Reaction to Abu Dhabi GP qualifying

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

Abu Dhabi. Competitiveness, sessions, qualifying, done. We have seen DRS in qualifying for the

final time. Goodbye. We will never see a rear wing open like that over a hot lap ever again.

Tom Bellingham, you were an absolute mess in the qualifying watch along. Can only imagine

what the race is going to be like when Max does Max things. How are we feeling? How do you

sum up your emotions right now? Yeah, my emotions weren't — I did not remember that DRS thing at all.

You'll be amazed to hear that my thoughts were elsewhere during qualifying.

Yes, if you joined us for the watch along, my heart rate was at 130 BPM basically during Q3.

It was actually 133, Tommy, which was even more interesting because it had 33 in it

and it had the number one. Whether that's going from number one to number 33 and it's just your

pessimistic heart getting involved as well. But yes, it was a very, very fun one.

Three drivers in the title fight and it is set up. Rather interesting indeed. But before we get

into the top drivers, let's begin with Q1, where the bottom five were Hamilton, Albon,

Hülkenberg, Gasly and Colin Pinto. Both our good surprises, not even Lewis Hamilton,

but Alex Albon and Nico Hülkenberg out in Q1. Of course, Lewis Hamilton is what we have to

talk about. First, he crashed in FP3, a very strange one. It felt like, at least from my

perspective, that the DRS was closed very, very late going into that corner. But whatever

the reason was, he lost the car, spun into the wall. But that's by the by. That's something else.

We go to qualifying and he is now the first ever Ferrari driver to be knocked out in Q1

in three consecutive occasions. And that's not even including, I think, the sprint quali

as well. So disaster for Lewis Hamilton. I feel like it's rinse and repeat every time we talk about

his interviews after to Q1, but he literally was saying hardly anything to Rachel Brooks.

He then spoke to Sky Sports Italy, I think it was, I say spoke to, he basically just spoke

about the amount of rage and anger that he had within him. Just pure and utter disappointment,

whereas Schaulecler up in P5 further stamps the seal of worst season ever on the Lewis Hamilton 2025

campaign. Absolutely. Yeah, you mentioned about good surprises. I also thought that Lewis Hamilton

getting into Q3 would be a loophole in the predictions. And he's not even made it into

Q2. Again, it's an absolute shocker for Hamilton to crash in FP3, to then not make it out. Of

course, it was incredibly close, like one tenth away from George Russell in eighth is insane.

We see this always at the end of the year, and even more when it's a regulation change,

that the field spread is absolutely ludicrous. How close it is. And yeah, Lewis Hamilton missing

out by a small margin, but again, it's another headline that he doesn't want to have.

And an absolute shocker for Hamilton. And you mentioned about the first ride drive to do that,

of course, it's going to take a miracle tomorrow for him to end the season with a podium, which

you've said that at the start of the year. You thought you were insane to say that he

hasn't scored a Grand Prix podium. And it's just been an absolute shocking year. And Hamilton

just looks a broken man with his interviews. He does indeed. Now, that statistic is for full

seasons, by the way, before we dive into, well, actually, Ferrari substitute Giancarlo Fisca...

We're not going to get into that. Yeah, yeah. Lewis Hamilton has a full-time Ferrari driver.

It is, yeah, he's sadly making some very painful records at Ferrari. And yeah,

next year, the start of next year is so unbelievably important, I cannot stress,

even for someone as decorated as Lewis Hamilton, he has to kick off 2026. Well, otherwise,

could well be a retirement at the end of 2026. It genuinely could.

Other drivers, we mentioned, of course, Alex Albon. I'm utterly devastated that he is out in Q1.

I thought this might be the bounce back weekend for Albon. But once again,

the struggles. William's not carrying over that same speed that we saw in Qatar.

Hülkenberg, I mean, we're speaking about speed. Salber. Salber looked utterly devastating over

one lap. Gabby up in seventh. And Hülkenberg, a disaster down in 18th.

Yeah, an absolute disaster. Hülkenberg qualified fourth here last year in a house.

It's one of his best circuits. You thought that was free real estate.

Exactly. I really thought it was going to be good. He's on an amazing

run of form in qualifying, beating Gabby. But Gabby, a brilliant qualifying,

we'll talk about him later. But a disaster for Hülkenberg when big points are on the line,

as we mentioned in the Friday podcast, that Salber do have a chance to catapult themselves,

higher up the championship table, maybe seventh. But that's going to be a big ask now

with Hülkenberg out the equation. Yeah, it needed a double points finish,

didn't it, for Salber. And then Alpine, 19th and 20th. Why did I not go for them for

another flop? It was just so free. And I just thought, no, they couldn't possibly be 19th and 20th.

