P1 with Matt and Tommy - F1 Testing Final Day reaction

Episode Date: February 25, 2023

F1 Testing is done! Matt and Tommy pick their winners and losers and dive into a spicy rumour about AlphaTauri's future.Follow us on socials! You can find us on Twitter, Instagram, Twitch, YouTube and TikTok.***Please take the time to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your pods. It means a great deal to the show and will make it easier for other potential listeners to find us. Thanks!*** Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello everybody and welcome back to the P-1 podcast with Matt and Tommy. Welcome along to the final day of testing. It is done. It is dusted. We've got no more of this practice malarkey until we actually get into free practice. But the pre-practice, the testing, as it's called, Matt. I don't know why I'm calling it that. But Tom Belling and the co-founder, you're here to digest it with me. This really, quite possibly the most chaotic 20.

24 hours of testing I've ever seen in my life, hashtag sarcasm. I'd argue three days of testing, sarcasm. And that's what I meant like 24 hours of running. Oh, 24 hours of running. I thought you just meant today in general. No, I get it. And yeah, it's not been the greatest test in terms of action. But that's what, I mean, that's standard.

The kind of circuit doesn't lend itself too much to gravel traps and things. like that. So yeah, not many stoppages and stuff, but still got things to talk about. Now, before we dive into the rough and smooth of it, is that what it's called? What's the phrase? Oh, don't ask me about phrases. Okay, no idea. Sounded right. Anyway, we're going to do a five-star review readout, which is going to be part of our podcast moving on when Tommy doesn't forget to put it in the podcast sheet. We read out one of your amazing reviews of this P1 podcast, so please do give us a five-star review if you're enjoying it. And let's know, Why.

This one comes in from Jorge Christiansen. Or would you reckon it's that? Yeah, from Norway. Yeah. Sure. That sounds Norwegian to me. The guys are back and better than ever with more energy and inspiration. If you want to follow the epic season, we have ahead with the best podcast guys.

Don't look for anything else. Just P1 all season long. Oh. I knew you'd love that one. That gets me tingling. I love it. And also shout out to the person that said that listening to the P1 intro and us doing the podcast is like putting on your favorite. a pair of jogging bottoms.

That also warmed my heart a lot. And I'm glad because that was like a really nice, relatable thing to think about. Anyway, let's talk about Formula One, shall we, Tommy? Because that's what people have tuned in for. The first thing I want to talk about, I say want to.

No. The first thing that we have to talk about is Red Bull looking incredibly ominous. They just had a beautiful test throughout the entire three days, realistically. Pera set the fastest time of the entire test as well on the C4 tires,

not even the C5s, which should have given them a bit more time even still, and was just over three-tenths clear of Hamilton that was on the C-5 tire. So realistically, of course, Vestappan didn't run today. People were asking, where's Vestappan?

Why didn't he go out? Perez did the whole day today, which is a bit odd, I guess, for the final day. But that's the way in which Red Bull worked their run plans. And, yeah, they look really good. if you're a Red Bull fan, you are, you're sticking your bets on right now. Yeah, they took it personally when you were on the Ferrari hype train and then like, oh, but maybe Mercedes and Red Bull like, watch this.

Yeah, I know it's only testing, but oh, it's ominous, I think is the perfect word. It's a, it's a word that I feel like has described Mercedes for the last few years. And now it's becoming the word for, for Red Bull because they seem very fast. not had many issues and yeah, they're looking very good indeed but Max Verstappen banter aside I don't want it

I want it to be close I want it oh I don't want it oh he says with a Max cape in the background a Max Verstappan onesie signed by the man himself oh I don't want a 23 race whitewash yes you do 22 1 maybe but not 23 30 Oh come on what did you have 16 last year Oh God, don't we put me on the spot.

I think it was 16. I'm sorry, Tommy. You're supposed to be the F1 Encyclopedia. What's going on? It's just too many wins to count, I'm afraid. You don't know phrases. You don't know Max's statistics. But yes, they do look very, very good.

And I don't know if I can officially say that the Ferrari hype train is derailed because I don't feel like it ever left the station. Like, we haven't even got to the first round of the season. And my heart's already starting to crumble. Like, they went, like, Ferrari were won two at one point during the day. And I was like, hello, settle yourselves in. I think it was a 3100 for signs, which actually ended up being his fastest lap of the entire day. And I was like, yeah, LeClaude a 310 as well.

