P1 with Matt and Tommy - Reaction to Chinese GP Sprint Race

Episode Date: March 14, 2026

Even though yesterday’s qualifying proved a bit of a disaster, there’s no doubt that these new rules promote plenty of crazy overtaking. Speaking of which, let’s talk about today’s sprint race! You can get 20% off an annual membership to our Patreon! 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 TikTok. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello everybody and welcome back to the P1 podcast with Matt and Tommy. Podcasts galore this weekend because, of course, it's a sprint weekend. And we have had the Chinese Grand Prix sprint. And a lot to talk about, as always. You know, these new regulations are serving something, whether you don't like them or you do like them. I, look, overarching feelings. Let's just go straight in with how we feel after that one. And look, I understand some people had some comments from our last podcast.

where perhaps we went in very hard on the regulations and actually forgot to really talk about SQ3s. We apologize for that. But after the sprint today, my overriding feeling is that that was pretty great to watch. Now, I am as a Formula One fan having an internal struggle of what I'm watching and whether I should enjoy it.

That's kind of the thing I'm sat here going, oh, these are, I've always wanted loads of overtakes. We've now got them, but it's done in a different way to what I like. Yeah. But I think overall, the first half of that sprint was great to watch. And yes, there's battery deployment tactics. Some people might argue that there's no skill involved in that. I would disagree.

And it kept it interesting for the first half of the sprint. And I remember sprints last year where we'd get literally no overtakes and it would stay in basically the position that they started in. I would take that as in this, what we've just seen over the sprint. that any day of the week. That's the trade-off, isn't it? Basically, last year, the problem with the sprints was we were in this dirty air formula where the only way you could overtake was once people were on different tyres or had different strategies going on. So essentially the first part of the race was redundant almost in last year's regulations because it was who got to turn one first and everyone just sits there for the rest of it.

Whereas now, actually you're finding, based on the evidence of one Grand Prix that we've had, but it kind of continued into this sprint, that the most exciting part is the start because they're swapping positions. Now, I'm also feeling massively like these regulations are being saved enormously by the fact that Ferrari can start well. And whether Ferrari not having these. amazing race starts would mean that yeah we wouldn't be seeing this but you're right we're seeing a lot more action it's just whether you're enjoying that action because it's not the

kind of late breaking dive bombs under breaking that we're kind of used to to seeing yeah i i i mean the midfield were also providing a lot of action so If we're talking about Ferrari saving the regulations, I wouldn't, it's not as if we're not seeing overtakes anywhere else. Yes, Ferrari are saving us from the Mercedes domination. That's the key thing here, because George would have probably just driven away

had he been able to use his battery in efficient way. But still trying to, yeah, I know, I know. There are some triggering words in there. I apologize. But yeah, it was still fun to watch. And let's see how it evolved. over the course of the season. Question, P1, Patreon member, Piper MZ, Mimic X.

Does the sprint format work super well with these regulations? That was pretty exciting. The sprint format is a debate in itself as to how it sits. I think at this point in the season, and it always comes back to the worth of it, right now at this point in the season, we don't, well, we think George Russell will probably win the championship. But we don't know at this stage.

No, someone isn't 200 points down the road and it feels like this is meaningless. Because at the start of the season, everyone's trying to pick up as many points as they can. And as for the racing itself, the sprint works, yes, very well. Had it not been for LeClair and Hamilton fighting in the midpoint of that race, we may well have had back and forth action until the last lap. Because George Russell and that Mercedes did not have, at least, they weren't showing. a gargantuan advantage like we see in qualifying. And that was the same in Australia,

until George got a bit of clean air, thanks to Ferrari not pitting under the VSC. So yeah, I think the sprint does work very well and goes back to your point, Tommy, because Ferrari are able to put themselves in a position that causes problems. And overtake mode is clearly showing that it is built for racing

in the fact that a car and a driver that might well be two or something, three-tenths a lap slower in pure, you know, just on, if it was a time trial, but that doesn't matter because overtake mode gives you such an advantage over the car in front of you that you do get to see lots of racing. It's all about what you'd rather see, really, isn't it? Because you look at the qualifying pace and if we didn't have this situation of the the rules and the battery deployment and the overtake mode and the boosting.

