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1:32

You're listening to the Autosport podcast.

1:32

example that comes to mind is... From

1:41

autosport.com and Autosport Magazine. I'm bring

1:43

Lucas and you're listening to the

1:45

Autosport Podcast in shocking news. Off

1:47

the one thousand and fifty five

1:50

consecutive points scored, maximum stuff and

1:52

forty three race finishing streak is

1:54

over. a streak that also saw

1:56

him when thirty five times and

1:59

an even more shocking use. The

2:01

man who was on the operating

2:03

table just sixteen days ago took

2:06

the when as Carlos signs dominated

2:08

in Australia. Well, let's have a

2:10

quick. Look at the result as I say

2:12

kind of science. Lead. The way

2:14

just ahead of his teammate Charlotte that you

2:16

have to go back to Bahrain and Twenty

2:18

Twenty two. For the last time we saw

2:20

a Ferrari one so well now we don't

2:22

have to go back so far. Lando Norris

2:24

third, Oscar Pastors in fourth. A great result

2:26

for the Australian. Sergio Perez, The only

2:29

red bull to fit. Lance

2:34

Stroll we'll come to that later on but due

2:36

to a penalty on Philando Alonso

2:39

he got demoted down to eighth in

2:41

the sandwich it was Yuki Sonoda for

2:43

RB and the two hass finishing in

2:46

the points Nico Hulkenberg and the

2:48

two hass finishing in the points Nico

2:50

Hulkenberg in ninth and Kevin Magnussen in

2:52

tenth it wasn't a great weekend once

2:55

again for Daniel Ricciardo he finished twelfth

2:57

just behind Alexander Albon in the Williams

2:59

Gasly for Alpine coming home thirteenth the

3:02

two Salbers Bottas and Guanyou then

3:05

Ocon and then the three DNS

3:07

George Russell Lewis Hamilton and

3:10

Max Verstappen well joining me on

3:12

this week's show to make sense of what

3:14

was a rather hectic Australian Grand Prix weekend

3:17

is Alex Kalanakis Philip Clearen and from the

3:19

comfort of his Airbnb and some dodgy 5G

3:21

Matt Q first of all welcome to you

3:23

all but Matt it's the first time you've

3:25

been out there in Australia to sample a

3:28

Grand Prix what's the experience been like? Very

3:31

different from when I was in Melbourne 21

3:33

years ago I'm hoping to

3:35

remember a lot of this that was my uncle's

3:37

wedding but this has

3:39

been amazing what you know a great

3:41

city sort of thriving metropolis you've got

3:43

a proper like skyscraper background which I

3:46

don't think is sort of always I don't know sometimes

3:48

in the back of shot of Albert Park which again

3:51

in itself is a beautiful bit of Greenland lakes everything

3:53

works everyone's very very friendly there's been

3:56

no traffic problems getting in now despite

3:58

the fact that the race really

4:00

is in the heart of the city. No

4:02

sort of fan unrest that I've seen, no

4:04

sort of, you

4:08

know, discomfort, you

4:10

know, anything going on between fans, it's

4:12

just all gone off without a hitch.

4:14

I've absolutely enjoyed it. And although Melbourne

4:17

doesn't come with the history of Ammanza, Ammonaco,

4:20

or Silverstone, it's been, you know, for

4:22

all of us on this podcast, apart

4:24

from sort of the COVID is, it's

4:26

been a mainstay of the calendar. So

4:28

you think of, you know, Martin

4:31

Brundle flying into turn one, you think of

4:33

sort of the William sparring in the start

4:36

of 97, it's got a history

4:38

of its own. It felt really cool to be there.

4:40

And also you just get that perspective, you don't get

4:42

on TV quite how narrow it is, quite how undulating

4:45

it can be in certain places. There's some really

4:47

steep canvas and a really big crown in the

4:49

road that is just completely lost over telly. So

4:51

to have an appreciation of that has been, it's

4:53

been really good fun. Matt mentions

4:56

no discomfort, which is good to hear.

4:58

One person who's got a bit of

5:00

discomfort is Alex, who's bravely sticking with

5:02

us on this podcast. Alex, you got

5:04

up early, you've been suffering with your

5:06

back. But first of all, your

5:08

thoughts on the Grand Prix we witnessed? Yeah,

5:11

thank you for acknowledging my pain and my

5:13

ridiculous setup that the listeners can't see as

5:15

I'm a sofa on my back.

5:18

I mean, obviously, very,

5:21

very interesting in the fact that finally we

5:23

have to talk about something different, not a

5:25

rebel victory, not how do matches happen, escape

5:27

early on and manage his tires and things

5:29

like that. Because obviously him not being

5:31

there meant science, you know, could capitalize and Ferrari

5:34

says your parents failed to come through and she

5:36

will come to why later on. But objectively

5:39

speaking, that was not a

5:41

good race. It was different. There's a different winner

5:43

to celebrate in one stage in testing. Honestly, I

5:45

think we were fearing, it's just going to be

5:47

rebel every time and Paris is nowhere near the

5:50

stuff and he's going to win all these races.

5:52

It's a legitimate fear, considering how close they got

5:54

last year, right? So but like

5:57

once was nothing was out of it. Science had

5:59

no position. I think you

6:02

see that with Mercedes going quite

6:04

aggressive on the strategy and the pack behind McLaren

6:06

doing that as well, maybe having to cover that,

6:09

the undercut being quite powerful Ferrari stopping the club

6:11

on the same time as

6:13

Pietri, that then meant that obviously Lano

6:15

Nóées comes in, there's the whole thing that I think

6:17

is a bit overblown with the McLaren strategy but basically,

6:20

Sainte's just able to run his own race under no

6:22

real pressure. I know he's at the end of the

6:24

race, got a couple laps on, my tyres are going,

6:26

it was the same for everyone. So he had enough

6:28

of an offset in each stint to make things really

6:30

quite simple for him. So yeah, it's great to be

6:33

talking about something else but equally, just

6:35

looking at the bare face of it, obviously, again,

6:37

it was sort of enlivened at the very end

6:39

by George Russell's crash, found O'Lonzo, I'm sure will

6:41

come to that as well. But yeah, it's

6:44

funny isn't it? If

6:48

the form was to swing from race to

6:50

race like this, you'd have a fantastic season, even

6:52

if all of those races were as objectively

6:55

dull as that

6:57

one was. Yeah, it's pretty ironic because we had quite a few

7:00

comments of people saying, imagine how amazing

7:02

a form would be if you take Max out

7:04

of the equation and we had

7:06

that today and it wasn't because there was still another

7:08

team that was quicker. So it's pretty

7:10

fun to see that. You'd have had

7:12

that in Jeddah as well, right? Like, say

7:14

if both red bulls somehow take each other

7:17

out, Leclerc just cruises to victory and has

7:19

no opposition. But coming to this one, this

7:21

point about Max and the others around Phil,

7:24

the new DRS rule came into play

7:26

the start of this season as we

7:28

know and Max wasn't able to get

7:30

away all that significantly and

7:32

that enabled the race to start to develop.

