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

Episode Date: May 3, 2024

In this back-to-back of sprint weekends, Ben and Sam kick off the proceedings for the Miami GP with a review of the action from the Sprint Qualifying session, from Ricciardo's surprise comeback to the early exits of the Mercedes duo... 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 Spring Qualifying, where Max Verstappen lulled his way to a pole position. Didn't like his lap, did he? It didn't like his lap.

And the way to celebrate not like in your lap is to enter the book of iconic Formula One quotes where you've got people like Graham Hill with the whole, I'm an artist, the tracks my canvas, the car's a brush. You've got Ayrton Sena. If you can no longer go for a gap that exists, you're no longer a racing driver. And now we've got Max Verstappen. Loll, what are the others doing? Equally as potent, equally as dramatic, equally as brilliantly phrased.

I love the way he's gone, I'm back on top again. Didn't even try. made mistakes, still the best. I mean, we were on board for it. It was a pretty large mistake. But as Vastappen was surprised, and we were all surprised as well, no one else could match him, taking pole position ahead of Shao LeCla,

who's proven that you only need three laps of the Miami Circuit to get grips with it. Didn't all right job after basically not taking part in FP1, the only practice session, of course, on this race weekend. Let's start out front. That Max Verstappen poll lap, as mentioned, he had that rather large mistake in the middle sector, probably focused mostly on Lando Norris here,

but have the others, have they missed out here? Was this a big opportunity? I do think there's a real, you know, they've missed a trick, the other ones in the top set. Now, I think it will be harsh to probably include Daniel Ricardo in this, who was sublime, and we will get on to. Nikolk Bergerberg, who again gets himself into

Sprint qualifying three as a great job. Piastri, who's not run in the upgrades, despite qualifying in front of his teammate, but I do think both Ferraris, Perez and Norris, realistically are going to maybe go, oh, there was a bit of weakness there. Max Rastappen wasn't at his 100%. And he's the kind of guy,

much like when Hamilton was on top, and much like when Schumack was on top, that the chinks in the armour are so small, they're so hard to find, that when one is revealed, you have to strike the moment you see a weakness appear. And that was a weakness from the staff. You heard it over the radio.

He was not content with that lap. He thought it was poor. He wasn't. expecting to be on the top. So the fact there's still, I think, a couple of tense between himself and the car behind, Charles LeCler, who again, as you said, Ben, only had three laps all-blooded day to get a lap in. And they're the front two, mistake made and missed a no laps. Come on. You've got to be delivering more than that. So, yeah, I think they will be kicking themselves because a poor lap gets your pole. That's what makes the world champion, I suppose.

Yeah. I appreciate I have made this point multiple times on recent episodes, previous episodes, but being a world champion, being a great in this sport is not about what you do when you're at your best. It's about what you do when you're not at your best. And if you can keep those lows still pretty high, which in Max Verstappen's case, he's still on pole position, despite a dodgy lap by his standards. That just proves your greatness in this sport. I think this was a massively missed opportunity for other drivers. I think in terms of Ferrari, did they quite have the pace? I'm not. I'm not. too sure. Carlos Seins struggled really from Q1. He left it quite late in Q1 to get a lap together that put him out of the bottom five. He never really seemed on it, even versus his teammate that had,

as you say, such limited practice time earlier in the day. I think Charlotte LeClaire pulled out a pretty good lap to get second place. I think Lando Norris is the one that absolutely has missed the trick here. This was his for the taking, in my opinion. Even if Max Verstappen, put together a good lap. I think Lando Norris was still, after SQ2, I thought Norris was the favourite for pole. I mean, bear in mind that the delta between soft and medium tires does change weekend to weekend, but his, yeah, his, his, his, his, his, his HQ two time would have been good enough for pole position. He didn't need to improve going down to the soft compound in order to get pole. That is absolutely maddening. And the fact that he was not only, not just matching his

time between those two sessions, which is what Piastri did. He was actively temps and temps away from where he was. It's something we've spoken about a bit before with Landon Norris that sometimes in Q3 it unravels for him. I think this is an example of that today. I think this is the third instance of this that I can count off the top of my head. You had Qatar, where of course Piastri went on to win the sprint race and Landon Norris fluffed his lines. you have Mexico in the 2023 season. I'm not saying he have won the Grand Prix, but the car was comfortably good enough

to probably be sitting on the front row of the grid, if not third or fourth, and he lost it, obviously, went out in Q1 and had to fight his whole way through the grid. And now, Landon Norris again, poor tire preparation perhaps seems to be the excuse that the commentary team are giving. And that might be the case.

