The Late Braking F1 Podcast - 2023 Saudi Arabian GP Review

Episode Date: March 19, 2023

Sam, Ben and Harry review the second race of the 2023 season where Sergio Perez took victory ahead of his teammate Max Verstappen. The boys talk through their moments of the race, review their bold predictions, and of course, hear what you listeners thought too... VOTE for us in the Sports Podcast Awards: https://www.sportspodcastgroup.com/sports_category/best-motorsports-podcast/ SUPPORT our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/latebraking JOIN our Discord: https://discord.gg/dQJdu2SbAm JOIN our F1 Fantasy League: https://fantasy.formula1.com/en/leagues/join/C3CCEW8P704 TWEET us @LBraking BUY our merch: https://late-braking-f1-podcast.creator-spring.com/ 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 tune in for new episodes every Wednesday and Grand Prix Sunday. Hello and a very warm welcome to the late breaking F1 podcast presented by Harry Eid, Sam Sage, and me, Ben Hocking. Second review of the season of Saudi Arabian Grand Prix is in the books. And once again, it's a Red Bull on top. not the same as what we had in Bahrain, with Sergio Perez taking the win ahead of Max Verstappen,

who nonetheless did make up 13 positions in the Grand Prix after starting in 15th. The podium somehow rounded out by the burglar, as Harry now calls him, George Russell, ending up there as a result of Fernando Alonzo's penalty after the race. Sam, you must be delighted at the fact that the FIA are yet again making very quick, snap decisions to make sure the podium's right. I've actually just tweeted in all capital letters, make decisions during the freaking race,

because it's not hard. It's not like that penalty was given to Fernando Alonkso, the first one that is, you know, with three laps to go. The man got given that penalty in like the first quarter of the race. Obviously, he made the mistake before the race technically started. That's how long ago the original mistake happened. So all the process that went on there, FIA, Frederick Ian Anderson, once again, taking literal years to make decisions. It's almost as bad as we are at having a soundboard that works. Esteban Huckle must be like, how did you not spot this? How did you spot me and not this?

Not that easy, is it, guys? Not that easy. He's already off of his impersonations, but... It genuinely baffles me. Like, how can you... Let's say like you're doing DNA testing. It takes a bit of time for results to come back. Surely you know, straight away,

whether this has gone over or under five seconds. Like, there's no reason to know an hour after and not three seconds after, right? Like, time is set. Like, I don't get it. But yeah, they took like 35 laps to make that decision. So it was George Russell on the podium. We'll be discussing plenty on Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes.

We've got our driver of the day, worst driver of the day coming up, our moment of the race, including Discord submissions. It's a pack show, as per usual. on these reviews, but we will start out the front because it was once again a Red Bull 1-2, although perhaps a little less standard than compared to Bahrain due to Max Verstappen, starting just P-15 on the grid.

Made some good progress early on, managed to get up to around P5 before the safety car hit, bringing the field together, made the couple of extra positions to get to P2, but Sergio Perez took his fifth career win. So Sam, Sergio Perez, not quite leading the championship, thanks for the late fastest lap by Max Verstappen, but he's right there in terms of points. We were encouraged by his pace? Because Vestappen late on wasn't getting anywhere near him.

Oh, Sergio, Sergio, Sergio, Sergio. What can we say about you, my friend? That has to be, I might get some funny looks here. That has to be the best Sergio Perez performance I've ever seen in a Formula One car. The man was... I thought you'd say it worse, mate. I thought that was going the wrong way.

Soldier for an absolute bag of chips like, shine. Back on your holidays. Yeah. Bahrain 2020 called it. It wants you to wake up. Like, there's not better than that. Come on. Don't get me wrong.

Barre in 2020 was phenomenal. But this was something very, very different. Something we haven't seen from Sergio Perez. He managed... I mean, to be fair, Singapore as well last season. It's also got a great climb. But this was something. something different. I think the way that, you know, he hadn't got the best start.

Obviously, Alonso jumped him from the get-go, and he didn't fall behind. We didn't see Sergio do what he's done before and back off or fall behind on that, that pace. He's stuck there straight away, you know, never really coming out of that DRS zone, then got the move done, and we'll get onto a DRS ron in a little bit, because let's just say, I think that that ruined any excitement that we saw from this Grand Prix. But nonetheless, this is about Sergio Perez and his performance, got the move done clinically, and then just drove off into the side. sunset. I'll also try to hang on into that DRS zone for a bit, and you think, right,

Perez has got this handle, a gap opened up in about five or six seconds. Boom, safety car takes place. Your biggest rival, your teammate, has managed to get even closer to you. We're all thinking at this point, this is handing it to Max for Scappen. He's going to make up those three or four places in between the two of them, and it'll be right onto the back of Perez, and then we're going to have an overtake done for the league, probably what we think? 15 laps. No chance. Sergio Perez just kept rattling in these lap times, and the gap never dropped below four and a half, five seconds. Every time Max Verstappen puts in a top quality lap time, and you know how good for Stappen is. Sergio Perez, two tenth faster than him. Forstaffin does it again.

Sergio Perez, two tenths faster than him. This was the most confident and calm performance I've ever seen from Sergio Pared. And he dominated. He was exquisitely good. And I was so impressed. This is the most impressed I've been since at least Sergio has gone to Red Bull. It was a phenomenally good drive. And you know, you've got Max Verstappen coming up behind you. That's a scary thought process. Was he rattled? No chance. He hang it in the bag. So you were impressed by his overall composure, his demeanour. Yeah. Indeed. Indeed I was. Understandable. I mean, Harry, first of all, just to mention Harry, he's actually here despite the fact that, I mean, traveling all over the world in order to get to this point. So massively appreciate

you even being here to begin with. Thanks, me. That's all right. Sergio Perez, impressed. I mean, yeah, apart from being, apart from bodging up the start, only slightly, and I guess he could somewhat argue, Fernando was cheated because he was a bit too far left. Apart from bodging the start, Peres was faultless. And I think, like Sam said, when that safety card came out and Vastappam got his free pit stop, I know Perez got a free pit stop too,

but it closed the field up. I was thinking, as Sam did, and I'm sure many others were. you know, we all know what's going to happen here. But once Verstappen got past Alonzo, they just couldn't catch him. And that doesn't happen very often for Max Verstappen. And I think that says a lot about Herod's performances, particularly in the last,

I don't know, I can't remember when Vestappen got into P2, but last 20 laps, 25 laps of the race. Very, very impressive. And I enjoyed the mindset about the fact. fastest lap as well. I know they're both doing it and Max got it in the end, but, you know, shows some intent from Sergio that he's not willing to be a, necessarily be the second driver this year, which boy, oh boy, if we won a championship, fine, plus Checo, please carry on, carry on with this. But yeah, I'm massively impressed. I'm not going to buy into Sam's the best race ever. It was

a very, very good one, quite possibly P2. Singapore last year might also be P2 for me. But give him a calendar for the street circuits, boy, will win everything. That's what we need to do, basically, if we want a close championship. But yes, very impressed with Sergio. Yeah, and I think it is, you know, one thing that David Croft mentioned in terms of our commentary,

at least, that I think was a really good and valid point that needed to be raised was that, again, I don't think it was his most impressive performance ever, but to Sam's point about how impressive it was, it was the first time that Vastappen's ever been in P2, when Perez has gone on to take a victory. So he had that direct threat from his teammate in a way that he hasn't had that before

in order to take a race win. The way he was so composed, and you never felt it was in danger. Even after the start, you felt like with 50 laps in this race, it was always going to happen. And before the race, myself included, I thought Vestappen could take this. I didn't think it was unfeasible to think that he could

sail his way through the field. But Perez's long run pace was very good. So I think you have to give him respect here. And, yeah, again, I don't think it's his best performance ever. But certainly, as an early marker in the season, to Harry's point, he might be our only hope this year if we want to see a championship fight. It was massively, it was massively encouraging. Now, naturally, he was nowhere near Vestappen in Bahrain.

