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

Episode Date: April 19, 2024

Norris takes Sprint Pole in a dramatic, rain-affected Sprint Qualifying session where the Top 10 battled slippery conditions in SQ3 and Norris' deleted pole lap was reinstated at the very final moment! Ben and Sam run through the chaos of the session from Verstappen landing 4th to Stake making SQ3, and name their driver of the session... FOLLOW us on socials! You can find us on YouTube, Instagram, X (Twitter) and TikTok SUPPORT our Patreon for bonus episodes, historic race reviews & more! JOIN our Discord community JOIN our F1 Fantasy League: SIGN UP & create your team, and JOIN our league (join code: C3PHEQHPU04) BUY our Merch SEND us something! We have a brand new PO box - address: Late Braking Podcast, PO Box 821, TRURO TR1 9PE EMAIL us at [e-mail] & SUBSCRIBE to our podcast! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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. Today, very warm, welcome to the late breaking F1 podcast presented by Sam Sage and me, Ben Hocking, is today we review Sprint Quully. And what a Sprint Qualley it was. Lando Norris is going to start the sprint race tomorrow from pole position with Lewis Hamilton in second place. and Fernando Alonzo in third.

Sam, that's the top three. It doesn't feature any Red Bulls or Ferraris. Yeah, I'm a little bit giddy, actually, about it. I got all excited watching it. Not because of a downfall of Red Bull. Just that session was crazy. It was crazy. It was great fun to watch.

It had a bit of everything. We saw kind of all seasons appear throughout the entire Spring Shootout. Basically, no soft ties, of course, used because of the whole session. onto the intermediates. And it really, we got one of those demonstrations

in Formula One today that shows where the drivers that know how to really drive their cars on a difficult track will rise to the top. And we saw Great's making mistakes. We saw Great's rising again. It gave us a bit of everything.

I also just want to give a quick credit to the Chinese crowd that were there because the roars that you can hear from around the racetrack, every time that something happened to show whether he managed to stay within the session or he knocked someone out of the session was absolutely fantastic as well.

So it's good to know that the support there is absolutely alive and well. But Ben, what a bloody session we just had. Yeah, like you say, the first two parts of spring quality, as they always are run exclusively on medium tyres, which it was dry enough for those two sessions, but still skating around quite a bit, thanks to damp conditions and indeed the track surface being new. and then yeah all hell broke loose in Q3 with those intermediate tires it was it was the classic thing of the intermediate tires were not suited for those conditions but the wet tires are so bad that it's still worth going for the intermediate tires anyway we're seeing laps just about under two minutes some of which not laps being invalidated and laps being reinstated we're actually recording this straight after the session so we do apologize because it's probably that Valtry Bottas is on pole position after seven

more invalidations. But yeah, I mean, it was, it was crazy. What did you make of, like me said, there were no Red Bulls, no Ferraris in the top three. I mean, have they missed an opportunity here? Should at least one of them been in the mix? I would have expected one of them to be in the mix. Historically, I don't want to, sounds like we've ganged up on the pork chap now, because he's had one performance where he's not on the front row. But I guess, you know, you need to talk about the multiple time world champion not being on the front row. That Red Bull is the best car, and Max Verstappen, arguably, is the best driver in Formula One right now. And these conditions essentially make it a level playing field.

How do we know that? Well, Landon Norris has, what, the third, maybe fourth fastest car, depending on the track. He's on pole. Lewis Hamilton arguably has the fifth fastest car. He was on pole until a lap time was reinstated. Fernando Alonso, that car is equal to Mercedes and not great around certain parts of the track. he's right up there in third place. Maxwell Stappen fell off the track,

twice invalidated, two separate laps and then managed to recover pretty well to fourth place. If this sprint race that we have is completely dry, Max Verstappen in fourth is still very much the favourite to go on and win this. You only have to look back to, we spoke about it, about a week ago, Spar, where he started, I think, what, 14th place,

