P1 with Matt and Tommy - Reaction to Brazil GP Sprint Qualifying

Episode Date: November 7, 2025

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Hello everybody and welcome back to the P1 podcast with Matt and Tommy. We are coming to you live from Denver, whether you're watching or listening to us. We are doing our North America Delusion Tour. We've had a few shows already. It's been awesome. Thank you to those of you that have turned up for those. We've, of course, got shows coming up as well. So if you're in Denver on Monday, then come along to the show.

We're also doing shows in Dallas, Toronto, Chicago and New York. New York, unfortunately, is sold out. but the other ones have a few tickets left if you'd like to come and see us live as the championship. It's weird, isn't it? Doing a few shows. Now I've got the dynamic of the championship changing again as we then go into our next batch of shows. Yes. And it feels, I'm feeling the energy of less optimistic Tommy.

Not that I've ever really seen an optimistic Tommy. Yeah. It's managed to be even worse. Yeah, I don't know how you do it as a pro fan, to be honest, because I feel awful after that. And I don't know how you do it every single. Yeah, it is the hope that kills you. even in that session, you know, he went purple at one point and I was, you know, dreaming and then it all went wrong. We will get into more of the feelings later on for sure. But let's start right at the beginning of Sprink Quali and Q1 were the bottom five were Colapinto, Lawson, Sonoda, Ocon and Sines.

Now, of course, there was chatter, wasn't there about rain. Are we going to get rain this weekend? And there was a chance of rain every single day this weekend. no rain for sprint quality, no rain for FP1 either. And the bottom five, unsurprisingly, you know, as much as Yuki Sonoda, my guy, wow. I mean, of course, had a disaster in free practice one, had that spin, lost quite a bit of time to do the practice and set up the car for the literal rest of the weekend, although of course you can change after the sprint race where Park Fermé gets lifted. But for Sonoda, I am not surprised in the slightest that he did not make it out of Q1. Of course, all of his struggles he's had, as we've spoken about many, many times,

but also how close Brazil is in qualifying anyway. And Q1 in particular, you know, we talk about Q1 many, many times and how it can be so close across the whole 20 drivers. And for Yuki, yeah, very, very unsurprising to see him out. Yeah, it's not good for Yuki at all. it's almost like unsurprising which is crazy for you know a red bull to be down in 18th position but that's where we are now and after was it Baku he did like a decent job thought is this the turning point obviously you know a new team principal in lauren meckies who's worked with before maybe he'll

now start to get more confidence but it's not really working out for him at all is it no no i mean mexico there were there was hope and then he had a really long pit stop which uh ruined any chance is of a potentially decent result. But, you know, where we're looking at with his performances, there hasn't ever been a breakthrough performance. Like we saw sometimes with Perez, like in Baku or whatever, where he'd beat Max and you're like, whoa, what's going on here? We've not had that or even close to really having that sadly for Yuki.

A question from P1 Patreon member, Rosie Rangetsu. A crash in FP1 and a poor result in sprint qualifying is Yuki cooked? So, cooked being obviously not having a race seat for next year. Red Bull still haven't announced who they are having in those teams alongside of course, Max and then in V-Carb. I'm firmly of the opinion, and you have been for quite some time, Tommy, that Yuki is in big trouble. And I think that it's just the more and more you think about it, the more you just, I can't

see a way where you have other drivers building hype either in Formula 2 with Arvid Lindblad or in the junior team where the car is easier to drive. like how do you beat that when you just cannot get your head around a car alongside max so yeah i think yuki's uh yuki's in big trouble he's in big trouble he's been in big trouble for a long time you know i don't think it's the the crash in fp1 and his poor resort as this question suggests that means he's cooked it's kind of i feel like the decision's been long in the making and the only thing that could have saved him if it'd gone on this amazing run uh which obviously isn't happening So I just don't, don't see how that's going to happen at all.

