The Late Braking F1 Podcast - 2025 Belgian GP Sprint Qualifying Review

Episode Date: July 25, 2025

Ben is holding down the LB fort with a solo rundown of all the action from a mixed-up Belgian GP sprint qualifying session at Spa. With razor-thin margins and three big names unexpectedly knocked out early, the door was left open for some surprise SQ3 entries... >>> Don't miss out - limited tickets left for our 2025 LIVE SHOW in Austin TX! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠CLICK HERE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to grab yours or for more info!

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. Welcome to the late breaking F1 podcast presented by me, Ben Hocking, reviewing today two sessions taking place across this Belgian GP weekend, the sprint that we had this morning, and qualifying for the main race that, as I'm recording this, has just happened.

I hope you enjoyed yesterday's sprint qualifying review because I'm back by myself again today. Good news, though, is we are going to be a trio tomorrow. So you will get a bit of a respite from just me. But I've got two sessions to work through today. And sadly enough, we always do these chronologically. And I can't escape from that. So it means we start with the sprint race that happened. this morning. You're probably wondering, me, sprint lover, what thoughts I have on this one.

They're not all great. So you remember yesterday, before I started my review, if you were listening to yesterday's show, you'd have heard me say that I had a lot of notes for sprint qualifying to work through, and over the course of 40 minutes or so, that's exactly what I did. I'll be honest, folks, not as many points for this one. Goodness me, 12 laps of utter boredom. Can we just move on from these for once and for all? We'll get into some of the detail, not that there's a lot of it. We'll get into some of the detail of what happened in the sprint in a moment,

but we do need to talk about the race itself to start with, because what a waste of time. What a waste of time these sprints are. honestly, when are we going to get to the stage where F1 are not completely and utterly stubborn about this? Because they have been shoving this down F1 viewers' throats for many a year now. You know, we've, well, we've four years, five years into sprints now. And for whatever reason, they are continuing with this format. They've adjusted the format over time because things weren't working.

Sooner or later, there has to be someone in the FIA, someone in F1 admitting they just fundamentally do not work. You can change as many things as you like, small tweaks. Sooner or later, you have to say fundamentally, the format is just the issue here. I remember when these sprints were first introduced, almost the biggest marketing ploy they had, the number one headline that they were going with in press releases is that there's no strategy in these sprint races. It's just 100% flat out racing. You could just go for it and we get to see who's the quickest. Simplified racing, right? It doesn't work. I hate to break the news to your people that don't see it. Strategy makes things interesting when it comes to Formula One. And when you don't have that, you get what we had this

morning, which is an utter snooze fest for a dozen laps. As soon as Verstappen got the lead on the first lap, the battle for the lead, sure, it remained relatively intriguing. But it's a good thing that was there, because there was nothing else going on. With the way that the DRS is set up and the way in which some cars are going out there trying to optimize top speed, you end up with these dull and seemingly endless DRS trains. I think Yuki Sanoda was leading one for a good amount of time. We saw both Hascar's were very much set up with that in mind with the likes of Carlos signs directly behind trying to find a way past Hadjar directly behind Behrman. But, you know, when you have these cars that are set up for that top line speed, even with the DRS, the cars behind

can't really do anything about it. We saw the battle out front. at one stage between Vastappan and Piastri, Vastan made quite a clear and obvious error into turn one. Still not enough for Piastri to even go side by side when you go down to Lake Om end of the Kempel Strait. And what we got was a race that might have had four overtakes, possibly. But, you know, what are we expecting? A lot of the time when we see overtakes,

when we see on-track battles, it's to do with different strategies, different tires. Even with a potentially exciting sprint race where you've got multiple cars seemingly out of position, you've got George Russell knocked out in Q2, Antonelli and Hamilton both knocked out in Q1. In other longer form races with strategy, there is the potential for these cars to make their way through the field

