P1 with Matt and Tommy - Reaction to Bahrain GP (in Malaysia) practice

Episode Date: October 2, 2026

Finally, Sepang is se-back! Join us as we react to free practices one and two, and look forward to what we all hope will be an exciting race on Sunday.Come and see our live tour 'Super Podding' this November! It's a brand new show and there are a few tickets left: http:/tix.to/p1liveFancy even more P1? Well, join our Patreon for just $5 a month! 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 TikTokP1 with Matt and Tommy is the world's biggest F1 podcast. Subscribe for new podcasts around every single race throughout the 2026 Formula 1 season! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello everybody and welcome back to the B1 podcast with Matt and Tommy. Matt is on holiday because Formula One went, hey, we've released a calendar, but we're going to change it. How dare you book a holiday? How are you, Tommy? I'm good, yeah, F-1 was like, we don't have enough triple headers to end the season, so we'll put one in here so we get another one. But hey, it's all good.

We can't complain because Sipang is back. Sabak, Sabang, Sabang. Sabak. There you go. Sapang. That's what you were trying to load up initially there, wasn't it? Yeah. It's back. I'm feeling good.

I'm in Tuscany right now enjoying the beautiful sun here. And everything appears to be working right now. I like to think you wear that Ferrari shirt as well everywhere you go in Italy. Yeah, no, yeah. No, no. This wasn't the first time I put it on this holiday. But, you know, maybe, yeah, I just live in it. Actually, I will say, before we get into everything practice related,

I want to tell you something that. So we were in Tuscany in this incredible villa, and we went to a small little town, I assume it's a town, called Alto for lunch. And lo and behold, someone went, Matt. And I was like, you're kidding me, right? So I can have a picture. I'm like, there is 50 people here. So shout out to you for saying hello, you and your mum, I think it was.

So yeah, just wanted to do a little highlight of that. But yes, Malaysia is back. Sapang has returned. We all should be very, very happy. It might well be, by the way, a lot of yours first experience of Sapang, depending on when you first started watching Formula One. And I hope it is as good to watch for the first time as it is for us seeing it come back after so, so many years.

Why don't we go to a question from P1 Patreon member, Amy? Why did they ever drop Sapang off the calendar this? track is incredible. Money. Welcome. Isn't it governments and money? Yeah, exactly. They just kind of fell off the calendar and they needed Bahrain's backing in order to come back.

But it's amazing how, I think they've said it in commentary many times. It's 68 days between the confirmation and now today it happening. So it can happen. It's amazing what money can do, right? Bring back such an iconic track. like Sapang, I am praying for a sensational banging weekend so that somehow, somewhere, someone with a massively deep pocket can bring this back for good. I hope so, because already the drivers are out there going,

this track is great. We're seeing people like Amy and I'm sure many of other people and you're watching that maybe like you say are seeing this track for the first time going, wow, this is really cool. And boy, did it, it's insane thing to say, boy, did it deliver. But in terms of like a practice session, we saw some like battling and action. And it's just so great to see it again because the drivers are there having fun out there. You're already getting a taster of what we might see in the race of some side-by-side moves.

And this is exactly why we've been hyping this race up for so long. You know, you go to a track like Madrid where they can't overtake. This track is so wide. There's so many different lines. And it's just awesome, awesome to see. I'm so glad to have it back on the calendar. Very bizarre circumstances, of course, like you say, we've now got a taster of how much of the Bahrain Grand Prix this is going to be.

And what's kind of interesting is they are, it has like the kind of, package of the Bahrain Grand Prix and apparently they've like shipped all the like sofas and things over from Bahrain into the paddock so it kind of looks like the Bahrain Grand Prix very unusual and all I can hope is this sets a trend now of classic circuit so let's have the Madrid Grand Prix in the Neuber ring or something. Stolen my joke you stole it I literally was loading up to say something about Madrid have the Bahrain Grand Prix there four minutes before the Madrid slander no Yeah, I know right. It's amazing.

Actually, I don't want Bahrain to go somewhere else because Bahrain has a track. Barron's good. Yeah, Bahrain needs to stay. Yeah, if we can have like a stinker for a great race. So yeah, we can have a Madrid. We can have, where else would you? I mean, Miami. We could have Miami in Kyle Army, you know.

