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

Episode Date: November 7, 2025

Ferrari errors (naturally), a struggling Verstappen and one McLaren out in front! Ben and Sam cover all the action from the sprint qualifying session at Interlagos (and yes Crofty, we know what that means)... FOLLOW us on socials! You can find us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠X (Twitter)⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ SUPPORT our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for bonus episodes JOIN our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Discord⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ community JOIN our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠F1 Fantasy League⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ EMAIL us at [e-mail]   & SUBSCRIBE to our podcast! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network. Thank you for listening to the Late Breaking F1 podcast. Make sure to check out new episodes every Wednesday and every Sunday. Welcome to the Late Breaking F1 podcast presented by Sam Sage and me, Ben Hocking, reviewing sprint qualifying at Interlagos, the Brazilian GP. Sam, there's always something tasty to talk about in a sprint quality review. This is no different. I'll tell you what, Sprint quality review does, well, not the review actually, that's just what we're doing right now, but the actual session itself does good things because I like the mandated tire compounds and I like the short in sessions. I think it produces a degree of get the job doneism, which is, you know, that classic expression that we all use.

Honestly, it's an alertiness that you need to have when it comes to a sprint quality because you just haven't got the time to muck it up. And I think we saw a few drivers today, muck it up. So some stuff to dig into a few mistakes made by a few. drivers. It'll be interesting to see how consequential that will be for the rest of the weekend. And you were, of course, delighted for this broadcast to kick off with the fact that Interlagos does mean between two lakes. You know, I cannot believe, we joke about it all the time. And I've had, thanks, Harry, I've had people message me on Instagram, relentlessly telling me that that's what it means. I can't believe he took about eight seconds to say that's what it means. And then, Jun Shao gets in there about three minutes later. He just was like, you know what? down, thank you, ma'am, in the first three minutes to the broadcast.

Cheers, Crafty. Appreciate that. Come up with something original. Yeah, maybe we should come up with something original and actually talk about what's happening on track, because there is plenty to get to. Should we just start where we always do out front in these sessions? And Lando Norris, after claiming the championship lead at the last round in Mexico, has very much continued the momentum here into sprint qualifying, taking pole position for tomorrow's sprint.

A bit of a pattern to the top four. It goes McLaren, Mercedes, McLaren, Mercedes, Norris, Antonelli, Piastri, and then Russell. That is the top two rows on the grid as they'll line up tomorrow. McLaren, Sam, look very good in the one and only practice session that we had earlier in the day. I was certainly looking at this session as a potential one too. They haven't quite gone to that, but Lando Norris has done his part of the job in taking pole position. I think he was the fastest driver in each and every session that we had as we were. went throughout as well. How impressed after what we saw in Mexico that he can continue the form

onto here? Oh, Ben. They call you the stat man. And yet when that yellow flag came out at the end of SQ2, it was Fernando. Oh, yes. I'm the top of the timing. Oh, gosh. I can't believe you'd done that. Norris is going to kill you in your sleep. No, yeah, Norris being sensational. And, oh, I'm sorry Norris fans and Piastry fans, maybe you're appeasing here, but anything happened to that car. It has swung in some way that Landon Norris is so supremely comforting in that car now, where for about eight to ten sessions in a row, the gap between himself and Piastri was minuscule, more often than not tipping towards Piastri Donovan's. And we saw that's why he had so many race wings more. That's why he had so many pole positions more. And yet the last three, maybe four

Grand Prix, the gap has been immeasurably swung towards Landon Norris. And that is fascinating. That when they're not updating their car, they're not making changes. A switch has been flicks. And in the last four Grand Prix, Piastri is nowhere. The fact that he's made himself

in front of Russell is one great achievement. But the fact that Kimi Antigal is in front of him and there's what, two and a half, three cents between himself and his teammate who sits in pole position, Piastri's going to find something. He's going to work something out in the last three Grand Prix after this one because otherwise that title

is going to slip away from here. When he has led the majority of this, season. Norris looks fantastic. Such great pace. Mitigated the tricky middle sector, weren't like the pace of that car. Wasn't as good as it was in one and three, but so much better than everyone else. You saw the Red Bulls struggling. The Ferrari were tense off in that point. Norris just kept on getting the rotation in the car where he needed to be. And then the straight line speed was perfect in one and three. So a brilliant sector, both of his lapsing in SQ3 were fast enough to get himself on that pole spot. So unchallenged is sublime. It's what he needs right now.

