The Late Braking F1 Podcast - 2026 Spanish GP Race Review

Episode Date: September 13, 2026

Enjoyable elements? Or Monaco 2.0? Ben and Sam run through everything from the inaugural Spanish GP in Madrid, from what worked and what didn't at the Madring’s debut, to Norris’ misfortune and Sainz and Alonso's home race antics... Want more Late Braking? Support the show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Patreon⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and get:Ad-free listeningFull-length bonus episodesPower Rankings after every raceHistorical race reviews& more exclusive extras!Don't forget! You can also gift a Late Braking Patreon subscription—perfect for loved ones or your own wish list. Choose anything from 1 month up to a full year of top-notch F1 content: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/latebrakingf1/gift⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Connect with Late Braking:You can find us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠X (Twitter)⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Come hang out with us and thousands of fellow F1 fans in our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Discord⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ server and get involved in lively everyday & race weekend chats!Join our ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠F1 Fantasy League⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and see if you can beat us! LEAGUE CODE: C6Y6R4ZUY02Get in touch any time at [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Thank you for listening to the Late Breaking F1 podcast. Make sure to check out new episodes every Wednesday and every Sunday. Very warm welcome to the late breaking F1 podcast presented by Sam Sage and me, Ben Hocking, reviewing today the Spanish Grand Prix for the first time held at Madrink. It's a new experience for us all a very robust day for the tires, Sam. What did you make of it? Yeah, uh, came back. from the wonderful Harry's wedding, of course.

That's where we were. So I'm going to qualify one of you. What a great day it was. And I was expecting that wonderful occasion to be capped off by a truly wonderful moment of racing, a great Grand Prix. I sat down on the sofa and it did not deliver a day. Yeah, it was not ideal.

Something's happened. Something seems to happen, i.e. no one crashed into a wall at full speed. No one suspension blew up halfway through a corner. And the tyres just never, ever, ever rang out. So unfortunately, not the thriller that we were. hoping for, but there you go. We've had our first ever maturing experience. How did you find it? Bad. Good. Some day up in one word nicely.

Yeah. It was not a car killer. There were not many overtakes. Things invariably didn't happen. I don't think it was the best Grand Prix I've seen this year. I don't think it's the best Grand Prix I've seen this month. I don't think it's hopefully the best Madrid Grand Prix we're going to see for a few years because hopefully there are some ways in which this can be improved. But when we go back and do historic classic reviews in years to come, I don't think this is going to make a short list. Put it that way.

Fairing out. Robust analysis for a very robust day on the tyres. We hit enough robust. Keep talking, Ben. We've got many more to go. All right. Good stuff. Coming up later on, we've got moments of the race.

Our thoughts on difficult days for the likes of Lewis Hamilton and Oscar Piastri. driver of the day, worst driver of the day, big brain strategy as well. Let's start out front, though, with Kimmy Antonelli claiming his eighth Grand Prix win total, but eighth Grand Prix win of the season as well, further extending his championship lead out front, joining him on the podium to different teams, Max Verstappen from Red Bull, and then Lando Norris, who had the pole position, of course, in third for McLaren. Certainly the virtual safety car had a big part to play. play in this. But if we start with Antonelli and his performance out front, spent a lot of time behind

Charlotte Clare before he made his mandatory pit stop. What did you make of the way in which Antonelli played the cards that were dealt to him? I mean, besides crashing, what could this kid do to not win a Grand Prix at this point? He ran wide multiple times. He cut corners. He had track limits warnings. He had to be around for giving up positions to the race leader at the time, Landon Norris. He was involved, of course, in the initial Max Fassappan, Lewis Hamilton, altercation of giving positions back as well. He was stuck behind Charlotte Clare, seemingly losing speed

and then getting caught by the two behind him. And yet, at the end of the day, it all comes together. And who comes across the line first? It's Kimmy Antingelli, once again, who extends like Championship League. He now also steps ahead of George Russell for total race wings, which is achieved, of course, all in one season, Russellong,

I think it's seven, Antingale, and eight now in total, which is pretty mega, right, for someone of his age, his experience, his time in the sport. Only still 18 months as a Formula One driver is pretty scary to have that many Grand Prix wings. And I think it was by far one of his worst performances that we've seen so far this season. And yet he walks away a comfy victor in the end. So a moment of fluster or two, I thought, came over the radio, a little bit frustrating about the steering feeling not perfect,

clip the wall a couple of times, ran wide as I've just mentioned. It looked like no overtake was ever going to happen on Lecler. I don't put that down to him. I'd put that down to the track because, as we saw, with pretty much everyone up and down the circuit, overtaking was an absolute nightmare here. But nonetheless, he had to have things falling his direction. As Martin Rundle on Skypocket,

he's really got the rub of the green at the moment. Things are really going his way. Because I think in many other occasions, for many other drivers, they would have had this many mistakes. They would have had this many moments where it wasn't certain or in the bag, or they weren't the fastest driver on the racetrack on the day. And they wouldn't have won the Grand Prix. And yet, here he is, extending his championship lead on his teammate,

sits in fifth position, the closest man to him in the points tally. Pretty perfect day all round at the end of it for him. Yeah. Rubber the Green is probably the right phrase that was used by Martin Brundle because everything does seem to be going his way. And that's not to say that Antonelli's not putting himself in the positions to game these wins and these strong podium positions. But in terms of the championship and where it sits right now,

I feel like for any chance of this championship fight to emerge, it would have taken some bad luck on Antonelli's side or some good luck on some other driver's side in order to make it happen. And instead, it just seems to be going Antonelli's way. Skill plus luck, great combination in F1. That typically works very well indeed. And I think maybe we, I don't want to say feared this

because we don't mind, Antonelli winning the championship by no means. but in terms of whether we're going to get a championship battle or not, maybe we feared that with the slightly bad luck that Antonelli was having earlier in the year, with the DNF in Barcelona, the non-score in Silverstone, not everything was going his way for a little while. I think there was always like, if this turns around, if this flips on its head and it starts going his way, that 50-point advantage that Antonelli had at one point,

it's going to extend even further out. So I know we've kind of maybe written off the championship fight at this point. This is just another, a real kicking a tea for everyone who isn't Kimmy Antonelli because it wasn't a perfect day and it's ended up with 25 points. Yeah, I'm thrilled to see someone of his talent and ability go on to probably win a championship. It is an amazing feat that he is achieving. I'm a fan. He's fantastic. But just for the sake of pure entertainment,

I'd like to have seen it go down to the last race, even for the last couple of races would have be nice. And unfortunately, he's just that good. And sometimes things just go your way. And that's exactly what happened at Magrangelo. George Russell, nowhere to be seen for the Grand Prix, or a different strategy, of course, as well, hits Piastri right at the start. All of these little things, they add up. And it means that he can't compete. He's the one that needs to take points off of Antingelli. Over the last few Grand Prix, unfortunately, when it isn't Antinglli winning, it wasn't Russell winning. That's the problem. It was Norris winning, right? Picks up two in a row

He decided on the summer break. We also saw Ferrari. They picked up two wings in a short space of time. It needs to be one challenger, right? It needs to be one. It's the perfect storm franting anyway. He's going to, yeah, I'll take my foot off the throttle a little bit. I can't be the guy winning every single Grand Prix.

You know, it's going to happen where something's going to go wrong. And it did. And yet Russell is not the man there to take the points away. In that moment, it's shared across three other drivers. Russell gets a wing. Hamilton gets a win. The clerk gets a wing. Norris gets two wings.

