P1 with Matt and Tommy - Reaction to Azerbaijan GP qualifying

Episode Date: September 20, 2025

Alright, we're calling it: that was the craziest qualifying session of the year. Maybe one of the craziest qualifying sessions of all time. Join us as we unpick the madness!The Delusion Tour is just around the corner! We're heading to North America in a few weeks and there are still a few tickets available - click here to grab yours: tix.to/p1liveYou can listen to an extended version of every race review episode over on our Patreon! You'll also access to every P1 episode ad-free, 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 B1 podcast with Matt and Tommy. Should we all just take a deep breath? Because... I didn't lie down. It wasn't fast and frantic. It was slow and painful for a lot of it, wasn't it really? Just with how many red flags there was. I just wanted to see a few clean laps qualifying.

It got to that stage at the end where both of us were genuinely praying to not see a qualifying lap. That's how rare of a situation we found ourselves in when Carlos Hines was top. And we were also earlier than that praying to see a qualifying lap because we felt like there were so many delays that were just like, please, can I just see cars on track? And then when we actually were going to have that because it was going to essentially deny one of the most crazy underdog, not only just polls, top three, we would have had color sights of the two racing balls in the picture where they're kind of have the top three. imagine missing qualifying and tuning in and seeing that. But still a crazy result

and a great grid for tomorrow. And a lot to talk about. Now, before we dive into all of that, just a reminder, our Australian live show tour tickets are still available flying off the shelves. ticks.2 forward slash P1 Live

if you want to come see us in Australia in May 2026. There are a few tickets available for Manchester at the end of the year as well as the US tour as well. So go and get your tickets. And of course Canada I can't forget those guys.

So yeah, go get your tickets there. And let's not dive into Q1 because there is one thing we need to talk about Tom Bellingham before we do that. Now, we had six red flags in qualifying, which is the record for the most red flags in a qualifying session. And there's a question which teased it up so beautifully

from P1 patron member Mikey B. Is Tommy's prediction of no red flag? due to crashes, a generationally washed prediction. I think you actually forfeit the prediction championship from that one thing. Yeah, there were people discussing in the live chat when we were doing this that I actually deserve minus points. But no, it was, but it is bad. I admit, it's terrible.

I'll say you're welcome because we got an insane grid. Bro's trying to turn this round like it was his powers that made it. Yeah, no, no. But literally after practice, when we were doing our pream, before we started into Q1, you had your smug face on. You were like, well, we've pushed the wall a few times, but we've not had a red flag. I was like, look, wait, Tommy, we've got qualifying.

This is where they'll actually push, and my God, they pushed into the wall many, many times. Now, let's dive into Q1, where the bottom five were Colopinto, Holcomberg, Ocon, Gassley and Albon. Question from P1 on Patreon member, Captain Obs 3-420. How much will Alex be kicking himself for crashing immediately with how good the car clearly is. I'll be honest with you, forgot that that even happened.

So long ago. It feels like three weeks ago that Alex Albon clicked. It was literally over, like nearly three hours ago, which is mad. Yes, he will be kicking himself because his teammate is on the front row of the grid, which is bizarre and wild and crazy, but that's just how the action unfolded. And this was where, you know, this was, of course, the first incident. This was the first red flag.

where Tommy's trying to find some loopholes. You've got some chat actually as well saying, look, what is it a crash really? It's clipped the wall. Yeah, yeah. It's not really many. And then Hulkaberg was like, watch this. Yeah, then Hulkaberg was like, watch this.

Yeah, let me follow up on that one. But back to Alex, yeah, 100% going to be kicking himself. I don't think he was expecting a front row potential with the car, but they were looking really good in practice, definitely a point scoring team. And it almost ended up with, his teammate on pole and him starting to enter. Yeah, what an insane thing.

That is to think about a William sandwich of the entire grid almost. Alex, yeah, he's had such a good year, very uncharacteristic error. You don't normally see people turn in too early at that. We saw plenty of drivers kind of go off into the kind of interterm 1, where they kind of bail out because they're going to hit that outside wall, and they bail onto the runoff area loop all the way back around, get back in. But yeah, the fact that Alex turned in too early and then to witness what happened, of course, it was a crazy session that you never would have predicted anyway, but even in a normal

dry qualifying session where we hadn't had 100 crashes and all this chaos and rain and goodness knows what else, you kind of on performance, you feel like both Williams probably, you know, would have made it into Q3. You'd think. and be at the kind of looking at maybe like a ninth and tenth. So, yeah, disappointing for Alex. Massively, yeah. He said it himself after Quali that it was a rookie error to essentially have turned in too early.

