The Late Braking F1 Podcast - 2024 Australian GP Review

Episode Date: March 24, 2024

After a shocking retirement for Max Verstappen, and Carlos Sainz led home a Ferrari 1/2, Sam and Ben are on hand to break down all the action in Australia including a great day for McLaren, a less than great day for Mercedes, and of course give out their Driver of the Day nomination! FOLLOW us on socials! You can find us on YouTube, Instagram, X (Twitter) and TikTok SUPPORT our Patreon for bonus episodes, historic race reviews & more! JOIN our Discord community JOIN our F1 Fantasy League: SIGN UP & create your team, and JOIN our league (join code: C3PHEQHPU04) BUY our Merch EMAIL us at [e-mail]   & SUBSCRIBE to our podcast! Want to send something to us? Use our brand new PO box! Late Braking Podcast PO Box 821 TRURO TR1 9PE 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, as we reviewed today, the third race of the 24 season, the Australian Grand Prix won by my... Oh, I'd written it down. is Carlos Science's one.

What's he doing there? Don't predict the future, mate, because you're not very good at it. And I've been proven again. I think Carlos Science's appendix has basically gone. Mate, I was what was weighing you down. Be free. Be free to succeed. And now he's a race winner again.

He's the only man to defeat Max Verstappen in this entire domination era. And he's done it twice now. Incredible scenes. It was kind of worth getting up at 3.30 for this morning, which was painful. Which were not complaining about. about. No, definitely not. I loved it. I really hope that I could do it every Grand Prix, just like you Australian and Asian people who have to deal with that all the time.

Exactly. So yes, Carlos Sein's taking victory at the Australian Grand Prix, leading home a Ferrari 1-2, Wacharlok-Claire in second, Lando Norris rounding out the podium in third, Max Verstappen suffering a break-related DNF after just three laps of the Grand Prix. So, very interesting results. We've got plenty to chat. through today. Harry's not here, I'm afraid. He tried, but planes let him down. Yeah, Mag is stuck in an airport

and has had a really rubbish time. Usually we would mock him, but it's actually not his fault and he really tried. He did. He did. Anyway, what have we got up coming up today? We're going to be discussing Has, double points. Yuki Sonoda, his first points of the season. Of course, the last lap retirement of George Russell as he chased down Fernando Alonso. McLaren getting a third and fourth place finish,

Sergio Perez in fifth place, but we will obviously start out front with a Ferrari one, two, the first in a very long time. And as you've already referenced, just like last time when there was an opportunity given out by Max Wastappen in Singapore, it's Carlos Science who was there to pick up the pieces

and take the win. It seems, I know we've mentioned this before, obviously, it's very strange. He's still looking for a seat next year. the walking billboard, as we like to call him, Sam, has done another very good job here. What did you make of his performance? Yeah, from the surgery room to the operating room and then all the way through to the cool-down room, the guy has delivered where it counts.

And he, you know, it's a classic pun these days, but he really is the smooth operator in multiple senses of the phrase these days. This was phenomenal from Carlos Sites. This was, if he did this without the surgery, you know, without having his appendix roof, I still say this was one of his best performances in Formula One. This was so good from Carlos Sikes. Now, obviously, we don't know just how early Max Verstappen was struggling with those break-related issues. And it was a shame that, of course, Maxwell Stappen had to be removed from the Grand Prix

due to a car failure. We would like to sing and fight to the end and have a proper battle up front. But it did look as though, and again, I say this with a caveat that we're not tiny sure when it happened, that Carlos Sites had the ability. and the pace in that Ferrari from the moment the lights went out to stay with Max Verstappen. All too often, we have seen the gap out front after one map break to 1.1, 1.2,

sometimes even 1.3 or 4 seconds away between first and second place. But that was not the case. Carlos Sons immediately picks up DRS, and he's immediately on that hunt. He's right behind Max Verstappen and gets the move done pretty much well before the brakes fail. We saw after the replays finally showed it about three-quarter... to the race that Vostappen lost his back end.

He'd call it a handbrake moment where almost the back wheels locked up. Now, I would probably err on the side that this is related to the brake failings and starting to have issues. They don't just combust from zero to 100. But nonetheless, you've got to be in it to win it. And Carlos Sykes was applying the pressure and he was getting the moves done. So he went on the course to absolutely dominate. He was so calm.

He pulled huge gaps out over everyone, including his teammate. his pit stops were well calculated. Ferrari delivered a fantastic strategy and he brought home a phenomenal win. Again, as I mentioned at the start of the show, the only person who properly beat Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez, anyone outside of a Red Bull car, sits the start of the 2023 season and we're now three races into the 2024 season. So that guy is a walking billboard. If anyone knows of someone who might want a driver, I think there's one that's all right floating about, someone you might just fancy picking up because he did a bloody solid job. Yeah, absolutely.

At this point, and this is probably something we'll get into a bit more in a future episode, but at this point, I honestly think that every single team on the grid, obviously excluding Ferrari that he's leaving, and I would say excluding McLaren maybe as well, I think every other team should take him, or at the very least should highly consider taking him. Merck, Red Bull. I think they both, and Aston Martin. in if Alonzo moves on. Like they're all considerations for signs,

but it works the other way. I think signs should be considerations for them. He's done a phenomenal job here. And it is a skill to be in that position. You know, I've seen a few people argue that, well, Shao Leclair quite often beats Carla signs, but it just so happens that the two opportunities

that Vestappen has given to someone else. It just so happens that those were a couple of races where signs were ahead. It's a skill. It is a skill. It's not just potluck. And Carlos Sines was phenomenal out there. And I've also seen a few people say that this race could have been more exciting based on how how interesting the fight for second place or the fight for third place often is in Formula One behind Vastappan dominating.

And we kind of didn't have it, which, and I think that's absolutely true, but it's a credit to Carlos Sines that we didn't have it. We very easily could have had a three-way battle between Sines, Norris and Lecler, or maybe the Merck's getting involved, or Alonzo. All of those were possibilities that were absolutely stripped away due to how good Carlos Sines was. There was really no threat from anyone else. Even when, you know, when Piastri, Norris and LeClau were all quite close in a group, you could have been mistaken for it being a standard race

and signs having taken the Vostappen role. He was really, really good. And as you say, to do it after just a couple of weeks from his appendicitis is even more impressive. And, yeah, I mean, who, like I say, who wouldn't be looking at Carlos Sines after a result like this? The end winning margin is somewhat masked because of the virtual safety car. I think signs and LeCleu were only two seconds or so apart at the flag. but in reality, that was far closer to five seconds for the majority of this race. As you say, it's difficult to know with Sines' overtake on Vestappen,

how much of that was Vestappen struggling with those breaks from the off. I also tend to think that that was a big factor in that. But having said that, and we'll get to Perez probably in our second segment today, you know, Perez has quite comfortably taken second place in the first two race. races. Today he was fifth and almost a minute back from Carlos Sines. Now that's not to say that if Vastappen was in the race, signs still would have won definitely. But, and look, Perez and Vostappen isn't always a complete correlation as to where the pace is going to be. But if we're looking at Perez having struggled much more in this race versus the first two, then it's not ridiculous

to think that Sines versus Vestappen might have been a battle anyway if this race went ahead. this is the first weekend where we have consistently seen that the Red Bull is not leaps and bounds above the rest of the grid. If you look at, I know practice isn't everything, but you look at how practice rang through. They were rarely fighting at the very, very top. And practice sessions where it comes to qualifying. I mean, Perez wasn't anyway,

but that Max Verstappen was barely featuring in the top two, quite regularly in both Q1 and Q2. And then at Q3, I think, I would it call it a wonder lap, but it definitely took a lap to be pulled out of the bag by Max Verstappen to put himself on pole position. If he did a standard Max for Stappen lap, I think there's every chance that Carlos Sionx finds himself on pole position

and the gap is incredibly small. I just think that Verstappen, perfectly in tune with that Red Bull, is able to extract that little bit more to stick it on the front spot. The point I'm making here is I think we saw a little bit of a shifting of the tide when it comes to the form book. I'm not saying that Ferrari were outright the fastest car here, but it was definitely a much closer battle than I think a lot of people were expecting it to be.