and give us something to talk about. nothing of the like in this sprint. Progress was almost impossible if you weren't making an overtake or two on the first lap. And the icing on top of this Poofeel cake is that later on on the grand prix, right at the very end of the grand prix, we have a battle between Lewis Hamilton and Alex Albin, where Lewis Hamilton gets ahead of Albon. Albin re-overtakes Hamilton. And then Hamilton re-overtakes Alex Albin. Frilling stuff. Three position changes in a matter of half a lap. I'm reporting this as if I saw it, I didn't. We weren't allowed to see it. Now, sure, if you are really having to fight for attention because there are battles going up and down the grid and you

don't know where to turn your attention, you have to use the split screen element and all of that, fine. I can understand that. Was that really an issue here in the Belgian Grand Prix sprint? Not in the slightest. There was nothing else going on on track. The one thing that maybe could have happened we weren't able to see. So congratulations to wonderful TV direction there. But even with that minor potential excitement that we didn't get to see, it wouldn't have saved whatever the hell this was. Utterly boring. If we had a second stint, maybe it becomes more interesting. Do you know what you call that? A Grand Prix. I know that this will do absolutely nothing to shift. the needle when it comes to sprint races. I appreciate, you know, my position isn't shared by

everyone, including F1. And, you know, they'll continue on with these. Whether they increase these sprints in following years, I don't know, but they're not going anywhere. Every time this is brought up as a subject, they'll bring out some stupid survey results where they're clearly framing the questions in a certain way that it's going to look positive, the impact that sprints have had. It's like, oh, you know, yes or no, do you like sprints over, I don't know, um, being poisoned? Well, yeah, I prefer sprints. Wow, people overwhelmingly like sprints. It's the, this is the route they go with these surveys whenever they bring this up. I'm sorry, I'm, I'm going too far on this, but this was dull, utterly dull. Um, I do reference that

fight at the front and I do need to spend a little bit of time. on that. Let me just tick off the first line on my run through here. So I just put boring. So I've ticked off boring. And now we go into the Vestappan, Norris and Piastri battle. Of course, Piastri holding pole position ahead of Vestappen, Norris on the second row of the grid alongside Lecler. There was a bit of a question mark going into this session. Would the lack of straight line speed that McLaren have intentionally gone for, will that hurt them on the first lap? And if so, will it matter? Because there's still an opportunity, of course, many laps to go where you could make that back up. Lo and behold, first lap, just as I was discussing

yesterday, Vastappen, a real opportunity to take the lead, uses the slipstream to full effect, has the better straight line speed, and takes the lead down the camel straight and throughout the rest of lap one. A fair play to Red Bull for going at this with such a strategy. If they go the same way as McLaren, odds are that they're not going to beat them just based on how quick that McLaren is. So to have a strategy of giving Vestappen a good enough setup

that he would be somewhere in and amongst the top four, of course good enough for the front row, to then use that straight line speed to gain the advantage on lap one and then go racing and see if he can keep it, even if it didn't work. I think that is a really effective strategy. He takes the lead, Piastri's in second. Norris not able to hold on to third.

Charles LeCler similarly, going with more of a straight line setup, able to get that done. Now, that Ferrari, despite my optimistic bowl prediction earlier in the week, still doesn't look great. We'll get on to how LeClaire didn't qualify. lying in a little bit, but he's only able to hold that P3 position for, what was it,

a couple more laps before Norris finds his way past. But Max Vastappen out front, able to do a little bit more. As reference, there was one small-ish chance for Piastri to maybe take that lead away. Of course, Vastapa making that error, I say error, it was a small error into term one of Las Sauce, and you carry that. all the way down to turn seven when you make an error there. Still not enough for Piastri to pull alongside or try a bit of a daring overtake. Again, another complaint about these sprints is there's only one point separating every single position inside that top eight. You get eight points