The car gripped up a little bit more due to blustery wind conditions, catching out a lot of the drivers and it caught him out into turn one. Next question, P1, Patreon. So when can we expect to see Jack Duhan back in the Alpine? he was fired for less well

I'm surprised another crash yeah another crash we had Holcombberg crashing then we had Gassley going off and in the watch along we said didn't we went that's a weird

there's a red flag why is that a red flag he's just gone down the runoff air and then Colopinto steams in and crashes into the wall it's disappointing

for Colopinto because of course had he not crashed it into the wall well he's still out qualified Gasly which is insane actually because it's three

times out of the last four races that Colopinto is out qualified Gasly, which is no mean feat, actually quite impressive, but unfortunately Colopin show. Technically, he's still outqualified him, Tom, even though he completely obliterated his car. Yeah, well, exactly, yeah, he has outqualified him again, but unfortunately for him, it's another crash, but I hate to say it. I know there's many Jack Dewan fans out there that would love to see him back, but it's not going to happen. Flavia Briotori has already mentioned that next year it is a choice between Colopinto and Paul Aaron if who gets that second seat. Unfortunately for Jack Dewin, he has been dropped.

It wasn't a case of like, you know, if Colopinto's bad, we'll swap you back in. It's not, it doesn't seem to be like that. So, you know, if Colapinto keeps having these errors and things and performing badly, then it would be Paul Aaron in not Jack Dewen. exactly that it's a shame for jack doing of course he was against it from literally before he'd even turned a wheel every everything was was against him but he didn't show any kind of levels of potential that would give alpine and flavio a reason to swap him back with with franco Franco, yes, has had moments already.

We've spoken about it this season. He has made mistakes. But, you know, he has, as you mentioned, with the qualifying record, shown some promise, which doing, wasn't able to do in that amount of time, but still didn't. And Alpine aren't looking for like a...

Someone that's all right. They need a high-quality, young talent that they can not lose from their roster for once and actually nurture them and make them good. So whether that's Franco, whether that's Paul Aaron. Yeah, I think you've hit the nail on the head there of like, no offense to Jack Dewan because it was unfair that he was always, is always going to be a losing battle for him.

And Colapinto, with his driving, hasn't justified the reason for them to get rid of Dewan, but equally Jack Dewan's driving at the start of the season hasn't justified him to be so good that he deserves to go straight back in. I think that's how I look at it personally. Yeah, and like him just going straight back in, they can expect the same kind of results probably because he's a rookie and experienced and so on and so forth. So yeah, lots of crashes, the Collar Pinto. Holkenberg was kind of a front wing, wasn't it? It wasn't a complete decimation of his car.

Worth mentioning as well, Ocon, 18th in the Hasse. His qualifying struggles continue this season and being out qualified by Bairman, who had his own troubles in Q2, but we've not crossed that bridge yet. But it is mystifying to see just how much O'Con has struggled to get the most out of that. Hascar this year.

In qualifying, which is mad because he's still, you know, he's got 28 points on the board, 13th in the championship, which kind of feels very strange to think. But yeah, Ocon is again, it's has some, the struggles do seem to be in qualifying and particularly for O'Con. Let's head to Q2. Where the five drivers out were Alonzo, Hamilton, Bortoletto, Stroll and Bear. So the big stories from this one, of course, has to be Lewis Hamilton and then another crash. And this time it was Oliver Berman who decided to do his best Lando Norris impression from practice and do his own crabbing, which unfortunately he wasn't able to get it back to the pits. But let's focus on Ferrari first. P1PITR member, Anastasia W. What happened to Ferrari between Q1 and Q2 that caused such a huge drop in pace?

