March 24, 2025 • 45 mins
Oscar Piastri executed his most comprehensive victory yet with a controlled performance at the Chinese Grand Prix to seal McLaren's 50th one-two finish. But was Lewis Hamilton's sprint win enough to convince Ferrari is close to challenging? Meanwhile, Red Bull Racing is at panic stations after two poor rounds from Liam Lawson, with the team seriously considering an emergency driver change.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome to Pit Talk, brought to you by Shannons.
On today's episode, Oscar Piastre claims his third Grand Prix
victory in a Shanghai Sunday cruise, and it's Hero to
zero four Ferrari, with Lewis Hamilton winning the sprint, but
both cars disqualified from the Grand Prix. My name is
Michael Lamonado. It's great to have your company and the
(00:21):
company of my co host. He's just got off the
phone with Christian Horner and he's next in line for
the Red Bull Racing drive. It's Matt Playton.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
That's actually not too far from the truth, you know.
I reckon if I actually picked the phone up and
call Christian, perhaps what he's on the set of Drive
to Survive so he can pretend he's actually speaking to
a driver lock he did with Sergioperus a few series ago.
I reckon, I'd be half a chance of being in
the top five to get a drive for that team.
But yes, that's a topic we'll discuss a little bit
later on in this podcast, and a topic we've discussed
(00:47):
once or twice before.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Yes, well, you at least know you're not last on
his list because that place is reserved for Yuki Sonoda.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Or is it home Manu.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
A bit later on we got to start, of course
with Oscar Piastre and there is to the Chinese Grand
Prix big win for him, not just in the context
of where he's increased his victory tally by fifty percent,
third win of his career, and not just because it
was such a comprehensive weekend. They sort of had to
go back and think because he's become such an established
driver so quickly that actually, well, first pole position, win
(01:18):
from pole, almost led every lap with quite a few
laps and pretty much controlled the entire race. But that
picture of the championship, and it's way too early to
talk about points. Obviously he's now ten points behind Lando Norris.
But it's that idea that if this is going to
be an all McLaren tidle battle, you definitely don't want
to be the driver starting from a long way back,
kind of like he did last year when things started
(01:40):
to enter that championship winning picture. How important do you
think it was for him to claim this victory, And
of course a week after the Australia disappointment.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
I think it was important to claim the victory for one,
I think it was important to claim a victory in
this manner. I think because you look at his previous
two wins where you know Hungary, there was all of
the team with Norris being in front after the pit stop,
and as Abaijan he was very attacking and then onto
the defensive from Charlote Claire. As we remember last year,
we've not had one of these race weekends for Oscar
(02:10):
where he's qualified really well and converted it in the
manner that these are the days that win you world
championships when you do what you're supposed to do in
the best car on the grid. We've seen that as
a tried and true recipe. So to get ahead of
Norris and qualifying for the first time I think it's
in the last nine races the first time he's outqualified him,
and then to convert that with a complete lack of fuss.
(02:31):
It was I wouldn't say an absolute thriller, bit roller
coaster right of a race, because he controlled it so
well that he didn't really give anybody else a look in.
So to my mind, it was more the way he
won it rather than that he actually won it. That
was the key. Thing, and these are the sorts of
days that make you think, right you string a few
of these together, they clearly have a car advantage. We
(02:53):
can see that after the first two rounds. These are
the days that put you in world championship contention rather
than these amazing rearguard actions or attacking drives that we
were talking about with Azerbaijahan. So an important win in
the context of how he wins races. I don't think
it's going to be the last time we see it either.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yeah, the qualifying I think point is a really important one,
considering he was belted in the qualifying head to head
by Lando last year. I think it was twenty to
four that he was defeated. That the average margin wasn't massive,
but you know, it is certainly cumulatively not a good
look for him. It was the way that he was
the faster driver at McLaren all weekend as well, that
(03:29):
I think is really important because there's there is an
unknown about Piastria. We ultimately will we all expect him
to be title contending material. We don't know, because he
hasn't been around long enough, he hasn't done it. And
Lando found that extra gear late last year when he
was theoretically in title contention, and we did also see
Oscar fade a little bit in the final rounds. He
put that down to those being those tracks he has
(03:50):
less experience at. For him to come out and comprehensively
have Lando's number this weekend, I think was really quite
a big win. And something that Team Prince and Andrea
Stella brought up after the race is that he's dominated
at a track where last year he was pretty awful. Well,
it was early in the year, obviously, similarly early as
it was this season, so you're still putting together the
(04:11):
gains he'd made in the previous year after his first
season in Formula One, but he was something like forty
seconds behind Norris at the end of the race last year,
and the tire management was no good new surface admittedly,
but same layout. Obviously. I think that for me is
almost the most interesting part of this is we got
a really good comparison into the step he appears to
(04:32):
have made this year, and if it is that big, well,
I think that sounds been really good. Stead.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
It's part of the evolution, isn't it. I Mean we
saw it in twenty twenty three and the race craft
and the ability to get his elbows out and fight
cleverly in combat has been there, and the time management
was an issue in the first year. He acknowledged that
that was where he had some problems. That improved last year.
It's still not perhaps as good as it needs to be.
That the arrow was definitely going up on that. But
(04:57):
then the thing last year was, well, you know, he
was out qualified by his teammate twenty times in twenty
four Grand Prix and that was even before McLaren had
a car. Advantage's not so much the back end of
the year. So the way he was able to put
this weekend together from really from Friday with Sprint qualifying
and then the sprint and then natural Grand Prix qualifying
on the Saturday. I like the fact that he's just
(05:18):
methodically ticking these boxes off as you go, step by step,
and you would hope that that would be the trajectory
of a driver in his third year. There's not a
lot of weaknesses in his game, and I don't want
to say that the qualifying has been a weakness. It's
a relative weakness compared to his strengths. If he starts
to get on top of that then I wouldn't say
it's the final frontier because you know, we still don't
(05:39):
know how he is in an intra team title fight,
because neither he, nor Norris or McLaren have actually been
in one for something meaningful the way this season is
shaking out. And then I think the looming specter of
the twenty twenty six rule changes is another factor here,
because there will undoubtedly be some teams that start to
turn the tap off for with twenty six looming. So
(06:00):
maybe the title fight with a number of different drivers
in a number of different teams doesn't burn quite as
long as it did last year. I could see it
shaking out to be a few drivers battling for the
big prize quite early in the season. As long as
he's one of those names, then it's a different championship
from maybe, you know, the last two thirds of the season.
But to have a weekend like these and to show
(06:22):
that perhaps this relative weakness is being worked on to
a point where it can become a strength I think
was super important for him.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
This was McLaren's fiftieth one to finish in its history,
only it's third since twenty ten with Yes Button and
Lewis Hamilton, which is I think quite illustrative of the
journey McLaren has been on the last two prior to
this one came in only the last few years, of course,
Daniel Ricardo and Landon Norris in Monza and then Hungary
last year, so it's very much been a gradual build
(06:49):
up to the position where McLaren is now capable of
at least occasionally dominating races. It could so easily have
been in Australia as well, had the weather played ball
and Osco Piastri not spun off the row. But there
is this question, and we are again only two rounds
in a sample size of only two circuits, so we
don't have all the information. But this was another race
that McLaren won from pole position. The question of the
(07:11):
advantage now perhaps as a barometer, perhaps not as a
barometer at all. The comments of George Russell, who last
week in Australia said, well, McLaren, they could stop developing
this car and they'll win both titles easily. He's up
the Ante this week and he said it is a
car with the biggest advantage of any car ever, including
all the Red bullcars that have come before it, and
that includes presumably the twenty twenty three Red bullcar, which
(07:33):
won all but one Grand Prix. Matt, that seems like
a bit of an exaggeration, but what's your gut instinct
on the team's advantage, because while this was ultimately a
straightforward race for Oscar from Pole, it didn't feel like
McLaren had it easy over the weekend.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
I thought their pace margin relative to the rest was
bigger in Australia. We just didn't really get to see
it at Park on Sunday because of how sketchy the
weather was. It felt they were more dominant there than
they were in Shanghai too. Totally different circuits as we know.
Not sure. I mean, George Russell was racing in twenty
twenty three and kept seeing the same team and certainly
the same guy winning most of them, So there's a
(08:08):
little bit of recency bias in those comments. I think
that I don't know what you thought, but I thought
they looked to have a greater advantage in Melbourne than
they did in China. But that may be a bit
circuit specific. I reckon if there was if it was
a dry weather Australian Grand Prix, I think they would
have absolutely slaughtered the rest of the field in Melbourne,
such was the advantage they had in qualifying. So we
(08:30):
probably need a greater sample size of circuits and circuits
that you can race on now, much as we love
Suzuka that's coming up in the next round, it's a
fantastic driver's track. I don't know if it's a fantastic
racing track just by virtue of the nature of the
cars are so big and wide these days. It's a
very narrow, one line, high speed, great driving challenge, not
(08:51):
maybe a great race track. So that might be a
bit of an asterisk on that one, But you look
at what's coming up after that with Bahrain and Saudi.
By the time we get to the end of round five,
you've almost got every type of track type characteristic that
you probably could see across the course of the season.
Then if Nat McLaren goes five for five to start
the season in whichever order those drivers win, then perhaps
(09:13):
Joe Russell's comments have got a little bit of weight.
But you and I sat through twenty twenty three. There
are a lot of late nights. We used to joke,
you know, to get people behind the curtain here, we
used to laugh after lap one start writing your race
report because you pretty much knew what was going to happen.
I don't think we're quite at that level of dominance yet,
but I don't think it's beyond the realms because the
car clearly seems to be good. The other teams all
(09:34):
have their various problems with drivers or consistency, and also
twenty twenty six that I mentioned before, so it could
end up being an intro team battle for the title.
But whether they have that sort of advantage that Verstappan
had in twenty twenty three, it's hard to imagine that
anyone could have that. Quite frankly, well, at.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
A minimum it'll be a competition between two drivers, not
just one. If it is, we're dominating, so you know
it's not all doom and gloom. I guess twenty there
were great seasons. There was at least one and a
half great seasons of Mercedes domination in terms of the
championship battle anyway, so there is that to look forward to.
But I think you're right. In Australia it certainly looked
like a bigger margin and there's still and it is.
(10:12):
I think there is a track specific element of this.
And Lando Norris in particular point to this, how the
car is a bit more knife edge this year and
it's a little bit easier to fall out of its
window than it was last year, because he was uncharacteristically
off the pace pretty much until Sunday, Okay, in Grand
Prix qualifying, but it really was Sunday that the car
started to come to him. So I think there's a
little question mark there. And we'll talk about Ferrari in
(10:36):
a moment. After all, they did win sprint qualifying and
the sprint race, so there's something in that. But Fred
Vassa and look, I'm not we can't talk about this
a little bit more moment, But I'm not convinced whether
or not I think this is just him defending his
team and sort of deflecting a bit, or whether I
do sort of buy into it. But he points to
the fact that at the end of last season, the
(10:56):
last four or five rounds, there was a different winner
in all of the and all of them looked dominant,
and Mercedes dominated in Vegas Ferrari, it's very convincing. Weekends
Max Withstaffan was very convincing in Katar against explanation expectations
and McLaren was relatively weak there despite having expected to
dominate that weekend. And I think in Australia it was
(11:17):
very straightforward from McLaren, even though the weather made a
little bit more difficult, and here it just looked a
little bit more marginal at various points. That makes me
think a few more tracks we might see a couple
of different performance profiles and actually realize that it's maybe
McLaren does have the quickest car, but that's not necessarily
enough to automatically win every race, and that could be enough.