for the win, you get one point four eighth, and each position you get gets you exactly one point. You're not going to go hell for lever and try and make these daring overtakes. Like in terms of working the percentages, working the risk, it's not worth it. So Piastri, I don't think really was ever tempted to try something that was anything but a sure thing, like these 50-50 chances I don't think he was particularly interested in. This battle allows Lando Norris to close up to the back of Piastri and Vestappan, but you never felt like this was going to go any other way outside of Vastappan-Piastrian-Norris in that order, despite the fact that the fact that the back of Piastri and Vastrian-Norris, but you never felt like,

despite the fact that those three drivers were, for the majority of the second half of this Grand Prix, separated by a second, a second and a half, it still felt like that was the order they were going to finish it. You didn't feel like Norris' strategy, Norris' setup wasn't radically different from Piastri's. Piastri, of course, has the DRS as well as Norris, so there isn't a clear advantage for Norris to try and overtake. And again, Piastri, despite his best efforts, not able to pull alongside Max Vastappen down that camel straight due to the differences in the setup. So the credit deserves to go to Vastappen because I think he did a brilliant job. The way in which he took the lead on the first lap was everything it needed to be.

You know, he stuck in the slipstream perfectly throughout the first corner. There was no need to try a dive into turn one. That wouldn't have served him well at all. So he does that part of the plan perfectly. And really, he executes everything else brilliantly well too. Even with a deficit to the McLaren's seemingly in the middle sector, there's no opportunity to pass there. So he just had to keep his call.

Sure, he still has to push a heck of a lot based on a bit of a pace deficit he has versus the McLaren. But as long as he doesn't make a catastrophic error going into, you know, turn 14 or one are really the two big ones that he needed to avoid making an error on. and for the most part he didn't. And that's what was able to give him that win. Not really a significant one when it comes to the championship. Vastappen already in an outsider position for sure.

And getting one point on Piastri, two points on Norris, that's not going to change anything for him. But nice for him to at least return to win a circle. A driver of the session is difficult to decide. side, I would probably go with Verstappen on this one. Of course, the likes of Ocon holding on to a very good position, signs holding onto a very good position, they deserve respect. But, you know, in all of their instances, really, the hard work was done in qualifying. You know, that's where these points were won and lost, really up and down this grid, because we saw, whereas the likes of Ocon and signs could hold

position fairly effectively. There was really no opportunity for progress outside of the top 10. You know, if Lewis Hamilton in a Ferrari that has, okay, it hasn't been a great car this year, but it has consistently been a top three or four car this season, the fact that he, Antonelli and Russell, able to make no progress whatsoever just points to the fact that, again, qualifying was absolutely vital for having to. this sprint was going to go. But Stappen still had a bit of work to do,

so I'm going to give him driver of the session honors. I'll focus a little bit on qualifying before going to a break, because there's a little bit more to discuss here because, well, it was a better session. But in a bit of a reversal from sprint qualifying yesterday, it's still a McLaren on poll, but this time it's the McLaren of Lando Norris, taking pole position ahead of his teammate, Oscar Piastri, by just under a tenth of a second. Second row then occupied,

again by Charles LeClerc, but it goes one position better than he did in sprint qualifying as he gets ahead of Max Verstappen, who will start in fourth. So same top four as we had for sprint qualifying, but no one is in the same position that they were this morning.

Credit to Lando Norris. What a great qualifying session from him. It looked like from the off, he was in a far more competitive position than where he was at in sprint qualifying. And look, if you're going to do one qualifying session better than the other, make it main qualifying because that's far more important. It wasn't a great one from Lando Norris yesterday to be six times down on his teammate,

to not be on the front row of the grid. And with these sprint weekends, it is not particularly easy to find your way back into a weekend. Like if you're starting on the back foot, as I think we can say Norris was, you don't have a lot of time to recover. So as soon as that first practice session is done, that's it when it comes to uncompetitive running. You know, we don't have a practice session in between the sprint or the main race as an example. You are at that point essentially four competitive sessions back to back to back to back. and it's difficult to use any of those as a test session to work out where you can recover, what you can do differently, and it's why we do quite frequently see if you hold the advantage