Plenty of ideas floating around for sure. Another question from F1 Focal. Will we ever see rain in a session this year? No, we won't. That's why I predicted it. There's got to be some study now where Formula One cars mean that it cannot rain. If Formula One cars are on a race circuit, it doesn't matter that there's a 90% chance of rain. And they're literally on the, have all the weather maps and everything in the world saying, it's about to rain. And it doesn't rain. Because that chart, that chart looked like, there's no way. I was like, this is it. Slam dunk, my predictions in the mud for those that didn't want what you just know. It's a Tom Bellingham year. It's a Tom Bellingham year for predictions when like you just, I'm like surely at some point, it's a little drizzle. I've watched a hundred Formula One races where it rains when they're in the cool down room and know that when they're on the circuit, it is not allowed to rain. And particularly this year, we've seen it where there's been a few races where we've been so excited for rain and gone, oh my God, it's raining.

We're going to get a great race. And then it's dry at the start or even Canada where we thought, oh, this is going to be absolute carnage. It was only McLaren that were silly enough to put the inters on. So there's still a couple of days left. But what's very interesting is I saw a lot of comments on our predictions post being like, I live in Malaysia. I can guarantee you it's going to rain. There's no way it doesn't rain.

Formula One is just so weird like that. This can happen. And it just always does seem to happen like this. It's crazy, isn't it? So I actually saw quite a funny, I think it was like an Oscar Piaastro. fan account or something, saying that Oscar, I think in his entire Formula One career, has never used the full wet tire in a competitive session. And then obviously seeing the weather forecast coming up and it's like, you know, big troubles

ahead. But yeah, clearly we can't ever get rain. Although, hey, there's two more days of potential tropical rainstorms, which, to be fair, we don't want that either. The problem is, yeah, it could be like, it's red flag rain. We don't want red flag rain. We want a little sprinkle and I don't think Malaysia does sprinkles of rain.

And honestly, I don't think Malaysia needs rain. No. I'm happy with a dry race, I think, especially with how practice is stacking up. I know we've got a little bit of chat before we get into the actual session running, but there's lots of things to discuss. And one of those being grid drops.

So to get you up to speed, as of recording, we have three drivers currently with grid drops, lined up. Linblad being one of them. He'll be starting from the back of the grid because he's taking basically everything. Colopinto has five-place grid penalty for of course what happened in Baku and then a 10 for a new internal combustion engine. That's his first new internal combustion engine, hence the 10, whereas Hajjar will likely be getting a five-place grid penalty due to his seventh. You're allowed four internal combustion engines. He's on his seventh, which is pretty crazy. Of the case, of course.

It's the best one, but it doesn't last. It's the best one because they've used seven of them. Yes. They get a fresh one every rest. But after that initial one, it goes down to five, so it's not as much of a penalty. But yeah, Hajar, looking good, but might well be dropping down after qualifying. And other things to very quickly get you up to speed with big Mercedes upgrade, like we kind of mentioned in predictions. That's the big talking point, which we will discuss in our FP1 and FP2 roundup.

A funny thing that sort of came. out just before basically practice was, or in the lead up to the Grand Prix weekend, was the fact they had to repaint the grid because they had the pole grid box on the wrong side. And so then they were hurrying to try and get it the right way around. I also saw that apparently the pole position grid box was ahead of the timing line, which would have made things even more interesting. But I'm glad that they figured that out before. Yeah.

So someone gets on pole position and then they're immediately like the timing. We've had a few glitches, haven't we, where nowadays Formula One, it's so reliant on all the chips and everything that are in the cars to make everything work properly in the timing tower. And that's why we have to have these kind of regulations with safety cars where everyone has to unlap themselves to get the order properly correct. But yeah, very unusual that they've repainted the grid the wrong way. Maybe they had it the Malaysia way and Bahrain were like, no, it needs to be, remember it's the Bahrain Grand Prix. It needs to be the exact proportions of the start secure. The paint was from Bahrain. The paint was from Bahrain.

