Australian GP race review
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Term
overtaking
Overtaking means one race car going past another car during a race. It's an important and exciting part of car racing.
Brand
Adrian Newey
Adrian Newey is a famous person who designs race cars in Formula 1. He helps make cars faster and better for racing.
Concept
Australian Grand Prix
The Australian Grand Prix is a big car race that happens every year in Australia. It's one of the first races in the Formula 1 season where the fastest racing cars compete.
Concept
Formula One
Formula One is a type of very fast car racing with special cars that race on tracks all over the world. It's the top level of car racing that many people watch.
Term
race start
The race start is when all the cars begin the race at the same time. It's often very busy and exciting because everyone is close together.
Term
qualifying
Qualifying is a time when drivers try to drive the fastest lap to decide where they will start the race.
Term
battery
The battery in Formula 1 cars stores electricity that helps the car go faster when the driver needs extra power, like when overtaking another car.
Concept
Formula 1 (F1)
Formula 1 is a type of car racing where the fastest and most advanced cars race on special tracks around the world. It's very popular and features the best drivers and teams.
Term
regulations
Regulations are the rules that decide how race cars can be built and raced. When these rules change, teams have to adjust their cars and strategies.
Term
race launch
A race launch is when the cars start moving at the beginning of a race. How well a driver starts can change who is winning early on.
Term
traction control
Traction control is a system in cars that stops the wheels from spinning too much when you start driving, so the car doesn't slip.
Concept
sprint race
A sprint race is a short race before the main big race that helps decide where drivers start in the main race.
Term
DRS
DRS is a special system in Formula One cars that helps them go faster by reducing wind resistance. Drivers use it to pass other cars more easily.
Term
boost button
The boost button is a control in some race cars that the driver presses to get extra power for a short time to go faster and pass other cars.
Concept
Pirelli era
The Pirelli era means the time when all Formula One cars used tires from one company called Pirelli. These tires wore out fast, so drivers had to stop and change them more often, making races more exciting at first.
Brand
Bridgestone
Bridgestone is a company that made tires for Formula One cars before Pirelli. Their tires lasted a long time, so drivers didn't have to stop to change tires as much.
Term
overtakes
An overtake is when one race car passes another car during a race, which makes the race more exciting to watch.
Term
pace
Pace means how fast a driver or car can go during a race or practice. If you have good pace, you can keep up with or beat other drivers.
Concept
rookies
Rookies are new drivers who are racing for the first time in a series. They are still learning and gaining experience.
Concept
biggest winner and biggest loser
This is a part of the show where they talk about who did the best and who did the worst in the race weekend.
Car
Scuderia Ferrari
Scuderia Ferrari is Ferrari's team in Formula 1 racing. They have a long history and are very famous.
Brand
McLaren
McLaren is a famous car company from Britain that makes very fast race cars and sports cars. They compete in Formula 1 racing, which is the top level of car racing.
Term
P-Wat
P-Wat is a made-up number for a race position that you have to guess. It makes guessing who finishes where more fun and random.
LIVE
Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the B1 podcast with Matt and Tommy, the first
race of the brand new regulations done, dusted in the locker, we can talk about it. I don't
something to celebrate because we were concerned with the likes of Esteban Ocon. I think we
also had Adrian Newey saying about overtaking leading into the season and how difficult
it was going to be. But enter really strange battery things. Tommy, how are you feeling
after that one?
I'm feeling good. It was quite a watch. It was insane. Those first few laps which we'll
get into were madness. We certainly started with a bang or a surge of battery power.
No, no, no, no, no, no, that's going to stop immediately. Right, before we get into all
of that, first and foremost, it's Australian Grand Prix, which means I need to tell you
about the P1 live show Tour Tickets for Australia. We are heading there in less than two months.
There'll be a link in the description of the YouTube as well as in the episode notes if
you're listening on audio. Few tickets left at some of the venues. We'd love to sell them
out and have such an awesome time. We're going to anyway. But if you want to come along,
we'd love to see you in Australia because God knows when we're going to be back. It's
quite a long journey, but I'm very excited for the trip.
And secondly, a quick shout out to our wonderful patrons who'll be getting extra chat at the
end of every race review. So make sure if you join the P1 patron, you get lots of amazing
benefits, one of them of course being ad-free listening, but also getting this extra chatter
that we have after every single race review, access to our Discord, early access to P1 live
tickets and so on and so forth. We're also running a special offer at the moment. You
can get 20% off an annual membership to our Patreon right now. So you can get a whole
year's membership for under $40. That's two free months on us. It's only available for
newer annual subscribers and it expires at the end of March. So make sure you get over
there right now. Hit the link in the show notes or go to patreon.com forward slash Matt P1 Tommy.
Shall we get into the first question or do you have anything to kind of mention beforehand?
I won't because otherwise it's going to be a seven hour podcast. It might be anyway,
based on how that race went. So yeah, let's get into the first question.
So much to get into. So let's start with P1 patron member. Edith is my middle name.
How bad did the Australian Grand Prix curse hit Oscar Piatri? Now, we're not even talking about
the lights going out because things kicked off prior to that Oscar Piatri going to the grid,
not even the formation lap. He's outdone Isaac Hadja from last year and going to the grid,
he has crashed in the first sector. And it's absolutely devastating to have seen this.
My heart goes out to all the Aussie fans. Of course, I've just spoken about the P1
live show tour that we're going to do in Australia. There's a lot of you that listen
from Australia. You might just be an Oscar Piatri fan anyway, and massively tough to watch.
I've listened to his interview afterwards, a mixture of things, variables. The main thing
he said that it was him, he said a large part is me, but also mentioning that there was 100
kilowatts more power than he anticipated. He, of course, hit the exit curb, cold tires,
had a problem with the battery as well when he came out of the pits.
So a lot of things to talk about. But overall, there is driver error there as well,
and I'm sure Oscar Piatri will sleep rather terribly tonight.
Yeah, it's devastating for all the fans and Oscar himself that there was so much expectation
going into the race. You saw all the fans in the grandstand wearing those special edition
Oscar Piatri caps and stuff. It was after everything that happened last year, how he
came onto the scene, almost won the world championship, even more hype around him this
year than ever going into this new year, and it is not even started the race.
We mentioned about the Australian Grand Prix curse, and I put them as my biggest flop,
basically thinking, surely that can undo the curse, and it doesn't even make the
start of the race. It's absolutely gutting for him.
It really is. So not the start to the season that Oscar would have liked. Of course, McLaren
were miles off come the end of the Australian Grand Prix. It was not as if he was in for a
shout of the win, so I guess in some weird way. Or even maybe a podium.
Yeah, exactly. I don't think McLaren would know when near the podium either. So
in some weird way, that should be some kind of comfort to Australian fans.
Very little. But I mean, when you're at the track, you want to see your favourite driver
racing around regardless of where they finish. And it's generally Australia fans watching at home.
They'll know that they haven't missed out on an Oscar win at the very least.
Yeah, it's a slight healing bit that you've taken. I've been through a lot. It helps a little bit.
You don't know yet. You've had one moment in the wall that you don't know struggle when it comes
to Formula One. But yeah, big hugs going out to all Oscar-Piastry fans because that is not
the way to start the season. And the unknown of the F1 2026 cars, all of the different things
that can happen with it, they just don't know what's going to happen with it. And that's the
good thing in terms of the chaos that we saw today, but also the bad thing in some ways because of
there are elements that we're going to talk about today that can be safety concerns,
can be things that could cause us some serious talking points later on in the year.