at the beginning of a sprint weekend, odds are you will at the end too. And that just adds to the respect I want to give Lando Norris for ensuring that's not going to happen here. The race pace in the sprint seemed fairly close to Piastri, if not on the same level. very difficult to tell because I don't think Piastri was able to show in second place behind Vestappen what he could do. Norris was obviously able to close up on those two after it passed LeClerer, what their true race pace is versus one another. I think it's a massive question mark going into tomorrow. But yeah, I do think, you know, the way in which Norris was able to recover, get into Q3 and really make the most. I mean, his lap, his pole lap,

was pretty much on a par if I'm, I stand to be correct, I think it was pretty much on a par with what Piastri did yesterday. The only thing that really let Norris down on his final run was the last sector. I don't think he absolutely maximized his lap because it was a purple middle sector, but I don't think he had a personal best in the first or final sectors. So there was maybe a little bit more time to be found, but the same could be said for his teammate. And he did enough for poll. So congratulations to him. Great session. Oscar Piastri might be a bit disappointed. He seemed disappointed in his post-qualifying interview. Certainly, if he nails that final sector, if he doesn't make the error at term 14, that might well be pole position for him. I think he did enough in the

earlier part of the lap, but similar to Norris, not able to get the most out of that final sector. and it's probably cost in pole. Now, we've seen already Piastri first hand that getting pole position here isn't the be all an endal. And if you're starting in second or third, it still gives you a reasonable opportunity to find that slip stream and better your position going into the second half of that first lap. So Piastri, having seen that first hand, I don't think will be completely demoralized. Of course, the big difference that we're likely to see.

see in the race start tomorrow versus the race start today, it's probably going to be raining to the point where the forecast looks pretty bad, to the point where we don't even know whether it's going to be a standing start at this point in time. And even if it is, that spray is going to make an overtake more difficult, but still possible. So I don't think Piastri is going to be completely gutted about starting in second. And then the battle for third and fourth between Lecler and Max Verstappen. Great effort from Charles LeCler. Great effort.

And this is annoying because it is a great lap. His lap filled me with sadness, which is going to sound weird because it was a good lap. And he got third and he got ahead of Vastappen. I really miss Charles LeCler being in the battle for pole positions. It's been a while. And it's not LeCleur driven. I don't think.

I think it's Ferrari driven. That car has struggled. quite a lot in qualifying this year, that McLaren, even in race trim, as a pretty significant advantage over the Ferrari. Leclair being in battles for pole, it's just fun. I don't have a more in-depth explanation than that. Leclair in qualifying equals fun. And to see him, instead of battling for P1, battling for P3, it's a little bit demoralizing, I won't lie. But even so, what a great lap. What is maybe most of the most of the first. exciting for Ferrari going into tomorrow, because he's only just got ahead of

Vastappan here. Vastappan and the McLaren's seem to have somewhat converged when it comes to set up strategy. So whereas going into spring qualifying and the sprint, it felt like Vestappan is far more focused on straight line speed, McLaren more focused on downforce, Vastappen's going to be better in the first sector, McLaren better in the middle sector. I think, Red Bull have gone towards McLaren's strategy in the gap between the sprint and main qualifying. Because as we saw throughout qualifying, with Vastappan versus the McLarence specifically, you didn't see much difference between them throughout the sectors in the same way that we saw in spring qualifying. Vastappan could hang with the McLaren's in the middle sector,

but also McClaren could hang with Vastepin in the first sector, in a way that hadn't happened yesterday. The reason I bring this up when it relates to Ferrari is Ferrari have somewhat stuck with maximising that first sector. Maybe not to the extent that Mercedes are looking to do it, but more so than Forstappen, more so than the McLaren duo. It means that if we do get an actual race start tomorrow, it could be quite interesting to see if LeCler can use that slipstream factor

to get second or even get the lead. Now, there is a very good chance that just like today in today's sprint, even if Leclerc can make a position on one of the McLaren's or even both of the McLaren's, he might not be able to keep it. That McLaren is faster, no doubt about that whatsoever. But odd conditions, rainy conditions, it's not going to work exactly the same way as what we saw today if the weather forecast holds true.

