P1 with Matt and Tommy - Reaction to Abu Dhabi GP practice

Episode Date: November 24, 2023

Despite it being in Abu Dhabi, practice actually threw up a few interesting bits for us to talk about. We had a load of rookies on track, a bit of sass and some crashes - join us!Tickets for our London and Glasgow live shows have now sold out. You can purchase the last few Manchester tickets right HERE!You can sign up to our Patreon here! You'll get access to exclusive episodes you won't hear anywhere else, every P1 episode ad-free, full driver interview videos, early access to tickets and more!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 P1 podcast with Matt and Tommy. And it is the final Friday of the year. The final FP1 and FP2 that we will see in 2023. And I know for a fact that Tommy is shedding many a tear, knowing that he is not going to have to see what happened in FP1 and FP2. You know Abu Dhabi free practice is my favourite session of the year. Although to be fair, we did. actually, it was, there was at least some interest because teams ran different drivers.

So at least there was some uniqueness at that side. But yeah, when you used to to sprints and there's not much to play for, there's a bit to play for for this final race. We'll see. I was going to say the FP1 session was rather interesting actually with the amount of young drivers that were in there. But before we dive into any more of that, we've still got some tickets for our P1 live show in Manchester.

unfortunately London and Glasgow are sold out but Manchester is a rather large arena so if you still want to come along to listen to me and Tommy chats and waffle have some interactivity basically the best F1 show you will ever see then there'll be a link to the tickets in the description and also on our social media as well

so please come along if you'd like to Manchester is the third of December I want to say I think that's correct because then the fifth is Glasgow and the 10th is London so we hope to see you there okay let's talk about FB1 then shall we And as we sort of mentioned, rookies being used left, right and centre. Both Red Bulls, Jake Dennis and Isaac Hajar were the two drivers there.

Then Robert Schwarzenman was in the Ferrari. Frederick Vestey was in the Mercedes, Jack Dewan in the Alpine, Patuo Ward in the McLaren, Teopocher in the Alfa Romeo, Felipe Drogovic in the Aston Martin, Zach O'Sullivan in the Williams and Oliver Bairman in the Hasse. So very much a end of season, almost like it was almost like a young, driver's test but in an actual Formula One session, which made it very, very interesting to just see who would impress, I guess coming into this session, well, a previous free practice that Olli Behrman had for Hass. He was incredibly impressive. And he also did the same sort of thing

this time round for Abu Dhabi as well as the other standout, which would have obviously been Felipe Drogovich. Yeah, it was classic. We've seen this trend really. Every year since it was introduced that they have to run a rookie in one of their cars. Sorry, as in every car has to run a rookie. So at some point. So it has to be twice for each team. And every driver has to miss one out. And it's quite clear that the teams get to the end of the season when there's, yeah, I guess not much to play for. kind of a normal track, one that's good for testing anyway because it's got a lot of different types of corners and they throw all their young drivers in at the last minute and that's exactly what happened.

But there was some very impressive drivers, particularly Druggovich. I mean we say not much to play for Ferrari and Mercedes are disputing second. Well, yeah, that is 10 million apparently, which is a lot of money. Even for Formula One teams like this, they both want to win that. win that fight. There's a very disputable advantage that you get for finishing third rather than second with a slight bit more of wind tunnel time, but it's very, very small incremental amounts. And I'm sure that teams don't throw away constructors places unless you're like Aston Martin

and they decided that they wanted a whole heap of wind tunnel time at the beginning of the season. But I can't see that particularly happening because all teams run with some kind of money in mind. But yeah, it was very interesting, wasn't it, to watch the drivers go around. And if anything, it was strange that some of the more experienced drivers, well, more experienced than being a rookie, were the ones that were getting involved one way or another with blocking. We had Lance Stroll at one point, blocking Isaac Hadjar and just literally sitting on the racing line going into the hairpin,

as Lance Stroll does. Carlos Sines was getting lots of just quite mean comments, actually, about Carlos. Oscar Piestri saying, oh, you know, Carlos, you know, on the racing line again, you know, basically saying it always happens and very sassy. And George Russell as well, you know, that was very dangerous. And sort of insinuating that perhaps Carlos Sines deserved some kind of penalty. Although I feel like maybe he might be thinking karma when we go into FP2 chat.

