Track limits are the boundaries on the race track. If you go over the line, your lap may not count, so drivers have to balance speed with staying within the rules.
Williams is an F1 team. In this segment, the hosts are saying the team’s results have been poor and they need to improve quickly to keep their drivers from leaving.
James Vowles is the leader of the Williams F1 team. He helps decide the team’s direction and plays a big role in convincing drivers to sign and stay.
Person
Carlos Sines
Carlos Sines is the driver being talked about—Williams wants him to stay. The idea is that if the team doesn’t get better soon, he’ll probably consider other teams.
“Reliability” is how dependable the race car is. If it’s “terrible in the reliability department,” it means the car keeps having problems that stop it from finishing or running well.
A “high ceiling” means the car could be really fast if everything goes right. It’s basically about maximum potential, not how consistently it performs every weekend.
Mercedes is being mentioned here as the source of the F1 power unit. They’re saying it may give that team an advantage, at least until others catch up.
Teams have a limited number of tire sets for qualifying. “Saving a set” means using fewer fresh tires early so you have better tires for the later, more important runs.
Colin Pinto is a race driver. They say he made a mistake at the first corner and couldn’t finish his last qualifying lap, which hurt his starting position.
Tracks are timed in chunks. A “mini-sector” is a smaller timed piece of the lap, and a “purple” one means that part was extremely fast compared to the other drivers’ bests.
Audi is the racing brand they’re talking about. They think Audi could have done better in qualifying, and they’re hoping the car doesn’t have to use safety cutoffs during the weekend.
A kill switch is a safety control that shuts something off quickly. They’re hoping the race car won’t need to use an emergency shutdown during the weekend.
In 2026 Formula 1, the car’s hybrid system uses a battery to store electrical energy for power deployment. The hosts are arguing that lifting into a corner is less harmful now because the hybrid energy strategy can still provide usable power when exiting the corner.
Ferrari is a famous Formula 1 team and car brand. The host mentions it to point out they’re still complaining about the rules even while wearing Ferrari gear.
A “double waved” yellow flag is the stronger warning level. It means the danger is more serious, so drivers have to slow down more and be ready to stop.
Max Verstappen is an F1 driver. The hosts mention him because his car being in the wall made the yellow-flag situation feel especially dangerous.
Topic
Austrian GP qualifying
They’re talking about what happened during qualifying at the Austrian Grand Prix. The big point is whether the officials handled the caution flags correctly when there was a crash.
The throttle is how much power the engine is sending to the wheels. Lifting off the throttle means you’re reducing power, which can slow the car down and affect lap time.
“Lift off” means you take your foot off the gas. In racing, that can change how the car behaves going into a corner, and sometimes it helps you set up for better acceleration right after.
Kimi Antonelli is an F1 driver. In this segment, the hosts say he got the meaning of the yellow flags mixed up on his lap, which affected how he chose to continue or back out of the run.
In qualifying, if the race control decides a lap was affected by a dangerous situation, they can delete that lap time. That means the driver’s attempt doesn’t count for the standings.
A gravel trap is a rough, gravel-filled area next to the track. If a car goes off, the gravel helps slow it down so it’s less likely to hit something at full speed.
Your “trajectory” is the exact line your car takes through the corner. If you take a slightly different line, you can end up hitting something instead of passing safely.
“Overdrove” means you’re driving too aggressively for the grip you actually have. You might be going for a faster lap, but the car can get unstable or slower than it should be.
F1 tracks are split into a few timed sections. “Sector three” is the last section, and it helps drivers see exactly where they’re going faster or slower.
“Throw it into the wall” is racing slang for taking an extreme, last-second risk—often at the limit of grip—where the driver’s only real outcome is either a perfect lap or a crash. It’s used here to describe an all-or-nothing qualifying push.
The “delta” is a live time gap number. It tells you whether you’re currently faster or slower than your best (or someone else) at that point on the track.
Term
P5
“P5” means you ended up 5th. In qualifying, that usually affects where you start the race.
Tracks are split into sections for timing. The “final sector” is the last part of the lap, and if you drive it better you can improve your overall lap time and position.
Term
Pulp
This word doesn’t clearly match a known F1 term in the context. The hosts are basically talking about whether Max would have been faster if the crash/yellow flags hadn’t happened.
An infringement means someone broke the rules. In this context, they’re debating whether the yellow-flag situation counted as a rules issue that should change the result.
LIVE
Hello everybody and welcome back to the people on podcast with Matt and Tommy.
