The Late Braking F1 Podcast - 2024 Bahrain GP Review

Episode Date: March 2, 2024

Ben and Harry review the first race of 2024 in Bahrain where it was back to business as usual for Verstappen, who cruised to a victory with a 22s lead over teammate Perez. The boys dissect the performances of the Top 5 teams, as well as the RB tussle and Alpine struggle. As always, they also review their predictions, name their DOTD and hear YOUR submissions for Moments of the Race... 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. Everyone welcome to the late breaking F1 podcast presented by Harry Ead and me, Ben Hocking. Bahrain Grand Prix Review, first review of the season. All 20 drivers finishing the race, but none of the 19 able to do anything about Max Verstappen taking victory first race of the year ahead of his teammate Sergio Perez, Red Bull 1-2, with Carlos Sines joining them on the podium. And I am glad that Harry is back.

You left me by myself yesterday. I didn't know what I was doing. Oh, mate, you smashed it. I listened to that on the way home this morning. You made it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you nailed it. Way better. I was, I just sat and listened to it. I was like, I couldn't do this. I couldn't do 37 minutes on my own. It would be chaos. So, no, you did very well. Well done, Ben. And I'm back now. And Sam will be back next week.

Exactly. We'll be reunited as a three, at least temporarily. Again, our greatest attendance was in January this year. Sure, very late breaking indeed. But we're not here to talk about that. We're here to talk about the Bahrain GP. And as mentioned, Max Verstappen taking a very dominant win, 22 seconds at the flag,

which is pretty ominous, given that is about 10 seconds or so clear, of where he finished at the end of last year's Bahrain GP. And if you remember, that's 2023. From there, it went pretty well for Vastappen. So the omens are good if you are the Red Bull driver. Harry, is it possible that Red Bull might be faster than they were last year, at least at the end of last year? I was quite buoyed by qualifying yesterday.

I thought, you know, my sort of prediction to the start before the season of they'll still be ahead, but it'll be closer. After qualifying, Max was only two, two or three downs ahead, and Perez was, but, you know, deep in the top, top ten. But yeah, no,

their race pace. Oh, my, oh, oh, no. No, chads. Yeah, that's, that's a bit depressing. I mean, Max is more than Perez, I guess Perez, again, a similar story to last year, and they had to fight his way back a bit, and signs

stuck with him, but it did seem like he had signs covered for most of, well, for the rest of the race. But yeah, Vestappans, race pace. Oh, blimey. I think it could have been way more than 22 seconds if he wanted it to be, which is one of the more worry and point. Yep. It's quite ominous. And how just he looked like, I've, I look more. worn out just after I've woken up than he did after that race.

He was just so chilled. He's like, yeah, really great day. Carl was great. I'm great. The world's great. That was, he was, he was just not bothered or not fuss. So, yeah, it's possible. I don't know, but Bahrain for them last year was fairly dominant as well.

It was a similar story. I know the P3 was different this year, but, yeah, maybe we can take some solace in that. I don't know because last year was just them winning all the time. But yeah, this was fairly ominous. And whether that car is just better a race pace now than it isn't qualifying, that's going to be, if it carries on it, that's going to be a long old season. But I will remain positive and say,

because there were some positives from other cars this weekend, other teams. But yeah, they've come up the blocks strong. That's fair to say. that is an understatement and a half but you are absolutely correct and I feel like the only people within the red ball circle that might be disappointed with how today went is anyone that has anything to do with sponsorship because you know a car is very good when you only see them about twice a race so the sponsors might be unhappy because if if today is anything to go by they aren't going to

get a lot of attention all year excluded qualifying there were multiple times where the camera just just after 15 laps or so remembered for Stappan was there. But of course, there was nothing to show of him because of how great a job he was doing out front. And obviously, it's very car dependent as well. But again, he was 22 seconds clear of his teammates. So, you know, that is evidence of what a great job he did. Yeah, this is very worrying for literally everyone else.

Because you're right, qualifying wise, it was far closer. But again, second half of last year, it was fairly close in terms of qualifying anyway. But even in some of the later Grand Prix of 2023, if we're thinking about, Las Vegas is probably a good example. I appreciate the two seconds are very different. But even though Lecler didn't take the win, he was in contention for a good chunk of that Grand Prix. Here, it felt like a lap and a half, and that was it. And you were never going to see, you were never going to see Vistappen again.

and your point about how it was 22 seconds and it felt like it could have been more, I think is absolutely spot on in that A, they only used one set of hard tire. The hard tires were the preferred tire out there by a long way to the point where the mediums, as far as I'm aware, were not used by anyone. The hard tire was the preferred race tire and yet Red Bull only had one set of them compared to everyone else who had two. So in theory, if they had two, I feel like that would have added a few more seconds onto it.

And also the first stint on the soft compound tire, I think Vastappan was out there just as long as anyone else, because he could be. Like, there was no threat of an undercut to the point where I don't think he pulled off the optimal race strategy. If it was the optimal race strategy, he probably would have come in at the same time as the likes of his teammate and the Ferraris.

Instead, he was like, well, might as well just stay out here. There's literally no reason not to. so yeah, if he wanted this to be 30 seconds, it would have been 30 seconds. I'm very confident in saying that. And I appreciate he was on the soft tire for that last stint. But when he set that fastest lap late on,

I think it was about 1.4 seconds clear of the existing fastest lap at that point. Goodness, is Pedro Deloco record safe. That would say the same thing. Yeah, yeah, I'll squeeze aroundabouts. You've got to look at the light of the horizon, and Pedro Deloresa's record is safe for another year. Oh, God.

Anyway, we'll see how that carries on into the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, of course. But a very good start to the season for Max Verstappen. Again, massive understatement. But from Sergio Perez's perspective, as you say, he had a bit more work to do starting from fifth place. But he seemed to get on with it without much fuss at all. It wasn't very long until he found himself into P2. Yeah.

