The Late Braking F1 Podcast - 2024 Saudi Arabian GP Review

Episode Date: March 9, 2024

Ben and Sam review the Saudi Arabian GP where Red Bull secured another 1-2, but rookie Ollie Bearman's solid Ferrari drive was the talk of the town. The boys discuss all the actions and takeaways, including the Verstappen-Perez gap, whether Leclerc's performance solidifies Ferrari as the 2nd fastest car, which bottom grid teams are most likely to turn it around, and of course THAT Haas strategy call! As always, they name their drivers of the day, review their predictions, and hear YOUR moments of the race... >>> Don't forget to check out our friends NordVPN on our discounted link here: https://nordvpn.com/lbf1 FOLLOW us on socials! You can find us on YouTube, Instagram, X (Twitter) and TikTok SUPPORT our Patreon for bonus episodes, historic race reviews & more! JOIN our Discord community JOIN our F1 Fantasy League: SIGN UP & create your team, and JOIN our league (join code: C3PHEQHPU04) BUY our Merch EMAIL us at [e-mail]   & SUBSCRIBE to our podcast! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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today reviewing the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix. One by Max for Stappan, surprisingly. Another Red Bull won two of Sergio Perez in second and Charles LeClaire doing what he couldn't do in the first round and rounding out the podium in third. Hello, mate, you're right? Yeah, good, mate. How are you? It was nice to see something different. in the Formula One today.

If you're new to F1, you'll see that this is a completely strange phenomenon that we've seen, a man called Max Verstappen, and a team called Red Bull, have delivered a one-two. Very, very new in this one. Just kidding. It's like the 40th time in a row that it's led the championship. The guy is an absolute phenomenon in terms of mobility. He's just too bloody good.

But how are you, Ben? Did you have a nice time? Yeah, I was until it was said that it was his 100th podium. which I've got no problem with the achievement, but it just made me feel like I've done nothing with my life. The worst part is it's my birthday tomorrow as we record this, and I am older than Max Verstappen, and I will forever be less of an achiever than that man.

If he's stocked now, like if he just, all he did was breathe and eat food, he's achieved more than I'll ever achieve now. And then a guy born in 2005 scored points. Should be illegal. Yeah, I was 10 when he was born, so that's good. Right. That's the end of the podcast. I don't think I've missed and carry on now.

Fully depressed. We've got too much to cover for that to be the case. Moment of the race coming up later on, including some Discord submissions on that one. Thoughts on Hass cooking up an incredible strategy and getting a point out of it. Lewis Hamilton and Lando Norris unable to score a great amount of points today.

Our thoughts on whether they got the strategy wrong, or indeed their team's got the strategy wrong. But let's at least start out front with Max Verstappen claiming another very comfortable victory over Sergio Perez. He at least had to make one overtake on the day as Lando Norris stayed out when the early safety car came out. But even so, very relaxed win for Vastappen taking a... I can't remember what it was in the end because, of course, Perez had a five-second advantage. But the advantage on track was under 10 seconds. So an improvement from Perez's side versus what we saw in Barrow.

rain. This is obviously a track that served him quite well in the past, Sam. Do you think it's an encouraging thing? He's seen pretty buoyed by the end of the Grand Prix. Yeah, I think the car is better this year. I hate to say it, but that seems to be reality that the car is more dominant than a car that won every single race bar won last year, that this car is better. But Sergio Perez, he had his ups and downs. He was a bit rolling in Keating last season. If you don't know what I mean, his life was a bit of a roller coaster. And honestly, it was hard to know where that he was going to have an up or a down each weekend. But both weekends that he's coming to this season,

he's arguably qualified better. He even critiqued his qualifying in the post-raise interview where he said. A bit of a shame I couldn't get on the front row, but he was pretty much there or thereabouts. And he had a great start to the Grand Prix, immediately challenging Charlene McClure, who of course was on the front row next to Max Verstappen. I do feel like, yes, okay, he hasn't got a win,

whereas this time last season he did have a victory to his name. But I actually think his performances overall. are better. And I think he is more confident. I think he's delivering more comfortably what Red Bull are expecting of him. And if Max for Sippen... Max Fisippin...

Max Fisippin... Fing... That's him next race in Australia, yeah. Oh, yes, that's it, yeah. If Max Verstappen goes on two wing 24 out of 24, terrifying as that sounds, it is plausible. If Sergei Perez keeps doing what he's doing,

second place every single time, even if it is by seven or eight seconds, I think the gap was, I can't fault him. If they say it, end of the season, do we keep Sergio Perez? I go, well, what more do you want him to do? Holding up the four, scoring all the extra points,

and he's less than five seconds away on average. Pretty damn good for a second driver. I think he's coming to this new season, collected, put together, and I think he's delivering what he was missing last season, which was the consistency element of it. Only two races in, of course, it could change, but I'm feeling positive for him. Yeah, exactly.

I think the last point you made there with it only being a couple of races in, that we do need to reserve judgment for a little bit longer. For me, at least, it's when we get into the main summer European races, because that's where he struggled the last two years, whereas this time last year, he actually had more points than what he does now, although I wouldn't disagree with what you said, that actually his performance here was just as good, if not better, than the win he had 12 months ago.

We always like to start these race reviews with what's happened out front. And, you know, in order to give kudos to the guy who won the... the race, and that is so common Max Verstappen nowadays, it's credit to him that there's not a huge amount to say from his perspective because he has been so good yet again. But I think it is right to give some credit to Perez because whilst I don't think the win was ever under threat, particularly because Perez had that five-second penalty looming for the second half of the Grand Prix, the fact that that margin was far less than what we had in Bahrain is encouraging for him. Now, you could say that Vestappen was, and this is almost definitely true, was managing the

lead out front. But in theory, he had no more reason to manage the lead this race than he did last race. And it was far a bigger gap in Bahrain. It was over 20 seconds. So I'm, yeah, I think given he qualified third, finished second, didn't waste a lot of time in getting into second as well, similar to what he did in Bahrain, where he didn't waste a lot of time. And again, yes, that car is phenomenal. But I think Perez at the moment is doing exactly what he needs to do in that second seat. In terms of the other driver on the podium, Sam, Shao Lecler, pretty comfortable for him in the end, if you compare him to the rest of the field. This will probably be what he thought he could and should have achieved in Bahrain. But your thoughts on his performance? Yeah, I think when you've got

to compare the Ferrari to the Red Bull, the Ferrari is currently, I would say clearly the second best car on the grid. It is a step behind that Red Bull. As much as I was trying to compare the Ferrari. to be super optimistic at going into this weekend and I was trying to give it all the bigger that it might be a bit closer, we might see closer racing, that isn't the case. You know, he's done what he could. And the fact he stuck it on the front row

and he gave a good challenge to both Verstappen and Perez was positive, and he picked up the podium. I do think that if, again, we'll get on to Ollie Behrman, but I know disrespect to him in what I'm saying here, I do think if Carlos Sainz was in the other car in his full competitive state, it might have been a bit of a closer fight for fourth place.

have had the other Ferrari up there. But I think he literally did every single thing he could have done this weekend. Didn't put a foot wrong. Strategy call was right from Ferrari. They brought him in at the right time under the safety car, of course, where some cars didn't come in. He got past Landon Norris with relatively easy. It took a few laps, but he got the job done relatively quickly and managed to pull away.