and managed to be in the lead by about 15 laps into the Grand Prix. The man can overtake and the Red Bulls got the pace, so don't count him out. But 100% those Red Bulls and those Ferraris should have at least have one car on the front row and then probably another car on the second row. Maybe not clinking pole. It does take an absolute act of brilliance in conditions like this to really bring yourself to the very, very top. But the cars are good enough and all four of those drivers have more than enough ability

to see themselves fighting around that top four. I was surprised that neither Verstappen, Perez, LeCler or Science could at least pick up second place, let alone third. I'm shocked that Wastappen is the closest forward and fourth. Yeah, I think with Vestappen, it's difficult to point out one driver in that session and say, they did a poor job because so many drivers were going off the track. So it was really across the entire top 10. I think with Vestappen, I'm not quite sure what his penultimate lap would have ended up at because it was looking pretty good, the first two sectors. And then that final corner, he goes off, he makes that error.

And then of course, that costs him on his next lap, his final lap, which was still good enough to at least initially get P2. But I mean, when you're in a qualifying session like that, the one corner you can't really mess up is the last corner because that's not one lap ruined. That's in many cases two laps ruined, which I think Vestappen is good enough and the car's good enough that it wasn't ruined, but I don't think he got the best out of the car. and if you were to look at, so Lando Norris, obviously, getting pole position here, he did it with no purple sectors.

He was 1.2 seconds clear. He was two seconds clear of the Red Bulls, and he did it without a purple sector. Alonzo was marginally quicker in the first sector. Vestappen had the best middle sector, and Perez was an absolute demon in the final sector. If any of those three drivers had put together the lap, they would have beaten Lando Norris.

Instead, his consistency across the lap, ensuring that at least on his fastest lap, there were no key errors. That's what's going to impoled position today. That's what you need in these conditions. Yeah. Speaking of the drivers you guys mentioned, Sergio Perez is 100% someone to watch out for in this spring shoot, the actual race that we've got,

the spring race coming up at 4 a.m. UK time. But I'll tell you what, if it's going to be as good as that qualifying, it's worth getting up for because I am absolutely buzzed. But he has set that car up for straight line speed. We spoke about this in the Chinese preview that we did midweek. How should you set your car up around this track? It's a very difficult track to set your car up for. And Sergio Perez has gone point in shoot, putting in a straight line, top speed, I'm going for it.

And you can see that all day long at the moment. Sergio Perez dominates that final sector because all it is is long straight, heavy braking zone, straight, tiny corner, straight. And he might be an overtaking weapon. And if he can get himself close enough to the front, Sergio Perez could be in a chance of a Pogium, if not a victory, if he can pull it off in the right conditions. But, oh, crazy to see, I mean, Fernando Alonkso as well at one point sat on pole position. He did such a superb job in also being consistent around the entire racetrack. But that Landon-Norris lap, he's had some moments in tricky weather where it's costing beforehand,

most famously, of course, Russia, where Lewis Hamilton went on to win the Grand Prix because he refused to come in for that tire change. He's learned this lesson here, and he was able to deliver such a consistently strong lap around a track that's got this new surface being laid down. The weather was all over the place. The temperatures were tough. I think he ended up being, what, 1.2, 1.4 faster than everyone else. That is an absolutely sensational lap time. And poor Lewis Hamilton, blokes on pole position, sees that Landon Norris gets his lap deleted. And I imagine that the confidence boosts that someone like Lewis Hamilton needs right now. So they have him not back down, at least it was

only to second place. This, what, 50-minute session had all the drama you needed. That was what Formula One needs and wants for new fans and old fans alike. Even though Norris has got a pole position for tomorrow, I don't actually think he will be the happiest person with how the conditions went in Q3. Because I think Lando Norris, the poll position probably wasn't on the cards if it stayed dry, but he would still probably would have been in the fight

for maybe the second row of the grid. Lewis Hamilton is probably the happiest person with how Q3 went, because if that stayed dry, it was probably heading towards another like ninth place finish. We saw George Russell get knocked out in Q2. We'll talk about that a little bit later on. But it's not as if Lewis Hamilton was thriving. He got through to Q3 barely.