Of course, Franco Colopinto, the victor, will grace his eyes.

Right. Here's the theory. Oh, no.

Was grace absolutely cooking? Max Verstappen backs up the whole field. The Alpenes win.

One, two. Max third. She's got the clean sweep.

So when you say backs up the whole field, I genuinely believe Max trying to go slowly

is still faster than the Alpenes. That's the problem.

Very true. But we shall see if that comes true for Grace. That would be quite the three-pointer.

But it would mean no Max Verstappen World Championship.

Let's head to Q2, where the five drivers out in this session were

Bearman, Sines, Lawson, Antonelli and Stroll. The entire Q2 field from first to 15th

were separated by 0.367 of a second. Ridiculous.

Question from P1 page. Remember, captain of 3420. Your thoughts on a 44-year-old Alonso

whitewashing Lance Stroll in Grand Prix qualifying this season?

My thoughts are, wow, how has there not been one weekend? Because we do occasionally go,

all right, Lance, I see you six out of 10. But that doesn't happen all that often.

I don't know if it's a nod to Fernando Alonso. I think it's moron, Lance Stroll,

who has very, very rare occasions of turning up. And when he does, it's usually on a Sunday,

where he pulls off a little strategy masterclass or he just does something reasonably well,

but it doesn't happen all that often. The fact that he hasn't beaten a 44-year-old Alonso

at least once in qualifying tells you all you need to know about Lance Stroll.

I think there's two sides to it. I've said many times, Alonso is a fantastic qualifier,

even at the age of 44. He's showing that, look what Sebastian Vettel did against Lance Stroll.

They were, I think, not too crazy apart when it came to the qualifying head-to-head.

I was going to say, you were saying, look what Vettel did with Stroll,

but they were quite close at times.

No, that's what I'm trying to say in terms of praising Alonso. Look what it was.

So you do have to give some credit to Alonso here. Yes, Stroll is absolutely awful,

but for Alonso not to be qualifying, but for the fact that Alonso has done it,

he's whitewashed a teammate again through the whole season in qualifying. I believe he did

that when he was at Manadia's Rookie with Van Dorn and McLaren is the only driver to do

it twice with a teammate through a whole season. Three times now, if you said it.

And it'd be three times. That's what I mean. And now it's three times.

So he was the only driver before, and now he's done it for a third time.

So Fernando Alonso, yeah, there is credit to Fernando Alonso,

but it's also the fact that Lance Stroll, he's so much better in the race.

He is such a bad qualifier. He is really, really poor. He's woeful.

He's in a position in Turkey at the time. Yeah, exactly. In crazy conditions when

it worked all out for him. But qualifying as well on Stroll is so, so poor, and that has

been part of it. I also do wonder that he's just waiting for Nui to join. Well, he's joined,

but in terms of have the Nui car, and he's just uninterested, it seems, this season now,

isn't he? So he's probably checked out long ago. He didn't turn up to the fan forum,

Tommy, but neither did Fernando, and they didn't turn up to the dinner. What is going

on at Aston Martin, Tommy? Why are they not turning up to anything? It's very strange.

Maybe they're so focused on next year that they're having constant meetings.

Lance is going to, like, leaving the track at 2 a.m. because he's so busy studying.

Yeah, I doubt it, but it hasn't been confirmed either way.

Other drivers to speak about, Oli Bearman, 11th place,

sort of the first half of the season, you go, oh, not a bad performance from Bearman.

I'm now very upset that Oli Bearman was 11th, 7,000ths of a second behind Sonoda, who was 10th,

who was the closest, I think, anyone's ever come to exceeding track limits, but didn't.

