The Late Braking F1 Podcast - 2024 Japanese GP Qualifying Review

Episode Date: April 6, 2024

Sam and Ben review the Japanese GP Qualifying where Verstappen took pole but it was closer than normal for the Red Bull duo who will take the front row for tomorrow's race. They break down the performances of the Top 10 from McLaren positioning themselves as Red Bull's closest challenger through to Tsunoda's home race Q3 appearance, and name their Drivers 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. And a very warm welcome to the late breaking F1 podcast presented by Sam Sage and me, Ben Hocking today reviewing qualifying at the Japanese Grand Prix at Suzuki, where Red Bull took a 1-2, Max Verstappen, leading Sergio Perez with Lando Norris, Fernando, sorry, Landon Norris and Carlos Sines in third and fourth with Fernando Alonzo in fifth. I mean, early wake-up call, which we're not complaining about, as always, Sam.

But how do you think that went? Yeah, as Suzuki goes, it wasn't the thriller that I was hoping it might be. And with, you know, the washout session in FP2, where, you know, they had very minimal running, I really thought that we might see, I don't know, a little bit of drama. But everyone made it around pretty seamlessly. no real issues. Logan Sarduk, of course, had that issue in practice driving the damaged chassis. Also, maybe not the best qualifying ever, but he got round in one piece. Yeah, I was just expecting a little bit more excitement, but, you know, can't ask for everything these days. So I appreciate

the wake-up call. Thanks, Suzuki. Maybe all the drama was actually with you and your one-sock strategy. I can't believe you've revealed this to the people. Yes. Folks, due to getting up early and he needs to be quiet, I realised they only brought one sock to wear. So all morning I've had one sock on, one sock off, and I've had to alternate to stop my feet from getting cold. Yes, I am embarrassed. Yeah, never mind. As mentioned, a Red Bull 1-2, and that's where we'll kick off today's review. So in the end, the gap was relatively small between Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez, about six 100ths of a second, which is a long way down from what his advantage was at this circuit last year, when he qualified on pole by about six tenths of a second.

Sam, it didn't feel at any point that Vastappen was overly threatened, as in he was pretty much leading the way from the first stepping Q one through to the last stepping Q3. But the gap at the end, obviously, very close. Is this an encouraging one for Sergio Perez? Yeah, it is encouraging. I think a lot of people will say, oh, Max just didn't get the lapping. He's got a lot more in the tank.

And that might be the case. But at the end of the day, we're talking hypotheticals at this point. you've got to get the car over the line in that time to really make the argument that you could do it on that moment. And his time was good enough for pole. And I think he improved a tiny margin on his second run, which made it look even slightly more comfortable. I think it was 0.02 before Vastappan then improved again. So Sergei Perez, he's stepped up because unlike Max Verstappen,

he got a lap in that was almost equal to a three-time champ, you know, 50 race swings at this point. is absolutely flying in terms of his career. And Sergio Perez around a track that is considered, you know, a quotation marks driver's track where those who really like to go racing thrive, usually the opposite of what Sergio Perez does well in, has turned up and he's done a brilliant job. And in times where people are talking about what he could do next year, should he be in that seat next year,

should someone else come and replace him, this is the kind of consistent performance that he needs to be delivering to tell everyone that he's still got it, he's where he needs to be and he's delivering that everything that Red Bull made. Yeah, I thought this was a very, very encouraging performance from Sergio Perez. I mean, there were times where, you know, Fernando Alonzo got in front of him in Q1 and I don't think he was second in Q2 either, but he was there or thereabouts for the most part. And it never looked like this gap was going to be more than about three-ish tenths of a second,

which isn't too bad. But obviously in Q3, Perez really did pull together what I thought was a good lap at the end of that session. And yes, like you say, Max Verstappen did identify that it wasn't his greatest lap in the world. But, you know, it's not like Vestappen had one clear error. It's not like one, one clear sector was poor from Vastappan. I know he didn't go faster in the final sector, but, you know, in the first sector, I think the gap was about a tenth. In the second sector, Sergio Perez had had a purple sector. So it felt fairly balanced throughout the lap, which is great from Sergio of Perez's perspective. And this might be the most encouraging qualifying performance he's had in a

