P1 with Matt and Tommy - Reaction to Bahrain GP qualifying

Episode Date: April 12, 2025

With Tommy off for the day, Matt's joined by the F1 commentating GOAT: it's Alex Jacques!Matt and Alex recap a strangely exciting Bahrain quali with a few amazing laps, even if the FIA managed to make themselves the story once again...Listen to an extended version of tomorrow's Race Review podcast on our Patreon! Sign up to also get every P1 episode ad-free, early access to live tickets and merch, and access to our Discord server where you can chat with us and other F1 fans! Click here to sign up now!Matt's running the London Marathon for the Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity. Click here if you'd like to donate - thanks so much!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 not Tommy. No, Tommy's at a wedding, celebrating love, which is quite frankly disgusting. It's a Formula One weekend. Instead, we have Alex Jakes, the Goat F1 commentator. Of course, we have worked together lots on the sim racing world of Formula One. Alex, how are you, my friend? I am very good. Thank you for having me first and foremost.

And yeah, we get to talk about the real thing today. So what a treat. What a treat indeed. I am not talking to Alex Jake's fire, tin cup and string. There is in fact a microphone in his headset which might need boosting ever so slightly, but I just wanted to cover that off. But it's great to have you, Alex. Thank you so much.

Bahrain, we were leading into qualifying, thinking, my goodness gracious me, McLaren are three business days ahead of everyone else. But it turned out to be quite an exciting one come the end. Well, it's almost like you were messaging me saying, oh my word, three business days ahead. And I said, let's wait and see until we get to the real thing. Oh, it's almost like, you know what you're talking about. That's definitely not the case. But yeah, it was great that we got a far more competitive session than I think we were perhaps expecting.

Right, let's get into Q1 first and foremost, where the bottom five were Holcombberg. Yes, Holcomburg, Lawson, Bortoletto, Stroll and Bearman. Now, the big talking point for this one, not that there was a moment. massive scalp. I think Berman, you know, my biggest good surprise of the season, I was quite disappointed to see down in 20th. But the big talking point, and we'll dive straight into the first question, from Simon Composes,

why did the stewards wait 40 minutes to delete Holkenberg's lap, meaning Albon lost out in Q2, and can they appeal some kind of reparations? Well, that one, that is going to be a murky waters to find out whether that actually happens. But Hulk, so to paint the picture, for anyone that did miss that, Hulk was technically through to Q2,

pipping Alex Albon to 15th position. And then just randomly before the end of qualifying, we heard, oh, oh, Hulk and Berg's lap time has been deleted, which gave very, I think, was it Perez 2020 vibes in Austria? Yeah. And it's a big thing because Albon, it's not like it's 15th or 16th on the grid. It's Albon's chance to do a decent job in Q2

and potentially make it through to Q3. you've got to ref it in the allotted time allowed and you cannot have a situation whereby you're reordering the grid when you're in another segment and qualify do your best to police it within the time that you have allowed but the moment the clock resets that's got to be it that you've got to go on because otherwise you get into a situation where Matt Gallagher's asking his lovely listeners why an earth Alex album was denied the chance to fight through into Q3 and especially. with his teammate up there, that'll be, that'll just be ultra frustrating, weren't it? Because that's process getting in the way of the result. And so I think you've just got to go. We either delete the times by the time we get to the green light at the start of Q2, or you get away with one. Now, there's not a huge amount of context, or at least not that I've seen so far.

You would imagine it's the scenario of a team going, well, did you not, probably Williams going, did you not see Holcomberg's lap there? I'm pretty sure he went off the track, and then they're discovering through their video. evidence and then it's 40 minutes late. Of course, they kind of, in some ways, have to make that decision of, yeah, well, he did, do an illegal lap time make that change. But I guess from your side, yeah, it makes sense as well that you can't just be randomly

changing things once the session is done. It's a difficult area. But for Albon, it's going to be gutting. Because you look at Carlos Sines up in P8 in that Williams. I think Sines has looked better this weekend and perhaps had a slight advantage over Albon which is the first time we've probably seen that so far with them being teammates. But yeah, it's going to be a difficult one for Alex Albon

down in 15. It is going to be a difficult one to take for him because he's been denied the chance to get through and yes, he was in the bottom five, but he's been very, very close with signs and then delivered in qualifying so far this year. 3-0 up in the head-to-head. That's only the third time in the last 50 races

he's been out-qualified by a teammate. So it's pretty unusual for Alex. and an even more unusual way that it's come to pass. So yeah, that's something that's tightening up. It certainly does. Other talking points and storylines, obviously Liam Lawson, his struggles continued, but that was kind of down to his DRS not working.