They've had incredibly limited running at this level of heat on that tire compound. They do have less tires in a sprint weekend that they do at a standard weekend. And of course, less practice time, as we've seen. So maybe that preparation just wasn't there from him. But it's on him, right?

He was beaten by his teammate who's running half the upgrades he's running. And that McLaren is quite clearly fast enough in the right conditions to challenge Red Bull over one lap. You said it there, Ben. The medium compound tire run that he ran was more than good enough to put him, if not pole, that front row if he did it exactly again in this final session. And yet on the soft tire, the best tire for a single lap run, which Maxwell Stafford managed to pull out a great lap again.

Lecler on three laps of practice only, gets one tenth away in a car that I think is slower than the McLaren currently. And Lando Norris is in P9. P9! It's not like he's fourth or fifth. He's all the way down with the lights of Holgerberg. Daniel Ricardo is five places clear of Lando Norris in a car that I think should be at least P2 on an all right day.

So it is quite baffling that he is once again at the key moment, absolutely drop the ball. It's a habit that needs to be removed very quickly. I think, you know, the saving grace for Lano Norris is that this could lead to him doing roughly what he did in China, which is, even though he got sprint pole in China, he essentially lost all of it down to about ninth place, right? Quite early on. So for all intents and purposes, he's kind of qualified exactly where he ended up towards the end of the first lap in China. But then, of course, he saved his best work for the race itself. He got P2 where more points are handed out.

He got 18 points for second place. So I think Lando Norris has clearly seen in the car today, at least on the medium tires, it's very, very good. If he can, you know, if that can be followed through into actual qualifying and into the race itself, that will present good scoring opportunities for him. It's going to be tricky in the sprint race. even if this qualifying pace does translate to race pace for Lando Norris,

making overtakes from ninth place, given it's only a one third distance, I don't know how far he's going to get. I would imagine he's going to get some of those positions back if he's on it, but probably not as many as he would have liked to really just get to the point of where he should have qualified anyway. Yeah, it's a little bit disappointing that he can't utilise what these upgrades seem to be providing.

And we said this in our Miami preview, that bringing upgrades to a track like Miami is really risky. It has a lot of features that don't exist elsewhere. The track surface is odd. It's very, very hot here, almost similar to the likes of the Mexico level of heat that we see in this part of the world. So the fact that they brought this many upgrades, nine, nine upgrades they've brought to that car. And Oscar Piasprey has half of them who get the other half in the next Grand Prix.

It's a real risk, because if it doesn't work out, then you kind of think, well, the data says they'll work in Miami. Do they work anywhere else? We don't know. So let himself down there, I think. I think if we get to the end of the sprint race tomorrow and Saturday, and he's climbed himself back up to, I don't know, P4, shall we say, that might end up being in his mind a better Grand Prix.

But I think regardless, it's going to be a bit of a what-if situation. If he's starting on the front row, is there every chance that he actually could go on to finally wing something this weekend? The car looks good enough than it could do that. Yeah, absolutely. And I don't think the Piastri lap was all that amazing. Like I say, he essentially matched his time between Q3 and Q2. So the fact that he's in and amongst Carlos Sines and Daniel Ricardo,

but, you know, behind Ricardo by a couple of spots. I don't think it was great for Piastri. But, yeah, Lando Norris was given the keys to those upgrades earlier. And it's his responsibility to make the most of it. He hasn't today. But yeah, like you say, I'll give, I'll give one compliment to a sprint race. That's going to make this episode worthwhile,

