P1 with Matt and Tommy - Reaction to Spanish GP practice

Episode Date: May 30, 2025

Has the fresh new technical directive spiced up the order for this weekend's Spanish GP? Or... are McLaren even further ahead?Plus, we see teams starting to abuse the rules around rookie's required practice sessions, after another run out (in a different team) for Ryō Hirakawa.Live show tickets for 'The Delusion Tour' are now on sale! Join us at shows across the U.S, Canada, and Europe later this year - some have already sold out! Head to http://tix.to/p1live to get your tickets now.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 'The Delusion Tour' 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: 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. We are at the end of another triple header. The Spanish Grand Prix Rules Weekend. That's right. If you've been living under a rock, you may not have heard that we've had a slight. Who knows how big rule change coming into the Spanish Grand Prix. A technical directive, Tommy. We're going to get into all of that.

Explain it for you all if in case, you know, you don't know the absolute ins and outs, but we're not a technical podcast, but we'll cover it, won't we? We sure will. Yeah, it's been a bit technical directive bingo, hasn't it, on Friday with just constantly being mentioned and we've all wound up to this point. And yeah, we're going to get into what we know so far and has it made a difference? Because it's still got some people saying, yes, it absolutely will. And some people saying, no, so we'll get into it. We will.

But before we do that, we have the biggest announcement of the year. and that is the P1 live show delusion tour tickets are now on general sale. So I know that some of you think, oh, maybe I should buy, I'll get it here, I'll get it there, I'll wait till then. I am not kidding when I tell you that Amsterdam sold out literally the same day that we went live, which is pretty mental. Just over an hour. To say the least. So thank you to each and every one of you that is coming to the Amsterdam show. It's amazing to see the hype for having us two plebs in town.

But to run you through the rest of the dates, just to give you an idea and understanding, if you missed the last time we spoke about it. Seattle is November the 4th, San Francisco, November the 5th. Denver, November the 10th. Dallas, November the 11th. Toronto, November the 13th. Chicago, November the 14th. New York, November the 16th.

Dublin, December the 10th. Manchester, December the 14th. Glasgow, December the 15th. And London is December the 17th, which we want to clarify there was a small mistake on our previous graphic that said the 16th. It is not. It is the d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-es. Let's get my words out. The 17th of December, Tommy. How excited are you for all of that? I am. And that little did-d-d-d-d-d-d-we'll make sure that everyone remembers that it is the 17th now. Yeah, I felt like I was the DJ button on keyboard. I liked it. DJ. Right, anyway, let's get into it. And the big story, going into this race, as we mentioned,

was the new front-wing technical directive. Now, to give you a bit of a heads-up on it all, just to make sure we're all up to speed. There have been, Huffer load tests on the front wings have been imposed by the FIA from the Spanish Grand Prix onwards. So that includes front wing bodywork flexibility and front wing flap flexibility as well. The front wing bodywork flexibility has been reduced from 15mm to 10 millimeters. And then the front wing flap flexibility. I'll try and say that 10 times fast. Has also been reduced from 5 millimeters to 3 millimeters.

And for me, right, Tommy, you know, I don't, you know, I don't go, oh my God, I love, I love the way the cars are built. You know, I'm not that kind of, you know, that way inclined. Neither are you. But it doesn't, you know, we're all kind of wondering how big is this change going to be. It doesn't sound like a lot, does it? Five millimeters less flex. True, but then someone made an interesting point that is true that reducing 15 millimeters to 10

millimeters is a third of it. So it is a lot in that sense. Well, if you say it like that, half a centimeter, but if it's a third of it, that's big. And this is the thing with this whole technical directive, isn't it, that we've been hearing and everything being being mentioned is you've got some people saying it's not going to really do anything, and then some people going, it's absolutely massive. And I think Nika Rosberg on the coverage was kind of talking about, you know, as a driver, it's all about confidence in the car and the kind of balance.