The fact that they were able to keep Sergio Perez comfortably at bay where you look at two weeks ago and you saw that in Saudi, Sergio Perez blitz passed both the Ferraris. And obviously, Ali Byrne was driving one of them so he wasn't fully in the fight, but Charlotte-Claher couldn't get near Sergio Perez, let alone Max Verstappen at Saudi.

So the fact that here, Sergio Perez, of course, picks up a penalty in qualifying for hindering Nika Holgerberg, which is never going to help. You have to start nearer. the front realistically a track like Melbourne to realistically have a chance at taking that victory. And when your teammate falls foul of a DNF

due to reliability, you have to be there to pick up the pieces. And this is something that we've said time and time again about second drivers. We said it about Valtry Bottas with Lewis Hamilton. And I know it sounds silly, but you say it about drivers like Ruben's Barakello when Michael Schumacher was dominating at Ferrari.

It's those drivers, they may not be serial winners, but they were incredibly good at being right behind their teammate when it mattered. And because of this penalty, because he didn't qualify on that front row, it means that Red Bull weren't able to get into their clean air. They weren't able to understand how the car works properly. And it means that they fell away. Sergei Perez did not have the outright pace. And it makes me think that the Red Bull in Australia, maybe its track specific, was struggling.

Maybe it was not its absolute dominant form. And it did take something like Max Verstappen's wondrous ability to be able to extract that little something else to keep it competitive. There's a little part of me that thinks would for Stappen have had. had an easier time if he was in Carlos Sines' car this weekend. And actually, if it was the other way round, would Ferrari have come out on top if Stappan was the leader? I think it's definitely a possibility. So Red Bull not as on top as I think they should have been, or maybe they thought they would have been. And Ferrari seemingly pulling out the pace. It's being a strangely optimistic start, despite Red Bull having two one-two years before this Grand Prix.

In a weird way, Ferrari's in a very good position right now in that in one kind of they've got Shao LeClaire, who is brilliant. We know that. And in the other car, they've got Carlos Seines, who is also great. But I feel like he is really, he's on it so far this year. Like he's done two races,

and he's been, I mean, at least in terms of the fan vote, he's been driver of the day at both of those Grand Prix. He is driving with something to prove, which is obviously benefit, it seems to be very beneficial, for Sines because it's clearly delivering performances and we'll, fingers crossed for him,

get him a good seat for next year. It seems to also be going very well for Ferrari because naturally they benefit from Sines doing very well and they have Lewis Hamilton coming in next season. Like, they're doing all right. If signs wants to prove a point. If you want to line cards up, if you want to line cards up that we're saying that were all good things, you know, the tarot reader cards when you turn them over and you think a billion dollar increasing socks and shares, a seven-time world champion will join your team, and the driver leaving will be so motivated to prove himself that he'll also be essentially your leading driver.

What more do you want? Yeah. I mean, in terms of his chances for next year, how much do you think this bolsters his chances or were his chances quite high to... I think it's... I would be shocked if he doesn't invite a seat. I think the question is how good of a seat that might be.

What does this wind do for him? Yeah, I think in a very strange way, Carlos Seitz is weirdly a massive benefactor from his own downfall at Ferrari. So by Lewis Hamilton snatching that seat away, I think it is going to start a giant domino effect of seat moves. We saw how going into this season we had an exact replica of the 2023 grid coming into 2024. It's an incredibly rare occurrence in Formula One that basically never happens.

So I think a move as colossal. I think we've said this before, but I'd argue it again, the biggest move in Formula One's history of Lewis Hamilton going to Ferrari is going to start a huge chain reaction. Now, Carlos Sites is already in a good position. He's highly respected around the Formula One grid. People believe he's got a lot of ability. He's proving himself with previous race wings and great points scoring,

and even in lesser teams, for example, when he was at Renault, he did a very good job to end his time there. When he was at McLaren, he regularly beat Landon Norris. And even when he was at Toro Rosser, of course, He did a great job against Max Verstappen. So now he's a regular race winner. He's essentially leading the front of a Ferrari charge. This is a perfect time for him to go.

I guess I'm available. Come and pick me up while the iron is hot and you should strike and you should buy in now while stocks are on the rise. And he's delivering what he needs to do to anyone else. But equally, I don't think he does need to deliver such important results to get another seat. I think all this does is maybe

him getting an Aston Martin seat is now a B option rather than previously it might have been the A option, for example, if Fernando Alonso were to step away, or him moving to a team like, it sounds ridiculous, like Haas or Alpine or something like that, might have been a, yeah, that's a pretty solid possibility, whereas now, I think with the drives that he's putting in,

why wouldn't Mercedes-Cold him up? Why wouldn't Red Bull go, oh, Daniel Ricardo's not really delivering. We don't have faith in Yuki-Sinoda. Liam Lawson isn't really a. there, we're going to need to go external, and Sergei Perez isn't being consistent enough. So Carlos Sites, when I come back to the family, we all know and love you as it is, maybe it's the option.

He is doing everything possible to sell that doggy in the window as the son once went. Indeed. Yeah, at the moment, and 2025 lineup prediction, I think, is an episode going to be coming up very shortly. but I tend to think at this point that signs on Alonzo, one of them will be racing for Aston Martin, one of them will be racing for Mercedes next year. And I think it puts, actually, I think it puts Aston Martin under a lot of pressure because they haven't got the car right now to put the pressure on Fernando Alonzo to make that

decision. If they were doing much better, then I feel like there would be a much more urgency from Alonzo's side to get that deal signed. But if they don't keep a lot, Lonzo and they wait too long and signs goes elsewhere, who's the next option? Like someone like Yuki Sonoda. Sanoda and Stroll? No thanks. I mean, Sonoda's been better. He has.

Don't get me wrong, but... Is he Fernando Alonkso? Is he Carlos Sites at the moment? Ah, doesn't fill me with confidence. Sonoda would be fine as a second driver to those names, but as a driver alongside Stroll. Not for what their objectives are. I think for Askin Martin's sake, they are massive benefactors of the fact that that Mercedes is just a big pile of done. Oh, boy, we're getting on to that later on.

Don't you worry. Experimenting by being bad. Who was your driver of the day? I'm going to keep it simple. It's Carlos Sites. He was phenomenally good. You could see the slight discomfort and pain as he heaved himself out of that Ferrari at the end of the Grand Prix. The poor guy was barely able to stand up properly.

But the fact that he delivered, not just a wing, but a win of dominance. At one point, I remember the team radio came over of one of the Ferrari engineers. I'm not sure if it was LeCleuze or Sciences. And they said, you know, we're getting a whole position now. And I thought, okay, sensible, fair. But equally, the gap was about a second and a half at that point. And then within about seven or eight laps, I don't know if Lecler had backed off. I don't think he had.

because he would have been able to make a point, seven or eight laps later, if he goes, I'm still one second behind Sines. I'm fasting, the McLaren's coming, let me through. He was about eight seconds down. And he then complained of ties going off. He complained of graining. Of course, he had to stop before Carlos Sites. Carlos Sites was just covered in every single area.

