P1 with Matt and Tommy - Our 2023 Saudi Arabian GP Predictions

Episode Date: March 15, 2023

Time for our race predictions for Saudi. Who'll be the biggest surprise? What about biggest flop? And yes, these predictions were done before Charles Leclerc got his penalty! COME SEE US LIVE! There are just a handful of tickets left for our first London live show, at Leicester Square Theatre on 6th April! Get your tickets before the sell out!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.

Right, listen up, everybody. We are doing a live podcast show on the 6th of April in London, Leicester Square. Myself and Tommy are going to be waffling in your eyes and ears. Yes, so sign up in the description and we'll maybe see you there on the 6th of April. Yeah. Waffling in your eyes. Keep it in. That's brilliant.

It makes sense. Everybody and welcome back to the Pistley. We one podcast with Man Tommy. It's Saudi Arabian Grand Prix week. It's predictions week. It's only one day until free practice. And we get to go around the fastest street circuit in the world, as they love to coin that over at the Jeddah Corniche circuit.

Tom Bellingham, the co-founder, is back at it once again, rep in the orange hoodie. So I wonder who he is going to. predict for pole position and the victory, or will it be a bit of a curveball, Tommy? You never know. I'm just throwing a surprise into the mix. Oh, exciting.

Well, these predictions are scored. So currently, I am 5-3 ahead, Tommy. So you can't go too crazy unless it's going to come true and you're going to do one of those crazy Oracle things. Yeah. Because it's a bit of way up, isn't it? Because on one side, you're like, well, it's going to be Red Bull. On the other side, you're going to go.

go, well, could it have 18 safety cars and a Fernando Alonzo victory? You want to look, with these predictions, part of me in my head is just go sensible and bag the points and gloat at the end of the year. And the other is go a bit crazy. And then there'll be one time where you look like an absolute genius. And you can post all on social be like, oh, I knew Loki Saj would win. Exactly that. I like that a lot. Before we get into our predictions, we need to read out a five-star review as we do every single time. If you want to send in your five-star review and let us know why you love this podcast, please do,

and we'll choose one of them to be read out next time. This one comes in from Emma Sophia in Finland. Matt and Tommy, thank you for providing us with fun and original F1 content. Listening to you always makes my day, and I love how you're even more free and funny hosting your own podcast now. I'm a huge fan. Thank you so much, Emma.

Really appreciate that. Thank you for listening. I'm assuming the funny part was not for Tommy, but you know. Love you really. You are the funny one. Anyway, let's get into our prediction, shall we? First and foremost,

biggest good surprise. All right, hear me out. I've gone for Shaul LeCler. Yes, I am absolutely on board the hype train of Saudi Arabia not having as bad. What are you laughing at? these never end well when you predict Charles to go well. I'm going to get the social clip ready.

Okay, cool, brilliant. But Charles LeClaire is going to be the biggest good surprise because everyone thinks Ferrari's in the mud. He scored zero points in Bahrain, even though I don't want to remind anyone of that. And I just have this feeling. And I think it might be copium that they're going to do better this weekend

and they're going to be closer to Red Bull. And Shaul LeClaer is going to do amazing. He may well do. I'm not wildly against this. It depends if he finishes the race or not, of course. Shut up. Our Ferrari could be quite good,

especially if they've got juicy little new engine. But who knows, he might have to come through the field because of his new battery. We'll find out. Oh, God, yeah, I forgot about that. No, it's not confirmed, is it? No, it's not confirmed. But, I mean, at the end of the day,

like, it's still. fly through the field, hopefully. Let me just change my top three. Carry on. So, biggest good surprise, I have gone for Esteban Ocon. I'm thinking he's going to have a great weekend. He's going to be over the curse that Matt you put on him for the Bahrain Grand Prix. He won't pick up 6,000 penalties.

And I think he's going to be well, well suited to Saudi Arabia Grand Prix. He's done well there before. He just missed out on a podium, didn't he? He did on the line. And that Alpine may have had a cheeky look at the fastest speed times in Bahrain and got a prediction of that. Every time I do these predictions, I just have in my head me saying this out loud and then someone putting it to a clip on TikTok where the guy's like breaking down

or having multiple penalties with these. But I'm going to lock in Estebanok on. Okay. Okay. And this is, he has to have a solid points finish, right? Oh, I'm talking really good points. Yeah, like the top seven or something. I mean, I'm not going to claim it if he gets eighth or something.

