P1 with Matt and Tommy - Reaction to Chinese GP sprint qualifying, with Alex Jacques

Episode Date: April 19, 2024

With Matt currently on a flight back from China, Tommy's delighted to be joined by F1 commentary legendary Alex Jacques to recap a crazy sprint qualifying session!The rain came in halfway through the second session, lap times got deleted and then reinstated, and even some grass caught on fire -chaos!You can sign up to our Patreon here! You'll get access to exclusive episodes you won't hear anywhere else, every P1 episode ad-free, full driver interview videos, early access to tickets and more!Follow us on socials! You can find us on Twitter, Instagram, Twitch, YouTube and TikTok. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello everybody and welcome back to the P1 podcast with Matt and Tommy, although today it's Alex and Tommy as I'm joined by Alex Jakes. Welcome. Thank you very much for having me, mate. Very nice to have you on board. Matt is stuck on a flight in China. I say stuck on a flight, flying home, which is a very odd thing that he's flying home from a Grand Prix. But yeah, if you were around on Twitch earlier, you'll have seen that as Matt wasn't, there, I put a picture of him, one of his classic shocked reaction faces next to me, which ended up being very accurate because what a session. Did you enjoy that one? Oh, it was one of those sessions where you don't really feel like you're in the commentary box. You feel like you're in the living room. You suddenly get transported back to being 10 all over again because when you've got

so many good drivers in the mix and it, the range of, the range. a great leveller and you just get to see them soaring away at the steering wheel. You know as soon as the rain comes down and they've only had one practice session and it was in the dry, you knew you were going to get an epic session but that was just terrific fun.

It really was. I've missed seeing, I've just missed that feeling of not knowing who's going to get poll. It could have been anyone towards the end. It was absolutely crazy. And the first question we've got is actually from O2 Rachel Rebecca

that says, can it rain every week please? Would we like that? Oh, it absolutely love it. I mean, I think the thing is, Formula One, for certain parts of qualifying, he's so close and so on a knife edge. And then sometimes, well, at the start of qualifying this year,

it's been, and then Max just delivers in Q3. But you know that you've got so many talented drivers in the field to get a session where they all can press together and then on one lap for it to be Alonso, another lap for it to be Hamilton, another lap for it to be Lando, Perez in the mix, you had Bottas on the front row for one occasion.

I love it when they're living on their instincts. So, yeah, if we could have it rain for more qualifying sessions, I would tick that box immediately. Absolutely, yeah. It's rare that, I think in Formula One, I've found when it's rained recently, it can go one of two ways in qualifying, where, and I think this time we had that absolute perfect sweet spot,

because we've unfortunately had it before where if the rain comes after everyone's set their lap where you've got max at the top, peris second, the Ferraris or whatever, and then it basically just means that the whole rest of the session is completely irrelevant because it's rained and no one's going to do anything. Whereas this was perfect because we had the session

where it was just drizzling slightly and then we got a full wet session where like you say it was changing every single time. I think that's why. what made it so good. So more of that, please, Formula One. Although, just to cover the sort of elephant in the room, I don't know if you thought the same,

but I was just watching this going, God, I wish this was real qualifying. Why did it have to be a sprint? Why did it have to be a sprint? The fact that they've changed it. And now it's, that would have been qualified. That would have been qualifying. It's a strange one to put into context as well,

because you're trying to refer to the other sprint qualifying sessions that we've had. but obviously if Fernando had been at the front at the end there, that would have been the first time that he tops a qualifying session since 2012, and you're trying to think how the best way to explain the significance of it is. And then about two minutes ago, I was like, listen, this is just some of the best drivers in the world in nearly impossible conditions, in conditions that you and I would struggle to keep it pointed in a straight line for like four seconds. They're dancing with these incredibly powerful.

which is just that is a distillation. It's just so great to see them soaring away at the steering wheel because you get to see their skills in a way that you don't always. Sometimes, you know, a max and stop and brilliant lap will be on fingertips. The car will look on rails. But here, bagfuls of opposite lock all the time. And yeah, it's just great to get a session of significance like that. But yeah, I know what you mean.

Yeah, I love to see the drivers fighting the car. So let's start with SQ1 then, which was dry. We had Gassley, Ockon, Albans, Sonoda and Sargent. So I guess it's crazy to say this year, but Alpine being out is not really a surprise now. Williams may be surprising how low they are down the order, particularly Alburn. What do you make of Williams this year?

