The Late Braking F1 Podcast - 2023 Mexican GP Qualifying Review

Episode Date: October 28, 2023

The boys are back in the UK! Ben and Sam take a look through an entertaining Mexican GP qualifying including an unexpected Ferrari 1/2, Daniel Ricciardo on the second row and Lando Norris failing to make it out of Q1. FOLLOW us on socials! You can find us on YouTube, Instagram, X (Twitter) and TikTok SUPPORT our Patreon for bonus episodes JOIN our Discord community JOIN our F1 Fantasy League BUY our Merch EMAIL us at [e-mail]   & SUBSCRIBE to our podcast! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network. Thank you for listening to the Late Breaking F1 podcast. Make sure to check out new episodes every Wednesday and every Sunday. And a very warm welcome to the Late Breaking F1 podcast presented by Sam Sage and me, Ben Hocking. We're back in the UK. It's a bit of late night, late breaking action for you here. Mexico Grand Prix qualifying, which we have stayed up. before. It is rather late in the day. We don't actually know what all the positions are because

literally every driver in the history of Formula One is currently being investigated for something or other. But another great qualifying session, Sam. Honestly, I tweeted this watching qualifying. What is the point in having sprint races when every single qualifying session could be the goat session of most other years? It's been phenomenally good this year. Who are predicting a Ferrari one too? Not us because we don't predict those things. very well. But I don't think Ferrari knew what was going on and they've smashed it. It was great to watch. Incredibly close at the end. We've had another thriller of a Saturday. And we'll power through the jet lag as we recover from Austin. And we'll get through some

exciting topics. Alex Albin out in Q2 had a lot of pace in practice. Seemed to disappear. We'll be discussing that a little bit later on. We'll talk about Aston Martin and their struggles, just pure shambles in the pit lane. That's to come. Lando Norris, not his best qualifying session of all time, and Daniel Ricardo deciding, hey, top four, that sounds all right. But we'll start with what you mentioned, Sam, which is the shock result, or at least what we thought was the shock result, a Ferrari won too. They just didn't seem to have a great deal of pace going through the practice sessions, and even early on in qualifying, it didn't look like this sort of a result was achievable.

All of a sudden, Q3 first runs, both signs and Lecler on the pace. They finished first and second. That's well they'll start tomorrow. Front Road lockout. Where did that come from? Yeah, correct. That's the right question. I'm sure Freddie Vass is probably looking around the pit lane going where else that come from. Who's pulled that out of where? Let me know immediately. So we could do that every single Grand Prix. Where did it come from? You look at the results throughout the weekend so far. I know they're not always the most conducive to what may be the end of the weekend. You know, your practice sessions and whatnot. But seemingly, Ferrari weren't nowhere. I think at one point they were 15th and 17th in one of the practice sessions,

which despite it not being, as we said, 100% accurate as what the results are going to be, they are usually a little closer to their predicted endpoints come, you know, practice three. They tend to go for a fast run. They tend to go for a push lap. They were nowhere, absolutely nowhere. And to be fair, that trend continued going through Q1 and Q2.

Carlos Seitz looked like he was almost about to be knocked out of Q2 at the last moment, but I think he ended up being P9. Joe Guan Yu became the unlucky driver who then got replaced again when Alex Alvon's lap time got deleted. So it didn't look good. I think LeCler was also P8 in that scenario as well. So they were clinging on for Q3 appearances.

And then Wham Bam, thank you, ma'am, thank you, man, uh, you know, Gratsy, Raghazzi, we'll take a P1 and a P2. How do you do? Because that came out of literally nowhere. I think what we saw, which we've seen almost like no other this season, is a huge change in track conditions, which to the naked eye looks like nothing.

Sunny day, it's really odd. But actually what had happened was, I think the Ferrari is operating at too hot a window in the previous two qualifying sessions. We get to Q3, and the track, according to SkyComptory, Kourang Chandok, had dropped in temperature by about four degrees. Now, Formula One cars, they're delicate little darlings, and, you know, they need to be operating inside their absolute direct window to function.

And we've seen that Ferrari happened in Austin with the tires overheating. It happened in Qatar when they got too hot. They're not brilliant when the car is overheating. And I just wonder if the Mexico track, the way it kind of homologulated, I can't say it were very well, and the way it kind of rubbed up, homologated up.