And then obviously these conditions have, I don't want to say the conditions have helped him because it's his own performance that's got him there. But I don't think it would have been achievable in dry conditions. So he's probably gained, I would say, six or seven positions on what he might have got otherwise. Yeah, I completely agree. Louis Hamilton and Fernando Alonkso are arguably the two biggest gangers in all this. And further back in the top 10, Valtry Bottas is probably the next

biggest gainer in the top 10, you know, sensational again from Valtry Bottas. He was solid in the dry though. He was solid in the dry. He was beating, what, both Mercedes Mercedes-1 and SQ2. I think he finished your front of Lewis Hamilton on both occasions. So the Salver's got some pace. The Valtry Bottas is pulling out, sensational laps at the moment. And the bloke deserves some kind of reward for his, for his, uh, for his, uh, and fair play to Joe Guangyu as well for getting himself into the top 10. But yeah, Lewis Hamilton's got to walk away from that and think, wow, I am maybe at least five places higher than I maximum could have being in the dry weather.

And there was a real chance that both of those Mercedes cars could have been knocked out on SQ2. And we've seen them in 11th and 12th. The car, Toto Wolf comes out and says after Japan, you know, we understand it better. We know what's going on. We've understood the tires. I don't think you have. I do not think you have.

I think because no one could maximize what their car was able to do, and it was entirely down to drive a performance in the wet in that final session, it looks far more complimentary to Mercedes than what the actual pace of that car is. I think Lewis Hamilton pulled out a bit of an old-school Lewis in the wet performance today, and it saved their blushes. The irony is based on no real standout finishes for Hamilton so far this year, there is somewhat of a chance that he'll get more points, despite limited points available in the sprint race.

get more points from that sprint race than he has any of the actual normal races so far this year. Yeah, I'm a bit nervous for him though. In the dry, I feel like there could be absolute mugging. We'll see. Yeah, that's going to tell them a lot because if he can stick around at least, then that will give them confidence that if they can improve their qualifying efforts, then he might be able to stay in the mix in some of these races. But you're right, if it is a mugging and after five laps, he's back in P7, that ain't good. That, that, that might be able to. might expose Mercedes more than if they hadn't qualified so far up the grid. Yeah, they do seem to berate the fact that because they qualify further back,

they just can't seem to get these overtakes made across a full race condition, which stops them moving further. But yeah, I think maybe top four or top five is a successful run for Lewis Hamilton. Yeah. Any further, they've got a lot of work to do. And of course, I mean, we spoke about the disappointment in Red Bull not being able to do any better. With Ferrari, I obviously have the bulk prediction that Charlotte is going to win this spring race tomorrow.

Bit more doubtful. I was feeling good. I was like, LeClau's looking quick out here. Weird conditions. All right, Charles. Oh, there's the barrier. He gave it the old one-to-tap

just to rub it in for you. Yeah, which it deserves a mention, to be honest, because that in itself, I guess we have to call it a mistake. It really didn't seem like he did much. But he was punished severely for the tiniest of errors. We saw drivers make the same mistake around

other parts of the racetrack and they got a little skimper onto the grass or they had to do a run through the gravel. But Charlotte Clair had a boxing match with the barrier and that's unfortunate for him because yeah, he made a mistake, but he was severely punished for so. But I like that. I like racetracks at where you do make a mistake, or you're not the creme de la creme of racing at that moment, you are punished for it. We should see more of it. Yeah, we often see in these sorts of sessions that unlike dry sessions where it's essentially one warm up lap, one go lap, one in lap, and that's it, and you do that a couple of times over, here in these sorts of sessions, it's all about rhythm.

