Reaction to Chinese GP Sprint Qualifying

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The F1 season is back on the 6th of March with the first Grand Prix in Australia

and honestly, if there was ever a season to be glued to every race, it's this one.

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

We are going to try our very hardest to not be fully depressed as we explore what happened

in sprint qualifying.

I am a resident Charles Leclerc fan as most of you know,

Tommy is a resident Max Verstappen fan.

So lots to explore, lots to talk about, quite a lot of emotion, Tommy.

That really wants to come out.

I'll be real.

Yeah, I think it's emotion from two sides.

It's not even the fact that our drivers have obviously had not the best of qualifying.

And I think there are no doubt people jumping on going,

oh, you're only saying this because the drive you support is off.

There's a lot more that I didn't like about that qualifying than that.

Another very strange feeling after qualifying.

A very strange feeling indeed.

Yes, there will be part of it.

As you all know, we are Formula One fans.

We have our allegiances.

We try and be as fair as possible.

But also we want Charlie Clair and Max Verstappen to do pretty well.

And that did not happen.

But we'll get into that.

SQ3 is a little bit further on in this podcast.

We are going to now look at SQ1, where the bottom six drivers.

I'm trying to get that in my head.

Bottom six were Sainz, Albon, Alonso, Stroll, Bottas and Perez.

In twos, Williams.

And then, of course, Aston Martin and Cadillac.

Question from P1Patreon member Justin.

Do we think that Williams is the biggest letdown of these new regs so far?

Let me reintroduce you to Aston Martin.

But I think second biggest letdown has to be the Daddy Vowels hype train.

I mean, it can change quite quickly, of course.

But I'm a big old conductor.

You know, chew-chewing for James Vowels and the Williams team.

Because they did a phenomenal job last year when apparently they weren't trying.

We come into this year where they weren't trying.

And it appears that things were broken and things just haven't worked out in this

start, at least, of these new regs.

I don't want to hear about another five-year plan of Williams.

I want to hear that they are towards the front where they belong.

Their history is one that's amazing to look back at.

And it looked as if maybe they might challenge the top four if they kept on that trajectory.

From last year, alas, that is not the case.

Both of them out in SQ1 and the turmoil continues at Williams.

It really does.

Because, you know, we're going to go into SQ3 and no doubt be ranting about

Mercedes so clear they've got this amazing engine.

Williams have that Mercedes engine in their car, which we thought,

and based on what we saw in 2014, would be essentially a cheat code.

And instead, I'm just looking at the times.

Fernando Alonso was, like, three tenths off Alex Alvin.

Which, based on how bad us and Martin have been,

shows just how poor it's gone for Williams at the start.

You know, we've been talking about how you mentioned us and Martin being, like,

how bad it's gone for them.

And they definitely still are the most kind of embarrassing package

of the whole kind of regulation so far.

But Williams, to have that Mercedes engine in their car and be so far off and being both of

them knocked out, they look slow.

They've had problems with their car being overweight, it seems, as well.

And this is not what we were expecting from Williams this year at all.

It's really, really disappointing.

And you've got to feel for, you know,

Carlos Sainz made a very big choice.

He believed in the Daddy Val's hype train and that's why he chose that team.

He's gone from, you know, penny for his thoughts right now,

seeing Ferrari in the last race, you know, challenging for the win.

And he had to choose Williams with the idea that they were going to be

very good in these regulations and they really are not.

And how quickly it's changed as well, though.

Of course, Carlos did not have a say on whether he stayed at Ferrari or not.

So I guess there wasn't a case of, I wish I hadn't have left.

Like, he was ousted out, of course, because Lewis Hamilton wanted to come in.

But, you know, you look at last year and we were saying Carlos Sainz is beating the Ferraris.

You know, he's how quickly it can change in Formula One when you have a new set of rules.

The one thing, you know, I'm looking at here, for example, Carlos Sainz putting

over half a second on Alex Albon.

And before we get into teammate comparisons and things like that,

the one thing that is irritating me about these new regulations

and some of it is going to be natural and some of it is going to happen,

of course, with it being brand new and teams trying to work it out.

But the one thing that's irritating me is that

you can't really compare accurately between drivers,

because there are so many issues that are going on in almost every car.

I can hear every comment going, you can tell that Charlotte Clair has been outqualified by Hamilton.

Shut up. Shut up. We'll get on to that and we'll get on to what happened there.

But I'm not, I'm sat here going, I don't think Alex Albon has been outright

outqualified by Carlos Sainz by five and a half times.

Maybe he has, but my initial thinking is...

Too hard to know.

...one went wrong there.

It's too hard to know now.

