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Secure his third green jacket. Augusta Coles and Scotty answers. Will McElroy complete his career Grand Slam? Watch it all unfold exclusively live on Sky Sports. Available with no contract on now. Terms and conditions apply. You are listening to Missed Apex Podcast. We live F1. Welcome to Missed Apex Podcast. I'm your host, Richard Reddy, but my friends call me Spanners, so let's be friends. Welcome to the Bahrain Grand Prix Race Review.
We had an exciting race and didn't we? We deserve it. Before the race, I was like, please. Like, you can make Piastri last forever on his tyres. You can have Tsunoda finish P20. Let Hamilton be banished. to the guttable performance levels of Formula One. But please let us have some interesting and exciting racing. And I think we did. And I think I'm done blaming the cars. I'm done blaming the big heavy cars and harking back to this magical time with...
200 kilogram cars in the 90s which by the way yielded very very boring races i think i'm now Squarely saying, let's just have proper tracks on proper layouts with well-managed surfaces that don't need resurfacing and redoing every five minutes. We're not going back. to 90s cars. We're not going back to groove tyre V10s.
Real tracks that these cars can race on. But today, we'll talk about Piastri taking a full claim to title contender status as he enjoyed a flawless weekend, whereas Norris enjoyed a floor full. Weekend? A floorfall weekend. We saw Hamilton's problems continue and we saw Tsunoda make his fans rest just a little easier. I also have the difficult task of informing you that Russell was probably the best driver on track. as we review an eventful Bahrain Grand Prix.
We are an independent podcast that is going to be doing a live event in Miami after qualifying. So that is the 3rd of May. I just need you. If you want to come, I need you to register to just get in touch. So email me. spanners at mistapex.net with the subject line miami tell me that you're in tell me how many people you're coming with and after qualifying you can head down to our venue in north miami and and just hang out with us we've got a great
I was really hoping I'd be able to confirm it, but we have a great guest speaker. We'll have a Q&A with that person. And then we'll also review the weekend's qualifying events. And we'll also do a live.
I reckon. So we'll basically do a live mailbag fixing F1, finding out what the people of Miami or at Miami reckon about Formula One. And then we'll do a quiz. We'll have games and we'll do... tequila shots so come and join me email me spanners at miss apex.net with the subject line miami we're joined for this race review though by matt two rumpets hello matt no more competition safety cars necessary
Yeah, for a track like this, but literally the thought I had was let's have category one tracks like Bahrain, Silverstone, Spa. And then if you want to do Singapore. If you want to do Imola, that's fine. But let's do the NASCAR stage racing. So let's say, OK, that's fine. You have to get through two thirds of the race. But at that point.
There will definitely be a safety car. So a planned safety car to bunch the cars up together. Let's just admit that that's what we need, that we need some restarts. So do it. after the point that you'd have to do the first tyre change, but then go, okay, it's a competition caution. Or don't go to those tracks. But if we're going to go to Monaco, if we're going to go to Suzuka in the dry, if we're going to go to Singapore...
Let's just mandate a safety car to back them back up and enjoy that last stint of the race. Why half measures? We should have full restarts on the grid every 15 laps at those races. That would be exciting. All right. All right, I'm in. At first, I thought you were being sarcastic, but now... Now I know you're in. As someone who does the best F1 live watch-alongs, it's Scott Stuffy Tuffy. Hello, Scott.
who knew we just needed tires that don't last the whole duration of a race to actually get racing hallelujah For the Bahrain circuit and for these tyres just, yeah, not...
lasting for an age for once. See, Mateo's there going, don't NASCAR my F1. Well, all right then. Well, don't... do the odd tracks like scott is saying if you do tracks where we know there's not going to be a lot of overtaking and then you have tires that last the entire time you're going to get suzuka or in china which is a great track but they resurfaced it
That meant there was no tyre wear. But Scott, you're right. The tyre wear is so vital now. It's such a vital part of the racing in Formula One. 100%. I see so often people complain that we just want to see drivers drive at 100% every single lap. That's what true racing is. But actually, the most enjoyable races are the ones where we get higher offsets, different varying strategies. I mean, we ended this race with almost an identical field spread of...
It's hard compound, medium compound and soft compound tyres after the safety car and it made for a brilliant ending to that race because we saw multiple... overtakes and defenses that's what we need in f1 yeah and there was racing up and down the grid as well and there was some some shots you know we all got excited about that austria one a few years back where you had five cars
bombing down into turn three and here you know we had that that sunoda battle where you had an antonelli as well we had four cars bombing down into turn one two of them coming out of the pit You had overtakes that were possible. I mean, I'll go into it right now. I mean, my favourite overtake was Antonelli on Verstappen. And just from a pure racing point of view, you go, oh, the pace might not be there. He might not be putting a weekend together.
but to throw Verstappen the dummy and force the three, the four-time world champion into covering off the inside. And immediately, as soon as... switched Antonelli that wasn't a I'll see what Max does he knew what he was going to do round the outside and then the cutback just amazing Scott he actually made one better in my opinion on Carlos Sainz down into Turn 1. He came from an absolute mile back.
and was just brilliant on the brakes. Carlos Sainz, thankfully, was aware that it was coming. He kind of went defensive. thought he had him covered off and tried to open up the corner and just Kimi just went no I'm still going for this rolled off the brakes and and didn't run signs out of room it was just perfectly controlled and we saw a few overtakes like that into turn one it was It was something that we just, yeah, have not seen in the first three weekends of this season.
Well, since we've already talked NFL, one thing is I think Norris should be watching some films of Antonelli's overtake. because I think he could learn a thing or two. But the other thing I will say is that Antonelli was poorly served by Mercedes strategy here. He drove better than he finished. He just lost out because he was pitted just slightly too late.
It also didn't help that while Antonelli was providing us some entertainment with overtakes, he failed to keep it within track limits as often as... everyone else he had six track limits violations so that also didn't help with He's overall finishing position, but... Yeah, exciting times if you're a fan of the young Italian. Yeah, so we have to start, though. I've definitely got a bunch of stuff to say about the Mercedes drivers.
The Ferrari just was an emotional rollercoaster. Red Bull is probably where the most... drama lies at the moment but we have to start with mclaren so mclaren very clearly have the dominant car in the field and i've had a few people point out to me a bit and they've said all right look at this a bit in the race look how much the wing is is flexing but whatever because currently that's allowed So there's going to be some changes in, I think, like five or six races time, Spain. But for now...
They have the dominant car. And there was this wonderful spat all weekend with Verstappen going into the weekend saying, I would have also won the Suzuka Grand Prix if I was in the McLaren. and then you know because basically he was just going yeah you know i won it in my car which apparently is a you know a heap of crap but i would have won it in the mclaren as well
And then you had Lando Norris coming out and going, oh, you can drive our car if you want, but you'd be disappointed. And you want to take both lads aside and go, guys. There's hundreds and hundreds of people working really hard on those cars that you are going, no, the fact that they're terrible is why I'm so good.
piastri to his credit came out and went guys we have the dominant car to say anything else would be stupid so so calling norris stupid for saying that but it is the dominant car can i just add a caveat to this dominant car it's the dominant car in clean air Because we have seen multiple times now at the start of this season where the McLaren has found itself in dirty air and it has become unstuck.
Lando struggled today, partly due to the setup, because they ran a more downforce-dependent setup. They had some of the lowest top speeds of anyone out on the grid today. So Lando did... But... This car is only good if it's in clean air. It still is good, don't get me wrong, but it's not the dominant force that we saw the Red Bull was the past couple of seasons. They just don't have that pace advantage. So that's why it's so important for both McLaren drivers.
to lock out the front row while they do have this dominant package. in qualifying over a single lap and Lando is the one who's well at the moment making more mistakes than Piastri it seems because Piastri nailed it today he did exactly what he needed to do got down into turn one first and he just never looked back Hello, patron live chat in our patron discord. Join us there by going to patreon.com forward slash Miss Apex and supporting the show. Pete says Max said he would have driven off.
