P1 with Matt and Tommy - The worst starts to an F1 season ever

Episode Date: April 24, 2026

Sorry, Aston Martin - but your awful start to the 2026 season got us thinking about some of the other terrible openings other F1 teams have suffered in seasons gone by. So we're here with some of the ...standout candidates: from more bad luck for Fernando Alonso to some... suspect goings on between Ferrari and the FIA, and plenty more! Sign up to our Patreon for just $5 a month! 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.P1 with Matt and Tommy is the world's biggest F1 podcast. Subscribe for new podcasts around every single race throughout the 2026 Formula 1 season! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:05 Hello everybody and welcome back to the P1 podcast with Matt and Tommy. Now, this is a podcast, of course, completely and utterly dedicated to Aston Martin. And they've got our brain boxes going, haven't they, for an idea for this podcast. A little bit of a short view back to the past kind of vibe, if you remember that series. And look, we're bringing your content. I've seen some stupid comments. Yeah, I'll say it. I'll say it. Oh, oh, yeah, F1's kind of left content creators hang in in April, haven't they?
Starting point is 00:00:43 Oh, this is peak spring slop. All this sort of stuff. Well, yes, there's no races going on. There's no news. Sorry for entertaining. Exactly. I'll shout out the positive comments that were like, we appreciate you guys still doing stuff. Yeah, I love that.
Starting point is 00:00:59 And not just hiding away. Stop liking the ones that are, wow, this is slop. So that would be good. Thank you. You turned up anyway, didn't you? So you can't really complain. Now, we are going to get into the worst starts to an F1 season ever. As I mentioned, Aston Martin, the green vibrating machine has been very much the forefront of conversation of having so much hype coming into 2026 and not being able to deliver anywhere near that.
Starting point is 00:01:26 And we've got some examples to discuss. So, Tommy, why don't we just get straight into it, hey? Are you looking forward to this? As a Fernando Alonso fan, no. But also as a history nerd of F1, yes. I was going to say, it's not like you're trying to distract yourself from the fact Fernando Alonzo is having a poor start
Starting point is 00:01:46 to a hyped season because he also features in this list. So why don't we begin with one? McLaren Honda, 2015. And then in brackets, and 2017. I know. Yeah, we're going to have to explore this one. Can you believe this, well, the 2015 part? That's 11 years ago.
Starting point is 00:02:05 That's absolutely ridiculous. I feel so old. But this was coming into, of course, the hybrid era, the hybrid partnership between McLaren and Honda. And I would say this was very hyped, similar to the Aston Martin Honda partnership, right, Tommy? You're seeing some similarities already? And they also had Mercedes engine, the best engine,
Starting point is 00:02:30 for the new rules, and were like, no, let's go with the Honda. and they had Fernando Alonto. Oh, wow, yeah, this is a lot of parallels going on here. So, yeah, McLaren and Honda, they came together again after their legendary partnership in the late 80s, early 90s with Senna and Prost, and they were winning everything. So hence the hype, once again, they come together.
Starting point is 00:02:52 Oh, my goodness, what are they going to be able to do? And with McLaren, I think they were the only team on the grid, weren't they with Honda engines? So they were. It was again like, oh, my God, McLaren, they've got Honda all to themselves. And Fernando Alonso back. They can dominate, right?
Starting point is 00:03:07 Yeah. Well, right, yeah. And the hype as well, I think the most, probably the most insane thing about this whole situation was there was so much promise that Fernando Alonzo went back to McLaren after the absolute atrocious year and controversial year that he had alongside Lewis Hamilton, where he burnt that bridge so much with Ron Dennis. And for Alonzo to go back to.
