The Late Braking F1 Podcast - 2024 Austrian GP Sprint Shootout Review

Episode Date: June 28, 2024

Ben and Sam review the Austrian GP Sprint Shootout - the first of many competitive sessions this sprint weekend in the Styrian hills. The boys cover all of the action including Verstappen edging out the McLaren duo, a floundering Ferrari, and a surprise Sargeant SQ2 appearance... LONDON LIVE SHOW! Join us as we preview the British GP live in London on 2 July, full event info + tickets HERE 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 SEND us something! We have a brand new PO box - address: Late Braking Podcast, PO Box 821, TRURO TR1 9PE EMAIL us at [e-mail] & SUBSCRIBE to our podcast! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Make sure to check out new episodes every Wednesday and every Sunday. A very warm welcome to the late-breaking F-1 podcast presented by Sam Sage and me, Ben Hocking, on Sprint Qualifying Day in Austria, where Max Verstappen has taken poll for the sprint race tomorrow. Lando Norris joins him on the front row. Sam, it's always a bit of a frantic dash when it comes to qualifying in Austria, isn't it, with such quick lap times? yeah such a quick lap time so you think oh well i'll have plenty of time to get out and set lap times

it won't be a problem at all we won't have people missing laps and you know does our oh i mean come on they spent more time sitting in the bloody pit lane than they did going round it was so frustrating to get excited about a qualifying session and we've said it time and time again how qualifying is regularly the session that always delivers but when you've got cars sat there for five or six minutes of a 10 minute session with mechanics just chatting away. It's a bit of a letdown, isn't it? You turn up, it's in the middle of a Friday for us in the UK. It's super early morning for those in America. You just think, get out on the track. That's the whole point of this, seeing cars on the track. I was quite frustrating watching it. I really thought this is disappointing. This is not action-pack.

This is not fun. This is me watching a car sat in the garage. We'll get on to that as one of our topics that we'll focus on today. And I mean, not that we're going to get into. anything off track, but F1 has given us a lot of news over the last 48 hours or so. So there's a lot for us to get through next week. Yeah, I mean, we've had one contract renewal, one contract extension that we knew already existed, but it's now just officially pen on paper, Lance Strull. James Vowles has hired everyone. James Vowles, I'm going to work in a moment because Williams have brought me in as an engineer. That's how many people they've hired on. Honestly, they did so many hirings. They couldn't do

a social post with all the names. That's how many people got hired. They suddenly went, the shop is empty. That might be why our car's got very good. Oh, let's bring in some people immediately. That's one of the biggest hires. I think we're seeing in Formula One for a long time. Yeah. And no doubt. We'll get into that at some point. But as mentioned today, we'll focus what's happened on track, which is Max Verstappen has taken pole position just under a tenth of a second, separating him and Lando Norris with Oscar Piastri three attempts back in third. Now, given the Austrian track is quite a short one, it's the quickest lap on the calendar. Three temps from Vostappen back to Piastri is quite a gap. So again, we were asking the question

in our preview, would it be a bit of a two horse race between Vestappen and Norris? On the evidence of this session, at least, seems as if the answer is yes. Yeah, it does seem as if the answer is yes. I wouldn't take this as gospel. I take it with a pinch of salt. We've only had one practice session. And, you know, look at when Norris performed in FP1, right? He was outside the top 10. He was struggling overall. And yet, boom, sprint qualifying comes along. He's less than a 10th away from Max Verstappen. Max for Stappen had problems with his car in free practice one. So it shows you how quickly a session can flip. And I think as the driver's become more progressively comfortable, Oscar Pustry being quite a good example of this, because he's still

so new to the sport, he's only in his second year, he's only on what race 34 or something of his entire F1 career. It might take him a couple of sessions to really settle into the flow of the weekend. I think that qualifying, the full qualifying tomorrow might be a little bit closer up the front. I think that Max and Norris will reach the peak and I think that everyone else will then close up and get a little closer. We might see the same front row,

but I do think the gaps are going to be smaller. But the gaps all the down to the top 10 rapidly got large, didn't they begin? As we kind of went from Piastria, three tents, and a ghastly intent is two seconds away. Yeah, we'll get into why that was in a little bit. The battle out front, it was similar to what we saw, I think,

