P1 with Matt and Tommy - Who’s going to get the final 2025 F1 seat?

Episode Date: October 3, 2024

There’s (basically) one seat still up for grabs next year. So, with the weird autumn break in full swing, let’s turn our attentions to 2025 and try to work out who’s going to partner Nico Hülkenberg at Sauber!Our North American tour starts next week and we have just a handful of tickets left for a few dates - get them right here!Sign up to our Patreon here! You'll get access to bonus episodes, our classic race series, every P1 episode ad-free and access to our Discord server where you can chat with other F1 fans!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. We are into the autumnal break. I hope you're all surviving this torrid time where we just, what do we do, Tommy? What happens now? We fly. We just imagine. We fly. To Canada and America and do a tour.

Nice one. That was good. Didn't even try and link that in with a segue to advertise our Canada and US tours. But there you go. Today we're going to be chatting about the final F1C. although yes, disclaimer, the V-Carb seat is not absolutely convinced as to who's going there. Lawson could bin it in the next six races, but we're kind of assuming it's Liam Lawson, aren't we, Tommy?

Yeah, Liam Lawson seems very much locked in unless he does really well, but we're not here to discuss Sergio Perez for the 50,000th time. Because he's not leaving. He's not leaving, Tommy. He's not effing leaving. Okay. He's not. So yes, we're going to basically go through all the candidates that we believe have any kind

of shot of getting the Salba seat and giving a grade from zero all the way through to 10 as to how likely we think it's going to happen. So shall we start with our driver ratings God? It's Joe Guan Yu. He's currently 25 years old and he's the current Salba driver of course and he has a lot of a lot of eyeballs I would say right now. I think he's gotten away with his performances being somewhat mediocre to be putting it nicely for quite some time, but I think a lot of people are now starting to realise just how far off the back he is most weekends, although I've had the occasional six out of ten in driver ratings. You're welcome, Joe.

My grade, the two out of ten for Joe Guan Yu, as to how likely it would be for him to get the seat next year. The reasoning I've given a two, because money talks, and money might well be something that Salba would like. Now, of course, we're talking about who's going to get the final seat in 2025 and then Audi turning or taking over the team in 2026. That could be a different story.

We could be talking about a little one-year joby here. We don't know, right? So, Joe has a very small opportunity, I would say, to keep that seat. I don't think it's going to happen, but I can't say it's absolutely categorically not going to at the same time, and that's why it's a two. So my grade is similar, but not exactly the same. It's the three out of ten.

I've gone for show Guan Yu, which is funnily enough, most of his driver ratings. But yes, I don't think his performances really can justify him staying. It's not one of those young drivers that's really hit the ground running. We've seen a lot of them recently that have done a really good job. I think he, when he started, he was maybe. unfairly criticized for just sort of like, you know, people acting like he was not even a racing driver and he's just been bought in for money, which is not true. But he has definitely under-delivered.

And there are these drivers that have had their time. I know it's difficult to perform well in the car that he's got. But the reason I've given it a three is just because I think there's obviously backing there. and if they do want, I think it's a very good point about Audi, if they want a very just safe continuation of a driver before they turn to Audi and then it's more like, right, now we're going to get our line up. Maybe that could help him,

but I personally just don't see it happening. Neither do I, but you gave it a three. Of course, we don't have fan ratings for this one, so you're going to have to deal with our opinions. Let's go to the next candidate, which is Teo Porccia. Yes, he still does exist for everyone wondering. He is the current Salber Reserve driver.