everyone else should be looking a little bit nervous. So what we always say, when you can set two laps in Q3 that are good enough for pole position, that just proves that you're absolutely on it. You haven't necessarily, no disrespect to Lando Norris, you haven't just delivered one lap of the gods to get pole position. You have delivered multiple laps that would have been good enough to beat all your rivals. I have to say, with the Norris and Piastri comparison here, I'm more surprised here than I was in Mexico, because at least with the Mexican GP, of course,

we had a full three practice sessions rather than just one. But it looked like Norris was faster, considerably faster than Piastri throughout the entire weekend. That carried on into qualifying, that carried on into the race. Here, again, we've only got one free practice session to go off of. Piastri looked very good for like the first three quarters of that practice session. Like he was quite a bit faster than Lando Norris. It wasn't all that close until the very last lap that Lando Norris set on the, I can't remember if it was the soft or the medium tire at the end of the free practice session where Norris and Piastri, Norris got first, but they were so close. And it seemed like Norris managed to unlock his pace right at the end

of FP1. And then we see here in qualifying it's Norris that's able to get it done. He wasn't quite the fastest in Q2, as I erroneously said earlier on, but he did set a 109-3, which was the same lap time as what Fernando Alonzo said. And Norris was able to improve as the sessions went on. In a way, Piastri couldn't quite do. Piaastri was actually marginally quicker on the medium tire in Q2 than he was on the soft tire in Q3. And maybe the most surprising bit for me was the first sector, because I know Piestri made that error on his first run in Q3, where we saw him go very wide, couldn't get the car turned in quickly enough into turn one. but as far as I'm aware, the second time around it looked cleaner,

Norris had like two temps, pretty much the entire difference between the two drivers, had all of that time in that first sector. Well, after you've gone through the Senna S's, those are your only corners in the first sector. So whether it's setup related, whether it's something more underlying with the car, whether it was Piastri not nailing that first couple of corners

complex in the same way that Norris was, I'm not sure, but that's where a lot of Norris's advantage came from. What about the Merks? So we've got the McCarron's lining up first and third, so they'll be behind each other on the start grid tomorrow. Same is the case for the Mercedes. It's Antonelli this time that leads the way ahead of Russell. That's the biggest surprise for me. I'm not surprised that the Merks are up there. This is one of those tracks where if they were going to have a competitive weekend, Brazil screams out a chance for them. It's a weekend where there's some chaos, the weather could throw you into a big of a confusion. And they've had a lot of success here previously. of course Lewis Hamilton is very happy around this racetrack. He's got what, three or two race wins to his game. And then you look at the fact that Russell won here in 2022, which is a great win for him. So the fact that they are up there is no real surprise for me,

but it's the fact that it's Antingelli on the front road. That's the biggest shock here. I thought out of all the people that would carry their confidence through, all the people that would make sure that they are able to deliver that one lap wonder, which Russell so regularly does, it will be him taking it to the McLarence. But no, it's Kimi Antigelli who splits them less than a tenth away, which is quite miraculous from him as well. Of course, picked up pole position in the Miami spring,

wasn't able to do the same here, but incredibly close. I am surprised they are so much better than the likes of the Red Bull of Max Verstappen, though. I thought that would be the closer battle, yet instead it looks like they're able to take the fight to McLaren, which is very impressive. Whether they've got the race to do so tomorrow,

and of course on Sunday, it's going to be a very different question. Yeah, it feels to me like Mercedes have taken advantage of no one else quite being on it, and we'll get to some of those other drivers and teams very shortly, but we know Ferrari had one car spinning and one not making the flag. We had Vastappan, who didn't seem to quite gain the pace we expect that he would do throughout the sessions. And Mercedes were kind of just there to pick up the pieces and say, well, if Piastri's