If only I knew Anastasia. Hamilton said after qualifying that they went with a slightly different direction which you just love hearing that Oh they love that I feel like it happens more with Ferrari than any other team to be honest with you like we found a good set up with the car

and then we went with the wrong direction and then we had seven wheels rather than four it just it it was mystifying because Hamilton was honestly looking to be front three maybe even challenged for pole and he's knocked out in Q2 on the back foot making mistakes

and he went down the exit road if I'm not mistaken there was mistakes again that you don't tend to see from Hamilton there's been a lot of talk this weekend as well hasn't there about his breaks and that his breaks have been different than what he's been used to

for the last 18 years and things like that and I'm sat there right and I'm going fair enough like cool that is a problem for Hamilton that he needs to get over but why is it

why is it now that we're talking about it Why is this not been rectified by Ferrari or whatever in the lead up to them signing the biggest driver in Formula One at the time? It's a bit of a weird conversation that is. But yeah, 12th for Hamilton, absolute disaster. When Ferrari, they were supposed to challenge a poll with both drivers. I can't remember a time where I've seen such a drop-off in performance between two kind of quality sessions where it's not it's not been like it chucked it down with rain or

something and it's completely different conditions Ferrari looked like you know in Q1 obviously like you know I was bantering a little bit but LeCler looked so quick look like it's he's definitely on you know a chance for pole position again Hamilton equally looking like he can challenge at the front and might get his best quality result you know in a in a long time and challenge at the front as well. And then we got into Q2 and LeClair actually, you know, was quite late to just making it through in the first base because he had a few issues where he was going off, making mistakes and things. And then Hamilton, yeah, didn't get the lap in at the end. It was just a complete disaster for Ferrari when it was all looking so good. It was so bizarre. I will add as well,

there was a lot of talk about Hamilton being left out on old tires and things like that. That was exactly the strategy that Ferrari did in Q1. They were both, I think, they ran their soft tires to about 10 laps old. And it worked for them really well in Q1. Yeah, it did. And in Q2, Hamilton, I think, was up to six laps on his soft tires. So not even to the extent of which they went in Q1, but then the pace kind of disappeared.

But with the blustery conditions as well, I think Pace could easily just come and go with your car with just a slight change of wind. Other stories to talk about, Lance Stroll, I'm absolutely devastated. You know, he made it through Q1. go on the lad. Of course, my prediction for this weekend was that Stroll would out qualify Alonzo. You just reminded me we were so close to it. We were five seconds away from that coming in.

One of the 12,000 red flags that we saw, Alonzo was heading towards the line. It was the end of Q1. Q1. I think it was. End of Q1. It was about to go out. Stroll was beautifully up in like eighth place, because my guy. And Alonzo was out at the time and just managed to get over the line to set a lap time, which robbed me of a wonderful point for that prediction. It did, and yeah, Stroll went off, didn't he, and basically got on the radio and said, what on earth happened there? The wind catching so many drivers out.

Aston Martin didn't look particularly great. Ollie Bearman, yeah, he looked very quick all weekend, of course. Another terrible prediction of mine going for good surprise. So, of course, he was looking so good. He was looking good. yeah he looked very very good around here still at qualified ocon looked quick but yeah he was he looked very gutted with himself because it could have been a great result for him and you do wonder what what's going through the heads of of these kind of drivers like your aston martins and your

hasses and things looking at a Williams and a racing bulls and second and third and probably thinking you know that that could have been me in the in the situation when you know when you're not the midfielder that's capitalised on crazy situation. So yeah, gutting for Bermann. Bortoletto, again, out-qualifying Holcomberg. Yeah. And it has to be said, I'm surprised to see him up in

13th. I think he did a great job, considering they looked like they were massively on the back foot. He was having a really tough practice sessions as well. Like, he didn't look like he had much, much pace, but again, like, that must be, I don't know how many a row now he seems to Nico Holcombberg,

since he got his podium, is just dropped on. He literally has just dipped now. He's just like, I'm done. Guys, I've got my Lego trophy. I am out. Let's now head to Q3, where the top 10, Vestappen, Sines, Lawson,

Antonelli Russell, Sonoda, Norris, Hajar, Piastri LeCler. Am I dreaming? What an absolutely ridiculous top 10 that is. And look, look, we have to go straight. into a question. Before we dive into all of my thoughts and feelings, we'll go to you first, Tommy. P1Batry member Caesar. Max Vastappan Championship back on. I joked in the watch along, you know, the fact that...

No, I did. I was joking. No, you said that with your chest, brother. No, no, I don't ever believe that it's going to happen. But the fact that he's got pole position again, the McLaren's, of course, seventh and ninth. Yeah, it was tongue-in-cheek, me saying, Vostappen, this is. his championship back on. There's no way on earth that it's going to happen. But what is happening is Max Verstappen,

and I know everyone will roll their eyes here, is Max Verstappen showing that why he's the best in Formula One and why it's highly rated and why people like Toto Wolf are like desperate to get him in their team no matter what and things like that. Because another situation where, you know, you had one opportunity to get a result in at the end, and Max puts half a second on the whole field.

