The worst starts to an F1 season ever

The worst starts to an F1 season ever P1 with Matt and Tommy · Apr 24, 2026

Annotations will appear as you listen

0:00

35:17

Brand

Aston Martin

Aston Martin is a famous British car company that also competes in Formula 1. When the hosts say the podcast is dedicated to Aston Martin, they mean they’re talking about that team’s F1 story.

Topic

F1 season

They’re talking about how the beginning of the Formula 1 season has been rough. It’s more about the overall vibe and situation than a specific car or technical detail.

Car

McLaren Honda 2015

This is about McLaren’s F1 team working with Honda in 2015. The point is that even with big expectations—especially around new hybrid rules—the season didn’t go as well as fans hoped.

Concept

The “hybrid era” means F1 cars started using hybrid technology—like systems that recover energy instead of wasting it. When F1 switched to these rules, teams had to learn a whole new way of building and tuning the cars.

Car

Aston Martin Honda partnership

They’re talking about Aston Martin teaming up with Honda for F1. The hosts are saying that even though fans expected big things from that partnership, the early season performance hasn’t matched the excitement.

Brand

Mercedes

They’re talking about Mercedes as an engine supplier in Formula 1. In F1, the engine a team uses can make a huge difference in how fast and how reliable the car is.

Concept

legendary partnership

They’re describing an earlier McLaren-Honda combo as “legendary.” When two groups that used to work extremely well team up again, people assume it will be great immediately.

Concept

hype

They keep saying “hype,” meaning people were expecting huge results. In racing, expectations can be based on history, but the actual performance still depends on how well the car is built and improved.

Concept

absolute atrocious year

They’re saying Alonso had a really bad, messy season before this move. That kind of experience can change how people view the next team and what they expect to happen.

Concept

burnt that bridge

This phrase means Alonso had a major falling-out with Ron Dennis. In racing, relationships like that can affect whether a driver trusts a team’s direction and wants to return.

Concept

pre-season testing

Before the season starts, teams do practice runs to make sure the car works. If the car breaks a lot or can’t finish laps during these tests, it usually means the team still has big problems to fix.

Concept

tinfoil hat sort of theories

The transcript references speculative theories around the cause of Alonso’s pre-season accident. While not technical, it’s a reminder that high-profile crashes often spawn rumors, and the reality is usually determined by telemetry, inspection, and official medical/engineering findings.

Concept

circuit of Barcelona, Catalonia

Barcelona-Catalunya is one of the main tracks F1 uses for testing before the season starts. If something goes wrong there, it can be a big warning sign for how the season might start.

Concept

electrocuted

“Electrocuted” is mentioned as one of the rumors about the cause of the crash. In motorsport, electrical faults are taken seriously, but determining whether an incident involved an electrical issue requires forensic inspection and evidence from the car’s systems.

Concept

slow speed crash

A slow-speed crash can still be serious in F1 because the driver can be hit by impacts, debris, or awkward vehicle angles. In Alonso’s case, the discussion suggests the incident led to concussion and forced him out early, showing that “low speed” doesn’t always mean “low consequence.”

Concept

concussed

A concussion is a type of traumatic brain injury that can occur even in relatively low-speed crashes. In motorsport, it typically triggers strict medical clearance rules, which is why it can immediately remove a driver from upcoming races.

Car

McLaren Honda

McLaren Honda refers to McLaren’s F1 partnership with Honda power units during the hybrid era. In the transcript, it’s tied to reliability struggles right from the start of the season, highlighting how power-unit and integration issues can show up immediately.

Car

Aston Martin Honda

Aston Martin Honda means Aston Martin’s F1 team with Honda’s engine system. The hosts are comparing it to McLaren Honda because both seemed to struggle early, especially with reliability.

Term

engine failed

“Engine failed” means the engine stopped working properly. If it happens before the start, the driver can’t even take the grid.

Term

detune the engine

Detuning is when the team turns the engine down so it makes less power. They do it to reduce the chance of the engine breaking during a race.

Term

speed traps

Speed traps are fixed measurement points on the track where cars’ top speed is recorded. They’re used to compare straight-line performance and can highlight whether a team is losing time due to power or aerodynamic drag.

Car

McLaren Hondas

“McLaren Hondas” means McLaren’s Formula 1 cars with Honda engines. The hosts are saying those cars were much slower than the front runners, especially on straight lines.

Term

GP2 engine era

They’re talking about a specific period of F1 engine rules. The idea is that the cars’ engines weren’t performing well and weren’t very dependable at the time.

Topic

China

China is another F1 race on the calendar. They’re bringing it up to explain the timeline of results before the team started retiring a lot.

Topic

Bahrain

Bahrain is one of the F1 races on the calendar. They’re mentioning it as part of a sequence of races where things went badly.

Topic

Silverstone

Silverstone is a well-known F1 race track in the UK. They’re mentioning it because it was one of the few times they managed to score points.

Topic

Hungary

Hungary is where the Hungarian Grand Prix is held. The hosts are saying that race was a standout performance compared to the team’s usual struggles.

Concept

double points finish

In F1, points are only awarded to cars that finish high enough. A “double points finish” means both cars from the same team scored points in that race, which is a good sign for the team.

Concept

double retirements

A retirement is when a car can’t finish the race. “Double retirements” means both cars had to stop early, which is usually a bad reliability sign for the team.

Brand

Marussia

Marussia was a back-of-the-pack Formula 1 team. Mentioning them highlights how bad the situation was for McLaren if they were only just beating a struggling team.

Brand

Fernando Alonso

Fernando Alonso is one of the top drivers in F1 history. The hosts bring him up to remind listeners of the McLaren/Honda era when things were much better.

Brand

Jensen Button

Jenson Button is a former F1 world champion. The hosts mention him alongside Alonso to set up a story about a chaotic race where the usual expectations didn’t hold.

Topic

Interlagos

Interlagos is an F1 track in Brazil. The hosts are referencing a specific race there where the results were surprising.

Concept

Q1

Qualifying is split into parts. Q1 is the first part, and if you don’t do well enough there, you don’t get to the later rounds and you’ll start the race from a worse position.