not going to quite nail his lap, we'll take the two-four. And Piastri and Russell were ultimately pretty close as well. So good work from Mercedes, good work from Antonelli, who was 15th and the last person to get through in Q1. We talk about these fine margins when it comes to qualifying so often. And there's a reason we bang on about it because if even one driver, say, you know, Ocon or Lawson had put together a lap in Q1, Antonelli's out in 16th, not second on the grid. So fine margins, but Antonelli took advantage of getting that slight letoff. And he's delivered a really great lap on his first run in Q3.

It's going to be really interesting to see if, in terms of race pace, he's going to have that same advantage, or at least very similar to George Russell, because we have also seen in the past maybe that Russell's race pace has won out. But yeah, they'll be, I think, all right with the positions that they put themselves in. Well, the third best team, I guess we were looking at would it be Red Bull, would it be Ferrari? And the answer to both of those questions is no. Instead, a rogue Aston Martin has shown up in 5th and 7th. Fernando Alonzo 5th, Lance Stroll in 7th.

Sam, we did speculate midweek that maybe this might be one of the tracks that would suit them after a couple that maybe haven't. Early indications imply that might be the case. Scroll faster than Ferrari. Confirmed. Yes, he is better than all of the Tophonesy. That's how it works. I found out longs,

so, Lance Roll, sure. They've had some mixed, mixed vibes, mixed performances so far this season. Some going well, some big disastrous. You look at Hungary, for example, where alongside at one point that he was challenging for a podium, you look at Spa, where those two cars

could get themselves off the very back of the grid, it looked like an absolute boat in a straight line. And you're right, Ben, coming to somewhere like Interlagos, it feels like the setup of the Aston Martin, the way they tried to make them So they're quite drag heavy, but they're very good in downforce heavy sectors. So going down a start, finish rate, for example, that's where they lose their time.

But through a middle sector where a lot of these teams have giving up performance, it feels like they're able to make up a lot of their performance there. And that is benefiting them across the entire lap here. So alongside doing what Alonso does, of course, fastest in SQ2, which I think was helped by the yellow flag caused by Charlotte Clare. But it was Lance Strull that proved the pace of the Aston Martin by being right there with him, only a couple of places behind. It's not often that we see both the Ashton's sitting inside the top 10 when it comes to qualifying. They are a surprise.

I did think they'd be better this weekend, but I did not think they'd be this far up the rankings. I thought they'd be sitting maybe between 10th and 12th, 10th to 13th, challenging for points. To see them this far up must be a real confidence boost, especially for Fernando, who might just have a positive weekend. I'm intrigued by Fernando Alonzo's reaction to this session because I don't know where it's going to sit on the positivity to negativity scale, because he could view this as an absolute positive. He's had some really tough weekends based on that Astor Martin not having too much pace recently. He might walk away from this session, P5 for a sprint race.

Yeah, he might not care all that much about sprints, but he might be quite positive about that. He might also look at it through another lens, which is maybe they've missed out on a few positions here, which seems crazy to say, but fifth place is the lowest Alonzo was in the three qualifying sessions. He was third after the first part. He was fastest in the second part. And then he's fifth here in this third part. And if he had just set an identical lap time on the soft tire that he did on the medium tire in Q2,

he'd be on the front row of the grid. He'd be second. Yeah, I mean, that is devastating. But I think you're going to take the positives from the fact that I think that Gaston Martin is better on the harder compound tires. And around here, that is a positive thing to be. The spring will be run on the medium, not the soft, if dry, of course, which I think will benefit them.

It means that hopefully they can extract more pace-ang-a-me and they won't wear those ties too quick. So whilst Alonso will be a little bit disappointed that he's not even in any of the places that he previously qualified, I think if he gets a good start on those mediums and keeps in the slipstream and the DRS of those in front of him, it could be a really, really good performance on the cards. Oh, there will be something on the cards regardless.

