The Late Braking F1 Podcast - 2025 Saudi Arabian GP Qualifying Review

Episode Date: April 19, 2025

Ben and Sam review the spicy qualifying session in Jeddah that saw a tight battle for pole position and a costly crash from the championship leader. They review the performances across the grid, and consider what can be done in tomorrow's race... 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! TIDE: Save more, earn more—up to 4.48% AER (variable). Interest rates are tiered, with the top rate for balances over £1M. Each tiered rate applies to the portion within that range. New Tide members get these rates free for 6 months; after that, your Tide plan’s rates apply. For full offer T&Cs visit tide.co/savings. 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. Today, reviewing the qualifying session ahead of the Saudi Arabian Grand Prix, where Max Verstappan has taken pole position for Red Bull. Four different teams inside the top four in qualifying. Oscar Piastri in second.

We'll join Vastappan on the front row. The second row includes the Mercedes of George Russell and the Ferrari of Charles LeClerc. Sam, you said before we started recording, you like a saucy qualifying session, and that's what we got. That's what we got. We also said before the qualifying,

I mean, it'll be 45 minutes of just, ah, because that was bloody excellent. Another fantastic qualifying session. I'll tell you what, we've had a couple of dull races, is, you know, Japan being the standout there, but qualifying, it just never lets you down, does it? It's just always good fun.

And once again, delivered today, we have had another one-two margin where we've got a less than a tenth separating pole and second place. I think just over a tent being the biggest margin we've had all the season. We've had a massive jumble up. We've got drivers higher up the order they'd expect.

Lots to talk about. Lots to break down. Can't wait. I'm excited for the race already. Yeah, one hundredth of, a second separating Max Vastappen and Oscar Piastri out front with Max Vastappen. Two runs at the end of qualifying the second one, getting it done with that purple first sector. Didn't improve in either his middle or final sector, but still enough of a lap to get the job done

over Piastri. Before we turn to look at the race and what this could mean for that, let's have a look at these laps in particular. How impressed were you by Vostappen, similar to what we saw in Japan being able to get the most out of the car when it matters most. Once again, we're seeing why Max Verstappen is considered one of the greatest now to do it. You know, if you turn to me and said, oh, Max Verstappen is in my top six, top seven greatest drivers of all time. I would have bat an island now. I go, all right, fair enough. Let's have a conversation about it. I ain't mad. And this is just another, just another, like lying in the notebook as to why Max Verstappen is considered just so blaming good at Formula One. I thought the way he executed that scratchy. So we

had the red flag that came out with Norris. And essentially that time frame was so much smaller that he had to get two runs in place to make sure he had a banker and a kind of a push lap in a much smaller session. We saw this a couple of times with the Ferraris especially, where you do a lap, you don't then come back into the pit, refuel new tires and go back out again. You essentially do a race pit stop to fit the new tires and get straight back out again. So that first lap had two runs worth of fuel in place. He goes to the top with that.

He's a beating again by Russell and. Piestri. What does he do? The opposite again. Much lighter fuel, newer tyres. Bang-a-bing, bang-a-boom. Max Verstappen sticks it on pole position once again. And that's not the car. Well, I think that car is actually all right. I think it's improving with every race that we get to. I did call out that Bahrain was going to be the outlier.

The difference between Max Vastapan and Oscar Piaastri, I don't think he's a shortfall on Oscar Piascri. I think it just demonstrates again why Max Verstappen is a full-time world champion. He is just that good. So incredible display, nailed it where he needed to. That middle sector looked like it was all his. And then like you said, Ben, he didn't improve on the final run. But you hang it all to do in the first sector.

It just kind of carried it the rest of the way with the time that you found previously. Brilliant couple of laps. Another sensational qualifying from Max Verstappen. Yeah. And based on free practice two yesterday, it looked like Vastappen was going to be the sternest challenge to the McLaren's getting that front row and getting that pole position. And that's exactly what we saw. and it was something of a repeat of what we saw where it seemed like Red Bull could match McLaren in the first sector,

and in this instance be even better than them, stay with them in the middle sector. And I think the leading question I had going into this session was could Vestappen, or indeed anyone else, keep those tires alive long enough in the final sector to prove a threat? And that's how it played out. Like you said, Purple Final First Sector for Vestappen had a couple attempts to play. with and ultimately just about had enough to see it out for the rest of the lap. He managed it perfectly. It's very impressive that he did two runs back to back and the first run with that extra fuel was also very quick. And to be honest, I think we're just running out of ways to say that

Vastappen is very good at the F1. This is what he does in a car that is good, but I still think a shade off the McLaren, he's able to pull out the lap at the end of Q3 when it matters most. and I think we are starting to see a trend this season where, and it's not just Vastappen, I think I'd put Russell in this group as well, where McLaren seemed to hold an advantage the hotter the temperature is. And, you know, free practice three today, McLaren were light years ahead of everyone else. But as soon as the temperature starts to come down even a little bit,

that's where Vastappan and Russell and maybe others can challenge. Even throughout the early parts of qualifying where the track temperature is a bit higher, McLaren still look like they were odds on for a front row start. And then we start to get into Q3, temperatures drop, and that's where Vastappen's able to prove his worth. So remains to be seen whether he can keep it tomorrow, which leads me nicely on to the next question. What does this mean for the race?

