P1 with Matt and Tommy - F1 Testing 2025 – Day One

Episode Date: February 26, 2025

We've made it, everyone: F1 cars are back on track! Let's massively overreact to one day of testing in Bahrain as Ferrari's title challenge ends, Haas look set to win the Constructors' and Max reminded everyone he's still the boss. Plus, we saw the weirdest delay ever!Sign up to our Patreon here! You'll get access to extended versions of every Race Review podcast, 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!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. Oh yes, that is right. The Formula 1, 2025 season has officially begun. We have had day one of testing and eight hours of just side-by-side action the entire way through. Of course, we were live streaming the first morning session today. So we very much enjoyed the first lap. Of course, we kept very much an hour on it in the afternoon as well. Tommy, what's the vibes?

How are you feeling after seeing some running? Well, we actually watch nine hours because of a very peculiar thing, which we'll talk about. Yeah, it's good to see Formula One cars. For YouTube watches, you would have seen a very cheeky. You've already seen the banter. And, yeah, good to see Formula One cars back on track is testing the most riveting thing in the world after the first kind of initial hooray of Formula One cars. Matt says yes.

Other people are saying no, but does it need to be? Something we'll also discuss. No, it's literally testing. I remember when we were all up in arms when testing wasn't televised. We need to see it. We need to see every turn. Every spray of flovers. Yeah.

And then, no, like, should we have a race during testing? Hopefully not like that. But of course, we had lots of running today. And I think what better than to, because I would reflect on who was. fastest if it was a certain shard of clow which it looked like it was going to be for quite a while but it was Lando Norris in the end and uh lecler wasn't even on the podium of testing day one which is really upsetting and it's fine it's all good no problem said that the car screened forth in the constructors and it's backed up isn't it first question comes in from p1 patron member

kean l r championship back on you have really we're rolling that out immediately yes is it going to feature in every single podcast either championship back on or off hopefully brilliant okay well thanks thanks for including this one Tommy look

everyone is going to dive very deep as we always do and come up with conclusions that are completely wrong but the beauty of that

is that it doesn't matter you can throw any wild prediction at this point you could say that has are running 400 kilograms worth of fuel and they're just

tolling around at the back but actually are going to be second quickest we've learnt very little in terms of pure outright speed, which is exactly the case. But I think we have to say it, right, just in case some people's first Formula One season, perhaps second, perhaps they're not used to this. Not sandbagging, they're literally testing. We'll get onto a question about sandbagging. This is testing. Yeah, exactly. I mean, the usual suspects are at the

top despite it being, you know, you can't read too much into times and things, but it's no surprise to see the usual for McLaren, Mercedes, Red Bull and Ferrari at the top, of course. And Carlos as well, you could easily mistake that he's still in a Ferrari, but he is not in a Williams. He's not in a Williams. Sheffing. But if you speak to, and I do think that drivers and teams know a little bit

about if their car is good or bad, kind of straight out the blocks of and generally from the kind of simulations and everything. And, you know, speaking to a lot of the drivers and people within Formula One, they are all saying that it does look like it's going to be incredibly close between the top four teams, which is, of course, what we want to hear, because the biggest worry going into the season is that it's the polar opposite of last year where we're going with so much expectation and actually someone dominates, whereas it doesn't maybe look like that, hopefully.

far, based on very little testing we have. Laptimes don't matter, but when the lap times are close, they matter. But the people in Formula One, you know, have, have said it. And it was very clear from last year, you know, we had people going, oh, Red Bull, miles clear, championship's over and all this kind of stuff. Whereas, yeah, I think you kind of look at it and it's kind of what we want to see, really, is everyone a bit close. and no one seemingly stretching their legs

and just being like, see you later, like we saw maybe at the start of last year where Red Bull did just go, goodbye. Which, you know, you've got to really give some serious praise to Charlotte Clare for doing that, you know, being part of the pack because he just didn't want to stretch his legs. He's a humble bloke. He didn't even exceed Fifth Gear from what I've heard.

So to be four cents off despite that, getting out and walking around the final sector. It's really, okay, it's sandbagging from Ferrari. We're seeing it right now. I mean, Lewis Hampton's down in 13. I was going to say, if he was walking, what was Hamilton doing? Backwards, treadmilling. Okay, right.