Yeah, absolutely. It's just if you look at, say, Alonzo's gap to stroll, like the closest stroll was to Alonzo, was in Q3. There was about a three-tamps gap also between the two drivers and the first two parts of qualifying and then that narrowed down to about two temps when we got to the final part.

So if Alonso, and I know we're talking about really small margins here, but if he's a temp faster, that's at least third, if not second, on the grid. So it's a pretty good effort from Alonzo. Don't get me wrong. He might just look at that final Q3 lap and go, maybe there was just a little bit more in there to have a chance at a podium tomorrow, who knows.

Respect to stroll as well. He wasn't on the pace of Alonzo really throughout the entire session, but if you're not going to be on the pace of your champion teammate, if you can be within three tents consistently, and that car is improved, not too bad. There were bigger gaps than stroll to Alonzo, put it that way. He's doing the weekend the right way. Yeah, he's not breaking any records.

He's not surprising anyone massively, but he's building. and he's starting SQ1 at his biggest distance. And it got closer and it got closer. He ends SQ3. His closest gap to Alonso overall. He's inside the top 10. He's got points playing position for tomorrow.

There's every chance he follows his teammate through and he has a good race. So this is what you want from your second driver. If he could do that every weekend, that's exactly what us to Martin League, if they do have a car that can produce wings and polioes next season. Although I'm maybe getting slightly a hang on myself if Lance Strull can actually deliver some kind of a regular polio performance. Hey, mate. If Stroll is starting seventh with the possibility of rain in the sprint tomorrow, he's winning this thing. He's winning this thing.

I saw a Discord message. It was like crazy weather, primetime Senna. In Brazil as well. Yeah. In Brazil, like he will take all the inspiration. They won't even know Gabriel Borteletto's name after Stroll complete's the first lap. They will be all aboard the stroll. He'll get out the car as big fluent Portuguese.

Just come to him naturally. Never tried. Never tried before. But then as soon as he leaves the circuit, he won't have a clue. Literally a custard tart pulled out of his helmet. I don't know what they're called in Portugal. Sorry, everyone. I don't want the official game.

It's one of pastel denata. Oh, me and custard at the same time. It's a custard between the tarts, I think. Shut up, bang. Right, we're going to take a one and only break on this episode. On the other side, we've still got plenty of qualifying chat to run through. Welcome back, everyone. Let's talk Max Vastappen, because as we've mentioned in the preview and in other episodes recently,

there is still the chance of Vastappan getting fully within this title fight, but he does have a points gap to close up to the two McLarence. Would have, of course, been hoping here for not only a good result for him, but maybe a slightly off-the-ball performance for either or both of the two McLarence. Instead, maybe we've got the reverse of that. We've got Lando Norris on pole, we've got Oskopiastrian 3rd, Stappan will start in P6, Sam. I really took the wind out of the title fight before.

They even set sail a little bit there. What's going on with that middle sector? What is happening with the middle sector and that red bull? You heard Bastapen's complaints over the radio. Clearly, not impressed with the way the car is driving. And on the Sky broadcast, they had Lauren Mecky says their correspondent down on the pit wall. They didn't have one-two boss per weekend. this weekend it is Lauren Mekke's from Red Bull.

And he even said, you know, we wish it was the tie compounds, but it's not Max Verstappen has every right to moan about that, and we'd take that feedback on board. So the car is not performing in both the way he or they expected. And the worst part is there so far off the page of the McLaren in the key sector where you do gain or lose time, especially in qualifying, which is that middle sector. And whilst the McLaren in the middle sector,

especially in hands of Norris, looks truly dominant, unstoppable even. Max Verstappen was tense away at one point. from that middle sector. So maybe they've set up to have more of an offensive, defensive setup for the race, where they might be able to pass during DRS coming on in the middle sector and then go again on the next lap. Or maybe they've just got it wrong.

