P1 with Matt and Tommy - Chinese GP Sprint Race review

Episode Date: March 22, 2025

A few awesome individual performances made for a really interesting sprint race, even with someone smiling through slightly gritted teeth, so let's get into it! Join us for our quali pod later!You can listen to an extended version of every 2025 Race Review podcast over on our Patreon! You'll also get every P1 episode ad-free, 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. We are here. Chinese Grand Prix sprint done and dusted, locked away. We've seen it. We've experienced it. And Lewis Hamilton on top, Ferrari on top, never doubted it. Never doubted it one second coming into this weekend. That Hamilton would be quick and bounced back from Australia.

You said it, didn't you? All along. I did. I did. I think we got slightly mixed up. in the editing for predictions where I said a big flop. I actually said... Editor did you day there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was complete and utter syncing up with my audio and doing some weird things. Anyway, yes, Hamilton P1, what a win, dominating display. I can't quite believe that not only obviously Hamilton getting pole, because we thought it was all for McLaren, but the race pace, what's going on? It was unbelievable race pace from Hamilton And I think particularly You know

When Oscar Piastri Got through on Vastappen We all thought right Now McLaren can show what they've got Let's watch him absolutely reel him in And Hamilton You know Pulled away

And yeah an amazing performance from Hamilton His start as well Was very Schumacher-esque Watching him just cut over Completely to the side To cover off Verstappen which is, you know, exactly what he needed to do, super aggressive at the start on his old rival Max. And yeah, what a win for him to literally the second race, as it were.

I know it's a sprint race, but second race of the year, and he's already won for Ferrari. Yep, first win for Ferrari and Charlotte. Question from people on Patreon member, Sam, is the Ferrari race pace promising? For tomorrow, both Charles and Lewis looked fastest on track at the end. I'm not starting to dream, I am slightly, but I'm not starting to dream that championship is very much back on. But 100% promising, obviously you have to take into the account the factors of Hamilton was the lead car. And it was clear that a lot of drivers were struggling on their tires, a lot of graining. Obviously, Norris was in trouble from a very, very.

early stage. But Hamilton, of course, you know, led the way, but it's not, you know, it's not an autopilot. He still has to drive the car. And we've seen, you know, with the likes of McLaren, for example, it is not as easy as it is potentially displayed and shown and portrayed to dominate or to drive away in a car that might be fastest. Hamilton, yeah, has shown that there is some really good pace there. But what I'm interested to see is if McLaren later on today can bounce back in qualifying,

you know, lock out the front row or whatever, whatever's possible for them. Does that then change the complexion of the race completely? And if Hamilton's stuck in a bit of traffic, do we see that same pace? And of course, you then throw in the element of strategy as well when they pit. Obviously, they're not going to stay out on tyres that are graining so heavily. It could change the complexion once more. So I don't think it's going to be a Hamilton Sunday masterclass where he wins by 30 seconds, but then again I said he was going to be a big flop.

So don't listen to anything that I say. I think this might be, we've criticized the sprint, haven't we, in the past for being a spoiler for the main race. I can't remember a time where the sprint has been kind of left us asking more questions than kind of before even the race. You know, we went into this weekend thinking, based on Australia, McLaren domination, they're going to dominate. They've messed up qualifying, even in the sprint, they'll fly through the field. And actually, we're going to go into qualifying now. And of course, Hamilton drove a brilliant race and Friday looked very good. But it kind of, I don't think it necessarily means that it's going to happen again.

And that's a great thing for Formula One, because we were kind of a little bit worried after the first race. that we might see some kind of domination from one particular team, but it's kept us guessing. And I love the fact that we've had a sprint, and we could see a completely different order in qualifying again, and we don't know how it's going to go in the main race, which is, you know, keeps us guessing. And I think that's a great thing for F1.

But you can't doubt that Ferrari, their pace did look good. But I think you alluded to this, that when you're ahead, it helps a lot because my word, people were struggling. You look at the likes of, you know, and then Leicester and Mercedes couldn't get past the R.B. Lando took ages to get past. And Aster Martin, even much quicker cars were really struggling to pass. Yeah, it's one of those tracks right where dirty air is,

is quite significant. There's a lot of medium speed corners in those first couple of sectors, just long corners, just to really help with the degradation. and the tire temperature spikes of the tires. So it's no surprise that the drivers were struggling out there on quite a sunny day. And of course,

the tracks a little bit of an unknown quantity as well with it being newly resurfaced and it's constantly ramping up. So yeah, I think having a sprint round here was, I guess, from an entertainment perspective, really good because the lack of data and not knowing how this track was going to react has caused a bit of an upset

in the sense of the expectation of, McLaren walking this this Grand Prix weekend. Next question. Bray Lenroho. Is the Ferrari versus Salba championship fight over? Great question. That's a really good question. Yes, yes, it's over.

