P1 with Matt and Tommy - Reaction to Chinese GP qualifying

Episode Date: March 22, 2025

We're back out on track for more running out in Shanghai, as the top dogs stretched their legs out front and others continued to struggle... You can listen to an extended version of every 2025 Race Review podcast over on our Patreon! You'll 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!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 B1 podcast with Matt and Tommy. I'm feeling the momentum right now. Thomas Bellingham. We are really just into the season. We're getting our teeth stuck into it. We've had qualifying now. And a completely different complexion than what we had for the sprint earlier today. Indeed.

Yeah. Kind of surprisingly close to qualifying. The only similarity was that. that we saw kind of dominance in Q2 that maybe didn't relate into Q3 again. So, yeah, so very, very interesting qualifying and a lot of talking points. Exactly. Let's get straight into Q1, shall we? Where the bottom five were Gassley, Bearman, Dewan, Bortoletto and Lawson.

P1 Patreon member Lumixion comes in with the first question, which is, who lasts longer? Lawson in the Red Bull or Duon in the Outer. Alpine, I think before the season, we're all saying Lawson gets this season in Red Bull. No problem. No issues. Like they're going to commit to him. He's got, you know, he's going to be okay, not near Max, but he'll be okay. And Dewen, we thought was done within five races. Now, I think that doing, look, we're seeing glimmers of hope and we're trying to hype that up and focus on that. But there are also negatives that I'm sure Alpine are taking into consideration. The fact that, that of course he had that little incident at the end of the sprint,

where he wasn't fighting anywhere near the points. He was right at the back. And then, of course, in Qualley, he's decent. Struggling in the race is what we've seen. Well, the small amount that we've seen, which is Abu Dhabi where he was just trundling around at the back. Australia where he crashed on lap one, and the sprint, which is 19 laps,

and he was struggling for race pace compared to Pi Gassley. But that's to be expected. So I'm interested to see just how, far doing is off Gasly over the course of an entire dry race like we'll hopefully have tomorrow at China.

But I actually don't know if Lawson continues getting P20, they will make a change. That's how I feel because it's not even as though it's a Perez P6 or a Perez P12.

This is a Lawson P20 off the back, not knowing how to drive the car at the moment. Yeah, you go back to our sprint qualifying review and we kind of of, you know, said how long is it going to be? And maybe, and I said, well, they will replace him.

We kind of raised our eyebrows and went, oh, and then literally one day later, here we are both saying it, and probably a lot of people would probably now think, yeah, they probably would replace him after just a handful of races if, like, you know, if this did actually keep happening, the fact that's P20 again, just watching his name tumble down that order as we went through Q1 and going, oh my God, it's going to be 20th, oh my God, it's going to be 20th, and there it is again. Just an absolute disaster, and it can't go on being this bad because it is just such a headline kind of position.

It's so, so poor for him. So at the moment, we'll see how Dewan does in a race, but I think both of them are looking under quite, probably under a lot of pressure right now. Absolutely. It's tough to watch. I think also things to mention is Bortoletto. You know, your goat. 19th on the grid. You've been hyping up a lot. Yeah. Gets out qualified. And I think Nika Holkenberg on the other side of the garage absolutely needed that qualifying in the head-to-head between the two. But yeah, Bortoletto down in 19th. How do you defend Gabrielle in this particular moment in time?

He's two-tenths off a driver that's incredibly, you know, experienced. And if Liam Lawson and was two-tenths off his teammate, we'd all be saying he's done a great job. So we don't need to slander water leto. Okay, that's fair. That's fair. I wasn't slandering him. No, no, more of a statement that he was done a good job. What is also quite interesting, right, is that back to Lawson for a second,

the competitive order of the field right now is close. It chops and changes and things like that. There was a time where Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez would have seven tenths between them and Perez would be fifth, sixth on the grid, max on pole. Seven tenths for Liam Lawson is fourth to 20th in Q1. So I think in that sense, as well. I'm not jumping to his defence too much here, but it is mad how much worse it can seem even if you're the same amount off a driver when you're part of a dominating team.