And the way the temperatures cooled became a big of a perfect storm for them to suddenly extract the extra six or seven tents that they required to smack, Bam, pole position, second place. Max Verstaffin doesn't improve. Daniel Ricardo is in the next closest car to them. It was a very strange qualifying session. I really do think it was almost a secret, perfect storm that whipped up together to allow them to deliver such a brilliant couple of qualifying maps. Now, I feel incredibly sorry for Charlotte Clare because his conversion rate from pole is horrible.

It's horrible. You know, he's got the first good DNS, the first good DNF, the first kid. The first to DSQ. What's the going to be? The first to BRF, back row finish. Are we going to get that come Sunday? I mean, it could really complete the ultimate collection that no one else ever thought they'd want. I just, I'm nervous for them because the tyres are already literally evaporating and a lot

of cars going around here due to the heat. The soft tie can barely do more than a lap. Let's hope the Megiam and Hars can hang on a little bit more. We know the Ferraris are tough on their tires. We might see a sinking stone much like we saw in Oskine. just a week ago. Yeah, that's certainly possible. This is going to sound like a weird comparison,

but the same thought was going through my mind for a lot of qualifying and not necessarily just relevant to the Ferrari guys out front. It was for the entire field. It reminded me a lot of Russian Grand Prix qualifying from a few years ago, which sounds weird because two different opposite ends of the globe.

You've got one very hot venue, one very cold venue. But the trick to Russian Grand Prix qualifying was always how much tire life do you have left for those last few corners? It was always what tire life do you have for sector three? And that's essentially the situation that all the drivers found themselves in here. How can you put together a first and second sector that is competitive enough that doesn't completely take your tires out of it when you get to the stadium section and those final few corners? Because that often, that seemed to decide things today.

We saw so many occasions where, I mean, the Hasse were particularly guilty of this, where they'd put in a good first sector, an OK middle sector, and in the third sector, they might as well have walked it. They were that slow. And I think Ferrari did a pretty good job of keeping their tyres alive come the end of the session. I think your point about how the end of the session, temperature-wise, conditions-wise, suited the Ferrari far better

than the early part of that session. and again, to the naked eye, it might not seem like a lot in that it's only half an hour or 40 minutes we're talking about here, but that can make a real substantial difference. I mean, the gaps between Lecler's performance in Q2 versus his performance in Q3, same were Sines's performances in Q2 versus Q3, it was remarkable. All it would have taken, and we'll get on to Lando Norris in a bit, all it would have taken for Carlos Sines to be knocked out of Q2 would have been Alex Alburn. not cutting a corner and Lando Norris actually performing to what the car was capable of. If those two things happen, signs is qualifying 11th and he doesn't even make it through to Q3 to attempt to get on the front row of the grid. So yeah, what is potentially worrying for Ferrari tomorrow is that these perfect conditions will be the last 10 minutes of the Grand Prix in all likelihood

and they will have to go through a lot of hotter temperatures probably before we get to that point. So there isn't, it's entirely possible. We see exactly what we had in Austin, repeat itself here in Mexico. The tires in Mexico as well are one compound softer than what we had in the US too. So I don't know whether they can hold on to it, but at least as a qualifying performance, this was surprising, but in a good way. What about Vastappen? Third place. Not a position he's very used to. But he's still in the mix. Should he still be in an encouraging spot here?

Mang has, I don't know, he's performed the absolute slam dunk, Max Verstappen. I think he's done his research and gone, what position looks good for the run down to the Mexican turn one? Oh, P3 seems to get a bloody lovely run. It might be, out of all the tracks, maybe Monsa equally, it might be the one track where not being on the front row

and actually being on the second row, could produce one of your best starts. The level of slipstream that you get, the toe is huge. P1 and P2 tend to go side by side and not behind each other. So you get free reign to pick the car that's got the better start

and can have jumped behind it. And we have seen it time and time again where by the time we get to that breaking zone, P3 is either alongside, if not ahead of P1 and 2 and Mexico. So out of every single track this year where he's not managed to be on the front row, this was the one to do it,

on. And I don't know if he's some absolute genius that we're unaware of, or it's pure potluck that this is where he's ending up. But it's a pretty good spot. And actually, if you said to me, Sam, if you can't have poll around Mexico, where you're going? P3 would be my first pick in a heartbeat easily. So it should be absolutely bored with confidence. I think the car is more than good enough on race pace. You saw in both Q3 and Q2 when we had those hotter conditions, which are much more likely to match the race conditions for tomorrow, he was putting in laps five tenths faster than his teammates, six tenths faster than most of the cars on the grid.