It's going to be really, really tough for Max. I think what is already a benefit is due to Landon Norris putting it into the wall in qualifying, he'll start P-10 at best. We don't know if it's going to be any long. lasting damage in that McLaren. He might need to take a good part in that McClown. We don't know yet because it's actually just happened. But PTen at best means that he can't support Oscar Piastri.

We don't get a two-on-one situation. They can't muck around and try and see if they can maybe run long. Not that they did last time they had that opportunity anyway, but at least they could have the option to give it a go if it were to happen again. So he's in a 1-B-1 fight with Russell and LeCler behind four separate manufacturers in the top four. They're all going at it together. None of their teammates there to back them up.

That is one advantage she has. The other advantage is what you just spoke about. His sector one advantage is monumental, really, really quite big. He's got at least a tenth and a half, two tents on the rest of the field through that sector one. Now, if he can get to a good distance on lap one, gets a good jump, stays out of trouble, hopes that maybe I don't know, Russell has a good start of battles with Piastri just for a couple of corners. If he could clear that DRS zone in the first lap, which is tough, I'm not saying it's not. I think that's the key to success.

I think that's how he gets away. If he's still within the DRS zone, I think that's where Piastri will begin to thrive. I think he'll reel him in. I think as the temperatures are hotter at the start of the Grand Prix, that McLaren might have just enough to get past that red ball, and then the Red ball with Max and Stappen may have to play the long game and wait until the temperature starts a call later running in the Grand Prix

and focus on that tire wear and then start to reel him over the course of the longer Grand Prix distance. So the key to that start of this Grand Prix is immense. You can't risk falling back down that grid. He has to get a good start, not like he did at Bahrain or he had a big of a shocker off the line. He did indeed. I think this one could go one of two ways. I think the way that Max Vastappen will be hoping this goes is a copy and paste of what we had at Saudi Arabia last year, where overtaking was really difficult. And we didn't see much in the way of overtaking whatsoever.

And part of that was related to all of the drivers or nearly all of the drivers being on that. same strategy. But if tireware remains low and this stays as a one-stop race, if Vestappen can do what you've just said and he can use that sector one advantage to break out of that DRS, maybe he can hold on to it in the same way that he was able to at Suzuki. That's the version of events that Vastappen will be hoping for. The other possible version of events, which is the one I'm leaning towards, is that tire wear is more of a factor this year than it was last year. It is going to be hotter than what we had just over 12 months ago. We have got softer tires here versus what we had last year. And whilst I'm uncertain whether that pushes this to a two-stop race, my inkling is

we're still on a one. I do think tyreware is going to be prominent where it wasn't last year. And that's where McCarran can start to thrive. Vastappen and Red Bull looked pretty good in qualifying Sims yesterday, which is why I'm less surprised that he was able to compete for pole today. But in terms of race sims, Red Bulls still don't look there. They looked a touch behind Mercedes. They looked a touch behind Ferrari even and quite a way behind McLaren. They looked comfortably the four fastest car, even in Vastappen's hands in Racin with Tyadeg pretty high.

So again, it will depend on how easy or difficult overtaking is, but I would be personally quite surprised if Vastappen was able to keep first. I'm praying that we're at that level, which we were closer to a gang in Bahrain where a two-stop was possible. You remember how we saw all three tires and used at any one point of Bahrain. I do hope we'd get back again.

And I think Jeddah is the kind of track that if you get lucky where you time it, you know, just slotting into some DRS trains, you get pulled along the bay pit, you get pulled along the kind of front pits, and you get into some clean air. The two-stop could just work out faster with the fuel burn.

You never know. So it could be a very fascinating Grand Prix. I think Russell's in a good spot for tomorrow. I mean, you're starting on the second row, which seems to be where he nearly always is nowadays. He's starting from third, just over a 10th back from both Verstapp and Piastri, so within a good range of both of them, and equally quite a long way clear of literally anyone else in Q3. I think he's in a good spot.