From first glance, it looked like Yuki was out, but then when you sort of zoom in and you take

a proper look, it's not very obvious where the white line ends and the other part of the

track begins. So that was very, very close indeed. That would have, of course, promoted

Oli back into the Q3 spots. But considering the pace of Oli Bearman, the praise he had for the

team on Friday and Ocon, of course, making it through to Q3, it has to be put down as a

disappointment for Oli. A very big disappointment. He's looked absolutely incredible so far this

weekend. He's been on an amazing run as well. He's looked so, so strong in the last few races,

obviously unlucky last time out in Qatar. But then you go into this weekend, you say in the car

is absolutely unbelievable. He's driving so well. And when we do our little top five predictions

just before qualifying, you put him in your top five little bit of interesting behind the scenes

here that I was going to go for exactly the same top five as Matt. And then I saw you write that

because I was going to go for Bearman top five as well. And then, of course, change it to be fun

and a bit different. But Bearman was looking like a really good shot. We could have seen Oli Bearman

based on what we've seen so far and how much quicker he's been to Espanocon. Espanocon

has taken my flop personally and out qualified Bearman for the first time in a while.

You flopped him as well. Tommy has left the door a jar.

I'm throwing the predictions championship on the final run.

You've left it a jar, but I haven't scored either because I didn't back max for pole,

did I? So I went for Oscar. Okay, interesting. So that was very close indeed for Bearman,

but sadly 11th for him. But I think he still has a great shot of scoring points tomorrow.

Also, Antonelli, 14th for Kimmy Antonelli. Of course, I haven't checked it, but I'm going to

assume the same titanium dioxide would be banned in Abu Dhabi. And all of a sudden,

yeah, form is out the window back to back weeks without having the whatever it is food

preservative. And it's clearly taken its toll on Antonelli. I joke. But it has been a

relatively poor weekend of Antonelli so far.

Yeah, very poor from Antonelli. He looked, you know, not not too bad. I did wonder how his form

would be going into this race. I hoped that he wouldn't have maybe dealt with the pressure and

everything has gone through the last week with the kind of the way he found himself in that

that championship battle in terms of like making the mistake and letting Lando through and all

the abuse that he so like got, which is just awful. But we have, you know, I'm not blaming it on that

because we have seen Antonelli have many poor qualifying in the past and been one of these

drivers that can't make it through to Q3. He's one of those drivers that I think he's had

a good year all in all and had some really, really impressive performances and shown that

on this day, he can beat George Russell, which I think is an incredible thing to do in your first

year when you're, you know, how highly rated George is. But he doesn't have that consistency

and particularly in qualifying is where he's been let down more than a few occasions.

And again, today, another driver that, you know, Max needs in fighting at the front.

Exactly. And I'm sure Kimmy would have loved to have helped. But 14th is going to be a

struggle for Kimmy to play any part in the championship. And it's insane that every

single one of the drivers from 11th to 15th was a 23-0. That just shows how close of a

qualifying this was and surprised to not have had more scalps in Q1 and Q2, considering, of course,

as well, Q1, we didn't mention that Lando was very cautious in that, in that opening phase.

Half a second back on Oscar, we were thinking, oh, what's going on here? Is he feeling the

pressure? But we will get on to Q3 very shortly. In fact, right now, Q3, the top 10. Max

Verstappen, Lando Norris, Oscar Piazri, George Russell, Charlotte Clair, Fernando Alonso,

Gabriel Bortoletto, Esteban Ocon, Isaac Hatcher and Yuki Senoda. Max Verstappen pole position.

Tommy, we'll get into all the scenarios a little bit later. But let's start with a question

from Sarp Stappen. I wonder who they support. Can Max really win it?

The race, absolutely. And, you know, weirdly, he's got to be favourite to win the race

now, you'd think. Like, even me as a pessimist is saying that. McLaren, a mighty, I thought it would

be an easy McLaren pole position. I thought Lando was going to take it comfortably with

everything we saw in practice. Max has put in an amazing performance. And you've got to think,

you know, Lando is not going to do anything too crazy, you wouldn't think. Max, obviously,

you know, can win the race. We've seen the pole position getting to turn one first.

It's the best opportunity to win the race this year. We've seen it so many times. However,

he needs more. And this is what we'll get into later of how he plays it. But he's given himself

an amazing chance for what, one, yes, he can absolutely win the race. And two, you know,

even my percentage chance of winning the World Championship has gone up now,

like, he's got a great shot to do it because of where he's kind of put himself

in this. Well, what's the percentage, Tommy? Don't hold back.

Drum roll, please. Ten percent.

Ten percent? Wow. And I take everything back about what I said about, I'd rather Max be P2,

because I think actually now I've seen this order, like,

yeah, there's a lot of scenarios here, isn't there, that can pan out, which we'll talk about.

Hold it back, Tommy. We're not getting into scenario land just yet.