it is more difficult to make overtakes in those rainy conditions. You don't have the DRS. The driver behind does have to deal with a lot of spray. It's not going to be a slam dunk even for the McLarence, I don't think. And of course, if the weather's really bad, you never know when you might get a premature ending to the Grand Prix, a red flag, safety cars. There's just far more variables that I think the drivers tomorrow will have to deal with. I'm not saying Ferrari are going to win this. I'm not saying LeClau's going to slipstream his way to first place on the first lap

and then run away with it. But if he can gain a position or two, there's far more of a chance he keeps it tomorrow than what there was today. I'm going to take a quick break on this one. On the other side, a bit more chat from qualifying. Welcome back, everyone, to the second part of today's review, and indeed the second session we're reviewing today, which was main qualifying for the Grand Prix tomorrow.

We focused a little bit on Lando Norris and him being able to get pole position ahead of his teammate. We focused a bit on the Ferrari of Charles LeClerc, finding his way to third. Just talk a little bit about Max Verstappen in fourth. So not able to replicate what he was able to do in sprint qualifying where he was starting on the front row in second place. It'll start directly behind that in fourth.

time-wise, very close to Charles Leclair, but ultimately not maximising Q3. This is driver-led this time around. So, I mean, similar to the main race where he made a little bit of an error into LaSource. Same thing happens here in qualifying. He ends up only 3,000ths of a second outside the time needed to get third here. He makes far more of an error than 3,000s of a second into. that first corner. Was it a tenth?

Was it two temps? I'm not too sure. I think realistically, with the way that Red Bull have gone with their setup, pole position and second place was probably out the question anyway. If Vastappen nails that lap,

I don't think he gets inside the top two here. But third was definitely there for the taking. If he just does that first sector, half a tenth better. he's in third place. And I know the stat keeps going around this weekend that no one has ever won from fourth here. It's still not a bad starting position, I'd say.

But third is a lot better. Third is a lot better when you consider you can slipstream the leader. It's not the end of the world because Lecler started fourth in today's sprint and he was able to get up to third by the end of Lakecom. Not fighting for the lead, sure, I'll grant you that. but still a chance from Vastappen in fourth.

But I think there will be disappointment from him that he couldn't make a little bit more out of Q3 there, certainly not as a stronger qualifying showing as he had the day before. I think part of that is going to be set up driven. I referenced before the break. I do think Vastappan, it feels like McLaren's set up across the weekend has maybe been a little bit more consistent

across the board. It feels like what they went with in practice is kind of what they've carried through to now, which should be a fairly good setup for wet conditions tomorrow. Vastappen, it feels like they maybe started the weekend with a little bit more of a focus on top speed. I think they sort of pegged it back a little bit for spring qualifying in the sprint,

and now they've brought it back even more for this qualifying session going into the Grand Prix. Of course, we are fresh off the British GP, where Vastappen and Red Bull learned firsthand, what can go horribly wrong when you don't have the right set up in wet conditions? I think they've learned from that. I don't think they want to risk it again. And as a result of that, you know, it seems like they're far more uniform with the McLaren. So I'm going to say that is something to do with not being able to compete for pole position, but certainly P3 was there for the taking. We had a thrilling battle behind that.