is I'm going to give one compliment to a sprint race, which is in Q3, it essentially boils down to one shot quality, which I think is great. And it does punish the likes of Lando Norris, who didn't put a lap together when he needed to. If he got two runs at it, he probably gets further up the grid,

but that's the jeopardy of only having one run. In Q3 in the main qualifying sessions, you have teams that you kind of have a mix because you have some teams that haven't saved enough tires and only have to do one run, but you get others that essentially get two runs. I don't know. I was quite happy that they all had one opportunity,

even if it did lead to a few minutes waiting around for them all to come out. Yeah, it's quite funny, isn't it, that the argument for sprint races is, oh, you know, they're more interested than pre-practice sessions. And on that very low-level basis, I do agree. But, you know, it's more kind of,

oh, we want to bring entertainment to those who are paying for a Friday ticket, and yet they see one lap. from a car. It's an interesting choice, but you're right. It's one lap qualifying. It's on a tire that for the most part, they're not going to practice with because they've only got one practice session. They're going to try and set up for the Grand Prix. And the tire is so not durable, especially in these hot temperatures that they're not running many laps around it. So they're essentially going into the most high octane session that we've got to start the weekend without any idea of what's going

to work. And some people put it off, Max Verstaffin, you see where that talent comes through and some people let themselves down, Lando Norris, his prep was all wrong. It didn't play off for him. Exactly. And yeah, I mean, I would just change the main qualifying session and knock it down by a couple of minutes to essentially get exactly the same thing.

But anyway, Daniel Ricardo, let's move on to him. Not bad performance at all. Second row of the grid. Fourth place, a good opportunity for points in the sprint tomorrow. That was a needed result. Yeah, we said in our Miami preview, you that Daniel Ricardo, if he wants that Red Bulls seat, and we have the comments from Christian

Hall to come out during the week as well, that, you know, it needs to step up, but it's still available to him. This is the kind of performance that needs to be seen. When we said, you can't just have good performances, you can't just have all right performances. You can't just be beating Yuki-Sinoda by a place and hope that that's all right. You need to blow Yuki-Sin-Oga out the water. And, you know, Daniel Ricardo has absolutely lit the dynamite and gone fishing, because it is pick up everywhere for him. The man is the biggest seller at the fish. And he's the biggest seller at market and he's selling performances right now. What a turnaround, right? China felt like he stepped up in confidence and he felt better. They brought some upgrades here to Miami. Bam. Fourth place

in that Menardi. That is a sensational turnaround. And that is the kind of performance that someone like Daniel Ricardo needs, not just once now for a long time, many sessions to come. But what a great start so early on in the season. If he converts that to points, he's what, equal with Sonoda, beating Sonoda in the points tally already? That's a great start. That's a great start so early on the season. That's a good. exactly what someone like Ricardo needs to kickstart this season because it's been shoddy to begin with. But well done him. Great composure. Maybe the chassis was wrong. Maybe it was his confidence that wasn't working as intended because he's a confidence driver. Whatever it is, he seems to have got it sorted. Let's just hope no one crashes into the back of him and he actually

finishes the Grand Prix. Yeah. So he's probably, who's starting behind him? Is it Lance Stroll that's starting behind him? Good God. Let me check. It might actually be. I don't know. He's around P6, right? Hold on. Daniel Ricardo, fourth. Oh, no, he's got Oscar Piastri. Stroll is seventh. Oh, okay. No going over the track, Lance. Stay in your lane. Lance Stroll gets mega start, so they could be next to each other by, you know, turn one. Hey, stroll start in seventh, which, by the way, good lap, Lance Stroll. He might be in first position, but he's a longso, right? He beat Alonso. Be it Alonso, fair and square. Daniel Ricardo, I feel like it's been brewing, like, no, let me

rephrase. I feel like a good result has been brewing the last two races. Of course, in the record books, it's going to show retirement, retirement, but I think that the qualifying effort in Japan was a little bit better, nearly got through to Q3, and then the next step up was China, and I think he was on course for a better result there. So I feel like a good result like this has been brewing, but this goes beyond good. This was very, very, very good. And in the same way that I think Lando Norris's Q, SQ3, attempt is evidence as to why SQ3 is a great session. I think that works the other way in that Daniel Ricardo was also evidence as to why this session is great, because where others faltered, Ricardo was there to just do a great job. What was he, half a second off of Max for Stap?

