P1 with Matt and Tommy - Why overtaking will be IMPOSSIBLE in Miami

Episode Date: May 6, 2023

We discuss what went down in Friday practice for the Miami Grand Prix and why it's going to be a very tricky place to overtake.Follow us on socials! You can find us on Twitter, Instagram, Twitch, YouTube and TikTok.***Please take the time to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your pods. It means a great deal to the show and will make it easier for other potential listeners to find us. Thanks!*** Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello everybody and welcome back to the P-1 podcast with Matt and Tommy. You might be thinking, wow, you've got some energy on you, Matt. What time is it? It's 5 to midnight. Yes, FP2 has finished. I had a shower to try and just wake me up a little bit before then going to sleep, to then wake up probably sometime in the middle of the night to then put the YouTube video of this up. It's some serious commitment for the P1 life.

style, isn't it, Tom? It sure is. I just called you Tom, that's so weird. That doesn't sound weird. Thomas. I think it's because I've been booking a flight for you. I just didn't think of you as Tommy for a second. That is weird.

Yeah, a full day of practice back. Did it feel weird to you to just have a full day of nothingness? I actually, I tweeted this as well. I feel some sort of relief. I feel like we're back to what Formula One is, in my mind, obviously being a hardcore. long term F1 fan that's known not much different. To have three practice sessions,

yeah, maybe there's too many practice sessions, but just to have Saturday, tomorrow, the big day for Quali, and then Sunday, the big day for the race is something that I don't think I will ever change my mind of that being the format it should be. Yeah, fair. Yeah, it's a weird one because practice for me,

I was so against it, but I actually didn't mind having a fairly chilled day of just like the weekend building and yeah, excited for tomorrow. I don't know if that's just your laziness talking as well but either or. Before we get into it, we've got a five-style review.

If you want yours read out, then please leave a five-star review and tell us why you love this podcast and it really helps us a lot. So thank you so much. This one comes in from ESource 2-360 from the United States of America. That was a terrible accent.

The best Formula One podcast ever. Wow. You can rely on these two gents to provide great insight, opinions, explanations for all things F1. I enjoy you two waffling in my ears while at work delivering mail. This was the first choice. We're so happy for you. No, this was the right choice. God, you can tell it's midnight, can't you? I can't even read. This was the right choice. We're so happy for you. Keep up the great content. P.S. More Frank, please. Well, thankfully, one of the only

podcast I think we've ever recorded, Tommy, where Frank is probably asleep. Yeah, I think he is. He's gone to So no yapping, no silly washed yorn predictions from him either. Anyway, let's move to our first talking point. Nick DeVries, still struggling. Now, I actually thought this session started at half past the hour. So I whacked on the TV about 10 minutes in, maybe 15 minutes into FP1 and going, what's going on? Then you text me as well, saying, oh, I thought it was on a half past.

So both of us messed up. I don't know if there was some communication issues going. on from some media outlet. But we missed Nick DeVries spinning off and damaging the car already. My predictions in the bin. Your prediction was in the bin. Couldn't believe it when I found out. He spun off early in the session.

Had a bit of damage. Can't find a replay of it or anything. I only just like a quick picture. But yeah, I can't seem to find a video of it. Again, we missed the start of the session. so I don't know if they did show it, but from what I've seen, yeah, damaged the car

and didn't actually go out for the rest of FP1. And then also got noted for dangerous driving, just to make it even worse. By going backwards around the track to do a spin turn. I mean, that sounds like F1 game lobby kind of stuff where you do a hot lap and then you do a 180 to come back into the pits rather than doing a whole other lap because you just want to speed it up.

Anyway, we missed it. that, but I just can't believe it. My prediction was that he wasn't going to crash all weekend. Now, technically, if you were to go into the dictionary, the weekend is a Saturday and a Sunday. So I'm going to start getting some serious definitions coming out. Friday is not part of the weekend. It is a workday, Tommy. Anyway, Nick to raise P20 in FP1 and P19 in FP2.