7:35

Now that could be because Max

7:37

had an issue. He said, I have my notes

7:39

here, and it starts off with,

7:41

Max's win would be 10 in a row for

7:43

second time in career. That too, Sights,

7:46

DRS on Verstappen, Max

7:49

complaining of oversteer, loose, Max

7:51

out. That's kind of the story

7:53

of it really, wasn't it? So was Max struggling from

7:55

the very, very beginning and is that why the DRS

7:57

came into play as it did? That's

8:00

what he said. He said that really from the

8:02

start he had that issue. He

8:05

did four laps to the grid which he said were

8:07

the best four laps of his weekend in terms of

8:09

how the car felt balance wise

8:11

but then once he started the race he

8:13

had that the

8:16

caliper sort of clamping

8:18

onto the brake and it looks

8:22

like it because he did make an

8:24

error before size measure pass him on

8:27

lap two which possibly

8:29

was the first sort of manifestation of that

8:31

issue and then it started getting worse and

8:33

worse really through lap three then we started

8:35

getting some smoke at the end of lap

8:38

three and then by the end of

8:40

lap four was all over so we'd

8:42

have to believe that he was struggling from

8:44

the off. But Matt

8:46

what an indictment on Sergio Perez

8:48

that if Max had an issue from

8:50

the very start of that race I know Perez

8:52

had to get through crowds there were drivers there

8:54

were cars around him that Max didn't have but

8:57

he wasn't matching he wasn't able to do

8:59

what Max was doing even with Max having

9:01

a problem. No he wasn't I was

9:04

speaking to the McLaren guys he was sort of you

9:06

know preparing for a threat from

9:08

behind that that never came nowhere

9:10

I think a bit bit surprised

9:12

by his pace and Christian Horner

9:14

has sort of pedaled that Perez

9:16

had damage from and

9:18

a tear off from Alonso as Alonso was going

9:20

about ruining as many people's races as he could

9:23

get away with but it

9:26

was it was an underwhelming entire entire

9:28

weekend for Perez wasn't it you've got

9:31

you know a mistake very early on in

9:33

Q1 which already undermines the whole weekend being

9:35

in Holkenberg's way he will argue that Red

9:38

Bull should give him clear instructions over the

9:40

pit wall to sort of move offline I

9:43

would argue he's got two wing mirrors and and sort

9:45

of can do a bit of that himself but still

9:47

it starts off on a bad on

9:49

a bad foot. That's what he'll be going in

9:51

driver ratings. Absolutely it should

9:53

be and then mirror signal manoeuvre we've

9:55

all done it it says one of

9:57

the first things I'll tell you And

10:02

then you get into qualifying, okay,

10:04

you're encumbered by that three-place grid

10:06

spot, and you've got

10:08

a teammate is in absolute white

10:10

form, so the benchmark there is

10:12

second place, he falls short of

10:14

that, and, you know,

10:17

Carlos Sainz didn't maximise his Q3

10:19

lap, so that second place, theoretically,

10:22

before the grid penalty, that was terrible, he

10:24

hasn't delivered that, and then in the race,

10:26

he's pretty anonymous, okay, there's the Alonzo tear-off

10:29

thing, and you could

10:32

argue that Red Bull's rate in

10:34

Australia isn't quite so impressive, okay,

10:36

in 2022, their last ANF,

10:38

that was sort of, that

10:41

was reliability, the fuel issue problem,

10:44

but this isn't like, oh, it's

10:46

a street truck like Singapore, so they've

10:48

raised the RB20 up and it's out

10:50

of its comfort zone, it's none of

10:52

that, it's just a disappointing weekend, he's

10:55

a number two driver, and

10:58

we have had, this is the case,

11:00

right, that is dogs Perez

11:02

since the middle

11:04

third of 2022, you need to be there when the

11:09

situation's not, that situation

11:11

has very rarely been exposed

11:13

because of the participant consistency,

11:16

but when it has been, he has not been

11:18

there, he has not been there, if, for argument's

11:20

sake, Sainz had then hit trouble, Leclerc would

11:22

have been there, if Norris

11:25

had had a hit trouble, Piastri would have

11:27

been there, Perez didn't do that, that is

11:29

the fundamental requirement, no one thinks he is,

11:31

I know we've had it at the start

11:34

of a couple of seasons, but no one

11:36

thinks that Perez will be a

11:38

world champion at the end of the season,

11:40

that's not the expectation, the expectation is to

11:42

be a number two driver and his performance

11:44

wasn't there this weekend. on

12:00

his car. He was underwhelming, qualifying, said

12:02

he made a mistake at turn one, reckoned without

12:04

that and we ignore the penalty or that's, you

12:06

know, put in a box or whatever. He thinks

12:08

he could have been in second place. So of

12:11

course Perez, as usual, does bear a lot of

12:13

responsibility for what happened this weekend. The caveats that

12:15

sort of, I think, reply in reverse is that

12:18

this is something of a bogey track for Red

12:20

Bull. They didn't think that their RB19 in 2023

12:23

was as good as it was until it destroyed

12:25

everyone in Melbourne because they're like, well, we're usually

12:27

terrible here. Let's see what's going on. And also

12:29

they have repeatedly had brake issues here, including

12:31

in that race last year. You had Perez off

12:34

the road in qualifying on today's weekend there and

12:36

you could see it this weekend. I mean, ultimately

12:38

it's another brake problem that's cost of a stop

12:40

and a result. And

12:43

within that, you know, I think there's no confirmation

12:45

of this, but the sort of suggestion is, Q,

12:48

I think you've picked up on this already, is

12:50

that maybe, okay, yeah, it looks like, you know,

12:52

there's something really gone wrong with the brakes, but

12:54

we could, reading between the lines, think that maybe

12:56

Red Bull just got its calculations a little bit

12:58

wrong. We know all the teams took a

13:00

Ferrari in Bahrain. It's the size of the brake

13:02

carapers, whether you, you know, bank it them off

13:04

with a bit of tape or whatever for aerodynamic

13:06

benefit or just run with smaller ones for an

13:08

aero benefit. It's all these things, all

13:10

these calculations that teams can get wrong. And, you

13:12

know, we see the problem. Braking is really hard

13:15

here. Oscar Piattri was off the road. But I

13:17

think the other thing that slightly mitigates Paris's performance

13:21

or sort of an assessment of his overall performance

13:23

is the fact that his car was clearly compromised

13:25

by Fernando Alonso doing the Mario Kart thing with

13:27

his TerraFyzer. Because if you look at his lap

13:29

times, which I was, as you guys were

13:31

very succinctly summing up, was able to go

13:34

through and it does correlate with exactly what

13:36

Christian Horner says. As soon as he gets

13:38

by Fernando Alonso, his pace goes from what

13:40

is pretty solidly in the 1-minute 21s, even

13:43

as he's chasing the Afton into the 1-minute

13:45

2020s. And it doesn't recover from there because

13:47

he was on the sort of typical Paris

13:49

recovery drive it seemed. But then that ultimately

13:52

does him. So yeah, of course he bears some blame

13:54

for putting himself in that position in the first place,

13:56

but it just, it was,

13:58

I don't think it was totally his. fault and

14:01

also I'm particularly disappointed in this all happening

14:03

is it means we don't have a full

14:05

reading on Red Bull because I'm convinced that

14:08

Max Verstappen had he not had the brake

14:10

problem still might have won this race. He

14:12

was able to stay with Carla Sainz even

14:14

with the brake problem, albeit only for a

14:17

lap. He wasn't exactly like just dropping several

14:19

seconds behind him seeing as he was passed.

14:22

And as you said Phil, the fact that he

14:26

was finally feeling happy with his car. That's

14:29

how it worked in Bahrain. The wind turned

14:31

around, the car feels amazing and he disappeared into

14:33

the distance. Just staying

14:35

with Perez for a second and just want to

14:37

make this one little point but how many

14:39

times is Perez going to

14:41

have to make a recovery drive to second

14:43

place? And is it going to

14:46

be something that he's going to do for the

14:48

rest of this season? Or is it something that

14:50

he needs to stop doing so that

14:52

people start looking at him going you know the

14:54

second seat at Red Bull is his for sure

14:56

Alex? No but this is the point

14:58

about Perez right? This is why I think, I'm

15:01

fairly sure we're all pretty united on this

15:03

podcast that we'd rather have someone else in

15:05

that car because it happens repeatedly. It's going

15:07

to happen again and again and again. There's

15:09

this feeling that he's

15:12

not mentally in the title fight, he's not

15:14

even bothering with that and that he's sort

15:16

of being boosted by it. We saw it

15:18

in Bahrain and Jeddah and here he wasn't

15:20

like I said I don't think he did

15:22

a lot wrong but what he did wrong

15:24

still compromised Red Bull and it's complicated by

15:26

the fact that there's obviously this war within the

15:28

management at the top of the team. They're not

15:31

going to make any decisions on you know their

15:33

future driver line up while that's not been resolved.

15:35

But fundamentally this has already cost them one world

15:37

championship in 2021, the Constructors' Championship and it will

15:39

do so again if say in 2025 Ferrari because

15:42

I'm actually think this is a bit of a

15:44

one off until we see it again.

15:46

If there

15:48

is a close fight it will ultimately cost them

15:51

and the big worry for Perez, Daniel Ricciardo doing

15:53

nothing, I'm sure we'll come to that later, Yuki

15:55

Tsunoda doing brilliantly but I don't think has any

15:57

momentum or any you know real impetus at the

15:59

senior Red Bull squad to get him there. There

16:01

is a driver who's seeking a contract for next

16:03

year who's performing excellently and I really would love

16:05

to see him in a Red Bull. The complicating

16:08

factor is what happens with the fact he doesn't

16:10

get on with a match or his camp doesn't

16:12

get on with a snapping camp. That's Carlos Sainz,

16:14

the winner of this race. Yeah I think Alex

16:16

has actually really touched on a point we haven't

16:18

discussed too much is that the champions mentality at

16:20

least at Mercedes you had

16:22

for a bit the Bottas has had his wee

16:25

to be because the Bottas T-point-O whatever the silly

16:27

things were at least he was even

16:29

if he was killing himself at least he was coming in

16:31

believing he's the world champion you don't get that from a

16:33

press camp and I think

16:35

you know your question Bryn was how long will he

16:37

keep doing it well as

16:39

Alex has alluded to Red

16:42

Bull isn't as Alex

16:44

alluded to Ricardo wasn't breathing down his neck

16:46

that was always the expectation he was a

16:48

favorite you know come on helmet Marco do

16:50

another brutal mid-season swinging of the axe Ricardo

16:52

will come in at the minute

16:55

you've got not going to do that there is for

16:57

whatever reason no momentum behind Sonoma getting that seat

16:59

even till the end of the season to create

17:02

a berth Liam Lawson whatever having

17:04

said that I don't see

17:06

there being any justification for renewing Perez's contract

17:08

which is out at the end of the season

17:11

you know what is the definition of insanity

17:13

do the same thing

17:15

over and over again expecting different results you're

17:17

not going to get that he is not

17:19

fulfilling the criteria as a number two so

17:21

you know particularly now Matt Cessich

17:23

is gone and it's a more corporate structure

17:25

that has to you know look good on

17:28

the spreadsheet there is no justification for rehiring

17:30

Perez so he will do this until the

17:32

end of the season when he has gotten

17:34

and as for who replaced him yeah signs

17:36

would be a great shout Alonzo whoever but

17:39

it will not it cannot be Perez in

17:41

that car I just don't see how you

17:43

can justify it yeah I think we've been

17:45

maybe a bit too myopic about either to

17:47

know that or Ricardo being the candidates for

17:50

for that rebel scene because as

17:52

you both said and yet neither of them has had the

17:54

world on fire so that's been

17:57

very decent I just can't see

17:59

it ever happening Ruchiyama

18:02

really needs to watch out and and get

18:04

his act together especially in qualifying of an

18:06

extra poll of races just to be in

18:08

a fun at all never mind rebel and

18:11

and yeah, just It's

18:14

got a science winning this weekend. This

18:16

is a good reminder that maybe

18:18

you know He could

18:21

be a candidate with We

18:23

asked one of the question. Do you think? You

18:26

know easy on a consideration and and

18:28

all the setting I wouldn't rule it out if you

18:30

look at how it's performing and I

18:33

think that's another indication that perhaps rebel isn't

18:36

necessarily looking to recruit within its own ranks

18:39

We know they've been sniffing around land on Norris

18:41

last year, which didn't happen so

18:45

It is an option for them. I think if he keeps

18:47

doing what he's doing and and

18:49

the other thing is from Carlos's perspective Where is

18:51

he gonna go? I mean I? Am

18:55

if Mercedes doesn't happen or we say Lonesworth

18:57

doesn't go to Mercedes and and as I

18:59

see that Aston Martin then where else is

19:01

he gonna Go because anything

19:03

else would be a downgrade. He's obviously

19:05

been linked to Audi This

19:07

cyber again, that would be quite

19:10

a big gamble because who knows

19:12

her competitively are going to be we're

19:15

being told by that by people there that everything is

19:17

full steam ahead and and Things

19:19

are looking on the up for 2026. They're not

19:21

too bad about the short term

19:24

But still that is that is quite

19:26

a gamble compared to rebel. Okay, maybe

19:29

its relationship with max and and

19:32

their their respective council and won't

19:34

be amazing but It's

19:36

still you know, a no-brainer if you can

19:38

go there compared to a let's say silver Just

19:41

gonna play devil's advocate here for a second

19:43

because Matt you mentioned Bottas and

19:46

there are some parallels aren't there With how

19:48

Bottas was at Mercedes though as you also

19:50

allude to he was more consistent with the

19:52

tools that he had and The

19:54

differences between the teams weren't quite so pronounced should

19:57

we say but if

19:59

I played devil's was advocate, are we really

20:01

saying that Perez isn't achieving the

20:03

requirements of a number two driver

20:06

that isn't intended to be a

20:08

number two world champion incumbent driver?

