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Employment Heroes all in one system puts HR, payroll, hiring and more all in one place. One system, everything employment. Go to employmenthero.co.uk to see what else we can do for you. Welcome to the Missed Apex Australian Grand Prix Race Review. I'm your host Richard Reddy, but my friends call me Spanners, so let's be friends. Today we saw confirmation of the McLaren overall pace advantage, and we saw Norris and Piastri racing up front, but...
Did it answer which driver is the favorite for the title? I think it's a fascinating debate. The other meaty story is the disaster class at Ferrari. And of course, we'll have to discuss my wonderfully wrong... williams predictions i just hope jonno isn't here to cash in on being right we also saw a great day out for a stroll and mercedes and a less great day out for the f1 babies
We are an independent podcast produced in the podcasting shed with the kind support of our patrons and partners. We aim to bring you a race review before your Monday morning commute. We might be wrong, but we're first joining us fresh. From the reign of the Australian Grand Prix is Jonathan Simone. Hello, Jonathan. Hello, Spanners. Yes, we were promised 55% more shade, 17% more toilets, and we got 100% a thrill. That was wild stuff. What a race.
One of the best things I've ever been to. One of the best days of my life. It was so wild. And hopefully never again because that was almost too wild. I'm glad you had a good time there because we woke, obviously set the alarms for half past three. I woke the lad up and so we're all bleary eyed, pouring a coffee, getting ready, thinking, is this really worth it? And then straight away we have Hajar.
You're binning it on the formation lap, then doing going off as well. And we go, oh my goodness, we could have woken up an hour later. Yeah, exactly. Well, that was my problem is all my friends and my posse I went with wanted to show up for the supercars race like four or five hours before F1.
That barely got a race. F2 didn't even race. That was cancelled. And so my theory of showing up 45 minutes before F1 held up correct. I understand Melbourne weather more than anyone. And we're also joined by driving instructor and race car driver, Brad Philpott. Hello, Brad.
Hey, Spannard, that makes me sound like I teach people how to park correctly. I'm sorry. Driving examiner, Brad Philpott. No, driver coach. Sorry, race driver coach. I think that's, you know, that's your biggest skill right now, now that you've...
aged out a little bit yeah now I'm getting increasingly grey with what's left yeah I got up early as well although not early enough I actually was watching the race on about an hour and ten minutes delay because I missed my alarm for the first time ever for an Australian Grand Prix
I thought you were slightly less argumentative in the WhatsApp than normal. Yeah, I had to just stay off of any social media or any of our chats so that I didn't catch anything. And as always, when I turned the screen on...
obviously it was on the formula one channel and something was happening i believe i turned on in the middle of alonso's yellow flag period oh wow but i managed to look away from the screen and say la la la la la long enough to get to the recording because that could be worse i think you don't have particularly strong feelings about Alonso's success on any given day but if that had been Hamilton or Verstappen that could have been a real spoiler
I'm just really, really skilled now at averting my eyes and getting to the recording screen. But yeah, I'm looking forward to talking about this one because I think we're going to have some differing opinions. So there's lots of general Australian Grand Prix race chat, but I want to go to the two meetings. subject so we're definitely going to get i think to the to the mercedes and williams who had great days lots to say about that never been more pleased
to be wrong about a particular prediction than my prediction that Williams would be cemented to the bottom of the table in ninth for the rest of the season. But the meaty stories was the battles up front with McLaren and also what was going on with Ferrari. Let's get one thing straight. The McLaren looks not only to be the fastest car, but the most drivable car as well. I suppose you saw that trackside, Jono. Well, a lot of the other cars were squirming around a bit.
The McLaren just looks like they've come out of the box ready to go. Looked planted, and what we saw from testing is it looks like it's their year. This is their year to lose. Now, I know it's Melbourne, and we kind of said, this might not be the best track to gain the pecking order for the rest of the season. And then somebody else on Friday had said, I can't remember. which reporter that McLaren are actually better in the high-speed corners. And when you look at Melbourne...
Kind of a lot of medium speed corners, kind of there, but also a slow street circuit. So if McLaren even have more potential to unlock at China next weekend, I don't think we've even seen the best from them. So let's hope for F1's sake that this isn't the best. At the moment, they're looking pretty good. And even Max Verstappen couldn't keep up with them, at least at the start. Yeah, the one thing we're really missing here is dry weather running.
and seeing how on full tanks how they all sort of hold up on race pace and tire wear but we did see a little bit of intermediate tire wear so this current pirelli intermediate once things start drying up It doesn't seem to actually last that well. So we did kind of get a glimpse into how the drivers and cars were doing with tyre wear. I think it happened at Silverstone as well, twice. You saw in driving conditions, it was a race between the crossover period.
i.e. time to go to Silics, and will the intermediate tyres hang on? And so I think in Silverstone, it dried up a little bit quicker, whereas here it was really overcast and it didn't seem to be clearing. Once the rain settled... it was there but we did brad see a bit of a battle between piastri and and lando norris and we saw piastri like give it a real go now sensitive to the australian fans my opinion was that that was a bit of a
a fool's errand and that that charge at Norris wasn't really on. Yeah, I think I'm in agreement. I think Norris was just being careful in that stage because very, very shortly afterwards... Norris pulled the trigger and managed to get a significant gap over Piastri. I know Piastri ran a little bit wide into that gravelly bit that lots of people were kissing through the rest of the weekend.
But even so, he continued to drop back after that. So it's almost like Piastri was using up some of his tyre and Norris was quite happy to chill. Obviously, as everyone knows, it's hard to overtake when you've got a single dry line. And it's damp offline. It's really treacherous. And Piastri charging up to the back of Norris, having been told or being told just afterwards, you're not allowed to overtake him, was kind of wasted tyre wear.
Obviously, sorry, the reason you're having to put up with Jono here is we are normally joined, of course, by Matt Trumpets from America. It is currently like the middle of the night for Matt. So although he's in our Discord chat, I've spared his voice, but he'll come in midweek with the stuff we missed, with some new stories and things that have emerged post-race. So you have to put up with Jono for now. That's unfortunate.
Very, very unfortunate. But I can give you the track insight. Now, what I found funny about that, Brad, was they told the McLarens to hold position at one stage during the race. They said, hey, Oscar, this is your best chance to overtake now. You're on intermediates, and there's half...
a dry line half a wet line actually can you just hold off on overtaking until you're on dry tires and there's one line and you can't overtake towards what will mclaren thinking you know that to me is of all blatant bad team order calls that's Almost as bad as Hungary last year. That ranks second. I don't actually buy that team orders. And I'll tell you, I think it was a lie, like a strategic lie. Yeah, teams don't, if they're in one, two position, especially in the first race of the season.
They don't want their drivers having any kind of battle. They didn't want Piastri to be having an attack at Norris. They just have this pretend... over the radio oh yeah we're just telling you this right now because this is a bit of a dangerous part of the race but you can go for him later
Like Spano says, that's their own strategy. Can you believe that it's happened just as you've come up to the back of him? We'd love you to be able to go and attack Oscar and risk a one-two in the season opener. Believe me, that's what we'd love to do. However, just so happens...
happens right now no i didn't buy that at all they were buying themselves some time mercedes with rosberg and hamilton i used to try doing the uh the tire excuse so we'd come off the back of the silverstone tire gate thing
where the Pirellis were blowing up on the kerbs. So they'd use that a lot. And they'd say, guys, you've really got to stay off the kerbs. You've got to make sure that you slow down nearly to a halt, like half pace. Let's just, hey, let's just get this home. There's some massive problem.
Or you can always say overheating. That's why we have to hold position. So they did it just long enough to give themselves some time to think. And I think once they gave that free to race, really, they had made sure that Norris had got that message. And once they were free to race. Well, lo and behold, it wasn't Piastri charging up to the back of Norris to attack. It was Norris just stretching his legs and pulling away. Here's the worrying thing for me from a Piastri fan point of view is...
Why did Piastri think that that was the time to push and that was the time to attack? I feel like Piastri thought he was in a race where he was faster and he could catch up to Norris and go and attack him, not really realising that Norris was sitting there. really managing tyres, really saving things. And when he needed the performance, it was there and it was good to go. And in fact, I think it got to the point where the safety car in the end saved Piastri.
So I was watching the lap times. He was watching that lap, the timing tower go out for those of you who had had access to a timing tower today for this race. And you go, actually, Piastri could drop off a cliff here and fall back or worst case scenario, have to pit for inters again. And then that was when the Alonso crash really saved Piastri. John, I know I'm not being Australianist here.
And I'm not trying to attack your compatriot. However, this is what we've been saying about Piastri consistently for two years. And I got yelled at for on TikTok all week about is that this is the Achilles heel. If he has one, it's the tyre management. So you don't think that he was just quicker at that phase of the race? No, no, no. I think Norris had pace the entire time. Okay, because the other theory I have is even if he did catch him and he...
whether or not he was burning the tires or was just on raw pace quicker than him at that stage of the race, who says he was actually going to overtake him? Now, I know people will say, well, he overtook Lewis around the outside. I'm like, yeah, but Lewis was in basically the slowest car of all time. He was basically driving.
Apparently on a wet setup, that was the rumor. Oh, the Ferrari's on a wet setup. And then they were even slower than we expected in the wet. So I don't know. That Ferrari was a shambles. We'll get to that later on. But with Oscar, look, I... I truly believe he ran a good race. And you know me, I am the least biased Australian you could ever imagine in Formula One. And the Aussies can get very biased about their drivers and support them big time. And I genuinely believe today...