Yeah, for sure. I think the unpredictability of the power deployment of course Oscar-Piastry is
basically said mostly me. But yeah, the drivers are getting caught out a lot of the time by how
much power they're getting here and how much power they're getting there. And that's something we saw
literally right from the very start of the race. So Tommy, let's start with your first memorable
moment of the year. It has to be that race start. And those first few laps, it was absolute carnage.
If we were saying last year that nothing happened at the start of the race, it was a qualifying
championship and all this kind of stuff. My word is it the opposite. It was literally like
press a button to shuffle the pack immediately after qualifying. Going into turn one, I can't
believe it happened. We said on the watch along absolute cinema that Leclerc, your prediction
forth to first actually happened. We said, are Ferrari going to be able to utilize this start?
It's a short run down to turn one. Is it all just overplayed? Hamilton as well. Unbelievable
start gets right up there as well. And we just saw absolute chaos at the start. It wasn't even just
the Ferraris. Limblad was third on the first lap at one point. Antonelli down to seventh.
You had Alonso, which we didn't even see on the coverage go from 17th to 10th. It was just
absolute. You didn't know where to look. And those first few laps from the expectation of
thinking that George Russell was about to win the race by 40 laps clear of the field,
they were swapping positions left, right and centre. It was absolutely insane.
It was unbelievable. I didn't know where to look. That's the beauty of the starts at the moment in
2026. You're like, okay, so it looks like Antonelli's had a slowest weight. Charlotte,
what about Hajar? Hajar looks like it. But Leclerc. And then all of a sudden,
Leclerc is going down the inside of George Russell to take the lead in what is quite a
short run down towards turn one. Now, there were a few factors there. One, of course, being that
the Ferrari starts are unbelievable. But two, something that we learned afterwards was that
both the Mercedes didn't have any battery going down towards turn one, which if we can keep that
up for the rest of the year, just to make things a little bit fair, thank you. I also want to send
a present to the race starts director, who the pre-start felt like it was about three seconds
long. And then the lights went on. And I'm not kidding. As soon as that fifth light went up,
it went off again. It was the quickest start I can remember. And that in itself, I think even
Charles said it was a bit cheeky. And I can't believe he was the one to say that of all the
people because he benefited massively from it. But yeah, those first few laps were incredible.
You had back and forth, yo-yoing. You had the battery, which, you know, I know that there are
people that sit on the fence about it. There are people that are very vocal. One way of being
like, oh, that was amazing. Others saying, is that really real racing if it's just all done with
battery deployment? We'll get into all of that discussion a little bit later on. But
that start to the 2026 season was epic. And not just because Charles Leclerc took the lead.
I just looked actually to see who the official F1 starter was to see if they were Italian.
No, it was Rebecca Lee from the UK. So yes, it was funny. You mentioned it just then that
all this talk of how they're going to get off the line and then adding this new procedure
where they have to take a bit longer, it was, no, let's just get going. Go for it.
And the fourth, after the fourth light, it was just kind of like, go. It was so, so quick.
The fourth light?
That's right. Fourth, it just went like fourth, fifth and out. It was just so quick.
The 2026 season has started and Tommy with numbers is already out the window.
No, what I meant was that it was literally like, you barely even saw the fifth light
because it was just like fifth and out. And it was, it was insane. And I just can't,
I thought that we're getting too hyped about this Ferrari launch. Surely it's not as bad.
Are we getting overexcited? Whether it happens again, because as you said that the fact that
Mercedes had zero percent on their battery as they made the start meant that it was kind of
terrible for them. And it's worse that it possibly could have gone. But yeah, what we saw there
was insane. And then it continued as well. Like once Leclerc got into the lead, our predictions
were that it would be Russell, motorway pass, see you later, 40 seconds on the road after lap three.
And instead, they were swapping constantly.
They certainly were. Let's get into a question from P1Patreon member OscarGlazer
Were we too harsh on the 2026 cars? Now, this one I found very interesting, especially in our,
in our watch along where people are like, so, you know, how do you see the season now? Hey,
guys, after that start, I don't take anything back. I don't, I don't take a single thing back
about what I've said about the regulations in the cars up until this point. There are still very
visible, obvious problems with these cars. And that's why we've had a good race. Like
the comments I made after qualifying, you know, after seeing Max's car and saying
that the cars are awful and this sort of stuff, that is still true. Like the qualifying
and as well, you have to remember that during qualifying and during that day, we didn't know
what we're going to see today. So, so we are experiencing a Saturday that we've got used to
for so many years, so many seasons of being almost sometimes the best part of the weekend,
be a farce and seeing them decelerating, downshifting on straights. Of course,
we're going to be like that. That is still an apparent definite problem. What we've seen today
is the start of new regulations, so many different changes, meaning that the drivers and the teams
are not ready. They're not fully prepared at this point. And that's why we've seen such
unpredictability, which is great to watch. We love sport that is unpredictable and especially
with F1 that can be so predictable sometimes because we literally qualify them from fastest to
slowest. So, I don't take anything back about it. I still think the cars are, they need refining or
whatnot. There's talk, of course, after qualifying, these regulations are going to stay.
I guarantee F1 are now putting their feet up going, well, have you seen what happened today?
Did you see Leclerc and Russell switching positions?
That was the first half less than the race. The second half of the race was a different story.
I think you've hit the nail on the head. We were being harsh about the cars because the cars
are not good. And in qualifying, we're commenting on the qualifying and a Formula One car
should not be losing speed on a straight. It's Formula One. That means it's the best formula.
It is the pinnacle of motorsport. And it's embarrassing to see a car. It was an embarrassing
watch watching qualifying where they were losing power. They were doing all this
lift and coasting and things because that's not what qualifying is. It should be about going
as quick as possible. The two things can coexist. We can complain and a lot of that
amazing excitement from the start was because the 2026 cars are an absolute handful and they
don't know how to do it. The reason that George Russell didn't just lead from turn one like we
normally see is because he said he had no battery at the start. So all these problems with the cars
that they're experiencing is what made that start and those first few laps absolute cinema
basically because they were swapping positions all the time. I do think that the, and we'll
probably go into this, that the boost and all that kind of stuff is something that's
made those two cars kind of stick together and produce better racing.
But I still stand by the fact that the cars aren't up to scratch and I think we'll see probably
as they, I think so much of that excitement and craziness was because they just didn't know
what they were doing at this stage. So it's more of an argument for let's just get rid of practice.
There you go. It took 14 minutes into the first recipe.
Turn this into getting rid of practice. You are ridiculous that we're like, yes,
these cars need to improve. They need to understand the cars.
It shows they need less data. Yeah, they need less data.
They need less data, but they just need more and some less understanding over every single
little thing. So it's all run perfectly. That's what made that start because it was so unknown and
people didn't know whether to go absolutely crazy and use all the battery and push at the start
or save it and do this. And yeah, that's what made it crazy.
Let's get into another question from P1PatreonMember. S Madeline Crash cars,
are race starts going to be even more exciting now with teams like Ferrari having super launches
being able to slingshot the field? It really makes the starts more fun to watch.
It does. As I said, it's like shuffling the pack at the start because it's crazy. What I would say
is if you're enjoying it, make the most of it because teams will work out how to do it.