And that's kind of annoying at this point in the regulations, for sure,

to not have that consistent data and something where we...

And because that's an exciting thing for us as F1 fans to compare drivers,

especially within teams.

Yeah, definitely. I mean, I'll save it for a question that we've got in

SQ3 about all this, because I totally agree that the problem is,

it's hard to know what the drivers are doing and where the drivers are making up the skill.

And that's been one of the big things in this regulation that people are

quite rightly upset about so far.

Absolutely. Let's get to question from P1 Picture Member, Madeline Crash Cars.

What on earth is up with F1 and FOM freezing the speed on the halo graphic

when we can clearly tell that the car is slowing down?

I didn't think they could stoop any lower with this.

Look, at the end of the day, I'll give them some cred...

No, it's not even credit.

But the super clipping is nowhere near as bad as it was in Australia.

I thought it was going to be a lot worse.

I thought halfway down the straight in China, they'd be losing power

and it would be embarrassing and they'd barely have enough power to get through the hairpin.

It's not as bad, but why are you conning the viewers into pretending that something is what

it's not? And basically, you're just lying to them.

What's the point providing information about what the cars are doing

when you're not sharing the factual information?

Because that's a very, very, very dangerous thing because you could argue that once you

go down that route, how are we to believe that the battery indications that they're

showing during the race are correct? How do we know that the boost is being used?

How will we know in the overtake? If they're doing this,

are they just lying about every single graphic?

Do you know what I mean?

I think that's probably not happening.

How do you say that they're not doing it differently from that?

Like, it's crazy to me that they were just fake a graphic.

Like, I think that's just absolutely appalling from Formula One.

To be honest, I think from the other points you've said there,

I don't think there's much to gain from lying about battery charges and stuff like that,

but there is something, obviously, they're trying to save face on the speed of the cars.

Like, saying about the battery charge, I don't think particularly game-changing as to,

because they're all going to go on social media going,

oh, did you see that he's got three quarters back?

Whereas the speed is something that we all understand.

But what I'm saying is it cons the viewer into losing the trust of a viewer.

So, like, how can you trust the graphics to be correct

when you know that factually that one is wrong is what I'm trying to make the point of,

like, you're basically conning the viewer and we're not stupid.

Like, we can see it.

You can hear the engine noise, which they're desperately trying to cut out

and they're doing it on social clips and things.

And also, it's nowhere near as bad as it is in Australia.

So just kind of own these new rules.

They're saying that they're trying to sort it out.

That is what happens.

That's what's happening.

So just use it.

I can't believe they did that.

Yeah, to back up your point now and something that I've just thought in this very moment

that concerns me greatly is, like, we're in a world where it's 2026 now,

there's a lot of editing power technology and things that can be done.

I am now doubting whether, you know, how good it actually is down the straight,

because I'm sure there are ways in which engine sounds can even be

underplayed and underplayed.

You know, like put into the sort of feed it in or not cut order,

but even like feed it in somehow to make it seem like they're not decelerating as much

than they include that with the speedometer.

Obviously, that part is not confirmed.

But what is confirmed, and we saw that, I can't remember who we were riding on board with,

but it said 325 kilometers an hour and did not move a single kilometer

as they were in the super clipping area.

And I completely agree with you, Tommy, that you can't be telling the commentary team to

explain super clipping and say what's happening and the fact that cars will be

decelerating into big or after long straights into big heavy braking zones,

because they need to charge the battery and this that and the other,

but then show that they're not decelerating at all on the speedometer because they're so scared

to show what the real speed of the cars are going into certain places on the track.

Is embarrassing enough in the last race where they got to the end of the straight

and then the graphic mysteriously like did the piece and disappeared and that's bad enough,

but at least you're not lying to the viewer.

You're just taking that information away because they're a little bit embarrassed by it,

but to just literally just show it.

I would literally rather the graphic disappear than you make up what the speed is.

That's not right.

Yeah, I do find that decision of showing the HUD with all of the different bits of information

at a place where they clearly don't want to talk about it, but then there's part of them

that wants to show just how fast they get to until they start decelerating.

They need to own their rules.

They need to own the rules that they've made here.

Like this whole like, you know, Will Smith in Men in Black like pressing the button to like

everyone's memories of the way.

You've got the peace sign, you've got the Will Smith thing.

Let's see how many more references Tommy comes up with.

But it's so true.

We're not stupid and you're kind of making Formula One fans just more angry

by doing all these stupid things like cutting things here and not showing this and pretending

this is fine and not playing radios because the drivers are complaining.

Just these are the regulations.