Kept well a hang of Oscar Piastri as well after that gap started to form throughout the race. Lecler is doing everything he can. What I like from LeCler in this Grand Prix that maybe last year we would have seen some changes of is the overdriving of the car.

I think he accepted that realistically the place was all he was going to get unless a safety car were to come out or an incident were to happen in some way or it magically rains in the desert, who knows. But Charlerler is a victim

of his own ability in the sense that he wants to always push on to achieve more and if a wing is only a few seconds up the road which you know, 10 seconds or so. is technically possible. I think we've seen Charles LeCler

overdo it beforehand and he's ending up paying the price for his own ambition. He's putting it in the wall on several occasions. And I'm glad that we didn't see that. I know it sounds awful for a viewer that we didn't see the man in third place pushing as hard as he could

to try and get further up the grid. But actually for Ferrari, where that team is now and what is actually achievable, he ticked every box, he did it safely, he brought the points home. And he was a team leader in doing so.

So I can't fault him. Honestly, can't fault him. it was a bit of a weird weekend because of what happened with Carlos Seines and Ollie Berman replacing him for Chau LeClaire, because I guess in the same way that Bairman could really only win from the weekend, Charles Leclair was in a bit of a not a lose-lose situation, but also, and not even suggesting he was under a lot of pressure, but it was always going to be the case that after this Grand Prix, if Berman was able to deliver something like what he did,

Bairman was going to get all of the applaudits and all of the credit and not Leclair despite the fact that Leclair himself had a very good performance. Like Hugh, I think he did exactly what he needed to do, which is, look, second place, 18 points, first place, 25 points, neither of those are going to be achievable.

Therefore, I think the only shot LeClaire has is to try and get third and leave enough life in your tyres by the end of the race that if you have the opportunity to sneak in the fastest lap, which, you know, he said he was quite fortunate to get DRS, but you still need the tire life.

If you don't have the tire life at that point, he would not have got that extra point. So you might as well be 10 seconds behind and getting 16 points than being 7 seconds behind and only getting 15 points. So I think LeClaire managed his race

pretty much perfectly. And I think your point about him not overdriving is spot on. I think Ferrari are in a pretty good spot right now in that they do see. seem to comfortably be better than the chasing, chasing pack.

If we're calling Ferrari the chasing pack, we'll call McLaren, Mercedes, and Aster Martin the chasing pack. We're going to have to add a lot of chasings if we're getting down to Alpine, but never mind. Yeah, I think, yeah, he asserted the dominance. I can't remember what the gap was exactly about to Piastri, but I think it was just about double figures.

But he wasn't really under threat. So I think LeClau deserves a lot of credit. Sorry, go on. I was going to say, what I want to just mention about the Clare is you kind of brought up that, I think the right point that for Berman, if he delivered a simple, strong performance, which he did, it's hard for LeCleur to come out as a winner in this situation. And it would be for only established driver. But because of that, I actually think Charlerc did what any established driver should do.

And he did it fantastically, which is be so gracious, so humble and supportive of Olly Behrman. You know, got out the car within his interview when David Coulog was hosting the interview process, was asked about it. And he spoke about Olly Behrman in such a positive and supportive manner that's what I wanted to see from him. He delivered a podium. He was on the front row of the grid.

He got the fastest slap point, and then he turns around and immediately compliments a rookie that's been thrown into a difficult situation. It just highlights why Goghler Claire is Godlerclair. He's just a fantastic human being that in all aspects of racing and Formula One, he ticks the boxes.

And I think he represented himself and Ferrari very well. Yes, I agree with that. I think he was in maybe something of a luxurious position in that I guess there was no reason for LeClaire not to be that way. I believe he was that way. It's because of who he is. We've seen it throughout years of F1 anyway. But I think because his place is solidified within the team and actually his teammate for next year is already known, there's almost no reason for him to be anything other than supportive.

He's not a threat, is he, at this point in LeCler's career. So I think it made sense from that perspective, but I also do think. that La Claire is just a genuinely nice human being and that's why he did it. But I think, yeah, Ferrari have come out of this weekend in a really positive way when, you know, given signs and his appendicitis, it could have gone quite horribly wrong.

Should we move on to Driver of the Day because Olly Berman quite comfortably got the public vote on this one and indeed he got your vote in terms of the driver of the session yesterday in our qualifying review? So does he get this one as well? I'm not caregiving driver of the day but I do think that he deserves so many applauded, it's a huge

applause and I do think that this is a prime time example of why we need more cars on the grid in Formula One because there are drivers like Ollie Ben and Liam Lawson who displayed a great showing last season of course and several others like Taylor who is now driving around the Super Formula who have proven to be good enough to kickstart

their Formula One career that simply cannot due to lack of availability of seats. So this was a great advert for why we need more cars on the track. I am actually going to give it to Fernando Alonso because the man, I think, is driving the worst of those top-running cars. I think Aster Martin is slower than McLaren overall. I think they're slower than Mercedes overall. And they're by far slower than Ferrari and Red Bull. But the fact that he was able to hold of Russell so comfortably, there was never really a proper offensive from Russell. He never got to within the point where they were having to actively defend from each other,

it was always nine or eight tenths at the absolute maximum thing, immediately outside of the RS again. I think he out drove the car. He qualified fantastically well, as we discussed on our qualifying review. The guy was just solid, even when he gave the little wall a kiss. I give the little wall a kiss, he comes over the radio. And it's just, you know, to anyone else, to me, that is, I've pooped myself there. Faradol also is making a joke over the radio and getting on with it again

and then beats George Russell and a car that I do believe is faster. So for me, Fernando Alonso is driving the day, but Max Verstappen deserves a shout. I think Sergio Perez had a great race. And I think Piastri also did very, very well. Yeah, I don't disagree with the contenders of this one. I think if I was giving out the award for maybe, and there is a slight nuance,

but I would give out like most impressive driver to Wally Berman. I think if you were to like blind test it almost, obviously the Ferrari driver finished lower than where the Ferrari was capable of finishing. Therefore, I'm not going to give him driver at the day, but given the circumstance, I think he was the most impressive driver on the day. But if I am giving it out on pure performance, I think Alonzo is a very good shout. I think with this race, maybe compared to Bahrain, because I think in Bahrain, with the opportunities for overtakes, it was very difficult for him to do much other than fall back to ninth and then essentially just stay there for the entire Grand Prix.

Here, he probably had very similar pace again. We saw, like with Hamilton and Piastri, battling away, Hamilton on quite worn tires, slowing each other up, really. Alonso still wasn't able to get on the back of those two cars, which, you know, isn't actually a knock on Alonzo. It's more just shows how impressive he was staying ahead of the other cars that I think, as you say, were quicker. I am actually, I'm going to give it to Charlerler.