What I've seen is that it was on the back straight where it just didn't decide to work, which was a 10th, 10th and a half between him and making it through to Q2, so I'm not going to be too harsh on him for that one because it was quite close. And the racing balls may be lacking a little bit of raw, compared to what we've seen in the past. Bortoletto, he's driving a dustbin as is Holkenberg.

And then you have Lance Stroll. He's, Lance Stroll, and I know, look, Alex, you're an official F on commentator. You're just going to slide on that fence beautifully, but I'm not, so I can say what I want. Lance Stroll has very much sort of slotted back into the Lance Stroll, sadly, of the last few years where you go, oh, is that it? Really out in Q1? Because he's, he's been carrying Aston Martin on his back with his rucksack, 10 points saying thank you very much. I've had a great start to the year. But a back-to-back

disasters, 20th in Japan and now 19th in Bahrain. Yeah, no feel behind the wheel at all and no confidence. That's the word, just bouncing around the paddock, confidence. And he hasn't got a need to rotate the car. And we've seen, we'll see as we go further up the grid. But yeah, all at sea with that and really tough moment for him. Because as you say, there was a great result in Australia and he sat his pointless streak and he followed it up in China. and yeah, unfortunately, reverted back to the formula ended last year in. And how much is there to say do you think in the fact that, in my mind,

with how the conditions have been in FP1 and FP3, it almost feels like a bit of a sprint weekend in the sense of one representative session to actually test the car in free practice two. FP1 and FP3 was essentially just a rally course for most of the drivers. How much do you think that some of the drivers have been struggling due to the nature of the fact that even the reference sometimes actually having these practice sessions that aren't anywhere

near the reference you need can actually be a disadvantage. Yeah, I think it's a really good way to put it because essentially you've had one practice session in representative conditions and Carla Sons was talking about it after qualifying. When he said, you only really learn when the car's at the limit and you're on the soft tires. So you can do all the reference laps that you like in practice. But you only find out on the ragged edge what the car can do and what the car can't do. And that's when stroll's being left behind a little bit in the last couple of rant.

Okay, off to Q2 we go, and the five knocked out in this session with Duan, Hadjar, Alonzo, Ocon and Albon. Now, another driver I want to talk about is Jack Dewan. On the face of it, 11th place looks like a great performance, but I'm almost sat there going, there was a lot more, and not just purely on what Gazley achieved, which was a phenomenal lap, but Duan had his nose ahead the entire qualifying session up until the final lap of Q2. Obviously, he does start 11th, which is a great opportunity for him. But I was left wanting a bit more from doing, because we have seen some really good potential with him in dry conditions,

where it hasn't been, you know, a bit of a lottery or a sprint weekend or whatever it might be. There has been glimmers of potential and again this weekend. But 11th, I was just wanting a little bit more. Yeah, I imagine he was as well when he was the lead out Pene in the early parts of qualifying. The thing is, that pressure of delivering and getting into the top 10 shootout, That's just what you learn with experience. He hasn't got it. And he's building back his confidence after a pretty rough start for the year in terms of crashes.

In Melbourne, obviously had the mechanical issue in China as well. And it was a massive crash. When you're having to be helped down on the car at the end of the Japanese Grand Prix by a competitor in Esteban Okon, that was a huge smash into the wall. And so he's building back his confidence, his feel for the car. But this is a racetrack where he's obviously had preseason test. and he's got form around here with a poll in Formula 2 in the past. So this is slightly more comfortable territory for Jack.

Yeah, he'll be slightly disappointed that he didn't make the top 10, but that's still a career best start for it. It certainly is. And another worth mentioning about, or actually the fact that I haven't read his name out, is that Yuki Sonoda made it through. Daniel Bridden 8 says, should we be more impressed with Sonoda making it to Q3,

as Max is really struggling to drive the car as well? It was very much on the cusp, wasn't it, Sanoda, trying to get through. It was ninth and tenth for Red Bull in Q2 to make it through. They, I mean, Yuki's done a great job, I would say. It was, I think, within a couple of tenths in Q2, which is exactly what the doctor ordered when it comes to Yuki Sonoda and his hire there. But I think overall, as Red Bull, you're sort of scratching your heads a little bit, aren't you? I think they'll be happy if you can replicate your two-tenths of a second thing.