Yes, and also apologies in advance. Well, I apologize already that I didn't mention Robert Schwarzenman because I've just looked at his time and he's very close to Carlos Sienc. he was also very impressive. I think he deserves a shout-out as well. Yeah, it's very interesting to see the drivers run in FP-1 because a lot of the time, I want to say, was it Vesty, I think? No, sorry, not Vestey.

Yuri Vips in the Red Bull last year or the beginning of this year, where he did some running, and he's four or five seconds off the pace because they just do a completely different, run plan essentially and don't get to do quick laps but you know the whole field is separated by 1.4 seconds you know bareman's close to his teammate schwarzman's closest teammate drogovic's beaten his teammate so yeah it's it's nice to see them actually do some competitive running where we can see what they can do and it's no mean feat to to jump in a car when the other

driver's been driving all year and be competitive with them so fair play to those guys Absolutely. Of course, Druggovich is the one that stands out the most, finishing P2 in free practice one. And that is such a sensational achievement, as you say, it doesn't have that experience that Lance Stroll has, for example. And to get so high up that session, not just to be comparable to his teammate, but to be a couple of tenths off being fastest in FP1, that was an unbelievable performance. And I know that the whole of Brazil are going to be incredibly happy with Felipe doing that. On the flip side of that, where is he going to go? Is he going to go? Is he going to. to get a Formula One seat, these kind of things. And that's what the questions that are hard to come up. And these opportunities are great for some of the drivers to showcase what they can do. But on the other side, you kind of almost feel sorry for them because they clearly are very capable of getting up to speed incredibly quickly, Drogovich being one of them. Schwartzman, of course, as well as you say, doing well in the Ferrari.

So it's sad that only a 20 car grid can feel so many spots when you have all this young talent. Yeah, absolutely. And seeing Drugovich in P2, no offence to Lance Stroll, but it's really made me wish we could have got to have seen what he could have done in those first, you know, sessions. Obviously, Lance Stroll miraculously returned, and did a very good job. But it did look like Drogovich was going to start the season after Stroll's injury. And it would have been very interesting to see him do a race and see how he'd have done. Because, you know, he absolutely smashed F2. there's always that thing of like maybe it wasn't the most competitive year but my god his points tally was unbelievable and now for him to actually do a session as well and look pretty good um that just makes you wonder like whether he is on williams's radar maybe um but i think there's been rumors of that at that before um sad reality is there's only one seat that you say signs seem to point towards Logan Sergeant keeping his seat.

The rumours at least that are flying around and whatnot because it's not easy to start poaching other drivers and then that's a risk in itself and all that sort of stuff but yeah, Druggovich, very, very impressive. Question from Dakota Moyer. Of the rookies who participated

in FP1, who would you rank as the most likely to secure an F1 seat in the future? Ah, well I mean off the back of... Fairman's got time on his side, I think. I think. Previous comment.

Berman, I think, is one, and I think Porcher is another. I don't think, obviously, either are going to get onto the the grid next year because there's one seat remaining. But 2025, I think, will probably be the moment that we see, perhaps the likes of poor chair. And Bearman get that opportunity, because especially Bearman, he's impressed massively in the practice sessions that he's had.

But then you've got Antonelli, for example, who's been jumped up from not even going through F3 straight to F2 and he is highly, highly anticipated as a driver that could even make the grid for then. So there's plenty of young talent, but there's not a lot of seats at the moment. But fingers crossed for them, 2025 might open a few doors, but you look at the current grid

and are there really going to be that many drivers that want to voluntarily vacate their seat? Probably not. no and I think we've seen now particularly the likes of someone like Fernando Alonzo that you can go very late into your career and still be competitive so

