship? Now Tommy will, you know, I'm sure, have his say on this,

be like, oh, it's all over. It's similar to my Ferrari emotional stability. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but, Before you go off on your little emotional tangent, I will come in more with the logic

because I don't have that same connection to Max Verstappen and his results. Worried, maybe, slightly, but this is the beauty of Formula One. Literally last year is evidence that just because one race, a team's not that great, doesn't mean they're not going to be great at the next race.

Australia, Max, was very strong in changeable conditions and challenge for the victory. Yes, China, it didn't work out for him. they weren't very, very quick. But the tracks are so unique and so different that we could see George Russell fastest in Japan. We could see Max fastest in Japan. I still think McLean will be fast in Japan. But that is the beauty of Formula One at the moment.

So I would say you have to wait until almost halfway through the championship to see where Max stands before you can even comment on whether he will have a chance of the championship. Right now, yes, he's eight points off the top. He scored good points so far. in a car that is absolutely not the fastest. If he's 100 points off at the halfway mark, then yeah, we can call it quits. But you can have a slight bit of worry, Tommy.

But if you say it's all over, I will be very upset with you. I, yeah, I am in two minds about it because McLaren are looking mighty, the Red Bull does look so awful. But the kind of saving grace here is that in the first two races, of the Red Bull looking like an absolute S-box

and Lawson's there driving around at the back which we'll get into later and looking like he is literally driving a tractor. Max is eight points off the championship lead when he should probably be about 20 points off the championship lead if not more. And if they can, if he can deliver a P2 and a P4 when the car is

really struggling, we all know what he can do if they just find literally anything. And that consistency of Max is something that is going to kind of keep him in that fight. It's not going to be, if he can just kind of stay in the fight, we're going to see how it kind of progresses because you can't really count anything because it's all going to come down to what teams decide to do with their development and things. because what I'd driver will get onto now is that I thought Mercedes would just be like no, let's all focus on next year.

George Russell has got two podiums now and he's doing a great job as well and kind of keeping himself in the mix. He is doing a great job and that's your point before we move on to George about the car development and where teams decide to close the book on 25 and go to 26.

Logically speaking, if Red Bull look like they're going to be absolutely washed in 20, why wouldn't they throw everything at this year to make sure Max can try and win another championship these are factors that we might well see come into play as the races go on because the pecking order won't stay the way it is in my opinion

Lando McClaren Oscar they think they're beatable I think they still have a very dominant package where once they hook it up but they're not miles ahead like Max finished 16 seconds off the win that's not an unsalvageable margin. It's not like he's finishing 40, 50 seconds back. So there is still small glimmers of hope for Max fans, that's for sure. And mainly just because I want, you know, in an alternative reality,

I want Max to win the championship so I can reply to everyone who said that we are absolutely finished for predicting Max P1 in the championship. So let's see how that one goes. Next question, P1, Patreon member, Dino, how good are Russell's chances to win the championship if he keeps getting consistent podiums? Well, if Russell keeps up this performance of just being there, that he puts himself in good stead,

what he needs is the pecking order to change. He needs Ferrari to be the quickest car and McLaren to have slightly bad weekends, and he still slots himself in a little P2, P3. That's what he is relying on. On the face of it, it looks like McLaren obviously have a car that is very versatile, dynamic on whatever track we go to so far, from what we've seen and from last year as well.

They were very good at a lot of tracks. But yeah, he needs Russell to have Norris and Piastri start tripping over each other and inheriting victories like he did in Austria, stuff like that. But for that, George has absolutely maximised both of the races. He has. He's made a fantastic start to the season, done a really good job. I mean, chances of the championship, you have to be able to win to win the championship. No.

as a as a famous will bucksing quote add that to the words of wisdom if you have a good car but this question is almost saying what are his chances by just getting consistent podium because Tom is rolling them out

I am rolling them out but it is so true because you can't if he doesn't win a Grand Prix you can't win a World Championship by just finishing third every race and even if the McLaren's do trip over each other

and you're finishing like seconds and third. You can't win a World Championship by finishing. I think the question is more kind of diving towards the fact that he is in that consistent podium position and if McLaren do mess up, then he's the one there to actually capitalize. Maybe. So I'm sure he'll win a few races this year, especially if he's not that far off.

