BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Five Live, Formula One. Hello and welcome to the Checker Flag podcast at the end of a hectic Saturday in China, which has seen both a sprint race, the first of the year and Grand Prix qualifying. To digest it all with me, Harry Benjamin is McLaren's Formula E driver, Sam Bird and the BBC.
F1 correspondent, Andrew Benson. First of all, Sam, we've got to go back to Saturday morning and reflect on a historic sprint race, really. Not only the first of the year, but the first time Lewis Hamilton. has won for Ferrari. It was a masterclass drive. Masterclass drive, first win for Ferrari. Did you know that's his first sprint race victory as well, which is hard to believe considering just how many wins he's got under his belt. But what a race for him.
him controlled it from start to finish his tire management from the get-go really was superb and in the end harry he cruised to a pretty comfortable victory. Yeah, it was a great drive from Hamilton and Ferrari. Of course, I suppose aided a little bit by the fact, Andrew, he had clear air in front of him, so he wasn't always feeling the full impact of the tyres degrading. nonetheless, this is global news for Ferrari, for Hamilton, after a rough start in Melbourne.
Absolutely. It's a seismic development. I think he even surprised himself that he ended up on pole position. It was the pole that was the key to the victory and also defending from Max Verstappen's inevitable assault into the first corner. And... Verstappen off very effectively. That secured him the clear air at the front, as you say. And as Oscar Piastri, who took pole later on in qualifying for the main Grand Prix, said last year, clean air is king, which we may talk about a bit later.
in the contest of the Grand Prix. Hamilton made absolutely the best of it around a track that he's always gone very well at. And yeah, to take his first win for Ferrari, even though it's only a sprint victory and only his second race is impressive. It's obviously... He's been talking all year since he started talking to the media after joining Ferrari about how difficult it is to hit the ground running with a new team.
but at the same time comparing himself to Fernando Alonso, who won his first Grand Prix for Ferrari, and Sebastian Vettel, who won his second. So he was sort of stuck between that rock and hard place, but he's managed to do it for the sprint. So that's that much.
off his back at least. And we'll have to see how the rest of the season develops from here. We'll just forget about Australia like it never happened. First time in China. Let's hear what Hamilton had to say after winning the sprint. Felt great today. Waking up. I really do love being here, especially when the weather's good. Obviously, when the weather's not good, it's never great anywhere in general, but the weather's been spectacular all week, and we have such a great welcome here in Shanghai.
And I love this track. And with the new tarmac and everything, there was really a lot of grip, but there was quite a lot of deck for everybody, I think. A lot of graining on these tyres. They put the pressures up overnight, so... pressures are super high and but yeah i just tried to manage it but i mean starting pole starting from first in the ferrari and winning a ferrari is is next level man this is mega and i definitely didn't
expect to have it at the second race. So I really, as I said before, can't get ahead of ourselves. We've got to make sure we improve the car. for this afternoon and I hope that we can be in a good position to fight again tomorrow. So obviously, Sam, a jubilant Lewis Hamilton. He was really lapping up the celebrations on the start grid, running up and down, saying hello to the Chinese fans in the main grandstand.
As a driver, coming off the back of a really rough opening round with your new team to bounce back like this, what does it do for your motivation and your confidence? A bit of weight off the shoulders. more confident kind of deep breath and relax a little bit right now I can get going um yeah but he's got to keep that up now
Because it can't be just a flash in the pan, a one-off. And with Lewis Hamilton, it's not going to be. I think that he will continue to improve. It's now a case of whether Ferrari can... probably keep up with the development war.
and try and take it to Red Bull, Mercedes and McLaren. I also wonder, you've obviously been with new teams during your career when you were reserve in Formula One and moving in Formula E and in sports cars. How... tricky is it in getting up to speed with all the new switches on the steering wheel all the new protocols can we just sort of put this win in perspective for Hamilton to do it so early in his Ferrari career
It's not just where the buttons are positioned on the steering wheel. It's whole new software and looking... at a different dash configuration different things in different places then you've got the way that your tools work different mappings they're different philosophies within the car um how things work behind those buttons and switches. So all of these things he would have to go through and learn and understand and then manipulate in his own way. So it's not just...
oh, it's a different Formula One car. He'll be fine. It's a good car. It's going to take some time for him to be able to say, I absolutely understand that car 100% and I'm comfortable now in making these minute... changes and details within the cockpit. And that will only improve with every session and every race that goes by. Well, after 19 laps, it was Lewis Hamilton who managed to celebrate the sprint win. Of course, Sunday when we get 56 laps, that will be Hamilton's first proper.
race distance in the dry as well. So that'll be another hurdle for Hamilton to overcome. But he took the sprint win ahead of McLaren's Oscar Piastri and Max Verstappen managed to finish third in that one where tyre degradation really was the talk of the town. and that will be continuing throughout the rest of the Grand Prix weekend.