It's all about rhythm and generating tire temperature, which is why we did see that massive gap towards the end of Lando. Norris isn't a temp or two clear. You wouldn't see in dry conditions, 1.2 seconds separating the fastest car and the second fastest car, even if it's a Red Bull versus someone else, that doesn't happen. But that really does speak to how, yeah, rhythm, consistency, building up tired temperature is so important.

course, Charles LeClaire, that was, after his error, completely interrupted. He's still put in a solid effort, I think, but there was more out there. There was more out there for him. What do you make of the call? Only Lewis Hamilton did, and was saying it's dear, which is interesting because we berated them a lot about their, oh, it's an aptitude to actually have a good strategic performance, but to come in and put on a whole new set of intermediate tyres that had been under the blankets with a run to go, it looked like that was a quite, tend to be quite a sensible decision. Yeah, it's, it is a bold call because particularly with the limited amount of time you have

in these sprint sessions, I mean, it doesn't sound like a lot because you're only taking a couple of minutes away from regular qualifying sessions, but that can be the difference between, you know, two runs rather than three or one run rather than two. And it does really limit your strategic options, or at least makes those strategic options more difficult to pull off. And fair play. You know, we saw a lot of traffic. happen in the pit lane with some sort of weird roadworks merging into one lane going on at one point.

And it seemed as if they were, they and Red Bull were happy to stay out of it. I mean, do you see the Red Bull guy on the front left tire basically just chuckling away? Yes. I don't know if it was at that, but it looked like it was. I mean, if it wasn't, it should have been, because watching these multi, multi-million dollars and cars queuing up at 10 miles an hour while there was some poor, a high of his jacket, pointing at Daniel Ricardo to stay back while Joe Gwang U's trying to come out. It looked like, yeah, you're driving past an accident on the British motorway.

But hilarious that we now get this queuing in the pit lane. I'm not sure if it's safer or better than it being on the racetrack, who knows. But yeah, Lewis Hamilton, a Red Bull, try something different. It worked for Lewis Hamilton. It was a great call. It was indeed. We'll take a very quick break at this point. We've got some more chat on the other side.

We're going to be chatting through steak, a little bit on George Russell being knocked out in Q2. And Daniel Ricardo, finally out qualifying Yuki Sanoda. Okay, welcome back. Who had it? Okay, so steak or Mercedes? Who's going to have two cars in Q3? I think we all knew the answer was steak. So well done to Salba.

But Valtry Bottas and Joe Guan Yu, making it through to Q3. And I don't think you can even say pace-wise. It was a fluke or a miracle. They were consistently there with the likes of Mercedes and the Astor Martin of Fernando Alonzo. Of course, they weren't able to. make much of their Q3 appearance in that they'll start on the fifth row together, 9th for Bottas, 10th for Joe. But even so, Sam, that's pretty good.

Look, if you told the Salba steak, what we're calling them at the start of the year, that come race 5, you'll be qualifying 9th and 10th, I'm sure they go, oh, and we can't do a pit stop. So are you sure? Well, we'll go. A pit stops in quality. Exactly. They bloody love qualifying. Yeah.

Points aren't scored on Saturdays or Fridays, in this case, folks. weirdly, points will be scored on Saturday, actually, so that analogy doesn't work at all in this case. My brain. My brain, you can't go up with all the sessions. Yeah, well done. Well done to Salbert, State, whatever. Well done to Valtry Bottas, who,

I'll talk about Valtry first. We know that Valky's got so much talent within him, and especially on a qualifying, in tricky conditions quite regularly, he is one of those guys that is able to rise to the top. He's very happy with dealing with tricky surfaces, low grip levels. Russia was a key favourite of his,

and that very much emulates a colder, no-gripped kind of track, and he always thrived around there. And this is no exception. Yes, okay, he ends up in ninth place. But I just think that this is the first mini reward of the rewards that he deserves so far this season. Multiple performances throughout the season so far, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Australia.