Oscar did a great job I thought he kept up with Norris I thought the spin was very unlucky in the wet his teammate went off as well You know, Oscar, maybe a couple of millimeters to each side, he might save his race and still finish one too. So I do think I don't want to turn this into a Piastri tell-off because I think this is an odd race. It was a bit of a weird one. I know the good drivers perform in tough conditions.
But let's just have a piastri argument in round five. And if this continues, then we can keep talking about his shambles of a race. Doing it now. No, I'm not saying it was a shambles of a race. If anything, I'm just being a little bit... bit defensive of my general position because i i think i'm correct on on that and i was just curious why he got that contract so early in the season when we didn't know if those issues were going to be ironed out if he'd have come home in p2
having qualified P2 really close to Norris. And I just think, yeah, that would have been a brilliant result. I wouldn't have said a dicky bird against Piastri had that been the case. And just to answer two of your things, because I didn't really answer what you asked me earlier, I think it was the right time.
to push for oscar because i don't i think it would have been harder if there was a dry line and let's say it didn't rain towards the end of the race if there's one line and then he tries to overtake on dry tires i don't think that's the right time to pass lando i think he had to do it at that point of the race The second thing, and to answer your re-signing question, if anybody saw that interview with Max Verstappen, with I think Dutch TV, basically saying how McLaren had called his management.
And he said that his management had basically hung up the phone or McLaren hung up the phone when they realized how much it would cost to lure Max Verstappen to McLaren. Now, if that's true... That might be the reason why McLaren's gone, well, we can't afford Max Verstappen. We're going to go re-sign Oscar Piastri. I found that very interesting. I'd missed that. I'd missed that completely. Just on the point of, was it the right time to push?
If it's a Rosberg versus Hamilton situation, yes. From the team point of view, the reason they would have wanted to hold it off was not really like avoiding the cars crashing together. It's that Piastri pushing meant that Norris would have to push as well to defend.
And that wasn't the optimal strategy at that time. They wanted to really eke out those intermediates to get to the crossover point or a safety car. So I think that's why they were holding him off. Whereas I don't think Norris was even wanting to consider.
Piastri behind he just wanted to do his tyre run plan to make sure they could have the optimal strategy sorry Brad thanks for your patience that's okay I just wanted to say I kind of agree with you about Piastri and his relative position to Norris I think if he had just
executed the race with everything apart from his off, which obviously defined the rest of his race. And he just finished close to Norris, having qualified close behind him. I think that's a great weekend for him. And that's really decent as it stands. I think. the whole weekend just showed what we've already seen. It was a continuation of the relative Piastri versus Norris positions that I would have expected. Piastri like a couple of percent away from Lando when you take an average of...
the entire weekend and the pace and all the decisions. It's like he has the freedom to... push a bit harder when he's behind because you've got slightly less to lose than the person in the lead of the race. And he's still trying to make a point. And he's obviously very brave and really good at overtaking. But he just, he's needing to be on his own personal limit.
to keep up with Norris performing at his baseline. Yeah, Norris, tyre-saving. So, yeah, so Peastri pushing can obviously get up to Norris, tyre-saving. But, like, nobody's saying that... that Piastri is bad or shouldn't go racing or shouldn't challenge his teammate or shouldn't try. I think you'd be disappointed, I suppose, if he didn't try, if he took a Barrichello role. But also it does highlight where the shortfall is. Is that fair, Australia? Is that fair?
And I think this will come up. We'll be able to predict. Let's use our predictive powers then. Let's say before a weekend, if we think it's going to be a higher wear track or that's going to be a challenge, let's say, all right, let's see how Piastri does. If we do it in advance. That's probably more useful. In hindsight, of course, it's easy. Go on, go on, Jono. I know you're going to put up a token defence.
I know on Wednesday when we did the preview and I kind of said, well, year three, Oscar Piastri is not going to all of a sudden become Michael Schumacher. I get that. But I do think one thing you can improve as a driver is your...
or how easy you are on tires, learning a driving style that's smoother and cleaning that up, right? So who's to say that Oscar doesn't figure that out this year? I know race one, that's a hard sample size. Like he gained two seconds on Lando Norris. You know, he wasn't absolutely... No, no, no. And it's a tough race as well. He did a good job. Tough race as well. Go on, Brad. So obviously the other thing that happened to Piastri that we haven't really spoken about, why it happened.
then and it was in a you know when he was in this chasing norris yes part of the race was when he went off which then and then he got stuck so Both McLarens went off at that moment. It was like there was a damp section, you know, in those final two corners. There was a little bit of rain at that moment. Norris had a moment and went off.
And it was almost like Piastri went off in sympathy, but it was like he was more committed. So he went off more. It was new. It was new rain, wasn't it? It had just started falling. As a racing driver, how often does that happen? It happens to be on iRacing all the time. If the car in front goes off, I just follow it.
I mean, yeah, you'd think that if the car in front goes off, that's given you slight warning that you need to be slowing down. You've got a little bit of a warning that they didn't have. But, but yeah, obviously Piastri went off further and you could see, I could see it developing. And when you watch his onboard and you, I can feel how helpless he is because he's got to rejoin.
And then there's zero grip as he rejoins and the momentum of the engine behind him just takes him around under the grass. And obviously super low cars with slippery tires on damp grass. So hard to get it moving. But what was impressive was that... his tenacity in actually getting it off the grass. And Martin Brundle said, you need to turn this into a front-wheel drive car, go in reverse. So many of the younger drivers don't...
realise this when they're driving single-seaters. I saw in the Formula 3 race earlier this morning, drivers getting stuck on the grass and I was thinking to myself, just go in reverse and really slowly creep off the clutch.
But they sit there in first gear, flat out, and it won't go anywhere. Piastri had the head on him to still score a couple of points because he got that car out. He didn't rush it. He took as long as it took. And then obviously we had the safety car, which brought him back into contention. Thank you, Brad, for saying that. How lucky are we to have Brad Philpott, apparently a driving instructor, teaches people how to learn at 16 years old, on this podcast because...
I've been saying that all weekend too. I saw somebody in the supercars race, I think it was Cooper Murray, reversed into a gravel trap. Now, always try to reverse first, right? Now, if it doesn't work, then you try and accelerate and beat yourself and be like, oh, look, I'm done. So I love that. I won't add.
too much to that but thank you for mentioning that and for the rest of everyone's lives try reversing out of out of when you're beached more than more than driving out forwards now another thing i was going to mention when the mclarens went off There was a race like 20 years ago in Malaysia. I can't remember which one, like 2003 or something. The two Ferraris, it was Michael Schumacher and Barrichello. Carbon copy situation. Rain just fell out of nowhere.
both of them off the racetrack, the camera panned and you were like, whoa, what just happened? Like they're off the track and it's the first two cars that cop it. Everyone else sees that and slows down. So if you're Max Verstappen, you're going...
Thank goodness I was third in line because I think he managed to keep it on the road from memory, if I'm not mistaken. Now, the other thing I'll say, and this is my local knowledge coming into play, it's my home track, grew up in Melbourne. Right next to Albert Park is Port Phillip Bay. Massive bay. Now, the winds were coming from the south. What is it? Nobody eats soggy wheat beaks. What is the west? The west. That's it. Southwest. So they were coming in from the southwest.
And the reason teams couldn't predict the showers is when you looked at the weather radar, it looked clear. And then all of a sudden, the clouds would... Now, I'm no meteorologist, but I think this is how it works. The clouds would just pick up this rain from the bay. And the first thing.
on the land is the albert park racetrack and it just dumped it straight on the racetrack so teams were like there's no rain oh wait a second there's massive rain and so it became so unpredictable at that point okay we've never had a rainy albert park race not since 2010 so that was
amazing to see i'm glad you got it specific to the race there for a second i thought you were just going to do the water cycle rain evaporates and the clouds pick up the race yeah that no that's a really good explanation as to why it was jumping around a lot and why some teams got caught out. So I think for the McLaren guys, it was a no-brainer to go, well, let's just get ourselves in the pits now and get on those intermediate tyres. Because that's obvious, right?
No team would not go on the intermediaries. I think we're almost done with McLaren. But it's not like a noticeable skill level between the two drivers. You can't just go, well, Norris just did better at crashing. He crashed better. Because they both had an off, didn't they? But are you a little bit in the mercy of the gods when it comes to holding it on those occasions? I just think... I obviously was asking Brad, not you.
I just think there's some luck involved and there's also some, it depends how hard you happen to be pushing at that point and how committed you are. Because if you find yourself, if you commit to breaking and turning in at a point where you're assuming a certain amount of grip. And the grip that you're faced with at that very moment when you arrive turns out to be much lower. You just have to hope, you know, hang on, wait, hope, see what happens and try and control it as best you can.
Because you've just committed to something which isn't reality. And obviously, if you are not pushing quite as hard, then the problem won't be as big when you find yourself in that situation. And I think Norris was just... slightly more cautious. He went off a little bit and Piastri went off a lot. That's it. I went out too much other than the fact that I feel like track position was so crucial. I feel like if Piastri had qualified ahead of Norris...
