Reaction to Abu Dhabi GP practice

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Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the P1 Podcast with Matt and Tommy.

The final practice wrap up of the year.

Abu Dhabi is upon us.

The season finale, the title fight.

All of our questions, all of our theories, everything is going to be answered,

put into play or not in the next 48 hours or so.

Tommy, how are you, sir?

Have you slept?

I have. I have managed to sleep.

Although I will admit I've been thinking about it an awful lot.

And I can't believe like tomorrow is the big one, the qualifying of course.

And we had a little inkling about the pace didn't we today for sure.

Indeed. Now, before we get into everyone on FP2, if you don't know already,

if you've been living under a rock, if you've just started watching Formula One,

and it's your first race weekend, and it's the finale, interesting choice.

But just to remind you all, firstly, welcome.

And secondly, Lando is leading the championship.

Max Verstappen is 12 points behind and Oscar Piastri a further four behind Max.

Right, let's reflect on FP1 first, where the top three drivers,

well, Lando Norris, Max Verstappen, and Shell Leclerc!

Look, you've got to take your small wins.

Take the W's, a P3 and FP1.

That's what, that's the scraps that Ferrari fans have these days.

When you've got one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.

Yeah, nine young drivers.

You've got to take the P3 when it comes in.

So I would love to say that Shell Leclerc being P3 was actually the biggest

point of conversation in FP1.

But it was the fact, actually, that Oscar Piastri did not take part in FP1.

Not because his car wasn't working, but something we mentioned in the run-up

to the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix weekend was the fact that he was going to be giving up

his seat to Pato Award for FP1 due to the young driver rule,

where throughout a season, the car, either Lando or Oscar, so Lando and Oscar,

both have to give up their car twice over the course, or four times in total,

twice shared between the two teammates.

So this isn't some insane conspiracy where they're like,

right, maybe Pato Award needs some time in the car.

Like, this is something that Oscar has to do now,

but it's really, obviously, unideal.

But you have to pick a moment, and this was where Oscar clearly felt was

the best place to do.

Of course, you have three practice sessions,

but he's kind of on the back foot at the moment,

whether that is due to that, and the fact he's just not had a balance.

That's what Zach Brown has been saying, and things like that,

found it a bit weird that Zach Brown was saying in commentary that

Oscar would have been a lot closer had he got the middle sector together.

But when we saw the comparisons, he was only a tenth down in the middle

section.

It was three and a bit tensor in the last.

Maybe Zach Brown just got confused.

But either or Oscar on the back foot after not running in FP1.

Definitely.

Yeah, you look at towards the end of the season,

we knew this would happen that both drivers would have to give up their car again.

Of course, Landon Orris did that in Mexico, and the only other opportunity

with the fact that the remaining races are Brazil, which was a sprint.

So, of course, you're not going to give up FP1.

Vegas, very difficult track.

You need all the running you can.

Of course, we know McLaren still got disqualified and didn't have enough running there.

And Qatar, a sprint again.

So it had to be Abu Dhabi.

Obviously, the argument here is why couldn't Oscar sit out in Mexico and Lando?

Abu Dhabi, some people will say, well, that's because it's Lando and Lando gets a bit more

of the rub of the green.

But at the end of the day, it had to happen.

I do think that they could have probably planned it a bit better.

It seemed from the very start that we would see the fact that this title was going to go

down to the wire between them, even before Max entered the scenario.

They were trading a very close all year within a racewind of each other,

so it very much felt like it was going to go down to the wire in Abu Dhabi between the two

of them.

So for them to be in a situation when there is, at the end of the day,

24 races to get to the drivers in each car out the way, you do it the last one when one of your

drivers is going for the world title.

I don't think it's the best preparation or planning.

So you do feel for Oscar Piastri and it can't have helped him.

I know it's one of those sessions where it's the most unrepresentative

up there in the whole year, if you like.

But when you're going trying to win the world championship and have a great opportunity to

do it, the last thing you need is to be missing a whole practice session, even just to get comfortable

in the car and get a little bit of setup work done before you go into the next session,

which matters a lot more in FP2.