And when you're changing something like that, it will be difficult for the drivers to adapt and get used to it because they're used to having it happen basically and probably producing a lot more downforce. And particularly a track like Barcelona, that's where you kind of want the confidence flying into these very quick corners, don't you? You certainly do, whether it will cause lacks of confidence,

is yet to be seen. And before we dive into FP1, FP2, as we usually do, I guess, just to the highlight, why are they changing it? What is the reason for the change? Well, there were concerns raised throughout last season that teams have been gaining performance back by changing the aerodynamic balance of the car from low speed to high speed situations through the flexi wings. So if you kind of picture it as if the wing at the front and rear, obviously the rear was

sort of mentioned and tweaked earlier on in the season, but if they're flexing, under high speeds, it means they can almost trim down the wing in some ways and go faster down the straits, but then when they're on the brakes, it goes back to the position and then you have the downforce that you would expect perhaps with a more aggressive wing and a higher downforce wing. So they don't like that. Well, it's funny because it's clever if you're doing it and it's within the rules, which it was because people have been passing it. now it's not and they've had to change it.

So for me, it's just, and this has happened throughout many, many times in the history of Formula One, it is a reaction to basically hope that it maybe closes the pecking order a bit. And we've seen this throughout Formula One, where they change little bits here and there. Usually when they believe a certain team that is the quickest has that advantage. It's happened way back when, but even as... earlier when I was watching with Michael Schumacher and the Michelin runners in

like the 2000s. They kind of changed things midseason and happens all the time. Showing your age, Tommy. Exactly. Showing your age, bro. Come on. You could have said like Mercedes and Das. No, you went all the way back to Michael Schumacher. I appreciate it. As a reference to show how long it's been going on. As a veteran watcher of the sport,

Tommy just flexing on his knowledge. We love to see. Flexing. Oh, sorry. Oh, that's actually, I didn't even notice. That's just actually good. I didn't flex too much, though. I reduced it by five millimeters. Don't flex too much, Tommy. We know how small you are these days. Right, let's get into free practice one, where Landonorius was fastest from Max Verstappen

by three and a half tenths with Lewis Hamilton and Charter d'Claug closely in behind. And McLaren were still fastest in FP1 and indeed FP2. And the question is even faster. Have they got even faster after this practice session? I saw, I think it was Alex Brundle put a tweet out saying that he spoke to

who was from MacLown and basically asked how much is this going to cost you and whatnot he's like what do you mean cost us and yeah and yeah I mean obviously look as much as we are going to and as Formula 1 fans we love to press the panic button

we love to press the it's over it was so done I love pressing the it's over button most weeks but let's not forget the McLaren and Lando has said already in the past this season that they turn up the wicks slightly more or they just go for it a bit harder than we usually see because we have seen big gaps in practice this year and then we get to qualifying. It's ridiculously close once more.

It's definitely a wait and see at the moment, but it's not the 10th and 12th that some people had been predicting. We even heard, I think, was it Toto Wolf saying coming into this weekend that Ferrari had been the least reliant on flexi wings and I'm like, stop it. Don't give me hope. and it turns out I needed no hope. Yeah, yeah, I think you can argue that the kind of practice sessions so far, you know, maybe it will affect things more when we get into qualifying and, you know, full race runs, but from a practice session and looking at the order of both sessions, it's not too dissimilar to what we've normally seen.

And before we maybe get a bit too scared, trying to bring back the point, positives of how quick McLaren are. We have tended to see this on on Friday with McLaren that they do come out the blocks firing and then everyone kind of catches up when we get into qualifying. So if they don't in qualifying again,

then we know that it maybe has made them even faster. But at the moment, yeah, it's maybe no surprise that things are fairly similar and there's not really a huge surprise there. You know, Fernando Alonzo like that if you watch the predictions, hasn't gone fastest. Miles ahead, maybe soundbagging.

Very interesting. Look to see when Fernando Lonzo's 30 third win is coming in this weekend. Also worth mentioning from Free Practice 1, Rio Hirokawa, with his third appearance already in 2025. He's had one for Alpine, one for Hasse, and now in Bahrain, sorry, and now in Spain. I guess the question, and it comes in from Pee-1Pitch from member, BL4X is quite an interesting one.