I truly believe we'd be seeing the opposite result. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah, I think Piastri needs to figure out a way to out-qualify him and get in front of him. He can't keep coming from behind. Okay, so... We'll see. We'll see how that situation will occur. Piastri will qualify ahead of Norris on many occasions. So if that happens in a high deg situation like this again, we can revisit that because I disagree.
think if it's the other way around norris would have enough yeah i think well still gets him his relative because australia is a hard track to overtake on but you know we can we can talk about that i think when that situation comes up again So, sorry, Australia, at the moment, sorry. I'm not trying to, it feels like I'm getting a piastri. If that changes, if that situation changes, I'm off his back for that, completely, obviously. I'm not sort of religiously tied.
to not wanting Piastri to do well. I keep getting accused of being like a Norris fanboy and British bias. I am not and have not at any point been a Norris fan particularly. You're only forgiving Spanners if you say good stuff about Jack Doohan's race. Oh, no. Oh, God. Okay. Okay. Give me a minute. I can workshop that. I can improv that. Charles in the patron live chat says, remember.
this oscar rescuing two points if it becomes closer in the in the title later on and he's right it could be key join charles and sean and steve and and matt and stewart in our patron live chat and sean and ej hello and maria by going to patreon.com forward slash miss apex support us on patreon can join us in our live chat
And that Discord channel is open all the time. There's always things going on in there. It's quite a cool place to hang out. But mostly you're supporting us and helping us mix it in the iTunes and Spotify charts. with the big boys and I do hope that you'll support us and stay tuned for the rest of the season oh and add free feed as well Now, the end boss for Norris was in fact Verstappen in the end.
So you guys know that, you know, I'm not a Verstappen fan. I'm a Lewis Hamilton fan, Tsunoda fan. So first and foremost, I come into a race saying, oh, I hope Hamilton does well. And then maybe Tsunoda. And I hope whoever has replaced Perez or is comparable to Perez.
has a bit of a disastrous race so that I can go, oh, yeah, apologise to Perez now, OK? So that's my hopes. But when that isn't happening and when it's two drivers up front who I'm not... invested in in that way when it's piastri and norris you kind of go well at least verstappen didn't win that was my own consolation but verstappen was like on fire and i don't think he had a great car underneath him that red bull
really looks a handful it looked a handful in testing it looks more of a handful with uh with lawson i think lawson doesn't quite have the same package and people were saying that lawson's car sounded noticeably different track side i don't know if you picked up on that johnny I'm going to take that as a no. But it really looked like the more difficult of the two cars. I think Verstappen drove the socks off that thing to keep it in contention. It didn't look like it had the tyres.
In that intermediate phase, he dropped off quicker. He dropped off quicker than Piastri did as well. But he was still the end level boss. The raw pace is in that car. And he dropped off. Now, there were two stages he dropped off. One was when he went off at turn.
I keep forgetting what it is now. It used to be turn 13. It's probably turn 12 now, I believe. Jono, I just have to point out, he actually didn't go off. It looked like he kind of did, but he just went deep and went on the curb. But he stayed fully off the gravel. And that is just an example of him keeping it together when others might not have done in the same situation. I wouldn't normally praise Max for a small mistake, but minimizing how bad the mistake is, is part of his skill.
No, no, very good point. You know, he kicked up what, like four gravel stones at most? Like it was barely, you know, hit the gravel. That was one key was maybe you could argue his tires dropped off then. And that's why he was under pressure and pushing a little bit too hard. And that's why he then kind of made that mistake, which cost him second position.
The other time he dropped off, I truly believe this, is when he was under braking for that corner at turn 11, I think it's called now, he locked up the front left, and it looked like a massive lockup, right? Like that flat spot would have cost him a lot of time. As soon as that happened...
Not only now mentally, Brad, do you not keep up with the car in front. It's not in front of you. So you now don't have that reference point anymore because basically he's chasing down Norris. He's got the draft, all this other kind of business. Now you're dealing with a flat spot.
For God knows how long it was, it was about 20 laps. So I think that also played a part in Max Verstappen dropping off. I also think, Brad, the car wasn't quick enough and he was pushing too hard for his liking. I think the main thing is that the Red Bull chewed up its Inters a bit quicker. Flat spot, I wouldn't be too worried about because the way a wet or an intermediate tyre works, they don't tend to flat spot like a slick wood.
They're made of such a different kind of rubber. If you picture a slick is, when a slick gets hot, it's like chewing gum. So when you lock up, it's like taking sandpaper to the tire immediately. A wet or an intermediate tire is much more like a road tire type of rubber. Well, you imagine it doesn't matter how hot you get your road tires. it never forms a film of chewing gum style squishy rubber on top. It's just not that kind of rubber. It might go soft and...
and like jelly and move around, but it never turns into like an emulsion on the surface, which is what a slick does and which is why it's so grippy. So you don't tend to get quite as much of an issue with a flat spot. However, especially when it's still quite damp, you know, when he locked up, it wasn't like he was locking up at 200 miles an hour on a dry bit of track. So it's less friction. Quite slow and it was on a slippery thing. Yeah.
I think the big thing here is that the tyres were just generally going off for Red Bull. And this might be a glimpse into what happens in a full dry race when we see the relative performances of a McLaren and a Red Bull, or the Verstappen Red Bull at least.
over a stint. It looks like the McLarens could keep the tyres alive for longer. We saw it even in qualifying how they had better pace in the final sector because they could keep the tyres alive. It's all indicative of the same thing here, I think.
the Red Bull in Verstappen's hand can be really fast until the tyres go away from it. No, that is interesting. So one thing I noticed last year, especially the times when they were quite equal with the McLaren... the red bull could go from being a quick quality car to a quick race car depending on what setup they chose so i think some of that is in their hands because you saw in austria i can't remember which way around but one either for the sprint
They were fast in quali and had race pace, and then they reversed it. It was the opposite way around, yeah. So they got to the race. Suddenly, they found time in qualifying, and you go, oh, well, they fixed something. but then they chewed up the tyres a little bit. So I wouldn't put too much hope in that if you're hoping Verstappen's going to have that all season. I think that's something they can dial in and out. But if they're forced to go...
chasing one lap pace because there's a general pace deficit they might have to sacrifice some some race pace just talking about Verstappen himself we know we already know this about Max but this was just another example of how That driver is making the difference there.
And it's not really a fair comparison to Lawson, who was having a horrendous weekend in general. Whether or not the cars were the same, I think the bigger difference there is the driver. They're always the same. They're always exactly the same car, and there's never any leeway to be made, ever.
is what I've learned as a Perez fan. I think Max has showed us today that he will, even with a car which we think isn't, well, in testing, we didn't think it was in the top two of the cars, at least. No, right. he is going to grind out results and maximise what that car can do. That's annoying, isn't it? I don't think he could have done any better today. No, no, I don't think so either. Yes, the live chat is pointing out, Sean says, didn't the safety car really help Verstappen? Yes.
And Scott pointing out, yeah, he did drop off a stone. It was dropping off a cliff and he knew it. And they were all desperately hanging on in there waiting for something to happen. And it did. So at the end. we saw basically they were basically on fresh inters weren't they at the end and you say well now that issue's gone away he's fast again but even when he was fast even when he had the drs it just felt like mclaren
And Norris and the team there had that in his pocket. And I think it was quite telling. The race engineer came on and was just doing a bit of life coaching with Norris going, the car's quick. It's going to be OK. Basically, they were saying, don't panic. I have to say, I thought that was the least helpful bit of radio. I think that was worse than Leclerc's engineer saying...
oh, the water must be water then that's in your seat or whatever that was. I think coming onto the radio, a pressure situation when Norris is just trying to, what you're trying to do as a driver in that point is not think about anything. You don't want conscious thought. You don't want...
anything to interrupt your flow and to make you do something different to what you would have done naturally. You want to be just living on your senses and having an engineer come over the radio and say, you know, don't, don't screw up. You know, don't push too hard and get this wrong because you're leading the race. Or, you know, the equivalent of whatever it was he said. You know, the pace is in the car. Don't think about orange penguins, Lando. Whatever you do. It's so unhelpful.
Because if you say, yeah, it's exactly that. It's exactly that, Spanners. If someone says, you know, don't tighten up, don't get nervous, don't make a mistake, you're going to... You're going to think, what, is that a thing that I might do? And then you start overthinking things. So luckily Lando was able to just put that out of his mind and crack on. But yeah, engineers out there, please don't do that.
Well, Will Joseph, his engineer, has sort of, it's become a habit of him to talk too much and give too much detail. But I don't know, they seem to have a good relationship. So I guess Lando kind of likes it and I guess it works for him. But if he was my engineer, I would basically say, nah, like that.
That's just too much info for me. I just need to be left alone, like the Ferrari drivers. Will Joseph, is it? Is that the race engineer? I'm going to defend him because we've seen Norris drop a couple of these. maybe some coaching was was required and they let's give them credit that maybe they've talked about it because i have to say the mclaren senior management it all seems like a really supportive and quite a loving environment
They all seem like they're really nice to each other. I bet they'll have had a chat and gone, you know, if we're in a pressure situation, I'll give you a mental hug over the radio. So I'll give them the credit for understanding their driver a little bit as well. But it comes across weird to us.
from the outside so we can't draw wild conclusions from one race but this is norris's to lose if we're gonna draw wild conclusions and we may as well because we haven't got another race for six or seven days on the surface mclaren have turned up At least for the next 11 races with a car that looks like it's going to be difficult to catch. Looks like he's got the measure of his teammate. Norris, first title confirmed. I agree.
And the reason is because we've seen this in the past. The team that has the quickest car at the moment, as you said, we think it's McLaren. Like if this was a Lewis Hamilton in a Mercedes. we would see like, oh no, something's bad happened. He was on his way to a title, but now Pierre Gasly's won the race out of nowhere for some reason. And today it was, oh, we've had an amazing race. It was a bunch of shambles at some point and people crashed all over the place and Alonso...
Probably thought he was the best driver and the car's fault for crashing, as he always says, you know, Fernando Alonso media school. But Lando Norris still won the race. And that was crucial. 25 points. The problem is, Spanners, Verstappen also gained 18 points. You just can't put him away. He's always there. Jono, we're not doing title run in maths yet. Yeah.