It took every other team at least few runs to get near him. Lewis Hamilton, of course, in Q2, beats Verstappen to that provisional pole spot by less than a tenth. After his second run, I just think that come Sunday, Max Verstappen might be a different beast, and I think it's all going to suit the Red Bull quite handsomely again. Yeah, I don't think he's going to be panicking.

The only thing that might give him a little bit of trepidition at this point is the fact that the Ferrari seem to have the advantage over Red Bull down the straight, down the main straight. And of course, if Vastappen doesn't get ahead of one or both of those drivers at the beginning of the Grand Prix, he is going to have to make that overtake happen at some point, assuming it doesn't happen in the pits, which is also possible. You would think that with DRS, that will give him more than enough still to make that overtake, but that's at least something that will give him maybe a few nerves, but certainly through the middle sector, I don't think anyone was touching the

Stappan out there today. I don't think he's going to be overly panicked at all. That was the top three. Of course, everyone was then expecting Daniel Ricardo to be best to the rest in fourth. I don't think anyone was really doubting that. Yeah, of course. How encouraging was that result? Because we knew from the start, the Yuki Sonoda would be starting from the back of the grid. He still took part in Q1, got through comfortably enough to Q2. but then Q2 didn't make an attempt to get into Q3. So with the absence of that comparison, can you still consider this to be an encouraging result for Ricardo?

You say that without absence of comparison. And I want to start by talking about Yuki Sengoda, who I firstly feel quite sorry for. He's gone through Liam Lawson coming into the car and essentially beating him at every single Grand Prix that they race side by side against. And a lot of that wasn't Yuki's fault. You've got to remember he either didn't start a race

or got taken out of a race on lap one on two of those, and strategies didn't play very well for him in Zambor either, which led Liam Lawson to be quite further up the grid. And then you think, all right, Liam Lawson's gone. Daniel Riccara's backing, another rusty driver who's going to have to get used to things, he's going to have to adapt again. And not only has Yuki Senoda got to start from the back of the grid

due to a power unit change, which sucks. He's like a big of bad luck as old Yuki. He's then asked by the team to give Daniel Ricardo a toe down the start, finish straight, in two qualifying sectors. Now, when I'm seeing this, I think that's the difference maker. That's the one team working together is giving Daniel Ricardo the extra couple of attempts that that car requires to get into Q3. You think great team player.

Not only that, though, his teammates got into Q3 because of his help. But he's allowed him to get into Q3 and you've got to start from the back. It doesn't look amazing for the record books. But the problem worsens for Yuki-Singoda, when Yuki-Sungoda is no longer in Q3, and Daniel Ricardo is still starting in P-4. Now, I think Ricardo has managed to outdrive that car. I do not think that that Alpha Tauri naturally is P4 material. I think if Norris gets through, he's there.

I think if Perez has a slightly better lap, we know the car is capable of being in that front three or four cars. He should be there. And we saw what Hamilton and Russell were able to do in Q2. They realistically should also be there. I think Ricardo, on a normal day, P8, P9. I think that's a great result for him. I think everyone looks at that and goes solid, good performance.

But P4 for Ricardo, I don't know how high that's going to be for him in the race. But in terms of, you know, one lap pace, that's the Daniel Ricardo of old. That is a real problem maker for both Liam Lawson, both Sergei Perez and both Yuki Sengoda when it comes to a decision-making time if he's able to keep that level of performance up for the next 12 months. Because if he's regularly getting into Q3 when people aren't, if he's regularly in points paying positions when others aren't, he's back. He's bad, baby. I don't want to jump to too many conclusions on one full competitive session where he's actually allowed to be fully there because, of course, with the United States Grand Prix,