(11:38):
As we know last year things can change relatively quickly.
You wouldn't have picked McLaren to have won the Constructor's
Championship at this point in twenty twenty four, so I
think it's early, but certainly those pre season expectations that
McLaren is the fastest car I think have proved to
be accurate. Matt Before we look at Ferrari and the
remarkable weekend they had. We've got to pick move of
(11:59):
the week by Shannon's because we did have some overtaking
only one weekend, only one race weekend, by the way,
at this weekend, obviously only the Formula One Grand Prix,
Moto GP on a break, so be cars on a break,
So limited number of overtakes I think to choose from,
but there were a few worthy of Move of the Week.
Do you want to kick us off?
Speaker 2 (12:17):
I was actually going to nominate term one Lap one,
but it was more a keeping of position than an overtake,
wasn't it with an Oscar Piastre squeeze George Russell on
to the inside curve there and left a nice little
gap for his teammate to sweep through to second place.
So that wasn't really classify as an overtake, but the
one for me, and it looked much better with the
offboard camera than it did the on board was Esteban
Ochon on Kimmi Antonelli down into the hairpin Lap fourteen
(12:41):
I think it was, And when you saw the off
board it was a Ochon had two wheels on the
grass and managed to keep the car a in a
straight line and made you manage to make the move
stick at a hairpin where well we know it's a
good place to hit people careering down the inside. I
seem to remember a very young Max for Staff and
doing that to sebascinnivisual back in the day, but you know,
probably the galand or a really really good weekend for hearts,
(13:04):
which is not something that we're saying this time seven
days ago. But to my mind, that was an outstanding
move by Look, we know what Ocon's like in battle.
He's one of the guys that you know what you're
going to get and it's going to be pretty robust
and there's going to be some elbows out. But to
make that stick on a Mercedes was a little bit
compromise that had some damage, as we know, but to
my mind that was the overtaker of the Grand Prix.
(13:25):
I'd be curious to see if you're going to argue
with me on this one.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
No, I look, I quite like that one. It was
a very oc on move, wasn't it to just put
wheels on the grass and hope it was going to
be fine and be a part of me? When I
saw that, I was like, oh, this is not going
to be fine. Pulled it off. Must have done a
bit of an off road track walk on the Wednesday
to just double check the quality of the run off
there and well executed it arguably bit unnecessary down the
straight but look, you got it done and you can't
(13:49):
argue with that. I'm going to nominate probably similar. Actually
we've both picked overtakes on drivers that have damaged cars.
But Max Vestafan's move on Charlotte Claire laid in the
race turns one, two, and three. I just really liked
that he was forced. It's rare to be forced to
the outside at all parts of this three part corner
or complex, if you like. He had to take the
(14:10):
outside of turn one because Charlott Clair defended the inside line.
At turn two, they both ended up on the outside.
He switched to what then became the outside of turn
three and still got it done. They had a bit
of a car advantage at that point because, for reasons
he couldn't explain, his Red Bull Racing card suddenly was
quicker late in the race when it certainly wasn't the
first half of the race, and Leclaire was cambering damage
(14:31):
that well. Actually, despite the damage he's cast seemed to
be pretty quick in the first half of the race,
So a lot of mysterious performance factors at play there,
But I just liked the little bit of racecraft between
him could so easily have been a crash at turn
two when they both ended up wide but well navigated
by both, and Max got a result that I think
he didn't expect. I'm not sure who will give you.
I don't know if we're obliged to give it to anyone.
(14:52):
I think we're allowed to have two. I'd have two
moves of the week.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
No, they can share it. It might be the only
thing Max for step at wins for a while, so
perhaps he can. He can half of it. Mister man
knock one can have the other half.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Doesn't share too often either, So a dual Move of
the Week by Shannons this week, let's move on now,
Matt to Ferrari and Lewis Hamilton. This was very much
the good news story a few days ago, but twenty
four hours later not such a good news story, because
right I looked like the ultimate bounce back from Australia,
didn't it, with Lewis Hamilton taking that sprint pole position
(15:23):
and then on Saturday sprint victory, which annoys me because
has he won his first race for Ferrari? I don't know.
I don't know where we sit on that, because on
Sunday he definitely didn't win his first cron free for Ferrari,
pace was again nowhere. He was slower than Leclaire, even
though the Claire had this damaged front wing. A bit
of a kerfuffle with radio, although that seemed to be
more about broadcast. They did to be about the team
(15:45):
and came home fairly anonymously, one of the few to
stop twice in Lewis Hamilton's case. Charlotte there stopped on
any once and they ended up roughly the same place
on the road. So not an ideal conclusion to this weekend.
Ferrari is still obviously pointing towards the performance on Saturday,
and we'll talk about double disqualification that put a very
much a punctuation mark at the end of this Grand
(16:06):
Prix for them. But I don't know, is this a
positive weekend for Ferrari? What what are we meant to
think about?
Speaker 2 (16:12):
It was Ferrari's Gennaro Gattuso weekend, wasn't it?
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Look it up?
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Kids? If you ah, I had to slip that in
there somewhere, But I think the did he win it's
a sprint? Oh no, it doesn't count. I think the
only thing that annoys you bore is when they start
issuing half points places that they go the full distance.
See a decimal place in the points table is something
that gives you the errits. But look, it was such
a I am confused. I mean I'm confused, they're confused.
(16:39):
I'm confused by what Ferrari are doing at the moment
because when it's good, it actually looks really accomplished and repeatable.
And there was absolutely no doubt that Hamilton was going
to win that sprint, and where it was jarring, it's like, oh, yeah,
Lewis Hamilton's winning a sprint, never won a sprint before,
which was a bizarre stat that came up. But also
doing it in a Ferrari, it looked very normal. Yeah,
(17:00):
that looks pretty polished, pretty normal. We're expecting to see this,
really excited to see what they're going to do in
the Grand Prix, and then it just didn't happen. So
the swings in performance are pretty wild at the moment.
I thought that the Cleare drive on Sunday was pretty typical.
Charlotte Claire really in that really dogged and determined in
(17:20):
a car that was compromised two corners into the race
after hitting his own teammates, which was not fantastic. But
it's so hard to read where they are because to
my mind they're the team with the biggest variants at
the moment, and I think when it's good, they can
genuinely be really, really good. I think when it's good,
they can be faster than Mercedes. But we just haven't
(17:41):
seen it on a Sunday yet. But I'm just so
I'm not underwhelmed because I think there's a good promise
there for them. But it is really confusing, isn't it,
with what they've done in these first couple of race weekends.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Yeah, I think for me the telling aspect of this
that doesn't really decode to what's happened, but gives maybe
a little bit of context, is that up until Sunday,
maybe even Saturday night. But let's say Sunday, Lewis Hamilton
was the faster Ferrari driver, contrary to expectations. Then again,
he's always been really good at this circuit, but considering
that he just looked comprehensively off the pace, not by
(18:12):
a lot, but comprehensively in Australia made that a little
bit of a surprise. But then by the time we
got to Sunday, that dynamic had very much reversed. Charlotte
Clair had made the changes he needed for the car
to be faster even with the damad's front wing, which
I think there's a lot and Lewis said afterwards, look, heah,
we felt really good in the sprint. We made changes
that we thought were going to work, not only for
the evolving track conditions, et cetera, but that we thought
(18:33):
was going to make the car better, and he incidentally
made the car worse. I think that speaks to him
still not understanding how to set up this car. You know,
we often find this when teams, when drivers changed teams
to get those final few percent, to know which levers
to pull, to know what configurations to change is difficult.
Charlotte Birkley knew which ones to pull at least to
improve his form, but Lewis ended up going backwards. So
(18:55):
I think that at least explains a little bit of
why the inter team result was on predictable. But you're right,
it's a car that a car that looked that convincing
on Saturday shouldn't have been so anonymous on Sunday in
normal circumstances. I guess that also maybe speaks to this
being the last year of the regulations, these rules, I
don't know. Do you asked me the second half of
(19:16):
last year, should we keep these rules longer? I would
have said, well, obviously yes, because the competition seems so close,
that's what you want. But it does feel like we
might be entering into a little bit of random territory.
We know these cars are really peaky, and if we're
going from not even weekend to weekend, but day to day,
and even the teams aren't sure how their cars are
going to perform. I mean, on the one hand, you
(19:37):
could argue, well, that's pretty exciting. Who knows he's going
to win, But it's sort of I don't know a
little bit in two minds about it, but it sort
of makes you think, well, maybe we are really at
the end of life of these rules, because no one
seems to understand why the cars work or don't work.
So I think there's a little bit of that at
play in Ferrari as well. But they insist, you know,
as I said earlier, Fred Bastin says, well, look, you know,
(19:58):
next week we could dominate, and then who knows what
the story is going to be, and that won't and
I like it. Even that won't be convincing, you know.
After the split race he sort of said, oh, I
don't understand why we've won. We need to go and
figure it out. I think that kind of just sums
it up for Ferrari in my mind. And things really
only got worse after that, though, didn't they Because it
wasn't just about the bad performance. It was a double disqualification.
You're more You're more of a history buff than I
(20:19):
am in Formula one, so I want to ask you
this question. I don't know the answer to it, so
please don't feel pressure. When was the last time a
team had two cars disqualified but for different reasons.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
What you're politely saying is that I'm considerably older than you,
which is correct. Yeah. Look, honestly, when that happened that
my first thought was go straight to Sean Kelly, Yeah,
and try and find out what's going on with this,
Because at virtual stapmads you go to with things like this.
I can remember Ferrari cars being disqualified, but not both
in the same race and for different reasons. I'm sure
(20:51):
Sean will come back and say in the nineteen fifty
eight non championship Targer Florio or something or other. He'll
have something at the moment. It's just so bizarrely. Look,
I remember Laclure getting disqualified in the USGP was at
twenty twenty three. I think it was a similar situation,
was like, and I think Hamilton was disqualified that day too,
(21:12):
but they were teammates of course at that point. But
maybe that's what I'm thinking of. But it's such a
bizarre thing to have two cars thrown out of Frankly,
Ferrari doesn't get out of bed to finish fifth and six.
So I don't think they're going to be crying too
much about it, other than the fact that they're now
fifth in the Constructor's Championship, equal with Williams, which is
another story. But after the race, look the underweight thing.
(21:33):
You can see how that may have happened for the
clear when this race became a one stop. It was
a little bit like George Russell at SPA last year,
wasn't it when what looked to be a nailed on
two stop ended up being a one stop tie? Where
is such that perhaps that had a factor in the
car coming so close to being the minimum weight but
being underneath it. So maybe that was a factor there.
(21:55):
The plank where thing to my mind with Hamilton's car,
is that not just a byproduct of you only have
one practice session, you're straight into sprint qualifying on Friday.