And at that point, the moment's gone. And we've got what eight Grand Prix left this season, an ideal situation. Here's a three-wing advantage now, over 80 points to his teammate. The chances of this going the other way are becoming very, very slim. A robust title fight is required, Ben.

Indeed it is, Sam. Indeed it is. The virtual safety car obviously played a huge role in this Grand Prix. Lando Norris from pole position led the way early on, despite a challenge from Antonelli and somewhat maybe Lewis Hamilton getting his nose in on the first corner. Seems to be a bit of a theme of a recent Grand Prix. But Norris was able to lead early on.

The virtual safety car comes out as a result of Lance Stroll going out of this race. Antonelli able to capitalize on that. Max Verstappen able to capitalize on that. Lando Norris, having just gone past the pit entry, not able to capitalize on that. He came into the pits anyway on the very next lap. was there, as was maybe suggested by the commentary we were listening to, was there any chance that McLaren could have gone,

this is more than likely going to be a virtual safety car, we should pit him here. I think they are in a lose-lose situation for this one. Hindsight is perfect, right, it's 2020. And I do think that we sit here, you guys sit here listening, the commentary team are watching. It's so easy to say, you've seen the car go off and he's not coming back on. You know there's going to be a yellow flag.

That means there's likely to be a BSC or even a full say. safety car. And actually, if you got upgrading into a full safety car, he would have been saved anyway, I think. I think he probably comes out, at least in the top two at that point. Yes, I agree. Yeah. So with that, sure, you sit there and go, well, why didn't you just chucking me anyway? Or if it's delayed? We've seen so many times that decisions are delayed. Actually, they take so long to get something out. Or they realize that the danger is almost nothing and they can wheel that car off very quickly. Because Luntstroll, although the camera angle was on,

did look like he had parked in a pretty optimum position to roll it into the runoff in the background there. If they don't throw that BSC and they pit him, well, then he comes out on a full green flag behind everyone and he's stuck there for track position again. And the cars that are free to go, Antingelli, Max, behind, they can run off into the distance without any traffic in front of them. So I really feel like it's a lose-lose. And we can sit there and pick at them and comment on them and go, why didn't you do something? They played the card that felt safe. And that's that's fair. That is fair. I can't blame them for doing that. But obviously, it did cost them. And I think Landon Norris today has been robbed a little bit of a fantastic race win

because I do believe he was going on to take that race wing. His first, what was it, 15 laps before the VSC comes out, I think it was, were electric. He was by far the fastest car. He was in that rhythm that we spoke about in our preview in the middle of the week, that you need to get into that flow state around a track like this, similar to Moiko, similar to Singapore. You have to be in that flow to get the maximum amount of it.

And he was so much faster. His type of track, right? He seems to thrive on these tracks. he does. We've seen him do it at Monaco. We've seen him do it around the likes of Zandvo, which is the same. Hungary is the same. They're all corners that link up one after another. And Orlando Norris was robbed here by the events that took place out of his control. A fair play to the others behind, having the moment to take advantage. But he was four seconds past that, that pit lane. And you can be angry at you want at McLaren.

But I really don't think that this is really on their hand. It's just how the dice fall sometimes. It's unlucky. He's saying it himself. That's racing. It's unlucky. I got unlucky today. But I thought he had a world champion's drive. I think he delivered fantastic pace. He pressured as much as he could. He made a couple of mistakes. It didn't cost him anything. But he made a couple of mistakes in the chase of Maxel Stapleton at the end.

And he had a little bit of a tantrum in the call-down room. But, you know, it is what he is. But nonetheless, I thought he delivered a really fantastic weekend. And he can walk away from this. Head held high and went, I think I was the fastest man on the racetrack that weekend. I think I'd think everything I could. I think he was. Yeah.

Certainly, I think he got maybe slightly fortunate with the first couple of corners in that I think of the three top drivers, at least at the start, it was himself, obviously on the front row with him was Antonelli and then the Stapen just behind, and Lewis Hamilton in fourth. I think maybe he had the worst start of the four. Like, he didn't get a great start. I think if it was a longer run to turn one, he probably would have lost the lead. But with those corners and the way that they are still quite quick corners, even on the first lap, he was able to avoid that. sort of play the game so that Antonelli had to go to the runoff areas and suddenly you've got Vastappen doing the same thing and Norris's lead was very much protected. But from there,

you're absolutely right. The way in which he was able to extend that advantage out, really impressive because I was sort of wondering, with Vestappan initially having that second place, we know that he'd eventually give it back, but he was second for the time being. And Vestappen on the soft tyres, maybe in a slower Red Bull overall, he couldn't keep pace. with Norris. And I think that was to be expected. But I did have a question in my mind, if and when Antonelli gets by, can he match Lando Norris? He does get by. He can't. He can't match him. Now, he had good pace as well. Don't get me wrong. But Lando Norris was, I think, for the first 15 laps of this Grand Prix, quite comfortably the fastest car. He had the same tires, of course,

as Antonelli at that point. I think he was well on course for victory. Now, I like you, do not blame McLaughrin whatsoever for the way in which they played this. I think they just got desperately unlucky. The reason why is because we essentially had a carbon copy of what happened to Lance Strull that didn't end up in a retirement, let alone a virtual safety car or a safety car, that being Lewis Hamilton's retirement about eight laps before. I think it was the same corner that Hamilton goes off. Yeah, yeah.

He spins it round. And he spins it round. And Lance Stroll, I've got nothing to back this up other than what I've seen what I know of Landstrol, I think he's tried to do the same thing, realised I can't do that and gone, you know what, I'm going to retire the car here. Let me flash you back to something. Can you remember Brazil a couple of years ago where he goes off in turn three? And he just tries to do a donut and ends up sat in the gravel.

I really think he might have tried to. I just don't think he could do the cool car turnaround thing that they all do really well. Lewis Hamilton did it really well, despite the fact that his brakes were clearly gone. And I thought Lance Stroll would at least give it another go. he tries, isn't able to do it, goes, I'm in 21st already, aren't I? I'm going to call it a day. Have you seen the car arm, I mean, put it in the wall? Come on. But I thought, like, based on the situation, he wasn't in the barriers, he'd just gone off at that point, still an opportunity to turn it around. There was no obvious damage on the car or anything. I think if it hit the wall, even, like, grazed the wall, then maybe you can say to McLaren, you probably should have understood there was a virtual safety car coming.

But I don't think this situation initially felt like it should have been. So I don't blame them for that. The other thing that doesn't help is, again, the camera direction that we're seeing at races like this. You know, we knew that Hamilton was struggling with his brakes, as we saw earlier on in the Grand Prix. He flies off at the same corner. And we see George Russell come round the corner, and suddenly there's no Lewis Hamilton around him. There's a Ferrari that's gone, right? It's like, do you want to cut to that corner can?

Do you want to show us what's going on at the moment? No, no, we just have to wait and see Lewis Hamilton appear about 10 cars back suddenly. And then we get a replay afterwards. And it's the same with Stroll. We get about half a lap of a yellow flag. And we're hearing over cons. Landon Norris is now approaching the yellow flags. And we think it's Lance Stroll that's stopped.

He's not moving. Do we know what's going on? No. Can we see what's going on? No. Only after Norris goes past, we get a cut to the shot of Lance Stroll, who is in that runoff section, not moving it off, see the car, not going anywhere. And you think, come on, we have splitzering technology. We have the ability to come on.

There are hundreds, if not thousands of cameras around these racetracks. We need to be up to date. And I do think that can affect the team's decision. Because a lot of them follow the TV cams of what's going on in the broadcast. They usually have one up in the pit box to make sure they know what's going on across the racetrack. They've got a lot of data going on there. But if you can't see something, sometimes that's the best way to make a snap decision. That might be why they were unable to make a call quickly in the case of landing eyes.