If he's got the pace that he has and we saw what he could do in qualifying as well, tracks where, you know, it's difficult to overtake. We're going to get to a few of them this year. Wait, have not already just had one. Yeah, well, exactly. But even the next one is going to be incredibly difficult to overtake. So if you could just get ahead of the McLaren's in qualifying form, they probably are beatable in a weird way,

even though they do have this absolute insane car. It's not, it doesn't feel like they're completely untouchable in a weird way. P1 Patreon member Chiller comes in with the question, is the Hass faster than we thought, or were they smart with the strategy today? I think that. that Hass have a package that they might not truly understand right now. They were horrendous in Australia, albeit that was quite a changeable condition,

difficult weekend for everyone. We come to a dry weekend and Ocon maximised everything with his performance, easily driver of the day for me. And Oliver Berman scored a point as well in P10. So Hats got the strategy right. They're clearly not as bad as everyone thought after Australia and after testing as well, where they just toood around at six seconds a lap off the pace and just got mileage. But this is the performances we sort of expected from Hasse coming into this year.

So, yeah, Hasse are quicker than what some people thought were 10th on the 10th fastest car and Salber are the greatest of all time after the first race of the season. But it can chop and change. but Ocon had a I mean Ocon beat Antonelli like that's that is a ridiculous performance from O'Con so has to be very happy O'Con was sensational and

I put on Twitter about it that it wasn't seeming to get mentioned that he was on the back of that leading pack in a house when they were so awful and he was there even and then just kind of did the same strategy as the leaders or maybe a bit earlier and yeah, beat a Mercedes with the undercut.

And an amazing job for a mock on. Bearman provided some entertainment as well with his overtakes, doing a completely, well, the reverse strategy, like flipped the other way, where he came through the field at the end. And it's a great result for Hasse. And are they faster than we thought? I think this is literally just a case of the midfield being so close.

that it is literally circuit-dependent. We've seen now in Formula One, the qualifying sessions are a second separating the entire field, and half a second here, even two or three-tenths, you could be down three, four, five positions, and it is going to change. We could go to the next race, and it not suit has,

and they're back to being nearer the back, or maybe Williams are quick this week, or Alpine or whatever. It's just changing all the time. And, you know, we mentioned about this kind of front battle and having four teams going for the championship. We kind of got all these teams as well at the back, just picking up the scraps and going for best of the rest. And it shows that anyone that puts in a good drive, Niko Holkenberg last week, Espanocon this week, no matter what car you're in, you can get a very good result. And P7 is sensational for Rockon.

Definitely should have got driver of the day, but alas. but he did not for somehow Antonelli got driver of the day which for me just screams Tom Belling and Burner accounts so yeah I'd set up bots for the last week

that will come to light that will come to light at some point I'm sure let's move away from great performances to potentially ones that are left quite a bit on the table P1 Patreon member Sam Dougie Douglas is Liam

Lawful I assume that meant to say Lawson unless that's some sort of random Is that some sort of random nickname? Is that a slander name that I've accidentally played? Liam lawful Oh no, sorry.

That is meant to say Liam Lawson. That's crazy. That's crazy. That's crazy for you. Sam Dougie Douglas, that is a crazy slander name from you. Is Liam Lawson done? I cannot think of a poorer performance by any Red Bull Driver ever. I mean, it's been statistically the worst start to a Red Bull driver's career ever for Lawson.

Is he done? I, we're literally two Grand Prix into the season. Two races. But I can't really see a massive way back. Like it's not as if it's a small jump that he needs to make. He finished over a minute behind Vastappen. He was fighting cars that obviously the Red Bull shouldn't be fighting. It depends how Red Bulls see it.