Fernando is a unique I know he is a unique one but still I think it there will be other drivers that think they can like extend their careers maybe a bit longer than we used to you know and I think that the fact that it's so difficult because I think

poor chair is probably one of the best shouts actually because he's 20 years old so he's got you know he's looking very good uh he's not going to win the f2 championship i don't believe um uh which is good for him because uh he doesn't want to win it is he not what's the uh let me check i'm pretty sure he is running no sorry it is poor chair that's winning i'm talking absolute Waffle, I'm sorry. How has it come that badly? Oh God. This is the problem with F2. Why is there

such a big gap? It was Monza the last race. That's so long ago. I've forgotten everything. I'm sorry, it's vesty that's second. So yeah, poor chair probably does want to just bottle the final race deliberately. I mean, he's 25 points ahead, so even if he wants to bottle it, I don't think that's going to maybe

happen. But we've seen PS3, haven't we, do that? where does a season, you can take a year out and still join former one and be good. So I think he's going to be one of those people that sits on the pit wall at Alfa Romeo, putting pressure on particularly like Che Guev, of like, you know, if you don't improve, we've got a young driver waiting. So I'd say he's probably the favourite, I'd say. Right, let's talk about the almost huge crash between Mr. Logie Bear and Jack Duhl.

and people sort of blaming Logan Sargent for this. I know he's kind of dilly-dallying on the line, on the racing line, but this is more to do with the team, in my opinion, because of how quickly you come around that penultimate corner. Logan has hardly any time to react. So for me, it's not Logan's fault. It's the team's fault. I think the team even were talking to him about his preparation lap,

as opposed to, you know, the Red Bull coming up, sorry, not Red Bull, Alpine coming up behind, behind him. So, you know, the Logan slander, I don't think is necessary. He got a 5,000 euro fine, which is strange. And I think his second reprimand of the year, and F1 TV and Alex and Julian Palmer were joking about how they're trying to top up the Christmas FIA dinner that they might be having and things like that. But yeah, it was quite a close call. I think Jack Dewan in the car was a little bit flustered, and the team just just a bit chill out. all right, we're all good.

It's okay. Because when you look at it, you go, there have been plenty closer incidents than that one. But of course, with Jack and the lack of experience that he has, it probably felt like a rather large mist call there. Yeah, it probably felt very scary. And the last thing, like, realistically, the only thing you don't want to do in this session

is have a big crash and cost the team money. So it probably felt a lot worse than it was. But I totally agree with the whole Logan thing. The reality is modern Formula One, while they, of course, have mirrors. They don't have a big, you know, circuit map like we do in video games that tell you where every single car is all the time. And they rely so much now on their engineers constantly feeling information about who's behind them, how quick they're coming up behind them.

And it is weird because you look at it on TV and you go, that's Logan Sgt's fault. But it's the teams now that have to relay that information to drivers. and that is always the case of blocking now. Let's go to free practice two then. And the normal order was restored. No rookies in this session. And yet we had more red flags than the session where we had all the young drivers going around.

The first and biggest moment was certainly Carlos Sines at turn three who hit a bump, had a bit of dirty air from the car ahead, who was out the way but still disturbs a little bit of air and just the Ferrari. he goes round. You look at the onboard and there's nothing that Carlos could have done. It was just simply a combination of factors which meant that he lost the car and smashes into the wall. And the big thing for me that came from this is that after Brazil, I'm pretty sure Fred Fassu has said in one way or another that if they have another crash, they could be in a big trouble when it comes

to the cost cap. And Carlos Sines has crashed in free practice. So let's see how bad of a situation Ferrari are in in terms of that and whether they can repair the car, hopefully they can, fingers crossed, but another sort of blow for Carlos signs in free practice in back-to-back weekends. Yeah, no more sandwiches for Ferrari for the rest of the year, I guess. There's no budget cap. How expensive are their sandwiches? But we've seen this before, obviously with Lando in the last race.

You hit a bump, the car gets unsettled, and there's literally like, you know, maybe in the older days of Formula One, you see the drivers, you know, wrestling the car and doing these miraculous saves. It seems like Formula One now, the cars are so on rails and so finely balanced that one little, you know, one little moment, you can't save it, you're just flying, you're spearing off into the wall. It's a less extreme version of when, you know, older Formula One when they had ground effect and that exact thing happened. You know, this is what the cars rely on the most,

is the suction that the ground effect brings the cars. And as soon as that air is disturbed underneath the car, the grip just goes like that and then comes back again, hence why the porpoising, you know, something that we saw so much last year, is that exact effect. But if you have it through a corner, you lose all grip and you're flying into the wall.