I kind of just outlined the reasons why. But if you consider at the moment, I don't think Vastappen and Perez are touchable, take those two out of the equation for now. Shaul Clair is essentially won a very comfortable Grand Prix by over 10 seconds without being threatened. If you say there are 17 drivers, Charles LeClaire can beat, he beat 17 drivers.

So I'm going to give it to him. From good to bad, worst driver of the day. Yeah, this is a tricky one because I think initially, when I was running through my list throughout the race, it was looking like Kevin Magnuson might be picking out worst driver of the day. You know, squeezing album into the wall, gets a move done on Sonoda off track and doesn't give it back, and he's costing himself 20 seconds.

But because of, and we're getting on to this later on, because of the strategy deployed and executed entirely by Kevin Magnuson, I just can't give him worse driver of the day. He turned it around. I'm not saying he deserves best drive of the day either because there were some big mistakes in there. But he essentially was the reason that Hart picked up a point. But for me, there are two major contenders.

Larkstrol puts it in a wall all of his own doing. Also, he doesn't let go of the wheel as he hits the wall. The man broke his risks literally a year ago, decides not to let go of the wheel, which is a brave move when you hit the wall at, what, 150 miles an hour. But I'm going to give it to Daniel Ricardo. The guy was nowhere from the... majority of the Grand Prix.

And then right as we get to the very end, we see him spinning away like a bayblade all on his own down the straight without anyone around him. And it's just, this is not the Daniel Riccardo that Red Bull want to see. This is not the Daniel Riccardo they hired. This is harking back to the Daniel Riccardo who was struggling in McLaren who couldn't deliver a result for Toffee. If he wants a Red Bull seat in a year's time,

he's got a long ladder to climb up because Sergio Perez is doing a great job. Yuki Sengoda is trying all he can and Liam Lawson arguably gave a much more positive impression when he did step into the sea last season. So terrible, terrible from Ricardo, worst driver of the day. Yeah, the Magnuson ones

are really interesting one. I'm very excited for when the two of us and Harry get together tomorrow to record our power rankings episode because that will be available on Patreon for you to listen to. But Kevin Magnuson, how you rank him is going to be so, so difficult. I also have not given him worse driver of the day,

even though there were two big errors in there, and we will discuss those in a little bit. The reason I haven't given it to him is because if you are just looking at X's and O's, if he doesn't make those errors and he doesn't go on that strategy, has score no points because of what he did, has score one point. He has helped the team exponentially. That is undeniable from that Grand Prix. So I think he just about redeemed himself not to get this award.

And for me, it was between two drivers, and they're the exact same drivers that you've already said, Landstrol and Daniel Ricardo. To be honest, with Daniel Ricardo, he was in contention for it regardless of the spin. The spin didn't help his case, but he was going to be one of the two anyway, because when Kevin Magderson was going 10 miles an hour

and slowing everyone up, Ricardo wasn't able to get on, eventually I think he did, but he was still seconds off that pace. Whereas the likes of Sergeant and Albin and Ocon in the Alpine they're all on the back and his teammate of course,

Yuki Sanoda. Daniel Ricardo wasn't able to get on the back of that and of course then the spin really doesn't help his case. It might sound harsh but it's the kind of error you would probably have expected Olly Berman to make in this Grand Prix. It was quite amateurish

is the only word I can think of to drop it by yourself into turn one. I will actually go the other way with Landstrol. Only reason being that car was capable, definitely capable of points, whereas the Minardi perhaps a little bit less so.

Yeah, I mean, Landstrol should have scored points and for his own doing hasn't done. So early in the race as well. Yeah, I mean, especially when you look at the situation around him as well, you've got the fact that McLaren hasn't got great top speed, your teammate

is able to hold off Mercedes and Olibehrman, a rookie, is driving a Ferrari around one of the hardest tracks on the calendar, long stroll should be capitalising. It's a fair shout. And before we go to our first break, Big Brain Strat, what have you got? Big Brain Strat.

It's hard to go against Kevin Magnuson and Haas, right? And I think I'm going to have to give it that way anyway. We'll get into it. I don't want to talk about it too much because we are going to talk about it after the break, but it was genuinely, he dug himself a massive hole and then simultaneously managed to build himself

for the ladder to climb out of it. the fact that it then guaranteed them one point, and Holkenberg had to just beat Joe Wang Yu, brilliant, brilliantly executed. And the fact he was, I think, two and a half seconds a lap slower than the salber. Not the front guys, who he was even slower than, but just the salber and still kept them all behind.

Sensational driving from Kevin Magnuson. Yep. That is the correct answer for the sake of variety. I'll give it to his teammate, Holcomberg. It wasn't quite shown on the main. main broadcaster, at least the right part of it wasn't shown, but he displayed some very good defensive skills using the DRS chicken element of what we've seen in previous years to keep his position going down that main straight for a few more laps than he probably deserved to hang

on to if you're looking at his car versus who he was up against. So, yeah, I thought Holcomburg was quite crafty in the same way that his teammate was in terms of deployment. Right. That'll us to our first break of this Saudi Arabian review. On the other side, we're going to be looking at Lewis Hamilton and Lando Norris and whether they should have stopped after the first safety car. Okay, welcome back. Just one safety car. I don't know why I said first safety car just before the break, but there was just one safety car in this Grand Prix that came out on, I believe it was lap eight for Landstrol's incident. This prompt did nearly everyone to come into the pits, fit the hard tires and eventually go to the end of the Grand Prix.

There were a few exceptions to that. Joe Guan Yu essentially tried to go as long as he possibly could, but gained nothing from it, I'm afraid. Nika Holcomberg, as we've already discussed, also was on that strategy that very much helped himself out, thanks to what Magnuson did and got them a point. The other two, a bit further up the field, Lando Norris, who temporarily led this race,

and Lewis Hamilton, both staying on the medium tires and pitting for soft tires, not at the pit stop, not at the safety car, but with about 12 laps to go under green flag conditions. Given both of those drivers were unable to get past Olly Behrman and we're in the lower parts of the top 10, in hindsight, was it the right call not to pit them? What do you think?

It's really tricky, I think. I do think it's not an obvious decision. Your choice is two negatives. You either bottle two of your two respective team members, up behind their teammates were in front of them on the track. Of course, Hamilton will have been bottled up behind Russell and Piaski were going to be bottled up.

No, sorry, Gnorsetka, behind Piastri. And if even the slightest thing goes wrong with a wheel change or a jack problem, you're dropping both of your teammates further and further down the grid. And it showed, we saw the evidence from Kevin Magnuson's battle, the overtaking around Jedder

was not as simple as it seems. really needed a clear DRS advantage, great traction out of maybe the final corner, and to have no one in front of that battle so you just get a clear run into term one. And that's how most overtakes were executed. So the idea of both Hamilton and Norris, respectively, double stacking behind their teammates when they were so close to all the traffic behind, I do not think it's a favourable advantage. I do think that realistically, you calculate how many yellow flags, VSCs, safety cars, and reg flags, we see around Jedder, more so than many other circuits on the calendar, that I think it's worth a punt.

