P1 with Matt and Tommy - Our reaction to the Red Bull & VCARB F1 car launches

Episode Date: January 16, 2026

Brush down the red carpet and roll the definitely-not-pre-recorded tape, because car launch season is here!First up, an absolute stunner from Red Bull and then something decidedly less stunning from their junior team, VCARB. Sign up to our Patreon! You'll get access to every P1 episode ad-free, extended versions of every 2026 race review, early access to tickets & merch, and access to our Discord server where you can chat with us and other F1 fans! Click here to sign up now: http://patreon.com/mattp1tommyFollow 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. 2026 feels weird to say that we're now in the swing of things when it's like just under two months until lights out in Australia. But this is the beauty of a new regulation set. The car launches, delivery launches, whatever you want to call them, have been pushed forward. We've got testing at the end of January. And Red Bull, they decided to kick things off first.

didn't they, Tommy? How are we feeling? A very unsociable hour to kick 2026 off? I'm feeling tired, but I'm feeling like F1 is well and truly back. They did a proper car launch, which is always a risk, isn't it? And I'm sure we'll dive into this of the balance of show the car or just doing a picture online and F1 fans are never happy either way. But yeah, they did a long pre-recorded car launch. Oh, well, let's get straight into it, shall we? That is the topic of the first question. Elephant in the room, let's talk about it.

P1, Patreon, member, Steelhead. Why on earth would they pre-record it and then behave as if it was live? That one is a little bit strange. The title of the YouTube video says at the end, live. The whole, I guess, marketing of it was that it was to be a live car launch.

And yet, there were pictures of the car circulating social media before the launch had even begun. Now, I reckon, from a Red Bull standpoint, they did not want leaks to happen. Why would they put so much effort into a launch? Do it in Detroit. I'm not sure why they did it at 10pm local time in Detroit, which is like 3am where we were for the actual car launch, but whatever, right? but the fact that they then

basically the car, I don't know if the V-car was leaked before the launch started. From the sound of our chat, the team posted it before we saw it. I am going to bed.

I am going to post. I am done. Someone in Fianza in V-Car base just was like, no, I'm done with this. But it was slightly frustrating. I avoided it massively. I did not want to even go on social media. As soon as I saw people in chat going, oh, it's on. I'm like, no, I'm, you know,

the live streams or pre-recorded streams, whatever they are car launches, I want to experience them. I want to see what, you know, the effort that the teams have put into, into their little production. But it is annoying that, of course, it was pre-recorded and everybody had kind of seen it, or at least the people that searched for it had seen it, because it takes away the whole point of an event. And then you're questioning, why have they not, you know, because I've been to say, for example, an F1 team before and they make you put a little sticker on the back of your phone to stop you from recording. Or lock them away or anything like.

Yeah, there was none of that. They were like, yeah, just guys, don't post it. I reckon they probably can. Can we trust you all in the room to not post it? Yeah, how bad can we make the Wi-Fi or signal in this room to make sure people don't do it? But then it seems like it was quite a long, long pre-record. So, yeah, I assume that Red Bull weren't that naive in thinking that everyone would obey these

rules and no one would want to be that person to post the, especially in this day and age as well. This day and age, yeah, exactly. It's just impossible. Like you see, you know, as soon as Max and Isaac came out on stage, you know, all the phones came up, you know, everyone's going to have their phone out filming this and them taking the covers off. So yeah, very weird that it was having that kind of pre-record. So then everyone's already kind of, people have posted it on social media already. And as you say, like, you don't want to see it because it can change your perception of like the car launch or also like the liver itself. Like, I don't want to see a low quality picture of something. You want to see how it's intended to be. So appreciate all the

people that joined us on the live stream and got to see it as it was launched. Yes. And with that, the whole production as well, they would have filmed it as live. Of course, it didn't go out live. And the one rule in filming as live is to not say what the time is during the car launch. Oh yeah, they kept mentioning it. They basically were like, oh, it's 1am in the UK or whatever. They even said or something. They're like, I'm not sure when this is going out or something. I'm sure they said something along those lines.