And that was, sadly, for Perez, his kind of, the reason it got so bad for him, because as Red Bull kind of worked their way into the pack and didn't have that car dominance, Perez, you know, those kind of deficits. And of course, the car, the car changed very much to kind of be in favour of, of Max. And of course, Red Bull are going to do that. There's no, there's no kind of, they've completely justified the reasons for doing that

based on the fact that he's won all these championships. So there's a reason they do it. But, yeah, it's another shocker for Lawson and, yeah, grabbing all the wrong headlines again, especially with how good the, his old team are doing. And obviously as well, a lot of Perez fans

who were sad to see him go this year and now sort of jumping to the, Perez wasn't that bad, this, that and the other, you know, do you regret the fact you were saying it was all Perez and Lawson's struggling more?

What I kind of respond to that is two things can coexist where Perez needed to go because Rebel needed a second driver that can cope with Max's car, which is what it essentially is, it's Max's car. Yeah,

You just have to be able to drive makes his car. Lawson, on the face of it, looked like someone that could be that person. A young driver doesn't have too much muscle memory, can just hopefully adapt. He said it himself. He's going to adapt to a car. It's his job to do that.

He was full of confidence, which is something that Peres didn't have towards the end of the season when he was struggling, of course, as well. But we know Perez was a quick driver as well. It just didn't work with Red Bull and the way that they need however much you know you can look at Sergio Perez at the start of 2023 and he was winning a few races he was getting podiums and things and they changed the as the car and this is something Alex Albin said as it gets pointer and pointier and they kind of go towards that route red bull are totally justified to do that because it's winning Maxwell championships and it's you know look what he did in 2023 won almost every single race so

they're in their right to do that and it makes sense for them to do that. Still a risky strategy, of course. But they need someone now that can cope with that card. That is the clear thing. And now we've seen Perez and Lawson both fail, someone with Perez's experience and a rookie of such confidence in Lawson and Gassley and Albin. Get Tom Bellingham in. Get a watch podcaster in.

I think that's the only thing that they haven't ticked off yet. Exactly. But joking aside, they just need one. that they need almost the driver to, rather than look at experience of any other results, is just, can you, do you have a driving style similar to Maxxifat and like a car like this, and can you handle it? And then that's the way to go, I think. It is strange as well, though, right? Because they didn't just pick Lawson out of nowhere with no data to go off. Of course, he was in the racing balls. Then he did like-for-like comparisons with Max Verstappen at Silverstone.

we saw that in Drive to survive. And he was two tense off. They made that very clear that was in the show. It was two tens off max's benchmark time. So where does it go so much worse? That's the question that is the remains unanswered. I know Lawson was questioned, I think, by Rachel Brooks afterwards. And she was trying to extract some information out of him of like,

give us an idea of what exactly is it. And I feel as though he has been PR trained to not actually say what the problems are in the car that he can't handle at the moment. But anyway, let's move away from Lawson and go, well, actually, that's a lie. There's another question. P1 Patreon member. MZT, looking at Lawson's onboard, that Red Bull is so hard to drive. Will Red Bull make changes in time for Lawson to save his career? Now, that's another part too, this isn't it?

Does Lawson now have to go down the same route as what every driver before him, Barr Perez, who of course isn't on the grid at the moment, has done? and does Larson almost have to take a bit of a, that's swallow the hardest pill possible of, just put me back in the racing ball. If Yuki wants a go, feel free, have a go, see if you can do better than me.

Because I am convinced Lawson goes back in the racing balls, he's probably making Q3 like we saw today with both of the drivers. Exactly. Everyone's racing him and he's done a bad job. but when he came in and replaced Danny Rick in the Alpha Tauri, as it was at the time,

we were saying what a great prospering talent he was and how good he was doing. It's quite clear that Red Bull will not sacrifice 1% of the Stepan's performance for the teammate. And that is the risk they are doing and kind of playing. They're just going to, all the eggs are in, Stappen to basically, you know, get the best result he can. And that is literally all they care about. The second car is just they just need someone that can drive it and do a decent enough job.