Starting point is 00:03:34 to McLaren when Ron Dennis was still there. That's how much he believed in this hype of McLaren and Honda together again, an all world champion lineup of Alonzo and Jensen Burton. And it had to be good, surely. Well, they weren't. They were immediately unreliable in testing. They did seven laps on the opening day and had constant issues during preseason testing,
Starting point is 00:03:57 including Alonzo's very strange, very covered in tinfoil hat. sort of theories, right, Tommy, of this pre-season testing accident that happened at the Circuit of Barcelona and Catalonia. You just have to say that circuit in its full entirety. It wasn't filmed or anything, was it, that day? There wasn't any footage of it as such. There's talk of him being potentially electrocuted
Starting point is 00:04:25 and all kinds of crazy stuff, right? Yeah, all sorts of theories. He had a slow speed crash, and it basically put him out of the first two races. He was concussed. everyone was confused because it was such a slow speed incident and we were confused at why Fernando Alonzo was in such kind of you know in such a bad way for what looked like him slowly just hitting the wall at a slow part of the track but again talking about the similarities of
Starting point is 00:04:53 Honda McLaren Honda and Aston Martin Honda with Fernando Alonzo you know as you say they started the the new era only doing seven laps and we got to the whole of preseason testing only two weeks to go until the opening race and the most the MP430 car had completed was 12 consecutive laps around Barcelona which sounds very very similar to Are we just going to type back to Aster Martin
Starting point is 00:05:21 the entire way through this video? No one there, Alamso. This poor guy has had to go through this twice It's almost like they should have just gone with Mercedes shouldn't they? old Aster Martin, but they did not. So yes, struggles started right from the get-go. And now in the first race, McLaren Honda, of course, not much hope at this point.
Starting point is 00:05:43 They qualified on the back row of the grid. Magnuson replaced Alonzo, but didn't even start the race as his engine failed while driving to the grid. So forget those 10 or just about double-digit consecutive laps, couldn't even get round to the start box. They could not. And their car was so slow. They were actually, again, a similar comparison, they had to detune the engine just to basically make sure it didn't blow up. And, you know, there was the speed traps recorded.
Starting point is 00:06:15 The McLaren Honda's were 13 miles an hour slower in the speed traps than the fastest car. This was in the first race. There's actually a not amazing video, a very fascinating video that you can watch of Jensen Button. in Abu Dhabi and bearing in mind this is the last race of the season so imagine how bad it was at the start where he makes this amazing start he goes past about six or seven cars and then gets to the back straight at Abu Dhabi and as he's accelerating all the cars just fly past him and that that is what it was like you know this was GP2 engine era um that famous quote from Fernando Alonzo and they were just laughably slow in a straight line they had no power at all
Starting point is 00:06:59 and it was incredibly unreliable. It was, but there were glimmers of hope. I mean, I say hope. They did score one point in the first eight races. And in those eight races, right, let me read you, Fernando Alonzo's first eight races. Well, he didn't even start Australia. Yeah. He then retired in Malaysia.
Starting point is 00:07:21 Oh, Malaysia, come back, please, I beg. China, P12. Yeah, China P12, Bahrain P11. So, you know, not far off the point. and then retired the next four races in a row, then he scored a point at Silverstone, and then had a generational drive in Hungary, am I right? He did. He got a fifth place.
Starting point is 00:07:42 That was an absolutely crazy race, though, where so much was happening. That was their best result of the whole season where they finished fifth and ninth. It was their only double points finish. They had a lot more double retirements than double points finishes. It seemed to happen quite a lot that season. and just, yeah, a handful of points for McLaren.
Starting point is 00:08:00 They did beat Marussia though. They beat Marisha and the constructors. You know, that well-known front-running team. Disaster. It wasn't an absolute disaster. All the hype, everything that was said about. Surely it's the return to the good old days for McLaren. They've got Honda, this partnership that was so dominant in Formula One,
Starting point is 00:08:22 two world champions. And that season is remembered for Fernando. Alonzo sat in a deck chair because his car's broken down or Jensen Button and Alonzo going on the podium in Interlagos because it was so laughable that they'd be on the podium. They went up there for banter because they both were out the session in Q1. It was that bad that it was just a joke. And this was an era where they had Ron Dennis at the helm who was incredibly successful, you know, team manager and the whole.