I've never seen it this bad where they're going so hard with the like

propaganda of like, this is an amazing regulation set and it's not fooling anybody.

Yeah, yeah, there's I don't think there's ever been a time where you've genuinely

doubted what you've been shown on screen until this year.

So yeah, that's a concern and I agree.

They just need to own it.

Just own what the regulations are.

We all know they decelerate.

So just show that.

Right.

First rant out the way.

Let's go to SQ2 where the bottom six were Hülkenberg,

Ocon, Lawson, Portoletto, Lindblad and Colopinto.

Question from people in picture.

Remember Captain Ofs 3420 whose seat is under more jeopardy, Ocon or Colopinto?

It goes back to my previous point of we're in such early stages of these regulations that

I mean, there are head-to-heads obviously going on.

But we don't know exactly what's going on in the cockpit of each one of these

driver's cars because there are problems up and down the field.

Colopinto clearly, you know, that there was a lot of time left on the table,

I think nearly a second to Gasly.

Ocon, I don't think you can say his seat's under jeopardy for qualifying P12 for the sprint.

Like that's not this is the second race of the year.

It was a tenth of Behrman's time.

Yeah, it was very, very close in that part of the field.

And I enjoyed Ted in the broadcast talking about,

oh, I didn't think in the second race of the season would have such a compact field.

And then goes on to say from eighth to twelfth.

Oh, no.

What compact field are we looking at here?

Because it's several seconds between the fastest and slowest cars.

But I'm not going to jump on the of any driver's seat,

to be honest with you, being under jeopardy at this point in the year.

Colopinto will need to pick up his game for sure in comparison to Gasly that

it seems already Alpina starting to unlock some more performance in that in that Mercedes power

unit and maybe getting a few pieces of the instruction manual like McLaren may well be doing.

But I'm not going to jump on the seat jeopardy train just yet.

No, definitely not.

I do think Colopinto has been underwhelming so far.

We know what he can do because we saw it at Williams.

But a long way, of course, of his teammate,

Gasly was one of the stars of the session.

So this is the thing with Alpine as well that they've got a driver

in Paul Aaron waiting in the wings.

They've got other drivers waiting in the wings from their academy.

And we've already seen that Flavio is not afraid to be savage and boot someone out.

So, yeah, it's definitely, I don't think it's a time for change immediately.

But it's not looking good for Colopinto.

Ocon, I wouldn't worry as much at the moment.

We'll see what happens in the race and stuff.

But he's been comparable to Bearman, I think.

Yes, it's a surprise that Ocon as a veteran is losing out to Bearman as much as he is.

But he's not a million miles off Bearman at all.

And also, Bearman, I think, is a generational talent.

Well, Bearman's really, yeah, exactly.

He's really, really good.

So it's not like Ocon is miles behind.

But yeah, it's from a head-to-head perspective.

Ocon needs to do a little bit better when it's against Bearman.

But it's not catastrophic.

He's not qualifying 20th with Bearman up in 8th.

So another thing to talk about from SQ2 was Antonelli blocking Norris into turn 1.

So Antonelli was coming out of the pits.

Norris was out of sync with the other drivers' fast laps.

And it was a clear as day slam dunk blocking.

Now, we also said after Australia that the banana peels or green shells, whatever you

might want to say, that came out of Antonelli's car and Norris then...

I mean, it's Norris and Antonelli again, by the way.

Oh, my word, yeah, it is.

Norris, of course, drove over that in Australia.

And I was like, that surely is some kind of unsafe release grid penalty.

But no, it was like a 7,500 euro fine for Mercedes for literally breaking Norris' wing.

I still cannot believe that to this day.

Because some people will go, yeah, but it's the team's fault.

The team and the driver are combined, especially in competitive sessions.

An unsafe release is a team's fault.

Yeah, that's always been the case in Formula One, that a team and a driver are one

when it comes to competitive sessions.

So I found that weird.

And then we come into this one.

This is a slam dunk block.

I don't know how Antonelli will get away with not getting a grid penalty for this.

It should be a 3, I reckon.

A bit now.

Yeah, watch us go live tomorrow or be on the podcast and Antonelli's starting second.

But I cannot see how Antonelli will not get a penalty here.

Of course, it seems as though Mercedes have not let him know.

Mercedes have maybe missed the fact that Norris was out of sync.

Because there was no real sort of attempt either for Antonelli to get out of the way

when he was coming out.

So yeah, a shame for Antonelli if he does get a grid penalty.

But great for Hamilton fans who will then start third and maybe take the lead at the start.

Yeah, I'm very surprised that if he doesn't get a penalty.

Because you can say all you like about, oh, it's Antonelli.