And very quickly, last question on this, P1PATRI member, Div. How bad will Red Bull be if Vastappen decides to leave? Can you just imagine a world, right, where you had this whole, Vastappen might go to Mercedes in 2025, this, that and the other? If Max had genuinely left, and then Red Bull filled in Perez and Lawson, they're a back market team. Like they are Q2. Unless they fundamentally change the car last minute. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly.

This is the thing. Maybe they would be able to make some changes. But that Red Bull would have, would be nowhere near the front, which is mad to think about. It's such a risky strategy. While it's working now, it's paying off because of course, for Stappen has won the last four championships, won an absolute bucket load of races. And even when that car was struggling, he was performing brilliantly last year. And even now, he's doing a really good job, despite even for Stappen, you watch his

onboard, he's fighting the car as well. It is a huge risk to go to like another series. This happened in MotoGP, where Mark Marquez, they built the whole kind of bike around him. He got injured. and they would nowhere, and that is something that they could risk happening with Vestappen. But until he's there, they have to just go all in on Vestappen.

It is literally a risk worth taking at the moment. And that's what Max likes as well, I'm sure. Max loves the fact that the team is around him, and in a lot of ways, that's probably an appeal to him rather than going to a team where he's going to have to fight for resource up against a Russell or whoever it might be. So yeah, well, this will be a storyline

to unfold, I'm sure, in the future years, where when Max does eventually decide to leave, if he ever decides to leave. Into Q2 then, and the five drivers out were Ockon, Holkenberg, Alonzo Stroll, and Sines. The talking point from this has to be Carlos, disappointing again for Carlos. Alex Albon making Q3, and it's another qualifying session where science has struggled. Yes, he has had problems with his seat in sprint quality and, of course, in Australia as well, but then, you know, having the moment in tricky conditions. And it's not been a perfect start of the year by any stretch of the imagination for Carlos

Sines. How much of this is Alex Albon just doing a phenomenal job? I think it's both. I think Carlos is struggling, but also Alex has stepped his game up, as well as also James Vowls being James Vowls and clearly sorting that team out, a bit by bit. It's not an overnight job. but Williams are starting to be somewhere near best of the rest in terms of their performance. And racing balls obviously up there as well. But yeah, it is disappointing for Carlos. I think for him, with, it all comes with expectation, doesn't it? Where, you know, the likes of Carlos signs.

Even Liam Lawson, obviously, had a bit of expectation after doing pretty well when he stood in. People expect the turnaround to be quicker. Hamilton to Ferrari. Everyone expects them to get quick quickly. You don't have the same patience, perhaps, for absolute rookies like Borselletto and Hajar, etc. So Science does need to turn it around quickly, I would say. It doesn't want to fall into this potential number two driver role.

I don't think that's going to happen. But these are questions that will be asked if signs can't at least get on terms with Alex by the mid-season. I'd be amazed if science doesn't. kind of perform as to at least Albin's ability as we get later into the season but there's no kind of denying the fact that it's been a disappointing start for science

I really did expect him to hit the ground running and get straight into that team and you can and Williams are very open about their kind of and that's probably like you mentioned about James Vowles and how openly is speaking about even science's kind of problem in in Australia when he went behind the safety car, you get a video of James,

I was going, well, the upshift did this. And do you know what I mean? They have his back. And they work on everything to get him as comfortable. And we heard that even in the Abu Dhabi test, I think it was where you're literally just being put in a car to just test it. Science already had feedback and things like that.

So as everyone in Formula One, you need a car that you're comfortable in and it's not quite there for science at the moment. But yeah, very disappointed. pointing again, expected a lot more from him. Yeah, he's got the right mindset and the right work ethic, though. And you can tell that he really does care about doing well in this team. So I'm of the similar opinion that he should be able to turn it around.

