P1 with Matt and Tommy - Reaction to Saudi Arabian GP practice

Episode Date: April 18, 2025

That's a wrap on Saudi practice! We react to a standout performance from midfield. It looks all set to be a thrilling weekend on SUCH a high-speed circuit...You can listen to an extended version of every Race Review podcast over on our Patreon! Sign up to 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!Matt's running the London Marathon for the Great Ormond Street Hospital Charity. Click here if you'd like to donate - thanks so much!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. It's another race. It's just another one and another one. Have another one. Saudi Arabian Grand Prix weekend. I'm hyped for it. I'm vibing. It looks grippy. It looks like cars other than the McLaurin are quite quick this weekend. And just generally, I think we're in for some great action, Tom Bellingham. So do I. Yeah, the track is, we've kind of had it for a few years now. but it still takes your breath away, particularly at night, watching the cars.

And now we have that onboard as well, the gyro thing. It manages to look even more like a roller coaster and even faster. And yes, got some action in FP1, eventually right near the end. Rewaned my prediction, but we'll get into that. FP1 or FP2, darling? I know numbers don't work for you. They really don't. Have I messed it up.

Let's not skip to FB2 yet because we need to focus on free practice one, where Pierre Gazzley is the greatest driver to ever grace the track, because he went fastest by 7,000th of a second to Lando Norris and Charlotte Clough. What the hell was that? Charlecler third. I'm getting so excited that Ferrari are looking reasonable. But yeah, I think the big talking point obviously was Gassley going fastest. And I know that it's always, oh, yeah, but it's practice.

We don't tend to see a midfield runner top a timesheet like that unless it's like changeable conditions or something ridiculous has happened, a massive red flag for ages. So it felt like to me, at least, in the broadcast I was watching, that it was sort of just swept under the rug as like, ah, Gazley's fastest, but who cares? I got a little bit excited for Gasly and Alpine

and the potential for them this weekend. It shows how close the just the pecking order is I know we kind of go in a lot of the time and be like, oh, McLaren are so clear, which they are, but they're clear in the sense that, you know, days gone by, the team that were fastest would be a second clear in qualifying sometimes more, whereas now it's only a few tenths. So when, you know, we see these free practice sessions and people are doing different run plans or, you know, slightly different or get the best of the track, you can see it. a surprise and it keeps us guessing all the way throughout the weekend, which is a great thing.

Question from people on Patreon member, R&B sheep. Are the Alpine's actually good around this circuit or was this just a fluke? There is part of me, now that I've seen free practice too, where they just believes that Alpine turned it up to 11 and gave Gasley the best engine possible because he only improved by a tenth of a second into FP2, whereas you see the likes of Norris improving by a second. So let's see. Let's see what qualifying has to bring. Maybe he's like, gone, I showed a bit too much there, guys. Let me just rein it back a little bit, and we'll only go around in third gear. But at least in the hands of Gassi, it looks very promising.

Duan does seem to be struggling in comparison to Gassley, eight-tenths in FP2. Obviously, we'll get into that, but also similar in FP1 as well. I'm not surprised. Dewan came into this weekend saying that he's feeling quite confident. It's one of the tracks he really likes. but I wouldn't be surprised to see rookies struggle more around here. I know we have the Oliver Berman incredible story from last year, jumping into the Ferrari, etc, etc.

But it is a daunting track. One small mistake, and you are punished so incredibly heavily that it has to weigh on some of these drivers' minds because some of the speeds you take into corners where a wall greets you is petrifying. Yeah, definitely. I mean, Antonelli was flirting with causing a red flag many, many a time today during the practice sessions. But Alpine, are they actually good?

And we've said this before. Is the field being so close and the midfield is really anyone's game? We think back to Alpine hadn't scored a point a week ago. and now we're talking about them as are they actually best of the rest? And I do think it's going to just change every single race depending on the conditions. But they are definitely looking more what we kind of thought they would be this season because they had a really poor start to the season. But they really are doing much better and look like a kind of midfield contender now, if you like, to score points.