We shipped it over. You joke. If they're going to pay to put the Malaysian Grand Prix on, I'm happy. And, you know, as much as it's a kind of funny situation, I'm all here for it because we're saying Sapang again. So well done, Bahrain. I will wear the Bahrain flag next year if we get to have some Pan again. Like just whatever needs to be done, we'll happily do. And then one final thing was that Ferrari,

there was again more speculation about Fred Vassur and whether or not he deserves to be at the helm of the team. And basically the board have come out and said, nope, we're backing Fred once again because there was more Christian Horner. Will he take over? I think Christian had said something like, Ferrari's the only team where he'd happily go in

without having a stake in the team, basically. So the lure of Ferrari both. for drivers and also personnel as well. And yeah, he was just literally having a talk about, I think he's gone on tour, hasn't you, or something, talking about maybe a book that he's released or something. Yeah, exactly. If you bring up a tour, you want to say,

on live show tickets, yeah, yeah. Better than ours, better than his. Exactly. But as for that, there's always a quote, and the quote comes out and people immediately react like, oh my God, Christian Horner's talking about Ferrari has probably said, loads and loads of different things and they

snap that quote up, get it online and suddenly it's like, Christian Horner wants to go to Ferrari. It's like, okay? Just because Warner wants it, doesn't mean it's happening, which is what we've kind of seen. I feel like, you know, he's been a successful team principal. It feels to me,

more like the media want this to happen than anything else. Like, you've not seen any teams wanting Christian Horner, but it's almost like the media are constantly telling us like, Horners could go to Alpine, Horner could go to Cadillac, Horner could go to Ferrari and yet he's not back

you know he wants to come back he clearly said he wants to come back but no team are like rushing to get him clearly so well the media are very keen for it because he has that sort of you know villain sort of storyline and of course Drive to Survive probably want him versus Toto again and and all kinds of stuff that

would be would mean more clicks more views so okay um and also I hope you have all probably watched the Maxford Stapein interview that we put up now definitely is up. I know in predictions we were like it might have been up now it's definitely up and we've had 1.3 million views since we put it up. Crazy. We actually crazy.

So thank you. Thank you for the love on that. Thank you for the comments. Thank you for just, you know, sharing it about because I'm glad it sort of, it matched the sort of reaction matched our expectations. So thank you so much for watching that. And we are now finally going to get into practice. I'm really sorry, okay?

But hey, you apparently like the news and the Natter and chatter beforehand. So let's now get into Free Practice 1 with the top three, with Vastappen, Russell and Hadjar. And that was it. Thanks for tuning in. Free practice 1 was, no. Look, it was great to see the cars, obviously, roll out on track for the first time in a very long time around Malaysia.

And, of course, Max Verstappen being Max Verstappen just goes out there and is quick immediately. And I think that if we were to look at Rep. Presentative sessions. Usually free practice two is the one where you look a little bit closer and go, you know, the top three are maybe sort of the ones that will be looking at towards pole position. But genuinely, I think free practice one and the result there, barring Antonelli maybe being a little bit higher,

is more what the pace actually might well look like because free practice two was very strange with how they did their tire running and some didn't do softs and things like that. Whereas this one, Max at the top, actually looks like Max could genuinely be there this weekend. It does. I'm looking at going on to like FP2. This must be the first time ever.

Well, it's kind of like you say, it kind of rounds up the whole thing together. But this must be the first time we've seen FP2 be slower than FP1 in just a normal dry session. That's quite insane. Obviously, it's the tiniest margin. it's 8,000s of a second. That's got to be, you know, that's got to be so rare that we've ever seen that

because the track rubbers in. We see more. Obviously, the big kind of takeaway from FP2 is that we didn't see the top runners. Sorry, Charlotte-Claer, but like the runners that we think are going to be quicker do lapse, the top three, if you want to call them, that are looking like they're challenging. at the front and could go even quicker, which is why we didn't see an improvement, but very bizarre to see FP2 slightly slower. Yeah, and I think the main thing, as you say, is the fact that we didn't get representative

runs from the top three, all three of those. Vestapp and Russell and Antonelli, being those three were assuming, all did times on the mediums, as opposed to FP1, where I think their fastest time were on the softs. I guess a talking point, well, many talking points actually this weekend, but one of them, of course being, you know, it's a track with very low grip, so I'm fully expecting Valtrey Bottas in the top 10 because he loves a low grip

circuit, my goat. He's looked quicker than Peras as well, so far this weekend. Oh, yeah, of course he is low grip, my guy. I know, he loves it, doesn't he? Equal cars, Bottas would win. But yes, so low grip, Kimmy Antonelli I think said it's the lowest grip he's ever experienced in a Formula 1 car. Of course, he's got