It's more on the team telling Antonelli that someone's coming up.

Which that is Formula One now.

It's all about data and who's being told where.

But I just think it's insane if he doesn't get a penalty.

But we'll wait and see.

I guess if they want to do the whole thing again where they don't give him a penalty,

their free excuse pass would be that they both got through the session.

But that's never the case, is it?

I can't remember moments where that would be the excuse.

They do tend to just make it up as they go along.

I'm watching the video now and he couldn't be more on the racing line if he tried.

Yeah, I'll be amazed.

It has to be a penalty, yeah.

By the rules and what they say.

A question from P1PT remember at Zingy 13.

Why can't the stewards make decisions about blocking etc.

At the time, rather than waiting until after the session,

what more information will they get from the teams and drivers that won't be biased?

Exactly, it's so true because at the end of the day Antonelli

only excuse will be going into the stewards room and going,

oh my team didn't tell me, but he still blocked him.

So it doesn't matter, that's still a blocking penalty.

So why they can't just make the decision in qualifying?

So we know after the race, because you know Antonelli

could have easily just got his first pole position there as well

and it kind of sours it when there's a penalty

and you don't know till afterwards and stuff.

So sorry, it's not his first pole position as he got in Miami.

But yeah, like could have been fastest

and then it just sours the whole thing because it's like,

oh actually he's got a penalty and we find out afterwards.

So yeah, it's not, we've said this so many times why

Formula One and the FAA love to be a dictatorship,

but when it's not in the right way,

when they need to just make a decision like they used to and go,

that's a penalty and not have to have a committee meeting

of the other kind of driver that's always going to say,

oh well this happened because it doesn't matter, you blocked him.

It's a stone wall penalty.

Yeah, it should be very clear as day, right?

Like it's a black and white thing of,

and this is how, yeah, it's a frustration watching when you go,

oh so I'm going to have to check social media in a few hours

to see if Antonelli gets a penalty

and it should be in the moment, those kind of things.

I can understand if it's like, I don't know, I don't know what,

every instant and situation is different.

I can understand if it's really complex,

you're not really sure what's gone on, fine,

but this one, it is blocking and you're not allowed to block in qualifying

and Antonelli blocked in qualifying.

That should be a penalty, like 100%,

but Formula One don't like to be so knee jerk for some reason

and they need to hear from a McLaren representative who will say,

he blocked us and a Mercedes representative who will say,

we didn't mean to block him and then what more information could you possibly need?

It's bizarre.

We had that one time, didn't we, where Stroll was just like,

I don't care, did they even turn up and they just didn't give the penalty out?

But Lando is in Lando's best interests for Antonelli to get a penalty

because he's behind him on the grid and it will promote him to second

and also it shouldn't even be on Lando to go argue his case, he got blocked.

So it should be a penalty, simple as that to say, he was on the racing line.

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Okay, let's head to Q3.

SQ3, in fact, where the top 10.

Russell, Antonelli, Norris, Hamilton, Piastri, Leclerc,

Gasly, Verstappen, Bearman and Hajar.

Question from East Coast 49ers.

Is there any hope of the other teams becoming more competitive?

This is going to get old really quickly.

Is there hope? Yes.

There is always hope.

I'm a Ferrari fan.

Sounds like a true Ferrari fan, yeah.

Exactly.

I'm trying desperately to just remain in my logical brain

of things can change at such early stages of a new regulation set.

That was like, you were like, I've got hope,

but I've got no factual information to tell you why this is good a shit.

Every time I've ever seen a team dominate out the blocks,

they usually end up winning pretty comprehensively.

You look at when Max Verstappen was dominating, I mean, to be fair.

Trying 22 away.

Yeah, I mean, I was able to shut up.

Just shut up.

Do you not know that I'm very vulnerable?

Talking about this qualifying session in general,

then you bring up 2022.

Most of the time, the fastest car at the beginning of the season,

especially with this amount of gap,

will be quickest most places, if not everywhere.

So yes, the other teams, I think,

will be able to close the gargantuan gap that it currently is.

But I don't think it'll be any time soon.

The 1st of June is obviously going to be an interesting thing to keep an eye on.

So just to clarify, for anyone that doesn't know,

from the 1st of June, the compression ratio,

which is the cheeky little trick that Mercedes have been able to

quite cleverly exploit, will be measured at 130 degrees,

as well as ambient temperature, and from next year only at 130 degrees.

So essentially, they are changing the way they test

whether or not that Mercedes engine compression ratio is legal

from the 1st of June.

And that may well change their dominance

if they're found to have not been abiding by those tests.

So maybe let's see if it pegs them back.