Well, sorry to Yuki and all his fans out there. Other drivers to mention from SQ1, Carlos Sines, of course, 20th and last. Joe Formula 6P asks, Why was Sines so upset today with sprint quality? I understand it's a P20 and he was sick, but still. He's upset because he's P20. You've kind of answered your own question. And he's sick.

No, it's very easy to be, you know, for people that aren't driving and don't have that like, you know, pure competitive thing to go, oh, it's only the sprint. Don't worry about it. Because realistically, a lot of, a lot of these midfielders and these drivers is only points to the top eight. So it's going to be really hard to get points in the sprint anyway. But they're competitive. They're so competitive. And, we at home can say oh why you're upset it doesn't really matter and you weren't going to score points anyway and it's only the sprint and all this kind of stuff but these are formula one drivers you know we've had this conversation before about tomorrow in the in the sprint race they'll be sending it over 15th place it's just that's just in their DNA that's what they do it is I think the signs also was upset just purely by the the way in which that had all unfolded it's not as if he was P20 due to pace. It was P20 because he was fighting

five or six other cars on the track trying to wind up for his final lap, so much so that even around the final corner or the final corner that I deem the final corner where you actually have to break for. Is it Jung Shao? Jungshow, I think it is. That corner, yeah, just

he was having to, you know, because obviously once you go through that left-hander, you're on the power and you're building up speed going down towards term one. He was literally having to crawl up the hill trying to find a spot where he could accelerate and start his lap and there was just cars just flurry of cars coming through. I, as much as I, you know, you can say that Williams could have done better in the way in which they placed signs in that queue. Brazil is such a quick lap. You know, one minute nine's we

were seeing in qualifying and 20 cars out there. You know, you look at that. That's an average of maybe a car every four seconds. So like, it is very difficult to make that happen and to have a clean session. And for Carlos, it just, it was a disaster. Like, P20 is not where he deserved to be. But once you saw his onboard, you understood exactly why he was 20th and wasn't able to put in a decent lap at the end. You understand his frustration as well at the other team. But they are kind of like damned if they do, damned if they don't. Because we've had this conversation before that you can go into the, when you have like this chaos where everyone's out on the track at the same time.

They're all trying to go out the last minute and they get caught out. we are of course and and it's all hindsight that drivers and us complain and go why on earth are they doing that but equally on the flip side you look at examples gone by where i think like you know like george russell or someone's got out really early and you go well he's not got the track condition so it can work either way and when you get burned by it of of course they're going to look back on it and go what an earth that are you doing like putting everyone out at the same time because like you say his his uh the onboard was like watching something from a video game. There's this kind of driving games where you've got to like weave in and out of all the

other cars because it was insane to watch. And also let's not forget that Carlos Sines literally the last sprint weekend we had finished third. So there's an opportunity in these kind of weekends where there's less practice for midfield teams to really put themselves up there. And I think that's again another reason why he would be kicking himself a little bit. So there you go. That's them covered.

I think also just very quickly, Ocon, 19th in SQ1 was. Yeah, pretty, again, like, it's every single race weekend it feels that, like, we're speaking about Ocon's qualifying. And you see, Bearman ended up 15th in the end, but of course made it through to SQ2. So the comparison, once again, between Bearman and Ocon. Bearman has such momentum. They were up in the seventh, wasn't he, I think, or definitely up in the top 10 in that session. So the gaps were, were massive between them.

We haven't also mentioned as well that Colopinto had his contract finally signed. I know we spoke about the contracts of Red Bull. It's worth mentioning, congratulations to Colopinto. think it was fully deserved. The Colopinto has that Alpin contract for next year, but was knocked out in SQ1 alongside Liam Lawson. We now head to SQ2, where the five knocked out were Lewis Hamilton,

Alex Albon, Pierre Gasley, Gabriel Bortoletto, and Oliver Berman. Hamilton being the Big Scout, no surprise there. I mean, I say no surprise the fact that we're talking about it, but also no surprise in the fact that Ferrari did not look great from the first lap that was turned in the weekend all the way through to spring qualifying later in the day. And Hamilton being knocked out, it's just, I know you could surprise him, didn't you?

