P1 with Matt and Tommy - Reaction to Barcelona-Catalunya GP qualifying

Episode Date: June 13, 2026

As many thousands of you who joined our live stream halfway through will know, it was a challenging afternoon for one particular driver over in Barcelona. But there were some surprising results up and down the grid too!Our brand new live show 'Super Podding' is coming to the UK and Amsterdam this autumn! Get your tickets here: http:/tix.to/p1liveSign up to 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. I don't want to do this one. I don't fancy it. I'm not in the mood. I'm really not in the mood, Tommy. Why is that? Shut up. See, this is why.

You know, you're P5 and you're strutting around the place like you're happy as Larry. But I'll take a P5 right now, that's for sure. But welcome, everybody. We're going to talk about qualifying for the Bastogne of Catalonia. at Grand Prix, and a great qualifying session, to some degree, it was. Depending on who you support, of course. And yeah, it was surprisingly entertaining. I think qualifying has obviously been under quite a lot of scrutiny this year,

but good battle for pole and very close battle for poll indeed. Indeed, but we begin at the very beginning with Q1, where the bottom six were Ocon, Albon, Perez, Bottas, Stroll, and Alonzo. So by the emphasis on Stroll, this is the first time in 43 Grand Prix that Lance Stroll has outqualified Fernando Alonzo for the main weekend, right?

That's my understanding. For Grand Prix qualifying, yeah. Yeah, for the proper one, the big boy one. So that is a record that is now shattered in pieces. It was a small margin between Stroll and Alonzo literally in their own league, but in a bad league. talking about, you know, the bottom league. They were a second

off Cadillac, those two, fighting around in quite literally the dustbin league. But Lance Stroll mate, Fernando Alonso's home track to be outqualified is simply, to be fair, as much as we're kind of like jesting, like, ha ha ha, ha, whatever, I reckon

Fernando was actually devastated. Yeah, Alonzo will be hurt by it because he loves to share the fact that he absolutely whitewash his people in qualifying and things. Have you seen what Lance Stroll said afterwards? He was absolutely buzzing about it. He was asked in the media pen, this is from Nate Saunders. He asked Lance Stroll how he felt about Fernando Lantos, 42 race qualifying street being over. And Lance Stroll's reaction was, I don't care. And then he asked what it would mean, if it would mean more if the team were up

in Q2 or Q3. And he said, I don't know, I don't give an S. Oh, so that is someone that does give an S because, but in like a, it's quite an embarrassing record to have finally broken. And it just obviously just how badass are, they're just all sick of it, aren't they? Yeah, they really are. And if the rumours are anything to go by, Alonzo might be off to Alpine, which again, back to Alpine to be reunited with Flavio Briatore. That's the last thing that we've heard is that they're pushing very hard to get. Fernando at that team, but that is a question in itself, isn't it? To be fair, there is a question around the Fernando Lonza retirement, which we'll go into now from P1 Patreon member Rosie Rangetsu.

What are the chances we see a Fernando retirement announcement in the near future? Aston is still at the back of the pack and I have no doubt he's gutted qualifying last at his home race. I think it would have been a very sobering experience for Fernando to just be there qualifying literally last. That's something he's, even at Menardi, he was doing great things and able to not start

on the back row of the grid. But in this car, it's impossible. In this current regulation, it's impossible. So I don't see him retiring off the back of this season as much as,

you know, my pre-season prediction was around Aston being terrible and Fernando retiring. You can't be turning your back on the, you know, the career that you love so dearly

on the, the worst season, not from his, you know, it's not his fault, but just the worst season he could have possibly imagined. Now the question is around, you know, does he go to Alpine? Is that even an option? Does he stay with Aston Martin? Because you go to Alpine, if that is a genuine possibility, which seems to be the case, you are solidifying like a, maybe a chance of some scraps of points. Or do you stick with Aston Martin and Adrian Newey, who Lawrence Strong has brought in specially to try and keep Fernando there to then bin them off after a season because they're terrible.

I don't know. I feel as though Fernando would probably still lean more towards staying at Aston Martin because he wants to win a world championship. He wants to win races. He wants to be on the podium. And are Alpine going to be able to do that in the next year? I don't think so. No.