You don't get to do that really extensive long running
that you normally do it a Friday FP too, and
teams are always a little bit underdone on these sprint
weekends and it's not a case of cross your figures
and hope for the best, but they certainly don't have
(22:16):
anywhere near the amount of data running to put something
like that to bed, because I think that's something that
you would have determined, perhaps in a longer practice session
on the Friday and adjusting your right heights accordingly. But
it's funny these things, whether it's a coincidence or not,
these things tend to happen on sprint weekends, don't they.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Yes, well, I was going to say exactly that, Like,
I don't think it's such a coincidence to say that
that's probably what's happened here, even though when it happened
in twenty twenty three to both Mercedes and Ferrari, and
there were suspicions a lot of other cars that weren't
checked probably had the same problem at that time. You
couldn't ad just set up after FP one or after
sprint qualifying. Now you can, like you say, you have
limited data to make those changes. Anyway, it's only really
(22:56):
the sprint race, which is much shorter than Grand Prix,
so it's not like you have that validation time. So
I think you're right. It's not that surprising, but it is.
I mean, it says two things, right. It says Ferrari's
pushing really hard to try and understand a car to
get the most out of the car, when they know
maybe they don't have the capacity to build in a margin.
Considering both cars were disqualified for reasons, you'd say, what
(23:16):
to summit up Lewis Hamilin's cars run a little bit
too low and the curse cars run with a little
bit too much too little ballast is fundamentally whatever it is,
whatever reason the miscalculation was made, they were clearly pushing
hard against those limits. But to make that, to make
both mistakes on the same weekend, I think it's obviously
a bad loock to have both cars disqualified. But it's
(23:38):
just a little bit after Australia, where I think we
sort of said, oh, this is a bit had a
bit of a rough weekend execution wise, Well, this can
only be considered much worse if we're talking about Ferrari execution.
I think if this is going to be a title
contending year, I mean, obviously the loss of points this
weekend is going to count against them, but this kind
of execution style is going to count against them. It's
not as bad as McLaren was last year, but I
(23:59):
can't but think maybe they are at least a year
behind McLaren on that trajectory of becoming a championship ready team,
because so far from what we've seen from McClaren against
only two weekends and a lot and change, but they've
been really slick in that regard, really polished in a
way they weren't last year. It feels like Ferrari is
now putting up against that ceiling of needing to find
that next level in terms of preparation, and they're tripping
(24:23):
up on all the same Ferrari hurdles we've become used
to them a few years ago.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Well that's the key thing, isn't it, Because it's Ferrari.
We talk about this through a completely different prison because
we've seen what pre Vassur Ferrari was like. It was
pretty calamitous, pretty regularly calamitous. So I'm not saying it's
a revisit to the bad old days of how it
was before he took over, but there's definitely echoes of it.
And if this sort of thing happens to other teams,
(24:49):
I think we're having a really different discussion. It's because
it's Ferrari, and you know they clearly you look at
the driver lineup and the pedigree and where they should be. Look,
I mean, do we really stickly think their championship contenders
this year? No, but I think the building blocks of
what they do this year they need to clean all
this sort of stuff up because there is an opportunity
next year by virtue of the fact that we've got
(25:10):
this big regulation reset. They need to be completely on
it now. If you're going to be making mistakes the
first two rounds of a season, you know it's better
now than later, perhaps, But you don't want to have
too many more weekends like this because it feels like
they're kind of beating themselves to a point at the
moment and not achieving the results they should be for
things that they can control, and that's what you've got
(25:31):
to try and clean up.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
All right, Let's look at the big well on and
off track story this week, and that is Red Bull Racing.
Another fine week well not fine, it's not what they want,
but fine weekend for Max withstaffn finished third and the
sprint forth in the Grand Prix. With that, as we mentioned,
unexpectedly reasonable pace late in the Grand Prix to pass
both Ferrari drivers and finish better than I think you expected.
(25:54):
But that he says, the car deserves, but it's the
car and the other car that is the talking point,
both the quality of the car and the driver in
the other car. Because Liam Lawson had another weekend to
forget twentieth in both qualifying sessions, failed to score in
either race. I mean it's not great, a good start.
Actually I enjoyed this one. Was that's the worst two
rounds of qualifying consecutively any drive in Red Bull history
(26:16):
has ever had. The closest was David Coulthard in two
thousand and six or seven when he qualified seventeenth and
nineteenth consecutively, So not quite as bad as eighteenth and twentieth,
but close. But was obviously a long time before Red
Bull had any kind of expectations to be a good team.
So it's not great whichever way you cut it. Alarmingly,
(26:37):
Matt though, we're not even two full weeks into this
season yet, two rounds into this season, and already Red
Bull Racing is considering dropping Liam Lawson. I mean they couldn't,
could they?
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Yes, they could because they're red I mean you mentioned,
you know the quality of the driver in the second
car and the performance of the second car. If this
podcast existed in twenty nineteen, you could have said that
exact same sentence. Because this is Red Bull Racing's Daniel
Riccardo problem, and I've framed it as this a couple
of times before, and people look at him and say,
what are you talking about. They have not found a
(27:13):
competent second driver in that team since Riccardo left at
the end of twenty eighteen. This has been a problem
that you use the analogy of kicking the can down
the road. I'm not sure how much is left of
his can at this point. Are so scuffed by bitchuman,
but they've just kept booting this thing down the road
for year after year after year. Before we go down
that path, Can I just say something nice about Red Bull,
(27:33):
because I think we should probably temper it a little bit.
Max Verstappen is driving incredibly well at the moment given
what it is that he has to drive, what he's
doing in that car. He's second in the World Championship.
Now he's not probably going to stay there. But what
he's achieving with what he's been given to drive right
now is absolutely outstanding. So if I had a hat,
I would be tipping it to Max Forstappen right now.
(27:56):
But this second car in your original question, they couldn't
drive Billy and Lawson after two races, could they? They couldn't.
Probably would like to hand on heart. Yes it's bad.
It's really bad at the moment. And you know there's
all the caveats about he'd never raced anything in Melbourne,
he went to Shanghai a million years ago, so on
(28:17):
and so forth, compared to how long they hung on
to Sergio Perez, where it was demonstrably bad that it
cost them two places in the Constructors Championship in the
year they won the Driver's World Championship. For Lawson to
be on the chopping block after two races is completely insane,
for one, and completely in keeping with what an absolute
(28:39):
rabble this driver pipeline has turned into. And while I'm
on my soap box here, this could be like a
ten minute monologue. So they put the catalog. This is
the bit that I don't get right. I'm going to
bounce this off. This is a bit I don't get
Red Bull has two teams. Theoretically they have double the
chance of any other team of getting this right because
they have a pool of four drivers can put in
(29:00):
Formula one seats and not two. For this to be
a worse situation than any other team at finding two
competent drivers is absolutely crazy to me. You've literally got
almost an unfair advantage in air quotes to get this
more right than every other team, and you routinely get
it wrong year after year after year, and the same
(29:22):
people are in the same management positions, and we have
the same conversation. Would it be very harsh on lem
laws and to get the boot after two rounds, particularly
with A we've got tripleheader coming up. B We're off
to Suzuka next, so there's none of this. He hasn't
driven here, He's done a full season of super Formula.
He knows Suzuka really well. He has raced in Formula
one there and being good. It would be bonkers to
(29:44):
get rid of him before the next race. And what
are you going to do if you do get rid
of him, You're going to put Yuki Sonoda in there,
who you've basically told for five years isn't competent to
be the second driver next to Max Ofastappan. That's a
very very long winded way of saying. Is it insane
that they could drop Lawson? Yes? Do I'm more than
half expected to happen given that team's track record. Also, yes,
(30:06):
but I'll climb down off my site box and give
you a go on it. How are you reading this situation?
Because after what they did last year with Perez, I
thought keeping him on was possibly the silliest thing they've
ever done for as long as they did, but this
might actually top it if they get rid of Lawson
after two weekends.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Yeah. I think it's just pure panic at this point,
isn't it, Because there's no rational reason to drop him.
Obviously hasn't scored any points and so you can say, well,
there's a championship reason to do it. But it's so
early that you can only describe this as panic. I
think if they do bring if they bring Yuki Sonoda in,
it is one of the great monumental political batflicks backflips
(30:44):
in formud one history. Because, as you said, for years now,
they've told him he's not going to do it. He said,
he got phone. You've got three different phone calls when
Liam Lawson got the drive from various Red Bull management
figures explaining to him that oh, you know, it's this
and that, telling him essentially in a bunch of different ways,
that they just don't want him. Christian Horner called him
the perennial bridesmaid last year and said essentially that he'd
be dropped at the end of this year because there's
(31:06):
no reason for them to keep him because he's never
getting a Red Bull Racing.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
Drive and no Hondolins either.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Yes, and even Honda has now said well, at this
point it's sort of up to him and it'll be
interesting to see how that evolves, depending what happens the
next couple of weeks. So the idea that he might
get the drive now is just it is absurd. It's absurd.
The point Red Bull has put itself in here, but
it's a problem, as you've said, completely of its own making.
(31:31):
Had a lot of decisions to make in the middle
of last year, and you can't help but wonder we've
sort of run through some of the scenarios in the
background of this at an article at Fox sports dot
Com at a usually go and read that was published
on Monday afternoon last year. It decided suddenly that it
would retain Sir Joe Perrys in August at the mid
season break after a pretty terrible run into the mid
(31:51):
season break that continued after it. That subsequently meant Daniel
Ricardo was sacked after a few more rounds at the
Singapore Grand Prix. We all remember, we sh meant Liam
Lawson was brought in for a few races to for
a reason that really in retrospect isn't clear, because clearly
they weren't going to put Yuki Sinoda in the seat.
They already knew that Lawson was quick enough to be
in Formula one and that seems to have been the
(32:12):
only criteria to get the promotion once Pais was dropped
at the end of the year. But as a result,
several things happened, right They were on a trajectory to
put a driver with eleven Grand Prix into a Red
Bull Racing seat the hardest in Formula One, not only
because their teammates with Max, but because the car is
so difficult to drive, and was so difficult to drive
last year that even Max couldn't drive it. Let's not
forget for a few races around about the Italian Grand
(32:33):
Prix even he said this is too much, and clearly
the progress this year has been minimal on that front.
It dispensed with the only experienced driver in its lineup
that has a history of success at Red Bull Racing,
which was Daniel Ricardo. Now we can argue about whether
or not a driver who failed to adapt to the
Claren car and was okay against Yuki Sinoda would have
been able to cut it. You could also argue, though,
(32:54):
on the other hand, that well, that's where he's driving
style was developed in cars built by Red Bull, so
surely having brought him back to racing balls or whatever
it was called at the time, he was worth a crack,
considering that at this point they were at the bottom
of the batrel with no decisions to make. But then,
most of all, the driver that they've spent millions in
developing with Honda, they've continued to let wither on the vine.
(33:15):
It's almost like they've chosen the most difficult option and
had hoped that that would be enough that they'd pull
it out of the bag. That would be a miracle move.
But it just doesn't make any sense that the logical
decision making there. And I think there's also another element here,
And I thought it was interesting that Liam himself sort
of pointed to it on Sunday night. He didn't use
(33:35):
his excuse. He's been really trying to front up and
cop all the responsibility in the blame. And I guess
not a lot else you can do when you're qualifying last.
But he said, compared to all the other rookie drivers
who've had in some cases thousands of kilometers of testing
in previous editions of their team's cars, And think of
Andre kim Antonelli year, even Jack Do and a few others,
(33:56):
despite him being a red bull driver, he's had almost
none the odd test here and there. Often they've been
in Alpha TAWI or RV or racing bulls cars when
you want to call them. So there's a Minati thrown
in there as well, but didn't have that testing program.
