They’re talking about the Miami F1 race. They’re using it as a reference to explain why performance might have looked different there than at the next races.
“Low grip” means the track surface doesn’t let the tires grab very well. When that happens, it’s harder to brake and turn sharply, so drivers have to be more careful with speed and steering.
Montreal is where the Canadian Grand Prix is held. The hosts are saying the track there will behave differently, so the drivers’ performance expectations should change too.
In racing, “tenths” are timing gaps measured in fractions of a second. “Three or four tenths” means one driver was faster by about 0.3–0.4 seconds, which is a big deal in F1.
A “pole” is when a driver qualifies fastest and starts the race from the front. “In a row” means they’ve been doing it repeatedly, which usually shows the car is working really well.
A “stint” is how long a driver stays on one set of tires. Strategy and tire grip change over time, so the length and performance of each stint can decide the race.
“Body language” here means what the driver looks like while racing—how relaxed or tense they seem. If they look confident and in control, it usually suggests the car is working well for them.
“On the edge” means the driver is pushing the car very close to where it might lose traction or control. It can be fast, but it’s also where mistakes become more likely.
A simulator is basically a very advanced driving video game with real engineering data. The question is whether what you learn in the simulator matches what the car will actually do on the track.
Correlation is how closely simulator behavior matches what happens on track. In F1, new regulations, new cars, and changing driving conditions make it hard to ensure the simulator is accurate enough to rely on.
This is about how the car uses its available energy in different parts of the track. If the best strategy changes as conditions change, then simulator practice may not transfer perfectly to the real session.
“Setup options” are the car’s adjustable settings. Changing them can make the car handle differently, and teams use the simulator to compare those changes.
A “development driver” is a driver who helps the team improve the car. They test ideas and give feedback so the team can make the car better for the race drivers.
A “sprint weekend” is when F1 has an extra, shorter race that affects where cars start the main race. It makes the weekend busier, so teams have to adjust more often.
“Dial in” means making small adjustments until the car feels right and the driver can drive it confidently. It’s about getting the car to match what the driver wants.
Term
limited relevance
The idea is that what you learn in the simulator doesn’t always match what you need on the real track. Conditions and track differences can make some practice less helpful than you’d think.
This means two drivers on the same F1 team are racing each other hard. It can become a big deal when one driver is doing better lately and the other needs to respond.
Monaco is a famous F1 track in the streets of Monaco. It’s slow and twisty, so it’s less about top speed and more about driving precision and traction.
It’s basically how well the car’s shape “pushes down” onto the road. If the aero platform is good, the car feels stable; if it’s not, the car can feel twitchy or uncomfortable over bumps.
Ride quality is how smooth the car feels when the track gets bumpy. In racing, a smoother ride can help the tires stay in better contact with the road.
In this context, compliance is the car’s ability to “give” over bumps—how well the suspension and chassis absorb impacts without upsetting the car’s balance. If a team chases too much aerodynamic grip, the car can become too stiff and lose compliance, making it bounce off curbs.
Inters are special tires for wet but not fully flooded track conditions. They help the car grip when the road is damp, especially when it’s drizzling or drying.
Pit lane is where the car goes to get serviced during the race. If someone spends more time there than others, it usually means they lost time and position.
A chicane is a twisty section of the track made of multiple turns that slows cars down. If it’s the final one before a straight, it’s a common spot for close racing and rule-sensitive moves.
Charles Leclerc is an F1 driver for Ferrari. Here, he’s talked about as being right behind another car during a close moment, then easing off afterward.
A 10-second penalty means the race officials add 10 seconds to a driver’s time. It’s used when they break the rules, and it can drop them down the order.
This is the idea that drivers follow a kind of “common sense” code, even when the rules don’t spell it out. It’s mainly about not doing last-second moves that could catch the other driver off guard.
A late reactive move is when a driver changes their plan at the last second to react to another car. It’s dangerous because the other driver may already be committed and there may not be enough time or space to do it safely.
The racing line is the best track path for going fast through a corner. In close racing, if you commit to that path, it’s hard to suddenly change your mind without losing control or causing a collision.
In racing, “situational awareness” means paying attention to what’s happening in front of you—like how slippery the track really is—rather than trusting a screen or guess.
These are the early laps drivers do to “check the track” before racing hard. When it’s wet, they’re especially important because grip can change quickly.
This is the lap right before the race where the cars line up and get ready. Drivers use it to get their tires and brakes working properly for the start.
It means the rain affects more than just the tires—it also messes with drivers’ confidence and decision-making. When people aren’t sure how slippery it is, they drive and strategize differently.
Term
intas
“Intas” is slang for a pit stop—when the car pulls into the pits to change tires and adjust strategy. In wet conditions, timing the pit stop can be especially tricky.
“Wrong tire” means the tires don’t fit what the track needs right now. If the track is colder or wetter than expected, the car won’t grip properly and can become very difficult to drive.
A “race of attrition” means the hardest part is just making it to the end. When conditions are tough, cars get damaged or drivers make mistakes, so survival matters more than pushing hard.
Tire temp just means how warm the tires are while the car is driving. If the tires aren’t warm enough—especially in cold weather—you get less grip and the car feels harder to control.
A “gamble race” means teams are taking a risk with their strategy, usually because conditions might change fast. If they guess right they gain an advantage, but if they guess wrong they can lose time quickly.
The Malaysian Grand Prix is a Formula 1 race in Malaysia. Because the weather can change quickly there, it’s often a race where teams have to make tough calls about tires and pit stops.
“Lando” is Lando Norris, an F1 driver. When the weather is changing, he and his teammate tell the team how the track feels so they can make the right calls.
Nico Hülkenberg is a well-known F1 driver. Here, the hosts are saying his experience helps him make (or benefit from) smart decisions when the race gets tricky, like choosing the right tires.