We've seen this happen before with some sprint races. Austin was the same where they had to adjust the setup slightly between the sessions in the weekend. And maybe they've gone too far on the straight line setup and not enough to maximize the corners. What do you think, Ben? Yeah, I'm worried because I feel like their strategy here was similar to what they did at Spa. at the last, well, not the last sprint race, but one of the previous sprint races this year, where they just focused so much on top speed with the idea of, can we either get polar on the front row, get the lead at the start of this sprint,

and just make sure that no one can overtake us because we're too quick in a straight line. I feel like that was maybe their plan with the secondary backup plan being, if it rains and we're in a good spot, it will be really difficult to overtake us. you are relying on a good qualifying performance and really Vastappen driving around some weaknesses of the car in order to execute that strategy and they haven't got that. They're going to be down on that third row of the grid. They are going to have to make overtakes to even get up to where the McLaren's are and I'm worried with this setup that they might just be too slow in the middle sector to do anything about it. We'll see maybe if we get some rain Vastappen, even with

that maybe inferior set up for a wet weather Grand Prix, maybe he can do something with it. But on a weekend where there are more points available, he has had success here in the past, he and they would have been hoping for a lot more than this. Again, given he was P2 as well after the first part of qualifying, he and Norris were the only two drivers in the 109s at that point. And you think, okay, if he can go with Norris, if he can improve at the same sort of race, and be in and amongst Norris and Piastri in that final part of qualifying,

it's all to play for. But we saw him struggling Q2, even before we got to Q3. He didn't make Q3 by all that much. I think it was P8 in the end, P7P8 that he was in. So a tough session, and even tougher session for his teammate, though.

Yeah, I mean, Yuki crashes out in the only practice session that we have, never finds the place. He's out on SQ1. A lot of people think that's the guy in the coughing. I mean, I feel like we've had a long ago was in the coughing. A lot of people saying that the coffings maybe six feet under already. But that was a really poor session. Just could not get the measure of the car, could he get the balance right, could not find

the speed anywhere where his teammate was able to. It feels like he's driving a backmarked car. It feels like he's sat there in an out peeing or a salber or something. He's not able to extract the pace. Actually, a salber's complementary of his pace right now because one of them in SQ3. Yeah, take that. Yeah, I'd take his salber's performance if you're right, weren't he? But he is so far off the pace. And I know, again, you can blame the second seat, but it's on Nuki at this point. There's more out of that car that could be gossiping. And it's always tricky to know how much of what and how much of the other.

But part of this is on UK, he should be doing more. Yeah, I mean, there's the cardinal scene of sprint weekends, isn't it, crashing in the only practice session that you've got? Because you are just always fighting from behind at that point. Like, you are just trying to catch up. And it is really difficult to do. And I wouldn't be surprised if tomorrow's, sprint. If it's dry and it might not be, it might just be almost a little bit of a test session

for Sonoda to see if he can make something of the main Grand Prix on Sunday. Most damning thing really is that if he'd improved by three tenths of a second, he still would have been out in Q1. He was, he wasn't all that close to escaping the bottom five. Antonelli was on a 110, 381. He was back on a 110, 692. And it just wasn't all that close to happening. for him. So, yeah, you see Vastappan struggling and you're not surprised to see Sonoda struggling even more. That's kind of been the pattern as we've gone throughout the season. But to see, I think it was seven-tempts separating Sonoda and Vastappen across a 70-second lap. That ain't going to get it done. What about Ferrari? Back to normality, right, of qualifying struggles.

Charles LeClair spun, hated his car all the way throughout and was the lead Ferrari. He's an eighth. Hamilton doesn't make the line for a final attempt in Q2. He'll start 11th. Yeah. God, it's unusual behaving from Charlotte Clare. I've not seeing him cause a flag to save his position before. That is a first from him.