We then went into Grand Prix qualifying a few hours later. And then we switched focus to your team, Sam. The papaya-colored cars. McLaren. Now, after round one... Sorry, can I just clarify, though, that... The fact that Lewis won the sprint. Yeah. That made me happy as well. If a McLaren can't win, I'm more than happy to see Lewis win. You're not wearing your McLaren hoodie today. So that makes a difference. No, but I was messaging Anthony yesterday and he said, who am I cheering for?
And I said, McLaren and Lewis. He's got to have his McLaren underwear on or something. Some orange socks somewhere. But look, after round one, McLaren, and even from testing, we all thought McLaren looked good. Looked like they have the edge. Obviously, Australia, the conditions were so ropey in the wet. They come here. They've looked quick once again. And Piastri securing his first pole position in Formula One. He looks like he's got the edge and McLaren do too.
Yeah, saying that he's got the edge, he did the better job of the two McLaren drivers in qualifying. There's no question, especially Q3. I actually think Lando... probably has been the quicker driver, but it's been very hit and miss. He's done one blistering lap and then not been able to repeat it through... little errors little lockups and this track is really really difficult to get everything right and i think lando's been trying to drive a lap that is blisteringly quick and perfect
Whereas I think Oscars probably being a tenth, tenth and a half slower, but it's more repeatable. And I think that's been the difference. I think we saw through qualifying the evidence of how difficult the McLaren car is to drive.
Norris has been talking about that since the start of the season and his rivals have been kind of mocking him a little bit for it. You know, Max Verstappen said on Thursday, was he joking when he said that? But actually you saw in qualifying, he, well, first of all, in sprint qualifying, two errors on one error.
on each of his two laps in the final part of qualifying. And then today in Grand Prix qualifying, he did a really quick lap in Q2, which would have put him on the front row had he repeated that in... in main qualifying. And he was within a few hundreds of Piastri on his first lap. But as I was watching the mini sectors, we get a timing screen with a sort of a line of little colored dots that go along the screen, which indicate whether the driver's purple.
which is fastest of all in that mini sector, green, his fastest, or white, which is slower. Not good if you're colorblind. No, and then you get the lap. to get the projected lap time at the end. And through his first sector on his final lap, he was purple, green, purple, green. And the end sector, the projected lap time was going green, purple, white, green, purple, white, all the way through. And then suddenly in the middle sector you saw the lap time go away. And he aborted that lap.
Piastri was saying after qualifying that he very nearly did the same thing. He also made mistakes in the middle sector of his lap. He was two tenths down after that. But as he put it, I decided I was just going to send it into the hairpin. So what he means is just really go for it, really late break and hope for the best. And he gained that two tenths back. So now he was net zero, if you like, on his lap time delta on his steering wheel.
Killed the last corner as well. Bang, there he is on pole. Two laps quick enough for pole. Yes, Piastri did a much better job. Yes, I agree with Sam. Norris has got the higher potential. But the difficulty for Norris is he's not delivering on that potential. It's harder for him to access it this weekend, which is unusual for him. If you think back to last week, last year.
year he was only out qualified by Piastri in a Grand Prix qualifying session three times all year it was still close between them but that's how often he was ahead Obviously, it's now one all in 2025. But it's just really interesting that that's happening this weekend. I mean, the key seems to be the behavior of the tires. He doesn't like it when the... front tires grain, which is when they lose grip, he likes to have a sharper front end, that really hurts him.
Well, it was less than a tenth of a second that Oscar Piastri managed to secure pole position by. Let's hear from him and his teammate Norris, who qualified third, speaking after qualifying. Hey, Oscar, congratulations. You must be delighted not just with the way quality went. but obviously to get your first power. Yeah, definitely. I mean, to be honest...