But there's no guarantee.

But also, Tommy, you made a really good point,

I think, in the watch along about when Mercedes had a party mode,

which was then banned in 2020.

What was that?

2022.

No, sorry, 2020.

Oh, god.

It was the...

Tommy's done it again.

Every time he says 2020, he says 2022.

What's going to say, 2022?

2020.

It was the W11, wasn't it, when they were absolutely rapid?

They were rapid.

They had this party mode in qualifying

that everyone believed they were taking their engine to a new level.

That was then banned, and they still were.

It was banned for Monza,

and then they did the fastest time in the history of Formula One.

So I would sort of manage your expectations for the 1st of June,

but that's our only hope, I think, really,

to not see MS80s 1, 2 in every qualifying session.

Yeah, 1st of June might be the one to potentially help that.

I'll bring some factual positive things,

even though I'm normally the pessimistic one.

Wow, here you go.

Yeah, no, we're seeing some rare Tommy pessimism right now.

I'm excited.

You go back to...

Optimism, not pessimism, bro.

Sorry, yeah.

You go back to...

Pessimism ain't rare from you, mate.

Yeah, you go back to the fact that you were mentioning about the new regulations,

even the start of 2022, when we had that new reg,

you're looking at...

I'm looking at the qualifying times,

and yeah, there was a well over...

It was like a second gap to 6th.

It was...

I guess the argument there is it was close between Red Bull and Ferrari,

but even looking at what McLaren have done now,

I fully expected there to be an even bigger gap,

and McLaren have found a bit more pace.

I know it's like it's still 6th tenths to the other car,

but it was 8th tenths last week,

and this is a track that I thought they'd be even stronger at.

So you hope that it would chip away as the other team catch up,

and with a new regulation,

in theory, this should always be the worst as it's going to be in terms of performance gaps.

So that is something to be positive about.

However, I'm not going to lie.

Leave it on an optimistic note, Tommy.

Mercedes are very clear, aren't they?

And I think our fears of it being another 2014,

so far, you wonder how much they've even...

I hope they're not even raining it back like the rumors were in 2014,

where they're not even pushing,

because they don't want to seem too far ahead and F1 make drastic changes.

Let's go to a question from Fru to Lugu.

Well, McLaren have definitely found something.

They were much more competitive.

I did not expect, based on what we were seeing throughout the session, really,

for it looked again like it was going to be Mercedes and Ferrari,

for most of the qualifying.

I know in FP3 they were strong,

but they did kind of come out of nowhere in the end.

And Kovir is, Matt, but I do think that if we're looking at any team,

that if we're talking about how Mercedes have this unbelievable advantage,

they're so clear because their engine is amazing

and they've got this compression ratio and they're so quick on the straights.

The one team that are competitive and does have that Mercedes engine

is McLaren and they're already third and fifth on the grid

and closed a bit of the deficit.

So I would back McLaren by the end of the season

to be the ones challenging Mercedes more than any other team.

It's a fair call.

McLaren, they have made a huge step from Australia, at least in qualifying,

and you would expect that to continue for them.

And I hope for the sake of the season,

if we have to just rely on another team to get involved in Ferrari and able to do it,

let's get McLaren in there.

Because right now, two races in, not a long time,

but two races in, Antonelli has not stepped up to the level of which

we can go, he can challenge for the world title.

That's not what we're seeing right now.

So let's see what McLaren can do.

I'm excited to watch their progress

and hopefully Ferrari go with them as well.

That's my ultimate goal and dream.

But yeah, much more competitive in this sprint quali session

for McLaren.

And they've literally been watching the onboard from Mercedes

and just figuring out what the hell they're doing with their car and their power unit.

So lots of learning still to be done, I'm sure.

Question from Oteng FCB.

Is the Red Bull now a midfield car?

All right, I'll try not to take too much enjoyment out of this as Tommy...

No, it's your turn, yeah.

...sits there.

Come on, hit me.

I would argue it's always been a midfield car

and Max Verstappen made it.

It's just so clear.

I'm kidding, I'm kidding.

Red Bull are miles off around here.

I caught an interview with Verstappen just as we were starting the podcast

and he was saying there was no grip, no confidence in the car.

So it's not just a case of them losing time on the straights.

They've just not got a car, at least around here, that is competitive.

I would say in Australia they were looking all right

until Verstappen obviously speared it into the wall because of the problem.

I think Red Bull have gone backwards quite dramatically going into China.

You know, to qualify eighth and tenth be outqualified by an Alpine

by three and a half tenths to Verstappen.

Hajar, I'm not sure exactly what happened to him on his final lap,

but he was looking comparable to Max up until SQ3.