I do think it's worth a bit of a risk to go. These tyres can run for a very, very long time. And that's something I was actually quite grumpy with, was just how long the tyres were able to work on all formats, right? The soft tyre was strong after 15 laps. The medium tyre could run for well over half of the Grand Prix. That hard tyre is still going round, dog its own, even though the cars have come in. And I do think that that's something we need to assess moving forward.

But my point here is they know that tire life works. And you saw just how competitive, especially Lewis Hamilton was against Oscar Piascri. He was not able to get past until literally Hamilton came into pit. I think it was on that 47 of 50, something like that, 14 or 13 maps from the end. So I do think it was the right choice to hang them out. I do think that they would have taken advantage massively

had there been a full-course safety car or a reg flag. even if it was a safety car and not a red flag Norris and Hamilton dropping back to 8th and 9th means that they're right behind the rest of the grid who are on used hard size and they'd be on fresh soft size and I do think the advantage there would have then shown

I'm not sure they could have planned it any better they were just unlucky to have had the safety car happen at that moment in the race when they were so close to their teammates and there was so much going on behind them I think the right call was made a tricky one but I do think they made the right call My conclusion from this was F1 is a funny old sport sometimes

because you had essentially the same situation unfolding up and down the grid with very, very different results. So as an example of this, Oliver Berman massively benefited in this race because he didn't make it through to Q3. If he makes it through to Q3 and at that point, maybe he out-qualifies Land Stroll and Yuki Sonoda, maybe he gets like eighth place or so. He is probably close enough to Charles Leclair

that he is in that same situation as Lando Norris, the McLaren duo and the Mercedes duo. But because he qualified worse, they got away with it and they executed a very good double stack. In the same way, the Haas duo,

because they were relatively close together, Holkenberg stayed out. But in that instance, the only way Hasse got a point is because they did that. If it was the other way around, and they actually both pit for soft tires at that point, they're probably finishing 12th and 14th or something like that.

So it's just a really weird situation where one team has benefited from this strategy and then two other teams really haven't. I have actually landed on the same conclusion as you. I think it would be very easy for us to sit here and say, in hindsight, well, there was no other safety car, they should have come in, they finished behind Berman, they should have come into the pits. I don't believe that it was an error from either of those teams to do what they did, because, yes, there is always the potential with 42 laps to go in a race around Jedder,

there's going to be at least another VSC or a safety car. There wasn't, but it was probably more likely than not that they would have got one. And even so, I mean, Lewis Hamilton, particularly Lewis Hamilton, with where he was, would have had to fight his way through quite a few cars. Now, I think with Lewis Hamilton, maybe it was slightly more viable because it did seem as if they'd set up their car quite well in a straight line.

The McLaren, I think, would have really struggled to make its way back through the field because we saw the Piastri and Hamilton fight was evidence of this. That McLaren, they just did not leave a lot in terms of a straight line. Even with DRS, Piastri was really struggling to get anywhere near,

Lewis Hamilton, a couple of occasions he did, he couldn't quite see it through. But on most occasions, even with DRS, he wasn't able to attempt the overtake. And then the McLaren just bolted off in that first sector, right? They were just zoomed off like they were no one's business. So overall, I think they made the right call. It's unfortunate from both of their sides. And actually, I also wanted to pick up on the tire element of it, because my disappointment here was not just how long the hard tires could go,

But also just how little difference there was between the three compounds. I don't know. It felt like what we would like to see is there be a considerable difference between all three compounds, but also they're all viable because you can either go very high-deg and very high-paced or very low-deg but pretty slow. Here it felt like even when Hamilton and Norris put on the soft tyres, Yes, they made inroads, but Charlotte Clare still had the pace to do a fastest lap on 42-lap-old hard tyres at the end of this Grand Prix.

I just didn't think there was enough of a difference between the compounds. For August, I think that's what ruined the race. I think that's what brought it from being maybe something that could have been quite exciting with that jumbled up order due to the safety car. Because if I thought, thinking how tyres normally working a lot of our Grand Prix, that if Hamilton and Norris, two of the most potent drivers that we've got on the grid, right, they're brilliant at overtaking, they love cutting through, they're really good when they've got a tire advantage.

You think they're going to stick on fresh soft tires with about 15 laps to go. They're going to be at least a second and a half faster than these hard tires that have been on now for pretty much 35, 40 laps. Surely they're going to be, like, Bairman's touch, so there's no chance that he manages to stay in front here. Cut six or seven laps in, they're still four or five seconds behind Ollie Berman. And again, no disrespect to Olli Berman, but he's the person. that you should be able to cut aside without any problems.

He's a rookie. If he finished ninth, not seventh, I'd go, brilliant job, Holly Behrman, no problems at all. And it's this tire conflict alongside some of the ways that DRS works that is causing a lot of very static Grand Prix that's not making for a lot of fluctuation. We should have strategy fluctuation.

And Ben, I know you're the same as I am. I get a lot of enjoyment out of the strategic element of a Formula One race. I love seeing how different teams work to get to the fast, method of getting to the end and overcoming the obstacles that may come up like a safety car. So when that isn't plausible, when the other option is, well, if you didn't get the chance to stop, you're a merely a disadvantage and you now can't progress. It's frustrating to see two of the biggest players in a Formula One race aren't able to achieve anything from lap eight onwards. It's just a bit of a shame that that's the way it's going

at the moment. It's been evidenced in the starting tyres as well with these two Grand Prix we've had so far this year because Bahrain, all 20 drivers started on the exact same compound. Here we had 18 of the 20 drivers all start on that medium tire. It was just Bearman and someone else. Botas was it who was also on the soft tires to start. But point being, we've essentially 40 opportunities for starting tire and 38 have been exactly the same across the first two Grand Prix. I would like to see eight drivers start on the softs, eight on the mediums, four on the hard tires. But at the moment, there's no reason for the teams to do that. because there is such an obvious way to go,

which is frustrating. Putting it back to the McLaren and Mercedes and I guess Aston Martin third, fourth, fifth battle as it seems to be unfolding at the moment. Who do you think comes away from this race the happiest of those three teams? I think McLaren turn around and go, okay, even at a track where our car maybe doesn't benefit 100%.

Our setup was maybe slightly off for overall offensive pace. I think it showed again that they are the most consistent over these last two races of those three teams. Ashton Martin, he really ebden flowed. We saw from Alonso that, of course, he was great in practice. He was fast because in one of the practice sessions. He had a good qualifying.

And he managed to hold off the Mercedes cars, which I was genuinely surprised about that he was able to stay so far clear of George Russell. But the McLarence have always been there or there about, both races. They're not as close to Ferrari as they were last season, so they want to take a step forward there. But equally, where are Mercedes at the moment? Their step back is worrying.