“Going a bit rogue” means making a slightly different decision than the team’s usual plan. Sometimes it pays off if conditions change, but it can also backfire if you’re on the wrong setup.
An upgrade is a new part or improvement the team brings to make the car faster or handle better. Teams often test upgrades step-by-step and then check the results. Here, they’re talking about an upgrade that required taking off the front wing to review it.
In an F1 car, the front wing is the main wing at the nose. It helps push the car down onto the track so it grips better and turns more confidently. If teams change it, the car can feel noticeably different.
Woking is where McLaren’s team is based. After a race, they send parts and information back there to figure out what worked and what needs fixing. It’s basically the team’s home base for engineering decisions.
An outlier is a result or pattern that doesn’t match the usual trend. Here, the speaker says if the front wing doesn’t return for a while, it would be unusual compared with McLaren’s recent history of bringing parts that made the car quicker. It’s a statistical/observational way to frame whether the upgrade strategy is behaving normally.
A double points finish means two cars from the same team both finished high enough to earn points. Since points are based on where you finish, it’s a sign the team did really well that race. Here, Alpine is getting two cars into the points at the same time.
“Lean on the car” means trusting it more and pushing it harder. Instead of being cautious, the driver uses the car’s traction to go faster while still staying in control.
“Late stages” just means the end part of the race. By then, tyres are wearing and the car behaves differently, so passing becomes harder and timing matters a lot.
“Rhythm” here means how smoothly and consistently the driver can keep going lap after lap. They’re saying one driver didn’t just cruise—he kept the pace up to keep challenging for position.
In Formula 1, tyres have different grip levels. If you start the race on the “wrong” one for the conditions, the car feels slippery and you lose time—so you have to make up the difference later.
LIVE
He's fourth, Grand Prix, Victorina Rowe, Kimi Antonelli wins, the Canadian Grand Prix.
Not the way I wanted to win, but yeah, we'll take it.
Even Antonelli in his wildest dreams wouldn't have predicted anything like this.
You've got heartbreak for George and you feel that emotion, he knows that the title is slipping
away as things stand.
I thought we were heading to a collision, like the old Murk days.
You could tell the body language has shifted hasn't it, from happy days, really great Kimi's
alongside me in one and two, all vice versa, good points for the team, feels different
this weekend.
Feels like the first flashpoint.
I think this was Lewis's best weekend in a Ferrari Formula One car.
It was like roll back the years, Lewis.
He looked capable of finding the magic again.
Were we all thinking the same thing when we saw Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri on intermediate
tyres?
I was thinking, are we in Qatar?
That's one of the most bizarre calls I've seen and I was genuinely like, what on earth
is going on?
Welcome everyone to Montreal for F1 Nation's review of a stunning Canadian Grand Prix.
I'm Tom Clarkson and with me are former F1 driver Jolien Palmer and commentator Alex
Jakes, the voices of F1 on F1 TV, Apple TV and Netflix during the Montreal weekend.
Guys, what a race.
I love that one.
What was the biggest headline for each of you guys?
It's George Russell breaking down, isn't it?
It's the moment the championship swings right towards Kimi, an amazing fight and then just
heartbreak for George halfway through the race, ended the contest as a battle.
You knew Kimi was going to win and you just think five races in, suddenly the momentum
has shifted so much towards Kimi.
It's been an amazing turnaround.
He's frighteningly quick.
He's doing a great job and this was kind of on George's turf.
It was like a great film that could have been an all time classic.
I feel we got 30 laps of brilliant battling.
Very rarely do you feel happy and exhausted on lap 30, but we were looking at each other
going like, how do we keep covering this because there were points where we just jump cut to
turn 10, Russell's wide again.
They were pushing each other.
It felt like the sort of race that you'd get later in the year where they were pushing
each other to extreme heights and you knew you were going to get something defining for
the championship.
It's round five.
That never happens in round five.
It was like double disappointment, wasn't it?
Because you've got the heartbreak for George and you feel that emotion.
You could see it.
I mean, it was so much.
He knows that the title is slipping away as things stand.
There's obviously a huge amount of time left and loads of races from to gather it back.
But the shift was already there and then that.
But then you're also thinking the race was so good until that point.
I wanted just to see more.
I was a breather, might have been all right because there was a lot.
But JP, on that topic, we'll get on to what actually happened.
But who do you think would have won that Grand Prix had George not had that technical problem?
I think George probably had the edge still.
I mean, he literally had the lead and that was quite important.
He was making errors at the hairpin.
And then it felt as soon as when Kimmy got ahead, I thought Kimmy can go now.
But then he made the error at the hairpin, gave it back to George and he wasn't easy to pass.
So, so difficult to call it, could have gone either way.
But maybe George in front.
There was also strategy that would have played out and being the lead driver at that point,
you're coming towards the pit stop phase, it probably would have paid out well for him.
I thought Kimmy was the faster driver actually or had the faster car.
Would you agree, JC?
He was all over the back of him, wasn't he?
He had a good amount of core pace.
It's George Russell who took the pole positions.
It's George Russell who was able to overtake Antonelli and hold the lead more than Antonelli was.
To be honest, I thought they were heading for a skirmish, a proper skirmish.
If we'd gone the whole distance, there's no way you can keep doing that lap after lap after lap.
Pass and repass.
I thought we were heading to a collision.
But the old Merc days.
We were building it up in comedy as well because we were genuinely, you're like 30 something laps
into it and you're like, this is a lot going on for us in the booth.
Let alone when you're thinking there's a race win on the line, a title on the line,
doing it lap after lap, they were making lots of little mistakes,
giving each other opportunities.
But you are just thinking, Kimmy nearly rear-ended George already.
The mental strain on those guys to do it for an hour and a half is intense.
I don't think we've seen a Grand Prix ever where we've had that level of back and forth
for that amount of time with mistakes.