And to be fair, he probably would have. So, yeah, but as well, like either of the McLaren drivers, if they'd have been ahead of Verstappen, I think they might have driven off as well. That was, you know, such is the nature of the track. But yeah, I think, Matt, it is important to start with Piastri. a flawless drive a flawless weekend got to grips with the car really well and actually he's done this now with piastri over a couple of race weekends where actually the impressive thing is the
the speed in which he gets it together and gets up to his ultimate pace. I think the same happened in China. over the sprint weekend as well so norris was flailing around the sprint weekend and i really got up to speed you know on sunday but that is really encouraging for piastri that he can hit the ground running from a friday and then keep that form all the way through the weekend Yeah, it is. And I think a big part of it is that both the track...
and the conditions and the development of the car have really played into his favor. His driving style, he prefers to brake in a straight line and then roll speed into the turn, whereas Norris prefers to trail brake. And my general understanding is the car is working very well for him with that style. But Norris, and I know Stella said that they're still working on like some little electronic tweets.
to get the throttle and brakes where north needs them to be but the other thing i'm going to say is that in particular. If I'm Norris and I drive this badly and I'm still leading the championship, I'm thinking, well, that could have been a lot, lot worse. He should have had Leclerc earlier. He should have had Russell clearly. He needs to think about why that is, because I think that's a driving thing. But the car is still coming to him.
Even though this was a high degradation track, it was a low wear track. We haven't seen Piastri on a high wear track, which I'm making a very technical difference there for the tire geeks. Okay, so... Obviously, I've been making this big thing about, oh, I think Piastri has a bit of a tyre management issue. And if we see him manage the tyres really well, I'm happy just to park that. I think people have come at me...
quite a lot as if I've been making something up. But I think my observations about the time management last season and the qualifying last season applied last season. I have no religious reasons for those things to be true. I'm not in a cult. And I'm not anti-Piastri. I get accused of both with Norris and Piastri being anti-both. But...
So my thing was, can he manage those tyre stints where tyre management is critical? And I thought, oh God, Matt's going to be the one to slaughter me. But my feeling here was, although it was high deg... There wasn't a lot of actual tyre management because they never got... to the cliff. They never got to the point where the tyres were going off.
Because they knew it was going to be a two or three stop. They were getting off those tyres fairly quickly. And looking at the lap times, they were doing 137s in the first couple of laps as they were trying to establish themselves. Settled into 138. But there wasn't an awful lot of time management happening. The only driver I saw drop off at all on those stints was Russell.
This was a race where it wasn't like they were trying to go two-ing and fro-ing like they were in Suzuka. They all seemed to be able to run the pace they wanted to run and then get off that tyre and then get on to the next tyre. Yeah, I think the tires were generally going off at similar rates. I think Piastri obviously has the big advantage of the clean air. But one of the nice things about the Bahrain track is it is very wide.
So you're not as stuck with the dirty air, because a lot of times being in the dirty air means you're sliding the tires a lot more because you're losing so much downforce. But in Bahrain, you can take different lines into the corners. and have almost as much downforce as you would if you were running in clean air. So I think that did help. But I know, for example, Behrman overheated his tires at one point on the radio. So there was definitely a lot of managing going on.
It just, everybody was very good at it. And it was similar enough that it didn't really jump out at you on track. Well, I don't think the... In most of the stints, it didn't get to the point where people were dropping off a cliff and the pace was increasing. Yeah, correct. Nobody got it over the edge. So when you say it was high deg but low wear, what do you mean by that?
What I mean is physically, even though the aggregate is still pretty sharp at Bahrain, the surface of the tread was not being ripped to shreds by the actual rock. in in in the track surface what was happening instead and you heard people talk about it all this week protecting the rear axle The tendency at Bahrain is to overheat the rear tires, and if they overheat and stay hot too long,
you fundamentally change the chemical nature of the compound in the tread, you lose grip and it never comes back. So the cars were being set up to protect that rear axle because once that goes like that, you're completely out of your preferred strategy for the rest of the race. And the other major criticism or observation of Piastri from last season was that he was 20 to 4 down in qualifying. And if we're to believe Uncle Fred Vassour...
And the evidence of our own eyes, you know, qualifying is going to be really, really important this year. And so far, you have to say Piastri has probably been the better qualifier. And whichever one of those... those cars has qualified ahead has been the eventual winner Scott yeah and this is something I've noticed this season is that
I think Norris has really taken this to heart that he's been outqualified by Piastri a couple of times, China and here now. And whenever he's... kind of been off the pace from Piastri, and it may only be slightly. He seems to really be down in the dumps and just some of the comments that he comes out with.
Whereas Piastri, on the other hand, he's a very chilled, relaxed guy. I mean, he hardly even celebrated when he came out of the car. It's like, dude, you just won that race. You just had the perfect weekend. celebrate a bit more but maybe he's thinking about the championship in the grand scheme of things but Piastri is very just like, yeah, I just need to do a bit better. I need to just work on setup. But this is very just...
straight and to the point, doesn't really make too many excuses and get down in the dumps. Whereas Lando, we know he's an emotional guy, but I feel like he's letting this get to him. It's really putting himself under even more pressure, especially in this important qualifying that we're going to see this season. But also you're just giving the press and fans like an easy narrative. Yeah. And do that with your mate.
Like, be all down with your mates. But you do have to have a certain amount of... I know I got criticised for saying that Hadjar would wish that he hadn't have been tearful. And if he could go back, he probably would go, oh, I probably wouldn't do that. Whereas Norris, time and time again...
keeps just telling everybody his feelings. You know, I joke with the kids that, you know, keep those feelings deep, deep down. But you can have feelings to yourself and feelings to those around you. I don't know why Norris has to make... How down he is on himself so public. And Hamilton has the same issue as well. And both Hamilton and Norris.
They don't do what most of the big stars do. They don't do what Alonso and Verstappen do or signs. You know, have a talk spike. Say it wasn't your fault. Get angry at the team. Say it was. Say it was something else, some other reason. But... It just seems like most of the megastars have that kind of attitude where they try and build up this air of invincibility, whereas Hamilton and Norris are just far, far too open and honest about it. And it feels like it's almost a self-perpetuating...
So I swear I'm going somewhere with this, but we used to watch this show called Burn Notice, and my wife always said the main character looked like it hurt when he smiled. And I get that vibe from Piastri a lot. He's got the emotional affect of a cinder block when he's on television. And it...
Definitely not someone I'd want to play poker with, but when you're in a championship battle, it's an amazing tool in the arsenal. That said, I did listen to Norris post-race, and he didn't sound nearly as down after the race as he did. after qualifying so so you know he was sort of like yeah you know we're not there gonna sit down with the team we're gonna figure it out i'm still gonna win races i'm still in this championship i'm not not really bugged about it
One last observation. One thing the McLaren is worse at than most other cars is warming up the front tires. And that might also be part of the problem, not only for Norris, but if we look at Ferrari and talk about Hamilton, that was always an issue for him too. If he didn't get the fronts warmed up enough, he really did struggle with qualifying. So I still think it's a Piastri versus Norris championship. I think, yeah, I think we skipped the gun. We jumped the gun last week.
Verstappen's back. We'll go into Red Bull in more detail, but I think our initial thing that, yeah, they're going to have the odd race where they jump up and be a factor. And, you know, I think Norris was probably correct last week to not waste a single... shred of tyre rubber on fighting Verstappen. It's all about Piastri. But Scott, I think I'm going to be a bit down on Norris's performance in general just because I can list about 10 things where he threw away, if not the win...
Or he threw away the chance to have a go at the win and definitely threw away the team 1-2? Well, he's lucky he took the stewards and age to figure out that he started outside of his pit box. because he gained three positions on the start, which who knows if that slight margin of him being in front of his pit box worked, but it was still a five-second time penalty that only got attributed to him.
halfway through the first stint i don't know why it took the steward so long to do that and it was completely his own mistake he said he was starting too far back and he he let off the brake to move the car too much yeah and It was just, he was very lucky, really, that the undercut was so powerful that he kind of nullified that five seconds very quickly at that first pit stop and didn't lose too much ground to Russell.
I mean, yeah, he'll take third place 100% after qualifying sixth, but it could have been so much worse. It was such a messy weekend for him. It was really messy. I mean, things like not being in your pit box, to me, that smacks of... You need to drill the little things, so you need to really make sure you're on top of every little bit of procedure. That is a mistake up there with break magic. It's just some kind of procedural thing that they're not on top of.