Not a lot to talk about in this one, I'll be honest, hardly any topics.
If you are unfamiliar with sarcasm, I will just be very, very clear to you that we've
got a lot to talk about and this might well be a podcast that we're still recording come
in the early hours of tomorrow morning.
So this might be a hefty one to listen to, but yeah, wow, Austria, we knew we knew it
could deliver.
We knew that qualifying should be exciting and it was for many different reasons.
It was.
Obviously the fanboy in me is disappointed with the result, but the Formula One fan in
me is thinking like that was absolute cinema basically.
That was the best qualifying of the year.
There was so much happening, so much excitement, epic battle for pole, chaos, drama, controversy.
What more could you ask for really is that if you're a neutral?
Which neither of us are.
So we're bitter and we're going to...
Yeah, yeah.
Well, I've been told on the grapevine, i.e. you telling me before we start recording
that you've got opinions, you've got things ready to go about a certain Q3.
So I'm sure it's nothing to do with the fact Max was in the wall.
But anyway, we will get into all of that a little later on.
My 14-minute analysis of Liam Lawson in 9th and Limblad in 10th is going to hit.
No, I'm joking, sarcasm again.
Yeah, thank you.
All right, well, just every time we're sarcastic, we have to.
That'll be a lot of alerts for our podcast.
Let's get into Q1, where the bottom six were signs Albon Perez, Bottas, Alonzo and Stroll,
otherwise known as 2x2x2, Williams, then Cadillac, then Aston Martin.
The funniest thing that came from this, not funny, sad if you're an Aston Martin,
Fernando Alonzo fan, was what Alonzo said after Q1, which was good lap.
So obviously, you wanted to make everybody clear.
Lap of his current.
Yeah, exactly.
No, it's not what we want, but not too far off.
We're getting closer.
Sorry.
Good joke.
Sorry.
Can I please tell you right?
So Alonzo did a 1-minute 9.942.
Stroll did a 1-minute 10.363.
Now, bearing in mind, of course, there is a bit of track evolution.
The track is going to get a bit quicker.
But also, the big teams, they start to risk it a bit more as well with the track limits
and trying to find performance.
Russell's time, bearing in mind he slowed down in sector three, was a 1-minute 6.1.
So 3.8 seconds Alonzo was off the fastest time we saw today.
And he's saying, good lap, we're not far off.
This, for me, is even worse than Monaco in the sense of the scale of how far behind they are.
Because this is a 1-minute 6 lap time.
I said this on the watch long.
This is a social experiment now, I'm convinced.
Like, this is how Alonzo not complain when he's being paid by a billionaire
and his boss is a billionaire.
And it's like, how far can he go before the...
I know what they've done.
Terms in the contract of like, usually for like, for Stappen or whatever,
it's wins, pole positions, championships.
For Alonzo, it's how many terrible things can happen to you.
But each time you get paid.
So every time they pull out a stinker of a car,
if Alonzo doesn't complain, 10 grand in the bank.
Yeah, it's going to be a Netflix series that's going to be like a spin-off to Drive Survive
called like, can money buy you happiness?
And then it's like, they push it as far as they can.
That is what's happening.
That's what's going on.
Drive to thrive, but thrive in the banks of Laurence Stroll.
Anyway, yeah, disaster for Aston Martin once again.
Of course, we're not expecting anything different because they've not brought anything.
They're not going to be, I think, for another few races.
I think it's the mid-season where they will apparently bring...
They did what you would imagine is a brand new car.
They could potentially say Belgium, the B-spec car, but who knows.
Yeah, literally a new spec of car is basically what they have to bring because this one was a
disaster. Let's go to a question from people on Patreon.
Remember, Edith is my middle name.
How much longer do we think Williams can hold on to signs?
Their season has been absolutely woeful thus far.
The longer this goes on, I think not very long, the key thing for James Vowles,
and he's very good at this, is that he needs to sweet talk baby girl Carlos Sine,
but those two need to be over a candlelit dinner and James Vowles needs to do his thing.
Carlos, come on, you want to stay for one more year because trust me.
He'll just do his spiel and he's very good at it.
That is a big strength of James Vowles.
He managed to sign Carlos Sines in the first place,
sold him the dream, but the problem is the dream has fallen apart very quickly.