The car seems to be no longer overly aggressive to the point where it's difficult to drive. But equally, when it was difficult to drive and aggressive, they were able to pull pace out of it in the right moment. But here, it seems like it's no better than a fifth or sixth on a good day. And more often than not now, it feels like maybe their comfortable position is seventh, eighth, ninth, which for a team that won that many championships so recently is dire. That's really worrying. I think McLaren, they look at their setup and go, okay, we were a little bit of vulnerable. run a straight line today, but they're running a Mercedes

engine. And so they know they've got the same ability, the same power as Mercedes. They know they can achieve that. The difference is they were able to set up the car in such a way that both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri, when they were in front of someone, were able to defend properly. And Piastri benefitting anyway. It's not like he ended up paying the price from not being able to overtake Lewis Hamilton. He just couldn't get it down as soon as he wanted to. So I think, I think McLaren walk away happy.

I think Ascom Martin will once again all secretly turn and look at Lance stroll and go, we can't have a done one point's finish there, and we haven't because you put it in the wall. And at what point, at what point does it happen where it's just a bit too much? He's sounding very dejected when he got the silly radio message over the, after the crash. Obviously, his engineer came out and said, you know, to bring it to the pit lane, and he came out and said, no, I'm in the effing wall. It just feels like, one, he's a little bit embarrassed, and too, I think he feels a little bit fed

up of just being constantly not enough. you know, is understandable. So, yeah, I think McLaren are the ones that walk away happy, and I think the other two have got areas that they need to focus on. Yeah, I think with Aston Martin, I've made my thoughts very clear in terms of the driver line-up, so I won't stress it again too much, but the team has a ceiling whilst Landstrol is there.

That's the inevitable truth of it. Regardless of what Fernando Alonzo is doing in the other seat, if you've got Landstrol in your team, there is a ceiling when you get to that level of F1 because all of the other drivers he's competing against are not a step above him, three steps above him, in all honesty. With Fernando Alonzo's performance, I think Aston Martin will be a little bit worried

because Alonzo did a fantastic job holding off George Russell, but there hasn't been one point in this season so far, at least in race trim, where they've been attacking. They are just holding on to whatever they can grub. grab in qualifying sessions. And, you know, that might well work well for them at the likes of Monaco. The way it's going at the moment, you wouldn't put like a podium position away from Fernando Alonzo at Monaco. If he was able to grab third, he'd probably hold on to it, right? But nearly every other track. And I think overtaking was, like you say, it was fairly tricky,

which I thought actually made this race better than Bahrain. I think there were numerous, interesting fights that we could look into. But, you know, if DRS is more powerful at other races, if overtaking is easier, it's going to be a struggle for even someone with the ability of Alonzo to hold on to the position like he did today. He did a great job and he was still nowhere near the podium. From the other two teams' perspective,

McLaren and Mercedes, they look very similar. Now, I think you could probably argue McLaren might be a little bit happier that they are as close as they are, because Mercedes, I think, coming into the season might have been a little bit more optimistic. But to me, at the moment, there just doesn't seem to be much in it. I think the Hamilton versus Norris battle was very much evidence of that in that, you know, they set up their cars completely differently, but it essentially resulted in exactly the same pace. You know, Piastri couldn't get by Hamilton, but again, fairly similar pace. There wasn't much in it. I think George Russell might have had the most boring race of all time.

Like, it's definitely up there. Alongside the Stappan, you were like, is he here? Is he actually turned up? Or is he just a name on the leaderboard at this point? He was like permanently 1.4 seconds behind Alonzo. It just didn't really change at all. Which, you know, I guess there is a question mark as to what was his true pace. But equally, this is F1.

If you can't overtake cars and you can't demonstrate your true, race pace, that's your problem. So yeah, I think both of those teams are kind of, they're in a good position to kick on, but neither of them are quite there yet. I think my issue with the three of those teams is, I'm a little bit nervous that they don't know where to go next, right? All three of those came into this season

with quite swagger about them, confidence. They all left testing with a big smile on their face. It all came into testing in McLarenst terms of big smiles on their faces, feeling very bored about what's going on. I just don't think all three of them understand these regulations fully and 100% know how to maximise, where Ferrari seems to be doing something different

to those three, who of course are all currently Mercedes-powered, I know that's going to be changing, but at the moment they're all Mercedes-powered. Ferrari are doing something different to everyone else. They're not hitting the heights of Red Bull, but at least they've separated themselves from that chasing pack. And Red Bull came into a game, we've tried something completely different,

and I've come out with an even more dominant car, which is absolutely terrifying. So I'm a bit nervous that we might end up seeing a drop-off from that incredibly close, who's the second fastest, that we had almost every single Grand Prix last season. At least that made it exciting because we had no clue who was going to be on the podium last season. Shall we, okay, shall we review some bold predictions? Because it's not great reading again, is it? I'll go first.

I was genuinely really optimistic about what happened for quite a long period of the race. I thought, another safety car or a red flag comes out here, Zhou Guangyu is prime time for a point. Like, he is right there ready to go. And if the right tie comes on at the right moment, I think he could grab it. Equally, absolutely flabberg asking at the past, the pace of the hearse that they were able to deliver

once Kevin Magnuson stopped being a snail. So it turns out, yeah, unlikely. So I got zero. Salba got no points. And it's another great round for me. It's great stuff, really. 18 finishes, 17th and 18th. got to love it. Yeah, really happy with that one. Thanks, guys.

It's all right. It didn't go much better for me. I said that Yuki Sonoda was going to be in the top eight, which after qualifying, I was like, ah, one or two DNFs, he looks okay. I think I might be on something here. And Yuki Sinoda went, no, I'm not going to do that. In a way, I think he is not lucky, but, you know, we've already given out Daniel Ricardo. You yourself said Daniel Ricardo was worst driver of the day. I thought he was the second worst driver of the day. I thought he was the second worst driver of the day. I don't think Senoda was that far behind. I don't think he had a very good race at all.

Yeah, one of those tailor two halves. I think the first half was good. And then he got caught up behind this KMAG section. And it all went to rats very, very quickly for Yuki Sonoda. Yeah, it was, you know, he got passed by Ockon, and then an album comes along. And, yeah, I don't think it was great. We'll talk about Menard in a bit more depth. after the next break.

But, yeah, Senoda didn't get top eight, did he? So that's me wrong. So big fat, no for you. Harry Ead's prediction is automatically wrong because he's not here. That's a new rule. If you predict something on a preview and you don't turn up to the review, you're just wrong regardless of what happens. But the good news for him is he was wrong anyway.

So he said there was going to be at least five safety cars or VSCs. Now, after eight laps, we had one safe. car, which if you use the power of maths, put him in a pretty good position, because he was averaging enough to have this sewed up after 40 laps. But that was the only one. So he was for safety car short. Yeah, it's quite a lot of safety cars short when you do the maths, isn't it? When you only hit 20% of your goal, most people will say that you failed and you haven't succeeded. So no points. Neil Pua for Harry Ead. Never mind.

So if you are keeping count, and I hope everyone has got their late-breaking branded Abacus is out ready to go, you'll know that we were on nil, nil, nil after the first race, and you can move absolutely nothing along to give you new scores of nil, nil, and nil. Brilliant. I'm so proud of us. We've come into the new season swinging. Big up late breaking. We're going to take our second short break. Afterwards, we're going to be talking about Hasse and their great strategy. and stay unbaffled. If there's one thing that Hasse have been renowned for in their time in F1,

it's their brilliant strategic thinking. Wait, what I'm? Okay. That just sounds really weird to say. But here today, they delivered something. They cooked because Nika Holkenberg, staying out long on those medium tires, Kevin Magnuson, deciding to intentionally pick up 20 seconds worth of penalties to completely throw his race away.

