Reaction to Australian GP qualifying

Right, listen up, we are coming to Australia in less than two months and we would love

to see you at one of our P1 live tour shows. Tommy, we are going all over Australia. A

lot of shows have sold out. We've added shows. We've come to Adelaide because you shouted at us.

So make sure you come to Adelaide. You know, there's plenty of opportunities to come and

see us if you live in Australia or can get to Australia. And I'm so excited for it.

I can't wait. I've never been to Australia before. So very hyped to go see lots of amazing new

cities and the P1 Live show, of course, is going to be so much fun. It's going to be so much to talk

about. Oh, yes. So the link will be in the description and the show notes and everywhere

else is on social type in P1 Live Australia. And we'll see you there.

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

qualifying. We have seen it. We have absorbed it. And my God, do we have some thoughts on it?

Of course, myself, Matt Gallagher, resident Mercedes fan have been for a very long time.

If you're listening on audio, big up to my guys, of course, locking out the front row.

As of right now, we don't know if Kimmy Antonelli is, of course, keeping his second place after

having what felt like a hundred different investigations for different things, mechanics

feet going over the line in the pit lane and left the stuff in the car thing as well. But

anyway, we'll get on to all of that. Tommy, how are you? I think that's the most important

question of the entire podcast. How are you feeling after that first qualifying session?

Awful.

Great. Well, thanks, everybody, for listening. Tommy's in a one word mood today.

No, no. Yeah, I'll go into it. I am almost as annoyed about other things as they are

maxed us up and going off, which says a lot. I was going to say, is the awful,

where are you pointing that off? Yeah, I think a few things, actually,

which we'll get into. But yeah, wasn't, was certainly an experience watching that first

qualifying session in these new rules and regs. An experience it was. And I think this podcast

will also be an experience. So lock yourselves in, pop your seatbelts on, because it could well

get very spicy. So let's get into a question before we get into Q1, Q2, Q3. This one comes in

from N Blaze 53. Is talk of battery and recharge going to ruin the sport? Us fans at the track

couldn't tell if a purple sector actually meant anything since a good lap is now based upon

battery and not overall one lap pace. The new regulations that Formula One have introduced

could well be the turning point in the wrong direction for Formula One, for many reasons

that we, of course, will get into across this episode, and I'm sure this whole season.

And it is quite clear to me that, well, there is so much change. And yet,

when I watch that qualifying broadcast, of course, we're in a very privileged position,

Tommy, where we get to be Formula One podcasters, we get to be within the sport and talk about it

all the time. I did not see anything to really break down what I was watching. Okay, fine. In

the pre-show stuff, they go into stuff, they talk about the changes. But you have to respect

that most people tune in for when QALY starts. And I didn't really see anything, apart from

a little text that came up occasionally. What is Active Aero? And then a little explanation.

If I was someone that was a casual tuning in, I would have no idea what was going on.

It's a very good point. We didn't see... It's a new way of watching where people are

doing their harvesting and battery and charging. We've said it already at this different times,

and I'm sick of saying it already, and we're three minutes into our first qualifying podcast of the

year. But you're right, they didn't actually show anything. You don't know when someone's using

more in the middle sector, using more here. And I think a lot of people will probably be watching

that going... Yeah, because they didn't really explain too much or anything, going,

why on earth are they slowing down on Australia and things like that? There was no explanation,

and you could tell that... I understand because they're trying to promote the sport,

and I'm sure that this was the same across every broadcaster. But trying to hype it up as much as

possible. I mean, calling super clipping like it's a super thing. It's not a super thing. It's an

absolute disgrace, to be honest. It's awful. I don't like watching an onboard. It's ruined the

onboard for me because I don't like watching the onboard of a car going through what used to be

one of the most awesome chicanes in the whole calendar slowing down. It's a terrible watch.

Didn't feel like qualifying. It's really weird. It didn't feel like qualifying. You want to see

cars. This is the chance. I understand in the race, it might be different, and we might get

something really exciting. But in qualifying, I want to see cars absolutely pushing like crazy.

That is our chance to watch that. You want to see them sliding. You want to see them

doing amazing things and really on the limit. They're slowing down on the straight. It's

terrible. It's awful. It really is.