20:10

Because his job isn't to

20:14

affect Max negatively. His job is to

20:17

sit alongside Max and give Max the support that

20:19

he needs. And in the majority, okay, he's not

20:21

finished second in every single race last season, but

20:23

he's picking up the points, he's picking up the

20:25

pieces in the main and I'm going to leave

20:27

that with a question mark for you, Matt. His

20:30

job is to finish second when Max Verstappen's

20:33

first. Okay, he doesn't have to be within

20:35

DRSO in every lap for compromising,

20:38

you know, Verstappen's approach and make

20:40

him choose through his tyres, but he has to

20:42

finish second and he has

20:44

to make other teams ask a question, you

20:47

know, that he can

20:49

undercut and Verstappen can undercut and give

20:51

the teams a headache. That's what he

20:53

has to do, but he's not doing

20:56

that. And okay, you said, like,

20:58

look at his record from last year. That was

21:00

only when McLaren, Ferrari, Mercedes,

21:02

Aston Martin effectively couldn't decide who

21:04

wanted to be second. It was

21:07

a really easy run at

21:09

it with one of the greatest cars in

21:11

F1 history. So he's not passing muster. I

21:14

just, just to touch on it, I don't want to go too

21:16

much of a tangent, but my prediction,

21:18

if you like, is that I think with

21:20

science teams coming onto the market, Alonso, I

21:22

reckon there's going to be a big name

21:24

that ends up without a seat for

21:27

next year, whether that is a Riccardo, whether that is

21:29

a Bottas because the rumour is that Sal didn't really

21:31

want him for this year. You know, we've got over

21:33

half the grid out of contract. I

21:35

reckon a couple of teams might move early

21:38

and make a conservative small seed choice and

21:40

then a fairly big name,

21:42

a Grand Prix winner even, will be

21:44

put out in the

21:46

gold. That suggestion sounds sexy, but quite a

21:48

big S there, Matt, if you get that

21:50

reference. But anyway, just

21:53

going back to Perez and

21:55

the Bottas comparison, Bryn, I

21:57

think you're forgetting how close Bottas is.

22:00

Bottas was the Hamilton, particularly in

22:02

qualifying. If I look

22:04

at the Superstimes gap, we use the Autosport. It's

22:07

not a science because

22:09

it takes, you know, you can't just

22:12

look at this tool that I've got

22:14

here, you can't take out sort of

22:16

like wet qualifiers and things like that.

22:18

But in 2020, Lewis Hamilton's, you know,

22:20

closest, closest, sorry, most recent championship season.

22:22

Bottas is two tenths behind him with

22:24

Perez. Best

22:26

it's three tenths to Verstappen and quite a lot

22:28

of the time, it's even more so.

22:31

So it's just, it's too regular for

22:34

Sergio Perez. And at the same time, you

22:36

know, you pose it as what's his job to

22:38

do. Well, his job is to win the Australian

22:40

Grand Prix when Matt Stappen isn't in it. And

22:42

he totally failed to do that. I mean, again,

22:45

I've defended him earlier, but you see that time

22:47

and again, and again, I'll point this out because

22:49

I think it's worth bearing in mind again. It

22:52

cost them the 2021 Constructors' Championship because

22:54

Perez wasn't, he wasn't

22:56

doing the Bottas job but Bottas did do for

22:58

Mercedes to win them that well title. Yeah,

23:01

and I'm going to wrap up that

23:03

part of the conversation by just craftily

23:05

reminding everyone that I was playing devil's advocate

23:08

there. Oh yeah, fair

23:10

enough. Yeah, it's, it's, it's...

23:13

There's lots of things going on this season with Perez

23:15

and he does need to pull his finger out for

23:18

sure. One person that you've mentioned a few times, actually

23:20

all of you, and that is Carlos Sainz.

23:22

Where's he going to be? What's he going to

23:24

do? Because if there's one driver that's, that's impressive

23:26

at the moment, it's the man

23:28

without an appendix and that's Carlos Sainz. Was

23:31

this his best ever drive?

23:34

Phil. I would say

23:36

second best behind Singapore because

23:39

there he wasn't just quick, he was

23:41

also cunning on a strategic level. It

23:43

was his smartest drive. Here

23:45

he had the best car to

23:47

win after Max pulled out. It

23:49

was definitely the case. So maybe

23:54

on the track, no, but if you

23:56

look at the circumstances with his surgery,

23:58

then perhaps, yes, if you take... the overall

24:01

picture of the

24:03

two weeks that he's had. I mean, he was

24:06

not even sure if he would be able to rate when he

24:08

flew to Melbourne, which was what,

24:10

seven or eight days ago. So from

24:13

that perspective, yeah, absolutely. It's definitely

24:16

the feel-good story of the scene so far,

24:18

which we haven't had too many of. But

24:21

it's up there with that. We did his best, but

24:23

I would still rate Singapore purely from a driving point

24:26

of view, a little bit higher. Yeah,

24:28

I think you're 100% right on that feel. And

24:30

I think his other win, Silverstone

24:32

2022, that should have

24:34

been the Cler's, but Ferrari's absolute strategy shambles,

24:37

sort of handing things to science. But

24:39

actually, I think if I had

24:41

to pick what was Carla Science's best race drive,

24:44

now I'll be honest, I haven't looked back through

24:46

the details of his Toro Rosso days or Renault

24:48

and McLaren or whatever, but just think about Ferrari

24:50

just in isolation. I think actually it's Monza 23.

24:53

I think he was fantastic all

24:55

weekend, destroyed Leclerc in qualifying, albeit

24:57

at a track that helps him with the

25:01

understeer requirements going through there. And I

25:03

think the fact that it was front-limited

25:05

this weekend will have helped him against

25:08

Leclerc. But yeah, I think that actually

25:10

is his best drive in

25:13

isolation, just the fact that obviously on that day, there

25:15

was no Red Bull shambles. It was Red Bull at

25:17

the top of their game and they

25:19

beat Ferrari on the day. There's one

25:21

driver looking on, I'm sure, all of

25:23

this over at Ferrari, thinking, just

25:26

give me some of that. And that's Lewis

25:28

Hamilton. Now Lewis Hamilton has been moaning. I

25:32

think he's the only word I can say. I was trying

25:34

to find another word in the depths of my brain, but

25:36

moaning is all I could come forward with. He's struggling with

25:39

the car, least confident he's ever been with

25:41

the car. There are spikes of promise

25:43

that disappear, he says, as reported on

25:46

alsosport.com by Adam Cooper. So he's gonna

25:48

be looking at what's going on at

25:50

Ferrari, thinking, okay, Carla Science is getting

25:53

wins here. Get me in that car

25:55

and get me in there tomorrow, please,

25:57

Matt. Yeah, I mean. His

26:01

track record now is quite phenomenal

26:04

isn't it? End of 2012, McLaren

26:06

had the, certainly at the

26:08

start of that season, the fastest car, definitely

26:10

the best looking, and he goes to Mercedes

26:12

and you think what on earth are you

26:15

doing and then he times it brilliantly with

26:17

the hybrid era and the rest is history.

26:20

And then what

26:22

are you doing, spinning off

26:24

the Mercedes pension, the free company

26:26

car till the end of days

26:28

by going to Ferrari and then

26:30

it's taken three races, think blimey,

26:33

that's a master stroke Lewis, you're going to

26:35

be closer to a title and not only

26:37

is it all through like moving

26:39

into a team that could be second

26:41

place in terms of Ferrari versus Mercedes,

26:43

but we've got the massive powertrain shift.

26:46

So if Red Bull were

26:48

slightly shambolic and no smoke without fire,

26:50

there is talk that the

26:53

Red Bull, 2026 powertrain is at

26:55

mega, maybe Alton is moving himself

26:57

into a championship contention, but his

27:00

weekend here has been astonishing. He

27:02

came away from Saudi Arabia really, really

27:04

down in the dumps, but whether it

27:06

was the communications

27:09

team taking him to one side and

27:11

going, come on Lewis, let's keep morale

27:14

in Brackley, but he massively rode back

27:16

from everything on Thursday and saying it's

27:18

an amazing car

27:21

and it's certainly not an evil sister and

27:23

then all his pain is evil all weekend.