nearly two seasons under his belt, so it's not exactly a massive pool of data to go by, but very low grip, but also very abrasive. Pirelli have brought the medium, the middle set of compounds, the C2, C3, C4. So we've gone from Baku, where the tyres genuinely got better as they drove around the circuit to Malaysia where we have no idea if it's going to be potentially a two or three stop race at this point. No, it's bizarre to go into a weekend talking about so many pit stops because it's so rare and what I'd say to that is can we just have this tarmac everywhere so we get so we get a few

different you know excitements with with strategy maybe because yeah we've unfortunately we've had that situation where we've had a lot of one stops recently we've also had the conversation of like when the racing is good we don't need it to be multiple tire stops but the problem is the last couple of races have needed a bit of carnage and chaos because it's been a bit of a procession until something. Well, Madrid definitely was. Back it was until the incident and then everyone changed. So yeah, the tires is something that's always exciting when they don't know kind of what they're doing with it and we kind of want to see teams confused and not knowing exactly what they're going to do. You know, the worst race is always the ones where everyone gets all the data. They've been to the

circuit a million times the tires are very much a one-stop everyone starts on the same tires and they just pit all at the same time or there's a VSC and they know that's their time to pit get on the new tires done we need strategy and different situations going on and I think that could be a really interesting part to this race just because we don't know what the tires are doing we do not and yes if they are melting away I think that's a good thing you need such perfect circumstances in a one-stop race where, you know, perhaps a slightly slower driver is ahead of a slightly quicker driver and then you get good racing. But it needs such perfect alignment, whereas I think a two or three-stop, you can create great racing just with offsets and, you know,

potential safety cars to mix things up and whatnot. So let's see. I'm excited. Everything seems to be aligning. I also wanted to very quickly mention that Aston Martin apparently decided, that Malaysia is the track where they're not horrendous at because Alonzo 214th, sorry 14th and 15th so after committing and saying hey I am staying till next year at the least he's starting to cook

and that I say cook he's over two seconds off but not horrendous right and there is a back straight and a front straight yeah there's two enormous I say enormous like long straights but it's not a situation like we've had where you know, Baku, he was losing a second on the straight, and that's why he

raged quit the race, essentially. Lance Stroll, I think, said as well that they're losing two seconds through engine alone. That's what Lance said this weekend. I think it was, I think it was this weekend anyway. Wow. Which means Alonzo was a tenth off the fastest time with the same engine as Mercedes. Well, perfect. So, and interesting Alonzo, like we've, another bit of news we've not mentioned is he continued on.

He did the whole rage baiting Sebastian Vettel style intro with his video where he said, I'm retiring from Formula One, but not yet, and have the chair and everything. And interesting, his kind of conversation was, I would not be here. It's that I'm not effing leaving, isn't it? Yeah, and he kind of said that he would be gone if he didn't believe in Ashton Martin could do something potentially next year. So Honda, you better get to work, is all I'll say, because it is. is clearly the engine now is holding them back quite a lot.

And when there's a few more corners thrown in the mix and things like we saw in Hungary, they're not absolutely horrendous. And also experience as well, you'd probably have to say with Fernando, knowing this track very, very well. And then you've got other drivers, like George Russell's never driven around here, which I find insane because he's been in the Formula One circus for quite some time, but just missed out. Lecler has done a free practice one for Sauba.

So that's some big experience to take into. Russell, that blows my mind that Russell's never driven here because he seems like kind of almost like elder statesman now on the grid. But yeah, they all kind of missed it. The kind of rookies of 2019 just missed it. And even, you know, they're sharing a lot of the old school clips and stuff. And Max was the last winner here in 2017. And it was his 20th birthday, I think they were saying,

which is great. so yeah very early in his career as well so it's been a long old time let's move to free practice two where the top three were Lecler Hajjar and Norris but as we mentioned in free practice one the likes of Vastapp and Russell Antonelli all didn't do a run on the soft tires so as much as I'd like to celebrate this and as quite rightly you brought up Tommy Lecler went slower than Vestapp and did in free practice one and you would imagine the track ramp up will be pretty massive once it happens, although I think it ramps up a lot slower

than perhaps some of the drivers were anticipating. The first thing I want to bring up, which is a little bit of a left field shout, not left field in the sense of like, but just like not one of the headlines. Anyone will talk about it. If you're listening to the podcast, predict who you're going to talk about first,

and then Matt will say it. And then I bet you didn't get it. Three, two, one, Lance troll, driving like an absolute weirdo again. Why does he do this? I don't get it. Like, he did it in Silverstone. And the only thing, like commentary were discussing it going,

oh, what was he possibly doing? Is he trying to get rid of some marbles? Is he, what, is he trying to, you know, do something a little bit different? Because he's genuinely turning. So say, for example, like a fast left hander. It was in the middle sector before you get to that really tricky right and then the back straight.

