P1 with Matt and Tommy - Our 2024 Qatar GP predictions

Episode Date: November 27, 2024

We’re back for the penultimate race weekend of the season - and it’s a sprint weekend, baby! Let’s see if we can Michael Masi this thing all the way to the final race of the season… Join us for our End of Season tour across the UK this December! There are still some tickets available for London, Manchester, Birmingham and Bristol right here!Sign up to our Patreon here! You'll get access to bonus episodes, our classic race podcast series, every P1 episode ad-free, early access to live tickets and merch, and access to our Discord server where you can chat with 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 B1 podcast with Matt and Tommy. We are officially into the penultimate Grand Prix weekend of the year. And it is Qatar. Tommy, are you ready for this? You buckled in. Are we going to have some more chaos in this 2024 season? I think we are. It always keeps us guessing.

So I feel like I know what's going to happen, but I felt like that every single race weekend. And it's always been wrong and changed and completely unexpected. So cannot wait. Now, if you listen on audio, you wouldn't have seen the YouTube intro, but we have new merch, and that's what we need to shout out and let you know about everything. We even have a domain, Matt P1 Tommy.com, okay? You can head there, and we've got brand new designs. We've even launched the Beanie that's on top of my head that I know a lot of you have been asking for, and we've finally got it out there as well as some other lovely merchandise designs, haven't we, Tommy?

Sundays are for racing is one that is my particular favourite, as well as some sort of revamped stuff. is that right? Yeah, we've got some P1FM things. We've got all the classic stuff that we had before is back, of course. And there's some Christmas designs coming as well, which are very exciting and very cool. Oh, yeah. So Matt P1Tommi.com, if you want to go and head out and check some of that beautiful stuff. Right.

Predictions time. It's 53 all. Beautiful stuff. I saw the people on the comments of the Instagram post when we do the little roundup, and they were not happy with your gas and damage, which I think is, I think we've given We've given some easier points than that this year. So I felt like that wasn't even that much of a contentious thing. I didn't fight it.

I am surprised. I would have been questioned it, but people also believe that even if you have damage and it's not your fault, I wouldn't have got the point. So I was like, well, no, that's not how damage works. I literally said he has damage, which he had damage. Either way, we are the participants and the referees, which may seem slightly.

strange, but it's 53 all. Michael Massey would be very proud indeed. Let's get into our first prediction, which is biggest good surprise. And my one, I don't even know if I've even chosen this driver before. It's Liam Lawson. I'm going for biggest good surprise.

I don't know why you're making such a face there, Tommy, that I literally thought you'd frozen for a second. I thought you were doing a thumbnail pose there. What was going on? You're not happy with that one? No, no. Interesting. All right, you flopped him then.

That's interesting. I mean, I know he ended up in the gravel, did he not last year, around Qatar. And he's also off the back of a few pretty subpar, you would have to say, performances. So I am backing him for a great weekend. And I feel as though he knows he needs to step up a little bit, get himself back into the headlines as a driver that's new on the block and performing. And I'm going to go and biggest good surprise him. just before I do mine I will explain why my eyes popped out my head then is because I wrote Liam Lawson and then changed it right at the end why did you change it Tommy because I just thought I'll go for this other driver

which we'll get into but I was very tempted to go for Liam Lawson as well because I think he has definitely been quite underwhelming since he's come back compared to how he did last year you know he was on such a good run wasn't he last last year and hyped up a lot but has to be said yuki snoda um so far has done the done the better job and yes i changed my design at design still thinking about merch sorry was dialed into the merch just try that again prediction you tell a bit do the shop for the last week my biggest good surprise is franco colopinto uh that's who i changed it to last minute he's had also a very difficult run of things.