Tommy, not mincing his words. We'd love to see it at the start of this season. I won't either

because it's abysmal. It's really abysmal to watch. The one thing that was amazing about

Formula One and I don't think anyone could really sort of even remotely argue against it is the fact

qualifying was also always something you could turn up on a Saturday and be like, at least I'm

seeing the cars on the ragged edge at all times. Turns nine and 10 is an absolute disgrace. The

amount of deceleration, the downshift in Q3. You're telling me they are downshifting before

they get to the corner, before they get to turn nine. They are downshifting 300 meters before the

corner to then fly it in, to then press their battery to go faster in a straight line. How is

that fun to watch for anybody? Oh, that car is going really fast in a straight line. That's what

if I wanted to watch that, I would look probably not on my window because there isn't a motorway

there. I would go drive on a motorway and go, well, this is as exciting as Formula One because

everyone's just going fast in a straight line. That's not what I watch F1 for. The mistakes are

being bred currently at the moment from either the cars having malfunctions, we'll get on to Max

for Stappen, or just random lottery engine braking stuff that can cause lockups and things like that.

There are elements to these rules that work, and I like the fact that the cars are a little bit

more nimble. Drivers can catch mistakes. But what I just watched in qualifying was

not just the fact Mercedes are clear and they've clearly been

being very careful about what they say across pre-season testing and stuff about the advances

they clearly knew they had the entire time, but also just from the spirit of Formula One.

I knew I would be saying this. Let's wait and see. We've seen a qualifying session,

and that was not what Formula One is about. It didn't feel like qualifying at all. Watching

those on boards, watching people slow down, it felt like they were on cool down laps and things.

The amount of time to a lap. Oh, actually, he's just done a quicker sector than he did before,

despite looking like they're just cruising. It was so weird. They warned us about this,

about the whole straights and how they're going to be downshifting on the straight.

And I thought, by the time we get to 2026, there's no way that's going to happen.

We're doing this in Melbourne. What's the China straight going to be like? What's Monza going

to be like? It's going to be horrendous. China's literally next week. They're not

got much time to prepare for whatever that's going to be like. But I have very much of the

opinion that, yes, the battery in the recharge stuff is not what F1 is about and should not

be the focal point. And I'm sorry, commentary, and I'm sorry, broadcast team, please stop

making it sound like it's interesting. To talk about something that makes the drivers go slower

is not interesting. Oh, so you're telling me they're going 50 kilometers an hour slower down a

straight than they were at the halfway down the straight? That is fascinating. God, wow. Sign me up.

It's ridiculous, isn't it? And they're just doing their job because they need to hype up the sport,

but it is painful. The hype up in the right ways. Don't hype up the literal one bug thing that we're

going to have the entire year. And I hope this is a conversation that doesn't have to just keep

happening until 2031. And it's kind of, obviously, we're talking about it mainly now because it is

such a shock. And this is what we've got for better or worse, mainly worse. And unfortunately,

yeah, this is what we've got now. But it is just such a shock to see Formula One cars

going slow. That is not the Formula One that I fell in love with watching,

qualifying and watching cars go as fast as possible. And drivers making the time up in the

corners. And drivers making the time up in the corners, not who can harvest the best to deploy

their engine the most down the straights. Mercedes clearly have an engine

dominance over the rest of the teams. I still find it bizarre how they are so clear compared

to their other customer teams like McLaren and so on and so forth. McLaren nearly a second off

with both Piastri and Norris. I regret saying it won't be as bad as 2014 now.

Nope. Well, well done, mate. Anyway, we're going off on a tangent. Let's get into qualifying and

talk about Q1 where the bottom six, not five, were Alonso Perez, Bottas, Verstappen signs and

Stroll. Now, obviously, the big talking point here was that Lance Stroll didn't come out the pits.

That's probably the thing that everyone was discussing after Q1. Now, of course, Verstappen

out in Q1 crashing out quite clearly, not driver error like some people I'm sure would try and

Max isn't bulletproof. You can see that. No, that is, in my opinion, quite clearly a car

error, not a driver error. And of all the people for it to happen to, I'm sure Max's thoughts about

this current generation of cars have been extensively intensified after this happening.

It was a shock. It was a shock to you, Tommy. So why don't we find out exactly now that you've

had time to really process what's happened? Tell us how you feel. Yes. I mean, have I had time to

process it? Not really, still. At the end of the day, yeah, it's not an error from the driver.

It's similar to, I think, Lance Stroll had an issue in testing where the whole car just seemingly

just like it's almost like pulling a handbrake and the whole car just locks up, spins round.