Because we've discussed this on the podcast, that they obviously have tried to make a car that is more suited across the season. However, you could almost argue that they're going to pick up more points if they just have that like one crazy race at Monza, where they can bag a P6 or seven, then maybe just sort of being in that 15th, 16th, 17th spot, which seems this year that they have gone sort of like towards the back of the grid again and they're struggling a bit this weekend. And struggling a bit this weekend,

I also think the point that Williams are going through a really tough time. Williams have got to go through this tough time in order to be properly competitive in the future. You can't build a Formula One team around trying to finish seventh and hope that Alex Alberg can put in another incredible drive. Yeah.

They're having to take the pain of the lack of parts. they're having to state the pain of not having a spare chassis because they're completely changing the production process. Well, that is very unusual to have to do. Williams are quite a complete outlier. Audi are you going to have to do something similar with Salba, but they're not going to have to do decades worth of modernisation, which is what Williams are doing at the moment. They've taken that key route of, okay, well, let's make the car work across a broader window. So I think it's short-term pain for a long-term gain. At least they're hoping so,

because if they've removed the car's inherent strength of straight-line speed, if you suddenly finish 12th everywhere, it doesn't matter that you've opened up the window. So a tough day for them, only one practice session, but Sergeant only a 10th away from Melbourne, slightly encouraging for him, although he's obviously at the back, but he'll take being a 10th away.

I think if this was to continue into the second half of the season, and I think they might question their approach. But at the moment, they're just getting through the races. Once they've got that spare chassis, once they've got more parts, everyone will relax and they will hope to target the points again. But tough day. Yeah, definitely. One driver I really don't want to talk about is Yuki Sonoda down in P19.

Now, Matt's not here so I can roast him and get very annoyed at him. He, his biggest flop this year, he's had four from four. this week he predicted Sonoda would be the biggest flop and sure enough he's just supposedly just forgotten how to do qualifying because that that has been the thing that he's been so strong at this this year not really sure what happened to Yuki had a poor you know poor first lap and then just didn't get it together did he? A sprint weekend of the year you are always going to be no matter if the rain didn't change you were always going to be in trouble if you didn't get that first lap in it was a session

where there was a greater element of improvisation, even in the dry. I guess for Yuki, he's been building his momentum all the way through. He practiced one a certain way, get your qualifying simulation in, in practice two, get your long run in. It's just repeat and build that momentum and build that momentum. And then I think maybe the change in format, you've got to improvise a little bit more. And that's interrupted him. It's about the only thing that's gone wrong with these years, really, this year. So P19, he will be one glad that that's the sprint qualifying and not the real qualifying.

Yeah, very, very true. It is just the sprint. And we've had this argument before of, is there a lot to play for those midfield runners in a sprint format anyway when only the top eight are scoring? So we'll have to have to see there. Now, we didn't get any rain in the session, but we did get a fire as we did in FP1, which was very bizarre. A question from Mr Idiot says, how is it possible that the grass only catches fire during the F1 sessions? Now, I believe this is something to the sparks.

Is that right, that potentially from what I've heard, are we still non-the-wiser of how this is actually happening? Yeah, indication from the FIA is the sparks are flying off the cars and igniting the grass. That's a sentence I've never said with Formula One. Yeah, it's an unusual one. That's not conclusive, but that's the FIA's, best guess at the moment.

Very strange for it to happen. I've never seen that before. Yeah, I was thinking, I've never seen that at all. An odd one that it's never happened around this circuit before, but this is the first time that we've had the ground effect cars around Shanghai. So occasionally you're going to get a bit of a turn-up, and the grass on fire an apex definitely a turn-up. Yeah, no one had that in their board predictions this weekend that we'd have fires from

from Sparks. So on to the start of the rain, I guess, SQ2, out of that session where Russell Magnuson, Holcomberg, Ricardo and Stroll, biggest shock there, I guess, is George Russell. Does it sum up Mercedes this year and their difficulty with maybe understanding their car that I think both of them looked pretty bad in SQ2 and then Hamilton almost sticks it on pole for SQ3? That car just seems to change so much like no other where sometimes they're quick, sometimes they're not. They say it after every practice session, we don't know what's going on. Oh, it's terrible.

Oh, it's actually really good. And they do just seem like all over the place of their performance and not really understanding what that car's doing. That's the word. It's understanding. Once they understand the car, I think they could easily do what McLaren did last year and make huge gains. And they said they were happier with Japan because they began to see correlation. They began to understand things.