It almost looked easy for a man who was doing a job that is not easy in his condition. So when you said that, you know, we should have had a fight out front, but we couldn't because Carlos Sines was. was just doing Max for Staff and Things. That's the biggest compliment you can give someone right now, and he deserves every word of it. So, yeah, science is the drive of the day. He is. He's got my vote.

Two other names I did want to highlight at this point, and I think we'll touch on them both in a bit more depth later on anyway, but Yuki Sonoda did do a brilliant job from, really from start to finish. We're talking qualifying and the race here for Sonoda specifically, but, I mean, couldn't have got any more out of the weekend. It was great to see him perform at a track that wasn't Middle Eastern. Yes.

In the mid, not in the middle, but, you know, it's not at the bookend side of the season either. He decided that the middle of the season might have more points in it than the first and last race. Yeah. Yeah, that should be a real confidence booster for him. You did a good job there. The other name I did want to shout out as well is the guy who finished directly behind him, which was Nika Hockenberg, who went from Q1 elimination to two points. and I know he took advantage of the safety car, but others also had that benefit.

That's right, baby. Yeah, it is. And I think others had that benefit and didn't take advantage of it in the same way. I know Fernando Alonzo finished arguably a place higher than he would have done without the safety car, but even a virtual safety car, excuse me. But even so, I mean, he was being chased down by Georgia I saw at the very end. Holkenberg, it was a very comfortable ninth place. for him after Russell's retirement, of course. Otherwise, it would have been tent for one point.

But yeah, I thought both of those drivers did well, too. Who was your worst driver of the day? This is actually a little bit trickier because there wasn't any absolute calamities, I don't think. I'm not looking at, you know, when we had Saudi, for example, and Lance Trulgas puts it in the wall all on his own doing it. It's very easy to give a worse driver the day when someone makes such a silly mistake like that. But here, no such thing really happened. Oscar Piascri, I think, let himself down a little bit,

despite, you know, he being one place behind Norris, goes off on his own, loses four or five seconds to his teammate, puts him out of the fight for a polling in position. I don't know if he's the worst driver of the day for it, but whilst it was a good weekend for him, I feel like there was more that he could have grabbed. Daniel Ricardo started further back than his teammate and paid the price there and then because he just wound up being four or five places behind his teammate, which is where he qualified, 10 places behind his teammate, benefited again from the likes of a couple of DNFs and some issues. I'm struggling though, Ben.

to give a proper worst driver of the day because I don't think anyone was particularly shocking. This is going to be horrible. I'm going to give it to Piastri. I'm going to say that just because he was there in the fight, he had the better strategy, I think. He managed to undercut and you look at where Lecler were. And I do think that McLaren and Ferrari aren't too far off of each other. I think he probably could have got more out of it. Yeah, I know what you mean, though.

There weren't any massive calamities out there today. I did want to highlight and there might be a reason that I have completely missed on this which I'm willing to admit to. The bottom four positions were occupied by Alpine and Salba.

Joe Bottas Ocon all had pit stop calamities. The one exception was Ghazley who should have benefited from the safety car but was still I know he led that group but he was still stuck in that group and I thought more was maybe achievable.

I appreciate that car is not very good but there might have been something that happened to him. Did he lose a place because of the penalty? Oh, he might have lost maybe post race.

He didn't take that penalty live, did he? No, he took it at the end of the Grand Prix. Yeah, which in itself is actually probably a reason to give it to him as well because that wasn't the first time, Pierre, you did it in qualifying as well.

Yeah, you know, make a mistake once. Oops, make a mistake twice. You're a fool. Mine is also, going to be a bit harsh because we've both picked drivers that are in the points. And I don't think he had an awful day, but equally I don't think anyone else did. So Sergio Perez being fifth and behind the top four, very comfortably. I actually forgot about Sergio Perez when I was making my decision. And I think he's the worst driver of the day because he was that forgettable

at a car that should probably still have been fighting for first. So there you go. We'll do big brain strat and reviewing our bold predictions in our second segment. In the meantime, we'll take our first break. And on the other side, we'll be discussing McLaren. Okay, so McLaren had comfortably their best day of the 2024 season so far, finishing third and fourth, Landon Norris third, Oscar Piastri, fourth. Good for 27 points.

What did you make of their race today, Sam? Yeah, I think they were brilliant. apart from Piastri's mistake where he went off onto the grass, I do think they really had a very strong showing. And I think someone said this was the first time, I think it was a Crofty stat. I think that we said that this was the first Ferrari 1-2, McLaren 3-4, for over a decade now, something like that,

which is, I mean, very interesting to see that it's been that long since those two teams were really thriving at the top. No, it was longer than that. It was when we had Riking and Massa, alongside Hamilton. So it would have been awake. Yeah, go back over the first. 15 years.

Yeah, so a long time since those two teams were fighting at the front. So it shows you how far they've moved ahead when you look at competitions such as Ashton Martin and last season, Austin Martin started faster than McLaren and, you know, we're regularly in their in their fight generally for the same points. And of course, Mercedes were the second fastest team overall when it came to points scoring. So the fact that they have so comfortably beaten both of those teams is really, really strong. I think Landon Norris was again electric. I think he did a really, really good job.

Kind of coming back from a couple of difficult positions, he got undercut by both the Clare and Piastri on that first kind of round of pit stops, and then had to make up the time. And they switched the positions within the team, but I think it was going to happen anyway. I think it was a foregone conclusion that Norris probably will have got past Piastri as it is.

Just that race pace is still just a few percent better than what Piastri is able to deliver at the moment. And they were getting closer to the Ferrari guys. it was, you know, the gap was coming down. I think it was about two or three seconds before the end VSEC occurred. So the fight for a second place was definitely on. And Norris called this out in the post-race interview himself, that if they had done the same strategy that Piastri and Lecler had done,

he believes that they probably could have been fighting wheel to will for a second place this season, this race, sorry. So he feels they lost out on points, but I thought they did a really, really good job. I think they, when someone like Max Verstappen disappears and Sergio Perez isn't able to maximize his own car, it's a difficult one to get anything more out of. So I commend them. They did a great job. This is a big point tool for them,

and it moves them very much comfortably clear of the likes of Mercedes and Askin Martin, who really are direct rivals, make no bones about it. It might be a tricky start to the season, but it's a long one, and those two teams will, in theory, start to recover. So you need to strike now while they're struggling. I kicked off by saying that this was their best day

of the season so far, but realistically it's probably their best day since Qatar or certainly something in the autumn of last season when they were quite regularly in this sort of position and Lando Norris was picking up second and third places with massive regularity and Piastri obviously had the sprint win in Qatar and had a podium there too and at Japan like that autumn was excellent for McLaren this felt like their best day since then

because regardless of what, the result ended up being. It was a good result anyway, but what we needed to see from McLaren was more performance-based, I think, because that it gives an indication as to what they can do over the coming races. And this was far better than what we've seen so far. Because you could look at the result and say, well, you know, Vestappan retired, Perez wasn't in the fight like it'd normally be, maybe McLaren's results have been inflated. I don't think so. They had good pace. They had genuinely good pace. They haven't been that close to Ferrari. If we're just looking at Ferrari, versus McLaren.

We're saying Ferrari at a good day. McLaren were closer to Ferrari today than they have been at the first two races, quite comfortably as well, I would say. Again, appreciating, obviously, in Saudi Arabia, we had bearmen who finished behind Piastry, but I think that was a bit of an extenuating circumstance. But in terms of pure pace, I thought they were very good. And Lando Norris, as mentioned,

thinks that third was the minimum of what they could achieve. And again, we'll get to Mercedes a bit later on. but Mercedes were nowhere near them. Alonzo was nowhere near them. Landstrol was nowhere near them. They were very comfortably in the fight with Ferrari and very comfortably clear of two rivals that they have been interchanging with.