If Red Bulls see in the data that Lawson is starting to get a handle of the car, then they'll keep him in. If he starts to show improvements, then they will. But it's such a difficult, I don't know how this is going to go. I don't know, because there's plenty of options

that are viable now where Red Bull go, okay, Lawson, you can't drive the car. Go back to racing balls. Sonoda, it's your time to shine. Or Hajar. Or they even go more cutthroat than that, which you mentioned on the live stream,

Tommy earlier, that do they just say, Lawson, okay, sorry, mate, this was your opportunity. You didn't take it. Let's get Lynn Bladden, who is massively rated and is going to be in Formula One at some point. So there's three, there's the nice approach, the, okay, go back to what you like, Lawson,

go in the racing balls and score some points, or the, you're done. And I don't know which where they're going to go. I feel like it's going to be nice. It could go all three phases, to be honest with you. So hard to tell. And we've seen Red Bull do all of them as well. Yeah. You know, look at Perez last year.

people were calling for him to be dropped way earlier than he was. Yeah, for Mexican compil was third race on the calendar, maybe things were changed. But then equally, you know, you look at Ghazli, maybe he went too early, Albon, that changed. And yeah, they've kind of been so cutthroat. Sometimes, yeah, Kfayat is a great example that he didn't do nothing wrong, but they had to let the Stappan in. he didn't do too much wrong for him to warrant the replacement and then equally someone like Perez could have kind of one entire really bad season so so which way do they go it is there's no doubt that this is just so much worse than you could ever have predicted you know going

into the season we we kind of thought lorson okay if he does better than Perez it's fine you say by the second race he is qualified P20 P18 P20 P20 I think you shared something that he's actually his his kind of average position in his first three races is worse than Nikita Mazepin's in a Hass which is insane and then even in the race yeah even in the race he's awful like he's so bad like so slow he's racing the Blumen Saubers I did enjoy how in they were like

yeah but at least he can he can overtake he's overtaking that was a attracting a tractor exactly and the surprising thing as well is in the sprint he showed that yes he was kind of getting his elbows out

and maybe been a bit too over the top of some some points but he was passing things like Alpines and stuff like that and he was making those moves so I thought maybe he gets to like P-13 or something in the race. But no, he was just nowhere, the whole race just at the back

with the Saabas. Insane. So bad. He ended up finishing 20 seconds off the points in the end. Oliver Berman, obviously, finishing P-10. So we will see. It's a storyline we didn't expect to come up so-so quickly. I feel like 80% of our podcast

over the last 18 months has been about the Red Bull second seat, but it is such a, yeah, I mean, just roll it out again, but it's not as if it's an unfair thing to talk about. It is much worse than Perez. It's a massive talking point. It's a massive talking point. Yeah. So we will see, but I think Red Bull will not have the same patience as they had with Perez. I think that is very clear. No, no chance. So we will see. Let's get into our prediction, shall we? Where it's 3-2 to me right now coming into the Chinese Grand Prix. My good surprise. Isaac Hadjar, thoughts, seventh on the grid. Behind his goat. No. No chance. No chance.

Absolutely no chance. You said it was R.B. This is all about the driver. No, but yeah, but then you're like, oh, you know, Magnetons got a cold and can't race. It's still a biggest flop. That's true. He should, you know, not get a cold. I'm kidding.

But I did still get that point. No, you're not. I know. I know. No, it should have been points because R.B. Just decided to completely throw the race. I went for Hasse, which is an absolute world. You ever shout.

And I think I'd serve two points for a team. And it's also the biggest good surprise as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's open up to the comments. Blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, two points. Okay, okay, right, you ruined it because I was going to be like, Tommy, that was a really good prediction. Well done.

I'm so happy for you. You're just changing it on the spot. You're changing the terms and conditions. I'm pretty sure at some point we said if you go for a team, you get two points. But yeah, that's just such a wishy-washy. I think we might have spoken about that in our sleep. Not that we sleep together. Get in the comments.