very long time, maybe ever, because whilst he has had a couple of pole positions from his time at Red Bull, they've come at, well, Saudi Arabia, right? They've come at circuits where, street circuits that he is typically very good at. We've always said at the beginning of seasons, whenever Perez seems to be on it, he's won at Baku, and he's been very good at Saudi Arabia as referenced. But his issue has always been when we get to the middle part of the season and we're getting into fewer street circuits and more purpose-built tracks that he just doesn't quite shine on in the same way versus his teammate. Remains to be seen exactly what the gap is in the Grand Prix itself, but at least in qualifying, being within one-tenth of your world champion

teammate, that'll do very nicely and puts Red Bull in a good position tomorrow to, I think they'd be disappointed if this was anything worse than a one-two. And a good bounce. back from Australia as well. It would have been really easy to get a nightmare here last year, if you remember. It would have been easy to, I don't know, for it to get progressively worse from Australia and to just bounce back at the first time of trying, that's admirable, I think. Yeah, we've seen that from Perez before as well, where he's had a knocking form or a knocking confidence, as was demonstrating at Miami last season.

And he's just really struggled to ever kind of get back on the horse and start delivering again. But weirdly, this was almost a switch-up. I would have thought that if you would have told me he had one race where he didn't really perform and he was middle of the road, and one race where he's excelled already at the start of the weekend, I would go, oh, it's probably Albert Park,

the one that he's excelled in because that's a street circuit. He tends to do pretty well on these kinds of tracks. But it's the opposite of this. He's turned up immediately out of the gates. And to be fair to him, I suppose, maybe we're being harsh. He did pick up that penalty in the qualifying on Albert Park, and maybe there will have been more to it

if he was able to start near the front. But qualifying, which has been his weakness for a long time now, seems to slowly be going in the right direction. We're not getting these Sergio Perez 8th, 10th, 11th finishes anymore. We're getting regularly. There were many worse than that. Yeah, regularly. I mean, I said the stat enough times.

I was the guy laying into him over 50% of his qualifying. He was starting outside of Q3, outside of the top 10 last season. Q2, sorry, P2 with less than a tent between Hingham and Vestappen. I don't know what more you can ask for. Yes, obviously a very good day for Red Bull and somewhat needed after what happened, of course, in Australia. We spoke about on the preview how it's fairly close championship points-wise between Vostappan and the Ferrari drivers and obviously Perez as well, and same in the constructors. But it wasn't Ferrari that were the second best team today. That went instead to McLaren.

Lando Norris, the lead of the two McLaren drivers. He'll start from third and Oscar Piastri will start from P6. what did you make of McLaren seemingly putting themselves as the nearest challenger? I was quite impressed and I was quite surprised. I do think this is maybe more. We've seen some Lando brilliance. And I do think he's quite happy to drive around Suzuki at a rapid pace. The guys who's very, very comfortable here.

He did well last time here as well. Lando seems to thrive on these proper driver circuits. It seems to be a big of a running theme that he's got now where these long swooping in Corners suit what he likes to drive-through, similar to the likes of Silverstone, as well, usually around Mexico. It suits his characteristics. And I do think that whilst Piascri's lap time was fine, good, the McLaurang is in a sensible place there, you know, sixth place, it's okay.

I do think that this was a case of Landon Norris pulling something out of the bag and being the only driving less than three-tenths away outside of the Red Bull family is a really positive sign that one, the McLaren is capable of really big things, but two, Landon-Norris has it in his locker to be the game. guy that steps up and challenges those guys. Yeah, given that Carlos signs down to, let's say, George Russell, that was a fairly close-knit group, particularly from sort of signs down to Piastri. There wasn't much in that.

Yeah. And Lando Norris, okay, it's not a massive margin, but he did separate himself from that group, and he didn't improve on his second run. That all came from his first run, which I think track evolution had kind of diminished by that point. But even so, there was opportunity to improve on that. that second run and he didn't, showing how good that first lap really was. Yeah, Lando Norris can definitely target the podium from here, which, you know, given his podium at

Australia as well, would mark a good run of form for him. And I don't think it's completely off the cards that Piastri can move forward and be in a similar spot as well. I'm like you, I was a little bit surprised. I know they went well here last year. And it might be at this point, given how good they were in the first sector in particular, because Lando Norris had various purple first sectors as we went through today's session, given how good they were there, plus how good they were in the first sector at Saudi Arabia a couple of races ago, I think we probably just get into a point now