You know, you can say, oh, the Red Bull are looking good this weekend, but he still put a second on his teammate again. It's just amazing what he's doing this year, and even without the best car and is unable to challenge for the title, we've just seen a lot of moments this year where Maxis reminds everyone, like, you know, if I had a car to be challenging, like this would be over. Yeah.

Yeah, he definitely delivered, didn't he? When it's slippery conditions, it's an equal playing field, or is it? Because you're up against Max Verstappen. And that's what he showed. I think Liam Lawson did a phenomenal job as well to get third on the grid, because that lap time was also set during those slippery conditions. Yeah, he improved. It wasn't like it was like a fortunate one, was it?

Yeah, whereas Carlos's was done initially before the rain came down. But Max is the championship back on. You're a better man than I am, because if that was Charlotte Claire, I'd be singing from the hills that we're so back. It does make me wish that if the gap was like 50 points rather than like 100 or whatever, it would be so much more exciting.

It's over 100, it's well over 100, I think, is it? I think you're tripping, bro. I think it's under 100. You are, you are... Is it? Ninety-six. Oh, challenge me to you back on. then, yeah, it's on. Oh yeah, yeah, it's on. Yeah, yeah, it's on. Yeah, yeah, it's not, it's not, yeah. So it's

nearly a hundred. I'm trying to do basic math. Yeah, it's a hundred. Yeah, it's not, it's not, it's not it's not a hundred. Yeah, it's not a hundred. Yeah, little double dnf. And that's, that's, he needs four of them for the McLaren's. Um, but yes, uh, I don't think so either. But let's see. I think it's, it's, it's, it's happened by three laps tomorrow if everything goes to plan because he's got Sines Lawson as two very lovely buffers. Then you've got the Mercedes

that have been the fourth fastest team this weekend. Then you have Yuki Sonoda. A rear gunner, let's say. A rear gunner ahead of both McLaren's. So I think Max will dominate. And Lando said after qualifying that the Red Bull has been just as quick as the McLaren this weekend.

So Max, in theory, should romp away with the victory. But let's see. Right, I know we have to do this, don't want to do it, but let's reflect on Charles Lecler, shall we? Who ended up in the wall? He did. As 10,000 live viewers decided to join us at that moment. Thank you.

If you were one of those, thank you for checking in. I felt like maybe I've just been shot at that time. But Lecler, he was potentially on for, I don't know if I was going to say pole, but a little P3, P4 was probably on the cards. I don't, I just, they'd lost that, that little bit of Jeuniseiqois, you know, at the, the start of Q1 where we believed, or you believe more than anyone, you were like, yeah, it's done, mate, it's pole, it's locked in, like, GGs, like, yeah, come on. But for me, it's, it's obviously annoying.

It's annoying on a lot of levels, actually, because of course, Charles could have been up there, second or third, maybe. However, it's more annoying for Carlos Sines, because had it not been for Sharl ending in the wall, I genuinely think the track was in a bad enough state that, Carlos would have started on pole position for the race. So I'm cut it on a few levels, a bit for Carlos, more so for Charlerclair, of course. But the thing is, the pain goes down when I don't think it's going to happen. And I did not believe going into Q3 that Charlotte, Clair was going to get pole.

And even on that lap he was doing, he was not in the hunt for pole position. No, I didn't feel like it was on. Yeah, I did feel like it was on at that point. If he had been on for poll, you'd have looked at this situation, because of course we all know that it's Ferrari, you know, they want to get that win this year, but it's incredibly difficult. But had they been at the front when you've got like a Williams and a racing bulls and the Mercedes, that is their golden kind of opportunity, but instead, yeah, LeCleur, straight in the wall, you got your flop point potentially, but at what cost?

Did we need the straight in the wall? The straight was a bit emotional, a bit of heat behind that, straight in the wall. It was actually a very slow, rather pathetic incident in the sense of, not from Charles Leclair, and he's not pathetic, he's a gorgeous, sexy man, but in terms of like the actual speed of the crash, it was almost like I could just pick the car up and just not make that not happen. And so many, and as we mentioned, you know, in the Q2 bit, that it was just kind of constant. There was a few mistakes here and there, and they're just creeping in, and then, yeah, in the wall, when it mattered into Q3, um, meaning he'll start only, yeah, a couple of places ahead of his teammate after all that,

which is a mad thing to think about. Exactly. I'm glad we had to reflect on that, but P10, 10th to 1st tomorrow, not the most crazy thing, especially if we get 100 safety cars. My two or more safety car prediction is looking very juicy for tomorrow. Sign me up. Yeah, I hope we're not having a generational stinker of a race after this qualifying. Yeah, yeah, maybe they got it all out their system today.