And, you know, this is the way in which Formula One cars are now. This is how they're designed. This is what the regulations have been. brought and it hasn't been that much of a problem. But I feel like towards the end of this year, we have had a few issues around ride height and getting the cars right. And of course, we've had the plank issue in the US

and then a lot of bottoming out in free practice one. It seems like teams are struggling quite a bit to find that window that allows for the car to obviously go as quickly as possible without just randomly losing grip and smashing into the wall. Yeah, apart from Red Bull apparently all season. other than Singapore, of course.

Exactly. They're not flawless, mate. They have lost one race this year. We were right. They can't win every race and they didn't. And Ferrari came in clutch. Well done, Carlos Sines, but obviously not for free practice too.

And then we got back underway after a long delay because of the barrier needing to be repaired and Carlos Sines having to be, well, his car having to be removed from the track and I did enjoy the behind-the-scenes. because I've been watching on F1 TV this weekend and trying to film the Ferrari

and then Joe Bauer and lots of people were trying to basically just shove the cameras away and it was quite the altercation. But yes, fingers crossed, they'll be okay. And then the other crash was Hulkenberg almost immediately after the green light went on at the end of the pit lane,

losing it at term one, which was a strange incident. It was just running slightly wide and then getting on the power and losing the rear end just through running that slight bit wide on the astro turf. And then again, we have another red flag. And, you know, things add up. It's not the end of the world.

Max Rastappen's still probably going to win. But he wasn't in the car for FP1. He had about 15 minutes of running, maybe 20 minutes of running in free practice too. It doesn't help. It doesn't. But he did get to practice his racecraft in the pit lane with the two Mercedes,

which was quite an interesting moment. He just doesn't. He's so switched on at all times. It's crazy. like he was complaining about the Williams coming out of the garage and saying that that needs to be noted and looked at because they were pushing in the queue and this man never has a day off

even on a Friday of practice on the final race of the season when you have 549 points in the championship you've got more than double of your teammate who's in second and he's still like no I will try and get every advantage possible and that is just a winner's mentality and I certainly wouldn't be able to do it I would have had a day off many many moons ago

if I was in his position Yeah, I do genuinely think it's all part of his, you know, master plan of being a Formula One driver and how he's approached it. There's been many talks about kind of the way he's driven up to this point of his career is all building up to that moment where as soon as he gets a good car, no one wants to race him because they're just like, one, what's the point or two? I'm probably going to crash. and it's clearly working because people do race him differently. You see a lot of drivers just almost get out of the way of him because they're worried. And I think it is just like he's always intimidating other drivers

even in what you could argue is a nothing session at the end of the season when the title's already wrapped up. I genuinely feel like it's that constant reminder to every single person, and even like, you know, Lewis Hamilton or whatever that he was and George Russell that he's going on side with. It's like, look, I'm here and if you improve your car and whatever, I'm still going to be here

and intimidating you and stuff like that. So yeah, it's classic, classic max. But back to the Holcombogneberg thing, very rare to see the fact that we've seen two crashes at a track that is kind of often ridiculed for being a bit of a car park and there's so much run off and you can't really end up

in the wall to see two red flags is very bizarre. Yeah, my prediction of 20 cars finishing the race isn't looking particularly good at this stage, but maybe they're getting all their errors out immediately. Going back very quickly to what you said about Max Verstappen and the no one wanting to race him, I feel like we should just mention the chaos that has been going on in the media

and the whole Hamilton, Vastappen, Christian Horner, debacle, which was an absolute nothing story by the sounds of it, but Christian Horner appears to have made it larger than it should have been, where he's made it sound like Hamilton

was trying to go to Red Bull, and Hamilton said, well, no, he texted me, and it was on my old phone, and then I saw it, and then said, good luck. And I'm sure there's plenty more truth behind the scenes that will never come out, but I did just find it very, like, oh, of course, it's the end of the season,