I mean, four tenths. Four times. Great effort. You know, and he's there to essentially take advantage of any other team around him that's not doing the business. And that's essentially what role Menardi need to take from now going forward is you've got five teams. who, let's face it, are better than that team. But if you can put together a lap in Q3 and others around you don't and Mercedes have a double Q2 knockout, don't worry, Mercedes, we are coming on to you

after the break. But yeah, I mean, that's what they're there to do. So I thought that was a really good effort from Ricardo. Of course, it means absolutely nothing. He can't convert it in the race itself. But, hey, he could lose a couple of positions and still be in the points. That's how good of a lap he put together.

Yeah, the aim is to score any point. and to beat Yuki Sondoda and Yuki Sanova is once again truck on one lap run in Q1 and he's paid the price for it. He's out again and it's that's two in a row. This is poor turn from form considering how higher praise we had for Yuki. Also, before we go to our one and only break on this episode, Daniel, my bold prediction is that you and Yuki Sonoda will score points in the main race. So whatever you are doing, keep doing it through Sunday, lad. Equally on that, Leclair, reg flags are in the competitive session for me. So if you could just pick those up and put them into anything that actually matters.

Three more, please. Thanks. A bit early. Right, let's take our break on this episode. On the other side, we're chatting Mercedes. Okay. I saw a Hass in Q3. I saw two Aston Martins, saw two McLaren's, a couple of Red Bulls, the Menardi of Daniel

Ricardo. I didn't see any Mercedes drivers in Q3, Sam. Where were they? I've heard they're going to be releasing a new line of books similar to the We're's Wally books, the Where's Waldo books? It's going to be called Where's Mercedes. Oh.

Yeah, every page is going to be a new Q3 and you have to spot where they are. The trick is they're not there. That's the point. This is so diabolically bad. So bad because they brought upgrades and they were beating hand over fist by a Menardi, Daniel Riccardo,

doing a fantastic job. They were besked by Nika Holgerberg in a hars. And I want to speak specifically about the hars here because I have given, maybe more than anyone, stick to hars. I have insulted them time and time again. I have lathered them with insults and where they should improve and why they're not good enough. And you know what? They've turned around. They've learned their problems. They've developed it on a shoestring budget. And they've got no one working for them. And they're still improving that car. And Holkerberg back there again at SQ3 and I believe you could go on to score points. What do Mercedes

do. Well, Mercedes have got a track record of being bad at Miami. In 2022, they only get one car into Q3, 6th and 12th. In 2020, 2nd, 6 and 13th. In 2024, both cars out in Q2. That's a horrible record. So what do you do at a track where you've got a horrible record? You bring upgrades. Of course, that makes sense, where the car's always being good or not. So you hate the hot weather. The car clearly, clearly hates hot weather. That's one thing you can tick off. It clearly doesn't work when it's hot because look at China. Look at the sprint quality. Well, it was cold and it was wet. Lewis Hamilton was on the front row.