For my answer to, can Max really win it? The race, yes. But I feel as though

in a weird way, I think it will either be both or potentially neither in the sense of,

we will get into the scenarios, but Max could easily, well, I say could easily,

he will have to play games if he wants to win the World Championship. It's as simple

as that. And that will put his win under jeopardy. What we've seen, perhaps he doesn't play as many

games as some of us might think, he's got the pace, at least over one lap. The question we had

from Friday is, have Red Bull gone for, as much as, I don't think it's as extreme as go for poll

or take the win, or have race pace to win, but have Red Bull gone for slightly more on the

one lap pace to try and just get ahead of the McLarens. We're going to see what the

race pace looks like. I think the McLaren, the race pace, especially with Lando, looked incredibly

strong. So it is going to be close. I don't think Max will romp away and win this. One, because

I don't think he has the car pace to do it. And two, he won't want to. He will want to stay

close to the McLarens and cause a little bit of jeopardy. So that's where I sit on it. But

yes, Max can win the World Championship. I still think it's very unlikely,

but he definitely can win the race, that is for sure.

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Question from P1Patreon. Clam is magic. Did Red Bull play it wrongly for

Yuki by playing the team game in quali? If Yuki could do Q3 normally and finish Q3 in P5 or P6,

he would be better poised to play the team game in the main race, which would directly impact

the title fight. No, they didn't play it wrong. Not at all. Red Bull had to put all their

eggs in Max's basket to help him take pole. Simple as that. Whether it's half a tenth that he gained,

doesn't matter. Of course, with hindsight, Max would have got pole regardless.

But it was Yuki's fault. He had track limits on his last lap, was put down to P10. I don't

know exactly where he would have finished after his lap, but I don't think it would have been

P10. But it certainly wouldn't have been in the top four. Like he would have 8th or 9th,

perhaps. To start P10 versus P8, P9, but sacrifice a Max pole is not the way to go,

in my opinion. If I was in charge of Red Bull, they played it right. Yuki sadly wasn't able to put in

a lap at the end to make a big difference, but he didn't have the pace to really do that anyway.

So P10 is not a disaster. He's not starting P20. If Max genuinely somehow manages to back the

pack up so much that we have eight or nine or 10 cars, it's like within five or six. I don't

know how it's going to play out, right? My brain is starting to go into dreamland and scenario land.

Scenario made. But it's not a disaster for Yuki, but realistically,

were we expecting him to play a role anyway? For me, no. No, it's absolutely the right play from

Red Bull. We went into qualifying thinking that McLaren were going to do it. They were the

favourites to take pole position, land in Irish pole. So they had to throw everything they could

to try and get Max to get pole position and get the best qualifying lap he possibly could.

And unfortunately for Yuki Sonoda and just the second Red Bull car in general,

no one in the last kind of like two years has shown that it's worth risking just doing anything else.

Because as much as, you know, say Yuki gets the best lap of his life and finishes fifth,

he's not beating Lando Norris in the race. He's not shown anything,

there's no disrespect to him, but it's true. He's not going to be able to beat Lando in

the race, is he, let's be honest, in a normal circumstance. So it was the right play. You had

to go for it. And Yuki Sonoda, can he play as part later if he stays out or does something crazy?

I don't know. But they had to do this, like P5 still be behind Lando. What really does that

gain? And he's not going to be able to move forward and beat Lando?

No, P5 was never on anyway, but Sonoda Clair popped in there. What a gorgeous, wonderful man.

Question from MrBear15, how in the world did Russell manage to keep the car on the final turn?

With great car control and he threw everything at it. George Russell is a very interesting

driver because I don't know where I sit here with where he wants the championship.

I do think he's very friendly with Lando. And obviously, we know that he's had some beef,

to say the least, with Max Verstappen in the past. However, his team Mercedes and his manager

and boss Toto Wolff, realistically wouldn't want McLaren to win the title because it doesn't

look great on Mercedes. And George, yeah, I don't know where he plays on this like,

you know, there's other drivers up and down the grid who we know have favorites. We saw

literally Fernando Alonso giving Max a toe in one of the sessions. George threw everything at it.

He wanted to get pole position. It was a long shot, but he was asking about, I want a toe from Max

because that's going to be my best opportunity and he might give me one because he knows I need

to be in the mix. George Russell is like, is the puzzle piece in this whole championship

fight, I think here. And yeah, he threw everything at it at the final corner to try and do

something crazy and make his way up the grid. But alas, he only managed to get fourth that,

you know, there was a massive gap between basically the top three in the championship

and the midfielders, which sadly for Ferrari is now them as well. But I didn't need that.

