The Late Braking F1 Podcast - 2024 Bahrain GP Qualifying Review

Episode Date: March 1, 2024

Ben is flying solo to deliver you a review of the first qualifying of the year! Defending World Champion, Max Verstappen secured pole for the Bahrain GP but there were small margins across the field. Ben runs through the main takeaways from the session and what they might mean for tomorrow's race, from Verstappen back on top to Alpine's back-row lockout... 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! 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 well welcome to the late breaking F1 podcast presented by me, Ben Hocking. Today, the first qualifying session of the year, the first of 24. It is good to have F1 back properly in a competitive session where Max Verstapp and took pole position for the first race this year, alongside him on the front row, the Ferrari of Shao LeCla.

Something of a similar pattern from last year, which we got a little bit similar to what we had last year up and down the grid, but also some quite substantial differences. Looking at you, Al P. We'll get to all of that a little bit later on. I have been left with the terrifying prospect of being all alone for today's episode. I'm afraid Harry is gallivanting. across the globe, Sam's moving house. But hey, I'm reviewing the Bahrain qualifying. I think I've won here.

I'm very happy to be here presenting what happened this afternoon. And as mentioned, I think we should start out front with Max Verstappen claiming that pole position. Again, it was good to have F1 back. And actually, it was good to have such a competitive session. We'll talk about the gap that Vastappen had over the rest of the field in just a moment in Q3, but at least in Q1, just one second or so separating first to 20th place, so to see such a competitive grid, 18 cars and two Alpine tractors at the back, great to see. Now, there are obviously caveats to that in that everyone at the back of that grid was absolutely going for it to make it out of Q1, whereas I think the likes of Red Bull and Ferrari still had pace in their locker at that point. But even so, that gap was double.

in Q1 last year. There was two seconds separating first down to 20th. So we're in a better position already, what that translates to in race pace, which is going to be something that's going to be mentioned a lot over the next 30 minutes or so. It is only qualifying. We don't know of all of these teams that have shown pace and not a lot of pace, how that's going to translate to race day. But as a first sign, pretty encouraging stuff. As mentioned, Vastappen, we'll start with him. grab pole position in the end by just over two tenths of a second, which is an interesting margin that I'd like to go into a little bit. As mentioned, Charles LeClair was in second place,

just to run through the rest of the top 10. George Russell was the lead Mercedes in third place. Carlos Sines will start directly behind his teammate in fourth. Sergio Perez, four positions behind Max Verstappen, a little bit of discussion and a bit as to whether he should be happy with his efforts there or not. Alonzo will join him on the third row in sixth. The two McLaren's will make up the fourth row of the grid in seventh and eighth, Norris ahead of Piastri, Hamilton 9th, and then the Hasse of Nika Holkenberg getting into Q3. Definitely not the last, we'll speak of that today. But yes, Vestappen out front,

two tenths of a second, or just over two tenths of a second, I should say. And I was thinking to myself, what would Red Bull and indeed Max Vastappen's response to that be? Now, naturally they are the heavy favourites going into this year, based on what they did last year, based on what they did in testing, based as well on the practice sessions. They look pretty good yet again. But there were a lot of questions, not necessarily about whether they would be the favourites, but how much buy? And again, we'll see what it's like in terms of race trim, but in quality trim, it was more of an outstanding question. Because last year, the likes of Ferrari were on it on Saturdays. I appreciate we're talking on a Friday today.

But the likes of Leclerons signs were very much on it in the second half of last season. In fact, throughout the second half of last season, Ferrari had more pole positions than Red Bull did. So it wasn't beyond the realm of possibility that to start this year, Ferrari might well be able to challenge Max Verstappen, at least in qualifying.

And I think they can say that they did challenge, but ultimately Vestappen was able to pull it out the bag when absolutely necessary. And whereas Ferrari didn't move a great deal from Q2 to Q3, Vestappen seemed to still have a little bit left to offer. So actually, I think the overriding emotion from the team and from Vestappen should be one of, I've gone with relief. And maybe relief is too strong a work, because I don't think there was ever that much doubt.