Question from at Jones underscore RF873. Are Alpha Tauri the worst car on the grid? They're very much down there. I think they have been for most of this season, really. They've not shown any real signs of improvement, apart from Sonod at scoring a point or two. That's been more of the fact I think Yuki has outdriven the car, if anything. I definitely don't want to slander them too much,

but I think they are one of the weakest pairings on the grid as well as the fact that the car isn't that good. Now, I backed Yuki your boy from the beginning, so I'm not saying he's having a bad season, but when you compare it to all the other driver lineups on the grid, they are probably one of the weakest as well. Yeah, they're a young, well, I guess Nick DeVries isn't particularly young, but inexperienced duo, if you like. but it's difficult to say if Alvatari the worst car on the grid because it kind of changes here and there. Yuki's done a really good job this season of actually getting almost into the points every race

and getting some points as well. And yeah, Nick DeVries had an absolute stinker, but I don't think there is a far and away the worst car, like maybe years gone by where Williams was so far behind everyone else and then Hass were so far behind everyone else, I don't think there's one car that's, you know, a second off the pace and is always kind of the meme getting lapsed. I think every team has scored a point already,

so it just shows that there's not really a bad car in there, but the Alvatari certainly isn't great, and particularly when they've got Nick DeFries at the wheel. Sorry. Oh, good, no. A little sorry afterwards to soften the blow. Yeah, it's definitely a fight between Williams' Alphrates, towering,

alpha and mayo for the slowest car on the grid, I think, and it seems to change and move around as we, as we go between weekends. I'm just, I'm just so shocked that Nick DeVries had a crash that early on, because I think you've seen so many examples of previous,

whether it would be rookies or someone that's just lost confidence, is that they will then just try and build up, and it might even take another weekend or two to actually build that confidence back up, and you don't take any risks, you just want to finish races, is you want to finish sessions because that's the way that you learn more about the car

and you get the setup to where you needed to be. To have that mistake so early on in FP1 is kind of unforgivable in some ways, I would say, unless there was something specifically wrong with the car, which we haven't been alerted to, that kind of mistake is where I think the likes of Helmut Marco goes, really?

Like, you've just come off the back of Baku crashing in two sessions. You can't come here and do the same thing. It's needless spotlight, isn't it? Because even if you just keep out the walls, don't have any major moments and you're kind of anonymous, and even if you're slow, it's better than, yeah, like having a spin because, you know, it gets put, not the F on Twitter decide who should be good and bad.

But they do, they do. But at the end of the day, you know, the memes come out, oh, Nick DeBreeze and it's all over Twitter. to again going, you know, what is this guy doing? So, yeah, it's not a great look. And yeah, he desperately needs to just have a race weekend where he doesn't do something wrong. Did you remember first predictions we made on P1?

Yes, I do. What I said about Nick DeVries losing his seat. And you looked at me and was like, I don't think that all happened. I'm pretty sure it was something on those lines. Maybe not as smug as that particular rendition, but whether he'll be replaced by Daniel Ricardo, which I think was my crazy, crazy prediction,

we'll have to wait and see. But yes, he needs to pick up his game. He has to have a great weekend now, no excuses, I think, for Nick DeVries. Another driver that crashed was Nico Holcomburg, who lost it out of turn two, just got off the racing line ever so slightly, and the car just went round. He just lost it.

You saw there was a slight bit of correction on the steering wheel out of turn two, washed him wide, round he goes, and then yeah, front right was smashing into the wall. And you did a funny tweet, Tommy, which I'll allow everyone to, for you to share to everyone. I just found it slightly amusing that,

yeah, Holcombberg was running in the top three when he spun and hit the wall, which is just, you just couldn't write it, could you? Sometimes the jokes write themselves. They really do. I didn't notice that. It was a good, it was a very good tweet. I think that will take some beating this weekend, Tommy.

But it wasn't a massive crash for Hulk. It was just one of those that obviously not in the rest of the session, but it's not like a complete total. And I think that's all the drivers that crashed in either FP1 or FP2, isn't it, Tommy? We don't need to speak about anyone else at any point during the rest of this video. Let's focus quickly still on FP1. Mercedes were fastest, and we were wondering, hold on a second, what's going on? I very nearly tweeted for the 18th time, Mercedes are back, question mark.

But I didn't. I just didn't want to do it. I'm glad I didn't because FP1 was not representative at all when you looked at FP2. And the times there, I think Max Verstappen went a whopping 2.2 seconds quicker in FP2 than FP1. And that's purely just down to the fact that it's a new track surface. And that means the track is as green, and green meaning low grip as you can possibly find a track, I would say. And then as the cars go round, of course, the rubber gets laid down and it gets quicker and quicker. And so the evolution is even more so around Miami.