Last year was great though. This is not necessarily race by race,
but I think Williams absolutely have to show big improvement come the end of the year,
I would say, because Carlos has not a huge flexibility, but he will know that other
teams want him. For me, Aldi was always a prospect for him anyway, and my gut feeling is that Aldi
will not wait long to sign a big driver, no disrespect to Nico, Gabby,
but I think they would want that headline driver, a multiple race winner, like Carlos Sines,
and also Aldi have done, yes, terribly in terms of the reliability department,
but really well in just having a very high ceiling of performance,
and it's clear that this is year one of their project.
So I think Williams need to turn it around quickly,
otherwise they will be losing Carlos Sines in my opinion.
Yeah, definitely. I really do think Carlos is going to be looking around.
Aldi does seem like an interesting choice and one that I could definitely see happening,
because Aldi, I know we're jumping ahead a little bit to Q2,
but they were 12th and 14th on the grid. They are not P11, not P11,
but they have been P11 a lot, and Williams, whatever you say about, yes, they've got
Daddy Vows, they've got Mercedes engine, which is not the best, but the whole power unit,
or the ICE is not, but the power unit is the best. Even with that, it shows that they're not competing,
and you think that this is where probably Mercedes with that power unit are going to
have their biggest advantage before everyone kind of closes up anyway.
So if you think Aldi, you'd hope, you would hope, you really hope, we really hope.
Even if they are getting tokens to improve their engine.
Exactly. So it is bad where Williams are, because we've seen again that essentially,
other than Cadillac and Aston Martin, who we expected to be at the back there,
they're kind of fighting for the back and both out in Q1. So Aldi, you do see, even though a lot
people will say it's another sideways step for Carlos, you've got to look at like, it's that whole
like project of what you would see is best in the future, and where can they go, and would Williams
be in a situation where they'd ever be, even if they improved, they're going to be probably
well at Alpina, for example, they're having a great season, but it's still not where they
want to be. Whereas Aldi, they're in the midfield, but it's Aldi, and yes, maybe there is a little
bit of lure of the name, and how they've won so much in the past, but they are going to throw
everything at it to make this successful, you feel like.
Yeah, they've not joined for banter, have they? They've joined to win in Formula One, and I think
that they will be perhaps in the future, next few seasons, that's what they'll be
aiming to be entering that top four conversation. So can Williams do the same thing? You thought
maybe after last year, okay, all right, podiums really at the end of 2025, and then it all went
backwards from there. So nothing to take away as well from Carlos's performance today, because he
was very, very close behind Ocon, who just narrowly made it through to Q2, otherwise signs nearly nipped
through there, but instead, two by two by two, as I say. Let's head to Q2, where the bottom six were
Gasly, Bortoletto, Bearman, Hülkenberg, Ocon, and Colopinto. There is an alternate universe,
not far away from here, where I just read out Verstappen's name, because my goodness gracious me,
that was close. Max? No, I never end up.
Shut up, that's what the sky coverage tried to say, was that it was a blinding play from Hannah
Schmidt, which honestly, I'm a big fan of Hannah. I think she's done some great things.
This was lucky. All right, they got fortunate. It was four hundredths of a second between Verstappen,
making it through a knot. Yes, they wanted to save a set of tires, but the track evolution was
pretty big actually today. You see the times tumbling down, and I think without the yellow in
Q3, we probably would have even seen a one minute five. So it was a risk that they took. They got
away with it, and it put Max in a really good position for Q3, until he ended up in the wall.
Sorry, Tommy, first time I mentioned it, and not the last. But yeah, it was close.
Gasly almost got him, but P11 for Pierre. It was insanely close, and I completely agree with you
that, yeah, Hannah's Stan and she's done so much for Red Bull and been an amazing asset to them.
They've done some amazing things in her career, but this is not one to kind of
gas her up, I think, because we've seen that it was just a very, very fortunate call.
I actually think a quite insane call personally, when Max was, I think it was four tenths off,
wasn't he? So it wasn't like he'd maybe stuck it P2 a tenth of the mercs and thought, well,
no one's beating that. Easy decision. The gap in the midfield is massive. We've seen that.
It was just a complete roll of the dice. It was literally a coin toss of like,
do you scrape through? You look a genius when it goes right. You look absolutely ridiculous
when it goes wrong. And I think it was just a coin toss. It wasn't like a calculated.