No, they're certainly not going to be able to. And let's not forget Fernando Alonzo left in the first place. His first retirement was because, and do. doing LeMont and Indy car and things like that was because he wanted to just win again. And he wanted to know what that feeling was like because he himself said, well, if you're not driving a Mercedes or a McLaren or a Red Bull, you can't win or whatever. So like any of those top cars. And he's not going to have an option to go to any of those top cars again.

An Alpine is basically, yeah, him fighting for maybe he can still show what he can do and get the odd P7 or maybe like a great. podium like Gazley has done in those moments. But is that enough for him? I personally think it is. I could see him leaving Aston Martin. He loves to hop around teams. It would be his fourth time at Alpine. He's got the connection there with Flavia Brio Torre and he doesn't want to end his career. I think Ashton Martin is an absolute dumpster fire at the moment. I think there's just getting worse and worse. They're not going anywhere. They are so far behind Cadillac. I don't see any progress. The mood of both drivers and just everyone in the team makes it feel like that they're not going anywhere.

So I don't think even the joy of thinking about like, oh, Adrian Nui is going to find this magic thing like a double diffuser and suddenly we're going to be amazing. I just, I really don't see that happening, even with Fernando Alonzo's luck. I mean, watch Alonzo's luck that they're amazing next year if he does leave. But I just don't, don't see it happening. And Asa Martin are getting worse, if not better. You know, they've not made any improvement. And Cadillac are there fighting, almost getting into that kind of Williams territory and has.

Nasta Martin are doing absolutely nothing. So it's a shame for him to end his career this way and even more embarrassing for it to happen at Barcelona because he'd have been dreaming about this moment, probably thinking that I could win this race in January, for example, when everyone was actually hyping them up, Adrian Newey, what can they do? and now he is last like literally last for the first time in his career qualified last

obviously without any technical issues and so on and so forth which is not a stat I think he ever would have wanted to have and then also you know with this whole Aston Martin thing like it's just the whole situation

within the team is that is so unclear isn't it as to whether they will find a solution because it's such a massive solution they need to find and you mentioned the rear diffuser or like, you know, coming up with something crazy,

it's an engine reg. Like, there's only so much you can do with the arrow these days to make up the time. It's all about the power, really. The chassis is not great either for Aston Martin, as we know. But yeah, they've just got so many limitations at the moment that I think that they can make big improvements. You know, they're a second behind Cadillac around the track

where no car can hide. So they are clearly miles off. And I feel like they can make big steps towards the midfield, but then to get to take that extra step towards the top four teams seems nigh on impossible so it's a very difficult decision for fernando to make that is that is for sure let's not go to q two where the bottom six was lindblad bortoletto colapinto gasley bearman and signs big talking point of course nico holcomberg not mentioned because he made it to q three for the first time this season very very well deserved after all of those 11thes places. He finally made it. Arvid Limblin, I think, will be a little bit disappointed, albeit,

you know, P-11, P-10, that's kind of all he was going to be, maybe, you know, fighting Lawson for P-9. That's all that was on the table for the midfield today, because the top four teams, again, miles clear. So I don't think Arvind will be too disappointed, but

I think he made a mistake on his final lap because he was sitting very pretty ahead of Lawson after the first runs, but then wasn't able to improve because of that last lap. No, V-Carb have looked very strong this year. Lawson has been brilliant. It has to be said.

And yeah, I think Lindblad would have definitely got through, had it worked out for him and had the pace to. But, yeah, Holkenberg snuck through. And, yeah, it's a missed opportunity. Of course, he is 11th. So still not outrageously bad, because had he got through, he's probably finishing, well someone finished 10th we'll talk about him later but

obviously like at the back end of oh yeah god I love how I was talking about the top four teams and yeah it was a fight for P9 P10 it was actually a fight for P8 sorry yeah yeah yeah cool cool thanks for reminding me yeah really I genuinely had dropped that out my head for a second but yeah it was interesting to you have to see that of course Bortoletto P12 for him not too disappointing then the two Alpins

colapinto of course out qualifying Gasly, which in the head to head, they're looking, Colopinto's looking pretty good this season, especially when we thought of the pressure that he might be feeling coming into 2026. Then you have Behrman who out-qualified Ocon, we didn't mention in Q1 actually. O'Con, of course, out in the first part of

qualifying and feel as though again that pressure will start to ramp up on his shoulders. I think neither of us, Tommy, can feel like we will see Esteban on the grid next year. That is a really horrible and sad thing for us to because we both really like him, but it seems that is the case just when you look at the performances he's putting down in comparison to Ollie.