You could surprise him. You stole it from me. Thank you so much for that, mate. Appreciate it. But Ferrari, just nowhere, nowhere near the front. You had Alonzo fast as an SQ2, but the Ferraris have just been struggling. They have really glad I predicted him second and third in the race. I thought they'd be better around here, but it got a lot worse.

One of the most savage bit of TV directions I've ever seen was Charlotte Clare locking up into a corner. He goes around the corner. The camera then pans, doesn't even cut away. Pans to the next Ferrari coming around Hamilton does exactly the same lockup. They were struggling big time. They were indeed. P.1Petri member Captain Ovs 3420 asks,

did Charles spin on purpose to make it out of SQ2? No, no, he did not spin on purpose. Not the Monaco master plan. It's easy for us as fans watching to go, well, you know, he's at risk and things like that. He was improving. Of course, he locked up into that right-hand again, which you mentioned Tommy. He's just dumped the throttle to try and make up the time that he's clearly lost through the lock-up. I really do not think that's gone through his mind in sprint qualifying two

where he's not fighting for the championship or anything like that to spin on purpose. It's just not worth it whatsoever for him. And it's not like he had much to gain anyway. Even if he got knocked out in SQ2, I'm sure he was not expecting to even get anywhere close to the top five. So no, Charles, I do not believe spun on purpose. I know some people will be out there with their tinfoil hats on.

but for me it was just an error and it was a very messy session for Ferrari and in it was it's not like a Monaco situation where you know we have seen drivers go off in the past and while it's never been you know fully proved because they'll never admit it some drivers have obviously like crashed or gone off in Monaco because you can get that advantage where the track would be neutralised it's less likely to be that in Brazil anyway and it was just Charlechle-Cle pushing to try and improve. And obviously, you know, he didn't want to spin off. So, no, he didn't do it on purpose. And I think, I mean, it didn't, I did make a bit of difference in the end, you know, just to carry on my depression about Max Verstappen. But I was a little bit worried

as well because Max had gone through at that moment and aborted his lap. But thankfully for Max, your drivers like Albin, Gassley, Bortlette, Behrman, weren't improving. No, they weren't. And Hamilton was behind Charle. I'm not sure whether he was actually improving at the time. But Charles was and yeah, he was able to go through and Lewis was not. Let's head to Q3. Where the top 10 were Norris, Antonelli, Piastri, Russell, Alonzo, Vestappen, Stroll, Lecler, Hadjar and Holcomberg. A chaotic sprint quali, a few opportunities for some drivers. Of course, Alonzo was up there in P5 in the Aston Martin, Aston just in general, looking very fast. But the first thing we have to talk about and a question from P1 Patreon member, Thimmer,

is it championship back off of Aestappen? Here we go again. Here we go. Go on then, Tommy. Just let it all out. Yeah, it is. I think with the sprint result, you normally get a bit of kind of, as the points is so close. Max being sort of second or third and just kind of staying in there is not too bad.

And obviously of all the sessions to be off, this one's better. But we've said so many times Max has to be perfect. And it would be a, you know, a point swing, not an enormous point swing. But I think the most concerning thing for Max is the fact that McLaren are just rapid. and you know we we saw that amazing run that max went on and it really did look like red bull and max had found something and we're potentially going to go into every race at the end of the season challenging for for victories and I know that there's talk of you know it might rain tomorrow and things like that but he's not going to be able to turn this deficit round

if in like dry conditions the McLaren's are just clear and he's finishing behind you know both Merck and an Aston Martin in the session. So it was a disaster for Max. It was a disaster. I agree. Perfection is something we've spoken about a lot in the podcast that the Max needs to deliver and this wasn't perfect by any stretch. Max has had many Fridays where he's not like the car and been able to turn it around. But sadly for him, it was a sprint weekend. But then again, on the flip side of that, sometimes it's worked well for Max where he's just quick out of the blocks and can make a sprint weekend work in his favor. Is it championship back off? That is the question. For me, as you will know, I'm a little bit more on the half full glass side of things.