One interesting thing, Matt, was, you know, we were in the patron discord in the race and people go, oh, yeah, nailed on pen, nailed on penalty as they look at the replay. And I went, oh. I don't actually know what the rule is. So I'm asking people, what's the rule? Where are you supposed to be? And I suddenly felt really stupid. And then the TV commentary I was watching, it was very clear that none of them knew either where exactly you had to be in the pit box.
Yeah, that was my immediate question. Is it the front axle or is it the contact patch? And honestly, I'm going to have to go look it up after the show because I didn't have time before to tell you the answer. But it was clearly too far, according to the steward.
I think it is the contact patch of the tyres. I think we've seen a couple of drivers be very close to it before. And it's a bit like football where all of the ball has to be over the line. And I think as long as a little bit of it's touching it...
Of course, that's the same with the tyre, but the drivers don't... There's that yellow line indicating where they can see where their front tyres can line up against. They don't want to... creep too far forward because ultimately they can't see the front tyres but yeah it's just a just another silly mistake and qualifying was once again under pressure
Four temps off is a big margin. We've seen it be a couple of hundredths and it should be an easy front row lockout. And him starting sixth, he gave himself so much work to do. And I mean, credit where it's due, it was a good start, but he could have got hunkered down. behind Gasly. Estappen could have got ahead of him. I mean, he could have gone so much worse. Thankfully, it didn't. And he's still leading the championship.
by three points somehow. But yes, Piastri is now on him. Two biffs then so far. So we've done qualifying and that start box procedure mat. But that is the beginning of a fairly long list for me today. Well, yeah. I mean, almost immediately, he was, didn't he have to give a place back for overtaking off track? No. So at the beginning of the race on lap one, he did overtake off track and it didn't seem to get pulled up. And everyone seemed to notice the Verstappen one, but Norris overtook.
in that first and i know they're a little bit more lenient but i still think you shouldn't be able to overtake off track on on turn one that's the kind of thing that like we had hamilton went to the escape road and gained a place or he didn't really gain a place to Norris but then his team made him give up the place anyway so I was interested that that didn't get noted at all but then yes later on he completed the move on Hamilton off track
and had to give that place back, or the team mandated for him to give that place back. So just got a couple of comments here from the live chat. And Adam says, I don't think Lando needs to blame other people. I was being a little bit facetious there. But he doesn't need to blame himself. Oscar seems a lot more pragmatic and Maria says there's a difference between being honest to yourself or open towards strangers.
But we mentioned the wheel-to-wheel stuff, Scott. And honestly, I think every single battle that Lando had, even if he eventually got past, he came out the net loser out of every... Yeah, in particular against Charles Leclerc. I mean, he had about five bites of the cherry before he eventually caught Charles Leclerc. I just don't know. He refused to go for an overtake down into turn one.
I mean, I don't know why. After the first couple of times, you'd think, okay, I clearly haven't got the traction out of... Turn one here, I've got a bit of a lack of top speed. I need to try and force him out of position and do something different so that I can get a run down into turn four. And it took him about six, seven tries from my memory before he actually got that move done.
As we know, as I've mentioned at the start, that McLaren is not good in dirty air. He's going to be eating into his tyres more, potentially, with George Russell having those issues at the end. If he got past Charles Leclerc sooner, he could have maybe even got George Russell. I'm not sure because I think even earlier on in the race, he got stuck behind George and couldn't overtake him.
You just never know with George having those issues at the end, which I'm sure we'll get onto. It could have been a second place and a one-two for McLaren. This brings up for me a larger issue with the way Norris drives. and i'm going to go back to you remember the battle where you eventually pass max off track at coda He just refused to go up the inside. Yeah. Inside of turn one. Yeah. And even if you say, okay, Charles is defending like a monster today. I can't make the inside. Then.
And on the way down to turn four. Through turn four, you can cut back on the insight and beat them on the next long run under traction because you're so close. And he just never seemed to figure that out. But all the other great overtakes we saw were like those four turn overtakes. Even defences. I think Carlos Sainz was definitely in the wars today and unfortunately he ended up retiring because of it.
But you saw a couple of times Carlos Sainz use the rules to his advantage. He knew he was ahead at the apex and he drove out to the edge of the track. Max wasn't happy. OK, got the position. He fought Tsunoda and Antonelli. And I think, unfortunately, he did eventually get a penalty. But for the most part, he knew where his car was and he knew what the racing rules were. He used it to his advantage.
Lando just never has done in this regulation set. The only time he's done it is in Mexico. And well, obviously we know how that turned out last season, but yeah, he needs to be braver and he's, he needs to just be braver when it comes to wheel to wheel battling, I feel. OK, so, all right, this might sound really harsh, but I feel like Norris doesn't have that reputation where no one's scared of Norris on track.
I do. You can't go back in time. Great overtakes by Lando. It's few and far between, isn't it? And he's been in F1 for... many a year now but how important is it like what verstappen's done over the years where he's just gone what is the old senate adage isn't it which is um i put myself in a position that you either let me buy or we crash Verstappen has definitely done that and he's won people off the road and stuff.
And people kind of know, like, oh, well. Okay, I'll use an analogy I used to do in football, right? Because I'm a smaller bloke, but I used to just go and hurt the biggest guy on the other team as early in the game as I could. And it would just buy you half a yard.
So you'd go up for a challenge and they're actually thinking about, oh, it hurt last time I went in for a challenge with him. I've got an elbow in the ribs. It actually gives you like a little extra half a yard, a bit more of an advantage. Norris doesn't have that. Do you know what we're yet to see this season? It's Piastri and Norris. No, I know. That's what everyone's waiting for. We're waiting for it. We're yet to have it.
And the way it's going at the moment, you think Piastri is easily going to come out on top because he's shown he's overtaken chops in last season and already this season. So I'm so intrigued to see how that's going to play out eventually when the team mate. do come together because it is at some point going to be those two fighting it out for a race win. Who knows how that's going to play out.
Okay, so where are they going to have that, though? Because we have seen them... line astern a couple of times this season but we haven't seen a time when they've had a delta. So they've always been on the same strategy. We haven't had a situation where one of them has gone off the cliff and one of them is having to defend with less tyres.
So I just I don't know where we're going to see that with Pirelli being reasonably conservative, them having the same basic car. I just and if we say that, you know, now the qualifying advantage, you know, we don't have Piastri just qualifying, you know, back.
uh p10 anymore or whatever where are we going to see this battle i think we're just going to see whoever qualifies up front wins well we haven't we've only seen them once qualify on the front row and that's australia we know how intermittent that race was with safety cars in the rain. We are going to see them lock out the front row probably sooner rather than later. And with the pace that they've got up in clean air.
They will be able to, whoever's in second will be able to follow. They will be able to put out that gap to whoever's behind because they'll fall away. And then hopefully, as us fans, we get to see them fight if McLaren allow them. But even if they're on the same tyre, you do suspect there'll be some tracks one driver is better than the other at.
But yeah, that's really it, unless there's some shenanigans with safety cars and they end up on different strategies because one's out of position. But yeah, it's going to happen, I think, multiple times this season. I call it the Monza protocol. We're going to see Piastri. Just not outqualified by Norris. Norris fully into tire management mode and Piastri itching to get by him. We almost saw a couple of inadvertent comings together. Antonelli and Sines got mentioned, but...
He's going to lunge from far back and Norris is either going to turn it on or not see him. going to be the juiciest popcorn eating drama that we've all been waiting for multi-21 seb multi-21 so jason in our chat said i don't think they're allowed to fight i think it's the opposite of that i think I think they're really reluctant this season to call any kind of team orders.
Lando had the jump on the points last year and it was all about at what point do we pull that trigger and ask Piastri to support now they're fairly even I don't think there's going to be any team orders at all and I don't think they fear anybody hunting them down in the championship Your business is going places with three business. Enjoy business class roaming in EU destinations, whether you're video calling from Vienna. Networking in Naples
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our app or go to Wealthify.com. Wealthify is authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Minimum investments apply. Registration closes 30th of June. TNCs apply. Capital at risk. Golf's major season is here. How about this? As Augusta roars once more for the Masters. Truly extraordinary day. Sky Sports brings you four days of golfing perfection. Greatest shot of his life. Ken Scheffler.
Secure his third green jacket. Augusta Coles and Scotty answers. Will McElroy complete his career Grand Slam? Watch it all unfold exclusively live on Sky Sports. Available with no contract on now. Terms and conditions apply. This race may, yeah, I think we know McLaren want the Constructors' Championship again, and they still place a lot of value on that, and that's why they don't want their drivers colliding.