So, championship hopefully, is on. Next question, people on picture, member Katie. Can both Mercedes drivers be legitimate title contenders this year? Tommy will say yes, because Tommy loves Andrea Kimmy Antonelli, like he is the second coming of Christ. However, do I think so? I think George Russell could, absolutely. But the thing that Mercedes need to do is open up that window of the tyres,

which George, of course, was very critical about last year, but also the car performance in general in that Mercedes. We haven't got a massive regulation change this year. Some teams have even rolled out cars that look almost identical. Red Bull being one that genuinely people and journalists and analysts have been going, there's not a lot, actually, by the looks of things that you changed. Anything changed. Although Christian Horner is saying there's a lot of subtle differences

and things that you don't necessarily see on the outside of the car. So Mercedes, yeah, it depends on the philosophy for these teams and how they're approaching this year. By the looks of things Ferrari are going all in to try and see if they can win this title before we get into the new regulations. You've perhaps got other teams like Red Bull on the outside and looking in and looking at the car that might be looking further towards 26 and beyond.

So, yeah, it is an opportunity for me. Merck. I think that George is a fantastic driver and had a great season last year. So both know, let Antonelli just learn for a year. Let's not do that. And then he can become the greatest full time. No, I'm joking. The thing with Mercedes as well, obviously, a lot of people got very excited, despite what people say about Sony testing. You know, Kimmy Antonelli, when he was four, we did a watch long in the morning and when Kimmy Antonelli was four seconds off the pace for the first couple of hours everyone said oh he's too early he's finished he's washed and then he went top of the time sheets and it's like oh he's looking good isn't he and it's hard to know

from testing but with Mercedes something they did mention of course very unusual this this weekend we've even seen a little bit of rain in Bahrain and it's a lot colder you normally used to kind of bar rain it being very hot, but everyone's there and their coats and things, which is unusual. And we know Mercedes last year worked in that window of a lot cooler temperatures. So if they're quick here, it doesn't necessarily mean that we get to Melbourne and it's really sunny and it's very hot. Yeah, it's not necessarily going to be that way. So we'll have to wait and see, but I don't want to jump the gun with Mercedes, but they've got an opportunity. I think they have kind of been written off even in Formula One themselves when they posted

their 2025 is going to be amazing. They didn't even show Mercedes when they were talking about the championship fight. So obviously they're writing them off. Mad, isn't it? Absolutely mad. It'd be silly to write off Mercedes entirely. Next question, F1 Oscar. Which team do you think is sandbagging?

Hopefully, has. Hass. I am praying for their sake, Hass. They literally just toodled around at the back and just had a great time just doing laps. You know, we slander, not slander, but we'd hit the Mickey about the fact they finished 19th and 20th. However, they are the team with the most laps on the board. So their run plan today was do loads of laps, do loads of mileage, test things on the car, doesn't matter about overall performance or engine modes or things like that. And realistically, the real gold, the real currency of F1 testing is laps and getting data. And Hasse are number one in the teams with 160 laps. And then on the flip side of that, you have Aster Martin with the lowest amount of laps with 88. So Hasse almost did double what Aston Martin managed to put on the board. So for me, yeah, again, I don't want to call it sandbagging because I don't think any of these teams are, they're just doing their run. plans of testing, which never usually is like fuel load hot lapping.

I feel like maybe the days of sandbagging, well, we love to use that phrase in Formula One we let out when they're doing their kind of explainer videos and telling you what to look out for in testing. They say this, but maybe those kind of days are over because we don't tend to see it as much anymore. Teams are just focus on their own thing. And now that the regulations are a lot tighter and you don't tend to see as many crazy innovations anymore like you saw if you've watched if you were there watching at the time or if you're a new fan and watch the Disney Plus documentary about Braun and they had that double diffuser of course and they came out the pits they were so quick and they almost wanted to kind of hide that they had this amazing

performance I don't I don't I feel like days of that have kind of long gone because the teams are they going to find this like magic thing anymore when the regulations are so tight and also in this kind of world where everyone knows everything and there's photographers everywhere and the social media and all the teams know everything about each other

can you even hide anything there was quite an amusing part at the end of the session when McLaren covered their car completely in Flavis and then basically had like a flash mob around the car to hide it with all their mechanics and everything and we're kind of laughing as they were trying to block a photographer

but the thing is we've got 4k cameras watching that car go around the track anyway and every single team is going to be screenshoting it and have photographers all around the circuit and are going to be able to see that McLaren from every single angle anyway so um yeah sandbagging it's only only has are kind of sandbagging but they're not even sandbagging because they are just they're literally focusing on themselves and not going for a quick run. Okay, so let's move on now to the weirdest moment from the session, which was not the fact that there was rain in Bahrain, which you might have thought would be the one we would choose. It's in fact that they had a power cut in the afternoon session, which caused a red flag

for around an hour where, yeah, the lights just went off. The lights went off in the garages, the lights went off around the track. And thank goodness for their sake that it wasn't the end. of testing around that last hour where it was much darker. It was kind of that sort of transition, wasn't it, from sort of dusky kind of vibe once they were working on it? So, yeah, that was bizarre, to say the least. We did wonder whether they would actually add that extra hour back.