Certainly does.

Of course, the other thing to speak about are all the rookies, all the young drivers that were

taking part in this Free Practice 1 session.

We had Patoe Ward in the McLaren, Arthur Leclerc in Ferrari, Arvid Limblad in Red Bull,

Luke Browning in Williams, Ayumu Iwasa in Racing Balls, Rio Hirakawa in the Haas,

Jack Crawford in the Aston Martin, as well as Key and Shields as well, also in the Aston Martin,

then Paul Aaron in the Alpine.

The highest finishing driver was Hirakawa, who has had five outings this year now, which is

a few different teams he did at Alpine and Haas, so yeah.

And McLaren, I think.

And McLaren, yeah, yeah, he's got a lot of runs out there.

Yeah, interesting.

Interesting the way, like, they've all left it till the end,

amusing how Aston Martin have basically just got both of them out and they're like,

we don't need FP1.

We've just kind of shown you how unrepresentative that session is compared to others throughout

the year.

Or how little Aston Martin can get out of the final race.

They don't want to drive anymore.

They've given their car away to someone else that, as we mentioned,

in drive ratings is haunted, according to Fernando Alonso.

Certainly is.

It's not great when you have two young drivers in there because you never get a comparison.

You never really understand or see how close a driver is to an experienced one.

Aston Martin clearly did not care about that.

P1P, remember, Robert, does F1 need to change their definition of rookie

for the rookie practice sessions to have a limit for how many a single driver can do?

It seems like some teams just get a well-established older driver from another series

to give them feedback, which kind of goes against the spirit of the rule, in my opinion.

Well, spirit of the rules and formula one don't go together and they never have done.

I think teams will always find a way to do what they need to do, whether that's

getting data from a certain driver, whether that's,

you know, at the end of the day, like, everyone's doing something different.

You look down this order of the rookies and I would argue that,

obviously, Limblad is driving next year.

So Red Bull are using it as an opportunity to help him.

Looking down the other drivers, I'd argue only Crawford by some miracle

that he, Aston Martin, probably not a chance.

We know that those seats are locked in, but obviously still young and has an opportunity there.

Paul Aaron, of course, as well, has an opportunity at Alpine, maybe,

not next year, but the year after.

No one else, really, may be Browning as well, but there's a lot of drivers up and down

the order, aren't there, that aren't going to realistically get into formula one.

Pato Ward, you know, is a fantastic Indy car driver

and obviously has this amazing opportunity to do it, but it would be a miracle for him to,

you know, be in a McLaren one day with the greatest of respect to him.

Equally, you know, Kean Shields and Aston Martin, who we'll just speak about quickly,

is quite clearly someone that's paid an awful lot of money to be in that car.

You know, there was a slightly almost comical graphic that came up during the session that said

Kean Shields rode to F1, which was 13th in GB3 in 2022.

2023, he finished second in Euro formula,

which sounds quite good, but that's Spanish Formula 3, just with a different name.

2024, he finished 30th in Formula 3 and didn't score a single point,

and he's currently in 2025, Formula 2 is 24th and hasn't scored a point.

So let's be honest, they're taking the opportunity to Aston Martin to grab some more money,

because we know Lawrence Stroll is short on cash, and this is the way that teams are going to do it.

They're going to put different drivers in based on their situation.

Some people have drivers locked in already, so they don't care that much.

Other people do want to lock it in, but unfortunately you can't police it

in the way that we'd all like to see, because at the end of the day we'd all love to see

the drivers that are legitimately going to be the next big thing in Formula 1 be in there,

but that would never happen.

No, it won't. It is a shame for sure. You've got drivers like Ria Hirakawa,

who's been out, as we say, five times this year. He's 31 years old.

That's not young driver territory. That's near my age, not yours, Tommy, you're really old.