This is a great strategy call to save. It was just one that very fortunately saved off, because
had Gasly gone literally milliseconds faster, this looks like a crazy call and we're talking about
our Red Bull of let Max down again. He's going to be fuming. There's already talk about, will he
leave the team? They're not competitive or this kind of stuff. And we'd be having that conversation
instead. Indeed, yes. A very close call, but one that I think was just purely down to,
in my opinion, not like, all right, guys, we're going to risk it. Okay, everybody,
we are risking it for the chocolate. It was more, I think, just underestimating
how fast the V carbs were going to go in particular, I think, because they both got
ahead of Max. And it was almost a case of the B team taking out the A team, which
it's not the first time it's happened, not the first time. So yeah, another thing to talk about
was George Russell, of course, he was on the back foot, our poll sitter for tomorrow. We'll get
on to that. But in Q2, he had one run to do it and Toto Wolf took the phone and went,
just drive. Just drive. I'm sorry, right? Like, I'm sure Toto has said many important things
and very like sort of things that drivers can take from certain words. But this one,
maybe he thought George would perform better with more pressure on him. But that's basically
how I took that was like, oh yeah, by the way, we're watching George. So if you could just,
if you could just do your job, please, that would be great.
It was quite an insane radio. We didn't hear any more of before. My initial thought was that maybe
George was complaining about something or unhappy that we didn't hear, because we've seen Toto,
you know, say things like, come on, just lock in or their drivers kind of.
I'm not sure if I've ever heard Toto say lock in.
But to kind of, that kind of phrase of just kind of stop, stop moaning to put a better
kind of phrase out there. But yeah, he's kind of shut down his drivers when they're complaining
a lot. And initially, I thought maybe it was to do with that. But it wasn't the,
it wasn't the most flattering radio message, I think, to be played on the airwaves. And
obviously George got pole in the end, and they could joke about it afterwards because they
mentioned it of like the boss said, just drive and you did that. He certainly,
certainly drove and certainly did through that final sector. We'll talk about it later.
Drove through single waved yellows. Right.
Things to talk about quickly before we move on to that final quality session is some teammate
comparisons, I think is worth the chat about. Colin Pinto, I don't think was able to get his
final lap in. Did he make a mistake, I think, was it on his final lap?
A turn one.
Yes, because I saw a purple mini-sector. He obviously played through that.
So I think there was a turn one mistake for Colin Pinto, which put him nine
turns behind Gasly in the end. So maybe not exactly the pace difference, but of course
Colin Pinto still not able to get that lap in. Ocon was just under three tenths slower than
Bearman, which is a pretty, pretty comprehensive margin around, as we've said, a small,
fast but small circuit. And then Bortoletto also put three tenths on Holkenberg and Nico had
quite a scruffy session, it has to be said. I think Q1 was very scruffy as well for him.
So yeah, I think Audi may be leaving, especially Holkenberg, leaving some things on the table here,
because I don't think they would have expected Bearman to be right in the middle of them.
No, they're going to need retirements. Audi, I thought they'd be strong here, but
racing balls have turned up massively and Gasly always seems to deliver this year with the
consistency. So you feel like if Audi are going to get points, they'll need reliability issues,
which is ironic, because they're normally the ones that are setting on fire.
Yes, that is so true. Fingers crossed for Audi, there'll be no kill switches pulled
this weekend. Right, let's get on to the big one. Q3, the top ten, George Russell,
Charles Leclerc, Lewis Hamilton, Kimmy Antonelli, Max Verstappen, Lando Norris, Oscar Piastri,
Isaac Hadjar, Liam Lawson and Arvid Lindblad. Yes, you are hearing that correctly, George Russell
on poll. You're hearing that correctly. Matt unhappy with Charles Leclerc and P2 after
everything that's happened in the last month. I'm absolutely devastated with this P2,
as you might well have seen by now with the social clip if you don't tune into our watch alongs.
So the big question. P1P, do you remember Cheap Seats? Should George's lap count?
By the rules? Yes. My non-buy superior in a Ferrari show.
Trying desperately to not just start screaming again. By the rules, yes. Okay, so there's a
few things to this, which we will get into, but the question is, should George's lap count?
It was single-waved yellows. What you have to do under single-waved yellows is visibly show
that you lift, that you have taken precaution coming up to said incident. He does that. He lifts
going into turn nine. I think is it turn nine? I can't remember the number. Yeah, turn nine, yeah.
Turn nine. The first part of the right hand before the final corner, the penultimate corner,
basically. He does lift and he then goes over the line, sets the fastest lap by two tenths,
does a 106-1, and gets pole position. What I find absolutely insane, by the way, is that George
Russell has lifted. We can see that he's lifted. By the way, in 2026 Formula One, lifting into a
corner is actually not as detrimental as it used to be because that juicy battery gets a little
bit more and then he can just deploy out the final corner. Anyway, that's a different topic
altogether. What I find absolutely insane is that he did a 20.069 in that final sector
on his final lap. Charles Leclerc's best last sector without lifting was a 20.232.