And they did in the end. I'm not surprised that the teams agreed to it. They all want testing and running. And of course, the FIA and Formula One came to that agreement as well. but yes, it was bizarre to say the least. Yeah, it really was. This is the kind of thing I feel like when Singapore first got introduced

years and years ago now, 2008, when we first announced that we're going to have a night race, the biggest kind of question was, what if there's a power cut? And it hasn't happened until now. And yeah, you'd think they'd have all these kind of that there was no way this could possibly happen. Thankfully, it's only happened during a test session

and also kind of fortunate that it hadn't got quite kind of completely pitch black by that point. It was just starting to get dark and the floodlights were going to kind of, you know, were kind of lighting the track. So they're kind of lucky in that sense, but a really bizarre situation because, of course, the garages, all the lights came off and that, because they're in a garage, it is completely kind of pitch black

and they're all there with their phone lights and torches and stuff trying to see what they were doing. It was really bizarre. Question from P1PATRI member, Erin. Has anything like this power issue happened before? It feels like a ridiculous issue to have with only three days of testing. Well, of course, it's narrowed down, isn't it,

to have something like this happen or at least something that would genuinely stop the teams from running with the fact that there's lights that they'd need to see out on track. But I can't recall anything like this happening in terms of having a power cut and it all going. I remember a couple years ago, Australia, that weird moment where they didn't know where the cars were on track and they all started blocking each other because they lost all there. I want to say Imala as well.

There was a problem with, or maybe that was more on the broadcast side. I can't remember, but there was definitely an issue with Imola a couple of years ago as well. But nothing, I think, to this degree. and of course in testing as well. I thought there would be genuine backup power things and things to absolutely categorically not allow this to happen, but some substation or something that Bahrain's National Circuit said failed and that was that.

I feel like it's also peak us or particularly peak me with my predictions that when we did our watchtong, I was so confident. I was like, Formula One cars don't break down anymore. There won't be a red flag. Bordering on smug, if I'm honest, with your... You were like, not a chance. Technically. Technically.

Theoretically, it was a power cup, not a reliability. There were no car issues. And of course. There was a yellow flag though, and you said there wasn't going to be a yellow flag either. That was because of the lights, wasn't it initially? No, we had a little yellow flag. Oh, someone probably just. When the Red Bull had some fiber come off, I think, at one point.

Yeah, but it is interesting how these cars are so bulletproof now. You know, initially when we got. had these new rules come in, have you only allowed to use this many engine components? And we're going to reduce testing to three days, of course. You know, back in the Shumi days, he was out there doing kind of as much running as they did today, probably about 100 days of the offseason. And no, you can't do that. But the cars are more reliable than ever.

Next question, P1 Patreon member, your boy, Drey. Will Lawson have the same struggles as the past Red Bull second drivers with the way the car handles? Was he just pushing too hard? I absolutely love this. Paul Liam Lawson has one minor spin where he executes some pretty good car control to stop it from going in the gravel. And everyone's like, hold on, I've seen this film before. It's like a redboard driver spinning off. I really didn't.

Look, I don't think this is something that we can even remotely jump. upon yet around Liam Lawson and that minor spin. I know it is literally the big moment that happened. The only spin of the whole. So we're just like, well, Lawson, I mean, come on. But it was P8. Okay, yeah, nine tenths off max, and I've seen that before as well. But it's testing.