Concept

did not starts

“Did not start” means the car couldn’t begin the race at all. Usually something went wrong before the race, so the driver never even got going.

Brand

Renault engines

They’re talking about Formula One engines from Renault. Even after changing engines, the team still struggled with reliability, so it wasn’t a simple fix.

Brand

Red Bull

Red Bull is a Formula One team. The hosts say that once Red Bull had the Honda engine, they turned it into race wins, implying the problem wasn’t just the engine by itself.

Brand

McLaren fans

McLaren is another major Formula One team. The hosts are saying that this argument about who’s to blame (engines vs teams) was especially relevant to McLaren fans.

Concept

aura farming

“Aura farming” here is a joke meaning trying to build a good image and hype. The hosts are basically saying the team talked a big game, even if results weren’t there yet.

Company

British American Tobacco

British American Tobacco is a company that, in that era, owned an F1 team. The hosts are saying that tobacco money helped teams spend big in Formula One.

Term

half-and-half split livery

A livery is the car’s paint and graphics. “Half-and-half” means the design is split into two sides with different colors or patterns, so it’s easy to spot on track.

Concept

glass cannon

A “glass cannon” is a thing that looks powerful, but breaks easily. In racing, it means the car can be fast, but it often can’t finish races.

Term

retired

In racing, “retired” means the driver had to stop the race early because something went wrong. If it happens a lot, it usually points to reliability issues.

Concept

first time we finished a race

In F1, you usually only score points if you actually finish the race. If a team’s “first finish” happens late, it means they were breaking down or failing to complete races for a long time.

Concept

Grand Prix

In Formula 1, a “Grand Prix” is just a single race weekend and race. Finishing a Grand Prix means the car actually completes the race distance and is classified.

Concept

qualify it quite high up on the grid

Qualifying determines the starting order (“grid”) for the race. If a car qualifies high on the grid, it starts near the front, which can help it run in the top positions—until reliability issues cause retirements.

Concept

unreliable

In F1, “unreliable” usually means the car has frequent mechanical failures—engine, gearbox, or other components—that prevent finishing races. The hosts contrast a season where reliability problems were common with one that was even worse, where cars didn’t even complete the race.

Term

engine failures

An engine failure means the engine breaks during the race. If that happens, the car usually can’t continue, so the driver can’t finish and score points.

Concept

classified

“Classified” means the race officials still counted the driver in the official results. It usually happens when the car completed enough of the race, even if it didn’t finish normally.

Concept

broke his leg

If a driver breaks a leg, they can’t race for a while. That can change who drives the car and how the championship fight plays out.

Concept

world champion

The “world champion” is the driver who wins the Formula 1 Drivers’ Championship based on points accumulated across the season. The hosts are discussing who won the title and how race outcomes and teammate dynamics affected the final result.

Concept

conspiracy

They’re talking about a rumor-like idea that a driver didn’t try as hard to help the teammate. It’s more about fan speculation than car mechanics.

Brand

Ferrari

Ferrari is a major F1 team with a long racing history. Here, the hosts are talking about how Ferrari went from being extremely fast to suddenly struggling, and they connect that shift to controversy.

Term

power unit

In F1, the power unit is basically the car’s engine package. It’s not just one engine—it's the whole hybrid system that makes power and recovers energy.

Term

FIA

The FIA is the organization that makes and enforces the rules in motorsport, including F1. If a team is suspected of breaking rules, the FIA is the one that investigates and decides what happens next.

Term

qualified 7th and 11th on debut

Qualifying sets where the cars start on the grid for the race. Starting 7th and 11th on their first outing implies they weren’t near the front yet.

Concept

double race in Austria

Because of disruptions in 2020, F1 sometimes ran two races at the same track in a row. It was a way to keep the season going when the schedule was uncertain.

Term

double DNF

DNF means the car didn’t finish the race. A “double DNF” means both drivers’ cars failed to finish, which usually costs a lot of points.

Car

SF1000

The Ferrari SF1000 is the specific F1 race car Ferrari used in 2020. In this segment, the hosts are saying it didn’t perform well early in the season.

Topic

Monza

Monza is one of the most iconic F1 tracks in the world. For Ferrari, it’s especially important because it’s often treated like a home race, so bad weekends feel worse.

Car

Charles Leclerc

Charles Leclerc is one of Ferrari’s drivers. In F1, where the car finishes matters because it earns points for both the driver and the team.

Concept

constructors

In F1 there’s a championship for drivers and a championship for teams. “Constructors” refers to the team standings, where points from both cars add up.

Concept

Hockenheim

Hockenheim is a race track in Germany. The hosts are saying something went wrong there for Vettel, and they believe that moment changed how his career played out afterward.

Concept

worst season since 1980

The hosts are stressing that Ferrari had a historically bad year. It means the team’s results were far worse than most seasons they’ve had in a long time.

Concept

1-2 finish

A “1-2” finish is when one team gets both the first and second spots in the same race. It usually means the team had a big performance advantage that day.

Concept

drop-offs in performance

The segment focuses on a “bizarre” and “unexplained” performance drop—when a team’s results fall sharply from one season to the next. In F1, this can happen due to development missteps, technical issues, driver/strategy changes, or other factors even without major regulation changes.

Car

BMW Sauber

BMW Sauber is the name of a Formula 1 team that raced in 2009. It’s not a normal car model you’d see on the street—it’s the racing team’s identity for that season.

Concept

championship contention with only two rounds left

This means the title fight wasn’t over yet—there were only two races left, but the championship was still within reach. In F1, the standings can change fast when there are only a couple races remaining.

Concept

old point scoring back then

F1 used to award points differently than it does now. That means a gap in the standings—like 12 points—can represent a different amount of advantage or pressure than it would under today’s rules.

Concept

midfield car

A “midfield car” is basically a race car that isn’t usually among the very fastest. The drivers can sometimes do great—like getting a podium—but it’s not the car you’d expect to win the championship every year.

Concept

world title

The “world title” means winning the championship for the season. Drivers earn points race by race, and the total points decide who wins.