But this is Mercedes. This is a team that isn't meant to be at the lower region. You're not meant to be going out in the second part of qualifying. It's a long time they've been searching for answers. It's one thing to blame the concept. I still think they will. The problem for them becomes once you understand the car, once you sort the correlation, if it's still not in the ballpark,

if it's still not challenging at the front of the field, then you've just done a job that's in arrears to the front-running teams. Every single race that they don't understand, the car, they're losing development time. They're losing the ability to go down a path of development. And remember, you have to choose your development so carefully in the cost cap era that it's not like when they were all dominant before, where they could go, right, we're going to do one development down this path,

one development down this path. you've got to be so careful with where you place your resources at the moment. And I think you said it perfectly. I think it sums up where they are for the time being, but I do think they could have a McLarenlight resurgence in the second half of the year if they understand what they've got underneath. Because the numbers are saying one thing and the lactose are saying enough. Yeah, it's a shame to see that, you know,

because we want to see them battling at the front because it's better for Formula One. Has, of course, doing another brilliant job. We've said it before that 12th and 13th would be, you know, an amazing performance. And it looks like they actually are kind of getting it sorted in the races now so they could have a very nice sprint indeed. Ricardo, ahead of Sonoda, which is obviously good for him after the struggles that he's been having. And Stroll, you know, he's, again, in qualifying, that seems to be the thing that lets him down the most with his performances. I know he gets a lot of, a lot of criticism, but I think it is, it always seems to be that qualifying performance.

that puts them on the back foot, and then, you know, already being that far down in a sprint, it's going to take a lot for him to come through the field, I think, from there. Yeah, just lacking the feel with the recently updated Aston Martin over one lap, it is odd with Stroll, because he will be looking at a day like today. This really reminded me of the time that he was on pole position today, that race that we had in Turkey. He's a driver that does so well in the... those mixed conditions. He's been on pole in Turkey. He's been on the front row in really wet conditions in Italy in the past. That's an opportunity missed for him. He would have just

wanted the raid earlier in the session because I think if he'd been in the mix with Alonso in the wet later on, he could well have mixed it at the front. Strange how that works. Strange how the changing condition can bring out a totally different side of the driver. But in the dry at the moment, it's just not got the understanding of the car. Definitely. One team that we've not mentioned so far, which we normally have by now, is Kixalber, because they both made it through, which is very impressive. F1AV. Geek has asked, right place, right time for Kixalba or genuine pace. Probably a little bit of column A, a little bit of common B, I think. I think very much so. In that situation, Montailles's got form around here. It's taking pole position around this

circuit in the past, and you knew that Joe Gwainu was going to, I just, he was always going to find something. I think you speak to drivers about their home events. They either find it a burden or they find it fuel. And he, I think from the very start was always going to find it fuel. I think to start your journey with this race in the grandstand to then basically pack up your childhood and go all in a racing dream by going to the European carting scene like he did. I think he was always going to dig deep for that. So Bottas has formed around the racetrack and Joe Guan knew I think was always going to find something at his home race, but they did adapt really nicely to the condition. It's been very easy to fall away in those conditions. Had to get your first run right. So that is a car that has not

always been the most predictable, but big for them, big to deliver. And if anything goes wrong in front of them, they're there to pick up the pieces. Yeah, definitely. I mean, it's a short sprint race, so you never know what might happen. It could be. I think, I think it's something that maybe James Fowles has mentioned before that sometimes you can just go, all in on the sprint and just hope that that's going to be the time you get points because if they're right up there they only need one of the you know the leaders to to slip up and and they might get something from it. I absolutely love I think the picture of Joe Guan Yu is absolutely brilliant in the grandstand seeing seeing someone as a fan you know waving an Alonzo flag and then

for him to be there racing against him is absolutely amazing. So let's get on to SQ3, which of course, didn't mention earlier, but yeah, it started raining towards the end of SQ2, which is why Russell, you know, couldn't get a second lap in. And then we had those wet conditions for SQ3, incredibly slippery. It takes a lot to see, you know, drivers fighting the car that much. We've not seen many matchless stop and mistakes in the last three years, and he probably did more in that session than has done in the last three years.

Yeah. And that is normally the session where you have those wet conditions and like, oh, well, Max will be on poll then by about three seconds. But no, he's down in fourth. It was a crazy session. Lando fastest in a very confusing way. So if you're listening to this podcast and you didn't watch qualifying, I'm very surprised.

But in case you didn't, I have never seen. a driver so Lewis Hamilton had gone fastest he was the only guy that was on track everyone else had got the checkered flag next to their name they couldn't set another lap and he crossed the line and then it appeared Lando's lap got reinstated the second Hamilton

crossed the line so Hamilton was like oh this will be interesting to see and then it was like second wait wait how have you gone slower than your previous when no one else has left on the track. So a very confusing session. How did that go in the commentary box for you with that one?