I'm sorry. I didn't expect, even to say after one race of this season, that Salba would have more points than Ferrari, but that happened. but it's a humbling experience. Being a Ferrari fan is a humbling experience. And me being a Charles LeCleur fan more specifically, this was a very humbling experience.

I can absolutely respect the job that Hamilton has done. And I am fully expecting a Charlotte Clare master class and qualifying later on today and we'll see exactly the same thing from Charles. But that, you know, delusion, realism, we'll see where it lands. But yes, Ferrari... I'm not going to jump too many conclusions right now, but that was such a performance that it gives me hope,

which is really scary. The man that was waving an Italian flag after FP2 when Chow was first, and now they've actually won a sprint race, and you're like, just stay calm everyone. She's got to be careful. Keep the hype down. I don't want to believe too early.

I've only been hurt 45 times in the last year. this is quite a funny question though because last week we thought oh Ferrari they looked terrible I know it was a very unusual race but it makes for such an exciting season if we are going to have such kind of changes from from race to race and going into this season we said that it could be so close that you just nail the setup or you have a great qualifying and you're in clean air you can kind of outperform the car. And on paper it was a McLaren 1-2 every day of the week

and they finished second and eighth. So that's the beauty of Formula One that it keeps us guessing. Next question, P1, Patreon member, Abidabby 2020, 21 Survivor. Should McLaren fans hit the worry button as he couldn't pass stroll? He, of course, being Lando Norris. It was, I guess, a concerning performance in the sense

of that McLaren doesn't seem to be the overall package that perhaps they were expecting coming into the season and we were expecting at least on the tires

that we saw in the sprint today. Oscar couldn't obviously get anywhere near Hamilton at the end of the race albeit had been following Vostapp

and quite closely for the 19 laps. Norris, of course he made that mistake which it's just not It's not great for his confidence.

We come off the back of Australia. Right. He's won the race. We're all good. We're going to build from this. Lando's going to continue this sort of championship momentum. Of course, he's not thinking about it. That's what he tells the media.

But we're thinking about it. Everyone's thinking about it. Everyone thinks about the championship at this stage of the year. You have to. So for Norris and for McLaren fans, I wouldn't be hitting the worry just yet, just purely because I do genuinely. genuinely think that at least in clean air, McLaren are the fastest package.

So as long as Lando delivers in qualifying, he made a mistake, obviously, he made a couple of mistakes in fact in sprint qualifying. Eradicate those, get one good lap in, start in the top three, and I think it'll be a completely different story. But Lando, from what it seemed, just tried to, he overdid that first lap. And it's a trend that we maybe have seen a little bit of Lando and his engineer talking about not overdriving the car. the pace is there.

And perhaps Lando just tried a little bit too hard, made that mistake on lap one, fell back. And then the difficulty in overtaking is not just what we saw with Lando, but up and down the field. So once you're there, you're kind of stuck, especially in a race where you can't deploy strategy.

So one point is not what I expected from Lando in this particular sprint. But as we said yesterday, it's going to happen. It's good to happen in a sprint, rather than the main race and I fully expected to be back up there

and qualifying later. Yeah, you shouldn't worry too much about the kind of difficulty to overtake because that happened to everyone throughout the field like I mentioned earlier.

Antonelli was so close to Sonoda and couldn't make the move. Drivers kind of up and down the field it was only really probably Lawson that managed to get past people

and that was... Anoska, of course. Anoska, yeah. On Max but it was a very difficult difficult kind of track to overtake. George's move in particular, just while we're talking about overtakes, was really, really good. To kind of do that early in the race because it looked like at the end, Shal had a load of pace, but couldn't quite make it stick on George at the end.

But back to Lando, I'm less worried about the fact that he couldn't overtake Stroll because it was a track to overtake on. I'm more worried at the kind of signs that after we mentioned at what happened in qualifying for the sprint and how he's made some mistakes, he needs to kind of bounce back from that and not have them creeping in again because that was just kind of Achilles heel last year. For him to kind of do another start and then drop positions is a worrying sign. He's lucky that it is only the sprint, but of course, the big kind of feeling after Melbourne was Lando sorted his problems out. He can definitely, and he can still absolutely win this championship, no doubt.