27:25

He was off the track repeatedly throughout practice

27:27

that inspired him to do an early 2022

27:30

spec, sort of basically an unhinged setup just

27:32

to see if there's anything that this car

27:34

responds to. It doesn't. He

27:37

was then out in Q2, has

27:39

massive unreliability and

27:41

I, if we'll

27:44

come on to Mercedes a bit more later on perhaps,

27:46

but if what Toto Wolf is telling the media is

27:48

20, 40, 60%

27:51

the truth of

27:54

how candid it is and he's coming

27:56

across as incredibly dejected, incredibly lost, a

27:58

lack of ideas, then And my

28:00

God, those engineering debriefs must be

28:03

tense because they've got a

28:05

new car concept. They've gone closer to Red Bull like

28:07

they've wanted. They've

28:10

brought Alison back to hands

28:12

on whatever, signed them to a

28:14

new long term contract. And

28:17

quite, I think, as a plausible case

28:20

to be made, their worse

28:22

off than they were in 2023 and 2023 was worse off

28:24

in terms of end of year wins and bold positions as it was

28:32

in 2022. So they're getting worse. I

28:35

feel with Mercedes really, because I think it's applied

28:37

to McLaren and Aston as well, it's just Ferrari

28:39

have done a mega job. I think that's the

28:42

difference we can definitely say for sure, right? Because

28:44

we can see just how much of a step

28:46

they're taking. But what I was going to say

28:48

about it was actually just bring up something that

28:50

we said in the video we did for the

28:52

Autosport YouTube channel a little bit earlier with Bryn

28:55

that like, let's

28:57

not forget, everyone's talking about, oh, Mercedes might have this

28:59

amazing engine in 2026. Ferrari built

29:01

its own engine as well. And it wasn't that long

29:03

ago. It was the absolute class of the field, albeit

29:05

for reasons, that way. But

29:09

there's all this potential that

29:11

Ferrari could equally become the

29:15

absolute class. And it's another

29:17

incredible move for Lewis Hamilton. But

29:19

yeah, I just think just

29:21

looking at this and sort of, you know, because basically,

29:24

I think it's really looking

29:26

like he's never going to say this because

29:28

as much as he will, you know, be

29:30

dejected when things don't go his way and he

29:32

will be open when things aren't on the right

29:34

track in terms of the car feeling. I

29:37

think what we're seeing really is

29:39

that Lewis Hamilton must have seen

29:42

this W15 car, thought it

29:45

doesn't look much different to what it was last

29:47

year. We know from the drivers, like the Alpin

29:49

drivers have said, right, they knew from driving this

29:51

new car in the simulator in December, they knew

29:53

it was going to be really bad. Lewis Hamilton,

29:56

you know, there's all sorts of different, well,

29:58

did he drive it just before or just after? after he spoke

30:00

to Toto Wolf, there must

30:02

have been something that made him think, do you know

30:04

what, I've got this offer from Ferrari,

30:06

or I can go and talk to Fred Visser, or

30:08

I can go and talk to, what's his name, John

30:11

Elkin. Ah, amazing, a very tiny little anecdote if I

30:13

can rewind to the Jeddah race on the grid, which

30:15

I know we all love to do, fellow Matt, when

30:17

we get the chance. See Louis

30:19

Hamilton scooting off, he comes right past

30:21

me, he winks, really like, ah, sort

30:24

of, what an interesting

30:26

thing for him to do. Someone just over my

30:28

shoulder, turned around, who is it, John Elkin. Like,

30:31

they obviously wanted him there, and potentially, like we

30:33

say, this could be another masterstroke from Hamilton. That's

30:36

the thing, like, not to blow

30:38

smoke up our own backsides, but that was

30:41

what we were saying, wasn't it, when the

30:43

Hamilton, Ferrari's... That's what Matt Stapleton was doing

30:45

earlier. Yeah, yes, but when,

30:48

you know, this arguably

30:50

one of the biggest, well, not arguably, it was one

30:52

of the biggest news stories in Formula One history, Hamilton

30:54

to Ferrari was nuts, that's what we said. Basically,

30:57

it's one of two outcomes. He

31:00

has sat down with Vassar Elkin, who has

31:03

said certain things about the state of Ferrari,

31:05

and that's promising, and he has concluded from

31:07

that, that he's basically no worse

31:09

off at Ferrari than he is at Mercedes,

31:12

or Mercedes is no better place than Ferrari,

31:14

or the wheels are massively coming off

31:17

at Mercedes, and those were the two sort of

31:19

conclusions we drew at the time, and as Alex

31:21

says, the needle was pointing firmly at the latter

31:23

of those two, that he's looking at the data,

31:25

looking at the sim, and

31:28

thinking, absolutely

31:30

not, no thanks. Yeah,

31:32

I mean, we were talking about this on the

31:34

video from earlier on after the race, we do

31:36

a video, then we do the podcast a couple

31:39

of hours later, and we were saying about the

31:41

trajectory of these two teams, and Hamilton is in

31:43

one of those teams, and it's very much a

31:45

downward-facing slope, isn't it? And if you look at

31:47

Ferrari, there's only one way that team seems to

31:49

be going. Phil, for Mercedes, it's been a bit

31:52

of a tricky start to the season, hasn't it?

31:55

They had a double DNF

31:57

here today, with Hamilton and Russell.

32:00

bit at the end of the race and it wasn't Russell's fault

32:02

at the end in any way, you can look at it however

32:05

you want to. But just

32:07

how low is morale after

32:09

this and what are Mercedes going to do? Yeah,

32:13

I don't think Russell's result in his crash

32:16

really matters too much because he was sort

32:18

of what it was in

32:20

his control but it's

32:22

got nothing to do with the performance really.

32:25

Yeah, it seems like Mercedes really can't catch a

32:27

break at the moment, can they? They've got reliability

32:30

going against him, they've got racing incidents, the performance

32:32

is not there. So it's

32:34

like the same game with Toto

32:36

Wolf after every race having to

32:38

find different adjectives to describe his

32:41

disappointment with the

32:43

performance and it seems like they're

32:45

not really sure why it's gone

32:47

because it seems like the

32:49

pace is there and then it disappears like

32:53

Louis said. So it

32:55

seems like they can't get it out of the car, whatever

32:57

that correlation from the wind tunnel

32:59

to the circuit or whatever it is, as

33:02

soon as everything's being wound up for qualifying

33:04

and especially for the race, they are just

33:06

on the back foot and it doesn't

33:10

seem from what Toto and the drivers are

33:12

saying that they really understand why yet which

33:14

is especially concerning for the rest

33:16

of the season because you can't fix it if you don't

33:18

know what it is. Yeah, I

33:20

think that's the case of many things, isn't it? If you know what the

33:22

issue is you can try to resolve it but if you don't know what

33:25

the issue is, where do you even start?

33:27

I'm just trying to

33:30

run against nothing, you're trying to run into the wind

33:32

and don't know quite which way to turn. That's

33:35

not a saying but I'm going to use it anyway. Alex,

33:37

can you just pick up on the back of this because

33:40

Russell going off, for those who

33:42

may not know and I'm sure most of

33:44

our listeners do know exactly what happened in

33:46

the incident but it has resulted in Fernando

33:48

Alonso getting what was originally a

33:51

drive-through penalty but because it happened right at

33:53

the end of the race, a 20 second

33:55

time penalty which demoted him from 6th down

33:57

to 8th promoting two drivers Lance Stroll and

33:59

Yuki Tsunoda up. up to six and sevens

34:01

respectively, but talk us through exactly what happened

34:03

and what's been going on since. If

34:06

Max was happy to have won this race, I think this would

34:08

all we'd have been talking about because it's

34:10

really fascinating. So yeah, George Russell been

34:12

chasing Fernando Alonso throughout the final stint

34:14

because Alonso benefited from starting

34:17

on the hard tyres, he jumped him up

34:19

the order, he had a comparatively short middle

34:21

stint, Aston Martin obviously going aggressive, you know,

34:23

making use of that undercut, gets him ahead

34:25

of George Russell, obviously he started behind on

34:27

the grid. He was chasing him all over

34:30

him into the closing laps well within a second

34:33

for much of the closing stages and it's

34:35

very clear in the data that the last

34:37

time through, well the last time George Russell goes

34:39

through it on what is the penultimate lap of

34:41

the race for those two at the time. Fernando

34:44

Alonso breaks much earlier, we think it's around

34:46

100 metres earlier than he was doing all

34:48

the way through the rest of the race,

34:51

but then the data actually sort of damns

34:53

Alonso because you can quite clearly see he

34:55

jumps back on the throttle, then breaks again

34:57

and goes round the corner and what happens

34:59

is that basically Russell's expecting about half a

35:01

second gap, it comes down to almost nothing,

35:03

he loses the downforce as he goes into

35:06

that, the wake, the dirty air effect or goes into even more

35:08

of it, he slides wide, he goes

35:10

into the gravel, he hits the wall and he has

35:12

a very dramatic incident. And there's quite

35:14

a bit to un-pick here, I think as I

35:16

said in the video we did that you mentioned

35:18

Bryn earlier, the FIA's got a lot to answer

35:21

for for why it didn't immediately red flag the

35:23

race or at least immediately virtual safety car it

35:25

when it could see, you know Russell was stranded

35:27

and himself in what's quite an upsetting video screaming

35:30

for a red flag, he's in the middle of the

35:32

track understandably. In fact Lance

35:34

Stroll comes by him not under virtual

35:36

safety car, he does to be fair to

35:38

Lance, does slow down and he's very respectful

35:40

going around, then the virtual safety car is

35:42

activated so that's one thing that's in this.

35:44

As ever I'm sure we'll get full transparency

35:46

for the FIA about what happened there but

35:48

I won't be holding my breath too

35:51

long for that. But

35:53

the other thing with this is basically the

35:55

stewards have gone that we take the consequences

35:57

of what happened in Russell's crash out of

35:59

the race. it and we just look at what

36:01

Alonso did. Did he drive

36:03

erratically? Did he drive dangerously? Which

36:05

would be you know contravening the

36:07

regulations and essentially what is boiled

36:09

down to is Alonso's argument is

36:11

look yes I did I hold

36:14

my hands up I did do something differently but

36:16

that's because I was struggling with you know energy

36:19

harvesting and deployment issues throughout the end of the

36:21

race. Also I was just trying to get a

36:24

better exit out of the corner like you know

36:27

let's take for example like he did so

36:29

wonderfully against Sergio Perez in the Brazilian Grand Prix

36:31

in 2023 that's what he was trying

36:33

to do and basically he says it

36:35

in the Stuvis document he messed it up

36:38

he made a mistake it's sort of there's

36:40

no there's all this what's been slung around

36:42

is did he brake test George and that's

36:44

quite an accusation and the sort of

36:47

the data seems to show it but we have

36:50

to take Fernando at his words and it just

36:52

seems to be that he's tried to do something

36:54

really clever messed it up and it has then

36:56

had big consequences for Russell even though the stewards

36:58

said that they were taking them out of it

37:00

so it's like I can

37:03

kind of see it both ways I it's

37:05

a legitimate racing tactic to alter your

37:07

line and Russell himself said I should

37:09

have I should have been able to

37:11

to handle that

37:14

to a certain extent but I think

37:16

that I think Alonso's just he's just

37:18

it's almost like Schumacher at Rascasse in 2006

37:21

it's almost like it's too clever he's just

37:23

tried to do something and he's not got

37:25

it right and he's paid a big price

37:27

with the penalty that he's got at the

37:29

same time I think he's within his rights

37:31

to try something there it's just he shouldn't

37:33

have been quite so perhaps erratic

37:35

and jerky so yes it's

37:38

an interesting one and I think also like if you

37:40

go back and watch his Interviews

37:42

post-race He wasn't the usual incredibly calm

37:44

I'm gonna say what: I like I

37:46

Know that I Can you know play

37:48

my games in the media because I've

37:50

got my iron core of confidence I'm

37:52

Fernando Alonso He looked like a deer

37:54

in the headlights, like at the very

37:56

least he knew he'd messed up or.

38:00

He was gonna be potentially in big trouble. I

38:02

think that's quite revealing when it comes to Alonzo.

38:05

Yeah. I think near as much as he's

38:07

a natural born killer, a nice cunning

38:10

and nice clever and all the rest

38:12

of it. I or feasibly they would

38:14

do something live on purpose. D C.

38:16

Indo. Young to set Russell

38:18

like that. And

38:21

didn't get a thing is. When. Just

38:23

from a higher level it is a

38:25

big ratings acidify a soda, tell drivers

38:28

have to drive their cars and how

38:30

to how to your employee their energy

38:32

and how to break and not to

38:34

ever do everything. I'm. So.

38:38

I don't know. I follow his pre draconian

38:40

to be honest I'm but yet the data

38:43

is gray. It is quite severe the where

38:45

he. He. Knew

38:47

he slowed down. even Thera shifted

38:49

and and than a cop. So

38:51

I can definitely see why Russell

38:53

was caught out. But as same

38:55

time he was half second behind.

38:58

He wasn't on his bumper get

39:00

of forget were. At

39:02

the same time wrestle with half a second

39:04

behind. he wasn't right behind him because any

39:06

would have club that into him so I

39:08

think I was enough might have for Russell.

39:10

Last they carefully. And

39:12

decide quickly is neither is in the middle

39:14

of the pit straight it was going into

39:16

a corner like is that your your classic

39:18

example of a break test. This was not.

39:22

Yeah, on the bright test allegations

39:24

best, but specifically. Alonzo

39:27

is so incredibly intelligent his name

39:29

he knows how to that a

39:31

place quite an immediate it does

39:33

maximum damage or to make himself

39:35

most appealing to teams or how

39:37

he did you know outage detector

39:39

of his car and the final

39:41

lots in Brazil vs per say.