The way QALY went was a bit stressful. I was struggling in Q1 and Q2. In Q2 I needed to find half a second and I didn't do anything obviously wrong. I was just genuinely struggling. and Q3 just came alive and felt like I delivered two mostly good laps. my sector three of lap two with my sector one and two of my first lap, then it would be, you know, there's still quite a bit left on the table.
yeah the last lap i didn't have much to lose going to the hairpin and and um yeah really um sent it for lack of a better word so um yeah just very proud to have ended up on pop how are you feeling about your chances of converting that into victory tomorrow Confident. I think our pace this morning was good. I think the Ferraris looked very strong. Lewis was strong out front, but even Leclerc was strong coming back through.
so they were a bit of a we always expected them to be strong but to be that strong was a bit of a surprise but i think even with that our pace was still still very encouraging so I'm comfortable with tomorrow. Hey Lando, the car looked better out there, just a couple of tiny mistakes. How are you feeling about how quality it went? All good. A bit of quality, just one I was a lot more comfortable.
Yeah, so I think a better result just still shows it's very close between everyone. We still don't have the margin that we would we would love to have But a better job than we did yesterday for sure like I just found a lot more comfortable out there Not necessarily quicker than we were yesterday, but just more comfy. That's a good start considering how much we or I have struggled so far this weekend. All of that and a good job by Oscar.
That you feel comfortable with the car must bode well for tomorrow because it hopefully will allow you to push a bit more. I know there's a lot of unknowns and stuff, but you've still got a decent race car, haven't you, to attack for the win. i mean i think the most important thing is just the position that i'm starting from but uh tomorrow is still gonna be a very long race difficult to manage the front tires and i hope it's in the direction that we want i still think we're going to struggle
But it's a long night ahead to try and see how much we can improve. So a 1-3 then for McLaren. Split, Sam. by George Russell in the Mercedes with a mighty lap in the closing stages of qualifying. What a performance from George and not really a straightforward qualifying for him. That was a surprise, to say the least. Going into Q3, we were talking...
weren't we? And we were saying it was between Ferraris potentially and then Max Verstappen, you can never discount him. And obviously the McLaren's, nobody thought that the Mercedes were realistically threatening the front row. George Russell, he was getting through and not really threatening the top of the timesheets. He looked like he'd been struggling to find a way of properly getting the tyres to work.
either overheating them or not heating them up enough for sector one. And then all of a sudden the car came alive in that final lap and boom, the time was there and he wasn't far away from snatching pole position out of nowhere. It seems like it's tyres again. So he was saying that he...
Front row surprised him. He thought, you know, he thinks that Red Bull, Mercedes and Ferrari are all much for muchness and any one of them can be sort of a next best behind McLaren. He didn't expect to be mixing it with the McLarens. But what he was saying was that he... did a completely different sort of preparation arrangement on his lap before his final qualifying lap. Instead of going hard on his lap, he went really, really slowly.
Kind of surprised Mercedes hadn't done that before because the key thing has been about stopping the tyres getting too hot this weekend, especially because Pirelli have mandated very high minimum tyre pressures, especially at the front. But he ran that slow out lap and that... made all the difference in terms of his lap time. Whether he can stick with the McLarens in the Grand Prix...
Remains to be seen, but it's a really strong qualifying performance from him. Let's hear it from Russell after qualifying. Crikey, George, where did that luck come from? I don't know. I don't know. But really, really pleased with it. And it felt so... I mean, it felt... as good almost as a pole position because it was really unexpected it all came together on that last lap it was a messy session nothing was working i was almost out in q1 and it was just didn't have a good feeling and
I threw everything I had at it and it just came together in the last lap and you know to be ahead of a McLaren when there was no sort of major mistakes from them is pretty big so please. so you're right in the thick of it like you said with the mccans the ferrari's behind as well what can you do tomorrow yeah i don't know um i think you need to make a good start i would need to try and get ahead of oscar into turn one um otherwise i think they'll be
a smidge ahead of everybody, but also we need to not chase miracles. We've got to be realistic, McLaren are the best at the moment and we need to ensure that if there's an opportunity to go for the win, we take it. but don't do anything crazy to go for the win and then lose out on the podium. So that's going to be the mentality.