They're about 145 points from sealing it. No, just joking. The only driver that's mathematically out of the champion is probably doing just because of the short amount of races he's got left compared to everybody else. That was unfortunate. Do we want to talk about the rookie errors on the first? I think anything to delay talking about Ferrari for a minute. I think let's do that then. Let's do a bit of a rookie roll call. So firstly, the Hajar one was absolutely heartbreaking.
He's clearly torn apart. And he'd gathered himself by the time we saw the post-race interviews. And he used the term, it's embarrassing. Because he'd brought his family there. He's really excited about the first race. All his mates are going to be watching him on TV. This is the absolute pinnacle of a young driver's career. First race in Formula One. And you've been it on the formation lap. And he used those words. It's embarrassing.
nightmare stuff brad but my my my opinion my opinion yours is much more important is that that is a could have happened to anyone kind of thing yeah so i was racking my brains for times where something like that's happened to me because i have such empathy for him and for the other drivers that you know didn't get far into the race in those conditions i've had something where i haven't even made it into a race weekend because i've had an accident leaving really in practice
There were extenuating circumstances. Maybe we'll go into this on a Patreon stream another time. But the fact is, you've traveled to another country. You've got people there over to watch. You've got people who have supported you and have made the thing happen. And then because of... your actions, even if we can argue in a moment,
you know, it could have happened to anyone. You were still the one behind the wheel and the bad thing happened and it wouldn't have happened if you'd made different decisions. And I feel how gutted he was. And it's obviously heightened so much more when it's your first Formula One race. And so in the specifics of what happened to Hadjar, he's leaving turn one, turning left. And this was on the formation lap, wasn't it? Was it turn one of the formation lap? No. Out of nowhere.
His rear wheels have spun up and obviously you're a passenger from that moment. And it's very similar to what it looked like happened to Sainz and I guess to Dewan as well. And then later on to Lawson. The difference is how do I... It wasn't pushing. He was just accelerating gently round turn one. Now, I think the reason that it keeps catching people out, the reason it feels so weird, and Sainz, for example, said, I had a huge torque spike.
I think it's because the driver is accelerating in a linear way. So their foot on the physical pedal is moving very smoothly at a kind of set linear rate. But the delivery of the power... jumps you know the delivery especially because you've got turbocharged and electrified powertrain here a very small movement of the pedal can in certain engine maps yeah
cause the rear wheels to spin very easily, especially when the tyres are cold and there's painted areas. And I think the painted areas are key here. And obviously, once the tyres begin spinning... then the torque does ramp up because the revs increase suddenly. Even if it's a couple of hundred revs, they increase suddenly. And before you know it, it's out of control and the wheels have spun and you can't do anything. And I agree with you. It's the kind of thing that...
can happen to anyone. And it's why I watch races like this through my fingers thinking a tiny, tiny error in terms of how quickly your right foot applies the throttle. And the rear wheels are going to spin and you're going to be in the barriers. Unless someone's driven, even on something like iRacing, a simulator, one of the cars like a Formula One car here, you won't quite realise how easy it is to brake traction.
just by accelerating it's not the kind of thing people ever experience on the road unless it's icy i don't know it sounds sus with the signs one i'm gonna chinny reckon i'm gonna say chinny reckon i reckon they're in the briefing room with carlos signs going okay carlos Are these talk spikes in the room with us right now? Can you see? This is a safe place, Carlos. No, no. On a race weekend where so many people had those moments.
It is really hard to point blames and say that one driver's done something particularly wrong. Go on, Jono. You guys realize what Isaac Hadjar has unlocked here? Is that if you have a very, very embarrassing accident... That borderline would get blasted by 90% of F1 fans and media. Just start crying.
Just start pouring your eyes out. Everyone will feel sorry for you. And you're like, oh, actually, you know what? I feel really bad for him. That was just a genuine mistake. It's all good. But when Liam Lawson spins at the same corner, it's absolutely disgusting, is it?
uh well according to the australian fans probably but don't cry on telly this is what i say to my son i don't know if this is good parenting or not but i do say you know just keep those feelings deep deep down in a tight angry ball and don't
Your emotions aren't everyone else's problem. So just keep it to yourself. No, only joking. Let your emotions out. But you did cry on telly on your first F1 race after not making a corner. And you go, that's not an ideal weekend. That's going to take some coming back. I do feel bad for him. Your son's probably going to cry at like 4 p.m. today because you woke him up at 3 a.m. to watch the race. No, I've ironed that out of him.
You won't see his emotions ever. He won't. Yeah, he'll close his door in his room and you'll know what, yeah, he'll be, you'll hear it. So that's, yeah, that's Hadjog sort of more or less done there, isn't it? I'm done. You think like career done? Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. As a topic, unless Brad's got more on that. Oh, as a topic. Okay, I was going to say that. I think Brad's got a little more. Were you supposed to say doing or had you?
I was just, I was with Jono there. I thought you were saying Hadjar's career was done after that. No, no, no. I thought actually he had one of the most impressive... of the rookie weekends up until that point. It's probably why that was so disappointing for him. Yeah, and seems actually really nice and he was cheering on Tsunoda when he got his P5 in Q3 as well. Yeah. I like that. He's a really good lad.
I like him. Should we do a clickbait title before we go to Ferrari? Because they're getting out of hand lately. Do we do one of those before we move on? Yeah, but we've still got some rookies to do here as well. So if you think you're getting away from the Antipodean rookies, you've got... another thing coming so we've got uh we've got the term full season rookie now because you lot have been like difficult and going
technically he's not a rookie because according to the FIA driver schedule, if you've done more than... They're in their first season, they're a rookie. But now because of you lot, we've got to specify... full season rookie to avoid emails and they're doing that every single time on sky because of you right so of the full season rookies lawson has the spin as well which we which we've covered actually it's a bit of a nightmare weekend for lawson
That nothing went right. There was no pace. There was several errors. Is there any sort of shining light? Is there anything positive? Yes, I have it. And P15 in the race was the highest he finished in any session during the weekend. Is that a consolation? Why is that a consolation?
It was bad. So you know what? It was the same car spanners. Exactly the same car, Brad. Exactly the same. I'm not serious about the Checo comparison. I know I tweeted one like equals one apology to Checo, but I understand there's time to come. Brad? I think the only consolation is that it was a weekend where he was the only driver to have never driven the track before, which counts for something. But not a rookie, apparently.
Yeah, he was a rookie at Melbourne, at least. I think this was a bit of an outlier for him. I think we need to just see him at a different track with a weekend that isn't completely going terribly from the outset. Just let him get on with it. But you can't deny it was a really bad weekend from Lawson. So I think for him, he acknowledges that. He needs to put that aside mentally.
And he knows that the car is, assuming it's the same car, which I think it is, the car is good enough to be fighting somewhere right up at the front. So he just needs to really work hard, look at Max's data and... and dig deep and get on with it so from what you said they might have had a slightly different upgrade so the nose mainly yeah the front wing and the nose but i don't think there was enough of a difference to put him
you know, on merit down at the very back of the field. No. So for those keeping score though, like me, Tsunoda is 1-0 up against Lawson in qualifying and race. so far this season and 1-0 up in qualifying and the race against Isaac Hadja as well so we don't think Bortoleto we don't think that was his fault I think the rear suspension went
I think that isn't what happened. So we obviously saw the rear suspension break, but we saw that rear suspension break after the spin had happened. And I'm pretty certain having watched that replay over and over. The spin was a standard on throttle, wet weather, damp spin. And then the force of the car being in a forward gear whilst traveling backwards at an angle.
caused the suspension to break because it's not designed to work in that direction under heavy load. So maybe it was damaged from an earlier tap. Maybe he'd used a curb too hard and that's the moment it decided to break.
But the spin almost certainly didn't look like it was caused by that suspension because first of all, it was the inside rear because it was on the right when he was traveling backwards towards the camera. So it was his right rear and he'd just gone around a right-hander. So it wasn't the loaded one. And then it very obviously and suddenly broke on camera after the spin. So I think that was just an error. Oh, such a shame because of the rookies, he was looking on pace with his teammate.
He was the only teammate, sorry, the only driver to out-qualify his teammate. Not rookie. I would say... I think it was the first, like if you were a new driver on a new team, like Hamilton's new to Ferrari in a sense, and all those new drivers were outqualified by the old drivers. He was the only driver who outqualified Hülkenberg on that team. I know they're both kind of, well, I mean, is that...
Probably the worst comparison. But anyway, he did a good job. He outqualified Hulkenberg. Poor comparison. Okay, right. Moving on then. Okay, so we've got Antonelli of the rookies who actually had a good race, but we'll go into that in the Mercedes thing as well. and Behrman seem to keep it on the road too. Right, Ferrari. I don't think we can avoid it. Sorry.
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Because to you it's same old, but to them it's something new. Your skills are more valuable than you realise. From college courses to workplace apprenticeships, share your skills and change lives without changing your career. Search Teach and Further Education to find out more. Hamilton looked really happy, didn't he, when he arrived?
And that's the highlight of the race. Now, Brad, I think, is going to say, look, only one thing went wrong. There was a crucial strategy decision. But actually, I think there's a few worrying elements. And you could hear it in Hamilton's voice. He wasn't doing that new relationship thing where you go, oh, no, don't be silly, darling. I don't mind at all that you had eight Proseccos and started yelling at your friend.
come to bed don't worry about it we'll we'll sleep it'll be fine in the morning you know there was none of that he was straight away going what are you doing shut up just dude shut up dude shut up I thought he was pretty reserved and very polite on the radio. I quite liked Hamilton's... So Hamilton's entire race today, in fact, his entire weekend, I thought was... quietly working away, making progress, and not making any glaring errors. He kept it on the road. He wasn't...
you know, wildly far off of Leclerc. It was, you know, a couple of tenths. It began the weekend six tenths, got down to four, then two by qualifying. And I think on race pace, he was pretty much there. He just was stuck behind Albon the entire time. And then found himself in this position when the changeable conditions were happening and we had the safety car period, all this kind of mess was happening in the middle. He found himself leading briefly.