Hopefully not. We want to see some fun stuff going on. Okay, question from Polsky-Polak underscore 2. Did Ferrari fire the wrong driver? That's true. Yeah, thanks for including that question, Tommy. Carlos, Carlos, up and P2. Yeah, thanks. Thanks. Yeah, yeah, Carlos, doing a great job.

Don't get me wrong. Finally getting a bit of luck. Carlos has not had luck this season at all. He's had so much go wrong for him. But no, Ferrari did not fire the wrong driver. Shut it. Next question, P1PATR member Bailey. Will this complicate the rumours of Isaac going to Red Bull over Liam?

No, no, I don't think so. No offence to Liam Lawson. Fantastic job in qualifying. But unless Liam Lawson is bagging these results loads till the end of the season, which I'd be amazed at. You know, his form now has started to improve a lot since when he went back into that racing balls and we kind of said, oh, he's not had that immediate kind of boost of confidence that we expected. And then he's had some really, you know, strong performances kind of later into into this season.

And this, of course, being the highlight of the season so far. I don't think it complicates rumours. I do think that Hadjar is locked in there. He's had a fantastic season. You know, it would be huge recency bias to say that Lawson deserves to go back into that seat. Hadjar's been fantastic this year. But not taking anything away from Lawson, a brilliant job. And as you said, the fact that it wasn't even like he'd done his lap and it rained, you know, the two racing balls went out again.

And it was Lawson was the one that delivered and managed to get it into P3. So absolutely amazing qualifying from him. It was. I genuinely think that Lawson could, unless he wins like half of the rest of the races, it is Hajas every single day of the week. It could literally end like this, I think, for the rest of the season. The problem for Lawson is that he's already tasted the poison chalice of that second Red Bull seat. Red Bull have seen what he does and how he works and things like that.

Hadjar, they don't know. Obviously, they know how he is in the racing balls, but they have to test him out. That is 100% how I believe, especially with the fact Isaac has had a podium shown really great potential in his rookie season. There's nothing. Unless Hadjar crashes in every single session from here on,

I think it's locked in. It doesn't matter if Lawson does it. And I don't want to, I don't think Lawson should go back to Red Ball next year. I think it crushed him when he did go there. It's a very tough thing to go up against Max Verstappen. Maybe in the future, Lawson will be able to go up against a world champion or whatever. But right now, he just needs to bed himself back into Formula One.

And I think Racing Balls is a perfect position for him to be in. Yeah, and I think Pierre Gazley and Alex Albin have shown that you can move on after being demoted now with what they've done. it's incredibly difficult. I think what, you know, this question asking about, does it complicate the rumors? I do wonder if this makes the decision even easier for actual racing balls now, because it does seem like they're willing to promote Limblad, and then it's basically a toss-up between Lawson or Sonoda of who they go for.

And poor Yuki Sanoda's finally got a great qualifying in, although a second of his teammate is, can you consider that great, I guess, with how bad it's been going for him, yes, and up in P6 a great result. And Lawson's there, you know, celebrating in P3. So, yeah, I think I'd be amazed if it's not Liam still in the racing balls next year alongside as him being like that test bed for Lindblad. It's insane, though, that we're saying Yuki Sanoda, P6, insane result, a second off your teammate, when Sonoda has been a few test.

off Max at times and got out in Q1 and Max has then gone on after that to maybe get on pole position or somewhere near the front. I don't know if we can call that that performance from Yuki good in relation to his teammate. No, it's a good result. It's not a good performance. It's a good result exactly. He's starting in a great position and he has to. He has to finish in the points tomorrow if he wants to have any shout of getting back into that racing ball seat, which I think he is completely up against it for that. He's in the wrong position to be able to be able to to prove what he can do. Like the equipment he doesn't like,

but that's the only equipment he's able to use until the end of the season. So yeah, I hope for Yuki's sake he gets at a good points hall tomorrow. Question from A. Weber underscore 16. Who has a better chance of holding off the Merck's and McLaren's for a podium? Carlos or Liam?