Concept

put the tools down

It means the team stops working on the current car and starts focusing on next year instead. That can help later, but it can also hurt if the current car still had a chance to score big points.

Concept

development

Development is the team improving the car over time with updates. The hosts are saying BMW may have stopped improving the 2008 car too early, which could have cost them points.

Concept

new era

“The new era” refers to a major regulatory or technical transition in F1 that teams build their cars around. When a team “goes in” on a new era, it usually means they’ve made big design bets—so if the concept doesn’t work as expected, early results can be dramatically worse than planned.

Concept

half points

Sometimes an F1 race can’t run its full distance because of weather. If that happens early enough, the sport may give fewer points than usual—like “half points”—so the standings move differently than normal.

Concept

rained off

If the weather is too bad, the race may be stopped or shortened for safety. That can completely change how teams race and even how many points everyone gets.

Car

Lola T9730

The Lola T9730 is a specific F1 race car model. The point here is that it was supposed to show up in 1998, but sponsorship pressure pushed the team to race it a year early.

Company

MasterCard

MasterCard was the sponsor paying for naming rights. Sponsors in F1 can push teams to race sooner so the brand gets the exposure they’re paying for.

Concept

field spread

Field spread just means how big the performance gap is between the fastest cars and the slower ones. If the gap is huge, the back-of-the-pack teams are struggling a lot and can’t keep up.

Company

Minardi

Minardi is a team name used here to represent the smaller, lower-budget teams. The hosts are saying that in that era, these teams were often way slower than the front-runners.

Company

Arrows

Arrows is another team mentioned as an example of a team that was usually behind the front-runners. It helps explain why the time gaps were so big.

Company

Tyrell

Tyrell is another team name used to show the back-of-the-pack. The point is that teams like this often couldn’t match the leaders’ speed.

Car

Lola

Lola is a company that makes race cars. Here they’re talking about Lola’s Formula One car in 1997, which was so uncompetitive that it struggled in qualifying and then eventually stopped racing.

Concept

Formula 3000 champion

Formula 3000 was a ladder series where drivers proved themselves before reaching Formula One. Even though the driver was a champion there, the F1 car itself was still far behind.

Concept

un-televised qualifying

They’re talking about qualifying that wasn’t shown on TV. If people can’t watch it, sponsors and teams get less exposure, which can make a bad season feel even worse.

Topic

Brazil

They’re saying Lola pulled out of the next race in Brazil and didn’t come back. That’s a big deal because it means the team couldn’t get the car on track.

Concept

107% rule

The 107% rule is a safety-and-competitiveness cutoff for qualifying. If a car is too far off the pace, it may not be allowed to race. Sometimes officials can still allow exceptions, but it’s not guaranteed.

Term

F3000

F3000 was a lower-tier racing series that fed drivers and teams toward F1. The point here is that you can’t just bring a car from that level and expect it to compete in F1.

Car

McLaren MP419

The McLaren MP4-19 was McLaren’s F1 car for 2004. It was designed by Adrian Newey, and the episode is using it to illustrate how a very ambitious design can still struggle if it doesn’t perform reliably in real race conditions.

Concept

extreme designs

“Extreme designs” means the engineers try a very bold idea to get an advantage. The downside is that it can be harder to make work perfectly every time, so the car may not be fast for the whole race.

Concept

Adrian Newey

Adrian Newey is one of the most famous F1 car designers. The hosts are saying that when his team makes changes, the car can become faster and more reliable.

Concept

missed out on the championship

They’re saying they almost won the season title but didn’t. In F1, you can lose the championship if you don’t finish races or don’t score enough points.

Concept

worked a bit more magic on the car

They mean the team made improvements to the car after it wasn’t working well at first. In racing, teams keep tweaking and upgrading during the season to find speed and fix problems.

Concept

Spa

Spa is a famous Formula 1 track in Belgium. They’re saying the race at Spa is where the prediction/bet ended up being wrong.

Concept

DNFs

DNF stands for “Did Not Finish,” meaning a car retired from the race due to mechanical failure, accidents, or other issues. A high number of DNFs early in a season is a strong indicator of reliability problems and poor overall competitiveness.

Car

Alonso

Fernando Alonso is a top Formula 1 driver, and the hosts mention him as part of the preseason hype about who could win the championship. In F1, driver talent can raise expectations, but the car’s reliability and performance still determine results.

Car

George Russell

George Russell is a Formula 1 driver. The hosts are saying people expected him (and Alonso) to be the main championship fight, which made Aston’s poor start feel even more surprising.

Brand

Racing Point

Racing Point is an F1 team name from the past. The hosts are saying that earlier version of the team could do surprisingly well, and now Aston Martin is expected to be better too.

Brand

Force India

Force India was an F1 team name before it changed over the years. They’re saying that even in those earlier days, the team could outperform expectations.

Concept

turn their season around

They mean the team could improve a lot later in the year. In racing, teams sometimes start poorly, then make changes and get better as the season goes on.

LIVE

This is a Monday.com ad, the same Monday.com helping people worldwide getting work done faster and better.

The same Monday.com designed for every team and every industry.

The same Monday.com with built-in AI, scaling your work from day one.

The same Monday.com that your team will actually love using.

The same Monday.com with an easy and intuitive setup.

Go to Monday.com and try it for free.

Yes, the same Monday.com.

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

and Tommy.

Now, this is a podcast, of course, completely and utterly dedicated to Aston Martin.

They've got our brain boxes going, haven't they, for an idea for this podcast.

A little bit of a short view back to the past kind of vibe, if you remember that series.

Look, we're bringing you content.

I've seen some stupid comments.

Yeah, I'll say it.

Oh, F1's kind of left content creators hanging in April, haven't they?

Oh, this is peak spring slop.

Oh, this sort of stuff.

Well, yes, there's no races going on.

There's no news.

Do you want us to disappear?

I'll shout out the positive comments that we're like, we appreciate you guys still doing stuff.

Yeah, I love that.

But stop liking the ones that are, wow, this is slop.

So that'd be good.

But thank you.

You turned up anyway, didn't you?

So you can't really complain.