Maybe so. Obviously a slow stop as well, not particularly helping him with that front right being. very slow in the pits. He then goes about chasing down multiple cars. Eventually, Max Verstappen for second place, very nearly able to pull it off. What did you make of Vastappen versus Norris? We know Vestappen was very briefly noted for an incident late on. Ultimately, no investigation, right, let alone no penalty. I think after it happened so many times throughout the Grand Prix, I'd like to think that they can look at their notes essentially go, we've seen that a few times, and we've kind of done nothing about it previously.

I think that's probably why they came to the conclusion that no investigation was necessary. I think they did investigate it, but it was so quick that they didn't bother to put up all the notices. Do you know what's crazy? Not only that, and the Pierre Gasley five-second penalty that was candid out for him speeding in the pit lane. Immediately. Like that, wasn't it?

They're like, we don't get out of it. Straight away. I've got tapas to it. It proved they can do it. It does, doesn't it? It does. The battle that they had, right? We've seen two world champions go out and around a really tricky racetrack that he's got some fantastic corners.

I know the racing was poor, but the track itself is a bit like Suzuki at the moment, right? Suzuki is a world-class track, absolutely undeniably fantastic. And yet the Formula One racing around there right now, not all he wants it to be. I think two things can be true at once. I like a lot of the corners around this racetrack. And if you were to give me a hot app around here, I'm sure I have a lot of fun. But for a Formula One race, not good at the moment.

Need some changes to be made. I think Max Fassap and did everything he needed to, apart from that little mistake, where he put the car in the right place at the right time. And it meant that Norris could get through. But I can't give too much praise for the likes of a Stappen's defensive working against Norris, though, because as we saw with so many other drivers, it was so difficult to make a pass anywhere.

So you stay on the road. You stay on the track, the overtake can't happen. So fair play for keeping it there, but so did so many others. Yeah, I think it was for Stappanus, and she said, like, just put the car in the middle of the track, and it will be absolutely fine, which might be a bit of a damning indictment of this racetrack, if that's how you

can play it. But again, you can only go with the situation that's in front of you. And that's what Max Wastappen did. Again, I don't know if this car was really on race pace second place overall. So whilst the strategy definitely went in their favour in the same way that it did for Antonelli, they still needed

to make it work. They still needed to be reliable enough for their race to go down, unlike Lewis Hamilton's race. They still had to, you know, hold off Lando Norris. So it was a very well-earned second place. I still get the feeling that Red Bull are like hanging on and are using Vestappen to essentially just stay in this fight of the top four teams through sheer grit and determination. Because it's not through sheer upgrades. They aren't really coming for them at the moment. And I know that's an intentional decision. But it does feel like at some point it might catch up

to them. But Vastappen's doing everything he can to extend it on as much as seen. can't to at least fight for podiums, if not for wins. Yeah, I mean, you see that with how Lawson was driving the car, right? Lawson was a distant sixth place at the end of the Grand Prix, and this is no slander on Lawson. I think he's doing a really good job in a tricky situation where he's having to fill in for someone, a car that isn't his, really tough to do. And this is a tough racetrack to go racing at. So I think his place was good. But if they had two Lawsings, and I seem agile probably wouldn't have been too far up the road in comparison either. That's where they're going to be. They'd be sitting fit and sixth at best, maybe sixth or

7th, I don't know. Forstappellies are getting out driving the car because he's so used to pushing the limits of that Red Bull. He can extract a little more. So they need him to be at his best. But how long can you rely at Max Verstappen to drive at 11 tenths? How long can you get away with that before you just accept the car actually isn't doing what it needs to do?

Well, let's take our first quick break on this episode. On the other side, of course, a new track we can get into what we liked, what we didn't like, what surprised us, and maybe what Wentz is expected. Welcome back, everyone. Obviously, we've already offered a little bit of commentary into what we thought of this very first Grand Prix at Madrid. First time we've been in Madrid for a race in, what, 45 years, going back to 1981.

And of course, this track taking over from the Circuit to Catalonia in Barcelona as the host of the Spanish Grand Prix. So we know it's going to be around for a while. What did you make of this first race? We also got CF2 and F3 here as well, so quite a bit of exposure to the Spanish. some cars. What do you make of it? Yeah, I wasn't a fan. I wasn't a fan. I'm sorry. There were a few corners, like I mentioned,

as a race track, I think we're fun. I think I've heard it a thousand times, but I think La Monumental is a really fun corner. And apparently, when it's a good name, you have to say it 800 times in the space of an hour and a half. It is a good corner. It's good fun. It has some unique qualities to it. I think banking is really coming back into F1 recently. Like, we haven't got back. You remember obviously back at old, Monza, right? That was famous for its big banking that we had. And then kind of felt like it went away for a while. And in the last five, 10 years, it feels like banking corners has really become, hashtag bring back banking, thank you. PPP. Don't get the wrong idea,

Parkleys. Anyway, my point here is, that's fun. It's got some unique qualities to it. And there is some risk around this track, right? I like the fact that the walls are up close. I like the fact that if you make a mistake, you're going to hit the wall. We saw. a few drivers brushing into those walls when you're kind of looking right to turn right back. Actually, the wall is approaching you on an incline to the left. Interesting. But overall, as a racetrack for Formula One cars, this was rubbish. It was rubbish. There was no ability to overtake for so many. I think we saw maybe five or six genuine overtakes going on throughout the entire Grand Prix. Also, the worst part about it, Pirelli, the tyres were abhorrents around here. There was almost no drop-off

properly for tyres. The fact that Shell Lecler putting around, settling green sectors 42, 43 laps into the race, able to hold off a much fresher tired, Kimi Antingelli behind him in an arguably fast in Mercedes as well. It just shouldn't happen. It shouldn't be acceptable. That's not how tyres

should work on a race street. And I know I know that this is new so you might have got to get a little bit wrong in the data understanding. But it felt like you weren't just like 2% out of getting it wrong on the tyreware. It felt like you were 20, 30% out of getting it wrong on the tyreware. Phil Anno also took a set of softs over 25 laps, I believe, at one point.

It was just ridiculous how long every compound was working. And they stated that the medium wasn't a great race tire. I don't know. I was like a great time. I'm at the start of the race. I got a fully fuelled car as well. So I do think that the tyres caused us to have some real issue because even strategy wasn't a real weakness here.

So when overtaking isn't possible, you need strategy to be eventful and interesting and fun, and we didn't get that either. The VSE took away possibly a rightful race winner, and I'm not sure that helped anything. LeCler being a cork in the bottom at the end, which brought the league as together, may get slightly more entertaining than it could have been.

But other than that, this was a really poor Grand Prix. I'll start positive as well, because La Monumental is a fantastic corner. Like, that is a brilliant corner. And not only for, you know, during the race, but certainly on board on, let's say, Lando Norris's poll app through that corner, that's insane.

And it's, I think it's, a great corner. And it's not just the, it's the banking. I think you made this point on the preview. It's how long the corner lasts for. Because in terms of just pure degrees or angles, like, it's not even as steep as say at Zambor, but Zambor, you are through the corner in one second. Here, this is multiple seconds through that corner. I think there are some great camera shots, particularly looking back from the next couple of turns on. Up the hill, right? Yeah. Really great. I think as a standout like this is our corner, this is what we're known for. Great.