And hey, look, Vestappen started second and third quite a lot in the second half of last year. he still won nearly every single race. So maybe relief is too strong of a word. But if you're doing this sort of a job, as Vastappan has done, in what is, in theory, the weaker side of your operation, I know it sounds weird to call something weaker when it comes to Red Bull, but if you're looking at race pace versus quality pace, typically Red Bull have been stronger in terms of race trim.

So for your weakness to lead to a 0.2.28 second advantage over the second fast, driver? Yeah, I think that's a good result from Red Bull. I think they will be pretty happy. Appreciate that there were a lot of question marks after testing. Would that gap be half a second? Would that gap be seven tenths of a second? And who knows? Maybe on race day, that is what the gap will be. But at least in qualifying, I don't think there should be any disappointment from their side that they're only two tenths clear. It's also a circuit-specific thing as well in that generally speaking, the gaps are quite small at Bahrain. It's very difficult to open up too much of an advantage on the rest of the field in that, let's face it, I mean,

the third sector is entirely straight line apart from the last corner. The first sector, even though you have got that tricky sort of turn one, two, three complex, it's still a lot of straight line. So at that point, you're letting the power unit do its thing. And there's not that much of an impact you can make as a driver, which does generally lead to smaller margins between teammates, the smaller margins between the drivers as a whole. So for Max Verstappen to still claim a couple of attempts, I think there will be relief from Vastappan and Red Bull's side that actually, despite some rather radical changes

they've made to the car over the winter, actually they are still definitively the car, the driver, the team to beat. And they look, Vastappen as well, just to add into this as well, I think there was a little bit more time in there. Not to say that Vastafn didn't put together a great lap because he absolutely did. But if you noticed, even though his final run, he did have a purple first sector, it was not a purple middle sector. It was an improvement on his first run, but it wasn't a purple middle sector,

if I'm remembering correctly. And indeed, his third sector was not even a personal best. So he, in short, he wasn't able to pull together his three best sectors at the end. if he had done, maybe there was another 10th in this, maybe even more. So that should be encouraging from Max Verstappen's side. From Ferrari's perspective, they were deemed to be the closest challenges to Red Bull going into this weekend, and that still looks like it's probably going to be the case.

Will they be slightly disappointed with a second and fourth place? Maybe just a bit. It's hard to be overly disappointed at, you know, the only team with two cars in the top four. But equally based on how often Lecler and Sines were on pole position last year, maybe just a bit of disappointment that they're not quite on poll here. Again, it was a good challenge from both of them. Carlos Sinesis looked pretty quick across the weekend.

He was fastest in FB3. Charles Lecler pulled together a great lap in Q2 that he just couldn't quite expand on in Q3. Maybe there's just a little bit of frustration because the pattern last year was Ferrari quite, very well, and then it was just a matter of time before Red Bull overtake them. Here, they're going to have to, you know, unless they get off the line very well and can beat Verstappen down to turn one, they're going to have to do the work of trying to get past

Verstappen, which, hey, in the last two years, hasn't been very easy, not only for Ferrari, but for literally anyone. I think from Seind's perspective, he was only one tenth away from LeCler, bear in mind. I think he might be a little annoyed not to be second and third at least, ahead of us, I'll speak on Russell in a moment's time. And then from LeCler's perspective, yeah, again, maybe there was something in there. What will maybe be most disappointing from LeCleur's perspective and from Ferrari's perspective is that the one thing they did not want to interrupt or interfere with this session in any way

was some sort of disagreement between Charler LeClaire and the team. and within like 10 minutes of the new competitive season, we had it again. Charlerler was not very happy at having to do two runs on fresh soft tires in Q1, which, look, Carlos Seines pulled together the lap on the first run and, you know, he didn't need to. So you could say to Sharwell,

if your first one was a bit better, you wouldn't have needed to. On the other hand, this is another instance where, before so many times, Char Lecler not necessarily agreeing with what the team asks him to do. And he believes this was something that directly impacted his ability to get pole.