We're talking about George Russell. Why are we talking about Ferrari all of a sudden?

Ridiculous. I know they haven't been able to help you just yet, mate. I'm sorry.

But George Russell, phenomenal car control. I love that final corner. You just see drivers

so urgently wanting to get onto the loud pedal and you see these amazing drifts and slides and,

you know, all kinds of stuff there. But yeah, it would have cost George a little bit of time.

I can't for the life of me think it cost him two tenths to potentially pip one or both McLarens.

But he's fast enough to be a factor. I also don't know where I sit with George Russell

and how he's going to play tomorrow. I think, should it be on the table,

he'll go for the win. Absolutely. George Russell would love to get another victory to his name.

Doesn't have that many. It's what happens in scenario land, which is the question here.

Because as you mentioned, you know, he's had beef with Max. He's pretty friendly with Lando.

But I don't think he would give up the position. Like a lot of people do feel

that George would just let Lando through. I don't think he wants that heat.

We saw what happened. He'd be the most hated driver in F1 and they don't need that.

He doesn't need to go into the new season. I think there are ways of disguising it with

tyres have gone off, making a mistake, which George may well go down that route of.

I don't know. But I just feel as though he just won't want to be part of it or be a headline

no matter what it is. And he'll just want to race as hard as he can and go for the best

result he can. But look, we will see how it plays out tomorrow. But I can't see it being as

yeah, him wanting to be as heavily involved in terms of letting someone through or helping them

as some people may think. Can I also say that, you know, we had this conversation about like,

would your percentage chance be different? Had that Antonelli moment that happened in Qatar?

You know, absolutely, absolutely. Because, yeah, I've completely changed my mind right now.

I'm particularly looking at this grid order, because I think the big thing that Lando has

in his favour right now is, yes, George Russell, looking at that grid order, you know, I'm gonna

basically like praise your boy here. But I think Charlotte Claes put done an unbelievable

quality lap to be P5 and shouldn't be there at all. Don't be afraid to, you know,

you know, I think he's absolutely one of the best drivers on the grid hands down.

Keep going. But he's not going to have the pace in the race to be able to fight

the top four. And unfortunately for Max, you've got Oscar Piastro who can just jump out of the

way when he needs to, when and if that scenario is happening.

Pretty easy to keep up, though, when Max is going a second lap slower.

Well, this is the thing, and that's what it's gonna need.

It's gonna be a 20 car DRS train.

Yeah, the whole championship for Max relies on 5th, 6th and 7th here.

And well, and you'd argue that if you could have anyone in 5th, 6th and 7th,

it'd be Charlotte Claes, Fernando Alonso and Gabriel Bortoletto.

So we'll find out how that goes, but yeah.

Yeah. We almost went into scenario land there, Tommy.

We're just so excited to talk about it.

This is we love title finales. We really do.

So of course, you know, you've mentioned Charlotte Claes there as a great performance

P5. I think that is one of the best laps he's put together,

genuinely. You know, you look at Hamilton who struggled to make it through.

I think he's been able to extract almost everything out of that Ferrari and

thoroughly impressed that he managed to get P5.

He changed the entire car from FB2 to FB3 and was able to make some steps forward.

You know, that's half a second off of pole around a lap that is hard to make time up.

It's still a massive margin, but I am happy with it.

And I'm glad I wore the Ferrari shirt because I said it in the watch,

and I was like, I am going to wear a Ferrari shirt for quality because that's

the only time there's any kind of hope for the main race. No point, no point whatsoever.

Of course, Alonso P6, Bortoletto P7, Ocon, a phenomenal job in P8.

And Alonso was like, yeah, P6, a great job from him with his teammate down in 15th.

Right, let's do it. Let's chat about some scenarios for tomorrow.

The top three and how it could all unfold. We'll try and not make it a two-hour podcast

and maybe even run into when the race and the Five Lights come on.

Because we could easily talk a very long time about this.

But let's get into a question from P1Patreon member Sky Sara.

Will Oscar be convinced to play the team game or will he be aggressive into turn one?

He has to be aggressive into turn one. I think he, at the end of the day,

his championship, of course, McLaren are within their right

when the championship is not going to be won by Oscar Piastri to say,

okay, you need to let Lando through. And that's obviously the big advantage that

he's got with this scenario at the moment where he only needs to be on the podium.