So you have two parts of it in a session like that. You have part number one, which is you just love it, right? You desperately want to be in the commentary box for those moments because it's brilliant. It's chaotic. You don't know who's going to deliver, but you do know that whoever delivers at the end is going to be a really worthy poll position. They're going to have had to be quick all the ones. way through. There's going to be a few out. It's just all the ingredients we love about Formula One.

Then he'd put it in the, he'd gone off and I'm thinking, okay, so we'd seen it, we'd seen it been deleted and race control, credit to them, put the reason that they'd deleted it. So there was no ambiguity. It comes up in purple, purple font on the text. And I'm like, okay. So, and it said for that lap and the start of the next lap. And I was like, oh, I said, that's a real disappointment for him. And then there was clearly a bit of arguing going on on the team radio. So we knew that it was in the balance. McClellan reported that it might get reinstated. So you're just calling what you see. But as you say to me, it's the exact moment. So he was reinstated and your brain is doing so many things. All the time to reinstate it. So it's great fun. That was a confusing moment.

in a great session, but ultimately he kept all four wheels on the racetrack for the duration of that lap. There's nothing that can be seen in the race director's notes that I've looked at. So confusing, but

legal lap, when it counted. Obviously other tracks we've been to, that final turn rule is if you have your lap time deleted, the next one goes as well, but that doesn't appear to be in the race director's notes. Let's land over the front. So lovely confusion in the wet what we love.

Yeah. So you've kind of already answered this next question from at Tom Takeson. Can you explain how Lando's lap was reinstated? I'm very confused. So yeah. Understanding then is that he obviously went off on his penultimate run where he ran wide into the gravel, which meant that he messed up the exit of the final corner.

And then he started his other lap, stayed on the track for that entire lap, but because he had gone off at the previous corner, sometimes that can invalidate your lap. And I guess McClaren's argument, and one that I personally do agree with, and I think is a fair justification, is that you're not gaining advantage from that.

You know, Lando's, I think, common sense has prevailed there because I think Formula One already, in my opinion, is very messy over track limits. I find it very frustrating to watch. I think sometimes it can, I think it can be policed too much sometimes, in my opinion. Sometimes it's not enough.

Sometimes it's too much. And I think that situation there, Lando essentially taking, having his rear tires on a gravel trap for the start of his qualifying lap is not going to, is not the quickest way to do a pole position lap. Let's be honest.

So that's always, so that argument there, in my opinion, is a valid one that he stayed on the track for his lap and he's not getting an advantage. Now, other circuits, I can understand if there was a great big bit of runoff there or I'm trying to think of one in the back of my head where you could run incredibly wide and take an extra 40 mile an hour down the straight. And of course, then that is unfair. but from that side I think the lap is a fair one in my opinion Yeah, it was interesting to see the change in the strip of gravel on the exit of the corner because if you think back to other track limits fun

that we've had in the past like Austria last year the recommendation from the FIA was like can we just please put a strip of gravel in there so we don't have to revisit this again if it had been the old version of the circuit it would have been totally fair to delete the next lap as well because there's potentially an advantage even though I don't think it would be in those conditions

but either way, gravel is the better option than having two laps deleted and also those conditions near impossible. Those conditions are so tricky. As you say, when Max Verstaffin's making more mistakes in a session than we've basically seen in the last two seasons knitted together, then a bit of confusion, a lot of fun but I think

in that situation when the track limit is defined by gravel I think it is fine to leave it to the perimeters of the racetrack and Lando quite rightly I think starts at the front of the field because his actual push lap was completely legal

all four wheels within the white line yeah I do I do think there's an argument there for a bit of common sense you could even argue that some of the laps that the drivers were doing before, you know, I guess there's the argument that you have to stay on the track for a qualifying lap, but you know, you can argue that obviously Max had a lot of laps deleted,

so did Lando beforehand, that you're not gaining an advantage by going off. So should your lap time still stay, even if it's a two minute 10? Because essentially like you've not gained an advantage and even if it's a slow lap time should it still count or just disappear completely and now they chose to obviously remove a lot of Max's times which is what what made it so tense towards the end still managed fourth but I don't think any of us would have predicted that he would be two seconds off at the end there yeah crazy that why do you think that was that that we saw so many mistakes from Vastappen in conditions that normally is, you know, his perfect conditions where he is a lot of the time even faster than he normally is and has an even bigger advantage on the