And yeah, it's strange of all this talk of, oh, well, at least these cars, you can save it.

We've now got this weird, weird thing where seemingly for some people, you're getting a huge

lock up where you're just a passenger and feels like the handbrake comes on. And yeah, it's absolutely

gutting already. I mean, the silver lining is at least, with all these talk about it's going to

be hard to overtake. We're getting a Max Verstappen starting 20th. So that should make the race

exciting to watch, no matter what, because we're going to see Max come through the field and

see what he can do from the back. And you can maybe argue that he was never going to be able to

challenging at the front anyway, based on that gap there. But yeah, it's a disastrous start for

Max. And of all the people for it to happen to, the drama of it happening to Max is crazy.

Yeah. And speaking of Max, I was just looking to see if there'd been any quotes.

I was doing the same.

And I just found something from Eric van Harren, who of course is a very

well-established Dutch journalist. And Verstappen has come out and said, with regards to this year's

Formula One regs and so on and so forth, I'm not enjoying it at all. Emotionally and feeling wise,

I'm completely drained. This has very little to do with racing.

It's a damning quote.

Maybe we are going to see Max retire earlier than we thought.

I mean, by around three at this rate.

Thing is like, obviously, it's been a terrible weekend for Verstappen so far because of that.

But pace-wise, he's popping up P3 every day of the week. So it's not like he's got the

fourth fastest car by the looks of things, at least in Quali. So there are some positives to

look at this, but clearly Max wants to drive a car that he enjoys driving.

And this is not something he feels.

He loves his GTs and things. He goes to the Nürburgring.

Imagine how terrible this must feel when you've driven a

like a V10 around the Nürburgring, loving life or something. And you're kind of doing that.

And then it's all about super clipping and battery charging and stuff. No wonder he's annoyed.

And I feel like this... I don't think we're out of touch with how we're feeling right now,

Tommy. Everybody listening and watching at the moment, be keen to know your thoughts after

the first qualifying session of the year as to how you sit after what we've seen.

Let's go to a question from P1 Patreon member, Patrick.

Do you think Max will be able to recover to score points? And if so, how many?

Oh, it's tough because it's going to be hard to overtake, but we've seen

what Hajar can do in that car and he's done a very, very good job.

I think he's definitely going to end up in the top eight. But it just depends how many people

retire. Unless he gets some more rear locking. Yeah, unless the reliability is going to be key,

isn't it? So I will guess if we're going to lock in a prediction and say sixth place.

Okay. I do think he'll be able to recover as well should his car not break down,

which is an unknown for almost every team. I think he'll be in the points. Eighth is I believe

a given unless some serious craziness happens. Yeah, I think P6 is a really good shout. So

I'm going to say P7 instead. Okay. Yeah, be really different.

Let's go to a question from P1 Patreon member, Sophie. What on earth is going on at Williams?

And are they in as much trouble as Aston right now? I don't think anyone is in as much trouble

as Aston Martin. Of course, Carlos Sainz did not turn a single lap, which is a shame to see,

right? You know, Carlos, one of the stars of last year, scoring podiums in that Williams,

and they've gone backwards. You know, Daddy Vowles, I backed you to their hilt. And it's been a poor

start for Williams' campaign in these new regs. Alex Albon qualifying 15th. They came into the

season saying the car needs to go on a diet. And there's clearly a lot of work to do. They've

got the right engine. But as we've been speaking about, I don't know if it matters. I think you

have to be in a Mercedes in order for the Mercedes power to be unleashed. You know, Alpine have been

struggling massively as well. So I find that if there's things to be fascinated by and things that

are actually interesting is how on earth is there such a big gap between the Mercedes that we're

just talking about saying they have incredible deployment and speed on the straights compared

to all of their customer teams? Exactly, because what we're thinking about Mercedes is this whole

engine compression ratio thing and how they're going to be miles clear on the straight. And that

is kind of what we're seeing with the top team and the works team in Mercedes. But we don't have,

and we're joking a lot about 2014. And we're back in 2014 because the two mercs are clear.