I may, again, a story of his year last year, but if the qualifying had been better, I think maybe he could have been p2 to start with. But it probably would have been the same result anyway. You're right, he just sort of, yeah, got on with it, just picked them off one at a time. And the strategy you worked well from as well. But yeah, that car was good enough that I think he just, they could. They could do what they wanted. But yeah, no, it was, it was a good drive from Perez. I was thinking this, well, when we're watching the Arbys, the Menarbees,

battling at the end. And Riccard obviously got there in front of Sonoda. And I was, I was thinking, that wouldn't be enough to get the seat next year. And I was like, well, at the Red Bull seat next year, sorry. But look at the Perez performance. That's exactly, if he just does that every race, why would they ever get rid of him? So from his, I know that's obviously not his overall aim, but in terms of keeping a drive for 2025,

Just do keep you keep doing that, mate. You'll be fine. Yeah. I mean, why on earth would they go in a different direction? Particularly, you know, if one of Yuki Sonoda or Daniel Ricardo is able to offer more throughout this season, then that's one thing. And we'll get on to those two drivers a little bit later on in the show. But whilst they're fighting for 12th place outside of the points, nothing on offer,

and Sergio Perez is able to potentially just keep on picking up podiums like he did there, second place. that's a good step forward from where he was in the second half of last year. He wasn't doing that on a regular basis. That was often the McLaren's.

It was often Charles Clair picking up second place. So if he can continue that regular consistency, that is a statement that Red Bull will listen to and I think there's every chance

that they do continue on with him. I was quite impressed with the way that Perez was able to, I don't want to say cut his way through the field because it was only a couple of positions he needed to make up. But equally, the move on Russell, I thought, was quite an

impressive one because it was, it was very clean, it was very decisive. There was, there wasn't a lot of fanfare. Occasionally, one of the complaints I have about Perez when he's forced to come back come back through the field is that he sometimes gets his level of aggression wrong. There are times I feel he goes too far. And I think there are times where he's stuck behind a car for too many laps. here it felt like he had the first opportunity he had and he just telegraphed the move exactly didn't he like he knew

Russell was going to defend the inside into term four so he knew exactly what he was going to do as a result of that and you know it's close racing but also it felt fairly comfortable so he didn't waste any time in getting it done I was quite impressed by his performance well don't check him

nicely done um the Ferrari duo Carlos Seines and Charlotte Claire finishing third and for, oh, hang on a minute, I'm just hearing. Lecler has locked up again. He has just sat down, but he is locked up again. He managed to get fourth. He was nearly fifth, but he got Russell Lillian for fourth place.

What do you make of Ferrari? Do you think that they should be buoyed by the fact that they seem to be clear of Merck, McLaren, and Laster Martin, or a bit disappointed that Red Bull are still a long way down the road? Yeah, mixed bag for Ferrari. Redboard clearly a long way down the road, although as Sines mentioned in his post-race interview, Perez was in sight at least for him.

And I think if Lecler had remembered how to drive his car for the first half of the race, he probably would have been in that mix anyway because his pace in the second half was excellent. But the first bit was terrible. I think he is still searching for the apex of turn 10. He's not found it yet. Goodness me.

But he will find... That runoff has never seen so much action. I mean, It wasn't just him. No one wanted to do that corner today. Yeah, yeah. Very odd. I know it's a tricky corner,

but we've never seen that so often in a race. Very strange. I like the Merck's using it. So like Russell was just deciding, I'm going to race down that part of the racetrack or not the racetrack. And Hamilton deciding, I'm going to go off,

therefore I'm just not going to move the steering wheel. Yeah, I'm going off anyway, so you might as well just commit to it. Yeah. But yeah, so I think the clerk could have been in there in that mix, too. I guess I'll be buoyed in that they're definitely, at least today, the second best, but their, yeah, LeClaire's initial race pace was absolute garbage. And I was like, oh, God, it's classic Ferrari.

And it was really until silence started to pick people off that it was more encouraging for them again, because he did have genuine race pace the whole way. So they will be buoyed by that. But yeah, a mixed, a mixed bag, because he's... Yeah, there's still at least one Red Bull is way, way up the road compared to them. I love what I saw from Carlos Seins today. I really felt it was a bit of a point to prove Grand Prix for him. Like, we know obviously what's happened with his seat over the winter period.

And we know he is essentially advertising himself throughout the rest of this year for a seat somewhere else. It felt authoritative what he was able to do. We're seeing qualifying and came up a little bit short on Leclair. it was about a tenth of a second. But he was quick throughout all three sessions. And then from the off, it just felt like he was on it. And if he keeps that up throughout this season, then he can only do himself well in that process of finding another team.

LeCleur, you're right. It was bizarre just how often he was locking up. The worst one was when he was essentially getting past and he was locking up. It's like Martin Brundle, I think, made this observation. on Sky Sports commentary of you're not the driver late braking into a corner trying to get a move done. You're the one who's trying to shape yourself up right for the next couple of corners. And just still locking up. There was clearly an issue there.

And yeah, it's almost a bit of a shock that he didn't lose more positions than what he did. You're right, though. It came back to him. So the second half of the race was certainly more encouraging than the first half. But I can't remember what the distance between signs and Lecler was at the flag in about 10 seconds. or so something on those lines. But yeah, you're right, it's a mixed bag. It's one of those where if you'd said pre-season to them,

you're going to be clear of McLaren, Mercedes, and Aston Martin. They'd say, yeah, all right, we'll take that. Oh, by the way, but you'll also be this far behind Max Verstappen. They'd probably get, oh, I'm not so sure anymore. Because, yeah, whilst Perez was in sight of Stappan definitely wasn't. They do seem to have something to work with, though. Yeah, a good basis. again, the race pace of

science was, where they've struggled last year was race pace. And again, I know LeClaire struggled in the first part, but Science was encouraging enough, I think, for them to be, to be buoyed by that. Yeah. It's difficult to know, I guess, with the second half,

whether, I don't know, the Sines versus Perez battle, it's difficult to know how much that was soft tyre versus hard tire. You could argue, I mean, again, we'll talk about, the Menardi duo of Daniel Ricardo and Yuki Sonoda a little bit later on,

but they were soft tire versus hard tire, and actually Ricardo was the one who was attacking Sonoda towards the end of the Grand Prix. So maybe, you know, maybe the soft tire and the hard tire were working at a similar level, in which case that would be quite encouraging that Signs was essentially matching his pace throughout that stage of the Grand Prix. But yeah, this is one where this is the first chapter, and we'll just have to see how the other ones unfold. Should we just get this out of the way of now, actually?