It's something we've picked up on quite a lot, is this Mercedes versus McLaren battle that we've had so far this year. This was, in no uncertain terms, a massive win for McLaren that could very well prove to be important by the end of this season. I mean, to put it into perspective,

I was going to save this stat for the Mercedes section, but let's do the positive side of it rather than the negative side of it. McLaren today scored more points than Mercedes have scored this season. Stamming that is a really damning stat. Which is why I was going to use it for the Mercedes one, but I'll put it in the positive light instead and say, what a great day it was for McLaren. As you say, I think Piastri,

I was surprised actually that Piastri did. didn't have a little bit more pace, just because I know Norris qualified ahead, but I felt like that went a little bit against the great. Like there really wasn't much to choose between the two of them in qualifying yesterday, but I thought that Piastri might have a minor edge, at least in quality.

Norris sort of pulled out the lap late on. But yeah, there was a bit of an imbalance, though. Equally, it sounds funny that we've just not dissed him because I think dissing is harsh. We've maybe critiqued a little bit there. The step up that Piastri has demonstrated from last season to this season already is noticeable. There is a much smaller gap between those two drivers across an entire Grand Prix. Back to back to fourths?

Yeah, exactly. That's great for Piastri. And regularly, he would show that he would shred his tires. He'd fall off the pace massively. I think the only reason he was so far away was because of his lockup in the final sector of the race, where it meant that he spent a bit of time on the grass. And yeah, that's a mistake. It's an unforced era.

that he's going to need to get out of his system. But otherwise, he was within two or three seconds, the entire Grand Prix of Landon Norris. And I do think that if the safety car had come at a slightly different moment, sorry, the VSE, or, you know, there was a slight difference in the tire wear capabilities.

There's every chance that Piascari is fighting with Landon Norris and Charles LeCler for a second place. I do think he has to maybe tweak the most minute of details, and he will be very much there. with those guys. He's definitely on the path. This is a very motivating and optimistic start for Piastri. I think we're yes, we're being critical, but make no mo bones about it. This is a very positive kickoff to his second season. Yeah. If my maths is right on this,

28 points for Piastri, 27 for Norris. 55 overall. There you go. Carlos Sines, baby. Consistent stuff. So, yeah. I think that's pretty good. Whereas, you know, Mercedes again, we'll get on to in a bit, on there. So where are they? Not there. Down the toilet. Quite possibly.

Yeah. The one thing I wanted to pick up on McLaren, though, that was less positive. I do think they left points out there today. I agreed with what Norris said. I think there were three possible results for them today. A two, three, a two, four, and a three four. And they got the worst of those three. Now that's, you don't want to put too much of a down on it because again, they got 27 points.

That's pretty good going. But equally, I know they let Lando Norris by Oscar Piastri in the end. I couldn't understand why they didn't do that straight away. Because he was right. There was one point, and we didn't actually see any of this. There was one point where they were basically on top of each other for about three laps. And we were focusing on, I think, Perez catching Russell or something, which was also an emerging battle, but as far as I could see on the timing tower, they were right by each other.

I don't know why they didn't just make that happen there and then because, hey, I can't believe I'm saying this. Look at Hass. I was about to make the same point. I cannot believe that I was about to commend them, but hearth did it seamlessly. They did. Fair play to Hasse, because they are cooking so far this year. And not in terms of pure pace, because, I mean, they're still doing better than what we thought.

they were going to. But in terms of being strategically on it, it was just no debate. It was, you know, Magnuson helped Holkenberg out last time. He's going to do the same thing again here. Let switch positions. They switch positions straight away. Both score points. I just felt like if they were a bit more on it, McLaren, a bit more authoritative, maybe second was there. The difference is it's no nonsense. Yeah. Which is, I can't ever saying it again. It's no nonsense. They just, they know their objective. They know they have to maximize. Kamatsu has got the bloody frying pan out and he's good, you know what, lads, I'm going to knock us up an absolute lovely dinner because I'm cooking tonight and he is cooked and Holgerberger-magneson are having a

feast. And you know what? It's on the main menu tonight for hearse. Points, baby. Points. I can't believe it. So yeah, McLaren, you're right. They did have a very good weekend. Their qualifying pace does still need to improve a little bit. They are. in a little bit off that pace. And you're right, if they can execute their strategies more seamlessly and maybe more ruthlessly, depending on what driver is having the more optimal Grand Prix, maybe they could have turned that into a 24 at best, a 2-3. I think a 2-3 is very optimistic.

But I do think a 2-4, it was definitely on the cards. Yeah, absolutely. Should we get into our big brain strat of the day now? Oh, by the way, if anyone's wondering. are the jingles? I haven't loaded it onto a second soundboard that we've got now. We've bought two soundboards, folks. But I only got it this week, so I'm really trying to figure out how it works. Not really. You're lucky you're even hearing anything, folks. I don't know why I don't have one, just for fun. Anyway, so that's why you haven't got the jingles,

but they'll return at some point. Big brain strategy, what you got? It was hard to give a bad one. other than Salber developing incorrect wheel nuts for their guns. What I ain't doing? You know what, actually, I might give it to that. I was going to give it to Carlos Sikes managing the pit strategy again with recovery from surgery and leading a Grand Prix and just saying, okay, guys, ties feel good, let's run along, we're going to push back, and then we'll then come into the pits.

And that was just great to hear from him. And I was going to give Hars a shout out for their seamless switcheroo of their drivers. But I am actually going to give it to Salber for developing, the wrong will-nut threads that means that the pit guns that they have don't work. So every single pit stop, bar one, has been longer than about eight or nine seconds at an absolute minimum. What a way

to absolutely destroy any Grand Prix chance that you've got a scoring point. Because Joe was right behind Holkenberg when the VSC came out. He benefited from exactly the same strategy. And if their pit stop was even a 2.8, they'd be right there behind Holkenberg. And in theory, They could have been where Magnuson was at the end of the Grand Prix if the pace was actually applicable.

But they absolutely can their own strategy because they can't develop a very basic part that every single team has to use on multiple instances every single weekend. So great job. You've ruined another Grand Prix. But I should have scored points today. I agree. He had a great start. Yeah. I mean, he qualified pretty well, had a good start.

I think he would have been there with the hash drivers if they, you know, could do a pit stop under. four years. That would be great. Botas and long pit stops. The man has had his fill. He's full up. He's like, no, thank you. Please stop sending me more.

He is cursed this season, I swear. Anyway, so that's your big brain strap. My big brain strat, I did want to give it to, I did want to give it to Ferrari, but not based on the line you mentioned there. It was when they confirmed to Carlos signs over team radio that it was plan A, at which point, it was quite early on in the race and they were leading.

So it's like, well, I should hope. this is plan A. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, great. And then two minutes later, we're going to switch to plan B. And obviously, all ended up okay in the end.

But my heart at that point was like, why he's leading, it's all going okay, don't overcomplicate things, please. You're just waiting for a stopping venting from Carlos after that point. He's almost like the voice of reising at that team. Just slaps them around of it and go snap out of it.

It's just a bloody race. We've just got to do 60 laps of a circle. Just keep it simple. stupid. You're winning comfortably. You don't need a plan B. Literally, it's the Ferrari find. They can overcomplicate bloody bread on butter they could. They probably would. You'd end up with the butter on the wrong side or something. I don't know. You left it on the on the worktop and have a plate of bread or something. Oh man.