They certainly have. Another question about Gassley. Pee on Patreon member Alan Enderpe. Does Gassley deserve to have a second chance in the top team? He's been doing fantastic in recent form. This is obviously a talking point. Whenever a driver starts doing well, they're like, right, they need to go into a top four team. The reality is there are phenomenal drivers in all of the four top teams.

If I'm Pierre Gassley, and this is the reason why he went to Alpine, he's hoping that formerly Renault, a massive name in the history of Formula One, can just sort of. sort their s out and build a car that's actually going to be competitive in future years. So for me, I don't think it's a case of moving to a top team. For Gazley, obviously the best case scenario would be the Alpine next year, figure it out. They're a top three team and they're having a great time and Gasly is the number one driver there. Moving to a Mercedes or a Ferrari or wherever, you know, Alan is mentioning, I don't think it's the play. And also, where does he go?

that you mentioned. It's very easy to jump on any good midfield performance and go, oh, they deserve to be in a top team. But minus Sonoda and Antonelli, who have only just gone into those teams, the top teams consist of Norris, Piastri, Russell, Lewis Hamilton, Charlotte Clare and Max de Stappen. Is Ghazley really, you know, don't get me wrong, he's a great driver,

but is he better than those? not, I personally don't think so. Still a great driver, of course. And then you also look down the field and look at the likes of you know, Ollie Bearman's doing a great job. What great start to the season had Jazz had. Alex Albin seems to be in the form of his life.

The grid's just really, really good. And there's only a certain number of seats available. So I don't, I don't think being in the Alpine as a number one driver is actually a bad thing for Gasly at all. It was at the start of the year. Now it's not. So it's amazing how quickly it's, It can change.

But I love it as well. We're not basing this off of Free Practice 1, everybody, before you're going, oh my God, Matt and Tommy are saying Pierre Gassley deserves a top seat because of Free Practice One performance. He's been showing great performances over the last few years, you know, when he was back in the Red Bull family, obviously not in the main team. But we know that Gassley has a performance in him. Right, let's move to Free Practice to the representative session.

Woo! And it's McLaren 1-2. Norris, ahead of Piastri. So back to normal. Norris clear by just underst. under two-tenth of a second, Vastappen one-tenth further back in third, and then most importantly, Charles LeClaire, you know, sandbagging heavily half a second back in fourth.

But the main talking point came up right at the end when we thought that free practice do was done and dusted. Everyone's doing their race runs. They're checking to see how long those mediums are going to last to deliver us a scintillating one-stop strategy. And then Yuki-Snedda crashed. He did. Yeah, so much so, like you say,

that we kind of thought it was all done and dusted. Apologies in advance, Yuki Sanoda, because I put two questions in our podcast sheet. One of them was, has Yuki Sanoda solved the second driver problem at Red Bull? Because he's doing pretty well. And the second one was, wow, no red flag so today. And as soon as I copied and pasted those two in, I saw the yellow flag graphic pop up.

And, yeah, poor Yuki. So you've swiftly deleted that and added, will Sonoda's seat be under threat? Well, that's what everyone was now asking. But yeah, he was very unlucky, to be fair, wasn't he? Unlucky in the sense of turning in and breaking his front left suspension. I mean, to be fair. It's an error. It's an error, of course.

It's an error. And I believe we were similarly, you know, we were very much on Lando Norris when he made that same mistake and said, look, that is an error that you can't make. it's simply turning in too early. And it is a lapse of concentration as well. Let's not beat around the bush here. It's a slow corner. We saw Ghazley in Free Practice 1.