And as a result of that, he was able to hold up the entire. back end of the grid to the point where Holcomberg could make his pit stop and come out ahead of Magnuson and therefore, indeed, ahead of everyone else. He was able to claim a grand total of one point, but every point matters in F-1. So what were your thoughts on how this race unfolded? Because this was pretty topsy-turvy from their side. Yeah, I mean, let Kamatsu cook when we're serving up some Niko Holkham burgers tonight for the Harse boys. And I have famously being horribly harsh. to Haas, and I think they've thoroughly deserved the slander, if I'm totally honest. But equally, I am not ashamed to hold up my hands and go, well done to Haas, because they did

turn it around. And the car also looked pretty good once they got going. So let's, let's walk it through. Because halfway through that Grand Prix, when we were doing our power rankings, we were getting ready for those, of course, at Patreon. And I was starting to make notes of each driver. I thought, oh, okay, Mac, you're welling for a world. driver of the day shout here, and it's not looking good for you. And let's face it, at the start of this Grand Prix, it wasn't looking good for him. He had squeezed Alex Albonne into the wall and damaged his own floor and hurt another car, 10 second penalty, the rarely seen 10 second penalty throwing out for the first time.

And then, of course, he overtakes Yuki Sandoida by simply not using the racetrack, which I think, hey, hars will take it. Racetracks are overrated, you're correct, Ben. But of course, the penalty we have seen deployed before, which has been clearly is consistent, I guess, this season, is another 10 seconds. So he picks up 20 seconds of total penalties. Now, over the radio, you start to notice that KMAG's pace,

which is two and a half, three seconds slower in the cars in front of him, is not unintentional. He's not actually just slow, and he's doing it on purpose. And the ability to manage your tyres and your battery and to hold about six. six cars behind you, and that's not just behind. He's defending like a lion, as Fernando Alonso might say.

He's sticking the car backing around the outside. He made that dive back on Yuki-Sinoda, where he kept two wheels on the track. And actually, you know what, at that point, I think even if he didn't stay on the track and went over the road again and staying in front of him and picked up another penalty, I still think he just would have taken it

because that was the strategy. And the way that Holkerberg was able to get just enough of a gap to come in the pits and then come back, out front of that train was a sublime, sensational, genius level strategy. You really turned an absolute pile of poo, you rolled it up, and you really did roll it into glitter, you put it in the oven, and out came an actually nice tasting cake. And I don't know how you've done that. That's almost impossible, especially for you, Haas, your ovens don't even work, but you made

it happen and you've cooked up a tasty point, and you deserve it. You actually deserve the praise. and the car, when Holgerberg had pitted and Magnuson was able to just run at his own pace, suddenly, only four seconds behind him, and left the others in the dust. There was no competition. It's not like he got passed by everyone after he let it go. They had a good race car. So I was really baffled, equally, quite happy to be proven wrong about them for this Grand Prix.

Brilliant stuff for Haas and they deserve the praise. Well done. Yeah, shocking stuff. I think we'll get into the couple of incidents in a moment just to see if we thought they were worthy of 10 second penalties or not but let's for now just say as it was as facts like he got two 10 second penalties at the time on the second one where he overtook Sonoda off track I was questioning because it seemed fairly obvious to me

that he should have given that back it wasn't really a contentious one at least from from my eyes. So I was really confused as to, why aren't you just handing this back? Because you're never, if we're looking at Magnuson in isolation, there was never any way that Magnuson, who still had to overtake Zhoguan Yu, there was no way he was going to overtake Joe Guan Yu, make up that time, because we see it quite often at the front, right, where it's just worth it to take the penalty because you're going to lose more by being stuck behind another car. That wasn't really the case for Magnuson's own individual race. So I was at the point.

like really confused as to why he's staying ahead. But of course he already had a 10 second penalty for the other incident with Alex Albin. And I'm starting to think that maybe Has actually said, look, or maybe he didn't say this directly to him, but for internally at least that he's already done for, he's already got a 10 second penalty. We might as well just take 20 because 20 seconds is,

20, 10 seconds doesn't matter. It's as bad as one another, really. He's not getting points. We might as well just keep. the track position and now fully commit to this strategy of holding up everyone, in which case, respect, because that was a great idea. And he did a phenomenal job. He really did a phenomenal job. Part of this is the way that has set up their cars, for sure. They, I think above pretty much any other team just decided to be very quick on the straits, but you've still got to be very

clever with your deployment in order to stay ahead. But of course, it's not just about staying ahead. It's also about going as slowly as you possibly can whilst doing so. And the margin with which he was able to build for Holkenberg to slot in in front of him was remarkably done. And as mentioned, it is a close scrap between themselves and all of the other teams they'd be to the point where one point could make all the difference come the end of this year. Wouldn't surprise me in the slightest. So I thought they were thoroughly impressive. But to your point, Sam, even more encouraging,

than the strategy itself, which I thought was very clever, the team don't look slow. Like, they look genuinely all right. Now, they're still comfortably behind the top five teams, don't get me wrong, but they might be better than the other four. Like, that's a serious debate that we should be having at this point, because I think it was genuinely unknown. We knew that Magnuson was slowing down to keep everyone behind, but we didn't know what his true pace was.

Is it that he's decided to slow down? a little bit, or was he slowing down a lot? It was more of the latter. He was slowing down a good amount to keep those cars behind because, as he say, as soon as he was released and able to do his own actual race, he was quicker than everyone around him, or at least everyone behind him, right? And that's the one thing that the Hasse has struggled with is the later you go into a Grand Prix, the worst they get in terms of tire wear. And we saw at the end of this Grand Prix, Hasse were lapping as quickly and quicker than their rivals. Even if we'd seen like a small drop-off, right?

I'd still say that was pretty encouraging, but it was better than that. There is, and qualifying didn't go well for them. They could have, I think, got a Q3 out of that. If they get a Q3 from Holkenberg or Magnuson, I don't know, it bodes well. It does bode well for future races, I think. Calm down, Ben.

You know what track's coming up next that they famously always go very well at? Oh, yes. Australia. I think, you know, probably Vastappen's too quick, but two three, seems doable. Yeah. Famously, they always score brilliantly. Nothing goes wrong at pit stops. And they have always been a real threat when it comes to the Australian Grand Prix. So, yeah, I reckon at least one car on the podium, if not two.

Let's have it happen, House, please. Did you think the two penalties for Magnuson were fair? So first one, first one is definitely an area of debate because, yes, there was contact between the two cars. It was definitely KMAG's fault. But it clearly showed that Alex Albon was able to drive a relatively raised pace afterwards. And I know we shouldn't judge penalties as well based on the aftermath of that, right?