George Russell then in second manages to split the two McLarens to get himself on the front row. But Andrew, this all feels quite good. You know, we've got cars that look strong, but no one seems to have the all round package. At the end of that session.
The margin seems so tight. The top eight covered by about half a second. The top six by four tenths of a second. It wasn't that long ago where we're all kind of, you know, dreading a Max Verstappen domination. And we've seen that cyclically throughout Formula One.
periods of domination right now it feels like i know we're only not even at the full second race yet but it feels good and competitive formula one at the moment it is very good and competitive but it seems like you know despite that you still end up with the same people in more or less the same order right um so it's brussell who's got in amongst the mclarens this weekend at least in qualifying last weekend it was verstappen who got in amongst them
McLaren's in the sprint race. It was Hamilton who got it on pole when McLaren underachieved in qualifying. I think one of the interesting things, it shows how difficult it is to get the cars absolutely right at the moment to optimize, maximize the potential on each given day.
So we're talking about Norris and a classic example again is Ferrari. So Hamilton puts it on pole for the sprint, but he's only qualified... Fifth. He's only qualified... fifth for the Grand Prix and they made some changes after the sprint thinking that that would improve the car.
for the Grand Prix and maybe it will improve it for the Grand Prix, but it certainly hasn't improved it for qualifying. And in Leclerc's words, you know, he thinks they've maximized the potential of the car. The problem is we have to work out where the potential of the car has gone.
I mean, fifth and sixth for the Ferraris in the end. So it seems a little bit lacklustre from them. Max Verstappen, Sam, was fourth. And again, I almost felt there's not much we can say on Max Verstappen in the Red Bull at the moment. He just seems to be getting the maximum.
what that car can give him. And once again, I mean, I hate to bang the drum, but the main storyline out of Red Bull is the fact that the second car is underperforming massively. Liam Lawson, 20th and last again in qualifying. 20th and last. just over one second off his teammate, and he's looked completely... void of confidence and grip this weekend. It's actually sad to see. It's sad to see when you've got a young talent there that gets that seat and then...
It's like the confidence just saps out of you when you sit into that number two or that second seat at Red Bull. I don't know how they fix it. I don't know what he needs to do to fix it. I don't understand it. But it's a shame to see. It really is. I suppose, Andrew, the problem that Red Bull have got right now is apparently Max Verstappen was saying after the race that he was asked if he could win. And he said, yes, if everybody retires in front of me. So clearly, A, they haven't got a car.
in their performance window that they would like. Add to that the fact that the second car is drastically off the pace. So it's a double blow right now, at least before Verstappen was challenging for pole and the win.
Yeah, so this is what Lawson said after the session. He mumbled about traffic, but he said, I can't get upset about that. I've got a whole lot of things to sort out myself before I can look at things like that. The window is very small in this car, but it's not an excuse. It's just something I need to get a grip on.
we have glimpses of where it feels good but it's just a very small window and i just need to get on top of it now we know that about the red bull that it's got a very small operating window at its optimum but then so does every other car um And it is mystifying as to, I mean, he's basically at the moment the worst Red Bull teammate Verstappen's ever had. And he was supposed to be a step up on Sergio Perez. And, you know...
It raises a whole range of questions from what is it with the second Red Bull car? Is it all to do with the way Verstappen wants the car? set up for his driving style you know a very very sharp front end and the development naturally goes in that direction because that's what he says makes him quicker um is it that the team don't give as much attention to the second driver as they should because
Understandably, all the attention is on Verstappen. Is it that they're picking the wrong level of driver for that car? Also, are they making just wrong management decisions? I mean... Sergio Perez, who got paid off a substantial amount of money, like multiple millions of dollars, to write off two years of his contract over the winter, they felt that there was no way back for him.