Get in the comments. We might need it as well based on the next ones. Okay. Oh, so you're already massying this. That is crazy from you. But yes, I think that it is a very good prediction. It's come in much better than I think you would have ever anticipated. Well done.

Let's see if people think it's two points. But I also am very keen to lay out the fact that, you know, when you make the prediction, we come to that agreement. not oh well you know you've never done that once but when it's not in my favour Tommy I have to try and you know I really want to win this prediction

championship you really do okay let's see let's see in the comments and we will go with whatever is the top comment in terms of whether Tommy deserves two points or not my big flop Hamilton so he actually got beaten by his team mate who had a broken front wing

so I think that's a point won the sprint well on Hamilton not that I thought that he himself was completely finished I thought he just needed a little bit more time to get up to speed with the Ferrari and then he went and won the sprint

and got pole in the sprint so good job I went for Pierre Gazley which is a no he finished P11 Alpine were looking absolutely dreadful all weekend and Dewin had his moments where he looked like he was kind of

there or thereabouts with Gassley but doing not mentioned him but had quite a scruffy race we'll go to it and drive ratings of course but yeah scruffy race from doing yeah i mean i was i was monitoring his race he was about three seconds off uh his teammate maybe halfway through the race i'm like okay that's all you kind of need to do then he decided to go wheel to will to will with isaac hadjar and uh he was aggressive is one word to use to decide uh in his in his defense of of that position even though he had a 10 second penalty as well. He went, I'm going to show exactly how I can go

wheel to wheel battling. Yeah, it was not enough of a performance from Jack Dornian, finishing 16th. How far was he off? Gassley, 21 seconds. It's not enough at the moment for Alpine to not start, or they probably already had these discussions. So let's see.

With the little incidents as well here and there. Exactly, exactly. Right, more predictions. As Tommy has scored 1. I've scored 0 at the moment. sprint poll I went for Oscar Piaastri no

no and I went for Lando Norris no I can't believe that I thought at least one of us would get a point I know how is that not

a point crazy sprint winner I went for Piastri I went for Piastri so that was new poll position I went for Lando Norris

and I went for Lando Norris new no and then the top three. Oh no. In third position. No, go on what?

I was going to say, do you want me to just read my top three and then you can glory? Okay, yeah, no, that's fine. Yeah, if we can have every spotlight on me. Yeah, yeah, okay. Yeah, Tommy, you go first. So, P3, I went for much just happened. P2, Oscar Piastri. Two points for house.

Come on. Come on, check. And first, Lando Norris. No points. And to be fair, I do think that maybe teams, maybe in the future, after this Grand Prix, we can discuss that that should be two points. But let's see if this time comes in. My top three, in third position I went for George Russell.

Ding! In second place, I went for Lando Norris. Ding! And in first place, I went for Oscar Biasri. Ding! How have we got a three-pointer already? That's insane. That's absolutely

I think I should get six points for getting all three correct It's a double points episode right now Okay so that's a huge huge points wait Fair play Fair play

Yeah didn't put Max in my top three And it paid off Speaking of top threes Over to the family Top three The Constructors Championship It's currently 1-0 to the Gallagher's If you're listening for the first time

We have brought in family members to give their top three ahead of the weekend in our Wednesday predictions episode and this is a separate Constructors Championship it's got nothing to do with the drivers which is me and Tommy and I am currently 1-0 up after my dad was so close to a three-pointer in Australia

and didn't manage to get it but still got one. Okay, my mother went for third place Oscar P Oscar Pee of course and that was wrong. My mum went for Antonelli which was wrong.

In second place, my mum went for Max Vestappen, which was wrong. And my mum chose Lando Norris, Pt, which was correct. God, damn it. And in first position, my mum went for Lando Norris, which was wrong. Well done, mum. She's currently on holiday in Morocco right now. How dare you? Enjoy the son.

