P1 with Matt and Tommy - Our 2023 Dutch GP predictions

Episode Date: August 23, 2023

The summer break is over and we're off to Zandvoort! It's time for some pre-race predictions, as Mr Inevitable lines up for yet another shot at glory...You can grab our new merch here!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 P. One podcast with Matt and Tommy, a dancing Tommy today. That's new. Usually you just wave. But you're dancing. You've just come back from holiday. So I feel like you're a bit rejuvenated. You're ready for some Grand Prix action,

which I have actually read, I haven't fact-checked it, that we've got 10 races in the next 14 weeks. Yeah. That is a lot. lot of races, a lot of Red Bull victories and a lot of Dutch national anthems. Wow. Okay. Well, hype. Hype, hype. Coming from Tom Bellingham office holiday. But of course, today we are getting into our predictions for Zandvort, which is very exciting.

I'm actually buzzing Tommy because we're going to be out there, aren't we? We're kitted out with the old Tommy Hill figure apparel. We're looking suave. You're looking... Swather, aren't you? Yeah, we've got the gear and... And I have absolutely no idea, exactly. So I'm going to Zambor, we're very excited, we'll keep you up to date on everything that is going on over there.

Don't you worry, no content will be missing from our beautiful podcast. Right, let's get into Biggest Good Surprise. I have gone for George Russell. Yeah, I feel like there's been a bit of slander about George Russell's performances, mainly coming out of the mouth of Tom Bellingham recently, and he had a very good 2022 Dutch Grand Prix,

finished only four seconds off Max Verstappen at the end of the race, and I feel like this could be the bounce back race for Mr Russell. I say bounce back like he's been horrendous. He hasn't been horrendous. By no stretch has he been horrendous. He hasn't been as good as Hamilton, I will admit that.

But I feel like, like a better race will be ahead of George Russell this weekend. Interesting. Yeah, for four seconds off the lead last year, I mean, that's practically a victory now. So finishing four seconds might have this happen. He's not getting 25 points for that. But in our hearts, is that what you're saying? In P2 with Matt and Tommy, which was, if it gets to the end of the year and Max has won every race,

we will generally consider it for next year. Yep. No, it's fine. Formula one's interesting, right, Tommy? Yes. No, I'm excited for it to be back, to be honest. It's going to be good. It's weird, isn't it? Because as well, like, we've had uploads going out, but we were very sort of, I would say, prepared. You know, we filmed in a block, because, of course, you went on holiday. I've missed this. I've missed talking to you, hearing your terrible opinions, hearing mine, coming out of my mouth as I make them up on the spot.

like it's just something I've missed and I've missed all of you wonderful listeners as well so thank you for coming back as I say lots of Grand Prix coming your way and now Tommy let's hear your biggest good surprise so my biggest good surprise is alpha Romeo I've gone for a team which you know regret it yeah which you know I regret it when uh Joe Guan you'll win the race yeah but I'll finish last exactly but um no I just feel like alpha Romeo they had that good Gary and Grand Prix and I feel like they might deliver something again this time hopefully actually in the race as well rather than just just qualifying um so yeah I think alpha will hopefully be be good around there but that midfield pack is extremely close so I'll know you who you're

going to be cheering for when we're seeing the cars blast past because you don't need to cheer for max anymore it's show when you and valetri botus got my alpha-o mayo cape ready have wow I've yet to see that. Looks forward to seeing that whipped out. Right, biggest flop now. Now, this was difficult for me, purely because since we last did predictions,

we filmed with two Formula One drivers. Oh, yeah. So I didn't know which one to pick as to who gets the curse. Now, I have gone for Oscar Piastri because we filmed, what I filmed, Tommy was on holiday, but I filmed with Daniel Ricardo today.

And I am so full of love right now for Daniel Ricardo that I can't. possibly put him as big as flop. If it happens, I am so sorry. But I'm going to go with Oscar Piestri instead because, you know, it's been a few weeks now. I don't feel as bad. But of course, if the curse is real, one of them is going to have a terrible Grand Prix for Zanvort. So not looking forward to that because they're both wonderful people. But yes, I've gone for Piastri. Interesting. I nearly went for one of, yeah, I nearly went for Piastri for the very same logic. And also as well, McLaren, I don't think it's going to be very good this weekend. It's

It's not a track that I don't think suits their car, especially that middle and last sector. I don't know. It just seems a little bit too slow. Which is strange because you feel like Zandvor, oh, it's really quick, but actually it's not. There are quite a lot of slowish corners there that I think McLaren may be,

might not be as well suited as we think. We'll find out. Biggest flop. I've not gone for Oscoeastery. I've gone for Pierre Gassley, and that is just based off random vibes that I think Alpine won't be very good, and I had to pick one of them, so I went for Gassley.