I mean the car that is now notoriously difficult to drive,
and after only not even one and a half days
(34:17):
of preseason testing, considering he lost a lot of his
sole day to both weather and technical problems. Remarkably, that
is a pretty difficult position to be in. And you know, okay,
there's all those people have to say. Oh, you know,
if one's not a finishing school and you're not on anything,
you've got to be the finished product whatever. That's a
pretty raw way to come into a team that expects,
probably against realistic expectations, to try and win both championships
(34:40):
this year. So it's a rough way to be But
I think whatever way you cut it, Red Bull Racing
has continuously, through its decision making, made this problem for
itself and now it's panicking and doesn't know what to
do about it.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
Panic's a good word, by the way, f one's not
a finishing school, thank you, Mark Webber, one of his
favorite sayings. So if that's the case, maybe maybe signed
Carlos Science when he's available. He'd probably be a pretty
decent candidate for that second seat. But that's another story.
But your point on Lawson not being able to just
hammer around a bunch of testing tracks like Antonelli did
last year is really valid, and you do wonder that
(35:16):
there's no pace or statistical justification for having Ricardo in
the car for the back half of last year. If
they'd gotten rid of Perez at the mid season break,
which was being mooted, at least we would have got
some sort of decision on whether Daniel was the right
person for the job if you put him in for that.
Because the Constructors Championship was toased at that point, that
wasn't happening, So I'm not really sure what you're going
(35:37):
to lose by actually finding out whether he could adapt
to that car. You had probably a seven or eight
race sample size. The answer, based on the evidence that
we've seen before, was probably not. But then at least
Lawson gets to do all of the getting all the
bugs out and doing all that outside of the spotlight,
like Antonelli did, like Jack Doing did. As you mentioned,
maybe that was the right course of action in retrospect,
(35:57):
but this is the question. So say they make the
swap for Suzuka and Yuki Sonoda, who they've publicly rejected
a thousand times at this point ends up in the
seat next to a Stappan. Why is he going to
do any better in a car that's clearly got its
limitations and is clearly going to be difficult to drive
for anyone else other than one of the best drivers
in the history of Formula One. And the parallel that
(36:21):
I'll make here taking two wheels off here and putting
my motor GP hat on is We only really found
out how bad Honda was when Mark Marskeys got injured
in twenty twenty, because he papered over the cracks of
where that bike was going developmentally for the latter part
of the twenty tens and just kept winning world championships
because he was Mark Marquez. And as soon as he
got injured and was not himself for the best part
(36:43):
of four years, that bike and that program went absolutely nowhere.
It was probably hiding in plain sight, but he was
so brilliant that he was papering over the cracks. And
you look at what Vstapan's done at Red Bull the
last couple of years, yes, twenty twenty three. It was
clearly a fantastic car, so fantastic in fact, that even
Sergia Perez WANs and races in it, but as soon
as it became a difficult car. We saw what he
(37:05):
did last year, particularly in the back half of last year.
That's not a championship that too many other drivers would
have won last year, and I think that's where you
see his quality. The fact that he's scratching around trying
to get random fourth places out of a car that's
clearly more difficult this year than last shows you a
how good he is and b how much that car
has lost its way. So if you stick Yuki Sonoda
(37:25):
in there, or Christian Horner wakes up one morning and says,
let's get Avid Lindbladd in here, let's get him a
super license, or they go and get Valterie Botass off
the Mercedes bench or something to put in that second car,
why is it going to be any better than Lawson,
who a few weeks ago they were investing in him
and they were going to give him time. I go
back to what I said originally, he has got to
(37:47):
be in the car for Suzuka because that takes one
variable off the table. He knows the circuit probably better
than any circuit on the Formula one calendar, and he
raced there before. If it's this bad again after Suzuka,
then knock yourself out. Fine, somebody else to put that
second seat. The question is if it's not him, then
who is it?
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Yeah? And if they do make the swap and Yuki
so to qualify as eighteenth at his first race, then
what do you do? What do you do after that?
And I think that's the more philosophical, the deeper question here,
And to return to your Honda analogy, because I think
it is a really good one and it's interesting that
we have two, i think, very similar examples in two
(38:24):
different sports. If Maxwstaffen were to leave the team at
the end of the season, as is often being rumored,
are you going to tell me that whoever replaces him
alongside Liam Lass? And Nuki said, whoever are going to
be qualifying this car? Okay, we're different rules next year,
but whatever, just at the back and we'll just have
to assume that Red Bull Racing is a midfield at
(38:44):
best car when in the hands of someone like maximstaff
and it's capable of finishing on the podium. It's a
question that Red Bull Racing has to grapple with and
it's sort of interesting because next year's car is all
theoretical at this point, right, but it's being built by
the same people we've seen in the past. Similar characteristics
carry across even quite significant regulation changes, even if the
car ultimately behaves in a different way. What guarantees there
(39:06):
that you build a car that isn't as extreme to
drive as this because this is all you've known for
the last now what is it seven or eight years
since Daniel left, probably including the last year or two
of Daniel's career there. I think that that is a
bigger question for Red Bull Racing because the second that,
like Honda learned, the second your main guy leaves, you're
in a lot of trouble and you were on the
back foot and you were possibly years away from returning
(39:28):
to where you thought you were because you only have
access to drivers who are not the greatest of the generation.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
Well, Marquees was world chairmaned in twenty nineteen, hurt himself
in the first race of twenty twenty and missed the
rest of that season, and Honda has not fired a
shot since. Marquez won a few races when he came
back with one working shoulders because he's Mark Marquez and
there were a few anti clockwise tracks in there, and
Alex Rinz won one race for them in twenty twenty three,
and they have basically been nowhere for six years. To
(39:55):
think of a manufacturer that just won Constructors championships for
fun in that s for so many years. You think
of that repsol hon the bike and all the amazing
riders that rode on it, and they've been an absolute
after thought since the one difference maker they had was
first injured and second left. And this is the conundrum
that Red Bull is now in because you look at
these other teams. McLaren's got this settle driver lineup of
(40:18):
two guys on a similar age range and trajectory. Ferrari
has Charla Clair, who's the peer of that generation and
the greatest driver statistically in world championship history as his teammate,
and Mercedes says Antonelli, who's eighteen and clearly the future,
and George Russell's not half bad either. But it's just
such a mess. But as you said before, it's a
mess of its own making, and you do wonder what
(40:41):
the course of action needs to be now so publicly
go against what they said about laws and so soon
into a twenty four race season where he hasn't had
a chance to drive circuits that he's actually raced on before.
Would be completely crazy, but because it's them, I'll actually
believe it.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
If it happens, only team you'd believe. And of course
it wouldn't be a driver market situation without Franco Colopindo's
name being mentioned only very briefly here, but reports out
of Spain suggests that Red Book could be returning to
that well is of course the reserve driver at Alpine.
I think there's probably more of a contract play there,
just reinforcing to Alpine, which I think. I don't know
if you'd say they've been impressed with Jack Douhan, but
(41:20):
certainly with his speed because he's been a match pretty
much with pire gasllyin qualifying. No has a pretty ordinary
set of races in China, but nonetheless has been quick.
You know, if you're Franco Colopindo's management thinking, oh, actually,
hang on, it might be in a little bit of
trouble here because Franco was quick, but he wasn't, by
any stretch outstandingly quick. Maybe you're just saying, well, we've
got options if you're not going to promote us and
our sponsors to the main seat.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
So I'm just scratching Franco Colopinto off my podcast Bingo
kar because we're contractually obliged to mention him. But the
curiosity for me, so if he ends up in a
Red Ball, so if.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
You wouldn't rually going to straight to Red Bull Racing
either or you're considering.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
Very possibly, But who's getting the transfer payment there? Given
he's a Williams driver on loan to alp and he'll
be on loan to Red Bull at this point, Colopino
might just drive for every team between now the end
of the season.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
He's the ultimate subletting situation. Decision could be made as
soon as this week, or we might be hanging out
to Japan. Who knows. Maybe Red Bull just choose not
to turn up and answer no questions as a result.
I'll wait and see, But that does seem like a
timely time to make a couple of big predictions. Thanks
to our complete home filtration Crystal Ball, we've got a
(42:28):
couple of established rules. Now. I guess you can make
any prediction you like next week, next month. Twenty twenty
nine f one Supercarsman and GP. Whatever you want, so
why don't you kick us off? Matt? What's your bold prediction?
Speaker 2 (42:39):
I am looking ahead to this tripleheader with Japan, Bahrain
and Saudi Arabia. The last two horrible time zone for
Australian fans, one for the enthusiast. Japan's fantastic because it's Japan.
I don't think McLaren's going to win the first five
races of the season, and I think they're going to
lose one of these next three races in Japan, bar
Rain and Saudi. And my prediction is that standing on
(43:00):
the top step of the podium, because of their mercurial
form at the moment, is going to be a Ferrari driver.
I think charlote Clare's going to win one of those
three bases.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
Nice I like it a lot. I'm going to go
with also one for this triple header, but specifically the
Japanese Grand Prix. I'm not going to predict this Red
Bull driver situation because good luck with that. A mug's
game with Red Bull, but I am going to predict
that regardless of the team, Yukisy Nota will stand on
the podium at his homegrown prox. Oh wow, you can
(43:28):
decide why or what happens. I haven't looked at the
weather forecast in Japan, but I just think regardless of
whether he's either going to get to Red Bull and
he's having a great time because he's in such good
form and I think he's got the right I think, weirdly,
he's got the right mindset as a result of all
the shenanigans that have happen in the last twelve months.
I think he's just sort of stealed himself with this
(43:48):
being his lot and he's just got to make the
most of it. But on the other hand, he's been
in really great form, even for racing bulls, you know.
I like that. Max sort of suggested, well, they're pretty
close to me, and it shows you how much easy
the car is to drive. You know, it'll be interesting.
I don't know if the car is going to suit
the circuit, but I just think he's been doing such
a good job of kind of proving Red Bull wrong
(44:08):
and I think it's gonna be the ultimate performance one
way or another.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
I do like that, and I would like it even
more if it was in a racing bulls car rather
than a Red bull Car because you look at the
Constructors Championship after these first two rounds, to see them
down where they are and only three points is absolutely
no way representative of how fast that team's been so far.
You look at both Sonoda and Hadji were both really
quick in China. The car actually looks like something that's
(44:31):
predictable and you can get a lap time out of
They just have been incredibly unlucky with crash damage, a
few operational erarors and what have you, so a big result.
They kind of feel due for that. But wow, a
Japanese driver on our home podium. I was there the
last time that happened, Kamu Kobe Ashy, and I know
that you'll be in Suzuka. Seeing a Japanese driver on
their home podium is one of the great joys of
(44:52):
covering international motorsports. So for your sake, I hope it
comes true.
Speaker 1 (44:55):
Yes, I'd love to see it. A great story the way,
but that's all the time. We have a pit Talk today.
You can subscribe to Pittalk wherever you get your favorite podcast,
and you can leave us a rating and a review
as well. This weekend, a reminder is the America's Grand Prix.
That's six am Eastern daylight time on Monday, or even better,
the sprint is at seven am on Sunday morning. Very civil.
You can keep up to date with all the latestef one,
(45:15):
Supercars and MotoGP news at foxsports dot com dot au.
From Matt Clayton and me, Michael Lomonado. Thanks very much
for your company. We'll catch you next week.