So yes, as much as Mercedes fans might have got excited, as soon as FP2 started, the excitement soon faded, I think. Yeah, it didn't really matter in the end. When he had that first session, it was like, oh, hang on a minute. But no, the track evolution is so extreme here because it is a dusty boy. And that's exactly what Holkenberg found. We'll talk about this a bit later. but yeah, a tiny bit offline and you're having a bad time.

Oh, that thing that swiftly kind of moves into FP2, doesn't it? And going offline and potentially making mistakes. And okay, Charlotte Clare crashed at the end of FP2. Sure did. I don't want to talk about it. We've now reached over midnight. So it's very much sleep time. It's in the past.

Happen yesterday. Some people say get over it. You know what I mean? And I'm over it. It took me a day, but it's a new day now. It's Saturday. But yes, it was, again, an error, a very small error, but one that has quite big consequences,

even though you wouldn't think on paper, when you look at that corner, you go, oh, there's plenty of runoff. It's fine. But the problem is, Charlotte-Cla got a swapper, and then by the time he actually corrected it, he's still going at too fast of a speed to be able to slow it down,

then you lock up, and then you're straight in the wall. Front right was absolutely, crumbled. And it was, yeah, it was that point where I was like, I'm going to bed. Oh, no, wait, I've got to do a podcast and talk about it with Tommy. And everyone's going to tune in to, because they want to know your reaction because you want on Twitch. It's only practice.

It is only practice, I guess. Yeah, no major damage done really. He came on the radio and said, you know, the car's fine. They were talking about, you know, the floor and all that kind of stuff. So they've got a lack of spare parts for this weekend. in terms of the new floor and so on. So not, did damage that by the sound of it, which is all good. And look, it's a, it's a small mistake really, like just pushing and finding the limits.

But it's better that they're, they're quick than being slow and like making an error. So Ferrari looking pretty good, that's to be said, looking like they're the second. last just car again. So it's not like it's an absolute nightmare day for Ferrari. I think they can be pretty happy with finishing second and third in FPT. Yeah, and I'll absolutely take my poll prediction being wrong if it means yours is right. And we have Charlotte LeClaire back on poll, although it does seem very ominous once again, the Red Bull pace at the end of FP2.

Vestappen was clear by just over three-tenths of a second to signs, and then LeCler a little bit further back in the point threes. as well. Sign's looking a little bit better this weekend. I think that's probably worth mentioning after his very underpar Baku performance and him not having confidence in the car, I think that when he looks at that FP2 session, especially with his teammate, as much as easy,

he wouldn't be happy to see his teammate in the wall, but he'll be like, ah, it's not just me. And sometimes Charles will struggle with the car as well. And he's done all right so far. He has. Yeah, he would be happy with that. Yeah, I mean, if he can out qualify Charlotte Clare, it doesn't happen all that often,

not in the last this year and the season gone by. So, yeah, science is looking pretty tidy around it. Question from at Conman 81. Is Checo actually this slow, or is he just holding back his pace for qualifying and the race on Sunday? I mean, saying this slow, he's just over four-tenth slower at the end of FP2.

I don't think we can analyze it too much. I think Checo has looks pretty good. He's had moments of blistering pace, but then getting held up in that horrible sort of sequence of corners towards the end of the lap before the back straight, where there's loads of cars usually there and drivers not getting a clear lap. And that's going to be interesting to watching Q1,

especially tomorrow or today, technically for us, where traffic could play a very big, part and some drivers may even get some sort of penalty. So I don't think Perez is that far off. I think Vestappan may well have a 10th or two in hand, but I don't think it's as big as Perez being as slow as the Ferraris, in my opinion. What do you make of it, Tommy? Do you think Perez is going to be slower than the two Ferraris?

I don't think he could write Perez off just from a practice session. I'm sure. Yeah, exactly. I'm pretty sure even in Baku in FP1, Vast. happen was miles clear of Perez and some of the laps they were doing. And it was like, oh, why is Perez six tenths down? And then eventually, you know, found his way and was right on the pace. So still got yet another practice session tomorrow, which feels very novel now to have three after we only had one last week. So yeah, I think Perez will get back up to speed and be all good.