He's 21 years old and the Formula 2 champion from 2023. What have you gone for, Tommy? I've actually gone for a 6 out of 10, which is incredibly high, whether that would be the highest grade, we'll find out. The reason I've gone for him is that we have been surprised this year. you've seen maybe like Jack doing and things like that have got in it's not exactly the most sought

after seat even though it is the final one you're not going to have drivers that don't have a seat desperate to finish 19th and 20th every weekend um so that's why I feel like maybe they'll take a punt and I know it's very easy to forget forgotten about in Formula One one a one year break from driving just feels like enormous it feels like he's this forgotten guy but he's still 21 years old he is their reserve driver he was the champion in f2 so you do feel like if they would want a young driver uh to go with a bit of youth alongside holkenberg of course who's got the other seat that we've not mentioned um maybe uh it's teap or chair uh he has had a very unusual year has to be said doing a little bit of indie car and then one random super four

Formula race is very bizarre. But yeah, maybe if they do what Alpine have done and to a lesser extent what Williams have done when they had Logan out and they've gone, well, let's just stick the junior driver in. Could happen. Oh, well, you better lock in everyone because disagreements are coming. I have given Terri Pochette a one out of ten. It's not happening. I just can't see it.

They don't talk about him. They don't put him in the limel. They don't do anything. At least Jack Dewan was doing every interview in the history. He was the guy's co-commentator at most points. He'd always be there in FP1. I feel like Alpine were always pushing him forward. I don't see that from Salba.

Unless I'm watching with my eyes closed, I don't know. I just think that he doesn't really get the, yeah, the same sort of backing from Salber. I think I've seen something. about a month ago of Teo Po Cher saying he has no money to put on the table either, which I think will be another reason as to why Salba wouldn't go for Teo. And in fact, I think if they are going to go for a younger driver or they're not so worried about performing straight away, they'd probably just go for Joe, who brings a lot of money and a lot of backing.

But I just don't see it. And it's sad because he is a great talent. I think he's the youngest ever Monaco F2 winner. And he has a lot of things going for him. he just peaked at the wrong time when we saw absolutely nobody get promoted when he became champion. And now everyone is. Yeah, now everybody's coming in. And Teo's looking around like, where's my bus to the Formula One paddock?

And it's, I just can't see it happening. And it's no disrespect to him. I just feel as though it's, you know, like a Davidey Valseki won Formula 2. And he was such a highly. Oh, Trugovic. Trugovic one. and there was no space for him and it just didn't work out. And even Stoffel van Dorn, of course, he had a small amount of time in Formula One,

but then lost that and he had an amazing junior career as well. So for me, I don't see it happening, sadly for Teo. I hope it does, but I just can't see it. Let's got to Gabrielle Bortoletto next, who is 19 years old, current McLaren Jr. driver, and he's leading the Formula 2 championship as a rookie. I am going to lock in a three out of ten for Gabriel Bortoletto. He's kind of riding that wave of hype at the right time,

and that's why I've gone for a slightly higher grade. But that being said, a three out of ten is not very likely. My main reasoning for that is that he is under contract with McLaren. I don't see for a second McLaren giving up Bortoletto, who is obviously doing very well in Formula 2 straight from the get-go, that McLaren will want to keep Gabriel in their ranks as much as possible and unless Salba slash Audi

are willing to pay a huge amount of compensation, I just can't see it happening. But that being said, if he wins Formula 2, maybe conversations start being had and now do you like, you know, maybe we should open the purse strings. But I still think it's unlikely. I think he's going to be a McLaren driver

in the future, maybe. Yep, I've gone for a three out of ten as well for Bortoleto. I think the key is that he's still very young. I know people will go, well, look at Antonelli, but Antonelli was just like he was there, like he was just in Toto's mind and he was always going to get that seat.

Bortoletto. Did you see that lap and a half round Monsa? Just said, did you see it? Did you see before he spun off? Sorry, laughing for quarters. But the problem for Bortoletto, and I'm not saying it's not deserved, you know he he could well win the F2 championship as a rookie but I think the the problem for him

is that he is a McLaren junior and to drag him away from McLaren to drive that car whether he'd even want to do that and think do I want to stay in the in the McLaren pool see what happens if Lando and Oscar fall out next year over the World Championship and it's a Alonzo Hamilton situation and maybe he jumps. I think about to say Alonzo comes up the inside of wins the championship. I was like, wow, okay, here we go. Now you really are in my dreams. I know I am.