They are starting to pull a bit of a gap behind. We've seen the struggles of Max Verstappen and Red Bull this weekend. And Ferrari still don't look quite there. Mercedes, while George is picking up points. He's still finishing 10 seconds behind Piastri. Even before the issues, he was never challenging him. So they may allow them to fight now. because they're starting to see a bit of a gap formed to those behind. I mean, I don't know, maybe they don't want them to fight because of this new reg.
No, I think they're happy for them to fight. Talking about with Barcelona. I think they're happy for them to fight, but I'm going to disagree with you about Russell not being a, not much, I'm not going to disagree with you much, but just a little bit.
So you mentioned George Russell there. George Russell is my driver of the day because I think he was up there fighting with the McLarens and the Ferraris. And I don't think... actually on race pace overall race distance race pace and tire wear he had the car to to be where he was today so i think he's he's elevated the position of that car
Some smart tactics and prioritizing stuff. So he wasn't looking at Piastri at all. And I don't think he had any intention of hunting down Piastri. I think he realized if he didn't get Piastri at the line, he was gone. And then he looked behind. And I think he's done some of the best tyre management, well, certainly that I've seen him do, but one of the smartest races of tyre management in that.
Everyone would be thinking that battle is up towards the front, but he's looking purely behind him. He's looking at the battles going on between the Ferraris and Norris and saving just the right amount of tyres.
That when Norris eventually gets through all of that and gets up to him, he's still got a little bit of pace to pull out. And he's still got the rears to make sure that he gets away and not be vulnerable in the overtaking zones and making sure he can deploy the battery alongside all of that. I honestly think Russell just delivered an absolute masterclass today in what is my race and what's the best thing I can do for my race.
Yeah, 100%. He stated at the start of the race, I saw his interview on Sky, and he stated... second place is what he said right yeah and and he was he was a little bit concerned about his tyre strategy because he had he knew he was going to have to use the soft tyre at some point today because he didn't have multiple tyres he didn't have
two brand new mediums available to him or two brand new hards which we didn't know if was going to work today or not and it seemed like the hard tyre didn't really work and switch on but you know he he did what Max Verstappen gets praised for so often he maximized his car today even with those issues at the end um thankfully he hasn't been penalized if you're unaware as you're listening to this uh for that
issue with the DRS because it was a third party issue, the transponder for the car that determines where he is on track and DRS location. Because it wasn't his issue, there is precedent for this with Sergio Perez back in Baku 2017, 2018, I think it is. He wasn't given a penalty either. He maintains what was a very well-deserved P2. But I do think that maybe...
the safety car, and it's touching on Ferrari a bit. I don't know what you think, Matt, but I feel like Ferrari's strategy got hampered a bit today by that safety car, and I think they potentially... were forced onto the hard compound tyre and were going to go to the soft and could have caught George with that offset that they were hoping to have at the end. Still focusing on George though, mostly on that topic.
Yeah, no, we'll get to Ferrari. Although I will argue with your use of the word a bit, I would say entirely ruined is what the safety car did to Ferrari strategy, but we'll get to that later. Russell, on the other hand, benefited greatly from it, and for two very specific reasons. And this is the thing about Mercedes. They have brought the car.
That is flawed that they've never really fixed, but their iterative improvement has continued to make it better and better. And in these slightly cooler conditions at night, they now have a competitive car. And what happened was they put Antonelli on the sauce for his second stint. Now that was only about four laps long for him because of the safety car, but it was enough information for Mercedes strategy to realize.
Oh, hey, if we have a couple of laps of safety car and we put George on the soft tire on and the car is even lighter because of fuel burn. He can get to the end on that, and that is actually the best tire for the final stint. And then George went out and proved it. The only fly in his ointment is, I think, if Lando had been slightly better tactically, I'm pretty sure he should have been able to pass Russell.
Yeah, but ultimately it's another podium for him, even if Lando would have caught him. And he's just quietly, I've said it, George is quietly going about his business to start off this season. Hasn't finished outside the top five. team change of the setup in Q3. I don't know why they made that. He could have been up there in the mix with Max and the McLarens again in that race with how difficult it was to overtake.
He's done a tremendous job at Mercedes. And I think, yes, a bit of credit has to go to Mercedes as well for... moving that car forward in the right direction i think we thought that they would just continue comfortably being the full fastest car and being very peaky and that hasn't been the case at the start this season but i will say as well that I think Mercedes saw Max Verstappen's middle stint on the hard tyre.
and how shocking it was. And they went, no, we're not having any of that in the last stint. George was very concerned about... the last stint, 32 laps on the softs. For someone who Spanners has not discredited, but said he has poor tyre management, which I do agree. He has improved, it seems. Well, most of those poor tyre management things were just doing weird stuff around Hamilton.
weren't they it was like oh i need to like get up in his gearbox burn my tires out to get ahead and complain that i need to be ahead look how much faster i am oh well i guess we all have to settle down now no point No point Hamilton overtaking me now. Was it Hamilton put him under pressure in Suzuka? Are we playing the team game or what? Well, hang on a minute, mate.
Do you ever? Do you ever play the team game? So now maybe freed of that a little bit. You know, I think a lot of those issues came from stuff like that. Well, I will say we need to wait and see hotter temperatures. Right now in these track temperatures around 30C, the Mercedes looks really good. But when we get to the hotter tracks, that's going to be the real test for the car.
Mercedes have improved the car. George has improved his management. And the combination of the two with his experience is looking fantastic. The thing he's doing, and we keep on coming back to it. He's garnering the maximum points he can get in every race. And if you want to win championships or if you even want to be close.
That is what you have to do. It's not winning all the time. It's about being the best when you are not at your best. Yeah. Okay. But if we can't, well, with Piastri, we keep inventing, or I keep inventing this. you know, as yet unrealised scenario where a weakness is going to be shown up and it hasn't been shown up yet. Those circumstances haven't occurred. So Piastri is having an absolute blinder, a blinding start to the season. We can't really take it away from Mercedes, can we? Because...
The races now, the first four races are the first four races. It's not beyond the wit of man to kind of go, well, they've set up correctly for what they knew the conditions would be. It feels a bit harsh to go, OK, as we get into the hotter temperatures now, it's going to go. Because last season, they didn't have a blinding start to the season, did they?
Whereas now they are having a blinding start to the season. So, no, I don't want to take too much away. It just seems like a much better balanced car, an all-round more balanced car, it seems. Yeah, conditions may be playing a factor into that, but you can only...
do what's and race the track that is in front of you and they have george's maximizing that especially for a driver who is under considerable amount of pressure this year he's i think the only driver heading in other than the red bull drivers He is the only driver on the grid who is yet to sign a contract for 2026. So like he's driving under pressure, knowing that he's driving for his career and that seat next year because.
Well, Antonelli has just got a freebie this year, isn't he, to kind of do what he wants and learn. So I think fair credit to George. And he started the season off brilliantly. And he's only... I think 12 or something odd points behind Lando Norris. I think as well, it shows that Mercedes' policy of not wanting to have a number one driver, I don't think is correct. I don't think McLaren, when they didn't have this leading dominant car, having this fair two number one drivers is correct.
I think we've seen that drivers do perform better if they're the number one driver, if they're not being harassed by their teammate or if their teammate will occasionally have team orders in their favour. So even if you look at last season with McLaren, how often were we really in the situation where... They needed team orders from Piastri a couple of times towards the end, and they never really executed that very well. But most of the time, Norris was ahead.
And so you go, well, Norris is ahead most of the time. Why let the odd statistical times which are likely that a good driver like Piastri will be ahead and be in the way? Why let that ruin your number one driver's championship? And I think Mercedes, just look at that, just back Russell for the rest of the season. Antonelli's exciting.
But he's not actually getting the results at the moment. He's not up there. He's not going to be superseding Russell's position probably on the evidence at the moment. On the evidence at the moment. Russell is going to easily finish as the top Mercedes driver. So I hope when Antonelli starts creeping up and having the odd performance ahead of Russell, actually, I think they need to back Russell now. And I think all teams need to do that.
pick your number one driver although that said i might change my mind when we get to ferrari but that is an argument for another topic by which time i hope you'll all forget that i said this I don't know. I'm kind of vibing Antonelli. He got poorly served by Mercedes strategy today and the safety car. But he started right behind Russell. He's a 10th off him in qualifying. And he is just a couple more races from being a real problem for George is my prediction.