So I do want to see it where Vestappen doesn't have a qualifying issue because that's not going to happen every race weekend. And if Perez wants to even think about competing in this championship, he needs to beat Vestappen where everything goes quote unquote right for Vastappen in a weekend. But from Perez's perspective, he can only do what is in front of it, right? He can only go about his race with the situation unfolding as it did. It's exactly what he did. So you can't really say anything other than full respect to him. Not a great start, as you mentioned, but he didn't really waste a lot of time in getting back that lead and looked untroubled from there. To make a comparison to Mercedes from a couple of years ago, we saw this a couple of times with Valtry Bottas early on in the season, taking the championship lead occasionally after three or four races.

every time the championship fight never really materialized and he faded away throughout the year. Sam, is there any chance that this doesn't happen here? No, sorry, Sergio. Despite this being what I think was possibly your best performance ever that I've seen you do. And I've been around for your entire career in Formula One. I just don't think you've got the stamina for it.

I don't think you have the consistent ability to match someone like Max Verstappen over a 20, 23, you know, length calendar, race calendar. It's a long time to be fighting to that level at the very top. Do you remember you brought up a Mercedes pairing? Let's bring up another one. The Niko Rosberg-Lewis Hamilton factor. You know, Hamilton, when the first couple of years that they were together

on Hamilton picked up those first few titles and won the title pretty much by, you know, America, you know, three or four races from the end when they were together. But when Rosberg had got that upper hand in 2016, he said afterwards, after he announced his shot retirement, how much it took out of him as a person from his, you know, his lifestyle, with his family, it drained him emotionally and physically and mentally. And I very much feel like if you were going up against Max Verstappen for a whole season, toe to toe, where you matched him every single race and you took it down to the wire, I think it would do the same thing to Sergio Perez.

I'm not saying he's completely incapable of doing it. It's definitely possible. But in all likelihood, I just can't see it materialize. Sergio's got some great ability in him, but I just don't think he's in that absolute operational on the Max of Stapefian over the course of the season. I think Bostappen can quite naturally

pull those performances out of the bag, whereas I think Perez, on a one-by-one attack mode where you're both starting in the front row of the grid, you both have a perfect race. I guess the Stappan has that extra reach. Yeah, I think from Perez's perspective,

to prove to us that this can become more than just a one race thing or a couple race thing, it's got to happen on a purpose-built circuit, right? It seems to be all right for him on these street circuits, which is great that he's started to specialize in that area. But you need to see him take it to Max Vastappen at one of these, whether it's Silverstone,

bar, it doesn't really matter what circuit it is, but just a purpose-built track, because for whatever reason, that's where Vastappen seems to stretch his legs. It's difficult to see Perez keeping this up for an entire year, of course. Certainly, it's encouraging from Perez's perspective in terms of his contract after 2024. We don't know what direction Red Bull are going to go. But what do Red Bull need from him?

Red Bull need Perez to win Grand Prix whenever Max Verstappen has something go wrong, whether it's himself or the car. That's exactly what happened this weekend. Max Verstappen did not have a perfect weekend because of that issue that he had in Q2. At that point, they need Sergio Perez to step up and take the race win. he did exactly that. So from Red Bull's perspective, that's really encouraging.

And actually, if you can keep doing that at every juncture where Max Verstappen isn't it is dominant best or has a reliability issue, Red Bull can't ask too much more from a second driver.

Harry, are you encouraged at all in terms of the whole Red Bull contract situation or indeed a championship effort situation? Yeah, Red Bull contract situation that's kind of harmed his chance are being re-signed. A championship fight, look, I agree with what you said.

I need a few more of those performances from Sergio. You know, had Max been on the front row with him today, would it have been the same result? Who knows? As impressive as it was.

But at least it was encouraging that he, you know, Max wasn't in the fight for quality. Sergio took his chance. and ran with it and ran with it very well. So if there's a few more of them, then I'll believe in a championship fight. Please, please, I'll wait a few races for that to materialise.

But yeah, it has not harmed, you know, a few more of them. It's exactly what Red Bull needs from him. And I think I've said there's a million times. He just has to pick up the pieces on the days when Max Verstappen isn't there. Matt Stappen wasn't there for most of today, but just because of a qualifying issue. So it's exactly what Red Bull need him to do, basically. Let's have a look at Driver of the Day and Worst Driver of the Day.

Sam, who have you got for, first of all, Driver of the Day? Simple one. I think I'll make it clear and obvious already is Sergio Perez takes my driver of the day. And a lot of you listening, especially if you're not a new listener, might have thought, oh, well, how come when Vastappan won last time out, you know, he didn't get Driver of the Day? And I guess, like, you're biased, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's it.

I'm just going to, if I'm totally honest, we all hold different drivers to different standards, and I hold Max Verstappen to an incredibly high standard. Surgery Perez, as much as a brilliant driver doesn't get held to that exact high standard. This for surgery parades was an absolutely exceptional grand prix for me, and it's an easy decision to make him driving a day.

Controversial one from me, I didn't think there were many great performances out there. I thought there were a lot of OK performances, but not many that actually stood out. Because it was dull. I actually only had two contenders for this. And until a few laps from the end, I might have gone the other way with it. I've actually agreed with you, Sam, that I've gone with Sergio Perez for the reasons we've already given about how composed he was at the front,

didn't look in trouble, dictated the race really from the off. The one that nearly got my driver of the day was Yuki Samoda. If it held off Kevin Magnerson for P-10, I think I would have given it to him. Plenty more where that's coming from, trust me. Yeah, I think I probably would have gone with Yuki Sonoda because that Alfa Tauri is god-awful and he nearly got a point out of it. So I nearly gave it to him, but he did get overtaken by Magnuson. So I've gone with Peres. Who have you gone for, Harry?

Oh, there's three of them. I'm going to agree with you, Ben, in that just some average, average drives out there today. but Perez was the least average. So, yeah, it was a great drive from Checo. It's hard to look past him, to be honest. I mean, Max's recovery drive was good, but not scintillating. But yeah, I also wanted to point it out, Sam, would you like to change your opinion?