It's fine. Like, just let the guy get used to the Red Bull. Of course, as you say, yeah, the morning session is slower than the afternoon. One, because there's not any grip or rubber laid down. And two, it's hotter conditions as well. gets cooler. The tyres can work better. Of course, you know, it's still pretty cold there as it is. But yeah, more so, I guess, the track evolution and the rubber being laid down. So yeah, let's leave Lawson alone for now. If he manages to, you know, spirit in the wall, then maybe we

talk about that. But he was fine and he carried on and his merry way. He did. It is definitely the way the car handles, though. I think we've learnt that now, you know, Max, there was that fascinating into yours and there with Alex Alburn where he mentioned about how the car is so sensitive and compared it to like having your computer mouse on maximum sensitivity. And

Lawson will have to get used to that and you know we've seen so many incidents with that Red Bull second driver struggling with the car. It did look a handful in places. Max had his moments as well at that very same corner. He didn't spin but

had kind of these moments and that is literally what testing is for to kind of push the car to the limits and particularly on a track like Bahrain you're not going to get any kind of issues that's at Barcelona maybe you're going into the wall and taking off the front

wing but we test at Bahrain now where there's plenty of run off and these moments are for testing the car and finding out and better to do it now than the first race in Australia indeed next question comes in from P-1 picture member Minnava

Should testing be made fun to watch? Or is it enough to simply see it return for another season? Look, we joked about this on stream in the morning. Let's turn it into the eight hours of Bahrain and have three races. Okay? So we just do like the ultimate endurance test right at the beginning. Yeah, two drivers. They can do four hours each and 250 points up for grabs at the end of these three days.

So half's one. thing. Hasse. Huss won then, 160 laps they did. Well, they won the amount of laps. Clear of the field. That is true, actually. That's really true.

They've won that race. Astin light in the mud. They were last. They were slightly muddy as it was, weren't they? Anyway. But in all seriousness, no, testing should not be made fun. Not everything in the world

for us, as the viewer, needs to be made entertaining, especially when it is literally, we're lucky that it's televised, we're lucky that we're shown things from this test rather than, how do we make this fun? Do we put some points on offer?

Do we do some sort of lottery, spin the wheel? You get to drive this car for, spin the wheel again, seven laps, then you come in? No, I think that, and I'm in agreement with you, Tommy, because you made this point earlier on the stream, it could be made shorter, for sure. I still think 24 hours of testing over three days.

is that really necessary? From a team's perspective, of course they're going to say yes. They'll say it's the pinnacle of motorsport. We need to test. But they're going to say that because they want to win. Whereas if we're talking about a spectacle and making things interesting, the thing that always makes Formula One fun to watch is the lack of data and the teams not knowing exactly what to do.

Exactly. And they have so much data. This is why I think testing you leave alone because it is literally testing. you know, if you yeah, but if you watched, if you watched, this is the thing, it's literally testing and we,

we get it televised because probably just the pressure of how everyone was really annoyed when they didn't televise it, when they kind of went back on it and went, no, it's just a test, it's not really there to be entertaining, we're just going to do a test,

and then when we didn't get to see it, we're all kind of like, no, we need to watch this. There's Formula One cars on track, and we're not watching it. Wasn't that around COVID times? Wasn't that? No, it's 20, 22, I think.

Was it 22? Or 21. Oh no, yeah, that was it. It was because they were worried that all the cars were going to break. Yeah. Oh, yeah, 22, the new regulations. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that wasn't the case.

But, yeah, they didn't kind of show any of it. And we were kind of annoyed. But at the end of the day, any sport, you know, Wimbledon tennis don't televise the kind of knockabout at the start. And it doesn't get kind of shown as a live stream and everyone's tuning in. same with kind of like before the Champions League final you don't watch the team's training and this is literally just testing practice is a different story

because it's for anyone that's now jumping into the comments going well you hate practice so why does that need to change because that is during a Formula One weekend where the punters are paying and it's on TV and it's there for the weekend so that I get but this is literally testing the cars ahead of the new season so it is what it is It is what it is.

Although I do find it amusing that you can tell and they don't hide it very well, all the commentary teams. It's almost like punishment that they have to do it. And they're always constantly like rasting each other that it's like, yes, I've finished my shift. Good luck. Good luck you've got nothing to talk about for two hours. Literally a two, four hour podcast, however long they're commenting for.

Okay, let's go to P1, Patreon member, Emma. Have any of your opinions changed on the livery? after seeing them on track. Yeah, my opinion of the state car has got worse. A lot worse. It is awful. I don't know why they've decided that the fade, which we already were slightly critical of,

then just becomes a block. It's a hard cut between the green and the black. It looks like that's like a spare bit of bodywork that they've just put on the car for testing. Now, whether that's actually the case. don't know, but that is really quite bad looking, in my opinion. So that's my most drastic change. What about you? Yeah, same. I thought, you know, sorry, Ferrari, the steak is definitely the worst now. I think the green looks.