What is Rio Hira Kawa's plan? That's his third FP1 in just nine races. It's, well, of course, you have the quota that all teams have to field some rookies. And perhaps some teams don't necessarily have, I mean, I'm kind of looking maybe at the likes of Alpine, obviously in Japan, where they don't have an absolute dead set, hot protégé that they want to stick in the car. and for me seeing no, Hirakawa going between teams and things like that

has it just become this rookie outing as okay the opportunity will go well tick it off the list but also to the highest bidder in some ways where you go how much money can you

because they have to field a huge amount of money to be filled to be put in for an FP1 seat it's not like they just get a free drive so I do find that

quite interesting whether it's really doing that sort of young talent nurturing that it was first set out to be when this rule was put in place. Yeah, it's true. No disrespect to Rio is a capable driver and, you know, has pedigree and other series and things. But at the end of the day, he is 31. He's, I'd be very surprised if he makes it into Formula One as a full-time driver. And it maybe just shows that has have their driver lineup locked in because of course he replaced Olli Behrman last time this time he replaces Esteban Okon and as you've said

really it's not it's not really what that rule has been bought in it's it's kind of giving young drivers a chance to show what they can do and maybe show that there's some future talent and that's why this has been brought in so we don't want it to kind of get to the point where maybe maybe there's as a part of it as well that now Hirokawa has done many FP1 outings and you know he's I know he went off in the gravel but he's not had big crashes or stuck it in the wall he's a safe pair of hands that people can use to tick off that quota and I don't really like that that's not what the rules have kind of been bought in for um so yeah you kind of want to see formula one teams put in

people that they genuinely think, you know, might be the next big thing or one of their junior drivers that may get a seat, which is what Williams did, of course, with Victor Martans. Exactly. Oh yeah, I was going to mention Victor Martans. You know, he's been Formula 2 for quite some time, hasn't he now, from what I can recall. So it's good to see him get a shot in free practice one for the first time and ended up 19th. So, yeah, good to see. Let's head to free practice two. Whereas we mentioned, Oscar Piacr were fastest, McLaren were fastest, by almost three tenths of a second,

ahead of George Russell and Max Verstappen. And we've got a question from P1Page. Remember, Alonzo makes me sad. Has the new technical directive actually changed the grid? Well, okay, let's have a look at this. What I'm seeing right now on the Free Practice 2 classification, which, you know, I know a lot of people are going, guys, there's any practice.

You can't get anything from practice. You can in some ways get a bit of an idea of the pecking order at least of the top half and the bottom half. And no. It's true. You look at it. Williams. Williams are now in the mud is what I'm reading from this, 14th and 15th in Free Practice 2. But realistically, we've not seen a Bortoletto fastest.

We saw Hulk pretty fast at one point during free practice too as the hot laps were coming in. But I'm going to be fascinated from. tomorrow. Let's revisit this question tomorrow and then of course after the race as well. But right now, no, it doesn't look like there's anything too crazy going on. Certainly not because

this year the trend has been that McLaren are fastest and then it kind of switches between Russell and Vastappen who's kind of next up the road and then you've got the kind of midfields RB sorry V-Cub as they're now racing balls are kind of

top end of the midfield. Ferrari aren't quite there, which we'll get into later. And yeah, it looks very, very similar to what we've seen before. But the big test will be qualifying when they are going flat out, of course. And we've seen a big trend of kind of what very similar qualifying sessions, of course, have been very close between the teams. So if there's bigger gaps, then maybe it's time to panic. It's not worked.

Let's get into that next question from P.1, Patreon, remember, Hayes Ash. What happens if the new technical directive makes McLaren even? further ahead than the rest. Well, look, so we've reduced the flex from 15 to 10 millimeters. If that makes McLaren faster, let's revert it. Let's make them even flexia. Let's go sort of 20, 30 millimeters. Let's make them proper bendy.

You know what I'm saying? Like, you could just go boing sort of thing. I don't know why I made the noise. I like it. Yeah. Yeah, I think that it, for sure. It could be, if we're actually going to answer this. Do you start changing the regulations of maybe like,

if you paint your car orange, You have to have a little bit of ballast on your car. Well, watch the Chrome come out then from McLaren. That'll be, to be fair, good delivery to run. But if we're going to answer this seriously, what happens? Nothing. The FIA. Nothing happens.

This is what happens. We've seen it many, many times where the FIA finds some kind of loophole or at least, you know, there's so many teams complaining about the fastest team having gone against the spirit of the rules and the regulations. And you should change this. And, you know, because they, they do have that power, the FIA, to be able to make adjustments to the regulations if a team has found a loophole. But if McLaren are just as quick or further ahead after tying up this loose end, they can't do anything. They won't, they shouldn't be able to do anything because this is a sport about creating the fastest car. And if McLaren, by the looks of things, still have the fastest car, then fair play to them.