we kind of let him get settled in. This is his first weekend where he's fully up to speed. But it looked incredibly promising. And I do feel bad for Yuki to not be able to get into Q3, sacrifice could be it, angry penalties, of course, Daniel O'Kahe, deliver when it mattered, even without the teammates' help. So on that first full weekend up to speed, he has nailed it. Yeah, I feel gutted for Yuki Sonoda that he wasn't able to show properly what he could do here. And I'm also a little bit gutted for fans as a whole, not to say that the qualifying session was bad at all because it was a great qualifying session,

but it would have been really intriguing to see where Yuki Sonoda would have been in that mix. Now, we already referenced the United States Grand Prix being Ricardo's first race back. And throughout that entire weekend, Sonoda has to be. had what I would say was a two-tempts, maybe three-tempts advantage consistently over his teammate. There's no guarantee that would have carried through into this weekend. But let's just say, hypothetically speaking, it had. Sonoda's in the mix. In the mix for pole.

Ricardo being two-tempst away from pole position, even if Yuki-Sanoda is a temp faster than that, he's suddenly in the mix for second and third place on the grid. So who knows, maybe it would have got to Q3 and Ricardo would have held the advantage over his teammate. But at least on the basis of what happened last week, it could have gone the other way as well. So it's rotten luck. It's rotten timing for Yuki Sunoda to have to deal with this issue this weekend. I would have been intrigued also to see even with that penalty that will be sending Yuki Sonoda to the back of the grid or after all other penalties are applied, he might start fifth. it would have been interesting to see

would he have also given the toe in Q3 and would that have made any impact on his qualifying performance? I don't think so. I think it was probably worth a tenth or so in which case Ricardo still probably qualifies fourth. But so it worked effectively throughout the first two qualifying sessions.

I'm assuming they opted not to give Sonoda a chance to get into Q3 because they're thinking tire-wise for the Grand Prix tomorrow and using up too many tires in order to get there. Having said that, I don't know how much the soft tires are going to be used tomorrow. So maybe it would have been a good idea to try and get him in and get two Alphataris in, give him that toe. But even besides all of that, Ricardo should be really encouraged.

He was quite critical about his comeback performance last time out. This was a massive step in the right direction for him. let's let's move on I was going to say a bit further down the grid we're actually going all the way to the back of the grid at least as it is right now again if penalties do start coming in whilst we're recording we'll let you know but at the moment

nothing's been said and we can't be staying up till three in the morning sorry FIA I got to sleep we got to sleep Lando Norris I think many people were probably tipping him for a front row start or at least the second row start

Nope. 20th. He was out in Q1. Went for the medium tire on his first run, abandoned the lap after his team told him to do so, went back out a little bit earlier than everyone else on his second run, wasn't able to complete a good lap. It looked like he might be going for another lap on those soft tires, but Fernando Alonzo's spin put an end to that. So where do you think the blame lies on this one, Sam? Is it with Norris or is it with the team? this is a really tricky situation it's kind of six of one half a dozen of the other I think on the blame because realistically McLaren did everything to give Landon Norris the time required to get a laping right he essentially got three goes at it first one pulled in at the last moment because there's some issue with the car or something's wrong with the car that we're unaware of

maybe they guys weren't happy with the tyres it hasn't come out fully yet in the telegramics or whatever they're called as to explain what is wrong with Landon Norris's first lap on mediums because I think both Mercedes went round on the mediums and I think Oscar Piastri also went round on the mediums without any issue. So, um, interesting to know what happened with Norris's run there. So can't blame him for that one. He was called in. He respected the team's cool and he got in. They sent him out with, I think about five, six minutes ago, which we've commented on this in the past when a drive hasn't got a lapping with the last five or six minutes ago. And it's a track

which, you know, could regularly see yellow flags, red flags, you know, crashes come out. You get them out early, you get the job done. McLaren put Landon Norris in the perfect place for this. And Landon Norris mucked this up. This lap was entirely on him. No issues on the track. No issues going through. Oscar Piascri was going through the same predicament.

His time wasn't good enough on the mediums. Gets the lap in, qualifies with no problem. Landon Norris has a mistake on that middle run. Hasker then go again on the third run on used soft tires at this point. And of course, they literally run into the problem that they tried to avoid in the first place, which was a yellow or red flag coming out. we saw the Fernando Alonso spin, which is, you know,

often a very amateur of Fernando. What are you doing? What are you facing the wrong way, pal? Can't part there, Dave. Oh, there it is. There we go. One mind. One mind.