We just need to see that. Question from people on Patreon member, Rebecca. Why is everyone seemingly forgetting Williams was second last in the constructors last year? And acting like Carlos not making Q3 is a huge problem. The problem here, Rebecca, and this is why we're talking about it, is the fact that his teammate is the comparison. We're not, when Williams is not the ninth fastest car anymore,

we've seen that already this season. Albon has been phenomenal so far. That is always the benchmark. It's not, oh, well, you know, Williams is actually pretty slow. They're not,

they're right in the mix now. So for Carlos, he missed out, well, he was just over a tenth slower than Albonn and Q1. But sadly, two and a half tenths slower in Q2 and that's the difference. It's not a massive gap,

but that's a five-place difference in Formula One these days, especially in the midfield. So it has to be the comparison. As much as we can celebrate Williams moving up, the teammate rivalries is a completely different story. Yeah, your teammate in Formula One is always the benchmark, even if there's many factors, you know, we've mentioned about the factors between Red Bull and other teams as well and how there's all sort of different ideas of how you've run two cars, but at the end of the day, the only comparison is your teammate. That's always been the way in Formula One. So if Alex keeps performing well, we will naturally think Carlos will be and should be there because he's got the talent to do it for sure. Sure. Exactly.

He is a Grand Prix winner, a multiple Grand Prix winner. So he's definitely got the minerals. I haven't used that word in a while. That's been a while. That's been a great back. Let's go to Q3 then, where the top 10 was Piaastri, Russell, Norris, Vestappen, Hamilton, Leclair, Hadjar, Antonelli, Sonoda and Albone. First question.

Imperator QG. Will we finally get to see a Piastri versus Norris race? George Russell might have something to say about that. I can say that. for free, but McLaren doing much better in normal qualifying. First and third is still slightly off where we expected them to be. Lando Norris making a mistake on his final lap, aborting. We spoke about this a bit on our live streams, our watchalongs,

which we do on YouTube and Twitch if we didn't know already. If you want to watch along with us to every competitive session, we'll be live. But, yeah, Lando aborting. And it seems to be a bit of a trend with Lando. where he does abort laps quite more frequently than I expect from other drivers, the Maxes, the Lewis's, even George Russell.

A lot of the drivers don't tend to abort too many laps, but Lando was down two-tenths in the middle sector. And the thing here is, you always see a step up from Q2 to Q3. Track evolution is massive around here. Oscar Piastri improved by almost six-tenths of a second from Q2 to Q3. George Russell improved six-tenths from Q2 to Q3.

massively in that session as well of course. Yeah, Lando was slower by 6,000s between his Q2 and Q3 time. He did a 30.7 in Q2, which was an absolute monster of a lap. So that step up again was what we all expected. And sadly for Lando, that didn't happen. But yes, we should in theory, if Norris gets a good start, which we didn't see in the sprint. He doesn't need to do that again, because dipping a wheel in the gravel cost him three places, I think it was. he just needs a clean start, dispatch of Russell with a car that is absolutely the quickest when it's hooked up

and then yeah, it'll be a Norris versus Piastri. I still think Norris has better race pace. It's very close between the two of them. I think Oscar stepped it up. But sign me up. I'd love to see a McLaren ding-dong. Yeah, I actually am very excited to see how this plays out because Piastri versus Norris, we saw a little bit of it in Australia.

but based on the performance Lando again has kind of left time on the table and should have at the very least been P2 we know that from McLaren and it's going to be very interesting tomorrow to see how Lando plays this because he did have a difficult start and obviously he was kind of more in the pack he's going to be kind of have a lot more fresh air in front of him but George Russell is not going to kind of make it easy for him and and Russell's going to know kind of what, that it's a great chance to get ahead of them.

But yeah, I can't, I can't wait to see this. I assume, you know, they're going to let them race and race hard again because they've got, they're going to kind of,

I'd be surprised if they didn't both kind of check out based on if they end up in clean air, because we know from the sprint how much clean air is key. And yeah, it's going to be a very, very fascinating race between them. Question from people on pitch, remember Michaela. Thoughts on George Russell.