Oh, God. Bold predictions. Should we just see those off now? Because it's not a good start. Oh, okay. Go on then. So you, not only weren't you here, you decided, you know what, to try and get a point,

I'm still going to send him a bold prediction, and you'll be glad to know it was worth absolutely nothing because Max Verstappen did win the Grand Prix. Your bold prediction was that he wouldn't. And that was a fairly big margin. So I'm going to call that one wrong. I was quite wrong. It was a, do you know, again, after yesterday, I was like, oh, I don't know.

Could be on here. But after lap three, I was like, oh, not on anymore. Not happening. Yeah. Sam, who isn't here today, made the criminal mistake of copying what you did. And he's therefore also wrong. I mean, mine wasn't that far off. weirdly. I said that Hasse were going to score a point and Magnuson did finish 12 and we'll talk about

Hass a little bit more later on but I'm okay with that. Like as far as being wrong is concerned, I'm towards the right end of being wrong. I'm the least wrong. Yeah, that's fair. Yeah. It could have been much, much worse and usually is. So I'll take it. But if you are keeping score, everyone get your abacus out because there's no movement whatsoever. It is nil, nil-nil to kick off the season. More bold predictions available for the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix next week. We back, baby. We move.

Oh, no. Right, we'll take our... Sorry. Have you done? The camera fell over. Carry on with the outro to the ad, Ben. Everything's fine. Yeah.

Sure. Everything's, you know, that meme where everything's burning around? Like, this is literally it right now. We'll take our first break. Harry will sort his camera out. And we'll be on the other side talking about Mercedes-McCle. Aaron and that's the mine. I'm really sorry, Kirstie.

Okay, welcome back everyone and indeed Harry's camera. We are back to normal operating levels, we hope. How long do you give it until it goes again, like four minutes? I just cannot knock my desk, okay? So I just need to stay very, very still and the camera

will be fine. Okay, so we can't get excited about anything. We just got to stay absolutely calm so that desk stays still. Okay, cool. Mercedes and McLaren ended up in something of a Merck McLaren Merk McLaren by the end of it

4th 5th 6th 7th when Russell, Norris, Hamilton, Piastri so of those four Russell had the best starting position he was six positions clear of Lewis Hamilton who was in 9th the lowest qualifier of that pack

but by the end they were all separated by only a few seconds what did you make of both of those teams Are you surprised that Mercedes weren't a little bit more competitive? Were they roughly where you thought they were going to be? Yeah, I guess Russell's race was the opposite of Lecler's in that he started off really well. It seemed pretty racy at the start.

And then it all tailed off. I know they were dealing with some issues as well in terms of like battery power management and stuff like that. But yeah, maybe Russell flattered to deceive. Is that a phrase? Spot on. Oh, nailed it. You haven't made it up. That's great news.

I think it's qualified performance flattered to deceive in that it maybe didn't quite deserve to be P3 on the grid. But, you know, fair play, he put it there. And yeah, because where Hamilton ended up was very roughly where he started.

And maybe that was the true pace of that car because obviously Russell then fell back to that position anyway. or towards that position anyway. So yeah, a strange one to dissect. Hamilton didn't really look that on it for most. It just wasn't really anywhere, was he? I know he closed, closing up towards McLaren at the end,

but he wasn't really in that fight for most of the race. But yeah, so, and then there's McLaren who, look, it's not 17th and a DNF, so they can be happy about that. Correct. but given where they were at the end of last year, maybe they'd be slightly disappointed as to where that that pace was today.

It was fine. Like it was just fine. They were clear of the Astrid Martin, which I would go on to. And obviously, equal slash around where Mercedes were, but it's kind of not removed anywhere for Macca, but it's definitely the most positive start they've had for a long time.

So I'm sure that will still be. be happy with how that went. But yeah, if it remains like that, then it's going to be a tight basketball between those teams, two teams for the rest of the year. And actually, that could be quite an interesting one to watch because Norris versus Pastry versus Russell versus Hamptons is pretty good. It's pretty good to watch, I reckon. Yeah, I can subscribe to that.

That's all right. Nice. Yeah, I feel like with the way that the Grand Prix went today, because it was, I guess, a slightly unusual race in the all 20 cars finished, which for a first race of the year is a bit mad. Like, imagine saying that 20 years ago that in a first race of the season, 20 out of 20 cars would finish. It used to be the case where you'd only have like between 6 and 8, but now it's just such bulletproof

reliability in Formula 1 that even though there were some issues that you referenced out there, everyone quite comfortably was able to finish, even though the, you know, Alpha Romeo steak, Salba guys did try their best to make sure Valtri Bossas didn't make it to the check of flag. But outside of that, you know, everyone seemed relatively comfortable. And also zero VSCs, zero safety cars, not usually the case at Bahrain.

What I mean to say by all this is actually there was a real representation of what the race pace was up and down the field. I feel like, roughly speaking, the finishing positions, definitely in the top 10, were reflective of where the teams were. It's not like we had a jumbled up grid or a jumbled up finishing order because of some late race safety car. Every team had the opportunity to show their true pace over the 57 laps. And ultimately, yeah, Mercedes and McLaren seem incredibly level. I feel like from both of their perspectives, they'll be okay, but, not massively overjoyed by what happened.