Oh, dear. Yeah, big time. Anyway, so this, I think, I think I'm just going to edge towards Landon Norris's blame here because, you know, you don't want any heroics, not into St. DeVotte, that's Monaco, but across that entire track, you haven't got a lapping with five minutes ago,

you're just going to get a solid lap in. That car's capable. You as a driver are capable. Just get the banker secured and go again if you want to on that second push lap. If you then think, okay, I'll try and improve. I think McLaren did everything they could with the scenarios they were presented. And I do think Landoz mucked up the one good time he had. So, yeah, I think this just falls on Lando, but I do think it's a big of a tricky one for him.

Yeah, sorry, Lando, I'm putting this firmly on your doorstep. in fairness, I think Lando Norris did the same thing in his post-session interview. He said that... He wasn't happy with himself. He had the opportunity to do the lap. It's not like the strategy was radically different. As you mentioned, the Mercedes did the same thing. Piastri did the same thing. The Ferraris used the medium tire in that first session. So him using the mediums was not completely against the flow. And all of those other drivers mentioned made it through to Q2. Now, I don't know why he...

had to abandon his first run on those medium tires. I've got no idea whether that would have been good enough to make it anyway. And that might well come out. But certainly even with that, he is given plenty of time to make it work on that second run. McLaren did the correct thing. They gave him more than enough time. They made sure that he was out there before all of the shambles happened in the pits. And Landon Norris couldn't convert it. Landon Norris could not convert it into a lap that was good enough to make it through to Q2. It's as simple as that. And even with the amount of time, yes, they were able to maybe put together a second attempt, which is the one that Fernando Alonzo put an end to. But it shouldn't have made it to that.

It shouldn't have made it to that point where Lando Norris was requiring a lap there and then. It should have been done two minutes prior. So I think Lando Norris is, he is self-aware enough to know that this was his issue. And I don't think the team's done anything wrong here. I think they were quite clever in using their medium tires. I think they were looking ahead to Q2 and Q3, which is realistically where Norris should have been, because it's where Piastri was. And at the moment, it doesn't matter a great deal. I think McIron have probably got fourth place sewn up in the championship,

and it's unlikely they're going to get any more out of this season than that. But this is the sort of thing that Landau-Norris needs to be wary of as he goes into future seasons, where his prospects are maybe a little bit more than what he's had this year. If he's making these errors where Oscar Piastri, is not, that will very quickly start to hurt him. So I don't know what he's going to be capable of tomorrow. Mexico is far trickier to overtake on than what you think it would be. And I don't think they were particularly quick in the first sector where all of the straight bits are. So he's

going to need to be quite clever about how he makes his way up the grid. Points, I think, are plausible here, but it's going to be difficult for him to keep that podium street going, that's for sure. All right, we're going to take a short break, but we've got some more qualifying chat on the other side. Okay, welcome back. Let's have a quick chat about, I don't even know how you'd categorize this, but Pitlake gate. Everyone is under investigation for everything. What is going on?

I mean, everywhere, everything all at once. The Formula One edition is how we're running this. Yeah, the main talking point we're talking about here is, obviously you had the Fangio along so spying with the yellow flags and some drivers are under investigation for either speeding under the pit lane speeding under yellow flags or overtaking under the yellow flags and I think a lot

of that's going to clear itself up. A lot of it is mitigating but the main talking point that has been almost running through qualifying sessions since Singapore, since Max Verstappen essentially got away with it and the FIA and the stewards came out and said they were too lenient as a punishment on Max for Stappen.

It is plagued sessions every single qualifying session we've had, someone has done it at least once. And there seems to still be no consistent penalisation of what is going on when cars get to the end of the pit lane and just go, oh, might park here actually, looks quite good, no parking rates, no one around me, you know, nice and simple.

No, you can't do it. Stop doing it in the words of Harry Euse, not here. What are you doing? He would definitely say that. He would definitely say it. Got that in for you, Harry. you know, what are you doing? And the reason they're doing this is because, of course,

they're now coming down harder on the minimum lap times that you're allowed to make between the two safety car lines that are, you know, between the first quarter of the track and the last call on the track that you have to run for safety reasons. And you are seeing, of course, a lot of drivers' names popping up at the end of sessions. You know, we'll be investigating for breaching minimum lap time. We'll be investigated for breaching the minimum runtime.

and it happens quite a lot of the moment. So why are they doing this? They're doing it to cool their tyres down. They used to sit at the end of the lap, letting their tyres cool right down. So when they start their lap, they are good to go. The tyres are in the optimum window.