You've got wheel to wheel battles.
You've got everything else on the line.
It's not just a freebie.
This is a championship defining moment.
And the mental stress is intense.
So I think if we were thinking a breather would be all right.
Imagine Kimmy when he sees George slow down, you think, okay, I've probably won the race.
And my word, maybe my heart rate can settle as well.
But when you look at the pace of the two guys all weekend,
let's bear in mind that Kimmy had the upper hand in Miami,
and George held his hand up and said, this isn't a good track for me.
Just you wait until we go to Montreal.
I've been on pole there for the last two years.
It's my kind of racetrack.
68 1000th of a second separated them in qualifying,
which makes me think that actually George, although he was on pole,
would have been disappointed because he knows that on his track,
Kimmy Kimmy Antonelli was his equal.
So what does this mean going forward?
This is a stronghold, isn't it?
And George Russell has been superb around here
when he didn't have a championship capable car.
It's a different exam question though this year for George.
It's not turn up and win two Grand Prix a season.
It's win every single time you come to the circuit.
The fact that he was country mile behind in Miami
and then comes here and he was a cars width away from Kimmy Antonelli all weekend
clearly shows that Antonelli is in a more comfortable place at this stage.
There's a long season to go,
but Antonelli has got the advantage over his teammate at the moment.
Even Antonelli in his wildest dreams wouldn't have predicted anything like this.
Four in a row to open your winning account in Formula One.
He just has the measure of these regulations at the moment.
The interesting thing to me is to your point,
the way that George was almost playing the Miami weekend like an away fixture,
it was almost like, yeah, but Kimmy's always good here.
It's always his turf.
He was great here last year.
The gap was a few tenths.
It was reasonable all weekend.
It was like they were in different cars.
And you thought, okay, he's kind of given up a little bit on Miami,
bringing out the excuses on Friday already.
It's a low grip track.
Wait till we get to Montreal.
So it was like he is pinning a lot on being quick here.
And he was quick, but it was way closer than it was in Miami.
So if you go to a Kimmy stronghold, let's say,
and he blitzes George by three or four tenths,
then come to a George stronghold and it's 50-50 like it was.
So I think that's a big thing on top of the retirement.
It's the way that this is a track where George now three poles in a row.
But we are still debating as to whether who would have won the race.
And this is on paper one of his best tracks.
So it does, it speaks volumes as to how good Kimmy is right now.
I will say hindsight is always 2020.
And I did think maybe Russell did not have,
he's fully on the pedal at the end of last year
because Kimmy beat him three times in the final five races.
But coming into this year, now after four Grand Prix wins in a row,
Kimmy's racing Max Verstappen up the road from George Russell in Brazil.
Russell's won in Brazil in the past.
George Russell's won in Vegas in the past.
Kimmy's stint in Vegas was sensational to come through.
His overall race pace was unbelievable.
There were signs that he'd made a breakthrough
even before we got to this regulation set.
It's a really good point about him.
And going forward, are we going to see any tightening up?
Because I feel the innocence of youth,
you don't know what you don't know.
And you're just enjoying the moment.
You think you're going to get plenty of opportunities.
I feel Kimmy's in that space.
So I don't think he's going to tighten up.
Whereas George, eighth season of Formula One,
hasn't had a proper opportunity,
knows they don't come along every time.
Are we now in the territory psychologically
where this is going to start playing on their minds,
the innocence of one and the weight of the world on the other?
I think you can see it, can't you?
You can see, I don't know, George tightening up.
You can feel the importance for him to win
and the way that he was having to defend aggressively in the sprint.
You could certainly see the carefree nature of Kimmy.
He was treating the grass like it was a perfectly decent
bit of off-roading.
Like any of those moments,
you could be careering into the barrier.
But he had no care in the world
about throwing it around the outside of turn one,
launching up the inside of turn eight,
few trips wider at this final chicane.
And you just think, oh, with a few more years,
you might not be throwing your car into the same places.
But the youthful exuberance is what's making him,
I think, super quick, super aggressive.
And he is getting away with it, isn't he, at the moment.
So you can see both playing out.
And whilst he's on this winning run,
there's nothing to stop the youthful exuberance.
So you build up more points lead, 43 points.
And you're thinking, oh, I've got a little bit of a buffer now.
So I can go for these audacious moves.
I can throw a car in.
And the pressure is nowhere near him.
I mean, he is carefree right now.
Whereas George is understandable if he was to tense up,
because this was George Russell's championship year.
This was, from last year, everyone was saying
the Mercedes is going to be the car to beat.
So it's George, naturally,
because he was doing the job on Kimmy.
Your point is very good.
At the end of the year, Kimmy turned it around
and started to look low key, like he could challenge George.
But you still thought George was walking through
with the air of confidence, took pole one in Melbourne,
and we're thinking, OK, it's a George championship.
Fast forward a few races, and it's not looking that way at all.
And the pressure then on him is intense.
And do you think we're going to see Mercedes step in
and stopping them race, or do you think they'll let them go?
Good luck, if you do try and step in.
Because I think one of the things that was impressive
from Antonelli learning from the sprint to the Grand Prix today
is I feel that there was one point
where he had to take a face of action into the final chicane.
But I didn't feel like he placed his car in a position
where he could have been batted off
in the way that he did in the sprint.
I felt he learned from the wheel-to-wheel battle
with Russell and the sprint.
So Mercedes have clearly reminded them
of the number one rule between teammates.
Don't touch each other.
It's inevitable.
If it's an inter-team battle,
evidence is the entire history of the Formula One World Championship.
So they can say what they like,
but ultimately, when the sport's biggest prize is on the line,
they're going to clash at some point.
The job has never been harder, has it?
Because of the regs.
So you're getting these sort of yo-yo races still.