Again, the Mercedes looked better than Red Bull and Ferrari in terms of race sims, so they might have a better race pace than those rivals. And I have to give Russell credit for what he was able to do because the way that the red flag came out, you wanted one of two scenarios. You either wanted what happened to Piastri, where he just about got his lap time in, or you wanted what happened to Vestappen,

where he didn't get enough of his running so that he could go twice. Russell was in the worst possible spot where he'd done two and a half sectors, which meant those tires weren't going to get anything out of those, and he could only essentially do one run. and it was a pretty good one run. Like, I don't think Russell's let himself down that he's not quite in that fight for first place. I think he's done well.

I was really impressed with Russell, and I'm calling it now. I think that Mercedes is no longer crap in hot conditions. I think they finally worked out that the Formula One calendar mostly revolves around warmer days and they seem to have understood that. Lewis Hamilton must be like, that tiny Italian version of me is in front of me again.

How do they keep qualifying so far up the grid? And I'm in the red car now that used to beat me every race. Yeah, they did a good job here. So well done to Mercedes. And, yeah, a big pat on the back to George Russell, who I think he's in the form of his life. I really think he's driving the best we've ever seen George Russell drive, attempting a bit away from that fight between the Stafford,

who we were always saying is absolute monstering F1 and Piastri, who is this up-and-coming incredible talent, driving the best car on the track. It's no big feat to only be a tenth of a one. from those two up front. You know, if Russell could be the intelligent driver we know he is, if he can plan that race strategy on the fly, if he can use the cars around him to understand how the race is unfolding,

there's every chance that the Stappan and Piastri getting a little bit caught up with each other, they focus a bit too much on each other, Russell tries something a little different. You never know, he might just be there at the end of the Grand Prix, and we could see another different race winner come this season. The championship leader, as of right now, is Lando Norris. You'd have to say at this point in time, he'll do well for that still to be the case this time tomorrow.

Crashed just a few corners into his first run in Q3. And as you've already mentioned, at best, we'll start 10th unless they have to do anything with the car that will see him drop back even further from that position. We've obviously seen this isn't the first time that Lando Norris in Q3 has underdelivered. We saw it at Bahrain last week where he was only able to. to obtain sixth place where his teammate got pole. His teammate hasn't got pole today, but Lando Norris, of course, an even bigger error with that crash.

What did you make of it? Yeah, the phrase that we famously used on this podcast, fast but silly jumps to mind. He didn't do very well in qualifying last year here, either, if I think I'm correct, outside the top four again. Last time, last time out. A little bit of a bogey trap, perhaps.

Look, Q3 is obviously highly pressurized. You've got to go all guns blaze, you've got to try and absolutely nail it. But you give 90% on that first run in Q3. You get yourself a banker. You get yourself a safety lap where you sit there and go, all right, not perfect. I'll push the car.

I'm sitting. I don't know. P5 would have been better, obviously, to call out the obvious there. And if he then crashes on the second run, let's say he's two tents up and he throws it into that chican and it hits the wall. And he goes, all right, I'm P5.

That's recoverable. But we've already stated on this podcast. how hard it is to overtake around Jeddah. Jeter sounds like the kind of track that you should be able to pass quite easily. A lot of DRS zones. There's a couple of heavy braking zones into turn 1, a little bit of an opening,

trust can turn into turn 27. The options are there. But actually, it's so difficult to pass and DRS transforms so quickly. He's at major risk of what getting past really many people at all. We could see Landon Norris very much sitting around P8, P7,

for a lot of this Grand Prix, unless he gets a fantastic start, which Norris isn't famously used to doing, or he has a fantastic strategy call and maybe he gets a safety car that's lucky at the right time. He's fortunate and there are a lot of safety cars. Maybe he goes onto a harder strategy

to start with and plays into that to get himself into this race long term. But it's looking more and more likely than it will be Oscar Piacry that goes into this mini break between here and Miami with that motivational boost with that championship boost

and either himself or Max for Saffin could be the guys actually leading the championship. I'll tell you if Max is leading this bloody championship. It's possible. How?