Now, we are going to get into the worst starts to an F1 season ever.

As I mentioned, Aston Martin, the green vibrating machine has been very much the forefront of conversation

of having so much hype coming into 2026 and not being able to deliver anywhere near that.

And we've got some examples to discuss.

So, Tommy, why don't we just get straight into it?

Hey, are you looking forward to this?

As a Fernando Alonso fan, no.

But also as a history nerd of F1, yes.

I was going to say, it's not like you're trying to distract yourself from the fact

Fernando Alonso is having a poor start to a hyped season because he also features in this list.

So why don't we begin with one?

McLaren Honda 2015 and then in brackets and 2017.

I know.

Yeah, we're going to have to explore this one.

Can you believe this?

Well, the 2015 part, that's 11 years ago.

That's absolutely ridiculous.

I feel so old.

But this was coming into, of course, the hybrid era, the hybrid partnership between McLaren and Honda.

And I would say this was very hyped, similar to the Aston Martin Honda partnership.

Right, Tommy?

You're seeing some similarities already.

And they also had Mercedes engine, the best engine for the new Rolls and were like,

no, let's go with the Honda.

And they had Fernando Alonso.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, this is a lot of parallels going on here.

So, yeah, McLaren and Honda, they came together again after their legendary partnership

in the late 80s, early 90s with Senna and Prost, and they were winning everything.

So hence the hype.

Once again, they come together.

Oh, my goodness.

What are they going to be able to do?

And with McLaren, I think they were the only team on the grid, weren't they, with Honda engines?

So they were, it was again like an, oh, my God, McLaren, they've got Honda all to themselves.

And Fernando Alonso.

They can dominate, right?

Yeah.

Well, right, yeah.

And the hype as well, I think the most, probably the most insane thing about this whole situation

was there was so much promise that Fernando Alonso went back to McLaren after the absolute

atrocious year and controversial year that he had alongside Lewis Hamilton, where he

burnt that bridge so much with Ron Dennis.

And for Alonso to go back to McLaren when Ron Dennis was still there, that's how much

he believed in this hype of McLaren and Honda together again, an all-world champion lineup

of Alonso and Jensen Burton.

And it had to be good, surely.

Well, they weren't.

They were immediately unreliable in testing.

They did seven laps on the opening day and had constant issues during pre-season testing,

including Alonso's very strange, very covered in tinfoil hat sort of theories, right, Tommy?

This pre-season testing accident that happened at the circuit of Barcelona, Catalonia.

You just have to say that circuit in its full entirety.

It wasn't filmed or anything, was it that day?

There wasn't any footage of it as such.

There's talk of him being potentially electrocuted and all sorts of crazy stuff, right?

Yeah, all sorts of theories.

He had a slow speed crash and it basically put him out of the first two races.

He was concussed.

Everyone was confused because it was such a slow speed incident.

And we were confused at why Fernando Alonso was in such a bad way for what looked like

him slowly just hitting the wall at a slow part of the track.

But again, talking about the similarities of McLaren Honda and Aston Martin Honda with Fernando Alonso,

as you say, they started the new era only doing seven laps.

And we got to the whole of pre-season testing only two weeks to go until the opening race.

And the MP430 car had completed was 12 consecutive laps around Barcelona,

which sounds very, very similar to Aston Martin.

Are we just going to talk about Aston Martin the entire way through this video?

No wonder Alonso, this poor guy has had to go through this twice.

It's almost like they should have just gone with Mercedes, didn't they, on Aston Martin, but they did not.

And yes, struggles started right from the get go.

And now in the first race, McLaren Honda, of course, not much hope at this point,

they qualified on the back row of the grid.

Magnuson replaced Alonso, but didn't even start the race as his engine failed while driving to the grid.

So forget those 10 or just about double digit consecutive laps couldn't even get round to the start box.

They could not.

And their car was so slow.

So they were actually, again, a similar comparison, they had to detune the engine just to basically make sure it didn't blow up.

And, you know, there was the speed traps recorded.

The McLaren Hondas were 13 miles an hour slower in the speed traps than the fastest car.

This is in the first race.

There's actually a not amazing video, a very fascinating video that you can watch of Jensen Button in Abu Dhabi.

And bearing in mind, this is the last race of the season.

So imagine how bad it was at the start where he makes this amazing start.

He goes past about six or seven cars and then gets to the back straight at Abu Dhabi.

And as he's accelerating, all the cars just fly past him.

And that that is what it was like.

You know, this was GP2 engine era.

That famous quote from Fernando Alonso and they were just laughably slow in a straight line.

They had no power at all.

And it was incredibly unreliable.

It was, but there were glimmers of hope.

I mean, I say hope they did score one point in the first eight races.

And in those eight races, right, let me read you.

Fernando Alonso's first eight races.

Well, he didn't even start Australia.

Yeah, he then retired in Malaysia.

Malaysia come back, please.

I beg China P-12 China P-12 Bahrain P-11.

So, you know, not far off the points and then retired the next four races in a row.

Then he scored a point at Silverstone and then had a generational drive in Hungary.

Am I right?

He did. He got a fifth place.

That was an absolutely crazy race there where so much was happening.

That was their best result of the whole season where they finished fifth and ninth.

It was their only double points finish.

They had a lot more double retirements than double points finishes.

It seemed to happen quite a lot that season and just, yeah, a handful of points for McLaren.

They did beat Marussia, though.

They beat Marussia and the constructors.

You know, that well-known front-running team.

Disaster.

It wasn't an absolute disaster.

All the hype, everything that was said about.

Surely that is the return to the good old days for McLaren.

They've got Honda, this partnership that was so dominant in Formula One.

Two world champions and that season is remembered for Fernando Alonso sat in a deck chair

because his car's broken down or Jensen Button and Alonso going on the podium in Interlagos

because it was so laughable that they'd be on the podium.

They went up there for banter because they both were out the session in Q1.

It was that bad that it was just a joke.

This was an era where they had Ron Dennis at the helm who was an incredibly successful team manager

and he didn't take banter very lightly, did he?

He would not have enjoyed the constant mocking of the team.