Starting point is 00:08:56 he didn't take banter very very lightly did he and he would not have enjoyed the constant sort of mocking of the team absolutely not and you would say the next year was a lot better 2016 but we're all about disasters in this podcast so we go ahead one more year to 2017 and again McLaren Honda so we thought
Starting point is 00:09:23 okay bit of trajectory 6th in 2016 where can And they go from here? Oh no. Oh no. Very much backwards again. In the first 10 rounds, they'd scored one P9 finish, which was their only points. And in those 12 times they failed to finish, including two did not start. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:09:45 Yeah, it was a disaster, just constant retirements. They were slow again, and it looked like they were kind of getting on top of it. And then in 2017, just absolutely awful reliability. It was just horrendous for McLaren. Again, just so many, the kind of image of that season is just seeing that orange McLaren on the back of a flatbed truck, basically, it feels like. Yeah, they had a disaster of most of the season. But I'll tell you what, Alonzo.
Starting point is 00:10:21 P10 in Mexico. P8 in Brazil, P9 in Abu Dhabi right at the end of the season to muster up a grand total of 17 points for the season. But he did beat Julian Palmer, his nemesis. And yeah, they could only manage ninth in the constructors that year. It was, and this is, again, parallels to Aston Martin and the talk around that and maybe something that that Aston Martin should learn from,
Starting point is 00:10:49 is this whole era it was kind of like oh it's all Honda's fault Honda are rubbish everything's terrible and actually they ended up getting Renault engines the next year and the car was still
Starting point is 00:11:02 unreliable and competitive and actually a year after that Red Bull get the Honda engine and actually winning races so it was very much a case of both parties not delivering but Honda were just
Starting point is 00:11:15 memed for being this unreliable horrendous engine and kind of got all the blame really for this poor stint. They certainly did. McLaren fans, you can start listening again because we're moving away from that particular team and going slightly further back in time into the 90s, 1999 in fact, with B.A.R. What a throwback that is. I would have been seven years old. Tommy, you'd have been about 23. And we're talking about them because they came into Formula One with loads of money. They signed world champion Jacques Villeneuve. And they essentially, once again,
Starting point is 00:11:55 built up the hype massively by saying they had ambitions to win races and even the championship. Yeah, I don't think aura farming existed in 1999, but they were aura farming. Yeah, they kind of talked to the talk. They had these big ambitions. They were spending a lot of money. Of course, they were owned by British American tobacco, that kind of era. the 90s where they had so much tobacco money in Formula One, and that's what was allowed these teams to just spend huge amounts of money. And this was a team that brought Jack Villeneuve on board, who was the world champion just two years before.
Starting point is 00:12:36 And of course, I think most people would know this car, even if you know nothing about BAR, because they had that half-and-half split livery with the zip down the middle. Well, actually, half-and-half liveries nowadays. is Cadillac. My vote's 2026 version. But no, it is a very, very iconic livery, the BAR.
Starting point is 00:12:57 However, that was the only thing that it was iconic for, because my God was this car unreliable. It was a glass cannon, if you can call it that, because there were moments where it had a bit of pace about it, but can I please
Starting point is 00:13:13 read to you, Jacques Villeneuve, the Formula One World Champions Results. It's insane, isn't it? From the 1999 season. All right, here we go. Lock in. His results are, retired, retired, retired, retired, retired, retired, retired, retired, retired, retired, retired, retired, retired, retired, retired, retired, retired, retired. Round 12, 18, 10, 10, 11 races.
Starting point is 00:13:45 Round 12 was the first time we first time. finish to race. Can you imagine just thinking, oh, right, I've got this team. It was meant to be, yeah, it was going to be built around him. They had these ambitions of winning the World Championship. And it takes you till round 12 to finish an actual Grand Prix. And it had its moment. So Jack Vilenev could qualify it quite high up on the grid. Sometimes he was racing, you know, even in the top five or six cars, sometimes even higher. But again, just so unreliable. it was kind of more common then to have lots of engine failures and reliability problems but this was even more extreme you know to to not even finish the race like jetville nerve finished four races uh all season actually three
Starting point is 00:14:31 because one of them was just him being classified so uh no points all year for him no points indeed uh now i'm just looking at the 99 season and this is of course uh you know any any any time I can bring up Michael Schumacher, I will. But this is where Michael, of course, broke his leg, wasn't it? Silverstone, then came back for the final two races and, not even unspricably, surprisingly, couldn't match Mika Hakenen in the final race to stop Mickahacken being world champion over Michael Schumacher's teammate Eddie Irvine.