field. I think it's a very difficult thing. If you speak to former drivers, they will, they give you more of the information, don't they, than the cagey answers we sometimes get in the media pen afterwards. One of the key things that you are here in these conditions, you have to go out and use your last reference point as the limit. Now obviously the track conditions have changed hugely so then you start adapting to what's in front of you but you have no reference at all in your way everything is being recalibrated at every single corner. So you're improvising into turns that you wouldn't even think about and the driver has to do so much with a modern Formula One car that you are suddenly you're suddenly just doing something

a completely different discipline to extracting you know we know how close Formula One is and we know how good these drivers are at delivering Q3 especially coming down to those final two tenths of a second suddenly you're coming down to seconds corners that you don't think about suddenly you are considering all the way through and when there's no reference point

if that had continued on if we had 20 minutes at the end Max would have dialed it in Max would have found an answer and then you get into the repeat laps which is when a driver's overall talent in the way is shown. But when it's chop, chop, chop, okay, I've gone deep at six, I've gone off at the final corner, I've gone here, I've gone there everywhere. It's so tough, but it's what makes that format so enjoyable.

And there's a great delight in seeing who can get to the limit fastest. It's a totally different skill. And it's one that Lando's had in the locker for a while now. Super competitive machinery. Machinery is not quite there. Whenever it's slightly damp, he seems to find a way. So Vastappan in fourth place, he still has enough laps. It's great overtaking around Shanghai.

He's got enough time to turn it around to win the sprint, but some days it works, some days it doesn't work. And for all the rain masters in the past, there are still days where even the greats of Spuddy. Schumacher, one of the greats of all time, hit the wall on the first lap, Monaco, 96, Hamilton, Hockenheim in 2019, just occasionally you have a day in the wet where you're two seconds off.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you mentioned Lando there. I think he has more recently, yeah, he's put his name in amongst those drivers that when it is wet, you think he's going to deliver, which kind of gets on to the next question, which is from Formula One, a strange name to pronounce, where did Lewis and Fernando get that extra lap time? And I think you've basically answered that question with their Lewis Hamilton and Fernando a long day at its wet. but yeah I mean at the end of the day

like you said at the start of the show it is the great leveler and we know what Hamilton and Lonsa can do in the wet right it's just all of their experience and class showing that's what happens when you have the longest ever Formula One career that's what happens if you've got the most titles you know your way around a session like that and you have more of a reference

than even a you know a great driver like Max and Stauffin, just the experience there is worth so much. And yeah, they were, they were using all of their armoury in that session. Absolutely. I mean, if you'd said, not necessarily in the right order, because I think we mentioned many times during this podcast that we thought Max would be a lot quicker, but if you'd said, predict who's going to be in the top four when you saw it was chucking it down with rain, personally, in my opinion, I'd have gone for Verstappen and Alonso Hamilton-Norris in some kind of order. Those four, have been brilliant in those wet weather conditions recently.

It always seems to happen. Yeah, completely agree. Completely agree. And it's just great to, you know, Alonso, I know he's signed for two more years, but you've got to enjoy these drivers being around because, and China's a perfect example of this. You go back, I was looking at the last result of the Chinese Grand Prix. You got some great name.

You got Kimmy in there. You got Vecl in there. Like, they provide great moments. And when they're gone, that narrative, you know, when they were, retire, that narrative is done. So you've got to enjoy second and third on wet days in Shanghai because it won't be around forever. Absolutely. A team that didn't enjoy so much was Ferrari. We'll probably save this for when Matt's back, but Charler-Clair, a little whoopsie into the wall, which was quite amusing on stream because we had the Matt shocked face. So there wouldn't

have actually been that much difference, but he got it out the wall. Yeah, it's, Carlos ahead again, which is quite a surprise. It's a, it's a theme, theme this year. But of course, unusual conditions, a long sprint ahead. I think we'll wrap it up there. Thank you very much for joining me on this. Before you leave, I want one prediction from you about who's going to win the sprint, because it could be someone different with Max standing fourth, or is it going to be Max? Oh, what do we got? We've got 19 laps. It's one of the first. It's one of the the easier tracks to overtake. I think blurs can do it.

Landon looked good in practice over Wunderler. I still think it's going to be Max. But I think it'd be really entertaining. It could be close. You could argue after, you know, the start of the show may be me being a bit pessimistic and saying that we wish this was actual qualifying, you could argue actually there's more of a chance

that Max might not get this one because it's a shorter race and the fact that Lando has that buffer of Hamilton and Alonzo as well at the start of Max to get through, how quickly he can get through. We'll see. But yeah, thank you very much, Alex, for joining us. And we'll be back on Twitch tomorrow at the very early hours. And you'll be up early as well, commentating. And we'll catch you soon.

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