But I just think he shouldn't have found himself leading. And I think Ferrari pretty obviously should have just copied Verstappen. They kind of got gifted this brilliant second place track position. Eight seconds off of Verstappen at that point when Verstappen came into the pits. If he just followed him in eight seconds behind, they'd have been easily in the top five on the right tires and looking at a really strong result for the first one. As it happened, Ferrari...
ignored the fact that the track was now soaking wet and their driver was on hard, cold tires. And that the track takes ages to dry out. And they kept him out in this weird hope that... Yeah, the track will just instantaneously get 15 seconds quicker in a couple of laps. It was bizarre. So even from the sofa, it's so easy to say this, we can make the decisions watching without all the information, but this was an obvious howler. Okay.
This thing of, oh, you're just on your sofa, you're an armchair fan, you can't, you don't know any better than strategists. There have been a lot of times where we go, no, come on. It's every time. It's every time. With Ferrari. With Ferrari in particular. Yeah. It's not just that we only highlight the times where we get it right. There's some things where it's clear that the teams are looking at too much information and they overcomplicate the decision.
When you're just looking at a simple timing tower and the footage in front of you and the relative speeds of the cars that are a car that's already changed to Inters and a car that's still out on slicks and how long it took to dry out in the first part of the race, that's pretty simple factors to take into account. And we can say...
yeah, you need to pit now. And when even Verstappen has decided, yeah, it's too dangerous, I need to pit now, follow the guy in. Okay, so I followed this on our live Discord chat during the race, and our patron supporters... They're pretty good at screaming in anguish when these sorts of decisions come out. Like, no, what are you doing? The only way that tactic could have worked is if it stopped raining immediately. So once more rain had come, you're right, Brad, it was never going to dry out.
So there was never any case of hanging on. There had to be just not the liquid falling in the first place. And it became obvious almost immediately. And I was just begging. As soon as Verstappen pitted, I was going, please stop raining. Please stop raining. But by that point... It was already too late. They were doomed. And now it was survival just to get back to the Inters. And you go, in general, follow Verstappen in. It's a cheat code. It's like being able to see someone's exam paper.
Verstappen and Red Bull get that kind of call right every single time. And Ferrari, with their history of strategy calls, look at Verstappen going in and go, nah, now we... We got this. I'd be panicking if I made a different decision to Verstappen. They'd already got this brilliant gain. So Hamilton in particular, through Leclerc's spin and then other people having problems, they'd already found themselves in this great position where they're up in second and...
closer to the front than they would have otherwise been. But they then kind of, they couldn't, they didn't know when to quit. They didn't know. It was, was it the gamblers? fallacy or maybe it's the opposite of that they they were having good things happen and they were like okay these will probably keep happening so let's stay out now they even said to Lewis Lewis is on the radio saying I think it's too wet now we should have pitted
And they're saying, you're in the lead. It's like, yeah, great, but I'm 15 seconds off the pace, mate. It's actually called the hot hands fallacy. We think that streak's going to continue. Jono. I learned one thing this race about Ferrari and their strategy calls and their weather readings is what class one rain is. Is that what they said? I was thinking class one action, but that's like lawsuits. Class one rain. is basically I was getting ready for an umbrella. I had my poncho on.
And it's basically like, you know when you're up close with someone and they accidentally spit on you, like mid-conversation? That's basically class one rain. It's like being spat on by somebody else. So that's as bad as class one rain is. But then they said class three rain towards the end of the race, and it was pretty... heavy so i now got a gauge in the future for what each means now if anybody wants to remember this
Class one rain, if the track is already dry, is basically nothing. Like you don't need to pit. I think you can pretty much stay out there on dry tires. The problem today is when the class one rain came was that it had been raining for about 12 hours at that point.
So there was no drying of the racetrack at any point. And every time a racing line appeared, it just completely disappeared. But anyway, back to what you were talking about with Ferrari strategy calls. Isn't this like a fun... Now, I know we support Lewis Hamilton here. You know, in our personal lives, away from the podcast, of course, from our unbiased decisions. And sometimes fanatically on the podcast, yeah. So I kind of find this weird, but it's kind of fun to be a Ferrari.
Lewis Hamilton fan and being frustrated about terrible strategy because I've been on the other side of it for about my whole life and I've been bagging Ferrari fans and I'm like, this is fun to get made fun of every race. This is going to be a great season. Do you remember the Murray Walker quote when I think it was...
Prost and Senna crashing together at the first corner at Suzuka. And he went, and it's happened immediately. That's what it felt like with Ferrari strategy today. Oh my God, you're absolutely right. Yeah, yes. And it's that thing, that meme of that crying baby with the Ferrari hat on that then got to...
go and see Kimi Raikkonen. I just can't stop thinking about that now. That is all of us Lewis Hamilton fans. Now, I know you're saying that you thought that that was kind of the only bad thing about the weekend, but I think there's something else went wrong, technically.
Leclerc was complaining in testing. Yeah, there's something wrong. I don't want to comment too soon because, you know, we might just fix it. Then they get to Friday practice. Actually, they seemed decent. Everyone else on the grid thinks Ferrari's fast. Get to qualifying and then they just go off a cliff.
And the big flip-flop I had yesterday was, do I believe the reports that they had just gone on to a race strategy of rain and therefore that's why they were slow? Or is it because of the other thing, which is they were worried that they'd messed up on the plank where... Therefore, they had to raise the ride height and that ruins your aerodynamic platform. I think it's safe to say it was the latter. And that is quite worrying that after all that testing and everything, they turn up at Australia.
And they're the only team who's having to worry about their plank wear and drops off a cliff like that. Whatever they did today, they were slow anyway. They could have picked up that super lucky bonus podium that was on the table. But that form wasn't there. The pace wasn't there. They were running generally Leclerc about two seconds a lap slower than the tyre-saving McLarens. That's a long way off. They were behind Mercedes. They were struggling to overtake Williams as well.
At one point. At one point for about a third of the race. We'll get onto that in a little bit because the Williams isn't as slow as it might seem.
But we'll talk about that a little bit later on, Spanners, because I know I'm looking forward to that conversation. I don't really want to. I don't really want to. But the other thing with the Ferrari is in testing every year, like they show their hand a little bit early. So that was also lingering in the back of my mind going, well, they've been very quick, but are they actually...
going to improve come australia so that was also there and i i just laughed when when they said oh we've heard rumors in the paddock that they're running a wet weather setup and then i'm watching the car in the rain going well lewis hamilton can't pass you know
Alex Albon and Yuki Snowden is within just a couple of seconds of Charles Leclerc at one point. I'm like, oh, this is not looking good. I really hope it's a one-off because we do want to see Ferrari looking good. We don't want to see them fourth best. I feel like... The reason I'm not so pessimistic and disappointed is I feel like Ferrari, despite the end result and despite where Lewis was running relative to a racing bull and a Williams in the first stint.
On pace, I think they were solidly level-ish with Mercedes there in kind of the second slash third position. McLaren obviously out front and, you know, and... showing a clean pair of heels to everyone but it felt like Ferrari were actually in the hunt it's just things had gone wrong to to show this weekend that in these conditions on this track they just weren't there but there was nothing
I really think Lewis was being held up by the fastest Williams. He would have been quicker than Tsunoda. It was a track positioning thing on a damp track on the first lap. He didn't want to, you know, he was a little bit cautious. And we've seen this from Lewis in recent years, but it's understandable first lap in a new team on a street track with wet conditions.
It was the right thing, probably, to not have a crash. Oh, I know. You're right. The pace was better than I think it looked. And if it is this ride height thing, which, you know, is this just us hoping? If it is that, then... you know, there's potential for that to get turned around. Yeah, I can't trust. I can't trust my judgment on this one. I can't because every single other season I've looked at Ferrari preseason and gone, yeah, but that's not going to survive to the racetrack.
And I just couldn't, I couldn't do that this year. I really let myself believe. And then when it came to, was it rain set up versus this ride hard error? I was just believing the last thing I read. So you're right. If there is a core speed there, that is better than it just being just slow, slow. But it's definitely like a lost opportunity. And this part of the season, it all counts for points.
And I'd be feeling better if Leclerc hadn't said, well, we've got China next and we're not really good there either. Oh, well, throw in the towel. I give up. I give up, Jono. I'm out. Can I then spin the topic into, because this is depressing me a little bit, can I spin it into a positive end on how Lewis Hamilton every single session seemed to get closer and closer to Charles Leclerc? Now, that's obvious because he started so far back and looked horrible in FP1.
But then even in qualifying, I was like, well, you know, two and a half tenths slower, first race with the new team. We've had the least amount of testing in F1 history, you know, not so bad. And then in the race, held up by Williams and Snowder at the start, lost a lot of time.
And then even regardless of what happened, I know the safety car mixed positions up and all this kind of business, but before all that drama happened, if you take away the time he lost in the traffic, if this was a traffic-less race and they drove on rails... Pace wasn't that bad compared to Charles Leclerc either. So I'm kind of positive. In the clean air, they were running about the same. But let's be realistic here.
you're projecting some future assumption that, you know, he'll move on from here. At the moment, I think Leclerc's got him covered in qualifying pace. For sure. Right, in qualifying pace, in race pace. And wheel to wheel, because they were wheel to wheel twice today where Hamilton could have been a bit ruder, could have held his line. Hamilton jumped out of the way and he jumped out of the way for Albon as well. And you go 20, 10 years ago, Hamilton wouldn't have done that.