That doesn't feel like what it's intended to do for sure, but as you say,

we know what Formula 1 is like, and it's all about money, and it's all about trying to get

information. Hirakawa did a very good job. Don't get me wrong. As I said, he was the highest

performing young driver at the tender age of 31 in P11. Unless Formula 1 clamped down even more

with what it is and what they expect from it, and everything else, as you say, F1 teams

will do whatever they possibly can to gain some kind of benefit, whether monetary or on track.

Right, let's move to free practice two, much more representative.

And the top three were Norris, Verstappen, and Russell. Question from Didier Villouin.

Are either Mercedes, Ferrari, Sauber, Haas, and or RB close enough to possibly help Verstappen?

I love the RB makes me think of Red Bull and the Yuki Sonoda car as opposed to V-Carb.

Are they close enough to help Verstappen? Lando was very quick. Lando was

sensationally quick on the soft tyre before they then all went over to the long running for the

last sort of 15 minutes or so. Three and a half tenths clear of max. Is that going to be the

gap when we come to Saturday in qualifying? I don't think so. I think that Red Bull usually

take a step forward after Friday running. And from free practice one, and we were texting Tommy,

we always do, talking about Formula One, and we were going, hold on, is Holkenberg going to

qualify Lando here? Of course, being a little bit silly with it. But the Saubers are looking

very strong. Oli Berman came over the radio and said, the car is insane. Why is it so good

to drive? Which is the best feedback you could possibly have as a Formula One team and the

engineers in that team going, oh, wait, what? The driver's not complaining. It's perfect.

Oli Berman finishing fourth in free practice too. So are they close enough? No. If Lando puts in a

very solid three, or however many laps he does over the course of the three qualifying sessions

tomorrow, should he make a mistake with how fast Abu Dhabi is now as a circuit,

the gaps aren't that big. So you have to lock it in. The McLaren looks mighty in that last sector.

You kind of get baited through the middle. Oh, well, Oli Berman's only a tenth and a half down.

Lewis Hamilton was a tenth and a half down at one point on Lando through the middle sector,

and he finished eight and a half tenths back when he finished his laps. So

should Lando put in good laps? Yes, they've got the car advantage, I believe, once again.

But it's championship Saturday and Sunday. Anything can happen.

Anything can happen, definitely. At the moment, obviously, Mercedes, Ferrari,

Salba, Haas, Arby, they're all kind of closer to Max than they are to Lando, than Max's to Lando.

So at the moment, if that form continues, the Stappen's going to have to really just

pray that these weirdly don't get in the way because he wants them in the mix,

but he obviously doesn't need them to in the mix. He's going to stop the Stappen being P2 on the grid

to be able to attack Lando if Lando gets pole, obviously. Of course, at the moment it's looking

incredibly likely, but you never know in Formula One and you never know this season, of course.

So yeah, they're definitely up there. I mean, Oli Berman in particular and the two Salbas

incredible performance. We could see something really special. George Russell is in the mix,

which is something that Max Stappen, of course, needs. He needs a big name, Ferrari Lasso.

I was hoping that Charlotte Claire would be more in the mix. You're going to see me as a Charlotte

Claire fan this weekend because, of course, Max needs these drivers to be able to be mixing

at the front. But the Ferrari is a wheelie bin. Exactly. So at the moment, yes,

they're going to is going to make qualifying very, very interesting indeed.

And we're going to find out will it help or hinder for Stappen because it could help him being

close. It could also hinder him where we mentioned about Lando making a mistake. If Max makes a

mistake, he doesn't have that wiggle room and he's dropping way down the order and possibly

starting behind a Salba. So yeah. And then we will see the visual depiction of just how

much the drivers love Max for Stappen. When let's let's joke and say that Nico Holkenberg,

Gabriel Bortoletto and Fernando Alonso all out qualify him, they would they would be out of

the way in two laps. That they'd be done. Max would be through the P2. Thank you very much.

We saw it in Qatar. I don't care what anyone says. There are a lot of drivers that

would not make it hard in the slightest for Max. But one of them that would,

I believe, is George Russell that might well actually get his elbows out and

and really try and fight Max as hard as he can. Of course. Yes. Yes. So we will see.