39:43

He also knows by extension the

39:46

letter of the law and that

39:48

driving and excessively sailors islam.penalty He's

39:50

much more shrewd, switched on and

39:52

sought to the not so a

39:54

straight up break test he will

39:56

not say because. He know he'll be bang

39:58

to rights. so I admit it. Well I can

40:00

see the on his part is the absolute

40:02

misjudgment and he's got it wrong and therefore

40:04

yeah penalize but this is not yeah a

40:06

straight up sobbing on a break so obe

40:09

see rock of as is bar can I

40:11

run into the pit will was as as

40:13

bit more nuance and not. Just.

40:15

Because just fun out of reason than he wouldn't alarms off

40:17

to make such as of. At

40:19

a. Slam Dunk era of

40:22

though. He.

40:24

An Obvious. An obvious. Intentional.

40:29

Bit. Of misconduct doesn't seem to be fernandez

40:31

thing. Does a much more why these sites

40:33

I will have to see what happens is.

40:36

Where. The appeal that that Athena pro let them

40:38

live on that I think a faint their said

40:41

that that just accept it I think both Alonzo

40:43

says a nice history these for our an and

40:45

might reckon in the Us and press releases of

40:47

life We move on now to Japan. Myth

40:50

for. About I this one same that will

40:52

be looking forward to moving on to Japan is a

40:54

same at a very good. Race: Weekend

40:56

as well. That's Mclaren. They finish third and

40:58

fourth. Lando Norris the head of our scope.

41:01

Yeah, Streets, Matt, you are out there. When

41:03

that team order came in to move to

41:05

to drive as round a thing we could

41:08

hear on the T V the booing from

41:10

the local fans there. but it it was

41:12

the right decision was net for Mclaren. Or

41:15

yeah I saw it was the pictures as a

41:17

bit of it. There. Was a bit

41:19

of a delay between what we get, the media centered

41:22

and time screws to what was so guy on the

41:24

circuit seats. So so I saw it coming and you

41:26

know you've had. Into three cross the

41:28

line to get chairs for chairs of the

41:30

Austrian are desperate ricotta him so of tugging

41:33

at and qualifying so i have really tuned

41:35

into the crowd she was happening and there

41:37

wasn't like i can hear base for though

41:39

cause game by but there was I wasn't

41:41

like lives of people wildly gesticulating side and

41:44

a how much of it did it was

41:46

bus from there was no resale lights neither

41:48

mclaren driver had anything to say about a

41:50

national even them so being how import aside

41:52

and and told Pti to our size think

41:55

they're completely non. Plus. than on

41:57

it was undressed allah he's a reseller

41:59

the put it best when he said

42:01

it wasn't a strategic move it was an

42:03

executional move is how he said

42:05

it was all that sort of in twang so

42:08

rather than swapping the places so that

42:10

Norris could go past Piastri to then

42:12

attack the clerk or so that Norris

42:15

could go past Piastri because Piastri was

42:17

quicker so he could provide a more

42:19

robust buffer to Perez it

42:22

was just because Norris was a quicker car

42:25

he needed to overtake Piastri

42:28

but it's a quite a fiddly track they had a

42:30

really good sort of points on the table let's

42:32

not scupper that by

42:34

you know having a wheel-to-wheel collision and putting

42:36

into the barrier so let's just control this

42:38

on our own terms absolutely take out all

42:40

the risk bank those points

42:42

don't risk anything in the cost cap

42:44

don't create any headlines by you bar

42:47

let's just do it on our own

42:49

terms and everyone was fine with that

42:51

and you know

42:53

bigger pitch or there's one story which is

42:56

you know track track team

42:59

orders might be a

43:01

bit controversial but that

43:03

you know they can be a wise saying that's fine

43:05

but in this case there's not even like a gray

43:07

arrow in team orders it was just the

43:09

right thing to do it wasn't too on the nose

43:11

not too offensive in my book at all yeah

43:14

I agree completely I mean it was

43:17

what lap 28 so he's not

43:20

even halfway race so if Norris

43:22

is two three four tenths quicker a lap that

43:24

is a massive amount of race time at the

43:26

end so it was a no-brainer to lend through

43:29

and and follow his own

43:31

strategy in did I mean the

43:34

whole reason Norris was in that position in the

43:37

first place was because Leclerc and

43:39

Piafri were allowed to undercut him so

43:41

that means that you know Norris

43:44

couldn't have pitted because he would have lost position there so

43:46

what they did is just leave him out longer and try

43:48

and get a tire advantage

43:50

on the next thing so it

43:52

was you know a logical consequence of that

43:54

that Norris was behind Piafri in the first

43:57

place and that he was quicker with fresher

43:59

tires I mean, last

44:02

year we had a couple of occasions where it

44:04

was maybe more debatable whether the team orders were

44:06

correct. I think if I remember correctly, especially

44:08

Hungary, it was a little bit 50-50 for me. But

44:11

this one is, you know, a ferically

44:13

the correct decision by McLaren. I

44:16

think what it shows again is Piazzari's

44:18

worth to McLaren. He understood everything perfectly.

44:20

He didn't make a fuss. He didn't

44:23

throw his car at the inside of

44:25

his teammate like Sanoda did in Bahrain.

44:28

And also, you know, McLaren were a

44:30

little bit snookered. Like Mercedes had already kicked

44:32

things off, okay, Russell's a good three seconds

44:34

behind, but the undercut was clearly pretty powerful.

44:36

We saw that. You know, by the time

44:38

Piazzari and Leclerc especially had pitted, it was

44:40

guaranteed that Norris's fill, as you said, was

44:42

going to come out behind him. So they

44:44

just did the only logical thing, which is

44:47

give him a gap, give him a tire life

44:49

offset, and then you

44:51

rely on your drivers not making it hard. And

44:53

they don't because those two, like very different personalities

44:55

out of the car, sort of in the way

44:57

they come across. I wonder how Oscar

45:00

Piazzari would come across on Chicken Shot

45:02

dates on YouTube. So actually, Fort Lando

45:04

Norris came across really awkwardly and really

45:06

badly. But in the F1 paddock, he's

45:08

extremely sharp and confident on

45:10

the pool. Anyway, I massively digress. And

45:13

you know, the two of them understood it, got on

45:15

with it. And I think it's more of a

45:18

storm of a teacup, storm in a teacup. I

45:20

don't know, I'm getting my metaphors. What does it

45:22

matter? I'm lost in a sea of mixed metaphors.

45:24

But I think it was fine for McLaren today.

45:26

It's just unfortunate that it's happened in front of

45:28

Piazzari's home fans. Yeah, exactly.

45:31

If this wasn't the Australian Grand Prix, we wouldn't be

45:33

talking about this at all, I reckon. Yeah,

45:36

and actually, fourth place for Oscar Piazzari that

45:38

is home Grand Prix. Yeah, it's not a podium. That's

45:40

the disappointment for the local fans. But that's a heck

45:42

of a result for Oscar Piazzari. When you think about

45:44

where McLaren have been, where they've come from, and where

45:46

they currently are now. So, you know,

45:48

I think if you just said Oscar Piazzari prior to

45:50

the Grand Prix start will give you fourth, it'd have

45:52

really bitten your hand off. Also,

45:55

playing simple Australians don't get podiums

45:57

at Albert Park. Fourth place is the

45:59

limit. that has been well established for years now.

46:02

Yeah, Matt, you say that there's a

46:04

law that Australians can't be

46:06

on a podium else they get disqualified

46:08

like Ricciardo did, but obviously

46:11

nobody told Piazza's manager, Mark Weber,

46:13

in 2002 when he finished shift

46:16

and still went on a podium to celebrate points

46:19

for Minardi. So it was like half expecting.

46:21

Piazza did the same thing and just sneak

46:23

on a podium anyway afterwards, but of course

46:26

he's a bit too shy and too

46:28

little header to do that. Well,

46:31

it's good that we've got a rule that we should stick to.

46:34

One driver that has done very well,

46:36

we've mentioned a few, but one other

46:38

driver that's done very well, and you

46:40

mentioned him earlier on, is Sonoda. He's

46:42

scored RB's first points of the season.

46:45

He's outperformed his teammate, Daniel

46:48

Ricciardo, once again. How

46:50

good is Sonoda looking at the

46:53

moment and how worried should Daniel Ricciardo

46:55

be? I think

46:57

Phil, it was you that mentioned it earlier on,

46:59

somebody did anyway, about him not just, where

47:02

is he gonna be next year? Is he gonna get the

47:04

red bull seat? But is he gonna be in Formula One

47:07

next year if he continues on this rate? Because he's not

47:09

impressing. It is early

47:11

days. It's raised three out of 24, but

47:14

yeah, I would be a little bit

47:16

worried if I was Ricciardo, because by

47:19

no means is this comparable to what happened at McLaren, because

47:21

there he had a current I really didn't get on with.

47:24

But he has to be careful to

47:26

avoid falling in the same trap in

47:28

terms of having a teammate

47:30

that's somehow quicker and not understanding

47:33

why the lap time isn't there. And

47:36

I thought I actually did a decent

47:38

race from the extent that

47:40

I've been able to follow his lap times. He wasn't

47:43

particularly a lot slower than

47:45

Sonoda in race dream, but obviously it's

47:48

now two weekends in a row that he kind

47:50

of threw away in qualifying. He

47:52

had a terrible qualifying in Jeddah two weeks ago.

47:55

And again, so was lap time deleted

47:57

here, even though he was gonna be

47:59

behind Sonoda. anyway so it definitely

48:02

has to be on his toes and

48:05

and figure out you know why

48:07

it's not there why it's not happening for him

48:09

in qualifying and to know that

48:11

it's not been very good today again

48:13

we said this before I

48:16

don't see him as rebel material

48:18

personality wise just

48:20

in general I'm

48:22

not seeing it but he's been very

48:24

quick and we know

48:26

how important points are for the let's

48:29

say the bottom five teams in

48:32

this sort of two-tier championship

48:34

this year so so to

48:36

finish eighth and then seven after a lot

48:38

of penalties absolutely massive for RB I guess

48:41

it applies for a lot of teams right but in

48:44

that sort of you can't even call it class B because I

48:46

still think Red Bull is class A the patches behind them a

48:48

class B and then the bottom

48:50

five teams a

48:52

class C but for those bottom

48:55

five I think they're almost all

48:57

in like a Williams situation from

48:59

like 2020 2021 sort

49:01

of thing like they've got to shine in

49:03

qualifying their drivers their reputations are more on

49:06

the line in qualifying because ultimately

49:08

then it's gonna be very rare that there'll

49:11

be days like today when so many of

49:13

the the leading squads hit trouble so the

49:15

fact that Ricardo is really having a problem

49:17

in qualifying is really problematic for him and

49:20

the the teams the

49:22

people that are gonna make this decision Helmut

49:24

Marco is grabbing

49:27

those opportunities and the reason why I

49:29

bring up Williams is because George Russell's

49:31

reputation is basically built on his amazing

49:34

qualifying performances that ridiculous and incorrect mr.