I do. when yeah i it's just it's a calamity of errors at this point in it that team i mean i think both of them are so frustrated at the situation they find themselves in the fact that lewis hamilton has sped through double wave yellows past he's spiced email he's done it on purpose the guy's not done it by accident he's fully aware of the situation i don't think he gives an absolute monkeys that he's deciding to speak through double yellows he knows there's no risk of crash you heard what happened when he got to the back to the pit laying as well. You know, P11 year every time, man. I just think, I think they're both so done. I think the clerk puts his foot down

to encourage the spin once it starts to go out of frustration. I think it costs the likes of Albin and Gassley massively. And I think that Lewis Hamilton doesn't make the line partially because of the poor release time that they got in the session, but also partially because of what's going on in front of him. So calamity of errors, they're a laughing stock. Fregg's going be tearing up the last three hairs that he's got left on his head. It's a disaster. The only saving grades for them is that this sprint race would mean barely any points as a team anyway. I reckon maximum they'll be bringing home four or five points a team as it is. So no real harm done in the long term of this season, but they're going to sort this out for next season.

They can't have another year of this. I mean, when it comes to Lewis Hamilton and not making the line, I've seen a lot of comments about Chau LeClau, you know, bringing out the yellow flag and therefore Hamilton doesn't get his lap in. Unless I'm missing something, he wasn't close. Like Hamilton to get into the line. It wasn't like... He was only just coming up the hill. Yeah, yeah.

It's not like he missed out by a second or two. Like, they got that horribly wrong. They were nowhere near, which is, I'm not overly surprised because it's Ferrari, but goodness me. Like, it's the most important lap of the weekend until that point. I say you've got to be on it. You don't have to be on it. You just need to get your car over the line in time to set up.

lap. Now was LeCler on a lap, but Hamilton hadn't even got to the line to start a lap? They came out of the pit lane together. I don't know. I think LeCler and Hamilton were struggling pretty equally throughout these sessions. LeCler obviously had his spin in qualifying. Hamilton had a spin earlier on in practice, which I think they've been prioritising the long runs because they didn't even try and set fast laps on medium or soft tires in that practice session. I think Hamilton was on that one set of hard tires for the entire session, which I appreciate it's good for the environment, love the recycling Ferrari, and we'll see if that pays off maybe on Sunday in the main race, but in terms of qualifying pace, I know that there's two specific errors in terms of the

spin and not making the line. It'd be okay if they had pace outside of those two issues. They didn't. Like, LeCler is eighth, and that's how quick he was. Like, that's not a, as far as where he hasn't made a distinct error on his lap. That was the pace of the car this weekend. Pretty sad. It is pretty sad. I mean, if you said the same thing were to happen to the likes of McLaren,

even as to Marsing at this point, they have at least one car firmly inside the top six. But it happens to Ferrari. And because they're already scrambling, just such a ridiculous level, they can't afford a mistake like this, but it's Ferrari. And they make a mistake like this every other Grand Prix at the moment,

and it is becoming a comedy of errors. But I do appreciate it. Ferrari, we were talking just before we hit the record button about what to do with fantasy teams. And that Mercedes versus Ferrari debate has lessened now after that session. You make it real easy. Yeah. This is where they somehow get a one, two or something, isn't it? Like, as soon as, yeah. They'll start on the hard.

There'll be a safety car for some bizarre reason. Everyone else will have something go wrong and they'll wing. I swear to God if you do that, Ferrari. Should we round out Q3 because occupying row number five, Isaac Hadjar and Nico Holkenberg. Holkenberg cannot do qualifying sessions unless they're for a sprint. No, the guy is like, you know what? Don't like one. Give me two.

Then I'll make an effort. One's not enough to get out of bed in the morning, you know? Two are done. And he was quick. He was surprisingly quick. He was quick. And he might be a bit disappointed with P-10 and not at least P-10. and not at least P9, he was exactly two temps slower in Q3 than he was in Q2,

which would have been enough to, again, if he sets an identical lap time, he is beating Hajar and is like a thousandth off LeCler. So, yeah, Q2 seems to be the better tire for you. It's just fascinating the way that these compounds of tyres alternate with the way that the car reacts, you know, the fact that you can go from being on the slower tire and being quicker, which shows you maybe that the car puts more heat through the tire. and it needs a more durable tire to extract time from across the whole lap. So being on the soft tire, of course, which wears faster, warms up quicker,

the compound will change and react quicker. And therefore, these cars who seem to not work quite on the soft tire, drops so much performance because it burns up so quickly. That's the only thing I can assume is going on there. And Holgerberg is victim of that, which is really, really interesting to seeing. I think the staff was probably victim of that as well. I think he was struggling a little bit on the medium, but struggled a lot more on the soft.