Mercedes are an odd one in that earlier in the weekend, it felt a bit more optimistic. You know, when Lewis Hamilton was fastest in FP2, and I know it's only practice, but it is a good session to determine race pace FP2, it felt more encouraging from Merck's side, and it just hasn't quite carried through, even so that they might be happy that they have a concept that they believe in a bit more and can work with, and they're not starting from being the fifth or sick fastest team that they do have an okay platform. But even so, based on where expectation was

a couple of days ago, they might be a bit gutted. I guess the other frustrating thing for Mercedes is Russell and Hamilton went in completely different directions this weekend. So Russell went all out on qualifying. Lewis Hamilton essentially said, nah, scrap that. I'm all about race pace. And the end result, they were basically alongside each other.

It's like they went two different directions and there wasn't any benefits or either, which is always a bit of a shame, because if you're trying things out, you'd like one side to be conclusive for research and learning, and that wasn't the case. You're right, Russell seemed far more comfortable on the C3 tire than he was on the C1,

the soft compound. Yeah, and yeah, the LeCler comparison is an interesting one because he was far better at the beginning of the race and then just seemed to drop off quite a lot. If that race was five laps, ten laps longer, it wouldn't surprise me if he fell back behind Norris and maybe Hamilton as well. It felt like that was where it was going. From McClaren's perspective, yeah, versus where they were at the end of last year, it's disappointing. I still think they might be, yeah, it's still a massive step forward in terms of where they've been at Bahrain in recent years.

So there is that. and again they're not you know they're in the fight but I feel like it is a similar situation with both of those teams where they'll come away from Bahrain with the points but going a little bit more please

yeah yeah maybe it'll come out of more high speed tracks but yeah just given where they were at the back end of 2023 they might and the high standards they set themselves with their pre preseason marketing campaign,

maybe they will be a bit disappointed. Another team that might be a bit disappointed is Aston Martin. So there was a little bit of uncertainty as to where the third, fourth and fifth ranked teams would end up in this Grand Prix. And it does seem as if McLaren and Mercedes right now do have an edge on Aston Martin. Qualifying wise, Alonzo was very much in the mix. He qualified P6. So he was right in there with those teams. But it seemed as if

as soon as race pace kicked on, they didn't have that same pace. Those two teams did. Do you think there'll be disappointment there that race wasn't able to match quality? Yeah, because it's like they've got the opposite problem that they had last year, which was their quality would match their race,

which obviously you want both to be good. But if you were going to pick one, you go for race over qualifying because that's where the points are scored. So it was strange. It was immediate from Alonzo, but his, the pace wasn't there. You could just tell straight away. He didn't, after the start,

he wasn't staying on the back of signs, and then Norris got him, and then Piastri got him, and then Hamilton got him. And I thought maybe it's a bit of Alonza playing the long game, but he just didn't, because he wasn't really defending it too hard, but I think even that,

it just wasn't, the pace just wasn't there. And I think he knew it straight away. So his pace was interesting. Stroll, who obviously got punted by Hulk and Boe, at the start. That was not his fault, but had a very good race. And be intrigued to see where they,

they probably would have ended up in similar positions, but a different, different time gap between them. And I think maybe, maybe Stroll comes out on top because, given that he was pointing the wrong way at turn one, and then was ahead of Alonzo, but only a few laps to go with how the strategy worked out.

Don't know. It was maybe slightly more encouraging from that point of view. But yeah, look, they're not. Today they weren't, they went in that fight but it's a strange one because like you say the one lap pace was

was very much there from Alonzo yesterday so yeah a bit of head scratching head scratching from for Aston Martin yeah where those

two Aston Martin drivers would have ended up if the punt didn't happen at the beginning it would have been intriguing I tend to think that Lance Stroll even though obviously

it was massively disadvantaged by being punted that at least forced him on to the better strategy for those sorts of midfield drivers, which was pit as early as you can and use the undercut, because Lance Stroll essentially matched the strategy that Jo Guanyu did. And no disrespect to Shoguan Yu, who had a fantastic race, but I don't think he was 11th on pure pace.

And I think that was strategy playing into it. And I think Lance Stroll had the same sort of thing. There was such management going on in the first thing that actually Stroll was on the back of everyone else pretty quickly even though he was turned around in turn one. And Alonso, I feel like on the other side didn't go with the optimal

strategy, similar to Vastappen, but for different reasons in that Alonzo was kind of goalhanging for a safety car it felt like, particularly in that second, the middle stint, to the point where everyone was like, you probably are going to have to pay at some point, Fernando.

All right, go on then. Go on then. If I have to. Go on, Ben. But yeah, because of what happened at Bahrain last year, and I know they didn't test or practice in the same way they did last year. But I think there was a case of the 2023 Bahrain GP. His podium was fully based on the race coming to him. And it felt like early doors like maybe he's playing that same game again.

Like we know Bahrain's hard on tires. We saw a lot of drivers locking up early. maybe Alonzo's just waiting this out and then it soon became apparent nah, he just doesn't have that pace of the top four teams which is annoying because we'd love to see Alonzo

Alonzo in that same fight as the McLaren and Mercedes guys would be really entertaining and that still might happen. It might just be that this track didn't suit the car but yeah, it was quite evident early on I think that actually no, this is just Alonzo utilizing what he's got available which isn't as much

as what was shown in qualify. Oh dear. That's all right. Twenty-three races to go. It's fine, Aston Martin. You've got this. Shall we have a look at a driver of the day? Oh yeah, go on then. We'll play the jingle for the first time in 2024. Here we go. The verdict is in. You're the driver of the day. You're the driver of the day. You're good at driving. Thank you to the legendary live-lath, Latifi. As always, for the jingles. Driver of the day, who've you got, Harry? Well, Vastappen hard to look past, given the win.

But I'm going to give it to Carlos Sines, because you're right. I think it was a very, it was a statement drive from signs today. And mainly for, I know LeClover was struggling with his brakes, but he absolutely planted one on him into turn one, and I enjoyed that a lot.