Because Christian Horner has also said that he thinks Perez's best race. No, let it go down in history. This will be the only time I've ever 100% agree with Christian Horner. The man right now is entirely right. Write it down, folks. Write it down. I appreciate there are a lot of good reasons to pretend that 2020 didn't exist. But Sergio Perez's performance at the Secure Grand Prix is not one of them.

If there's one thing we should remember from 2020, it's that performance above anything else. I'll tell you what, though. Am I allowed to have a moment about DRS? Because Ben, you and I had a discussion about it, didn't we, the other day, when Harry was on a holiday. And I think this race was almost a perfect example of the problems that occurred when you have DRS that's too frequently in a race. The zone was too long. We had too many of them. And I do feel like obviously the Red Bull is the more well put together cars.

The world is all rounded. The chassis is fantastic. And Red Bull, the way it's designed, utilised the DRS slot that they can have so brilliantly. The speed that they gain with DRS is immaculate. It is so good. But with a long-so in the lead, you've got a great start. obviously slightly illegally, but nonetheless, at that point, he was in the league. It did completely take away from any fun or any drama about a race league change

when Sergio Perez had managed to get in front of, you know, Fernando and Oxo halfway down the start, finish street. And we saw that, again, with multiple positions across the podium, across the top 10, the amount of times that a move was made before we'd even reach the breaking zone. And it's just, they're gimmies, aren't there? They're free positions, their free overtakes. There's nothing to be worked for. And I'm not going to lie.

this was a boring Grand Prix in terms of modern day entertainment. This was not a thriller. I did not sit here on the edge of my seat the whole time. It was, apart from maybe the safety car restart and the fight that we got to watch between Piastrian Sgt and Norris at the very end, it wasn't exactly the most scintillating thing I've ever seen.

So I think DRS really brought the quality of this race down. I think it took away a lot of really fun moments that we could have had. I agree with your points there, Sam, but you know what a bigger problem is? if you say anything about the circuit, then you are as predictable. Here we go.

I hate it. That's my question. Oh, this track sucks and I hate it. I'll say no more. This is the only thing that Harry has in his life that he's not on the fence about. It's great. I am 100% in agreement with you, Sam.

Max Verstappen made up 30. positions in that Grand Prix. Did one of them make you sit up? Like, did one of those 13 make you go, oh, Hamilton, Hamilton versus Vestappen should never be a fight where you go, all right.

But that's the expression, because that's how easy it was for him. I agree with you. And in an example where your moan has moan children, I've got another moan in the... That's disgusting. What was the point in that new race leader graphic? We can see it.

Of course he's got them. What's up with that? I know. But to counteract, I did like the DRS activated new graphic. I thought that was nice and flashing. But you're right. Pointless. It literally gets displayed the entire Grand Prix on the left-hand side.

It's F1 graphics for stupid people and I don't like it. Hey, look, I'm one of those stupid. people, Harry. Yeah, you're not that stupid. If we think we're too high brow for a graphic, it's probably not needed. I am the lowest of the low

in my mind, okay? Worst driver of the day? Who have you got, Sam? I've lost all trade and thought now. I mean, again, very much like Ben, what you mentioned with the best driver of the day,

no one really massively stood out to me. You know, you look at the performances that made me slip by the likes of Bottas, right? and get the grid. It was very well-known actually that he picked up some debris and he's radiated cause him to have serious problems, so it wasn't on pure pace. Piatry's damage wasn't his fault and he actually managed to get past Norris. Same with Norris's damage. I'm going to give it to science just because the entire weekend he's felt very much off the pace and the cler really managed

to catch him in that first thing, an alarming amount, not just like, okay, he got a bit closer. They were within three or four seconds of each other by the time the pit window came along. and I was quite surprised, really quite surprised that LeClau was that much faster, especially with the struggles that we saw for staffing initially have coming through the traffic.

I expect him more from Science. This isn't a disastrous one because I just don't think Eong was tragically bad, but science is my worst drug of the race. You did beat LeClau by seven seconds, was it? Yeah, and I expect him to

when he starts nearly 10 places in front of him. So it's no big thing for me. Fair enough. Yeah, I think worst ride the day was tough one. I mean, you're right, it's tough to give it to Bossass just based on he can't have been that slow and it must have been caused by debris. I mean, I could give it to Fernando Alonzo because, you know, you should probably start in your grid spot like that. That just a radical idea I'll put out there. You're just being petty because of Laplan. Well, no, clearly Alonzo likes Laplan

a lot because he's copying everything Ockon does. One week's like, oh, maybe I should try the same thing. Fernando Alonzo out here doing his best Jeremy Corbyn impression. by going as far left as he possibly can. Like, what's up with that? We are not political. Sorry, Jezer. I'm really joking. Yeah, I'm worst driver of the day for me. I'll give it to...

I'm the same opinion, actually, that there wasn't anything that bad out there. I thought it was all right. I might give it to Nika Holkenberg because Magnuson and Holkenberg seem very level pegging throughout most of the weekend. And then for whatever reason, Magnuson just pushed on to try and get P-10.

And Holcomberg completely lost touch with him. And I'm not sure why. So I'll give it to him. I love that for my driver's predictions, by the way, for teammate wars. Big fan of that. Oh, no, no. That's a point in the bag from Maclinson. Harry, worst driver in the night?

I am going to go for Lando Norris because I can't remember what happened with his damage. And if it wasn't his fault, then fair doves. But it wasn't Piastri's fault. And Piastri still beat him. And he dished him a new one in qualifying yesterday. So, and it's only race two. So, Lando, we've all said you're going to beat Piaastri this year. Up your game, son.

Because it's not going on Piusstri. He did 49 laps on those hard tires. Yeah, fair play. Fair play. To get pit under the safety car. Just carried on going. Love that. I don't want to pit.

Don't want a pit. We're going to talk about McLaren. We're going to talk about McLaren a little bit later on as well, but I'm surprised Zach Brown didn't just leave after that one. I'm just like, nah, I haven't enough of this. Off to Indy, I go. All right, we're going to take a short break.

We're going to be reviewing Ferrari. Oh, no, no, after this. Okay, Ferrari, we kicked off our preview for this race, asking the question, can they reestablish themselves as the second best team in Formula One behind Red Bull. Ferrari, as usual, convincingly answered our question with, no. They finished P6 and P7. So if you're adding up, P6 gives you eight points. P7 gives you six points, which if you add those together is less than what George Russell got for finishing P3 in a car that

Mercedes have said is so bad, they just want to put it in the bin. Long story short, Ferrari can't be happy with this. Sam, how discouraged were you with Ferrari being slower than Mercedes and that's the Martin here? I was immensely discouraged. Folks, if you listen to the preview to this race, this was the race that I thought, you know, I put sanctions on my podium. I thought the clothes can I make it back through the pack relatively well. And if you look at the analysis from the Bahrain Grand Prix, the areas where Ferrari were quick at the Bahrain Grand Prix, in theory, should translate brilliantly to Saudi Arabia, right, to Jeddah. And it just didn't. They were, I mean, it was, the signs came through in qualifying, right?