Love it. The rest of the track isn't as great. And that's the main problem here is that La Monumental is one corner of about 20. Yeah, I appreciate that we got some slack for our reviews of the Italian Grand Prix because we weren't as positive about it as some others were. And look, folks, it's okay to have different opinions. It's absolutely fine. There's no problem with that.

Just consider it. Try it sometimes. Just consider it. But we weren't massively positive about that race, and we're obviously not massively positive about this race. For very, very different reasons. Like, these are the two ends of the spectrum in that Monsor was just overtaking for the sake of it to the point where it didn't mean anything.

And here it was just, nope, you don't get any overtakes, sir. Sorry about it. And I like something in the middle. I like a Zambor where it's at least possible to make strategy and overtakes work. But here, it was just put your car in the middle of the road and most of the time that's going to work out okay. And it was only a few instances where a really obvious error was made or there was such a massive tire deficit.

That's the only point you were getting overtakes done. It's... On the tires, I think Pirelli have made an air... error, but not a massive error. I think they've made an error in that they brought the C2, C3, C4, compound. So they've basically gone middle of the road. In hindsight, they probably should have bought C3, C4, C5. I can't blame too much for that because going into the weekend, I kind of probably would have done the same in that it was, it was looking really hot. It's a new track. I felt it could have been pushed. I mean, Russell did do a two-stop, I guess, but I felt it

would have been pushed to a two-stop and that tireware was going to be a lot higher than what it was. In hindsight, you would say bring the softer range. But having said that, and this isn't on Porelli, I don't think that race is massively better if we're at C3, C-4, C-5. You might be right, but we can't judge something we haven't seen. And I don't think it's worse if we have got that softer range being brought there. No, I don't think it would be worse. I think my point is, like, those medium tires that Norris had on and did 15 very good lapse on. I think he probably could have done 30 good laps on them, 35, in which case you go to

the soft tire as would be the medium tire in what we're discussing here. And I think he probably, it's just more and more management if you can't get the overtakes done rather than more pit stops. And I think some of the blame goes to Pirelli here for what they brought and didn't bring. I think there are questions about the track at large, though, that exist outside of the tyres. I agree. I think the good thing about this track is, it's temporary, right? And it means we can make changes to it. We're not talking about a Silverstone

where you've got to dig a logo stuff up and re-alter the whole surface to change the track. They can move some barriers, and you've got new corners in place all of a sudden. And I think actually a reduction of corners, much not what happened to Singapore, really. You take away two or three corners and you keep maybe a slower corner

with a couple of longer streets involved. They spoke about this on the Sky Broadcast. It's not always just a chicaning along the straight that you need to make oversight. You have got to analyse what creates a great overtaking I thought they made some great points with this as well. They did. It was tough to be a commentator today because there wasn't a lot going on.

But they analysed this well. Now, I do think if you alter maybe a little bit in each sector to create an obvious overtaking zone, which is right at the end of the battery window, heavy breaking zone, bigger risk versus reward, we could see something that has that lovely balance. And I think it's good that we've now done a run here because there are some nice bits of feedback that can be given to the setup of this road strike, where next year I'm hoping it might not be an all-time banger, but it could be an enjoyable race that we're getting next year.

Yeah, I would agree. I don't think we're actually massively far off what could be an entertaining Grand Prix here. But this is why I enjoyed the commentary is that there are just a few potential overtaking spots that aren't overtaking spots because of the way the corners are constructed. Like, turn one, I described midweek,

as like a faster turn one at Jedder. And I stand by that. we saw obviously on the first lap it was safer for drivers to just go to the runoff area rather than try and go side by side through it and when you get into regular racing where see the pack is very much spread out that corner becomes quicker and quicker

and there isn't much of a rundown to it anyway and then you get the rundown to still learning corner numbers here folks turn five was it the the chican there it's not the best possible overtaking spot because you are just hitting that corner at such a speed that you need to try something risky and something can go wrong in the case of, say, Carlos Sines and Fernando Alonzo.

Like, it's not one of those, I don't want to say dead cert, but like a real opportunity to go side by side into a slower hairpin where you can make these moves happen. It's not a great corner for that. No, I agree. And something I disagree with when it comes to a chicane creation is I don't see. the point in a chican where you just ride the curb on either inside and you fly straight over it. You're just putting curbs there for curbs sake. You're not using the corner.

You're just kind of implementing a breaking zone. You look at a chican such as the turn one of Monsa, for example. And that is such a, you almost go back on yourself on the first right turn. And you almost come back on yourself again on the exit of turn two in Monsa. Here, the chicanes are so shallow. There's no turn depth. You just fly straight over them. And that is rubbish when it comes to wheel to wheel racing.

No one can go side by side through that corner. It's optimal to go through it flat out. You haven't wanted to break cavity to defend. It just means you're not creating any overtaking opportunity there. And therefore, we don't see any in the Grand Prix. So I think if they were to extend the tracks around the chicanes and make them elongating a little bit, we might see a bit more breaking, overtaking, will-to-election there. There's lots of little tweaks, I think, could create something quite entertaining.

Yeah. And I appreciate this. This sounds somewhat negative, but I am looking at this through the lens of we are going to be here for multiple years. and I very much hope that, you know, changes are going to be considered. Like, I think there is potential here. And I don't think it's just the case of we're doomed. This is a terrible race track. And we're just going to have to grin and bear it for multiple years.

Like, there are things that we can do. So looking forward to hearing about some of those. Let's move on to Ferrari, more specifically, the Ferrari of Chal-Lacler. We might discuss Lewis Hamilton a little bit later in the show. Because with Chaulec, at least competed the Grand Prix. But it was another race in which Ferrari do not have a car, car on the podium. And this was a race in which the other three big teams did have a car on the podium. Charlecler, very much safety car, virtual safety car, goal hanging until a few laps to go

when they finally decided to bring him into the pits and ultimately settle for a fourth place finish just ahead of George Russell. Was this a case of Ferrari didn't quite have the pace, the strategy didn't quite go their way? What did you make of it? This is going to sound like an odd statement about Ferrari, it seemed that only had one car finish, and neither car was on the podium. I actually don't think they did a lot wrong today. I think there's a lot of things that they could say that they tick the boxes of and went, I think in any other race day, we got that right. You know, they started on the harder tire, and they were unlucky that a BSC emerges 15 laps into the Grand Prix, right? That's tough. That's a risk you take when you start on the hard time. And I guess that

was their big mistake. So they run out. The risk can go the other way, right? And that's That is the point I'm making. LeCler's pace is good. You see at the end of the Grand Prix, while he's still on these hard ties, that his pace is good. Yes, he's slowly being caught on the top three on fresher ties,

as you would expect. But if you get a safety car that emerges, maybe lap 35, lap 40, right? He's got between 20 laps, you know, 17 laps there to stick on a set of softs or mediums, whatever he chooses,

then he can go at them. And he probably comes out on a polling position at that point because the car's was still getting closer to him. There was a good safety car window that he had at that point. equally, I thought it was brilliant that Hamilton gets out of the way of LeCler

very quickly, immediately out the way. Hallelujah! Well done, Lewis Hamilton. You've got a break problem, your teammates behind you, within one corner, moved out the way. Also, back into the way of George Russell to give you some breathing room. Genuinely excellent.

Well done. Well executed. That's what you like to see. Also, the fact that there is a management of a gap to George Russell, who is the car that is on the charge. Understandable, works well. Well done.