Hamilton's was a 20.197. When I looked down at the entire field, the only person that did a
better last sector in that entire quality session was Kimmy Antonelli. Even though he slowed down,
it was the second fastest last sector we'd seen today.
Yes. To answer the question, because there's another question later which I want to pop
off a bit more about, is should the George's lap count? Yes, because it's the rules. I think
he got very, very, very fortunate that when Max went off, they waved a single yellow first.
He was the dream of able to drive through the chaos, lift, and it worked for him. Whereas
everyone behind him, had he been five seconds down the road, it's a double waved yellow,
he backs off, has to back off completely and it's game over and he isn't able to improve.
But that is the rule as much as maybe we can now pop off for the next question,
whether it should be the rule. Because as much as it is annoying, the FAA are sticking to what
the rules are, which is, as long as you lift on a single yellow, it's fine.
Oh my God, I know those other questions come in, but I'm just sat here trying not to rip my
armrests off the seat of, I just want to scream from the hilltops, how is that a single waved
yellow? That is the biggest gripe for me out of everything. I will happily say that George
Russell's lap does count by the rules and everything else. The problem is, and I know I'm
saying this with a Ferrari shirt and the one too was robbed because of this moment, but the fact
that a car is in the wall at the fastest part of the circuit where they're turning into that
right hand is fast, right? They throw a single waved yellow, which is crazy. Let's go into this
question from P1 patron member Blackson. How is a Sector 3 that 0.05 away from the best sector
time of the weekend considered lifting significantly and ready to stop the car?
Well, the problem is it's not ready to stop the car because it's a single waved yellow,
not a double, but it still makes a mockery, I think, of the safety of the sport that someone
improves for a yellow flag. Now, you could argue that that's the problem with the circuit and the
decision to throw a single waved yellow first for a little bit, which I think is a mad call,
as you were saying, Matt, and completely agree with you that when Max Verstappen is in the wall
there on the outside of a corner where if someone comes into that corner and
locks up or anything, they're plowing into Verstappen's car.
If he does the same thing as what Max has just done, like, George has sacrificed two tenths of a
second. Exactly. That is what annoys me so much about this is it is making a mockery of safety
when the FIA do so much for safety and the marshals and everyone involved and you can just lift off
like that and still set one of the best final sectors of the whole weekend and get pole position
by a significant margin. And it's just ridiculous that that can be allowed to happen and they've
got to kind of, this is the problem and always has been with motorsport where the drivers and this
is no kind of blame on Russell. He's only doing what he's meant to. We can sit here and say,
oh, British bias or this kind of stuff, but he just did what was in front of him and bent the
rules and not bent the rules, abide by the rules, which is what everyone does. You see it in carting
where there'll be a yellow flag and someone just goes off the throttle, fine. And we've seen it many,
many times in Formula One and other sports where as long as you're slightly slower in that sector
or you're down on your normal sector, it's fine. The problem is that's still very, very, very fast.
And also with these new cars, he's going into a right hander where you have to ease off the
throttle anyway. So he's also got incredibly fortunate that it didn't really make that much
difference with this lap time. All too much, not like it would if he was going down a massive
straight and had to lift off because the cars down the straight, you ease off, you lose all your
speed. The way Formula One is anyway, I think you said this before, that you ease off and then
actually you're almost rewarded for lifting off a little bit because you can just deploy more.
So a little bit of juice out there. Exactly. So it's a ridiculous thing. And it's again,
it's George Russell doing what he needed to do and perfectly allowed to do it. But I personally
and imagine a lot of people don't think it should be allowed. And it does make a kind of mockery of
the kind of push towards all safety and everything that they're trying to do because
it's someone setting an incredibly fast sector when someone's crashed and gone into the Walnut
Marshals about. I think there are instances in qualifying where a single waved yellow is okay.
If a car's gone wide but still moving, things that are less, I guess, of a big moment, right?