I know that was probably partially to do with how good Lewis Hamilton is in wet weather, but equally the car was clearly better performing in that level of weather. So are you running your wing tunnel in the wrong temperature zones? Are you misunderstanding key data? How are you such, so far away from being right and getting something correct when you've got so much money, so much equipment, so much time and so many broad, brilliant people working for you that you cannot get into Q3, but Nico Holgerberg in a hearse can. Honestly, it is appalling. You should be ashamed of yourself. Where's the bloody

apology letter? Because there needs to be one. It's shocking. They've run out of ink at this point. Yeah. The worst part for Mercedes is they have had both cars knocked out in Q2, which if you'd have mentioned that a couple of years ago would have been ridiculous. It's just not surprising. It's not, I appreciate it's still a downturn from where they have been. But equally, 11th and 12th, sure, it's about where they are. Been waiting for it to happen, to be honest. I mean, they're about the fifth fastest car. That gets your 9th and 10th. 11th and 12 isn't that far away from that. It's not surprising at this point, which is possibly the worst thing of all. I think I'm more confused by Mercedes after these quote-on-quote upgrades because the positions

don't necessarily indicate that they have upgraded anything. But of course we know that outside, it's not that they've had one or two struggles so far this year, they've had many, but towards the top of that list has been their car has not operated well in high-speed corners. So of course, the first sector of this lap is very high-speed corner specific. We heard commentary talking about how some of these corners are taken in seventh gear. It's very fast-flowing sector. And they're really quick. They're really quick in that sector. They shouldn't have been quick in that sector. And Lewis Hamilton, nearly every lap without fail, purple sector. And if he wasn't, it was George Russell. They were lightning quick. But as soon as the car was in a

straight line, nope, nothing. I think what they're doing is they're so massively overcompensating with their setup. I think they've looked at what happened in the likes of Saudi Arabia, right? Well, they were trying to follow the McLaren and the McLaren was disappearing off into the distance through sector one, which is a very high-speed sweeping corner sector.

And they're going, God, we're losing like a second to lap in a sector like this. What will we do? Let's sort the setup out. Let's go completely the other way, high-speed. Now when the rest of the lap is either incredibly low-speed corners, which is that Mickey Mouse section right at the end of the lap,

or straight lines. They've gone, when we've got too much downforce on now. So now we can't cope. with the straight line speeds, and we're just dropping two or three tenths every straight, which directly correlates to where they were at the end, right? They were five or six tenths off, that basic kind of seventh, eighth, ninth section, which is where they've normally been competing, because they focus so heavily on one sector only.

It doesn't make sense. I just don't think they're going to have to set the cars up. They don't have to make a car. I think if Yuki Sanoda gets even close to Daniel Ricardo and Kevin Magnuson gets even close to Eka Holgerberg, they could legitimately be starting this crowd, in 13th and 14th place. Yeah. And they had two attempts at it as well.

It's not like they both tried to improve and neither could. So. And it's not good when both of those drivers are out because a lot of the time we've said, oh, Lewis isn't having a good time or George Russell's like a bad session. But when you're both, they're less than a tenth apart from each other and they're 11th and 12th. It's a bad car. It's not impossible, but it's, I would classify it based on their quality.

It's a rarity that both drivers will be completely off. Like, I find it hard to believe that that car should have been fourth and fifth, and they've just both had dismal days. That is, I think, roughly where the car should be. But yeah, really, really tough day for Mercedes. We'll see what they can do in the sprint tomorrow. You've had your Mercedes rant. I've got a rant of my own, which is...

Come on, babe. Get off your chest, mate. My rant's about Minardi. All right. I'm still annoyed at the name. I appreciate that's been months now, but I'm still annoyed at that. But what I'm annoyed about today, now Ricardo's put together a great effort. And I don't want to put all blame away from Yuki Sonoda because Yuki Sanoda had a lap at the end of Q2 and he did not get it done. And that's why he was knocked out. But equally, what are you doing? You overconfident morons. Like, why have you only given him one run? Now, there were two drivers who were given one run in Q2. One of them is Max Verstappen. If you haven't been a lot of paying much attention. He's pretty good. He's got a lot of pole positions and can generally get the

job done when he needs to. The other is Yuki Sonoda. Absolutely no disrespect, Yuki Sanoda. You're not Max Verstappen. Now, Sonoda was very quick in, in practice. He was right up there on the medium tires in FP 1. He seemed pretty, him and Ricardo, not much in it, to be honest, in terms of FP1. Sorry, FP 1, Q1. And then, of course, in Q2. They've gone. they've gone far too overconfident to the point where, okay, we think we can get him through if he puts together one good lap. And in that respect, they were probably right. But why are you, why are you putting such, you see your car doing marginally better than it has been in the first few races and suddenly you think you're a Red Bull? Like, slow down, give, give your guy two chances