death, George Russell would just be gone, you know, winning every race by a mile. And even, even the likes of Kimmy Antonelli, who we'll talk about in a bit, because he had another very, very similar race to kind of Australia and the start, even with that Mercedes advantage where it seems like they are so clear and qualifying, you can't really get away. It's quite hard to escape from it. And that keeps the pack closer. And I understand that people are not enjoying the artificialness of it because it is. And these are the regulations that we've got. But as I've said before, you know, we've had DRS.

We've had extremely degrading tires and things in Formula One to provide entertainment. And yeah, this regulation, it does seem all about qualifying feels very flat. but in the race you're seeing drivers swap positions because you can't get away almost of the way the rules are designed with this boost in overtake mode. Exactly. And you watch at the end of the season where the battery perhaps is less of a factor. That's what I'm anticipating and predicting. And then we have a poor sprint every time we go out there. there will be a lot of people that will be sat there going, God, I kind of wish I'd appreciated the fact we had lots of battling for the lead, despite it being on the artificial side for sure. But at the same time, like, yes, it is artificial. It is extremely advantageous at times. But for my level of enjoyment, I like it when they're battling into the apex of a corner, which we saw a lot. We saw a lot of side-by-side action. If it was just bye, bye, bye,

by every time I'd get it like what the hell is this this is DRS times a thousand but but it's not a lot of the time and there's at least some saving grace in this that we are seeing wheel to wheel action and and a lot of the let's let's not kid ourselves that a lot of the

DRS overtakes Westland dunks on the straight so actually you're still getting artificial passing like we did with with DRS but I would much rather see it of like Lewis Hamilton going around the outside of turn one than I would him just breezing past in the DRS zone. And for all the kind of complaints about the new rules and it's not everyone's cup of tea and I'm still kind of getting my head around it, the one thing

I was hoping, which we were talking about the start of the season, was that these new regulations could mean you're passing at different parts of the track. Now, you can't argue that's not happening. It's different turns. We're not seeing just, this is the regulated zone that you pass in through DRS. How many overtakes, you know, even I think Antonelli even made a move into the final turn. You'd never see that in years gone by because you just wait for the DRS straight. And that's exactly what you wished for coming into this season.

Like you literally were like, the battery is going to bring us different unorthodox crazy overtakes in places we wouldn't expect. Exactly, because that's why I wanted. We'll never be happy as Formula One fans. I think, you know, the artificial argument, I'm sat here and I'm like, yes, Formula One have overtaking aids, all of which are artificial. If we want non-artificial natural racing, we have to go back to the 2000s. And back then, we have a three overtakes a race every race. because he's got his car. So, I mean, this is not a backtrack

because I stand on everything I said yesterday because we were talking about sprint qualifying and that was a, it is a disaster. The cars are fundamentally flawed for a Saturday. But what we saw today, I think, was enjoyable. And, yeah, I mean, I was on the edge of my seat when they were going side by side and I'm sure there were a lot of people out there as well

that were the same. Question from Fergie's right, ref. Should LeCloran Hamilton have focused on catching Russell or continue in fighting. I do wonder in these regulations, as we mention, about the fact that you don't want people to let you get away. We saw in the Australian Grand Prix how drivers were, when Russell and LeClair were battling at the start,

it brought Hamilton into play, it bought Antonelli into play, even though he had that really poor start in Australia, and he managed to get back, and then he had the four of them all together. there's another kind of side to it that you wonder could teammates work together swap positions and use that extra bit of battery that you have being a second behind

as an advantage to kind of gain lap time and as we saw there the Ferrari drivers were very much all about just racing each other rather than working together which is no surprise it was brilliant to watch I think we said when when Hamilton joined at Ferrari