49:36

Saturday cliche so Ricardo really needs to

49:38

step it up Marco's suggesting it's a

49:40

sort of a mental block that he's

49:42

got that that's what's causing him as

49:45

a problem against Sonoda but on

49:47

Marco he's very impressed with Sonoda this weekend

49:49

he said he basically said

49:51

every lap was perfect but the problem that

49:54

Sonoda's got is what Phil said no

49:56

one can see him going to Red Bull because Red

49:58

Bull just doesn't seem to want him. In the

50:00

next line, Marco is quoted as saying, one

50:02

swallow doesn't make a summer. There

50:05

is no momentum for him to be

50:07

promoted into that seat, especially with Honda

50:09

leaving Red Bull. I just

50:12

can't see it happening. So it's much

50:14

more likely that someone like Sainz Alonso,

50:16

etc, who knows what happens if it

50:18

happens there or if he goes, ends

50:20

up getting Perez's seat, I would say.

50:23

I think Sinoza is sort of rising up

50:25

to the situation now. They've got four

50:27

seasons in F1. He's not been linked

50:29

with it. He's not had behind closed

50:32

doors tests or whatever. There's not been

50:34

a whisper of it. And I sort

50:36

of, to be fair

50:38

to Sinoza, he could have reacted really badly

50:40

to a question I asked him, but he

50:42

didn't. He gave a really nice answer, a

50:44

really considered answer. I basically went, you're not

50:46

linked with Red Bull ever, so

50:49

you beating Riccardo, what are you doing? You're not

50:51

going to drive yourself. So he's just basically scuppering

50:53

his chances. Because it's sort of a slightly different

50:55

framing on it. And he said, well,

50:58

I'm increasing my value to other

51:00

teams. So he knows exactly what's

51:02

at stake now, whether that is,

51:04

you know, a way

51:07

it goes both sides. You know, what

51:09

does RB, Alford Torros again, by having

51:11

him there again, safe pair of hands,

51:13

there's still going to be a thing

51:15

about maturity, whatever. Do they want to

51:18

finally bring someone else through a Liam

51:20

Lawson, who knows. And

51:23

as for him, what's he

51:25

achieving? Okay, the team has

51:27

taken a considerable step forward compared to the start

51:29

of 22-23. So he is gaining from

51:33

that, that he's not having to bide

51:35

his time for, I hope an upgrade

51:37

can transform his season. He is, you

51:39

know, much more competitive. But,

51:42

you know, he will, I'm sure the appeal now

51:44

forging his own career, like you say, with the

51:46

Honda Lynx is, is, is

51:48

calling much more, much more strongly to

51:51

him. So he'll go away from. So,

51:56

so I'm sure he's there is the

51:59

incentive to move away but the

52:02

Riccardo issue almost feels separate

52:04

in some respects just because it's been here

52:06

for so long now we've had you

52:09

know a really sort of great

52:12

narrative him coming back from from

52:15

the Macara misery and he acquitted himself

52:17

well in his first couple of races

52:19

before his injury in Zunbort and then

52:21

obviously was brilliant in Mexico grabbed the

52:23

headlines and that was a really messy

52:25

sort of executed race for Sonoda but

52:27

otherwise in the final three races after

52:29

he came back from his

52:31

injury it was I think it's out

52:34

of the five races Sonoda's out qualified him three

52:36

times then carried that over to this year okay

52:39

is a small sample size so far but

52:43

it's now a 2021 McLaren 2020

52:46

McLaren and potentially a 2024 RB that

52:49

he's he's not getting his head around

52:52

so that's a span of major regulations

52:54

in different cars so it's not like

52:56

a Mark Webber being undone by the

52:58

switch to prety tires it's it's a

53:00

proper malaise now so you

53:03

know does he a not

53:06

get a Red Bull promotion like we all

53:08

thought to start season but be by the

53:10

end of this year he could be generally

53:12

fighting for his f1 career if he is

53:14

just stuck in a rut under performing sort

53:16

of undoing his own legacy and it

53:19

also sort of raises slight

53:21

questions of all the

53:23

noise that came when he when he did the RB

53:25

19 test yes last year

53:27

at Silverstone and everyone came away thinking

53:30

and and basically the noise

53:32

was and the Horna was peddling it that he

53:35

was mega that it was like the old

53:37

Daniel we've seen we've untaught him his bad

53:39

habits and and we inferred from that that

53:41

the lap times were you

53:44

know probably as quick as

53:46

Perez with very little mileage and closer to

53:48

the stop in well that seems odd now

53:51

was it the fact it was a different

53:53

day different conditions what was it because we

53:55

have now got a behind the closed doors

53:57

test really and to

54:00

two and a half race weekends since

54:03

his comeback and then basically a

54:06

Separate two and a half years of evidence

54:08

suggests that he's not there You

54:10

know their ex Red Bull Ricciardo the

54:13

ex Renault Ricciardo It's really quite a

54:15

substantial drop-off and you speak to him

54:17

and I'm really not trying to stick

54:19

the knife in the guy but

54:22

whether it's the camp around him or a

54:24

bit of Sort

54:27

of disbelief, but you

54:29

ask him what the problem is and he's

54:31

not sure he's you know Blaming something with

54:33

the car whatever he's there's not like the

54:35

him taking a long hard look at himself

54:37

So whether they hit the camp or everyone's

54:39

around and saying no Daniel will come to

54:41

you just like that But there doesn't seem

54:43

to be the massive Introspection which is just

54:45

yeah a bit puffing. It's almost comparable to

54:47

the Mercedes thing where they're going like we've

54:49

got a physics problem Well, not

54:52

really because the laws of physics haven't changed.

54:54

You've got a fundamental operating problem. You're dropping

54:56

the ball massively Sort of

54:59

think more on yourself Yeah,

55:01

if I can just add one thing to that and it's just

55:03

a theory on we have It's

55:06

not that hard to look good in an rb-19

55:08

at a protest and find your

55:10

emojo in such a well-rounded car It's

55:13

harder to do in a meat

55:16

field car that house its flaws that

55:18

maybe you don't Know

55:20

how to handle as well. So it may

55:22

be it's a just a case of Struggling

55:25

in in what the McLaren was

55:28

weak at on and also with

55:30

the RB maybe it's not a hundred percent What

55:34

he wants for a car whereas with the

55:36

rb-19 you could probably just drive

55:38

around a lot of that Was

55:41

on the rb-19 test he spun it I

55:43

was in drive to survive we'd heard we'd

55:45

heard it it had happened. I think the

55:47

Ricardo Come

55:49

back and especially the push to Perez. I think

55:51

it's a power play from Horner I

55:53

think I think that's ultimately what it comes down to

55:55

because everything Marco says about Ricardo It's

55:57

almost like he doesn't even want him back in the

55:59

arm RB right now? Well,

56:03

we will have to keep

56:05

watching this one because it's going to develop, I'm sure.

56:07

But as pretty

56:10

much all of you have alluded to, Ricciardo could

56:12

be in a bit of trouble not just for

56:14

a seat in an RB in 2025, but a

56:16

seat in Formula 1 in 2025. Let's

56:20

move to another team that seemed to

56:22

be maybe

56:25

defying the odds, and that's Haas. They

56:27

managed to get themselves a nice point

56:29

last time out with a legendary drive,

56:31

shall we say. And this time

56:33

out, Hulkenberg and Magnussen both getting in the points.

56:35

Who wants to kick this one off and start

56:37

waxing lyrical about that performance from Haas? I think

56:39

Alex does. Look at you. You really want to

56:41

go for this, don't you, Alex? Oh, yeah. I'm

56:43

up on my feet. In few seconds we'll talk

56:45

about that. That just

56:47

represents what an awful condition I'm

56:49

in because of my ridiculous age.

56:53

Anyway, Haas, yeah, just again, I thought it was

56:55

a really well executed race. We

56:58

came into this season with the team just openly

57:00

saying we think we're going to be last in

57:02

Bahrain. They spent all that time understanding

57:04

where they were on the long runs, feeding that

57:07

in with the data that they gathered by

57:09

changing the car concept at the end of 2023.

57:12

And really, just again, a bit

57:15

like I was saying earlier with Mercedes, they've of

57:17

course benefited from Alpine going backwards and things like

57:19

this. But there's no doubt that Haas are in

57:21

a much better place. And

57:23

also, let's get there was a team

57:25

order swap that was enacted very well. And

57:28

again, they're just getting their tactics right. I mean,

57:30

I know I come out to hard taskmaster that

57:32

he is. The stock went a bit

57:34

wrong. There's a little stressor around

57:36

that as well. And I think he's just

57:38

not being totally brilliant. He absolutely wants perfection.

57:41

Full credit too. I admire that attitude.

57:45

But other than that, things just really going

57:47

well with Haas. They've actually

57:49

got the rub of the green with

57:51

Alonso's, sorry, not Alonso's penalty, the Alonso

57:53

incident putting Russell out of the points and

57:56

Magnuson getting into it. So, yeah, I think it's

57:59

almost night and day. difference because as

58:01

could be seen towards the end of that race with

58:03

Kevin Magnuson attacking Alex Alborn and everything that Nico Hulkenberg

58:05

has been able to do in the last two race

58:07

weekends, they've got a car they can race with and

58:10

how much, how we could never say that at any

58:12

point last year. With Haas

58:14

then Alex and Matt and Celia all in the room,

58:16

you might as well talk about it, are

58:19

they going to continue to keep grinding

58:21

out points this season like we've seen them

58:23

do in previous seasons albeit quite a while

58:25

ago? We'll see in

58:27

a sense that they paused

58:29

development of this car for two months while they

58:31

did that

58:36

package for Austin and then you've had a

58:38

change at the top so there will be

58:40

a certain lag from that switched off will

58:43

they fall behind in the development race, where

58:45

are they at with that? So I don't

58:47

think it's as consistent. I did

58:50

ask Magnuson along the lines of these performances

58:52

are you doing better inspected because the car

58:54

is quicker than expected or because

58:58

of the massive turnaround in the tyre performance and

59:00

you swung it towards the latter,

59:03

the car performance isn't way

59:06

better than where they thought. They

59:10

didn't predict to be like that where they're in the

59:12

construction of the sixth fastest team. It's

59:15

because of the execution of the races that

59:17

they've come on with leaps and bounds. It's

59:20

just whether it's sustainable I think they'll

59:22

have to pay for some of like

59:25

okay like Alex said they're absolutely reaping

59:27

the wars for that Bahrain testing but

59:29

because it was so focused on one

59:31

thing will they be basically

59:33

made to pay for that? Will they lose

59:35

out in the development race? And

59:38

ultimately we know that Gene has the

59:41

reason, part of the reason for the

59:43

change in team principle is because there

59:46

was almost like a bidding war saying I can come

59:49

back to going I can do more with

59:51

less resources. So basically

59:53

will they be outspent as well? Yeah

59:56

that's one thing they always start strongly whenever they

59:58

have a decent car and then fade

1:00:01

and it is a boring answer perhaps, but it is a

1:00:03

relative game at the end of the day and they

1:00:07

are also partly benefiting from other teams

1:00:09

around them not getting their act together.