Definitely, I really can't see how Ockon turns us around and if he's not happy with being beaten by Bairman, which I imagine he's not, I don't think he's, I think he's kind of used, this was his opportunity to move away from LP and find a new team that he could settle into and really enjoy. I don't think that's happening at Hasse

and obviously Berman has been comfortably better this season and it was a huge margin in qualifying again so yeah I really can't see Ocon kind of being in Formula One next year sadly for him and his fans but yeah you mentioned Colapinto

they're now level Colapinto and Gasley and the head toad in qualifying if you include the sprints which I think is a great achievement for Colopinto when his qualifying was the thing that really let him down beforehand and was kind of meant he had such poor races before and it's having quite a strong season but still it's not really

where alpine want to be when it looked like they were on the fringes there's been some races where alpene are just in a league of their own that being ahead of the midfield obviously still no one of the top teams um but yeah not where they want to be down in like 13th and 14th right let's move on to williams signs of course just scraping through the the queue two alban at did not make it. P1 Patreon member Tony Soprano asks, are we allowed to criticise James Vowls yet? He sells a good message,

but it's debatable whether Williams are really much better than when he took over. I think Williams were completely, you know, in the mud. You've got to think how bad it was for Williams. They were, they're kind of laughing stock of Formula One very much at the back.

And I do think, you know, they've improved even if you hadn't seen what they'd done last year and the year before, even taking that out of it. There is some slight improvement. That being said, I think James Vowles, yeah, it is an embarrassing look that they really kind of sold the dream of this season being incredible. You know, of the, of course, the infamous quote of break everything. It doesn't matter.

It's all about 26. And now they've gone into 26 and they are the worst team with the Mercedes engine by far. they're really struggling. I think I think Aston Martin in a weird way are saving the blushes of Williams a little bit because they would be the biggest talking point for maybe like the biggest flop of the season so far

had it not been for Aston Martin. I've got to say, we spoke about kind of Ockon and we're talking about Van der Olenzo moving on. I think science is an interesting piece in the puzzle as well because I could see him already kind of thinking about a move and thinking that he doesn't want to be wasting his talents at the back because this was a big promise for Williams to improve. And if seats do start opening up elsewhere,

I could also see Carlos moving on. Yeah, so could I. I feel like Williams, unless they came out the blocks close to podiums, Carlos was always going to look around. I think it was always going to be a stopgap unless Williams and James Fowles were able to do something incredibly good. But they've not. They've gone massively backwards from a season where Carlos was on the podium.

Literally last year, of course, very different regulations. Twice. Yeah, Carlos was probably thinking, all right, maybe I have cooked here. Maybe I am in the right spot. You then come to this year, you know, they miss the start of preseason testing. They're on the back foot. I don't think it's a case. It's not like it's news to us, though, right?

Williams have been on the back foot. And I feel as though, you know, the criticism came at the start of the year. And I think we were accepting of the fact that Williams will be bad this year. To sort of start slandering them now when they are still bad, I think is, I don't know, it's not like much has changed. So we knew they were going to be pretty poor. They are going to be poor. Let's sort of, I think for James Vowls,

he has so many qualities that are excellent as a team leader. Because we don't know what goes on behind the scenes. We don't know what he's like actually dividing the teams up into an efficient way of pushing a team forward. But everything you see outside. of that. He's, you know, he's fantastic on camera. Everything's, you know, seems like he can communicate really well, which is obviously very important. I would say we judge him more so for next year now. Like, we have judged him. We've said, God, that's terrible. What have you done? If he can sort of get them on a decent trajectory, and Williams have shown a small amount of pace for a team that

we both just wrote off at the start of the year, like, oh, they're just going to be awful. and they also accepted coming into this weekend that it would probably be a bad weekend for them. So I don't know. I'm not here to quit, maybe it's because I just really like James Vals, but I also, I don't think it's the time yet

to kind of heap another load of it on when nothing really can change in this small amount of time. No, they need to improve though throughout this season, particularly if they want to keep someone like Carlos Sites on board, I think I need to see improvements of them potentially, you know, getting ahead of like an LP. or looking like they can score regular points.