Three crashes in two Grand Prix weekends. But I think he's going to bounce back and show why he was hyped in the first place. At a track like Qatar, I think he's going to deliver and show what he can do because I think he's got a lot of criticism recently for some, you know, as people always, you know, if you do a bad job, you're going to get to. criticized, but I think some of it is quite maybe too far and unfair people saying that, oh, they shouldn't have ever replace Logie Bear with him, which is completely ridiculous, because Franco has done a fantastic job.

And I hope that I'm right, because I'd love to see him back fighting and hoping that he can grab that seat that he is rumoured to be wanting in 2025. Yeah, and who's he going to take it off as well? That's another big question into the end of the seat. season. Interesting. So we've both gone for two drivers that haven't really been performing. And if they even finish 11th, we will be trying to clock that one. Interesting. Biggest flop. My powers were strong last week. And they've been strong all season, to be honest with you. My biggest flop is George Russell. Not anything, well, it's never is. It's all purely based on vibes. However,

I feel as though there is slight logic here where I believe Mercedes will not be very good. I think they could even be the fourth fastest team here. And I've gone for George Russell because he's off the back of a victory. So, look, doesn't win. I'm claiming half a point at the very least. This is, Tommy, we're in the penultimate race of the season here. I would be jumping through any loophole, even if it's one millimeter wide. I'm not sure how I'd jump through that.

But I will definitely try. So George Russell is my biggest flop. Our brains seem to be aligned this week because my biggest flop is Lewis Hamilton. And I have gone for similar logic that I think Mercedes is going to be. back to being very much the fourth best car and struggling around a track like Qatar the reason I didn't go for George Russell is that I think George Russell will beat Lewis Hamilton again

over the weekend and I think Hamilton's qualifying will continue to struggle in both the sessions I feel like sprints is another thing where he's not been confident in that car it's quite clear in qualifying trim

and he's going to have, of course, two qualifying sessions to handle. Brilliant in the race last time. But of course, quality is what's really let him down. So I've gone for Lewis Hamilton. Interesting. Very much aligned. Let's see where the flop goes.

Well, if it's anything by the rest of the season, it would be probably me. But let's see. As it is a sprint weekend, of course. I haven't mentioned that in the podcast. We head to Sprint Poll. Who is getting pole position for the sprint? For me?

It's Oscar Piastri. My guy. He's just going to chef this weekend. You know, off the back of a sprint win last time out when it was a Red Bull domination for most of it. Of course, McLaren did come good at some tracks, hence why I'm sort of leaning towards this once again. I feel as though McLaren will be back right at the front

for this weekend's Grand Prix. And this is a time, again, as similar to, I guess, Liam Lawson and your thoughts with Franco Colopinto, I feel as though Oscar Piestri has had a time. has had a quiet few weekends. It's time to bounce back around a track that he took to like a duck to water in his first season and got a sprint win.

So there you go. Oscar Piastri Sprint pole. Sprint pole, I've gone for Lando Norris. They think there's maybe no surprise that we've both gone for McLaren drivers here. I'm sure you are of the agreement that we think McLaren are going to do very well. They did very well last year, like you said.

And yeah, I feel like Lando, has got the speed on Piastri and has done in the last few races and in qualifying. But I do think, yeah, I do think Oscar will have a better time, but I've gone for Lando for the Sprint pole. Oh, okay. We're definitely been, we're in the same kitchen right now. There's a lot of similar ingredients going on. Let's go to Sprint win then. Who is going to convert?

Not a convert. Well, there only one person to technically come. convert because there's only one person on poll. I'm chatting absolute rubbish. You can tell it at the end of the season. My sprint winner is Landau Norris. Yeah. Uh-huh.

Uh-huh. Little front row lockout from McLaren. Lando down the inside. This is for Monza. I can see it all in my mind's eye. You know, the championship's over. Big Sends. McLaren are supposedly, you know,

fighting for the Constructors' Championship. They should be, and they're still ahead. But yeah, I think Lando will not. play as nice as perhaps some might think and he's going to win the sprint. So we are cooking in the same kitchen and we've got similar ideas but also very opposite because I have gone for the sprint win Oscar Piasco. So we've literally flipped the two round. That is ridiculous.