Great. And then it all kind of just didn't. Again, it's testing. You can't take too much from it. But it does look like Red Bull have time in hand. When we were, when we did the last two hours of our stream, it was a Ferrari one too. And then you went on stream and the hype train derailed. So there's a theme.

There's a theme occurring with F1 and you. As soon as I go live or say anything about Ferrari, it all starts to crumble. Okay, moving on now. The surprise of the day, let's talk about some positivity that isn't Red Bull. And it is Valtrey Bottas, nice little P3 from him in the Alpha Romeo.

Of course, he was on the C5 tyres, which was the same tire as Hamilton. And, yeah, a very nice lap from Valtry. Of course, if you remember, this time last year, he came out the blocks firing and was beating the mistake. stadiums in qualifying and and racking up a huge amount of points at the start of the season.

Of course, Alfa Romeo then went on to have a terrible streak of luck either the car breaking down or just generally the performance not being there. But Bottas looked very nice on the final day. And you start to wonder, could there be the likes of Bottas and Alonzo putting themselves quite high up the grid when we go to qualifying next week? Oh, yeah, for the first round of the season. Yeah, Zhiguay knew his P1 yesterday as well. Also, they are, yeah, they don't look too bad.

It is only testing, like we say, but it's a positive start for our frameo because they realistically need to be moving on up the pecking order, particularly when Audi come in. They'll be putting the kind of foundations in for when Audi come in and take over that team in 2026. And they won't want to take over the kind of team that they have been for the last few years where they're kind of sat at the lower end of the midfield scraping for points every now and then. So if Alfa Romeo can end up near the sharp end,

well, the more people at the sharp end, the better because we don't want that massive gap between the midfield and the top three. Realistically, though, the sharp end is still, I think, going to be incredibly sharp. And teams will do very well to get anywhere close. It seems as though Aston Martin might be the team that could get the closest.

They didn't exactly have a glory run as such today. They finished 9th and 10th with Alonzo and Drogovic, Drogovic on the C-5s, Alonzo on the C-4s. But realistically, there's been hype throughout every single day that Alonzo in particular should be able to get that Aston Martin somewhere near, in between maybe the midfield and the top three. That's the hope. And of course, there's a big question around who's going to be joining him

as that second driver for Bahrain. Will it be stroll with his potential broken wrists? Will it be Druggovich? Will it be someone else? You would imagine it would be Druggovich if there would be a swap, just purely because Druggovich has had time in the car and no one else has as a replacement.

And I don't have Holkenberg. Holkenberg has a full-time seat now. He can't keep jumping in that Aston Martin. Or DeVries. Yeah, the two super subs actually have full-time drives now. So people are going like, Vettel, no chance, I'm afraid. And yeah, it wouldn't, I mean, that would be insane if that all just came back. But he's been in that car, Drogovic, so it makes sense for him to, you know, to do the first race if he's needed.

And I'm pretty sure he's going to be needed from how it seems. So if you're wondering on audio, you might be hearing, Frank wanted to get involved in the podcast as well. I would tell him to shut the hell up, but he's not in the room with Tommy. That's usually what I do if Frank is in the room. but he just wanted to say that he thinks Ferrari actually are going to win the World Driver's title. I was just translating for those that were listening on audio. Let's move maybe towards the more disappointing end

and some teams that may not be too happy and it seems to be a running trend that we're going to talk about McLaren again. It just doesn't seem to be clicking for them. They had some wheelbrow issues, which there's been talk about them not being stable enough and that then in itself needing potentially more weight to the car, which is going to slow them down.

And I say, I mean, I say disappointing, but then when Oscar Piastri was interviewed during the day today, he was going, yeah, we're kind of on target with where we kind of expected, which goes against everything Zach Brown said, was it yesterday? Where he was saying we haven't hit any target and we're basically screwed. He didn't say that last part. But the targets were getting missed. So I wonder if Piastri was just.

trying to be quite generic. He was like, yeah, we'll be fighting in the midfield. It's like Fred for sure when he was being quizzed by Laura Winter, the F1 reporter, and she was, you know, trying to get an idea of where Ferrari were. And Fred said, look, we're in the top 10. And I like that from him. And the way in which he was going about it as well was quite fun. Yeah, I'm just looking at the kind of what McLaren did.