But I just can't, I just can't see it happening on the other side to it. And I know there's more to it than just this. But if I was Teopor chair and Bortoleto gets the seat, I'd be like, wait, so I won F2 as well. am your driver. I am the Salba Reserve driver. I've done all the work here and done the simulators and all this kind of stuff. And then you basically go, well, actually, you're probably going to be a bit washed because

you've not raced for a year. This guy is the real deal. Get him in. You'd be absolutely fuming. And that is how Formula One works sometimes. But I just think it is maybe a bit too soon for Bortoleto. And maybe in a weird way, he wants to finish second in the championship. So he can have another goal.

go again and just prove himself even more. But it's hard to know what's best with that, whether you want to win and then take a year out because we have seen it work. But at the time, sometimes you can end up being forgotten about, like we've mentioned with Porcée. Yeah, for those of you that don't watch Formula 2,

if you win the championship, you can't then go back into it the next year. So that's what we see is that people, drivers reach their potential, win the championship and then are sat on the side of a pit wall for a couple of zoom-ins every year. that's pretty much all. It's sad.

It is really sad. Whether the system's broken, I don't know. Okay, interesting. So let's go to our next driver, Valtari Bottas. 35 years old, obviously current salber driver, and a 10-time Formula One race winner. That's mad, isn't that? 10.

You forget his won 10 times. It's a lot of races. What have you gone for, Tommy? I've gone for 9 out of 10 for Valtry Bottas. I think, I can really see this happening. Not that I agree with it. I think it would be one of the most boring lineups. It's just,

it's such a Haas lineup if they had Holcomberg and Bottas and no disrespect to them. They're both great drivers. But they're just going to be sat at the back of the field. Maybe it's not the dream lineup that Audi would have expected when they kind of came in all guns blazing, firing shots of Mercedes going. look we're Audi we're going to be amazing uh we're going to sign uh amazing drivers and have

you know uh this and they've they've ended up with holkenberg and i think botas would be a a solid and a sensible choice for them um but i just it's a bit underwhelming but uh whatever the situation is with botas like daniel ricardo uh however that that pans out um i hope that they do announce it soon. So we don't get another situation where we don't really know what's going on. And we can find out because Bottas would be another driver if he doesn't get the seat, that we would love to sort of have his moment to wave to the crowd and do some donuts in Abu Dhabi. Because he is, like you say, 10-time F-1 race winner.

That's a lot of, there's a lot of race wins. And we've seen his bottom. So I feel like we all know him very well. We do. You know? Okay. If you've got his calendar, you've seen his bottom multiple times. Exactly.

And if you buy multiple calendars, then you've seen his bottom multiple times on that. Right. So I am going for a nine out of ten as well. I am almost convinced that Valtry Bottas will be signed for Saaba next year. What I will say, and it kind of goes back to what I said at the beginning of the show, I think that would be a one-year contract. I reckon maybe Audi in 26, we could have a different line up there to what we might see in 25. Bottas another year.

I think he's enjoying Formula One, even if he's not getting anything out of it. He's in his Kimmy Reichen and turn up, do a few memes, drive, leave. Of course, I'm sure he'd love to be fighting for podiums and points. I'm not sure he, after leaving Mercedes, I'm not sure he wants another car that's absolutely. at the front and he's got one of the best teammates to go up against. I don't think he really enjoyed that. And I remember him saying in the press conference, he's driving better now than he was at Mercedes,

which is wild to even think about. But it makes sense. They're trying to fix a team right now that are absolutely awful. And what better than to have two drivers with a huge amount of experience, knows how to develop a car. Holkenberg, one of the, if not the best driver ever to not be on the podium. Botas has worked at Mercedes. I think it makes sense personally.

It does make sense, isn't it? So I see it happening. I'm not going to give it a 10 because I don't think you can be certain in anything when it comes to an F1 driver market at the moment, but it is very close. And look, I'm happy to see Bottas still in the field. And I'm actually really intrigued to see how he would match up against Holkenberg. Where will they be in that sort of rivalry?

If Bottas is really driving better than at Mercedes, then he could well be Peak Hamilton right now. we don't know. So let's see it. Let's see him up against Hulk because they're fighting for 18th place. Yeah, it would be intriguing to see how they do against each other.