I thought when him and Leclerc both overtook Gasly towards the end, that was a 50-50 situation where Lewis could have quite easily not gone for that move, but he'd go around the outside and kind of follow Leclerc through. It wasn't a... a definite slam dunk overtake on Gasly. It was, it was a tricky one and, and he still went for it. I was encouraged by Lewis's race. I just thought he was building and there wasn't a race win on the line here. He's fighting for like,
Fifth to eighth was realistically where he was going to finish. And so there wasn't that much. It's easier as a driver to mentally subconsciously unlock that extra level of risk taking and therefore a little bit of speed. when there's something that matters on the line. When it doesn't matter and kind of all you can do is really lose out and look stupid and have a DNF, it's more, especially when it's damp and tricky like it was today, it's...
I think it's understandable. He was, I thought he was fine and I'm really normally quite critical of Lewis. Yes, you are. As long as it doesn't stay, if he was six tenths behind in every session and was well off in the race and falling away. And I know he fell away because he was stuck behind cars, but then I would be way more pessimistic. But I'm completely encouraged. I think in the next couple of races, especially understanding, you know, the relationship with his engineer.
I'm not just making excuses here. I think these things will be the polish that's the difference between a couple of tents and a comfortable weekend and a coming from behind having to close a gap on your incumbent teammate.
So I think look at China in a week's time, a track that Lewis has traditionally been good at much more normal kind of a track where you can take risks, go a bit wide and you're not immediately in a barrier. I think we might see something slightly different. I wouldn't be surprised to see Lewis.
level with or on top of Leclerc at China I'm not feeling it and I'm gonna be in a sulk until I see this magic thing you two are talking about until I see it I'm just I'm in a sulk and I'm like but I wanted him to go and win straight away he's Lewis Hamilton The reason this span is because we ended last year thinking he just had the most insane drop off of any driver in history. Actually, I'll take that back. Sebastian Vettles was pretty bad in 2019. But anyway.
Very severe drop-off. And we kind of knew it was more of a team issue, kind of motivational issue. We also kind of knew it wasn't a talent thing. But I've got to admit, there was a 5% doubt in me going, maybe he is washed up.
Maybe he is finished. And this weekend kind of confirmed to me going, okay, he's still got it. Charles Leclerc is a mega driver. You know, he's a really good qualifier. Lewis Hamilton, can I just say in his post-qualifying interview, specifically said Charles is a very good qualifier. Not Charles is a very good qualifier.
good driver no just kidding I'm not going to go into that too much but I think that was very important to hear as a Lewis fan to see this weekend from him Lewis definitely isn't in an Alonso position where he's up against someone who we know, we've got massive amount of data and we know Stroll isn't a benchmark kind of driver. Lewis has backed himself to go up against someone who is recognized as potentially the fastest.
one lap driver at least in Formula One. So I think I agree. That's why he's not unhappy to begin two tenths off. That's kind of fine. So let's just see how that develops. All right. Well, speaking of development over the winter, the winners have to be Williams. for most improved team. Jono put them fourth after... No, no, no. Fifth. Can I clarify that? Did you? Can I clarify that? Yeah. There was a top four.
which obviously I don't need to mention. Oh, yeah. And then you said the rest. Yeah. Which on the strength of the result and this weekend now seems far more, far more reasonable. I'm pretty happy with the logic. I used with Williams and to jump up from the ninth best team over the course of a season to then be fifth would be a world-beaten performance. That would be incredible, which is why I'm inclined to go, that probably hasn't happened.
But this weekend, as a standalone result, absolutely delighted for them. There's a question mark about whether they're actually, someone said there's going to be no development. That can't be true. They're not going to not develop at all. But they're obviously going to lean on 2026. So whether this lasts all season, who knows? Conditions were an opportunity for teams to do well from the midfield.
Yet he qualified highly enough to not just put it down to any kind of race of attrition. Some drivers did take themselves out of the equation. But even without that... If Albon had rolled in seventh or eighth, we'd be saying, Jono, you were right. You called this. It's a track they go well at. But nonetheless, they should have been jumping up and down. Albon actually looked disappointed.
in all the post-race interviews. Which I found weird. I don't know why that was. Which, can we just add some breaking news during the podcast that Albon has now lost his fourth place. Antonelli's got it back. The penalty was reinstated. Yes, as of 10 minutes ago.
So the penalty for Antonelli was taken away? Yes. Apparently Mercedes submitted a review and it was overturned. I didn't know that was a thing in F1. Oh, okay. Well, maybe they could have discovered that Abu Dhabi 2021. Maybe that would have been a good time to appear. Yeah, I know. Apparently the onboard video wasn't available to the stewards when they made the decision, which is bonkers.
But Mercedes provided that roll hoop on board video and it proved that Antony didn't cross into the fast lane until a significant distance down the pit lane. So although, who was it behind? Was it Bortoletti or Bortoletti had to brake behind him?
He actually didn't need to. He did slow down, but there was enough space that he wouldn't have had to. So, yeah, there we go. Can I point out, Spanners, that all onboards were available in Abu Dhabi 2021 and we still didn't get a decision overturned? But anyway.
Sorry, it was Hulkenberg. Why didn't they use Multiviewer and F1 TV Premium? That's what I want to know. So back to the Williams thing. At one point, I feel really embarrassed about this. I was talking with you guys before qualifying going...
Can we put some question marks around Alex Albon? Is he any good? Because science had him all practice and he was just out quick, you know, out qualifying, not out qualifying, sorry, outpacing him in practice. Then it got to Q3 and Albon set that mammoth lap and I was like, all right.
I was embarrassed. I doubted Albon too early. I made a call literally three practice sessions into the season and he had a mega race too. So I'm very sorry, Alex Albon. It's the only thing I've been wrong about all preseason. I'm allowed something to be wrong at.
Well, I don't. Obviously, it's too early to draw those conclusions when it's something that it appears I'm wrong about. When it's something I predicted, it's definite proof. So with Piastri, it's definite proof. With this, we've got to see a little bit more.
How Williams developed. But yeah, but certainly Albon's put in a good weekend. It's undeniable. We can't say what would have happened to Sainz during the race, but he didn't have the same qualifying performance as Albon. And on the surface of it, you have to say, I mean, he had extra power.
He had torque spikes. That should have helped him in qualifying. But yeah, really, really positive weekend. There's nothing to take away from Williams except to say, I hope this isn't the peak in the season. I hope they can turn up. Looking at the race pace, right, he was ahead of Hamilton. probably a little bit less downforce so was able to be save his tires except for on the exits of the straights towards the overtaking zones so he's able to stay ahead of Hamilton actually pretty easily
There was only a small period where Hamilton was really nibbling around and never quite looked like he was going to get there. But Albon did the job, blocked, defended, was great off the line. Then you go, look at the race pace. Did we get an opportunity to see how their tyres were holding up? Not...
Not really. There wasn't a massive drop off on the Inters. And then on the drives, I was trying to see what did they look like against the likes of Alpine and of Aston Martin and of Vicarb. And it was, they all looked... sort of close apart from aston martin it looked like there was that bunch of v carb alpine and and williams that are all fighting together but
I think Williams would have taken that at the beginning of the season if he said, right, you are definitely in that battle for fifth. You go, yeah, that's pretty good. The most important thing for me, Jono, is that they're not seeming to be in that Saub, Steak and Haas battle at the back. Yeah. I have Williams fifth, then the racing balls, and then kind of an Aston Martin Alpine kind of range. I'm a bit confused with that. I don't know who to put above the other. And then Sabra and Haas last.
At the moment, I think you could optimistically put Williams ahead of Sauber, Haas, and who's the other one? I put them above everyone. No, you could put them against those three for sure. And so that would be... amazing if that could be maintained into the season. So Mercedes ended up with a podium in a fourth place, but they weren't expecting that. What did you make of that then, Brad, of Mercedes this weekend?
I thought in the race, at least, they were just kind of quietly there. I don't think we really ever saw much. Antonelli had his spin where he did essentially exactly what Russell had done earlier in the weekend, just dropped a wheel off onto the grass and harmlessly carried on just losing one place.
And then obviously the safety car saved Antonelli in terms of bringing him back into contention. But even before that, he'd done a decent job to just calmly, apart from the spin, work his way up through the field. So I think Mercedes will be really happy with this weekend. Apart from the fact that clearly they're missing some outright raw pace to the Verstappen Red Bull and in particularly the McLarens.
But Mercedes maximised, really, I think, what they could have done. I think, in fact, they'll be over the moon with a third and a fourth, to be honest. I just never saw Russell in the entire race. That's what worries me, though, Brad. I was worried by how happy they were.
with that third and fourth place so they really felt oh we're punching above what we thought so i think their expectations in the early season are relatively low mercedes fans would have been hoping and the george russell fan will have been hoping that they are going to be pushing for a title
challenging right up front i can't see that being the case race to race there was a ferrari shaped hole in front of them where if ferrari get their act together they should be there but they were clearly off mclaren and they were clearly off red bull as well Yeah, I think we're missing some key information. Despite having seen an entire race weekend, we're missing this really clear picture of tyre life over a race stint on the different compounds in the dry.
And that's going to be key because it doesn't matter that in these particular weird, cold, wet conditions, Mercedes could get this result. Most of the season won't be like that. So what matters much more is... in a normal race where you do have to go an entire stint in the dry on a set of tyres, how long can they make them last? And we've had a glimpse today of some stories from the season.