Hello, and welcome to Pit Talk, brought to you by Shannons.
On today's episode, Oscar Piastre claims his third Grand Prix
victory in a Shanghai Sunday cruise, and it's Hero to
zero four Ferrari, with Lewis Hamilton winning the sprint, but
both cars disqualified from the Grand Prix. My name is
Michael Lamonado. It's great to have your company and the
(00:21):
company of my co host. He's just got off the
phone with Christian Horner and he's next in line for
the Red Bull Racing drive. It's Matt Playton.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
That's actually not too far from the truth, you know.
I reckon if I actually picked the phone up and
call Christian, perhaps what he's on the set of Drive
to Survive so he can pretend he's actually speaking to
a driver lock he did with Sergioperus a few series ago.
I reckon, I'd be half a chance of being in
the top five to get a drive for that team.
But yes, that's a topic we'll discuss a little bit
later on in this podcast, and a topic we've discussed
(00:47):
once or twice before.
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Yes, well, you at least know you're not last on
his list because that place is reserved for Yuki Sonoda.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Or is it home Manu.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
A bit later on we got to start, of course
with Oscar Piastre and there is to the Chinese Grand
Prix big win for him, not just in the context
of where he's increased his victory tally by fifty percent,
third win of his career, and not just because it
was such a comprehensive weekend. They sort of had to
go back and think because he's become such an established
driver so quickly that actually, well, first pole position, win
(01:18):
from pole, almost led every lap with quite a few
laps and pretty much controlled the entire race. But that
picture of the championship, and it's way too early to
talk about points. Obviously he's now ten points behind Lando Norris.
But it's that idea that if this is going to
be an all McLaren tidle battle, you definitely don't want
to be the driver starting from a long way back,
kind of like he did last year when things started
(01:40):
to enter that championship winning picture. How important do you
think it was for him to claim this victory, And
of course a week after the Australia disappointment.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
I think it was important to claim the victory for one,
I think it was important to claim a victory in
this manner. I think because you look at his previous
two wins where you know Hungary, there was all of
the team with Norris being in front after the pit stop,
and as Abaijan he was very attacking and then onto
the defensive from Charlote Claire. As we remember last year,
we've not had one of these race weekends for Oscar
(02:10):
where he's qualified really well and converted it in the
manner that these are the days that win you world
championships when you do what you're supposed to do in
the best car on the grid. We've seen that as
a tried and true recipe. So to get ahead of
Norris and qualifying for the first time I think it's
in the last nine races the first time he's outqualified him,
and then to convert that with a complete lack of fuss.
(02:31):
It was I wouldn't say an absolute thriller, bit roller
coaster right of a race, because he controlled it so
well that he didn't really give anybody else a look in.
So to my mind, it was more the way he
won it rather than that he actually won it. That
was the key. Thing, and these are the sorts of
days that make you think, right you string a few
of these together, they clearly have a car advantage. We
(02:53):
can see that after the first two rounds. These are
the days that put you in world championship contention rather
than these amazing rearguard actions or attacking drives that we
were talking about with Azerbaijahan. So an important win in
the context of how he wins races. I don't think
it's going to be the last time we see it either.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yeah, the qualifying I think point is a really important one,
considering he was belted in the qualifying head to head
by Lando last year. I think it was twenty to
four that he was defeated. That the average margin wasn't massive,
but you know, it is certainly cumulatively not a good
look for him. It was the way that he was
the faster driver at McLaren all weekend as well, that
(03:29):
I think is really important because there's there is an
unknown about Piastria. We ultimately will we all expect him
to be title contending material. We don't know, because he
hasn't been around long enough, he hasn't done it. And
Lando found that extra gear late last year when he
was theoretically in title contention, and we did also see
Oscar fade a little bit in the final rounds. He
put that down to those being those tracks he has
(03:50):
less experience at. For him to come out and comprehensively
have Lando's number this weekend, I think was really quite
a big win. And something that Team Prince and Andrea
Stella brought up after the race is that he's dominated
at a track where last year he was pretty awful. Well,
it was early in the year, obviously, similarly early as
it was this season, so you're still putting together the
(04:11):
gains he'd made in the previous year after his first
season in Formula One, but he was something like forty
seconds behind Norris at the end of the race last year,
and the tire management was no good new surface admittedly,
but same layout. Obviously. I think that for me is
almost the most interesting part of this is we got
a really good comparison into the step he appears to
(04:32):
have made this year, and if it is that big, well,
I think that sounds been really good. Stead.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
It's part of the evolution, isn't it. I Mean we
saw it in twenty twenty three and the race craft
and the ability to get his elbows out and fight
cleverly in combat has been there, and the time management
was an issue in the first year. He acknowledged that
that was where he had some problems. That improved last year.
It's still not perhaps as good as it needs to be.
That the arrow was definitely going up on that. But
(04:57):
then the thing last year was, well, you know, he
was out qualified by his teammate twenty times in twenty
four Grand Prix and that was even before McLaren had
a car. Advantage's not so much the back end of
the year. So the way he was able to put
this weekend together from really from Friday with Sprint qualifying
and then the sprint and then natural Grand Prix qualifying
on the Saturday. I like the fact that he's just
(05:18):
methodically ticking these boxes off as you go, step by step,
and you would hope that that would be the trajectory
of a driver in his third year. There's not a
lot of weaknesses in his game, and I don't want
to say that the qualifying has been a weakness. It's
a relative weakness compared to his strengths. If he starts
to get on top of that then I wouldn't say
it's the final frontier because you know, we still don't
(05:39):
know how he is in an intra team title fight,
because neither he, nor Norris or McLaren have actually been
in one for something meaningful the way this season is
shaking out. And then I think the looming specter of
the twenty twenty six rule changes is another factor here,
because there will undoubtedly be some teams that start to
turn the tap off for with twenty six looming. So
(06:00):
maybe the title fight with a number of different drivers
in a number of different teams doesn't burn quite as
long as it did last year. I could see it
shaking out to be a few drivers battling for the
big prize quite early in the season. As long as
he's one of those names, then it's a different championship
from maybe, you know, the last two thirds of the season.
But to have a weekend like these and to show
(06:22):
that perhaps this relative weakness is being worked on to
a point where it can become a strength I think
was super important for him.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
This was McLaren's fiftieth one to finish in its history,
only it's third since twenty ten with Yes Button and
Lewis Hamilton, which is I think quite illustrative of the
journey McLaren has been on the last two prior to
this one came in only the last few years, of course,
Daniel Ricardo and Landon Norris in Monza and then Hungary
last year, so it's very much been a gradual build
(06:49):
up to the position where McLaren is now capable of
at least occasionally dominating races. It could so easily have
been in Australia as well, had the weather played ball
and Osco Piastri not spun off the row. But there
is this question, and we are again only two rounds
in a sample size of only two circuits, so we
don't have all the information. But this was another race
that McLaren won from pole position. The question of the
(07:11):
advantage now perhaps as a barometer, perhaps not as a
barometer at all. The comments of George Russell, who last
week in Australia said, well, McLaren, they could stop developing
this car and they'll win both titles easily. He's up
the Ante this week and he said it is a
car with the biggest advantage of any car ever, including
all the Red bullcars that have come before it, and
that includes presumably the twenty twenty three Red bullcar, which
(07:33):
won all but one Grand Prix. Matt, that seems like
a bit of an exaggeration, but what's your gut instinct
on the team's advantage, because while this was ultimately a
straightforward race for Oscar from Pole, it didn't feel like
McLaren had it easy over the weekend.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
I thought their pace margin relative to the rest was
bigger in Australia. We just didn't really get to see
it at Park on Sunday because of how sketchy the
weather was. It felt they were more dominant there than
they were in Shanghai too. Totally different circuits as we know.
Not sure. I mean, George Russell was racing in twenty
twenty three and kept seeing the same team and certainly
the same guy winning most of them, So there's a
(08:08):
little bit of recency bias in those comments. I think
that I don't know what you thought, but I thought
they looked to have a greater advantage in Melbourne than
they did in China. But that may be a bit
circuit specific. I reckon if there was if it was
a dry weather Australian Grand Prix, I think they would
have absolutely slaughtered the rest of the field in Melbourne,
such was the advantage they had in qualifying. So we
(08:30):
probably need a greater sample size of circuits and circuits
that you can race on now, much as we love
Suzuka that's coming up in the next round, it's a
fantastic driver's track. I don't know if it's a fantastic
racing track just by virtue of the nature of the
cars are so big and wide these days. It's a
very narrow, one line, high speed, great driving challenge, not
(08:51):
maybe a great race track. So that might be a
bit of an asterisk on that one, But you look
at what's coming up after that with Bahrain and Saudi.
By the time we get to the end of round five,
you've almost got every type of track type characteristic that
you probably could see across the course of the season.
Then if Nat McLaren goes five for five to start
the season in whichever order those drivers win, then perhaps
(09:13):
Joe Russell's comments have got a little bit of weight.
But you and I sat through twenty twenty three. There
are a lot of late nights. We used to joke,
you know, to get people behind the curtain here, we
used to laugh after lap one start writing your race
report because you pretty much knew what was going to happen.
I don't think we're quite at that level of dominance yet,
but I don't think it's beyond the realms because the
car clearly seems to be good. The other teams all
(09:34):
have their various problems with drivers or consistency, and also
twenty twenty six that I mentioned before, so it could
end up being an intro team battle for the title.
But whether they have that sort of advantage that Verstappan
had in twenty twenty three, it's hard to imagine that
anyone could have that. Quite frankly, well, at.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
A minimum it'll be a competition between two drivers, not
just one. If it is, we're dominating, so you know
it's not all doom and gloom. I guess twenty there
were great seasons. There was at least one and a
half great seasons of Mercedes domination in terms of the
championship battle anyway, so there is that to look forward to.
But I think you're right. In Australia it certainly looked
like a bigger margin and there's still and it is.
(10:12):
I think there is a track specific element of this.
And Lando Norris in particular point to this, how the
car is a bit more knife edge this year and
it's a little bit easier to fall out of its
window than it was last year, because he was uncharacteristically
off the pace pretty much until Sunday, Okay, in Grand
Prix qualifying, but it really was Sunday that the car
started to come to him. So I think there's a
little question mark there. And we'll talk about Ferrari in
(10:36):
a moment. After all, they did win sprint qualifying and
the sprint race, so there's something in that. But Fred
Vassa and look, I'm not we can't talk about this
a little bit more moment, But I'm not convinced whether
or not I think this is just him defending his
team and sort of deflecting a bit, or whether I
do sort of buy into it. But he points to
the fact that at the end of last season, the
(10:56):
last four or five rounds, there was a different winner
in all of the and all of them looked dominant,
and Mercedes dominated in Vegas Ferrari, it's very convincing. Weekends
Max Withstaffan was very convincing in Katar against explanation expectations
and McLaren was relatively weak there despite having expected to
dominate that weekend. And I think in Australia it was
(11:17):
very straightforward from McLaren, even though the weather made a
little bit more difficult, and here it just looked a
little bit more marginal at various points. That makes me
think a few more tracks we might see a couple
of different performance profiles and actually realize that it's maybe
McLaren does have the quickest car, but that's not necessarily
enough to automatically win every race, and that could be enough.
(11:38):
As we know last year things can change relatively quickly.