Barcelona. Now, obviously, we didn't have a sprint at Barcelona, but we did see between the first run of Q3 and the second run of Q3, there was quite a rapid improvement from both Norris and Vestappen. I think we saw a very similar thing here between SQ2 and SQ3, where Vestappen was obviously still very quick in SQ2 and Norris less so, but they made such significant gains between those two sessions where those other drivers weren't quite able to do the same thing. You know, Vastapa made, I think, about half a second or so between SQ2 and SQ3. Other drivers were finding two temps, two and a half temps, three temps. It doesn't sound like a lot, but when you consider it's Austria, it is quite a gap that

both of those drivers were able to find. I think at least for all the following sessions, including both races and main qualifying that will happen tomorrow afternoon, the key to beating Vostappan, or at least the key to getting close to him, is that final sector, because he has been a monster in sector three, which is, I don't want to say it's surprising,

but given how short that sector is, it's only a couple of corners. The fact that he's had such an advantage in those last few corners is very impressive. He was, he was tense ahead of everyone in that sector in practice, and that followed through into qualifying as well. at a purple sector three. He was also fastest in sector one as well. So I think that will be the key to beating him or at least attempting to beat him is can anyone touch him in that final sector.

What's really interesting about that final sector is, of course, it's predominantly those two very fast right-handers on the penultimate corner and the final corner. It's very interesting that the setup doesn't seem to apply going the other way through sector two, which of course is predominantly turns five and six, the two left-handed corners that, of course, run before those because the sector three starts just after those two corners. So it's really, really interesting that he seems to be so quick in sector three, but the characteristics of the car don't seem to carry over through sector two, whereas actually that seems to be his weakest of the two sectors.

And I wonder if that's because going through turn four, he's struggling with the slowness of the corner and the traction out of that corner. And I wonder that if they're close, if someone like Norris might be like to take advantage of that in the race and get a move done, maybe with the switch. back or go around the outside. And if they could get ahead of Max early on, then maybe that's the way you hold him off. But yeah, he's a, because soon as the lap, like you said, it's only a, what, a 64 second lap to be tense faster in one sector, pretty mental. Yeah, I guess to use another

Barcelona comparison, he was very good in the final sector there. And if you think about what the predominant two corners in that final sector in Barcelona, it's two very quick right-hand corners, same as what we've got here. So maybe it does make sense in that regard. Piastri, time-wise, was a bit further back from his teammate and Vastappen, but he has, of course, led both Mercedes, both Ferraris, everyone else in the field. So you've got two McLaren starting second and third. Strategically, that opens up the book a bit.

Yeah, I put Piascri as my under pressure driver for the weekend, and this is exactly what I meant, where he couldn't deliver in qualifying in Spain because of mistakes he made, not because of the pace, but mistakes he made. He has removed the mistakes, and he's now right there alongside Land and, Norris. The point is, he's the place behind his teammate. It doesn't really matter to me if he's four-tenth, one-tenth, half a tenth, he's third. And when it comes to racing tomorrow, he's the guy that lines up right behind his teammate, and he's the guy that with McLaren could help deliver a two-three, could be a one-three, could tactically be so important because Max Verstappen, his

teammate is what? Seventh, eighth, he's all the way back there. He's miles away. And in a sprint race around the track that is so difficult, surprisingly difficult, to make moves, get stop because you get DRS trains. Perez, again, might be entirely useless for Max Verstappen. He might spend another whole Grand Prix stuck behind both Mercedes, stuck behind both Ferraris, stuck behind both McLaren's, and Max Verstappen's having to fight up there on his own. Piascri has done exactly what Red Bull need their second driver to do

and delivered him being the wingman, delivered him being that backup driver. Piatry got rid of the mistakes, and he's delivered exactly where I said he need to. In qualifying, he's right there. Yeah, a stat that I mentioned on the preview episode is that that since Imola, McLaren are 22 points clear in the Constructors' Championship versus Red Bull. This sort of thing is only going to help McLaren further having their two drivers in that top three.