And they've seen Lawson's achievements alongside Yuki Tsunoda over the course of 11 Grand Prix's over two seasons and felt that he was sort of mentally strong enough and talented enough to step straight in and be an improvement on Perez. I have to admit, I was questioning that. I don't know whether we've seen, I haven't studied Liam Lawson's career, but he's had a very solid junior career, but he's not been one of those drivers who's stood out.
from the very beginning and everyone's raved about so was he is he a better level of driver than Perez I don't know were they expecting something different I don't obviously they were should they have been expecting something different I think that's more of a question
But Red Bull's certainly going to have to take a long, hard look at themselves because they can't just keep repeating this same cycle. Sooner or later, they've got to stop and go, we have to change something. Either we don't care about our second car. which seems to be the case at the moment, more or less. But if we do care about it because we want to win the constructors, something has to change, whatever that is. Absolutely. That second car needs to perform. If they want to...
win or do better in constructors. We saw last year they lost out on the constructors or a chance to even... fight for the constructors due to the lack of pace and performance from the other side of the garage from Sergio Perez. But it's how do they give in the confidence? What do they need? They clearly need to set the car up quite... drastically differently to Verstappen in order to get him any confidence in this car even if it's a case of losing
on, you know, CFD and on the potential of the car, if they lose two tenths of ultimate performance, but that gives him more confidence, that might get him closer to Max Verstappen. If you understand what I mean, like lose some... overall top line potential but it gives him the the ability to to drive the car harder himself because at the moment it's too loose and it's too on edge to not be last
Well, no, but if he extracted the maximum amount of his car and only ended up three or four tenths of Verstappen, that's a massive improvement. He can't every weekend be one second off. The thing with Red Bull is they're not a team that goes backwards in any way, you know, in terms of their...
the way they want to approach things. If they don't go backwards in terms of when they get confronted with difficult questions, their response is always to attack. They don't go backwards on their approach to their second car. It's all about Verstappen and they want the second driver to be backing him up.
They don't go backwards on this decision that they usually make of wanting to bring young drivers in and cycle them through. They don't go backwards on this decision that if you don't perform after half a season that you're out, but maybe you should be given more time. Some people would argue there's so many different things that they just don't change. And it's clear that either they sign someone who's of Verstappen's level.
for that second car and then operate it like a proper two-car team. If they don't want to do that, they might as well just leave a guy in the second car and just work with him. as well as they can. Just commit to someone and give him two or three years to bed themselves into the team because this cycle of change just isn't working. What will rub salt into the wound though, Sam, for Liam Lawson is that...
The racing bulls performed exceptionally well. They're flying. Both of them into Q3. Isaac Hajar in seventh. Yuki Tsunoda in ninth. Sensational performances. Amazing and great for Isaac Hadjar to get some confidence as well after what was a nightmare Australian Grand Prix day, a day that he would have been looking forward to so much since he was a kid. And then for that to happen, I'm pleased that he's probably put that to bed now.
after a great qualifying session. I'm just going to raise a topic on this subject of Red Bull. So let's cast our minds back to 2019. Pierre Gasly got promoted from Toro Rosso, as it was called at the time, Red Bull. And Alex Albon had his career rescued basically and was put into the second team at the same time. By mid-season, with Albon only with half a season of experience, they ditched Gasly.
from the main team and promoted Albon. They gave him 18 months and then they got rid of him and put Perez in. Now, they've given Perez a decent amount of time, to be fair, and it obviously wasn't working. He'd lost his confidence. His brain was frazzled. You can see why they got rid of him. They've picked Liam Lawson. Now, there'll be many people in the paddock today.
in China who'll be thinking what I'm thinking right now which is if things carry on like this Hajar performing in the way that he's doing today Lawson performing the way he's doing today by mid-season they'll be thinking Because this is what Red Bull do. They'll be thinking of getting rid of Lawson out of that car and putting Hadjar in it. And I really hope for Hadjar's sake they don't do that because he can't be ready.
to go alongside this. You would think they would choose Hajar over Tsunoda? 100%. If they haven't chosen Tsunoda by now, they're never going to. There's the Honda political situation and they don't rate it. I'm not saying it's going to happen, but if Red Bull... It's a poison chalice. It's what Red Bull do.
They'll definitely be thinking about that if Hadjar carries on in this vein. And it's history repeating itself time and time again. And this is the worst start for any of those number two drivers that have come into that Red Bull seat. So nobody's come out of that. second seat looking good have they everybody's come away from it with their tail between their legs and had to rebuild and go again i mean gasly luckily survived that
nightmare stint at Red Bull and went on to do some really good things. Ironically, he got demoted and then started performing better. Exactly. And it was the same with Albon. Albon went away and has regained his career. But every single person that has gone there... against Max Verstappen being the number one driver. Everybody is left there.
under a cloud. So let's just look back over 10 years just briefly. We'll finish this point. I love how this is turning into a Red Bull podcast, really. In 2015, Max Verstappen and Carlos Sainz were teammates at Toro Rosso. And in qualifying...