You wouldn't have picked McLaren to have won the Constructor's
Championship at this point in twenty twenty four, so I
think it's early, but certainly those pre season expectations that
McLaren is the fastest car I think have proved to
be accurate. Matt Before we look at Ferrari and the
remarkable weekend they had. We've got to pick move of
(11:59):
the week by Shannon's because we did have some overtaking
only one weekend, only one race weekend, by the way,
at this weekend, obviously only the Formula One Grand Prix,
Moto GP on a break, so be cars on a break,
So limited number of overtakes I think to choose from,
but there were a few worthy of Move of the Week.
Do you want to kick us off?
Speaker 2 (12:17):
I was actually going to nominate term one Lap one,
but it was more a keeping of position than an overtake,
wasn't it with an Oscar Piastre squeeze George Russell on
to the inside curve there and left a nice little
gap for his teammate to sweep through to second place.
So that wasn't really classify as an overtake, but the
one for me, and it looked much better with the
offboard camera than it did the on board was Esteban
Ochon on Kimmi Antonelli down into the hairpin Lap fourteen
(12:41):
I think it was, And when you saw the off
board it was a Ochon had two wheels on the
grass and managed to keep the car a in a
straight line and made you manage to make the move
stick at a hairpin where well we know it's a
good place to hit people careering down the inside. I
seem to remember a very young Max for Staff and
doing that to sebascinnivisual back in the day, but you know,
probably the galand or a really really good weekend for hearts,
(13:04):
which is not something that we're saying this time seven
days ago. But to my mind, that was an outstanding
move by Look, we know what Ocon's like in battle.
He's one of the guys that you know what you're
going to get and it's going to be pretty robust
and there's going to be some elbows out. But to
make that stick on a Mercedes was a little bit
compromise that had some damage, as we know, but to
my mind that was the overtaker of the Grand Prix.
(13:25):
I'd be curious to see if you're going to argue
with me on this one.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
No, I look, I quite like that one. It was
a very oc on move, wasn't it to just put
wheels on the grass and hope it was going to
be fine and be a part of me? When I
saw that, I was like, oh, this is not going
to be fine. Pulled it off. Must have done a
bit of an off road track walk on the Wednesday
to just double check the quality of the run off
there and well executed it arguably bit unnecessary down the
straight but look, you got it done and you can't
(13:49):
argue with that. I'm going to nominate probably similar. Actually
we've both picked overtakes on drivers that have damaged cars.
But Max Vestafan's move on Charlotte Claire laid in the
race turns one, two, and three. I just really liked
that he was forced. It's rare to be forced to
the outside at all parts of this three part corner
or complex, if you like. He had to take the
(14:10):
outside of turn one because Charlott Clair defended the inside line.
At turn two, they both ended up on the outside.
He switched to what then became the outside of turn
three and still got it done. They had a bit
of a car advantage at that point because, for reasons
he couldn't explain, his Red Bull Racing card suddenly was
quicker late in the race when it certainly wasn't the
first half of the race, and Leclaire was cambering damage
(14:31):
that well. Actually, despite the damage he's cast seemed to
be pretty quick in the first half of the race,
So a lot of mysterious performance factors at play there,
But I just liked the little bit of racecraft between
him could so easily have been a crash at turn
two when they both ended up wide but well navigated
by both, and Max got a result that I think
he didn't expect. I'm not sure who will give you.
I don't know if we're obliged to give it to anyone.
(14:52):
I think we're allowed to have two. I'd have two
moves of the week.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
No, they can share it. It might be the only
thing Max for step at wins for a while, so
perhaps he can. He can half of it. Mister man
knock one can have the other half.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
Doesn't share too often either, So a dual Move of
the Week by Shannons this week, let's move on now,
Matt to Ferrari and Lewis Hamilton. This was very much
the good news story a few days ago, but twenty
four hours later not such a good news story, because
right I looked like the ultimate bounce back from Australia,
didn't it, with Lewis Hamilton taking that sprint pole position
(15:23):
and then on Saturday sprint victory, which annoys me because
has he won his first race for Ferrari? I don't know.
I don't know where we sit on that, because on
Sunday he definitely didn't win his first cron free for Ferrari,
pace was again nowhere. He was slower than Leclaire, even
though the Claire had this damaged front wing. A bit
of a kerfuffle with radio, although that seemed to be
more about broadcast. They did to be about the team
(15:45):
and came home fairly anonymously, one of the few to
stop twice in Lewis Hamilton's case. Charlotte there stopped on
any once and they ended up roughly the same place
on the road. So not an ideal conclusion to this weekend.
Ferrari is still obviously pointing towards the performance on Saturday,
and we'll talk about double disqualification that put a very
much a punctuation mark at the end of this Grand
(16:06):
Prix for them. But I don't know, is this a
positive weekend for Ferrari? What what are we meant to
think about?
Speaker 2 (16:12):
It was Ferrari's Gennaro Gattuso weekend, wasn't it?
Speaker 1 (16:16):
Look it up?
Speaker 2 (16:16):
Kids? If you ah, I had to slip that in
there somewhere, But I think the did he win it's
a sprint? Oh no, it doesn't count. I think the
only thing that annoys you bore is when they start
issuing half points places that they go the full distance.
See a decimal place in the points table is something
that gives you the errits. But look, it was such
a I am confused. I mean I'm confused, they're confused.
(16:39):
I'm confused by what Ferrari are doing at the moment
because when it's good, it actually looks really accomplished and repeatable.
And there was absolutely no doubt that Hamilton was going
to win that sprint, and where it was jarring, it's like, oh, yeah,
Lewis Hamilton's winning a sprint, never won a sprint before,
which was a bizarre stat that came up. But also
doing it in a Ferrari, it looked very normal. Yeah,
(17:00):
that looks pretty polished, pretty normal. We're expecting to see this,
really excited to see what they're going to do in
the Grand Prix, and then it just didn't happen. So
the swings in performance are pretty wild at the moment.
I thought that the Cleare drive on Sunday was pretty typical.
Charlotte Claire really in that really dogged and determined in
(17:20):
a car that was compromised two corners into the race
after hitting his own teammates, which was not fantastic. But
it's so hard to read where they are because to
my mind they're the team with the biggest variants at
the moment, and I think when it's good, they can
genuinely be really, really good. I think when it's good,
they can be faster than Mercedes. But we just haven't
(17:41):
seen it on a Sunday yet. But I'm just so
I'm not underwhelmed because I think there's a good promise
there for them. But it is really confusing, isn't it,
with what they've done in these first couple of race weekends.
Speaker 1 (17:51):
Yeah, I think for me the telling aspect of this
that doesn't really decode to what's happened, but gives maybe
a little bit of context, is that up until Sunday,
maybe even Saturday night. But let's say Sunday, Lewis Hamilton
was the faster Ferrari driver, contrary to expectations. Then again,
he's always been really good at this circuit, but considering
that he just looked comprehensively off the pace, not by
(18:12):
a lot, but comprehensively in Australia made that a little
bit of a surprise. But then by the time we
got to Sunday, that dynamic had very much reversed. Charlotte
Clair had made the changes he needed for the car
to be faster even with the damad's front wing, which
I think there's a lot and Lewis said afterwards, look, heah,
we felt really good in the sprint. We made changes
that we thought were going to work, not only for
the evolving track conditions, et cetera, but that we thought
(18:33):
was going to make the car better, and he incidentally
made the car worse. I think that speaks to him
still not understanding how to set up this car. You know,
we often find this when teams, when drivers changed teams
to get those final few percent, to know which levers
to pull, to know what configurations to change is difficult.
Charlotte Birkley knew which ones to pull at least to
improve his form, but Lewis ended up going backwards. So
(18:55):
I think that at least explains a little bit of
why the inter team result was on predictable. But you're right,
it's a car that a car that looked that convincing
on Saturday shouldn't have been so anonymous on Sunday in
normal circumstances. I guess that also maybe speaks to this
being the last year of the regulations, these rules, I
don't know. Do you asked me the second half of
(19:16):
last year, should we keep these rules longer? I would
have said, well, obviously yes, because the competition seems so close,
that's what you want. But it does feel like we
might be entering into a little bit of random territory.
We know these cars are really peaky, and if we're
going from not even weekend to weekend, but day to day,
and even the teams aren't sure how their cars are
going to perform. I mean, on the one hand, you
(19:37):
could argue, well, that's pretty exciting. Who knows he's going
to win, But it's sort of I don't know a
little bit in two minds about it, but it sort
of makes you think, well, maybe we are really at
the end of life of these rules, because no one
seems to understand why the cars work or don't work.
So I think there's a little bit of that at
play in Ferrari as well. But they insist, you know,
as I said earlier, Fred Bastin says, well, look, you know,
(19:58):
next week we could dominate, and then who knows what
the story is going to be, and that won't and
I like it. Even that won't be convincing, you know.
After the split race he sort of said, oh, I
don't understand why we've won. We need to go and
figure it out. I think that kind of just sums
it up for Ferrari in my mind. And things really
only got worse after that, though, didn't they Because it
wasn't just about the bad performance. It was a double disqualification.
You're more You're more of a history buff than I
(20:19):
am in Formula one, so I want to ask you
this question. I don't know the answer to it, so
please don't feel pressure. When was the last time a
team had two cars disqualified but for different reasons.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
What you're politely saying is that I'm considerably older than you,
which is correct. Yeah. Look, honestly, when that happened that
my first thought was go straight to Sean Kelly, Yeah,
and try and find out what's going on with this,
Because at virtual stapmads you go to with things like this.
I can remember Ferrari cars being disqualified, but not both
in the same race and for different reasons. I'm sure
(20:51):
Sean will come back and say in the nineteen fifty
eight non championship Targer Florio or something or other. He'll
have something at the moment. It's just so bizarrely. Look,
I remember Laclure getting disqualified in the USGP was at
twenty twenty three. I think it was a similar situation,
was like, and I think Hamilton was disqualified that day too,
(21:12):
but they were teammates of course at that point. But
maybe that's what I'm thinking of. But it's such a
bizarre thing to have two cars thrown out of Frankly,
Ferrari doesn't get out of bed to finish fifth and six.
So I don't think they're going to be crying too
much about it, other than the fact that they're now
fifth in the Constructor's Championship, equal with Williams, which is
another story. But after the race, look the underweight thing.
(21:33):
You can see how that may have happened for the
clear when this race became a one stop. It was
a little bit like George Russell at SPA last year,
wasn't it when what looked to be a nailed on
two stop ended up being a one stop tie? Where
is such that perhaps that had a factor in the
car coming so close to being the minimum weight but
being underneath it. So maybe that was a factor there.
(21:55):
The plank where thing to my mind with Hamilton's car,
is that not just a byproduct of you only have
one practice session, you're straight into sprint qualifying on Friday.
You don't get to do that really extensive long running
that you normally do it a Friday FP too, and
teams are always a little bit underdone on these sprint
weekends and it's not a case of cross your figures
and hope for the best, but they certainly don't have
(22:16):
anywhere near the amount of data running to put something
like that to bed, because I think that's something that
you would have determined, perhaps in a longer practice session
on the Friday and adjusting your right heights accordingly. But
it's funny these things, whether it's a coincidence or not,
these things tend to happen on sprint weekends, don't they.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Yes, well, I was going to say exactly that, Like,
I don't think it's such a coincidence to say that
that's probably what's happened here, even though when it happened
in twenty twenty three to both Mercedes and Ferrari, and
there were suspicions a lot of other cars that weren't
checked probably had the same problem at that time. You
couldn't ad just set up after FP one or after
sprint qualifying. Now you can, like you say, you have
limited data to make those changes. Anyway, it's only really
(22:56):
the sprint race, which is much shorter than Grand Prix,
so it's not like you have that validation time. So
I think you're right. It's not that surprising, but it is.