Now what's happening is they're not allowed to slow down between the two safety car lines. So they're slowing down the moment the tire blankets come off. They come to a stop. The temperatures drop. And then it allows them to go on their warm-up lap with much cooler size. So they reach the optimum temperature

right before the end of the lap. In theory, great idea. Makes total sense. In practice, what are you doing? You're causing a traffic jam. You're going to cause an accident. And you're all doing it. And the FIA and the stewards who have been much better recently

are really letting themselves down because there is no penalties coming through consistently. We're not seeing efficient ruling. And we're getting these camera cuts. You get the drivers coming over the radio's. It's a mess in the pit laying again. Why are we not doing something about this faster? How is it happening again?

again and again. And now we've got what, Russell's being penalised for it potentially. I think the stappings possibly in the mud for it this time around. There might be a couple of others that haven't got on with it as well. It is a farce of a situation that you've tried to clear up one safety issue and then immediately caused another safety issue. It could not be more FIA if you tried to create a safety issue that never existed by removing a safety issue that always existed. Well done. It's a mess. Start penalising it and get a on the track because it is an utter state. Yeah, nothing will change unless you penalise it and penalise it properly as well.

We've had reprimands be issued, but nothing's going to change with reprimands. And nothing will probably change with light penalties. It's the same reason that diving is still so prominent in the game of football. In the penalties for it are just not harsh enough where the risk versus reward factor, the reward is still better than the risk. And until that changes, nothing will change. People are going to keep doing this. And it's not just one offender here, one offender. It's multiple offenses that are occurring. If you start to penalize these drivers to the point where it becomes completely illogical to do something, guess what? They aren't going to do it. I shouldn't need

to explain the concept of how penalties work, but that it is a deterrent. that is how the penalty system works. So unless they do something about this and do it properly, they did admit Singapore was a mistake. Well, if Singapore was a mistake, come down on this in the same way that you would have done in Singapore. I am glad to see that sector three is at least an improvement, and we're not seeing massive car parks there

because ultimately that is still, I think, at a higher risk than what is happening right now in that you used to have and still sometimes do have. really fast cars approaching really slow cars. Here you've got really slow cars approaching other really slow cars, which shouldn't completely diminish the safety issue, but is far better. But it's still an absolute mess. And we don't want to be stuck in a position where here we are recording a podcast straight after, people are going to bed in the UK. And we don't know exactly what the result is going to be when we wake up in the morning. So sort it out in short,

sorted air, Harry Ead would definitely say what you're doing. That's just, he would. Guaranteed. Yeah. Sam, we will go through bold predictions properly tomorrow,

which isn't going to be good for either of us, I can tell already. Oh, no. You thought Aster Martin were going to be in a good position. And you know, you might have the last laugh, but it's not looking great.

They didn't have a good session again. No, no, I don't understand. No. And they have many a practice session as well to get it right this time. Last time out with the spring weekend. Three practice sessions. They could blame it on the one practice session with the spring. And they took the option to, you know, start from the pit lane.

And actually, I respect that choice because it really worked out for them. For long as I didn't have that failure, two cars firmly would have ending up in the points paying positions. This time around, you think, right, the, the, set-ups on now. We know what the upgrades are doing. The track is familiar to us as well. Now's the right time that we can fully harness the potential of these new upgrades across all three practice sessions and we could deliver back into the top 10. We can fight McLaren. We're very close on points. We could start pulling it back towards the end of the year. They both have qualified Norris. They're flying.

Oh yes. I'm sure they'll all be patting themselves on the back in the garage for that one. We got one of them, boss. Yeah. No, it's not gone well. So unless we see absolute chaos or everyone on the grid gets penalised other than Fernando Fernando and also and Lance Stroll going into the race tomorrow, then I think I might have lost the bold prediction war and my social media account might be getting giving up for a full day. But it's all fun and games. We're all having a laugh and I appear to be the joke. So well done everyone else.