And we've had some information, but some of the key points are completely unanswered. The Ferrari thing being one, where are they really? And obviously where Mercedes line up really in the pecking order. But I think today, at least, all you can say is today. they made the most of what they had. Paddy in our Patreon live chat says they were the epitome of eating dry toast today. Wow, that's unfair. Russell had a really steady race, didn't do anything silly at all and picked up the pieces.
Antonelli to me looked to have a youthful exuberance. And I think watching throughout the weekend as well, seemed a little bit more active on the wheel. Seemed like he was just throwing himself at it. That ended up in a spin that he got away with. But then he's throwing it down the inside of people. He's taking overtakes as they come. And you go, well, that could go either way.
I think it's quite exciting how on pace Antonelli is straight away and how willing he is to go wheel to wheel. I don't think he's going to be one of these drivers where we go, oh, it's a bit of a De Vries situation or a Sargent situation. Jono then, Brad. Let's soak this in as well because we've seen these drivers come into the sport, the young ones, and they have that exuberance, as you mentioned, and they race wheel to wheel like it's go-karting and it's so fun to watch.
And then we've seen so many legends of our sport, Hamilton, Schumacher's Vettel. I don't want to say they lose it, but they become smarter and more rational as they get older. And then we lose that kind of wheel-to-wheel battles. Like today, I was watching Hamilton in some wheel-to-wheel battles, especially the one with Piastri at the end of the race. What a move that was by Oscar on the final.
final lap but like the Lewis Hamilton of 2008 like would he have allowed that to happen that that's kind of the things I I don't want like I want Antonelli to keep being like this but the guy's so young Hopefully he's the same when he's 33 years old. You know, if he's still in the sport by then. Because we never know if he's actually any good at the moment. Because Russell's got him. Sorry, that was harsh.
I thought Antonelli came across as unflustered this weekend. Like, everything bounced off him. Yeah, bad qualifying. Didn't seem to affect his mood. He was just optimistic and just got on with it in the race as well. The Hamilton move, just to touch upon that, or the... the Piastri move on Hamilton right at the end of the race. I watched that back a few times and as it played out, I'm not sure Lewis could have done much more. However...
I think he defended too early. And I think he did that thing where you assume the inside is the high ground. But in that situation, the inside was slightly damp and the racing line that he basically gifted to Piastri. allowed you to carry more speed around that slightly wider line. So it was kind of like short of pushing Piastri right off the track.
There wasn't, and obviously risking a big crash, there wasn't a lot more he could do. I think they were both quite hard on each other. He even squeezed Piastri right up against the wall on the entry to the corner with like millimeters to spare. So I thought they both did really well there. But yeah, Antonelli. I think is going to do brilliantly. I think he's going to come on. The moment he clicks and has the pace of Russell in qualifying, he's going to be...
He's going to be a handful for George. Okay, well, we'd agree that if he's on pace with Russell in qualifying, he's a good qualifier, right? I think that's a good benchmark. Yeah. Why? No. No. You're not impressed with George Russell, are you? No, I'm very impressed with George Russell. So you're saying the question is, is Antonelli...
To judge him fairly, he needs to be on pace with George Russell. Is that what you're kind of asking there? At least. Well, it's got to be everything. Qualifying, what? You want him to be Charles Leclerc 2.0, this massive qualifier. I do. It needs to be everything. And you know what? Well done to him. Still 18 years of age. Still very, very young. And put on a great performance after...
And I mean, no disrespect to Liam Lawson or anybody else in the top car that didn't qualify well. When I say that, it was just Liam Lawson. Can I just clarify? Antonelli came through the field and finished fourth. Now, yes, that came down to a little bit of luck at the end of the day, but he still managed to do it. He was in a position of success. Even Lawson, after all those pit stops and all the rain that came through and the Alonso crash and everything.
just was never in the game. Antonelli, at one point, you're saying, wait a second now, he's fighting for points. Oh, he's not too far off Lewis Hamilton here. He's climbing up the field, and I know he had the third quickest car, that Mercedes.
Nobody argued with me on that. They are way quicker than the Ferrari. No question about it. They're third quickest behind McLaren and Red Bull. So that also helped a little bit. It also helped Piastri go around the outside of Hamilton, who basically looks like he's driving a 2016 Manor.
That Ferrari is so, like, it's really slow. Like, that is so bad. For what we expected out of that Ferrari, that is a horrible outcome for them, for pace. But I think for Antonelli in the future, give him five races. Might be a Leclerc-Vettel situation in 2019 if he has the measure of him in two months. I think George Russell, we can put some question marks around the great man soon.
Man, I just feel like we could ask Jono anything and it would come back to Lawson. Like, Jono, what do you think about the independence vote in Greenland? Well, what you've got to realise is that Lawson, the spider reading... Turnip. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So let's see if that's a theme for the rest of the season. All right. So I love the Kiwis. I think we have covered the big ones here. OK, here's a disappointing thing for me that I might actually save.
for the award so i think that's good enough actually for us to go to the podium for the australian grand prix the 2025 season open opener that eventually delivered kind of did it Did it deliver? Was it a good race? It was entertaining and it was interesting, but not a lot actually happened except for those specific points. A splash of rain.
getting everybody excited and having to make decisions that's kind of good watching the the skill of the drivers having to stay on the track but as my lad pointed out he said everyone who's gone off has gone off on their own so it's like okay we're kind of watching them on a
an extended time trial in a way but i said look the alternative to this red flag situation and drivers crashing off and some delays and things like that the alternative would have been a normal grand prix in the dry where we would have just watched a one-stop as they go round and round the course following each other so from an entertainment point of view i was entertained brad were you not entertained yes but i
I also think, I kind of think this would have been nicer if it was just dry. I would have had more questions answered. And I think it might have been more interesting because we lost quite a lot of the field due to these incidents. So there's...
fewer things happening because there are fewer cars on track. And also, it was really hard to overtake because you end up with the racing line being the grippy line. And so it's hard to go off and pass people. And were we complaining at the end of last season? Was there something like 10 races in a row with no safety car to interrupt and nothing to break up the races? That's because we had one of the most experienced fields of recent times. And now we've got six full season rookies.
we saw that that can introduce an element of chaos. You can't just blame them. Obviously, Alonso had an off as well. Signs had his issue. But to start with, it was the kids. It was the kids ruining everything. And you think I was about an hour in thinking because of these kids, you know, I've been up for half an hour. It was before really seeing any racing. That's going to keep happening. So we're going to see more mistakes with the rookies. It's going to mean more.
opportunities i think especially when it rains but yeah it just does prove bad kids ruin everything it just felt like we were robbed a bit even of the the potential tire wear when do you pit situation because of a safety car
The times when it could have been exciting despite it being tricky to overtake, I found it was blunted by the circumstance. But that's motorsport. That's racing. And this is just... one race in a massive massive calendar and we've got another one coming in less than a week so i'm happy about that but and it's yeah i was in it was entertained it's a sprint race isn't it china as well oh yeah and do we care about that now you care about it more now don't you the sprint race
is at 3am for uk people yeah so no i don't think i'm gonna get up at 3am for a sprint race i have a go-kart race day that day and that's gonna potentially affect my performance no way i'll get up anyway uh so yeah let's say let's get on to the awards let's start with the negative one so that we can end up on a positive oh no you missed the apex so
Who missed the apex for you? Spanners. I'm going to go to me first. I'm going to take the first one. Also, if you want to follow me on social media, we're on TikTok. So just during the week now, I'm trying to make it daily of just when I see a new story, what I would normally tweet out.
I just yell it at the camera. And people seem to really love going in the comments and telling me why I'm wrong. So you can join them by clicking the link. And it's tiktok.com forward slash missed apex f1. And we're on Twitter. Spanner's ready.
And on Instagram as well. I'm getting better at posting those things. So it might be worth following and engaging and getting involved in those communities. I'm having much more fun on those things. And you can support us by going to patreon.com forward slash mistake. My first Missed Apex Award is going to Jack Doohan. I'm all in. I'm all in. I've already upset Australia. I may as well go all in. Jack Doohan in his first lap has again.
A kind of a harmless offer that could happen to anyone, Brad. But, you know, it's all been leading up to this. Lewis Hamilton, with his calm, cautious head, did everything to make sure he finished the race. Anthony Hamilton being interviewed before the race said, good luck to all the rookies. I wish them all well.
And it's a race you want to finish. So I've got the feeling like he was going around to all the rookies going, come on, just finish. Just make sure you finish the race. And then when Hadjar had that moment, Anthony Hamilton was, I think, was there to meet him before anyone out of VCarb.
because he was walking on his own and went there that took the moment to hug him and apparently had said to him you know hold your head up high you had a great Saturday you've done well to get here so fantastic there from from Anthony Hamilton but yeah surely Brad maybe the rookies could have could have done with not being a bit win or bin there must have been a bit of an element of that of like they are this is their opportunity they're going for it
I just can't be too harsh on the rookies like Hajar and Doohan who spun early doors when you've got experienced people with warmer tyres like Sainz and Alonso doing essentially exactly the same thing later on. It just goes to show that... You aren't aware of every single bit of paint that you're driving on at every single moment. Sometimes you can get something wrong. And obviously the inexperienced ones should be the ones that get it wrong.
More so. I'm not too harsh on Doohan. I think his weekend was solid in terms of pace compared to Gasly. And I just hope he's not, you know, I hope they don't use that too soon against him. Well, in the Jack Doohan. press conference he was he was saying oh yeah nah yeah no yeah and yeah no uh yes it's my fault yeah no and then they handed him a bit of paper and he opens it and he goes oh no i had a talk spike moment
And then he scrunches it up and throws it away. The other thing that's just been pointed out in our chat, Pete Shillock just said the rookies had no wet practice. Can you imagine going into a Formula One race?