It's quite funny. And my logic for that is that Lando will take the sprint pole and Oscar will get a better start off the line. You won't have to worry about his tyreware and just he's a really. rapid driver, you know, he won the sprint there last year and we'll take the sprint w ahead of his teammate after getting a better start. That's my logic there. Well, every time I've backed Landon Norris, it hasn't gone right. So, I know, we've backed him so much this year. It's good, though, because you've kind of gone for the opposite. So

technically it should come in for you almost every time. So that'll be interesting. Pole position, because of course we have another qualifying session. And this time I've gone for And I'm going to Norris. It's a very McLaren fan. I am just sorry because I know that this is probably not going to come true now, because it's a very McLaren heavy prediction podcast currently. I'd love to see Ferrari come out the blocks and be worldies, and I think they will be strong. But, Lando Norris Poll! I've also gone for Lando Norris Poll.

Oh, my lord. Yeah. So McLaren fans, I'm so sorry because, yeah. All our eggs are in that papaya basket this weekend, big time. I was actually looking at the race results to get like pictures for the thumbnails we do. But they have like a display of all the podium finishes. I hadn't quite clocked that McLaren obviously went on that insane run where they were always on the podium with at least one driver, a lot of the time, two drivers. they've only got one podium in the last four,

which is quite insane to think of the season that they've had. So we are really counting on the bouncing back here big time. And yeah, I've gone for Lando to take the pole as well as sprint pole, of course. I think he is going to be rapid. And he has been really, really quick and qualifying.

It's just the races really that's let him down, of course. Yeah, very interesting. Okay, top three. Have we continued on this trend or have we gone, wow, we've gone very McLaren heavy. Let's do something else. No, Oscar Piastri, third place. Third place for Oscar. He's had a little bit of a issue with tire wear, things like that.

Of course, we had that bizarre situation last year, didn't we, where there was a mandatory three stops, I think it was. They had to do three tire changes because of the problems they had with the Pirelli's. So hopefully we don't have. such problems again this year because of course the drivers were absolutely destroyed after that because they were pushing lap after lap in ridiculous heats. But yet, third place for Oscar Piastri, I believe it will be still a good performance. And as you say, one podium in the last four is ridiculous. So for them to be on the podium with Oscar, it would be good. Just before I go on to mind,

you mentioned that that weird three-stopper thing. I'd almost forgotten about it. And someone shared a picture on Twitter that I'd completely forgotten out. Do you remember that really bizarre, it was called the familiarity session that they ran before where they had that 10 minute practice session where there were no times and we had to watch I think it was 10 minutes

and they all ran and there were no we didn't get a timing graphic or anything they all just ran around we didn't know what was going on but it was televised and we could see the cars going around but there were no timings there was nothing and it was just a way to basically check the tyres would work that was so weird

I'd completely forgotten about it I forgot about that as well I deleted with my brain I completely forgotten until I saw someone post the graphic of them announcing the session and it was called the familiarity session which is

never again weird with no graphics and overlays and timings is literally them just going around in circles it really is P3 then I have gone for Charler

so yeah Charles back on the podium after missing out which he was of course not too bothered about missing out on the podium last time. No anger at all on missing out on his podium last time, but he's going to bounce back and get the podium and continue to fight maybe for second in the championship because of that is still on the fight for P2 again.

It is still on, but they're going to have to do a bit better than third if they need to make inroads into McLaren this weekend, realistically. In second place, because I don't want to do any jinxing, it's Max for Stappen. P2. What on Max?