I know this is not the Ghazley podcast, I promise, but he turned out of a massive crash that was going to happen at, I can't remember what, there's so many turns. I don't know what I can't. So many of them are really similar, yeah. Anyway, the fast left hand,

he turned out of that to stop him from breaking his suspension. Sonoda just maintains the same steering lock and then breaks his front left and then into the wall. and actually quite a significant amount of damage considering the low speed that he did crash. So yeah, it is a lapse of concentration. It is a mistake from Yuki. You then look at the more positive side of things.

He has looked reasonably in there, only a few tenths, maybe even matching Max Verstappen at times during free practice so far this weekend. And this is something again we've not really seen from a Red Bull driver. However, Yuki in the wall just, you know, he loses a couple of kudos points because of that.

Yeah, and all that the headlines will be, of course, you know, the pictures of the crash, that will be the biggest takeaway from, you know, like every media outlet and everything from the session because it's a high profile crash and a driver in a top team. And it is such a shame, you know, I said unlucky. I didn't mean unlucky in the fact that it was a unlucky crash. It's definitely his fault. But I meant more the fact that it's unfortunate because he was. doing so well. And I think the first part of the session in FP1, he was the tiniest margin,

what was it, three thousandths of a second behind the Stappen, which is about the closest anyone's been in what feels like about three years. I love how we got that close and yet Max was still like, no, no, no, you don't come through, you can sit just behind. Yeah, yeah. Even if it's three thousands of a second, he will be ahead. it's crazy just when you thought you might finally see another a Red Bull second driver ahead of Max not quite but Yuki's been doing doing well but this is just one of those things where of course when he got into that seat that he's had amazing speed we were all kind of you know as in particular we're saying well he deserves a chance now he's

got great speed he's beaten all his teammates but the one thing was that kind of worry that he can still have these moments where he can get a bit crash happy or, you know, take off a front wing while battling someone or something like that. Thankfully, it's only practice. So, you know, if he can get this out the way now in a weird way, it's kind of good if he gets the crashing out his system now. And it's a different kind of mistake. It's not a fast, soft tire run clipping a wall.

It is, it is, as I kind of mentioned, that lapse of course. concentration, which is in my mind an error that is, I don't know, I would feel like a team would frown more upon something like that, where it is a lapse of concentration, in my opinion, rather than absolutely sending it balls to the wall and you've clipped it and it was on for a really, really quick lap time. So fingers crossed for Yuki. He pushes this to one side and qualifies really well tomorrow. He has got it in the car, clearly. Hopefully it hasn't dented his confidence too much. But then to be fair, I love how this is the only driver we're talking about that's caused a red

flag or had a significant crash because other drivers were clipping the walls. You had Piastri, Ghazli, Albon, Antonelli, to name a few that were getting pretty up close and personal with all. Antonelli just did slap the wall around the final corner. Then immediately it was like, Box, I'm coming in. I've hit the wall. Yeah, they were, and particularly that final corner, obviously Yuki had the issue where he turned in too early and it sent him into it.

But the amount of people that went round the final corner and did a match for Stappen, 2021, but not as extreme, you know, every, for the rest of time now at the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, that social media clip will come out every single year for the rest of time. The lap that never was. The lap that never was. And it always gets mentioned, it always gets shown. But they even extended that. And someone says that was the greatest lap of all time.

and then someone goes, what's actually going to like? Yeah, exactly. But they extended that wall, didn't they out a bit more? Wow, much is laughing by us. Crazy. Yeah, exactly. Just clearly favouring him. Not wide enough now.

Yuki's going to be asking for it to be a little bit wider next year. And still the drivers are kind of, this is the thing with track limits and we always say, you can move the walls, they'll push it further, they'll push it further. You could move that another mile to the right and they'd still go to the. So they'd still go flat out. Exactly. Exactly. It doesn't make it any easier of a corner just because they're opening up slightly.

And it's like in Bahrain, they made the white line at turn one, two, three, is it four, the right-handed. Yeah, yeah. They made the white line wider on the outside, but then they're all just going to drive to the absolute extremities of that line. It changes nothing. No, it doesn't. Right, let's move on. Question from Fergie's right ref. What's happening with Lewis?