Absolutely. Right. If we have to, it is now time for Q3, where the top ten were Russell, Hamilton, Antonelli, Norris, Vastappen, Hadjar, Piastri, Lawson, Holcomberg, LeCler.

No time for LeClaire. Yeah, Charles LeClair. Crashed. He did. He crashed. Again. The third crash in two weeks. Okay, this one, I don't really have any defence.

I really don't. I think this was an incredibly poor showing from LeClaire this weekend. Monaco and Canada to a degree, right? He's very vocal on the brakes are just not working. The brakes are really inconsistent. and when we've sort of rolled through practice this weekend, it's clear that LeCler has a lot more confidence underbreaking and was competitive from his times.

He was in with a shout of pole position today. The mistake that he made, he said in the post-Rase, post-qualie interview, sorry, several times that he was ashamed of what he put down. And yeah, it is an incredibly poor showing on the first run to bin it. He has one small correction, but he commits to it.

I think he took 10 kilometres an hour more speed into that right-hander to try and gain a bit of time that Ferrari were losing in turn four. I don't mind that. He's pushing. It's Q3. You're on the limit.

And something that I know that he will also regret massively is committing after that first snap, he tries to commit again to that same lap, despite it being, and this is Bankelap territory. This is make sure you're in the top five. Then we go, then we go ham.

No, no penalty. Louis Hamilton did go ham. Yeah. Yeah, like Monaco, exactly. And instead, he goes flying into the wall and loses any opportunity to have a shout at winning the race tomorrow. Who knows what Ferrari's race pace is going to be like. But I think it's going to be quite an interesting, chaotic one. You've got the two Mercedes drivers that I feel like they're going to fight.

You've got Hamilton right up there with a phenomenal performance. And Lecler is down in. 10th and he's got so much work to do just to get through the other drivers that aren't necessarily that much slower. McLaren aren't that much slower. Max isn't that much slower. I think even had Jop put a decent lap on the board to cause a lot of problems for LeClaire trying to come through tomorrow.

So yeah, that was one of the worst mistakes he's made in a while because there's nothing, there's no cope. I can't cope with this one, literally, because he's gone flying into the wall from a driver error. Yeah, there's no excuses with this one. which obviously we've heard a handful of excuses for the most recent races and things. But as you mentioned, it's I think even more shocking that in Monaco, we had this discussion of like, oh, well, he goes for his banker lap and then he just throws it all on the table

and kind of goes crazy with it. And he is the kind of driver that in this is how he seems to drive is like risks versus reward, all risk if I crash I crash and he does that in Monaco but this is this is his kind of bank a lap to get in and it's insane that he's gone that that crazy that early on and I think that's a very good point there that it's the kind of thing it's a it's a big error to do that so early in the session when you've not even got a time on the board because had he got a time on the board and he does it later on you know at least there's such a chasm between the other cars that at least he's kind of making up a good few spots.

And it might even go from bad to worse because the state of the car, he might have to start from the pit lane. We don't know, right? You know, his gearbox might be munched, even though, of course, he went in nose first. It was still a big impact. I think it was over 25G because the medical car was called out.

So it was a big crash. Glad to see him walk away unharmed. And, you know, the only thing he was concerned about was the fact he'd crashed. So glad to see he's all fit and healthy. but yeah a really tough one to kind of try and process there's a question from people on petrie member cubitzer would save Ferrari seriously is it a time to worry about all charles crashes I think it's been a thing to worry about for a while and I think it's even more

extreme now a lot of people are saying that you know this is his third crash in three competitive sessions. It's his fourth in four weekends, if you include Miami as well. And the only weekend that he's not crashed in recently is Canada, which was, of course, a horrendous race and he almost went into the Wall of Champions as well. The one where we would have kind of, oh, fair enough, you went into the wall in Canada because you hated your brakes, but that's the one place he didn't crash. Exactly. And he's had an absolute shocker. And can't sugarcoat it. I've defended, Charles, think he's an incredibly top driver, but no other top driver crashes anywhere near as much as he does. There's no other driver that has such an enormous kind of crash compilation. And