You see that the guys are struggling to break one second,
which means you've got 30 laps of back-and-forth racing.
That's a hell of a lot of chances to come together.
When Nico and Lewis would have it,
they might have one moment in a Grand Prix.
And it would be like, all on this.
You've got to make it through or not.
And sometimes they clashed.
Even more so with Lewis and Max in 21.
Obviously different teams.
But there were flash points in a race
where you think this is your chance.
You might wait 50 laps for another opportunity.
Whereas in a way, they've got a chance
to back out of moves and go again with the way the regs are.
But naturally, they're going to find themselves in position to shunt
so much more often.
And we've already seen that.
The amount of wheel-to-wheel back-and-forth
they've had just this weekend alone
is more than we saw in the entire season of Oscar Orlando last year.
Can I take you to lap six of the sprint on Saturday?
George said, you don't go around the outside of someone at turn one.
Kimmy tried it.
And of course, do you think Kimmy was right to be so upset?
If you put a 19-year-old in a Formula One car
that can win races,
I think you're going to get radio messages like that.
I thought that was a...
I think the reality, by the time he got to Palmer
and the interviews afterwards,
he'd remembered his media training.
But the reality, it came out on the radio, didn't it?
I'll let the driver judge whether it was correct or not,
but he didn't do it again for the Grand Prix, did he?
JP, was there anything off-camera
in that post-sprint press conference you did in the pit lane?
Interviewed in the pit lane?
Was there anything off-camera, chats between them or...?
You know, it was terse.
It was really...
You... Kimmy got out the car.
There was not a hint of a smile.
There was just still a frustration there.
They are really well-media trained.
I think Toto banging on on the radio saying,
wind it back.
We need to keep it in-house.
It obviously worked.
In the end, it was a sprint and it cost him a point to Lando.
I mean, arguably a couple if he had got past George.
But no, you could just see what it meant to him.
To have had that...
What he feels was a wrongdoing by being shuffled out wide.
I have to say, it was an incredibly ambitious move he was going for.
He made a good fist of it to get as far up the outside as he did at the apex.
And it is natural, I think, for George to shove in wide.
I think that is sort of racist instinct there.
But I can also understand why Kimmy is on the radio.
I think if I was in that position,
I think you're going to naturally get on the radio
because it's your teammate, it's a guy in-house,
and you've just got to point to your team and think,
he's just forced me off.
I probably would do the same.
It's just, I think, a natural instinct.
But when Toto is then coming on the radio and telling you to shut up,
you accept nothing is going to happen of it and you get your head down.
And that's basically what happened.
But internally, no doubt, there's still disagreements.
What did you think when they came to you then?
They didn't look at each other.
Yeah, I was going to ask that.
They came in separately off-camera in the press conference.
There was no banter at all.
One thing that was interesting is that at the end of the press conference,
they all get up to leave together.
And Kimmy absolutely did not want to walk out with George.
So he started yacking to you, didn't he?
He did start yacking to me about the marathon of all things,
because I'm the only one who's ever run a marathon, ever.
And that's all they ever talk about these days.
You told him to ask.
Ask.
Now, it was his opportunity.
It was wearing a T-shirt that said,
ask me about the love of the marathon.
But it was interesting that he actually wanted,
he just came over to chat to me because he just did not want to walk out with George.
So there was, you know, tensions were high.
Yeah.
You could tell the body language has shifted, hasn't it?
From happy days, really great Kimmy's alongside me in one and two,
all vice versa, good points for the team.
Feels different this weekend.
Yeah. And it's going to, this is going to play on, isn't it?
We got this all season.
So we were talking teammate rivalries in that podcast a couple of weeks ago,
and we were saying, in all of them, you get a flash point.
Feels like the flash point.
Feels like the first flash point.
Last year, there were quite a few people watching
who felt that it was almost antiseptic with the way that, like,
you know, it was over managed with something leveled at McLaren all the time.
And the flash point, a couple of meters from where we're talking now,
by the pit wall, Lando immediately looked like, that's on me.
No need for an argument, no need for any debate.
Shut it down immediately.
That did not happen.
That will not happen between George and Kimmy.
And that's good for us.
We love the drama, TC.
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Look, let's talk about Ferrari now,
because no one told Lewis Hamilton
that you can't go around the outside of someone at Term 1, did they?
Round the outside of Max Verstappen, no less.
I mean, I think this was Lewis's best weekend
in a Ferrari Formula 1 car.
Would you guys agree?
100%.
He was so happy, confident.
It was like roll back the years, Lewis.
Even just the way that the car was moving around,
but he was at one with it the whole way through.
It was great to see.
It's been the best Lewis for years.
Even in his final year with Mercedes,
it felt like he was sometimes chasing it.
He knew he was leaving the team and everything.
But this was a proper rollback Lewis.
He's come to two tracks where he's had enormous success in the past
in Shanghai and now in Montreal.
And he looks like the Lewis that used to win here.
And it's not so much where he finished.
It's the body language of the car.
It's the fact that he looked animated again.
It looked like he was on the edge.
He had a few errors in there,
but the fact that he looked capable of finding the magic again,
I think is the thing that he will take from this weekend.
And when you think through the other good performances he's put in at Ferrari,
there's not been a huge amount of them,
but you'd say China this year,
and he fended off Charles in that really long tussle.
Great, happy Lewis.
It was good.
You think sometimes Melbourne was okay last year.
Obviously, the China sprint was great,
but the rest of the Grand Prix,
a great day for Lewis was to be close with Charles, basically.
He's obliterated him this weekend.
Charles was absolutely fed up.
He was saying it was the worst weekend ever yesterday and today.
He didn't want to hear from his engineer on the radio until the end,
which speaks volumes of the pressure that Lewis put on him.
But we're back into the sort of what's your favourite track territory,
because Charles has actually never been particularly great here,
whereas Lewis has been great.