Sites looked like he was really lacking some pace the whole way through qualifying. And there's no real explanation as to why that was. They never said there was a problem with the car. They never said that the setup was a total mess. Science was just not quick. And McClure obviously came along and managed to stick it into P2 in qualifying, which, you know, well done him. He managed their extraction pace from that.

But that never translated over to the race day. Their long runs were really, really poor. And that harks back to what we saw actually in preseason testing. I can't really preseason testing to be so accurate, where Alonso did a race-long test alongside Carlos Sites. And over the course of their race-long test, Alon also came out properly fast-filling Ferrari. It's been demonstrated here again today. Frig Vass's time that Ferrari has not gone off to a very nice start at all. You know, the fact that he's had one driver and not finish a race already, and now both drivers aren't angling near the podium.

they're getting jumped by the likes of Lance Stroll, who although didn't finish the Grand Prix today, was comfortably faster. They're both Grom Prix. It'd be in both. Right. He would have. And the move that Larkstrol put on Carlos Sites was absolutely sensational.

It was a really good move. It was filth. It was dirty. Let's have a wash in the Ferrari Zipods because they are big bathtubs. I am really nervous here because on one hand, like you said, Ben, you've got Mercedes who are giving out public statements. they're trying to tell you that the data has been so badly interpreted,

that they're in absolute mess that Lewis Hamilton is telling the team, you must take accountability. George Russell said we should big off the whole season and just put the car into testing mode and try and come out with something new next year. And then Ferrari are going, we are checking, and then still are losing to Mercedes in an absolute disaster of a Grand Prix. I don't know how it went so bad before them. They were so much slower.

It's a very worrying time. They've got a couple of weeks and maybe pull themselves together before we go to Australia. But this is looking really bad. Currently, if this is formed anything to go on by, they are the fourth fastest car,

and I don't think they're too much faster than what Alpine were today. I mean, just compare it year on year, Charlotte Clutter. He had what? 43, 44 points after two races last year? He's currently sat on six. It's an awful return.

Yeah, not great at all. Harry, how discouraged were you by Ferrari seemingly the fourth fastest car? The one thing Ferrari had in their locker this time last year was that they were quick and now they're slow as bulls. They're so slow. Don't get too technical on this podcast. Come on. Oh yeah, sorry. Don't be down for the listener. Just rubbish. It's not, it's you know, the things, and I'll, you know, so you mentioned of Freddie Vass,

he's got a lot to do, but I guess there's not a lot he can necessarily do with this year's car because he wasn't there for last year. The things he can do or the strategic things which are, you know, separate issues, but a lack of speed in that car is for, it's going to be difficult to overcome. And, you know, LeClaire was, God, LeClair in qualifying, I guess,

maybe it didn't deserve to be P2. And I was kind of encouraged early stages of the race, but maybe that was just because Lecler was on the... Well, they both were on the soft at the start of the race. No, just Leclero. Yeah. Well, so Leclob was on the softs. He looked pretty racy, but maybe that was just a tire.

But yeah. Oh, boy. It was... I don't know. I don't know what they can... They can obviously do a lot to try and change the car, but it's not going to be enough, is it to... to catch Red Bull.

So it's not looking great. And they're not even just slower than the Astins. They were slower than Mercedes, which last race was the worst car on the grid if you listened to everything that team said. So yeah, not looking good for this good area. You brought up Freddie Vass doing the more strategic stuff. Actually, the one glimmer of hope that came from this race

was the absolute strategic dummy. they sold Lance Stroll to coming early. Obviously, the undercut on the hard tire, absolute failure, right? Both Ferraris managed to jump Lance Stroll. I think by the end of the race, Lance Warnes who managed to get back in front of them due to the sheer pace of that car.

And he was driving well, but nonetheless, strategically, we would never have seen that from Ferrari a couple of seasons ago. So that was a nice difference to see. But, yeah, the actual ability of that car is an absolute state. They did tell LeClaire to speed up

in between the safety car lines when he's halfway through that point. Yeah, that's hilarious. You can go faster here, by the way, Charles. Oh, thanks for letting me know. Maybe. Baby steps from Ferrari. Yeah, I mean, they still gave him a bit more advanced notice

than they did for Carlos signs at the French Grand Prix last year in terms of telling him to box. So maybe they are working their way backwards in terms of when they should alert their drivers to things. Maybe they'll get there at some point. This was awful. This was so bad. And I said in the preview that on paper,

yeah, they should get back into the fight here for P2, but the problem is Formula 1 isn't done on paper and Ferrari have the worst paper supplies in the world because for whatever reason, they managed to completely mess things up when they really shouldn't. And this is exactly what's happened here. And I would almost be, I don't know what's worse, the fact that strategically they didn't do anything wrong and they were still P6 and P7, or the fact that they might have actually got that together and they haven't got a car quick enough to be able to actually capitalize on it. Because at least where they strategically mess up like they did a couple of times last year, the pace of the car still there, there was nothing there this weekend.

I mean, qualifying-wise, LeCler looked okay. He wasn't too far off that fight for pole. He was in the mix, but race-paced-wise, I don't know if it's a hard-tire situation here again because Ferrari seemed to hate the hard tire wherever they go. So maybe that's the issue. But this was just, they never look close to overhauling the Mercedes guys, let alone the Aston Martin of Alonzo or the Red Bull guys.

It was nowhere near. And the thing is with Ferrari, I don't know what they can do now, because you're absolutely right, Sam, that Mercedes, after a performance like they had last week, came out as if it's the worst thing in the world, do Ferrari now do the same thing? Because surely Ferrari's expectations should be aligned with Mercedes expectations as to where they should be in the championship.

I think, I will say, the one glimmer of hope outside of the good strategy, which seemed... That's weird to say. But outside of that, another glimmer of hope, might be that... I think Leclair got a little bit unlucky because if he...

And I don't know whether Ferrari would have actually done this. They might have still messed it up anyway. But if LeClair is still out there at the time of the first safety car, and he started on the softs, maybe they go to the medium tires and they don't bother with the hard tires, at which point LeClaire might have had the pace to do a little bit more in that second stint. Similar to Hamilton for large parts of the first half of that stint,

he was pretty racy. I don't know whether LeClair could have done something similar with the mediums. chances are they would have put him on the hards and it wouldn't have mattered but he got a bit unlucky i think there um but it's a fair point to bring up that's a fair point to bring up someone in our discord even um retro uh the user in discord call get he said guarantee on that one he said um i think the safety cars can come out right after charler lecette's just got a hunch and boom it happened and you know it did hamper his race you can't deny that but how much further would lecler really have got in that crawlpring. Maybe if Larkstrol was still in there, maybe he and Hamilton would be

fighting over what was now fifth place at a push. I don't think you'd be getting any further forward than that. Interesting. I don't want to get too far off topic on this, but relating to tires, we had Hamilton start on the hard tires. And I think it did benefit him to start on the hard tires because he could take the medium tires longer. And I think the medium was the better tire overall. We saw Lecler start on the softs. We saw the last two start on the softs. We saw the last two start on the softs and the hards. I think it was Albin started on the hards and Norris started on the softs.