And then a really hard cut as well at one point where you're just like. There was a couple of hard cuts. One where the initial host got yeated and there was a new one. Like just immediately like, we've got a new host now for V-Carb. Like it was the hardest guy ever. But look, these are small things that you notice, and even at the horrible time in the morning that we were watching. But apart from that, of course, the launch itself,

I will say right now, of course, you know, we're going to be slightly grumpy, the fact we're up early watching a car launch. Had this been at midday, I would have gone probably perfect level of launch, you know, a good, you know, sort of a nice bit of preamble, bit of bit of chat. Not sure why Stefano Domeni just popped up and started telling us that DRS wasn't a thing anymore

because you would expect the people that are watching live, live, would know these things. But overall, I think it was a pretty good car launch. As car launches go, I'm thinking of the ranking system. You know, this is quite high. The low one has to be Alpine from a few years ago where they literally just hosted it in a conference room, spoke for... Oh, they went for ages.

To be that, this was quite long. I remember looking at how long it took. It was about 40 minutes, I think, before they revealed. which is quite a long time. I remember Williams one year. We praised them, didn't we? I think it maybe was even last year. No, not last year because that was the launch where they all did it together,

but the year before where we were like, that's the perfect launch because they got the drivers out straight away, revealed the car within maybe 10 minutes. So it felt like a car launch because as we mentioned, like we kind of still complain if it's just, everyone's saying they want to see the car, but if you see the car, it's underwhelming for them just to stick a picture on Twitter or Instagram or whatever.

So yeah, it was quite a long process, but I appreciate them, you know, doing a car launch because I personally like the fact that, you know, it's car launch season. I like having lots of different ones personally. Yeah, it's part of the circus of Formula One, isn't it? I think sort of 20 minutes is the perfect spot. But when you are a big team or have a lot of sponsor obligation, or you've brought Ford in, they're of course going to go along because Ford want to chat about this. It's their launch.

Like, realistically, it's as much as Ford's launch as Red Bull because it's new to them. They need to introduce themselves to the world, even though, you know, we all know who Ford is, but from their side, this is their big moment to basically, you know, show all the cool stuff they do, speak to the people in the engine department because it's all new for, for, for, for. Red Bull and Ford and the partnership. Exactly, and that's when the most viewers are. You see on YouTube there was 150K watching Red Bull. As soon as they launched the car, or at least when V-Car but launched their car, the views went down by over half. Everybody just turning off.

So they have to get their messaging across. And I understand that to some degree. But yeah, maybe a slightly bit long, but overall, not too bad. Question from Master KB7. Why no live event with all the liveries together just like how they did last year? Well, that was a special anniversary, wasn't it, for the 75th anniversary of F1? That's why they did that big event. I liked the event that they did, but I think I remember saying at the time that I don't want this to be every year.

In my opinion, excuse me, it's very early. You get emotional. I'm getting emotional. You just wish that you were there. My opinion is still the same, that I don't want it to be every year where they reveal them all that same time. I like the fact that we're going to have like a week, maybe like a couple of weeks, actually a bit longer potentially because of how staggered the car launches and how it's a bit weird with the deregulations. But we're going to see, you know, it's part of that fun of having

different launches on different days and you can get excited and everyone's a little bit different. I prefer, prefer that personally. It gives a lot of excitement to the season and feels like a proper proper thing, whereas I did enjoy what they did with the F-1-75 last year, but I would rather that just be a special event where it's just like, one time, let's reveal them all together. But I didn't come away from the F-1-75 thing, going they should do that all the time, personally. I can see why some people would like it, but not for me. You know, I completely agree that that was a special event.

If you had that every year, people would just, oh, here we go again, another one. You know, it was different. You had the drivers being put under Jack Whitehall comedy, which is something I don't think any of us expected. And, yeah, that was cool because it was a landmark season for F1. It wouldn't be the same if it's F-1-76. It just doesn't hit the same. Maybe F-180, that's when they'll next do it.