and this kind of rubbish is just flying around. But I was surprised for it to not, you know, rather than like a tabloid or some journalist going, oh, I've heard rumours that it's coming straight out of Mercedes versus Red Bull in that sense. Yeah, I mean, I guess it was like, I think the article that it came out was the Daily Mail of what Horner said, and then he kind of mentioned it, but back read to a bit. There's loads of talk isn't there,

because like Fernando Alonzo mentions on the regular that he gets approached by Red Bull and all this kind of stuff. And I bet there are talks going all the time, and it's how much of a talk is a talk. Do you know what I mean? Like when you're in the paddock and Anthony Hamilton just goes. Put that down. That's a great quote. Yeah.

How much for talk is a talk? So poetic. Wow. At the end of the season, you've really got it flying. I know. But when you're, you know, having a chat with someone and, yeah, what constitutes to being like, oh, I've spoken to Hamilton? It's like, yeah, have you?

Or have you just said hello in the paddock? or spoke, it seemed like he spoke to his dad or something. And I thought Lewis was like, I haven't spoken to Horner in years. It's like, have you not? Like, have you not? Yeah, you definitely have. Like, have you said anything to him in the paddock? Because I did see a lot of people commenting on that whole thing where Hamilton was like,

I haven't spoken to him in years. And then it was, so I replied to a text that he said. Yeah, I thought that. He says it literally in the very next sentence. I'm like, yeah, you change your mind now. But how much of a talk is a talk? That is a question. It really is.

And one that will never be answered. I know. And the fact as well that Perez has finally sort of had a good race, secured P2 in the title. And it's like, right, there'll be no chat over a seat. And then Christian Horner drops a Lewis Hamilton to Red Bull rumor. It's like, I bet he's like, brilliant. Thanks.

Yeah. Just the pressure I need now. Please. Just one weekend. Question from I'm Anonymous 352. Alpha Tauri is showing some good pace. Do you think it will be enough to catch William? in the championship.

I mean, I wouldn't get too excited. It's a big margin for one race. Danny Rick 12th and Yuki-Snow 15th. If anything, I want to talk about Alpha Romeo, who looked incredibly quick. Bottas looked at my biggest flop prediction and went not today, although there is still plenty of time

for that to come true. But my God, they looked so quick at the end of FP2. I know the question was about Alpha Tauri. My very quick answer to that is they don't look particularly special at all. What do you think, Tommy? they're looking good, like they're looking good better than Williams,

but I think they needed to score in that last race. I think the gap is too big. They need a big old score in the final race to out, like to catch Williams in the championship in essentially the final race. But Alfa Romeo, fourth and seventh at the end of free practice two, Bottas putting in an absolute corker of a lap, only a couple of tents behind Charlotte Claire's fastest time. No, I haven't mentioned it, but I thought I would

that Charlotte Claire topped FB2. But Lando Norris is very much there as well, so we will see how that one unfolds. But yes, Alfa Romeo, they've got, they look like right now, but they've got a car that can absolutely push itself into Q3. Of course, second practice being the most representative session that we have for this weekend,

just purely because of the time of day. But that being said, a lot of these teams were rushed into doing, or trying to do all of their running that they wanted to do an FP2 in about 20 minutes. So I'm sure there were a few disadvantaged runs. For example, Charlerclair literally just went out,

did his flying lap without any sort of prep, 24-8, boom, straight in the locker, and that's why he's the goat. Yeah, like I say, I've not even mentioned the fact that Charlotte LeClaire was fastest, but... He's had three poles in the last four race weekends. That's mad, isn't it?

How have I not connected him? And the one time I didn't predict in poll, no, one time I did predict in poll was the time we didn't get poll. Cheers. Oh, we're, our wheel knowledge is impeccable, isn't it? Lecler, Norris and Vestappen, you know, essentially a tenth, well, two tenths apart. If that's a result in qualifying, yes, please, that'd be a good race. I saw the performance graphic where it was like comparing from, obviously, the start of the season to Brazil. and the graphic was suggesting that Ferrari are 8,000ths of a second behind, or maybe it was 800s, either or, less than a tenth, behind Red Bull in terms of car performance and pace.