This shouldn't be a case of just doing balance of performance because this isn't what Formula One is about. For a more modern reference than the one I did at the top of the show. If you remember Mercedes. If you remember Mercedes in 2020 and there was all the talk of party mode that they had in qualifying. And there was talk throughout the whole season of Mercedes running this party mode. They can turn the wick up when it gets to Q3 and then miles quicker than everyone else. and they banned it or kind of clamped down on it for the Italian Grand Prix in 2020

and what happened was Hamilton and Bottas were won two by almost an entire second and Hamilton set the quickest lap in the history of Formula One. So we've seen... They clamped down by making sure that everybody uses the same engine mode or something. Yeah, yeah. And then the teams, wait, wait, hold on, that's illegal. Yeah, and then they're like, wait a minute,

and Mercedes have got the best engine, so they're even quicker. And yeah, this is a trend in Formula One that we've seen many, many times. And I would argue, I know that people kind of,

we'd all love to see even more people in the fight for the championship and things. All 20. Of course you kind of do. But be careful what you wish for, I think, a little bit as well, because we're nine races in and we've got,

The top two in the championship, separated by three points, and then you've got Maxis Tapen in another car, only a race win behind. We've been kind of praying for a championship fight for ages and so long this close. So I don't think we need to worry too much, even if this doesn't work, of like, press the alarm bells, the season's finished, because I think it's still a great season. God, Tommy, you and your segueing today, phenomenal.

Didier Vluwen. I'm really sorry for the pronunciation of that. Does Vastappen still have a chance to win the World Drivers' Championship this season? Absolutely. Yes. I believe so. If he finishes 45 seconds behind the McLaren's come Sunday's race, then perhaps we can revisit that question.

But right now, I think so. And I love how you said, be careful what you wish for. This is coming from a Max Vastappan fan, right? Because he is warning all of you that if you nerf McLaren too hard, Max will start winning everything and then fans will be complaining about that as well. Exactly. So don't nerve him too much because Max is still capitalising on the small mistakes that McLaren are making. He's still there.

It was quite amusing watching the sky coverage when we first kind of tuned into FP1 and they had a graphic come up that basically said like championship battle and it was Oscar Piastri and Lando Norris and they were the only two on there separated by three points. and you think how many years they've tried to play a championship battle where someone is 45 points behind Max Astappen and put them in a graphic and gone, there's still a chance, it might happen. You can't write Max off.

Yeah, exactly. You can't write Max off at this stage. And I think Lando himself in the press conference when they were asking all these questions about, is it between you and Oscar saying, don't be ridiculous. How are you writing off Maxis Tapen? He's won the last four championships.

Charles LeCler, 82 points behind, gained on Oscar Piastri last time out. True, very true. You cannot count them out, even though they look really quite mid. But with Max, he, that being said, and you know, you can repeat what we said at Imola, he has to win this one because McLaren are going to go to every track and be great. Stappen has to win the, and so far he kind of almost has won them all, but like the Suzuki the Imlars and Spain is another one has to win to keep in a shot. We sound like we're being repetitive with this but this is a season where it is a case of

must win or at the very least split the McLaren's because there are going to be these chances few and far between. And even McLaren on a bad day finished third. We've given Landau like six out of tens in drive ratings for a P3 or a P4 when he's at a really scruffy race. And it just shows that they can pick up podiums pretty much all the time. So Max does have to be pretty much bulletproof this season and pick up every single point. He can and maximise it. And will he?

That is an unanswered question. P.1PATRIE member, Tardy Tomato. Has Red Bull accepted that Max is the only person that can drive the car or will there be increasing pressure on Yuki as the season goes on? No, don't see it. don't see any further pressure for Yuki, particularly, unless we're going to see something crazy where he consistently crashes. Although on the flip side of that, you know,

there is a small part of me that goes, Hachar keeps performing this well. Red Bull might have the conversation with him where they go, do you fancy a little go, just a little one? Can you deal with this car? Yeah. Do you like driving on ice? Do you like the feel of driving on ice?