a lot of people are like oh surely they're going to collide and things and we said no they are two of the best wheel to wheel races in the sport and two of the fairest as well and that's what we saw there where it's like it's great tough racing

but it's fair even if Charles maybe wasn't all too happy with it yeah they came pretty close it is an interesting theory but the problem is, it's like, and I don't know, I can't believe I'm about to you to a football analogy, it's like asking a striker to pass it a cross goal

for your teammate to score or just shooting at goal and hoping that you score. The amount of times someone's ego will take over, like, well, I just want to score. It's similar in this situation where like you're almost propelling your teammate into a chance of winning the race when the last thing any teammate wants to do

is to allow their other teammate to beat them in the race. So there's a lot of factors there. And it's, yes, I mean, on paper for sure, they should have focused on catching Russell because they were marginally slower. But with the overtake mode, as we've mentioned, they could have taken it to Russell.

I think maybe LeClair was hoping that Hamilton would work together with him because he said there was a bit too much fighting. Or Charle was just hoping that Hamilton would roll over and just let Charles through, which obviously is not going to happen. I don't think Lewis should have. given the position up to Shal to go and catch George

but it was great to watch the fighting it was close at times there was a bit of a comment wasn't there on the radio from Shal about does Lewis know the size of these cars because it got pretty marginal at one point but I loved it I loved watching these two

fight some people were listening might think you don't enjoy Hamilton being competitive I genuinely do because it's it's great to watch and this Leclair, I obviously believe, can win a world championship and put himself in the Hall of Fame. And what better driver to go up against than the seven-time champion of the world. So it's great to see Hamilton back in Formula One in a competitive,

actually enjoying the car and being able to fight at the front. I will say as a caveat, please, Louis, stay like this. Don't do what literally happened after China last year and start to struggle with the car again, because Lewis literally won the China spent last year and we were going, oh my God, what an entrance to Ferrari for Lewis. So please just continue this trend. Yeah, agreed.

It's great to see Hamilton back at the front and, you know, had that amazing start. And, you know, to go on to that race start, we thought, how on earth is he going to get into the lead at fourth place? But the surprising thing about the Ferraris is they have it in the corners that they can still fight.

And I think what surprised us so much about that start and Hamilton getting into the lead, I think, was because we were so ingrained into thinking it's either turn one. And I think this is generally like the way Formula One's gone and maybe it's this dirty air era as well that we've had just previously. We're so ingrained to be like turn one is the be all and end all of Formula One is the most important thing. And once you're there, you kind of locked in position. Ferrari, that car, yeah, they still manage to make the, the title. up. It looks great in the corners and Hamilton was able to, yeah, make his way through a couple of cars to get up into second, mainly thanks to another poor start from Antonelli, and then dive down

the inside of Russell in a unconventional passing place. I guess it's a conventional. I guess it's a right hand, that's a pretty, it's a popular move for China. But yeah, I mean, it's not the down the back straight. Not the down the back straight. Yeah. So Hamilton up to up to first from I mean it's literally becoming a trend. We've had, we've seen two races now and both times a Ferrari driver has gone from fourth to first the first lap and I would like to continue seeing this for the rest of time. And we didn't get the start light. And that's without the start like being like 0.1 of a millisecond. Yeah, it was a couple of seconds and then they then they launched it. So it's Hamilton.

in that initial phase I was like oh Hamilton yeah pretty quick off the line but he's not going to get George and then it seems to say what Lando has been saying about Ferrari aerodynamically is the best in the corners and I believe him you know I genuinely think that Ferrari do have

potentially the best package in the corners so we'll be interesting when we get to some high downforce tracks later on in the year but awesome awesome to have Ferrari saving us from pure Mercedes domination Question, people on Patreon member Oscar Glazer. Does Antonelli not have enough experience to fight for wins with George?