But in 2014, we also saw every Mercedes customer team locking out all the points positions and

being best of the rest. And the best of the rest was back then just behind Mercedes. So

we're not seeing that because, yeah, Williams have done very poorly and looked like they've

struggled a lot. Obviously they had all those problems in testing as well where they missed the

shakedown. And then Alpine as well, all the talk of them being strong and

ghastly best of the rest, surely going to be an amazing year. And I mean, Colopinto only just

managed to get through into Q2 after everything. Alonso almost made it. I think that's one of

the biggest stories that Alonso had, if he'd have made it, we would have seen Fernando Alonso

come out and say that was the greatest qualifying lap of his career. The funny thing is with that,

though, is that three cars didn't take part, the two Cadillacs that are, of course, slower than

Aston Martin, and then it required a Colopinto stinker in order for Alonso to make it through.

Because Alonso, as much as he was 17th, was seven tenths off Colopinto's lap in Q1. So it's not

like he marginally missed out. But in terms of positions wise, yes, it could have been an absolute

headline for Alonso to have made it through to Q2, only to, of course, retire probably in the first

15 or 20 laps. But if you'd said Alonso without qualifying Max Verstappen, though, I mean, what

that's pretty crazy, isn't it? Yeah, that's tough. That's tough for you, my guy.

You've won, but at what cost? But not really, because Alonso, I mean, the thing is, actually,

Max's crash gave a bit of a buffer to Antonelli, didn't he? So Max, after, if you've seen it on

social media, Max accidentally aired Kimmy Antonelli for a little handshake to say nice to see you,

and Verstappen repaid him by going into the wall to allow Kimmy to have his repairs done. I think

that's really cute. Do you reckon he would have? He probably wouldn't have made it. It would have

been very close. He might have got one lap in at the end. But yeah, we'll talk about Antonelli.

I don't think it saved him, but it gave him a bit more of a buffer.

It gave him a bit more of a buffer. But we'll talk about Antonelli when we get onto Q3,

but my word, did he have like a crazy session, didn't he?

And of course, the one final thing to talk about Q1 and something that we will be keeping a very

close eye on across the entire season is the Perez versus Bottas rivalry. And look, Bottas dominated

Perez in testing and in practice. But Perez has bounced back and he outqualified Bottas by seven

tenths of a second, which, you know, devastating for Bottas fans out there like myself.

But Tommy, you know, you're back in Perez this year and Fair Play, she was one nil in competitive

sessions. You know, right now, put my hands up, Fair Play Perez, that was a pretty decent lap.

It was very good. And that is, I was on board the Perez hype train alongside Bottas,

but it was more in the races. I was watching the on board. I was like, wow, that is commitment.

Yeah, and that invested. I will be invested if Perez wins that teammate battle because I got

absolutely ridiculed in that podcast and the comments about daring to pick Perez over Bottas.

And yeah, so far qualifying, I don't think has ever been Perez's specialist kind of

part of his game. And it has been Bottas. So to see Perez, I was more going on the fact that,

you know, he'd beat him in the races. So we'll see. But it's a great start from Perez,

even though unfortunately Cad like a so far behind. Nothing. Yeah, like it's nothing

that can be done really for them. They're very much last.

Yeah, they'll be fighting themselves. But that is an interesting battle all the same.

Just before you move on, I've just read some news interesting. So Nate Saunders,

who's a journalist, has just tweeted, I don't think I've ever been to a media pen like that in

my life. These drivers absolutely hate these new cars. Remarkable stuff. Max has said he's

having no fun. And Lando just said we have gone from the best cars ever to the worst.

So Lando, well, he changes mind. But he was rage baiting. Yeah, crazy. They're not happy

at all. The drivers, we're going to we're going to see some spicy quotes come in, I think,

from all the drivers as we record this. So I mean, if this continues this way and the

cars don't improve, we can't wait till 2031, surely. Well, yeah, exactly. That's what I'm

thinking is that the regs will get slashed in half in terms of the time frame or something.

They're going to have an emergency meeting, I'm sure, because if all the F1 drivers or a lot of

them are saying, especially the big ones, these are terrible, that is the worst advert for a sport

ever. If they're not enjoying watching them and genuinely from a spectator's point of view as

well, it might be different. Let's wait till tomorrow. Let's wait till we see a race. And

when George Russell laps the entire field, we might have a word after that. But let's move

now to Q2, where the bottom six once again, well, Hulkenberg, Bearman, Ocon, Gasly, Albonne,

Colopinto. Want to say first and foremost, Audi, I was unfamiliar with your game. Fair play. You've

at this stage done much better than I expected in terms of pure pace. Still slight question marks

over reliability. Of course, Bortoletto came trundling into the pits at the end of Q2, having

made it to Q3 and had some problems there with his car. But Hulkenberg P11 as well, so really

strong from Audi just tucking in behind racing balls. Definitely stronger than expected from

from my point of view. Yeah, Audi really made big gains during testing. They looked,

has to be said, like pretty woeful during the shake down, had a lot of reliability issues.