Now, there are times where something like that will happen in Q1, it's very easily forgotten about and actually might not make much of an impact at the end of the day. Lecler thinks here that this did have some sort of impact because by using up two sets of fresh tires in Q1, it forced him to

go a little bit. I think he referenced it disrupting his rhythm in Q3 because suddenly he had to use, use tires where that wouldn't have been the case if he'd just stuck with the one run in, or the one soft run in Q run in Q1. So yeah, I think that, you know, that is annoying, that is frustrating from their side because that's the one thing that you would like the Freddie Vass era to stamp out. It's been a staple of Ferrari for, I was going to say years. but you could probably go back decades at this point. It's been one of the principal reasons that they haven't been as competitive as they'd like to be

and to see it impacting them on the first qualifying session of the year. Not overly encouraging. And as mentioned, the reason it wasn't a Ferrari second and third place on the grid is because George Russell was able to get in the middle of that Ferrari sandwich. Russell third, interestingly six positions ahead. of Lewis Hamilton. This is one of the more difficult ones to analyze, I think, because Mercedes expectations going into this first race of the year. I wouldn't call it a roller coaster, but it has gone up and down a little bit. So I feel like after testing, there was an expectation

that they were somewhere between third and fifth in terms of the pecking order, which seemed about fair. Then the practice session started and suddenly, inevitably, when Hamilton got fastest in FP2, there were more expectations placed on the team and it feels like after qualifying, they've come back down to roughly where they were going into the weekend. Now, there is a, you know, you can play substantial importance on being fastest in FP2, not because it's worth anything in terms of points or anything like that, but there is a great deal of importance of being fastest in FP2 just based on the timing of the session. You know, no disrespect to Daniel Ricardo, who topped Q1, sorry, FP1 on Thursday morning, but it means very little. You know, P1 is used more as a track of climatization session more than anything else.

And look, in qualifying, it didn't mean anything with Ricardo down in 14th. but with FP2 and the thing that distinguishes it from FP1 and FP3 is that you will be in the same conditions, as long as there isn't a massive weather difference between the two days, you are going to be in roughly the same conditions for qualifying and indeed the race. Just time-wise, it pretty much lines up. So there was a good amount of expectation going into this session from Hamilton side, from Mercedes side. I think from Russell's perspective, it has pretty much. much been converted. You know, third place is a, there's a strong effort. That car seems very good in the

final sector as well. But from Hamilton's perspective, less so, six positions difference between those two drivers. Just for reference, that is a marginally bigger gap than between Holkenberg and Kevin Magnuson and between Alex Albin and Logan Sargent. Now, I think the positions is maybe slightly misleading in that time-wise it wasn't a huge amount between the two drivers. But equally, Russell, throughout all three sessions, did seem to have a minor edge on Hamilton. The question is, is this just going to be set up focused? We've got indications from Hamilton that Russell and Hamilton have gone in different directions, with Russell focusing on a bit more of a quality setup,

Hamilton focusing a little bit more on race pace. So who knows, when we get to this time tomorrow, we might be looking at Hamilton being clear of Russell. you know, only time will tell on that one. It will be annoying for him, though, that, you know, even with a better potential race pace than his teammate, that's a lot of ground to make up six positions, because it is not going to be easy for Hamilton to pass the two McLarence.

It's not going to be easy to pass Fernando Alonzo. In fact, it's never been easy to pass Fernando Alonzo, regardless of what car he's in. And indeed, Sergio Perez has put up a number of good fights against Hamilton in the past. So, you know, it's a trade-off. I think what maybe is frustrating from Mercedes-side is it's this sort of thing that they wanted to stamp out from last season. Because whilst George Russell and Lewis Hamilton quite frequently have their day when it comes to qualifying, they ended up dead level in terms of head-to-head last year, it was very rare that actually both of them found form on the same day.

Here, we've kind of got the same thing again, where Russell is clicked for him, he's third-place, second row of the grid, Hamilton gets into Q3, had a few struggles to get into the next session in qualifying throughout the hours session today, and now suddenly has to do quite a bit more work in order to get up where Russell is. Again, maybe the setup changes will be worth it. That remains to be seen. Last thing I want to talk about on this side of the break is is Nika Holkenberg, because this is one of the extensions from last season. As mentioned, there are some things today that are a little bit different from last year. Alpine 19th and 20th, again, don't you worry, Alpine, I'm coming for you on that.