But, yeah, it's not a yearly thing. And I like the fact that the teams can have their own bit of time in the sun and they can do their own little bit of production. And also, it means we get more things to watch over the course of the next couple of weeks rather than just one one show. So I'm a fan of that. And before we get into the thoughts, and I feel like we're doing our own preamble here,

this is like the 30 minutes before we actually get into what we think of the liveries. But the one thing I want to do just before we get into the Red Bull car launch is pull down our VR headsets, Tommy, and really get into, if we zoom in here, let's talk about that, because that was an interesting feature, wasn't it, of the Red Bull side of the car launch. I, in the actual premise of it, I like the thinking behind it. There must be some sort of sponsorship that I've not seen or whatever that is to do with Apple and the US, etc.

I like the idea of it. It was kind of laggy, a little bit, not really sure what was going on. I think they could have shown us more. Had it been actually about the engine itself, they could have done a much sort of cooler asset to just show on screen, right? but they did something a little bit different. I thought Callum was great. I thought he hosted very well, considering that's not obviously what he used to be an engineer and things like that.

But overall, it was a little bit janky, but I like the fact they tried something different because it definitely made us go, why are they all got headsets on? I actually quite liked it, the fact that, yeah, they tried something a bit different. It's one of those things where had they done that near the start and not after 20 minutes of talking to all the kind of engine people anyway and everyone's already

sort of in that kind of like, I want to see the car. Maybe that's why a lot of people were kind of like, what on earth is this? But I do like the fact that in a car launch, they need to do something fun and different. And it is, you know, it's a new engine formula. We mentioned about the fact that a lot of people are going to know this and I know that. But I think in terms of like, explaining the engine a little bit more on a very surface level, I think is quite important for fans, because even the hardcores like us, you know,

technical knowledge is very limited. So it's nice to see it from that. What do you mean, Tommy? Go back to the 2026 season predictions. You're telling us about compression rates. I know. It's a new Tom Bellingham for 2026. Compression ratio, I think.

Oh, get in the bin. Like, it's something to do with engines. And it's 4 a.m. But yeah, don't, but you're not going to mention it again. I'm going to slap you silly. Right, let's get into Red Bull Racing livery, shall we? And thoughts on the new-ish look?

Stone Cold Bangor. Absolutely beautiful. They changed the hex code by one. I don't really know how Photoshop works, but I know that it's hex codes that, like, colors work in, and there are many, many shades of a color, and I feel like they've made it slightly lighter, and everyone, well, I don't know,

maybe everyone. I mean, there's always some people that complain about everything. But for me, I saw it, I went, wow, that looks awesome. The, not just the render, but the car actually in person as well. I don't know if it's the lights that were the way they were shining on it. It looked a little bit sort of like night sky vibes. It's got gloss, isn't it? It's like gloss rather than that. Yeah, the gloss obviously is a massive, massive win. So yeah, I am a huge fan of this Red Bull racing delivery, considering they've not changed the actual premise of it, changed a little bit of the colour, and boom, it's popping. Exactly. I mean, the Red Bull is always going to be essentially blue with the Red Bull logo on the engine cover and the nose like that. That is what Red Bull have

always done with their race cars, you know, their single seats of cars. So it's always going to be that. So there's very limited stuff they can do. And it's funny how them going back to just the white outline of the Red Bull that we saw kind of in that Vettel era. Going back to that after 10 years of the same livery, it makes it hit like it's this crazy different livery just because we've had 10 years of it being such a meme about the fact that the Red Bull's always the same, it looks the same. But it is like different enough as much as they can do. And I didn't, I expected them to do this with the kind of the way they teased

the logo and stuff, they were going to go back to this more, more kind of old school approach to the, like, the Red Bull logo and stuff. I did not expect them to go like really glossy paint again, which is cool because I thought those days were gone. Just because, you know, with weight saving and all that, you can tell Adrian Newe's gone. And, yeah, the fact that how good it will look on TV, we'll wait to find out. But it's really cool because, yeah, looking at the renders and what we saw online it's kind of like light blue and dark blue and there's lots of like little glitch effects and the red bull logo within the paint and stuff so yeah really really cool nice nice little change but not changing too much it looks really really nice i really like it next question from p1 picture

remember edith is my middle name how much carbon do you think will cover up the beautiful car well not a lot because they're not allowed to so if you missed it there's now which I'm convinced that we said it. Yeah, we said it. We said they need to regulate some kind of pain. I think the straw that broke the camel's back was that Alpine reveal, wasn't it? When we'd already had a few and then Alpine launched that car that was, we know Alpine for being bright pink and blue and wanted to see a lot of color.