This was his 11th podium here in Montreal.
I want to ask you guys about simulators.
There have been two races this year,
prior to which Lewis has not been in the Ferrari simulator.
One was China.
The other one was here.
He said in the press conference after the race
that he will not be going in the simulator
as part of his race prep again this year.
If you're the guy in charge of the Sim in Maranello,
you're probably feeling a bit shortchanged.
JP, we'll start with you.
How useful are simulators
if you're old school like Lewis?
Do you need them?
I would argue no, is the answer.
He's got so much muscle memory of how to drive around circuits.
He understands what he wants from the car.
I think there's a new age of young driver
that lives on the simulator and they do a lot.
But the correlation is really difficult.
We've got new regs, new cars, different ways of driving,
different ways of deploying energy around the lap,
which is changing lap on lap day on day.
So unless the simulator is perfectly correlated
to what you're going to get on the track,
it's a negligible benefit anyway
because you can't then plug and play on a Friday.
You still have dirty the track was on a Friday.
It's evolving in all sorts of different ways.
You've got wind direction that changes.
So a driver like Lewis has been around in 20 years.
If he doesn't feel like there's value in going on the Sim,
then there's probably the value would be more on Ferrari's side
to get his feedback to improve, maybe set up things.
I'm sure the Sim is working enough to understand
different setup options.
Development options, absolutely.
Correlation to improve the simulator even further.
That's where the benefit would be.
It would be more for Ferrari than it would be for Lewis.
They've got development drivers who do a lot of that work.
That's the whole point of having a development driver
on the simulator.
Charles is still using the simulator,
so he's not on the same page.
I can't, I think, each their own.
Shumi never liked a Sim, did he?
When he left Ferrari, came back to Mercedes,
the world had changed a little bit,
and it was all right, hop on the Sim,
and it literally made him sick, so he stopped using them.
Kimi Raiken and Ditto.
That or the great drivers find really good excuses
not to have to go in the Sim.
No, I think it's really interesting,
but they do still, especially with the sprint weekend format,
where you have to make so many changes over the weekend
and you've got someone in the Sim overnight,
if it's not accurate, they need to make it more accurate.
The benefit of the Sim is more for setup.
It's bigger picture than helping your driver dial in.
I think that's the key to this,
is there's value in Ferrari having a simulator.
I don't think the guy's going to hand in the resignation.
I think, that's enough.
Lewis has proved me wrong.
I'm sure there's still a lot of value in them having
what will be a really fine-tuned tool.
You see Red Bull, McLaren, some really sophisticated teams
use their Sim overnight, sometimes Friday to Saturday,
and try a load of different setups
that some pedal has done through the night in the UK.
It's a bleak job, but it could be worse, I guess.
But if you're Lewis Hamilton,
it's a day in a dark room pounding around somewhere
that's not necessarily that relevant
to what you've then got to do,
which have limited relevance.
I could see why he wants to focus on other things,
and the thing is, when you turn up here,
if he'd have been awful scratching his head
as to where he was going,
you'd say, okay, that's a big cool,
but he's had his best weekend for a long time,
so it's tough to argue.
I'm fascinated by these intra-team battles.
We've discussed George and Kimmy,
and how one of them was really strong in Miami,
and we were coming here,
and George had to stamp his authority back on the team.
And I feel we've got a similar situation developing at Ferrari.
Lewis has come here, and we're going next.
To Monaco, which is Charles' track.
He's won there before he was second last year.
And actually, I think Ferrari probably
might go really well there.
They're a bit of a power deficit on a track like this,
but that won't matter so much in Monaco.
How do you see the immediate future for Ferrari and Monaco?
It is a very good time for Charles Leclerc
to be going to one of his great tracks.
Obviously, he's home track,
but it's a track where he's always been superbly quick,
even if he hasn't had the results.
So, the calendar has fallen nicely for him there.
Ferrari, on the evidence that we've seen
in the earlier rounds this year,
surely have a chance to win that Grand Prix,
because they are just superb through the slow stuff.
I've been hanging my hat on that all year.
Ferrari will win a race.
If we go by Monaco and they're not that competitive,
then I'm going to have to row back on that one.
On the upside, I will do whoever wins if it's not Ferrari,
the loudest I've done in commentary.
Palmer wrote them off!
I feel that we didn't see how good the Merc was this weekend
with its updates.
So, it might still see everyone off in Monaco, right?
Well, they still were good enough to top the sessions, weren't they?
Might not have got the extremity of their performance out,
and they'll be in the mix.
I've got to say, on the evidence of his previous career,
George has never had a brilliant run of it in Monaco.
So, it's not ideal from a George Russell point of view,
but for Ferrari's inter-team battle,
absolutely perfect for Charles Leclerc,
literally on his home streets.
Even last year, he wasn't far off taking pole position, was he?
So, absolutely perfect for him to go there.
And if Lewis can beat him there,
then we've got the start of a different narrative.
What about Red Bull?
Max Verstappen's first podium of the season,
but it was the lowest step after Lewis passed him around the outside.
He seemed pretty upbeat, I thought, after the race, Max.
I think he wasn't happy with the car all weekend,
so to come away with their first podium of the season was a decent result.
We talk about body language of cars.
What did you think of the Red Bull this weekend?
Yeah, it was obviously a bit of a handful.
They started, I think, with a really stiff setup,
and he was just bouncing off the curbs,
trying to get that balance between getting a decent aero platform
and getting ride quality is always difficult around this circuit.
And I think they were too far in trying to chase aero
and missing compliance in the car.
So they managed to improve that a little bit for qualifying.
The car was more competitive, but still not quite where he wants it to be.
But the race was, it was just a very decent Max race, wasn't it?
When I was on the grid, it was drizzling, it was blooming cold.