They were just unlucky. in two respects. One, the hard tie got brought into action too early on with that BSC, unfortunately, and that no safety car came out in the last 20 laps. And you know what? Most people are going to put money on there being a safety car in the last 20 laps. So they took a risk. They weren't in the top three it came to qualifying with Charlotte Clare or either car. And they had to cry, they had to roll the dice. They tried to gamble. They even split their strategy on their two cars, right? Hamilton starts on the soft, the Claire starts on the hard. They're going to get one of them, right? Unfortunately, the car that would of benefiting from the BSC on lap 15 is the car that goes out with a brake failure on lap 7 instead.

And that is just unlucky. It was going to hit somewhere and it didn't. So I can't really fault them. And it just felt like unfortunately it all went the wrong way for them. Yeah. They played it very well and got very unlucky. I know you're probably thinking with another race with a Ferrari not on the podium you're expecting us to come out and bash them here today. Sam hasn't, and I'm not going to either. They played it mostly as they should have done. I was delighted to see at the start of this race that Lewis Hamilton ahead of Charles Leclair was going to start on the soft tires and Charles Leclair was going to be essentially the lead car on the hard tire. Makes a lot of sense and we know the result wasn't great in terms of Lewis Hamilton, but they wouldn't have known that at the time of making the strategy cool.

and we saw, like, he, it didn't go very well for him, but he did have a good start on those soft tires to at least be interested in making a move into the first corner or two. I don't want to say they got unlucky, but maybe thinking that Max Verstappen wouldn't be starting on the soft tires either and that maybe Hamilton would be the lead car

on that strategy. But I'm glad to see that they completely split things. Lewis Hamilton's race obviously ends very early, but then Charles Leclair, yeah, if you'd have said to me midweek, Not only are we not going to get a safety car this entire race, but we're not going to get anything like a virtual safety car after lap 15, I would have been absolutely stunned.

Now, I think if you'd have asked Ferrari, you know, exactly when do you want the safety car, they probably would have said, oh, lap 35, lap 40, if you wouldn't mind. But equally, it was quite a wide range. I'm sure they would have been okay with one at lap 25 or lap 50. Like, it could have gone anything. in between that sort of range, and they would have been able to make it work. It would have been foolish for them to pit, shall LeCler, and ultimately, the way in which they ran the hard strategy versus Russell, LeClau's beaten Russell.

So, yeah, you can't blame them too much. Literally the only thing I would have done differently is I would have kept LeCler out there a few more laps to the point where it was starting to become unsafe. with the gap to George Russell. They left a lot of margin, perhaps wisely. Do you think so? Two seconds for you, they got settled all on the track time?

Well, when they got settled, yes. But it was, what, 33 seconds or something like that when it came into the pits. So I don't know whether he just wasn't very quick on that tire or if it was through traffic or whatnot. So maybe that's why they were thinking about the margin is because even on a fresh, soft tire that he was going to be slower than Russell on a used hard,

in which case, that's pretty worrying. but yeah, I kind of felt similar to Gassley, they might just keep it going, hoping for, there was still a Cadillac in the race at that point. Surely that's got a DNF in it somewhere. It was such a burn from the commentary team as well. They literally made that exact point, gosh, savage. Yeah, but yeah, I think Ferrari played this pretty all right.

I'm not sure Mercedes did with George Russell. This wasn't a two-stop race. No, it wasn't a two-stop race. And Russell himself was calling on. the radio, why aren't we sticking on these tyres? We've seen that tyres had go a lot longer than than expected. I think I could hold off Lando Norris. Now, whether he could on up, I don't know, but we saw that defending was easier than a lot of other racetracks. So even on some more medium tyres, if he can utilise his boosts in the right places, if he can get a solid enough exit,

they've got the same power you can remember. There's every chance he's able to sit in front to just be a nuisance. It might not be quick, but he also gets a podium, if it works out that way for him. Yeah, what doesn't help George Russell is that he was also quite slow for a lot of the race. And it was only the final part of the Grand Prix where he had that clean area in front of him when he was trying to cut the gap to the Clare that we started to see proper pace

rolling in from George Russell starts off badly, past the Yixie with Piastri where he's come over on him very early. I know that's touch and go because the gap is minimal, but Piastri's got nowhere else to go and so they go forwards and it's an unfortunate one. But Russell is not in the conversation

with the rest of the top pack for a long time. He's kind of stuck behind the Clare. He's talking about undercutting for a long time. they don't really know what's going on there. Of course, they then go on to the VSC stop. They're on to the medium tire. It's just all over the place. And while you've got Antingelli,

essentially falling face first into success at the top of this race, Russell is fumbling around with all the right ideas and still not able to come up with anything good. And it's a combination of being unfortunate, which Antigelli is fortunate, and not quite quick enough to make any difference of it, whereas Kami Antigami is quick enough.

So it does happen that it's, controversial, he can overcome, whereas Russell was just all right and wasn't able to overcome the unlucky guess that came his way, I think. So a combo of back strap and not the perfect pace has not helped him today. Two things can be true at once. I think this is an instance of that. Like, George Ross, as soon as he made his second stop and he had clean air in front of him, I always think, okay, now I'm going to pay attention. The gap was massive at that point because of the way the race had worked out. That's okay. Does he now on fresher tires have the ability to at least cut the gap to the cars in front.

The answer was no. And that was pretty worrying, I think. But you're also right that this is another instance where George Russell can just sit down after the race and go, what do I have to do to catch a break around here? Like, it does seem to be piling on at this point for him. So not a great day for George Russell. Fortunately for him, of course, Lewis Hamilton,

who will discuss after the break, didn't finish the race. lost any points. He's actually gained points to him in the championship. But, you know, Norris, maybe not that far behind at this point either. It's getting close now, isn't he? Yeah. We're about ready to hit another break. So we'll review our bold predictions quickly before we do, just to get up away with that one. Yeah, they were as painful as that race was, I think, at times. I said that at least 10 cars were down to 12 running, basically, is what I stated.

and I think we had four that retired. Right, yeah. Yeah, and there was no actual crashes either, no tires off in the wall or anything, just a couple of break failures and a couple of pit lane retirement. So, cheers, guys. Really help me out there. Yeah, our bold predictions were very different,

but they were kind of based in the same thing as we need carnage to make this work. And to be honest, if mine was right, yours probably would have been right as well and vice versa. I said that there was going to be a midfield podium. Colopinto was the best of the midfield drivers. I believe down in seventh place. So this one, you know what?

I was okay with this because I wasn't on the edge of my seat, like, oh, it could happen. There was never any chance of this. Yeah, there was me on like 53, like, oh, there's a lot of cars really close together now, fighting for like... Every single one of them now needs to hit each other, and I might be right.

Other than that, though, great weekend for bowl predictions. None right. Let's take a quick break on the other side. We'll get into a few of the midfield scraps and also do our driver of the day, worst driver of the day and big brain strap. Welcome back, everyone.

Let's discuss two races that didn't go to plan, one of which ended early, that being Lewis Hamilton, and one that didn't end early, but didn't end up in many points, that being Oscar Piastri. A dealer's choice, which one you want to go at first? Well, we'll start at the start. Let's go with Lewis Hamilton, right?