It's not over yet. I just can't see it, right? We've had many occasions in this championship where people have said it's off, it's on, it's off, it's on, it's off. A sixth place in the sprint is bad. Don't get me wrong. Max needs to be perfect. We've said it many times on the podcast, and there's This wasn't a perfect quality session. If it's going to happen in any session, it's this one. You've got a sprint race tomorrow where the forecast is sounding very bad. And will we even get a sprint race is a question. 24 laps in a heavy rain Brazil could actually be quite a lot of racing,

which I may be looking forward to should we have a green flag, non-red flag session, because of course, we saw even last year, didn't we? Absolutely insane conditions. in, was it last year, in qualifying or the year before? Yeah, because last year, of course, we had the delayed qualifying because it rained so much. It was the dark clouds, were those insanely dark clouds? Yeah, and we moved, and obviously we moved into Sunday, and they did qualifying on the Sunday, which was when Max obviously qualified 17th, and it was a complete disaster.

One thing that's interesting on that is if the conditions are really bad for the sprint, how do they play list because we've not seen this before it's all right in a normal session where they can say FP3 doesn't matter or you know we can move qualifying here and there where does the sprint come into this i don't know i don't know what i'm sure i'm sure the fia are frantically looking through the rule book if that is the case because do you prioritize getting the the sprint done and we just delay the whole day tomorrow if it's raining get the sprint done when they can and maybe do qualifying Sunday again, we'll find out. They pull off the sprint.

Yeah, exactly. They just red flag it and it's half points or no points. Well, Max is six and Norris is first. So I think it's only fair that we just cancel the whole thing. Just not have a sprint weekend whatsoever. Yeah, that is a fascinating topic, isn't it? How I see it is that qualifying would just be pushed back and add into Sunday. I don't think they would sacrifice a sprint race.

Because there's points. There's points on offer. and they'll do their utmost. It just depends on whether we get the sprint underway. The sort of clock starts ticking. Behind 24 lots behind a safety car. Yeah. So fingers crossed,

we don't have to go through that. But from what I've read, the forecast does look pretty bad, whether it's for actual lights out or beforehand. It sounds like it's going to rain overnight. But either or, it's going to be different track conditions, and I'm all for it.

And you're writing off max from 6th on the grid. Need it now. Yeah, you're writing off Max from 6th on the grid when he started 17th, of course, for a main race. plenty of things can happen. You're Kimmy Antonelli with not a lot of wet experience on the front row of the grid. Water qualifying from him.

Alongside Lando. Yeah, let's talk about that from Kimmy. Just under a 10th behind Lando and has to be said, he delivered when it mattered. Russell, perhaps slightly scruffier. He'll be annoyed, won't he? He'll be annoyed to be beaten by his teammate because it shows that there is some pace in that Merck and showing again that Merck are able to turn it on at random circuits and Brazil being one of those ones. yeah, Kimmy, on the front row of the grid, can he translate that into tomorrow as well?

What kind of conditions will we get for Saturday for the full qualifying? So many questions unanswered. Yeah, I do wonder, like, how Kimmy's going to play it tomorrow. We're obviously here in the US, so we're watching on F1 TV, and they were talking about maybe Antonelli, I know he's a rookie, but he's maybe going to be a bit more experience and play it cool. I actually think the opposite, you know, he's an amazing chance for Kimmy Antonelli to, he's got his contract locked in next year. Toto's kind of like backing him. He's obviously done a great job in qualifying. And he knows that actually if he goes for even a 50-50 move even less, Norris is going