They did the least laps out of anyone. In fact, the two people that did the least laps were Norris and Piastri. Norris with 37 laps, Piastri with 44. So their car doesn't look particularly fast, and it also doesn't look particularly reliable. So, yeah, they've had a shocker to say the least. That they have. So that's not gone too well for McLaren. And I would be very surprised to see them beating the likes of Aston Martin.

potentially even Hasse, if they come out strong again like they usually do in seasons gone by. We will have to wait and see. Another team we need to talk about, Alfortowry. There's rumors of them being sold, Tommy. What do you know? What have you heard on the ground? On the ground, yeah, there's all these rumors

that essentially they're not getting the best investment. And now I know that Tom, shout to Tommy, he mentioned this. It actually did a prediction that he thought Alph tarry would get sold because realistically they are a clothing brand and you know they've got a whole Formula one team to promote this clothing brand now Red Bull at the sharp end of the grid Alvatari at the back and if they really want to promote their clothing brand surely they just stick some Alfatari logos on the Red Bull get get Max and Checo in the in the in the in the

swag and they don't have to pay a fortune for to run a racing team and a at the moment, sorry to be savage, but not a very successful racing team. But I'm not the only one that thinks that because there's a quote from, so Helmut Marco said to AMUS in German that's been translated that says, because they asked him about these rumors of Alphiari. And he said, generally, we don't comment on rumors that we can't be satisfied, though, with what Alphotari achieved last year. So this is understandable.

but it's a decision for the shareholders. He doesn't mince his words, does he? No, you can always get a spicy quote. He is a kind of F1 journalist dream. I'm surprised that they don't just put a microphone in front of his face all the time because it always gets some ridiculous spicy quote from him. Yeah, we love it. We love to get that true honesty, even if sometimes it might be quite brutal.

Let's move on very quickly now to picking one biggest winner from testing and then one biggest loser from testing. I'm going to start, I think, the biggest winner. I was torn between two, one being Red Bull, but when I'm actually thinking about winner, I'm thinking about progress. So I'm going to go with Aston Martin as my biggest winner, just purely because they seem to have taken a big step forward.

Alonzo seems hungry, seems like he likes the car, really wants to knuckle down, and the focus is really there. And seems slightly reborn, as well potentially. I think maybe the fact that they've not got a secure number two driver at the moment is probably the only part that's pulling them back a tiny bit because, yeah, Aston Martin might come out of the blocks firing and have a really good car.

But when you look at where Drogovic is probably going to be in comparison to Fernando Alonzo, it's not going to be night and day. So whether they'll be able to capitalize fully, I'm not convinced. But I still think with the state of their car, it certainly makes them the biggest winner from testing. Yeah. Biggest winner from testing, like Red Bull very much

have won the test, if you like, if you want to call it that. All right, man, don't start winning yet. You don't start winning yet. No point. Well, we know what happened last year. We were Red Bullitt in Bahrain, to be fair. So you never know.

And this is the thing that if you're looking at actually like the biggest improvement, some wise person by the name Tompio von Bellingham actually predicted that a Samartan, would finish fourth in the constructors title and got absolutely roasted by Twitch chat. But here we are now calling them the biggest winner from testing.

So part of me wants to be smug, but I still have the biggest fear that they will be incredibly unreliable because it's Fernando Alonso. That was a really risky strategy from you there, Tommy, because you've cashed in on your hole. Well, I said this and look what's happened when we haven't even had lights out. We haven't even had qualifying yet. But you've cashed in.

So realistically, you've now, the burn will be double if you're now wrong. Yeah, very true. But it is crazy that Ashton Martin seemed to be realistically at one of the talks of testing, they spoke to, you mentioned yesterday, Jack Dewan mentioning it. They also spoke to Pietro Vitipaldi, and he kept mentioning how great the Aston looked as well. So from kind of paddock rumor and chat, it looks like they could be at the front of the midfield. But then I remember last year me talking about how rubbish Alpine would be because they were on fire for most of the test and didn't look very quick.

And then they finished fourth in the constructs title. And I looked like an idiot and had to wear their merchandise and pay it out of my own money like a blonker. So you never know. Just covering myself off for the fall. Yeah, that's impressive what you've just managed to do there. I was actually so confident and then just, nah, I'm probably not going to get this one. I'll take the L now.