It was actually a light tap that happened between the two of them. So I actually thought that 10 seconds was probably bordering on harsh and I probably would have gone five seconds. But it was nice to see the return of a 10-second penalty. And if we're going to go down a whole new direction of contact-related penalties for this season, and there was many moments of debate with the commentary team that spoke about how the skewers have come in this season with a fully revised, almost like penalty layout about how that's applied. We're yet to understand that fully.

But I thought five will have been fair. If they gave it giving him a five-second penalty, we knew nothing of this 10 seconds. I probably would have gone. Yeah, classic five seconds, but there it is. the second incident overtaking off track and gaining advantage. We've seen 10 seconds given before for that, and I fully agree that 10 seconds is the fair penalty for it, and they were consistent with it.

So in my head, 15 seconds was probably more fair, but I'm not going to argue with the 20. I feel ill. I'm going to give out a compliment to Hasse and the stewards within like five minutes of each other. This isn't right. I'm going to be saying that Alpina are going to be one and two after next race at this point.

but yeah, I thought both were spot on. I thought 10 seconds for both was right. I think with the Albin incident, like you say, I mean, it could have gone the other way. It could have, that damage could have stopped Albon from competing for the rest of that Grand Prix, in which case that 10 second becomes, you know, you look at it and say,

well, it's going to have cost Album much more than 10 seconds. So I think it was absolutely fair. I think Magnuson got lucky that album wasn't more damage by it, but actually what he did, not leaving enough room between himself and the wall, is a worthy 10-second penalty in my view. So I thought they got both right. I don't believe what I'm hearing. Hars and the stewards.

You are in the good books. Yes, I'm going to have to find someone who's not. Otherwise, this, you know, what I'm doing here. But looking at the bottom four teams, because we had obviously a half score points, we had an Astermartan score points, and then we had the top four teams double scoring. which leave us with four teams that didn't score anything. Alpine, Menardi or R.B.

Salba and then Williams. Out of those four teams, who should be most worried because they were based on Magnuson's strategy in a bit of a cluster today? Yeah, I think this boils down to being between steak slash Salba slash kick or whatever we're calling them these days. And I think the other team is actually Williams, which actually upsets me a little bit

because I really did think that they were kicking on and maybe we're yet to see it. Alba was driving with damage for a lot of the Grand Prix. Logan Sargent is not up to the same standard as maybe those other drivers around him. And Alpine looked, this was encouraging for Ocon. Obviously, Gasoline couldn't even really start the race. So I'm just going to go off Ocon's performance.

But in terms of moving forward from Bahrain to this Grand Prix alone, they made a good step forward. They were comfortably in that fight. if maybe another safety car or a D&F had happened. I'm not saying points from the cars, but an 11th or 12th place where previously going into this Grand Prix, I thought, no better than a 16th if everyone finishes.

So I thought this was positive. Still worried Alpine, still got to get it together, but not as worrying as I was. But Williams here, I don't know. They seem to be lacking that step forward that I expected. I wasn't expecting loops and bounds, but I was expecting them to be a little bit closer to being the team that were always 11th, 12th, 13.

thing. Actually, they seem to very much still be in that back two or three team fight. And Salba, I don't know, well, with the sick fastest team. Are you? Show it then. Show it. Do quickness. Use the car. I don't know. Valtry Bottas, much like Daniel Riccardo, could not catch up to Kevin Magnuson, who was driving around as if he was in my mini rather than a Formula One car. And that's worrying because, you know, if Bottas, who is an experienced driver with race wings

and pole positions over Lewis Hamilton, isn't able to deploy the pace needed to get him up there. Scary. And Zhou Guangu, of course, absolutely hampered by a devastatingly slow pit stop. It still never really looked like points scoring, unfortunately. And it's just going to fly out the window very quickly. So they need to do a turnaround, as do William and just show off that step forward. And yeah, I guess Alpine is the other one, but I did see a good step from them today.

And that was positive. Doesn't mean it's over. But yeah, those are the two that really jumped out of me. Yeah, I think taking it one team at a time, I think with Alpine, yes, I think they were certainly better here than they were in Bahrain, at least from Ocon's perspective. I think it's being a bit understated because of how bad that car is and how difficult it is to tell. I do think O'Conn's driving very well to start this year. There isn't much to work with at the moment, but I think he is doing a good job. With Pierre Gazley, obviously massively unfortunate that he was essentially

out from the start. The only disappointment there is that Anthony Joshua didn't come over the team radio in the same way he did at Austin, because that would have been really funny if Pierre Gasley interrupted in mid-sentence just to go, sorry, AJ, can I speak to someone else? I don't think the car's working. Can you prepare a gearbox on the fly, AJ, because I'll break it down. That would have been so funny. Never mind.

But yeah, I think you're right. I think they were a little bit better than they were in Bahrain. I think from Salba's perspective, yeah, if they're the sick fastest team, I'd like them to display it at some point. That would be lovely. And then I think Williams, they will be probably most frustrated today because not only were both of their drivers directly stuck behind Kevin Magnuson. I think the most annoying element of it is not the fact that they couldn't get points from it. It's just that they don't really have any idea how quick they actually were. You could convince me that actually Albin and Sargent had quite a bit more pace than they were able to display today.

But I couldn't tell you that confidently. Maybe they were deserving to be in that mix. Albin did put on a couple of pretty nice moves to end the Grand Prix. Maybe there is something there. But they were just stuck behind for so long in this train that there wasn't much to show. I'm not quite sure what happened with Albin's pit stop because he dropped. quite a few positions, which ultimately has cost him probably a lot in this race. But yeah, I think Williams are probably still a bit unknown going into round three.

And then Menardy, they are just a bit disappointing at this point. From Yuki Sanoda's perspective, I'd love someone to actually calculate a percentage on this, but it feels like he's been stuck behind Kevin Magnuson for about 95% of the season so far. obviously the battle for the battle between him and Ricardo where that was over Kevin Magnuson and his position here again Magnuson is holding him up and Sonona didn't deal with it very well and Ricardo as already discussed was disappointingly off the pace this was a team that we thought had a good shot of being clear at this group and they're very much in it so I think they might be the most disappointed at this stage and but I think all four of them

have just been frustrated by Hass to this point in all honesty. I can't believe we're saying that. I can't believe that's a lot of it's come out of your mouth that four teams are frustrated by Haas who were brilliant today. It's a weird, weird world. We're going to take our final break of this episode. Our last segment is going to cover Moment of the Race.

Okay, moment of the race. As per usual, we've got some Discord submissions lined up, which very excitingly, Sam, with his new power. Wi-Fi is going to do the honour of clicking buttons. This is incredibly exciting. But before we get to that excitement, we'll build up to it because each of us has a moment of the race that we'll give out now. What was yours?

I had two. I'm not going to go into details on the other one in case you happen to pick it, but I am going to go with the realisation that the Haas team, or Kamatsu, are now genii as a combination of the group. And they're able to deploy the best strategy that we've seen since Carlos Seinfeldon and Norris working together in Singapore to deliver a brilliant point for a team that desperately needs it. It was very, very good.