He felt punchy at the start. you know, it was a little bit unfortunate with the way that cars had gone off and it was kind of, oh, give this place back, don't give this place back. I think Hamilton had every right to that corner, by the way. I think Bustappen made a little bit of the meal of it, ran off the corner and realistically

he should have given the position back and it ended up in the right decision, in my opinion. Unfortunately for him, though, because of the antics with Antigelli running wide and everything and Max then getting that position in front, he ends up losing a couple of spots. And I'd be fascinated to see how an alternate race would play out. He just said, oh, sodding.

it, I'm going to drive off down the road. Give me a five second penalty. We'll see what happens. Because we know what happens to Lewis Hamilton later on. He retires. Hamilton starts stating, breaks and running long, you see him missing call in suddenly. I actually think he does a very good job of keeping it out of other people's way as much as possible when he's struggling. But why they didn't bring him in on the first loop round into the pit lane at that point, I have to question Ferrari at that point. I mean, some responsibility is on Hamilton, but he's a racing driver and he wants to get sorted if it's an in-car problem. but Ferrari Shiger said this isn't fixable,

we're going to get you in and bring the car in. Unlucky, it happens. You've been the guy that's finished every single race in the point so far. It's about time that you have a big of bad luck when it comes to reliability. So unlucky, I think he might have been a feature in this Grand Prix. I'm not sure he could have been on the podium, much like Charlotte Claire, but I think he's in that conversation. Yeah, he'd have taken advantage of the virtual safety car in the same way that

Verstappen did and he'd have been around there. I think it'd have been in the conversation, maybe not for the win, certainly in and around those podium positions. So he can count himself unlucky in that regard, but you're absolutely right. It's difficult to call him too unlucky, given that this is his first DNF of the year. And in a year of new regulations,

it's very rare that we get this far into the season. We could talk about a driver picking up their first DNF. It wasn't a great day. It wasn't a great weekend for Lewis Hamilton. I do have to say, and we didn't obviously do a qualifying review for this, and we haven't had a chance to chat for a couple of things from practice. And we know he hit the wall, of course, in final practice, wasn't it?

Yeah. I think his conduct there was pretty poor. By the way, he tried to bring it home. Yes, despite being told multiple times from his team that he shouldn't do that due to safety to the point where the FIA had to intervene themselves to tell Ferrari to make sure this message comes from us that he must stop the car. I think it took them five attempts for him to do so. I thought that was really poor.

But I agree with you that I think his conduct today in which drivers were overtaking him was far better. And I was worried, based on previous incidents and not really blaming Hamilton or LeCler in particular on this, with Ferrari, the way in which one car is faster than the other and is trying to overtake and isn't able to do so. We've seen that episode play out many times, not favorably. They played it fine today.

So that was good. It's a shame because, like you say, I'd have been interested to see what Hamilton could have done in this Grand Prix. But yeah, he was bound to get TNF at some point. He was on the October strategy, wasn't he? That soft side under the VSE would have been a perfect start. I think he would have been behind the likes of Norris and Vastappen probably. But I do think he could be very close in that group.

But we saw how hard overtaking was anyway. So who knows if anything comes a bit anyway. Yeah, exactly. Oscar Piastri. Fortunately for him, I guess, didn't have to watch his teammate win this Grand Prix, as I think he would have done without that virtual safety car. But nevertheless, his teammate is still on the podium,

whereas he is much further down the Ord, down in eighth just behind Colopinto, behind Liam Lawson as well, had contact at the start with George Russell. Should we start there? How did you give you that? Yeah, I mean, it's the start of the Grand Prix. It's a very narrow start-finger straight as well. So he's tricky to find yourself some space.

Obviously, he's on a lot of cars behind him, right? It's qualified one inside the top 10. There's a lot of cars barreling down to turn one. He's got to go somewhere. And I think it is just quite unlucky that Russell has gone to the outside as well in front of him, taken that front wing off. I think then the wash of the car and the downforce lack has caused him to lock up. And they hit the back of Russell again.

And it's just a very messy, clumsy racing incident that I don't think either can really say that's my fault or that's your fault. I think it's two into one really doesn't go. there's a wall here, we can't do anything about it. And unfortunately, Russell comes off perfectly, which is frustrating for Piastri, I'm sure. And unfortunately for Piastri, he comes off with a knack of front wing, which they decide not to change for the whole Grand Prix as well. So, yeah, really tricky start. When a race like this requires a lower downforce and those mixed speed call is that suit McLaren, and he loses that part of his car that helps him suit the track.

Sometimes when you put 21 or 22 cars within a 50 metre blanket, there's going to be an incident where you just go, that's racing. And it's incredibly unfortunate for Piahtri. But I don't think there was much either of them could do on this one. It is just one of those. He can't just slam on the brakes, can't? I mean, is he going to lock up and hit Russell anyway, or someone's going to go into the back of him?

Basically the same thing as Lawson at Monza, where he's on the outside in Holkenberg kind of comes across. Now, fortunately, in that situation, there's grass and not a wall. wall, in which case Lawson, even though he did still lose his front wing, can avoid complete catastrophe. There wasn't much Piastri could do at that point. So a rough one, and it just didn't seem to get better from there. Well, he lost that key part of the downforce, right?

That allowed it. It was obviously very instrumental in helping Norris have such pace because that car is built for race tracks like this. We compared it numerous times to tracks like Zandfo, as many callers that are similar. And the McLaren clearly thrived in race pace here. And I think Piastri, whilst slower than Norris, I think that's fair to say, would have been much higher up the grid, had the car being fully operational. I think he probably would have been in that Russell LeCler battle for P4, P5 at the end of the Grand Prix, rather than struggling to make the points of fighting with the likes of Bortoletto, Holkenberg, Falapinto, you know, for a lot of this Grand Prix. So really unlucky, I think he got the most out of it with a really gnaf car at the end of it.

Not much more he could do, I don't think. He's not going to look back at this one fondly, put it that way. And you're right, this isn't one you can just put on Piastri and say this was a bad race from him, like there were a litany of things that added together to combine to this just being a really difficult day and proven at the end where he's not even on the back of Franco Colopinto trying to overtake him. Like there's a few seconds separating Piastri and Colopinto at the end of this Grand Prix. Not that it would have made much of a difference, four to six points. We know he's not in a championship fight or anything like that.

Although you could argue, certainly the Constructors Championship, them versus Ferrari still seems like it might be on for second place. Yeah, he'll just want to move on. Fortunately, we're moving on to a place where he has really fond memories, sort of. Picked up a very good win here a few years ago, also where his title charge kind of started to end last year. Yeah, I will say this about Piastri.

He needs a good weekend. He's a number of weekends in a rowing out where he's either being subpart in comparison to Norris, just purely on pace, or he's had a retirement, he had that contact with sights, of course, where he was in the league of the Grand Prix as well.

He's just not quite there. He's not grasping these regulations. In a similar vein to Russell, I believe. He just needs it to go well for him. So can I pick up his confidence? What did you make of the sort of midfield battles? Because similar to the front of the field, we kind of had a difference in strategies,

the likes of Pierre Gazley, Gabrielle Bortoletto, go very long into this race on the hard tire, whereas you had others, say Nika Holkenberg, Arvid Lindblad, Franco Colopinto, opt to use the virtual safety car, and then eventually finish pretty well, all three of them.

What did you make of the way in which that unfolded? I think, unfortunately, now understanding how the race has played out, if you're someone that's starting on the hard tire, you are doomed, realistically, from the start of this Grand Prix. It was by far the worst scratch you to be on, because of the way the BSC emerged in the time they did.

And so the likes of Gassely who tried to run all the way to that Grand Prix, the fact that he was able to run, was it 56 out of 57 laps on that hard? And I agree, you could keep going. It's all right. They were running out. He just legally had to stop for the rule. Rulcing, right? You're always going to be a negative point of view there.

The fact that there's no proper degradation between the hard tire, so the guys who stopped on the BSC and put the hard tire wrong, they're just not losing pace. They're not struggling to catch up to you, for so long that actually the benefit of stopping late anyway unless there's a safety car is just negated. You're not gaining anything.