I'm not touch, Ferrari, the drivers are not touching my lips. That's a strange sentence in the predictions because I don't want to, I don't want to, yeah,

I don't want to do any of that. Sorry McLaren fans because, you know, you are quite literally up against Ferrari in the constructors. So there's been a lot of words for McLaren in this predictions because I do genuinely think

they're going to be fast. But look, if it plays into Charlotte Clare's hands and he qualifies P2, wins the race, I then get my crazy prediction for the year. Perfect. So Max Verstappen, it's not a weird thing that think he might finish second as much as it also does feel very weird. P2, I've also gone for Max Verstappen. Have you? I think he's going to be, I think he's going to have a better car.

You start covering me off. I feel like he was alternating off all my predictions. It's crazy. Thank goodness I'd change the Liam Lawson thing, so otherwise we've pretty much got the same prediction all over there. I nearly went for PSP. Right, we're going into Abidab with level on points.

I know, I nearly went for Piastri third as well. Wow. People would have thought we were literally just rigging it on purpose and I'm just covering you to. But no, for Stepan, gone for P2, I think they'll have better pace

than they did in the last race, but spoiler alert, there is a certain papaya car that I think is going to be very quick this weekend that might be in the top spot, but which one? Oh, well.

And by the way, before we go into first place, if you are covering off the one you've got to do his biggest flop mate, like you know what I'm saying? Like, that is an easy point for you. Like, you know what I'm saying? I'm saying? Going into the last race. I mean, that's literally proof that I'm not covering your predictions because why would I go for the teammate of the driver?

Like, Hamilton's winning the race, let's be honest. Yeah, 100%. Yeah, 100%. I'm pretty sure every time you flopped Hamilton, he has done very well. Yeah, he has. Yeah, 100%. Okay, first place, which? Which Papaya or other driver have I gone for?

Landon Norris. He's going to shush the haters. Part 10. I saw a comment that was like, should say it's part 157. No, but look, he's going to have a weekend, and this is surely the one. I genuinely do believe he's going to win the Qatar Grand Prix.

I'm not just saying it as a joke. Like, I genuinely do believe that McLaren should have the fastest car, and they have to capitalize if they want. to stop the halt of Ferrari, which has absolutely been coming over the last however long. So, yeah, Lando Norris, no pressure on his shoulders,

championship gone. The only thing is the constructors where Oscar and Lando are supposed to work together and Lando's going to win. P1, I've gone for Lando Norris as well. I think he's going to win, and I think he has to win, personally. He's made some claims

that basically this season has proved that he's ready to challenge, year and I know a lot of people have taken that and gone really and some people have gone yeah that's that's fair enough but I think if he wants to really kind of cement the fact that this year has proved that he can challenge for a title next year he has to win another race this season um in these these final ones because it's been a very disappointing end to the season um it's fizzled out and he's had a car that so many times I mean I'm sure you saw that George Russell quote where he was kind of alluding to the fact that Lando and McLaren should have taken Max all the way to the finish so I think the best thing for

for Lando and what he really needs to do and maybe he can now with the pressure off is get that to double you but I feel like I've predicted Lando so many times this year and so have you and for whatever reason something always doesn't go quite right

but I don't think there's I don't think it's a big surprise that we're back in McLaren at a track like Qatar. I know there's talk of all they're finished now their illegal wing has gone and all this kind of stuff. I think the race last time out was just because it was cold and there still be very good around here. It's a track so well suited to their car. And yeah, that's why I've got a land AP one. OK-dokey, R1 crazy prediction. And this might be a very telling point in the championship between Matt and Tommy.

mine is Sergio Perez scores multiple points Okay So he finished By multiple is more than one No no But what I'm thinking is

Do you mean he scores in the sprint And the race is what you mean as multiple points Or you just mean he's scoring two or more Throughout the weekend If we look back Azerbaijan 17th The Singapore 10th United States 7th

Mexico 17th Brazil 11th Las Vegas 10th there has not been multiple points apart from in the US in the last six. That's a beautiful little loophole. It's not even a loophole. And there's a sprint as well.