And it did not come about by pure accident. They took a bad situation and they turned it into a really good one for the team. I'm genuinely impressed. They are the moment of the race in that. And that's strategic choice. I'm going to give a less spotted worst moment of the day because I'm going to speak to David Croft quite directly at this point. I know you listen, David, you're a very big fan of the show.

James Vowels, don't ever call him Vowelsie again, please. Oh. Is that a thing? No. Vowelsie? Vowalzy. Oh, kids, we're learning the alphabet today. You've got B and C and D. Those are consonants.

But you see A and E and I, those are vowsies. Oh, we're getting a bit vowsy, aren't we? Stop that. Immediately. It's a crime. Yep. Yeah, sorry, David. Just don't bother with it. that again, please. But my actual moment of the race, and I think I preempted this already by

texting Sam and the rest of our group, it was a very early contender, and I couldn't find anything that would beat it later on, which was Landstrol, not going into the wall, that wasn't the moment of the race, but Lance Stroll, when he went into the wall, saying, essentially, I've hit the wall, and his engineer coming back to say, can you bring it back to the pits? At which point, Point Land struggle is, nah, I'm in the, oh. There was a lot of sass on that. It's impressive, actually. The amount of sass on that line for a guy that has just crashed at that pace seconds before.

Impressive. Yeah, that was the other one that I didn't want to go into details of. I thought that that might be the one you picked. But Kingsing a bad headspace, I think. I think he's struggling a little bit. But yeah, it's got a great line. Delivered excellently. He did deliver that excellently.

But of course, as mentioned, we've got some Discord submissions. So if you'd like to be considered for one of these in the next race, which will be the Australian Grand Prix in a couple of weeks' time, get in the Discord. The link is in the description. And we ask for these moments of the race as audio submissions. A few minutes after the Grand Prix, so you do you have to be fairly quick on it. But we've got some great ones lined up for today, Sam.

Yeah, fingers crossed that the soundboard will work and my hyper-powered internet is able to deliver your gorgeous voices. into our eardrums. Here we go. We're going to kickstart off with Save Leclair. I'm not sure he needs to save it after this Grand Prix, but it's still a great name. Here we go.

What have you got to say? What's your moment of the race? Hello, everyone. I am back for the first time this season to Save Leclair from Ferrari Prison by giving my moment to the race. For this race, and honestly just this season in the whole while, and they have a couple words,

Alpine, what are you doing? It's a miracle that they got that high today. You're slow and your car is an eyesore, so be better. It's great to hear from the Harry Ead fan club when he's not turning up. I think that was Harry Ead. It's a great accent that he does. I didn't know he was good at accents. Yeah.

Well, there we go. An Alpin shout already. We're moving on to one of our favourite geysers, and that is, of course, Hazer. All right, boys. Moment of the race for me was watching Olly Behrman come across the line in P-7. I genuinely got goosebumps. you know, what a fantastic story for him and for the sport. And if sport's meant to do anything for us, boys,

it's meant to make us feel something. And in a sport currently where it's been a bit draught, that was a welcome, wonderful thing to watch. Cheers, boys. Love that from Hazard, a bit of an emotional touch. Can't argue with that. Can't argue with that. I also imagine he's rapidly on his way in the car

to maybe take the next Ferrari drive, if possible, because it looked like he was in a hurry in that submission there, which we love. It mess up Lecler. Hasn't it would mess up a lot of people. He sounds terrifying. We've got Rath coming up next. Race, definitely when Alex Albon said,

that's naughty. And then proceeded to not elaborate any further. And Sky didn't give us a replay. So that was fun. Yeah, I mean, you've got the Messiah. You're a very, very naughty boys. making Alex's album was definitely thinking as he was going around the crowd. I forgot about naughty.

That was a good one. Nauty. Nauty. That's very British, to just say, naughty. Yeah, it is, isn't it? Americans or people from across the world, please let us know. Is it something you say in both a positive and the negative? Nauty.

Noddy. Because when you have like a cheeky dinner, right, you know, it's not very good for you or something. You go, oh, that's naughty. and it's a normal phrase here in the UK. It's got to be proper before it as well to elevators. Yeah, true, true. And you don't tend to say all the time to tea. Bit naughty days.

Anyway, coming up, we've got three generations of this. I can't believe we're getting them all packed in. Three. It is Real Dad himself. James is back. And we've got the appearance of Grandma, which is incredible. This is Real Dad and James and Grandma back for 2020.

with Moment of the Race. Hello, everybody. We're back. Moment of the Race was probably watching Formula One for my grandma and run out will probably have been

Lance draw absolutely binning it into the wall. Amazing performance. What are you doing? Anyway, everyone out from us and say hello,

Grandma. Hello there. Bye. Oh, bless. I can't deal. It's so lovely. That's so nice. So wholesome.

Oh. Gonna cry. If you'd like to also share Late Breaking and Formula Along with your families, it's incredibly welcome, and we'd love you all to do that. Two left, we've got Thick Brankus. Yeah. Hello, boys.

Moment at the race. I'm going to say old Lance Stroll being asked if he could carry on after crashing into the wall and replied with, well, no, I'm in the wall. It's good stuff.

A man after Ben's heart, Hello boys. I've let myself down. I've really tarnished my reputation. Oh, no. Oh dear. Very thick. Very thick.

Very so thick, much bronchus. And we're going to move on to the final, the legend that is Rai Guy. Hey guys, it's Rai guy. This is my moment of the race for Jetta. My moment of the race is the stewards listening to the podcast and listening to Harry and doing something other than a five-second penalty and giving Magnuson a 10-second penalty for overtaking off track. So that's cool.

cool. But yeah, that's my moment of the race. I love you guys do. Keep on, keep it on. And seriously, $12 is the highest tier of Patreon. It only gets cheaper from there. And it's $12 US. So join the Patreon. I promise you it's worth it. If it's not, I will pay you myself. I'll do you guys. Doing God's work, right guy. Right guy is a roaming billboard for our Patreon. And honestly, he deserves a knighthood for the level of service it does for us. Thank you, right guy. Thank you to everyone that submitted. If you do want to submit for the Australia Grand Prix, which is coming out next, of course. Linky in the discreppy for the Discord, get in there. It's in the submission channel. You'll see

us ask for it. And you could hear your voice on obviously your favourite podcast. Indeed. And if you're new to the podcast, firstly, very warm welcome to you. You might be thinking, oh, well, Australia for a preview is the next time you're going to hear us. Wrong. We are back on Wednesday, every Wednesday, every Sunday. So Sam, if you wouldn't mind, getting us out of here until then. Yeah, so we're going to be back big week. We've also got Patreon stuff coming out all over the place in the meantime because we have recording a load this week for you Patreon subscribers.

So if you think, oh, I want something else Formula One related. Go check it out. Go on. As right, like I said, it's not too expensive. And it helps us massively. Join the Discord. Follow us on social media, late-breaking F1 on all channels. And this has been recorded with our lovely faces to appear on YouTube.

So hit subscribe, hit like, drop a comment down below. something helps us to grow the late-breaking audience. We appreciate all the support that all of you already give. We'll see you midweek. 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.