He has been right on the cusp in terms of performance of scoring points. And so regularly it is the pit stops that have cost him even the chance to fight for. for a 10th place where Yuki Senoga has regularly been, you know, sweeping up. They call him the janitor of the points because that boy's cleaning up. But, you know, Valtrey Bottas, um, me now. I figured that might be the case. I like it. Thanks for ruling my flow there, Ben.

But Valtry Bottas does deserve a looking at these points paying positions. And hey, this might be that first step towards that. Joe Guangyou, on the other hand, he's being back of the sessions for maybe what, two or three Grand Prix in a row now, regularly knocked out in Q1 performances. The cargas hasn't seemed to felt great under him. He's also been impacted by the pit stops, but when you're starting right at the back anyway,

you can argue that you're just going back to where you belong at that point. But he's pulled out an absolutely fantastic performance as well. I do wonder if one of them might have been knocked out had the track rather been completely dry and warm. I do wonder if that might have happened. But we're stating it time and time again. You've got a race against what you've got. You can't race against hypotheticals.

And they were dealing with that current situation and they pulled it off. So a massive pat on the back to both those drivers. Well done for setting the car up properly. Well done for executing a good strategy. They make it work. And I hope they can pull something out of it. So we've got a bit of a fight on our hands for that kind of weird sixth, seventh battle that we're seeing at the moment with R.B.

Hasse. Maybe State can get involved. Maybe Williams could get involved. But it's hotting up if they can make it work. I think the benefit of not just for this Salber team, but really anyone who wants to be in that sixth and seventh fight is that it won't take a lot to be involved in it. In that there's so few points being distributed to those teams, it will only take one very good weekend for one team. And suddenly, you know, they could be, let's just say Sal would do end up having a great weekend here.

And they claim, I don't know, they claim some points. They claim eight points. Suddenly, like, they're ahead of Hass and they're ahead of Arby. And we've, we've complimented both of those teams throughout this year, particularly has, but it's not resulted in a great deal of points. If, you know, one big weekend can really change the fortunes of one of these lower, lower teams, I thought they were great. They've clearly qualified well for the right session in that they don't have to deal with pit stops in the sprint race.

So they actually stand a chance of getting points. Not sure what will happen on Sunday, but that's another matter. Yeah, Bottas was, Bottas was very good. I think in dry conditions, maybe there was one or two more positions in there for him, just based on how good he'd been in the first two sessions. But I don't think he'll be complaining too much about ninth place based on where he has been in recent races and recent seasons. And Joe Guanyu, like you say, the crowd's response to Joe Guan Yu getting into Q3 was something to behold. And it stands him in good stead because here, yes, Bottas was a little bit better than him.

but not considerably better than him. We're not seeing massive gaps open up between the two drivers. In a session where Hamilton's qualified second and Russell's 11th and where Alonzo's third and strolls 15th, where Sonoda got knocked down in Q1 and Ricardo got knocked down in Q2,

the fact that they are next to each other on the grid, that bodes quite well for Joe. I see your point and I do agree, but I do think that because it was only a top 10 shootout, Now, Joe's blushes have been saved a little. There was over two and a half seconds between their fastest laps in that final session. And I think that does just show the difference between Bottas and Joe. Joe did a fantastic job getting that top ten.

It's great to see him in there. The Chinese reception was amazing. But if that was a full 20 shootout that we had going on there, I fear Joe Wang, you would not be sitting right next to Valtry Bottas in that moment. Oh, no, I mean, the Q3 effort was a long way off. Like I say, with those sorts of sessions, you can see those gaps really come together. I mean, two seconds between Norris and Vastappen should tell you everything you need to know on that. Like, you'd never get that in a dry session.