Verstappen is in the wall, stopped. How that is not an immediate double waved yellow is something
that I still cannot believe. In any other part of qualifying or in practice, that is an immediate
red flag. But it feels as though the FIA has thought, ah, this is the final runs in Q3,
like this is the pinnacle. This is the final point of qualifying. We can't be messing up with
the laps here. And so they've just gone to a single waved yellow. Like safety is obviously
the most important thing of everything in Formula One. The safety of the drivers, the safety of the
fans, the marshals. I don't know why it isn't a default of every marshall to see a car in the wall
ban double waved yellow. That should be the default. And then if it's not that bad,
if the car starts going again, you downgrade it to a single. The fact it was the other way around,
that's the problem. The FIA have almost shown that they chose the wrong thing because the next
lap, the in lap, it was a double waved yellow. So let me make this clear as well, because some
people were confused by what Kimi Antonelli said over the team radio, where he said it was a double
waved yellow. He was mistaken. On his lap, it was a single waved yellow. He mistook that for a
double waved yellow. The next lap, the in lap is when it was double waved for everybody. So Kimi
bailed out of it when he didn't need to. So he said after in the sort of quality chats, he said,
yeah, it was my mistake. I should have carried on, should have done what George did, basically.
From what I understand as well, Kimi wasn't on. I should have flown into the final sector when
and that itself is just ridiculous, isn't it? It is crazy. But that's just where I guess the
meaning of a single waved yellow is like almost, okay, cool. I'll do a little bit of a lift.
That's fine. Whether there needs to be clarification or whether a single waved yellow should just be
lap times are deleted, I don't know. I don't know how far you go with this because it is,
you don't want every time someone goes off into a gravel trap and bounding along,
it's a yellow flag that everybody has their lap times deleted going past. It's a situation
we don't see very often, is it, what we've seen today? But the problem is they flew the wrong
flag. That's the conclusion, isn't it? People will be here going, oh, British bias this or George
has done that or whatever. Or FIA. No, I meant the FIA giving British bias and basically being like,
because some people will look at that and go, George, you get a penalty. You shouldn't because
he's just done what he's allowed to do. But what the FIA have seen is George is on a banging lap
single. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But this, this is the thing, isn't it? The conclusion here is that they
threw the wrong flag basically, that it should have been a double waved yellow all day long.
And or even a probably not a red flag. It's probably, it's probably maybe far enough away.
But I do, I do think that in that moment when Max is there,
if anyone goes off in that situation at that corner, that they're having exactly the same
trajectory as where Max is going in. So you're hitting the car. You can't throw a red flag or
a double waved yellow for everything. Say like, say just anyone's gone off of that final sector
and their car's broken down and they've gone off a kind of part where it's quite away and your,
your kind of momentum isn't taking you into it. But the problem is where Max was,
that is where anyone else who messes up that corner is going straight into. And that's why it
should have been a double waved or even a red. I don't think red flag is far away from, you know,
I think either of those is acceptable. A single waved yellow wasn't that it's as simple as that.
We have seen red flags for less in qualifying over the years. And yeah, maybe it's something
they'll, they'll revisit, but it's, it certainly was a very strange situation to see unfold.
Let's go to a question from people on Patreon member, Rick Vodakonro TX.
What happens with Max? Is he over driving that car?
Well, what he was trying to do was build up speed in that corner. He was losing a bit of time there,
I think. And obviously, when you look at the Mercedes final sector, there was
a lot of time that they were gaining there. And Max, from what I heard in the sky coverage and
things like that, he was trying to build himself up in that corner little by little, picking up
more and speed. And he's essentially just sent it. And the fact that Tommy said in
the live stream, yeah, my goat, my goat just absolutely went for it. Yeah, we love that.
We love to see that. The funniest thing is that in that final run, remember, I was saying to
Charles Leclerc, not literally, I'm not talking to him, but I was like, Charles, just send it.
Don't, I don't care what you do. You turn that to be your favorite driver that did it instead.
But that, that's kind of what he done. He just, he went for pole position. He went for broke.
And it's P5 minimum, sorry, maximum even, because who knows what his car's like and
the internal investigations for tomorrow. Yeah. If I'm not going to be a hypocrite here,
it was, you know, I guess similar to, to Charl in, in Barcelona.
Which example are you going to use? Yeah. Well, yeah, but, but Barcelona, because,
you know, he, he saw Charl in that incident, saw what Hamilton was doing. He tried so hard to
gain a huge amount of time and basically overdrove his car. And that's exactly what,
what Max did. He put in, I think, an absolutely unbelievable first run to be anywhere near the
Mercs. Don't think the fact that he was almost on pole position was absolutely insane. And he's
basically on his second run, seen where the time is lost, sector three, because that's
where the Mercedes are so good that even with a single yellow and a lift there, they're quicker.