Like, it was from miles back. Those two, again, It's terrifying. It's terrifying to watch those two. It's lap 10. What are you doing? They just, they can't help themselves.

When they were like side by side going into like turn two, which is obviously quite a, I was like, come on, you do not hit each other in race one, lap 10. But obviously they didn't. So fair enough.

But it's like Monza all over again from last year. They're just just terrifying to watch. Oh gosh. Oscar Piaastri's here. I don't know. Oscar? Good Lord. He obviously agrees

my choice. But yeah, now I'll go have colour signs. That's actually the Alpine drivers. They're still looking to finish the race. Are we going to get to them? Go on. You can do it.

Yeah, I think from honestly, those Ferrari duo battling, I haven't even thought to mention that, but that was terrifying. That was proper terrifying because at least with the Monza one, it was really late in the Grand Prix

and they were both. on a level playing field, battling for position. Here, it was really obvious that science had an advantage and I was just like, for Ferrari's sake, not for the entertainment side,

but just let him pass, let him pass, and they didn't, but it was good from a viewer's point of view at least. Yeah, he absolutely was a contender for driver of the day. Shout out to Joe Guan Yu. He did a really good job preserving those tires.

Yeah, he had a lot of work to do. so I respect what he was able to do there but same as yesterday I kind of just reluctantly went Vestappen was very good and today I'm going to do the same thing Vestappen was very good

he won by 22 seconds he had the fastest lap yeah it was very good it was a full grand slam wasn't it he didn't lose the lead did he no and to be it but they they pointed this out one in commentary, but when he did his

first stop, like say he went longer than pretty much anyone, and like, there's just a shot of him coming out of pit lane, there's no one there. Like he's having a private test session. You're like, oh no. He's so far out in front. Anyway, what a max. I'll give it to, I'll get into

Vastappen, but signs is a very good shout as well. I thought those two were the class of the field. Worst driver of the day. Get in the bin, bin, bin, bin, bin. Worse driver of the day Wend been Worst driver of the day You suck at driving

Are you going for? I found this one relatively tricky I could do Did we ever establish Whether Sergeant had an issue Or he just locked up And then screamed down the radio No

It felt more like the latter Because I thought initially He'd like a break by issue and that's why he went straight on. But then watching the replay back, I was like, I know, I think you've done that yourself, my guy. Yeah. I won't give it to him just on the basis that we don't fully know

and I'll give it to Nico Holkenberg because you did so well. And then you bottled your start and then you panicked and you punted Lance Stroll and then that was your day done from there. Nico, mate. I was, that was, yeah, you know, many people were singing your praises yesterday. I would have been one of them had I been on the podcast. Because, yeah, again, very impressive in qualifying,

but not good in the race. So sorry, Nico. Yeah, it was a real tough one because it was his fault, but it wasn't like a blatant. No, it was clumsy, it was clumsy, wouldn't it? Yeah. And it was really slow on the inside of that corner because I think Stroll had an adjustment,

which really slowed him down, and then the same thing happened to Holkenberg. It was still definitely his fault. But yeah, he ruined his race at lap 1, so it's hard to disagree with it. I'll go with, and my apologies to you, Logan, if it wasn't your fault, I'm going to go with Logan Sargent on the basis that I think it might have been. If it comes out that it wasn't your fault, I will retract and redact everything from the record. It was just an odd one.

You don't, like, they might lock up and go wider that corner, but not just straight on. I don't know. Yeah. People just go straight on. Yeah, I don't know. Anyway, odd one. Indeed. And big brain strategy.

Oh, hang on. There we go. Flummoxed. Mom, what's a need to box for wets? What? It's not even raining now. What are you talking about? What was your big brain strategy?

Look, they had an encouraging day. I'm still going to give it to Ferrari because they're ready a message. are still up there as top tier. I'm going to go for Carlos signs, obviously, at the end of the race is on hard tires, Sergio Perez is on soft tires, and he goes to his engineer.

When do we think the soft tires might drop off? You know, based on they've seen a whole race worth of evidence on when soft tires are dropping off. And the engineer just said, I'll get back to you. Thanks for nothing. What is the point? That is little... Yeah, the next message was like, oh, yeah, now.

We think now, sure. You just like gone, they turned off the radio and what do we tell him? I don't know. Now? Yeah, a good one. It's now, Carlos. Oh, dear. That is a good one.

My big brain strat and this team would be hoping this is the only time they'll get mentioned today, but it's not. Alpine. So Gazley and Ocon essentially matched each other's strategies through the first two stints. And then they had a brainwave. I know we'll keep O'Con on the hard tires to end the Grand Prix and we'll chuck some softs on Gassley just to see what happens. Going two completely different directions on strategy.

What happened? They were basically next to each other at the end. It doesn't matter what strategy they do. They are just slow. Oh, goodness. they, I don't remember seeing an Alpine on camera all afternoon. Did they show one? Ricardo overtaking Ockon, I think made it.

That's about it. Oh, good Lord. Oh, dear. Right, we'll take our second break at this point. On the other side, we're going to be chatting through Kevin Magnuson, Yuki Sonoda and Daniel Ricardo. So whilst there wasn't a great deal of a fight over first place, there was an epic fight over 12th, which is obviously the position we all want

to see scrapped over. Kevin Magnuson on relatively old hard tires, defending against Yuki Sonoda also on hard tires and Daniel Ricardo on some soft tires. Yuki Sonoda attempting to pass Kevin Magnuson for a few laps, unable to do so. Suddenly, Daniel Ricardo's on the scene, and that's where team orders come into play, where the team tell Yuki Sanoda to get out of the way. He was delighted about it. What do you make of the call? He was very happy, wasn't he? I love, yeah, I mean, give it a go.