There is. I mean, look, you still have to finish in the top eight for a sprint. True. That's not like that's a, which he did in Brazil, but that's only one point. Oh, wow, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, cooking. It's been a long time. It's been a long time. Paris is going to be online and score two points this weekend. Okay. Can't wait for him to finish 10th. My one crazy prediction, I have researched this,

it is that McLaren will win the Constructors Championship. It will be done after the Catar Grand Prix. So it worked out. So they have to outscore Ferrari by 21 points this weekend, which is quite a lot. I'll allow that. Because I was initially like, is that crazy? And then even if they finish 1, 2 and Ferrari finish 4, 5,

they still wouldn't do it. They need a lot. They probably need a Ferrari, one of them to have a bit of a disaster, maybe DNF or finish lower than 7th or 8th. So yeah, that's what I've gone for. Okay. I happily will accept that one straight through the door

because it's not happening, but then it might because I've just predicted. Anyway, something's going to definitely come right and something's definitely going to come wrong in these predictions. For three crazy predictions from you, wonderful lot, P1, patron member Martin K, Ferrari overtake McClaron in the constructors. So a complete opposite.

it to Tommy. Martin, I'm praying for you. Return de Rainbow, eighth different winner of the season. Now, that would be spicy. Sergio Perez, multiple points. Here we go. And finally, Damia, Sanmere, both Williams drivers score points. I need that for my biggest good surprise of Franco. Okay, so we could all work together here. I'll put our championship Michael Massing on the line and say that if Sergio Perez, that you said he scores multiple points. If he wins. Five points to you. I think, yeah, I mean, just, I thought you're going to say you can have the championship.

Just straight up. Just give it to me. I mean, I'm also so confident, but also, yes, you can have. Okay, I love the championship. Come on, Checo. Let's go. We have the craziest race ever. Perez, the Thai whisperer.

I love how the craziest race ever for Sergio Perez and a Red Bull is what's required here. And even then. Yes, Sergio Perez, to win in a Red Bull. would turn the tables on its head. And my matting would go down the drain. I'm so ready for it. Okay, well, looking forward to it. We'll be live on Twitch,

Matt P1, Tommy, as always. Come and join us for the final sprint of the year and the penultimate race of the season. We're actually going to be out in Abu Dhabi, so it will be our final watchalong of the year. So please do come along and enjoy it with myself and Tommy for one final time this year. Really looking forward to it.

Thomas, what is your final thoughts? my final thoughts go check out our shop because it's I think it's taking me absolutely go checko I don't want to win this championship no go check out a shop

because it's taken me absolutely ages to get it sorted and all good because I also know when Tommy's a little bit more stressed as well I could sense it just on WhatsApp

just from like the delays and replies and my man's Kevin got steam coming out of his trying to sort this shop yeah it was quite quite the moment So please get a bit of merch that Tommy can go and have a massage and he can just relax a little bit.

But yeah, Matt P1Tomm, that'll be my final thought as well because, yeah, we've got some cool designs there. So go check that out and we'll see you very soon. Lots of love. Take care. Bye. Bye. Here we go then. Household chore time.

What could it possibly be? Well, I think you need to dust your PC monitor, turn on the PC and go to Matt P1 Tommy.com to get some merch. Yeah, that purple t-shirt that you've got in the in the wardrobe is far too small now. Why not get a new one? Yeah, because like, look, turn on your computer, do your shopping, no, your grocery shopping, you know that the fridge is pretty empty. And whilst you're there, Matt Peeontomi.com for some merch or a beanie, you know, be a little beanie or some bits and bobs.

It's getting a bit chilly in Europe now. Why don't you combine? If it's warm, get yourself a cap. Got them as well. Yeah, or like, no, why don't you? Combone, combine? Why don't you? Why don't you?

I literally was about to say, why don't you combine getting an obejine with a P1 beanie? And do your shopping and then get your P1 beanie. Right, good. Goodbye. Sweet dreams. P1 is a stack production and part of the Acast's creator network.