But they've got a long way to go and perhaps Red Bull will have a car that

may well chop and change their form book as we go around the different tracks

because Australia, as I say, was kind of a positive in some way

in the fact that Max could have well qualified P3

and may well have finished somewhere near the podium.

But instead, he had a big old comeback to do and then we come here and

they've clearly got something very wrong with the car.

One practice session, this can happen.

We're not going to go straight to the Panic Stations, Tommy.

No, you're not.

No, don't press the big red button because I think teams at this stage

of the regulations can get a setup and power unit deployment

and every other stupid term wrong.

They can program their cars to try themselves correctly.

They can get it wrong because they don't really know what they're doing

at this stage of the season and it's a sprint weekend.

So they've only had one hour to dial it in and learn for qualifying and the race.

So it looks on paper like a disaster.

I don't think it's as bad as that when we eventually look at the full picture

of the season at the end of the year.

It feels a very long time ago that in testing, they're like,

oh, wow, Red Bull might be fastest.

You know, they've got the best.

Have you seen the Red Bull?

Have you seen their deployment?

George Russell?

Yeah.

Yeah, I think Red Bull, yeah, they're looking good.

Yeah.

Looking really good.

Flash forward one month and with three tenths, nearly four tenths slower than an Alpine.

We thought there was going to be an absolute chasm as well.

I think this is between the midfield and we thought that Red Bull,

even if they were the fourth fastest, would just have this amazing gap to go into.

But you know, Gasly's there.

Bearman are almost, you know, close to Verstappen as well.

And it's not looking good for Red Bull at all.

Max is unhappy with how the cars drive.

They don't look remotely competitive.

And yeah, it's, I do agree that there'll be better at some circuits.

We saw that in Australia.

Like what could Max have done?

Had he done a normal qualifying?

No disrespect to Hadjah.

But we saw, you know, Hadjah qualify third.

What could Max have done in that race from third position?

It might have been a different story.

But here they have not, not got it right.

And they are so far off.

Speaking of Hadjah, he started off looking in that session and this,

this maybe again comes down to the frustrations that we're going to get into the next question of

not really knowing what is a driver and what is a battery and what is deployment.

Because Hadjah looked fairly strong and actually looking like you might even be able to out qualify

Max.

And yet he's finished half a second off, which is miles.

And for his saving his blushes really, because half a second of Verstappen,

that was kind of first to 14th last year that we saw with the other second Red Bull seat.

But he's, but Hadjah did a really solid job for most of that qualifying session,

but then finds himself half a second off, which is almost kind of what we would

usually see from that second Red Bull seat.

Indeed.

A question from Enblaze 53.

Where does the driver skills start and the battery end with these cars?

Piastri, Purple Sector 1 and then 0.8 of a second off pole by the end of the lap.

I'm just confused about where they're gaining and losing time

and what is driver versus automated battery software?

This is what I fully agree with and where my frustrations of this regulations.

I want to start it by saying that we need to be careful in terms of,

and I want to just let everyone know that George Russell is a phenomenal driver.

And just because we're going to now go into the fact that,

oh, how much of it is driver skill versus this?

I don't want to take anything away from what like Russell is doing.

And he's shown many, many seasons, last year he was incredibly strong,

doing amazing things in Williams, that he's a top driver anyway.

And I think even if we had normal inverted commas cars,

Russell would be up there anyway, because he's a top driver.

But my problem with this regulation is this whole Piastri goes Purple

and then his fifth seven tenths off.

And is it just because how they choose to use their battery

on the certain part of the track means they're quicker?

And then that whole situation, and this is the problem that a lot of people have found

in that battle between Leclerc and Russell.

And despite everyone going, oh my God, we've done 150 overtakes

and some people saying they like it.

What's driver skill anymore and what is just power deployment?

And that's not what Formula One should be.

It should be about drivers being able to make up time

in fast corners and using their bravery and skill

to be able to navigate these cars and be on the edge,

particularly in qualifying.

And unfortunately with these new regulations,

I just don't know what's what anymore.

And that that's probably why qualifying to me feels so

not to do a battery pun, but flat.

We don't watch Formula One for who's fast on a straight.

We literally watch Formula One because we like comparing

between drivers, between teams about who made up time through a corner,

who absolutely sent it into that corner and gained a tenth.

That is not the conversation anymore.

Hamilton after this sprint qualifying was saying,

yeah, the car felt good, but we're just down on power.

I'm like, well, great.

You know, that's great, isn't it?

Because we watch Formula One for the best drivers

and now I echo what you said about Russell.

He's a great driver.