Hajar, though, doing what Hajar does. And I was impressed again with what it was able to do. Teammate gets knocked out on SQ1. Tajar's through to SQ3. While the skin of his teeth at one point, I know, but he's there. And he's again almost in points immediately. It takes one car to have a bad start. He picks up another point for his team.

My best possible compliment for Hajar is he's beaten his teammate by eight positions. He's got into Q3 in a racing balls. And I have no reaction to it because he just does this every weekend. where he belongs. Yeah, it's, if I don't know how to say this, but if I was like jumping up and down for him, that would be an indication that it's either pretty rare or is quite an achievement for him.

But this is just fairly standard for Hajar at this point. So respect to what he was able to do, good session from Holkenberg as well, even with maybe a 10-4-2 left out there in Q3. What you say about the medium tyres, by the way, I am confident to say that if we have a dry qualifying session tomorrow, when of course you aren't bound by regulation

as to what tire you use, either George Russell will ask for or will use that medium tire in Q3. There will be a comment about it. And I reckon Ferrari will be the only team that don't. We're going to talk out on a Gasly because they were massively affected by what happened with LeClau's spin.

And I think it's a real shame. Gasly looked like he was having one of his quickest sessions for a long time inside the top 10 all the way through SQ won a fifth place at one point. He looked like he was really putting a great performance. I got out of Alpine. And Albaugh as well, I know he had a little toe up to the line, but it looked like he was doing a lot more in that Williams than it looked actually capable of. It looks like quite a slow car this weekend. And I think he's out driving it. So a real shame that they couldn't get a proper go at getting into SQ3. Yeah, from Gassley's side, I wanted to see the effort to see.

if he could get into Q3. I think he might have been about where he could have got to. That car, I don't know what Alpine have done to it, but they have just said, we are going to be ridiculously quick in that first sector and then just pray that we can hold on the rest of this lap. Maybe again going for, can we get the most out of qualifying

and then hold on some random point in this sprint? Based on a 13th place start, that seems more unlikely. But hey, at least they gave him something to fight with, which hasn't been the case at most Grand Prix so far this year. Albin, yeah, I feel like he had made it. He was not far off Q3 at all. I think if he improves by a tenth of a second, that's good enough.

Maybe not even that. So we saw even with Carlos Sines as well, who will start 20th and last, he had good pace too, that Williams was, I think, a Q3 capable car. Sines's errors were sort of different to what happened to Albon. but I think both of them proved that it had some pace in there, particularly in that final sector, where Albin seemed to be faster than pretty much anyone. May be able to fight from P12,

but yeah, there were probably a couple of positions in there for him that he could have got. They've got the golf livery on, Ben. Yes, they do. What are your thoughts? Here's my problem. Go on, hit me. I saw the co-delivery,

and I just don't care about another livery for them now. The code delivery was very good They could do anything else with that car for the rest of this year And my reaction is going to be the same of I want that livery on the car I think if they brought out the cannon Yellow Tops livery on that car

Sure But I mean my issue in it, two issues One is nigh on identical to what McLaren did With the Gulf right So it would be nice to have seen some variation To when they had the golf livery on their car A couple of years ago The worst bit about this golf livery,

stanging, that classic sky blue and orange, they've kept the tiny Williams dark blue in the back corner of the car and it just looks like they haven't covered the car properly and that I hate. So therefore, I hate it. I'm glad we've got there. I am optimistic though for next year's livery

and I'm going to be really disappointed if they let me down with the news that they're going back to a more retro classic logo. It looks so good. It does. And if they don't follow through on the livery, I am going to be fuming. I want a pure blue and white old school Williams car.