And we could have easily gone the same way as an Aston Martin or a Cadillac because they are,

I know they've taken over Salba, but of course they are building their own power unit and

everything as well. And it's all very new for them. So they've done a fantastic job to be up there

when you would believe that they're only going to get better from here as well.

So for them to be, you know, Bortoletto at one point, I think in Q1 was looking up in like

sixth or something, he was doing amazingly well. And then Hulkenberg in eleventh. It's a shame that

it seems like they had another reliability issue with Bortoletto, which at the end of Q2,

my word, almost a massive moment where Limblad almost went into his teammate Lawson, which could

have been pretty devastating and I don't think would have overshadowed what a great job Limblad's

done, but it would have been a big talking point. But yeah, Audi have done a stellar job so far.

They really have. And kind of on the flip side of that is Alpine, of course, still in the

conversation of Q2 knockouts, but they have certainly been more disappointing than expected.

I'm just having a look here. There's a quote from Gasly, at least from what I can see from this

account. So it looks like it's a journalistic account. So I'm just going to say it's a quote.

I'm going to say I think Gasly said this just in case he didn't, but I'm pretty sure he did.

It says there's disappointment at every level. I was expecting something better than this. Problems

so not the not the happiest of camps for Alpine, better than they were last year. So there's

improvements there. But overall, we both thought at this stage that they would have come out the

blocks firing as as where V-Car basically are. But instead, as you say, Colopinto just scraped

through with that final lap and even Gasly couldn't really make much of a difference.

How much faster was he than Colopinto? He put 7 tenths on Colopinto. He missed out on Q3 by

3 tenths. So like, it's not a chasm. It's not a massive gap between them and

fighting for points. And something that at this stage of the season, any team can turn around

a deficit at this point with a lot of learning still to be had.

You do wonder as well how much Bahrain is a very different circuit to Melbourne. And

we've said this before that it would be interesting to see how those midfield runners

do as the circuits change. You know, we might see the pecking order in that midfield change

circuit to circuit based on how good we're deploying the battery in certain areas of the

track. I'm going to ban some certain ways to do it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're getting electric shocks.

Not battery. Yeah, so because you look at racing bulls have done exceptionally well

and looking like best of the rest. They also, you know, did that last year but then had other

circuits that they struggled at. So they've always gone well in Melbourne, racing bulls,

and Alpine. Yeah, they have not carried over the hype of what we saw from testing at all.

Absolutely not. I'm sure Breator is taking it very well.

Yes, but remember, they're all happy because we saw that picture that Alpine posted saying,

don't believe everything you see on TV and they're all smiling. So maybe DTS was wrong.

Maybe they have the greatest relationship in the entire paddock. But back to

another team very quickly that I've also mentioned in this, in this Q2 exit, that's Haas. Haas P12

and P13, not far off Audi. Like they were, you know, a tenth off, Hülkenberg, actually less

than, Ollie Berman was 8,000 slower than Hülkenberg. Bortoletto was a tenth clear of Hulk, but very

close between Haas and Audi. Racing bulls seem to have maybe a tenth or two on them at the moment.

In terms of where I anticipated it has to be, I thought they may be

slightly higher, but it's no real sort of alarm bells right now. Berman outqualifying Ocon by

just under two tenths of a second in the end. So Ollie's starting the season strong, my goat,

or my secondary goat. So happy to see him start the season pretty well. But maybe a tinge of

disappointment for Haas to not be slightly higher. Definitely. They're another team like Alpine

that were hyped up to be best of the rest. Certainly better than last year when they rocked up to

Melbourne and just looked like the worst team by a mile, which wasn't representative at all.

So maybe they just have a bad time in Australia. And if that is the case, and they're still 12th

and 13th, there's points to fight for it. I do wonder how much of this midfield fight for these

points tomorrow is going to be reliability and who just gets to the flag basically.