where we can identify that McLaren's key strength of this car is going to be those high-speed corners. And at circuits where they're more prevalent, they maybe have a better chance of doing well. A weird thing, I suppose, is that if you look at, like you said, the strengths and the characteristics of that car, fast through very high-speed, high-down-force level areas, that is exactly the same level of excellence that Red Bull used to deploy when Mercedes were the dominant car. It would be these types of tracks where, okay, Mercedes might be one too, but the reason why Red Bull are so close previously were because they were able to beat them in the high-down-force areas where Adrian Nui typically thrives. of course, the Mercedes engine would usually carry the rest of the speed for that Mercedes team. So maybe if we get to tracks like Monaco, for example, which is all downfalls heavy,

who knows, there might be a chance there for McLaren to really deploy some pace, and we could see them challenging for a wing if we're being optimistic here. Let's move on to Ferrari, because after what was a brilliant day in Melbourne, with Carlos Sines taking the win and Charlotte-Lacler finishing second, hasn't gone to plan so far this weekend for them. So Carlos Sines is going to be the lead Ferrari driver on the grid tomorrow in fourth place. And that's four positions ahead of where Shao LaClau will be starting all the way down in 8th. Now, we saw Shao LaClaire in particular only had one set of fresh tires in Q3 because of how much he himself struggled to get through to the last session in the earlier points of today. Are you surprised that they're not more on it here?

I'm not surprised that the Ferrari isn't challenging the Red Bull. do think that Albert Park was an outlier. I know we tried to be optimistic in our race preview, but we were kind of realistic towards the end of our statements, and we did expect that, you know, the reason why science won and why he was so close to Stappen was more of a car issue. We saw that with the DNF that brought them closer. Sergei Perez seemingly started with that penalty, wasn't fully on the pace. And an obvious fact to state, but Sergio Perez is not Max for Stappen. He doesn't have that elite level pace. So if the car's not absolutely on it, it is hard for him to absolutely maximize

things. So I'm not shocked that Ferrari aren't closer to Red Bull, considering that this feels like a very Red Bull native track. It feels like a place that that car is very, very comfortable. Max Stafford back at his best with a fully operating car. The thing that shocked me, because science and fourth seems perfectly fair, perfectly realistic. I think he probably could have targeted third place, and that would have been a perfect scenario for him. I think he would have really maximised his qualifying. What shocked me here is Charlotte Claire. Charlotte's strength out of all this is qualifying. He's regularly been credited by ourselves and many other pundits as being the fastest man on a Saturday

and typically able to get more out of the car than what is reading eager, the amount of pole positions that he's secured without picking up those victories because the Ferrari typically is not faster on a Sunday, it's better on a Saturday. So to see him languishing all the way down in eighth place. And whilst the gap, as we stated earlier, to the cars in front, is very small.

If he improves one-tenth, he's sat alongside his teammate, sure, but one-tenth the qualifying makes all the difference. And it's usually someone like Charlercler that you could depend on to pull out that tenth and get the lap in. He seemed very bewildered, very confused over the team radio when he finished his lap, regularly saying, you know, I just don't know what more to do.

I don't get it. I don't understand. That's really worrying. If you don't understand what's causing you this lack of pace, what's causing you to have the loss of that final edge that you need as a Formula One driver to be cut through and get the performance in, where do you start?

Where do you look at your performance? All you can do is pick yourself against your teammate. So when it's such fine margins like a 10th, it's very, very hard to claw that back if you simply don't understand how to make up the difference. So let's hope that the Ferrari's got better race pace. I think there's qualifying pace, which would be a real switching form over last year.

Let's see what LeClerc can do. He's close to those Mercedes and McLaren's in the asking in front of him. Might be a better day for him tomorrow. But, yeah, Sainz still put it out the bag. This has been a really good weekend for him so far. Yeah, Carlos Sines has got to be delighted because him out qualifying Charles Leclair apparently means he's definitely going to win this race.

Last two times that's happened, he's gone on to win. so from fourth place, he'll be delighted with that outcome. Equally, I think signs from his perspective, fourth place was probably about all that car had. Like you say, maybe third would have been on the cards with a perfect lap. But outside of that, I think he did mostly his job in terms of who he should have beaten. It was very close, as you've already identified, between himself, Alonzo Piastri.

And he was able to end up ahead in that group. So it would have been very easy for him to be alongside his teammate, I think here and he's not. So a good effort from signs. From Charlotte-Claude's perspective, obviously in Q3 he did have to, and this is self-inflicted, so this isn't me making excuses for him.