He seems slow compared to Shal. And I promise you that is not my bird. account that wants to talk about Charlotte Claire looking quick. Hamilton, yeah, has looked off it this weekend so far. What that might be, I don't know. Obviously, we heard that they were going in different set up sort of directions. Obviously, Charle was looking on the back foot in China and then has bounced back since then. It's a difficult one.

I'm looking at as fast as sector times, and he's slower than Charle in all three of them. So it's not as if he's sacrificing a certain sector to try and get it back elsewhere. He's, yeah, not looked quick at all. Yeah, he's, I checked this to make sure I wasn't making it up, basically, and looked through all the previous races at Saudi. Of course, won the infamous race in 2021, of course. But since the new regulations, he has struggled here. It's almost been a bit of a bogey circuit.

I remember that one, didn't he? Yeah, that was such a big moment to, after kind of, Hamilton dominating for so many years of Formula One to go into the new regulations where Mercedes didn't look particularly great and he was struggling and you had that massive moment where Hamilton didn't even make it out of Q1 and then looking at the other sessions

he's been behind George Russell in every qualifying there as well so you're not one of putting him as biggest flop or it's not one of his best circuits to be fair and we know how good LaClair is around here that's why we both went for poll which I'll be honest is very ambitious. It's incredibly ambitious.

But P3 though, there's a reason why we put in there because it is one of his best. So I'd argue that what's happened to Lewis Hamilton is that Charles is really good around here and Louis Hamilton isn't great around here. Okay, next question. Ben Jepho 129.

Will this be Dewin's last race with the gap to Gasley? Oh my God, okay, Ben, relax, bro. It's practice. Come on. That is where I am going to, you know, just fire the claxon of it is just practice. We can't be saying just because Dewan is taking some time to build up confidence in practice

that he's now going to lose his seat. If he's knocked out in Q1 in qualifying, then that is of course another thing to go against him sadly. But let's wait till tomorrow on that one. I don't think we can start speculating that it's his last race, especially when we have been saying that he's looked promising at points during the season in dry conditions?

Yeah, speed-wise, definitely. If he has a clean weekend, I think he'll be fine. It's mad that we're talking about it like, oh, if he has a clean weekend, he can make it through another race weekend. I know, but there's obviously so many rumours about it, but it does seem like he's going to be

a lot of rumours suggest now that he is going to be given till the summer break, which is maybe a lot further than a lot of us thought. But based on the kind of form has been a bit crash-happy. mad though, isn't it? It's his first year. Of course, he's made a few mistakes.

But we're talking about that there is an absolute cutoff point for his career at Alpine. It's such a bizarre thing to talk about that it's, because usually we're speculating, okay, maybe he could lose a seat. Maybe we're kind of sat here going, we're going to lose his seat, but we don't know when. Don't know when, I know. It can't be, it can't give him confidence either, can I? I hope he, I genuinely hope from a human level that he's enjoying himself in Formula One and that he is taking in all of this. Because, yeah, who knows when it will be at the end for him, sadly. Soma Daydream asks, has signs turned a corner and closed the gap to Albon?

I think so. We saw that last weekend. It was definitely points up for grabs for signs, but sadly it all went wrong for him. And he's taken that form into Saudi now. It just looks like he's got a hang of the car. There are, of course, different characteristics from the Ferrari to the Williams. We've spoken for many years about the Williams car and how it sometimes, they've kind of obviously moved it more now to a balanced car,

but back only a few seasons ago they were just a rocket ship in a straight line and prayed for Monza. Sounds like Ferrari, to be honest with you. But it's just, it's taken a little bit of time for Carlos, but now that he's showing some promise, the sort of sky's the limit for him, I think. I genuinely am excited to see where Signs gets to by the summer break

in terms of the handling of that car and just how much he can outperform it. Yeah, he's already shown this a little bit. In Bahrain, of course, the race completely unraveled for him, but he was there fighting up with best of the rest at the start of the race and looking very good. And that form has continued into FP2 where he's a P5. You know, if he can get into the top 10. This is the thing, though, with it is that midfield,

to go right back to the very start of this podcast, the midfield is so close that you can make one small little error, lose a couple of tenths, and it is genuinely the difference between a P8 and a P17 or something. It's absolutely crazy. But it's also a good crazy, because this is what we want to see. The drivers make the difference now.