It reminds me of the Pirelli era where it was absolute carnage when the teams didn't know how
to deal with these new tires and they were so used to doing something one way. And eventually,
the first few races in 2011 were absolute carnage. It was chaos. And then as the season progresses,
they understand, they get all their data, they understand what's going on,
because we've never had a race before. We can have practice starts and things and they're
doing their simulation runs and they can do everything on their computers and simulators
and everything like that. But we have not had a Grand Prix where there's so many different
variables and people stalling and people with 0% power and some people with loads of power.
And that is why that race start was so chaotic. I would be amazed if by round eight, it's still
like that. Maybe even round four because I think it's that they will understand what's going on.
And you know, that is one thing Mercedes won the race, but they will be bashing their heads
together now and working out how they can make sure that they don't have another situation
where they have 0% battery when they start the race. So I think a lot of it was the fact
that it was just completely brand new and we didn't know what to expect.
For sure. I don't think there's an exact timeline that we can predict with this one,
because it is such a massive overhaul of the regulations. Obviously, as Charle Clair Ferrari
fan, I'm hoping they don't figure out in the slightest and Ferrari have 24 incredible race
launch starts the entire season. I think the race starts will be interesting no matter what.
Yes, the 0% battery was what caused Russell to not keep the lead, but Ferrari still had an
excellent start and that's part of their philosophy within what they've developed and what they've
created for this year. So I firmly believe that Ferrari will continue throughout the season to
have better launches than others, but to expect forth the first every weekend is probably a bit
of a stretch. But yes, it's cool. It's awesome to have those elements, those things you're watching
out for. It reminds me, as we've spoken about before, when Renault back in the day used to have
essentially just traction control off the line and they were rocket ships. This is very similar
to that and it does throw the form book out a little bit because it mixes up the grid
after lap one. So you don't have the fastest car necessarily leading the race. And that's what I
watch Formula One for. So exciting times on a Sunday and hopefully more exciting Sundays to come.
Next question for people on picture. Remember, is this the opposite of the qualifying championship
that we saw in 2025? I think that it will become less apparent as we've just spoken about. I think
it will close up in the sense of we won't see as much change as the season goes on in positions
off the grid. I still think qualifying is going to have a very important part. Of course it has.
If you're on pole position, you're not really going to be unless you have an Antonelli start
every weekend falling too far back and then Mercedes clearly have the fastest car.
So it's hard to say at the moment. We didn't have a big enough testing pool of laps to see
just how effective the boost and the overtake mode combination will be across a whole race.
Had we seen Ferrari match Mercedes strategy, we would have seen, okay, can a team that is
maybe three, four tenths of laps slower in race trim hold on because they're within one second
and we get racing. So that is a question I don't think we can say is answered yet.
But I would say definitely there is less impetus on a Saturday, which is probably good because
we still think that's a farce. So I'm glad that Saturdays aren't the things that we're going,
oh, at least we've had a good qualifying. It seems like Sunday might be the day that we celebrate
more. It does. It does feel very opposite to that, when unfortunately the sacrifice in
these new regulations has so far been qualifying because we've made our big criticisms about
the cars and not seeing them pushing everything. But if we get exciting races where qualifying
isn't a much of a thing and Formula One in a weird way has always had that problem,
they can't do anything else, that they want close racing and they want to see
unpredictability and they want overtaking. But in a sport where you put the fastest people at
the front and the slowest people at the back, that is literally the hardest possible and most
difficult way you're ever going to get overtaking because the fast people at the front slow people
at the back. So I think with this, we're going to see a lot more action, I think at the start
of the race, as we saw, and one thing that's maybe with an eye on next week, the fact of
being a sprint, our biggest criticisms has always been that nothing happens in that first phase of
a race. If everything happens in the first phase of a race, the sprints are going to be epic.
Very true, very true. That's a great point because drivers clinging on for places that
they've managed to gain at the start. Limblad, for example, a great example going from
wherever he was on the grid, ninth, wasn't he? Ninth to third, yeah. In the first part of the
race, it's ridiculous. So yes, I think that I'm not going to do it. Okay, I'm a little bit.
You're saying Ferrari are going to finish 1-2 in the sprint in China, aren't you?
They're winning it all. They're winning every sprint this year. That's what I've just said.
But yeah, let's see how that one unfolds.
Speaking of Ferrari, let's move to my most memorable moment. But before we do it,
I'm going to cuddle the flag just for a bit because... No, there are... It's on my chair
looks so bizarre. Yeah, you look like Quasimodo. Okay, let's try it. Ferrari, my most memorable
moment is about the strategy. Don't get me wrong. Ferrari strategy, we're going to talk about it.
Do I go with good or bad first? I think let's start with good because I think it'll
tail off into bad. Good things, right? Good things. One, I am proud of Ferrari for actually
creating a car that is towards the front. Okay, I'm going to say it straight up. This could have
easily been fourth fastest territory every day of the week for Ferrari. But no, they've created
a car that is incredible at the start. It allowed Charles Leclerc to take the lead
from fourth on the grid and their race pace was pretty damn solid. Not far off Mercedes,
considering what we expected coming into Sunday from what we saw in qualifying.
Now let's talk about the strategy, which unfortunately is not as positive.
I am of the opinion they could have challenged for the race win had they
matched Mercedes strategy. I am, you might see me as delusional, coping, all that sort of stuff.
But as I said earlier, we don't have a massive test pool to know whether the
at the overtake mode can help a car to stay with a faster car the entire race.
But from the small amount of laps that we saw, that's exactly what happened.
There was a massive yo-yo effect. Russell and Leclerc constantly swapping positions. Russell
was saying, I think after the races, what he was mentioning about a lot of understeer in the car
and to do with, I think it's the transition between the straight mode and the corner mode
and things like that. So he was struggling to follow and stay with Charles Leclerc or at least
extend that second gap that he needed to be able to maybe drive away from Charles Leclerc.
So why on earth? Tommy, are you good? Are you doing some exercises?
No, no, I mean, you can carry on. It looks like you're doing the Superman impression
whilst I'm talking about Ferrari strategy for God's sake. If you're on audio, go watch on
YouTube as Tommy was doing something. I know you were listening. That's fine. Well, Frank,
you didn't care about your fries, had enough. Yeah, good. All right, see you later, Frank. Don't care.
So I've lost my train of thought now. But with Ferrari, I think that, yes, I think they should
have absolutely matched the strategy of Mercedes. I can't believe that they thought that they'd
be able to beat Mercedes when they've just given them about 10 seconds of race time
with their own strategy. That is an absolute example of Ferrari looking at their data and going,
well, yeah, the one stop is the fastest race time. So let's do that. Not taking into account what
we've just seen at the start of the race where Leclerc can genuinely fight Russell on the same
tyre and stick with him. Yeah. Let's not pit. We didn't learn anything from Qatar when McLaren
didn't pit under a safety car and then had to be insanely quicker than everybody else. Of course,
not a like for comparison. I'm being a bit silly there. I knew immediately when they did not pit.
So did Hamilton. Hamilton was like, why has not one of us pit? You've got to pit. It wasn't that
far away from the first pit stops anyway. It's a cheap pit stop. If you lose track position to
Mercedes, so be it. You've at least gained in the pit lane and it gives them a better chance.
The more and more I talk about it, the more angry I'm getting, as you can tell.