to go through, like all of the other teams apart from Max Verstappen. And Sonoda, I think, would have been in and around where Ricardo was. Now again, I don't want to completely take away blame from Sonoda because he had one lap to get it done and he didn't get it done. But I just don't understand why they didn't give him too. Yeah, I mean, when you drive as Sonoda, and no disrespect to him, we've given him high praise so far this season and he's been deserving of it.

But the guy is temperamental. The guy's form is a little bit all over the place and his ability to absolutely pull a perfect moment together right on the edge of it counts. he hasn't got historic evidence of this. It's not like you go, Uzmiska dependable up and down the grid. Yuki's the bloke that always delivers when you need it.

Because he's not. He's a character, he's a good little driver, but at the same time, he's not the guy you sit there and go, we've got a minute to go across the line. Yuki's the man to deliver. He's just not. A lot of the drivers aren't, but Yuki definitely isn't. So you're right, why take the risk

when everyone else has got the same resource as you, get the car out and do it sensibly? But at least he made it through to Q2. There were two teams that did not feature in Q2. Those were Williams and Salba. Pretty disappointing from both. Yeah, quite disappointing from both. Let's start with Williams.

Williams are arguably the biggest disappointment this season. Now, I wasn't expecting world record breaking changes from Williams. I wasn't expecting to be leaping up the field and be fighting with the likes of Mercedes, Askin Martin, McLaren, that kind of early fight, picking off points where they can. But I was expecting them to take a step away from regular Q1 appearances and being knocked out on that department. And when you have trust in Daddy James Vowls and when they bring on someone like Pat Fry, and when it looks like the ship is finally stable, and you've got to drive like Alex Album as well, who I think has been pretty good, pretty under the radar, and the car's

not great, to see them take such a massive step back and see them both in 19th and 20th. I know I haven't had a lap deleted, but, you know, he's got to get the lapping, and he didn't, he got it deleted. That is a, this season has been a real disappointment for Williams. They've really not turned up at all. I think Album's been out driving the car a little bit to make it look slightly bigger than it has been. But they are in a shocking turn of form. They haven't got the straight line speed merchant thing that they had last season.

They're not very good in a straight line, and they're not very good around fast corners. And, you know, a lot of F1 tracks don't have incredibly slow corners. So if that's what they are good at, it's tough to tell. Salba, on the other hand, I don't know what's going on with Salba. Honestly, literally, it's like walking and getting the special of the day and hoping you like the ingredients.

Turn up to a new track and hope you like what the car does. Because I don't know if it's going to get into Q3 like it did in China for sprint qualifying or if it's going to be knocked out in Q1, like it was here. You do not know. And honestly, Bottas has got a new race engineer

this race. Does he? Does he? I don't think he does. Well, honestly, he's meant to turn up, isn't he? Apparently he was too busy. I don't know what playing on his game.

Game Boy Color because the bloke wasn't paying attention to what was going on around the racetrack. Yes, that was the reason. I'd take that back. Yeah, the guy deserves credit because that is an iconic piece of equipment. But to sit there and go, there's a car behind you, as he's literally dive bombing you into turn one, it's a bit dangerous, bit late. So there's a lot of internal combustion going the wrong way internally at Salba.

They've got a lot of weird personnel that's gone round. A lot of issues have suddenly happened out of nowhere. Boss has to have been affected by this. And I wonder if that's kind of throwing him off his flow a little bit. But yeah, both teams. They're a little bit of turmoil here at Miami. I'll go if they can turn it around and raise conditions. Yeah.