Starting point is 00:15:04 It's just goat things, isn't it? He would rather have seen Mickahackle and win the world title than his team mate. That was another funny conspiracy, wasn't it? that yeah, his pace mysteriously disappeared for that final race when his teammate needed him. My goat, I know exactly what he's done there. Anyway, that's not what we're talking about, although to be fair, you know,
Starting point is 00:15:24 worst endings to a season maybe for Eddie Irvine. Anyway, we'll get on to another team, shall we? And it is to do with Ferrari. However, a little bit further forward in 2020. Now, you know, Ferrari, you know, just rumors about 2019 and how, you know, how they were so quick. Perfectly legal car.
Starting point is 00:15:46 Completely sealed documents. Don't need to talk about any of which that they would have maybe buffed up their engine with certain fuel flow rates and things like that. But in 2019 they were very, very quick with Ferrari. 19 podiums out of 21 races, nine pole positions and three
Starting point is 00:16:01 victories. Now yes, this power unit that I just mentioned, rivals thought it was a little bit naughty for some reason. And this is one of the... Again, I know it's not part of this particular chat because we're talking about 2020. But how was this allowed to be a thing where the FIA and Ferrari were able to come to a private settlement over their power unit? And then the next year, they're featuring in this list of being a really slow car.
Starting point is 00:16:37 Yeah, yeah. Okay, we'll stop cheating now. We'll Allegedly. Allegedly, thank you. Yeah, we'll turn the engine down.
Starting point is 00:16:47 We'll have a year of pain and then you can't disqualify as very bizarre situation. And yeah, a lot of the teams couldn't believe this had happened. But as soon as this
Starting point is 00:17:02 private settlement was signed and they went into 2020, suddenly the car was pretty useless. Certainly was. I'm just having a look at the 2020 season, of course, a little bit of a crazy one because we started in Austria
Starting point is 00:17:20 with back-to-back races. In like July or something, wasn't it? COVID time. It's absolutely ridiculous, wasn't it? What a strange time to be alive. But yeah, the car was horrible. They qualified 7th and 11th on debut. However, you know, Charlotte, Clair managed to do some crazy goat things and finish PT.
Starting point is 00:17:38 But we're talking about horrible starts and we're not talking about generational talents like Charles Leclair. However, the next race, which you're not hearing this incorrectly, it was again in Austria. If you weren't watching F1 in 2020, they did a double race in Austria just to try and get more races into a world championship that was so up in the air, we didn't know what was going to happen.
Starting point is 00:17:59 But yeah, Ferrari doubled DNF, so did we really need to have that second race in Austria? I don't know. It was a horrible start. Yeah, Charles managed to somehow get get the car to some decent positions. But Sebastian Battle in particular was having a horrendous time with it, really, really struggling all season. And of course, he was going to be leaving the team as well,
Starting point is 00:18:24 which was a big bombshell as well during that time. But it was not the year that Ferrari wanted because this car was called the SF 1000, which was to celebrate their one, the word I can't say, 1,000th race. 1,000th race. And not the fact they had a thousand horsepower
Starting point is 00:18:46 because of their engine. So yeah, disaster at the start of the year and even worse at Monza, where they had a double DNF, absolute ultimate embarrassment
Starting point is 00:18:58 at their home race. They sat P6 in the constructors, which is where they went on to finish, which was mainly thanks to LeClau. I'm looking at the championship standings, Sebastian Vettel finished 13th in the championship with 33 points compared to Charlotte Clare's 98. Wow.