to jump out of the way because he's got a championship to win. So I think Kimmy Antonelli, obviously he's not going to do something absolutely stupid if it's never on. But if he gets even a sniff, I think he's going to go for it. I think so as well. To believe that Kimmy's going to be measured and not want to get involved in the championship fight, I think is, well, it's not an opinion I agree with. I think it's the complete opposite, as you say. There's an opportunity for him to get a sprint win, and why not? Just go for it. Lando can't afford to turn into a Kimmy Antonelli steaming down the inside, in my opinion. And also, as well, there's not massive pace difference. We don't know about the wet, of course, whether McLaren will dominate in the wet is yet to be seen. But it's not as

if it's going to be a dry race, well, from what we can see, it's not going to be a dry race tomorrow and that Kimmy has no chance of winning. I think he's got an amazing chance of winning, especially if it is these sort of slippery, changeable conditions. So I think Kimmy will go for it, no doubt. Although Lando will be praying for a rolling start, because then that kind of conditions are great for him and he doesn't have to worry about Kimmy probably. Yeah, because if it is the sort of level three, level four reign, which is bad, which is heavy, then yeah, it most likely is going to be a rolling rather than a standing start, which is a shame because we love to see those five red lights go out, don't we? Next question, P1, Patreon member, Blackson, can we still call this an improvement for Oscar?

He's been a lot closer than he has recently. I think for sure it is an improvement. I know it's just under two-tenths and it is a short track, but that being said, it's not the disaster that he's had in the last few, where he's been miles off of Lando whether Lando just isn't as comfortable with the car this weekend, as much as he is on sprint pole. The first thing he was saying

is that he wasn't happy with the grip and things like that and it shows that perhaps there is still more time on the table. But Oscar's third, and I said this coming into this weekend, that if he's just able to finish P2 behind Lando in both the sprint and the main race,

that is genuinely, he'll be nine points behind Lando going into the last three weekends, that would be a win for Oscar after the last four where he's not been on the podium once. So that for me, yeah, is an improvement. He starts third. On paper, you would imagine Oscar would beat Kimmy in the sprint,

but the paper doesn't really work around Brazil. But a much better sprint quality for Oscar, for sure. Definitely. I think he'd have absolutely taken it. Of course, he'll always want to improve. And he has looked quick. crazy that if you guys listened to the

podcast where I mentioned about my mum messaging saying that she thinks Piastri's got his mojo back and I said absolutely not within the first lap I think it was literally the first lap in sprint qualifying where Oscar put in a lap that was

pretty much the same or might have even beaten Lando and my mum messaged me saying told you, told you Oscar's back so he's actually done a lot better a job. I know he's third and a bit of a way off Lando like almost two tenths potentially, but I do think that he'll have absolutely taken this because he's got a huge opportunity to finish just behind Lando in the sprint and then he doesn't even need to go for it because it's only one

point different and then he'll just kind of be looking to the main race to see if, you know, that's where you can kind of get bigger opportunities for like points differences and things. Exactly. I mean, he was about a tenth away. from starting a couple of positions further back. So for him, he might well just be very happy starting third because it could have been a lot worse with how small the margins are around Brazil. Next question from P1PATRIM member, TVR driver.

Do you think anyone has compromised their qualifying setup for race pace given the weather forecast? I'd love to pretend that it's a Max Verstappen master plan and it was him going for a wet setup and that's why he's six. I don't think that's the case, particularly the way, you know, he was shaking his head after his lap. He was also very quick in the first sector, which would suggest that, you know, that he's got a bit more straight line speed and stuff, which obviously you wouldn't normally have if you'd gone really over the top with a wet setup. I don't think that has been the case. There may be other drivers further down the grid that might risk it.

You know, maybe Ferrari on for an absolute master plan, but they never. tend to run well in the wet, do they? So yeah, I can't see it personally. No one really stands up to me that have kind of gone for this like crazy risky strategy. It makes no sense to have gambled on a massive wet setup. It just really is a sprint right at the end of the day. And as much as there is some wet weather coming, they've got to be thinking about the main race, which has much lower chance of rain. So they want to be dialing in their dry setup. than anything else. Eight points is a lot less than 25, unsurprisingly.