1:00:11

We're looking at Williams, we're looking at

1:00:13

Saabar. So right now

1:00:15

it's half an RB that started

1:00:17

off stronger with the way

1:00:19

that they execute race weekend especially. So

1:00:23

they are absolutely getting the points

1:00:25

they need. We know how hard it is to come by

1:00:28

points this year. If you're not in the

1:00:30

top five teams, so

1:00:33

if you

1:00:35

look at how our hosts have been executing

1:00:37

and working together as a team then sure

1:00:39

they will score more points, but

1:00:42

it will depend on their

1:00:44

curve. It will depend on Williams especially. I think

1:00:46

Williams have a lot more performance

1:00:48

to unlock at least as well. That's what

1:00:51

they are saying. Saabar

1:00:54

I'm not so sure about, but

1:00:57

it remains to be seen. It's 24 races, there's

1:00:59

still going to be a lot of upgrades coming

1:01:02

from all these teams and

1:01:05

it just, when you have an opportunity like this you have to

1:01:07

bank on it. They recognised that

1:01:09

last week with the teamwork that Kevin

1:01:12

Magnussen put in to give Volker

1:01:14

Merck a point and now they

1:01:16

both have a reward for it and

1:01:18

that's just what we need to do. We need to

1:01:20

execute and whenever there's a sniff of points you have

1:01:22

to take them. Yeah,

1:01:25

there are a couple of teams that we haven't really

1:01:27

mentioned so far. Alpein, they're struggling

1:01:29

a bit. Saabar need to start getting that

1:01:31

issue with their wheel nuts sorted because that's

1:01:33

costing them potential, isn't it, shall we say?

1:01:35

But one team that were

1:01:38

really wrestling for points and had to make

1:01:40

the hardest decision this weekend when it comes

1:01:42

down to points is Williams and that was

1:01:44

to do with the unfortunate incident with

1:01:46

Alexander Albon having to take

1:01:49

Sargent's car. Now where do you sit

1:01:52

on that? Was it the right decision?

1:01:55

They were doing what they wanted to do to go for

1:01:57

points. Alex, go on, you might as well jump him. I

1:02:00

can imagine because I saw all three hands go up

1:02:02

and I believe I won the race despite my injuries

1:02:05

that I won't stop going on about. I

1:02:07

think we're all fairly aligned on that. Of course it

1:02:09

was the right decision. For a

1:02:11

pure business decision, Alex Albon last year, 27

1:02:13

points, Logan Sargent won and to get that

1:02:16

one point he needed Lewis Hamilton

1:02:18

and Charles Leclerc to be disqualified from the US Grand Prix.

1:02:22

It totally makes sense. It's just

1:02:25

a reminder, yes again, of how

1:02:27

unbelievably ruthless F1 is.

1:02:30

I think Williams made

1:02:32

the right decision. They also very much

1:02:34

need to look at themselves. They've

1:02:37

got a car that was being designed, well

1:02:39

previous cars that were being designed from a

1:02:42

massively long Excel spreadsheet

1:02:44

and James Vals has come in and gone,

1:02:46

what the hell is this? We need to actually

1:02:48

make it a proper process and in doing so,

1:02:50

it's knocked them so far out of kilter. It

1:02:52

was nearly late and they've

1:02:54

got not enough spares or they've got too many

1:02:57

of certain things and it basically just means that

1:02:59

Albon wasn't able to race. Again

1:03:01

at the same time, it reflects the whole situation

1:03:03

and reflects very poorly on both drivers I think.

1:03:05

I think Albon is a small mistake, sure, but

1:03:08

it's a mistake he should never be making. We

1:03:10

know these cars don't like curbs. Why are you

1:03:12

hitting it so hard? Right at the start of

1:03:14

FP1 and destroying your car, Alex. Really

1:03:16

not very good and you'll see in my driver ratings

1:03:18

that I'm doing for autosport.com and not a sport magazine

1:03:21

tomorrow. He's going to be penalised heavily for that because

1:03:23

he's taking his team out of the race. At the

1:03:25

same time, Logan Sargent, if you don't want this to

1:03:27

happen to you, you've got to be better. There

1:03:29

was an example of one of the reasons

1:03:32

why he wasn't to be trusted with that car by

1:03:34

Williams in FP2. When he spun

1:03:36

early on, basically destroyed his only set of the

1:03:38

medium tyres because they were having to conserve, all

1:03:40

the teams having to conserve all their harder tyres

1:03:43

for the race, right? It meant that Williams went into

1:03:45

this race with no long run data. Logan,

1:03:48

it's that sort of thing you can't be doing if

1:03:50

you want to have a longer career in

1:03:52

Formula 1. And frankly, to a

1:03:54

certain extent, you've got a question. Why is

1:03:57

he even in the car for Japan? Williams

1:03:59

clearly has. have so little faith

1:04:01

in him and honestly after this

1:04:03

weekend he's surely got no hope of

1:04:05

a drive there in 2025. Well

1:04:07

I think you know it's fair to say

1:04:10

he was on borrowed time for this year

1:04:12

already if there had been an appealing option

1:04:14

if you know Druggewich had a

1:04:16

bit a bit faster with a bit more money or

1:04:18

Paul Cher had made less of a meal of F2

1:04:21

or I don't know if Alex Palau

1:04:23

hadn't you know basically

1:04:26

done a bit of reputational damage by suing

1:04:28

everyone going over past few years they

1:04:31

would have been plausible alternative opportunities

1:04:33

it's you know it's no it

1:04:36

spoke volumes that they kept deferring the Logan

1:04:38

Sargent decision to resign him just basically looking

1:04:41

for a shred of a reason for him

1:04:43

to get it but no he would he

1:04:45

would crash in Suzuka I'm sorry to beat

1:04:47

on the guy but it's just that it

1:04:50

was the obvious decision and you

1:04:53

look at other teams okay

1:04:55

slightly different scenarios but Ferrari

1:04:58

McLaren Mercedes

1:05:01

Haas I

1:05:03

don't see any of those guys swapping

1:05:05

swapping their drivers and it's not even

1:05:07

as if you need to have to

1:05:10

exactly equal drivers I don't think Logan

1:05:14

Sargent would have been benched if he was consistently

1:05:16

all season a tenth slower than Albin

1:05:18

certainly a number two driver but a

1:05:20

tenth slower it's because it is pretty

1:05:22

much a cousin between them and

1:05:25

I just I'll be quite interested

1:05:27

to see where it goes after because I had a minor

1:05:30

headbutt with James Fowers after this because

1:05:34

I think he took the implication I was saying

1:05:36

his team aren't very good at man a touch

1:05:39

is that all enough to bite your head I

1:05:42

was sat down at the point and he was

1:05:44

he was stood up holding a glass

1:05:46

of what might have been like elderflower juice or

1:05:48

something but looked like he was just knocking back

1:05:50

the white wines after a stressful start to the

1:05:52

weekend but anyway he he

1:05:55

sort of I

1:05:57

think took it that I implied that

1:05:59

the team's one of the factoring wasn't very

1:06:01

good. But there is a long,

1:06:03

long, long list of drivers complaining

1:06:05

about repaired chassis that they never

1:06:07

quite go back together how they

1:06:09

should do. The patchwork,

1:06:12

if necessary, can add a bit more

1:06:14

weight. Drivers, Latifi, I bet if

1:06:16

you've got Latifi here, he would blame

1:06:18

some of the demise of his career on

1:06:21

a cracked chassis repair that he felt

1:06:23

up until Silverstone never felt

1:06:25

comfortable enough. So what I'm getting at

1:06:27

there is they've already clearly narrowed their

1:06:29

flag to Albert and Albert Sargent. I'd be

1:06:31

quite interested, because they said then they won't have

1:06:33

a new chassis for Japan. They need to take

1:06:35

back the old one, repair it, and bring it

1:06:37

to Japan, if that can be done in time.

1:06:39

I'd just be quite interested to know who gets

1:06:41

the sort of, you know,

1:06:44

to use a really derogatory term, who gets

1:06:46

the cut and shut, whether they'll give Albert

1:06:48

and the pristine one, and Logan the other

1:06:50

one, if there is any discernible difference,

1:06:52

or even if it's ever so

1:06:54

slightly psychological, I'd just

1:06:56

be interested to see basically end

1:06:59

up doing a chassis history in

1:07:01

a few years time. Who gets the races for

1:07:03

what car? Just

1:07:05

very quickly, I can't believe James Mowes didn't. I

1:07:09

can see why he got upset with the suggestion

1:07:11

that perhaps Williams will be doing a car for

1:07:13

Japan. But

1:07:15

also, I just, what, what, excellent.

1:07:19

But I just like the fact that, Q, you're

1:07:21

going to be signing off for what can

1:07:23

only be described as an extremely successful auto sports

1:07:26

stint with basically, from what I

1:07:28

take it, from what you just said, started

1:07:30

a conspiracy theory that Williams' poor chassis repairs

1:07:32

cost Lewis Hamilton, the world title, in the

1:07:34

Abu Dhabi crash and then officiating

1:07:36

scandal in 2021. Excellent work.