Starting point is 00:19:19 Disaster of a season for Sebastian as well. Yeah, it was an awful season for Ferrari, a sad way for Vettel to end his Ferrari career when just two years previously he was challenging for the world title and leading that world title until, sorry, Sebastian Vettel fans to mention it, but went off at Hosephiol. Hockenheim and that people believe that that's the moment that kind of his whole career unraveled it almost felt like because he was looking set to win the championship or at least challenge for it. And he never felt like the same driver again after that moment. He certainly did not. So yeah, you might be thinking, it's not the most horrific thing.
Starting point is 00:20:00 Charlotte got a P2, but it's the drop off from 2019 and wondering where's Ferrari going to go from here. then of course the chatter about everything going on behind closed doors and lo and behold, 2020, terrible when you think of what the dreams were of said Ferrari fans like myself. Yeah, I mean, it was their worst season that they'd had since 1980, which I think we should shout out because this is one of the most bizarre things to happen to Ferrari. If we're talking about drop-offs, in 1979, Ferrari won the World Championship, the Constructors,
Starting point is 00:20:40 won the Drivers Championship, they finished 1-2 for fun, finishing 1-2 in so many races. And then in 1980, they scored 8 points and finished 10th. And there was no regulation change. They had the same two drivers.
Starting point is 00:20:58 And it is one of the most bizarre kind of unexplained drop-offs in performance. ever really. I mean Jodie Schechter had won the World Championship and then the year after scored two points. And just one fifth place all season.
Starting point is 00:21:15 Definitely the biggest drop off for a team ever you'd have to say. That is crazy stuff. Right, moving away from Ferrari, we now head to BMW Sauber in 2009. Now, of course, this was following on from 2008, where QBITS
Starting point is 00:21:33 won a race and was essentially still in championship contention with only two rounds left. He was 12 points behind. Remember it was the old point scoring back then. So 12 points is bigger than what we know of today. But still within a win and a bit and something crazy could have easily happened. Yeah, definitely. This is the meme where that WWE guy is crying. It's like, dad, what was this time like? It's like what was pre-accident Robert Kibits alike? Because it's It's true. If you are new to Formula One and you only knew him for that stint at Williams,
Starting point is 00:22:13 where of course he was still carrying his injuries, he couldn't perform as what we kind of expected, you will have sadly not witnessed the best of Robert Kubitsa, which I genuinely think is one of the top drivers from that era. It's not insane to put him alongside the likes of. He could have so easily had a career like Sebastian Vettel, Fernando Alonzo, Max Verstappen, you know, these drivers, because he was so good. He was driving a midfield car a lot of the time and would put it on the podium a lot where it shouldn't be. And as we say, in this in this era, 2008, only a second full season in Formula One. And he's there challenging for the world title in what is a midfield car basically and shouldn't have been while Hamilton and Massa were basically having clumsy accidents and really throwing away a lot of points. Kubitsa was just quietly going about his business and having a really, really strong and consistent season. But BMW were like, no, no, we're not going to do that. Yeah, BMW made one of,
Starting point is 00:23:18 in hindsight, one of the worst calls a team has, has ever done in Formula One. And that was essentially put the tools down in 2008 and focus to 2009, despite the fact that they had a really quick car. They had Kubitsa firing on all cylinders. And that may well have cost Robert Kubitsa winning the world title in 2008. I've just mentioned 12 points behind with two races left. You have to wonder if they'd continued to develop that car. Surely there was more points to be had. So that in itself is the fumble of the century. But not just that. What they then had focused on for 2009 was a car that ended up being not very great at all. Of course, you they're fighting other
Starting point is 00:24:03 bigger teams around them and they weren't able to match what they thought their potential was definitely not they they started poorly there was so much promise around them the fact that they'd really gone in on this new era and
Starting point is 00:24:19 Heidfeld got a P2 in Malaysia which was a crazy race where it basically they awarded half points because it was rained off and monsoon weather but they were not competitive at all. That was an outlier and they weren't even challenging for the points basically when this was meant to be a car that was going to win the world championship with
Starting point is 00:24:43 a fantastic driver on board in, you know, Robert Kibitzer and a great driver in Nick Heidfeld as well to challenge for the championship after what they've done the previous year, but it did not go to plan at all and they were pretty hopeless. They certainly were and then EMW went, oh no, we've screwed up, we're leaving. We don't want to talk about it anymore, and they left at the end of 2009. So they don't want to talk about it, probably. So that's why we've made a podcast talking about it, really sorry. Yeah, three points from the first 10 races, really, when you're basically going,
Starting point is 00:25:17 this is our year. Very much wasn't. I've never said that before about any particular team. So I don't know what they must have felt like. Okay, let's now head into our time machines and go slightly back, back to the 90s once again 1997 with Lola. So the Lola T-9730 was meant to race in 1998, but MasterCard, the title sponsor,
Starting point is 00:25:39 put pressure on them to race a year early. You can see where this is going, right? A title sponsor saying, no, go on, go on. We want our logo out there a year earlier. And it didn't go too well, did it? It did not. Not at all. They were, you know, preseason.