Yeah, we're seeing that progression of Kimi in just four races, like getting closer and closer to George. He's faltering a little bit in the race, which we expect from a rookie. You're going to have to learn, but something he does have. is that single lap pace and he's at least getting that car.
Other than today, he's getting that car in the points and consistently into Q3 other than Australia, which some of the other, well, some of the other drivers in this as the second driver haven't been able to do. I'm excited by him, and I think the racing he did was fantastic.
But he wasn't holding off championship leader Lando Norris like Russell was doing. I'm sure Russell could have looked like a hero if he was in there fighting Haases and Alpines and, you know, midfield cars like the Red Bull. Yeah, like, you know, the midfield car. But yes, of course, he's looking like a hero and doing all that stuff. And it's great to see that he can race. But let's be honest, he's more than half a yard off performance in the first four races so far.
Yeah, but she's to be expected, I think. I don't think anyone... expected him to be on the pace of George Russell so quickly but the fact I did I did I did, Scott. I thought he was going to come in. You're in a dreamland. You're a very optimistic person, aren't you? Yeah, but that was because of my anti-Russell agenda. And now I'm sitting here being forced to acknowledge how brilliant he's being. Do you know how much this hurts?
Van Jean is sitting at home right now with his feet up on the sofa with a nice glass. A brandy. Just swigging it and going, see, I told you, Spannan. See, I told you. As he's a big George Russell fan. Change my mind when the evidence changes. It's absolutely fine. I just, you know, yeah. Did he keep his shirt on post-race? No. No, I'm hearing no, he didn't.
Yep, absolutely took it off. Maybe that's where Antonelli needs to have a little look at himself in the mirror and just wonder if his torso game is really up to scratch. Yeah, no, exciting. Like we said, we had that great overtake on Verstappen. which just shows, you know, it feels like a fresh approach. It feels like the older F1 drivers, they've been in it long enough that they know.
They know it won't work. So it's that old thing with a bee car. I know this is rubbish, but they say there's no scientific reason a bee should fly. But the bee doesn't know that. So the bee just flies anyway. And it's like, well, Antonelli had no reason to think that doing a dummy on the four-time world champion and just then sending it around the outside. Most other drivers go, that's not going to work on Verstappen.
But Antonelli is just like, hey, I do this. I do it on the sim. I've done it in F2 and F3. I'll give it a go. I think another driver, okay, he didn't do it on Max Verstappen, but another driver who is doing that as well is also the same age or maybe a few months older than Antonelli.
Also made plenty of overtakes today. His first lap was unbelievable. So the rookies, this is what we said about the rookies when they first started this year, is that you need to freshen up the grid every now and then because everyone gets a bit too nicey-nicey. They know how everyone races. They know who they can maybe take liberties with and not.
And then you need some guys who appear on the grid and are just not bothered by status and how long they've been in F1 and how many world titles they've got. They're all racing drivers. They all want to win. And that's what we're seeing from these rookies up and down the grid. They're trying, they're upsetting the...
Behrman's opening laps was really good, now you mention it. I think he'd got five places on that opening lap. And if you look at the onboard, it's just a really... More merit as well. Yeah, it was like a really fine balancing act. And I think he put himself into four wide.
So there was one on the inside, two on the outside, and he just went, I'm just going to creep in there. I'm just going to be there. And then you have to manage that perfectly and be perfectly in control to make that not an accident. It was like a typical race on iRacing when you start at the back and you're just like, I know there's going to be spaces here. I know there's going to be potential carnage. And he just...
patiently slotted his car into those gaps throughout the first half of the lap and just, yeah, was brilliant. Nearly wiped himself out and doing undo all that hard work by running into the back of Albon.
Yeah, a great day for him. And the rookie, other than Liam Nolson, We've got picked up a number of... causing collisions today um they're all trying those overtakes and trying rather than just sitting back which is what we want to see see matt it's good to have scott on here because he's got so much experience of starting at the back in i racing so it's really yeah yeah he knows
No, there should be a special shout out to the Haas strategy unit because they absolutely nailed it on today. They got both their drivers into the points from not great starting positions. Conversely, Antonelli stopped. They kept Antonelli on Russell's strategy. He stopped later than everybody else and he was around. He dropped to positions at the beginning. And he lost out. I think he lost two extra places on his second stop. He wound up 17th behind like Alonzo and Stroll.
So I feel like Mercedes, and we've had this ding of them, when conditions change, they're not always super good at readjusting. No, they're reactive, aren't they? In the moment. Yeah, that's a criticism we've long had of Mercedes.
I will just say, I think Mercedes there, though, Antonelli, I think the reason why he lost so many positions is he had to take that time penalty for off-tracks. He had the most out of anyone today. So that's why, unfortunately, he ended up outside of the points without them. could have been I think maybe in the points but
Just touch it. Specifically, just the second pit stop is what I meant. He came up 17th when he had been like right behind Ocken before. So he lost two extra places because he pitted a lap later. Also happened to Doohan as well. Doohan was late, both pit stops. All right, moving on to Ferrari. So hello to my fellow new lifelong Ferrari fans. How are you enjoying it? How are you enjoying the emotional rollercoaster of following Ferrari? So let's start with the positives.
Lewis Hamilton and Charles Leclerc seem to be getting on very well, playing chess late at night. Leclerc seems to still be a little bit at odds with the strategy that the team are picking for him. Hamilton is definitely a couple of clicks off the pace, was off the pace all weekend. sprint race pole and sprint race win is feeling like a really, really long time ago already, even though it was only a couple of events ago. But yeah.
apologizing to the team saying hey i i i just didn't i didn't put it together i didn't perform uh actually not that down on himself just saying hey you know i i didn't do it I didn't perform today. But the race pace, I think, probably a little bit more concerning. By the time we got to the safety car, just on merit, a gap of nine seconds had just pulled away between the two of them. So I think as Hamilton fans...
I'm just sitting there going, oh, I didn't know. I didn't know it was going to be like this. This feels a little rough. I'm going to say something now that's really going to annoy you, Spanners. I saw a post-race interview by Lewis. Oh, was he really down? No, he was a little bit more buoyant. However, he said something that I know is going to roll you up because you complained about this before. He said, Charles declare, Picks a setup at the start of the week and he sticks with it.
throughout the weekend. Oh my God! Well, doesn't that look... It's working, isn't it, Lewis? Yes. Have a look at how much that's working, Lewis! He even said it out of the horse's mouth. He said, and this is working for Charles. I can't believe that. Is that real? He said it. I heard him say it. I heard him say it. He's tinkering too much. I think you're right. I think you're right. And this has been Missed Apex Podcast. Barry's just had a stroke. I told you to rile him up.
But it's when we realised, I think a couple of weeks ago, we go, oh, it wasn't Mercedes doing all that tinkering, it's Lewis. And for him to go across and go, oh. Charles picks herself and then sticks with it. No way. Like, and even Tsunoda, he made a comment, didn't he, last week when he's like, well, we could have.
tinkered with the setup we could have gone low downforce to match Verstappen but I really I just wanted that consistent setup throughout the weekend and you go yeah it is Hamilton's looking for that final 10th or whatever but thing is it's not like he was close So if it's the setup that's holding him back, just copy Leclerc, for goodness sake.
Definitely. The consistency is the key. And I know obviously Lawson is kind of the extreme, but in those first two races, Lawson, they changed his setup every single session. How is a driver who's struggling, no matter who you are, no matter who you drive for, going to... You need to know what you're dealing with. And Lewis just...
That's why we see him on a Friday or one session do good and then the next session he doesn't because he's chasing these fine margins and he's making the car worse. I will also say about his quality performance, he had no excuses for it, but I think... He's having issues with, or he has done this throughout this whole regulation set. He has issues with tyre prep in quality.
I think that's just an absolute given. The conspiracy theories of tyre blankets and all this is just an excuse really for him struggling with getting these tyres into the right window because... He's not six-temp slower than Charles. We've seen that at the start of this season already. He's not because of that sprint performance. He's just not there with the setup and with the tyre prepping qualities. It's costing him when it comes to the race on Sunday.