I don't want to do this segment. Go on. You can do it. Reviewing bold predictions. Harry doesn't get a point because he wasn't here and didn't give one. And we're going to be kind to him. We'll just not give him a point rather than give him a negative point. Yeah, he's had a tough day and I do feel bad for the chap. What was your bold prediction? Sam, remind us. Mine was that Lance Stroll would beat Fernando Alonso.

And I have never been more annoyed at Lewis Hamilton in my life. because I think it might have happened. He was having a pretty solid Grand Prix, was Lance Stroll. Qualifying relatively well, beat Fernando alongside. Can I claim that? He beat Fernando at qualifying.

I never stated what session it would be in. Discord. Back me up here. Absolutely not. You didn't claim that he beat him like, I don't know, at one race last year, the Spanish Grand Prix,

and said, well, he'd beat him, didn't he? I'll take anything I can get. And I'm also still definitely checking on the updates to see if Fernando Alonoso has somehow been weirdly being alive for that George Russell incident which he caught, like Russell have claimed it it'd been break checked, it's not come through.

For a trick. It did, it did beat him. Scroll lost to alongside. Yeah, I would have been intrigued to see, actually, about the safety car what would have happened. My inkling is he would have beaten him anyway, but it would have been a tougher time of it.

Much closer, I think. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Would have been quite interesting. I can't quite hear it. What is it? I can't quite hear it over, someone's chassis. What's going on? So my bold prediction was that Logan Sargent would score a point, which you have to race to get a point.

You have to qualify to get a point. Yeah, you have to qualify. This is all part of a massive conspiracy. In vowels, I do not trust anymore. The breakup. It's happened. It's been on edge for a few. few weeks, but myself and James Vals are no longer, no longer together, I'm afraid, due to this

incident. I'm pretty certain that Logan Sargent would have scored points this weekend, which is, of course, really annoying. And I absolutely, if Alex Albon had claimed a point, I would have tried to claim a point saying that it was Logan Sargent's car. I'm sure that would not have worked, but I would have given it a go. Well, I had a note written down to be nice that if Albon had scored points, I was going to give you an honorary point just by how ridiculous this little being. But you don't get it anyway. No, no.

It looked like it might be possible for a time, but not quite. So if you are keeping score, folks, and it's not very difficult to, I have no points for bowl prediction so far this season, which means I'm in a tie for first with Sam, who has no points, and Harry, who has no points.

I love being first. Yes. we are all first. That's how the late break and podcast works. There's no losers here. We are the losers. Exactly. Exactly.

Right, we will take our second break of this episode. We're going to be chatting Mercedes a bit more on the other side. Okay, welcome back as we move on to Mercedes. On a day where Max Verstappen retired after three laps, on a day where Sergio Perez claimed only 10 points, where he had claimed 18 at the last two Grand Prix, there was a real opportunity for the likes of Mercedes out there to do better than they have done so far this season.

Their answer? No points and a double DNF. Oh, no, no, no. Lewis Hamilton, his race didn't last all that long, although it has to be said it wasn't looking that promising either. He retired with an engine failure. George Russell at least looked like he was going to get some good points chasing Fernando Alonzo in the dying stages of the Grand Prix until he lost the car. Unfortunately, George Russell is all okay.

Can confirm that. But his retirement means that he scores no points, Mercedes score no points, and they are even further away from, well, I was going to say Red Bull, but McLaren and Ferrari as well. That was bad. Oh, it's shocking. This is apology letter. territory at the moment. And the worst part is the crash isn't,

and the DNF through reliability, isn't even a saving grace for them. It's not like they were running 3-4 or 2-3 before both cars fell out of the Grand Prix. It's not like everyone's gone, oh, what could have been? We were so close to picking up. I was like, 20 points as a team.

What a good haul that would have been. No, you were going to be getting maybe eight or six points at a real push if you were having a good time. and you weren't having a good time. Lewis Hamilton, let's start with him. The guy has come out and said that he is having the worst time with this car that he's had so far. He's got no confidence in the car. He doesn't know where the setup's going.

He's even come out and said, which I admire his bravery for being so frank and honest, for saying George has now qualified me five times in a row. He's making the most out of this car, whereas I can't even keep my head above water at the moment. And you can see it in him. He's down. He is defeated. He is struggling. And this is a fish.

now, if you are taking to account for new points calculations, his worst ever starts to a Formula One season. This is the worst he's ever achieved in a Formula One season since 2008, if you were to apply the current point setting. Well, I was going to say, is that 09, actually. Yeah, 09 was apparently it's better. That was awful. Yeah, and this is worse.

This is worse. So, obviously, qualifies in P11. and actually now I come to think of it, maybe might have been slightly lucky because I think Haast probably actually could have maybe pipped him if they were on their A game. And Daniel Ricardo, if he was driving the same level as Yuki Senoda, probably would have beaten him as well.

So maybe 13th or 14th was more likely. The car has got no pace. And then they start the Grand Prix for Lewis Hamilton on the soft tire. Now, I was really confused by this because in qualifying that, that tire was going off within one lap. and Lewis Hamilton did stay in the Grand Prix long enough to actually finish his first stint, which was not a long stint.

He was by far one of the earliest stoppers and, okay, it means that you get a bit of an undercut, and I think they're committed to the two-stop, but a very aggressive, particularly even a three-stop, very, very early on. But what are they aiming to get out of this Grand Prix? Ninth, maybe, 10th, two points, maybe a point was on the cards for them.

They showed no signs have been able to actually carve their way through even on a softer compound of tyre. Both Ashton Martins look faster than him. Yuki Sanoda looked comfortably better than him. He couldn't get anywhere near the likes of his teammate of McLaren, of Ferrari, Sergio Perez, who was having a bad Grand Prix. Max Verstappen, of course, out. That's a saving grace for him.

And then Russell, Russell has done this before, and this is what's frustrating. In a grand prix where Max Verstappen isn't at the front, Carlos Sikes is leading and mopping up the points and mopping up the opportunity. And then there's a chance for George Stappenberg. George Russell to just score some really, really solid points to get a great position on the board for a team. Okay, sixth, I think it was at the time, or seventh was not a great position, but at least it's points on the board.

And on the last lap, for no well-explained reason, you throw it in the bin again. You did it at Singapore. You've done it here. This is twice in less than half a season when you break down how many races we've had, that under pressure, tried to gain points on the last lap. You've thrown it away entirely. this is not a good trait to have for a Formula One driver. This is really, really bad. Because if you're in a world title fight,

if he does get to that point where the car is ever good enough again, and he's fighting for race wings, you can't be doing this on a regular basis. It is a terrible trait. So Lewis Hamilton wasn't going to score big points anyway, and I think he has had his blushes saved by an engine failure. But George Russell, he should be the one home bringing something back for the team, and he didn't.

He let himself down on his own ability there. So yeah, absolutely atrocious weekend from Mercedes and the season goes from already a bit of a stinker to an absolute pile of crap. Yep. Exactly. This is really awful for them. Three things that are true so far this year.

Fernando Alonzo and Aston Martin, way slower than what they were at this point last year. Way slower. Lance Stroll has had to fight back from being spun around at the first corner in Bahrain, no fault of his own, and he's retired from a Grand Prix at Saudi Arabia. They're still beating Mercedes, I think, by a point.