Starting point is 00:25:58 They were struggling a lot. it seemed like the car was just rushed and not not ready for Formula One. And this was an era where the field spread was massive. You used to backmark a teams like Menardi and Tyrol and Arrows qualifying a huge amount of time off the leaders, you know, four or five seconds sometimes. But Lola were kind of next level in that first race, the Australian Grand Prix in 1997, so slow they qualified 11.6 seconds off with Sospiri, who was the Formula 3,000 champion,
Starting point is 00:26:39 which was the equivalent of Formula 2 back in the day, and Ricardo Rossett was 12.7 seconds off, so a very long way from where they wanted to be. It's almost like they needed a whole year to develop the car. I wonder how MasterCard felt after rushing the team to the season, a year early. They got their car on a, they got their logo on a car,
Starting point is 00:27:03 but it didn't race. For qualifying. Yeah, exactly. For un-televised qualifying in 1997. Yeah. Yeah, they didn't, probably didn't get their money's worth, I'll be honest.
Starting point is 00:27:13 Not really. And then Lola withdrew from the next round in Brazil and never raced again. Yeah, so they didn't actually get to race because they were so slow. You know, there was other teams
Starting point is 00:27:25 wouldn't qualify sometimes. you had that kind of qualifying and some people were so slow but they would and we see it now the 107% rule of people still get kind of put into the race you go oh they'll be fine not with MasterCard
Starting point is 00:27:41 Leola they were like absolutely not you can't drive your F3,000 car here and yeah they were so slow lost all that money probably from their sponsor that had pushed them to race early didn't get to race
Starting point is 00:27:57 and then run out of money and pulled the plug on the whole thing in the very next round. That's pretty sad. Yeah, very sad. All that work going into a team and then not even making the first race. So don't worry, Aster Martin. It's not all bad. You haven't topped this list for worst season starts. Now let's head to our final example.
Starting point is 00:28:20 And it is McLaren in 2004. So to give you a bit of backstory, Kimmy Rykner had come close to winning the world title in the year before, 2003, missing out by only two points. And then we head into an Adrian Newey built 2004 McLaren, the MP419. And Adrian Newe is known for his extreme designs, isn't he? However, when an extreme design is created, it usually means it has extreme outcomes like not working fully for full race lengths and so on and so forth.
Starting point is 00:29:02 Does that sound familiar? It sure does. Yeah, Adrian Newey has designed many amazing cars, but also sometimes they are fast but fragile, and this one was fragile and not actually that fast. Unfortunately, for them, they were uncompetitive and incredibly unreliable, having missed out on the championship with Reichenen just moments before. He didn't even finish a race until the fourth round because he retired from the first three.