I think people will say you're deluded for saying that they can win, even if you don't believe that
they could. Yeah, exactly. Even if you don't think they could have won, at the very least,
I think doing that strategy of pitting with Mercedes, they're beating maybe Antonelli
or splitting the strategy. They've got a lot better chance. Like you say,
they're too busy looking at a computer and seeing what the optimum race strategy is and not reading
a race themselves. And this is the problem with, you see many times with Formula One,
where they just go on all this data and they go, oh, the tyres are going to fall off on this lap
and blah, blah, blah. I mean, look at Lando. Lando shouldn't have been able to hold off Max,
but he did with this kind of tire disadvantage and stuff. All the simulations would have said
that Max would have breezed past then and it didn't happen. As much as they say that everything's
about data and all these computer simulations and stuff, it's not always right. And the evidence
was there at the start of the race that the best tactic, and it's something that we thought we
would see even more with DRS, and we kind of did a little bit with DRS trainings, is that the boost
you get with the new kind of boost overtake mode thing. We need to be careful with our terminology
because boost is different. It's overtake mode. Sorry, the new overtake mode is because they
aren't showing it and I keep forgetting which one it is. There is a boost button, which the
overtake mode, so with the overtake mode, you can stick with a car. And I think that had they
not made that amazing start, I think the Mercedes are gone. But Antonelli dropped down to seventh
and that overtake button that they had meant that Shell could pass and repass. As soon as
Russell got ahead, we were joking, we're saying game over, and he got past him again, and then
George got past him, and then Charles got past him again. It was because of that overtake button
and the extra power you have being within a second, you could stick with them. So you have got a huge,
like not a huge disadvantage, but because they had better race space. But we saw they put eight
tenths, Mercedes put eight tenths on them in qualifying. So they should have been long gone,
but they were in a situation where they could basically hang on to that merc. So you just
follow them. And that is your best chance. So why they didn't go with it is insane enough
to not go with it for either driver is absolute insanity. I completely agree with Hamilton,
why you wouldn't at least try it with Hamilton. And yes, Charles Leclerc might be unhappy if
Hamilton finished second and Charles finishes fourth when he's ahead. But it's all about
optimizing your race result. And I can't believe they didn't at least try it. It's crazy.
Yeah, well, I mean, I'm of the opinion they should have picked both. Hamilton, of course,
would have had to double stack. But the very least they should have done one.
I think maybe with Hamilton, had they picked both, Hamilton would have had to double stack.
And then I'm thinking about where they were fine. They both did it because it was four of them
together, wasn't it? Yeah, of course. So yeah, Mercedes clearly understood what we were thinking.
And this is something I said on the watch along where I'm sat here, I'm going,
how, because I think on reflection, at the very least, Ferrari lost time compared to what they
did. Say they finished in exactly the same positions if they'd gone in with Mercedes,
it was not the fastest strategy. How are we as fans sat here, knowing this and going,
well, that's the right choice. And teams with all this data, Ferrari, the multi-million-pound
simulations. Yeah, in Formula One. How are they not seeing that? This is something that's unfolded
time and time and time again. And yes, there's new regulations, but track position is still king
and will always be king in Formula One, not track position, but not having had pit,
which is what they decided. Instead, they would have come out in front of George with
Charlie, it would have been a much more interesting race. But also the absolute
chasm that ended up with how far McLaren and Max in the end had no real race pace compared to them.
So it's third and fourth or a chance at first and second. So you take it.
Okay, deep breath. Let's go to another question from people on Patreon member Grubbly.
Did the VSCs ruin this race?
Yes, I think they did because of Ferrari's strategy. I think that they,
as we've just mentioned, went for something different and then it was a time trial. And
when it's a time trial and you know that one team is quicker, you're like, meh,
okay, cool, race over. And that's kind of what happened. It was very much a tale of two halves
this race today. So had we not had them, I mean, to be honest with you,
the second, we're saying VSC plural, we had the VSC that didn't really change anything,
which was the second VSC, I think, where the Marshal went out and picked up that end plate.
So I don't think I can really blame the VSC as such. I'm blaming more Ferrari's strategy here.
Yeah, definitely. The VSC wouldn't have ruined the race if they'd all pitted together because
they all still would have come out together. Which is weird to think, isn't it? Like,
everybody pits, like last year, if everybody had pit under the virtual safety car, we'd go,
ah, well, that's it, game over. Whereas this one was the opposite.
Yeah, exactly. And this is what we have with this kind of situation where they needed to be with
Mercedes because they were dragging them along. And that is what worked for them at the start
of the race. So they should have continued that throughout. They did not at all make
advantage of the fact that Antonelli had such a poor start. And we'll talk about Antonelli later,
like his race and whole weekend was absolute chaos. But I don't think the VSC ruined the
race as such. It just gave, yes, it gave Mercedes a free pit stop. But we've seen so many times that
these teams are so scared of hitting the cliff and, oh, Antonelli even was saying,
this is going to be a struggle. I'm not going to be able to do it. Oh, look, look how much the
tyres are ruined. Lando as well, you know, saying, I'm not going to be able to get this medium tyre
this far, no chance. Or when he pitted for the new tyres and things. So so many drivers come on
board. But but they seem to be able to do fine. And as you say, the track position is is still key
to a point because we saw that in other situations. For sure. Question from cooked by 11 underscore.
Do you think Hamilton can beat Charles this year considering how fast he was?
I think so. He's definitely more comparable. After qualifying, it was a bit like, oh, no.
If we is it happening again? Particularly hearing quotes from Hamilton saying everything was great
until I got into qualifying. I mean, that was Lewis Hamilton bingo in from 2022 to 2025 seemed
to happen all the time. But the fact that he managed to get that amazing start. And have the
have the pace as well to, you know, he caught up that lead pack. And we thought, you know, at that
point, you have two Ferraris against one Mercedes, which should should be a big advantage. And yeah,
it's only one race. But it's great to see Hamilton at the front again. Because he he definitely had
the the pace of Charles, they looked almost completely even really like comparable. And
yes, exciting to see. I definitely think that we're going to see the old Lewis Hamilton back
this year. And it's good to see. Yeah, judging by this race, Lewis can beat
Charles this year. I am hesitant to lock in that that Lewis will beat Charles across the season
when you actually look at last year. And we had Lewis winning the China sprint. And we're going,
Oh, my God, he's amazing. And then look how the rest of the season unfolded. So
let's not jump the gun here. But I do think it's a very promising start for Hamilton for sure. Like
he was he should have outqualified Leclerc, I think, had things gone slightly better with
the deployment and energy. And then today as well, I believe, well, we saw at the end,
he caught right up to Charles and had there been a lap or two more, he would have, he would have
beaten him and overtaken him. So I am as a Charles Leclerc fan wanting Charles to lock in.
Let's let's, you know, let's not let's not get beaten this year. But I have a lot of
excitement as well for the for these two being close, because I want to see them race will to
will because that's that's the awesome thing, you know, you Tommy have said, you know, you
when you have a favorite driver, I don't know what this feels like. But when they win every race,
you kind of want them to race other people to really see their will to will craft. But we saw
today with George and Charles, they're both great will to will racers in my opinion. And
and we saw that today, very respectful as well. Even if George said at one point,
Charles was a bit naughty with that was never a penalty in a million years. No,
no chance. And that is me fully biased. He made one move. So it was it was fine. And they made
the right choice there. Yeah, it was it was like a little bit marginal in the sense of how much
he moves across there. But yeah, it was aggressive. But it was within the rules in my opinion.