Well done. Amazing. You were smug about five minutes ago and now you're taking the L. What a strange way that's just ended. Anyway, let's move on now to our biggest loser from testing. This one I think is quite clear for me anyway that I'm going with McLaren. I've already kind of said why. I also want to put into the mix,

potentially Alpine in some ways, just purely because, and again, it's testing. Don't mind about times. But I don't think they really ever showed any kind of, like even glimpse that they'll be good. Now, they might be good. So I'm covering that off now, and they may have just had a complete different run plan.

But it doesn't make sense in my head as a very novice Formula One knowledge person, why they wouldn't have at least one moment of pace, just to see what that car is capable of. I know they can in the data figure out even with turned down engines where they can manage. But it's just weird for me that Alpine just very anonymous over all three days of testing.

The most anonymous team by far, really. Yeah, they've just not looked. It's just so hard to understand where they are in the pecking order. And I think that's what's confused the rest of the grid. But yeah, biggest loser, it's got to be. McLaren for their unreliability. Maybe I don't I don't I wouldn't class them as biggest loser but I think Mercedes have probably struggled a little bit more than expected.

There's a lot of people. You know, Mercedes are just that team that you feel like you can never count out. Even last year we were saying it when Hamilton was getting lapped by the stape and in Imler and it's like, they'll be back. They'll be back. And it just kept going on and on and you're like, no, they will be back. They were eventually. they were eventually they got they got that win so um you you never know with mercedes because

like we said on stream there was that year in 2021 where they had an awful test and then ended up winning the first race so uh Mercedes is one of those teams that you just never know quite how it's going to go but they've not they've not really wowed uh people I think a lot of people thought that they would really take the fight to to rebel this year and hopefully they do because we want that close title fight, but from the evidence of that first test, it does very much seem like Red Bull have the edge on Mercedes. And everyone else. And everyone else.

By quite some margin. Okay. Well, that pretty much sums up our thoughts of day three of testing. As I say, not a huge amount of chaos, not a lot of big moments to talk about. What we are going to be doing, it's not the end of our content by any stretch of the imagination. We're going to be releasing a 20th to first prediction podcast early next week, which will be on all good audio platforms as well as on YouTube as well, if you want to visually soak in what we're saying and all of our washed opinions.

I can't wait to go back to it at the end of the year and see how bad we got it. But I'm really looking forward to recording that. But before we go, Tommy, what are your final thoughts? I've actually got some for a change. You've prepared? No, I've not prepared. I've just thought about something else I wanted to say. And then I thought this would be the time where you don't say final thoughts.

And I won't actually get to say it. The hype of that mini race that we got at the end of the test session, actually, that got me absolutely buzzing for the season because testing wasn't that thrilling by the end of the, like you say, 24 hours of it with not a lot of excitement. But when they lined up on the grid for a practice start and they went for it, a lot of drivers. I mean, I've never seen a bot-up. It was actually a safety car restart, Tommy. Sorry, safety car restart, yeah, because Yuki Sonoda was leading.

And Bottas, yeah, sent it for the first time in his entire career, by what it seems like. And still didn't pull it off. And still didn't manage to do it. It was very, it was sketchy, really. Yeah, because it was basically like a green flag safety car gone in sort of moment. If you missed it and Sonoda was leading by quite some margin, which I don't think we'll ever say that phrase, at least for quite a while. and then yeah then you had was it Lando? Lando bailed out.

He was like I am not risking. I've already got enough problems with my wheel brows without taking my wheel off in a collision with someone eight minutes from the end of testing. He just didn't fancy it. But Bottas was really late on the brakes and very nearly, if he had just snatched his break, ever so slightly, he is absolutely careering

into the back of Perez, which would have been a very strange. moment and then you wonder what would have happened if that would have occurred during testing. But either or... Mercedes would have gone up to him and gone, Gigi's botas. Thank you for that. Thank you so much.

Appreciate that. Yeah, well done. Checks in the post. But yeah, that was good. You can tell how long it's been since we had any kind of racing in our eyeballs. And I cannot wait. Next week, everybody, we return for Formula One action. And I cannot wait.

We will be covering it all on this P1 podcast on Twitch. Matt P1 Tommy. On social media, Matt P1 Tommy. And on YouTube, Matt P1 Tommy. Hell yeah. We'll see you very soon.

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