I'll give Salba a pass just because, as you say, a couple of SQ3 appearances last time, couple of SQ1 knockouts here, cancel each other out. Yeah, fine. Williams is not good. Now, I will say because sector three is essentially one big long straight and then one corner

and there's the finish line. So the fact that Logan Sargent was fastest in that sector and was 19th, he had the slowest lap time if we're, you know, including Alex Albin's lap. I think it just shows that, you know,

in a straight line, they did seem to be pretty good this weekend. They do seem to be in an all right place. But it must be at such a compromise for the rest of the lap that it just doesn't matter at all. So Logan Sargent, I think everything that has been said the needs to be said has been said at this point, so I'm not going to pile on him for no reason.

Alex Alburn, I mean, that corner cut, oh, marginal stuff. But, yeah, like you say, he's got to get the lap in and he didn't. And yeah, as you say again, he is driving the wheels off that car for an invalidated lap, but it still wouldn't have been good enough to get out of Q1. It'd have been good enough for 16th, like sure, but in a sprint race where you're only, scoring down to eight, it's probably not going to matter that he's 16th rather than 20th. Last season, these sort of laps from Albin were getting him ninth. They were getting him 10th. They were getting him into the top parts of Q2. Here, he is scrapping to unsuccessfully make it out of Q1,

which is a major downturn for the team. I'm far from giving up on them at this point, but it's not been the great start. Now, when you've got scouts like Alpine struggling down at the bottom and they've fallen as far as they have, you've got to be. capitalising on this. You've got to be picking up those pieces. And they're not. They're somehow falling further back. If anything, I'm sure Alpin are going, cheers, Williams. We weren't looking great. But you guys, you guys are making us look all right. At least we're getting one of our cars into Q2. We appreciate it. You mentioned Alpine, and I'm just thinking about the team name. And there's three, there's three letters in that team name. They are A, P, and E.

What's that? That's not how you spell Alpine. That's at the end. I appreciate this is probably going to go over there. of anyone that hasn't seen this about their new sponsor. But I don't even have to describe it, man. Mate, I'm so, I was not happy with the crypto stuff anyway. And when all the big brands have started dropping their sponsors that are crypto-related, not only have Alpine gone, we're struggling here, we need a bit of cash, we need a bit of cash flowing.

Fine, fine. We've all had dodgy sponsors in Formula One. Everyone's that gone. Remember on Ferrari, Mission Wing now on their car? And that was basically Marlborough, right? We all knew it was a front for Marlborough. It was owned by the same company. So we get it.

It's been dodgy. But you've gone down crypto. And not only have you gone down crypto, something Ferrari have never done, is change their social media profile picture to a bloody cartoon ape. What year is this? 2020?

I tell you what I did, because I saw it pop up, like, directly on Twitter. And I had to click on it because I was like, this is a fake account, clicked on it. no, this is not a fake account, went back. And I was so convinced that I got it wrong the first time because there's no way this is real.

I had to click on it again, and it was still the right account. And I'm like, how? This is a parody, surely. Are these apes new employees? Is that what's happened? Hey, I'll take it. Apeeing. Got David Sanchez in now.

Get a few monkeys. Why not? What's the going is, the David Sanchez thing is actually all right. That's a decent, we'll get on sound. at the time. That's a decent signing. But why have you got this stupid crypto crap on your car? You bunch of morons, honestly. I'm glad that managed to make it into the episode. I think that'll do it for this episode. We've got more to review tomorrow, though. We've got the sprint race happening, followed by main qualifying. We'll be reviewing both in the same episode

around this time tomorrow, at least as we're recording this. We've got no idea when you're actually listening to this. We're looking forward to that. Sam, if you wouldn't mind getting us out of it. Yeah, folks, hopefully we get lots of different action and lots of crazy results, so stick through it. Just because of Stappers on pole, it doesn't mean it won't be fun.

If not, we'll make it fun with silly rants and talking and stuff in our sad English voices. Thanks for listening. We'll be back again tomorrow, as Ben said. We love you all, and in the meantime, I'll be Samuel Sage. And I've been Ben Hocking. And remember, keep breaking late. Oh, did it say episode 400?

Happy episode 400, everyone. This podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network.