So Q3 was definitely Joe's worst session of the three. But I think that the hard work had been done in the previous sessions to even make it there to the point where, yes, he was quite comfortably slowest and didn't hook up a lap. but I don't know, you can not get away with it at that point, but even if Joe had delivered a five times better lap, he'd still probably have only been 9th or 10th. Yeah, I think he's allowed to get away with it because of how good SQ1 and SQ2 were. I just want to make sure that when it comes to race time,

he's right there with Valtrey Bottas. I don't mind if he finishes behind him, but he's got to be, you know, skicking with him. They've got to make sure they pull this together now. This is a golden opportunity. Yeah, if they've got the opportunity to work together in these, well, definitely in the sprint race. We'll see what happens in the actual qualifying race.

But yeah, I mean, if they can work together to see off the likes of maybe Russell and two hasses and stroll behind them, and suddenly I know it's only top eight point scorers in the sprint, but maybe something opens up for them. This is devastating for George Russell, who I'm sure we're about to get onto. Oh, let's crack on you. Yeah, if George Russell, who's had a tough time in sprint qualifying, ends up being stuck the entire race behind both salbers. That Mercedes is a dog and George Russell is struggling.

And this is two races in a row now where Lewis Hamilton has outqualified him. And, okay, it didn't turn into much for Lewis Hamilton come Japan. But if Russell beats Hamilton after this race, Russell's like a fantastic time and Hamilton's had an absolute stinker, but I can't see it happening. And oh, the form seems to be really swapping over for the two Mercedes drivers. but equally, the car is a mess. The downfall of the say is has to be studied at this point because three years after absolute domination for eight seasons in a row.

And they're now fighting with hars cars who two years ago were regularly getting lapped twice in a Grand Prix. This is atrocious in their ability to maintain an advantage. I mean, Merck just needs to put to one side what Hamilton was able to do because as great as that result was, it could quite easily mask the issues that are in place. Because the true pace of Mercedes was on show in Q1 and Q2. And that was George Russell barely getting out of Q1.

He really had to put together a lap in the dying stages of that session to get out of Q1, didn't do it by a great deal. And then obviously he doesn't make it out of Q2. But let's face it, even if he did make it out of Q2, same way as Lewis Hamilton, in a dry Q3, where are the Mercedes starting? I would probably guess 7th and 9th. I mean, I think 7th is complementary.

The 8th and 9th. It'd be them versus the Salbers, right, for the bottom three or four places, probably. And could you imagine two or three years ago us saying normally, yeah, it's Mercedes versus the Salbers at this point. You think, wow, Salber have had a great climb up the table. What have they managed?

No, no, no. Hamilton versus Erickson. Yes. Someone's tied absolutely. led weights to the back of that Mercedes because there is something horribly wrong there. Yeah. Like I said, I mean, you've already made the point that Bottas outperformed Hamilton through the first few dry sessions and we'll see, I mean, we'll see what the weather does for the rest of this

weekend. I think Mercedes will probably be hoping that it stays in these sort of wet, changeable conditions because that will open up these opportunities for the likes of Lewis Hamilton. But if that isn't the case, boy, it doesn't look. You know what? It doesn't look any different from Japan. It looks exactly the same. Right. It looks exactly the same. And Toto Wolf comes out with all this positive talk, which is great. It's great if it turns into something that's actually positive on a racetracking. At the end of the day, you can say whatever you want. He could say the word, pancake waffles, I like bananas, 83 times into an interview.

And if they turn up on the racetrack and their first and second, that's the magic words, Toto. Say them all you want. But you can come out and say, we've got the tires, we understand the temperatures. We've made great steps forward. it's exactly the same. No matter the conditions, everyone's in the same ones, and you were still fighting to get out of Q1, you're then still battling to get out of Q2, which one car so regularly hasn't made the difference of,

and only because of these weather conditions, were you looking competitive? Questions need to be asked, because it's, they're not moving anywhere, no matter what changes they make. No matter what Toto Wolf says, even if he says, pancakes, waffles, I love bananas.