Which he should. Which he absolutely should do. Of course. Everyone should race as they did.

Would he do the same with Lando? Probably not. But let's let's wait and see.

Next question. XS Gaming J. What's Tommy's percentage now?

It's difficult because I knew this was going to happen.

That the Lando would be mighty quick. Like nothing in my opinion of how that

session would go would change. In the fact that I guess the only thing I didn't foresee at the

moment it could all change is how far Piastri would be off. I thought he'd challenge at the front

based on how good he was in Qatar. I knew Lando would be absolutely mighty here. And so far

this weekend he has shown absolutely that. Like he is, you know, overwhelming favourite

for pole position. But yet my pessimistic brain of course is like, ah, it's so over.

But you never know with this season. Percentage wise, 3%. It's looking less likely.

However. It was 10 minutes. It was 10. Yeah, no, but look at the gap.

You've just said, sorry. Let me, you just literally said none of this is a surprise.

I thought Lando would be really quick, but my percentage has gone down 7 to 3.

Because of how close everyone is to Max and also that Piastri isn't in the mix as well.

I think that that's the key for me here.

And then you forget all the good things like Max turning up on a Saturday,

Red Bull getting better from Friday to Saturday. You know, all these things you just ignore

because your glass is empty right now and the watch long is going to be great, everybody.

What's yours? What's yours? 73%. 73%. Yeah, Max is winning all.

No, but I, what's my percentage? My thinking of like how Max gets into this

is nothing from Friday running. I am not surprised to see Lando fastest.

The pressure isn't on today. The pressure is on tomorrow. The pressure is on Sunday.

And as much as Max and GP did a Lando's opening, no, he's not opening a lap.

Oh no, he is and affected one of Lando's laps to get in his head.

The main mind games I believe are tomorrow and Sunday.

So my percentage for Max Verstappen is what was it before?

I think it was 20, 20, was it 20, 25? 20 maybe something like that.

Yeah, it's around that sort of mark because...

You never know with this season. I will say that. You never know this season.

No, no you don't. Also Tommy, 3%.

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Right, next question. Wicked Whisper. Will Red Bull set up a car for poll like 2021 or focus on

race pace this time? Well, if Lauren Meckies is anyone to go by, it sounds like it's all

trying to get the car dialed in for race trim because you can overtake Abu Dhabi at least much

more so than Qatar, but I think anywhere is more likely. Even Monaco, there's probably more likely

of an overtake than what we saw in Qatar. It's not, Formula One isn't as simple as they

sit down in a meeting room and go, so should we set up for plan combat or plan poll position?

You mean not like the F1 movie, they don't do that?

No, they don't. Surprisingly, they don't start like beating the tables and everything.

So they have to focus on a car that can at least fight Lando in the race.

I don't think Red Bull are expecting to be faster than Lando Norris in race trim,

but then you say that, Max needs poll in order to not be affected by dirty air and

things like that, but if he's on the front row of the grid, he'll have a nice dive bomb

opportunity not into probably turn one like he did with Oscar last year,

but where he passed Lewis Hamilton, sorry to bring it up in 2021, or the next corner down

towards turn five where he also passed Lewis Hamilton on lap one and everything kicked off.

So lots of opportunities to do something on lap one, but Max needs to be on the front row

of the grid full stop. Agreed. In a weird way, and this sounds absolutely insane,

but if I could pick the order I'd want them to be to most benefit Max title other than

obviously Lando in like 20th and Max on pole, but in terms of a realistic scenario,

it would be Lando ahead of Max on the front row of the grid because I think if Max is ahead,

it's going to be so hard for him to do like a Lewis Hamilton and we saw that did even work

for Lewis Hamilton in 2016 when he backed up the whole field because he needs Lando to

be further down. However, if Lando is on pole and Max is second, he's 100% dive bombing in either turn

one or turn six like you say at the start of that he did at the start of 2021 where he came from so

far back to make that move. And what he'll be trying to do when he does his dive bomb is to

also make sure he kind of screws Lando as much as possible and hope that other cars come through.