So you're, so he basically just gave it absolutely everything and just
very Max Verstappen of been or when it probably shows that this year,
he's just doing everything to win, not thinking about championship points,
just wants to go for it. Maybe someone would argue that he does that anyway.
But this was a really extreme example of he knew where the time could be gained and just
absolutely throw it into the wall. And if there was ever
doubt that Max Verstappen threw it into the corner, actually.
He threw it into the corner, sorry. And then I then went into the corner.
But he did. He literally just, yeah, like you've, you've done, everyone's done it on like a sim or
like when, when they're playing of going, you look at the Delta, you go, I need the best
final sector of my life. And you just throw it in and hope for the best.
But on a sim, you don't go into a wall and hurt yourself. And it shows the insane
how Max is just like fearless in that sense of even now.
They slow down now that he's had a kid.
Yeah. Yeah. That's exactly what I was about to say. Like Max Verstappen, oh,
everyone slows down when they're a kid. Also Max Verstappen, I need to gain some more time.
So I'm going to go into this corner. And if I, I'm either going to beat the Mercs or go into a
wall at 150 miles an hour. Okay. That's what the latter happened this time. Glad to see him walk
away. Seemingly unharmed, which is, which is obviously the main thing. But yeah.
It's just a risk. It was literally just risk it all.
Yeah. Obviously from a, you know, you don't want to crash ideally, but the fact is it doesn't
really matter that he's crashed. You know, if this was any other season, we'd be thinking about,
you know, championship connotations or whatever it might be. Whereas this year,
there's 101 points behind Antonelli already that there's no championship campaign for Max Verstappen.
He just wants a win. He wants to stick his middle finger up at Tom Bellingham who said
Max Verstappen will not win a race this year. And it can happen. You're glad to be wrong.
You're glad to be wrong. I'm glad to be wrong. Yeah. I mean, you should be happy that he's
P5 because he could have easily been 11th. But there you go. Yeah. Well, in session that he
could have been 11th, he could have been fifth, he could have been third if he'd just eased off
and done a normal final sector. Or if it had worked, he would have been maybe even first. So
a crazy, crazy session for Max Verstappen. I don't think he had. I don't think he had
Pulp. Merc would be too quick. If he didn't crash, the yellows wouldn't have come out. And then
Russell and Antonelli probably would have been in the one minute fives. Exactly. I think if he makes
that corner, he's got third. But his opinion of it is I'd rather be fifth with a chance of first
than just settling for third. That's what he's gone for there. That's why you love him. Yeah.
Let's not talk about McLaren, who have ended up sixth and seventh, which is slightly surprising,
considering basically what they were showing for most of the weekend. They'd written off their
chances. And they've ended up in a position that I don't think I expected. Of course, it was a
frantic end to that qualifying session. But I think Lando loved to go first in the quality
sessions from what I remember in Q2 and Q3 in the first run, at least. He was going first,
trying to just get a lap on the board. But yeah, McLaren's seemingly struggling a little bit. But
what I will say is, and a nod to Piastri, who's looked much more on the pace this weekend than
what we've seen in the last few, where we've been wondering where's Oscar, what's going on here.
He was nine thousandths of a second behind Lando and tucked right in.
It was disappointing for McLaren because in Q1, Lando set a quicker lap than George Russell. I
know it wasn't smooth sailing, but they looked like they were kind of up there. And you look at
how much maybe other teams have improved. And yeah, McLaren just didn't get it together and ended
up kind of it looking like a session where it seemed like Antonelli in particular and Mercedes
were mighty and looking like it would be hard to beat. But between like the two Ferraris,
Max Vertappernan and the two McLarens, it did kind of change quite a lot, kind of all weekend,
really. But McLaren just found themselves struggling a lot. And yeah, not a performance
that have wanted a track that normally they do very well at.
Yeah, I was just checking because I was too busy, obviously shrieking at the end of Q3 on our watch
along. Neither of them were affected by the yellow flag that Max brought out. I said,
both come over the line prior to that. So it's not even like we can say that they were hampered
because of the shenanigans at the end. It was on pure pace for both Lando and Oscar. So
sixth and seventh, not a disaster. And I would imagine they'll have pretty strong race pace
because they have looked really good this weekend. So we shall see. Another team that have been
very quick are racing balls consistently up there, Liam Lawson and David Limblad,
within half a tenth of each other in ninth and tenth. They weren't able to get it in the mix of
the top four teams, but they seem, I don't know if I want to say comfortably, but they have a
reasonable margin around such a tight circuit like this one in qualifying. You wonder, of course,
as we go from track to track, completely different characteristics, where will they fall off,
where won't they? But they've got such a reliable car when it comes to performance at the moment.