Obviously, they're struggling to engineer a consistent, performance from the second car. They've had a terrific bunch of drivers who have gone in and done it. Obviously picking Liam Lawson after 11 races and then sacking him after two, demoting him down to two. It just robbed Lawson of preseason testing in the car that he'll be driving for the rest of year and it lost Yuki Sonoda preseason testing. And as a result, they're making up for lost time. I think that's impressive to get through. because there's a little bit of pressure there after what happened in Japan last week on Yuki and Friday looked on obviously from watching practice it looked painful and I had to say after FP3 I was thinking he'll do well to make it out of Q1 here and and he did and he managed to make

Q3 for the first time of that circuit so solid stuff from him because that was more of a mental test than a physical one the Red Bull is obviously not the races now before we dive to Q3 there is a man on talk about Fernando Alonzo 13th 3rd 1, 13th, 3th, 3th, 3th, 3th, 3th, 3th, 3th, the grid. Quite an anonymous just starts the season for Alonzo. It's not gone his way. But the team radio that he came out with, it felt heavily sarcastic.

I don't know if it was or not, because it made absolutely no sense why he was saying, I think it's typical Fernando Alonzo, where he wanted to make sure he knew, everybody knew that he got the absolute maximum out of the car. But then saying, well done, guys.

I was like, is he really? that happy right now with 13th and that is exactly the lap that he could have got out? I don't know. It just felt as though there is a simmering frustration that Fernando Alonzo is feeling. I'm a fan of a bucket load of sarcasm. But given that he didn't even have a steering wheel attached to the car yesterday, I feel like it's not impossible that it was genuine. I mean, the video that was going around of him just like opening and close it and look, it's kind of coming off in my hands.

But I feel that if that's your Friday, B-13 may not be a bad Saturday. And who knows? As long as I've joined Bobber and David Kordano, the commentary course, they thought it was sarcastic. Who knows? Either way, it's just a little bit heartbreaking

that two years ago he was fighting for the lead at starts of races and finishing on the podium eight times that year and now he's back in the mid-pack because he's magic around Barreid and 13 is probably the best thing you could have got out of it. Now let's get to the top 10 and Q3. The order, Piastri, and we actually need to change this because this order's wrong, is Piastri, Lecler, Russell, then Ghazly 4th, Antonelli 5th, Norris 6th, Vestappen, signs, Hamilton and Sonoda. Now, you might be wondering why I'm saying

it like that. Well, literally about five minutes before we started recording, there was confirmation that both Russell and Antonelli have a one-place grid penalty for coming out of their pit box a little bit too early. They went out with the estimated time to leave the pits rather than the actual time, which is quite bizarre, to be honest with you. I don't have a specific question on it, but I think definitely is worth talking about.

Nothing happened when they did that. Yes, I know there is a time where it's deemed the pit lane is safe, and perhaps there is a slap on the wrist to be had, but a one-place grid penalty, I feel as though is a bit over the top, especially from at least from the out and outsiders perspective, is there slightly mixed messaging there dropping an estimated time and then a real time and mistakes can be made?

I don't know, I just felt like a one place grid penalty for something like that. It felt like a team fine, a reprimand, whatever it might be. If something is a one place grid penalty, Matt, is it really that bad? So we've had a one place. grid penalty in Qatar last year. That was a bit ridiculous. And now we've had one place grid penalties for Russell and Antinelli.

Bit ridiculous. We've got a huge fan base that have discovered Formula One in recent times. Let's not mess around over process. I'm totally with you. And also, if there's no absolute necessity to change the grid after we've gone off air, don't do it. You know, go to dinner. Live your life.

Have a wonderful time. I don't, I don't really see. If you're into one place grid penalties, you could have probably let it slid. And yeah, I don't, I don't understand that one particularly. And I didn't understand Maxes in Qatar last year. And, yeah, if it's impeding a driver, you've got to penalize it. You've affected the result.

If it's queuing in the pit lane, that is admin. It's not a world admin check-in chip. Yeah, and this is coming from me. Charlotte Clare's now on the front row of the grid. I couldn't believe it. I could not believe what I was hearing. That's when you know it's a ridiculous penalty because Charlotte Clos on the front row of the grid

is going to win it all tomorrow, especially when I biggest flopped him, or sorry, big flopped him for this race. Yeah, trying the old reverse. Well, my big flop has been so horrendous this year, Alex. No, I've seen. We've all seen, Matt, everyone's seen. I just, I wanted some momentum.