I guess from my side, would they want to evaluate a young driver against them and get someone into their kind of pool thinking that they would join Audi and be a kind of young, exciting talent? And it all comes down to what we've kind of kind of discussed a few times in this podcast of like is is is audy going to be this like fresh

break where it's almost like a completely different team and that didn't happen well that exactly i know they've got holcombberg who is signed but maybe for the other driver it could be a one year thing and then no we are going to put someone more exciting and young in the seat or go for a risk or try and get a big name now we are going to be Audi and we can maybe convince them that this new engine or whatever is actually going to be any good and we're not going to be at the back, not scoring a single point, which wouldn't look great for Audi as a company, would it? And you do wonder as well, Audi joining the sport, perhaps they want to make some headlines.

Maybe they want to sign a really exciting young prospect when they are Audi rather than Salba, this fluorescent green wheelie band. Rather than the press for it and stuff. There's plenty of reasons, I'm sure, behind it. Okay, finally, Franco Colapinto, 21 years old, obviously at Williams at the moment, after replacing Logan's sergeant and has had a very impressive start to his Formula One career. I am going for a six out of ten for Franco Colopinto. I think it's higher than the other young drivers that we've spoken about because everybody is talking about Colopinto. I think it would be easier in comparison to McLaren and Bortoletto

to steal Colapinto from Williams, especially when we've spoken about the driver problem they have. Well, that's what a problem is a great problem to have, but having signs and Albon there, Williams can probably afford a nice little driver transfer. Oh yeah, you can go over to Sal, but no problem. And that will be 20 mil, thank you. So I'm sure there are conversations being had

after Williams have shown off the unexpected talent, I think for some people, of Colopinto. I don't think it's as likely as Bottas, but I do think that he is second in line should Bottas not want to carry on, or whether that Sal Badu decide that they want to start training, or Audi decide that they want to start training up a younger driver for when they eventually take over. But I don't think it's out of the realms of possibility for Colopinto to be signed. for next year. So I've gone for a five out of ten for Colopinto. So I've kind of put him more likely than Bortolete, less likely than Portia, but just a little bit.

And my reasoning for that is that, similar to what I said about Bortolato, you're kind of having to drag him away from a rival team. Would Franco Colopinto want to, depends how long this goes on for and would he hedge his bets and stay at Williams that are looking in a lot better position than stake and almost would it be better for his career to carry on the rest of the season at Williams have these amazing like performances if he does do a great job and carry on doing that is there the danger that if you go not saying it would happen

but if you go to stake and you're just at the back, the hype dies down, you know, because we said this before, you know, we banter about Joe and Bottas and stuff, but it's so hard to tell how good they actually are. And I'm not saying for a second that you put Joe in the Mercedes-is winning every race.

Like, I don't think that's the case, but they're so far off, it's so hard to tell, and you do wonder, like, going there might be tricky, but the reason I've thought it's more, likely than Bortoletto is that he is the man of the moment he's got that experience. It'd be cool to see.

I'm conflicted because I'd love to see him on the grid and I know a lot of other people would. But I'm also like, would it be a bit of a waste of his career to go to that stake? It's a really weird situation where a lot of, it's almost a little bit like Alpine in a way, not as that extreme as Alpine, but you've got these kind of seats where, you kind of have to choose with your career, is it F1 or nothing, or do you take a bit of a risk and hope it comes back round and you can get a chance?

Because we have seen it happen, but equally you could just get completely forgotten about and you miss the boat. It's crazy how quickly, like, F1 moves in, like look at the reaction to like Liam Lawson joining when half a year ago he was like, oh my God, Lawson, it's absolutely criminal, he's not driving,

and now suddenly he seems to be like, why is Lawson there? It is just that kind of that buzz that you need to catch. It's a difficult decision for these drivers to know what to do. It's the luck of the draw. Like that is Formula One that you can make these good or bad decisions and it can literally like completely change the path of your career and how it goes. I think to combat what you were saying about hype and things dying down, I would argue that Colapinto not being on the grid full stop next year,

that in itself kills a bit of hype. I think in Colapinto's position, you take any seat that's offered to you. You just be on the grid. Because at the end of the day, as much as from a fan perspective, yeah, hype can simmer and all sorts of stuff because of who's in the limelight,

but from a Formula One team, talking to each other, scouting talent and things like that, they will know how good colopinto is. We'll be able to judge from a fan perspective if he's as good as Holklenberg, that that's a really good starting point. I guess Holcombberg's quite a good benchmark, isn't he?