He had to go off strategy. Like he was out there a few minutes earlier than everyone else in order to get a bit of a bit of clean air and make sure there wasn't any red or yellow flags that interrupted his one and only lap on fresh tires. And like you say, he was utterly bewildered as to why,

he was not quicker. And I don't know whether it's him, the car, or arguably maybe the setup, because he was flying in the second sector. He was very good. He had the fastest second sector, I think, until Sergio Perez went and beat it in his final run. But his middle sector was better than anyone who tried it in their first run, which should probably tell you that if a driver is fastest in one of the three sectors, yet can only manage eighth overall.

Maybe you just haven't set up your car right. Maybe they compromised too much and that first and final sector took too much of a hit. Like you say, I mean, he seems to have been, it's kind of a whole weekend thing really because like everyone else, he didn't really get many laps in

on the Friday practice sessions, but also he was very frustrated in FP3 because Ferrari had messed up, shockingly. his run pattern in terms of his qualifying sim lapse there. So yeah, confusing for him. Will it be better tomorrow? I don't know. On today's evidence, I'm not very confident.

The worst part for LeCler is when you're in a scenario like this, clearly the car is capable because science has put it in a very advantageous position. But you need to be smart. You need to think on your feet. You need to pull out some kind of clever strategy in the moment to really maximise the weekend from where he is. he's starting behind pretty much all of his rivals other than George Russell. So this would realistically need him to go, right, we're going to do an undercut,

or we're going to take advantage of a VSC or a safety car, or we're going to make sure that we're, you know, we are so proactive and not reactive. And Ferrari, you've been improving, you've been really trying, but this do be your biggest weakness of doing something proactively and efficiently. So just what, do be so hard for you. Do be. So let's see if they can actually pull that out the bag because it would be a result for them

if they walk away from this weekend going Sites and Clare finish right next to each other and the reason that happened is because we were brilliant on our strategy and we maximised it. That would be a great result for Ferrari. What I fear is more likely is Sites will finish P4, the Clare might finish P7 and there will be a real opportunity to make something happen

and one of their rivals has done, not them. So we'll see. Fingers crossed for them. We'll take a quick break at this point. Stick around though. We still got plenty to talk about on this episode, including Aston Martin and Mercedes. Okay, moving on to Mercedes, because once again, they seem to threaten in FP3, and that materialized into very little when it came to Q3.

They were seventh and ninth at the flag. Lewis Hamilton out-qualifying George Russell for the first time in a fair while, but still only good for seventh place. And George Russell only able to out-qualify Yucke. Sunoda when it came to the final session here. Another tough day, Sam. Yeah, they are FP3 merchants at this point. They get there and don't do a lot. Exactly. They just think, you know what? This is qualifying, isn't it? They do that on Fridays now. We do it early. No, Mercedes. You should do it on the qualifying day. Yeah, this is so typical Mercedes at the moment. It felt very positive. Their social

meager admin blessing was really hyping them up after practice because they were three, four, and all the people in the comments were like, don't touch that car, we're back, here we go. And you get into qualifying. And it's what feels like at this point, a trademark 7-9 from Mercedes, where one drive or the other, doesn't matter which one, cannot get any better than seventh place. And the other one just beats the midfield car that's done a good enough job to get into Q3. you know, the bare minimum thought it should be a frontrunner, really.

The interesting thing, of course, from the saying is that, as you said in the intro to this segment, Lewis Hamilton out-qualifies George Russell. That's the first time. This is the sixth Grand Prix in a row it would have been if Russell had beaten Hamilton. And it was done by a comfortable margin.

There were, I think, two or three tenths in it. Russell, the whole weekend seemingly behind Lewis Hamilton, in the first turn of pace, which was against the rung of form. He just couldn't seem to get comfortable in the car to the same level that Lewis could. And Lewis came out and said, after practice, this is the best that this car has ever felt

at this point. The sag, sag, part of this, of course, is that the best that that car has felt is still half a second away from Max Verstappen at the front. And you heard he's disappointed over the radio when he was told. Where is it? Yeah. Where's the pace? How is that car half a second faster? Man.

It just is. That's called Adrian Newee. He just delivers half a second. So, yeah, I mean, sad, disappointing. A bit of a letdown. All of their rivals, including Fernando Alonkso, who I still believe is driving a slower car in front of them. They just haven't got the cutting eggs when they need it. Shrugging noises.

I just don't really know what to say about Mercedes anymore. This just seems to be where they are. Like you say, George Russell was off the pace versus his teammate here. You know, it was, like you said, it was a couple attempts in Q3, but it was kind of a couple attempts throughout every single run that they did. It was very rare that Russell was on it with his teammate. And yeah, he didn't really threaten anyone outside of Yuki Sonoda in Q3, which is not where Mercedes-Hamilton a little bit more in the mix.