And even if it means, no points but a Charlotte-Cla win. I'll absolutely take it. Question, Darren talks ball. Is it too early to say that this may actually be a fairly tight race over the course of the season between the four fastest teams? Well, of course, I think this Darren is coming very much at the angle of Lando Norris in the fastest car, not able to deliver to the extent that his teammate did Oscar obviously on poll, a brilliant lap from him. It's an interesting story, isn't it, with the fact that McLaren have the fastest car, but they don't have a world champion in either of their drivers.

They both are learning on the fly. Lando, of course, is a bit more experienced than Oscar. Oscar's trajectory I've been so impressed with. Last year, we saw a period of time where we went, okay, is this the Oscar that we're going to see? Then he fell off a little bit towards the end of the year. He started this year so much better already, especially in race trim, and he has the one-lap pace.

So if Oscar can get this momentum and not make the mistakes that we've seen from Lando occasionally, of course Lando had a great win in Australia, which I think was unfairly criticized, then yeah, Oscar may well start to run away with this and take the championship lead. But there are mistakes out there, both from the drivers and the teams. You've got George Russell, who I think is outperforming that Mercedes brilliantly. Kimmy Antonelli is now starting to get a handle of that car, at least from this weekend. Charlotte-Cla is the greatest driver of all time. So of course, he's kind of, he's getting the car up there as well.

So I just threw that one in there. But it is, it's not as if it's a Red Bull with one driver with the fastest car where they dominate the championship. You've got the storyline with two McLaren drivers that we've not seen go head to head yet. And we may not even see that tomorrow with the starting grids. It's not a done and dusted McLaren have got this in the bag. And it's clear to see with Max one point behind coming into this. You've got to go and earn it.

And I think what we've seen today and over the first four qualifying sessions of the year in the Grand Prix format for Lando Norris is how immensely impressive Lewis Hamilton and Max Astap and Thien rattling out pole positions and whims for fun. Nothing is easy in Formula One. That McLaren is quick, but it will bite you back. It's a wide open race because of the thing that you highlighted, Matt. You've got two drivers who are rapid trying to reach a level across 24. races that they'd never reached before. And we saw a big progress last year with Landau Norris.

And the one bulletproof thing for Landau last year was qualifying. He would put brilliant laps together, eight poles for the season of the things that we were debating about what was going to hold him back for a championship at the start of the year. You would not have listed qualifying. And I think that that is why after Q3, it's the first time that we saw him like, almost struck with, you know, what's going on here. Quali was the strength last year. I should be building on that. This should not be the difficult bit.

But nothing is simple when you've got a car that's consistently going to be at the front. And the expectation has gone through the roof. Bookmakers' favourite to win the World Championship. It's a different type of spotlight. To say George Russell at the moment, who's just free hitting for fun, right? He knows he's not expected to get into the top.

three. So any single time he can do a qualifying that puts in P2, then the one face penalty down to P3. It's a bonus. He's in bonus territory. Piastri and Norris are expected to lock out the front row week in and week out. The problem, Volando, is that he's given himself a hole to dig out of in all four qualifying sessions this year. And we've seen sometimes he can and sometimes he come. And China, Japan and now Bahrain, he's not being able to dig himself out of it. I'd love to see him. and this is so counterintuitive, but I'd love to him to commit no news,

no headlines, don't say that it feels like I've never driven a Formula One car before, mumble your way through, give no sound bites, and deal with that away from the cameras. Because every single question,

on the driver's parade, from everyone on the grid tomorrow, even when going for a wee, before the race, is going to be like, oh, you were beating yourself up yesterday. You're putting that negative energy back in your head on Sunday if you come out after Quali and beat yourself up. It's very reminiscent

of early Andy Murray, British tennis player years ago used to berate himself time and time and time again. And when he started winning majors, his coach would not let him do it. And I think that's a step that Lando's going to take. He'll look at the date. He'll come back. And with the right timing tomorrow, he's still a factor to win this race. Because I do think the McLaren is going to filter back through the field. I think their tire temp over one lap and their handle on the rubber in terms of peak performance in quality and in terms of degradation across a race distance

is just ahead of the field. I think that's the massive difference between McLaren and everyone else. Lovely stuff. A question from a P1 picture member, Old Father Ted. Is Lando feeling the pressure from Oscar already? I think it's, you know, Alex, you said it quite nicely.

it's not just Oscar, it's the media, it's everything, there's storylines trying to be built. And I am in complete agreement that Lando needs to just give it a couple of word answers. Don't over-explain yourself because you're always going to get misquoted. You're always going to get pushed in a different light. And Lando is a phenomenal driver. He is so quick, and I think, and we've seen it already, we've seen in Abidabie last year. He can lead from the front and he can deal with pressure. He had the Constructors Championship, which McLaren were very much wanting, on his shoulders from lap 1 in Abu Dhabi and had signs within a second and a half, two seconds, the entire race.