It's not good. You've got a team there that not a lot's gone their way so far, and they're still beating this Mercedes outfit. And it's a great lineup, but clearly Lewis Hamilton is not happy. I don't know whether it's related to the Ferrari move. I don't know whether it's just down to the car. He has said on occasion so far this year that this car isn't like the last couple

and that there is something about it that he likes, but it's just not showing whatsoever. And I said it in the preview, and I'll say it again, at the moment, you would be, if you were to put like a blind test of stats between Lewis Hamilton and Yuki Sonoda this year, you'd have a hard job distinguishing between the two of them. There really isn't much to choose between them at this point. in terms of qualifying.

And now with Sonoda picking up four points today and Hamilton picking up none, I think Hamilton is, what, four points ahead of Sonoda? He's really struggling. And as you rightly say, it will show on the records as a double DNF. And quite honestly, it might be better that it does

because it somewhat masks the fact that they were really, really slow. We had it like last year, I think it was Aston Martin at Mexico where you mentioned that maybe they just retired both cars at the end because it will look better on the stat sheet than a 15th and a 17th. Obviously, this wasn't quite that bad,

but a retirement for Lewis Hamilton arguably might look better than a ninth place finish or whatever it was going to end up being. George Russell, in terms of that, the ironic thing is George Russell, I think, was having a pretty good middle stint. Yeah, it was all right. First stint was, I'll start, I'll go chronologically here.

First stint, Mercedes, that was really worrying because the field was fairly tight at that point. But George Russell was not able to stay on the back of the cars in front. There was a clear gap being established between Russell and the rest. So they really struggled in that first stint. I thought Russell's hard tire stint was pretty good. As we know, Fernando Alonzo benefited from the safety car in a way that Russell and others didn't. yet Russell made back that gap. Like he extended that middle stint a long way further than anyone else.

And yet when he came out, it was still only a couple of seconds behind Alonzo, which I thought was pretty impressive. So hard tire pace was a little bit better, but it means nothing if you crash your car on the last lap. And it's not the first time we've seen this from George Russell. It's worrying that he keeps getting himself in these situations and letting it all slip away. Yeah.

The other thing that's very telling about the difference between Ashton Martin and Mercedes, which I think that that's their closest rivals right now, is when Sergio Perez got past Lewis Hamilton after the pit stop phase, right? Perez came out right in front of Lewis Hamilton and couldn't quite get that move done. And about a lap later, Lewis Hamilton comes over the radio.

Damn, that car's fast. Like, yes, thank you, Lewis, for that great input. Confirmed. Yeah, confirmed. Yep, good. The gap was about two seconds within a lap and a half. Now, what is really worrying, I think, is that when the same occurrence happened to Fernando Alonso

later on in the Grand Prix, on older tyres for Sergio Perez, Fernando Alonso was sticking to the back of Sergio Perez like a sticky thing. The guy was sat in his DRS endlessly, massively benefiting off of the increased pace of the Red Bull, whilst not dragging his tires, whilst pretty saving battery.

he had four or five laps where he was glued to the back of him. And that makes total sense to do if you can. And it baffled me that the Aston Martin was able to keep up using slipstream and DRS. But the Masegi is falling out of that chase pace, that's a great term, within a lap, which is baffling to me. So not only is the car generally slow, it still also can't follow properly, which means it's of being affected negatively in all formats of a way a Formula One car should. whatever experiments you've put on this car Mercedes, take them off, do the opposite, because it might just help.

Big question, Ben. When do the head start to roll in senior management? Well, my answer is I don't know. But it's, I don't know. This season was presented as a bit of a turnaround in that, okay, we're finally committing away from a design that has not worked for us. and then we find out that Red Bull are going very similar down that path and are making it work, which is that in itself is problematic.

But if, you know, what they achieve this year independently of Red Bull is better, then fine. The same concept doesn't work for everyone. But unless this car has great improveability, I just, I don't know. Like, do you just ride this out until 2026 and go, okay, this era hasn't worked for us. let's attack 2026. In which case, do you want to change all that much? But arguably, if you were going to make change,

it's far better to make it now than to make it midway through 2025 when all of the attempts are going towards 26. I don't know, is the honest answer. Yeah. I think there's also a real difficulty at Mercedes that someone like Toto Wolf is a part owner of the team. and I imagine it would be very, very difficult to say to him, hey, the last three years, not good.

So maybe it's time that you step to one side, still be involved, but maybe you're not the absolute main man running the show we need a new direction. I imagine there's a very big conflict of interest between the board that he sits on and owns a large percentage of and his actual job title of what he gets to do day to day. I have a Statman challenge for you all folks. First person who's able to tell me the answer to this wins a cookie that I will send in the post.

Oh, we can plug a PO box. Hey, good stuff. We have a PO box. Do your thing first. Okay. Statman quiz for you. When was the last time Mercedes were fifth place in the Constructors Championship? My inkling is you would have to go back definitely to 2013, possibly to 2012. But unless my maths is wrong here, they are now fifth place in the Constructors' Championship just behind Ashton Martin. And I don't think, because they've started nearly every season quite well, I don't think there would have been an occasion that they were at least fifth or lower since before the hybrid era, possibly 2012.

I think we're bordering on the level. Do you remember when Ferrari started the season a few years ago and they were like seventh in the Constructors' Championship? Oh, 2020. Yeah. This is close to that at the moment. It's not good. It's not good.

Anyway, better news. PO box time. You've been asking, so just like the post, we've delivered. And we now have a PO box. So that means you can send us your things. Or other things that you'd like us to see might be a beer from your local area that you think the late breaking boys would love that. Maybe it's a lovely drawing that you've done of the three of us. You think, I need to show them my artwork.

We promise you, it's special. But whatever it might be, you now can send it to us. So we're going to leave the P.O. box details in the description. Ben, you're going to remember to do that. Send it over to me, pal. Okay. It's in the WhatsApp. You've had it for ages.

equally, folks, I'm urging you, a lot of you spell breaking wrong. You spell it, B-R-E-A-K-I-N-G. If you spell it like that on your parcel or letter or whatever it is, it will not get delivered to us and you will have wasted your time, probably money as well. So late breaking, like a car, B-R-A-K-I-N-G. that's what you need to address us to, okay? Late breaking podcast, the rest of the address will be in the description with it.

Use it, copy and paste it if you have to. Do not spell it wrong. It's a spelling test for everyone. Get it right. And thank you for anything you sent to us. Equally, we're incredibly grateful. We've already mentioned these couple of teams a little bit already, but just to give them a bit more focus.

Yuki Sonoda, four points for him on the day. his first and the team's first points of the season. Has continued to do quite well to start the year after their point in Saudi Arabia. They decided let's take three instead from Australia. Holkenberg gets two and Magnuson gets his first point on the board. So good stuff for both of those teams. What did you make of their races?

Yeah, it's all gravy, baby. Those guys sit around the feast having a great time. Well, three quarters of those drivers are having a lovely feast. Daniel Riccardo is desperately trying to let himself through the back door so he can maybe have a mere morsel of the points on offering. Yeah, it's been great for Yuki Sanoda. He is arguably having his best start to a season. I don't know, Saudi wasn't amazing, but he is really impressed, especially in qualifying, which I think is a real turnout for the books for him, because qualifying was never really a strong suit. He was always just fine, but I do think he's really

delivering the absolute maximum that the car can deliver on a Saturday's performance. Sunday, he finally gets the opportunity to deliver that. He's turned the adventure into gold and he's brought it home for his team. Yes, he was helped out by the fact, I think, that Max Verstappen DNFed. He was also helped out by the fact that Lewis Hamilton DNF, he was also helped out by the fact that George Russell DNFed, but so was every other person behind those drivers. And he was the one car outside of the top four teams that were, you know,

now the standard four for scoring points that delivered really solid points and they needed to because with Haas seemingly cooking up a storm, cash up RB or whatever their buddy called, need to regularly be scoring points now. They're going to stay in competition for that sixth fastest team. And it's performances like this from Yuki Sanoda that are delivering them that opportunity to do so. On the other side of the garage, Daniel Ricardo,

needs to get the lap in, whether it be pace or track limits or whatever it might be that causes him to not get that lapping. He needs to rectify that and he needs to rectify that immediately. I think he's pretty much run out of time to start having real duff performances and he needs to start pulling his weight. I do think, I've seen a lot of people,

a lot of mutterings on the internet, that if Nick DeVries was still in that other seat, would he be having as much positive attention and praise and talk up as what Daniel Ricardo is still having? But because Ricardo is a marketing powerhouse, he's kind of getting away with it for a lot longer than maybe he should be.