Everyone's talking about a race of survival,
and I was thinking, okay, if you're Max, you're starting on sixth place,
this is, it'll probably be on the podium here.
Of course, he's helped by two cars starting on inters in front of him,
but he's still worked his way up to second place.
They still did the job.
Max was pretty clean, and it's not a surprise that in a bit of a chaos race,
he ends up just putting it together and getting a podium.
Hadjo, he spent more time in pit lane than most.
JP, just back to you on a driving standards thing.
When he was, when he was, had Charles Leclerc behind him,
coming into that final chicane, he moved twice.
You think the 10 second penalty was fair?
I think it was harsh, actually.
I understand the stewards being a little bit twitchy,
especially with the new regs.
You've got sometimes big closing speeds.
We obviously had the big moment in Japan with Berman and Colopinto,
but I was watching it when we were watching it live, weren't we?
And then I sort of, I saw it coming,
and Charles was still keeping his foot in, moving to the inside.
And then what's the replay?
And I still thought, Charles got quite a lot of time.
I don't think Hadjo was moving super aggressively or super late,
which is what the Colopinto moment was a little bit more in Japan,
with a way bigger closing speed.
So I do feel like it was actually a little bit harsh.
Then Charles backs off.
There's a little bit more of a hover.
In the past, you'd seen these moments beat up with a warning flag,
I think, rather than a 10 second penalty.
It was my initial opinion.
It was a very extreme chop.
I wonder if we're slightly misunderstanding their decision,
because he then goes back to the racing line,
and then he defends again into the chicane.
So I wonder if it's not entirely for the chop at high speed,
which was hairy.
But he then goes back to the racing line on the left hand side,
if you're picturing it on the onboard.
And then he goes back to defend again.
So I think it's a little bit because it was so quick.
They've gone, all right, if there was no drama there,
if there was no brinkmanship at 200 miles an hour,
we wouldn't say it.
But it felt like they penalized the first chop,
and then gave the explanation of a second move.
Yeah, I didn't.
That's the explanation was moving, moving twice,
was now moving more than one change of direction.
But that didn't feel like there was the bad thing that he did.
The bit that was more in question
that Charles was not happy about wasn't that.
It was the move to the inside.
Again, I...
He was late, JP.
He only moved to the right when Charles pulled out.
I think he was already on the way.
That's my feeling.
Forgetting the regulations, right?
Just what is the unwritten rule between racing drivers?
Well, you don't want to have late reactive moves.
So once a driver's committed to a line,
it's difficult to back out when it's too close
with too big a closing speed.
And the example for that is clearly Ben and Colopinto.
He's coming too quick.
Colopinto just jinxed to the left, and Ollie's committed.
Again, for me, I understand the safety aspects of it.
I just think there was...
I don't think Charles was super committed to the inside
as Isaac was starting to move across.
For me, the closing speed wasn't as massive.
It didn't feel like a really big closing speed,
like we've seen at other times.
I think he telegraphed what he was doing quite early
when Charles still had car lengths plus to him,
but Charles kept going for the inside,
which then was shutting.
I understand what you're saying.
I just didn't personally, as a driver,
think it was extreme at all from Isaac.
I think we've seen that sort of thing get away with a few times.
And after a difficult weekend for Isaac had you in Miami,
do you think he gave a good account,
a better account of himself here?
Yeah, if we take every lap that he ran this weekend,
he said he was getting destroyed through the corners,
up against Max in Miami.
He clearly wasn't here, and that's his best result for Red Bull.
So not perfect with a couple of penalties,
but a step forward for him.
Right, the last team we're going to deal with in our pod
is one that didn't score any points.
They are the reigning world champions,
and were we all thinking the same thing
when we saw Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri
on intermediate tyres?
You tell me what you were thinking,
and then I'll come up with an off-comer proved way.
I was thinking, are we in Qatar?
I mean, they weren't the only team on Inter's.
So obviously the radar was giving different options,
but I always believe in situational awareness.
Deal with what's happening in front of you,
not what your laptop's saying the whole time,
and it was clearly a slick tyre start.
I mean, seven cars went for Inter's,
so it wasn't just McLaren.
I don't think they were going off the radar.
I think they were going off what was on the ground.
But I have to say, in your Qatar comments,
when you look around and you think it's all of the big teams,
only McLaren have gone for Inter's,
and you think track record for McLaren right now
and doing something different to everyone else,
it's not legendary, is it?
I thought, this is a bold call.
It's either going to be a hero one or it's a 01
and the last time was Qatar, and it was a 01
As soon as they went for the formation lap,
you knew that the softs were just...
You could even just see the Mercedes leaning on it,
and you're like, oh, if you can weave like that on a straight,
you're doing okay.
So I was out there at Greenlight,
just beyond Greenlight doing the practice starts.
And so I've been out there at HuffPast,
and I've gone to the commentary box,
and I've seen there's no obvious rain.
And then we've heard, oh, it's wet at turn 10.
We've heard the radio chatter on the reconnaissance laps.
It's wet at turn 10.
And so we're waiting for this great reveal
on the formation lap,
because we see the same pictures
that everyone else does at home.
It cuts to the hairpin,
and I was genuinely like, what on earth is going on?
Have they all talked themselves into...
You know, sometimes Alex Brando has this wonderful turn of phrase
where he talks about psychological rain.
I felt like they all talked themselves into intas
because the temperatures were low.
It's fine if you're the other five,
and you're not in the points.
On row two, that's one of the most bizarre calls I've seen
since I've watched for a while.
And to put both of them on intas, right.
Why not roll the dice and have one on the other?
And then he takes the lead.
I don't think in his entire life
he would have been more grumpy
to find himself in the lead of a race.
He's in the lead.
He's jumped the mercs.
He's on the wrong tire.
It's a matter of time.
It's obviously dry.