But one of the things that was very much a continuation from last year was Holcomberg pulling out great qualifying sessions in order to get to Q3. And quite frankly, where his teammate couldn't. Kevin Magnuson did get through to Q2, not by a lot, but then he didn't make a great deal of it, starting 15th, so the last of those who made it through to Q2. Whereas Holkenberg, not only did he make it through to Q3, I'm not going to say it was comfortable, but also he wasn't on the bubble. He pulled out a great lap in Q2 to then make it through to Q3,

wasn't able to advance any further than 10th, but again, he wasn't a drift of everyone else. He was within a second of the fastest time, I believe give or take a 10th or 2. and the likes of Hamilton and Piastrian Norris weren't that far down the road from Nik Holklenberg. And, you know, the question now starts because today should mean, and I mean this in the nicest way possible to both Holkhamberg and Hass, because it's an achievement, don't get me wrong, this day should mean very little for them. The only reason I say that is because Holkenberg did this plenty of times last year and

more often than not accounted for absolutely nothing, right? Nika Holkenberg, you know, pretty much got as many Q3 appearances as he did points, which should never happen. But from Hass's perspective, it did. You know, the good thing from Hass's side is that there was so much focus in testing and indeed an FP1 as well, where they were seconds off the pace because they were just focusing on long run pace, because it was their definitive weakness from last year. Holkenberg would qualify 9th, 10th, and after five laps it'd be 15th and just no contention for the rest of the Grand Prix. They've spent so much time over testing an FP1 that there was really an unknown

as to whether they still had that one-lap pace. The good news is today has confirmed they do have that. That has not gone away. Now the question turns to, is there any difference from last year in terms of that long-run pace and that tireware issue that absolutely plagued them? and we should know very, very early on. If after five laps, if after 10 laps in the race tomorrow, Holkenberg is still operating around 10th place,

even if he's just fighting for points, even if at the end of the Grand Prix tomorrow, Holkenberg finishes, let's say 12th, has got to consider that a good weekend. Because even though they might have not have completely solved their tire wear issues, if he was only to drop two positions from where he qualified, that is a massive step in the right direction.

But on the other side, if he's P-16 after 10-15 laps, it sounds as if even after all of that work over the winter period, you probably haven't gone anywhere. So from Holkenberg's perspective today, absolutely brilliant achievement for him, deserves all the plaudits that he is currently getting, definitely in contention for driver of the session. From his side, just got to hope that there's, you know, there's some race pace hidden in that kind of. car somewhere. Magnuson's perspective, just to mention as well, about seven temps separating him and Nico Holcomberg, which has got to be gutting because, again, Magnuson needs to perform this year. There is Olly Behrman very menacingly looking over his shoulder, getting a lot of time in that car in FP1 sessions this year. Magnuson does not have a contract for 2025 at the moment. He needs to perform. Not a great first impression from him, given his teammate got into Q3, where he

couldn't. I'm going to let my voice rest for a moment or two. I'll let your ears rest for a moment or two of my voice. But on the other side of this short break, I'm going to be chatting through Williams, chatting through McLaren, and I'm sorry, I'm going to be chatting through Alpine too. Okay, let's get this out of the way. Alpine, not a lot of expectation for Alpine heading into this, I was going to say this session. Not a lot of expectation for Alpine heading into this year, based on what we saw in testing, based on some of the quotes were coming out in launch season.

Not a lot of expectation whatsoever. And hey, Alpine have delivered on something. The problem is they've delivered on their own lack of expectation. 19th and 20th. Goodness me. being behind the two salbers, being behind Logan Sargent, having absolutely no shot whatsoever to get into Q2. This is a dismal, dismal.

I was going to say turnaround. What's the opposite of a turnaround? Just breakdown from Alpine's perspective. Ockon was the lead of those two drivers, which is great for my teammate wars prediction over Gassley, because, hey, at this rate, it might come down to a qualifying head-to-head if they end up at nil-nil.