Absolutely not.

And you would say the next year was a lot better, 2016.

But we're all about disasters in this podcast.

So we go ahead one more year to 2017.

And again, McLaren-Honda.

So we thought, OK, bit of trajectory, sixth in 2016.

Where can they go from here?

Oh, no. Oh, no, very much backwards again.

In the first 10 rounds, they'd scored one P9 finish, which was their only points.

And in those 12 times, they failed to finish, including two did not starts.

Yeah, it was a disaster, just constant retirements.

They were slow again and it looked like they were kind of getting on top of it.

And then in 2017, just absolutely awful reliability.

It was just horrendous for McLaren.

Again, just so many, the kind of image of that season

is just seeing that orange McLaren on the back of a flatbed truck.

Basically, it feels like.

Yeah, they had a disaster of most of the season.

But I'll tell you what, Alonso, P10 in Mexico, P8 in Brazil, P9 in Abu Dhabi

right at the end of the season to muster up a grand total of 17 points for the season.

He did beat Jolien Palmer, his nemesis.

And yeah, they could only manage ninth in the constructors that year.

And this is again, parallels to Aston Martin and the talk around that

and maybe something that Aston Martin should learn from is this whole era.

It was kind of like, oh, it's all Honda's fault,

Honda rubbish, everything's terrible.

And actually they ended up getting Renault engines the next year

and the car was still unreliable and competitive.

And actually a year after that, Red Bull got the Honda engine and actually winning races.

So it was very much a case of both parties not delivering,

but Honda were just memed for being this unreliable, horrendous engine

and kind of got all the blame really for this poor stint.

They certainly did, McLaren fans.

You can start listening again because we're moving away from that particular team

and going slightly further back in time into the 90s, 1999 in fact, with BAR.

What a throwback that is.

I would have been seven years old.

Tommy, you'd have been about 23.

And we're talking about them because they came into Formula One with loads of money.

They signed world champion, Jacques Villeneuve.

And they essentially, once again, built up the hype massively by saying

they had ambitions to win races and even the championship.

Yeah, I don't think aura farming existed in 1999, but they were aura farming.

Yeah, they kind of talked the talk.

They had these big ambitions.

They were spending a lot of money.

Of course, they were owned by British American Tobacco,

that kind of era of the 90s where they had so much tobacco money in Formula One

and that's what was allowed these teams to just spend huge amounts of money.

And this was a team that brought Jacques Villeneuve on board,

who was the world champion just two years before.

And of course, I think most people would know this car,

even if you know nothing about BAR because they had that half-and-half split livery

with the zip down the middle there.

Well, actually, half-and-half livery is nowadays.

It's Cadillac. My vote's 2026 version.

But no, it is a very, very iconic livery, the BAR.

However, that was the only thing that it was iconic for

because my god was this car unreliable.

It was a glass cannon, if you can call it that,

because there were moments where it had a bit of pace about it.

But can I please read to you, Jacques Villeneuve,

the Formula One world champion's result.

It's insane, isn't it?

In the 1999 season. All right, here we go. Lock in.

His results are retired, retired, retired, retired, retired, retired, retired, retired, retired, retired, retired, retired, retired, retired, retired,

15th, 8th, 10th, retired, 9th.

So we had a great end to the year, but retired in the first 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 races.

I hope the money was worth it.

Round 12 was the first time we finished a race.

Can you imagine just thinking, oh, right, I've got this team.

It was meant to be, yeah, it was going to be built around him.

They had these ambitions of winning the World Championship.

And it takes you till round 12 to finish an actual Grand Prix.

And it had its moment, so Jacques Villeneuve could qualify it quite high up on the grid.

Sometimes he was racing, you know, even in the top five or six cars, sometimes even higher.

But again, just so unreliable.

It was kind of more common then to have lots of engine failures and reliability problems,

but this was even more extreme, you know, to not even finish the race.

Like, Jacques Villeneuve finished four races all season, actually three,

because one of them was just him being classified.

So no points all year for him.

No points indeed.

Now, I'm just looking at the 99 season, and this is, of course, you know,

any time I can bring up Michael Schumacher, I will.

But this is where Michael, of course, broke his leg, wasn't it?

Silverstone then came back for the final two races.

And unsupply, so not even unsupply.

Surprisingly, couldn't match Micka Hacklin in the final race

to stop Micka Hacklin being world champion over Michael Schumacher's teammate, Eddie Irvine.

It's just goat things, isn't it?

He would rather have seen Micka Hacklin win the world title than his teammate.

That was another funny conspiracy, wasn't it?

That, yeah, his pace mysteriously disappeared for that final race when his teammate needed him.

My goat.

I know exactly what he's done there.

Anyway, that's not what we're talking about, although to be fair, you know,

worst endings to a season, maybe for Eddie Irvine.

Anyway, we'll get on to another team, shall we?

And it is to do with Ferrari.

However, a little bit further forward in 2020.

Now, you know, Ferrari, you know, just rumors about 2019

and how they were so quick.

Perfectly legal car.

Completely sealed documents.

Don't need to talk about any of which that they would have maybe buffed up their engine

with certain fuel flow rates and things like that.

But in 2019, they were very, very quick with Ferrari.

19 podiums out of 21 races, nine pole positions and three victories.

Now, yes, this power unit that I just mentioned.

Rivals thought it was a little bit naughty for some reason.

And this is one of the...

Again, I know it's not part of this particular chat because we're talking about 2020.

But how was this allowed to be a thing where the FIA and Ferrari

were able to come to a private settlement over their power unit?

And then the next year, they're featuring in this list of being a really slow car.

Yeah, yeah.

OK, we'll stop cheating now.

Allegedly, don't take the call, Ferrari, thank you.

Yeah, we'll turn the engine down.

We'll have a year of pain and then you can't disqualify as a very bizarre situation.

And yeah, a lot of the teams couldn't believe this had happened.

But as soon as this private settlement was signed and they went into 2020,

suddenly the car was pretty useless.

Certainly was.

I'm just having a look at the 2020 season.

Of course, a little bit of a crazy one because we started in Austria

with back-to-back races.