But again, if Charlotte-Claire's on it, that's probably an 8-9, which is not good versus what we've been accustomed to expect from Mercedes. We'll have to see whether FP3, I mean, FB3 is typically used for qualifying runs, which again is a bit bemusing. We'll have to see if that does, if their practice form does indicate they've got better race pace than quality pace. That has been traditionally the way that it's gone for them.

But Suzuki, it's not easy to get overtakes done, even if they did have a pace advantage. It is a trickier one, because outside of the, really outside of turn one, there aren't that many opportunities to get a move done. So I don't have too much to say other than, can you please be a bit quicker? it would be nice.

Yeah, nice, I'm sure they agree with. Antiqui Davidson on the Sky Coms pointing out that there was absolutely no porpoising from that Mercedes, which is something that we're not used to seeing. And I observed the same thing, and that's great that they've managed to get that under control. But who really cares if there's no porpoising if you're finishing in exactly the same position

that you've started in when you were porpoising? Like, okay, the ride is more comfortable, but you're not going anywhere any faster. I'd rather drive the world's uncomfortable. uncomfiest car and be world champion, then drive around in a comfy little softbox in ninth place. It wouldn't matter to me if I was in a sport and I was winging, and they're not going any quicker because of it.

So I appreciate him pointing it out, but for what game? And it's a similar thing that we've seen. Again, it's Saudi Arabia's the comparison here because the first sector at Saudi Arabia is very much focused on high-speed corners in the same way that it is here at Suzuki. But it is just that exasperation of seeing the gap after one sector consistently be four-tenbours slower than Vastappen.

You're never going to get that time back because, I mean, really, based on that, sector two and sector three, they aren't that far behind, but they're just losing so much in high-speed corners that it kind of accounts for nothing, doesn't it? Yeah, I think, weirdly, Russell and Hamilton went the opposite ways on their setup to what they usually do, and Hamilton, I think, went very downforce heavy. So I do wonder if he's going to struggle to make any progress in the race. And this is because in his final run, his fastest run, rather,

he was only 0.06 away from Verstappen in sector one, which is so unusual to see from Mercedes, because famously they have been so slow in those really fast sector times. But Russell was that slow. He was nearly half a tenth away in the first sector. I think 0.3-2, I think he was, away from Verstappen going through sector one. And that was, you know, the laps immediately done and dusted at that point. You're not getting that back.

So the car isn't quick enough. Because of that, they're having to make compromises on certain sectors or certain track characteristics. And then that just compounds the failure that they're experiencing with. They're just trying to be okay in one area of the racetrack. You've got to be good everywhere to be actually on the top spot. So we had one team, Astor Martin, that had a driver qualify in the top half of Q3 and one driver who was knocked out in Q1. So very much a contrast in fortunes for Fernando Alonso starting fifth and Lance Stroll starting 16th. Stroll. unable to improve on his first run in Q1.

And as anyone else and everyone else improved around him, it saw him just about bumped out. What did you make of Aston Martin today, Sam? Alonso overperformed the car. And Fernando Alonso, same person. You may as well put him in both cars. You might actually do all right. Fernando Alonso overperformed Lance Stroll massively disappointed.

You could see from the shot of him walking down the pit lane with his kind of head down, shoulders hunched, that he's very disappointed in himself. but at what point is being disappointing yourself, give you validation, you know, get him out of that car, unfortunately. I know crack evolution happened. I know there were different sectors and things going on and different sessions that we were in. But at the end of the day, Fernando Alonso's fastest time compared to Lance Stroll's fastest time

was nearly one and a half seconds different between teammates. That is not acceptable between the two. Because the gap between Max Verstappen and the back of the Greek Zhou Guangyu was only two seconds, So that means that there's only four tenths between the ultimate fastest time across the entire weekend and the ultimate slowest time across the entire weekend. That Aston Martin is not faster than a Red Bull. It's not fast thing of MacLaurin. It's not fast thing of the Saegis, I don't think.

And yet, Fernando Alonkso is there in fifth, beating out several of those competitors. Lankstroll is miles off. Even if you had a driver that was able to put the car regularly and consistently, where Uki-Sinodra is currently finishing in that tent spot, you go, all right, Fernando Alonso is a beast. He's just outperforming things. But at least his teammate is able to get a good level of performance out of that car. But we're so far from that.