How does he do? do it. God, I wish I was like to get anything, literally anything. I don't even get out breathing. Yeah, it will be phenomenal from Max, just class from Piazcri, the fact that he barely scored a point when it came to Australia after that mistake and he's overhauled Norris already. Norris needs a real stroke of luck to go his way tomorrow and for it to be even close to closing that gap. Yeah, it's difficult to know how much of a damage limitation game it needs to be because that is so dependent on how easy overtaking is, how good or bad his first lap is, what strategic options are. But you have to think that unless he does get that incredible start

where he goes up like four or five positions on the first lap, he is going to have to find a way to strategically, meticulously get by a couple of the guys in front, by which point there is a very good chance that Piastri Vastappen are a long way up the road. This would obviously be an incredibly frustrating crash for Lando Norris and any crash in Q3 is frustrating, but the fact that it happened on the first run before he'd even got a time on the board makes this even worse. And I think what again makes this a bit worse than Bahrain is with Bahrain, going into qualifying, it felt like Piastri had a 10th or 2's advantage. And that's kind of how it's. it played out. And I think even if Landon Norris gets a clean lap together at the end of Bahrain

qualifying, it's still Piastri that's on pole. It just looked like from the moment go that weekend that Piastri was the quicker of the two. Here, I couldn't call it. Like, they were really close throughout practice. Every chance. Norris gets it on pole. Yes. He's in that fight. I think him and Piastri were very evenly matched this weekend. And they still might be. We don't know what will happen in the Grand Prix. But in terms of qualifying, at least, I think that two-car battle is a three-car battle. Whether Norris ends up first, second, third, maybe even fourth, kind of doesn't matter. They're all better than 10th. And he would have been more in the fight than what he is here. I just think, regardless of what happens tomorrow, and I mentioned this a little bit in the preview to

this race, someone, whether it's Zach Brown, Andrea Stella, whether it's someone else, I think they need to step in because it is getting to a worrying point where these errors, they are going to add up. And again, it speaks volumes to the great driver that Lando Norris is that he's making these errors and he is leading the championship. There's a reason he's leading the championship with all these errors. He's that good. But if he continues at this rate, he's going to find it increasingly difficult to keep up with his teammate and potentially others in this championship fight. Yeah, another obvious but very tricky thing that Landon Norris is going to have to deal with is that every car right in front of him, it's quite quick and quite quick in a straight line.

And that means when following with DRS, we're trying to get an overtake done around a power-related track, becomes even more difficult. He's fortunate that Pierre Gastis the car right in front of him. And if he gets a good start, he can pass him right off the line. But then you get into really difficult territory. You've got Yuki Sengoda, who's really finding his feet, and that Red Bull's pretty good in a straight line. You've then got Hamilton and Lecliffe, both in the top five of the speed trap. there, tough to pass in a straight line.

Carlos Seinton at Williams is rapid when it comes to full speed. That's going to be such a difficult move. You've got to hope maybe you can out tie away him. And then you've got the likes of George Russell and Kimi Antigali. That's only getting you up to the base of the podium. That's what even challenging for staffing a piastri who might be so far down the road. This is really not a simple, simple. This isn't like watching Lewis Hamilton at Brazil in 2021, where he overtook the entire grid

because they had that much power difference. This is going to be so tough for Landoz to get through. It is not an open the door and drive straight on through. He will need to be clinical, and we've seen a lot of times recently that Landler Norris' will-to-will combat skills are lacking. So let's hope he can kind of bring that to the table tomorrow and see what fight he can bring. All right, let's take our first break on this episode.

On the other side, we're going to round out the chat from the top 10 and then venture into the bottom 10. Welcome back, everyone. Let's move on to Ferrari, because they wrapped up the session in fourth and seventh, Charles LeClaire and Lewis Hamilton, respectively. A few question marks going into this weekend

that maybe the floor upgrade that they brought in Bahrain wouldn't be fully realized until we got to a race track such as this. We're only basing this on qualifying pace, but they still are bit off. I mean, one of them is a bit more off

than the other thing. We're true, yes. Lewis Hamilton, mate. I know you listen. I know you're a big fan on the show. And we'll call you out. here as a fan of yours. Six and a bit tense off your team, mate. That's crap. That's genuinely not good enough. That is awful. I think you're lucky to being seventh, if I'm totally honest. I think

there's a car that worked for the second Red Bull seat. Your eighth. Norris, who can actually put a lap together here, ninth. You were nearly knocked out in Q2. It was very close to it. This is not why Ferrari signed Lewis Hamilton. I know he's finding his feet. I know he isn't 100% comfortable with this regulation of cars. And maybe they're hoping that 2026 is far more compliant with the way that Lewis Hamilton drives. But this is rough gap. This is a really, really rough gap. If he was P7 and he was a tenth and a half away from LeClerler and it's that close,

you know what I go fair? I'm fair. I've got no beef with that because Hamilton's race pace will make up for it. This gap's too big. It's too big. I think from LeCleur's perspective, and this is a horrible thing to say for Ferrari, I think he's probably maximized that session. What more does he get out of it?