I don't believe that. I maybe. Over one lap pace, sure, but I mean, it depends what it's being measured here. I guess that's what it is. It's over one lap, which I would argue that the Ferraris are very good over one lap. It's the races that's let them down this year. and we mentioned about Verstappen's going to have the most dominant season

I don't, it's a very, very good car and you can't deny that, but it's certainly not absolutely far and away dominating, but... I didn't even put a tweet out being like, oh, the Red Bull's so good, it drives itself. And then FP1, obviously both rookies were down at like 15th and 16th in the Red Bull

and it's like, no, you can't just get in there and pop your grandma in and you're going to go fastest in free practice. it's it's not that simple. No, and yeah, it's going to be, it's going to be fascinating to see if, because was it last year, Lecler actually, they did a great strategy and Lecler ended up coming through the field,

I believe, and beat Peres in the race. Yes, he did last. Yeah, yeah, so Ferrari have been in good, good here. So maybe, maybe, maybe it's the conversion. Maybe. A question from P1 Patreon member James BWFC22. The recent layout changes have helped slightly, but what more needs to change on the circuit to make it worthy of being the final race?

So what they need to do is to look at what Brazil looks like as a track and create it. So then we get back-to-back Brazils. Sapang, sure, but still slightly below Brazil in terms of that. Look, they've made, changes, I'm not going to slander them because they have made changes that we've asked for. That chican in the first sector, gone. We've got less, less aggressive 90-degree corners.

I'm not going to judge it too harshly now. I'm sure they could do other things, but right now they've taken a step forward, I'd say, with how the track is. Let's see how the racing is. Because we need a few more years of examples here and of evidence of whether or not this track is better for the changes it made. But for me, I think it is. And I'm not going to slander it too much until we've had a couple more years, which we're definitely going to get.

Abidabia is going to be on the calendar till 2,100. So we're going to get plenty of evidence of that. Yeah, and I'm pretty sure they've signed a deal that means that they're going to be the finale for a very long time, which I think there's better circuits, of course. Like we mentioned Brazil.

15 years. They've been the final for now. Yay. Although, like, this is the thing, like the 2021, the race wasn't that good. And people would argue still wasn't good what happened at the end. But obviously there was entertainment at the end, but that was because of a safety car. And then, of course, we've just did a Patreon podcast. This was before the track changes.

But the other, you could argue two times where there's been a title decision. It's because the other car couldn't overtake, which is kind of not, great look. It's certainly been made better, though, hasn't it? The circuit. That chican was absolutely awful at the start, the fact that they can, you know, if you can follow another car through those corners,

you can make a lunge into that chican. So it's not the worst circuit in the world. I'd still much prefer even Vegas now because apparently I really enjoy that track now, but I don't say one race. Wow, okay. One race around Vegas. One race. But I do want them to, I think I just want them to mix up circuits more.

And I think the fact that this is locked in as a finale for forever, doesn't really excite me that much personally. Money talks, Tommy, though. Money talks. And unfortunately, when they're thinking about the finale, they don't go. So what do the fans want? They say, who has the highest, or who is the highest bidder? And Abu Dhabi has been that for quite some time.

And that is it. That is a rather long chat about Friday practice, the final Friday of the year. And yes, it should be quite interesting with the lack of running that we've seen in free practice too. Should make for hopefully another exciting qualifying at the very least. We'll be live on Twitch tomorrow for that.

And of course, live for the final race of the year on Sunday as well. Tommy, what are your final thoughts? Final thoughts are that I really... really hope that the form that we're seeing is true between Ferrari McLaren and Red Bull. And we get another banging qualifying session and then the race actually delivers as well because this season really does need to go on a bang, I think. It certainly does. I believe it.

I think Red Bull are a little bit on the back foot when it comes to at least one lap pace. I'm sure they'll be very quick in the race, as always. But yeah, we'll have to wait and see. Thank you everybody for watching and listening. We'll see you very soon for another chat. P1 podcast, whatever you call it. I don't know anymore. Bye.

Bye. Adios. That's a lot. All right. Bye bye. Chau for now. P1 is a stack production and part of the Acast Creator Network.