I mean, it says two things, right. It says Ferrari's
pushing really hard to try and understand a car to
get the most out of the car, when they know
maybe they don't have the capacity to build in a margin.
Considering both cars were disqualified for reasons, you'd say, what
(23:16):
to summit up Lewis Hamilin's cars run a little bit
too low and the curse cars run with a little
bit too much too little ballast is fundamentally whatever it is,
whatever reason the miscalculation was made, they were clearly pushing
hard against those limits. But to make that, to make
both mistakes on the same weekend, I think it's obviously
a bad loock to have both cars disqualified. But it's
(23:38):
just a little bit after Australia, where I think we
sort of said, oh, this is a bit had a
bit of a rough weekend execution wise, Well, this can
only be considered much worse if we're talking about Ferrari execution.
I think if this is going to be a title
contending year, I mean, obviously the loss of points this
weekend is going to count against them, but this kind
of execution style is going to count against them. It's
not as bad as McLaren was last year, but I
(23:59):
can't but think maybe they are at least a year
behind McLaren on that trajectory of becoming a championship ready team,
because so far from what we've seen from McClaren against
only two weekends and a lot and change, but they've
been really slick in that regard, really polished in a
way they weren't last year. It feels like Ferrari is
now putting up against that ceiling of needing to find
that next level in terms of preparation, and they're tripping
(24:23):
up on all the same Ferrari hurdles we've become used
to them a few years ago.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Well that's the key thing, isn't it, Because it's Ferrari.
We talk about this through a completely different prison because
we've seen what pre Vassur Ferrari was like. It was
pretty calamitous, pretty regularly calamitous. So I'm not saying it's
a revisit to the bad old days of how it
was before he took over, but there's definitely echoes of it.
And if this sort of thing happens to other teams,
(24:49):
I think we're having a really different discussion. It's because
it's Ferrari, and you know they clearly you look at
the driver lineup and the pedigree and where they should be. Look,
I mean, do we really stickly think their championship contenders
this year? No, but I think the building blocks of
what they do this year they need to clean all
this sort of stuff up because there is an opportunity
next year by virtue of the fact that we've got
(25:10):
this big regulation reset. They need to be completely on
it now. If you're going to be making mistakes the
first two rounds of a season, you know it's better
now than later, perhaps, But you don't want to have
too many more weekends like this because it feels like
they're kind of beating themselves to a point at the
moment and not achieving the results they should be for
things that they can control, and that's what you've got
(25:31):
to try and clean up.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
All right, Let's look at the big well on and
off track story this week, and that is Red Bull Racing.
Another fine week well not fine, it's not what they want,
but fine weekend for Max withstaffn finished third and the
sprint forth in the Grand Prix. With that, as we mentioned,
unexpectedly reasonable pace late in the Grand Prix to pass
both Ferrari drivers and finish better than I think you expected.
(25:54):
But that he says, the car deserves, but it's the
car and the other car that is the talking point,
both the quality of the car and the driver in
the other car. Because Liam Lawson had another weekend to
forget twentieth in both qualifying sessions, failed to score in
either race. I mean it's not great, a good start.
Actually I enjoyed this one. Was that's the worst two
rounds of qualifying consecutively any drive in Red Bull history
(26:16):
has ever had. The closest was David Coulthard in two
thousand and six or seven when he qualified seventeenth and
nineteenth consecutively, So not quite as bad as eighteenth and twentieth,
but close. But was obviously a long time before Red
Bull had any kind of expectations to be a good team.
So it's not great whichever way you cut it. Alarmingly,
(26:37):
Matt though, we're not even two full weeks into this
season yet, two rounds into this season, and already Red
Bull Racing is considering dropping Liam Lawson. I mean they couldn't,
could they?
Speaker 2 (26:51):
Yes, they could because they're red I mean you mentioned,
you know the quality of the driver in the second
car and the performance of the second car. If this
podcast existed in twenty nineteen, you could have said that
exact same sentence. Because this is Red Bull Racing's Daniel
Riccardo problem, and I've framed it as this a couple
of times before, and people look at him and say,
what are you talking about. They have not found a
(27:13):
competent second driver in that team since Riccardo left at
the end of twenty eighteen. This has been a problem
that you use the analogy of kicking the can down
the road. I'm not sure how much is left of
his can at this point. Are so scuffed by bitchuman,
but they've just kept booting this thing down the road
for year after year after year. Before we go down
that path, Can I just say something nice about Red Bull,
(27:33):
because I think we should probably temper it a little bit.
Max Verstappen is driving incredibly well at the moment given
what it is that he has to drive, what he's
doing in that car. He's second in the World Championship.
Now he's not probably going to stay there. But what
he's achieving with what he's been given to drive right
now is absolutely outstanding. So if I had a hat,
I would be tipping it to Max Forstappen right now.
(27:56):
But this second car in your original question, they couldn't
drive Billy and Lawson after two races, could they? They couldn't.
Probably would like to hand on heart. Yes it's bad.
It's really bad at the moment. And you know there's
all the caveats about he'd never raced anything in Melbourne,
he went to Shanghai a million years ago, so on
(28:17):
and so forth, compared to how long they hung on
to Sergio Perez, where it was demonstrably bad that it
cost them two places in the Constructors Championship in the
year they won the Driver's World Championship. For Lawson to
be on the chopping block after two races is completely insane,
for one, and completely in keeping with what an absolute
(28:39):
rabble this driver pipeline has turned into. And while I'm
on my soap box here, this could be like a
ten minute monologue. So they put the catalog. This is
the bit that I don't get right. I'm going to
bounce this off. This is a bit I don't get
Red Bull has two teams. Theoretically they have double the
chance of any other team of getting this right because
they have a pool of four drivers can put in
(29:00):
Formula one seats and not two. For this to be
a worse situation than any other team at finding two
competent drivers is absolutely crazy to me. You've literally got
almost an unfair advantage in air quotes to get this
more right than every other team, and you routinely get
it wrong year after year after year, and the same
(29:22):
people are in the same management positions, and we have
the same conversation. Would it be very harsh on lem
laws and to get the boot after two rounds, particularly
with A we've got tripleheader coming up. B We're off
to Suzuka next, so there's none of this. He hasn't
driven here, He's done a full season of super Formula.
He knows Suzuka really well. He has raced in Formula
one there and being good. It would be bonkers to
(29:44):
get rid of him before the next race. And what
are you going to do if you do get rid
of him, You're going to put Yuki Sonoda in there,
who you've basically told for five years isn't competent to
be the second driver next to Max Ofastappan. That's a
very very long winded way of saying. Is it insane
that they could drop Lawson? Yes? Do I'm more than
half expected to happen given that team's track record. Also, yes,
(30:06):
but I'll climb down off my site box and give
you a go on it. How are you reading this situation?
Because after what they did last year with Perez, I
thought keeping him on was possibly the silliest thing they've
ever done for as long as they did, but this
might actually top it if they get rid of Lawson
after two weekends.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Yeah. I think it's just pure panic at this point,
isn't it, Because there's no rational reason to drop him.
Obviously hasn't scored any points and so you can say, well,
there's a championship reason to do it. But it's so
early that you can only describe this as panic. I
think if they do bring if they bring Yuki Sonoda in,
it is one of the great monumental political batflicks backflips
(30:44):
in formud one history. Because, as you said, for years now,
they've told him he's not going to do it. He said,
he got phone. You've got three different phone calls when
Liam Lawson got the drive from various Red Bull management
figures explaining to him that oh, you know, it's this
and that, telling him essentially in a bunch of different ways,
that they just don't want him. Christian Horner called him
the perennial bridesmaid last year and said essentially that he'd
be dropped at the end of this year because there's
(31:06):
no reason for them to keep him because he's never
getting a Red Bull Racing.
Speaker 2 (31:09):
Drive and no Hondolins either.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Yes, and even Honda has now said well, at this
point it's sort of up to him and it'll be
interesting to see how that evolves, depending what happens the
next couple of weeks. So the idea that he might
get the drive now is just it is absurd. It's absurd.
The point Red Bull has put itself in here, but
it's a problem, as you've said, completely of its own making.
(31:31):
Had a lot of decisions to make in the middle
of last year, and you can't help but wonder we've
sort of run through some of the scenarios in the
background of this at an article at Fox sports dot
Com at a usually go and read that was published
on Monday afternoon last year. It decided suddenly that it
would retain Sir Joe Perrys in August at the mid
season break after a pretty terrible run into the mid
(31:51):
season break that continued after it. That subsequently meant Daniel
Ricardo was sacked after a few more rounds at the
Singapore Grand Prix. We all remember, we sh meant Liam
Lawson was brought in for a few races to for
a reason that really in retrospect isn't clear, because clearly
they weren't going to put Yuki Sinoda in the seat.
They already knew that Lawson was quick enough to be
in Formula one and that seems to have been the
(32:12):
only criteria to get the promotion once Pais was dropped
at the end of the year. But as a result,
several things happened, right They were on a trajectory to
put a driver with eleven Grand Prix into a Red
Bull Racing seat the hardest in Formula One, not only
because their teammates with Max, but because the car is
so difficult to drive, and was so difficult to drive
last year that even Max couldn't drive it. Let's not
forget for a few races around about the Italian Grand
(32:33):
Prix even he said this is too much, and clearly
the progress this year has been minimal on that front.
It dispensed with the only experienced driver in its lineup
that has a history of success at Red Bull Racing,
which was Daniel Ricardo. Now we can argue about whether
or not a driver who failed to adapt to the
Claren car and was okay against Yuki Sinoda would have
been able to cut it. You could also argue, though,
(32:54):
on the other hand, that well, that's where he's driving
style was developed in cars built by Red Bull, so
surely having brought him back to racing balls or whatever
it was called at the time, he was worth a crack,
considering that at this point they were at the bottom
of the batrel with no decisions to make. But then,
most of all, the driver that they've spent millions in
developing with Honda, they've continued to let wither on the vine.
(33:15):
It's almost like they've chosen the most difficult option and
had hoped that that would be enough that they'd pull
it out of the bag. That would be a miracle move.
But it just doesn't make any sense that the logical
decision making there. And I think there's also another element here,
And I thought it was interesting that Liam himself sort
of pointed to it on Sunday night. He didn't use
(33:35):
his excuse. He's been really trying to front up and
cop all the responsibility in the blame. And I guess
not a lot else you can do when you're qualifying last.
But he said, compared to all the other rookie drivers
who've had in some cases thousands of kilometers of testing
in previous editions of their team's cars, And think of
Andre kim Antonelli year, even Jack Do and a few others,
(33:56):
despite him being a red bull driver, he's had almost
none the odd test here and there. Often they've been
in Alpha TAWI or RV or racing bulls cars when
you want to call them. So there's a Minati thrown
in there as well, but didn't have that testing program.