Everyone else started on the mediums. Why aren't teams like Alpha Tauri? Probably Alphiari is the main one, but maybe a few others. Why aren't they trying something different? There's so many drivers starting on the same tire with the same strategy. And you know if you're in an alpha Tauri, you

haven't got the pace to get stuff done. Why aren't one of their drivers trying something different? Because if you'd started, if you'd done the same strategy as Lewis Hamilton did today. I think there was something there. I don't know. You know, it's a fair point.

I mean, look at when Mercedes-E's ending up, right? They ended up right next to each other on the different strategies. They didn't end up coming too close to each other apart from one moment. Get on the soft tire around and try and jump a few people, make up some places. Hope a safety car comes out. You're exactly right. If you're not likely to get points in the first place, go a bit rogue. This is a little bit bold.

Well, speaking of strategy, it leads us quite nicely on to a big brain strategy of the day. I could try and stall for time here because, of course, I haven't actually got the jingle ready. Again, just talk amongst yourselves, please. What have you had for dinner, Sam, or what are you having for dinner? Oh, no, I had it during the race. I had absolutely lovely dinner. I had a honey barbecue glazed chicken with like a chili barbecue barbecue corn rib, right? You cut the corn up and it's really spicy. It was so hot that I had to have a whole

pint of milk, which was not fun. Yeah, and then we just had some homemade weddings on the side, but I did. I really did me. I'm lucky we have lacto-free milk as well because I'm lactose intolerant. If I drink that much milk normally, I'm in trouble. Thanks, Sam. You're welcome. Might have accidentally played the instrumental version, but we move. Sam told everyone about his dinner habits and you didn't even play the right one. The thing is, I can play the right one now but I'm just going to run with it. Harry, what was your big brain moment of the race?

I can't remember if we would discuss this, but my one is Georgie Russ not wanting, ignoring, disobeying the order from the team to let Hamilton through because his reasoning was that Alonso had a five second penalty and then his team saying,

nah, he's already done that. And then George going, oh, right, okay, you should have told me that. And then he just sort of drove off. And I was like, worthy, worthy Big Brain Award from all around there. Good Coms. Nice one. Sam, Big Brain Award. That was definitely up there for me.

Absolutely loved George Russell trying to be a little bit savvy on the radio, only to they get absolutely rumbled immediately. But I'm going to go, of course, for the wonderful Ferrari on their comms. Because despite their brilliant strategy, we discussed it a minute ago. the radio coming over to Charler-Claherbe told that, you know, you actually don't get monitoring in this bit of track

and you need to put your foot down because Lewis Hamilton's pitting and Charles going, come on, it simply isn't good enough at this point, you idiots. For me, that was the big brain moment of the race. I will provide an alternative

in a moment, but the correct answer is Harry's answer of George Russ. Honestly, comedy gold where Russell is like, oh, I can see Hamilton in my mirrors. I'm going to get this message over the radio any second now. Oh, light bulb.

Ping. I've got leverage. Alonzo's penalty. I've got this. The sneaky little burglar that George Russell is like, I can play this to my advantage. George, would you mind moving? No, no, no.

Fernando Alonzo has a time penalty. Don't think we should do it? Wait, no, he's already... Ah, beep. Great. I've absolutely loved it. It's like a little child being caught. out for like trying to blame it on their sibling

and then being telling, I've watched you do the whole thing. And it's just like that moment and then he's like, all right, better crack on then. Goes off into the distance. Serious question. If he had that pace in him, why didn't he just drive off anyway? Right?

Why is he hanging? Go fast. Don't let Hamilton come within a second of you, mate. Just drive on. Off you go. Just playing with him. My old turn, it just to provide a bit of different. is that I love, based on Bottas' pit stop later on in the Grand Prix,

Alfa Romeo's new strategy of not actually scoring any points themselves, just taking fastest lap points of other teams. That's the game that they're playing out. We don't want any points ourselves, but you can't have them either. We are the keepers of the fastest lap. Love it. It didn't work this time out. Worked in Bahrain, didn't work here.

And actually, let's just review some bold predictions while we're here, because whilst it went all right for one of us last time out, it might not have gone quite so well this timeout. Sam, remind us what your bold prediction was. So the goat that is like Stroll decided that he no longer wanted to race in the Grand Prix anymore, and he was meant to be both Mercedes drivers. He obviously didn't. So, yeah, nothing for me this time around.

I thought I was pretty close when he was racing. I was like, here we go. He's looking good. And the qualifying was all right. But no, had to let me down on. but one from the first two races, you'll take that, right? Yeah, I'm on a 50-50, which for me is a terrible situation to be in. Harry, your bowl prediction went well.

Yeah, I said five cars wouldn't finish, and we had about two. Yeah. Yeah, good stuff. The good news is I... Do you know why it is, though? Go on, why? What? Because this track sucks.

Tell me sorry. Go back to Skis. I'm going to be. Good news though. I did say that a Red Bull wouldn't qualify in the top 12. No, no, no. You're not taking any wings. I appreciate my accent might have made it sound like I said Mercedes. Accent. But I definitely said Red Bull. With handwriting, you might have got away with that one. But accent, get in the Bing. You said Mercedes. You're wrong. It's a big fat zero for all of us. Abacus is out, folks. Ben. What's on the door?

All right. Well, if you're not. If you add Harry's zero points from last time in Bahrain to his zero points here in Saudi Arabia, you might well get zero points for Harry for the season thus far, which is radically different to mine where I scored zero points in Bahrain, but added to zero points in Saudi Arabia, I have zero points. And Sam didn't get any points here in Saudi Arabia, but he did get his ball prediction right in Bahrain, which means early days, 1-0, but that one could be enough to win it. Let's face it.

Do you know how many we got last season as a trio, correct? Like last year? Three, maybe. Right. So that tells you that, in theory, we're almost a third of all the points scored already. So I'm looking tasty right now. My Twitter account's looking pretty, pretty comfy. We're going to talk Max Verstappen's comeback through the field right after this.

Harry, Max Verstappen managed to go from P15 to P2 after that issuing Q2 on Saturday. Do you think he should be content? You didn't seem that mad. Yeah. You know, fight. Expected, I think it might,

I don't think it concerns him that he couldn't catch Perez. I don't know. Do you know what? What struck me the most yesterday on Saturday, this is after quality, was just how chilled he was.

Chilled on the radio when it happened. Chilled afterwards. Just like, yeah, whatever. That's, That's the attitude of a driver who knows his car is very good. And he's not that worried if he gets a P2 to his teammate for one race.