He was going through there, which you would imagine you turn maybe the wheel 30 degrees. He's almost gone left hand down 180 degrees because he's understeering. And the only reason, just like I said in Silverstone, is that he's just raging behind the wheel and just doing something for the sake of it because he's like, well, it doesn't really matter. The tyres are screwed. The car's rubbish. But I've never seen anyone else do it. I think did Fernando do it at one point as well, if I'm not mistaken? He's done some like angry burnouts and things and stuff.

Lance is the one that's done it more so, at least in my memory. And it's just bizarre to watch. It's something you'd do on the F1 game or in an F1 simulator just for just for banter. But I'm like, this is a proper session and he's going left hand down because he's got no grip.

And you saw the slow-mo replay, didn't you? Where you could literally see the tire tread appear around the track from just that one corner. And then he massively locked up the fronts into the pits as well, which I am still going to assume was him just slamming on the brakes

and going these tires are in the mud. There is a ballard of the final corner and it's a very unusual pit entry where you run kind of wide going into that final corner and the race director's notes say that if you miss the corner which we've seen quite a lot of people do and you are on the right hand side of that ballad you have to drive through the pits and i think it was lawson and antonelli and maybe botus as well all kind of cut back onto the track and i don't blame them because as much as they i would be i cannot believe that's not going to change

surely it's going to change because there's no way that a driver is going to drive through the pit lane and give themselves a drive-through penalty during the race if they mess up that corner. Mate, I can see it already. I can see it already. Vastappen just throws Russell into the pits lap one. Like it just goes, I'm running wide and running wide. Oh, sorry, George. You got to go around that bollab, my guy.

See you later. Lap one pit stop. Cheers. It's a less extreme version as what, like, trolls do when you're at Monza and you, like, push your friend into the wall. and like yeah doing that but like yeah pushing someone into the pit it's a ridiculous it's a ridiculous race director and also anti davison was saying that they could there is actually a bit of runoff there so you could that they could go into the pits and then use the runoff on the inside to get back on the track i'd be amazed if that doesn't get implemented and they say no you can do that because

i don't see any way that drivers for one tiny mistake basically have to do a drive-through penalty yeah no it's not going to happen it's not going to happen in the race well the way they fix that is just someone needs to yeat the bollard oh i've gone rounder yeah no problem because there was so many times they nearly hit it in in practice because they run so wide into that quite such a weird corner they run so wide to get the they kind of run down the main straight yeah because it's like almost slightly

the way the corner's cambered yeah it it the hitting the apex is just not it's just not it's just not the way to go. And it's a really tricky corner. It's a really low grip. So I wouldn't be surprised if that gets removed because I mean, as well, you're just not going to take a drive-through. Be like, okay, cool, penalise me instead.

Giving a five-second penalty would be quicker. Yeah, unless you need a pit stop, in which case, that's all right, no problem, I'll go in the pits. But yeah, I find that bizarre. And hopefully they will change that because it could be serious drama for a driver that gets shoved in their lap one. Let's get to a question.

JKG Nerf JVGN. What a great username. Red Bull are looking quick. Is this Max's weekend for his first victory this year? Well, some people call me the Oracle of Predictions this year. That's why he did so well. I did go for Max W for the wet, not the dry. But he's looked really, really quick.

As we've mentioned, free practice two. He's fourth, but he is on the medium tires and a quarter of a second off Charlotte Clare's time. It's still fascinated to see what Russell and Antonelli can do. There are mistakes out there. I don't think anyone's done a perfect lap. But I think this is a great opportunity for Max, not just in the race,

but also to potentially get a pole position from what we've seen so far. He's looked very, very quick. I think the last sector, although, to be fair, I say that, but I remember watching, I think Max's last flying lap, was in FP1 maybe,

where I was like, he's going to lose time in the last sector to the Mercedes. And he actually gained time on George Russell. So I was firmly convinced, that Merck would just dominate that final sector. But obviously with Max Verstappen's best internal combustion engine, he's able to mitigate that and make it a much smaller of a disadvantage. But I firmly believe it.