there's all for him trying to overcome the deficit maybe of Ferrari not quite being there or things like that. They were there today. They were there today. And you see they were exactly. And you see what Lewis Hamilton has done. And Charlotte Claire, this form and this amount of crashing is something we expect from drivers in maybe their second like first second or third season like he is far too much of an experienced driver to be crashing this much and it's not a good look at all and i don't think it helps anyone because it piles even more pressure on him and there's just nothing to i know it's not crashing on purpose but it's it's literally a case of like you need to like rain it back even if you're three tenths off hamilton or a couple of tons of hamilton you don't know

need to be flying into corners like 10 kilometers an hour quicker than you did last time try and make up a deficit because you risk crashing and it just keeps happening again and again and again and this is I have to say like probably one of like the lowest moments in the Claire's career I think for for these races and there's a lot of question marks that have come out of it and and people that you know questioning is he as good as people have been saying because his form has been really poor. Yes, he is excellent, I will say that. One of the reasons why, you know,

I support Shalda Clare and love to see him drive is the fact that he will risk it all in qualifying in particular, right? You know, he is on his day, probably the fastest driver over one lap. The problem is his days are not particularly, they're very few and far between this season, whether he's just not getting on with these new regs of cars or whatever it might be, it's a lot of crashes.

I think that if he was at any other team, I'd be like, God, he really needs to stop doing that. Otherwise, his seat might be under threat. But I just, I feel like Charles is very much Ferrari's golden boy that he'd have to do so much in order for Ferrari to even contemplate getting rid of him. I don't know. As much as we talk about credit in the bank with Max for Stappen and Lewis Hamilton, this, that and the other.

Charlotte Claire doesn't have an enormous amount of credit in the bank when it comes to actual accolades. He's on eight victories. It's not like he has an insane amount, but then he's also been up against Ferrari and the cars that they've given him for many seasons. So I'm not, yeah, I'm kind of worried for this season with how much he's crashing. I'm not worried for like his career as such. But I would just like to see a connection. consistent run of just competitive sessions now where he doesn't crash. Just a nice, clean race tomorrow.

P10 to P4. Great. 10 out of 10 drive rings. Yeah, I mean, I would argue it helps him being at Ferrari because he's almost gets like a little bit of a free pass sometimes of like, oh, classic Ferrari, even when he's made mistakes himself. And I think, like, in a weird way, sometimes he can like lean on that whole like, oh, Ferrari haven't delivered the best car and it kind of like saves him a little bit from

from that side and I think that's probably what a lot of people would be thinking as well. Speaking of what people might be thinking, question from the vocal hero. How must Brembo be feeling right now? Brembo breaks, of course. They're getting so much publicity at the moment because of Charles's comments about them over the last couple of weekends and now Charles changing over to Lewis Hamilton's breaks for this weekend. How must they be feeling?

Well, look, they will probably just be feeling quite vulnerable and hurt anyway because of what Charles said about them. And it's not as petty as are. Charles in the wall, Brembo brakes on top. That's not what they're thinking. That would be insane. Imagine a slander tweet from them. Yeah, yeah.

But also, it's nothing to do with the brakes. It's not like he locked up and went in the wall. It was all about power delivery and how eager he was on the throttle. So the Brembo breaks conversation, there's nothing to be said here or anything to really be gained from Brembo because it was not an underbreaking mistake. Yeah, yeah, exactly right. It was nothing to do with the brakes. So Brembo aren't going to be there going, oh, we feel really smug or anything like that. They don't want to see a driver crashing.

They'd much rather have a team to supply breaks for. And they'd much rather have, you know, Charlotte, Clair using their brakes and equally Lewis Hamilton using their brakes, which is changed. and not to do. But yeah, it's one of those things where a lot of people jumped on that fact, I think rightly so, because I guess the crashes in Monaco, however you, how much you contribute to drive it error or things, there were plenty of videos of him locking up into corners and things and really struggling with them.