The Mercedes duo. So Russell will start fourth. He was three and a half tenths back of Vastappen. Hamilton, a bit of a scruffy session for him. He'll be six, nearly six times back from Vestappan. What were your thoughts on their sessions? I was quite impressed with Russell, actually. Hamilton had got better practice, and I felt like he had the car hooked up very

nicely, but it came to the competitive session, going through SQ1, Hamilton makes a mistake, has a massive snap going through turn one, which is really worrying. It looked like he almost binned it off immediately. And then he runs wide, going through sex to two, into that double left hand, the turns five and six, picking up the gravel. So he has to go and do an emergency second lap, which you don't want to do in a session like this. Your tires are so limited on a spring weekend that that could be damaging for the rest of his whole weekend if he's lacking tires. Joe Guangu was the other driver that had to go and do that, of course, knocked out in the first session of SQ 1.

But it put Hamlets under a lot of pressure, and he only just may get into SQ2, but from there on he kind of picked up the pace a little bit, but never managed to get up to the scratch of George Russell. George Russell, despite being fourth and a few tents behind those top two, is absolutely ragging that Mercedes. I really think he's pulling everything he can out of it. He beats both Ferraris, beats his teammate, beats Sergio Perez. The only car he should maybe be challenging further is Oscar Piastri, and that McLaren is faster

than that Mercedes. I generally think he's really delivering well, Hamilton again. You need to just find that extra tent, extract that little bit more. I was surprised at how scruffy it was. Because Hamilton historically, has been quite good around Austria. Tends to go quite well around here. So, yeah, the fact that he's a couple of places down, I think actually masks how scruffy the overall performance was for Hamilton.

Yeah, I think Russell had a good session. He'll be slightly disappointed. I don't necessarily think it's on him, but he'll be a little bit disappointed that what he would term something close to his best could only get him in fourth based on what pace he had in practice. And based on what the pace he had in the earlier qualifying sessions as well, he was the closest challenger to Vastappen twice in this qualifying session. But obviously, McLaren were able to unlock a little bit more in SQ3 versus what Russell could,

which is kind of been a staple of Mercedes season so far has been that they've had reasonable pace up until the point where they've really needed to pull it out the bag. And they've kind of had just 90% of the pace of some of the other cars around them. But to beat both Ferraris, to beat his teammate, Russell's had a good session there. Hamilton, that was a poor quality. And he's admitted this in his interviews afterwards as well. It was a poor session from him. He was fortunate to get out of SQ1, really made himself work harder for it than he needed to.

Picked it up a little bit, as you mentioned. But he is fortunate to be only sixth based on Lecler not being able to set a lap due to an issue, based on other drivers having to, you know, not perform optimal outlaps based on timings. He can be thankful that Mercedes were not involved in that mess and they were the team that decided to go out first and at least give him a clean effort because if that wasn't the case,

he might be even worse off than sixth. So he's got pace. I think he's got a good pace this weekend, which is, you know, on a sprint weekend, to have only messed up one competitive session out of four so far. The best one as well. Yes, the best one to mess up for sure. sure. So it does, you know, give him encouragement, I think, that he can get it together, but this

was not a good session for him. His race pace does look good. In practice, he looks consistent. He looks pacy. He looks much closer to Russell, arguably better than Russell. And there's a lot of racing to do this weekend. So if he gets a good start and he's alongside Russell by turn three, he could pose some issues, I think, to kind of that piastri podium battle. Yeah, Mercedes really focused on long run pace in practice, which is understandable if I was analyzing the times of practice after it happened. And there weren't all that many drivers that had about, you know, more than about six or seven relatively consistent laps on a stint. Hamilton was out there. He was doing like not far off 20 consistent laps on the hard tires. So that does bode well for the two races that are coming up.

Let's get on to what happened at the end of the session then. You've already referenced it in the intro that, you know, we had the Mercedes duo come out first. They made the line quite comfortably. But as the queuing continued, the drivers at the back really struggled. Charle was unable to set a lap time. That is due in parts to having an issue in the pits. He got going, but not with enough time to spare. And the likes of the two Alpines and Sergio Perez set far slower times than was expected. So like you say, they were sat in the pits for a long time. This was not far off being Monza from a few years ago. Yeah, it's silly. I don't know if you've ever been in this situation, listeners, in your personal life where you think, oh, you know, I've got to be somewhere at