Carlos, I think. I think Carlos has, he's got the car that I would. It's hard to say that Williams looks like the best of the rest car for most of the weekend. Racing balls we know is a very stable that can get great results

with their rookie drivers as we've seen. I think they're going to be comparable in terms of pace tomorrow, Signs and Lawson. There's not much between the midfield, but I would say signs will literally fight tooth and nail to keep every single one behind. And I hope for his sake, and I hope for the races sake,

he just chucks one to the inside of Maxen to turn one. Like, just sign me up for a bit of drama. Come on. It's going to be interesting, isn't it? Because you've essentially, normally in the situations where you have a crazy midfield performance, it's one of them and you expect them to tumble down the order. But the fact there's both of them in there,

I think is what makes it quite interesting. Because say, you know, I think Lawson has a great shout to also get, you mentioned about colour science getting max. I know it's kind of a bit tongue in cheek and joking, but Lawson on the clean side of the grid will be kind of hoping that he can get. science at the start. And then if one of them gets ahead of the other and manages to stretch their

legs and one of them is holding up the other, that is the potential where they can, you know, get a great result there. I'd be amazed if either of them are on the podium, but I don't think a P5 or something is completely out of the question, particularly because, you know, particularly with the Williams, we've seen Alex album put in some great performances. So if Carlos can get a good race together, who knows? And it's so difficult to overtake, but unfortunately it's back here. And if there's a headwind, again, DRS is going to be my word, very powerful. Yeah, yeah, headwind will be powerful, tailwind will be the races over, just turn it off, and we'll see you on the podcast later.

Yeah, if I was going to put money on it, it would be Max and the two McLaren's on the podium. I genuinely think that we see a Norris and Piastri fight back to do something different with the strategy, perhaps benefit a little bit with a well-time safety car and things like that. they're going to do everything they can to try and use their car. I won't bet against a Russell as well, maybe. Yeah, but Antonelli. I mean, what a bizarre session he's had from literally. He had the potential red flag infringement, which was no further action.

We're still waiting on the yellow flag one, which is going to be huge for his race. The onboard looked like it was a slam dunk. Yeah, we literally went from thinking that Kimmy Antonelli might well be fired during the session and Bottas being put in because of Toto getting quite seemingly quite. annoyed of like just get a lap in to being ahead of Russell and in fourth. Good surprise locked in my guy. Give me that point now. We'll see. We'll see. Now, I can't believe we've gone this far into the podcast and not spoken about the championship leader crashing and qualifying. That just shows the ridiculousness of that qualifying session that we've

just seen. Oscar Piastri crashing, making a very rare mistake. And it was, it, it, it, I was going to say it was massive. It could have been massive. But he starts ninth, as far as you're aware. Of course, with these crashes, you have to take into account that there could be some gearbox issues or things that change on the internals that may put them in the pit lane or at the back of the grid. But for now, Piastri, only two positions behind his teammate on the grid. He starts ninth, as of right now.

Lando qualified seventh. Firstly, let's speak about the Oscar crash. just completely misjudged it, didn't he? He went into the wall pretty hard. Perhaps feeling a bit of pressure. Maybe it's just the craziness of the qualifying session. Very difficult to maintain composure, especially when the track conditions are changing so much,

the headwind, the tailwind. That's why we saw so many mistakes today. I saw some funny comments of like, these are supposed to be the best in the world. Why are they crashing so much? But I think that just shows the madness of what, you know, the conditions were. You could see the first. flags in the grandstands, massive, massive, yeah, wind speed. So for Piastri, it was a big

mistake. We could have been speaking about this so much more, but the reason it's only here is because he's two positions behind Lando. Yeah, had Lando got pole position and Piazzi starting the way down in ninth, this would have been absolutely huge for the championship. And it still, you know, could be a moment. But I think Piazari, the fact that he's managed. to get that, you know, he's had a big moment and it is proper damage limitation because of what what Lando managed to do. Piastri this weekend has had so many close calls with the walls at practice sessions. He's not really looked kind of his usual self and then, yeah, to crash in whether that's,

whether it's just a case of like he's not jelled with the circuit, McLaren don't look as dominant as they normally are, or if it's maybe the pressure of the fact that it is getting so close now to the end of the season, and that championship is almost within touching distance, we don't know, but for his sake, it's kind of, well, you couldn't have almost hoped for anything better, really, when he went in the wall for where Landos qualified. Absolutely. I mean, we still have eight races to go, so it's not touching distance just yet, bro. We've got a lot of points. more like the McLaren's, it's like, the finish line is within like close distance.