Exactly, yeah. It does seem like a bit of like almost a wasted opportunity to go to stake, but if you do go there and beat Holkenberg after how good Holkenberg's been driving and is qualifying performances and things like that, yeah, you're right, teams probably will go, oh, actually.

Yeah, and I think it'd be really good for Franco as well, right, to just get more experience under the belt. But it is a case of whether Williams will be happy to let him go. That's the real problem here, I would say. But yeah, let's see. I think it's reasonably possible, but I just think Valtry Bottas, he fancies one more year.

And then maybe Franco 2026, perhaps that would be conversation that we might have. So yeah, who gets the final F1 seat? Basically, we think Botasper who actually knows. But that's the beauty of Formula One, isn't it? And I'm so glad we've actually been speaking about drivers moving seats and new talent coming in because my God, was it depressing last year? It really was. We had to do like all sorts of random predictions and couldn't really do things based on where the kind of seats were available. But the season if you'd said

that when Hamilton was announced at Ferrari that was going to Ferrari and we said oh this is going to start the domino effect I knew it would be a domino effect but I didn't know to this extent like can you imagine before for Hamilton announcing Ferrari if you'd

gone back to us in January and gone right so next year Jack Duhin Alpine Antonella at Antonelli at Mercedes Carlos Seitz is going to be in a Williams you're going to be like, no, this is that when you do the F1 game

and it like mixes everything up season to season in a career mode. Insane. And yeah, who knows? The way Red Bull are looking as well might be some more twists and turns as well. God, it's just crazy, isn't it at the moment? Ridiculous.

Can't believe Formula One's in this state, but I'm not complaining in the slightest. Thank you, everybody. Thank you, Tommy. Thank you, everybody. We are going to be, of course, live in Canada and the USA. If you want to come see us, there's still some tickets available for some of the venues. We'd love to see you there. And, yeah, we're flying literally, Tommy.

And, well, we're recording this a little bit earlier, aren't we? In five days, five days, we're going to be in the air heading to Toronto, which is mad. Madness. What's your final thoughts? Final thoughts? Yeah, caught you out there. you've you've shut down Tommy.EXE has stopped working

my final thoughts are I am I've never seen what the hell am I watching hello Tommy do you have a single thought yeah my thoughts are Salbert

like just hurry up and make this decision but not too quickly that we can put this video out first great so that's going to be useful to absolutely nobody who is now actually watching or listening to this podcast appreciate you Tommy thank you everybody we'll see you very soon hope you're surviving the break lots of love keep pushing the gym sweet dreams take care and ah thank you the Antarctic um uh lady that actually messaged uh to say that she's still out there and um I hope I hope it's not too cold what were you going to say the same thing I was no I was going to say that I got a message from another another penguin person.

Another penguin person, okay. Yeah, and I couldn't believe it, and I'm trying to find the name. There's two penguin people. Yeah, because I, they messaged me to say, oh, I work with penguins, and I thought it was the same person. And then when I listened to you say the name, I was like, no, it's a different person. In the zoo or in the Arctic? In Namibia.

Wow. I'm trying to find that person's. If there are any other penguin people out there, I think we all need to. hear from you. Let's unite all the penguins. I can't find the message now. I'm saying... P1 actually meant penguin this entire time. Exactly. Penguin 1. We only

do our podcast for penguin enthusiasts. I'm really annoyed I can't find the message anymore because it was... Well, maybe next time, because your final thoughts took three and a half hours, so we're going to end the podcast there. All right. Take care. Bye everyone. Goodbye.

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