I hope you're very happy. I doubt Aster Martin are very happy if that's any consolation whatsoever. I was thinking about this just before we started recording, and the more I think about it, the more I think it might actually be true, at least in pure qualifying pace out here in Mexico, I think they have the slowest car on the grid. Like, I genuinely think, in terms of, or at least this weekend specifically, qualifying pace, I don't know how it would translate in the race. Qualifying pace, I think the slowest car on the grid, because Williams showed, well,

Albin showed what Williams can do. so I know Logan Sargent was obviously knocked out in Q1, but Williams would have made it through to Q3 without the corner cutting violation. Holkenberg and Alonzo were very similar in qualifying and no disrespect to Holcomberg, but if those two are almost identical in qualifying, that makes me think that the Hasse is probably the better car.

Alpha Romeo had two cars in Q3. I think Alpha Tauri probably had a car that was good enough to have two cars in Q3. I mean, who's worse? Like legitimately, who was worse qualifying pace-wise than Astor Martin today? I don't know if there was someone. Yeah, that's a fair point. I mean, Alpine weren't great, but Ghazly was there or thereabouts.

Again, I think Alpine has an Asthmaatin very similar pace. I don't think there's much in it. Yeah, that's a very fair shout, actually. Please, asking why you make me cry? It beggars belief, doesn't it? And just versus where they were earlier in the year. Now, we did see in the United States that their race pace was, was better than their qualifying pace, so maybe they can make a little bit of progress.

But I think the grid is so congested at this point where I don't think that's going to be enough for them to come through the field and claim points. Or if they do claim points, I think it will be very low end points. Fernando Alonso, the error that he made was, you used the word amateurish, but it kind of was. I know it was a slippy track, but he was the only one, as far as I'm aware, that had an incident like that. And it has reinforced, actually, my opinion, that we do need some form of indie car system of penalising when drivers bring out the yellow flag because Fernando Alonzo was able to get through into Q2, Scott 3, as if nothing had happened. And let's say, for example, that Aston

Martin was quite quick, like it was at the beginning of this year, and he was qualifying second, third, fourth. I feel like other teams would have reason to turn around and say, that doesn't seem very fair, given he ruined the lapse of about half the grid. So that has reinforced that opinion, just as an aside. But yeah, I mean, Lanchero, Fernando Alonso, they qualified, at least in my opinion, where they deserve to qualify in that there wasn't hidden pace that they didn't extract. What they delivered was what they had. How has it all gone wrong? How have they fallen this far down in the space of about seven or eight races? It is, you know, regular podiums, we were tipping them to be the car to win next after Red Bull,

and now they could barely get both cars out of Q1, and we think they're not going to score any points. It is farcical how much progress they made and how quickly they have tumbled down the mountain they have just climbed. Beautifully put. I mean, if you think back to, if you think back to Zanvore,

that was where Fernando Alonso claimed second position, and that was, at least to my memory, the last time either Aston Martin was on the pony, of course, Strull doesn't have any this year. But since that race, we've had five races since then, which has included two spring races as well. There have been a sixth place finish, a seventh and eighth, a ninth, and an eighth in a spring race.

Two retirements, one withdrawal, and then three finishes outside the top ten. Doesn't make for very good reading whatsoever. Sounds a lot like their end of year pace come last year. It sounds like they're back to exactly where they started. It's weird, isn't it? it. And again, as far as I'm aware, Alpine have outscored them in the last five races. So, not heading in the right direction. Let's talk Williams, because coming out of practice,

Alex Alburn, he looked quick. He looked very quick. He had two instances where he was second place. He was second place in free practice one. And he was second place in free practice three. We get to qualifying. Man doesn't know what's happened to his car. he scrapes into Q2, scrapes into Q3, or at least we think, before his lap time is deleted due to track limit violations, would have been ninth place getting through to Q3. Whether that would have improved or not as we got into the final session remains to be seen, but he seemed to be struggling a lot versus what was possible. Firstly, probably a good sign for Williams that we're considering only ninth place into Q3 as a bit of a bad result, but it felt like more was achievable, Sam. I'm blaming the Formula One social media team for releasing the graphic that showed track domination Albon versus Vastappan. I think that was the absolute stake through the heart for Williams.