Yeah. Are you good at driving on ice? That's the question. Rebel don't really have much to lose. I'm not saying that UK should be replaced, no chance. But I mean, later down in the season, if UK is literally just getting ninth and tenths, is there really anything to lose by swapping them over for a few races?

Not really. And we're kind of seeing this musical chairs kind of vibe in Formula One come back over the last few years anyway. So it's not even like it would be a complete PR disaster. Rebel are already in the mud when it comes to that second seat. And the Constructors' Championship has gone. Like, there's no doubt. There's not a 0.000-0-0-0-1% of me if they can win the constructors.

So it's more like future-proofing of like, okay, who can? But then if Max goes, they change the whole philosophy, and then perhaps they will have two drivers that can perform. But for now, yeah, I don't think it's necessarily pressure as such, but you can never say never when it comes to the driver market. Particularly with Red Bull, exactly. It was interesting hearing, Niko Rosberg

when they do that thing at the side of the track and he was watching Max saying, oh my word, he's just sliding around every corner and you can,

you know, him as a Formula One driver could see that the way Max drives the car and I think he even said, I totally understand why Yuki is having

an absolute headache with that because it's how Max likes to drive with. He's just kind of dancing the car around the corners

and fighting it. Whereas for the other driver, that's not, not easy and not what they like. And we know with Red Bull, and it's harsh, but they do not care. They don't care about the second driver.

They do care, but they don't care enough to make changes. Not enough. And whatever you say about it, it's the right thing to do. They have to put every single egg into Maxis-Sappen's basket and push for that,

for that driver. Drivers' Championship. They don't want a single percentage of them to care about anything in the constructors or that second driver at all. I know that sounds very harsh. But the opportunity, their whole season, if they finish fourth in the constructors and Max wins the title, it's a good season for Red Bull, whatever way you look at it, because they'll have won the driver's championship, and that's the big prize. So that's what they've got to do. That's what they've got to do. Final question, and we're leaving it on a nice positive one from FPL underscore NP.

Should Ferrari just retire for the rest of 2025? So you're telling me, right, that Charlotte Clare nearly won Monaco. And we are now only Friday in and we're getting questions like this. Is this bait? I think so. I've not seen huge potential. Yeah, haven't seen huge potential. Charlotte, only half a second of Oscar Biasri's fastest.

Less than two tents behind Lando. Let's not, let's not give up just yet. Okay, Hamilton's down in 11th in free practice too, but so be it, this is Friday. If we do qualify seventh and eighth behind the Aston Martins that have now, you know, got this incredible package apparently underneath them, then yes, yes, FPO, MP, I completely agree. But I am not going to be riled up by questions like that just yet. See you tomorrow for that. Yeah, indeed.

the Hamilton looked very uncomfortable in and mentioned about his car you also had on boards with with Shal where it really looked like he was fighting it and of course the technical directive there's a lot of rumours that Ferrari might be the ones I think you said this at the start of the show

that relied on it yeah least effective relied on it the least but they just don't seem to be all that comfortable they're not they're not terrible like but they're not you know they've not shot up the pecking order like like we saw at monaco i think that monaco monaco has suited that that car this is a very very very very different circuit um so maybe they are just now working towards monza and getting that attempt there and then then they focus on 2026 who knows but it's not looking it's not looking like a insane turnaround for

Friday, that's for sure. No. And I never expected it. And if you expected it, then you are more delusional than I am. So there you go. Thank you everybody for tuning in to this Friday wrap up. Remember P1 Live show, delusion tour tickets are available. Amsterdam already sold out. Get your tickets

if you are in any of the other places. You don't miss out. And we will see you tomorrow. The Quality Watch Along on Twitch and YouTube and all of the normal stuff that you love to see. Tommy, final thoughts please? There's got to be about the P1. live show of course.

Thanks for all the love on the announcement and people are really excited for us to go see new places and visit them as well. And I know particularly Amsterdam selling out that quickly is absolutely crazy. I can't believe how well that's done. I'm really looking forward to that show as well. So yeah, get your tickets while you still can because apparently they're quite popular. Who would have thought to Plybs talking about. Humler 1 would be popular, but here we are.

Who knows. Thank you, everybody. We'll see you soon. Lots of love. Bye. Bye. P1 is a stack production and part of the Acast Creator Network.