I'm surprised I didn't swap them back at the end, because why would you not do that? But, yeah, why not? Because you're right, Ricardo rocks up on the scene with his soft ties. There's only a certain, I know the soft ties were lasting longer anyway than everyone thought, but they're still going to go off quicker than the hards will. So whilst he's got the life and his tie,

let him do it. He rocked up and then had to wait behind him for a few laps. So if anything, I would have made that call earlier, just said, Yuki move, let Ricardo have a go and then if not, we'll swap back.

Because I think if they had, maybe a Ricardo would could have got past Manglinson and then left Yuki to it towards the end of the race. But I'm not, I don't, not mad at it. I know it's first race of the season. But,

you know, Joe was only just up the road and say something happens to anyone in the top 10 there's a point on the board there so it's worth it was worth it to me I know I can understand why Yuki's annoyed at it but

I think it was worth a punt given the given the team championship that they the net result was exactly the same in the end so yeah I don't know this

for sure, but Album wasn't that far behind in 15th, so I don't know if there was a case of switching the drivers at the end would have been too risky in that regard. It's the only thing I can think of, but yeah, you would expect them to switch them back. I was surprised that didn't happen.

I understand the call because and I understand Sonoda's frustration. Sonoda's frustration can easily be explained. Firstly, because A, he's a racing driver and doesn't like to be told to get out of the way for his teammate. that's obvious. But also,

Sonoda, throughout this weekend, has pretty much been quicker than Ricardo every step of the way. I don't remember really any points

this weekend where Ricardo was the quicker driver. Sonoda out qualified him fairly comfortably. You know, in the race, Sonoda was the one

battling over sort of P11, P12 or so, whereas Ricardo had to really fight to get back into the mix. As mentioned,

he had to overtake an alpine. So I feel like Sonoda, with a few laps to go in the Grand Prix, he's done everything right almost throughout the entire weekend and then to be told, let your teammate through. I can understand that frustration. I think it probably was worth a go. But goodness me, they really fumbled it, didn't they?

Because by the time Ricardo got past, he was two seconds behind Magnuson. You need to keep your DRS. That's the key. So whilst he was able to pick it back up, by then it was a little bit too late. and look, I don't know. Sonoda was threatening.

I feel like it had enough opportunities to then give Ricardo a go, but I don't think Ricardo was really any faster. You might as well try it, obviously, but I don't think the two drivers were actually that dissimilar in terms of pace at that stage of the Grand Prix, in which case, unless Album was too close behind,

you switch them back. I don't have the gap for Albon to Sonoda at the end of the race, but yeah, it felt like that would have been obvious thing to do. I've just opened my Twitter, so there's an addition to this story. Is this where Sonodas dived up the inside of Ricardo? On the cool down lap?

Yeah. Apparently he's dive bombed him in turn 8 on the cool down lap and the one was crashed. And Ricardo's response was, and I won't actually, so I'm just using the actual bleep button we have. He said, what the, I'll save it. He's a in helmet. So that's good. Good team harmony.

Race one. Great. That's gone really well. Well done everyone. Well done. Minabi. What Sonoda should have done is just bashing to the side of Ricardo's car

because that works really well for drivers, doesn't it? Santino Ferruci. Ooh. Oh, okay. Old school F2 reference. Oh, nice. But yeah.

Yeah, that was an interesting part of the story as well. I didn't have these two teammates as the ones that would be at odds with one another after race one. But here we are. In terms of the actual performance of the team, obviously the battle was over P12. So even if they did get it done, no points were on offer. They finished 13th and 14th. It felt like there was a bit more hype about them going into the season. I mean, Zach Brown can, his blood pressure has gone down finally because they're not the same pace as a McLaren.

Yeah, I think, I don't know, I felt like Ricardo before the weekend was, was kind of trying to temper expectations of it. Didn't help that he went fastest in FP1, was it? Well, one of the practice sessions. Yeah, yeah. Obviously, that was just different ties, et cetera, et cetera. But yeah, I think everyone thought a bit more, maybe a bit more of, of that team for, I guess it didn't turn out to be as much of a Red Bull or RB-19 clone as everyone feared. And I guess that's shown because it's not driven like an RB-19.

So, yeah, I don't know whether they'll be disappointed or if there's more to come from that car. Maybe there is. And again, towards the end of the race, they were a bit punchy than they seem to be at the start. So yeah, I get a jury still out on that one. I don't think they will be that pleased with how their race went, how the weekend went. Yeah. Underwhelming, right? Even though Ricardo said before the season, he'd like to be fighting for top five finishes,

even if you say, okay, that's a bit of a dream in the distance, you would have liked, they would have liked to have competed for the lower end of the points you think. And I know there was no retirements in this Grand Prix. so there weren't many opportunities that opened up in that regard. But I think this confirmed that they are quite comfortably away from the top five for now.

So yeah, what about the car they were battling Kevin Magnuson? Because at least from my side, I feel like Hasso got something to work with. Yeah. I almost can't believe it. And again, we didn't see, we couldn't see what Holkenberg

could actually do with that call of fire result because he was an idiot on lap one. but KMAG was he finished higher than he started in a hat. Three positions higher. Good Lord. Yeah, that is progress. So look, again, I'm like going to see what happens in the next few races because again, Banglinson, you know, got P5 at Bahrain 2020.

So it's never been any better since that point. And obviously this isn't the same. I would just, yeah, again, temper expectations just to see whether that will continue. But on the face of it, has nowhere near as bad as I think even they fit. I think they were, it may be pleasantly surprised about how well that went this weekend. And I may, yeah, maybe they were worse with Hulk and Ben, maybe there were a couple of points on the board they lost out on, which will be a shame for them if that makes a big difference towards the end of the year.