Now one big talking point is around the track itself. Is it going to be a terrible race? Is overtaking going to be difficult? Well, the FIA decided let's make it more difficult before the weekend even begun by shortening the DRS zone on the back straight. That's right, Tom, isn't it? It's a later activation zone. Two of them have been shortened.

Two of them. So even worse than what I first thought, which is, I don't know why they would do that off the back of Baku, where not only are they shortened the DRS zone there, but also we saw very little overtaking. We saw drivers with 50 lap old tires being able to keep back drivers that had stopped and had much fresher tires. So it is a very strange decision because you'd think the only reason they would do that

is if there is a genuine safety concern. But as far as I'm aware, that's not the case. But not only that, not only that is one of the concerns for us around overtaking. It's very dirty offline. As we saw with Holkenberg, as we saw with Charles Lecler, as we saw with Hamilton, I think, at one point, so many of the drivers just making a very tiny error off the racing line and all the grip goes, that they lose the car, they might crash, whatever. So as much as on one side you go, oh, the drivers might make mistakes, it'll make for an exciting race.

you're looking at the other side, you go, but how do overtakes happen? They have to go offline. Yeah, and that was the main problem last year, and it sounds just as bad this year. I think it was Jensen Burton was like hyping it up, like it was this really exciting thing that it was like, oh, it's going to be really exciting because you can't get your wheel

even a centimeter off the racing line because otherwise you're going to make a mistake. And I just heard that and thought, so no one can even attempt an overtake during the race because otherwise you're just going to it's not even the fact that you're going to have to break offline you'll dirty your ties up and then you're going to struggle into the next few corners.

So yeah, very concerning. And this is also as well, the exact same issue we had last year. Yeah, yeah, 100%. I know it's a complete different track surface and it seems as though the track has held up quite well. Because they don't race there. Resurfacing. Yeah, they don't race.

They're literally sticking it around a stadium. It's a temporary circuit. But the problem is, what are they going to do about it? Moving forward. Miami is obviously here to stay as a racetrack and they're loving it. I think that they can't say a bad word about it either. All the commentary, the presenting team. Everything you see is, oh my God, America is incredible.

I even heard, right, Martin Brundle saying. I know exactly what you're going to say. Oh, look at the crowd. They're absolutely buzzing. And you see the camera pan and you see half-filled grandstands. I remember looking at the footage going, there's actually not that many people there. I don't know if that's what you thought, Tommy. As much as they were trying very sneaky angles of like, oh, let's point it up slightly.

So it looks like the whole grandstand's full and they're all going mental. But if I look at what Friday at Silverstone is, it's packed to the rafters. You can't get anywhere at any point during a weekend anymore. Miami, it was half empty. Yeah, it was weird. It's difficult because I don't want anyone on this podcast to think that we're just kind of bad-mouthing America for no reason because we love Cota to bits.

Like, Cota's one of my favorite races on the calendar. The crowd are amazing. That, to me, feels like a proper race for like proper fans, I'm not saying the people that go to Miami. It's a proper circuit. There's a proper circuit. There's so many amazing American circuits out there. I am absolutely not against.

They're being more American races. But for me, Miami is just not a good circuit. And then it seems like they hype up so much over nothing. It's all hype. And watching whether it is deliberate or not, one of my takeaways from practice that I just feel like a lot of the coverage and everything was kind of almost like they were trying to convince themselves how great it was even when it wasn't. You don't have to lie about there being a massive crowd when there isn't.

Do you know what I mean? Exactly. And don't get me wrong. I was lucky enough to be in Miami last year and I saw a bit of the action on the Friday. And I loved it. I thought it was an amazing experience. Like actually being there, like everything they did, all the things they put up was awesome

and the vibes were great. But that didn't make me ever think, God, this circuit is well good. I just remember looking at going, yeah, this has been restricted slightly because they have to go round a stadium. And I don't like that. It's bad enough.