Even if you've not ever had wet practice at that track, but if you've never driven these cars, which are notorious for being really hard to drive in the wet because they're so stiff with these ground effect cars nowadays, and Pirelli's wets are never... brilliant anyway it's just such a massive ask it's such a hard thing to do i can't stress to the listeners enough how difficult it is to keep a thing like that on the track and so i think
I just think we need to be slightly understanding. I know you can say Formula One's not a finishing school and they're supposed to be the best drivers in the world. It's like, yeah, it's so hard that even for those guys... you can make a mistake and go off easy. Yeah, but they've practiced race cars loads. It would be really difficult for me to do it, but they should be better armed to do it. And they were. They are better armed than you. They can still go off. So that's why Hajar crashed it.
30 kilometers an hour was it surely somebody whip up the telemetry and tell me it was no greater than 40 kilometers an hour do you know do you realize that in melbourne here that's like the speed you should be doing in a school zone
And I was like, Hajar, crash in the speed you should probably be doing in the school zone. The team are going to get so mad at Myst Apex and mail in and be like, come on, Jono. The telemetry says he was doing 110. No, we're just arguing against Brad. Just to finish up on the Hajar thing.
Just to dig the knife into Jono there, it's actually easier to spin the wheels from a lower speed. I know. He's got less downforce. Yeah, Jono. The torque ramps up more quickly from a lower speed. So that's his... extenuating circumstance no yeah absolutely it's just that with doing with his limited time seemingly and with colopinto looming over like imagine if he just nailed a great wet performance and just finished ahead of gasly
In that case, I want another... Can I have another Miss Apex? No, no, I'll wait my turn. I'll wait my turn. I'll go back to you. No, I'm going to do it. Gasly, because I'm a Gasly fan, and he went off and lost like three places, and that was a real missed opportunity there. Brad Philpott. who is not a driving instructor, as I accidentally implied in the intro. Grade A race driver coach. Grade A. All right. All right. And you can find him. You've got the race driver coach dot com.
TheRaceCoach.com. That's a great URL, TheRaceCoach.com, where you are teaching people and people can employ you to teach them with sim racing, with karting and parallel parking. Yeah, I'm not going to be great at the parallel parking part. You want my missed Apex award. I do. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I should say it like that. Brad, who missed the Apex for you? This is an easy one for me. It's the Ferrari strategy call to pit.
a lap too late it was an obvious one to not get wrong they threw away a much better result and it was annoying jonathan saman you are a proper tv journalist guy you go on tv i try to I try to when people give me opportunities and I try to make the most of it. So I try to do my best there. They send you to the weird stories, right? Like it's a blizzard at the cat fashion parade and you're like, yeah, I'm here at the cat fashion parade.
Yeah, right. There's a spider on my mic, but I just, you know, play it along like there's nothing. And I go, yeah, nah, yeah, nah. We were talking about this the other day, how us Aussies, and I never noticed it, how we always finished. Phrases like it's a question. We inflect high. You didn't notice that.
Yeah, rising intonation. Everyone around the world knows that's what Aussies do. That's all we think about when we think of Aussies. That's a key part of doing an impression of an Aussie. Everything's sounding like a question. I'm amazed that you didn't know. I'm sorry you're finding out this way. But you're a sports guy. You're a sports reporter. We'll get links to stuff you do and to your social media accounts, Jono. But who missed the apex for you? So...
We red flagged for all the gravel in practice one at turn six. They reprofiled the curb there. I'm not going to go into all those details because we did it in our Mist Apex preview. And it kind of helped a lot of drivers this weekend attack that corner at turn six, that fast sweeping right. Then they were able to touch the gravel with their left side wheels.
which then the track from, I had a T6 grandstand ticket for the second year running, which was amazing. It was a great corner to be at, especially in the wet too. And the fact that they called a red flag to then sweep. which at one point after one accident in one of the sports series, I think they didn't realize leaf blowers existed until like 15 minutes into a safety car, a red flag or something. So the reason this missed the apex for me. is if we're going to call a red flag for that...
10, 15 minutes into the F1 season, we're going to have a million red flags more to deal with. And as a fan, I'm sitting there paying big money for my grandstand ticket going, I want to see cars on track action. Now, either get... these gravel traps right and expect that that's going to happen when you have a curb profiled inwards with the camber inwards where drivers can attack the curb like that or
do it the old way or come up with a better solution put a put a little green strip there do something that i don't lose track time as a you know i'm playing consumer advocate now spanners if you haven't realized because a lot of us spend a lot of money yeah and we saw a lot of action and not a lot of action because
There was so much red flag and safety car action in F1, it felt like it was the category I barely got to see anything out of. Yeah, Gravel's stupid anyway. And the thing is, because there have been really key pundits constantly calling for, oh, bring back... artificial barriers you know back when men were men and make them make them all drive just naked with spikes in their chest and go because of that now they're bringing in all these natural deterrents and like austria's got the gravel trap
And I think we're lucky to get away with anything there. And this one, I didn't like either. Yeah, throwing gravel on the track. Who benefits from gravel being thrown on the track? We struggle enough with marbles anyway. And poor Lance Stroll, they had to stick a laminate.
a graphic of gravel with an x through it and then a picture of a road with yes this way to make sure he didn't do an interlagos so yeah definitely i'm i'm with that gravel misses the apex for me all right let's do that it was offline too but anyway Let's do the good thing award. All right, Brad. What was your thing of the weekend?
Oh, I should have probably thought about this more carefully. I'm going to go a bit left field. All right. Lance Stroll getting a really decent result in a car we thought was nowhere. We've got to give credit where it's due. A lot of other people throwing the cars off the track. and not finishing deep into the top 10. And Lance ground out a really good result. What was it? Was it sixth in the end?
Yeah, I mean, that's actually genuinely unexpected for us. No, but these are the conditions where Lance Stroll does pick up these kind of results. I think he even picked up a podium, a Canadian Grand Prix that was like this. And I've always kind of thought, OK, yeah, he's not the sort of driver to just throw it into the wall. And as long as nobody's particularly near him on track, he's not going to specifically have an accident. So these are the kind of races where he gets a result.
It's not a coincidence that it's always these kind of races, is it? He's not the driver to throw it into the wall spanners. He's the type of driver to throw it into other drivers. Yeah, that's why I said there was no one near enough to him today, which works out.
No, but that's obviously a reasonable performance from Stroll. I'm not knocking it. Now, I know you haven't done your thing of the weekend, Spanners, but then let's just add Nico Hulkenberg to Brad's. Brad's, I'm sorry, you have nothing to... Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tag him on. I agree. He deserves to be in this bracket. Because Sauber, by far, now, I swear a lot of people, maybe not everyone, but a lot of people who looked deep into testing probably thought that Sauber car was...
never going to score a point this season, and they've done it race one. So well done to them. They've knocked it out of the park already. Yeah, Sauber finishing ahead of both Ferraris and one of the McLarens. I think they would have definitely taken that. Jono, who hit the apex for you? I'm a bit nervous here because I have two and I'm afraid you're not going to take the better one spanners. So I'm going to say the one that I think you're going to take. Do them both. It's fine.
Okay, so the first one is I had, again, like I said, I was on the outside of turn six, had the grandstand this year. It was amazing. I waited all weekend for a crash. Now, I'm a very educated motorsport fan. I've been following it my whole life. It's one of my favorite sports. So I don't just watch for the crashes.
But if I'm going to pay a lot of money for a good seat, I want to see a nice little collision on the exit of turn six. Fernando Alonso during the race, me and a couple of friends who are watching. We had seen a lot of cars come through. I think we saw Ocon at one point almost lose it. I think Lando Norris had a moment. I can't remember which drivers. So we said, wow, we're going to have to keep watching every single car that's going to come out of this corner.
Lo and behold, 30 seconds later, Fernando Alonso, we watch it with our own human eyes. I don't think I'll ever wash my eyes out ever again. He spun out backwards into the wall. And if you've never heard an F1 crash before, you've never been to a race, you know, it's a very... interesting experience when his rear wing hit the barrier man it sounded loud it was a massive pop and and you kind of like whoa that actually kind of got me there you know you kind of fell back a little bit
Then he got out of the car and he looked at me and he said, John, I couldn't have driven any better. The car was, that's it. I was driving the best I could have ever driven. Then he got on the bike and went straight to the pit lane for his interview. And what was your other one?
My other one was going to be Anthony Hamilton, putting his arm around Isaac Hajar. I had a feeling Spanners, you're going to have that one, but that was such a great moment, you know? Yeah. Seems like a nice chap. So if I'm going to give one, I think low hanging fruit. is Lando Norris. So I think Lando Norris for me, a driver of the day, just showing what he can do in a dominant car in very tricky conditions with that one little off a side. I think all of the top guys had a little moment.
I don't think anyone got away with it completely. Verstappen had his lock-up, which lost the place. Obviously, Piastri had his off and his lawn mowing. And Norris had his little off as well, which he handled very well. But yeah, I think, job done. And I like that he wasn't really jumping up and down as if it was some, you know, like he'd won the World Cup. It was like, no, ticked off the list. Won the Australian Grand Prix. Good.
That's one I don't have to worry about now. I hope you'll join us midweek as we catch up any of the news and stories that have come out of the race or things that we've missed. I'm glad that Brad caught that Antonelli had had that penalty revoked as well. Follow the panel here. by going to the show notes below. Hire Brad to teach you how to do race cars real good. Follow Jonathan Simon for his hot takes on social media and support Miss Apex at patreon.com.
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