So the likes of Colopinto who do stop under safety car, I'm going to be a series advantage for the rest of the whole Grand Prix. And I'm really glad that someone like Colopinto make advantage of that. Because he had a great qualifying, he really well, much bigger in a gasoline qualifying, which is fascinating to see.

And I was hoping that he could convert it. Also were a couple of squeaky bum time moments where he was, you know, running off the track, side by side. He leads to the midfield in this race. And that's the first time I think we can say Colopinto has led the midfield and they have a good job of it. Yeah. I kind of wanted

to highlight the Alpine battle too because I thought Pierre Gasley was outside of the five second penalty, obviously picked up for speeding in the pit lane at the very end, not that it really mattered in terms of the point scoring finishes. I think he was very, very good. It was. To the point where

he was obviously on those hard tires. Colopinto also on hard tires. but fresher ones due to having stopped under the virtual safety car, Gasly was extending the advantage. Like, Gaz, I think at one point, it was about five seconds separating them, and looked up maybe 10 laps later, and there's currently 10 seconds separating them. Gasly had really good pace on older tires.

And if anyone was going to make it work in that midfield, it was going to be him. Like Bartoletto, his tires did fade away quite a lot towards the end to the point where he wasn't able to keep up with Ghazley at all. I thought Cassidy was really good but ultimately he needed that safety car or a virtual safety car he didn't get it no unfortunately for them

quick one what did you make of the Carlos Sines Fernando Alonzo incident Carlos Sikes is like a wrecking ball today he just kept driving into people absolute Miley Cyrus absolute shortback and Sags blonde black and Bob

Miley Cyrus put the white vest on Carlos that's a quote Yeah, put the white best then. Get the guitar. Yeah, I just got a good day for Carlos Sikes. Every time there was an incident that involved Carlos Sikes, Carlos Sikes was the incident.

Or just every time there was an incident, Carlos Sites. It was Carlos Sites. Carlos Sites is Carlos Sites, the incident. New hit film. Yeah, not good. Alon has a right to be frustrating about this. I don't really understand what's going on. He hits Sagoa, of course, early on as well,

in the Grand Prix right at the start. It's just messy. And we've seen this a few times with Carlos this season now. There's a few messy moments going on there and needs to be tidied up. You know what the worst thing about this is

not the incidents themselves because I agree with the stewards. I thought it was on Carlos signs not giving Fernando Alonso enough space. I think the penalty was just. I think the worst thing is when Madrid were planning out that they were going to make a bid

to host the Spanish Grand Prix and maybe coming into this year, It's like, well, we might be in an all right spot here. We've got an ever-improving Williams where Carlos Sines has just got a couple of podiums towards the end of the year. And hold up, Adrian Newey inspired Aston Martin, with Fernando Alonzo at the wheel. One of those two could be on the podium.

One of those two could be fighting for a win when we're in Madrid for the first time. That could be incredible scenes. They're fighting over 18th because both teams suck. I mean, they're hitting each other over 18. That's even worse, right? It's not good. I think there were times where Fernando Alonzo,

very brief moments showed that the race pace was probably a bit better as it kind of has been versus the qualifying pace. I think he was able to show a little bit, but he's starting so far back because this car can't qualify. And then Williams is obviously a bit of a disaster at the moment. I mean, he beat two cars, I think, Carlos. He beat Carlos Sykes and he beat Valdri Bottas, right? Like, that's not great.

It's not good. It's not. Never mind, eh. Home races this year, by the way, outside of Antonelli, of course, in Monza. Not going very well. I think no one has been on the podium for their home grand. In the British Grand Prix, of course,

we had a couple of British drivers on the podium, but a winner, of course. Yeah. And then other than that, it's D&F Central. Pretty much. Not great. shall we do driver of the day? The verdict is in.

You're the driver of the day. You're the driver of the day. You're good at driving. Who was good at driving today, Sam? A lot of mistakes up and down the grid. You know, a lot of people, even if they didn't have anything drastic, we saw them run off the road, they kind of chican here and there.

They picked up a track minute's warning. So I'm going to go for the guy who I don't think I saw make a single mistake. wasn't on the podium or anything. Took a great job on those old hard tires, I thought it was really solid pace, tried to talk to his engineer about getting some race updates, and then they took forever to understand that as well.

I'm going for Charlotte Clare. I thought this was one of his best performances for some time now, and he was pretty mistake-free in a car that realistically on that strategy was never going to get on the podium anyway. I think that's very valid.

He was in the conversation for me as well. The people had this as kind of a close one between Charlotte-Claert and Max Verstappen. both of whom I have considered here, but I am going to go with Lando Norris. I think he just, I think he wins this race without the unfortunate virtual safety car. The fact that he, I know he didn't make them move, but the fact that he caught up to Max Verstappen, despite slow stop, despite everything that happened to him, to be within a few seconds of winning anyway, I thought he was pretty impressive. And this isn't one where we can look at this poll to third and say, that's Lando Norris's fault. I've said this a lot recently.

I am so impressed with him at the moment. I think he is in the form of his life. Despite winning a title last year, it's the best I've seen him. He's really got a level head on. And even when he got out of that car and just said, ah, it's racing. I get unlucky sometimes.

Winging that title is allowed you to just settle, I think. And suddenly I'm just really enjoying what he's providing, what he's giving us at the moment. So more of it. It will keep coming his way if he keeps delivering those kind of performances. From good to bad. Worst driver in the day. Get in the bin, bin, bin.

Worst driver of the days Worst driver of the days You suck at driving Who was not good of driving? I was going to give it to Lance Stroll for the failed donut attempt because you just lose a longer points for being uncool.

You know, it's very cool being a Formula One driver and that's the kind of thing that girls list on their like strange reasons to get the ick. It's like, can't do a donut when you need to turn around in a Formula One car. That is quite cringing, you know. But he's got off the hook here because Carlos Sites did driving to everyone and everything.

So sorry, Carlos, not that quick, not exactly meeting your teammate, and you're crashing into a lot of things. Not an ideal race. Spoiler, I've got Carlos Sons as well. You're right. It's not just the incidents. Pacewise, Alex Album was doing, I think, the better job of the Williams drivers even before. You consider everything else, including the incident at the start where he drives into Yuki-Sinoda. I think he's fortunate to get away with that, honestly.

I think he's got no damage out of that. Well, I think it's one of those where the stewards probably looked at it and went, well, no damage to either car, first lap, we're just going to leave this alone. But we've seen that incident many, many times result in damage. And I think it would have resulted in a penalty if Sonoda incurred damage as a result. Not saying I agree. I think it did. I think he did.

I think his sidewalk was slightly damage. Maybe so. But yeah, I've got Carlos Sides' worst driver of the day. And big brain strat. Fox for wets. What? It's not even raining out. What are you talking about?

Yeah, and Bob... What are you going for here? Yeah, tricky one, because there wasn't too much strats going on, you know, by pure definition of strats to think it really exists. So I am going to go for George Ross and running a two-stop, in a race that really didn't require him to run a two-stop, while the driver was advocating for them to not run a two-stop. For me, that's classic big brain strap.

Yeah, we either go clever big brain strap or... stupid, big brain strap. You've gone stupid. And I'm going to go, stupid as well. Because as awful as the two-stop was for Mercedes, I have to question what Earth McLaren were doing with Piastri's stop. I don't understand what they were doing at all. Obviously, against William Lawson, Piastri has attempted an undercut. The attempt of an undercut is to put him into traffic at a circuit where it is notoriously difficult to make any overtakes happen. he is stuck behind Collar Pinto and Bortoletto to the point where Lawson can just skip into the pits a couple of laps later and oh, I'm basically

three seconds clear of this group. I just thought that was absolutely nonsensical. And they also chose not to change the wing for the risk of falling behind that pack and then fall behind the pack anyway. And I imagine if actually they'd change the wing just accepted another three seconds, he might have had the pace to overtake them.