Okay, he's going to finish eighth. No, isn't he? Yeah. Okay, we now move to biggest flop. And I've changed from the Bahrain Grand Prix, where this man was my biggest good surprise. It is Logan's sergeant. Now, I feel like he did a really good job in round one,

but you have to take into account. he had a solid three days of testing around the circuit before getting going with his Williams career. We now go to Saudi Arabia, the Jetta Cornish Circuit, the fastest street track in the world. And it's an incredibly difficult circuit to master, in my opinion. You have to have some serious minerals if you want to be pulling out decent lap times here and be consistently fast in the race. you have to risk it. And I'm just not sure a rookie in their first season, rocking up to the second race and it being Saudi Arabia,

I just don't feel like it all play well into Logan Sargent's current experience and whatnot. So let's see. But I feel like it could be a bit of an underwhelming weekend to say the least for Logan. Sorry, Loki, Logie, Saj. Poor Logie Bear. How could anyone doubt him? What a fool.

That's not what, based on my prediction, but we'll go into that later. So, yeah, biggest flop I have gone for Mercedes. You love a team flop. You don't bother, you did Hassle at first time. No, that was good surprise. Oh, was it? Oh, okay. I forget we can do that.

We make the rules and I forget you can call it. Okay, carry on. So I'm going for a team flop and it's going to be Mercedes. He says, I think that car, worried that it still could be a bit. draggy down the straights and obviously it's a very high speed quick track. Hamilton obviously had a mare last year. I don't think he's going to, I'm not predicting that he's going to go out in Q1, you never know, but if the field is that close. But I just can't see Mercedes having a good weekend and I could see them getting overtaken in DRS a fair bit and not having a good one.

Interesting. So you're writing off Mercedes. pretty much from the get-go here. Not even just one driver, the entire team is going to flop. What kind of position are we talking here? What is a flop? I think a flop would probably be like one of them finishes 7th

and the other finish is like 10th or something. Something like that. Obviously, if they have a mare and qualifying as well, that kind of thing. I'll judge it and try and desperately claim points when it happens. That sounds good. All right.

It's Logie Bear up against Mercedes. for the biggest flop. Let's see what happens. We now move to pole position. All right, hear me out. I've gone for Shao LeCla. If he doesn't have an engine penalty,

which he might do. He could still get pole. He could still get pole. I don't know what the penalty would be. Is it 10 places if he has his energy store replaced? I think it might be, or maybe five. Who knows? Maybe five.

But either all, I'm very much, like, I don't know what I'm doing, right now because realistically, I can't see past Red Bull for any of this, but at the same time, I feel like I have to channel my energy into something, and it has to be Ferrari. So Charles LeCler, he's going to stick it on pole with an absolute worldly of a lap, all right? He's going to pip out Max Verstappen for poll, in my opinion. And Ferrari are going to be back. I'm going to go into Sunday.

everyone's going to be watching the Matt P1 Tommy Twitch watch along. And you can watch my very frail, fragile, stuck together heart break all over again when he undoubtedly doesn't win. And gets 15,000 people suddenly flock into the watchalong. Yeah, I've gone for huge surprise, Max Verstappen for pole position. Boring. Yeah, boring, but probably going to happen. But I do think Ferrari will be better, so I can see why you've gone for Charleney as a qualifying master.

God. Yeah, Ferrari, hopefully for all of us, is quicker this weekend because we need some competition. But I still think Max is going to get it. Perfect. Well, please do tune in to our watchalongs and also Formula One in general. I know Tommy is trying his best to make it sound like it's going to be a Red Bull whitewash, but it may well be. We now move to my top three.

This is for the race. In third place, I've gone for Sergio Perez. Yeah, a bit of a spicy one there. Not having a Red Bull 1 too, even though Checo had... I'm spicy now. Yeah, I know.

Even though Checo had a great race last time out in Saudi Arabia, although got screwed over and finished fourth in the end. But Perez, yeah, I think it's going to be a P3. Who knows who's going to slot in? to the final two positions, hey? Oh, we shall find out.

For third place, I have gone for Carlos Sites. So, yeah. We'll see if that's me going a bit different or banking on Charler-Laclair having a penalty. Yeah, I think it's definitely the latter. It feels like the latter anyway. In second place, I've gone for Charles LeCler.

Hopefully without a energy store. of being replaced. If he has to get it replaced, I feel like I've been screwed over here. But surely, surely for anyone that supports Ferrari, we cannot possibly have a grid penalty in race two. That cannot happen.