Wasn't good. And Hastert taking advantage of deserving me so. But nonetheless, those two teams, are still in front of what Williams, Salba and Alpine. I was really impressed by Sonoda today, as mentioned in Driver of the Day selections. He was able to just distance himself from the mess almost.

We've kind of seen those back five teams have been very clustered together so far, not a lot to separate them. See Hasis slowdown tactics essentially brought them all together in Saudi Arabia. but really not a lot to choose between those teams. It felt like this weekend, Sunoda just went, I'm not part of that group. I'm here.

This is my level. You can fight for 11th and 12th place or you like. I'm not going to get involved in that. I'm just going to score some points up here, which is great. And he didn't get featured a lot in terms of coverage. And as we always say, it's not necessarily a bad thing if you don't get much coverage because it probably means you're just doing your job, which is what Sonoda did. So full credit to him.

Hasse, as already mentioned, they are cooking. And I did not see this coming whatsoever. I am very, very happy to be wrong on this. They are just nailing down the strategy every single weekend. And I actually think their pace was slightly worse today than it was at Saudi Arabia. It was still fine. But I think it was worse than it was, which in itself is not a good thing. But it almost just emphasizes the need to get that strategy right.

like in theory that race could have gone a different direction it could have been botas getting points it could have been alban getting points um there were other drivers as well and it could have been ricardo getting points but has had to nail down the strategy to get those three points and that's exactly what they did and it's good from magnuson's perspective obviously i appreciate he got the penalties in saudi arabia so you can't have too much sympathy but his hard work actually paid off to get a point today which will be encouraging for him in terms of the other team I mean, Salbert feels like they should have a few points because it's just the pit stops are. You can't have pit stops that are that far off. Like, it just doesn't work that it's too important, especially when the grid's that close. From Alpine's perspective, I thought they were, I still think they're moving in the right direction. I think they've been a little bit better at every race so far this year. Yeah, I don't think you're wrong with that. Salber is definitely sort the pit stops out and we're going to see them be a regular team fighting in the 12th to 14th region.

I do think that back group is incredibly close. But when a team can't get the basic function of a pit stop correct, I also don't have a lot of faith in their abilities. Equally, you're right. Alpine have taken a very small, lazy Sunday step forward as if to step out of your front door with the mindset of going for a little. a little troge around the park. They've definitely not done it with purpose and determination. We've not seen them make leaps and bounds forwards, but they're also equally not riding around in 19th and 20th,

not they could at this Grand Prix, of course, 15 seconds behind the battle for 12th or 10th, for example. They were relatively in that fight. Equally, I do think the salver pit stops make them look better. Because if there were no issues with sour pit stops, Let's say they both, Botte Asso and Mujo have three second pit stops every single time. I think O'Kong is miles behind. And I know he had the slight overheating issue with the tear off in the car,

but that's not enough to be race-defining. And Gassely, who I think was faster than Ockon pretty much the entire Grand Prix, picks up a penalty all on his own. It's not positive. So, yes, steps forward, but there's still nowhere near. There's still an absolute country mile off. Williams is the only one left, I think, to talk about. Yeah, I thought with Esteban Ocon, he was in the fight with that.

Albin and Magnuson. And it wasn't until he had that enforced very slow pit stop that he was out of the equation. So I don't know whether he would have kept that pace for the entire Grand Prix, but if he was around where they were, he would have been in the fight. Obviously, if Gassley works out of lines work, then he might be on to something. Williams, I mean, starting two cars is generally a good idea. So frustrating. I think Williams will be the team kicking themselves this weekend.

I think that they could have scored points. And I think, again, the same as Saudi Arabia. I think they could have scored points. And I think that's twice, two races in a row, that Alex Albon has been the reason why they haven't taken the step over. Obviously, Logan Sargent has to take his own pain on his back. And Saudi Arabia, he could also fast enough. but Alex Albon probably could have worked out a better overtake opportunity

to get past the very slow Kevin Magnuson and get closer to Holgerberg sooner and probably should have done. I think that Williams is capable. Here, we all know the story now with the chassis. He's lucky to be in that car and accelerate the most of it. I think that the Williams was fast enough to have been where Kevin Magnuson was coming into the Grand Prix. And their strategy was bizarre.

They were stopping so early. The tyres were falling off. There was no tire whispering going on around here, this time around. Alex Album's tyres were falling off super quick and it cost them to go because I do think that the car was fast enough to match at least KMAG if not fight with Holkenberg

That will lead us nicely into our final break on this episode. On the other side, we've got some moments of the race. Okay, welcome back. Final part of today's review episode and we get into, of course, moment of the race. We have some Discord submissions that we will play very shortly on this

but of course, myself and Sam have moments of the race too. Sam, what was yours? Mine is really boring and broad, but equally I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I did have a silly one, which was going to be Crofty's sticking nuts line, but I thought, you know what? Not today in maturity, not today.

I'm just going to give it to Carlos Sainz winning. I genuinely, this is no disrespect to Max Verstappen. It did make it a more interesting Grand Prix by him not being there, and that is a compliment to Max Verstappen. That's how. good he is. Equally, it was a bit of a, that's the wrong phrase, but I hope you get what I mean,

a bit of a zero to hero moment for Carlos Scyon's to be kind of out in a surgery room 16 days ago. It was a recovery story, yeah. Yeah, it's a real moment for him. It was a great story for the sport. And I think a lot of people were really riding high on Carlos Sience at the moment. And he deserves it. He deserves a lot of that energy, especially with him losing his seat. So this is a great turnaround. And his, the moment, the race is to see him cross the line going, you get close to me, I want across the line together. This is fantastic that we did this. It was a really nice Ferrari moment,

and I'm glad that Carla's got it. A bit of an underrated moment that I've just remembered was Yuki Sonoda absolutely planting a move on someone who I can't remember who it was. But it was a great move, I thought. Was that after the fast chicaning going into the final sector? Yes, yeah, yeah.

Yes. Yeah. I think it was a hearse. Might well have been. It was a late breaking maneuver, nonetheless. and of course he is a low breaking hall of famous so very much appreciated that any lb moves i've also gone signs related for my moment of the race i've got a bit more specific with his win which was actually him singing smooth operator i love it honestly i can hear him do that every time i don't know why

but i love hearing him sing smooth operator um but argue i mean his engineer singing to him in the first instance was great and then obviously he joins in so uh i'll go with that but of course we do have some Discord submissions. Yes, we're going to kick off. And thank you to everyone. We've had to do, as always, a bit of culling, because there's so many of you that send them in and they're all brilliant, they're all funny. But we like to mix it up as much as we can. If you want to submit these, we do these before every race preview and in every race review, you've got really quick, get in the Discord and it's in the submissions channel. You'll see the notification come through asking for them. So we're going to start off here with Alex. Alex, what are you going to say?