And that's a real problem because he's nearly four tenths off pole. And I don't think he had much more left in there. And I think this overall weekend so far has been a bit of a disappointment for the team because they are missing something. Like there's just something that's not there, at least with Russell and Vastappen, even if on race pace they can't always compete with the McLaren duo, in qualifying they can. And we're just getting to a point where you feel like,

Leclair is qualifying fourth and fifth nearly every weekend and maximizing it at the same time. A driver as good as Leclerre in qualifying shouldn't be maximizing things in a Ferrari and getting fourth. That doesn't make any sense. From Lewis Hamilton's perspective, because I mean, you're right, just five and a bit, temp separating those two as well as three positions, Lewis Hamilton has just not been at one with the car all weekend long. There was a radio clip in FP3 where he was asking his race engineer where he's losing the time. And it's like seven tenths in the first sector, four tenths in the middle sector,

and then we aborted the final sector. And his one word response was, geez. Yeah, it's a fair summary because especially in that first sector, he is a long, long way behind the competitors he should be with. So there is something that's not clicking. It's not, I know he won the first race we had here. It's not always been a great track for him. You'll remember he was, I think, knocked out in Q1 a couple of years ago here.

It was. It was in his Mercedes days. But honestly, this was, I'm surprised he's seventh, similar to you. Going through Free Practice 3, going through Q1, I thought he was going to be knocked out in Q2. And honestly, I think he's lucky that he hasn't been. because Williams saved him. Albog's poor strat saved him. Yes, and I wanted to get on to that because it's difficult.

I was in two minds about whether to blame Williams for this. So with Alex Albin in both Q1 and Q2, Williams decided to send out Alex Albon quite a bit earlier than the end of the session. The potential benefit of that is if there's a red flag or a yellow flag that disrupts laps, you've already got yours in, whereas others don't. The potential downside is you don't have the best of the conditions. The gap between Albin and 11th and Hamilton in 10th was minuscule. And it doesn't sound like a lot.

But if Albin gets out there two minutes later than what he does, I think he's in Q3. He'll find seven one thousandths of a second. And I just didn't know whether to, again, it's difficult because you can easily, in hindsight, say, well, Williams, you should have sent him out later and you'd have got yourself a double Q3. you can also say if that Lando Norris crash had happened a couple of minutes earlier and had happened at the end of Q2, Williams would have been laughing. And I know it's difficult, but I think Hamilton was in that regard, I'd be lucky to make it through to Q3.

Yeah, yeah, I'm struggling here with Lewis because whilst the Mercedes wasn't a good car, I mean, there was a damning stat that he's never outqualified Russell here all they were teammates here together. He has been off the boil for some time now. And you come to a time where you have to ask yourself, is he just missing those couple of tents now, especially on a Saturday? Is it just not there anymore?

Can he just not pull out? You know, that first sector is so rapid. It comes at you so quick. Every corner is so fast. Is he just unable? And this is the most hilarious thing about Formula One drivers is, it's like two or three tenths of a second. Oh, yeah.

Is he just unable to move the steering wheel in where it needs to be? Because of his age, fast enough to match what the likes of the Staffing and Pedestrian and Russell could do, because they're younger. Is it really that simple that he lacks that two-tenth of movement speed? I know that sounds almost ages. It sounds almost harsh to something like Lewis Hamilton and his ability. But whilst his race pace is still very, very good and that consistency is clearly there, his ability to run tires is great. It's not there on a Saturday. And when qualifying is this important, it is costing him,

and it's going to very much start costing Ferrari if they do improve. Raises a question of the Chinese sprint pole that he got as well, because, I mean, he was absolutely fine that day, given away by the fact that he was on sprint pole. And I think you then start to question whether he had it then and Ferrari have gone the wrong way in terms of his setups, or whether he just can't hook it up at these particular circuits, or was the clergy just seriously off the boil in that session?

We don't know. But we have had a point this season where Hamilton has delivered in qualifying. So is that an outlier? Is that a one-off? Are any of those reasons that I just stated? You know, cannot explain away why that happened. But yeah, you're right. I mean, he needs to perform better than this when it comes to qualifying.

Because as he kind of said after Bahrain, when he was in the middle of, middle of stint that he had, he was feeling really comfortable with the car. But if he's having to fight through drivers that Lecler doesn't have to fight through, he's always going to, he can match LeCleur's pace all he wants. But if he's starting 10 seconds behind, that's always going to hurt him. Yeah. Let's move on to the battle in the midfield, which appears to be Williams versus Alpine this weekend, which is roughly correlating to what we fought the midfield battle. The top of the midfield battle was going to be at the. beginning of this season. We've got Carlos Sines in 6th. We've got Alex Albin in 11th. We've got

Gassley in between them both in 9th. We've already discussed Alex Albin not making it through to Q3. But what about Carlos Sines and Pierre Gassley? This is what you're going to say from Carlos Sikes. We saw glimmers of it around Bahrain and that weekend really fell away. It really kind of like gripping sand, you know? He hang it all in his hangs for a moment and then it starts to run through the gaps in your fingers. Whereas here, he's brought a cup to Jedder. And you what? Sand doesn't run out of a plastic cup because I don't know holes in the bottom of it. So he's kept all his sand to himself. What cups do have holes in the bottom?