In like July or something, wasn't it?

Absolutely ridiculous, wasn't it?

What a strange time to be alive.

But yeah, the car was horrible.

They qualified 7th and 11th on debut.

However, you know, Charlotte Clair managed to do some crazy goat things and finish P2.

But we're talking about horrible starts and we're not talking about generational talents like Charlotte Clair.

However, the next race, which you're not hearing this incorrectly, it was again in Austria.

If you weren't watching F1 in 2020, they did a double race in Austria

just to try and get more races into a world championship that was so up in the air,

we didn't know what was going to happen.

And yeah, Ferrari double DNF, so did we really need to have that second race in Austria?

I don't know.

It was a horrible start.

Yeah, Charles managed to somehow get the car to some decent positions.

But Sebastian Valle in particular was having a horrendous time with it,

really, really struggling all season.

And of course, he was going to be leaving the team as well, which was a big bombshell as well during that time.

But it was not the year that Ferrari wanted because this car was called the SF1000,

which was to celebrate their one, the word I can't say, 1000th race.

1000th?

1000th race.

And not the fact they had a thousand horsepower because of the engine.

So yeah, disaster at the start of the year.

And even worse, at Monza, where they had a double DNF, absolute ultimate embarrassment at their home race.

They sat P6 in the constructors, which is where they went on to finish, which was mainly thanks to Leclerc.

I'm looking at the championship standings.

Sebastian Vettel finished 13th in the championship with 33 points compared to Charles Leclerc's 98.

Wow.

Disaster of a season for Sebastian as well.

Yeah, it was an awful season for Ferrari.

A sad way for Vettel to end his Ferrari career when just two years previously he was challenging for the world title

and leading that world title until, sorry, Sebastian Vettel fans to mention it,

but it went off at Hockenheim and that people believe that that's the moment that kind of this whole career unraveled.

It almost felt like because he was looking set to win the championship or at least challenge for it.

And he never felt like the same driver again after that moment.

He certainly did not.

So yeah, you might be thinking, it's not the most horrific thing.

You know, Charles Leclerc got a P2, but it's the drop-off from 2019 and wondering,

where's Ferrari going to go from here?

Then of course, the chatter about everything going on behind closed doors.

And lo and behold, 2020, terrible when you think of what the dreams were of said Ferrari fans like myself.

Yeah, I mean, it was their worst season that they'd had since 1980, which I think we should shout out

because this is one of the most bizarre, bizarre things to happen to Ferrari.

If we're talking about drop-offs in 1979, Ferrari won the World Championship.

The constructors won the drivers championship.

They finished 1-2 for fun, finishing 1-2 in so many races.

And then in 1980, they scored eight points and finished 10th and there was no regulation change.

They had the same two drivers and it is one of the most bizarre kind of unexplained drop-offs

in performance ever, really.

I mean, Jodie Schecter had won the World Championship and then the year after scored two points

and just won one fifth place all season.

Definitely the biggest drop-off for a team ever, you'd have to say.

That is crazy stuff.

This episode is sponsored by Hymns.

There's a lot of noise out there about hair loss, miracle shampoos, questionable advice, expensive clinic visits,

but Hymns cuts through all of that with real, trusted treatments and a 100% online process

because let's be honest, you've got better things to do than sit in a waiting room talking about your hairline.

Hymns offers convenient access to a range of prescription hair loss treatments

with ingredients that are proven to work, including finasteride and minoxidil,

which can help stop further hair loss and even regrow hair in as little as three to six months.

Plus, you can find the right hair regrowth treatment for you

with flexible subscription options, access to 24-7 provider support

and once a day treatment options that fit your daily routine.

For simple online access to personalized and affordable care for hair loss, ED, weight loss and more,

visit Hymns.com slash P1.

That's Hymns.com slash P1 for your free online visit.

Hymns.com slash P1.

Featured products include compounded drug products which the FDA does not approve

or verify for safety effectiveness or quality, prescription required,

see website for full details, restrictions and important safety information.

Individual results may vary based on studies of topical and oral minoxidil and finasteride.

This episode is sponsored by Ruler.

You know when you look back at certain points in your life and think,

yeah, I probably should have gone to therapy then.

Maybe after a breakup, maybe during burnout or just when stress was quietly piling up in the background.

But then you actually try to find a therapist and realize it can be quite complicated.

Either they're fully booked, they don't take your insurance or it's just way too expensive.

That's why Ruler is so great.

Ruler helps you find licensed therapists and psychiatrists who are actually covered by your insurance.

They work with over 100 insurance plans and the average co-pay is about $15 a session,

sometimes even less depending on your cover.

Plus they match you based on your goals and preferences.

You can actually find a therapist who feels right for you

and appointments can be available as soon as tomorrow.

Thousands of people are already using Ruler to get affordable, high quality therapy

that's actually covered by insurance.

Visit Ruler.com forward slash Matt and Tommy to get started.

That's R-U-L-A dot com slash Matt and Tommy.

You deserve mental health care that works with you, not against your budget.

Intelligence suggestions powered by AI and your data.

Generate ideas in seconds, import your brand and create full campaigns with simple prompts.

Set personalized messages backed by real-time feedback, smart segmentation

and effortless reporting that tracks every win.

Let's redefine what's possible together.

Get started for free at ActiveCampaign.com.

Here's a show that we recommend.

Procrastination is the easiest form of resistance.

And the actual strategies they use to turn their side hustle into their main hustle.

Getting back in touch with your tangible cash and sitting down and learning to give your money a job,

like it changes something.

Check out Side Hustle Pro every week on your favorite podcast app and YouTube.

Immersing yourself in all things soccer ahead of this summer's World Cup?

I'm Alex Abnos, senior sports editor from The Guardian.

And whether you're a soccer beginner or you know the game inside and out, we've got you covered.

Read, watch and listen as our journalists connect the dots between the games, the cultures and this political moment.

We'll have daily newsletters throughout the tournament, reporters on the ground with all the big teams

and the legendary Football Weekly podcast.

The Guardian, bringing you the whole picture on soccer.