And it's not just him. There are other drivers that are struggling. I need to remind everyone at this critical juncture that the tires are the most important part of the car and that they are new construction for this season. They're meant to be better at managing. high thermal loads, which is what all the drivers complained about. But if you make a tire that's really good at managing high thermal loads, guess what also?
Goes along with that. It's harder to warm it up. So the drivers struggling and qualifying are the ones that are still trying to find the setup and the tire prep that really works for them to get those tires fully in the window. Yeah, and to be fair, today, and we touched on it talking about George Russell, but I do think that safety car hampered a double podium potentially for Ferrari today, or at least one of them finishing on the podium because...
They went a bit longer than everyone else. They were closing up that gap in the first stint, and then they were on that second stint, and it just... forced them onto the hard tyre now that clearly they weren't confident about making that soft tyre last to the end George proved them wrong and was able to do that but the Ferrari clearly the data they had they weren't confident in it and they went on the hard Unfortunately, we saw today just not be a quick tyre in general because...
As you guys mentioned, there was no really kind of proper tyre saving like we normally see in a lot of races here this weekend. There just wasn't that falling off the cliff that drivers had on these tyres. So I'm of two minds about this. I mean, first, you could ask me, what was Ferrari's preferred strategy today? And I would tell you, according to the story, it was medium tire, medium tire, soft tire.
The safety car happened, and they had to decide whether or not they saved the seven seconds, because that was what you save, betting onto the safety car or the virtual safety car. They chose the seven seconds, but they weren't confident. As you said, they could get the soft hair to the end. But you know who was confident? A lot of other people, including Russell, Sunoda, Behrman. And most of the other drivers that pitted then went on to medium tires.
So again, it's like gets down to the, just the engineering strategy level. I feel like sometimes Ferrari is just. Like they miss a decimal place here and there and they wind up with an answer that's just different to everybody else because they had Antonelli. They could have looked at his times and his degradation. And yet somehow they get on the more conservative tire, which would have worked great without a safety car if you pit it around lap 28 or so, like Gasly and Alcon.
i think for stopping one under the medium but if you were making your pit stop around then the hard tire was a good one for you but it was not a great one to start your race at lap 36 full pelt to the end and a light car as well ferrari proved very clearly i don't know about they they went to the they went for the alternate strategy and it just felt like
I don't know. Maybe I owe them an apology and it was the safety car's fault, but I felt like they go, right, we're going to go on a harder tyre. So that's just cost Leclerc two places at the front, potentially. He lost two places on lap one. And you go, okay, and then now you're going to do this overcut on a...
You know, you're volunteering for this overcut, which puts you in a place where you're losing track position. So they volunteered to lose track position at the start. They've lost track position because of the overcut. And then... You know, to what end? Where were they ever going to make that up? I don't know. It just felt like a very depressing... All the people who did well at the end were either on the medium or the soft tire. They would have been on a soft tire chasing older mediums.
If it wasn't the safety car. Or the end of the race, if it weren't for the safety car. And that would have actually been probably a really great strategy because as we saw today, the track is not so bad for the overtake, is it? All right. So we go to muddier waters, murkier waters as we drift into Red Bull. So do I get a little bit of redemption here? Do I get a little bit of redemption for pushing back against the Verstappen miracle lap narrative?
against the narrative that, do you know, oh, Max, he always drags that tractor. You give him a tractor and he always drags it onto pole. Do you remember that from Suzuka? People go, oh, this is a miracle lap. He's outdriven the car. Oh, whatever he does, he'll always do it. He'll always... Why didn't he just drag the tractor to pole? Why didn't he just do another miracle lap?
Is it because the car wasn't there? Is it because he did a really good lap in Suzuka? And that's all you can do. You can do the maximum good lap that your car is capable of. And that car was capable of pole position. Could it be that? Is there anyone willing to turn around and go, oh, I see. It wasn't a miracle lap. It was just a pole. It was a pole setting car. And it was a race winning car. Scott, redemption. I said it at the time. It was a brilliant lap. But that red ball at Suzuka.
was quite clearly not the fourth fastest car. No, no. What that Red Bull does have is a small window of operation, which we have seen in the first three race weekends. However, what we saw here this weekend... were serious issues for that Red Bull. They were struggling on their brakes. They had issues with the pit crew lights as well. And Max was just not happy with that car. Lots of understeer.
Could not switch on that hard compound. I mean, in that middle stint, he was slower than the Haas, and he was slower than the Alpine, I think it was, is also on the Haas. or another midfield car at that point in the middle stint. So much so that he got off that tyre early, cut off that stint early because it was so bad. And well, it seems there's fireworks aplenty post-race.
um because of this like that is how bad of a performance what happened post-race and what happened post-race Helmut Marko and Max Verstappen's manager supposedly were having a shouting match, or actually it wasn't Marko, it was Max Verstappen's manager shouting at Marko and storming off. There's been an emergency meeting between senior personnel.
Red Bull, who were there at the track. Their head designer, who's there, is it Pierre Wache, who replaced Nui. That's it, Wache. And Helmut Marko has come out on a Sky Germany interview stating that... There is the possibility of Max leaving, like a lot of paraphrasing there. There's serious concerns and worries. behind the scenes at Red Bull after this weekend. And you've not even mentioned the terrible pit stops for both cars.
I touched on the lights. The lights were the issue, apparently. Yeah, the lights were the issue, but we didn't see issues like that when Jonathan Wheatley was there, did we? No. There has been a talent drain from Red Bull. And I think it's been big enough that we're beginning to see the size of the void that is left at this point.
I don't know. The Red Bull was clearly a midfield car today. Max was unhappy with the brakes all weekend long. He was complaining about the brakes. In fact, it's one of my favorite things. When Max complains about the car on the radio, she just laughs. But they have not built a good car. And it looked good in Japan because of a freakish confluence of circumstances. And it will be peaky. It will look good again, especially with Max driving it.
But he's not getting anywhere near a championship this year the way things look right now. In the live chat, different Matt said, Max did great with a finickety car. Max still did well this week. Yeah, no, no, that's what I'm saying. So let's be clear. I'm not saying, oh, Max was terrible last week and, sorry, this week and last week was just some kind of fluke. I'm saying he probably did equally well both weeks.
I give up. It was that one tweet. So this is a bit of a sub-tweet statement. It was that one statement of, oh, you give Max a tractor. Give Max a tractor and he'll drag it up. No, you give Max a pole capable car and he's very likely to deliver it. But you give Max a P7 car and he'll give you a P7. That's what happened this week. This is just like when you used to argue that...
Hamilton and Williams would get pole position. I mean, to a point, a great driver will make a difference. But beyond that, if you don't have the car, you don't have the car. And they did not have the car. To be clear, I never argued that Hamilton would get pole in Williams, just in case. There's some newer business. I may have exaggerated slightly. I do like some Hyperbolt. But what I will say is that he has still managed to get that car to P6 today.
They cut their losses very early on in that hard compound tyre. And, well, with a bit of additional overtake of the battery on the last lap to get past Pierre Gasly, who valiantly held him off. still got a very well-deserved P7 and best of the rare. It still points on the board for him. I mean, last season, Max didn't finish outside of the top six. That was his worst performance. And who knows, that could be his worst performance again this year.
That is really how bad it is. He's still going to be there fighting for a championship because he's not going to go away. so i do want to put this out there this is my favorite theory of the whole safety car is i think max got a max got a huge gift from the safety car Because he was stuck behind Ocon and not really making a lot of progress. And then after the safety car, he passes Ocon and Gasly to take P6.
And I think what that safety car period let him do was cool his medium tires down. Because like I said, he'd had to come through traffic. I think he got to cool his tires down. And then with a lighter car, he had more grip and was able to take advantage of it. I'm not convinced he would have seen P6. I think he would have got Ocon. But I'm not convinced he would have caught Gasly if they hadn't compacted the gaps, if you know what I mean. And just before he pitted...
This is their patron discord getting my hopes up. Just before he pitted, Tsunoda was catching him. So Tsunoda did have Dewan, I think, between the two of them. And yes, I can't remember if they were on the same tyres or not. I don't think Tsunoda was on the hards. Tsunoda was on the mediums.