But certainly in terms of maybe they think. have finally understood the tires. Well done, Hass. You know, this is going to sound crazy, but outside of Red Bull, I think Hasch should be the second happiest team coming out of this race weekend. Because Ferrari, McLaren, Mercedes, Astamine, all four of those teams would have liked to have been closer to Red Bull. Manardi, as mentioned, they're a little bit underwhelming versus what we

thought might be possible for them. You know, Willi didn't offer a great deal. Alpina being demoted to Formula 3, I've heard. And Hass, you know, they seem to have somewhat answered the issue. They were still struggling a little bit. You know, Kevin Magnuson was dropping off some of drivers ahead at various points in this race. But it wasn't enough to be overtaken. And that's the crucial thing, right?

He might have had his mirrors full of drivers for a long part of that Grand Prix, but at a circuit where it is relatively straightforward to make overtakes, he wasn't being overtaken. He did gain three positions versus where he started. That is something to work with. And from Nika Holkenberg's perspective, we're talking here about the driver that qualified 15th, not the driver that qualified 10th,

who ruined his race on the first lap. And who knows, Nika Holcomberg, he probably would have fancied himself to finish 11th. I don't know if he'd have stayed ahead of Lancholy. maybe, but I think there'd have been best of the rest outside of that if Nico Holcomberg could, you know, he kept his front wing clean during that first lap. Yeah, I think this is an encouraging race. And from Nika Holcomburst's perspective, I know he was completely out of kilter because of what happened,

but given the fact he had to pit at the end of lap one and obviously a slow stop, so strategy-wise he's not on anywhere near an optimal strategy, he still beat both Alpines, which might say more about the Alpine than it does about Holcomburg. But it's still pretty good, right? That's fair. It's a fair point. Sorry, this is entirely unrelated. We're going back to Logan Sargent.

I don't know, because Albon had issues with his dash as well. Just seen a video. Yes. When he's breaking for that corner that has a break bias on there and it goes from 57. As he hits a brakes, it shoots up to 93.

Unless again, he said that himself. But that's always, the front break bias. Why has it done that? Anyway, that's funny. Finding excuses from a man, Logan now. But who? No, no.

Go ahead. Fair play. I said a lot about Alpine on yesterday's qualifying review. So I'm just going to sit back whilst I let you talk about them here. They finished 17th and 18th. What are you doing? Alpine.

Not a lot. That's the answer. Not a lot. Look, we sometimes get accused for British bias. These days, I'm unsure whether people just say it because it's like an ongoing joke or they genuinely mean it. But we like to think we're not biased towards any team. We're fairly neutral.

We just love the sport. But this is karma, Alpine. Next time, paint your damn car. This is what you get. This is all karma coming back. to you. No, that is, that is a mess. And again, we, we could have been sat here this time last year and said exactly the same thing about McLaren, which I'm probably did. But at least with McLaren, their house was in order and it was just a really bad start to the year. This, given the state of where Alpine

are, it's, it's an absolute tractor of a car. it's overweight, it's underpowered, can't do traction, can't do court, it can't do anything. I just, that's a mess. And that's going to take a long, it's going to take a long time to sort out. And if you're,

Ocon and Gassley, Ockon, obviously, his million year contracts finally coming up for renewal. But where else does he go? So is he going to have to stick to this? And Gassley, who I know has only done one year, one year and one race now. But it must be looking at at least his ex-team and going, well, at least they were in some sort of fight. This is terrible.

I don't know. I know it's race one and things can change very quickly. And they do have a lot of resort alpine. They have the might of Renae behind them. But this is just, it just feels like a hopeless case, this car already. And they were so far behind. that it's, at least with McLaren last year, they had a terrible test. The DNF for Piastri was mechanical and they just didn't have, they didn't have the track

time for that car. Alpine had three days testing. They're not like a terrible, terrible test. They just slow. And it's slow at everything. And as you said, Ben, they went on complete different strategies and still ended up next to each other because called slow. It's a real, it's a real worry for them.

And you obviously, someone's going to come last or be. be slow, but you, that's not good look for F1 for Alpine, for Renault effectively, to, you know, one of your manufacturer teams to be that bad, especially after all we had over the winter break with Andretti, et cetera, et cetera,

which we're not going to get into now, but it's not a good look. You shouldn't have that amount of resource behind you and be that slow. And again, it's probably down to the mess that has been happening in the team. but yeah you do wonder like if Altmar Safnau was still there

was this down to him would this is part of the 100 100 race plan but I don't know I don't know whether even if it if it if it is I think this it goes it goes much further up than that yeah I know it's funny and it's funny for us to make the joke

the butt of the joke at the moment but I don't want them to be that bad it's not good for us it's not good for F1 So I hope they turn it around. And I know you mentioned this in the quality review, Ben, but I guess there's solace in that I know they were last, or basically last yesterday. No, they were last.

They qualified last? That's where they're good. Yeah. 19-20. But at least it was only a second, a second away from the pace at the time. And I know it changes as you go through qualifying, but they're not like it.

They're not like they're three seconds off the pace. So hopefully things can change there. but yeah, good Lord. Not good. Oh, no, no, no. Out of interest, Harry, if you are interested in what the late breaking guys would give both O'Conn and Ghazly

as a rating out of 10, what would you do about that? If you are a Patreon subscriber, new for 2024, we're doing power rankings. That was close. Power rankings. The first one will be tomorrow.

We're recording it tomorrow. It will be tomorrow. So that'll be the Sunday. Yeah. So if you are interested in what we have to say and want to keep a score of that over the season, head to our Patreon. There's lots of other great stuff over there,

including Be With Breaking. We've just started our brand new history, like historic race review series. First one was Brazil 2008. Very quiet race. Nothing much happened there. But go listen to that. And yeah, helps us a lot.

Boom. There you go. Anyway, we'll take our final break because we've got moment of the race on the other side. Okay, if you were listening to our preview of the Bahrain race, you would have heard the first Discord submissions of the year where we ask for who's under pressure going into the weekend, but we also do Discord submissions as on the race reviews as well,

where we ask what was the moment of the race. Before we get to those, we'll give our own. Harry, what was your moment of the race? my moment of the race I'm just referring back to oh yeah no again all of mine have been very Ferrari related but we've already mentioned this

it's Charlotte Claire just not staying on track because I've really enjoyed it it just not bothering with turn 10 some of the other turns just driving the car as if it was a shopping trolley because apparently it was in that first half of the race

yeah the not the not not doing turn. There were so many times. There were so many replays of that. I thought it was the same one, but it's not. It's just him doing it over and over again. So I enjoyed that.