1 o'clock. You know, I've got nothing planned in the morning. I could leave nice and early. I can meet my point, you know, and I've always run by the expression of to be early is to be on time and to be on time is to be bloody late at that point. To be late is to not bother turning up at all, because at that point, you've ruined your chance. And this happened in qualifying today. You have 10 minutes. I understand wanting the absolute best conditions. on the racetrack, but 30 seconds, 45 seconds earlier, is not going, especially when you're someone like Alpine. Why are you not going out there first? Get your lap in. What happens if there's a red flag? You might end up one and two. Take a chance. You know you're probably going to qualify

at the back of the session. What are you hoping to game? You're hoping to beat a Ferrari? I mean, you're okay, you kind of dig it in Spain, but your cars aren't actually that competitive. It's got a regular thing for you. So get the car out there. Sertje Perez, you've been naff all weekend and you were half all weekend in Spain. Go out there first and set a clean lap time. So you ain't got a panic. Which he did. He couldn't get his tyres warmed up properly.

And his lap was crap. And then you've got the others that are going out as well. Why are we having Ferrari blundering around hoping to get the cars across the line when we've got fangs sat there watching nothing on track for minutes at a time, which is boring. We were live streaming the event. We were doing a watch along. Everyone in the chat.

This is boring. This is rubbish. What am I waiting for? What a waste of everyone's time? The format clearly not. providing more entertainment if they're bored half the time. And of course, Ferrari's problem with the Clare's car is nothing to do with sprint qualifying. That kind of happened in any session, it's bad luck that you got sent out when he did and then had a problem. But equally,

if you sent him out with five minutes to go, you've had more time to sort of the problem. You could have gone round, come back in, got another go out of it, you go back a lap in and guaranteed he'd be at least start in front of the Alpines, if not higher up. So it was a session that didn't work, the format fell through, it was badly planned, and I don't know why every team put themselves under so much pressure that they ended up having to make silly laps like this. I think basically only five cars, maybe six, got a lap they were totally happy with. Bit of a faf, absolute kerfuffle. What a mess that was.

To expand on the analogy that you opened up with where you say that people in their personal lives will, you know, know, know the feeling of leaving it as late as possible. it's that, but it's also knowing that every single other person on your street is also making that exact same journey and are looking to do exactly the same thing as you. They just play chicken with one another, right? And just every couple of years it happens where they just push it a little bit too far, something like this happens. And then the limit will probably reset again next weekend, whether they'll be much safer and then they'll push it weekend after weekend. And then at some point, and probably this time next year, they'll have pushed it too far and we'll be back in the same spot. I think this is, with the timings, this is one area in which the sprint qualifying doesn't quite work.

Because we have seen in previous qualifying sessions, like regular qualifying sessions at Austria, because it's such a quick lap in, say, Q1, rather than two flying laps for teams. We've seen teams do three because you've got the time to do it. but here what's happened rather than they haven't quite had enough tires and time to do an extra run. So they have done the same amount of laps as they would do in any other sprint qualifying session. But of course, Austria, that relates to far more time in the pits than it would like Saudi Arabia or a far longer lap. And that's really where this is let down. I think it actually promotes the idea that I've mentioned quite a few times, which is just

really reduce the time down in SQ3 and make it a true one-shot quality because that's what it ends up being that's what we had here. It was a one-shot quality. So just cut the time down, only give them five minutes. Five-minute session, yeah.

Because then at that point, we're not sat around waiting for cars to come out of the pits and we get the same session anyway. It doesn't change anything. So I agree. There were cars as well that would have benefited from going out a few minutes early. I don't think the track is evolving

was that severe that it would have been too much of a disadvantage. And yeah, for the likes of the Alpines, for Sergio Perez, why not? We'll get into those three drivers, actually, right after this break. We've also got more from the SQ2 and the SQ1 eliminations. Black Friday is here at IKEA and the clock is ticking on savings you won't want to miss. Join IKEA family for free today and unlock deals on everything from holiday must-haves to cozy at-home essentials, all the little and big things you need to make this season shine. But don't wait. Like leftovers at midnight, our Black Friday offers won't last. Shop now at IKEA.ca.ca.com. Bring home to life.