There's a finish line in Formula One as well. I see, I see what you're doing. Question from people on page. Remember, Mercedes on top. Do you think Lando didn't take full advantage of Oscars crash? Surely, with your championship rival crashing, you'd hope you're at least top five to take advantage. Yeah, I see two sides to this that I think it's unfair for social media to jump on the fact that Landau's a bottler when his teammate is the one that's crashed out the session.

You know, but I do also agree that this is an opportunity that he absolutely should have taken. And I do think there's many reasons why that wasn't. You've got to question, I think Landau himself said this of like, he questioned his track position, made that mistake, which he believed it lost him very little time. I think that lost him a lot of time personally going into that, that final. corner. It's the smallest margin that would have put him like P5. It had to be more than a couple of spots.

You know, he needed, even if he wasn't going to beat Max, P2, front row, taking that opportunity. And yeah, it's unfair to be completely like, oh my God, he's absolutely wash. He's terrible because his teammates won't put him in the war, but also at the same time, these are the moments in a world championship that you have to capitalize on. You absolutely have to. So it's a huge missed opportunity for Landau. Yeah, two things can coexist here.

One is that Lando was not the worst driver out there today. There were big profile drivers that made bigger errors and were out of the session. But on the flip side of that, yeah, I agree that Lando, you know, I watched the head-to-head with Max. It wasn't just the mistake in turn 15 that cost him all of his lap time. He was maybe around half a second behind Max going. to that corner, it was just the confidence. And, you know, I was listening to what Lando had to say after qualifying and, yeah, question the decision.

But you're kind of damned if you do, damned if you don't. You either go out first, which worked out really well for Kevin Magnuson, for example. And in Brazil, he got pole position, then the conditions got worse. But for Lando, and I think in this situation, it is the hardest going first because he highlighted that the further you are back in the queue, the slight better track condition you'll get. Lando, I think, also was, Max had new tyres, I believe.

Lando had maybe one cycle through the tires, whatever it was. You slightly on the back foot for that, but 1.1 seconds is not nowhere near where he should have been. He should be a lot higher than that. The cars that he's finished behind in that situation and the fact that someone like Liam Larson improved shows and he's probably driven quite tentative.

That's, Lando knowing his teammates in the wall, he's probably thinking in his head, just a safe lap is going to get me in the top five, but it didn't. And it's kind of bitten him maybe with the slightly lacking in the confidence in those conditions. But yeah, to be outqualified by Yuki Sonoda and Liam Lawson and things like that, it's going to make his race so much harder tomorrow.

It's crazy to think that if he'd literally binned it, he'd have been one place lower. So like, surely that risk versus reward is absolutely go for it, because you might be on the front row. but if you crash, you're only one place worse off. Yeah, it's disappointing for him. And you never know with this championship, and this is why we said that it's never over even after things,

what happened in Zandvort, things are changing all the time. Like it's certainly not over. There'll be twists and turns again. Look what happened even last year at things like Brazil and stuff that we had last year. Exactly. We genuinely thought that the championship was about to become a lot closer when Piastri went in the wall. And another turn where they're now seventh and ninth is just... I don't know.

My brain can't really comprehend what I have just witnessed. And you're saying things aren't over, Tommy. Maxwell Stappan Championship back on. It might well, it might well be here. Can you imagine the charge? The charge coming through. Goodness gracious me. I'm here for it.

I would love to see that. Imagine. It would be the most insane. I can't believe. I want to believe. But if PAST3 does a dive bomb on Lander and they collide at 10-1, then maybe it's looking a bit more promising. Yeah, Tommy's getting his Max Cape on and singing the Dutch National Anthem. Right, that is it. Thank you, everybody for tuning into this very long, very detailed and very red flag qualifying podcast for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix.

We'll be live on Twitch and YouTube tomorrow for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix. Priy and you do not want to miss this one. I think it might well be rather interesting. Fingers crossed. Hopefully. Hopefully we haven't had all of our chaos in one qualifying session because that was too much. And I don't want that many red flags tomorrow. I'm not going to lie to you. Just please no. Thank you. All right. Tommy, what your final thoughts? Final thoughts? I need to go have a lie down. What a day. What a day. And it's 423 in the afternoon. Absolutely love it. All right. Thank you, everybody. We'll see you very soon. See you tomorrow. That's love to take it. Bye.

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