If he actually says that, I'll have a great day. That's a great interview. If we see any five-star reviews that come in in the next week with that as the title, that will make us very, very happy indeed. I'll read them in his accent as well. Please don't do it. So in terms of the early parts of qualifying, we saw the two Alpines get knocked out in Q1. We saw the two Williams drivers knocked out in Q1. But we also saw Yuki Sonoda get knocked out in Q1,

which is a bit away from the form that he's been showing recently. Daniel Ricardo, of course, his teammate making it through to Q2, not able to do a great deal with that. I think he's starting 14th in the sprint tomorrow. But even so, five positions higher than where Yuki Sanoda qualified, which is a much needed win against a teammate, Sam. Yeah, I want to steer towards the praise for Daniel Ricardo because rightfully so, people have been saying to me off the podcast,

oh, you're a bit of a DR hater at the moment. You know, you're giving them a lot of stick. well, I do think he deserves the stick, but equally, I'm going to turn it around and I'm going to give him the carrot when he absolutely deserves it, and he's pulled out a performance over Yuki Sanoda here. Now, it wasn't breathtaking.

It wasn't anything massively special, but this is the kind of consistent, strong performance that you need to have to prove, if he wants to do so anyway, that you're the driver for Red Bull. There needs to be more than this, but this is a great step in the right direction for Daniel Riccardo for the first four races of this season.

He's put one on Yuki Sanoda. I don't know what was going on with Yuki Sanoda. He didn't really. really do a run. He comes out and it was just slow. I don't know if there's an issue that I missed or if something was going on in that RB, but he couldn't seem to hook up a comfortable lap and the tyres didn't seem to work for him. And he was feigning over the team radio where he came back into the garage. But Danny Riccardo got the job done. Calm, collected. Maybe it's like new chassis that he's got after he exploded the fire extinguishering his car in Japan. Yeah, I thought it was

okay from Daniel Ricardo. I mean, the fact that he beat Yuki Sonoda is a big tick, although he did still get beaten by the two hash drivers, did still get beaten by the two Salba drivers. Did out qualify Lance Roll in Q2, which is something, but I thought this was fine. It feels like Daniel Ricardo has qualified 14th eight times this year, despite the fact we're only on race five,

which is really impressive, but that just seems to be his position now. But like I said, and the key difference was when he's qualified 14th, before it's been with Yuki Sinoda in front of him. Here it's within five positions behind him. The sprint itself, and he's probably got this the wrong way around, I'm afraid, in the 14th place in a sprint race is kind of nowhere if you haven't got a very quick car to make progress. You haven't got a lot of time and you don't need to make four positions up to make

points. You need to make six, which in that R.B just doesn't quite seem feasible. I mean, we'll see. If there's carnage, obviously, then maybe something opens itself up. But really, realistically, he needs to deliver a similar advantage over Yuki Sonoda in actual qualifying, because then even then a climb to 10th is difficult, as we've seen in Yuki Sanoda multiple times this year. It hasn't been easy for him. But at least that's more of an opportunity than getting up to 8th. Yeah, I think I'm going to steer towards being complimentary to Daniel here. I think, yes, you're right that he didn't meet the harsh drivers. I didn't beat the Saba drivers, sure. But equally, maybe that's just where the RBE is around this race track. Maybe the

characteristics don't suit it. Maybe the new track condition is awful for that car. And he's, he's thrashed Yuki Sanooga today. And that's all you can do in terms of a direct comparison to a teammate is beat your teammate outright. He's done that. So yeah, sure, in another race track, maybe they might be high. Maybe it might be an 11th. Maybe it might be ninth. We don't know. But that's again all hypotheticals. He beat his teammate comfortably. Yuki Sanchez has an off day. we'll see where they are come lap two or three of this sprint race, because I imagine for Yuki, with the cars that he's got around him, whilst driving that Rube, which I do think is better than the rest of the cars back there,

they could be right next to each other. If Yuki gets a good start, if Daniel Rokai gets a poor start, it could be undone within about two or three minutes of a race. So, yeah, he's got to capitalize when it actually counts and get himself towards the points. There might be some DNFs. If the conditions are bad, we might see a safety car. He's got to make sure he stays on top of it and beats Yuki when it actually counts.