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What did you make of those two Alpine drivers? Obviously, SQ3 did not go to plan for either of them, but you could argue maybe not a lot more was on the table anyway. It's another qualifying session where both drivers have navigated the first two sessions are qualifying. It might be my shock of the day. There's one other which we'll get onto it a bit that contends with it. But that was up there with my shock of the day because I thought,

at a track like this, which is such a power track. and Alping have really struggled with top speed performance. I was really surprised to see both of those cars make it through to SQ3. I really thought they'd be out in that SQ2 period, maybe like 12th or 13th or whatever, but I really was surprised to see the beat out both the Aston Martins, both the RBs, both the harsh drivers. You know, there's a lot of cars there that are very quick and a straight line. That's not Alpine strength.

They are a cumbersome vehicle. They are a bit of a chunky boy. And so to see them, they'll be making an impact like that. It's very, very good. I think ninth and tenth was the best that they can attain. Unless someone made them a proper mistake, obviously Lecler didn't set a time so they've been promoted to eighth and ninth.

It allows them to be as good as they could be. I think that's as far as they could go, which is great that both drivers are performing to the same standard. It's a great driver line-up. I'm really glad that both of those drivers are secure. I know they're not. Only one of them is there for next year. Good stuff helping.

That was a strength that you had, but that's gone. And I think O'Con might actually have the lighter car here, which I think they have actually swapped over. So true to their word are Alpine. They've given Ockon the car, and the difference is evident. There was about a 10th or so in it between Gassie and Ockon

and pretty much every single lap that we had. But they've delivered. And well done to them. Really good to see them step up, really good to get them into that session again. We have the same top 10 in SQ3 as we had for qualifying three in Catalonia. Exactly the same.

So they're starting to have a little bit of form and a little bit of precedent for being that final team getting in. But I was surprised. I did not expect to see they both make it. But yeah, really, really good job. Yeah, very good again. I wasn't overly surprised based on the practice pace that Ocon showed. Ocon was, I think, sixth in practice. And he had reasonable pace to show that he could beat those other sort of midfield contenders. I mentioned how good

Vastaffan was in the final sector in both practice and qualifying. The only other three drivers that went sub-20 seconds in practice in that final sector were the two Ferraris and Esteban-Ockon. Of course. Sure. Why not? But yeah, I think they did a good job to get through to SQ3. I think they will be, well, I don't think they had too much left on the table based on the other teams that were there in SQ3, but they did mess it up.

So Pierre Gasly was nine-tenths slower in SQ3 versus SQ2, and Esteban-Ockon was half a second slower in SQ-3 compared to SQ-2. and of course, the reason for that is how much they had to rush that outlap. They weren't far off doing a full push lap to then get a push lap in, which is never the right way to bring in the tyres. And I, look, I'm not sure how it would have gone, but we saw other drivers improve by three temps, four temps, even half a second in SQ3.

If Ocon does that, he's competing with Hamilton. I think there is a reasonable chance he would have been there or thereabouts with Lewis Hamilton's lap in SQ3. I think Gazley was a 10th or two off the pace, so maybe not for Gasly. But for Ocon, I think that was achievable. So maybe they have lost a position or two here. But even so, starting 8th and 9th, that's a good effort. What about Sergio Perez?

Because he was 1.3 seconds off of Max Verstappen, but again, he had to really push on that outlap. The worst part about Sergio Perez here is, again, whether he was to get a lapping or not, I don't think he's going any further up that grid. He was struggling in SQ1 and he struggled in SQ2. He was never beating both Ferraris. He'd never beat both Mercedes. He'd never beat both MacLagis. It was nowhere near his teammate.

You know, there was at one point in SQ2 where the front eight had done a run and the back eight hadn't done a run and Perez was at the back end of that six tenths away from his teammate. And you just think, even if Perez went out first, got the tires warmed up, delivered a lap that was properly decent.