And then it was like the carbon. And we were just like broke at that point and like that something needs, they need to put in some kind of regulation. and they have. So basically it is 55% of the car's surface viewed from the side and top must be painted and stickered. So they can't do what they did back in 23 or 24. I'm trying to remember which year it was now, where all the cars were like so heavily weight saved and it was just like crazy. So they can't do it now. I will say though, 55% is not actually that much. And it's not what we were sort of calling for, which maybe would have been 80%.

If you actually look at the side angle, there's a lot of black and carbon on that car. I think it's just that we're seeing the popping of the Red Bull. I wouldn't say it's a massive revolutionary change, this 55% rule. If we're looking at that livery, I think we're just seeing the amazing parts of it. Because if you look further down after the blue, it's all black. Yeah, because they always, I guess that's how they do it, is they're always going to use the carbon for the bottom, so they couldn't do 100% because you're not going to be painting the kind of barge boards and the floor and everything like that.

It just, hopefully, the 55% is enough to, for the identity, to stop, you know, these teams doing it. And we saw last year that teams are starting to bring more colour back. You wonder anyway, if it was more of the backlash, but then this maybe just adds even more the fact that they can do it. So yeah, fingers crossed. Okay, next question from Peele on Patreon member Justin. Will Ford back out of the partnership if the car isn't at the front competing? I think that's very knee-jerk, I would say, Justin, to expect Ford to just bounce if

things aren't going well. Look back Honda at McLaren. That's a good sort of, I would say, reference. of how terrible it was when their first, when their partnership sort of last kicked off before obviously all their success that they've had. So, you know, it can change. Yes, sometimes Honda got such a bad rep back in, what was it, 2014?

15 when they came in and were just useless, yeah. Thanks, Tommy, the Oracle of all knowledge and years and thanks. And look, you know, now. So I wouldn't say that just because Ford have joined, that if it's terrible this year, they'll bounce. They've committed to a long-term plan. They'll have to, in my opinion, last until the regulations change again in 2013, if I'm not mistaken. So, yeah, this is a long-term partnership.

It's not just going to be a case of up, rebel are rubbish. Tommy's predicted them ninth in the championship. Max isn't going to win a race. Actually, we regret everything. Yeah, they're not going to bounce. They alluded in their kind of video and all the, you know, if anyone was actually listening to the corporate spiel that they were actually. saying in the car launch and not just sown doubt. They did mention, you know, hard type, like we know it's not going to be easy and things like that. So, you know, they're not expecting

to go in and just be like absolutely amazing straight away. Like they kind of almost joked the fact that, you know, why would you build your own engine? And, you know, it's, it puts you on the back foot. They kind of alluded to that. So they know it's going to be tough. And Honda is the perfect example, like you said, you know, if you'd have said when Honda were in the back of that McLaren and we were having GP2 engine and all that kind of stuff, that you'd have said that within the hybrid era they would be winning the world championship with Red Bull. You wouldn't have believed it because they were so far off. It was so bad they were breaking down all the time. And that's just, you know, it's teething issues and we'll find out how well Red Bull will do.

soon enough, maybe even the first test from what we can find out with it all being secret and all that. And yes, obviously I was referring to Honda's success with Red Bull and how they turned around that whole development program. It was quite remarkable considering the memes that were tied to them. And finally, how do we think they will do in 2026, Red Bull Racing? I don't think they're going to be anywhere near as bad as what Tommy thinks they're going to be. I don't think they're going to win the world championship but this is purely based on vibes. A lot of people, you know, they came into our predictions

and went, this is far too early. Well, look, that is the whole point of those predictions is that before testing, we just want to just see how the wind is basically going. And I don't think that they're going to be a disaster. They've got Max Verstappen. They've got Hajairo, I believe he's going to do much better. There'll be a top four team.

will they be the fastest, we will see. Yeah, it's so hard to know at this stage. Obviously, I'm not filled with confidence, hence my Max prediction, which I know is like shocked so many people, but, you know, my argument here is not that, I think it's quite obvious that I think Max is a great driver and, you know, one of the best we've ever seen. It's nothing on him.