Oh, for sure. Like commentary was basically saying, and Martin Brundle I think predicted that there'd

be 10 finishes. I don't know if there's going to be that much of a race patrician, but I wouldn't

be surprised to see five or six DNFs tomorrow. So let's see. Which is mad because we're not used to

that. No, no. The amount of races we've like, oh, everyone's finished. Yeah. Again. It's amazing how

in that kind of recent turbo hybrid era, we're kind of so used to three or four DNFs being like,

wow, four DNFs. That's massive. Wow. What a crazy race that was. We'll see you tomorrow.

Right. Let's head to Q3 where the top 10 are Russell and Tonelli. You wait a couple of light

years. Then you have Hajar, Leclerc, Piastri, Norris, Hamilton, Lawson, Linblad, Bortoletto.

Question from P1P1P, remember Blackson. Eight tenths are separating Mercedes to the next best

non-Massages. Is this 2014 all over again? I think so. I think so, sadly. After I said,

at least it won't be 2014 because they can't have this big advantage on McLaren and whatever,

but unfortunately, it's looking like they are just untouchable. Hajar even laughed when he got

asked, are you going to be able to do anything? Which tells you everything you need. We knew

there was sandbagging, but by this much is absolutely insane. They're just going to

rock it away. I think the biggest thing here to make this an exciting season for the championship

is we're going to need to see Kimmian Tonelli step it up and do show.

Speaking of, has there been any?

Yeah, we're waiting to see on Kimmian Tonelli. Nothing yet. I've not even seen if he's

investigated or anything, but Kimmian Tonelli has been investigated in the session.

Sorry, yeah, of course. It's a very messy start for Antonelli. So much was going wrong for him.

Obviously, he had the massive, or we've not even spoken about, that he had a massive crash in

FP3, which meant that, of course, he almost didn't even do qualifying.

So he's lucky to be kind of on that front row at the moment, but it does feel like the Mercedes

are going to be well clear of the field. And we just hope that this pack can catch up because

we dared to dream that the top four were within two tenths, and they definitely aren't. The red bull

that I can already see made this joke on the watch along that three months time,

we're doing a video of, this is what the championship would look like without Mercedes,

and it's the Stappen, Hadjard, Piastri, Norris, Hamilton, Leclerc, all unequal points say.

Oh, dear. If you are unfamiliar with what 2014 is, it's where Mercedes into a brand new

regulation, where the hybrid engines were brought in, absolutely dominated. They were untouchable.

I think that we are very much in the same era as that, but the customer teams can't

sort of hoover up the rest of the places, surprisingly, which, of course, McLaren is there,

but it's not as if the other ones are there as well. It could well be, if you like, close

competitive racing, which I think a lot of us do enjoy in qualifying on the race.

It might well be a tough watch for the first few. I think that China, I think Mercedes could be a

second clear on pole. I'm thinking about the sufficiencies, the speed advantages that they

have on the straights. That China straight is a long old boy, but we'll talk about that next

week. Of course, we've got that literally next week. More to talk about there, but

they've done a phenomenal job. You have to say for Mercedes, they have absolutely killed it in

terms of this regulation set at the moment. I'm not going to say that they're going to be eight

tenths clear for the rest of the year, because I do still have some hope, as obviously a Ferrari

fan and a Mercedes fan, that things can turn around. This is a brand new

set of rules. There will be lots of fine tweaking that can happen, but this is a massive advantage

for Mercedes that if they did lose it, it would be a disaster for them.

We're looking at, of course, the big talking point was this whole compression ratio thing

and how they're going to have this amazing straight line speed, which we've very much seen.

Those new tests are not coming into June now. They brought it forward at least.

They might bring it forward again after seeing qualifying.

But equally, one thing that's maybe interesting, isn't the correct word about that, is, of course,

they could work something so that they may still pass that test. We don't know. It's just the

measuring at different sections that they might not just are you dominant and it goes,

yes, okay. Mercedes, you're not allowed to run an engine for three races,

doesn't let everyone catch up. It's looking very, very, very strong for Mercedes. I just really

hope that we're going to see something special from Antonelli. Otherwise, we're going to see a

very dominant season from George Russell this year, I think. Absolutely. Kimmy needs to lock in.