So fifth down to ninth. So that's Albin, Russell, Sonoda, and then the two racing balls, Hadjar and Lawson. Those five drivers in that order, separated by just over a tenth of a second. So Albin in fifth, 0.639 behind Lando Norris's poll time. Lawson in ninth, 0.766 behind. So not a lot to separate five drivers. You throw a blanket over those. And respect has to go to Alex Album first and foremost for finding his.

way to the head of that field. A disappointing sprint qualifying session, partly at least driven by not being able to get a clean run in, a clean second run in in Q1, Lewis Hamilton's yellow flag ultimately hindering his progress, Q1 knockout. We saw in the sprint. No one was making any progress from those positions on the grid. But for main qualifying, again, the qualifying, you really want to get right, a far better job. You know, to make it through to Q3, I think in itself was pretty strong from him. But he needs to pull together that lap to get ahead of, not just anyone. He's got ahead of a Mercedes, a Red Bull, and a racing ball duo that seemed going into it like they might be the fourth fastest team this weekend.

So, you know, fourth or fifth fastest team. So I think he's done an exceptional job to get to P5. George Russell will start on the third row with him, so he's seven times back in the end. If you want any indication as to what Mercedes have planned this weekend, all you have to do is look at his Q3 time. First sector, purple. Best of anyone. Middle sector was green for a second run. It was an improvement on his first run.

Third sector, purple. So two of the three sectors, George Russell has been quicker than absolutely everyone. The problem is the middle sector, he was the slowest driver in Q3 and the total result was sixth place. Mercedes have gone completely different. They are, whereas maybe Red Bull went for straight line a little bit more earlier today, Ferrari, I think, have stuck somewhat to that going into tomorrow. Mercedes are way into the extreme on this setup versus everyone else. And I'm fascinated to see if it works or not. So they are going to be very difficult to overtake,

really difficult to overtake in a straight line. They're just going to be rocket ships going into the Kemmel straight, most specifically. But it's not the right setup. and I say I've right in quotation marks because it's tough to say what the right setup is, but if you're looking for outright pace, it's not the right setup for ready conditions.

CMAX Vastappen in Silverstone. So I don't know whether it's going to work or not, quite frankly. He would have been hoping for fifth place, for sure, even if that setup wasn't realistically going to give him a chance at anything better than fifth. and that Mercedes is just fundamentally not looked good this weekend. So I think anything better than Fifth was off the cards with any setup. It'll be disappointed to be behind Albon for sure.

But there were times where it wasn't certain. Like yesterday, he was even going to make it through to Q3. So could have gone far worse for him. Yuki Sonoda in 7th. I just want to very quickly mention him. Was it just under four tenths separating him and Vastappen? Not too bad. Q2 was pretty close as well, whereas Sonoda was maybe struggling a little bit yesterday,

made it through Q1, then knocked out in Q2, wasn't too far off making it through to Q3, to be fair to him. Today, relatively comfortable run to Q3. His Q2 lap was pretty good versus Vastap, and I think, again, it was only a few temps away. So here, under four temps at one of the circuits where you see some big margins, It's looking better. This has maybe been his most encouraging weekend in the last four or five so far.

The race pace in the sprint wasn't fantastic, as mentioned, he was kind of the head of a DRS train rather than looking like he had the pace to make some moves. But a good starting position in seventh. So I do want to say, well done to him. Racing Bulls, eighth, ninth, Hajjar ahead of Lawson again. But similar to yesterday, there's barely anything separating these two. whilst there was a Q2 elimination for Lawson yesterday versus a Q3 appearance for Hadjar yesterday, there was still only a 10th separating them. Here it's even closer. We've got 0.018 between them

in 8th and 9th. They basically set the same lap in Q3 that what they did in Q2. I think that was pretty much what they had. Maybe just a bit of a disappointment that they are well clear of Bortoletto at 10th. and they're just at the end of this queue from Albin back to themselves. They will look at that one corner, that one maybe small error they made in Q3 and think, well, if that doesn't happen, I could make a jump from 9th to 5th or 8th to 5th. That will be the disappointment for racing balls, but still a very good effort in a session where getting two drivers into Q3 was not very easy. Bortoletto in 10th, same again, same as yesterday.

just needs to work out how to do Q3, because this guy comes alive in Q2. And in fairness to him, it didn't look like he was going to make an appearance in Q2 until Lewis Hamilton had his lap time deleted, made the most of that, because his last, his Q2 time was very impressive indeed. It was on a par pretty much with the two racing balls ahead of him. But then just not able to make anything of it in Q3. He had his first run invalidated due to track limits. and then, you know, still on a better run, a second behind Liam Lawson.