Starting point is 00:29:34 And it was just, yeah, until Adrian Newe worked a bit more magic on the car. And even then, they were still only kind of in the points. Is that what we're going to see this year with Aston Martin, maybe? I mean, they'd absolutely take it at this stage. Yeah. And yeah, it was a case of they failed to deliver after a lot of hype. But they did win a race, which was so surprising. There's actually a funny story from this,
Starting point is 00:30:04 which in basically a British journalist from the Daily Express claimed that he was so confident that McLaren wouldn't win a race this season, that he would say said that if they did he would run around Silverstone naked and Kimmy Reichenen being the king of spa that he was ended up winning the race in Spar and he ordered his deal and ran around Silverstone naked so there we go wow and that was the last thing he ever put down when it comes to betting and there were no predictions made by him ever again thankfully we've never predicted that one in the in the predictions
Starting point is 00:30:45 maybe that's the forfeit The loser. I hope I win. Okay, so I guess the final question is where does Aston Martin filter into all of this? McLaren in 2004, as you said, they came good towards the end, although they had eight DNFs in the first seven races.
Starting point is 00:31:07 I mean, Lola's the disaster. We know that. Lola, I think, tops this list for literally never being able to race. True, but I would argue that the expectation, I think Ashton Martin are really up there with this. All right, Ferrari 1980 wins. Aston Martin,
Starting point is 00:31:23 it's funny because like Aston Martin had a lot of hype but it's not like they came off the back of an amazing season. The only reason they had hype was because they had Adrian. The signings, exactly.
Starting point is 00:31:36 So it's tough to... It's tough, but it is insane that they got worse because there was so much talk. I remember in the live shows last year and people giving their thoughts to 2026, a lot of people going, can Alonzo win the championship? And even, I think it was Peter Windsor,
Starting point is 00:31:58 a really established journalist was like, the championship's going to be fought next year between George Russell and Fernando Alonzo. And there was so much hype of like, Asson are going to be amazing. They've hired everyone. They've got Nui, got these amazing facilities. And the fumble for them to not even just be slow, but them to build a car that can't really even feel.
Starting point is 00:32:16 finish a race. Philanamo was to finish the last Grand Prix. He did actually. But to start the season, yeah, it's progress. But it's so embarrassing what Aston have managed to deliver this year. And let's not forget, they took over a team that were known as that plucky underdog team
Starting point is 00:32:36 that were working away in almost like a shed at Silverstone compared to what the other teams were producing and could score podiums and things in racing point and force India and we're always punching above their weight. And now they've got all these amazing facilities and Adrian Newe and all this money. They've done appallingly bad. And yeah, it's going to be fascinating to see what Aston Martin do and whether they can do what maybe like McLaren did in 2004 and turn their season around.
Starting point is 00:33:10 Or maybe it's just a Jack Philnerve situation and hope he can finish eighth in a race. Yeah, yeah, it's a question unanswered right now. I have a feeling they will become the best of the rest come the end of the year. It just depends how far behind they are if Fernando Lanzer can make any kind of inroads into the driver's championship and see if you can finish in the top ten. I think I'm still on the opinion that they win. I think there will be, I could see them finishing not last in the, but next year still being kind of like down with Cadillard. I mean, you've said in your 2029 predictions, that has to mind is still going to be terrible. So you've really backed that one.
Starting point is 00:33:52 Anyway, that is it. Thank you, everybody, for tuning in to something a little bit different. I hope you've been enjoying the spring slop coming out of the P1. Coming out of the P1 podcast. No, I've thoroughly enjoyed it. And I hope you guys have as well. Tommy, final thoughts? That was a lot of fun.
Starting point is 00:34:10 I like reminiscing about some old Formula One stories where I've got nothing on our screens. I know Formula One were sharing some old races, which I thought was quite ironic when they were streaming a YouTube video where no one was overtaking, but they had screaming V-10 engines, and it's a classic race where no one could pass, and it was just pure, like, unfiltered Formula One, as some people would say.
Starting point is 00:34:38 So, yeah, that was a fun look back to the past. It was. We'll see you very soon. races not far away now will be in Australia soon to go get your P1 live Australia tickets our backdrops will be changing exponentially in a few weeks
Starting point is 00:34:54 We'll be upside down Terrible Tommy's a dad as you know and bye Bye P1 is a stack production and part of the ACAST's Creator Network

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