They are going to have to be praying to whatever God those two have, the upgrades that are coming are actually upgrades in a few races time. Because if they're not, this is going to be a long season. And fair play to Esteban Ockon, because he might have been the most optimistic person in the world after that session when he came over Team Radio, saying this was just round one. Honestly, at this rate, I don't know if you're making it past round three,

technical knockout. this was this was abysmal that car i don't think you can say it's a handful it's a it's a shovelful how on earth can you produce a car that is so bad versus what you had the year before i actually haven't had a look yet at what their qualifying pace was this year at barrain versus last year at baron and hey pierre gazley actually qualified in the exact same position that he did last year in 20th place. But whereas he made really significant progress in last year's Grand Prix, getting up to 9th, I don't think there is any optimism whatsoever that he's going to get 9th to. Look, if there's a 1 in front of that 9, that might be an expectation that can be delivered,

but anything further than that, I don't know. All of the side, this is one of those occasions where testing has been absolutely accurate. Yeah, as soon as, as soon as testing ended, or really, as testing was going on, there were rumours that, okay, maybe it started out as Alpine might not really have improved. Okay, that's disappointing. Then the narrative kind of transitioned to, well, maybe they're behind, maybe they're behind Menardi, maybe they're behind Williams. Okay, that's pretty disappointing. And then it just kept snowballing. And suddenly the conversation is, are they behind Salba? Are they competing with Hass? At which, point you think surely this is not the conversation we're having but hey it was a legitimate

conversation to have based on these results and unless they are really really sandbagging to the point where hey we want to just put everything we've got on race day this is going to be a tough afternoon i think for those two um both of those drivers are up for contract at the end of this season. And often, you know, when it comes to teams and drivers, it's a case of, well, will the team want to keep them? After today, maybe it's the other way around. Will the drivers want to stay there versus some other options? Because even though they might be the only, they are an OEM, they are the only team that run the Alpine power unit. So in theory, if they get something right, they're the only ones that are going to prosper from it. But here we're seeing the opposite,

where they're the only team to get something very, very wrong and their lack of links up and down the garage is going to cost them to the point when no one else is suffering from these issues. Oh, boy. I really don't know what that... I mean, the most damning statistic of all. The first...

This was read out on commentary, but the first time since 2016... Now, they were under a different name at this point, but for all intents and purposes, it was the same team. first time since 2016, where they have been the slowest two cars in a qualifying session. Not good. Every single car was within one second in Q1, apart from one. And that man was Pierre Gasly right at the back.

Good news, Alpine. Can't get worse. Wait, no, it probably will now. Oh, damn. Sorry, Alpine, it probably will get worse. But yeah, this was impressively bad. And honestly, I don't know. I've predicted them to finish, I think, seventh in the championship.

Them upgrades better be good. Let's move on to Williams. So, interesting session from them. Alpen got into Q2, but no further. It didn't really threaten Q3. I think 13th is a solid effort. It probably indicates that they are roughly where they were last year, not a great deal of difference.

From Logan Sargent's perspective, unfortunately, again, it was more of the same. he qualified 18th. So he was marginally behind the two sourb drivers. Bottas was 16th. Joe was 17th. And again, he was 18th out of 18 if we're counting F1 cars and not tractors. So a bit disappointing, I think, from Logan Sargent's perspective.

Maybe at this point we shouldn't be disappointed at his lack of qualifying pace. It's not exactly the first time. But I think going into this season, it was very much something that all three of us identified that the qualifying pace has to get better. Not to say that the race pace can't as well because it absolutely does need to get better. But even if the race pace does get better to the point where it's somewhat level to Alex Alburn, until he starts qualifying near him, it's not going to matter. He's five positions lower than Albin here.

It could well have been more. And what will frustrate Sargent the most is there wasn't a great deal of difference between Albin and Sargent through their first runs in Q1. and indeed going into some of the latter races of last year, the gap was often quite small. So after the first run of Q1, it was quite, I don't know, I felt like that's something to build on. If he can just stay within a 10th or 2 of Albin here,

make it through to Q2, qualify, let's say two positions worse off than Albin, then suddenly that's something to work with. But that wasn't the case, because whilst Alex Albin in the second run of Q1 was able to improve quite substantially. Logan Sargent went nowhere, and he was confused by it.