I think Max is in with a shot whether it rains, whether it doesn't. And yeah, let's see. I really hope this can be the weekend. Obviously, one for the P1 curse that we've released the video, and then he wins the next race, we can silence those talks. But he's been so good recently, so close to victory. Of course, last time out, Madrid he had a chance.

He's been on the podium so much. You look at the run since Barcelona, I think it was, and people put up. People love to do a points tally, don't they? Who's done what? But it's incredibly close between everyone, because Mercedes has had some reliability issues. George has had some problems. Lando's been really quick and then sometimes had like not so great races.

And Max is only a handful of points off like what Mercedes have been scoring for the last handful of races because he's just consistently on the podium. The worry going into this weekend was Mercedes had their upgrade and would that race in Baku, sorry, have been that last opportunity for them before Mercedes go. actually we do want it to be 2014 see you later we're off and they're half a second a lot quicker than everyone and they're actually you know miles ahead we've not seen that so far I hope we don't because it is looking like we're going to get a great race between the two Mercedes and and Max you'd think we're not really seen what Ferrari McLaren can do we'll talk about them in a bit but it is an opportunity for Max he's so close to that win and has been and just maybe just needs that little bit of good,

good fortune because he's finished second so many times now. He has less than two tenths last time out. I'm sure that doesn't haunt you at all, Tommy. But very good opportunity once again for Max and Red Bull. Let's go to a question from P1 Patreon member, A Good Karen. How much fun was it watching Bortoletto and Linblad fighting for several laps and then going three wide into term one with Lecler. God, how much do we love Sopang?

That was incredible, you know, watching essentially more racing than we'd see in the entire Madrid weekend in an FP2 session. Madrid slander again, like they are getting beat every single time. But... Monaco is now not the track that we give a beating for over time. That's what it is. That's the Monaco buzzing right now. they're the second least overtakes circuit now um but yeah it was it was epic to watch really surprised they were doing it i was absolutely loving watching it the portletto and limblad

were just loving having that that battle and you could see the difference in deployment and how they were uh but even even with that the kind of new rules and stuff it was interesting to see how they were like placing the car into turn one we saw again that situation where, you know, you can run different lines through the first corner. So, and this is why me and you have just lauded this race and wanted it back so much because of those first two corners. It's like a better version of China in those first few corners because you can follow so easily. I know you love China.

I'm not slandering China. I think China is an underrated track as well, but it's a better version of it because they can follow. and then you get that run all the way to turn four as well and that's exactly what Bortleto and Limblad were doing swapping positions and my word it's just got me so excited for Sopang again because it was doing that in FP2

surely you know the expectation is going to be so high now it's dangerous because I am also getting very excited for what we're going to see on Sunday but I'm in complete agreement it is a better couple of corners than than China. I think both of them are great. But yeah, I think Malaysia just, the way in which it's sort of,

there's a bit of a choke point, isn't there in China where you have to then go into sort of single file unless you want to crash through turn two. Whereas Turn 2 at Malaysia, there have been moments where you do up and unders and all kinds of stuff. So, yes, it was awesome to see Bortoletto and Limblad fighting.

I did wonder if Harvard was on slightly older tires or was on a different run plan because Bortoletto looked like he was Max Verstappen behind Lindblad. If we think about how Arvid's been one of the top midfield runners, it was like, okay, Audi, wow, are you going to be right in there this weekend? But, of course, Audi having a terrible time of it last time out in Baku. And then Lecler, as he does, just down the inside of the pair of them, cheers, champion in waiting,

is what I thought when I saw that. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting a long, long time. Thank you. Yeah, all right, mate. Shut up. But yeah, love Sopang.

Love to see that. And I hope this is just a taster for it. I really just do think the combination of the Malaysia track being amazing and the low grip side of it means that different lines do genuinely work sometimes to make an overtake happen. So, oh dear, we're getting excited. We need to stop. We need to stop. It could just be a stinker.

Oh, please no, please don't, please don't. Okay, moving on. P1, Patreon member sushi. What's wrong with the McLaren's here? Well, look, I think they were slightly better when we saw the runs in free practice. I was a little bit concerned. I say a little bit. I was very concerned for my good surprise MacLaren when I saw Free Practice 1.