So it's two from two now for Antonelli and poor starts. Yes, these cars are difficult. We literally saw Max Verstappen struggle off the line this time around. But to have back-to-back bad starts is becoming slightly concerning for Kimi because not only clearly it's difficult to set up these cars to get ready for a start, but there will be that added mental pressure now for Antonelli of, I'm in a championship winning car and I'm making mistakes at the start. If you think of how people would talk about Lando's starts,

that was a big mental burden for him. And I think Kimmy needs to get on top of this ASAP before it becomes a thing for him that will just constantly be something he thinks about. So Antonelly put himself massively on the back, for he was only able to get back to fifth, especially after the 10 second time penalty as well, with the lunge on Hajjar, I think it was. And there was damage there.

I don't know if Kimmy picked up a little bit of damage as well, but overall a pretty scruffy sprint from Kimmy. I was apologetic for him in Australia. I regret giving him a nine and driver ratings. But this time round, you know, once is fine, you're brand new cars. You're in your second season. and this time you're going,

oh, Kimmy, can we lock in, please? 100%. That's exactly what we said during the watch along right from the start again. You know, it's two from two now, a poor start from Antonelli. And yes, these cars are very difficult to get off the line. We've seen the other drivers struggling as well, many other drivers struggling.

But for it to happen in both races, when Mercedes have this big advantage in qualifying, they need to make the most of that. So for Kimmy just to drop back right from the start and it wasn't even, you know, it's not him dropping back behind the fast-starting Ferraris and his fourth. He's going all the way down to seventh place.

I think it was seventh again, exactly the same as Melbourne. And the problem is then you get yourself in a situation where, yes, you've made contact, so there's jeopardy, there that again in a sprint you know a 10 second penalty in a sprint is enormous because it's a very short race the packer close and yeah you find yourself in a situation where even the even the

McLarence who you know finished 50 seconds behind them in Australia and seemingly aren't able to challenge at the front they were a lot closer that has to be said but such as this new battery deployment and boost and overtake and everything, that you can't just breeze past like we saw and get away because it gives the person behind. And actually, Antonelli, I can't remember if it, I think it was on Piastri where he passed him and then we were watching the replay of the front.

And you'd assume Antonelli would be making progress and it kind of cut back and it's like, oh, Oscar's back past again. So yeah, it's not going well for Antonelli at the moment. It certainly isn't. Another driver it's not going well for is your boy. Let's go to a question. E76860, Edwin. Will Vestappen be able to even get P5 in the driver's championship?

Probably not. Not if they're in the midfield. I do think if I'm sniffing a lot of copium here, there's going to be the problem is in that pre-term. previous season, we had races where they were just woeful. I mean, look at, look at Brazil where they hadn't got the car set up properly. That was a sprint weekend as well. Obviously, it's not in that situation now where they can fix that problem and fly through the field. And that's the most concerning thing for Red Bull. However, it seems like a lot of their problems

this weekend have been through the corners, which in a weird way maybe is best. better that you can improve your car aerodynamically than you've got a huge power deficiency that we've kind of seen in years gone by where you know look at mcclaren honda or even like astern martin now right that if if you're behind on your engine it's kind of curtains so that's the maybe saving grace that it's not going to happen at every track but they are in struggle town big time at the moment and uh yeah the prediction of Max not winning a race I know it's early days but

I've gone back to being like I regret that prediction I'm like no that prediction is probably going to come true now particularly if one but at what cost yeah exactly I do love it it's like after Australia oh you might win a race after this one oh no I don't think it's so over it's so over I love it and then we'll go to the next race in Japan oh he might as you might win a race although to be fair

I think he will struggle similarly around Japan poor start from Max of course almost stalled on the grid, which is not something you really ever see from Max Verstappen. And then he was involved in all kinds of chaos, which was, he had a permanent mini box the entire way through, which to be fair,

I absolutely respect from F1 TV direction. They've gone, you know what, Max Verstappen is in the midfield, that's going to be cinema. So let's leave that one up there and just keep focusing on the main feed. So that was good to watch. In terms of the pace of the Red Bull,

I don't really change my stance. from what we said yesterday of the fact that the form will chop and change, it's clear that the Red Bull is not set up well at all around this track. I'd be interested to see if they do make a rather large step forward going into main qualifying because, of course, Park Fermé is opened up, which means the teams can make changes. So anything they've learned from the sprint race, they can change into the final main parts of the weekend. So let's see.