Collanders. Oh, okay, yes. I regularly drink out of a colander, yes. So I was see hydrated, mate. This is great from Carlos Sikes. This is really, really good. Alex Alba will be frustrated because that's two in a row where he's probably even felt a little bit, you know, put on the back foot that by something that isn't actually his fault. The first guy knocked out in Q1 in Bahrain and Q2 in Saudi Arabia, yeah.

Right. That's frustrating. Very frustrating for him. And he's, Albuoy's driving brilliantly. He's got the pace. He's sugar being in Q3. He's got the pace could do so.

And I do feel like if he got through, he probably wouldn't be too far behind Carlos Sykes. So that's really positive for Williams. And I do think that if Sites can cling on to Antonelli and to Russell into LeCler, if he can just sit in their DRS and get dragged along, there's every chance that Carlos Sikes does what Gasly did. did in Bahrain and finishes in that sixth, seventh place, it's possible. I think Gassie's out driving that Alpine.

Whilst I do think that that is the battle for, you know, that fifth, sixth place, I think Gasly is doing a better job than what that Alping is actually capable of. And I think we're on a couple of tracks at the moment, Bahrain once and now Jeddingau, that complement what Alpine can do. These dry, Middle Easton tracks that are very, very responsive, lots of data, very fast corners, but not a lot of. of actual pure, straight lines. This is what Alpine seems to do all right on.

So I think the moment we get something like Miami, I wouldn't be surprised if we start to see the gap widen between Alpine and Williams. And Williams start to get more comfortable in that fifth place. Yeah, this was an interesting one because based on what we were seeing throughout practice, it was little surprised to me that this was going to be the battle for Q3 between Williams and Alpine. And when I say Alpine, I am talking Ghazly specifically here because Jack Dewan has

consistently been a few temps off GASley throughout this weekend. And to be honest, I'm not even going to blame doing too much for that one because that seems to be a theme of all of the drivers that have never done Saudi Arabia in an F1 car versus their teammates that have, all of those Saudi Arabia F1 rookies are struggling. Bortoletto versus Holcombberg, Duan versus Gassley, Antonelli hasn't really been close to Russell all weekend here as well. I'm not surprised that Ghazni's been able to get to Q3, whereas Dewan was knocked down in Q1. With Williams, their qualifying pace doesn't surprise me. I'm a little less certain about their race pace.

It didn't look as strong as Alpine. When I looked at Alpine versus Williams, qualifying-wise, they looked pretty much level. So I think Carlos Seins has done a really good job here to get ahead of Gassley and indeed put a couple of cars between those two. In terms of race pace, Ghazley looked the class of the midfield and didn't look that much off the likes of the Ferrari. So in the race tomorrow, again, it'll depend on how easy or how difficult overtaking is. I wouldn't be surprised if we see almost a flip of Gasley and Sines and Gassley's the one that's able to make a little bit of progress and Sines maybe falls back just a tad.

I will say this about Sines, though. He was obviously in a very similar qualifying position in Bahrain. He was caught up in quite a few battles with faster cars early on in that race, and I don't think it helped him out. He did say in one of his interviews ahead of this weekend, he acknowledged that basically. And he said, look, I'm used to battling these cars in the Ferrari. I think based on our learnings from Bahrain, I do just have to take my medicine and realize I can't battle these guys. So I think if overtaking is difficult, he'll fight it. But if overtaking ends up being a bit easier than what we saw last year, I wouldn't be surprised if Sines doesn't,

signs I think will give up those positions easier than he did a week ago. Fung fact for Carlos Sikes Fangs, he is now qualified his old Ferrari two races in a row. Yeah. Yeah. Great upgrade for Carlos Sines. He's done well there. Struck a deal.

Yeah. That's a great progress from Ferrari. Why can't they do that to all their cars? Oh, wait, one team. Ah, or no. We'll just round out Q3. discussions with Yuki Sonoda, because he's, first of all, got through to Q3, same as what he did in Bahrain. He is over nine tenths behind his teammate who took pole.

I was trying. When Q2 ended, I felt quite positive about him. There was... He was looking too bad. More than close enough. There was about two or three tents between them. There was about two or three positions between them. And I thought, if he does this, every single qualifying.