Give me 2003. Honestly, make it so retro that it looks like one Pablo Montoya turns up as a spectator and is like, I have to drive that, right? That's my car. It'll be at the garring. She'll go, what year is it, 2003? Okay, I'm ready. Damon Hill is going to show up and go, I have to drive this thing, right?

That's my car. He's going to be that confused that it's actually a 2026 livery. That's what I want from it. I think we're pretty much there. We haven't really mentioned Hasse. That's the only team that hasn't got a mention at this point. Sam, we know they had an excellent result in Mexico. They've got a bit more word to do here.

This is almost exactly where I thought they were going to be. I said in our preview when we're talking about that midfield battle, they're so hit and miss. And I figured that Brazil was going to be a tougher weekend for them. Tire attempts go through the roof around here. not great on their ties as a pairing, so I'm not shocked that they are where they are. But what I'm not surprised about as well is that Behrman is a gang in front of Ocon. He just seems to have that little bit extra at the moment.

And Ocon can't really seem to compete with him. Now, I'm curious to know if it's the car. But when you're in your rookie season and you keep doing this year teammate, who is one of the more experienced drivers on the grid now, it's telling, it's telling. So they've got a lot of work to do. Also, Beggar from Colopinto, who of course is now a signed driver for 2026. we'll get into that in another episode probably. Yes, absolutely we will.

I think Colopinto was okay. I mean, that Alpine was just a bit better, so I kind of expected him to be a bit better as a result of that. He was three and a half times away from Gasly. So ironically, he's beaten Gasly in some qualifying sessions recently, but has still been knocked out in Q1 because of how slow that car is. The weekend where they've got a bit more to work with, he isn't able to match Gasly, which is frustrating for him.

On the half side of things, the only thing I've seen, because at least in SQ1, where both drivers were in the session, their first runs were pretty much identical, Berman and Ocon. The second run, Behrman improves massively, whereas Ocon doesn't improve at all. I have seen that O'Con supposedly met a lot of traffic on his lap, but we are recording this directly after,

so can't really verify that. I guess I would line up if their earlier laps were very close to one another. But, yeah, it's another win for Berman. and even if he couldn't take advantage of that in Q2, I mean, he was six temps off the fastest lap in Q2. Like, it's very marginal. So probably nothing to be gained in the sprint, but we'll see about the main race.

Fingers crossed, we're some variation in weather as well tomorrow. I'm praying for a little bit of rain. Fingers crossed. Driver of the session, who got? I'm going to go, Lando. No, I'm not. I'll take it back. I'm going to go to get me Antingelli.

He surprised me. To be that close to the pole time of Lando, who looks so strong the whole way through and Fair Play 2 Lando for ranging that car round, it's a beast to that McLaurang. He's driving it brilliantly well. But for Anthony Allie, to be that close in conditions I think don't suit the Mercedes, that was really telling. I'll go Pete Gassley. I was brilliant.

Even with that P-13 starting position, he couldn't quite get through to Q3. Based on how slow that Alpine has been recently, 13th is basically pole. So, yeah, I'll go with Gazley. They go wear T-shirts next year. Yeah, let's say that, by the way. 13th is basically poll. Well, that would be really funny when they can't even get 13th then, won't it? Sam, it's just going to explode.

Yeah. Well, that's going to do it for Spring Quality Review. Sam, good news, though. We're back with two sessions to review tomorrow. Yes, folks, remember, there will not be a session in the middle. We're going to do both in one session at the end of the day. So the sprint race and the full qualifying will both be reviewed at the end of Saturday. Make sure you check back in before we'll also.

have another review at the end of the race on Sunday. Power rankings will be on Patreon on the end of Monday. So loads of content coming your way. Fingers crossed, we've got an action-packed championship battlefield racing weekend. I can't wait if you can be with us the whole way through. Join the Discord as well. We're in there all weekend, chatting away F1 and we love chatting to you. So thanks for listening. Thanks for joining us. In the meantime, I'm in Sam and Sage. And I've been Ben Hocking. And remember, keep breaking leg.