I think it might have been worth a go. Like, yeah, I just thought they'd played that pretty horribly. Let's take our final break on the other side. Moment of the Race. Welcome back, everyone, to the final part of today's review of the Spanish Grand Prix. Just enough time for Moment of the Race. Before we get to some of your Discord submissions,

very excited to get to those. Sam, what is your moments of the race? Mine comes from my Drive-W-The-Day, Charlotte Claire. It's a lovely radio message. I love a Radio Message Drive-W-W-the-Day. It's always funny. And that is, Hi guys, yeah, just looking for a race update.

Where am I going to come out after my pit start? What's going on? And then he uses the word, et cetera, et cetera. Only to be taught that he might be losing the gap to Russell. And they go, oh, you mean I'm losing the gap to Russell? No, no. We're managing negative, managing the gap. It's just classic Ferrari.

This is so unclear in their communication. Good job. Made me love. I considered the stroll U-turn or the failed stroll U-turn here. but I'm going to go with the incident we actually just discussed, but not the incident itself. I love a Fernando Alonzo radio message. I'm a sucker for one of those.

And animated Alonzo versus Carlos Seines, good value for money that just, he's already crashed into two people at the start, and now he's on to me. And as pointed out by the commentary, it makes it slightly funnier that this man's his hero, Fernando Alonzo. I love the idea that he's so aware of everything that's going around him as well

that he's like, right, Carlos, I've just seen you crash into one and they into two, right? Come on. You're coming at me now. He's got like a countering his head of everything that's going on. The man knows all. I think we know what he's like. Five seconds. Yeah, five seconds. He knows the rule book.

He knows what you're up to. He knows what we're doing on this show right now. It's not even live. It's just how he works. Now it's time to hear from our lovely Discord. Got some of your submissions. Thank you so much to everyone who's submitted theirs. of the race.

Really appreciate it. Let's start with... There's only one place to start, right? Start with beef. Of course. Hello. That was a bit dull, isn't it? Moment in the race, though.

A Cadillac finished. Isn't that nice? Okay, bye. Yeah, the wrong damn one from a fantasy team, though. Oh, yeah, that's tough for you. That is tough. The points will hurt you there.

I heard their stat. They've had like 11 retirements in the last eight races. That's horrific. Yeah. The problem is it just keeps being hot and the cattle I can't do hot. Shock. Motorsport goes to places that are mostly dry.

Turbulent juice is up next. Hey, y'all. Turbulent juice here. Moment of the race was not actually in the race. It was hanging out in the Discord with y'all robustly. Congratulations, Harry. Juice out. Yeah, we have a robust discise. or if you'd like to join it, the robust link is down below.

Oh, it's a robust link. And I'm sure Harry's very appreciative of all of your messages, by the way, because we've seen a lot of them. We have congratulating his marriage yesterday. So it was a robust wedding. You know what? I hadn't thought to call it that until now, but you're right. It was really robust.

Excellent. Moving on. Moving on to DJ Spin to Win. Mudring, more like a bow ring. It's DJ Spin to win. my moment of the race was watching Liam Lawson bottle the defense against George Russell, proving why he's in the racing bulls and not the Red Bull full-time. Congrats, Harry Ead, and keep breaking late.

Yeah, it was a Red Bull all that. Sick burn, though. Sensational. Yeah, good work. Yeah. Yeah. No, not Liam Lawson's finest hour. No, old tie is, so I get that it's not going to be ideal, but you did literally

just step to one side. Never mind. Wayland is up next. Hi there, Wayland here. My moment of the race was Carlos Sines, fulfilling his ambassador role for the madering circuit by crashing into everyone around him to try and keep this race interesting. Also, side note, petition for this to be called Monaco, but with the aesthetics of Slough. Crikey, Slough getting a shout out of the show. You wouldn't have Lamontu Mental in Slough. That long you meant Slough. But it's just the smallest hill you've ever seen.

I don't think there's many hills in slough to be. Precisely. It's an industrial estate. It's just the smallest incline known to man. Up next, Scooteria donkey. Hi guys, my moment the race is watching the two Spaniards, the Spanish Grand Prix,

17th and 18th, Fernando Alonso, and Carlos Seinfelds fighting over them two positions, while we have the mighty have fallen. going to read it on Guillaume. Yeah, I do like the concept that Carlos Sines and Fernando Alonzo have essentially just, if you can't win or be competitive, make this Grand Prix interesting by crushing into each other. Excellent. I'm sure the king was really enjoying that. Sure, he was. Up last today, we have K-nut. K from Canada here, and I only have one thing to say about that race, and it's robust.

Cheers, everybody. That is great analysis. I've not heard that. A Grand Prix being robust. The robust Grand Prix. Yeah. Maybe they should get a caller and call it La Robust. They'll be calling this review robust, no doubt about it.

Yeah, that's true. Thank you very much to all of your submissions. Very much appreciated. We don't have to wait too long for the next opportunity, of course, Baku in two weeks' time. And just an early shout on that one. if you don't remember or haven't seen. There's a slight change in the weekend schedule, so qualifying on Friday, the race is on Saturday.

I'm sure that will be mentioned multiple times in the next couple of weeks, but that's how the weekend is set up in Azerbaijan. I thought I was going mad when I put that in my calendar, by the way. I looked at it about a week later, I went, why have I put this on Saturday? And then, again, had to check. I had done it correctly, and I wasn't run.

Did you see Norris's little dig at the drinks, by the way, in the cool, young room? What was this? So obviously, there's Coca-Cola aren't sponsored drinks. Oh, yes, yeah, I'm with you. Right, yeah, yeah. And he sits down as a guy to drink a Coca-Cola. Someone from the staff comes and says,

you can't drink that because the race isn't sponsored by Coca-Cola. And he goes, I'll get to sing a race. I can drink whatever I want. Thank you very much. I quite enjoy that. Put your foot down, son. He just brings out of lager. Just like, I can drink what I want, actually.

He's a bottle of Yeager-Sing. I'll leave me alone. Good. Are we done? We are done. Well, at least for today. We've got some power rankings, of course, tomorrow. Back for a pre-not for a preview, back for a standard episode bit week. Indeed. If you want to hear about every driver, and I mean every driver, also have your say on what you thought their races were, then you can join Patreon.

And that's why we go through power rankings after every single Grand Prix. We go through all their races. We rank them between 1 and 10, sometimes a zero, if you're really that bad. And we talk about who I drive the deus, where I strive the day is, break it down. We have a whole thing on there. And you, the Patreon, get a say as well. And you compare against dance. It's really fun. interesting. There's loads of other benefits on there as well. We've got a classic romprew review of the 1995 European race coming up very soon as well. Loads happening. Everything's ad-free. You get video. Check it out. It massively supports the show

and allows us to keep making these podcasts for you. So thank you to everyone that's on there. Check it out. You can't see it if you're into it. Join the guest call if you're into it. Follow social media and late breaking F on everywhere. And we'll see you in the midweek for a standard newsy, fun old chit chat with some games and some banter and some old friends. It's just going to be us too. But you know, we are old friends. Boy, are at this point, yes. Anyway, in the meantime, I've been Second Sage. And I've been Ben Hocking.

And remember, keep breaking late.