And also, I should add a bit of maturity, I think. Seeing the bigger picture, which Max, you know, hasn't always seen. It's always been very in the moment. So you can be content with P2. He nick the fastest lap away, so he still leads a championship by point. he's just pretty unfazed by it, I think, and he's got a good reason to. He knows he's got the speed

and a very good car underneath him. That car in a straight line, frightening. Can go, can't it? Quite frightening. It does some speed. It's like a whipet. You're a whiper-slipper. A jet-propelled whip it.

You know what? I completely agree with you. And it sounds completely counterproductive, but I have never been more confident about Max Verstappen winning a championship than after his qualifying exit yesterday. Because that man was so relaxed about having finished P15 that that really was the icing on the cake. Like, this guy knows what car he's got. Like, he knows that this is his.

Any other season, any other race. Max Verstappen is fuming, fuming about P-15, right? He is mad. He is chomping at the bit. But he didn't care. He did not care that he was starting P-15 in this race. We've seen, do you remember Hungary a couple of years ago where he retired? And he was furious.

He was utterly furious. And we've seen Max Verstappen generally, you can't really call him one of the calmish drivers on the grid. And I don't mean that as an insult either. Like the fire he's got helps him a lot more than it hinders him. But there was none of that after that qualifying exit. I just sat there thinking he's got this. He has absolutely got this in the bag. And I don't know.

You saw he did a clean sweep of practice. He was what, like six temps clear of Perez after P3 and like a second and a bit clear of everyone else? That guy, it feels to me. and maybe this is a step too far. To me, it feels like Red Bull, at the start of this season, have the most dominant position over their rivals since Mercedes in 2016.

I genuinely think that Red Bull have got the biggest advantage over the second team in seven years. That's how good I think they are at the moment. I don't think you're wrong for saying it. You know, Ferrari were there in 17 and 18. Maybe you could argue 2019 or 2020. maybe there's a fair argument in that,

but this feels very early Mercedes era-esque to me. I don't see another team winging unless both Red Bulls have a problem, basically. I know we saw Vastappen at Spa last year where he just sailed through the field and went from P-14 to P-1 in like a dozen laps. But Saudi Arabia, it wasn't all that easy to overtake cars, you know, quickly. in the same way you've got multiple opportunities at spa.

You can get at least one done every lap. We saw that with a few DRS trains that Bostappan struggled, he still soared through the field. I don't know. Like, it feels very ominous. Oh, good happiness for everyone there. I did have an analogy to go through, but I don't really feel like it's a point for it anymore.

Go on then, mate. Go on, mate. I was going to say, like, you know, obviously we brought up the fact that, you know, should you be concerned that Perez is beating him, that he can catch him. Well, I was going to give an analogy of like, well, it's like me and a lovely old, you know, lady pulling up to the supermarket together at the same time, getting out of cars and seeing there's only one trolley left in the trolley.

And it's like a sprint race to get to the trolley. Well, you know, 99 times out of 100, I will wing the race to the trolley. And I'm a very impolite person. I'm not handing out over to her if I get there first. But, you know, the one time in 100, I might slip. There might be a puddle. a car might come across my path. She might beat me to it.

Am I concerned for the next one? No, not really. And that's very much what, like, Vastappen is up with Perez. You know, nine times out of ten, 19 times out of 20. Vastappen, regardless of issues, is going to run to that trolley

faster than Sergio Perez's, or win the race. But, you know, once in a while, if it happens the other way around, he doesn't need to be concerned. The bloke is so calm. Every pundit said it as well before the race. If you're watching on the Sky Channel,

the likes of Simon Laserby, Damon Hill, they all said, I fully expect Max Verstappen to come through win this race, regardless of what happens. Nika Rosper was absolutely slagging Sergio Perez off before the race, how bad his starts were, how he isn't clinical enough, and he believes full well that Max Verstappen is going to come along and beat him. It doesn't happen, but I don't think we'll see the same thing repeat itself any time soon.

If Rosper's got a point on, it starts. Yeah, they all week. It's not a long run down to turn one. It's really not a long run down. And again, I appreciate that Jeremy Corbyn did get a great start. Oh, come on. Two Jeremy Corbyn shouts. Good.

The only thing, like, Sam, from your side, reliability. Is there any concern there? Because it seems as if, you know, gearbox-wise, obviously had the Q2 issue. There were issues that Vastappen was talking about on Team Radio during this race. There's a couple of things that keep getting mentioned here. Is that the only, are they only going to be able to beat themselves essentially? I think, you know, reliability for them is good enough. I don't think they are bulletproof to the same level that what we saw from Mercedes,

you know, in the 2020, 2020, 2019 era of Mercedes, where, you know, both cars could pretty much go the entire season without a single DNF through reliability. I think Hamilton digs something ridiculous level of races in a row without any kind of technical failure due to DNA. It was more than a season in length. I don't think Red Bull power trains, aka Honda, have that same reliability about them. And it's not just the power train. We heard it in Sergio Perez.

You know, I've got a long break at the moment. He complained about that. We noticed both Red Bull cars, I think two or three times in the race, absolutely skipping. I think it's turn 18 or turn 19, right? They went straight over at the chican. Now, obviously, you can technically get away with that.

It's a bit cheek. But they were doing it to give the car some times and rest. that's an unusual sight to see from the cars one too when they're not under pressure from anyone else to have to cut corners to make sure their cars are being looked after properly. I don't think it's going to affect them enough that anyone behind them is going to really get a sniff

at the points properly, but I do think it will be the downfall of them not winning every single race across the season. I do think at one point in this season we might see a bit of a disaster across Red Ball Intervalive. An engine might go on one, they'll have an electrical fault

on the other or a gearbox might go. We have seen it before with them as well, right? Take a look at what happened in Bahrain, season one, race one last season, rather. Serious issues. And then it happened to getting a couple of races time afterwards. You know, if I'm having a real mayor, it can happen to them. I wouldn't be surprised if we get one race this season where it kind of just falls apart. But that's okay, because they're going to win it all anyway.

And not a discussion for today. It might well be part of the next couple of episodes that we do. The question of will their advantage hold? throughout the year. Do they need these wins early on in the season to counteract the cost cap penalty that is perhaps going to affect them a little bit more later in the season? We'll probably get on to that in a future episode. But let's move on now to McLaren because despite what you might think, this isn't actually a reading of either myself or Harry Ead's bold prediction counter for the season, but they have got no points. They added zero

from their first race to zero here in the second race. And quite honestly, that looked like it was going to be the case from lap two onwards. Harry, how disappointing is that? How worrying is this? What do they do? Be faster. Good point. Great analysis again. You're welcome. You're welcome, world. Yeah, it was a real worry. They looked handier this weekend than they did in Bahrain. And obviously, Piastri put it in P8, suggest if Norris hadn't been an idiot and clip the water. I've not seen a driver do that for a long time. That was a bit stupid from Lando. I realize I made him my worst driver the day. Not a Lando hating sesh, although I did put you in my fantasy team, Lando. What are you doing? Anyway, yeah, the car looked better than it did

in Bahrain. So that's encouraging. Had they not had their first slash second lap incidents, maybe it would have been a better Grand Prix. But I mean, I said about the Red Bull being really fast in a straight line, that McLaren is so slow. Oh, my. It's like that battle against the Williams man. Sargent's waving at them laughing, you know, he's making a cup of tea down the street,

and they still can't get past him. It's like when you're on the motorway or a dual carriageway, where you pull out because you think you're faster, and then all of a sudden you realize, I'm not faster than this guy, I'm not faster. And you just have to pull back in again. you're just living embarrassment in the middle lane. Yeah.