I just don't, I'm not filled with confidence of a new regulation and the fact that Red Bull are building their own engine. and particularly of the things that you're hearing about Mercedes and potentially having this advantage. You know, you look at say Mercedes do have this trick and it is like the absolute. That was reported to be Red Bull as well now. Is that now not the case? It's now heavily rumored that they don't have, they know how to do it, but they don't have it. We'll find out, obviously. It's all a load of rubbish. All of this rumor stuff can just get in the bin as far as I'm concerned.

Well, exactly. So we don't know. But my logic is that. but if Mercedes do have this golden bullet engine, you know, Mercedes are going to be quick, McLaren are going to be quick, Williams are going to be quick, and Alping, because they've all got the engine. So that's the top four in the constructors. And then, you know, Ashton Martin have got Newey and Odi.

And Ferrari. Well, yeah, we'll find out. I might start a rumor. They've actually got a 1 in 22 conversion right now. Yeah, they've... But this is the thing, like, you know, everyone... And it could age badly, and Max might win the first race, and I'll go, I'm glad I'm wrong.

I'll take it every day of the week. That's so annoying. Like, when you, you know, you, you write him off. It's an insurance prediction. Yeah, it's an insurance. Yeah, it's so, because I want to bask in the glory of you being wrong, but it means Max has won. And then I'm like, have I really won anything? Yeah, I just, I just don't, I just think it's going to be tough for him.

And that's why I predicted it because, you know, I do, do think we've seen dominance. I don't, I'm surprised at just how, like, crazy people think that is I understand like it's crazy like because it is because max is max is yeah is is yeah but the same max won't win a race is yeah is but the thinking the thinking is literally is because I think you know that there's going to be teams and certain teams you know completely dominating and it might be hard for others to get a look at that that's the form we've seen in an engine regulations and regulation changes before so um there's that's like my crazy prediction I said that Alonzo would retire at the end of the year and that Astamart would be terrible

That's not on Alonzo. That's on the fact that I think Aston Martin is going to be a rubbish car and he can't do anything. And he's like, you know what, I'm going to bounce. So yeah, very fair indeed. Let's move on to V-Carb, where they also, of course, released their car livery in the same event with a different host and a nice large cut in between the two. And went straight in with the kind of, here are the drivers, his, less do it. They did not bring Devlinian.

They knew the retention once the Red Bull had been launched was going down. Quick, launch the car. Fair thoughts on the look. I like it. It's not massively different to last years. There's a little bit more funky stuff going on at the back, integrating the Ford Racing logo. I'm looking at it right now.

I think it's, from the side angle render, I think it looks pretty nice. I don't really understand. I feel like it's a bit of a Marmite livery from what I've seen the initial reaction on social. media. To be honest, I might even, it might be even on a par with last year. Like, it's not that radically different. It's more blue at the back. And they've integrated the white wheel rims, which I, I enjoy. So, yeah, I think it's a very solid livery. Yeah, they've done something

different, haven't they? They've tried to, they even said this in the launch that they got such a positive reception for doing something different last year. And it kind of very much was majority of people's favorite livery which is crazy and chose kind of how much we were all bored of carbon that painting the whole car white was just everyone was like oh my God this is amazing I don't like it as much as last year

I think ironically this kind of looks like they have gone oh it's only 55% needed let's stick some carbon on there again and look they've mixed it up I see why people like it I see why people don't like it I'm not as big of a fan of it as before.