If you know, Stapper qualifies third, UK qualifies sixth, and they end up second and fifth. That's all right for this season. Red Bull can deal with that. It's a step forward. Not great, not even good, really, but it's a step forward in what they were dealing with.

This has put that very much in the bin. Max Rastap into bloody legend. Yucke's still fighting for his life. But at least, he's in Q3, because we gave some slack to Perez, you know, when he had some good races, and he was good round here, right? Power has finished a couple of years ago.

But more recently was unable to really make it into Q3 so regularly. Liam Lawson obviously didn't ever get out at Q1 in the car. So the fact that he's in Q3, solid. That is solid. That's good progress for him. He still has so far to go. It's still not actually really good enough for the second Red Bulls seat. And actually, he needs to be in front of the likes of Hamilton, of Sikes.

He used to be beating the likes of Antingelli. If he was P5 and Max was P1, that for me is where I go, okay, if he has a good race, this doesn't look bad. If he has a bad race, that gap is huge. If it has a bad race now, the gap is an absolute canyon between them. Yeah, at least he's made Q3. And I think the issue with the later part of Perez's career at Red Bull was he wasn't even giving himself the opportunity to showcase his pace in a lot of these Grand Prix because he was. starting somewhere in the bottom five or even, you know, somewhere below 10th. He was getting knocked down in Q1 and Q2 quite regularly.

And he would get involved sometimes in early crashes in Grand Prix or remember like Monaco last year. And even if they're not his fault, the fact that he's back there just increases his chance of being involved in something like that. And at least with Sonoda, the last couple of races, he's made it through to the top 10 and he's reducing the amount of work that he needs to do on a Sunday. It'll be a bit of a test to see tomorrow can his race pace hold up with Max Verstappen because his Q3 pace absolutely couldn't.

So still very early doors for him. And we don't want to be too dramatic yet. But yeah, that's a big old gap. Yeah, quite a large one. Going outside the top 10, anything particularly good. catch your eye. I think Lawson doing pretty good job.

Yeah. It was good to see from him, good turn of force. I think well to meet Hajar. Again, Hajar not being here before. Has Lawson raised here before?

No, Lawson hasn't raced here before. At least 9F1. Well, that's a good test, right? That's a good test between two guys in the team that neither of them

were racing at this racetrack. Lawson came out on top of qualifying. Be interested in how their race pace works out. Lawson seems to be getting back into the flow. Now he's getting back

into that racing bullsee, which I thought was decent. What did you make of it? Yeah, I think 12th was the max. I think V-Carba just a little bit slower than both Gassley and the Williams cars. So when you take out the top four teams, take out Williams and take out Pierre Gassley, you get to 12th. So I think Lawson has probably maximized that. And to be, I think he was about 10th clear of Hadjar in Q1.

He was over two temp's clear of Hadjar in Q2. So in both sessions, he's done a good job there. There's one driver between them as well with Alonzo and 13th. So he stands a chance with anything can happen at Jeddah. So from 12th, he could very easily end up in the points, which even if it's 10th for one point, that's a confidence booster for him. He's got Nung so far.

So picking up a point would be great. Final two things for me before we move on to our roundup is initially, Olly Bearman looked like he was doing it again. And suddenly he was going to end up maybe around that P-10 mark. and then his Q2 was really not very good. It ends up being the slowest car in Q2 and now the gap between himself and Ocon is much smaller than I expecting it to be.

Yes, because Behrman was a lot quicker than O'Con in Q1 over half a second. Which I'm not 100% sure of the reason of that. I don't think O'Con got a clean run together, whether it was his own fault or not, I don't know. But I think that can at least partly explain the gap. Honestly, I think Bayerman is probably qualifying where that has deserves to be.

I've said it a couple of times, particularly with the Japanese qualifying session that he put together. I think when he qualified 10th that day, he was out qualified in that car. I think in terms of Quali Sims, it's clear of Salba, and it's maybe on a par with Aston Martin,

and I think that's it. And he sits between those two drivers, right? He sits with a racing ball and Aston. So, yeah, well done again to Olibeam, and obviously he was hit last year in the Ferrari, so first time coming here in the Haast, but I thought that was a really good start to his week. Ken, again, if he gets a lucky safety car,

the chance of seeing a safety car at Jagger is high. You might end up fighting for those points, again, much like I could dig in Bahrain. And then final one for me, because I think we've got to mention it, Lankstrol becomes the most knocked out driver in Q1 of all time with 75 Q1 eliminations. Look, Lansdrol is not a good qualifier.