I don't think he knew why he wasn't able to follow Albin's pace. You know, the track was ramping up. We're focusing very much on Williams here, but nearly every team up and down the grid improved on that second run, to the point where Ferrari decided Charlotte-Claher in sixth wasn't safe. And they put him out there again. And many other teams around that area

did the same. The track was ramping up. Times were getting better and better. Logan Sargent, not a lot there. He was, I think, just about in the top 10 through the first half of that session. It will maybe worry himself and worry the team that there wasn't that extra gear there to push him ahead. And again, maybe that race pace gets better, but until that qualifying pace follows through, it might not matter a great deal. Another team that might be a little, a little bit of a little. Another team that might be a little disappointed with how this session went is McLaren. Maybe it would be more accurate to say mixed feelings because the positive in the first instance for McLaren is that they are in the fight. Norris qualified seventh, Piastri qualified eighth. In the fight is something they have not been at Bahrain

for the last two years. You know, Daniel Ricardo two years ago for McLaren got knocked out in Q1. Lando Norris knocked out in Q2. Last year, at Bahrain, Oscar Piastri was knocked out in Q1, obviously slight asterix, it was his first race, and Lando Norris was knocked out in Q2. So no Q3 appearances whatsoever the last two times we've been to Bahrain. Here, double Q3 appearance. That's the good part. The slightly worrying part, and I think there's one worrying part for both drivers here, is that Lando Norris, I feel, should have been somewhere in the top three or four. I think based on the pace he was showing early in the session. He just, similar to what I said about Vastappen, but obviously it was more costly

for Norris, is that he didn't hook together the lap late on. So from memory, he didn't have a personal best in the first sector on his second run. And that kind of scuppered him from there. You know, you would want to see three green sectors to show that you are pulling together your three best sectors at the right time. Landon Norris failed to do so. Landon, and the margins were so slim throughout Q3 that, you know, it cost him another tenth or two, and suddenly he's very much in the fight for second against Lecler. As it happens, he's towards the back of that group. And again, the fact that they're in the group is the encouraging thing.

Don't get me wrong. But I feel like they'll be disappointed that they don't have at least one car in the top six, top five. instead they're just occupying the fourth row of the grid. Piastri, from his perspective, whilst the worrying thing about Norris was, I think he had more to give and didn't, I think from Piastri's perspective, he finished eighth,

but he probably didn't have any more than eighth. Throughout the entire session, we saw him really struggle to match Lando Norris, and indeed the only time he did match Lando Norris was in that final session. And in all honesty, I think the reason he did wasn't Piastri stepping up a gear. I think it was Lando Norris failing to put together that lap.

You know, I think Piastri's got a lot of potential, but here it seemed like that gap was notable in the same way that the Alonzo Stroll gap was notable, or the same way that the Albin sergeant gap was notable. It always felt like Norris had probably not one gear more than Piastri, probably two or three. Again, Piastri put together some pretty good race pace, I think, on Thursday.

So this might be another occasion similar to Russell and Hamilton, where actually Piastri's gone more in terms of a race setup, in which case we can sit here this time tomorrow and go, hey, it was absolutely fine what Piastri did in terms of setup.

And, you know, if it cost him a position or two in qualifying, it's absolutely worth it. But yeah, I feel like, if you'd have asked McLaren after the first session, after Q1, seventh and eighth, do you take that?

I feel like Zach Brown goes, no, not quite. I think there's more in the car than that. I did, I completely forgot to reference Sergio Perez when I was talking about Red Bull earlier. So firstly, apologies to Sergio Perez. And I did promise to speak about you a bit, so I'll do so here. He was fifth place and about three and a half tenths down on Max Verstappen. I think he can be happy with that in all honesty. Again, the gap between Russell and third and.