So in a weird way, yeah, he has to set up for the race

and you know, if I could call it and pick where I wanted it to be for the most interesting and

good shot of the championship, I'd actually have him second but with Lando in first because

then we'll see how does Lando, equally how does Lando play it? Does he, you know, he can't

afford to just turn in and because he knows Max is going to go for a move, so who'll question it?

I think, yeah, I think that would be a really interesting set up for the Grand Prix, for sure.

We'll have to wait and see. We get all those answers tomorrow as to how the grid stacks up.

Question P1P, remember Cal, where did Bearman and Bortoletto come from? Could we see another

rookie on the podium? I think a podium is a big stretch, although I've said that many times

this year. And of course, you know, science has been on the podium. Hadja has been on the

podium. Holkenberg's been on the podium. You know, we've seen midfielders do it.

However, you know, they've been absolutely brilliant that session and as you mentioned before,

Bearman's the dream team radio to say this car is unbelievable. And we've seen that really

where where Oli Bearman has had a car to deliver maybe towards the start of the season,

making these odd rookie errors. But in recent times, he's been absolutely brilliant and

been able to finally put that that car where where it should be and showing him as a real talent.

And then Bortoletto, Sabra looking very, very good indeed in going into this final race.

And, you know, they've got it's an outside shot. But they were talking to Jonathan Wheatley

about it in the Constructors' Championship. You know, RB are in 6 on 92. Sabron,

then you've got Aston Martin on 80, Hassan 73, Sabra 68. So there is an opportunity for

Sabra to 1-2 for Sabra. Exactly. And all of a sudden they're they're P6.

But 7th is definitely an opportunity. And it was very interesting to hear Wheatley say

68 points last year is putting you like 5th or 6th in the championship. And now they're

9th. It's crazy how many points they've managed to score these these midfield

and lower end of the points teams. So yeah, Sabra have got an amazing opportunity to get

into P7 in the championship, which was what they'll be going for with with how good their pace is

looking. We love midfield team scoring points, you know, that's and big points as well. That's

what Formula One is all about. To respond to the question, you know, where did Bearman

and Bortoletto come from? This isn't a surprise. Bearman's been on a fantastic run of form.

Bortoletto has had moments this year, not maybe as consistent of a trajectory as what we've seen

with Oli Bearman recently, but both have shown that they've got very solid pace. And so I wouldn't

say it's a where they come from as such. It's just the fact of, oh, wow, they're actually,

as a team, quite high up, both Sabra and Haas, I don't know if Oconnel be able to sort out

his qualifying woes tomorrow. But looking very good for both Bearman and Bortoletto.

Question from Fire Breath. When did Ferrari get into the tractor business?

Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous question. This has been obvious for many races now that

they've been in the tractor business while we're bringing up now. The 2025 Ferrari car will be on

display in a farm shop near you. And I don't want to see this car ever again. I just put

it directly in the bin, along with Fred Versurs, not Fred himself, but Fred Versurs Blueprints for

this new car that they promised the world with and didn't even deliver a small island with the

amount of disappointing results we've had this year as a Ferrari team. But we came into this

not expecting anything miraculous. And as much as free practice one, you might get baited,

as I did. It looks like Ferrari are very much just fighting in the midfield, trying to get into Q3,

which is madness considering where we were this time last year, where Carlos Sainz was fighting

for the win against Landau. Insane, isn't it? I did think that Ferrari would be a lot better

here. Of course, I went for that prediction of Hamilton makes Q3 at the moment. It's not

looking all that great. I thought that Leclerc might be able to do something. Even though,

of course, they were absolutely woeful in Qatar. Of course, we've seen them nowhere near really

able to take victories, but podiums in Leclerc's hands haven't been a billion miles off, and he's

achieved that a few times. I thought they'd maybe be a bit more in the mix there, but I

think even more embarrassingly for Ferrari, you've got Ollie Bearman in a Ferrari powered

Haas, and the two kick salvers with a Ferrari engine doing better than the main team. And that is

completely inexcusable. We have had this conversation before about it's pretty embarrassing

for Mercedes that McLaren have won the constructors and very likely win the driver's

title. It doesn't look good on them that a team is doing it with their engine.