Hey there, boys. It is 1.30 a.m. in New York City and we just finished the Australian Grand Prix. Thanks, Max, for blowing your car up. That was nice. My moment in the race? Got to be Carlos Sines winning it after the appendix surgery. Smooth operator with the smooth operation.

Coming in, getting the dub. That appendix was extra weight. He didn't need it. Have a nice night, guys. Yeah, Alex, no appendix, no problem. Am I right? What happens when Esteban Alcon turns up for work on Monday and realizes someone's put in his calendar appendix operation.

It won't just be the appendix, mate. I need more than that. Fair shout, actually, with, I know it was a difficult start time. Again, not complaining for Europe. Definitely not complaining. Late start, a late one for East Coast in the US as well. So thank you very much, New York represent. Yeah, as we finish this episode, we'll get to the end of it.

I think me and Ben have now been awake for over four. hours and it's 10 to 8 on a Sunday morning. Weird. It's lovely. Can I move on to Cade? Not a moment of the race, but I guess I just want to apologize for that Lewis DNF because that was my fault. Celebrated the Max E&F too hard. I flew too close to the sun and that one is on me. I'm so sorry. Yeah, and the words of Fernando along so. Karima. Ikadris. It's not often you get a kind of a Greek mythological reference getting put onto the podcast

but you know We appreciate it when it happens We do Don't melt your candles into wax And create wings out of feathers And then fly into the sun What great story that is Anyway, joy's that kill

You're up next So Salver fired their whole pit crew from last year And hired a bunch of kindergartners For the 2024 season Tell me I'm wrong I don't think you're wrong. I think it's an incredibly valid point.

I can't make the case against it. What is a kindergarten? Because to me, that sounds like the German work for child garden. Kindergarten. It's like nursery, right? Like preschool, right? Yeah, yeah. Okay, cool.

Interesting. Because Kinder is also chocolate, which I find very confusing. Okay, it's our favourite Westinger. It's Bristol Liam. Morning, lads. Salber mate, seriously. What are your wheelguns doing? What are you doing?

What's anyone doing? It's too early for this. He's summed it up brilliantly there. So confused in normal circumstances, but extra confused due to the time. Yeah, it must be very difficult to wake up that early in Bristol. True. Next up, we've got Faster Than Your Mama. Hey, y'all, Faster Than Your Mama here.

My moment of the race has got to be the look on the entirety of Ferrari as they sang the national anthem. They just seemed so proud and content with their accomplishment there. And my worst driver of the day has got to be Daniel, where'd that cargo? Because holy crap, Danny, wear that cargo. Keep breaking it, y'all. That is such a sick burn. It really, it's very clever. Very good.

We didn't think about it, to be honest. Allo Vera all round for that burn. Damn right. Moving on, we've got Roof. Hi, it's Lee all the way from South Africa. Wow, what a race. My moment of the race is a red book. I give out an apology letter now like Mercedes-Dut.

Ha-ha. So happy for change. Okay, Joy day. Oh, it's just the South Africa Nelson that gets me. Oh, it's a day for savage submissions. Yeah, yeah, it's brought up. No prisoners. No, poor Max there, just looking at his destroyed rear tire,

blaming it all on that. I'm sure he'll be back very happy and comfortable at the front in Japan, so that won't be a problem. This is a great Discord name. You've managed to combine three Formula One drivers into one, which I'm, you know, very impressed with. It is Pietro de la Rosberg. Good morning, boys.

I'm on the race is watching Alonzo's onboard. And right after your last lap, Russell does his thing, the first thing that his engineer says is, well, you're all clear behind now. That's one way to put it. Yeah, yeah.

The car behind you has plummeted into the wall. You're good to go. I'd love to know if Alonzo just went, copy. I mean, the array of responses that Fernando Alonso could come out with, I would hate to try and predict it, to be honest. You know what, I've just thought of this? I'm disappointed, though, that that happened,

because if Russell had stayed on the back of Alonzo, Alonzo could have used his staying to the hugging himself to the wall tactic that he used in qualify. Oh, he's so clever. That's what he was doing. He knew he's going to need it in the race. He knew it. I actually want to give credit to Mr. Harry Ead,

because he tweeted after that happened, saying that he believed that Fernando Alonso was cleaning that side of the grid and knowing he wasn't getting better than 10th. And that is a very Fernando Alonso thing to do. So if that is the case, well, firstly, well done Harry Ead for noticing because that's good from you. Secondly, Fernando Alonso, you're bloody genius. Love it.

Next up, it's the elusive man who could disappear at any moment. It's Houdini. Hey guys, it's Houdini here from Australia. Long time, first time. my moment of the race is Fernando Alonzo tearing up his job application by trying to send George Russell into his rear bumper. Now, that's an interesting take. Houdini believes I think that there was a bit of foul play there. Sure.

Sure. Also, we did have a woman on the ground in the Australia Grand Prix. She's left us for too long now, quite frankly. Come back, please. We'd be struggling. So please come back. But she has been kind enough to take 30 seconds out of her rather glamorous life to send us an update. It's producer Kirsty, live from the track.

Hi, guys. It's Kirsty here live from Albert Park. Hope you guys are awake and behaving. And Sam hasn't somehow already mentioned poo this podcast. Too many times. My moment of the race. And I can say this now because he is safe and well, was the crowd absolutely losing their minds as a smoke.

began pouring out the back of that Red Bull, and the cheers and celebrations that erupted across the track as soon as Bostappan stepped out of that car. Chef's kiss. Anyway, I'm back in the UK soon, so I'll see you then. Bye! That's a classic LB sign-off as well, though, with the high pitch goodbye. That's something that I wanted to bring up, actually,

is that after we went to Cota, it's something that I was reminded of. You see so much more of what's going on with certain drivers and moments around the track that just what the cameras show you. The amount of moves, for example, that we saw happening that weren't ever shown on the telly. Yeah. I imagine that when you see someone like Max for staffing and his current guys,

D-N-Fing right in front of you, there is a huge crowd reaction. I think it really drums up a lot of anticipation for you. Yeah. Could you imagine that's Silverstone? I don't want to. Pretty good idea. Thank you very much to all of those submissions.

As Sam mentioned, we only have time to play some of them. So to those of you that have submitted and we couldn't get on today. Apologies. keep trying because there are plenty more opportunities throughout this season. Of course, we ask for a moment of the race after every single Grand Prix and we ask for who's under pressure on the preview of every race as well. But the good news for all of you, though, is that we're back midweek. Yay!

Yeah. Harry is back, Harry is back, isn't he? I believe Harry's back and we're also going to be doing our power rankings for this Grand Prix, which will go on Patreon as a three. So that will be happening very, very soon. Absolutely. If you want all three of us, you're got to pay. Apologies.

He is the premium member. He costs a lot of money. He does. Well, would you mind getting us out of here until then? I suppose I can. I've just got to hear that my cameras died. So hopefully that's recorded, because that's at least at the end of the episode.

Thanks for listening. Hope you enjoyed it. Hope it was worth getting up for or being up for because we're a global sport. Join the Discord, the link to the description. Follow us on social media late breaking F1. That is on all platforms. this has just been recorded as well.

So maybe give it a watch on YouTube. We're growing a nice little community over there as well, and we appreciate all the support. Give a five-star review. Subscribe, get involved. If you're loving it, join the Patreon because you get loads and loads of extra content. And I promise you, it's worth it.

We'll be back midweek as always, and we'll see you then in the meantime. I've been Ben Hocking. And remember, keep breaking late. This podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network.