Like the circuit layout itself, I don't particularly like. The very twisty chican that is just all, for a modern Formula One car that's like a boat where you just can't, you know, old school Formula one cars where they were half the way and more twitchy and stuff. Yeah, you could maybe dive up the inside or switch for a different line there, but they just look so clumsy around there. And then it doesn't particularly lead itself well onto that main straight, which is the main part

of overtaking and you've got a short DRS zone and you can't go offline. And I don't know what the solution is either because they're never going to race there. It's not like you have IndyCar races there or Formula E races there. So it's getting used all the time and offline is going to help because at the end of the day, in practice, they're not driving three wide to clean the track up for the race. They're just driving on the racing line. So the own is going to be even worse because there'll just be one line. Yeah, it's an interesting, I'm just trying to think of other circuits that are temporary and are absolutely okay.

I mean, Monaco is obviously kind of temporary in the fact that they build it up and put it back down, but it's like a well-bedded in road, essentially, isn't it? It's not really a, it's not really a track that it doesn't get resurfaced or whatnot. And it's difficult. I don't think there is a solution. One thing I do like, actually, is the fact that they've opened the paddock into the hard rock stadium i think that's awesome that that looks really cool uh but yeah again these are the things that we're talking about miami when a lot of us uh and i'm sure the majority of people

listen to this podcast just want a good race and they and while it is cool when we you know i'm i'm hope i really hope this age is badly everything we're saying now and we have a great race but well there's a bit of rain you know i mean yeah i hope so But say we're 40 laps into the race, we've not seen a single overtake. The last thing I care about is that the paddock's cool. Do you know what I mean? Well, yeah, I know.

And I think we are the racing fans, the Formula One fans that love that sort of stuff. But Formula One are trying to accommodate those that don't like Formula One, and they want them to come in the door and be like, and they're, oh, my God, they're in the Hard Rock Stadium. That's cool. Oh, let's go and watch it.

And I've seen so many tweets of people going, Oh my God, what is going on here? These F1 fans that are just so mortified by these people that have no idea about the sport holding things that are like F1 replicas. It's just a weekend as hardcore F1 fans, we just have to get through. And we just need to enjoy it for one of these, just soak it in. And it'll be back to normal.

We'll be in I'mla soon enough. Yeah, we'll be in I'ma. We'll be in Spain soon enough. And then we can all go back to hardcore racing where again, nothing happens. So yeah, it's fine. I don't mind it too much. It's a different experience.

Same with you, Tommy. I just don't like the fact that they try and hype. Like, hype the things that are worth hyping. Don't hype the things that you can literally see before your eyes are not hypeworthy, you know? Yeah, yeah, definitely. No, it did really feel like that. Like, don't be here saying that it's a great thing that you can't go three centimeters off line. that's not a good thing.

What I did enjoy, again, to do with Martin Brunner, because he was down on the track, was the security guard that looked really angry that he got near the wall? Did you see that bit? No, I missed that bit.

You must be doing your ironing or something as a fully grown adult during your free practice sessions. But he was, I think it was at turn four, I can't remember which time it was, but he was kind of standing near the edge of where the opening

is where the marshals are and he's pointing around, around or whatever and then the camera sort of pans away to him to show some cars, comes back and then Martin's kind of shuffled in towards where the wall is and you've just got the security guard with his arms completely folded, looking really quite angry. I think Sky Sports F1 shared the clip of it, so you have to go and check that out.

That was, yeah, very, very humorous. Okay, that I think sums up the practice round up and why the racing is going to be absolutely dreadful, potentially, but then hey, look what we're doing. We might be doing something special here, Tommy, hey, hey, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. What is your final thoughts? Goodness me, final thoughts. It's 20 past midnight, final thoughts.

This could be really interesting. Insightful. Insightful stuff, I will say that, looking at the FP2 or, I know what I will say. Please stand by everyone. We'll get there shortly. It's very late. I can hear Tommy's brain wearing.

Practice is all right. After all that. What on earth is that final thought? Practice is all right. Yeah, because, you know, we've gone back to it. You put your hands up. Yeah, I put my hands up and saying, yeah, I will admit. I can see why some people just enjoy the chill vibes.

And actually less is more. There you go. I thought I'd wrap up your final thought for you because that could have gone one of many ways. My final thoughts are, yeah, bring it on. Miami's going to be quite something to experience. We're all going to be there, probably moaning about it on Twitter,

but we'll have a great time doing it, and we'll be there with you tomorrow for qualifying. Fingers crossed, it'll be a banger. Charlotte Clare for Poll, if Tommy's prediction is right, I'll take it, and we'll see you very soon tomorrow for another video slash podcast. Bye! Bye!

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