But McLaren are a top team with loads of facilities, lots of money, and we've seen

here with great pedigree. Ferrari should not be being beaten by a kick salver and a Haas

with the same engine. No chance. They shouldn't even be in the same league, and yet here we are

looking like Charles Leclerc might be the top Ferrari, but he may not even beat the kick

salvers and Ollie Bearman in qualifying. If you'd have told me this before kick salver became that

as an entity, like our Matt in 2022, Charles Leclerc's Fighting for the World title in the

first half is winning races. And then you had said to me, Matt, by the way, in three years

time, Ferrari are going to be losing to a streaming platform. That's the kind of level that

we're at right now. Of course, it's not the only thing, but that's their headline sponsor,

and they are kick salvers. Well, this was the team that were a joke last year, of course. We

predicted them last in the championship. We said they weren't going to score points.

If you'd have said last year, they'd be being by even last year. Forget 2022. Last year,

kick salver, the joke team that were absolutely dreadful, easily last in the constructors

championship. Ferrari almost won the constructors championship, and now they're behind them.

Yeah, fun times. Good. All right, let's move on. It's only practice, don't you really need to

talk about Ferrari? Let's go to a question from people in Petromember, Rage 33. Given how strong

other drivers are looking, could we see a very mixed up starting grid on Sunday?

In terms of mixed up, I can't see it being the top positions, which you think would be

reserved for the likes of Norris Verstappen-Russell and Piastri if he gets his act together.

But I would not be surprised if we saw something unbelievable from who we've just mentioned,

Oli Bearman, or the kick salver guys, or even Hajja, as well. We saw last year,

Nika Holkenberg, fourth, qualified fourth in a house. I would not be surprised if we saw

someone snuck it into like a P4, P5, one of those midfielder runners at the very least.

I don't think like a crazy, completely mixed up grid, but I think we could see a midfielder

really shining and putting in an unbelievable performance to be somewhere they absolutely

shouldn't be. Yeah, I completely agree. Bearman, Holkenberg, Bortoletto, Hajja, there's a lot of

opportunity for these drivers to, for your sake, Tommy, not outqualify Max Verstappen,

but to be right in the mix here. And this is what we were saying earlier about, you know,

if one of the top runners doesn't just have to be Lando, if one of the top runners makes a

mistaken Q3, loses two, three tenths, you could easily see a handful of drivers flying past you

and being ahead of you on the grid. So yeah, it could well be a pretty nice mixed up starting

grid for Sunday. And I'd be looking forward to that very much as long as we get the title

protagonist in the correct position for a banger Sunday race. Right, that is it. Thank you, everybody.

We will be live for the biggest watch alongs of the year for the finale. Of course,

tomorrow and Sunday, make sure you subscribe to the YouTube if you have not and put on your

notifications as well because you are not going to want to miss this. Make sure you come and

join myself and Tommy live. We stream on YouTube and Twitch, Matt P1, Tommy over on Twitch.

Tommy, final thoughts before we get into the first of two competitive days for the finale?

Final thoughts are, you know, I've been saying our 3% chance. You best believe that when we get to

the watch along, I'll be there saying that I feel sick about 600 times before the lights go out

for the Q1. And yeah, I'm really, really looking forward to it. It's going to be

amazing and the nerves are going to be unbelievable. I might have to dig out my smart watch and check

my heart rate during the session. You have to put that on. I think you might have oversold

how many words you're actually going to say in the watch along. The fact that you can say

anything I think is quite frankly a lie. But don't worry, there'll be one of us that's

speaking or screaming or something like that. So look forward to it. We'll see you very soon.

Lots of love. And remember, P1 live shows, delusion tour tickets, still a few for,

I think Dublin might be sold out, but Manchester a few more, a few more left. So

go get your tickets if you want to come see myself and tell me live. It is literally next week.

Bye. Bye.

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