Okay, people on Patreon member Evan BP roll DRS versus boost mode. How are we feeling after the
first race worth the change for the great first few laps we saw? How are we feeling now that
DRS has gone? It was clearly making a much bigger impact at this stage of the regulations,
where teams are still trying to figure out deployment. Something I found really interesting
was of course, the George, Charles battle was epic. And they were constantly overtaking each
other back and forth, back and forth. But what I also found really interesting is, of course,
they're dumping battery to try and overtake each other. But for lap time, they were absolutely
just loot, they were destroying their overall lap time by a couple of seconds a lap at points.
That's why Hamilton and Antonelli. Yeah, exactly. So I found that quite interesting,
actually. I'm not trying to push the narrative of where they're in qualifying.
Look at the way the energy is deploying down the straight. Look at the way they're empty. No,
we don't care about that. But what I did find interesting was the lap time difference and how
other people can come into play very quickly if you don't efficiently use your battery,
like you would be normally without battling. So there's a lot of positives, I think,
about this one, especially as I say from the first race of the season. What I will say is that it
does have a very dangerous, there's a dangerous possibility that it could become quite farcical.
If we see yo-yo overtakes lap after lap after lap after lap after lap after lap after lap,
then it could almost, for some people, desensitize an overtake. So that was something when I first
saw in a few laps, I was like, well, I hope they're not going to yo-yo every lap. I hope they're
going to go side-by-side and do that kind of thing. Because that's what we want. We want them to be
close and battling into corners, which we did see. But that's the kind of one hesitation I
had of future Grand Prix is that I hope the overtakes actually mean something when they happen.
But that's maybe because also I've watched Formula One for so many years where overtakes
have meant a lot because usually you can't come back straight away and immediately. But
overall, a very positive sentiment, I would say.
It's a tough balance how you see it. And it's too early to judge based on one race. But we've
maybe got more of what we were hoping, if this does continue in the passing and repassing,
that we kind of hoped with DRS. And I think you will miss DRS more than I will. I personally
think DRS itself was a bit of a gimmick anyway. I do appreciate probably less so and the drivers
are controlling it or whatever. But I don't think with DRS, other than that brilliant start
in 2022 with Leclerc and Verstappen and the two Alpenes in Saudi Arabia, we maybe didn't see as
much as we kind of hoped with the whole swapping positions and then the other person gets DRS,
then they swap back and all this kind of stuff. Whereas we did with this whole new situation
where you're getting the overtaken and everything behind another car. So I think it's too early
to judge. I do agree that it can get farcical. Again, I'm going to mention the Pirelli era,
that so far this has reminded me of that a lot. I know it's only the first race. But we were so
bored of boring races when we had bridge stones that could last the entire race.
They brought in Pirelli's. Michael Schumacher was saying that they drive like eggs and they just
disintegrate. And there's all this talk of the Pirelli tires are terrible, but it made incredible
racing and people were passing each other left, right and centre. You had people going like four,
five seconds a lap quicker because they'd pitted for new rubber and making their way through the
field. And when it first happened, everyone was absolutely loving it. And then it got halfway
through the season and people were going, it's just too farcical and too crazy and too silly.
It's a balance in Formula One and they're never going to make every single person happy. There'll
be people that love DRS. I didn't like it personally. I think it created too many trains and we saw
overtakes only happening in certain zones. That's what I didn't like about it. But then
some people that grew up with it might be like, oh, DRS was way better than what we've got now.
So they're never going to impress everyone. But I think it's too early to say if it's
the perfect thing at the moment. For sure. We're going to need a lot more
races to give a full opinion on this. What I find absolutely mad is I think it was Lando
that said it after the race. I might be wrong with this. One of the drivers said that they didn't
know when their energy was going to run out. So they're literally going down the straight and then
all of a sudden they lose all of their power. I think this is on the defense rather than on the
attack. And I find that insane. The fact that they don't know when they're going to run out of power
and therefore they're almost just having to react in the moment of the speed that the car is doing
before the next braking zone. So there's a lot less at this stage anyway. I'm sure they'll
implement changes. A lot less on the sort of memory and the muscle memory of doing lap after
lap after lap. And I think that's a small reason as to why Oscar Piastri crashed going to the grid
is that there are these question marks over how the car is going to behave.
But it's really interesting. We said a most long power lottery, basically,
how much power are you going to get now? Find out. The power lottery without the power lottery
under braking and the fact that it can affect the brakes depending on what state of charge and
how your engine braking is performing. And we're not going to go into the absolute nitty gritty
of it all. But the fact that there is a lottery on that side, I don't like. And I will continue to
say that a driver under brakes should know what they have underneath them. I don't want to see
mistakes because of the car doing silly things. I want to see mistakes because the driver's pushing
too hard. So overall, boost mode, I think has the kind of, what's the word? Quite so early.
I'm optimistic. Potential. That's the word. It's a very simple word, isn't it? The potential
to be great if we can just refine a few things and make it maybe slightly less fast. But right now,
I think we're in a much better position than we could have been. I was fully anticipating
a two-hour rant-a-thon after today where nobody overtook and it was going to be terrible. But
that's not what we saw. Yes, the second half of the race was a lot more back to Formula 1 as we
know it. But that's because the gaps were big. But then even still, we saw someone like Gasly
and Ocon were swapping positions every lap it felt like and that battle could last a long time.
Well, we're on this topic, actually. It's probably worth mentioning about, because you were saying
there about you were lining up a rant. I was also going to be very critical about the fact that
it didn't look like we were ever going to see any kind of battery deployment.
And we did. Halfway through the race, they started showing us. Did it break? Did it break?
I don't know. We're going to get it probably halfway, maybe halfway through the race.
Yeah, I'm really weird that they decided that. But at least we got to see some of it because
there was talk of, you know, push to pass an Indy car is on the timing tower. You see it all the
time. But I did like the fact that, yeah, when we were watching a battle on screen, we could see
the difference between the two where they were kind of using the battery and stuff.
Yeah, just simplifying it.
Yeah, it's simple. You don't want it to be too complicated, because I think the biggest criticism
of these new rules is there is so much to get your head around. And they did the opposite thing
in testing that we were complaining about, where they almost got like a rulebook graphic,
where it was just page after page after page after page. There's this, there's this, there's
you don't want to do that, because that's just confusing. So I think credit to them,
they did a good job with that.
Yeah, there's the graphic that was, I think it was Norris and Verstappen were fighting,
and there was a simple battery percentage. I know that Formula One isn't that simple,
and it's not just a battery, and that's it. There's the boost, the overtake, etc, etc.
What I wasn't a fan of was what we maybe saw in qualifying, I want to say, where it was like
on boards, and then you have this amazing sort of visual display, and you have the speedometer,
and this, that, and the other, then you had like deploy down the right hand side, you had boost
over here, you had the main battery there. It's too much. You just have to simplify it for the main
audience. Okay, I always got more battery than the other one. Always overtaking. Now it makes sense
as to why this overtake has happened. That's all that needs to be done. So please use those battery
percentages more, maybe even implement it to the graphics. I don't like the actual timing tower.
I don't mind something, just something to tell us who has not got battery and who has battery,
and that is all we need. But then I'd argue that it's not like Formula E where it's going down the
whole race, it's up and down, and that might look a bit too busy, wouldn't it? Yeah, it might look
a bit too busy, agreed. But just bringing it up for battles, I think is a great solution.