Max firstly needs to confidently get through Q2 which... It's true, it could be a struggle. I mean, one thing to mention as well is we were talking about his race and the struggles of pace, but it seems all the disaster at the moment, even when he was passing Hadjar, you know, he locked up brand wide and it's just not going well at all for him.

It's just so bizarre to see. like all these struggles and I think the frustrations of him as much as he says oh even if I had a great car I'd still hate these rules it's just going to add to that frustration even more if he doesn't like the new rules and he's fighting you know alpine and hasas for eighth I love that as well people that there's lots of people on social media that are strange but the people that want to bring down Max's achievements and then, and I've already seen them now jumping on the,

we were told that Max could win in a hass. No, which I think is what Helmut Marco said. I think that's what Helmut Marco said. I'm just, I'm guessing right now. I might be wrong. But that was a bit of a narrative.

And if you believed that, you've clearly not thought about what Formula 1 has been about for the last, God knows how many years. Usually the best car wins, unsurprisingly. Next question, Poo on Patreon member, Madeline crashed cars, what on earth went on with LeClair at that safety car restart?

I was thinking exactly the same thing. You know, safety car, three laps to go in the sprint. Here we go, Charles LeCleur on soft tyres, let's see what you can do. We'll yo-yo all the way to the finish and see who manages to overtake last. But that did not happen because he had wheelspin behind the safety car, I think it was, and asked what on earth was that wheel spin? and then had another batch of wheel spin when he went to go and restart behind George Russell. He said after the sprint in the broadcast about the fact that he'd seen George have a little swapper

and he thought, this is my chance. And then decided to have a bigger swapper because the lack of grip was exactly the same in his car. So it's a shame because we were sort of robbed of a grandstand finish. But that being said, you know, George was the faster car and the faster driver potentially.

We don't know. Who knows? Who knows who's the fastest driver? Probably Bortoletto. We don't know. But in terms of, you know, it would have been tough for Shal to beat George, but it would have given us at least a bit of a wheel-to-will action

with the wonderful overtake mode. Yeah, it was a small error, but you can see why he went for it. You know, you've got to take those opportunities to pounce. And, yeah, seeing George go out of shape. that was his opportunity to go for it and it didn't work out and it's such a shame because that whole safety car as they were circulating it was like wow this is going to be great this is exactly what we need because we've seen it on the evidence of the start that

george can't get away but unfortunately uh the the kind of the wheel spin allowed george to get away and even at the end you know lecler did did catch it at the end and you just thought, it's that classic, like, one more lap, oh, one more lap, but... Yeah, it was a mistake from Charles. I will put my hands up and say it, and it was annoying to say the least. Question from people on Patreon member, Grubly. Why did it take so long to sort Holcomberg's car out? Yeah, I wouldn't be too kind of annoyed the marshals and things here. I think these new cars, no doubt there's probably a lot of safety procedures and things. with how they're all electrical powers.

We've seen it when Kerr's got introduced, you know, a mechanic coming in and getting electrocuted when touching a car back when Kerr's was introduced. So there'll be a lot of procedures where they need to wait for the whole car and everything to shut down safely and stuff. So this is a situation where, yes, it's very frustrating, particularly at the end of a race when you want to see as many racing laps as possible, even more so in a sprint

when you don't get many racing laps as it is and they're being eaten into by a safety car but I think this is just the nature of Formula One with the electrical power It certainly is like it was it did feel like they were moving in slow motion but then again as you say there's a lot of safety procedures and the marshals are unpaid

they're volunteers and the fact that, you know, there are people out there that will sacrifice weekends to do this sort of stuff for the sport is obviously awesome. I don't know. I still don't know how I feel about the fact they are volunteers and Formula One are a multi-billion dollar company. But that's a different conversation. In terms of the Holcombongberg thing,

maybe they need a couple more people there. It felt like just two people trying to move a car with someone else in the tractor. but yeah, it wasn't that long. It just felt long because we were so eager to get underway again for the end of the spread. I think it literally took them two laps. Look, we have seen, I think Monza was it, a few years ago, where we genuinely were behind the safety car for like eight laps.