Yeah, we love to see it. And finally, question from P1 on Patreon member M Lacken. With all the accidental blocking, how crazy is qualifying going to be? copy and paces question every single year at Saudi Arabia. I'm glad that obviously they have opened some corners up more than what we saw when it first was brought in Saudi. But it is still a honestly terrifying track to watch on board in qualifying when cars, I think Signs was complaining about one of the Ferraris. I think it was Hamilton in Free Practice 1, where he was kind of sat on off the racing line.

but through such a fast section of the track, you can almost hear in his voice that he was startled by the fact there was a car even there. And it's a completely different level of avoiding cars than any other track. They genuinely have to go off, on the inside of a corner,

completely off on the outside. It's not like they can even just stay on the black stuff. They have to go to the extremes to get out of the way. Because if there's one small little swapper and the car goes flying in a direction that is not meaning to, it can be an aeroplane crash.

So I'm, yeah, I'm hoping the drivers continue to be very aware of it because this is one of the circuits where I just get a little bit more tense when watching. Oh yeah, it really makes you wince, doesn't it? This has been a problem in Formula One for a long time that the way it kind of tires work under the cool down and when people aren't on their laps, days gone by, they weren't driving around

at kind of insanely slow speeds for a Formula One car. And that's the scary thing with these incidents that you see. And thankfully, more often than not, they are close calls and not crashes. But it really does feel like it's kind of an accident waiting to happen because there's been so many near misses for so many years. At many seconds, not just this one. and the scariest thing in Formula One is the speed difference. You kind of, this track you see the speed,

but you don't kind of realize how fast Formula One cars are a lot of the time until you see a car going slowly and then you go, oh my word. And all it takes is one little moment. Look at the last race with the two Williams is when Browning was doing, was it FP1. Little mistake and, like, like you say, we're getting Mark Weber at Valencia and we really don't want to see that happening. So yes, thankfully so far we've not seen that Saudi because this is a question that just happens every single year where there's so many close calls and it really does.

And hopefully this is this question does continue and we don't have to be talking about a major incident. Absolutely. Fingers crossed for all the drivers, especially in qualifying because that is where we see that those different. in speed and that is the problem right it's not just all the cars going around at a fast speed it's the is the massive difference that we can get whilst they're trying to treat these well as we also have seen a one step softer set of perelli's this year still looks like we're going to have a one stop so maybe we go two steps softer than this into the just you know three lap tires and then we have to come into the pits but I mean they tried at least pirelli to to make it more than a one stop but I think because the track is so grippy

that it just doesn't take away from the tyres like we saw in Bahrain. But that is it. We are done here. Our Friday wrap up is complete and we will see you tomorrow live on Twitch and YouTube as always, Matt P1, Tommy.

And we will be reacting to everything as you already know also well from us. Tommy, what are your final thoughts? I just can't wait for quality because it is like one of those circuits that just takes your breath away a bit. Is that more like better? Yeah.

maybe. Monaco, but more high speed. Yeah, exactly. And just watching Formula One cars, I know it's a sketchy circuit, but my word is it as an exciting watch to see them go around. And a car just in its own little world, just being ragged around, yes, please.

Right, that is it. See you soon. Lots of love. Take care. Bye. Bye, bye. My chore is go and eat some food because I need to go for dinner. So take care. All right. Bye. Bye.

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