Nothing more than that. I mean, we haven't interviewed Ockon recently, so there's no curse to be thrown at him for Fuerre Gassie. Or the curse of Gassley doing really well, because my biggest slot normally actually has quite a good race, so there we go. Gassley, here we go, on the podium. Love to see it.

Pole position now. I've gone for Max for Stanppen. Yes, you can't raise people. I need points. I need points. There is no one else that is getting pole position. I've looked at the weather forecast. It looks rather sunny.

Not too hot, but rather sunny. There's nothing on the horizon that I think, why do we talk? Why do we always say, oh, it might rain, so it's unpredictable. No, that just means Max is on pot. If anything, dry qualifying is actually a lot closer this year than wet qualifying.

but I still think Max Verstappen will have the edge this weekend. It's his home race. He's going to have, it doesn't need it, but he's going to have an extra few tents because it's the home race bonus. He is so good at Zanvort, isn't he? Yeah, absolutely dominated there for the last two years and now arguably has a better car than he ever has

in his Formula One career as well. So goodness knows how good he goes. could be unless they ban that DRS like that rumour, but we've not heard yet. And based on that, I've also gone for Max Lestappen because how can you bet against Max Lestappen for Poll at Zandvoort? Because, like say, he's just, that that circuit is on the calendar for him. And it really is. It is built for him.

He's driven, he'll have driven so many laps in his career, knows it incredibly well. It's a very Maxxstappen. as well, like fast flowing, you know, the banked corners and he's just unbelievable around there. So, yeah, poll position for Max has happened. Fast, but not too fast, Tommy. We've just said that the McLaren's won't be suited around here. So is it a fast flowing circuit or is a fast with slow corners flowing circuit? How's you...

Flowing circuit. There's not, I guess, I mean, like, there's not like too many, there's not a lot of clumsy corners. So when you say that, I mean, I did a 100% race around Zandvort on Twitch on Sunday just gone. And I think Zandvort is quite a clumsy circuit in some ways. Like you've got you've got turn one, which is fine. Then you've got turned two into three, which I think is a little bit, you know, onto the banking. It's always, it's not the most smooth. It's not the smoothest entry in there because you've got a clunky little, little 90 degree-ish right-hander.

then you've got that sort of last few corners before the, well, in the last sector, you've got that horrible little right and then long left before you then get on to the final right and onto the back straight. And then you've got a couple of corners before that. And I don't like it, Tommy. I think it's just purely because I don't have the skill. But there's a few corners that you have to wait and be quite patient on as well. I don't know.

I wouldn't put it down as flowing. I thought I disagree straight out the blocks, you know what I mean? Maybe this is me. Yeah, when we used to play eye racing, and back in the day when I used to play it in COVID times, and we used to do a bit of ir racing together with the F3 cars. It was good around that, but maybe Formula One cars are a bit too quick and too wide,

and yeah, maybe it's not quite as flowy in an F1. But either way, I'm not denying that it is a Max Verstappen track. And I think every track on the calendar is a maximum staff and track at the moment. So, yes, I totally agree. Let's move to our top three. In third place, I have gone for Lewis Hamilton. I am fully backing the fact that Mercedes, and this is not because we are sponsored by Tommy Hill figure this weekend, I promise.

This is purely off of facts of last year and how good Mercedes were around Zanvort. I think it will be a similar trend going into this year as well. Let's not forget Hamilton was on poll in Hungary. It's not too dissimilar. in terms of, I find that there's a few technical parts of Zambort and there is in Hungary as well. And I'm not saying they're completely similar tracks,

but I don't know. I just feel like Mercedes are going to be good this weekend. So do I. Oh, no. Genuinely as well. As soon as you said that this year, I was like, we're back and we're going to disagree finally.

Oh, no, we've picked the same. Hopefully it's not the same top three We shall see But yeah I've gone for Lewis Hamilton Because you know You said George Russell Biggest good surprise

But I think Hamilton's been the better in the races And stuff like that So we'll find out We'll have to wait and see Won't we As we go to second place George Russell Oh yeah

So Mercedes 2 3 Russell has a good race Beats Hamilton not by much, a few seconds. And Mercedes are very happy, picking up a lot more points. That's what I see in my mind's eye. Hmm, interesting. For P2, I've gone for Lando Norris,

after saying the whole podcast that McLaren won't be as because they normally are. But my... I know you're tired, Tommy, but please. Tell me more. Well, it's not too dissimilar for what you said about similar characteristics to hunger in a weird way. and I looked at Hungary

I remember thinking on paper McLaren are going to be absolutely awful around there and then Landon Norris nearly stuck it on pole so I think Landon Norris could have a still a good race and he's very good at qualifying and putting that car in a good position

and if he does that Zandvoort is very very very very difficult to overtake at so could be in for a good race that's my logic there No, I mean, fair, fair play. Because McLaren, I think we were saying, weren't we after Hungary, they're here to stay.