But still, from an optics point of view, if Tsunoda had been able to get to it, and I think maybe like about five or six more laps, I think it would have been more on the card. But then Verstappen pitted to get off of those hard tyres. That would have been my delicious told you so moment. Now, last week, you know, we gave Snowda... just about a passing grade. I think we said a slight fail that he was going to have to retake the exam in the summer.
Because I felt like before the Suzuka weekend, we would have taken P12, just not mega struggling. But here, all through Q1, Q2, he was like within a tenth or two of the snap. pretty much on pace. And then stuff went wrong in Q3. I don't think he got a second run in. And this is where, like, if you're going to come and at me about stuff, At least have watched the whole session because people were going, oh, well, he was nine tenths off of Verstappen.
No, that wasn't the pace difference. He was pretty close. And on race pace, it did look pretty similar as well. The caveat there is we don't know to what extent Max Verstappen's issues were affecting him more than normal in the race, but it looked good in quality. And last week... I was scared that because the Red Bull was working, Tsunoda had access to a working Red Bull in the window that Lawson never had access to. But the car was a donkey this week and Tsunoda still looked okay in it.
So I feel, I feel fine. I feel better. I think this might have been the highest finish for a Red Bull second driver in 175 days. Is that the one that I'm, if I remembered it incorrectly, I apologize. I saw someone said it somewhere, but. It's been a while since we've seen a Red Bull driver finish this well in the second car. So yeah, he gets a pass from me. Nice job. I think also what was impressive from Yuki is how he was able to dig deep this weekend because...
He was off it in every single practice session. He was struggling in all of them from the Friday to the Saturday morning. And then he turned up and pretty much snuck through both sessions. I mean, yes, Verstappen didn't look on it either. But to get that car into Q3 and dig deep and find that performance. get the first points in that repable car of this season is a massive positive for him. He's only going to improve, I think, Yuki as he gets in control of that car. It sounds like...
They're also taking a different approach with Yuki's car and they've learned from their previous mistakes of trying to set it up the same way as Matt. They're trying to provide him a bit more of a balanced setup and something that's a bit more stable in what they know. Evidently, he's a very tricky car to drive at the moment. That will help build Yuki's confidence and make him... Try maybe more aggressive setups as the season goes on.
Yeah, couldn't have asked for a better start to the season, really, I think, in Bahrain. Yeah, brilliant. Roll on Saudi. Well, I'm a happy Tsunoda fan. And yeah, maybe Red Bull are due some issues. But, you know, we've definitely been hearing reports that the Verstappen camp is certainly looking at that clause. where if they finish below a certain championship position, Verstappen is then a free agent. And why not move teams if someone offers you a billion dollars?
I mean, if there's an exciting sporting opportunity. Sorry. Could we be looking at a Ricardo Beetz Vettel moment if Max really wants to go? Is he going to sincerely tank the rest of the season just to get out of a Red Bull contract? I don't know, but... I'm just going to put it out there for your enjoyment as a theory. Okay, go on. So I was just going to say, he's an expecting dad, isn't he, as well? So priorities change, as you know. There you go, you have three turns.
Okay, so why were Alpine so good, Matt? So Gasly P4 and then a pretty respectable finish as well in the end. What's going on? Alpine, they're just annoying, aren't they? They're just annoying because they do this every now and then. Well, I have a personal reason to be annoyed, and that has mainly to do with the team ownership and superintendents at this time.
But that's just a me thing. If you ask me why they're good, I think there's two reasons. One is we may be finally seeing the hand of David Sanchez, formerly of McLaren. Having a bit of a steady effect on the tiller as it were. But the other is, this is an interesting artifact of the track. There's not really high speed turns here. So we all know Alpine has a power unit deficit of varying amounts, depending upon who you consult, which Oracle you consult.
But this is a kind of track that puts a lot more emphasis on acceleration and balance. And so it seems like it may have very much fallen into their sweet spot. They've already looked good. They looked good when they tested at this track. And especially in the hands of Gasly. He seems to be able to pull something a little bit extra out of it, which, given his experience, is kind of what you would expect relative to Doohan. I will say right now, Doohan got totally...
by Alpine strategy. He got undercut by Alcon twice. He got undercut by most of the midfield twice and pitted just ahead of the safety car. So he got the worst of all possible worlds. He did a much better drive today than his result. And yeah, there was a penalty to that. Yeah, Gasly was super impressive all weekend. I do highly rate Gasly. I feel like he's a driver who deserves another opportunity. has worked his way to deserving an opportunity in a top team again.
I mean, who knows, maybe Alpine, whichever guys they're under in the future, he'll have an opportunity of fighting towards the front. Because I think it was great watching him hold off Max for that amount of time. And he was actually pretty miffed. after the race but he wasn't able to keep that position because he thoroughly deserved it and doing yeah he had a good weekend
Talking about him being shafted by strategy, I'm just looking. He finished on the hard compound tyre and we know it wasn't a good tyre to finish on. I did remember looking at the timing standings and just seeing him fall through the pack where he was fighting for points for the majority of the race. A real shame for him. Maybe that's Flavio Broatore making the optics look more favourable for him being replaced by Colopinto. I think, unfortunately for doing, he's got one more race.
if the rumours are to be believed. I don't know. Those rumours seem to have, they've cooled off a little bit. I'm not hearing it. Maybe it's been a deliberate attempt to keep it out of the press, but... We found some more money. Yeah. Colopinto was, I mean, maybe it was just a standard reserve driver test, but Colopinto was seen thrashing around an Alpine of a couple of years ago around Monza recently.
Yeah, I don't know. But he's definitely made improvements. But is it enough? Probably not right now. And then the last one before we go to the awards is I wanted to see a status check on Williams. So obviously they're not finishing P4 like they were in Australia, but it's still looking pretty solid. And you have to say Albon is still looking like... the better driver on race pace. And poor Albon, robbed of his Q2 position.
Yeah, this is bad, isn't it? So normally in session, they pick up the track limits and they go, right, Hulkenberg, your lap doesn't count. You're now P16. Albon, you've progressed to Q2. So Albon didn't get a chance. to go and emulate what Sainz did in Q2. It was even worse than that. So Hulkenberg snuck through, but Hulkenberg competed in Q2, got lap times deleted from Q2 for exceeding track limit.
Then had his lap time deleted from Q1. So he got, he was 14th and then he got, because Ocon crashed. So he was 14th and then he got demoted down to 16th. But you've mentioned this many a time, Spanners. Why are we still relying on medieval solutions of just eyes on a camera? This is the pinnacle of motorsport, the pinnacle of engineering. Sensors? They're a thing? Scott, there's so many different types of technology in use in industries around the world.
It's honestly, it's just a case of picking which of those solutions will work with Formula One. Like this is all COTS, C-O-T-S, customer off the shelf. solutions you can just go and buy an already made solution since since the 50s Since the 40s, we've been able to detect where one thing is in relation to another thing. There's dozens and dozens of different techniques.
I said, find an electronic solution. I once posted, I said it would be trivial to find an electronic solution. And this guy just kept going at me going, oh yeah, name one... I'm like, name one way of determining where one thing is in relation to another thing. A really simple thing that we've been doing for seven decades as a human race.
You just take your pick. Look, we'll do it. I'll do the working group. I will work for free. Just give me the resources for one week's conference room and to fly in five experts of my choosing and I'll find you a solution to this blinking... Track limits problem that you've put no effort into whatsoever. Oh, I will put a GoPro by trackside. No, just do a proper solution. It's trivial. Massively. I know we've diverted. It's away from Williams here and we'll get back.
You don't even need to have these sensors around the whole track. No, just key areas. You know the corners and areas where they're going to use. track limits uh particularly here it was turn four that was where every single track limits violation pretty much was maybe out of the last corner as well so you've got two areas
I mean, they were so slow as well, the stewarding. I won't bang on about it, but they were so slow in investigating everything today. It just made me realise what was the point of them kind of being there. But back to Williams. Matt had a point on the track limit. Apologies, Diver, Matt, you first. Well, I was just going to chime in.
stewards and the race director, to their absolute credit, said exactly that. We know where the hotspots are. That's where we had live people evaluating them in real time, where Hulkenberg had his... we'll just call it a mistake because why else would you be over the track limits there? Wasn't one of those. So it was sitting in a queue to be looked at. as probably haven't been picked up automatically by whatever system they use. until I think it was Aston actually brought it to their attention.