Yeah. Then both being 1.7 seconds off the pace. Quite a few mistakes out there. It looked like a handful to drive. Then Free Practice 2 looks better, of course. Third and sixth. Lando just over a tenth of Charles LeClair, but I still think they're a good half a second back from the pure pace that we'll see

from the Merks and Max. So, yeah, it's surprising. unless they've still got more to give. And again, this is Friday practice. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Huge track evolution. A lot of mistakes out there. I don't think there was a perfect lap that anyone did really on Friday.

So let's see. I think it's not panic stations after what we've seen in free practice too. But yeah, it's just a tough track at the moment. And it will take some time to bed in. This is where if we had a sprint race, imagine we had a sprint race here. and just had one practice session straight into it. It would be carnage. That's one way to get Maxis' tap in his victory this year, isn't it?

Get straight into it. Just straight out there on very low grip track and just get straight out there. But, yeah, McLaren, you don't want to take FP2 times as gospel. It looks better the fact that they've got the order, but then they're still behind a Ferrari and a Red Bull, and we've not seen what Mercedes can do. So it's surprising that after the amazing run that Lando went on, we thought, right, McLaren are really kind of on it now.

You know, Lando was like the man of the moment, wasn't he? Got those two victories. Like, obviously it was sort of a little bit tongue in cheek, but like could he do have a Vastappen and get this title charge or even just, you know, have this amazing run to the season? but yeah McLaren just don't seem to be there at the moment but then again look what happened in Madrid

where he was absolutely nowhere even throughout the whole qualifying session wasn't really there and then putting that pole position lap so you can't count them out especially Lando this year with how well he's been doing indeed and let's go to Brockin' Souls tyre wear looks intense will the tyres go off a cliff and give us three

four stops or is it going to be a boring management race. The pessimistic look that this question is just given there is that we love the different strategy and people do that the problem is you don't want to see people not pushing and going for it and going for overtakes and stuff because they're all just thinking about time management. I really hope we see people going for it. I hope that the dream scenario, whether we get this or not, is that it is that it is

is close between one or the other. And you can see people pushing harder to, but knowing they're going to have to get an extra stop in and just going for it. Versus, you know, some people that maybe a bit, are just kind of doing that classic kind of,

manage the tires. Let's, let's, we've got to hit this delta time and then we'll, and how that kind of plays out. Um, is going to be fascinating to watch because, again,

the expectation of lots of pit starts, lots of strategy is very exciting. But there's always that worry in the back of your mind that if they manage too much, that's when it kind of kills the racing. But it's always been like that with tire strategy races. You can go either way from this is the best thing ever to, oh, actually, they're all just knowing that they want to get to this certain window.

Yeah, there's going to be big third. thermal degradation this weekend, the temperatures or track temperatures is soaring past 50 degrees unless we get, of course, wet weather, which will change things. But if I was to predict, I can't see it being a boring management race, but at the same time, there will need to be a level of management just purely because of that thermal degradation side. You can't just pit and then go on a rampage because you'll just cook your tires immediately as well. But the fact that overtaking is possible here means that I don't think we're going to see people try a one-stop, for example.

But there will be, yeah, as you say, I hope there is a marginal difference between two or three or whatever it might be. We're going to have a few midfield runners, I'm sure, try something where they go long, hard tires. We haven't really seen them yet this weekend. And maybe that's why, you know, the teams are holding them back because they don't really want to waste them because they think they might. use them in in the race but that being said this this whole conversation could be completely irrelevant

if we if we get some rain on sunday which you know is obviously impossible sorry i completely forgot about that but um we will see it looks good i would say on the on the face of it i would be more positive than negative and also i love how you called this this question pessimistic when you are literally the pessimism final boss so that's uh that's interesting to see your your take on that P-1 pitch, remember Dave Powell. Will we get rage-baited with the rain? Well, yes, she thinks, maybe. We have been rage-baited because I think today was the biggest likelihood for rain of the three.

But the thing is, right, and this is where maybe the rage-bait won't happen, is that in Malaysia, yes, a little 30% chance of rain. It doesn't seem that big. But if it hits, if it's just a tiny little, you know, just love. taps the circuit, that could be a monsoon. So we'll see. I'm not holding out hope. But as I said earlier on in the podcast, I don't think we need it.