Lando Norris and 7th was so slim. And Perez has found himself pretty much dead on the middle of that gap. To be 0.35 away from Vestappen, that's certainly not the biggest gap we saw between teammates out there today. And to make it through to Q3 and get in the top half of Q3, I don't want to sound patronising, but equally, he wasn't able to achieve that a lot last year. There were many occasions where he didn't make Q3.

there were quite a few occasions where he didn't get anywhere near the top five. Here at Bahrain, he's been able to do so. And it stands him in good stead if that Red Bull is as competitive in terms of race pace as we believe it might be. He will absolutely 100% be targeting a position on the podium tomorrow. I'd be disappointed, I think, if he was any worse than third. I think second's achievable. It will be a bit of a question much to see, have Ferrari improved much?

in terms of race pace, because if so, then Leclair might be difficult to catch, and maybe signs in front of them will be difficult to catch as well. But if they have maintained that race pace advantage, you would want to see Perez either second or third, I would think. All that leaves is for me to do a driver of the day or a driver of the session, or we probably had a term for this last year that I've completely forgot. We definitely gave it out. Let's go with driver of the session.

I think the contenders for this would be Nika Holcomberg. I think Charles LeClair is in that discussion, even though he couldn't quite capitalize on getting pole position. George Russell, Fernando Alonzo definitely had a good session. I haven't really spoken much about him, but he was great. And a bit of a shout-out as well for Yuki Sonoda. I think he did a really good job, even though he didn't make it through to Q3.

I think that Minardi isn't quite. white as fast as maybe some were expecting them to be. They seem to roughly be where they were at the end of last year. But even so, he was clear of Ricardo, pretty much any time you looked at the timing session across Q1 and Q2. So credit to him, I'm really sorry. I'm going to be boring. I'm going to give it to Max Verstappen. He's pretty good. He was too, I know I've said it before. He was just over two temps clear, which Bahrain, I think, is a good margin to be clear of the second place driver. And alongside that, like, if you were to then take that same gap, that 0.228 back from Lecler, you suddenly get all the way back to Norris in seventh to say that the gap between

Vastappen and Lecler was about the same as the gap between Lecler and Norris. So if you're, you know, if you're that far ahead of your second place driver and then the next six drivers are separated by that same gap, you've done an all right job. I'm pretty sure that'll be the last time he gets driver of the session driver of the day this year. Sure. I think that will do it. You've heard more than enough of me for one day. Fortunately, I think I'm getting some company tomorrow. I say fortunately for me, it's probably more fortunately for you. Yeah, whilst Sam is still moving house, he'll be back midweek for the Saudi Arabian preview. I should be joined by Harry Ead. Harry, if you're listening and you're not joining me, I'm really disappointed in you.

and all the thousands of people are really disappointed too. That should be enough to encourage him to be here. What that does mean, though, is Sam's great of these outroes, and I'm not very good at them. I just have to plug things here, right? So Patreon, that's something you should do. We've got our first power rankings and driver ratings coming out on Sunday if you're on the right tier.

So the Patreon link, as always, is in the description. And we'll be looking to upload that one either Monday or Tuesday where we just give a frank assessment out of 10, how we think each driver has performed. As mentioned, I'll be back tomorrow for the race review itself, which will be going out as per normal. Discord was really alive and popping. Is that something kids would say during the session today? And I'm sure it will be tomorrow as well. There's always a lot of people getting involved on race day. So if you're not already involved in the community, I've lost count with how many we've got there now. I think it's about 2.5K or something along those lines. So please do get involved.

F1 Fantasy, we just passed the 1,000 team mark, which is unbelievable. Thank you ever so much to everyone who's joined. We didn't think we'd get anywhere near that number. So if you haven't joined our league yet, if you haven't set a team yet, unfortunately, you're a bit late for this Grand Prix, but there's still 23 to go. That would be an epic story. If you haven't got a team and you join our league after this race and you still win. That will put all of us to shame. That's got to count for something. Again, that links in the description. You can catch us on socials as well. Late Breaking F1 is the tag you need pretty much everywhere. Apart from Facebook, we don't do Facebook, but we are on, we are on, I can't call it X, Twitter and Instagram. So do get involved there. I really have spoken

enough now. So I'll leave you to it. And in the meantime, keep breaking late. This podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network.