If he sets the same lap time in Q2, in Q3, sorry, as he does in Q2, he is right in that mix again. He just needs to, getting through to Q3 is an important first step for Gabriel Bortoletto. The next step is going to be making something of it because that's two Q3 sessions in a row, really, where he's maybe left a position or two on the table. Just outside of Q3 we saw the two Hasses. So not as good of a qualifying session here as what they had in sprint qualifying when both of them made it through to Q3, neither of them making it through here, but still fairly competitive Ocon in 11th, starting directly ahead of his teammate,

Bayerman in 12th. Really interesting what Hasse are doing this weekend. So whereas both cars were very much set up with straight line speed in mind, going into the sprint. One has stuck to that. One most certainly has not. Ocon was, I believe, the fastest car in sector one in Q2. Still not good enough to make it through because they're giving up too much in the middle sector.

But Baerman seems to have pivoted to something closer to what McLaren and Ferrari have done. Sorry, McLaren and Vastappan have done. bearman will be annoyed. Well, I say will be annoyed. We could hear it based on the start of his lap. He felt like that was interrupted by Yuki Sonoda. He was a bit of grieved by that. No rules broken, but there is this something of an agreement that seems to have avoided Yuki Sonoda on that run.

He will be annoyed because I think he could have done some damage in Q3. Certainly not top four potential, but could he have been where Albin is in fifth? I think so. Throughout Q2, firstly, he messes up that first sector probably cost him a couple attempts. I was looking at on that final run, if you were to put together Bearman's best sectors from his first run and his second run, what would his lap time have looked like? Well, it would have looked at like a 141-2, which would have been easily good enough to make it through to Q3. In fact, if he's on a 141-2, that is in the mix with Albin, Russell, Sonoda, Had John Lawson, if he just repeats his time in Q3.

Very interestingly, if you're looking at the second sector times, and again, that's where you need the downforce, you have Norris Piaastri Vestappen as the best three. Fourth best, Olly Berman, better than anyone else in the middle sector in Q2. better than Russell, better than Lecler, better than the racing balls. The problem that Bearman now has is he doesn't have good track position in order to make something of that high downforce setup. Because if you do have good track position and you do have a good setup for rainy conditions, he could have been on course, and maybe he still is, but he could have been on course

for a very good point scoring position. At a time where he has, he's been 11th for the last three Grand Prix in a row, he struggled to find his way into the points. I think something very good could have been on the cards for him. Instead, he's going to have to try and find overtakes in a car that isn't now very quick in a straight line. It might be tricky for him. But yeah, I can understand why there'll be a bit of frustration from his side.

Gassley 13th, Holkenberg, 14th, signs 15th. Holkenberg and Signs not quite doing the same job as their teammates. Gazley, you know, not making Q3 as he did yesterday, but I still think that's a pretty good effort in that Alpine. Q1 casualties. We have three drivers that have been out in Q1 in both sprint qualifying and main qualifying. Franco Colopinto, maybe not too much of a surprise there.

He was only about two temps away from Gasly and Q1 this timeout, which isn't too bad. So that's one of the drivers, probably the one that's least expected. The other two drivers that have found their way out of qualifying one twice in a row, Lewis Hamilton and Kimmy Antonelli, not so expected. Antonelli, he does seem to be struggling this weekend. I'm not going to give him a pass. It does look like that. Mercedes is struggling.