It's like a rookie is in that car. It's like you've got someone who's never driven a Formula One race driving the second car. I called him a lump in our race preview of this weekend, which is a harsh thing to say. But the guy's driving like a bloody lump. It's like you put some salted butter in the race seat and he's got no arms or legs. And so he's just driving it like a melted lump of butter. Yeah, sorry, that got out of control. My point being here that that was astonishingly bad,

and he needs to be better, and Askin Martin are paying the price time and time again because of it. Alonzo did a great job. I think he'll be a little bit myth that he wasn't able to battle with Lando Norris for third, given where he was earlier in the qualifying session, as referenced, I think in in Q1, he was a bit more competitive,

and whilst the McLaren's improved, I'd say the McLaren's improved through the sessions a little bit more than Alonzo did. Therefore, he was very close to finishing fourth ahead of Carlos Sines, a couple attempts away from Norris. But overall, great effort to be fifth. From Landstrol's perspective, I can't go on another rant about him after the preview episode.

I think the results kind of do the talking, though. A driver from every team beat him. At least one driver from every team beat him. today. That's not good. It's not good. Esteban O'Con is driving an actual tractor. I think he is driving a lump of butter.

He might be. And he managed to get through to Q2. Valtry Bottas pulled out a stunning lap to get through to Q2. Nothing from Lancholy. But again, I will not go on another rant. I won't go on about the absolute mental gymnastics that people will do to try and maybe believe that he's actually a good driver. I'm going to put a full stop on it here.

Well, I'm not because there are several people that are comments on our real long Instagram. Oh my God, I can't deal. The fact that, you know, Magnuson is actually awful, strolls a punching bag, he might not be in the bottom quarter, he's only in the bottom half. I just want to take a screenshot of this result

and just reply to you with that. I'm sorry, don't want to call him out on social media. And we appreciate people that follow us and listen, but what mornings to be said on this scenario right now? he was atrociously bad, and you're still defending the man? I've really, I just know, I've really tried not to go down this path, but I can't stop now. I don't want to pick out one person in particular, but someone said it's a lot based on Alonzo being his teammate. And what would it be like if this driver or this driver and said, what about if it was Sergio Perez?

We've seen that. Is that happened? It was also terrible. Oh, God. I stand by he is in the bottom quarter of F1 drivers on this grid. If you don't think he's part of the bottom quarter, that means you are saying there are five drivers on this grid that are not as good as Lance Stroll.

Like, to put him 15th and therefore not in the bottom quarter, there's got to be five drivers. where are they? Where are the five? Are they in the room with us? Are they on the podcast? Because that would make sense if there's two of them here. I've really tried, but... Sorry, sorry Lance fans. I know it's hard to hear that your driver's getting maybe picked on. But come on, be realistic.

Yuki Sonoda, he made it through to Q3. But his teammate Daniel Ricardo, agonisingly did not. About half a tenth or so separating those two drivers and they will start alongside each other on the grid, obviously in 10th and 11th. Daniel Ricardo, of course, has said a lot about his chassis and wanting peace of mind that there isn't something wrong with his car.

Seemed to be far closer, but still being outqualified that makes it 4-0 to Sonoda this season so far. How do you read that? Has he got the new chassis on yet, or is it still being... I don't think so. No, I think that's coming, right? Yes, right. Okay, just wanted to clarify.

want to make sure that I was going to read this properly before it happened. Daniel, mate, you've managed to qualify essentially less than a tenth away from Yuki Sonoda before Q3 took place, right? That's okay for a teammate. Yeah, he knocked you out. But generally, your qualifying was all right. Your one position behind your teammate when he knocked you out there. And he's what, starting in P12 now, is it?

No, he's 11th. Yeah, yeah, you got 11th, yeah. I thought Holkenberg might have pushed him back. Yes, you're starting one position behind your team. mate. That is totally acceptable. That's a good performance. And yet nothing has changed with your car. Nothing has changed with the equipment that you're driving. Yuki Sinoza doesn't have a different car. You haven't swapped chassis and he's suddenly driving a broken one. Yuki Sanoda is better right now than Daniel Ricardo. Every session, Yuki Sinoa is out driving Daniel Ricardo, even if it's

half a tenth, Yuki Sanoa is faster. And that's something for Ricardo to work on and that's something for Yuki-Snowder to be proud on. But being 10-11 in that R-B, I think is perfectly acceptable. And if this was the same every single Grand Prix, I would say, well, well done. They're right next to each other. They're clearly very equal competition right now. It's only going to take a little bit to separate them. The issue is we've had the previous results where Daniel Ricardo hasn't only been one place behind him. He's being three, four, five places behind him. So now he needs to go out and beat him tomorrow in the Grand Prix. He needs to make sure that, okay, I start one place behind him, but I need to finish one place in front of him. And then that way

you start to build up your confidence. I don't want to lay into Daniel Ricardo about this chassis thing, but I'm going to say one famous expression, a good workman never blames his tools. And I really think that says it all right now of how I view this conversation about Daniel Ricardo's chassis. Yeah, there you go, Joe, you've got no excuse to be last.