It's freezing out there,
but one of the strangest things I've seen in a while.
So there's been so much scaremongering the last 24 hours
that you speak to anyone in the paddock,
and they're talking about the race being a race of attrition.
If you keep it on the road, you're doing well today.
Quotes from Pierre Gasly that if it rains,
it's going to be a demolition derby and all of this.
And everyone was saying on the grid,
speaking to various people,
and they were like,
look, we just need to survive this one.
And I spoke to Ollie Berman as he was walking off the back of the grid.
I said, how's the grip?
And he's like, there's not a lot of it.
It's going to be really tricky.
Everyone was just so terrified of tire temp.
And clearly you could hear Oscar's team radio
and Tom Stallard coming back and saying, look,
even when Oscar wanted to pit,
and look, we can all see at this point it's dry,
but is the tire temp going to be an issue?
And I think it was all just tire temp related
rather than just moisture related.
But basically it was fine.
If they'd started on the right tire,
do you think they could have challenged the Mercedes?
Well, in the evidence of Saturday,
they had a fair shout, didn't they?
And the Mercedes scrapping would have had
an entirely different context
if you had Lando right there,
because Lando looked capable of picking up the pieces
because he did in the sprint.
So if you constantly have them scrapping lap after lap,
yeah, Lando looked most likely to pick up the pieces,
but they deleted their race before it even began.
And I think the field will learn from that one.
I don't think the next time we get a gamble race,
we'll see it with a dry track and intermediate tires.
It's so strange what happened.
I was reminded of the Malaysian Grand Prix
and I think it was 2007 when Ferrari pitted Kimi Raikkonen
on a bone dry track, literally
because the radar said,
oh, there's going to be a downpour in five minutes.
It never came.
So you just had Kimi going around on this inter,
waiting for the rain,
and eventually had to put and put a slick on again.
Alpine did that a couple of years ago, didn't they?
They put, I think they put Okon at the time
on totally the wrong tire in Zanvo.
And Okon was so angry that it led to their double podium
and just stay out there.
When it rains, just stay out there,
wait for the inevitable safety car.
So the only upside for McLaren is they can learn from this,
but I don't think you'll ever see anyone on the second row
gamble on non-existent rain for a long time.
What I would say as well is the drivers
surely have to bear some responsibility here.
We're pinning it all on the team,
but the drivers are the ones that have driven the track.
So everyone's, all the drivers are thinking bloomin' egg.
This is going to be a difficult race
on the way round to the grid.
The drizzle, the conditions,
they're all just feeling it tiptoeing round,
bit of moisture.
Oscar and Lando must have a decision here to make.
They're the ones reporting it back.
So they'll have come back and just said,
I don't know if we can survive this.
They must have done to speak to the race engineers.
There's no way that McLaren can overrule drivers
that think it should be slick with Inters.
So maybe one driver thought more strongly of it,
and the other ones thought,
if he's doing it, then I'll do it.
And that's why they've jumped in the same boat.
Audi did the same.
Science, I was interested in him going for Inters as well,
further back.
Normally a driver that I would back to be
on the right side of these sort of calls.
So when I saw him on it, as well as the Audi guys,
you got Nico Hülkenberg there with loads of experience.
They weren't alone.
They were alone in the top bunch that did it.
If you're science in a Williams,
you're Hülkenberg in an Audi,
you know you're going to be nowhere on the interlap one anyway.
You've got more to play by going a bit rogue,
whereas McLaren had less.
And surely the drivers have got to burden a little bit of that.
It was a difficult weekend for McLaren as a whole,
not just the race.
I mean, they brought the second part of their upgrade
and they had to take the front wing off.
There's a bit to review back in Woking, isn't there?
They sometimes do that.
If that front wing doesn't return for a while,
that would be a massive outlier
from what we've seen from McLaren in the last couple of years,
where every time they've brought something,
bolted it to the car, it's made the car quicker.
So there is a potentially bigger story,
but we'll have to wait a couple of weeks to see
whether that's the case.
Obviously, Monaco's an outlier next.
So one after that, we'll find out.
Well, it was a hell of a race.
There was so much going on throughout.
I just want you guys,
before we come to our driver of the day,
just reflect on a couple of standout performances.
Whatever they're feeding Franco Colopinto at Alpine,
keep feeding him the same thing,
best ever result in Formula One.
Actually, a double points finish for Alpine as well.
I mean, what has happened to Franco?
Just I'm being serious.
Something happened in Miami and he hasn't looked back.
I don't think he quite knows.
I spoke to him after the race.
He came on our show and he said that the month off
between Japan and Miami was great.
Just have a bit of a reset.
He said he was driving okay at the start of the year,
but clearly was chasing it compared to Pierre
who was completely hooked up.
They bought some parts to the car in Miami
and he just seems to be feeling the grip,
just understanding it,
happy to lean on the car,
making fewer mistakes, finding more pace.
And sometimes just a bit of time off
and you come back with a fresh mindset.
It does work.
The car changed a little bit
and he is doing a tremendous job.
He showed me Williams that if it's in his wheelhouse,
he can extract good results.
But it's the motivation and keeping you
seat in Formula One.
He's the driver hovering over the exit
with a team boss who is famously impatient
if you're not performing.
If he didn't have these results,
he would be in trouble.
Back to back personal best in Formula One is superb
and it gives him a foundation for the rest of the year.
He's such an emotional driver.
And I wonder, I mean,
front of JP and I have talked about this before,
but going back to Buenos Aires
and doing that show car run before Miami,
600,000 people turned out to watch him.
Can it turn just like that?
600,000 people in Buenos Aires for a show car run.
I wouldn't want to be in the back row.
That's unbelievable.
When you saw the pictures of that
and they built grandstands for a show run,
you know it's special.
So it doesn't hurt, does it?