I know Russell's found his way to P6. There were times that that didn't look like a certainty. Russell made it through Q1, obviously, where Antonelli didn't. but not by a huge margin. There was three and a half temps separating Russell and Antonelli at the end of Q1. It's not a small margin, but it's also not a massive margin. So, you know, from Antonelli's perspective, more disappointment, couldn't make any progress in the sprint. I don't know if he's going to make progress in the main race.

Same question has to be asked for Lewis Hamilton, who makes that error in his second run in Q. three violating track limits. Not by much, but it doesn't take much in order for it to happen, going into Ereux and Radion. Otherwise, his lap time would have been on a par with Charle-le-Clure's. Instead, he's three-tempts down, which is enough for him to be 16th and just about knocked out. It's disappointing from Hamilton's side,

because this isn't a weekend where I feel like he's just fundamentally slower than Lecler. I mean, we haven't seen a lot of it yet just based on he was in that DRS queue in the spring, whereas LeCler had free air. It's very difficult to compare lap times as a result of that. But at least in terms of what we've seen in practice and what we've seen in some of qualifying, I don't think there's a big gap between them this weekend. But Hamilton is the one that is seemingly finding these errors. There's still a bit of a debate as to whose error it was Ferrari or Hamilton for his Q1 exit yesterday. I know there's been some chat about a new component for Hamilton that LeCler

had previously or started having from Canada. We know that's where LeCleur had a crash as well. So there's a few questions around that. But the track limits violation. That's 100% on Hamilton. You can't look at, you can't look towards anyone else for that. And it's cost him here. The rain might well help him.

We haven't seen an imperious Hamilton in the wet weather conditions for a little while. We certainly had that in his Mercedes days, less so so far in his Ferrari days. That car hasn't typically performed very well in the wet. We'll have to see if he can make more progress with a bit of strategy with wet weather versus what we had in the sprint race. But from 16th, there might not be a huge amount of optimism. Oh, and asked them mine, why are you so slow? I, why?

They've shown something a little bit more recently, but not here. They kind of got through to Q2 yesterday and then decided, nope, that's enough pace. We're going to be 14 and 15th. They did the same thing today, but just decided it way earlier. They decided, nope, 19th and 20th will do for us. Alonzo's like two temps away from Antonelli and 18th, let alone a gap needed to actually get out of Q1. I'm pretty sure the gap from Alonzo to making it out of Q1 was about half a second, which that is a large gap to find.

It didn't look like their race pace was particularly great either. Alonzo was struggling towards the end of that sprint. And whether that was tire wear related or not, I'm not too sure. But the last few laps looked like a real struggle for him. It wouldn't be the first time this season that Aston Martin of struggle with tire wear. it does seem to be a bit of a problem that they need to overcome. And they're not going to overcome that overnight. So, yeah, 19th and 20th.

Good luck to them. They will need it. Driver of the session, I'll go with Alex Albin to find his way into P5 at the top of the midfield battle to beat Russell, to beat Sonoda, both racing balls. Very good effort at the end of Q3. other contenders, of course, Lando Norris and Charlotte-Clair thinks that a great job to get P3. That is going to do it for today's review of the sprint. Apologies for the rantiness of that and the qualifying session ahead of tomorrow.

Of course, I'll be back tomorrow, Harry will be back tomorrow, and Sam will be back tomorrow for that full race review. I know I mentioned it on yesterday's sprint review, but Patreon is still there if you want it. we've seen some great uptake on that overnight. So thank you very much to the people that are listening to me at this point in the episode and haven't just switched off knowing that this is the outro. Thank you very much indeed.

Plenty to be found on their full catalogue of bonus episodes, including power rankings. The last episode of which, of course, would have been for the British GP, but we will have an upcoming episode of that in just two days' time with the Belgian GP as well. really excited to see you there. Very excited to see you tomorrow. But until then, keep breaking late. This podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network.