But the fact that he's changed it and then gone into the wall, yes, it's not anything to do with those, but it kind of, it's not a bit of an embarrassing look when it's kind of a, you know, there aren't any excuses this time. It's nothing to do with the brakes. So, you know, it's an embarrassing look but for something completely unrelated to the brakes.

So let's go to another question. Springbird 7-0. Has a rejuvenated Lewis gotten into Charles's head? Is he pushing too hard in an attempt to prove something? Maybe it's a bit of, Lewis's improvement and how Cheryl can see what can be got out of that car and maybe based on last year

and maybe his performance against someone like Sebastian Bell that maybe deep down he truly believes that well I can elevate that even further and be able to go even quicker and obviously with that he is overdriving the car massively I do think Hamilton's form has got something to do with it but I don't think it's the complete absolute number one factor.

I think it's just that Charles is overdriving the car. He's trying too hard. Probably the fact that this season started so well with the whole race starts. It could have potentially won the first race. There's a lot of hype over testing and it's kind of same old story with his season and not able to challenge for the championship. So I don't think it's all because of the. Lewis Hamilton, but I do think it's certainly a factor that Hamilton being able to get more out of

the car is making Charles push even more and knowing that he can find more of what he's doing. Yeah, definitely. I think that the fact is, yes, he is pushing too hard, otherwise he wouldn't be making these mistakes. And Hamilton has to be a factor. I agree that there's a multitude of things going on here. I think Charlotte-Claherst generally wants to win. He wants to take it to the Mercedes that do have a competitive advantage, in my opinion, even around here with the fact Lewis got close, still think Mercedes are the car to beat. So Leclair off a run of back of poor weekends,

he wants to do something big. He wants to make a statement and a standout performance, and this is what's happened. Another mistake, and the headlines for the wrong reasons continue. So, yeah, I think Hamilton being quick, absolutely is putting pressure on LeCleur. I think it'd be silly to say otherwise

because it's Charles's backyard. Hamilton's come into Charles LeCleur's team and he's already doing a brilliant job this year is Lewis. So let's talk a little bit more about him with a question from Mr. Bear 15. Where did that final lap from Louis Hamilton come from? It was a lap of the ages.

Hamilton could well have been on poll. I think there was a small discrepancy in energy deployment towards the line. I know you'll be enjoying that one. A bit of superclipic now. We won't say that word. But it was, when you look at the onboard, when you look at the comparison between Hamilton and Russell, Hamilton's lap was better. Of course, Ferrari pretty good in the slower speed corners.

There's not many of them around Barcelona, but you could see there was a bit of an advantage there. It was just on the straits where Hamilton loses a bit of time. I think in turn 10, I think it is the left-hander. He lost a bit of time, had a bit of a correction, which 100% cost him pole. But even out of there, he was up. Going into the final corner, he was marginally ahead of Russell. But you can hear it, and Corinchandok, I think, took us through it really nicely, in the fact that you can hear the engine note between Hamilton and Russell.

There was kind of the consideration that it was because Hamilton lifted a bit too much around the final corner. I think it might well be that and also the fact that he didn't have, as much energy to deploy to the line. It's difficult because I think both would cause the same engine note to sort of have that bogged down sort of sound. Because you compare it to Russell and it's it is tonally very, very different. So yeah, a shame for Hamilton would have been an awesome thing to see him on pole position

for tomorrow. But I mean, look, he has a front row start in a fast starting Ferrari that maybe isn't as far starting as they were at the start of the season. but I am intrigued to see if any of that advantage still exists when it is such a massively long run down towards term one. Definitely his lap was absolutely incredible. You know, we saw in FP3. He was a long way off, did not realize that his straight mode was a problem there

because we didn't get to see what actually he could do with the NF3. And it was a surprise that we kind of went into the session thinking it was probably going to be a case of Mercedes going for pole position and could McLaren challenge them and it's Hamilton that almost got pole, not even just the closest challenger to Mercedes, you know, well clear of Antonelli and so nearly pipping Russell, who was phenomenal and kind of almost looked a little bit unbeatable, I think Russell with how it was kind of going that session. So Hamilton, again, like his race pace and him on a Sunday is the best of Lewis Hamilton. Qualifying, he's got so many polls, but it's not like his strongest asset, I guess.