1:07:40

Yeah, Matt has gone full course. Earth

1:07:42

course, yeah. What, what, shall

1:07:44

we end the podcast there? Not

1:07:46

even giving the right to reply. Actually,

1:07:49

Matt, you've written an article following

1:07:52

on from Rebecca Baberook's article

1:07:54

about Sargent saying,

1:07:56

this has been the hardest moment of his Formula

1:07:59

One career. And then, your interview

1:08:01

or your chat with James Voll saying

1:08:03

that it's going to be very hard

1:08:05

to rebuild Logan Sarge's confidence. Do

1:08:08

you think following on from this they

1:08:11

care too much about rebuilding Logan Sarge's

1:08:13

confidence? They have to to a degree

1:08:15

to you know because it's got a

1:08:17

long season ahead and if

1:08:21

if there is a scenario where drivers drop

1:08:23

out he needs to be scoring points or

1:08:25

on count back they need to have him

1:08:27

and they he can like

1:08:30

you speak to Logan Sarge and he's not malicious

1:08:32

in any way type of form but he him

1:08:34

basically having his head in the hands the rest

1:08:36

of the season can be can be a force

1:08:38

for evil not bringing the team forward but yeah

1:08:40

is they've clearly put him in his place and

1:08:42

you know again sorry to

1:08:44

go back to the benching him if

1:08:48

he was more appealing just because he had

1:08:50

a load of sponsorship money behind him he

1:08:53

wouldn't have found himself replaced but the fact

1:08:55

is there was legal capacity to do so

1:08:57

because he hasn't you know he's not a

1:08:59

paid driver which is to his credit but

1:09:01

also weakened his his strength

1:09:03

in the car so how they

1:09:06

go about really building that morale they

1:09:09

will need to basically patch it up to a

1:09:11

degree but long term it's not an issue because

1:09:13

long term he won't be in that car it's

1:09:16

it's you know it's a pragmatic decision it's short

1:09:18

term pain for the longer term

1:09:20

game to keep Alex Albon happy and

1:09:22

and that in itself is you know

1:09:25

forget about so I

1:09:27

not forget about Morat as I just right sounds

1:09:29

like I really don't care about him I do

1:09:31

but it's like what about Albans Morat actually because

1:09:33

you've got to keep him keep

1:09:35

him keen you know he is

1:09:38

the greatest asset that team has a

1:09:40

greatest single asset to some degree with

1:09:42

what's going on at Red Bull or

1:09:45

depending on what Alonso does Mercedes even

1:09:47

he is a

1:09:49

potential target for other teams Williams

1:09:52

be much worse off without him we'll have

1:09:54

as we discussed by sort of you know

1:09:56

what we said about Sonoda Ricciardo whoever on

1:09:58

this podcast bought us They're

1:10:01

all inferior replacements so keeping Alborn

1:10:03

is critical and so

1:10:05

it's about his morale showing him

1:10:07

that he is clearly the number

1:10:09

one that they will move heaven

1:10:11

and earth that they back him.

1:10:13

That his morale is sort of probably maintaining

1:10:16

his morale as is is probably more

1:10:18

important in the even the medium term

1:10:21

let alone the long term than repairing

1:10:24

Leggins. Well I

1:10:26

was going to talk a bit

1:10:29

about constructors but I'm gonna leave that for another day apart

1:10:31

from just to say that Red Bull are on 97 points

1:10:34

Ferrari on 93 so they're not that far behind and

1:10:36

then there seems to be a bigger gap I know

1:10:38

we're only three races in etc etc McLaren are on

1:10:40

55 and then again they're

1:10:42

double the points ahead of Mercedes and

1:10:44

Aston Martin so there is starting to

1:10:46

see a bit of a reshuffling of

1:10:48

the pack behind particularly if it carries

1:10:51

on as it started but what

1:10:54

about driver of the day like I say we'll

1:10:56

talk about constructors further down the line driver of

1:10:58

the day gents just go around name your driver

1:11:00

and why let's start with you Phil. Well

1:11:03

it has to be science doesn't it with

1:11:06

the way he's come back is like I

1:11:08

said it's feel-good story and he did an

1:11:10

impeccable job for somebody that's about

1:11:13

to be out of a

1:11:15

job and out of an

1:11:17

appendix it's fantastic. I like that out

1:11:19

of an appendix. Matt?

1:11:22

No no let's go Alex first

1:11:24

and we'll finish him Matt. I

1:11:26

don't think like there is any other candidate

1:11:28

I think yeah never really

1:11:30

saw what Verstappen was able to do.

1:11:33

Sonoda probably is the only other candidate

1:11:35

I would I would suggest if I've

1:11:38

got if Phil's locked up the the

1:11:40

science element of it but yeah again

1:11:42

he was he was absolutely superb and

1:11:44

just again you just can't take away

1:11:46

the fact that bloke had

1:11:48

appendix surgery two weeks ago and he's just won

1:11:50

a Grand Prix like how fantastic is that fair

1:11:52

enough. Yeah

1:11:54

I think if we were sort of twisting

1:11:57

the truth a little bit and saying Alex was almost

1:11:59

a vote for Sonoda. and Phil was a

1:12:01

vote for signs if they were the

1:12:03

two standout candidates. Sanodia's

1:12:05

race was predicated on a stronger qualifying

1:12:07

performance. If we're talking about driver of

1:12:09

the day, it has to be signs.

1:12:11

The injury, the fact that Max Verstappen,

1:12:14

incumbent or not by a brake failure,

1:12:17

he was passed on track with a

1:12:19

proper overtake in a high-speed part of

1:12:21

the circuit. That was satisfying and thereafter

1:12:23

was sublime. So it's Karloff signs, isn't

1:12:25

it? Signs,

1:12:28

signs, signs. I think that's fairs. His third

1:12:30

ever Formula One win, and he's got three

1:12:32

votes. So that makes it nice, doesn't it?

1:12:34

It always comes full circle. Right. Now,

1:12:38

we are going to wrap this podcast up. It's been a heck

1:12:41

of a early start for all of us over here

1:12:44

in west of Europe. Matt, it was

1:12:46

a normal time for you, but it's

1:12:49

your last one, Matt. We're all going to wave goodbye

1:12:51

to you in a second. There'll be some violins and

1:12:53

all that lot playing, and we won't get to see your

1:12:55

mug on the screen or hear your voice on the podcast

1:12:57

again unless you come back. Who knows? But

1:13:00

you're off to a new challenge, a fresh

1:13:02

challenge, kind of

1:13:04

a bitchery style. It sounds a bit weird, but I'm

1:13:06

going to get both Phil and to Alex just to

1:13:08

give us a bit of an insight on what it's

1:13:11

like working with you and what it's been like being

1:13:13

with you over the last while. Let's start with you,

1:13:15

Alex. This will have to be very heavily edited, I

1:13:17

say. The thing is,

1:13:19

in the text message earlier, he did

1:13:21

describe a situation that has arisen

1:13:25

carrying on after my death,

1:13:27

as in Q-Death, as in

1:13:30

his Autosport exit. A bitchery

1:13:32

tone seems strangely

1:13:34

appropriate, but obviously we're joking

1:13:36

about serious things there. Matt,

1:13:38

you mentioned a work-life balance.

1:13:45

I can't remember if it was in the

1:13:47

podcast or on the video. I

1:13:49

Think that's one of the reasons why you

1:13:51

and I were able to work together in

1:13:54

Formula 1, is the fact that we needed

1:13:56

to have a bit more rotation amongst our

1:13:58

staff on the road. of my

1:14:00

role in Twenty Twenty and Twenty Twenty

1:14:02

One that we then stood up and

1:14:05

he just came in and absolutely smashed

1:14:07

the out the park immediately. Ah good

1:14:09

I moving into new wealthy a the

1:14:11

news row in Twenty Twenty free smash

1:14:13

not as well and get just say

1:14:15

that they have an assassin. Your work

1:14:17

speaks for yourself but just from everyone.

1:14:19

Autosport Light. Is. The company made

1:14:22

by you just you just bought

1:14:24

a fantastic energy and just as

1:14:26

the fantastic i may just too

1:14:28

many ridiculous and on broadcast who

1:14:30

laughs on as the get us

1:14:32

introducing see cuddling to the inbetweeners

1:14:34

because we're out say children ah

1:14:36

and yeah just just a admirers

1:14:38

by that is is is what

1:14:40

makes like a what candy a

1:14:42

very tiring job. Ah, Very

1:14:45

very wonderful sight just for me I

1:14:47

guess from of thanks very much. Well

1:14:51

at the risk of making mountain or

1:14:53

even taller than it already is and

1:14:56

and now for any interest of for

1:14:58

providing some balance I think is a

1:15:00

terrible human being I'm good riddance for

1:15:02

and snowy been absolutely fantastic to work

1:15:05

with him. I'm in or is complicated

1:15:07

world stout we operating sometimes and it

1:15:09

can be challenging but yeah Matt's been

1:15:11

on a path a little fantastic to

1:15:14

replace no ego of in just got

1:15:16

a job done and they will be

1:15:18

upper a place with on him no

1:15:20

doubts. Always go any type of he

1:15:22

has. Thanks And

1:15:25

you viola I'm not about how much you've

1:15:27

got an outcome of the back about a

1:15:29

not sound like he got he got charged

1:15:31

the other the other. This is gonna come

1:15:33

across the listeners but there is a massive

1:15:36

the lay of his it's the signal goes

1:15:38

round the world from from Wetzel kids were

1:15:40

matt dogs like yeah actually I hear my

1:15:42

my final bob eventually arrived in Australia. Our

1:15:46

that are good. At math they

1:15:49

go see Lovely Lovely Obe it

1:15:51

not to lovely lovely. I'm. Statements.

1:15:55

about what is like to be around you

1:15:57

very personal messages to what do you have

1:15:59

to say First

1:16:02

of all, I'm Barrassa Day. I generally

1:16:04

are not very good at being at

1:16:06

the other end of praise, I don't

1:16:08

think, but thank you both so much.

1:16:10

It's enormously, enormously kind words. It's been

1:16:12

a pleasure sailing with you. Long

1:16:15

before I joined Autosport, I was

1:16:17

an avid reader. I'm

1:16:20

not that old, but when I was reading

1:16:22

Autosport, there wasn't a podcast. I can't talk

1:16:24

about listening or watching along, but I'm leaving

1:16:27

to do something slightly different, but

1:16:30

I will remain an avid reader, watcher

1:16:33

and listener. With Alex

1:16:35

and Phil and everyone else

1:16:37

on the team, it makes Autosport the

1:16:40

best in the business. I'll

1:16:43

be watching on, but waving at

1:16:46

you guys now from the other side

1:16:48

of the catch, thinking, I

1:16:51

used to be one of

1:16:53

you, and all the excellent

1:16:55

times and anecdotes, it's been

1:17:01

absolutely fantastic in

1:17:03

working with these guys. It's been a treat,

1:17:06

so thank you both very much. There

1:17:09

you'll be on the other side of the

1:17:11

catch fence without the eye bags, and we

1:17:14

won't recognize you, but there you go. Thank

1:17:16

you very much to Matt over there in

1:17:18

Australia. Thanks to Alex and to Phil as

1:17:20

well. That just about does it for another

1:17:22

Autosport Race Review Podcast. We'll be back in

1:17:25

just over a week to preview the Japanese

1:17:27

Grand Prix, but now it's in

1:17:29

its new April slot. We've got to kind of get used

1:17:31

to it. Not as early a start as it's been for

1:17:33

us in Western Europe this time around, but it's still pretty

1:17:36

early. Like I say, thanks to the gents for their time.

1:17:38

Don't forget you can subscribe to listen to all

1:17:40

of our content, but as always, thanks for

1:17:42

listening. The

1:18:00

open only for jumper six and under the

1:18:02

little ones. Good job at their own speed

1:18:04

and cover level without. The older kids around.

1:18:07

Is. A say for now the for your tellers energy and

1:18:09

they'll be all right at home on. All of

1:18:11

the attraction was so had the

1:18:13

best nab ever afterward. Bigger Colobus

1:18:15

where the fun never as good

1:18:17

a bigger usa.com for us to

1:18:19

lobby. For details.