It wasn't a lot of moments to pick from this race, but I'm going for that one. They made a goddamn montage of turn 10. Use it like mid-race. They were like, here's all the times that he's gone off and locked up on that corner. I don't think I've ever seen a full montage of mess-ups from the same corner.

So that was definitely up there. I'm just going to go with a nice and simple. one. A first, we are checking of the year. Love to hear it. Nice. Yeah. Yeah, because it was, why is my car pulling to the right every time I break? We are checking. We're good. Say the line, Bart. Straight away. He got straight in there. Oh, dear. Okay. Well, that's our moments of the race. But who can we hear from in our Discord? people, so many that we can't get through all of them, sadly, but it's good to be back. I've missed the Discord submissions. First up is Skyla with three seconds worth, which is, to be honest,

that's fairly long for Skyla. So here we go. Wow. Hamilton's Broken Sea. Good. I forgot that Hamilton's broken seat. Also, why did Lewis Hamilton sound like he was doing every radio message from a submarine? His quality of his message. were absolutely shocking. He compromised the quality of the radio message because he was too busy trying to work out how batteries work. It's like there's none left.

Yeah, you've used it all, mate. I've got 1% left. Stop pressing the button then, mate. Exactly. Oh, dear. Okay, cool. Thanks, Scarlett. Next up is Alex C. 458.

Hey, guys. Great race. Not really, though. It was fine. My moment of the race, it's going to have from the Dutch National Anthem. Nothing like tradition, you know. Can't wait to hear that tune 24 times this year.

Let's go. Let's go. Oh dear. Thanks for that, Alex. Next up is Bristol Liam. All right, lads. The Dull Barring Grand Prix was Chock up the lockup,

doing his lockups. Cheers. Chock up the lockups. I like that. That's a lot. strong. Good Lord. That's strong.

Chuck up. Oh, better than Charan Lebaran. Thank you, Liam. This is going to be a struggle. Right. This next one, and this is their name.

Okay? On their discourse. This is from late master breaking. Okay? I'm not saying that again. Here we go. Good to be back lads. My moment of the race was Jeremy Clarkson being absolutely wasted on the gridwalk.

And that's about it. He was. Hello, Martin. Yeah, all right. Cheers, Jazzer. Cheers, Jazzer. It's funny because he posted something on his Instagram two hours before, like this massive bottle of rosé,

I'm assuming that's what it was. Anyway, next step we have Kade 1989 and now I'm just saying to oh there we go. I like when

Yuki was on the radio saying Daniel's not fast at all. He's so right for that one. Okay. Savage. So right for that one. So right for that. Next up is

a big ham. Where are you a big ham? There we go. A big ham is back, baby. With our moment of the race was the Ferrari boys. Cockles LaLockup versus smooth operator

fighting it out at the beginning of the race. Signs showing Freddie Vass who he should have kept for 2025. Love you. Bye. Oh, like that. Also, I am very confident that this is the only podcast, not just left one, the only podcast where you'd get the line

a big ham is back baby. A big ham is back, baby. We are a strange podcast. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. A big, a big ham. Finally, or last but not least, is Raiai.

Hey guys, Raii. Hope everybody had a good offseason. I got the tattoo. I'll be posting it later on in the next couple days. My moa of the race is the back and forth chirping between Danny Rick and Yuki, where Danny Rick's like, I don't need to say anything. And they let him pass. And Yuki's able to keep up with him.

And Yuki's like, this guy's not even fast. like it's going to be fun to see over the course of the season but uh that's my moment with the race love what you guys do keep on breaking light and uh join the patreon literally the most expensive hall of fame tier is like 12 bucks a month u.s and it's totally worth it love you guys bye doing god's work right guy thank you thanks you that was a unfortunately that was a better plug than mine but yes do what right guy says we just drafting right guy to do it rather than one of us. I've thrown off because normally I go to Sam and say, I bet that's £100 a month, but he's not

here. So I'll save that. Fair enough. I'm sure that will come up at some point. Lovely round of submissions. Thank you to everyone who submitted. As you've already said, Harry, there were plenty more than we can only get through some of them. So just keep submitting and we'll play as many as we can on previews and reviews. Plenty of opportunities given that we have got 92 races this season.

Sam get us out of it? Sam? Where are you, mate? Come on. Oh dear. You can do Sam's impression. You can do an impression of Sam now. Sure.

Folks, what does he say normally? Folks, thanks for listening. Something about pieces and Sam. Yeah. Yeah. Tell us your fillings. We are on social media at late breaking F1 on most places.

all of them most. I don't think we're on Bibo. We should be on Bibo. Let's have an off-air meeting about... Google Plus. MySpace. Yeah, late breaking F1 on the socials. Lots of great content on there,

courtesy of our lovely producer Kirstie. We obviously, I've already mentioned the Patreon really subtly. Go and subscribe to that if you want more content from us three, us three morons. What else do you talk about? Anything else we normally plug on this bit? he is quite good at this.

He's quite good at this bit of the podcast. I don't know about the rest of it, but this bit. That's why we keep them around. Just for the end. All right. Well, thank you for listening, everyone. We'll be back on Wednesday for the preview of the Saudi Arabian GP,

another Saturday race. I've got to keep remembering it to Saturday right now. We'll also be doing our power rankings, as aforementioned, on the Patreon tomorrow. But in the meantime, I've been Samuel Sage. And I've been Ben Hocking. And I'm a harriet. Yeah, he's actually been married.

Remember, keep breaking late. Bye-bye. This podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network.