I apologize to Ferrari. Sorry, Ferrari. Sorry, Ferrari. It's still a four out of ten, but the steak is now two out of ten. Yeah, it's awful. The green is really horrible as well. And I'd also change my opinion on the and I think it looks even better on track and probably one of my favourites with the V-Cab, which I think right up there with the V-Cub, which still looks amazing on track. I was worried that that one might look a bit dull, just on track and it looks quite cool, white under Studio Lights, but now it looks wicked on track. Certainly does. I think you also mentioned that you liked the look of the Mercedes a little bit more. A bit more, yeah. Than you had previously.

but yeah Aston looks a bit better but yeah it's cool to see I'm on track because you can get baited by renders and Salba certainly did that because my word doesn't look at Okay let's go to Frank Ward 99

who asks if you could change one prediction right now after only one day of testing which would you change I genuinely no no I was going to say that Jack doing keeps his seat for the whole year that's wild right yeah I know that is an interesting

one, isn't it, that the Jack is doing all of the test, my theory. Jack is doing, doing, doing, Jack is doing, Jack is doing all of the test. Yeah, come on. And, yeah, no colapinto in through what I thought might be a kind of part of that big contract. I can still see that, that changing. But, you know, what do you think? A prediction change.

I don't. Still shall champion. Oh, for sure. Without, without a shadow of a day. I think that I'm pretty low, there's not much to change really at this point. You know, you've got to back what you've, you've gone for. Ali Behrman, yes, he did finish five seconds off day one. Biggest flop.

But I still think at this point, that is the benchmarks. Anything above this is really well surprising. So that's points in the bag as long as he doesn't finish five seconds off the back at the end of each race. My only thing is I'd have doubled down even more on Aster Martin. being terrible looking at they did the least number of laps and we're near the bottom. And my bold prediction of them being, scoring less than 50 points, I'd have gone biggest flop as well.

And say Ferrari splashes, but I do think Ferrari will be maybe third or fourth still? I think it's McLaren versus Max. No one asked. I think. Yeah, well, that's great. No one asked for your opinion when it comes to Ferrari's negative thoughts. So that one can go directly into the bin.

but yes, I wouldn't change anything else right now, to be honest with you. But we'll see. Come the end of day three, where we all start to analyse the times a little bit more. I'm sure they'll be a little bit more. Well, maybe I'll change that. To be fair, when Max went out for the afternoon session and within about three laps was in, was within about two hundreds of a second of the fastest time.

On the hard tires or something, yeah. It's finished. I saw him two tents up in the first section. I was like, oh no, here we go. Here we go. I saw that. I really mess up going, this is F1. Yeah, I literally had a message written to you in case it went fast as going championship off.

Amazing. Okay, that is it. Thank you so much, everybody, for watching and listening. We will be live streaming probably a few hours tomorrow afternoon, and then we will do the last few hours again for the final day as well. So look forward to that. And also, if you want to listen to a short chat, myself and Tommy are going to pop something on P1 Extra,

the YouTube channel where we discuss the news on Monaco, because of course it's not particularly relevant to this podcast. So if you want to go see that, it'll be over on P1 Extra on YouTube. Tommy, what are your final thoughts? My final thoughts are subscribe to P1 Extra because we want to get to 100K. Yeah, yeah, and then you can get a plaque as well, and then we can both have plaques. That'll be ideal. Okay, thank you everybody.

We'll see you very soon. Lots of love. Take care. Bye. Bye. You thought I forgot you. Oh, Tommy's turned his light off. Yeah, my chore is turn those lights. lights off around the house. You are wasting electricity.

Okay? Tommy was efficient. It's not the Bahrain International Circuit. That's going to sound really weird if you've got headphones in. That's for sure. But yeah, go turn your lights off. Keep that energy. Keep those energy bills down. Okay? Maybe you've got one of those smart meters. I want you to save a pound or a dollar or a euro or wherever you're from within the next six hours. Okay, that's my task to you. I don't really know. F1 testing.

Like, just turn testing off. Yeah, and watch it. Exactly. Just listen to our podcast instead. Oh, hey, good one. Still using electricity, but maybe if you like plug it into a bike or something, and then you could just like, anyway, really tired and delirious. So sweet dreams, take care of, yes, goodbye.

Speaking of generators, did you see that Mercedes forgot to take the number 44 off that generator? No, they didn't. Yeah, they did. They're peeling the sticker off. Oh my God, that's so, that's crazy. Goodbye. P1 is a Stack production and part of the ACAST creator network.