So the fact that he's now qualifying well as well is incredible for him because I think he's going to definitely challenge up there. and if he gets a good run, whether he can get into George Russell's slipstream or, dare I say, the two Merks are thinking about each other and their championship fight. You never know Lewis Hamilton. I'm not going to, I'm not going to say

that he's going to win the world championship, but I think it's a really interesting fact and a situation. If the Mercedes do keep fighting like this and Lewis Hamilton, we know how consistent he is, and that is what he's been so good at why he's won so many world championship is that that kind of consistency and how impressive he is over a full season. He might keep picking up a lot of points that the Mercedes drivers can't,

you know, kind of get him out their head and can't just think, I will actually Mercedes-a-clear. It's just a two-horse race. So I'm really intrigued to see what Hamilton can do tomorrow. I'm very excited for it. Yeah, I think he's probably the favorite to lead into term one. I think Antonelli's going to have a great shout as well because of starting P3. Long run down towards term one can get in the slipstream if he gets a decent start. There's question from P1 on pitch remember R&B sheep. Where is Antonelli's pace this week?

Three tenths off, Russell is the complete opposite of what we have seen recently. He's been on the back foot, absolutely for sure. Like Antonelli has not looked anywhere near as comfortable. Of course he missed FP1 because Vestey was doing that kind of rookie kind of allocation. But even for the rest of the weekend didn't look quite there yet. You thought it'd ramp up in FP3

and then he got a lot of traffic in FP3 which he was absolutely fuming about. He was really, really frustrated by it. And it obviously puts him on the back foot a little bit again, but he just hasn't had the answer for Russell this weekend so far. And I think Antonelli needs to, whether he does or not, needs to think

about the championship here that he's got an enormous lead he's I think he's actually very fortunate that being that far off his teammate is only p3 and not maybe like a p5 six seventh or something like that so I think we're we're going to see what Antonelli can do and how much he's going to be thinking about the world championship will he get straight into the slip stream of Russell and go for the win or will he be thinking it doesn't matter if I lose a few points here and there. He'll go for the win, my guy.

You literally support him for the reason that he's... I know. I know. I think he will. But whether he needs to is another question. Yeah,

doesn't need to, but I guess, you know, I'm going to use a football term because it's the World Cup and stuff, but like it's too early to park the bus.

You can't be going, I'm 68 points clear of Russell, no problem. There's still so many races left where Russell goes on a streak that that lead will diminish, especially if he settles for P3s, P4s.

Let's not forget as well with Antinelli. He did sit out of free practice one. So there might be a small consideration there that the track running for whatever reason has meant that he can't get that same confidence in the car around here. Not that they're ever rushing out in practice. It's true. Although in FP1, I know you hate it, but they were out there quite a lot for FP1.

It's just more towards the end of the free practice sessions. FP3 in particular, there was like 25 minutes of no running. So yeah, it's an interesting one. Yeah, this is the first time barring, obviously, Australia, where we've gone, oh, okay, there's a deficit to Russell here. But it is all about, you know, the champions are how they deal with the sort of the poor weekends. Back weekends, yeah. Exactly. It's not about how they go on five race win streaks.

Yes, that's great. But he also can't have, you know, a stinker tomorrow and bring Russell back into this championship. So I think for Antonelli, he will have a little bit of. pressure on him, of course, starting P3, long run down towards term 1. If he has a poor start, which he has had many, but not in recent times, then he could be very much on the back foot, where Mercedes' actual pace advantage doesn't seem that big. So that's going to be fascinating to watch. Can't wait for the race tomorrow.