As much as I need points in the predictions more than life itself and that Tommy's gone for no rain and it makes me sick. We don't need rain for the race. And if anything, I honestly believe we will get a worse race if it rains. Unless it's like midway through the race and maybe things have started to become a little bit stale and then we get a little downpour. Of course, that'll be exciting. But if we just have people running wet tires throughout the whole race because it's really wet,

I think there'll be a lot worse of a race than if we just get a dry, straight shootout throughout the entirety of Sunday's Grand Prix. Yeah, you almost don't want there to be any risk of rain because it almost ruins the Grand Prix when there's the anticipation and it's just constantly talking about like, will it rain? Because then you're just thinking about the rain rather than just enjoying what's in front of you and actually watching the race and the excitement. And they are always the worst races in Formula One where you're just being told it's going to rain in like 10 minutes and then it doesn't happen.

And then it's going to rain in 20 minutes. And then you get so excited for rain that you kind of forgetting about everything else going on. And just like this question says, like it's rage baiting, rain baiting as we've kind of coined this year and how it's happened a few times in Formula One this year. But completely agree with you. It doesn't need it. So I'm not going to be disappointed if we don't see a single drop of rain, predictions aside, because I want to see... Of course, you want you're popping on the Mind the Gap t-shirt again.

You're getting a new one when your 20 points clear. Yeah, I see you. But I don't, I just don't think it needs it to be a good race. We've got, we've seen, you know, battling an FP2, showing that this trek has still got it with the different lines they can go. We've seen that little bit of like deployment variation between a, couple of cars that we're watching when we're watching limblatt and portoletto we've got uh tire wear as well that's going to be a big factor so you know if we if

it absolutely throws it down with rain and it's like monsoon weather and we don't get like a wet to dry it's just going to be a procession you know they're just going to be they're not going to risk they're not going to go offline they're just going to follow each other the spray's going to be too much as we've seen many years gone by it's almost like having to trick my brain of being like wet races really aren't as good as they were back when I was watching as a kid because that in the era of who overtakes a race that was the only time where you actually saw excitement and

you know was the only thing that would actually spice up the race and make it interesting but I just don't think it's the case anymore so I'm not that upset about it if we didn't see it. No, me neither. I was just having one more final point to bring up and I was loading up the FIA documents, but no such clarification yet. About Lewis Hamilton blocking in practice once more,

the blocking practice champion that is Lewis Hamilton, saying that you couldn't see out of his right-hand mirror, which inevitably caused or potentially helped cause the bizarre blocking of Bortoletto. And I'm wondering at what point, what point is able to get a penalty in practice for blocking people? Because yes, I know that maybe his mirror wasn't working properly, but that doesn't matter.

That's not like the FIA go, oh, don't worry then. Yeah, no, your mirror wasn't working, no problem. Like, it's almost every single race weekend. Like, we'll text each other and go, Hamilton blocking again. Like, it happens all the time. It's crazy.

Yeah, it is so true. I mean, the clips you see circulating after the race and his communication or lack of with his engineer is now kind of makes me think that... Perhaps that's what's... You could almost watch that footage and envision the team radio that Hamilton's gone. Is anyone behind me? And just silence. We are checking? We are checking.

You are seventh. Yeah. just ridiculous but again yeah I look on the TV yeah maybe maybe that's what happens I need to do he needs to look on the TV to and the TV need to start

putting a circuit map out with little so he can do it himself because team clearly aren't yeah little f1 game track map just in his car so that he knows that would that would probably be a better way to do it because I do have some sympathy for Lewis because yeah he his you hear the radio there's too many

examples there's too many examples of Ferrari just being the worst communicating team on the grid by a country mile when it comes to, at least Hamilton, I don't know if Leclair has just become numb to it or figure out how to do it in a weird way. Yeah, maybe his words of wisdom book is full, so he now just has all the wisdom to learn from. But anyway, that is it.

Thank you everybody for tuning in. Practice done and dusted tomorrow. We will be watchalonging, of course, for qualifying. Very excited for that, Tommy. Final thoughts. Final thought. just very, very happy to see this circuit back. Feels me with so much joy seeing this circuit back on the calendar.

Can only dream of a sensational return like a turkey or a Imala or something where you see it for another few more years after it being put on the calendar in unusual circumstances, which we've seen with other tracks. So yeah, great to see it. Can't wait for qualifying tomorrow. Bring it on. Hell yeah, come join us. Twitch and YouTube. Matt P1, Tommy, or P1 with Matt and Tommy, come and join us for the watchalong.

And yeah, very excited. Quality should be a banger. Who's going to make less mistakes is basically the question. There's a lot out there. Thank you, everybody. We see you soon. Also, take care. Bye.

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