I still don't think, he's beating. He might be Hamilton because Hamilton was really, I think, struggling. But, you know, he's lucky to be in front of Lecler because Lecler had the problem. Because realistically, I think he could have been behind him as well. Paris is struggling with qualifying at the moment. And therefore, it's transferring itself into being a poor race result because he's unable to extract more out the car to get past the competitors around him. I'm, again, disappointed. But I'm not surprised, Agar. Even with the mistake, even with the lack of tyre warm up, I'm not shocked, Aga. And I think actually he's pretty much found himself exactly where he would have done had he had he. Had he, he, he's not surprised. He

had a perfect session because that's all he's able to get out of the car. So not good for him, but also not surprised by him. You've already referenced qualifying three in Barcelona and how it's the same lineup as what we've had here. And what's more, because the comparison goes even further, I think, in that in both sessions, you've had six fast drivers. You've had one driver mess up Q3. It was Lecler here. He didn't mess it up, but they've messed it up. And Piastri obviously was the one who messed it up in Spain by not setting a lap time.

And that's left, three drivers in the middle of nowhere, battling over three positions, who are Perez and the two Alpines. And that's the same thing that's happened two weeks in a row, which is pretty damning from Perez's perspective. I think he had the chance to beat Hamilton

and signs here. At his best, he was roughly four temps away from Vestappen. Now, Vastappen does pull out these great laps in Q3. So whether that was ever achievable right at the death, I don't know. But I do think he should have been competing with the likes of Hamilton and signs. And it's a team decision as much as a driver error that's caused that to be unachievable. But as mentioned earlier, when we said that McLaren are going to have a bit of a playbook with Norris

in second and Piastri and third. I appreciate there's no pit stops, but you can still work with each other to try and get by, Perez probably, unless he makes a great start, it's not going to be in that picture. So, yeah, it's going to be tough for them. I think we might also be at risk, and I hope to be proved wrong here, but Perez says on an odd occasion being a little rash into turn ones. And I think somewhere like Austria, I wouldn't be surprised if we see him try and chuck it up the inside of turn three or at turn one.

And you remember Mexico at its home Grand Prix, of course, last year, had a good start. What needed to make a good impression? Absolutely ruined his race on turn one. I feel like there is a slim chance that this could happen again somewhere like Oscar. Fortunately, he'll have other sessions to make it up, but I do think it's possible. Some stories a bit further down the grid. So let's go back into SQ2. I want to focus first on Kevin Magnuson quite comfortably ahead of his teammate.

That's my other shock of the session is not only was he comfortably ahead, Holgerberg out in SQ1, Magnuson P11, less than half a tenth away, sorry, from getting into SQ3. He's maybe had his best qualifying session of the entire season so far here. He's, we give him a lot of critique. He's taking a lot of criticism from around the Formula One world.

He still hasn't got a seat signed up for him, but this is the kind of performance that if he can start delivering week in, week out, you know, this is only one. It needs to be many more than this. Maybe he'll get himself signed up again for next year, but much better, much better, but really unusual to see such a divide

where Holgerberg is, what is it, six places behind his teammate compared to Magnuson, that is a real jump back. Usually when Magnuson does out-qualify Holgerberg, which does happen, they're usually right next to each other. There's maybe a place or so between them. But six in favour of Magnuson is almost unheard of. So I guess when there's a great divide between two teammates, you immediately ask yourself the question, is it a great performance by the driver that's out-qualified his teammate, or

is it poor from the other driver? Here, based on everything I've seen in practice, based on my brain, you know, beliefs about where that car is, I think it was a great performance by Magnuson. I actually think where that car's true paces is far closer to where Holkenberg's put it than where Magnus put it. Yeah, they did not look great in practice. They had a couple of runs on soft tires towards the end of practice and they weren't quick. I was expecting, I have to say, before Quali, I was thinking they might be both knocked out

in Q1. And not only that Magnuson has survived Q1, he has become very, very very very, very much. very close to getting into Q3. I think it was about half a tenth that separated Magnuson from getting there. So, yeah, this is undoubtedly one of his best qualifying performances in a long time. Two other drivers that were knocking on the door of SQ3, but not able to make it. The two Aston Martins, Lance Stroll out qualifying his teammate Alonzo, clearly buoyed by that new contract. The 12th and 13th.