And they nearly knocked out Max Verstappen, as we said earlier. So it's been thoroughly
impressive from both of the drivers this weekend. Yeah, racing balls have a really good
kind of baseline car that just seems to be good everywhere where they can deliver a solid job
in the midfield. They look comfortably kind of the best of the midfielders this weekend,
really well suited around here. And Liam Lawson was absolutely unbelievable in Q1.
He was up in like fourth, I think. Yeah, he chucked an extra set of soft tyres on
and put in a very strong performance. But yeah, still impressive in an era where
the midfielders are so far behind those top cars to be challenging them at all,
even if it is for fresh tyres. And yeah, they're not quite able to challenge those
top guys. But this year and last year, racing balls were always that team that
when they were Alfa Tauri and Torosso, where a lot of the time have had a car like this,
where it can deliver. Remember, there was that year where Gasly was just always putting in amazing
qualifying performances and really quick, but then they'd just stick inters on when it was dry or
something stupid. And they love it. Yeah, exactly. But this year, they're really maximising the
points and Lawson scored an absolute ton of points and Arvid's having a strong season as a rookie
as well. So yeah, another strong showing for racing balls. Yeah, they'll have Gasly on their tail,
for sure, because Gasly up in P11, I think that will be a fight to watch out for between those
three, definitely. So my sister's calling me. Let's see what she says. She thinks about qualifying.
So, G, what did you think of the George Russell yellow flag? Was it an infringement or not?
Personally, I thought it was unprovoked.
Unprovoked. Yeah, no, that's fair. We're live on the podcast as you probably have gathered,
so thanks for calling me during it. But it was unprovoked. That's a good headline.
And so, do you think that his lap should have stood or not?
Yeah, sure. Yeah, that's correct. That is true. So you are so in the loop of Formula One, it's
impressive. Yeah, I can tell George Quali. I'll call you back later, all right.
Okay. All right, bye-bye. Love you. Love you too. I just cut her off as she said. Love you.
Sorry. I did love you. So, yeah, there you go. Jadina has said it here first on the podcast.
Russell's lap should have stood and it was unprovoked.
Well, she is working in FIA now, so maybe that's why she is in charge of all the big decisions there.
Again, sarcasm counter. That was not... My sister does not work for the FIA.
So, Tommy has had to go to the vets, I think, because his darling Frank has eaten something
he shouldn't have. So, I'm going to end with this final question, which is around,
should Russell be worried about having two eager Ferraris behind him?
For me, he should be very concerned indeed. George Russell, he's not had the best race pace
over the last few weekends. He's been good over one lap in Barcelona, of course. However,
turn three lap one, that's got taste written all over it. That's got some serious
seasoning of a very dramatic turn three lap one. I'm ready to see it. So,
that's one thing to take note of. The second one, do we think Ferraris will favor a driver?
No. No, no, no, no, no. They can't do that. They won't do that. I can't allow that to happen.
Like we said after Spain, I don't think that's the kind of team orders that's going to
come over the airwaves just yet because it's far too early into the season
and Charlotte Clair is winning it all from P2 on the grid. Thank you very much for coming.
Right, that is it. Thank you, everybody, for tuning in to the B1 podcast to this wonderful,
qualifying session. I say wonderful, also very dramatic, also very controversial.
We will see you tomorrow live on Twitch and YouTube, as always, where we will be
watching this insane action. Hopefully, fingers crossed, hope it's a good one, although there's
also potentially a small chance of rain as well. So, it could be a banger. I'm hoping for one.
So, yeah, we'll see you then. Lots of love. Bye.
About this episode
Austria GP qualifying sparks nonstop debate: the hosts call it “the best qualifying of the year” with “epic battle for pole” and chaos involving “Max was in the wall.” They dig into Q1/Q2 strategy, track evolution, tire-saving, and how yellow-flag timing swung laps—especially around George Russell’s lifted run under single waved yellows. The conversation also turns to team form: McLaren’s disappointment, Aston Martin’s recurring “disaster,” and midfield promise from Racing Bulls. They end by teasing Ferrari pressure and a possible rain race.
No need to beat around the bush: that was the best qualifying of the season. There’s plenty of drama, incidents, and controversy to get into, so join us!
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