Yeah, so that's a... Yeah, so that's a worry for them. I mean, not great for here. I wouldn't expect another Monter win anytime seen based on that. But, yeah, I don't know. They were maybe slightly more unlucky today than it was necessarily on pace. It still wasn't great. But I guess I'm about slightly some more...

and more encouraging signs for for McLaren. But, you know, they've got to translate it into an entire weekend and not finishing the bottom out of the field. So hopefully it's better for them next time around. But, yeah, it's still not great. Yeah, obviously from Lando Norris's perspective, it's like unlucky that he picked up the damage, obviously. And that can happen everywhere, as proven by Piastri who started a long way in front of

them. But, you know, it is partly self-inflicted as well in that you increase your your chances of something like that happening if you start where Lando Norris did versus out front. And I'm not saying he could have ever started out front, but that's part and parcel. When you make those errors and you put yourself back in the pack like he did, that can happen. Encouraging for McLaren, first of all, that Piastri did such a brilliant job in qualifying. Like that was, that was impressive. Similar to what Lando Norris did in Bahrain, except he went one step further and actually just about managed us week into Q3, which

you know, he deserves a lot of respect for that. And, you know, that first lap incident, I was just thinking, that's a tough one. That's really tough because the damage was so minimal. Like the contact was so minimal, but the damage wasn't. And it just ruined everything from that point onwards. And, you know, you might still be going around on those hard tyres as we speak now. He just seems so set on them. So I'd like to see McLaren, because you're right, Harry, they looked far better in practice

than they did in Bahrain practice. And Q3, sorry, P3 in particular, look pretty good for them. So I'm hoping that they show up to race three and they can at least have an uninterrupted race. They can show what they're capable of. Because it might not be what they want, but it's still a heck of a lot better

than what they're getting at the moment, which is two cars squabbling over team orders for P15 and P16. That's not good. That's not what they should be aiming for. still seems a long road ahead of them. What do you make of McLaren this weekend? I know you were pretty complimentary about Piastri, son.

Yeah, mixed bag. You know, and on one side of the scale, you've got Piaastri, who I thought was absolutely brilliant in qualifying. He did such an amazing job. And you know what? Not his fault that the damage got picked up either during the race. He was cautious. He was sensible.

He was accepting that he might lose a position on the start, but he was doing everything he needed to do as a rookie. first time at this tracking on Formula One car. It's a bit scary, a lot of walls, you know, to keep the car where it needed to be. And it was just one of those people and one of those times that just got unlucky. And you know what, mate? He went to the back of the grid, new front wing, 49 laps on one set of tyres. Like, we gave Alon so much credit at Hungary where he went around the entire world on one set of tyres.

Well, it feels like Piazzi's gone to the moon and back on one set of tyres. and he's still outpaced Lando Norris on those 49 lap old tyres. So well-done Piastri, on the flip side, the car is still an absolute tractor in a straight line. It's got so much drag, it's atrocious. They need to really work on their aerodynamics because they've got the same engine as Askin Martin and is the Masegis team, and they are both comfortably fighting for podiums or for the top five at least every race. So it's not the engine's problem. It's the chassis.

It's the build of the car. and then you pair that with, I would argue, at least one of the top three worst performances I've ever seen from Landau Norris. This was across a weekend, that hitting the wall in qualifying was like, you know, it was like giving a 10-year-old the car to go around in and they've never seen them drive before.

You've driven just into the wall. There's no understeer there. You're in complete control of the car. You just drove into the wall. When your team is already struggling as much as possible, like this, and you break the steering arm, which means that you can't go out and qualify again, that is such a rookie error.

I expect that from Piastri going around this track. I expected that from someone like Sargent going around this track. This was so bad from Landau Norris. And then to get beaten by your rookie team, mate, on 14-9 lap old tyres, and he got past Sargent as well. You just think, realistically, this is a shocker from Landau.

He's not helping it any way. And when the car is that bad, you need your drivers to be stepping up their game and clawing every single ounce of performance out of it. this is a real shocker and I'm hoping by the time we get to Australia Mango's got his egg screwed on properly Piaschri maintains the good form but actually could deliver it in a race because he deserves a clean race.

Obviously got no time really at Bahrain either and the McLaren can maybe fight alongside a couple of the saying this the hars cars for possibly a point or two because they need it. They're in absolutely dismal position and the stepbacks they're taking right now are atrocious. The fact that they were fighting for third two or three years ago and now they're what looked like the eighth-fourly. ninth best car is a shambles. They've got to get it sorted out where I think some jobs might be up

for debate. You know, I really hope McLaren don't do what they've done in the past, which is, you're right, they're slow as hell in a straight line. And we already know about the rumors of them going to Red Bull power trains in a couple of years' time. Please, McLaren, don't get into the same situation that you do with Honda, where it's like, we're slow in a straight line, we need a new power unit to solve it. It ain't going to solve anything. Your problems run way deeper than that. That is not going to change a thing.

We saw it with Hold on it. I hope they don't go down that same path again. We're not saying moving isn't the wrong call, but it's not going to solve anything substantial. Back to Renault. We go. Oh, God, no. We're going to take our last short break.

We're going to be back with Moment of the Race submissions right after this. We have got some Discord submissions to go through in a moment in terms of our moment of the race, but we'll start with our own picks. Sam, moment of the race from you. This is a warning to headphone users. This is a warning to hegphone users.

Sit back, Sam. I am about to be loud. I will sit back from the mic. Let's see if you could guess what my moment of the race is. Here we go. Oh, Jesus. I even sat like two meters back from the mic. Harry, you might get something like that down.

Anyway, yeah, Yuki Sondra, the absolute sheer shock of Magnuson coming past him was genuinely hilarious. I'm never seeing a driver react like it on the radio. It was brilliant. Made me laugh for quite a while.

Loved it. That was my moment of the race. My moment of the race has already been mentioned and my exact commentary of this was, that is pure filth, utterly filth.

filthy, those are my exact words to that Lance Stroll overtake on the Ferrari. That was so good. Come on, Lance, with your new bionic risks. You know that Hall of Famer, Shaquille O'Neal, Big Diesel, the meme of, I didn't know, I didn't know he had that game in him. Like that, that was me at that moment. I didn't know you could do that. I wasn't aware of your game, son.

Good stuff. L.M.J. Tier, little Michael Jordan tier, while I'm watching Lance Troll pull off an absolute slapping overtake. Your moment of the race, Harry? My moment of the race is when we had a replay and it was one Red Bull just not doing a bit of the track. And then another Red Bull, three seconds later, not doing the same part of the track.