Question from Pete Sirke Gibbon. Based on Verstappen's pace and performance in the race,
do you think Max could go for the title? Is he in the mix if he qualifies near the top end of the
grid? No, I don't think so. You could call me delusional for saying that he was 20th. I know
qualified well, but before his very unlucky and unfortunate DNF, he had dropped back.
Their race pace doesn't look anywhere near as good as they thought, because Verstappen had got up
there quite quickly, actually, and then didn't really make any progress and was stuck behind
Lando. Had he qualified better, I still think he's finishing fifth, a fifth at most, and obviously
he was sixth in the end. I don't think at the moment they've got the performance,
and that's the disappointing thing, as a Max fan, that they can't fight, definitely not the Mercedes,
but even Ferrari at the moment. Those two race bases are too strong, and then there seems to be a
gap where Red Bull are in. We know Red Bull can turn it around. They did last year. At the start
of last year, we were talking about Max Verstappen maximising his points and finishing P2 realistically
because it was a wet race and almost challenging for the lead, but there were other races where
their pace was really poor. They've got a baseline to improve on, but at the moment,
they are way off a race base, I think. I think it's too early to say that he can't go for the
title, I'll be honest. We have to see how these cars and these teams develop over the first
third of the race season because we don't know. We don't know how this is going to develop. Max
could have absolutely qualified third place, probably would have finished behind both Mercedes
and both Ferraris. The problem for him is that Red Bull need to turn it around quick,
real quick because not only do they need to beat Mercedes, but Ferrari are also there as well.
So Max will lose a heap load of points every single weekend, and he's also finishing behind
McLaren. You're not losing 10 points for a race. You're losing 15, 20. I think Max would have beaten
Lando had he started in front of him, but to say that it's 24 races, but they need to figure out
in the first five. Otherwise, he's going to be several race wins behind what will most likely be
George Russell, and it might well be unassailable before it's even begun. So I'm trying to be
slightly less pessimistic than you, Tommy, that thinks it's all over. There's obviously a charge,
and Red Bull, when we made our predictions for the entire championship table,
we said, didn't we? And part of my reason was there's development as well, and obviously
this team have started very strong. Mercedes, Ferrari, but last year Ferrari also had good
moments and didn't develop, and then other years Ferrari have started slow and come strong at the
end. So we've seen many times in Formula One, particularly now with how they do the upgrades
and trying to keep it as close as possible, that teams can catch up. So pray to God that it does,
because if we get Max in the mix as well, it's going to be very exciting.
Yeah, McLaren and Red Bull have their work cut out, because both of them were miles away. Lando
didn't have the starting P20 problem, and he still finished 53 odd seconds behind the lead.
I just need to share something with you that I've seen, because as we mentioned at the start of
the show, when we were talking about like, were we too harsh on the cars? Did we complain too
much? And things like that. And we said, you just bet that F1 are going to be like, look,
it's perfect. It's amazing. See, we told you Formula One have just posted a graphic being like
action everywhere you look. And it said 45 overtakes last year, 120 this year. So they're
going down the formulary route of, look, there's 150 overtakes every race because they're swapping
positions. So yeah, that's what they're going for. Like clockwork Formula One. We called it.
Well done. But look, it was a good race. I can't, you can't deny that the first 15 laps of that
place was phenomenal. But it was amazing at the start. Yeah, for sure. All right, let's talk
about Kimi Antonelli's race for a little bit, because I mean, his entire weekend was anything
but smooth. He had crashes, he had going off in qualifier, he had even making qualifying,
because he crashed in FB3. He had going off in the gravel, putting himself under pressure in Q3.
And every time he just popped it in P2, no matter what happened to him.
And I think that is testament to Antonelli's raw speed that he's got for his mental state,
to be able to bounce back from quite a few different problems that happened for him over
the course of the weekend. And it's huge for him to finish second. He could have very well
started at the back of the field, had Max Verstappen not gone off in qualifying to give the
team a little bit more of a buffer to fix the car. And from there, of course, starting second,
then going all the way down to seventh, because his start was very poor,
but still bouncing back. And I think the most notable thing for me was his race pace.
The fact that he finished less than three seconds behind George Russell
at the end of a very busy race for him, he had to make overtakes and
claw back the deficit that he had from the start. And that is the one thing
should Mercedes be clear and Ferrari can't challenge. Antonelli is right in there. Just
like he was at the end of last season, in comparison to George Russell, I'd like to say
that Kimmy is going to give George a run for his money this year.
I think you will. I can't believe I'm about to say this in the very first
race podcast of the year and mention about talking about Kimmy Antonelli winning the
World Championship and doing a Rosberg. But in a season, if Mercedes do have this massive advantage
and whether Ferrari will be able to do what they did consistently,
the championship can be won when you're bad days, you still get a good result.
And for Kimmy Antonelli to crash in FP3 and almost not qualify at all, to lose,
to drop all the way down to seventh at the start, and yet he's come away with, you know,
just a second place. If you have all that chaos and you still manage to get a good result,
you're keeping yourself in there. And, you know, look what we saw with Nico Rosberg at Mercedes,
where Hamilton had that DNF and Rosberg was able to capitalize. And I think we can look at Antonelli
and be kind of, hopefully he's going to be a bit of a saving grace for this season and championship,
because had he not dropped back to seventh, maybe he's challenging George for the win,
because his pace was amazing. And he caught back up thanks to the Russell and Leclerc battle.
And yeah, had had a similar pace to George, which we did see towards the end of last year.
He was Antonelli was not consistent last year at all. That was his problem. But it was his rookie
year. And the fact that he's able to, you know, there is a huge amount of, I'm doing my own
kind of more thing here, but there is a huge amount of pressure on him.
So much pressure on him. Because it's only a second season. And he's basically,
in his second season, he's got a championship winning Formula One car. And that is a huge
ask. And so far, despite all the chaos, he's done a very solid job to be very close to George at the
end. Yeah, I would say on that, on Kimmy winning the world championship potentially this year,
he has to iron out his mistakes. Because if he makes just one big error in a race, scores no
points, George wins it. That's where that's how he doesn't Rosberg it. That's how he doesn't
constantly pick up points. He needs to rely on a George Russell mistake or a George Russell DNF
potentially, if Mercedes continues to dominate to win the championship. So right now, I'm not
fully confident that Kimmy is going to iron out his mistakes full stop because we've already seen
this weekend. And he's, you know, he's bounced back. He's done a great job to finish P2 in both
of them. I feel like there was a blunder there from Ferrari, which enabled again Kimmy to
sort of breeze to a P2 just using the amazing pace of that car. So yeah, but I'd say positive
affirmations for Kimmy. So well done on that front. And speaking of well done,
P1PT remember at Seesot Roll asks, how good was Lin Blad? He was fearless. I absolutely loved
watching him at the start of the race go from P9 to P3. His little post race chat with Sky was
quite fun to listen to as well where he was like, oh my God, I'm racing, I'm racing right at the
front. I'm in P4 right now. This F1's easy. Yeah, yeah. And then he got up to fourth, I think,
at the start. And then he had a bit more energy saved in the battery, which I'm surprised about
considering his start, and then was able to catch Hadjar from what felt like 50 car lengths back
to then pull an awesome move around the outside into turns nine and 10. Of course, he falls back
after that because of the inherent pace of the car. But it's so cool to see rookies and drivers
with only a season or two of experience being just so utterly aggressive. And it's just awesome
to watch. Unphased and even, you know, even put a shape on the step and when it didn't just let
him go like we'd normally see with the second Red Bull team, like Ter Herman Marquez not there
anymore. And yeah, an amazing, amazing debut. It wasn't even we've seen drivers before
bagged points on their debut and not always, but sometimes they can be through misfortune and
things like that. And you know, he's got a fantastic result from basically being there,
the whole race and doing a good job. He's not he's not bagged points because six cars have conked out.