One thing I really would, and I guess it was never going to happen, particularly with the Ford partnership now, and I guess teams want to have an identity, but I would love to see V-Cab just be crazy every year and do something different every year. And they could so easily be that team that you look forward to and know it's going to be different every year. And one year that, because Red Bull, obviously,

like they have all those like special edition cans where it's like purple yellow orange whatever like imagine going into each launch and like not knowing even what the like the color of the car is going to be like that would be cool so brand identity Tommy brand identity well look visa these are vizahcash app as they are of course are like cash app bright green where's all the like green that would be something different where's the stake f1 team well yeah they're not on the grid now say that's a chance that could have gone for the green. Yeah. I mean, I'm there for that.

In an ideal world, absolutely sign me up. Let's have a new livery every year. Don't see it happening. No, no, of course not. If we see the F1 world as it is. That would be very exciting. That's his marketing right there, isn't it really? Yes, exactly.

Don't listen to, you know, come on marketing. Come on. Be a bit more fun. But now I think it's a different enough livery that it's intrigued the mind. And finally, I guess, how do we think they'll do in 2026? I believe that's a lot of chatter that they might not be that great. I mean, if Red Bull aren't great, V-carb most likely are not going to be very good. They could well be one of the slowest cars on the grid, which is crazy to think.

But that's sort of just general consensus. And then we get to the first race of season and they're qualifying fourth. And you're like, oh, wow, we were so off with this. But it's purely vibes. That's what the V stands for. It's vibes carb, carb, apparently. Vibs carb. So, yeah, that's what we're going off.

And I think they will be one of the slower ones just from general feeling, but that's it. Yeah, I think from vibes, if I had to predict, I'd say it's going to be between them and Cadillac maybe for the kind of bottom places. But I do wonder, you know, I thought that last year. You know, I think even after testing, I said that agile was going to be, what, like 18th in the championship or something?

And then they got into that first race. Yuki Sonoda put it fifth in in qualifying. And they even testing after we had testing, V-carb would just like, oh, they're not that great. They're probably going to be like bottom of the pack. And then

we saw, you know, imagine saying at that point that we'd get four races in and everyone's going, Max getting the V-cab, it's quicker, which is crazy. So I thought that last year, maybe they'll perform miracles. But as with Red Bulls,

it's a huge arse to have you know they're essentially going to be in that same boat as red ball with a new engine but of course everything all like everything's put into the big team and you know max for stepan's team so of course like they're going to be on the back foot but they are a separate entity Tommy they are a separate team doesn't matter about max they have their own resource still designed to this day and they're launching at the same time doesn't it oh On the Red Bull Racing YouTube channel really doesn't help. The marketing budget, however. Good stuff.

Right. Thank you, everybody for tuning in to this, I guess, first proper podcast about the season ahead. Excited to see the rest of the car launches, for sure, livery launches. If I see deep dives into the aerodynamics of the cars that are shown today, I will be deleting that from my brain. Do not take anything that people say about the aerow or the, the innovative designs that the teams have been putting out because with new regulations, they will be showing as little as possible and the cars will look probably rather radically

different come Australia. That's one thing to mention actually is years gone by where we have a big regulation change. I remember in particular the first year in when they changed the cars to give them like the skinny wings and then they went back to like the wider cars and it it was like such a shock i don't know about you but but like it doesn't seem to have like chain obviously that they are different cars maybe i've just seen uh the renders of of the new car so much and and also the fact that they just look like the cars from the 2000s it doesn't it's a weird thing to say but normally when we get a new regulation i go oh that's going to take some getting used to this i'm already

looking at it going, that looks really nice. Yeah. And obviously not massively different to what we've been used to, which I don't know if that rings alarm bells, that I don't go, wow, that does look really different and therefore we're going to get lots of different racing. But yeah, it's a good look. As you say, it kind of has a more old-school approach to it. So I'm a fan of that for sure. And honestly, I don't care what they look like as long as they can overtake and follow closely.

So fingers crossed, that will be the case. Thank you everybody. We'll see you very soon. Lots of love. Take care. Have your sweet dreams. I will be having some. Goodbye.

Bye. That was kind of your final thoughts, but I don't know if you have anything else to say whilst you're working. My final thoughts are, remember when you're complaining about how long that car launch takes when has launched a picture online. And you're going, where's the car launch? Yeah, come on.

Bye. P1 is a Stack production and part of the ACAST creator network.