It's literally like one mistake in the sprint race, but it's still kind of a worrying sign that it kind of felt like a repeat of watching last year, watching him kind of mess up on the first lap, drop back and then have a difficult race. Yeah, for sure. I think this weekend, there's been a few mistakes. He's made mistakes in the sprint qualifying. He's made a mistake in this sprint race as well. He just needs to bounce back now for the main qualifying and main race where the big points are scored. And then once I, what I said yesterday, it will be forgotten in a lot of ways of Lando wins tomorrow. Next question, P1, Patreon member, Rebecca, what is the first of what is that? the reason for the difference in team performance between here and Australia? Is it the track or changes

to the cars? I think the beauty of Formula One and the reason why, you know, last year we saw so many teams be quick at different tracks is because we are so close in terms of performance now, some car characteristics work better at some tracks. So like Australia is a massively different circuit to China. We then go to Japan, which maybe. is slightly more China than it is Australia, but still you're kind of trying to find similarities because, yeah, the beauty of it is is that Formula One tracks these days are so varied

and so awesome. And then you throw in the likes of sprint weekends and teams still getting used to their new package and how they set up the car. It's not a, ah, we've built this car for 2025. From race one, we know how to do it. We know how to make everything. We know how to put everything together.

perfectly. That's not the case. They are all learning on the fly. So that's another reason, of course, you throw in that in qualifying in Australia, they were thinking about the race and the fact it was going to be wet. So it was a completely different setup again. So with Formula One, lots of different factors. But you have a rough pecking order, but that's the reason why it chops and changes. And that's the way it absolutely should be. You know, if we don't, you look at kind of performance from testing and you you just think okay McLaren or even the pace that we saw in qualifying in Melbourne McLaren won to every race okay you know it's not going to happen for anyone else but more variables in the sport is what makes the results better and it's not as easy as just kind of

running a simulation and going we've got the quickest car we're going to win in that race piastri is a great example that when he got past Max we thought right, he's going to fly up to the back of Hamilton now. And if anything, he, well, he did. He lost quite a massive chunk of time. So, yeah, it's kept us guessing a lot into the main race, which I'm actually really excited for, because a lot of questions haven't been answered,

and I like that fact. Yeah, yeah, we all do. We don't want to have a predicted race coming up, although if Hamilton does want to 30 seconds, then maybe. can do it right. Please. It was, yeah, getting mugged by George Russell was obviously not ideal at the start.

George did a brilliant move into the hairpin, which kind of scuppered Charles's race. I think he's securing a P3 without George going through at the start there. So, yeah, a slightly quiet start to the weekend for Charles, but we bounce back. We've got Qualley coming up. Please, for the love of God. George he'd have overtaken Stroll in the championship as well, but not quite yet. Lance Stroll beat Fernando Alonzo by 13 seconds in the sprint. So Lance Stroll once again reaffirming number one driver, Aston Martin.

Team Stroll, it's happening. I think we also maybe just touch upon Liam Lawson making some small steps of progress, I will say, finishing 14th in the sprint. you know, a glimmer of hope of, you know, going to wheel in wheel to wheel racing, putting noses in from very far back. It felt like one of them was going to go wrong at some point, but it didn't. So, yeah, I think you can, yeah, you can only have, of course he actually did have a little following damage, didn't he, when he made contact with the Alpine. But overall, I think it will be something that, you know, he, I think, we're talking about learning, Liam is learning, I think every single lap. he turns in that car of how on earth to tame this bull.

So let's see. I hope for his sake he doesn't qualify 20th again because that was a small step in the right direction for Liam. It was. If he just gets a clean run, you know, famous last words, but if he gets a clean running qualifying, surely he's not going to be last or out in Q1 again. but he

I know he was racing much lesser cars but he did look confident on the on the brakes kind of like I say from very far back he knew he he kind of knows he's got a good car underneath him um it's just about learning how to drive it and how to kind of extract it because that's that was the problem wasn't it in in qualifying sprint qualifying sorry and getting getting the tires in so yeah he provided a lot of the racing action at the at the back him had Jar as well

kind of rubbishing any rumours that there's nothing to play for between the bottom teams are still very much racing even though it does absolutely nothing because it doesn't kind of define the grid anymore or someone that needed reminding of that was Jack Duhin on the final app just sending it quite unnecessarily I would say yeah

causing damage to his car he doesn't need to be doing stuff like that just don't give Alpine excuses Yeah, don't give them anything to, you know, he had a great qualifying, even if he'd kind of dropped back behind Gassley, but he's finished last on the road and had a spin, and you kind of don't want to make any bad headlines. You just kind of need to be quiet, really, so cut him for him. Right, that's it. We're done. We're wrapped up, pretty quick one. Of course, it is just the sprint race that we are covering.

So we'll be live later on, of course, as we. always on Twitch and YouTube for the main qualifying session as well as of course tomorrow for the race and yeah can't wait for it Ferrari on top Hamilton an absolute masterclass today can he deliver again in qualifying and into Sunday hopefully I also hope Char will be there as well because I need I need it for my own emotional stability so yeah it's great tell me final thoughts final thoughts just bring on quality I can't wait for it already because It's kept as just completely unknown looking at that order. And yeah, really excited to see what the next kind of curveball in the season brings,

because so far I've been mightily impressed. Sign me up. We'll see you very soon. Lots of that. Take care. Bye. P1 is a Stack production and part of the Acast Creator Network.