Whether it comes to that, of course, we'll find out.

But Oscar, for his own race, will drive like he wants to win the title.

I know he's like the forgotten guy and he's way out of it,

but he absolutely needs to send it. He's on the clean side of the grid.

He will want to beat Lando into turn one because he has to.

And it's very easy if you look on the other side of the garage or if you're

McLaren or Lando fan to be like, well, Oscar should just play it cautious.

But he wants to win this world title and has every right to do it until that moment

where it looks like it's going to be impossible.

And that's when the team orders will be at play.

I don't think it's fair and I don't think McLaren are doing this,

that they will basically say, no, you can't attack Lando in turn one.

I don't think that that would be the case.

I disagree. I think McLaren will say everything about not doing anything silly and to turn

one or lap one.

Well, they will say that, but whether he agrees or not.

Well, yeah, that's a different story.

But I think McLaren will do everything they can to make sure neither of their

drivers replicate what happened last year with Max and Oscar.

There's two ways that Oscar can go with this.

Both are viable.

One, he's aggressive.

He goes for it.

He passes Lando.

Then he hopes for some max shenanigans that gives Oscar an opportunity to win,

but also to somehow make Lando fall back further.

That's one way of going about it.

Probably the more probably the safer bet because Oscar needs to put himself in

with a chance of winning.

The other one is he sits in P3 and watches Max versus Lando unfold before his very eyes,

because that is also an opportunity.

If Max does something with very large elbows that causes the two to come together,

there's a little bit of damage.

All of a sudden, Oscar's in the pound seats if Max and Lando start falling back.

But Lando won't.

I guess I was going to say Lando won't fight Max Willie, but I guess he won't.

But Lando will have to if Max is going slowly.

Max is going two seconds slower than everyone else.

Yeah, it will be pass or be passed in terms of Lando.

I saw a lot of talking in the broadcast about Lando's in a great position.

On paper he is.

He's in championship winning position.

Second is better than 17th, but it also is a very difficult position to manage.

I don't think there's, to be honest, I don't think there's any position other than him on pole

that is a good position for him because of what we're talking about here with the scenarios

and us being Formula One fans and getting very excitable about the possibility of anything

and everything happening.

But I do think that both of those sort of scenarios in Oscar's head is very viable.

I think he's more likely to go aggressive, but it's also fine to see what Max will,

you know, the levels that Max will be willing to go to.

Because otherwise, if Oscar takes Lando into turn one,

Oscar's the one that has to deal with whatever Max is going to try and potentially do

in the opening stages and for most of the race.

So we shall see next question.

People on page remember Sam Krebin.

Is it worth Lando being cautious on the first lap with Max knowing his aggression

into turn one?

And I guess just generally Lando being cautious on Max.

If I'm Lando, my safest bet is to pass Max and win the race.

If we're being actually honest here, we've seen what 2016 can bring.

Yes, Nico Rosberg still won the world title there

when Lewis Hamilton tried to hold him up in the last laps.

But Lando's best bet in a weird way when you think,

surely you can just be cautious and finish on the podium, is to pass Max.

Now, if he gets a fantastic opportunity with DRS and can just outbreak him or breeze past him,

you know, you've got DRS down the main straight, then you've got DRS after that,

that left-right as well into turn six, I think it is.

There are opportunities to overtake.

It's not as if we are looking at Qatar or things like that,

where there aren't opportunities.

There definitely are.

So, yes, I think genuinely, if Lando wants to have a chill race, he needs to pass Max.

Max, I know we say about these things that he's going to do.

He's going to play shenanigans.

He's going to do this and that.

Yes, but he's not going to be insane with it.

No.

He can't be.

I know that he's not going to start driving around backwards.

Yeah, he's not going to do something so insane that you go, wow,

click this up, that you go, wow, I can't believe you've done that, Max.

But if Max does start playing games like that, Lando has the car to be able to overtake Max.

So that's what I think.

Pass him and win the race.

Yeah, I mean, there's two ways Lando can play it here.

If he gets the start of his life and basically just passes him to turn one,

it's all but done really, I think, unless Max goes for an absolute dive bomb.

But if he can basically get into the lead and pull away like, obviously, he's in dreamland.

He can be cautious.

I think the thing here is he can be cautious in terms of he doesn't need,

he knows that he can be on the podium and he'll have that situation

where Oscar Piastri can just let him go.