Actually doesn't, though. Yeah, so I think from Menardi, perspective, I believe Daniel Ricardo was half a tenth up on Yuki Sanoda in the first part of qualifying and then that almost reversed for the second part of qualifying, which is, of course, the important one because that got Yuki Sanoda for its Q3, even though he wasn't ultimately able to do anything with that. I think realistically, given the pace of the other nine drivers, that was never going to be the case. I feel like from Ricardo's perspective, you'd take this. I know his team radio, his engineer was more positive about it than Ricardo was.

Ricardo's saying, yeah, I'm not happy, which he shouldn't be. He got knocked out of Q2 when his teammate got through to Q3. So there's no, I'm glad that he's not happy, as cruel as that sounds. But I think he's overall going the right way. Based on where he's been the first few races of this year to only just be off Yuki Sanoda, it's got to be a springboard, right? that's got to be the launch to then beat Yuki Sonoda once,

then it's got to be consistent and then it's got to be by a lot. That's what Ricardo needs to achieve if he wants his overall goal of racing for Red Bull is whether you think that's realistic or not, that's up for debate. But if that's his goal, that's what he's got to do.

And he's just, if this can at least be a stepping stone, then that's positive. But it's got to lead to someone. Yeah, what worries me is that this might be, outlier. Danga Ricardo famously has gone well around Japan. He does like this track.

Even when he was in his Renault, for example, he did very, very well around this racetrack. But like you, I do hope it's a stepping stone. I do hope we now see another 20 Grand Prix after this, where those two are separated by nothing, neck and neck for the entire season. It would really show that they are racing on an equal playing field and they're both very good drivers.

I think the issue for Danga Ricardo is being neck and neck with Yuki Sonoda, who is having currently his best season in Formula One. I think the guy is driving brilliantly. The best season for Yuki Sondoda, if you match that, is still not enough to get you into that Red Bull over Sergio Perez. For sure. Anything from outside the top 10 that you wanted to focus on? Obviously, some good laps in there from the likes of Valtry Bottas. Yeah, there's two drivers I want to call out.

One of them was Valtry Bottas. The guy was almost on track for a Q3 appearance again for the second Grand Prix in a row. He's finding that form. That car, I do think, is a bit gnaff and a bit difficult to drive. and we've seen the difficulties that Salba are bringing at the moment, but he's seemingly driving through them, and he's awoken up. I don't know if there's something going on in the background of that Salba team.

I don't know if Audi have got in contact and started to set performance goal-related stuff or kind of said to him, you know, you step up, there's a drive there for you, or something like that. I don't know. But currently, he's put an inconsistently very strong qualifying performances. And we know that's always been the strength of his. Look at how he did against Lewis Hamilton, who statistically is the greatest qualifier of all time. Valtry Bottas comfortably held his own there. He's doing it again now. And this is

positive. And, you know, in theory, if the race goes its way, maybe there's a DNF or maybe they get their strategy call right, or maybe they do a pit stop under four seconds, then potentially points might be on the cards for Salma. They might play themselves into that battle that Haas and R.B are fighting in at the moment. Joe Gwang, you on the other hand, just decimated. This is what, the second Grand Prix in a row where he was the slowest driver. The car is fast than that. The car should be beating those teams around him. He's letting himself down big time at the moment, and he's not covering himself in glory.

The worrying thing, of course, Shyinger is very soon. His home Grand Prix, the first time he'll race there, he's going to need to step it up. The other driver, I want to call out, I don't think it was as good as it could have been, but he's still a fantastic job,

was Esquangok-Ockon. The guy took a stellar lap in Q-1 to get out of Q1 and get himself into Q2. Wasn't as great in Q2. The other drivers around him really stepped up and delivered a good lap, but the car's a boat, and he did a great job of sailing that to a somewhat respectable,

end of position for qualifying. well down here, beat Gassley again, nothing more you can really ask for. Yeah, that's been one of the, I know it's in a car that is awful, but that's been one of the most surprising parts of the start of this season from Alpine's perspective is the advantage that Ocon has had. And it's not like the gap has been massive at most races. Here, I think it was about three tenths or so. But yeah, Ocon currently clean sweep over Pierre Gassley.