He was actually, you know, fighting at the front and kind of being in that midfield battle,
so close to finishing best of the rest just behind Olly Bearman, managed to just beat
Bortoletto actually across the line. That was another very close battle as well. Don't forget,
he was having problems with his energy department, I think. Indeed. So a really, really impressive
result and already regret putting him P20 in the championship.
I think I went for slightly higher. So I'll take the point when we do our comparisons.
Right, let's get into our lovely, well-known segment of giving out
biggest winner and biggest loser. If you're new to the podcast, essentially we will crown a driver
or team at the biggest winner and biggest loser of the weekend. So let's start with winner.
My biggest winner of the weekend has to be Mercedes because they have the fastest car.
That's a very simple answer. Oh my God, on that. We said this on the watch long.
Totem Wolf's radio message to George afterwards being like, wow, what a car, what an engine,
and the driver. That's not a thing you want to say to your driver.
They just love to make it all about the team. When he was leaving the team, it was like,
every, every, what was it? Every team needs a dream. Every dream needs a team.
Every dream needs a team. Yeah, it was that. It was like basically like, you couldn't have done it
without us. We gave you that rocket ship, Lewis. It's crazy. It's absolutely wild.
Who else would we potentially put for biggest winner? Limb Ladd's got to be in British out.
It's hard not to go. Gazzly, some else going a point in the European.
Bortoletto, Audi points on debut is a big, to say that we're talking about Cadillac. I know,
Audi, it's not the first time because they are sober, but all this talk of Aston Martin
building their, having the Honda engines, the problem, Audi building their own engine,
we thought they're going to be incredibly unreliable. I know, I didn't even start the race,
but Bortoletto to get points. Yeah, great start. Great start from him. I will go Limb Ladd, because
I think if we're going for someone like unexpected, because Mercedes, we thought they were going to
be one too, really. True, true. Okay, I'll lock in Limb Ladd as well. Biggest loser has to be Oscar
Piastri crashing out of his home Grand Prix before the races even started. I don't think that's even
really a conversation. It's not a debate, is it? I mean, I thought I was going to say Aston Martin,
but my God, they were 17th and 18th. Never could have dreamed of such height. Alonso was classified,
so that in itself is literally a miracle. Stroll was. It was Stroll. Alonso did come back out,
but Stroll was the one that also came back out later, didn't he? Yeah, so he was only, I think,
12 laps down or something, whereas Alonso kept coming in, retiring multiple times.
Yes, yes, absolutely. That's that. We are now going to get into our predictions.
The most highly anticipated part of a weekend is how many points have we both scored off the back
of the first race? And if you are, again, new to the podcast, we do our predictions that we
usually release on a Wednesday. I think we released on a Tuesday because it was the first race of the
season this time around, but usually comes out on a Wednesday and we do lots of different predictions
and it is 0-0. I love, by the way, just going to read it out because I have a little sheet that has
a structure of what we talk about and it says, it's currently 0-0 to Tommy, which is mental.
How have you written that down? Alphabetically, it's me, reigning championly, it's me.
No, it's a certain name. It's like the World Championship, so I was right.
That's a joke. No, no, no, I'll take this. Okay, so let's get into the first one that we did,
which was a good surprise. My good surprise was Charles Leclerc. No chance. He took the lead
and was fighting for the win against the Mercedes we thought was going to win by 40 laps.
This needs to go to the comments, I think. Are we going to the comments on the first prediction of
the year? Surely. I mean, is how you see it because Charles Leclerc, a good surprise, qualifying
fourth, finishing third in what everyone thought was the second best car. No, no, we didn't think
it was the second best car. Is that a surprise? Leclerc getting third on the podium.
Wow, just bringing Max in for no reason at all. Yeah, yeah, I did. And Max should have been ahead
of Leclerc. We're not talking... We did not come into this as the second fastest team. I am not
having that. They were the second fastest team. They were. I don't know what you were reading,
because they were definitely everywhere said they were the second best. Put your head back in the
sand. They were the second best team. Everyone was hyping them up to win the race, which I didn't
believe, but everyone was saying they're second. And they finished third in the second best car.
I'm talking pre-season before Australia started. And this is when we did our
recording. We're not talking about after Friday. We're not talking about after Saturday. We made
these predictions before the weekend. You know, okay, fine. We go straight to the comments.
Comments. Otherwise, I don't know how third is a surprise. Like, the phrases are surprised.
That's like, oh, my God, a surprise. Like, he was fighting. Oh, my God,
Limblad's surprised. He got a point. You thought George Russell were going to win by 40 laps,
and Leclerc gave us cinema for the first 15 laps in a row. Okay, we'll see what the comments are.
So let's know. And the most liked comment will be the thing that we go with us. Whether I get a
point or not. And you're good surprise, Tommy. Collar Pinto. No, he got a Collar Pinto and Go
Penalty as the graphic said. One of the greatest graphics ever made. I can't believe whoever's
made it has seen the TO at the end of Collar Pinto and gone, that says go, doesn't it? And then just
put it out.
Collar Pinto and Go Penalty. That was, that really tickled me during the rest of the day.
So for context, it seems like the team touched his car
before. They pushed him back. They pushed him back on the grid.
And my word, while we're talking about Collar Pinto, I mean, yes, it's not a surprise.
Because, yeah, he all went wrong for him. The start had that Penalty and didn't really deliver.
But that start that he had to avoid Lawson, I think it was that stalled, is insane. We didn't
see that until the cooldown room. Because I think there was so much action at the start
that they didn't do the start replays. Because they were like, we cut.
Well, they did do start replays. They did. And then they cut away. They didn't do loads.
Because I think they realised, they were like, oh, Leclerc and Russell are fighting for the win.
We actually need to cut back to live action. So it's their play TV direction.
But yeah, it's not a surprise for Collar Pinto, not the start that I thought Alpine would have.
No, no, pretty poor weekend for Collar Pinto. Let's go to a big flop where I went for Haas,
which that went well. That went really well. Oli Berman was best of the rest.
So well done to Haas. I'm glad. I'm glad. It's great because it's good for my F1 fantasy team.
So I don't mind it. I said I'd win one way or the other. And I won with my fantasy team.
Big flop. I went for Oscar Piastri, which don't feel good about that one. But it's a point.
Should be more than it's a huge flop. That's another reason why I can't give.
We can't have you getting the same number of points for Leclerc.
Surprise as Piastri. Sorry, what do you mean? That's not levels to the point.
It's either a point or a knock. Don't you dare try that. That's crazy.
Right, pole position. I went for George Russell, which was correct.
So thank you so much for that. Yes, he took it from me and I went for Oscar Piastri.
Because I couldn't go for George Russell. And that one was definitely...
I feel like there might be some rules being implemented of who can go for George Russell
at some point. It's half a point if it comes in.