He's been doing so anonymous in the media this year, but seems to be smashing it. Yeah, George is third in the championship at the moment. He's six points off the top. He is doing a great job at Mercedes and exactly what he needed to do now that Hamilton's gone. Very much the number one driver there. Antonelli, I'm sure, will be learning a lot from him. George is the complete driver in a lot of ways. He's fantastic in qualifying.

there's still, race pace was something that was a bit of a meme versus Hamilton, but who's to say that he can't take a step forward there, especially now that he's that team leader, perhaps he can take the team in a better direction

with what he likes and etc, etc. So overall, yeah, George is doing a great job. And to be P2, when we thought it was going to be a McLaren lockout, no problem, was a surprising lap time, if anything. We were both like,

on the watch along. couldn't quite believe it. He was last across the line and out of nowhere put in a lap that he was very happy with as well. Star of qualifying for me, George Russell, an amazing job to split the McLaren's. Don't think anyone should have been able to do that really. And Lewis Hamilton in the sprint has shown that if you get ahead in the main race, it is incredibly difficult to overtake and look after your tires and clean air is the key. So George, while I think he had a very cautious race, a very good one, of course, in Melbourne, he, I think this is his chance to go for it, because in Melbourne he kind of held back

and just bagged a really great result. Here, I think he's got a great opportunity. Win would be a massive stretch, of course. But if he can get into the lead, you never know and you put yourself in a great, advantage just because of how much we saw the tie is going off and how kind of clear Hamilton was in clean air. Even now it's clear just how quick the McLaren's are. We've seen that today. And Hamilton was able to just drive away from them based on having clean air. So George, I think he's going to go for it at the start and it's going to be really interesting to see. Yeah, he'll go for

it. I don't think he's got a chance to win tomorrow personally, just purely because it's a different kind of race. In a sprint, you can't pit. It's literally 19 laps and we're done. Strategy. George is not going to have the race pace of the McLaren's in my opinion, even if he does get ahead. McLaren can do something from second and third. They can do something with the strategy to force him into either stopping to cover one off or carrying on and covering the other one. So George is, I think, damned if he does, damned if he doesn't tomorrow, unless something crazy happens to the McLaren's. But crazy things have happened, so we'll have to wait and see on that one. At Jagger Bomb 7, or Jaeger Bomb, asks, do you think Ferrari set the cars for race pace and not quality pace?

I just think Ferrari did a better job. Lewis Hamilton did a better job in sprint qualifying and the sprint race than anyone else. It's as simple as that. Obviously, now we go into the part of the weekend where a bit more learnings have happened after the sprint. They can make some adjustments. Park Fermé is lifted for this part so that they can make a few tweaks. Ferrari innately are slower than McLaren, maybe even Mercedes over one lap.

How they'll be in the race tomorrow, I think Hamilton will have similar struggles to Charle-le-cler in the sense of dirty air. It was a massive, massive factor in the sprint. So I don't think it's a case of them setting their cars for race pace. It's not as extreme as we see in Australia, where they were choosing between dry and wet. All teams have much more of a weight towards the race, because that's where you score the points. So as much as I would love to just drink a whole dose of copium right now and say that Ferrari are going to be the quickest in the race, I don't personally see it.

However, Leclair did show some really good, and obviously Hamilton as well out in front, showed some good speed towards the end of their medium tire run, which gives me hope that they will be at least competitive in the race tomorrow. I don't think this is a disappointing result for Ferrari at all. Maybe if you compare it to the sprint, of course, but I think that they have basically, the sprint was just Lewis Hamilton over delivering.

and just doing an unbelievable job in qualifying. His car probably shouldn't have been there. You know, it's his talent that's kind of put it at the front. And then, you know, clean air is key, as we've said, so much in this podcast. And he ran away with it and did an amazing job. But they are very much in that pack in normal conditions. They're not miles off, of course. Hamilton, he's only a couple of tents of Norris,

but we know Norris left a lot on the table close to Max. They are in that kind of, I don't want to call it best of the rest after McLaren because that's quite defeated. Man McClaren are in there. But yeah, McLaren are a step ahead. And then it does seem really close between Mercedes, Ferrari, and of course Max's Red Bull as well.