And last year, Pierre Gassley had a minor advantage. They've typically been very close, which has been surprising. Yeah, like you say, Valtrey Bottas, superb to get to Q2. Another couple of things I wanted to mention. I think with Williams, Alex Albin, did a fairly good job of getting through to Q2. Logan, Sergeant, I don't want to... I think he did an all right job. He was only a couple attempts off for Alex Albin.

I think it actually looks worse than what it is. I know he's starting 90, so it's not a great result. But given what Sergeant has had to go through Australia, he is, racing the backup chassis, obviously he had that crash in FP1, which is self-inflicted. But actually, to only be two-tenths away from Alex Albin, isn't too bad. And, yeah, like you said, I mean, Esteban Okon is the go. That's the last thing I would say. You are his eschie bestie. Yeah, 0.15 between Sergeant and Albon is solid. Yeah. Yeah, I think that is a good lap, but you're right. The positions make it look so much worse. And that shows, again,

How we spoke about it with the battle in the top half of the field, it only being a tenth difference. If the Claire improves a tenth, he's sat against his science, but he's not. He's in eighth place. It's the same at the bottom end. Logan Sargent improves by a tenth. He sat there in 15th place right next to the album in 14th, and that's respectable, and no one rolls their eyes out and no one looks at it badly.

The crash is getting a lot of defence on social media that he took place in free practice. It seems like a lot of people don't really seem to understand that overskere and understeer are driver inflicted and they're things that regardless of if your car is good or bad, that's entirely how you drive the car and it's you know yes you've got downfalling your car these cars are amazing that williams is still faster than 99% of cars you'll ever come across in the real world so the fact that he's had an overskir and under steer moment which has pulled him out into the grass and then he's crashed it into the wall that is a Logan sergeant failure he has driven that car off himself and I want to see those mistakes removed even if he still only stays not 0.15 behind albu for the rest of his career

that's respectable, but your car needs to be intact. And we can only defend him so much for what happened in Australia if he's then going to put it in the wall in Japan himself. So, yeah, good, but also bad weekend so far from Sergeant. Who was driver of the session? This is a really tough one. But I'm actually going to give it to Sergio Perez. He really impressed me, and he's come on really well so far.

It's qualifying. I think the only outlier is Australia that's been a bad one for him. And even then that was penalty inflicted. So he's turning around his biggest weakness, I feel. Now, if he can stay close to if a stab him in the race, you never know. Might be a chance he could win it with being optimistic folks. But for me, Perez really shontagate. A lot of other big names that I've spoken about deserve praise.

But we've gone on and Perez deserves it. Someone who hasn't, I don't believe, had a mention so far who is going to get my driver of the session. And it should speak volumes about this guy that we haven't spoken about him because it just kind of is the norm for him. I think Nika Holkhomberg was the driver of the session because, again, six positions clear of his teammate. I don't think that has deserved to be in Q2. When we started the session, of course, Kevin Magnberg was the first guy out on track. Commentary were saying, look, I would be surprised if one driver got through to Q2.

There's every chance that both drivers get knocked out in Q1. Of course, that didn't happen. And Nika Holcombberg was less than a tenth away from getting through to Q3. And I think because we saw him get through to Q3 quite a lot last year, this result hasn't really got much attention. But actually, when you think about it, he was very close to the two Alpha Towers. He was clear of all the other teams in the midfield in a car that was maybe expected to go out in Q1.

I think it was a great effort. Yeah, I agree. And it's great to call that out. Three-tenths between teammates is, again, quite large. We've mentioned that a few times. And Holkenberg does it again. These qualifying efforts have always been stupendous, and he's delivering what needed.

Okay. We'll be back in less than 24 hours time because we've got the race review to do tomorrow, Sam. And we're not complaining about it, but it's an even earlier start. I can't wait. No, I love early starts on my Sunday

when I have then got to go to work for a full week. Anything you want to say before we get out of Hif? No, thanks for the support. Thanks for listening. I hope you enjoy it. And let's have a great race tomorrow. Remember, if you want more content or power rankings for every single Grand Prix,

then join the Patreon. The links in the description. We appreciate it. all the support massively. I think that's it. We could? Yeah, we're good. All right.

In the meantime, I've been Samuel Sage. And I've been Ben Hocking. And remember, keep breaking late. This podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network.