And my mum went for Piastri. Your mum has cooked. She has. She only gone for the other Mercedes driver like me. me, she would have, she would have got a, yeah, well done. You can, no one cares about the constructors anyway. It's where the money's had. We, did we mention that it's a one million pound cash prize? Is it? Yeah. Oh, wow. God, Tommy. Funded by, uh, sponsored by, no, it's not. Yeah, let's see if someone will, uh, sponsor for them. Yeah, anyone? Drunkie, come on.

Yeah, come on. Right. So, crazy predictions from us now. My crazy prediction. was none of the rookies will have or cause an incident. Wrong. Wait, what, talk to me? Bortletto went off, spun off. Jack Dewan crashed in the sprint, got a 10 second penalty. Yeah, he did. I forgot all of that.

Okay, all right. Stop, we can stop showing off. It's crazy. Minus four was that? No, no, no, we don't get minus points. That's great. And mine was a Ferrari gets knocked out in Q1. Which was actually slightly tentative.

It was on at one point. It was on. when LeCler had one lap to do in Q1. It was on enough that you said you were going to punch me in the face at one point. I did. I did. You were really praying for that, which was wild. And then our Patreon predictions, which is a new segment as well, once again this year,

where we select a prediction from our wonderful patrons over in the Discord, where we ask for your predictions, then we pick one as our own that we can then have as part of our predictions and score points or a point. mine was from Bush Wookiee 5128 No it wasn't Was it? Did I go for that one? I can't remember Did I say that?

Yeah, you did I must have been The sleep of deprivation You were on the Ferrari I don't know what's the opposite of height Carlos will finish ahead of both Ferraris Is what I said You were serious depression after

I literally don't Yeah oh yeah It really was It feels like we've had about 12 races this weekend With the It's literally because you've gone Charlotte Clair world champion He's finishing fourth

He's fastest in FP2 in Australia is winning. Now he's rubbish. Now he's the goat with a broken front wing. The roller coaster is insane. Yeah, it's a big roller coaster. What did you go for? I went for Charlotte 90. Every car that starts the race finishes it.

And who was it that didn't finish? It was. Fernando Alonzo. Ah, yeah, who's 19th in the championship right now. 20th? No, Bortesolete's behind him, isn't he? No. No?

Oh, okay. So the F1 standings on Sky. Oh, really? Thank you very much for that. Oh, I've got these 20th, but I need to check that. Let's check that. Formula 1. Yeah, because Portoletto's finished a race, so surely.

Oh, no, but then it's results. Well, but a sprint result. Yeah, no, he's definitely last. Alonzo's definitely last. He's had two retirements. He's the only driver with two retirements. Bollah's got P-17. Yeah, so Sky, Sky, just baiting me with that one then.

Thanks, Sky. So, yeah, Alonzo, yeah, P-20. That's even better. but you have so many drivers that you support that you know you can always then just fall back on someone that's doing well it's really quite annoying i'm like oscar piastri there's heritage yeah literally yeah it's like chinese grand prix home race let's go yeah yeah i love it okay that is it uh we didn't have um not not the chunkiest compared to what we usually do tommy uh for a boring race no we'll save the dirty air rants for if it happens again in japan yes yeah fingers crossed the dirty air goes away now

um but thank you everyone everybody for watching and listening as always. We will see you in a couple of weeks time for the next race review which is of course Japan but of course we've got more content coming your way. We've got drive for ratings of course also live streaming on YouTube and Twitch for all the watch longs across the year if you want to sit with us and enjoy Formula One and that is it. See you very soon. Tommy, what's your final thoughts? Final thoughts are that my oh my god this is my first bottle bottle of the area with the final thoughts. Why don't you say that if you do want to put your predictions in for Patreon,

it's patreon.com for slash Matt P1, Tommy? Yes. And if you want this extra waffle that we're going to talk about right now, which sadly involves Fernando Alante. Premium waffle. Then join Patreon for some more bans and our wonderful discord that's a great laugh. Okay, so we are coming in with a small little segment after we have just learned of the terrible, awful,