Question from people on Patreon member PiperMZMimicX. What was going on with Kimmy's side of the

garage today? Well, look, I'm not going to slander Kimmy's side of the garage because they had to

repair an entire car from Free Practice 3. So fair play to them, an incredible job from the

mechanics to sort that out. But of course, yep, there is the foot, as I mentioned at the top of

the show, that, well, that was what was reported, at least in commentary of one of the Mercedes

mechanics, which you're not supposed to do and put it into the fast lane of the pit lane.

But then also, the more important one is the calling, whatever you want to call it,

thing that was in both sides of the car that just didn't take them out. And then they just flew

out. One of them went into the gravel trap. The other one went onto the racing line and you think,

oh, that's not good. Maybe they'll get investigated for that. And then Lando drove over it. That's

when it gets a little bit more interesting from what the stewards are going to do point of view.

I guess fortunately for Lando, it didn't seem like he got actually any damage because he drove over

it in the most perfect way possible. Just world champion things, I'd say, from Lando. They're

beautifully done with the tyre. I don't think it was anything but cosmetic damage for that front

wing. So Lando got away with it from what we could see anyway. So we still are waiting to hear about

Kimmy whether he's going to get a penalty or not. I would assume so. I'd be amazed if he doesn't.

Mechanics foot but for the releasing a car in an unsafe condition and the car, another car driving

over it. I just, yeah, I can't see him getting away with anything other than maybe a three place

as a guess. Yeah, I know a lot of people will be shouting now going, oh, it's not the driver's fault

though that that got left in. But unfortunately, it's still the rules are rules. And we've seen

this before where they don't take these things very lightly when a car is out there in an unsafe

condition. And of course, yeah, Antonelli's not left in himself, but you they need to punish that

to as a way to basically be like you cannot do this. And it could have been really, really bad.

It's a massive piece of debris, which thankfully didn't cause too much harm in the end of other

than Norris having to duct tape his front wing up, not him, his team, of course. And yeah,

it's kind of a difficult one. I think a three place would be fair, maybe a five. But I would

see them doing a three place penalty personally. If he gets away with it, then he's on the front

row of the grid with his teammate. And that will make it a lot more interesting, I would say for

tomorrow. But then again, we also need to talk about Ferrari, which we're going to do right now.

Question from Matty Ox, Leclerc P one after turn one. Well, look, you said that Leclerc P four

would be the that's where it qualify. And he has maybe could be P three with with an Antonelli

penalty. I kind of want to see a P three start just to see what what it would be if have him

directly behind George and see what what he can do. That'd be really exciting. And of all the kind

of slander that we've given these new rules, a positive is the expectation of that race start

that you could never take away from us. That would really be catastrophic for the sport if

they somehow made race starts bad. And because race starts at the one and watching watching

that Ferrari, I don't think they're going to be leading into turn one, but surely he's going

to give it a go. He's got to make up at least a position, right? It's quite a short run down

towards turn one. So well, compared to some, I don't screw it. Yes, absolutely. If Antonelli

gets a penalty and Leclerc starts P three on the clean side of the grid, I think he will lead

after turn one. He will be side by side with George Russell and he will dive down the inside.

Thank you very much. We'll take P one for a matter of four corners before George Russell goes back

through and wins by 50 seconds. But that moment will be generationally good. I think that

you know, how good the Ferrari starts are going to be. I'm very much in dreamland about this.

If Leclerc loses a position at the start, that will be the most typical Ferrari thing

I think you could ever play out. All of this hype and testing, everything saying their

starts are incredible. If it turns out that they're not, I will be very, very upset.

But if it is what we expect, get it in my veins, P one. Thank you very much.

Yeah, we've also got Hamilton who must say a disappointing qualifying to be down in seventh.

He looked to have the measure of Leclerc for much of the session. So he's going to be really

disappointed to be behind both McLarens. But we'll see what we had that kind of famous shot from

testing where Hamilton did his practice start from ninth and ended up leading.

Maybe he's wanted to give everyone a chance.

Big brain thinking.

Guys, starting like P4, P5 is pretty OP actually. It's pretty overpowered. So let me start from

seventh and see just how good our starts are. So that's the one excitement. And also, I guess,

just in general, the starts are going to be slightly problematic for all the drivers. There

is that question mark and there is no guarantee that Russell will lead after turn one, not just

because of Leclerc, but also for Antonelli or however it goes down, because it's not simple.

And that's what George said after qualifying. But then he also said he didn't know where

Mercedes would stack up after testing. So we'll see on that one.