Why would you do that? Why? Come on. Come on. Give him a break. The strangest thing about this whole scenario is that Alex Albon over the radio seemingly both furious

and utterly bewildered by what was going on with his car. Usually, the driver will come out and go, that setup change we made, big mistake, has it worked, or the tires are getting too hot. We can tell that the car is no longer performing. But he seemed to be over the radio, I'm locking up every time I touch the brakes.

I've got oversteer where I didn't have oversteer. And now I've got underskere, or I didn't have understeer. The car is like a whole different car. It's like he was desperately searching for damage all over the car. It was really quite a bizarre reaction. It was almost like he'd gotten into a car from 10 races ago.

And I imagine that the Williams fans themselves who have watched practice must have been a bit gutted. I imagine that you lot came into qualify and thinking, this could be our best one yet. We could be up there in fifth or sixth, and this is why you don't take practice, you know, as gospel, because a long of the time,

it very quickly falls apart. But it really did look like with, you know, sergeant's recent point scoring, with album being as consistent as it has been, that they really could convert this into something very strong for themselves. and it just seemingly fell away out of nowhere. And I do wonder if a little bit is almost the absolute opposite

of what happened with Ferrari, where track conditions flopped on their heads and the car suddenly just stopped performing in this window and it became an absolute bag of poo and could not get round the track as it wanted to, whereas Ferrari suddenly threw the bag of poo down the toilet and walked into the bank and walked out with an underground in their hands. Because, honestly, that's a thing that happens.

That's a very normal scenario in life. life and we've seen it once again. I'm sure Ockmars said it multiple times because that's how normal it is. But I think that, you know, they're going to do a lot of head scratching and I think hopefully they can maybe understand it by the time we get to race day tomorrow and I don't know how much I'll be able to do with it. I guess I'll hope the conditions suit them or maybe the harder tyres might work better on the car for them. But it could end up being a really tough race for Williams, which is after the incremental success and steps forward we've seen from them since the summer break, I imagine this felt like a bit of a morale kick, a bit of a knockback for the team.

So hopefully we see them move up the up the grid and we see some progress for them. Yeah, I can buy the theory that you mentioned there about the opposite of Ferrari in when we go through practice sessions, FP1 and FP3 essentially take place at the same time, but on Friday versus Saturday, but at least time of day, it takes place at the same time. and he was second place in both of those sessions, Alex Almond here. FP2 takes place at the same time, roughly speaking, as qualifying and the race will end up happening. I think he was 14th in FP2. So certainly if you're looking at FP2's form in terms of time of day, it was roughly reflected on what we saw.

In fact, I think he actually starts 14th place after the, well, I say 14th, he'll pretty be elevated up to 3rd when we finish recording. But yeah, at the moment, he's going to start 14th place. So I guess in that sense, this all adds up, in which case, maybe it's a set-up issue that they've just, they've gone for the wrong time of day. They're still on British hours. They forgot to change to North American time. So that's on Williams, I'm afraid.

It's still encouraging that they're able to show this sort of pace in practice. Of course, it's all for nothing if it doesn't translate into the Grand Prix itself. But overall, like I say, if we are talking about William's, scraping through into Q3 before that track that, before that lap deletion. And we're talking about that as if, oh, that's a bit of an underperformance. That shows at least they're going in the right direction. Anything else you want to say before we get out of here? No, I was hoping for a bit more from Sergio.

His own Grand Prix, he's seen, you know, half a second regularly off the pace of Max Verstappen. And I was also hoping for a bit more from the Mercedes guys, especially when they did say one in that Q2 period. I thought, but I mean, top eight separated by half a second. In theory, if the conditions alter a little bit tomorrow, we could have a real jumbaya of a race on our hands. Yes, indeed.

And I think for Sergio Perez, of all weekends to be outqualified by Daniel Ricardo, this is probably not the one he would have wanted. Now, that Al-Fatari does look good, but ultimately, Vastappen out-qualified Daniel Ricardo, so it's not a great look for him this Grand Prix weekend. But of course, tomorrow is another day.

Yeah. We'll have Harry back. I do hope so. Yeah, hope so. Anything else you want to say? Or should we go? No, I think we should go. All right.

Who have you been? I don't know. I'll be saying to Sage, everyone. Thanks. And I've been Ben Hocking. And remember, keep breaking late. Boy! The podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network.