Okay, now let's go to the top three. Starting with third for the race.
My third place was Max Verstappen, which was incorrect.
I went for Antonelli, which could have been right if Ferrari had done their job.
In second place, I went for George Russell.
New. I went for Lando Norris. I've not really spoken too much about McLaren,
but very disappointing pace from McLaren this weekend.
Very much indeed. And then in first place, I went for Charlotte Clair, which that was actually
on the cards at LeClaire Russell 1-2 at the start of the race. And then, of course,
it didn't happen. Why would it happen? And I went for Russell.
Now, I've seen a lot of positive feedback about this next segment.
A lot of people are liking it, the P-Wat. P-Wat. However you want to pronounce it.
For those of you that don't know, P-Wat is essentially a random position that we have to
guess each weekend, which is generated on the spot. So we have no idea what it's going to be.
And it was P-9 this time. And I went for Pierre Gasly, who finished P-10. And you went for...
Ollie Berman, who finished P-7.
So how the points work for this is that if you get it bang on,
you get two points. And if you are the closest, you get one. So I just won that by one point.
For you. Even though it wasn't very close, wasn't it?
Yeah, we were a Limblad energy deployment problem away from it being a draw. Because
if he'd have finished P-7, Berman would have been P-8. Then it would have been
either side of the ninth place. But alas.
Absolutely. It did not happen. Now, a one crazy prediction.
Mine was that Aston Martin don't start the race, which they did.
They finished the race. That's a minus one.
Shut it.
You can tell Tommy lost last season. He is so locked in to making sure all points are handed out fairly.
Aston Martin or Cadillac score a point. No. There was not enough DNFs. We thought that
Martin Brundle was absolutely convinced that there were going to be only 10 finishes.
We saw 17.
One of them being strolled 12 laps down. Paris was 16th.
It wasn't far off, but it was a bold prediction based on a lot of more DNFs.
I mean, to be honest, when I saw,
when we'd already had Hülkenberg-Piastry at the start, had Jar blowing up and Bottas really early on,
I thought this might actually be on. At that stage, you would have expected maybe only
12, 13 finishes. But is there any of the Aston Martins that don't have problems from there?
I am glad that I didn't go for the opposite and go for Aston Martin to finish the race,
because Lance Stroll, despite being 15 laps down, was not classified.
Ah, because he's too far off.
That would have been a fun argument.
Yeah, it says plus 15 laps, but not classified. It doesn't say DNF.
So, yeah, that would have been a generational argument on the podcast in the first episode.
So that's good. Only six drivers were on the lead lap. Good old new regulations.
Right, our Patreon predictions. If you're part of the P1 Patreon, you get lots of benefits,
as I mentioned earlier in the episode. And one of them, you can actually submit on Discord,
your prediction, and then we can select across the season,
one of them, to try and score us some points. So my one was from R&B Sheep,
three different constructors on the podium. No!
Two by two. Ash's BS. It was not BS, because she went for
Limblad points on debut. Boom. Oh, yeah. That's a great prediction, to be fair.
Good times. That was my hedging of bets that everyone scoring a point paid off.
Yeah, ridiculous. What great strategy you really thought about your strategy this year.
And that makes it 3-2 to Tom Bellingham after the first race of the season.
Let's see just how close, because I mean, it's been so close the last few seasons between us,
going down to literally the wire. There has to be a season where one of us runs away with 50
points clear. Well, it could easily happen, because we didn't, yeah. But it hasn't.
I hope not. I hope not. And I'm sure Michael Massey will be hired for P1, if that is the case.
Right, let's go to family top three. It's back. It is 0-0. And once again,
Tommy's put in the sheet, 0-0 to the Bellingham's.
Yeah, reigning champions and half Bessical, so no arguments there.
Oh, so now it matters about who's the champion. All right, interesting.
So my dad, in third place, he went for Charles Leclerc.
No way. Yes, huge.
My wife went for Antonelli. No, correct.
In second place, my dad went for Norris. No.
And Katie went for Leclerc.
In first place, my dad went for Max Verstappen.
And my wife, Katie, went for Russell.
Boo! Again, using George Russell for farming points needs to be banned.
Look, shut up, because...
That is... Look, we say it and I'll hold my hands that this is the beauty of it,
because so many people go, oh, could you give a point here or there?
You can only give a point for being correct. But my wife, Katie, got the top three, just
two and three switch round. Your dad's gone for Stappen winning
and they got the same number of points. Crazy.
Here we go. Tommy again, talking about the weighting of the points.
You see that? There was a subtle bit of messaging there, everybody.
I'm just saying that you're better than...
Well done, Katie, for good will knowledge.
No, that was really good. I mean, the first race of the season,
she gets the top three correct, of course, in the wrong order,
but that is a phenomenal bit of work.
And if Ferrari'd actually pitted under the VSC,
that would have been actually a spot on, probably.
Yeah, a three-pointer at the start of the family top three season.
I'm scrapping the entire thing.
Well done. Trophy is in the post. Don't want to talk about it.
Because I think the Gallagher scored about seven points
across the whole year last year. So, yeah, tough.
Well, how much my wife, Katie, doesn't enjoy me ringing her.
She probably would have actually probably would have taken the one point
rather than the three, because then there's pressure on her to
constantly be being rung and make a prediction.
So maybe she's not...
Not competitive enough. Not competitive enough,
Katie. You need to lock in, get those three points.
Right, that is it. Thank you, everybody, for tuning in to the first
main race review podcast. As I mentioned, P1 Patreons,
you will be getting additional chats straight after this.
If you are not a P1 Patreon, which I think, you know, come join the fam.
You get lots and lots of lovely stuff.
Then we will see you literally next week, of course,
because we have China right around the corner.
It's a sprint race weekend, which will mean utter chaos.
Our watch lungs will, of course, return.
Tommy, final thoughts, please.
Final thoughts for all the talk of amazing starts, super clipping,
rants, cinema.
We didn't say super clipping once.
And then we had to say it right at the end.
That's crazy.
Batteries boosting, overtake mode, everything.
Like, I'm just so happy to have F1 back and be able to talk about it
and enjoy it with everyone.
Like the watch lung again was so much fun.
So much fun indeed.
So excited for the season ahead.
Great to be back.
Thank you to everyone of you that tuned in.
Despite the time, it might have been as well for the watch lungs.
We had so, so many people tuning in.
So a lot of excitement, despite some criticism for this season.
We will continue to keep it real.
Don't you worry about that.
And yeah, looking forward to the rest of the season.
Thank you everybody.
We'll see you next week for China.
Bye.
Bye.
P1 is a stack production and part of the ACAST Creative Network.
About this episode
The Australian Grand Prix kicked off the 2026 F1 season with unexpected chaos and excitement, defying pre-season concerns about overtaking. Highlights included Oscar Piastri's heartbreaking crash before the race start, a lightning-fast launch that shuffled the pack dramatically, and Charles Leclerc's impressive move to the lead. The hosts discuss the unpredictable battery power deployment's impact on racing dynamics and debate whether the new regulations have improved or complicated the sport. They also touch on fan engagement, upcoming live shows in Australia, and the mixed feelings about the new car designs and race formats.
Original notes
Was it carnage? Absolutely!
Was it better than we thought? Definitely!
Are we still worried about these cars? Ohhh yeah.
Join us for the first race review of the new season!
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