What did you make of their performances? Yeah, 11th, 12th and 13th, all knocked out by 0.12 of a second. So incredibly close between P-10 and then 11 at 12 and 13, which is great to see. We love that level of closest, that level of competition. But unfortunately for Ashton Martin, both cars out again before we get to the final qualifying session. They were closer, which is promising,

but they're still behind the likes of Alpine. If they're not being beaten by Holgerberg, it's now by Magnuson. And Stroll, being a long-so seemingly struggling at the moment around this Austrian track. He didn't have a very good SQ-1. He had to get through at the death. It was not a promising first lap at all. When Stroll jumped up into the top six at one point, Holcom, Alonso was all the way down in, I think, P-16

and had to kind of get a lap in to make sure the job was done. It's looking like they're getting through by the skin of their teeth. And the car seems to have a good lap in it, but it almost feels like you need absolutely perfect conditions. And those are so finite, so small to be able to deliver a top lap. Stroll found it slightly more than Alonso, but they're equally matched here today. And that's very, very interesting.

but the car looks a handful. It really looks difficult to extract anything promising out of that, Aston Martin. Yeah, I'm equal parts encouraged and disappointed, really. So, yeah, Alonso seemed to struggle. P-13 seemed about where he should have been. From Landstrol's perspective, I think he's got serious pace here this weekend.

He was quick in practice. He set a lap that made me go, oh, okay, all right, maybe that's a one-off. In quality, I think he had, comfortably enough pace to get into SQ3 and I think he would have done if he didn't mess up that final corner. We'll see because we know that Landstrel doesn't necessarily always convert on pace when he has it.

If he can, I think he will be far higher up on the grid tomorrow than what he is today. Qualifying. Qualifying, yes. I'm not quite sure race pace-wise what they'll have. But I think he had the pace to get into the top 10 and actually make an impression on the back of the grid. I wouldn't have been surprised if he was at the back of that group of where Lewis Hamilton was,

just based on some of the pace. I think he had a good pace to get through SQ1 as well. So it's somewhat confusing because it's very rare that Stroll has that pace and Alonzo doesn't. But that's why I'm disappointed that he's not through to SQ3 because I think he had either the car or his own performance or a combination of those two to get it done. Ashton Martin just need to make it easier to extract the post from the car. When they're that close together as that end result, it tells me more that the car is probably the problem, not the drivers that you've got at hand. And if it's just a little bit easier to hit that perfect sweet spot, I think both of those would be capable of unlocking a few more places. Unlock so definitely can. Strull maybe a little bit more circumstantial depending on track. Seems to go well here at Austria, which is great. But that team, that money, the finance behind them, you know, they should be getting into Q3 every single week now. we saw a Williams make it through to Q2 Alex Albon right

no what do you mean are you telling me there's another one yes the other one being Logan Sargent Alex Albon was knocked out in 19th place so he'll start from the back row of the grid Logan Sargent not that he was able to make it

any further forward than 15th but he did make it through to SQ2 I believe that's the second time he's ever outqualified Alex Albin although neither of them have actually happened in quote on quote proper Grand Prix. What did you make of that result?

I was overjoyed for him. I was on the live stream, talking about Logan Sargent at the exact point where he crossed the line, and I was slagging him off. I was saying he was rubbish. I was saying that, yeah, they brought him in for potential talent,

and, you know, he's not going anywhere. He's mucked it up too many times, and even a good session, he's not going to be able to pull it back. And then he knocked out his teammate, quite comfortably. Whilst I don't think this is saving his career, I don't think he's getting re-signed after this one performance, that was so much better from Logan Sargent,

because that Williams is gnaff, it's a handful, it's not good. So the fact that he out of those two managed to get it into SQ2, and he's knocked out a couple of big hitters as well, both Holgerberg and Daniel Ricardo, gone, because of Logan Sargent's performances, that's something to celebrate, and I hope he celebrates it. I hope he gets out of the car,

hope he feels really, really good, I hope the team giving the praise. I was clapping him on stream. Really great stuff from him. I hope it's not a one-off. I hope the race tomorrow. He at least somewhat either goes forward or sits with the cars around him and Albaugh doesn't get past him easily.

And I hope he'll qualify. He's able to maybe take another position forward or at least emulate what he's done already. But this is better from Logan. Do it again. And again, I want consistency. Don't make it a one-off. I don't want to diminish the achievement that Logan Sargent had earlier this season when he out-qualified Alex Albin.

I think in the Miami sprint because Alex Alburn had a lap time deleted or he had both lap times deleted. He was unable to set a time. So of course, Logan Sargent now qualified him by proxy. Yes. Again, I don't want to diminish that too much because you've got to take your laps. But equally, it wasn't when they were both at their best 1v1. Here, first run in SQ1, Logan Sargent was ahead.