Search Guardian Soccer for more.

Right, moving away from Ferrari, we now head to BMW Sauber in 2009.

Now, of course, this was following on from 2008 where Qubits won a race

and was essentially still in championship contention with only two rounds left.

He was 12 points behind.

Remember, it was the old point scoring back then, so 12 points bigger than what we know of today.

But still within a win and a bit and something crazy could have easily happened.

Yeah, definitely.

This is the meme where that WWE guy is crying and it's like,

Dad, what was this time like?

It's like, what was pre-accident Robert Qubits alike?

Because it's true, if you are new to Formula One and you only knew him for that stint at Williams,

where, of course, he was still carrying his injuries.

He couldn't perform as what we kind of expected.

You will have sadly not witnessed the best of Robert Qubits,

which I genuinely think is one of the top drivers from that era.

It's not insane to put him alongside the likes.

He could have so easily had a career like Sebastian Beto, Fernando Alonso, Max Verstappen.

These drivers, because he was so good.

He was driving a midfield car a lot of the time and would put it on the podium a lot where it shouldn't be.

And as we say in this era, 2008, only a second full season in Formula One.

And he's there challenging for the world title in what is a midfield car, basically,

and shouldn't have been while Hamilton and Masa were basically having clumsy accidents

and really throwing away a lot of points.

Qubitsa was just quietly going about his business and having a really, really strong and consistent season.

But BMW were like, no, no, we're not going to do that.

Yeah, BMW made one of, in hindsight, one of the worst calls a team has ever done in Formula One.

And that was essentially put the tools down in 2008 and focus to 2009,

despite the fact that they had a really quick car, they had Qubitsa firing on all cylinders.

And that may well have cost Robert Qubitsa winning the world title in 2008.

I've just mentioned 12 points behind with two races left.

You have to wonder if they'd continued to develop that car, surely there was more points to be had.

So that in itself is the fumble of the century.

But not just that, what they then had focused on for 2009 was a car that ended up being not very great at all.

Of course, you know, they're fighting other teams, other bigger teams around them

and they weren't able to match what they thought their potential was.

Definitely not. They started poorly.

There was so much promise around them, the fact that they'd really gone in on this new era.

And Heidfeld got a P2 in Malaysia, which was a crazy race where basically they awarded half points

because it was rained off and monsoon weather.

But they were not competitive at all.

That was an outlier and they weren't even challenging for the points basically

when this was meant to be a car that was going to win the world championship

with a fantastic driver on board in near Robert Qubitsa

and a great driver in Heidfeld as well to challenge for the championship

after what they've done the previous year.

But it did not go to plan at all and they were pretty hopeless.

They certainly were and then BMW went,

I'll know we've screwed up, we're leaving.

We don't want to talk about it anymore and they left at the end of 2009.

So they don't want to talk about it probably.

So that's why we've made a podcast talking about it.

Three points from the first 10 races really when you're basically going,

this is our year.

I've never said that before about a particular team.

So I don't know what they must have felt like.

OK, let's now head into our time machines and go slightly back to the 90s once again.

1997 with Lola.

So the Lola T9730 was meant to race in 1998.

But MasterCard, the title sponsor, put pressure on them to race a year early.

You can see where this is going, right?

A title sponsor saying, no, we want our logo out there a year earlier.

And it didn't go too well, did it?

It did not.

Not at all.

They were pre-season, they were struggling a lot.

It seemed like the car was just rushed and not ready for Formula One.

And this was an era where the field spread was massive.

You used to back market teams like Minardi and Tyrell and Arrows

qualifying a huge amount of time off the leaders,

four or five seconds sometimes.

But Lola were kind of next level in that first race,

the Australian Grand Prix in 1997.

So slow, they qualified 11.6 seconds off with Sospiri,

who was the Formula 3000 champion,

which was the equivalent of Formula Two back in the day.

And Riccardo Rossi was 12.7 seconds off.

So a very long way from where they wanted to be.

It's almost like they needed a whole year to develop the car.

I wonder how MasterCard felt after rushing the title season a year early.

They got their logo on a car, but it didn't race.

For qualifying, for un-televised qualifying in 1997.

Yeah, they probably didn't get their money's worth, I'll be honest.

Not really.

And then Lola withdrew from the next round in Brazil and never raced again.

Yeah, so they didn't actually get to race because they were so slow.

There was other teams wouldn't qualify sometimes.

You had that kind of qualifying and some people were so slow.

We see it now, the 107% rule of people still get kind of put into the race.

You go, oh, they'll be fine.

Not with MasterCard Lola, they were like, absolutely not.

You can't drive your F3000 car here.

And yeah, they were so slow.

Lost all that money probably from their sponsor that had pushed them to race early.

Didn't get to race and then run out of money and pulled the plug on the whole thing.

In the very next round.

That's pretty sad.

Yeah, very sad.

All that work going into a team and then not even making the first race.

So don't worry, Aston Martin, it's not all bad.

Have a top this list for worst season starts.

Now let's head to our final example and it is McLaren in 2004.

So to give you a bit of backstory, Kimmy Reichen had come close to winning the world title in the year before 2003,

missing out by only two points.

And then we head into an Adrian Newey built 2004 McLaren, the MP419.

And Adrian Newey is known for his extreme designs, isn't he?

However, when an extreme design is created, it usually means it has extreme outcomes,

like not working fully for full race lengths and so on and so forth.

Does that sound familiar?

It sure does.

Yeah, Adrian Newey has designed many amazing cars, but also sometimes they are fast but fragile.

And this one was fragile and not actually that fast.

Unfortunately for them, they were uncompetitive and incredibly unreliable,

having missed out on the championship with Reichen and just moments before.

He didn't even finish a race until the fourth round because he retired from the first three.

And it was just, yeah, until Adrian Newey worked a bit more magic on the car

and even then they were still only kind of in the points.

Is that what we're going to see this year with Aston Martin maybe?

I mean, they'd absolutely take it at this stage.

And yeah, it was a case of they failed to deliver after a lot of hype.

But they did win a race, which was so surprising.