Let's go to a question from Wicket Whisper. Is it too early or Hajjar is the one who

breaks the Red Bull Second Seat curse? We got asked this yesterday in practice for you. We said,

yes, that is too early. Today, I would say first and foremost, phenomenal job from Hajjar to put

it P3. I think that is a great performance from him. May well end up being the front row if Kimmy

gets a penalty. But on the flip side of that, and maybe slightly more realistic perspective, is

we don't know what Verstappen would have done. It was a car problem, a software issue that caused

the crash for Max. And we don't know how close he would have got to the Mercedes. Would he even

have beaten Hajjar? That's an unanswered question. So until Hajjar pops it a tenth behind Verstappen,

maybe even outqualifies Verstappen, that's when we can talk about this. But what I would say is

that it's leaning towards the fact that Hajjar has a good handle of this car. It's a brand new one.

And I think it's, as I predicted coming into this season, a benefit for him to have this fresh slate,

to have these new regulations, and to really dig deep from day one.

Yeah, you've got to give him a huge amount of credit for being third. He's resisted the pressure

and everything that's bad about that team. It's gone very well for him. You can't take that away

from him, that he's qualified third on debut for that must be the best we've seen from the

second car, and goodness knows how long, probably since Perez from what we've seen.

But unfortunately at the moment, it's not an equal playing field because we didn't actually

see a lap from Max, of course. So until we see that there's a chasm between second and third,

would Max have been in there? We don't know. Hajjar was ahead of Max, I believe, in FP3,

so he has looked quick. So I don't want to take anything away from Hajjar, just because Max didn't

do the session. He's done a really, really good job and so far so good for him.

Indeed. And that pretty much sums it up. I also want to say a quick mention for Linblad

and for Lawson as well, both of them making it through to Q3. I think Arvid did a brilliant job,

a little bit disappointing on that final lap in Q3 to maybe not outqualify his teammate. But

overall, a brilliant start to the season for VCarb and for Arvid, his first race weekend,

making it into Q3, being comparable if not faster than your teammate at times during this weekend.

I think he can be so, so happy with that. Just make sure he doesn't do what Hajjar did last year

and spin on the formation lap. If he doesn't do that, he's had an even better start than what

Hajjar had last year. And also with VCarb, they need to maximise their points. We've been here

before with VCarb having a very competitive car, Alpha Towery, Racing Balls, Torrosse, whatever.

Throughout history have had these moments where they've looked best for the rest of the midfield,

they now need to capitalise because that's something they didn't do last year in a Yuki

Sonoda, qualified fifth last year in the VCarb. And he didn't have any points to show for it at

the end of the race. And it was a disaster. And they failed to capitalise on how quick they were

at the start of the season. So hopefully for VCarb, they do that. Because Linblad has had a really

impressive start and looked very, very quick. Yes, indeed. So congratulations to him and

congratulations to us for watching that qualifying session. Right, that is it. I think we are done

and dusted. Tommy, do you have anything else to add any more rants, any more thoughts, any more

anger, disappointment, happiness? What are we? I'm impressed that maybe after the first 10 minutes

we didn't really say the word battery maybe you want. Why would you end the podcast with that

word? It's going to be like a curse word, isn't it? I just hope tomorrow we see absolute

carnage. But this is the thing, we don't want farcical carnage, but we want good carnage.

And we want an exciting race. And despite all the ranting, like the expectation going tomorrow,

I'm super hyped for it. I'm very excited to see how it's all going to play out and bring it on.

Yeah, we'll still be absolutely buzzing when we have the five red lights coming on. And we'll be

live on Twitch and YouTube and Dream 11 tomorrow, which will be really exciting. Can't wait to see

you all there. Thank you for everybody that tuned in today. Lots of people considering it was a

very unsociable hour for a lot of people, but I appreciate you all. Remember as well, Australia

Live Show tour tickets, we are coming to Australia in less than two months now. We'd love to see

you there. So yeah, that is it. Thank you, everybody. We'll see you tomorrow for the race.

Sorry for the rants. I know you might not. You might want us to be all happy and we are,

but we're also true Die Hard F1 fans that will tell you just how it is. So hopefully you respect

that and enjoy that. And we'll see you tomorrow for hopefully more non-ranting and just yay,

what a great race and come and shout out to the lead and then actually

drive away. I'm going to now go harvest some breakfast.

Well, that's a B-wed I can get on board with. Bye.

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