Yeah, and that's the thing. this weekend that we essentially focused on quite a lot in our preview was that we have had so far this weekend one practice session which is a climatization more than anything and then a qualifying session half of which was in the wet. So we now go into a sprint race. We go into another qualifying session and the race itself and we don't really know anything of a pecking order outside of what we've seen in this limited time. Like you say, with another race, let's say it happened at the Japanese Grand Prix, you would have an idea on how impressive a 14th place finish was for Daniel Ricardo because you'd have three practice sessions to work with. Here, you definitely don't have that.

So it will be intriguing to see what the true pace of not only that car is, but all the cars are as we get into the sprint race tomorrow morning. Something that I think is really intriguing as well about this Chinese Grand Prix with the limited running, the fact that it's now being more wet and we've had a bit of dry, is that, of course, they can now break part firmly in between both the sprint shoots out and sprint race, and then, of course, going into the actual qualifying for the race weekend. So with this limited actual competitive running on a track surface that makes sense, that's dry, you know, where you can see your true pace, it's going to be really interesting to see how the teams interpret, cool, we can break part firmer, we can adjust the setup

of our car. Okay, but how do we do that? Because we've not had any actual running that makes sense to us where we can actually use data that's relevant because it's been wet or we've been on the hard tire or something like that has been going on. Or the track is just setting on fire, spontaneously. Yeah, love that. That's a great part of a race weekend, isn't it? The tracks on fire again. Why?

Don't know. Good. Bantor. Bantor and Sparks. That's a great album name. Anyway, so it's going to be really interesting to how the weekend plays out. This might actually be one of the first sprint weekends where we are going to see two entirely different sessions and we might get two completely different results.

We don't know. Again, that isn't the sprint. sprint races doing, that we've got some weather and I'm going to track surface. So, we'll see how it goes, Ben. Yes, we will. Did you have a driver of the session? Well, it's hard not to give it to Lando Norris. I mean, I know the car is a bit gnaff, but, you know, it's not that gnaff. No, no, I'm going to give it to Lewis Hamilton. The British buyer strikes again, but I do think that that car is currently fifth fastest and to put it in second place, poll for a lot of the session was a brilliant turnaround. Plus, the strategic decision to

whack on some new Inters was great. So, Honourable mentioned if it placed people like Botas, to Lando, to Alonso, but I'm going to give it to Lewis. I've got to go, Lano Norris. Over a second gap in a Q3 in any conditions is remarkably impressive. He was so far clear of his teammate, so far clear of the Red Bulls, great stuff. Yeah, absolutely fantastic. They, above and beyond, it was a really, really great session. I want more like, that please F1. Well, fingers crossed and we'll find out very shortly because we'll be back with another review around this time tomorrow when we'll be reviewing the sprint race itself that happens as you mentioned earlier in the very early hours of the UK morning and then of course

qualifying for the actual race that happens a little bit later on. We'll do a review that encompasses both of those again around this time tomorrow but until then do you want to get us out there? Folks let's start our petition to resurface every single race track every single season. All we want is slippery and cut. No, we're going to move on. Yeah, join us, folks, as we review the sprint race

and the qualifying from Saturday, tomorrow. Wherever you are, use this time as a reference because it will be quite similar, I imagine. And we can't wait to talk about it. And then, of course, we've got the big race on Sunday

and our power rankings over on Patreon will be coming out on Monday as well. So that's exciting. Make sure you're subscribed over there to see those. Thanks for listening to you. We'll speak to you tomorrow in the meantime. I've been Ben Hocking. And I've been Ben Hocking.

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