Second run in SQ1. Logan Sargent was ahead. and we're not talking a few thousandths of a second. Logan Sargent beat Alex Albin by about two tenths of a second. Around Austria, that is a handy gap to have. He thoroughly deserved his position in SQ2. And obviously, as mentioned, he wasn't able to go any further than that. But based on that, Williams, I don't think he should have been expected to go any further than that.

This was him out qualifying Alex Alburn with no external circumstances going on. This was pure pace. Logan Sargent had the best of Alex Albin, and he deserves credit for it. James Vals came over Team Radio just as he got through to SQ2, I think, and congratulated him, which I was glad to hear, because he deserves it. Very good performance. Great. Before we go, Sam, just a quick focus on RB, because our leading question about that team coming into this weekend was the upgrades they brought in Spain, would that be this weird one-off? or would they recover to something a bit better here in Austria?

The answer, at least to this point, not really. It's not going anywhere, has it? It's just as bad currently. Well, they had two cars knocked out in Q1 in Spain, so they have gone forward. Yeah, great. Cool. Well done then. Sangha, of course, in 14th place.

Daniel Ricardo in 16th place. I think that just chops and changes who they're around, basically. Of course, Joe Gwang, you managed to get into qualifying two in Spain. is knocked out in SQ1 here. So I think it's, you know, when you do that first elimination, it's a little bit potluck. You get a good laping,

depending on whatever car you're in, you might get through. I think that's what's happened with Yuki Sanoda, I think, who had that massive spin, of course, in SQ1.

He managed to get a slightly better lap time in his team, mate, and it was him that got through. It starts out by two places, but the car looks a handful. It looks like they're having to stretch the track at every corner to get the laps in. Needed driver seems fully happy with it.

I don't know what's going on with those upgrades. A lot of people have been calling them upgrades, which I'd be doing a quotation mark if you're only listening to this. Because they don't seem to be doing anything. They've dragged the car right down when they use people where Alpine was, they need to switch something on or sort something else out because this is a disaster. This is one of the worst set of upgrades I've seen on the car for a while.

Yeah, not good. To be honest, this is one where I don't have too much more to say because I think the car was where the car should be. I know, like you say, Yuki Sonoda did enough in SQ1, Daniel Ricardo didn't. It was by the finest of margins. It was barely anything separating them. And then as soon as Sunoda got through to SQ2, he was able to beat Logan Sergeant, but no one else. So I don't think I have a driver can look at their performance and say, damn, we've left a lot out on the table there.

We could have had another five positions. I don't think that's the case at all. This is just not a car that's operating very well at the moment. Final point, Ben. On your bold prediction, you're lucky, I think, that you gave both qualifies. sessions because currently you're 50% wrong. Yeah, but I was 80% right in that I had four teams that were knocked out in SQ1, not five. I wasn't banking on Salba being back to their usual slowness.

I was hoping they might be somewhere where they were in Spain. Otherwise, might be in with a shot here because, you know, we had a Hass, we had a Williams, we had an Alpha Tauria, whatever they want to be called now. So, you know, it could happen tomorrow. it's going to take Salba being quite a bit quicker. We'll see. Folks, remember to keep check of our bold predictions as we go throughout the weekend. And remember join the Discord.

The links in the description. If you'll hear yourself on the race review episode on Sunday, and we will be back again tomorrow after qualifying and the sprint race. We're going to be doing both of those in one episode. Ben, anything else? No, drive rid of the session? I will give it to Logan Sargent. Oh, fair play.

I will give it to... I'm going to give it to Kevin Magnerson. I thought that was a very impressive 11th place. That's lovely. What a nice little wholesome moment there for those two. Good stuff. All right, folks, thanks for listening. Remember, you can join the Patreon as well

and you'll get your power rankings, which will be coming out on Monday. And we've got our live show, which is happening on Tuesday. Can't believe it's only round the corner, so that's going to be really fun. So if you're in London, tickets are still available.

Have a little look. See if you'll be joining. In the meantime, I've been Samuel Sage. And I've been Ben Hocking. And remember, keep breaking late. is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network.