We've said that he's incredibly consistent

and we knew the minute he got a front running car

or a car that is dominant, like a dominant car,

he would win a world championship.

And I think that's what we're seeing the early stages of.

But yes, and I'm going to get to it right now.

Charlotte Clair lost four tenths on the straight for no reason.

His battery or whatever issue didn't deploy.

Shut your mafia.

You just didn't press the right button on the steering wheel.

Yeah, exactly.

He wasn't pressing the pedal.

And I get the car problems can happen, car issues can happen.

And I'm not just saying about this, the Clair situation.

I said at the start of the podcast is that there's so much unknown

that it's hard for us as fans to know what's going on.

And I agree with the qualifying point as well.

Qualifying for me now, one, because of the gaps.

Two, because we're not seeing them go particularly fast.

And I don't know what three was.

I don't know why I was like, those two were the big points.

The fact that we are witnessing them super clipping qualifying

is devastating for a Saturday, I would say.

Because the one thing we've always sold qualifying as

is we are seeing these cars at the absolute limit, the ragged edge.

We're watching drivers risk it all to put in an amazing qualifying lap.

Instead, what we saw in Australia is turn nine,

then rolling it into that to that apex and boosting out the corner.

Whoop-de-doo, whoop-de-doo-da-day, I say to that,

because no one cares about a battery deployment down and straight.

We care about the corners.

And then we go to this one.

And yes, it's not as bad, but it's clearly bad enough

that Formula One have been freezing the graphic that we see on the halo.

And also, I've seen on social media, I don't personally go in

and do all the telemetry stuff.

I see people post stuff and it's quite interesting.

People can't access telemetry anymore, apparently.

They're trying to find it and it's not freely accessible,

at least from what I've seen people posting about.

And again, that's clearly to save the blushes of how slow

they are actually going into the hairpin.

And it's not public mileage anymore.

Yeah, and the data I'm seeing, it like flat lines, basically.

Yeah, it's mad.

Which is not true.

So yeah, I think, yes, Leclerc lost loads of time in the straight

and that pains me because he probably would have started fourth.

But the biggest thing for me that I'm...

Because qualifying was the day that we all loved and looked forward to,

it has now become a day of, oh, wow, there's massive gaps

and we're not seeing the drivers at the same ragged edge as we used to.

And that's quite a sad thing to see at this point.

And I don't know how that's going to change

because it is an engine battery formula.

So how are we ever going to see them top speed

at the end of a straight into a hairpin and really test it under the brakes?

We're not.

And yeah, I was obviously bantering about Leclerc and you're saying with Max.

I genuinely believe and some people would disagree.

But if Leclerc was on pole position, yes, you'd be happy and same with Max.

But the enjoyment of qualifying has been lost that even if it was...

I think even if the gaps closed up,

we don't want to see this super clipping and battery usage in certain positions.

We want to know that the driver skill and the best drivers

are making that time in the corner and being on the ragged edge in qualifying

to make it.

And yeah, at the moment, we can only hope that they do make changes

because I don't think I'm alone in saying that I think a lot of the magic

of qualifying has been lost so far.

It has.

I will say back to a positive note in the fact that once the teams figure out at the very...

I'm not talking about the corners and the corners and the problem about the ragged

edge stuff.

I don't think we're going to have a solution to.

But once the teams have a better idea of all this battery rubbish, at least,

I don't know how long it will take, but we'll have a consistency between teammates

and across teams where we're not going to have drivers coming out and going,

well, I had this problem.

I had this deployment problem.

I had this problem.

If we can eradicate that, then at least we can then start to do our comparisons

and the fun things that we have as Formula One fans.

But right now, it's teething problems for everybody.

But that's the way it is.

And this is the most frustrating thing is I wish they wouldn't feel the need to

manipulate things, hide things, what the drives are saying.

I'll go back to Max saying all this stuff was going to happen in 2023 and downshifting

on straights.

And my initial reaction to that was, oh, wow, that sounds really bad.

But in three years' time, that's not going to happen.

They'll sort it.

It's quite clear they've not listened to those frustrations.

And they're also continuing not to listen because they're happy to basically ignore them

and cut what they're saying out and not play their team radios.

And the telemetry is mysteriously disappearing when the cars are slowing down for super clipping.

Yeah, and we're not getting the picture for that either, which is so irritating.

That's another point.

No, Tommy, we're going back to negativity.

The blocking of team radios then blocks the picture for us as well.

So people will, casuals will be coming out of that going, oh, look, I lost a lot of time

in that last sector.

I must have made a mistake.

No, he didn't.

He had no battery.

He even came over the radio and said, where the hell was my battery deployment?