That has become well established over his too many years in the sport. Ironically, I think if you were to rank, his 75 Q1 eliminations, this would be in like the top 10 best ones. That's awful list. It is. I don't think he's done a bad job here. He was within one tenth of Fernando Alonzo in Q1. And the gap between, I think it was like 12th or 13th, I think it was maybe

Berman Down. It was so close. And there were a couple of drivers that ended up the wrong side of it, him and doing in particular. I think he's, again, he's within a 10th of Fernando Alonzo. I think he does okay. And I don't think that Aston Martin is very good here whatsoever. I was expecting him to qualify worse than 16th, which again might say more about Stroll than anything else. But of all the drivers, if I had to rank them all, he's not at the bottom. No. No, he wasn't terrible for Lung Strull, which is saying something. If I had a point, just a little mini round of applause for Bortoletto.

if you just got braking, he just turned one until he almost hit the wall. Yeah, not a smooth weekend for, well, I guess both salber drivers really, but Bortletto in particular, a track that he's never done in an F1 car before, there is one session you cannot afford to lose FP2. Because FP1 and FP3, whilst it's valuable track time, they are so unrepresentative that they don't matter. It's daytime. They really don't matter all that much.

And FP2 is the one you really want to get all your time in. And he couldn't get anything in because of a fuel issue. Fuelie. Yeah, fueling. I mean, he, so we get to qualifying. He has his first lap time or maybe a second lap time invalidated because of track limits. And then the third one, as you mentioned, pretty late on the brakes in turn one and does a, does the 360. But Holkenberg was struggling as well.

Yeah. I mean, the car is... It's a dog. It's a dog, man. It's not a good car at all. I think the... In terms of pure pace, I don't think it's as bad as what I thought it was going to be.

I still think pace-wise, it is belonging to... It's still last, but I think it's close. Better than last year. The problem is, it's last, but it's so difficult to drive.

Yeah, you need to... You know those cars you see it where you would drag them backwards along the floor and then you let them go and they go at full speed? you need to set off those salbers already at full speed. They cannot do a standing start. I'm terrified at how close the walls are at the start of this Grand Prix

that both salvers might just do five metres and end up very much in the pit wall because they're terrifying. They're out to kill you. That salver, by the way, is set up quite a bit different from literally every car this weekend because they have just gone for all out straight line speed. So I would not be shocked whatsoever. I think they've gone to the Haskell strategy. I think they will be the first cars in for a pit stop.

And they will try to do what has have successfully done a few times, which is just be quick. I'm sorry, get the undercut, be quick in a straight line, and then hope that no one can overtake you because of that. Whether it works or not. Shall not pass. I think that's what they're playing for. And I think they would have been hoping that they could have been playing that strategy

with a slightly better start than 18th and 20th. Yeah. Yeah. Even if you go up like 15th for 16th, a safety car comes out. You might be in for a winger there. Okay, well, it's going to be really interesting. I think we've got a lot of mix-up, very curious to see how Landon-Nor-Norris does. Indeed. A quick driver of the session from you. I got it to get to Max Verstappen. I know he's so boring. I know he's on pole, but that

red ball doesn't deserve to be on pole. And the fact he's beating that McLaren by the tiniest of markings was great. There are some other call-outs, which I'll leave to you, but a fantastic Max for Staplema. Yeah, I don't actually think there are that many others that I would, I'd point out here. Certainly, Vestappen, I think Carlos Sines as well, I would throw in there. And also George Russell, again, I think a 10th back, George Russell has probably got the most out of that car. Again, considering he had one run fewer than both Vestappen and Piastri, I'd probably side with Vestappen on Pulver. Yeah, I also think Carlos Sank deserves a bit of a shout. There's a great, great qualifying from him.

Indeed. Right. Should we leave that episode here, then? We have got another one, of course, tomorrow, because I, I think there's a race. Oh, yeah, you tend to do qualifying to make sure that you are set up for the race. I think how Formula One works.

Gosh, to what episode is this? 530 something? Too many. Sorry to all your listener it is. Thanks for listening. We do appreciate it. Do come back for the race review, which will we record pretty much straight after the Grand Prix happened.

So you get out super fast and you get the raw reaction, our raw feelings about it and a longer debate. But if you think, oh, what happens after having a little bit of time just sit and think, settle and contemplate what went on. Well, get yourself down a Patreon City. The links in the description below. I really enjoy Patreon City. And you can, if you've got a little bit of money for some rent,

you can move into a delightful flat. And join us for Power Rankings, when we go through every single driver's performance. We give our reactions. And Ben even has some wonderfully catchy jingles if we have all of the same ranking together. We do some matches. So we won't spoil them, but they are sensational.

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