So realistically, as long as he doesn't get beaten by La Clara Alonso Bortoletto,

in my opinion, he's fine.

And it doesn't matter there, does it?

No, it does.

If Oscar and George both beat him, he's not going to beat him because Oscar can let him through.

But Oscar might be trying to win the race and save you.

But he won't really because he is, yeah.

So like, so this is the situation here that like,

he just needs to avoid getting beaten by...

Gabby Bortoletto down the inside!

That's what Tommy's going to be to after tonight.

You say that, but yeah, I think, of course, it sounds easy.

I know I'm saying it like, oh, it's easy and it's done.

The nerves are going to be so high.

It's going to be one situation, like one just like thing I thought about

in terms of just like the nerves and the tension,

because we've not seen it in so long because we've not had a championship fight.

They did it last year with the constructors.

They did it in 2021.

They're going to have to stand on the grid and they're going to put them

next to the World Championship trophy, all next to each other, looking at that trophy.

I'd love to see a heart rate monitor on the three of them at that point,

because it'd probably be higher than mine during Q3,

because that is going to be so nerve-wracking for them.

And yeah, Lando...

Max will be 50 BPM, I don't know anyone about.

Yeah, true.

For Lando, it might be different.

But for Lando and Oskie, it could be massive,

because it is an amazing opportunity for them.

Lando just needs to make sure that he isn't too cautious that he falls into the trap of

being caught by like Leclerco Alonso Bortoletto,

because realistically, as long as he stays ahead of them, he'll be fine.

And as I'm saying this, 3% max champion fight.

I can't say, you are unbearable.

Oh, dearie me.

Okay, question from Fergie's right ref.

Based on this grid, give us three strategies that Max can use to win the title.

Drive at three miles an hour, and basically back everyone up,

hope that somehow Yuki Sonoda gets into the lead.

And then Yuki Sonoda can then basically play his part, let Max through,

and then Lando is pushed off the podium.

You best believe that Yuki Sonoda starts on hard tyres, by the way.

Yeah, he'll do that.

The other strategy is the fact that...

I can't think of three.

He has to back the whole field up.

That's the only way, and I think it's more just how Max backs the fields up,

because Lewis Hamilton basically only did it right at the end

when he knew that was the situation.

Does Max do it from lap three, lap four?

How does he play it?

Because he can't afford to be too ridiculous

that he gets undercut by the whole field and stuff.

But he also has to try something, and will try something.

Three scenarios is a lot.

The only scenario I see is that he has to back the field up

and put a certain Charles Leclerc into play, or Fernando Alonso.

And I just don't think they've got the pace to be able to do that.

So we'll see.

Yeah, it is unlikely.

I don't think there's three strategies, sadly.

That's coming from Tommy, a Max fan who, I'm sure,

thought of every possible thing that could happen.

But it has to be slow.

The other things just rely on reliability,

or a somehow McLaren fumbling the strategy,

which I don't think it would be possible

if we do get a one-stop strategy,

which you'd imagine would be likely,

considering what we've seen in this 2025 season.

Max just needs to win the race

and be hopeful that something crazy happens.

And he will do what he can to maybe start some of that chaos

if he possibly can.

So there you go.

That is our scenarios.

That is how we are set up tomorrow for the championship finale.

If you're watching along with us,

we're live on YouTube and Twitch.

We'll be live an hour before the race start.

So if that's in the UK, it's 12.

But yeah, an hour from whenever you are watching

that the light's going out.

We'd love to have you there to celebrate the end of this 2025 season,

which has created us some serious spice in the championship.

Tommy, what are your final thoughts

for the final qualifying of the year?

I don't know because I don't know

how I'm going to compose myself during the watch along.

It's going to be amazing though.

I can't wait for it.

You've had an entire year to sort of think about.

I haven't had an entire year to think that Max is going to be the winner.

So to improve your final thoughts on the spot and you said,

I don't know.

Well, look, we'll see how you're dealing with it

when LeClaire's in the title, if we ever get there.

Bro, we're very different people.

I will have a thousand words to say about Charlotte LeClaire

if he's in the title fight next year.

Right, thank you everybody.

We will see you very soon.

Looking forward to tomorrow very much indeed.

And we'll see you there.

Bye.

Try to sleep, Tommy.

I won't.

But not with the Max thing behind you, that's it.

Just say.

Bye.

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