And why not? Let's go to first place then, finally. This is, of course, Max Verstappen, who takes the win. It has to be. Tommy's there. He's going to wave it in my face. He's going to gloat, is what I meant to say by that. and Ferrari are going to be nowhere.

So that's that, isn't it really? Max Verstappen, P1, congratulations. I hope you're really happy. Yeah. For P1, I've gone for Max Verstappen as well. He's obviously, if he does this, he'll have matched Sebastian Vettles nine wins in a row, which part, there was part of me that was like,

oh, you know, he'll match that record. It would be sod's law that, you know, he would fail at something would go wrong then. But he's just so good at Zamvort. I think it would have to be some kind of failure to stop him because he's just so good at that track and he just gets in the zone there and just says see you later.

You know, gets it on pole and goes off Harry Potter meme. Goodbye on the train. Interesting though that neither of us have gone for Sergio Perez in the top three despite saying this is going to win and I just vision Sergio may be struggling

again it may be in qualifying and then if he does it's a very difficult circuit to work your way through the pack I agree because it's a short track so he has to be on it

he has to be within a few tenths of Vastappan otherwise as we've seen in qualifying Vastappan only has a few tenth not even that he's not at Poulat-Hungary as we mentioned. And if Perez is just a little bit behind,

which we all expect him to be, then he may well be fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, on the grid. And then we've discussed just how difficult it is to overtake at Zandvoort. And Perez will go on to his 943rd recovery drive of the year. But it would be a difficult one for it. Yeah, mate, he is farming those drive-of-the-day awards

and fair play to him. Maybe he's got something in his contract. Every time he wins driver of the day, he gets a cash bonus, yeah. Yeah. Love it. Okay, we now move to our one crazy prediction. I've gone for no safety cars.

Now, I think that's quite crazy around a place like Zandvort, where if you have one beached car in a quite narrow circuit, it's going to be a safety car. So I've gone for none of them. Oh, no. No, well, I thought you were going to go for the same thing. I thought you were going to when you announced that. But I've gone for, yeah, we've gone for some very,

we've not had our usual delusion after the summer break when we come in and we go, you know what, Alonzo's winning, Joe Gwainu second, and Latifie's going to make a comeback and finish that. We've had a summer break of realisation where we're just laying in a dark room and the Staff is going to win everything.

Yeah, because my crazy prediction, if mine comes true as well, it's going to be an absolute banger because I've gone for, every car is classified. no DNFs. We promise that you should tune in to both the Formula One race

and also the P1 content. It's going to be great. Exactly. But we're going to be there having a great time. We're going to, yeah, we're going to make it a good race. Yeah, look, we've got this far into the season and all of you are still here.

So that's good. Just think how good it's going to be if you, for some reason, enjoy our content now. For some reason. When we do have that race for Alonzo Winzegu, Gwanyu's second and Latifi's third, it's going to be amazing. Can you imagine the scenes?

To be fair, though, when we go for very safe predictions, sometimes we get an interesting result. So let's see what we are anti-cooking at the moment. Now, before we go, we've got three crazy predictions from you wonderful lot. We're going to do this every race. So be sure to reply to the graphic that we post on our Twitter

or Instagram, Matt P1, Tommy. The first one comes in from Andy Fleet 22. Piastri to get his first proper podium. Okay. I mean, he'll be happy with that so that he doesn't have to constantly flaunt a plaque that he got from the sprint race and it's saying second on it

because I feel like he was, I wouldn't say milked. No, yeah, he was reasonably milked for that particular thing. And I think that even he deep down was like, it's not really a podium, though, is it? We went, didn't we, to McLaren Technology Centre, and we interviewed him. And it's an incredible achievement. Obviously, it's no mean feat to finish second in a miniature race.

But when you, there was the trophy. I think it was maybe next to Lando's trophy from, I want to say, the Hungarian Grand Prix. And then he had his. And his just looked like a kind of Pokemon card on display, didn't it? It's funny actually, just very quickly, before we get into the last two and also say goodbye, we mentioned about the sprint race stuff. Crofty came up with something over the summer break, which I just wanted to share my thoughts on, and I wanted to hear yours as well, Tommy, around having a separate sprint championship.