There's actually a funny story from this, which in basically a British journalist

from the Daily Express claimed that he was so confident that McLaren wouldn't win a race this season

that he would say, said that if they did, he would run around Silverstone naked

and Kimmy Reichenan, being the king of Spa that he was, ended up winning the race in Spa

and he ordered his deal and ran around Silverstone naked.

So, there we go.

Wow, and that was the last thing he ever put down when it comes to the betting in front of one.

And there were no predictions made by him ever again.

Thankfully, we've never predicted that one in the predictions.

No, but maybe that's the fourth.

The loser.

Oh, I hope I win.

OK, so I guess the final question is where does Aston Martin filter into all of this?

McLaren 2004, as you said, they came good towards the end,

although they had eight DNFs in the first seven races.

I mean, Lola's the disaster.

We know that.

Lola, I think, tops this list for literally never being able to race.

True, but I would argue that the expectation.

I think Aston Martin are really up there with this.

Ferrari 1980 wins.

Aston Martin, it's funny because Aston Martin had a lot of hype,

but it's not like they came off the back of an amazing season.

The only reason they had hype was because they had the signings.

Exactly.

So it's tough.

It's tough, but it is insane that they got worse because there was so much talk.

I remember in the live shows last year and people giving their thoughts to 2026,

a lot of people going, can Alonso win the championship?

And, you know, even I think it was Peter Windsor,

a really established journalist was like,

the championship is going to be fought next year between George Russell and Fernando Alonso.

And there was so much hype of like, Aston are going to be amazing.

They've hired everyone.

They've got Nui, got these amazing facilities,

and the fumble for them to not even just be slow,

but them to build a car that can't really even finish a race.

Lola doesn't finish the last Grand Prix.

No, he did actually.

Progress.

But to start the season, yeah, it's progress,

but it's so embarrassing what Aston have managed to deliver this year.

And let's not forget, they took over a team that were known as that plucky underdog team

that were working away in almost like a shed at Silverstone

compared to what the other teams were producing

and could score podiums and things in Racing Point and Force India

and were always punching above their weight.

And now they've got all these amazing facilities

and Adrian Nui and all this money.

They've done appallingly bad.

And yeah, it's going to be fascinating to see what Aston might do

and whether they can do what maybe like McLaren did in 2004

and turn their season around.

Or maybe it's just a Jack Fielder situation

and hope he can finish eighth in a race.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's a question unanswered right now.

I have a feeling they will become the best of the rest come the end of the year.

It just depends how far behind they are.

Fernando Alonso can make any kind of inroads into the drivers championship

and see if he can finish in the top 10.

I think I'm still on the opinion that they were terrible.

I think there will be, I could see them finishing not last in the,

but next year still being kind of like down with Cadillac and stuff.

Yeah.

I mean, you said in your 2029 predictions

that Aston Martin is still going to be terrible.

Yeah.

So you've really backed that one.

Anyway, that is it.

Thank you everybody for tuning in to something a little bit different.

I hope you've been enjoying the spring slop coming out of the P1 podcast.

No, I've thoroughly enjoyed it and I hope you guys have as well.

Tommy, final thoughts?

That was a lot of fun.

I like reminiscing about some old Formula One stories where I've got nothing on our screens.

I know Formula One were sharing some old races,

which I thought was quite ironic when they were streaming a YouTube video

where no one was overtaking but they had screaming V10 engines

and it's a classic race where no one could pass

and it was just pure like unfiltered Formula One as some people would say.

So yeah, that was a fun look back to the past.

It was.

We'll see you very soon.

Races not far away now.

We'll be in Australia soon.

So go get your P1 live Australia tickets.

Our backdrops will be changing exponentially in a few weeks.

We'll be upside down.

Terrible.

Tommy's a dad as you know and bye.

Bye.

P1 is a stack production and part of the ACAST Created Network.

Hello, hello.

It's Brooke DeVard from Naked Beauty.

Join me each week for unfiltered discussion about beauty trends,

self-care journeys, wellness tips and the products we absolutely love

and cannot get enough of if you are a skincare obsessive

and you spend 20 plus minutes on your skincare routine.

This podcast is for you.

Or if you're a newbie at the beginning of your skincare journey,

you'll love this podcast as well because we go so much deeper than beauty.

I talk to incredible and inspiring people from across industries

about their relationship with beauty.

You'll also hear from skincare experts.

We break down lots of myths in the beauty industry.

If this sounds like your thing, search for Naked Beauty on your podcast app

and listen along.

I hope you'll join us.

About this episode

Matt and Tommy riff on the “worst starts to an F1 season ever” theme, using Aston Martin’s 2026 hype-to-reality gap as the through-line. They compare it to McLaren-Honda’s disastrous 2015–2017 hybrid era (Alonso’s slow-speed crash, speed-trap misery, constant DNFs) and BAR’s 1999 money-fueled unreliability with Jacques Villeneuve. The rundown also hits Ferrari’s 2020 SF1000 drop-off after 2019 controversy, BMW Sauber’s 2009 collapse after 2008 promise, Lola’s 1997 sponsor-driven failure to race, and McLaren 2004’s fragile Newey car—ending with whether Aston can “turn it around” like McLaren did late.

107% rule 1-2 finish absolute atrocious year Adrian Newey Arrows Aston Martin aura farming Australia Bahrain best of the rest

McLaren F1

Original notes

Sorry, Aston Martin - but your awful start to the 2026 season got us thinking about some of the other terrible openings other F1 teams have suffered in seasons gone by. So we're here with some of the standout candidates: from more bad luck for Fernando Alonso to some... suspect goings on between Ferrari and the FIA, and plenty more!

Sign up to our Patreon for just $5 a month! You'll get access to every P1 episode ad-free, extended versions of every 2026 race review, early access to tickets & merch, and access to our Discord server where you can chat with us and other F1 fans! Click here to sign up now: http://patreon.com/mattp1tommy

P1 with Matt and Tommy is the world's biggest F1 podcast. Subscribe for new podcasts around every single race throughout the 2026 Formula 1 season!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

P1 with Matt and Tommy

Stak

View classic page →

0:00

35:17