So it was two laps, it was nothing, it was just the fact we were feeling very impatient. So well done to the marshals for moving Hulk's car, and we did get some racing action at the end. And finally, a quick shout out to firstly, Liam, Lawson and secondly, Ollie Behrman, both of them scoring points in the sprint beating both

the Red Bulls. That's just happened, of course, not scoring in the sprint, sorry. I think I saw that. I just felt good to kind of make you feel a little bit sad. But Lawson did phenomenally well, you know, he was on the hard tyres, a different strategy. I think it was only three drivers that started

on the hards. Lawson was one of them. Slightly questioned it at the time, like, oh, wow, hard tires, really? And then stayed out as well after the safety car, which I thought thought he'd be a sitting duck. But no, he fought hard. He lost a couple of positions.

He was up in P5, but to still score up a couple of points and hold off Ollie Berman, who also didn't pit under the safety car and stayed on his mediums, brilliant drives from the pair of them. Shame for Lawson that in years gone by when the field spread wasn't as extreme, you know, this would have looked like the absolute could have been, you know, like the Pierre Gazley-Monser strategy because obviously he did. didn't pit, but unfortunately for him, the top cars were so far ahead that they could come in, change their tires and be back out most of them in front of him. But yeah, still an amazing job from Lawson.

And yeah, great performance, racing balls looking very strong again. Same with Hasse with Ollie Bearman. That midfield pack was very close again. The gap between 8th and 12th was unbelievable. which sadly has match just happened in it. But yeah, they were battling all the time. We had Ocon versus Gassley again, which was, I mean, sign me up if that's going to be a thing every race.

So, yeah, it was good between them and, yeah, a great drive in particular from Lawson. Indeed it was, there we go. We are done and dusted for the sprint race. I hope you enjoyed it. Lots of action. And we look forward to reading. how you felt the sprint went from your perspective

because I think it is a very divisive. Very divisive thing especially when we see lots of overtakes. So I'll be very keen to get your thoughts whether that's on audio or over on YouTube. So thank you everybody for tuning in. We will be back literally later on for qualifying for the Chinese Grand Prix and then of course back again tomorrow for the main race. We'll be live on Twitch, YouTube and Dream 11s. Come and join us over there.

that is it. Tommy, final thoughts, please? Final thoughts? Bring on Quali and hopefully please be slightly good because maybe they need to switch based on this year that the sprints are now good and Quali is a bit rubbish.

Maybe the format of the sprint weekend needs to change again so you don't have the highs of a sprint followed by a Mac qualifying. You get it the other way around. And also speaking of the qualifying, I think something we do have to very quickly speak about that perhaps we were wrong about yesterday, which we have to put

our hands up about, was the fact of the graphic, which obviously circulating that it's a Mercedes-PU glitch, which is causing the freezing of the spidometer. So I just wanted to mention that at the end of this podcast as well, because, yeah, some people quite rightly said, look, guys, I don't think this is right. And, yeah, it appears that that was not the case. It's just so coincidental that obviously our brains were working overdrive. And, yeah, we were. And you can see why we thought it after they did that whole speedmaster thing and cut away. And they're obviously doing a lot on the other side of things to make new rules and criticisms be hidden. So when you see that speedo freezing, when they've already done something similar on social media,

obviously the initial reaction from fans and everything is to be like, oh, they're trying to kind of hide it here. But it's clear that the Mercedes drivers had that kind of. flatlining timing on their timing and all the other cars it was fine for on their telemetry not their timing

on their telemetry sorry yeah yeah it's fine it's early it's very early but yeah just just wanted to mention that at the end because we are just two blokes that try and get everything right but sometimes they're wrong so there you go thanks everybody we'll see you later on for qualifying lots of love bye

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