Like, what are you doing? Why neither of you driving the track properly? Nothing. Nothing about that. I loved Martin Brundle's correct commentary of, well, you know, you can't do that four times. other ways you'll get a warning of not to do that. How ridiculous

that they've intentionally not taken the corner and the rule is, just don't do it four times and you'll be fine. Honestly, man, the black and white flag just do one. Also, four is such a random number. Was it three or four? No, it is four, it's four. It's one to three.

You get it on the fourth and then it's a fifth one for a penalty. And then Hamilton, weaving down the straight gets one immediately. Man. But we do have some moment the moment of the race from our Discord submission as well. So you can get in the Discord. We have a submissions channel. It's generally a great place to be on race weekend and indeed any weekend, but particularly on Race Weekend where we've got plenty of, was it, 1,700 people discussing Formula 1.

More than that now, yeah. More than that now in the race weekend channel. And then we do these submissions after the race. So we'll hand it over to some of our Discord submissions. We'll start with all good, always. Highly breaking. I'm recording this at 2.30 a.m. So hopefully it makes the podcast this time. My moment of the race has got to be Fernando being the new Esty Bestie. He didn't collect as many time penalties as Esty did last race. But I guess that's good thing because he's still on the podium.

An honorable mention for me has got to be Lando and Oscar's little scrap even though they're at the back of the pack. Love you guys. Love the podcast. Bye. Love you. Shame along so isn't on the podium anymore. Yeah. Sorry, Jeremy. Also, like, you know, emulating Laplan. We need to get that trademarked Esteban. We need to work on that. Oh, God, we're recording folks for an hour and two minutes,

and he hasn't said it once. I actually wasn't going to bring it up, because I thought he wasn't going to say it, but he's managed to get it in. Can I ask something? Has anyone worked out why Alpine were so smug in testing? But we're really rubbish and go on fix it. If you don't believe in Laplan, that's fine.

The rest of us know what they've got going on. All right. If it needs to be explained to you. Mediocre. You wait and see. Give it 10 races and they'll be two seconds closer to the lead. I guarantee it. Right.

All good always in the books. Let's go to first time submission, Joshua Bing. What is up, guys? This is Joshua Bing. and the moment of the race was the FIA absolutely handing second place to Max Rastaffin on a silver platter. That man carries his team with luck

and the FIA making terrible calls. I'm just going to go ahead and change my Discord name to Salty Ferrari fan. Get Max Rastafin out here. You don't deserve. That's it. I'll talk to you next week. Oh, that was spicy than my dinner earlier

and I'm not good with spice, but that was hot. I was surprised it was. a VSC. I thought it was going to be a VSC. It felt like he... I mean... They explained after that, simply, how the GPS said that it was on the track, but actually, visually,

you could see it wasn't on the track. It's a very dodgy reason for a safety car. Yeah. Let's go to... Let's go to Mando. This is the way. Hello, late breakers. Mando here. My moment of the race,

lap one. We're not. or Schaffner decided to use some voodoo magic to get Pierre Gazley to take out not one, but two McLaren's in retaliation for the Oscar Piastri Fiasco. Keep up the podcast, guys. Take it easy. It's got a bit piastro, mate. Yeah, the piasco. It's great to get some gauhing soul on the podcast. Real British niche reference here, but he sounds like the guy who does the, narration on Google Box?

Yeah. Do you not think? I'm not in North London. In Derby. Thanks, Amanda. Carry on. Let's go to Jim Jamel and Real Dad

soundboard. Hi, Albi, boys. This is Real Dad and Jim Jamel with our moment of the race. Moment of the Race. Musical chairs in the Cold Hour room with Max sitting on Checo's chair

and Alonzo sitting on Max's chair. I think somehow they need to be a bit more debriefed there. But anyway, very nice to see. I mean, if one's more about musical chairs now, Ian's probably sitting in Max's car. There we go. Have a lovely evening, guys, and catch you next week. Bye.

Honestly, if that silly little girl managed to get into a Formula One car, then that will make my world. I don't know how that happened. She doesn't understand what outdoors is. It's called to Jen. Hi, this is Jen from SoCal. And I just want to say that my moment of the race is when Magnuson passed Sonodo. Most exciting thing in a snooze fest of a race.

Love you guys. And everybody join the Patreon. Bye. Love you, Jen. And I agree. Moment of the race. I'm sure that'll be the only one. let's go to

let's go to Skyla go on Skyla this is going to be long my moment of the race is Yuki Sinoda yelling about Hawkenberg just doing blah yeah like Dracula

like a really cap Dracula blah let's go to let's get a joy next I'm driving like a madman out here that's why I like Russell I love that that isn't an English accent.

It's really funny. I'm driving like a madman out here. Yeah, because that was much more accurate. Yeah. Crikey, I'm driving like a madman out here. Blimey. It's so funny because you're so corgish as well. Oh, no.

Let's go to card jam. Says it all, folks. I think that might be, again, Yuki Sonoda. and of course one more let's go to see what beef has to say Hello I'm just going I feel so bad

he kept him behind for so long oh smooth I've become delirious because I'm really stressed guys to send thoughts and prayers okay bye delirious beef I think we should do a contest who can replicate

Sanoda's reaction the best. We've already got a couple of early contenders, but, oh man, can you just do card jam? One more time. Homer Simpson or Yuki's like over, I'm not sure. So good. Carlos signs whenever he sees George Russell and his mirrors.

I'm leaving the soundboard alone. Thank you so much, Soundbore, for actually working. during this segment, by the way. Appreciate that. Right. We're going to get out of here. We've got another couple of episodes coming up because we're going to be recording our second

March Patreon episode tomorrow and then we're back Wednesday for another episode. Sam, get us out of here. Oh, folks. Well, hopefully the podcast was maybe more entertaining in some parts of the Jeddah Grand Prix. And as Ben said, Patreon topic is coming up this week. So make sure you get stuck in.

We've also got a bit of a bit of a different episode next Sunday for you. So remember, we're here every non-race weekend Sunday as well, but something a little new coming your way. So do join us, have a little thing. Let's know what you think when it comes about. And again, midweek, we'll be here discussing more if one action, more if one news, and everything you're going to talk about in the F1 world. Join the Discord, if you fancy it, because over 1,700 people chatting F1, life, food, pets, racing, whatever you fancy that's in there. Check up the Patreon for you've already mentioned. More content, add free content, discount on merch. You get a birthday.

shout out. That's coming very, very soon for the very first time as well. Depending on the tier you're in, of course. Hey, follow some social media as well at our breaking on Twitter. The late breaking up on podcast and Instagram and on TikTok, because we are down with those kids. I hope you enjoyed the race, folks. We're going to be here all season. In the meantime, I'm Samuel Sage. I've been Ben Hocking.

I have been, please vote for us in the Sport Podcast Awards, Harry Reid. Nice. And remember, keep breaking late. This part of the Sports Social Podcast Network.