Of course, we're going to be live streaming. So make sure you come and join us there. But yeah, Kimmy Antonelli, slightly on the back foot, but P3 is not a disaster. Somba Shuffle 81 asks, does this? mighty poll by George become an indication of how the rest of the European leg will turn out, especially since we are now returning to two traditional tracks where he has always been strong. I said this from the beginning. When George was losing loads of points, I said, I think Russell could well mount a charge

when we get to the European leg of the season. Monaco, yeah, that was not great, he got lapped, so on and so forth. But we now get to Spain, as we said, traditional track. And he seems so much more at home. and we also said and tried to remind you all that he hasn't been off the pace that many times this season it's just not worked out for him Canada he had a DNF fighting for the win

Monaco could well have finished P3 had it not been for the five second penalty disaster that turned into a drive-thru so for George I am not surprised to see him bounce back here and could well go on a run absolutely and this will be I hope for our sakes as fans we can watch this sort of Russell come back

and whether he can get himself back into this. I agree. I think Russell, it's very overplayed how bad he's been. I don't think it's all been his pace. He's had bad luck and he's not been as good as Antonelli. But this weekend he looks much more comfortable. And maybe he goes on a run where he feels like maybe that initial kind of panic as well.

of oh what's going wrong everything's going wrong maybe that kind of pressure in a weird way of like antonelli's so far ahead and in a weird way maybe it helps him like a lando norris last year and he can just do his own thing and what what happens happens and yeah he's been phenomenal this weekend so far um you know able to to just look the more comfortable Mercedes Mercedes obviously looked very quick as he always have done but he's been the driver that you always think is going to be ahead this weekend Anthony hasn't really had a sniff of ever looking like he's going to beat George at all at this point of the weekend so we'll see how it turns out but he needs to just get his head down and just keep winning races now

and if he if he does then it sort of comes down to whether Antonelli how Antonelli plays it with finishing second or will he have worse a races than that and drop further down the order? Yeah, and reliability, as we've already seen, can play a massive part in this season and cause almighty swings in the championship. George Russell's literally lost 50 points

in the last two races to Antonelli. So this can happen in the other direction as well, for sure. Let's now talk about McLaren. P1 pitch, remember Spike asks, what happened to McLaren? they looked so good in practice. Yeah, they did. We said in the kind of practice pod

that I'd be amazed if they were that good and challenging for pole position. They were, that being said, worse than I expected. I didn't think it would be Ferrari or Lewis Hamilton, as it were, to be the one that's actually going for pole position and up there, because McLaren, obviously, there's only one Ferrari, sorry to mention it, to kind of compare here, but they were obviously three tenths off Ferrari, and we kind of thought McLaren are going to be the closest

challenges now. Obviously, Ferrari have bought upgrades, which are working well. And yeah, McLaren, I think I've been reading that Lando seems very unhappy with how it's gone. Of course, fourth doesn't seem like an absolute disaster when you think how bad his luck's been. But they don't want to be fighting Red Bull because they were challenging for race victories in Miami and Japan. Yeah, Kimi, a very fortunate man because had his time been 24,000 slower, he would have been two places further down the grid because Norris and Vestapen were tucked in very, very close behind Lando three thousandths of a second behind Antonelli. Something I found quite funny was that Norris was asked after qualifying.

There some people were talking about the McLaren's fighting for poll today, and his response was really delusional. So there you go. That's his reaction to that, which I think is fair, because I don't think we expected them to coming into the weekend, we thought, okay, McLaren could be really quick here and second best, maybe on the sort of the heels of Mercedes, but when we went after FP3, I don't think it was really all too much hype for them. and they kind of ended up where we expected.

So they could easily have a good race. They're not miles off. They have to keep an eye on Max Rastappen to see what he does. But yeah, it's not a disaster unlike what I'm currently experiencing. So there you go. That is it. Thank you everybody for tuning in. Lots to chat about.

We discussed lots of things. I hope you enjoyed it. We're very excited for tomorrow. As much as what's happened today, I am still excited for tomorrow. P10 to P1 has it ever been done at Barcelona? well I'll be researching it when I leave this podcast. Tommy, final thoughts? Final thoughts?

Yeah, super excited for tomorrow. I think it's a fascinating grid. How is it going to be with, I think initially I kind of wanted to see the two Mercedes together, but I think Liz Hamilton is going to go for it at the start. And if he gets ahead of the two merch, we could see a situation where maybe the two marks are fighting each other for P2 and P3 and we get a big old train again. so can't wait for it. It's going to be really exciting. And of course, you know, we've not, we mentioned it in the practice pod, not mentioned it in this one, but the strategy and the whole

situation with the tires and the heat could be a really, really interesting one with the fact that we don't tend to get two stoppers these days in modern Formula One and we could well see that, maybe even more.