He lost four tenths on the straight.

That's a team radio that people need to hear.

But instead, F1 are prioritising their image, which I think is in the same way,

not the way to go because we're seeing through it as hard cause.

But we're not getting the full picture of what's going on in qualifying,

unless you dig deep into the quality interviews and so on and so forth.

Yeah, it ruins the team radio side of it if they can't play any negative thing because

in years gone by, they weren't afraid to go, a driver go, oh, I had a bit of an engine blip

there or, oh, this happened or my tires were destroyed in the final sector.

But they're so protective over these new regulations that they're willing to basically

make the viewer less understanding about what's going on to save their own public image.

It's embarrassing completely.

Also, I don't think we saw many on boards in that middle sector, but we did once with Hadjar

and that was so eye-opening to how slow they're actually going in that middle sector

that I think Formula One are being very clever in what they try and show,

whether they show off boards of cars in the middle sector, then they go on board,

round that long right hander onto the back straight because that's when they're deploying,

they look really fast, but you've got Antonelli and the other drivers right at the front

lifting into turn 10 before they then go into that final sequence and the long back straight

because they are recharging.

Yeah, like seeing in the turn one, great because they're deploying again, they're pushing hard,

but I think they are being very clever in which places they don't show us on boards,

but they did show us Hadjar and if you watch that, I genuinely thought he was on a call

lap and he was pushing.

Yeah, I know. It's funny, isn't it? How we have all these problems about TV direction and this is

what the fans want to see and yeah, rarely anything gets done, but as soon as TV direction

needs to do a job of hiding all the problems with the cars, they're suddenly the goats of it

and become like a minority report, like I can cut every single thing and make sure you do this and

hide all this information. It's ridiculous, isn't it? I can't believe we're in a situation

where they're not just owning the rules and what's happening and they're trying to pull

the wool over people's eyes and they're not stupid. I think that's the most upsetting thing

about everything that's going on in Formula One right now is the disrespect to the fans

that were that stupid that we just go, oh yeah, this is fine because they're insulting our

intelligence. They're insulting the intelligence of every fan. You don't even need to be like a

veteran Formula One fan to know what's going on here and yeah, they're insulting our intelligence.

Mate, the live speedo, that 325 kilometers an hour example, I've seen because I haven't

watched it back but obviously we noticed that. There's a screenshot of... Yes, exactly what you're

going to say. On the brakes and it was still 325 kilometers an hour. He's at the 50 marker

board and it says he's doing 325 kilometers an hour. He's on his way to... It was one of the

Mercs, I think it's Antonelli or Russell. Antonelli probably, yeah. Crazy, absolutely crazy situation

we found ourselves in and... Well, don't worry. I don't want to be talking about this. This is

the problem. I want to be talking about great racing and great Formula One but this is what's

controlling the narrative at the moment and I feel like as a Formula One fan and a Formula

One fan for a very long time, I need to be calling this out because it's just shameful what they're

doing. Well, yeah, we're real about it, Tommy. We're Formula One fans and we call out the BS

when we see it. That's just who we are. So hopefully you guys appreciate that.

Look forward to never working with F1 ever again and we will see you tomorrow for a very early

live watch along for the sprint race which I think will be very worth getting up for because

let's see what Hamilton can do from potentially P3 on the road. I've been refreshing Antonelli

and I can't see anything about an update of whether he's getting a penalty or not yet.

How is it taking this long to decide whether he blocked him or not? It's ridiculous. We've done

an entire podcast in the 45 minutes of chatting plus we didn't start immediately. How have they

not made a decision yet but let's not get into that one. We've already spoken about that.

We'll be doing watch alongs of course for every competitive session on YouTube,

Twitch and Dream11. Come and join us there. Tommy, final thoughts please.

Final thoughts despite all the complaining will be there no matter what tomorrow for the sprint

watch along and the excitement of the start and seeing what Charles Leclerc and Lewis Hamilton

can do from that start with a very short run down to 7-1 but hopefully something exciting because

I think there are hope for a good sprint that people can get in the mix with Mercedes.

Can we just say thank you to Ferrari for saving this whole season with their start?

So far, yeah. They have literally saved this whole season.

One start. They've saved the season.

But they're going to have two more starts this weekend and we're going to love both of them.

I can't wait to see what they do with the lights. Do they leave it for like 20 seconds

and then everyone runs up and they press it? Yeah, they put Mercedes fan there instead.

Colopinto just flies through with all his charge and wins through.

Okay, we will see you tomorrow. Sorry for the rant but you know it's the way we've got to be.

Lots of love. Take care. Bye.

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