Sainz beat Verstappen very marginally over the year. And in races, again, it was close, but Verstappen was... was better but it was again close between Sainz and Verstappen so you would okay Verstappen was only 17 and Sainz had a few more years in the junior categories but they were they were rookies in Formula 1 together and that's what their level was together
I'm just stating facts now. Carlos Sainz since then, he had a difficult time against Nico Hülkenberg at Renault, but he went to McLaren against Lando Norris. They were quite evenly matched. for two years, then he went to Ferrari. Leclerc was definitely better than him, but again, Sainz was a very, very... Honourable number one and a quarter, if you like, if I'm putting it that way, you know. And actually last season was his best season at Ferrari of the four that he had. Alex Albon, meanwhile.
As we discussed him earlier, he's gone back to Williams now and rebuilt his career. Sainz has gone to Williams with the reputation of being like a top level driver, but not quite the sort of Hamilton, Leclerc, Norris, Verstappen level, Russell. And Sainz has been beaten by Albon now in two consecutive Grand Prixs. And Albon looks very impressive. And everyone thought Sainz should have got the Red Bull seat last year instead of Perez when they signed Perez again around Monaco time.
and that he should have been in the car for this year. And I don't think anyone would change that view now. So what's going on there? Surely Red Bull have to look at that. You can't always cross-compare across years like that. But that's all you've got sometimes. So if I was Red Bull, I'd be looking at that and going, something we're doing isn't right. Because all of that doesn't make sense. And then having, you know... their two cars perform in the way that they do all the time.
I feel like we've got to do at some point a special checkered flag podcast analyzing the last 10 years of Red Bull driver signings and firings. As long as we get paid, it's fine. It's not a problem. Paid off. I'll come in for work another day. We haven't quite got the same amount to pay for Sergio Perez as you. Right, that is the post-qualifying podcast, believe it or not, done and dusted. That's all we're doing. Red Bull Special. No, that's coming up. We're just teasing the Red Bull Special.
We'll do that in the summer break if Lawson's still there by then. Just to reiterate, Verstappen was fourth, Lawson 20th. I'll run you through the full grid. It's Piastri, Russell, Norris, the top three. Verstappen, Hamilton, the top five. Leclerc, Hadjar, Antonelli was eight.
ahead of Tsunoda and Alex Albon rounded out the top 10, ahead of the Haas of Esteban Ocon, Nico Hülkenberg, 12th, the two Aston Martin's Alonso and Stroll, 13th and 14th. Signs, Gasly, Behrman, Doohan, Bortoletto, and as we've said, Liam Lawson in 20th. Right, let's just... Bring things back then. Look ahead to the Grand Prix for Sunday. Who's winning the race, Sam? For me, I'm going to go with Oscar Piastri. I think that the McLarens typically are...
quite good on tyre management. I think that they're better than Verstappen. I think that they're better than George Russell. The Ferraris, I think they'll move forwards, but how far, I don't know. Andrew? I think Piastri will win it as long as he keeps the lead off the line. Because...
McLaren will want to win the race. It's too early. There's no team orders and no championship favorite. Norris is two places back. It's hard to win. When you've got a tyre management or tyre degradation graining dominated race. It's hard to win even from third place. So Piastri's got it.
Piastri's the guy who's got it in his pocket as long as he doesn't throw it away, basically. And he'll be wanting to make up for a missed opportunity in Melbourne as well. I think it's a clean sweep from all three of us for Piastri. Let's see what happens. You can join us for live coverage. build up to the Chinese Grand Prix from 6.45 in the morning on BBC Radio 5 Live ahead of Lights Out from 7 o'clock. Thank you, Andrew. Thank you, Sam. This has been an IMG production for BBC Radio 5 Live.
This is the football story of the century. three FA Cups, one Champions League and More than a hundred charges. Somebody turned up at the Etihad Stadium and effectively served papers. I'm Clive Myrie and this is Football on Trial. The Manchester City charges. They believe they've got irrefutable evidence. Listen on BBC. Sounds.