So yeah, I just think this is well. Ferrari are and the sprint win was more just Hamilton over delivering and qualifying and was able to get the victory. Moving away from the front, well, not that far away from the front. P1PH remember, Doge Sama, is the V-Carb car better than Red Bull? Great job from Hadjar. I think the V-car car is more drivable. easier to jump in and obviously do decent times because both teammates are up there very comparable. Obviously, Sonoda made a mistake on his last lap, but up until that point they were very close to two teammates.

It's not better than Max Verstappen and Red Bull combination, clearly, but they're not far away. They were literally a couple of tents off Max up in P4. Hadjar was half a tenth away from getting ahead of Charles LeClau, which I'm very glad that didn't happen. but it has to be said, Hajjar has bounced back beautifully after the heartbreak of Australia.

Sonoda, he may well have threatened P5, P6 had he put in a decent lap time, but it's just, I just think it is an easier car to drive in the sense of it's not as pointy like Max Verstappen enjoys. I don't think I clocked just how close Hadger

was to Charlotte Clair's Yeah, but it's quite quite insane actually but Hadjar did a brilliant, brilliant job and we love to speculate about who's got the quickest car, how quick is this car,

how quick is that car? The fact is we'll never know and it's all just kind of opinion and data and how you kind of look at it, but if I were to guess, I'd say that the racing bulls is almost like

a kind of of not as quick as the red bull but yeah like it's more stable and it we're kind of seeing the fact that that you know racing bulls haven't got a driver that loves a really extreme car set up that they're just kind of like pushing towards and to get the performance so you know max in that in that racing balls i'm sure would do a very very good job as well and might even be in exactly the same position as he is maybe even in the Red Bull, but it's just a much more stable car. And V-Cab have had a V-Cab need to bag some big points because Australia was a massive missed opportunity. Sonoda drove an amazing race, but V-Cab did V-Cab things and just left him out

on trying to do a hero strategy, when they should have bagged a huge amount of points. and we're now seeing V-Cab in a situation that we kind of thought they were going to be in last year where everyone was going, oh, they've copied the Red Bull, it's going to be this amazing car, all the teams were worried about it, and instead, weirdly, they've gone into the season with absolutely no expectation and no hype after testing, and they're looking like maybe even best of the midfield. So it's looking great for racing balls, and I'm sure Liam Lawson wishes he'd never left. Yeah, probably, although you just got to find out, haven't you? I think that's the problem with drivers.

They always back themselves and always believe. I think someone mentioned it, didn't they, on our stream? Someone asked the question, if you ask Yuki-Saneda right now, after everything we've said and how good that racing ball's in, would you go in the Red Bull right now? I'd say yes, absolutely. Yeah, for sure. Because they always back themselves.

Exactly. It is sadly the poison chalice for most, but maybe one day a driver will be able to always. also handle that crazy, crazy car. And that is it. Thank you, everybody, for tuning it to this qualifying recap. Tommy, what are your final thoughts? Final thoughts are looking forward to get some sleep.

Oh, yeah, a little bit of a snooze. Yeah, I'm pretty tired still. Yeah, yeah. It's going to be good. Yeah, tomorrow, normal time, no crazy 2.30 a.m. sprint race. We're just straight up for the race tomorrow. We're going to be vibing. If you want to come and tune in,

and you know, you're going to set your alarm if you're in Europe. Come and join us on YouTube and Twitch. Matt P1, Tommy, over on Twitch. If you want to come and watch along with us, we have a lot of fun there, and that is it. See you very soon. Also, love to take care. Bye.

Thumbs up from Tommy today. Not the wave. The thumbs up. Goodbye. And before you turn off the recording, chores are because people are so upset when we don't do chores, which is wild to think that this has become some kind of staple at the end of an audio podcast.

Oh, my chore is, wash your windows. Yeah, fair. No, but no, wash your shower screen. That thing is getting a little bit murky, isn't it? You just think it washes itself with the soap. No, no, no, no, no. Go and scrub it.

Tommy, what are you scrubbing? Just leave it there. Yeah, leave it there. Tommy's absolutely speechless. is a Stack production and part of the ACAST created network.