dreadful news that Charlotte Claire has been referred to the stewards after being underweight with his car, Gazley as well. So your big flop could very well come in at the very final second, which is absolutely disgraceful, to be honest with you, Tommy. But more so on Charlotte, Claire. I mean, we are taking this as disqualified, realistically, aren't we? Because underweight cars, even with the front wing. So let's give some context to this. If you haven't seen the technical delegates report. Car 16, Charlotte's car was weighed and it was at 800 on the dot kilograms. Then they changed the front wing and it became 800 and a half kilogram. But then they removed some of the fuel out the car, which they do every single time. And they removed two liters

of fuel out the car. And they re-weighed the car. 799 kilograms. That's the sland-down. It needs to be 800. So obviously we want to get the pod out, but I thought it was important to include the fact that he is going to get disqualified, which... How do you feel? It's raw right now, the emotions that I'm feeling right now. I know. Just ridiculous. I mean, I'm glad he didn't win the race,

because if this had happened and he'd won the race, I might well have had to have covered a different sport, but this is still irritating beyond belief, because you never know. Ferrari could go on a great winning streak in the heart of second half of the season and win everything. Just when we thought Charlotte kind of outdone Lance Stroll in their Titanic Drivers' Championship battle, it looks like he could go behind him again. And yeah, I think this is a slam dunk, though, joking aside,

because we saw what happened in the US Grand Prix, wasn't it, last year? No, sorry, the year before. George Russell, don't forget it as well. Yeah, of course, if you're underweight, you can get big, big penalties. Disqualification is the only way. is that's it. It's a precedent. You have to be 800 kilograms.

So good times. Really fun. I still stand by the fact Charles had a great race. We didn't take it away from George Russell, did we, in the sense of,

you know, the amazing drive that he did in spa. I know some people will go, well, there you go. That's why Shal was quicker than Hamilton. Marginal,

marginal, tiny margins of gains, potentially. But, I'm just dead inside. So I thought we would just do a little segment on that to make sure that everyone's up to speed. Yeah.

I'm sure the confirmation of disqualification will come soon. So the final twist of mine. I want to be past Matt that was currently just on the podcast, not this current present that knows all of the facts. Saying that, yeah, like he's kind of done one over on Hamilton this time or whatever. But yeah, he's not like an absolute fundamental difference of, oh my God. you know he's he wasn't going to finish last was he if his car was a few uh what is it how much was it one kilogram one kilogram yeah exactly so that was exactly the same as rossel wasn't it one kilo i believe

um so it's not going to make the the wildest amount of difference but we know that essentially um it's the ralore it's literally yeah it's literally the the flat out rules so um yeah big big mistake from Ferrari and it's going to cost them big and more pain for for Charles, yeah. Oh my God, Lewis Hamilton's car rearwood skid has failed the post-race check for thickness.

Charles Leclair's car hasn't complied with the weight limit. This is what Luke Smith has just tweeted and seen come up. It could be a Ferrari double DSQ. Oh my God, double DSQ. No way. Why do you sound so excited, you dick? I'm not to say dick on the podcast. I have. I've just said it. No way. No, no, the excitement you just showed, that that's why we are.

That's crazy. That's crazy. That's crazy. That's crazy. That's crazy. Well, I said biggest flop Ferrari this year and they're really trying to bag it for me. So that is crazy. Both of them.

No way. Oh yeah, I've just seen it. Hamilton, risk of disqualification. Oh, my, oh my days. Oh, my days. Ockon's going to get P5. Ockon's going to, what? Antonelli's now going to deserve his drive

of the day of sixth place. Yeah. Oh my God. Oh my word. They could both get into qualified. That is... That is insane. Okay.

No more pod. I don't want to do any more podcast. So take care of yourself. We'll reflect more on this and drive ratings. All right. That is it. Thank you everybody for watching and listening. Patriens don't go anywhere.

We've got your premium extra waffle coming your way with a few questions that you've come in with. And we will see you very soon. for another podcast, drive rating soon, and yeah, lots of love. Bye. Goodbye. P1 is a Stack production and part of the Acast's creator network.