I mean the car that is now notoriously difficult to drive,
and after only not even one and a half days
(34:17):
of preseason testing, considering he lost a lot of his
sole day to both weather and technical problems. Remarkably, that
is a pretty difficult position to be in. And you know, okay,
there's all those people have to say. Oh, you know,
if one's not a finishing school and you're not on anything,
you've got to be the finished product whatever. That's a
pretty raw way to come into a team that expects,
probably against realistic expectations, to try and win both championships
(34:40):
this year. So it's a rough way to be But
I think whatever way you cut it, Red Bull Racing
has continuously, through its decision making, made this problem for
itself and now it's panicking and doesn't know what to
do about it.
Speaker 2 (34:52):
Panic's a good word, by the way, f one's not
a finishing school, thank you, Mark Webber, one of his
favorite sayings. So if that's the case, maybe maybe signed
Carlos Science when he's available. He'd probably be a pretty
decent candidate for that second seat. But that's another story.
But your point on Lawson not being able to just
hammer around a bunch of testing tracks like Antonelli did
last year is really valid, and you do wonder that
(35:16):
there's no pace or statistical justification for having Ricardo in
the car for the back half of last year. If
they'd gotten rid of Perez at the mid season break,
which was being mooted, at least we would have got
some sort of decision on whether Daniel was the right
person for the job if you put him in for that.
Because the Constructors Championship was toased at that point, that
wasn't happening, So I'm not really sure what you're going
(35:37):
to lose by actually finding out whether he could adapt
to that car. You had probably a seven or eight
race sample size. The answer, based on the evidence that
we've seen before, was probably not. But then at least
Lawson gets to do all of the getting all the
bugs out and doing all that outside of the spotlight,
like Antonelli did, like Jack Doing did. As you mentioned,
maybe that was the right course of action in retrospect,
(35:57):
but this is the question. So say they make the
swap for Suzuka and Yuki Sonoda, who they've publicly rejected
a thousand times at this point ends up in the
seat next to a Stappan. Why is he going to
do any better in a car that's clearly got its
limitations and is clearly going to be difficult to drive
for anyone else other than one of the best drivers
in the history of Formula One. And the parallel that
(36:21):
I'll make here taking two wheels off here and putting
my motor GP hat on is We only really found
out how bad Honda was when Mark Marskeys got injured
in twenty twenty, because he papered over the cracks of
where that bike was going developmentally for the latter part
of the twenty tens and just kept winning world championships
because he was Mark Marquez. And as soon as he
got injured and was not himself for the best part
(36:43):
of four years, that bike and that program went absolutely nowhere.
It was probably hiding in plain sight, but he was
so brilliant that he was papering over the cracks. And
you look at what Vstapan's done at Red Bull the
last couple of years, yes, twenty twenty three. It was
clearly a fantastic car, so fantastic in fact, that even
Sergia Perez WANs and races in it, but as soon
as it became a difficult car. We saw what he
(37:05):
did last year, particularly in the back half of last year.
That's not a championship that too many other drivers would
have won last year, and I think that's where you
see his quality. The fact that he's scratching around trying
to get random fourth places out of a car that's
clearly more difficult this year than last shows you a
how good he is and b how much that car
has lost its way. So if you stick Yuki Sonoda
(37:25):
in there, or Christian Horner wakes up one morning and says,
let's get Avid Lindbladd in here, let's get him a
super license, or they go and get Valterie Botass off
the Mercedes bench or something to put in that second car,
why is it going to be any better than Lawson,
who a few weeks ago they were investing in him
and they were going to give him time. I go
back to what I said originally, he has got to
(37:47):
be in the car for Suzuka because that takes one
variable off the table. He knows the circuit probably better
than any circuit on the Formula one calendar, and he
raced there before. If it's this bad again after Suzuka,
then knock yourself out. Fine, somebody else to put that
second seat. The question is if it's not him, then
who is it?
Speaker 1 (38:04):
Yeah? And if they do make the swap and Yuki
so to qualify as eighteenth at his first race, then
what do you do? What do you do after that?
And I think that's the more philosophical, the deeper question here,
And to return to your Honda analogy, because I think
it is a really good one and it's interesting that
we have two, i think, very similar examples in two
(38:24):
different sports. If Maxwstaffen were to leave the team at
the end of the season, as is often being rumored,
are you going to tell me that whoever replaces him
alongside Liam Lass? And Nuki said, whoever are going to
be qualifying this car? Okay, we're different rules next year,
but whatever, just at the back and we'll just have
to assume that Red Bull Racing is a midfield at
(38:44):
best car when in the hands of someone like maximstaff
and it's capable of finishing on the podium. It's a
question that Red Bull Racing has to grapple with and
it's sort of interesting because next year's car is all
theoretical at this point, right, but it's being built by
the same people we've seen in the past. Similar characteristics
carry across even quite significant regulation changes, even if the
car ultimately behaves in a different way. What guarantees there
(39:06):
that you build a car that isn't as extreme to
drive as this because this is all you've known for
the last now what is it seven or eight years
since Daniel left, probably including the last year or two
of Daniel's career there. I think that that is a
bigger question for Red Bull Racing because the second that,
like Honda learned, the second your main guy leaves, you're
in a lot of trouble and you were on the
back foot and you were possibly years away from returning
(39:28):
to where you thought you were because you only have
access to drivers who are not the greatest of the generation.
Speaker 2 (39:33):
Well, Marquees was world chairmaned in twenty nineteen, hurt himself
in the first race of twenty twenty and missed the
rest of that season, and Honda has not fired a
shot since. Marquez won a few races when he came
back with one working shoulders because he's Mark Marquez and
there were a few anti clockwise tracks in there, and
Alex Rinz won one race for them in twenty twenty three,
and they have basically been nowhere for six years. To
(39:55):
think of a manufacturer that just won Constructors championships for
fun in that s for so many years. You think
of that repsol hon the bike and all the amazing
riders that rode on it, and they've been an absolute
after thought since the one difference maker they had was
first injured and second left. And this is the conundrum
that Red Bull is now in because you look at
these other teams. McLaren's got this settle driver lineup of
(40:18):
two guys on a similar age range and trajectory. Ferrari
has Charla Clair, who's the peer of that generation and
the greatest driver statistically in world championship history as his teammate,
and Mercedes says Antonelli, who's eighteen and clearly the future,
and George Russell's not half bad either. But it's just
such a mess. But as you said before, it's a
mess of its own making, and you do wonder what
(40:41):
the course of action needs to be now so publicly
go against what they said about laws and so soon
into a twenty four race season where he hasn't had
a chance to drive circuits that he's actually raced on before.
Would be completely crazy, but because it's them, I'll actually
believe it.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
If it happens, only team you'd believe. And of course
it wouldn't be a driver market situation without Franco Colopindo's
name being mentioned only very briefly here, but reports out
of Spain suggests that Red Book could be returning to
that well is of course the reserve driver at Alpine.
I think there's probably more of a contract play there,
just reinforcing to Alpine, which I think. I don't know
if you'd say they've been impressed with Jack Douhan, but
(41:20):
certainly with his speed because he's been a match pretty
much with pire gasllyin qualifying. No has a pretty ordinary
set of races in China, but nonetheless has been quick.
You know, if you're Franco Colopindo's management thinking, oh, actually,
hang on, it might be in a little bit of
trouble here because Franco was quick, but he wasn't, by
any stretch outstandingly quick. Maybe you're just saying, well, we've
got options if you're not going to promote us and
our sponsors to the main seat.
Speaker 2 (41:41):
So I'm just scratching Franco Colopinto off my podcast Bingo
kar because we're contractually obliged to mention him. But the
curiosity for me, so if he ends up in a
Red Ball, so if.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
You wouldn't rually going to straight to Red Bull Racing
either or you're considering.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
Very possibly, But who's getting the transfer payment there? Given
he's a Williams driver on loan to alp and he'll
be on loan to Red Bull at this point, Colopino
might just drive for every team between now the end
of the season.
Speaker 1 (42:07):
He's the ultimate subletting situation. Decision could be made as
soon as this week, or we might be hanging out
to Japan. Who knows. Maybe Red Bull just choose not
to turn up and answer no questions as a result.
I'll wait and see, But that does seem like a
timely time to make a couple of big predictions. Thanks
to our complete home filtration Crystal Ball, we've got a
(42:28):
couple of established rules. Now. I guess you can make
any prediction you like next week, next month. Twenty twenty
nine f one Supercarsman and GP. Whatever you want, so
why don't you kick us off? Matt? What's your bold prediction?
Speaker 2 (42:39):
I am looking ahead to this tripleheader with Japan, Bahrain
and Saudi Arabia. The last two horrible time zone for
Australian fans, one for the enthusiast. Japan's fantastic because it's Japan.
I don't think McLaren's going to win the first five
races of the season, and I think they're going to
lose one of these next three races in Japan, bar
Rain and Saudi. And my prediction is that standing on
(43:00):
the top step of the podium, because of their mercurial
form at the moment, is going to be a Ferrari driver.
I think charlote Clare's going to win one of those
three bases.
Speaker 1 (43:07):
Nice I like it a lot. I'm going to go
with also one for this triple header, but specifically the
Japanese Grand Prix. I'm not going to predict this Red
Bull driver situation because good luck with that. A mug's
game with Red Bull, but I am going to predict
that regardless of the team, Yukisy Nota will stand on
the podium at his homegrown prox. Oh wow, you can
(43:28):
decide why or what happens. I haven't looked at the
weather forecast in Japan, but I just think regardless of
whether he's either going to get to Red Bull and
he's having a great time because he's in such good
form and I think he's got the right I think, weirdly,
he's got the right mindset as a result of all
the shenanigans that have happen in the last twelve months.
I think he's just sort of stealed himself with this
(43:48):
being his lot and he's just got to make the
most of it. But on the other hand, he's been
in really great form, even for racing bulls, you know.
I like that. Max sort of suggested, well, they're pretty
close to me, and it shows you how much easy
the car is to drive. You know, it'll be interesting.
I don't know if the car is going to suit
the circuit, but I just think he's been doing such
a good job of kind of proving Red Bull wrong
(44:08):
and I think it's gonna be the ultimate performance one
way or another.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
I do like that, and I would like it even
more if it was in a racing bulls car rather
than a Red bull Car because you look at the
Constructors Championship after these first two rounds, to see them
down where they are and only three points is absolutely
no way representative of how fast that team's been so far.
You look at both Sonoda and Hadji were both really
quick in China. The car actually looks like something that's
(44:31):
predictable and you can get a lap time out of
They just have been incredibly unlucky with crash damage, a
few operational erarors and what have you, so a big result.
They kind of feel due for that. But wow, a
Japanese driver on our home podium. I was there the
last time that happened, Kamu Kobe Ashy, and I know
that you'll be in Suzuka. Seeing a Japanese driver on
their home podium is one of the great joys of
(44:52):
covering international motorsports. So for your sake, I hope it
comes true.
Speaker 1 (44:55):
Yes, I'd love to see it. A great story the way,
but that's all the time. We have a pit Talk today.
You can subscribe to Pittalk wherever you get your favorite podcast,
and you can leave us a rating and a review
as well. This weekend, a reminder is the America's Grand Prix.
That's six am Eastern daylight time on Monday, or even better,
the sprint is at seven am on Sunday morning. Very civil.
You can keep up to date with all the latestef one,
(45:15):
Supercars and MotoGP news at foxsports dot com dot au.
From Matt Clayton and me, Michael Lomonado. Thanks very much
for your company. We'll catch you next week.
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