Now, for me, I could not categorically disagree with this more at all. I think having a separate sprint championship would be the most pointless thing in the world. Can you imagine if Max Verstappen wins the world title, but Charles LeCler is the sprint champion of the world? What is that actually going to mean? It's going to mean about as much as the like crypto overtake award or the teams getting fastest pit stop or something, which is kind of an exciting thing to a point, but not, yeah, it's not amazing is it no i don't i don't think was he talking about as well it being a on a friday as well he was saying all of on the friday would you not even count towards the main

points or i don't i didn't go into that much i just saw a clip and i just wanted to cover that bit off because i was just like i don't know i don't want a sprint championship please no it seems a bit i mean they have things like that in indy car i think where they're like oh you are the best on ovals and no one actually really cares that much. It's about the champion or the Indy 500 winner, isn't it? I love it as well in Indy. It's like even the Indy 5. The indie champion is regarded less than the Indy 500 winner.

So weird. So yeah, just wanted to cover that because it just came into my mind. The second crazy prediction comes in from Lewis Pig 07. Daniel will get points. These two predictions don't know that you've just interviewed both of them. Yeah, that's so true. Now, for those of you that don't know, there is. is a curse, potentially, quite possibly, of any time we interview a driver.

So, fingers crossed. I want Piastrian Daniels to have the greatest race ever, and then we're in the clear. Yes, it needs to happen. I don't hold out too much hope. If Daniel gets points, that is an unbelievable achievement. And finally, Sem F1. Lewis Hamilton will get his second pole position of the season. That's not out of the realms of possibility either.

I know I've backed Russell, but Hamilton, he did it in Hungary. He could definitely do it in Zambort as well. but I can't see past Max for Stappen for this one. But I'm not going to say that that's impossible. No, it's not crazy. It's not absolutely wild, is it? Look, it's not crazy. Our final crazy prediction is...

No, I'm very curious to see if this banning of DRS is actually true or not. Was it supposed to happen for this weekend? I'm not actually sure. I thought they were going to do it for the second half of the season potentially, and you thought we may have heard it by now, I'm not sure. How do we hinder Red Bull, but in a way that, you know, you do think, you do wonder, like, banning DRS in qualifying, Red Bull doing a great job?

It is. Is there any other reason to ban DRS in qualifying than to hinder Red Bull? I can't see one. It screams, do you remember, I want to, was it 2020 when they banned party mode that Mercedes had? And they were like, oh, and then Mercedes, ended up locking out the front row immediately anyway. It is very much a scrambling for any kind of hope.

But I think like you said in one of our other videos that we've done over the summer break that qualifying is not where they have a problem. Max has started from the back and still finish near the front or at the front or one. So qualifying is not the thing that matters too much. Anyway, they don't really tend to set up for it. Maybe just ban DRS on the Red Bull full stop, just remove the rear wing. Remove the rear wing.

I'm onto something. Monza and then do terrible everywhere else. I'm not sure they'll do too well anywhere with no rear wing. But yeah, maybe Monza. That's just Williams-Fives, isn't it really? So that is about it. That is our predictions for the Dutch Grand Prix. Let us know yours on social media.

Thank you to Andy Lewis and Semf1 for getting involved in the crazy predictions. We are flying out. In fact, we are recording this before we fly out. We're flying out tomorrow, but we'll be flown out by the time this goes out. So that's confusing. Tommy, what's your final thoughts? Looking forward to getting there and having a great time and to be back at Zambor because we went to the first one back, didn't we, in 2021. The atmosphere was unbelievable.

Fans were amazing. It was insane to be in that crowd. It did feel like the party atmosphere like it looks like on TV. Very much feels like that in the grandstand. So yeah, it's going to be exciting. I've just realized something that's maybe. me slightly smug. And of course, we've partnered with the amazing Tommy Hill figure for the whole weekend, which means you can't walk around in Max merch. I absolutely, that's amazing.

This is what, oh, you've done it all along, haven't you? This is what you've done. I was like, please, Tommy Hilfiger, please get involved. So Tommy can't wear the cape, please. Although, that's not being said, the cape hasn't been worn all year. And look what it's, look what we've ended up with. Yeah, look what you've done. Look what Grace has done. Right, that is it. Thank you, everybody. Lots of love. And we'll see you in Zandvort. Can't wait. Bye. Bye. P1 is a Stack production and part of the ACAST Created Network.