It doesn't hurt to have your name chanted
and to feel the love of a sporting nation
that they just get behind everyone.
I remember when he was scoring points with Williams
and he was in 10th place and I was like,
what's he going to be like if he gets major points?
He's looking capable of scoring major points.
And sometimes just literally taking your mind away.
So having that month off,
you don't think about Formula One the whole time.
You get to just reset, just chill out.
And you go and get praised by 600,000 people.
But you do rock in, you get a different perspective.
You're not entrenched in, oh, this is all tough.
Oh, Pierre's the guy.
You come in, you think, hang on, no, I'm shoulders back.
I can do this.
It is great to have a reset sometimes.
Look, final one before we all head out.
Liam Lawson, P7.
Great result for him in the racing ball.
And actually, Arvid Limblad,
mentioning dispatches for him,
because he didn't get to race on Sunday,
but had been really impressive all weekend, hadn't he?
Superb to rock up to Montreal,
which is an unusual track, difficult conditions.
We've seen some serious competitors in Formula One
not get locked in this weekend.
He was superb from the off, scored a point in the sprint,
and was unlucky with the way that that was handled
at the start of the race,
that he wasn't pushed back into the middle of the pit lane
and a chance to fire it up.
So it didn't work out for him,
but good on racing balls, they're delivered.
And Liam Lawson is looking an assured performer
after a stop-start Formula One career.
He's looking like a driver.
He's got a bit of experience now.
Bit of consistency there from Liam.
Well, guys, it's been wonderful to chat it through a great weekend.
I mean, best Grand Prix of the year so far.
Yeah, absolutely superb.
30 laps, best 30 laps of a team battle
for the lead that we've seen since Austria last year
with the McLaren.
Jake C, who's your driver of the day?
Frank Acola Pinto for back-to-back personal bests.
What?
Yeah, we didn't see him all day.
He was at risk of getting dropped
if he didn't perform in the first five races.
He has performed and he's booked the rest of the season,
if not longer in Formula One.
And when you're at risk of the trapdoor,
that is not a given.
The others, you know, we had the McLarens
deleting themselves from the battle.
George didn't get a chance to take it to the end.
Kimmy acknowledged that at the end.
So the driver who most unexpected result,
I'll go for Franco.
Is Lewis for me?
I'm not discrediting Franco.
Great drive.
But driving that Ferrari back up to second place,
overtaking Max, having the hunger
to go and chase him down in the late stages as well,
and not settle into the rhythm of a third place,
which would have been quite easy.
It was just great to see him back to his best.
Had to be Lewis for me.
I'm with you on Lewis,
but it's boring if we all say the same thing.
So I'm going to throw in Carlos Sainz.
I think Williams having a very tough time at the moment.
He started 15th on the wrong tyre
and somehow pulled it back to a P9.
And when they start slimming down that Williams,
I think there's probably some underlying performance there.
So I'm quite excited about what Williams
can do in the second half of the year.
And Carlos just, he's kind of Mr consistent.
He points a course in Miami as well.
He just, he's pulling the rabbit out of the hat
for Williams at the moment.
He's the one making it work in this regulation set,
I think is a fair sentence.
And yeah, not a given that they score points.
You knew on the grid, again,
a little bit like you knew Max would be a podium threat.
You think Drizzle, this sort of day,
Carlos will end up somewhere,
which is why I was surprised he was on inters,
but he still ended up somewhere.
He's just capable of having the mindset to make it work.
All right, well, guys, thank you both very much
for coming on the pod.
Great to chat as ever.
See you next time in Monaco.
Cannot wait.
It's going to be good, isn't it?
We love Monaco.
Yep, superb.
And we could get our first non-Mercedes
Grand Prix winner of the year
according to Jonan Palmer.
Caviato with that.
All right, guys, thanks so much.
And for more reaction and analysis from Montreal,
please go to f1.com, the official F1 app,
and at F1 on social media,
and do check out F1's other official podcast.
This week as well, my guest on F1 Beyond the Grid
is Audi boss, Mattia Binotto.
That's out on Wednesday on the Beyond the Grid feed.
And you can watch our chat on the F1 YouTube channel.
And Juan Pablo Montoya is on the latest F1 Explains podcast,
talking about the route to Formula One.
That's just below this show on the F1 Nation feed.
Thanks very much for listening,
and we will, of course, be back next Monday
to preview the Monaco Grand Prix.
F1 Nation is produced by Formula One and AudioBoom Studio.
About this episode
Montreal delivers a chaotic Canadian GP review: Kimi Antonelli’s unexpected win, George Russell’s heartbreak, and a confusing intermediate-tyre moment that left the hosts stunned. The conversation zooms in on 30 laps of back-and-forth racing, the counterfactual of what Russell might have done without a technical problem, and how tire temperature and “yo-yo” race dynamics shape strategy. Hamilton’s “magic” returns in a Ferrari, while teammate rivalries, Mercedes rules, and simulator correlation debates round out the flashpoint theme.
Tom Clarkson is joined by F1TV commentary duo Jolyon Palmer and Alex Jacques to reflect on an eventful Canadian Grand Prix.
Kimi Antonelli capitalised on George Russell’s DNF to claim his fourth win in a row and move 43 points clear of his Mercedes teammate at the top of the World Championship standings. What did the guys make of their wheel-to-wheel battles in Montreal? Will Mercedes ask them to dial it down? And how does this result change the mindset of the two title contenders?
Behind Antonelli, Lewis Hamilton overcame a tense battle with Max Verstappen to score his best result as a Ferrari driver. Was this Lewis’s best weekend since joining the team? And will he continue to avoid the simulator before races?
Tom, Jolyon and Alex also discuss Franco Colapinto’s best finish in Formula 1 and share their thoughts on McLaren’s decision to start both Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri on intermediate tyres. How much responsibility for that call lies with the drivers?