It's not to say that he can't deal with pressure because he can, but there is obviously these moments that will make him start to question. I think he will be a little bit concerned to see just how good Oscar is becoming. I think it's natural. You're always going to compare yourself to your teammate. You've got the same machinery under you. but this is I still and people are maybe a little bit less forgiving with Lando because he's been in the sport

what now five six seasons quite is becoming experienced in terms of a Formula One driver compared to some on the grid but he is still learning in the sense of fighting for a championship we saw that last year and we're seeing it again this year but can he learn quick enough to win one

because in my opinion McLaren aren't going to be fastest from 26 so this is Piaastri and Norris is potentially their last chance for a little while. It's a 24 race season. That's the one thing I would say. This is a bad day for the championship aspirations of Lando Norris, but he can still win the race tomorrow. The great thing is he's incredibly talented, Matt. He is rapid. And Piatri has had to up his game because the biggest difference between the two of them

was qualifying pace by a mile. 20 to 4 last year. And suddenly Oscar's got a handle on that. great for him and he's he's brought the heat. That's why that's why Lando's feeling the pressure after qualifying, but it's a very long campaign. We're going all the way to December. There's a long time to put it right.

Now we have to speak about a man that will start fourth, obviously qualified fifth, Pierre Gazley. T-Gas 6912, realistically can Gassley finish within a few places up or down of where he qualified? Well, a few places up will be second position, which I think he will take every day of the week. he's going to be on the back foot. I think that Gazley has outperformed that car amazingly. This is the Gasley that was so used to seeing

back in the sort of Alpha Towery days and whatnot. So it's great to see Ghazly be able to perform like this in qualifying. You've got to think Norris is coming through, maybe Vastappan once he sorts his brake issues because that was something he was constantly complaining about in qualifying, which I think definitely did hinder him from potentially getting up towards sort of third position on the grid. signs, I don't think so, Hamilton's had a difficult qualifying.

You expect him to be strong in the race he always is. So I think Gadsley will be happy. If he finishes seventh tomorrow with no DNFs, I think that would be a strong result. That would be a fantastic result. Bearing your mind that he's starting P4 with a car that's not been in the top 10 this year. So, I mean, fantastic performance, especially if you consider he was a plum at the back this time last year. So huge amount of work that's gone on. And Enstone, when he's in the groove, as we saw at Vegas last year, when he's in the groove, he's absolutely rapid.

And wonderful to hit his team radio when you usually hear swearing and complaining. So it was lovely to hear swearing and a positive message at the end. So great delivery from him. Any points, even P9, P10, great result. All he needs, Alpine just need to get up and running. phenomenal stuff. I think that pretty much sums up qualifying for the Bahrain Grand Prix. Big shout out to you, Alex Jakes, for slotting in for Tommy,

who of course will be back tomorrow after his celebrations, his wedding celebrations, not his, he's been married for many years. How would you sum up your thoughts and feelings going into tomorrow? Alex, are you excited for this one? I am excited. I love a race around Bahrain. You can overtake in the turn one, you can overtake in the turn four. And I will take that in a, I will lap that up, Matt Gallagher, because I can't wait to see what we get.

We should get some side by side action. And Piastri is in a great position to convert. But I don't know. We keep thinking at the start of weekends we're going to get one thing and we keep getting another. So I'm all for it. I'm having a lot of fun this year. I'm fully expecting you, Alex, if you have commentated Charlotte Claire taking the lead into term one, you just with one hand loading up the P1 watch along to see what's,

going on on there as well, whilst you're commentating, because it could get wild. I'm not expecting Ferrari race pace in the slightest, but we can dream. Thank you, Alex, again, and we'll see you very soon. We'll be live, as always, tomorrow on YouTube and Twitch for the Barang Grand Prix watch along. Tommy will be back, and we'll see you there. Lots of love. Bye. P1 is a Stack production and part of the ACAST creator network.