That must be the most insane, like grid penalty to ever get that early on in the season. It must be. I can't think of anything that's even come close to that. I think we had maybe Alpine taking an engine penalty last year. I don't know how many, a handful of races in and we were all like,

oh my God, wow, this is early. Race two, give us a chance. Yeah, it's something only Ferrari could do, right? That would be a record that could only go to Ferrari. What I would say is if Charlotte Claire does get a penalty

and finish your second ahead of Perez, you'll also get the biggest surprise because I think that would be a great, a great result and a great drive. I look forward to seeing it. So P2, drum roll, please, I've gone for a shocking Sergio Perez. We didn't actually say, by the way,

how far our poll position person would get poll by. Oh, do you want to do that still? Yes. Interesting. I thought that was only for a max lockout just because it was... No, I thought it should just consistently. Charlotte Clare on pole by point one of a second.

So confident. I will go Vestappen on poll by two tenths. Lovely. Yeah. Oh, brilliant. And speaking of Max Vastappen, we now move to first place in my top three. Max Verstappen. Oh, goodness me.

I know, but I just, he's just, I keep using the phrase inevitable, but he is. And if he has a remotely good car, like one of the things that stuck with me was that was it the first time they went to Saudi. And in free practice, Max just went out there and was like a second and a half quicker than everybody else in FP1 because he just, he's just, on rails, even in 2021 when of course it was quite close between Mercedes and Red Bull. He's

just so good at adapting and getting up to speed so quickly. And that's one of the many reasons why I'm putting Max P1. They've moved the wall back, haven't they? As well, the one that he hit in 2021, so maybe that'll save it. Wow, Red Bull, FIA, assistance.

Yeah, F1, Twitter, that you. First place, I have gone for lo and behold it's maxa stappen i think i would say lewis hamilton and then it was loki sage i was trying to say yeah yeah um no max sappan you'd be a fool to bet against him but if we're going to have anywhere where it's a bit crazy it could be saudi um so let's hope we've jinxed it even me and we get that fernando lanzo win speaking of crazy let's move to our one crazy prediction. And I think it's going to be such a crazy race that my one crazy prediction is there's

going to be no safety cars. Yay! What a great race we have in store if my prediction comes true. I'm sorry, everybody, but that is genuinely a very big prediction to have no safety cars around the Jeddah Cornish circuit. And the fact is, Tommy, you actually peeped that before we started recording and you'd gone for exactly the same thing. So you have changed it. since. But it's really quite upsetting and concerning. It just shows how through the floor our expectations are of this season, that we're both like, yeah, Vestapp and wins.

No safety cars. Yeah. It's not a banger this year. Stap and wins by four laps. And, yeah, we'll wait and see. I also went for no safety cars, but for the purpose of fun, I changed it. We're so optimistic after two rounds, aren't we? Can you sense the optimism, everybody?

It's oozing through your ears or eyes if you're watching on YouTube. Right. So my crazy prediction is kind of going against what you've said earlier. And I'm going for a double Williams point finish. Logie Bear gets his first points in F1, double Williams points. That's not happening. And I could see it happen. No chance.

Well, we'll wait and see it. No chance. Don't you dare do that, by the way. You on the Logie Bear's slander train. And now all of a sudden, we are only in round two. And all of a sudden, Logie Bear is getting points. Look, 25% of our audience are America. And I need to shift all their hate onto you.

So Logie Bear, choo-choo-choo. Choo-choo-choo, mother-truckers. Oh, my goodness me. Well, there you go. That is our crazy prediction. And also the entire predictions. for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. My goodness, I hope I don't score any points for the crazy predictions

because genuinely, we need safety cars to cause a little bit of a mix-up, I would say, in the order. But let's see. Tommy, final thoughts? Final thoughts are, apologize for being very pessimistic. I hope we're proven wrong. Saudi is one of those tracks that you just need that first incident and then hopefully all craziness and hell breaks loose

and we get what we all want, which is a Logie Bear victory. No, this is something else now. Tommy, you are something else. My final thoughts are, I cannot wait to be back once again on Twitch with Tommy, with all of you doing our watchalongs. Matt P1, Tommy,

come and join us over there for both the qualifying and the race. And let's see if my heart will shatter into a million pieces once again for round. to. Until then, we'll see you very soon. Bye. Even the wave, that was the most lethargic. Oh, it's going to be a Vastap and victory by three laps wave I've ever seen. If you're listening on audio, it was a terrible wave. Bye. Bye. P1 is a Stack production and part of the ACAS creator network.