So for me, no, I mean, Max even said after the, after Quali or Sprint Quali, sorry, that he doesn't expect that he'll go any better in the wet. He's not expecting any miracles, but he also said, let's see. So, no, I don't think there's any aggressive wet weather setups, especially not for Ferrari. I can't believe even put Ferrari in wet weather running, doing well in the same sentence. So yeah, I think that is a coping, I think, for any fans out. they're believing their driver has gone for a wet, sets up over a dry.

Question from P1Bit. Remember, C.C. Hollister. What's with Aston Martin? Where did this form come from? They, they, last time they were good, was hungry, where they'd just brought some updates. And I really don't understand. And I don't really have much insight to provide when it comes to

Aston Martin because they looked not particularly outstanding in practice, and you always expect that even if they do put a good lap in, that's just purely because they're all sort of doing their own run plans in free practice, one, especially on a sprint weekend. But Alonzo, as we said, SQ2 fastest. SQ3, maybe there was a little bit more on the table because he actually went slower on the soft tires than he did on the medium tires in SQ2. Or we do see sometimes, don't we, how cars will.

actually prefer the medium tires a little bit. We've seen that with George Russell in the past. So there's clearly not a lot of pace difference between the softs and the mediums this weekend. But for Alonzo, P5, it's looking very good. And you don't imagine there will be a massive shift, even though we will get a sprint race and then the park Fermé will lift. You don't expect Aston to all of a sudden fall off when other teams learn because you kind of have to hit the ground running from FP1.

And if you don't, you're on a massive back foot, especially if we have wet weather tomorrow. there's no way of honing a dry setup from now. Yeah, it's so true. I was very surprised, actually, with Aster Martin's pace, because when I saw the result from FP1, we've seen Alonzo be very, very quick in FP1s before and then be absolutely nowhere as it comes into the session, and it's completely unrepresentative.

But here, you know, they've done a brilliant job, almost like Fernando Alonzo, could be even higher up the grid based on what we saw in kind of SQ2 and maybe you could have surprised with like a top three or something. It is a track that Alonzo goes incredibly well at. He was on the podium here in 2023 when he had that amazing battle with Perez. He's won a couple of championships here as well. So it is one of his more favoured circuits,

but Lance Roll did a good job as well. Didn't obviously, of course, manage to beat Alonzo in the session, but to be fifth and seventh. As to Martin is just a very confusing team this year with their pace, that their form is a bit all over the place. really. They really are and they have odd ways of bedding in the tyres and they go and take them out for a lap

and then, you know, all kinds of random things that Aston Martin do that no other team do. But well done to them all the same. Finally, I guess Holkenberg making it through to SQ3 once again, which is a pretty good performance from him and outshining Gabriel Bortoletto at his home race.

So good work from Holkenberg and HADGAR very quietly up in P-9 as well and beating Lawson pretty comprehensively. So there you go. That is sprint qualifying wrapped up done and dusted uh thank you everybody for tuning in we'll be live on youtube and twitch as always for saturday and sunday we have committed we're like no no live shows during the weekend we want to make sure we do all of our content as timely and as beautifully as ever uh so tommy speaking of beautiful what's your final thoughts final thoughts are i will be the classic

formula one fan now and it's not too much to ask for the perfect level of rain please where Because we don't want... Because we don't want... Yeah, yeah. But no, for entertainment value, rain in the sprint would be amazing. We've seen a few wet sprints before where you get a pit stop and things change.

Like variable conditions would make the sprint even more exciting. But there's, of course, that big concern where, you know, the weather is so bad that we either get a safety car or a rolling star and it's just a 24-lap procession with so much spray they can't do anything. So fingers crossed that we do get a good amount of rain, but not too much that we're sat here for nine hours waiting for them. Look forward to the nine-hour live stream. As much as I love streaming with you guys, nine hours would be quite a lot.

Tommy cuts it off at two guys. I'm really sorry. After that, it'll just be me. So anyway, thank you, everybody. We'll see you soon. Lots of love to get. Bye. Bye.

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