It did mess up Albon, but I'm sorry, you can't tell me Albon has better race pace when Tsunoda removed half of Sainz's side pod. That's not a fair comparison. Did I conveniently leave that out of my assessment of Tsunoda's race? So there was two contacts. There was two contacts. Right. The first one was Tsunoda being massively optimistic and actually signs doing what I wish more drivers like you don't have to jump out of the way.
Just because Sainz decided to get Larry and sideways and fight to the death, that doesn't mean Sainz has to leap out of the way. And he held his ground. for which he got punished with damage. And I don't think Tsunoda got punished at all. So maybe that's why. This is my question. How did he not get punished for that? Tsunoda should have probably got a penalty for that.
Wasn't it the other way round? Was Tsunoda making the overtake? I think Sainz was making the overtake. No, Tsunoda was defending, but he defended quite lairily down the inside. He put down a fair amount of elevenses, didn't he? Yeah, no, no. He slammed it into Sainz. But Sainz actually didn't deviate from his line. But he didn't jump out of the way either. And in the end, you go, OK, we criticised Norris for jumping out of the way with Leclerc.
Because ultimately, I think he was ahead at the apex and Norris would have been entitled to hold his ground against Leclerc and go, well, technically I was correct and I had right of way. Yeah, but you've lost part of your floor. And that's what happened to Sainz. Sainz, yeah, I'm with you, brother. You were technically correct to hold your ground. But that completely wrecked your race. Yeah, to me, that was... I mean, if Snowder, if you're sliding four-wheel drift,
And then, you know, getting Larry on the throttle pedal as well, you're not under control. So you didn't defend that in a sort of responsible way. But also, Tsunoda also hit him from behind a few laps later.
And didn't get a penalty for that either, which I get because it was just one of those where slightly misjudging the speed. Fortunate that he didn't give Sainz a rear puncture, but I think Sainz had a good weekend this weekend. He was... into q3 comfortably that was it p8 he started he made a couple of positions early on as well and then just started to i think that he was actually one of the drivers who started to suffer a bit on the softs um but
Then once he got some clean air, he was able to just continue and extend that stint. He was looking good until that contact. He was fighting Tsunoda for points. today. So it's a real shame that he ended up having to retire because that was a fair old chunk taken out of his side pod. Yeah, if I'm Albin, I'm now beginning to think, uh-oh. Even though I think Alvin still feels like he's driving the team right now.
This is the first weekend I've seen signs starting to look, well, show signs of signs, if you will. Well, Vals did quite a telling comment where he said, OK, yeah, yes, Carlos hasn't been on the pace. But what we've seen today. is just the beginning i think that was during the race he said yeah this is just the beginning like we were you know now we see that he's got a baseline and now he can push on from here
And so if you're Albon hearing that, you know, yeah, Albon, you know, Sainz got ahead of, was doing a bit better than Albon, but that's just the beginning. He can really push on from here. That's a shot across the bow. And that is quite a classic James Vowles.
thing like is he married i don't know if james vowels is married but maybe like his wife should sit on the pit wall uh with him because whenever i put my foot in it like that i get a sharp i get a sharp elbow in the ribs oh uh what i meant to say was and then backtrack vowels doesn't care There is a bit of a love affair, isn't there, with Carlos Sainz? As he said, he chased him for quite some time and eventually got his man.
But yeah, Alex was uncharacteristically off the pace here. I don't think he had any excuses for not making it out of Q1. And then the race wasn't able to make up as much as maybe we suspect he would be able to. But, yeah, I think, look, Ali... We'll be thinking, okay, this is where science has arrived.
Finally, he's now turned up. He's taken him a few races to get underway. But Albon, I'd still be confident he started off the season very well. A slight blemish at the start of the season. I think he'll continue it on in Saudi. If that's true, if there's more to come, then that kind of confirms what I've always thought really with Williams and its driver lineup, which is the driver lineup isn't fully servicing what the car is capable of and hasn't been for some time, maybe Russell aside.
And you go, well, if Carlos does now push on, that's great news for Williams fans because they're already looking pretty decent. They're already looking like a proper midfield team. Well, what if signs start sparking, it gets the grips of it and starts kicking on? You go, oh, that's quite tasty.
Well, then that's perfect for Williams because it leads into your theory of having a number one and a number two driver. And it would be perfect for them. But I agree with you. They have not had the right driver lineup for many a year. Alex Albon. Never probably really pushed himself to that next level by having Latifi. sergeant alongside him whereas signs has clearly forced him to take a step up
And it's an important season for him because if he got trounced by signs this year, you can say goodbye to any opportunity of making your way further up the grid. Yeah, the top teams aren't going to come calling, are they? But if he was to match signs...
Then I think, yeah, you look up the grid and maybe some teams would be interested, but... i don't know i'm feeling quite excited that you know they might have have a decent car and uh and have a top line driver now which would just be we've waited way too long we've waited way way too long i think it's time that we move on to the podium
finally some excitement in formula one the bahrain grand prix gives us temporary respite as we now go into street circuits and uh yeah i would say just let that absorb into your skin keep that memory with you as we as we watch them follow each other through the curves of Saudi, the streets of Monaco, a dry Montreal Grand Prix, the historic and beautiful, maybe flooded at times, Imola, before we get into the European season properly. But for now...
I think we can bask in the glory of that is a race that I'd probably sit and watch the highlights again. That was a race in which things happened. in which we were entertained and this is the part of the show where we give out awards so we're going to start off being like oh we're all negative We're armchair warriors. That's so that we can end on being super positive. So I'll go to Scott first. Scott!
You are an amazing YouTuber. You have an incredibly popular watch along. So people should click the link to Stuffy's YouTube channel and... Should make Scott your companion for the Grand Prix. You do live watch-alongs. Incredibly popular now. I've said this a year ago before we started doing the watch-alongs. I said, you're well on your way to becoming one of the top F1 YouTubers in the world. And I believe that is going to happen. But in the meantime, who missed the Apex?
for you. Thanks for the kind words firstly, Spanners. Missing the apex for me is... The Aston Martin team and Fernando Alonso and Lance Stroll. Another terrible weekend for them. Lance Stroll qualifying one position better than he did in Suzuka in 19. Fernando Alonso finishing in 15th, a full minute off of the lead in a week where it's also gone quietly under the radar. But Dan Fallows, I think I've pronounced his last name. Highly regarded and joined Aston Martin.
which could be maybe quite telling of what's happening behind the scenes. But this season, as I think many of us predicted, was going to be a season to write off for Aston Martin. And yeah, are they... I'm now going for conspiracy. Are they tanking for additional wind tunnel time for next season? It really would have put it past me. I really wouldn't put it past, sorry, Lawrence Stroll.
Nui and so forth, for that to be their game. I think the system lends itself to a bit of tanking. So I wouldn't say it's actually that much of a conspiracy theory. I thought Nui was meant to come in and fix everything.
There is obviously, if you use Occam's razor, there's a simpler... explanation so i think if they were down the back of the grid but alonso was still you know of several places ahead of stroll then i'd be going ah yeah maybe maybe they're doing a bit of tanking there but the fact that
Alonso hasn't even looked that good against Stroll. I think the more simple explanation is that they have a Nepo driver and a 44-year-old driver. That's a much more simple explanation for the lack of form. What I found specifically off... was that in Q2... Fernando Alonso did not have one brand new set of softs to use at all. He did one run. And that was on a set of used softs, which for me is just bizarre because a team like Aston Martin...
Even if you don't think you're going to get through into Q3, you still have at least one brand new set of softs to use in Q2 to try and maximize your position, start close to the top 10 as possible. And then Alonso's comment afterwards was very much... Well done, guys. It didn't seem sarcastic or insincere. It seemed genuinely sincere that he was...
saying well done to the team. We've maximised what we could. It genuinely sounded sincere. It was very odd. It wasn't well done, guys. No, it wasn't. It was just very... Odd to see them not even try it in Q2. Stuart says that Mike Crack's height was wrong. Mike Crack says the ride height was wrong for Stroll. Okay, great. Well, just, yeah, you got it wrong. Matt. Yeah, I just want to jump in on the general let's bash Aston a little bit train.
I think it's really, they've just abandoned this project altogether. Nui came on board, but Nui's main focus, although people at the team say that he's making a difference now in terms of just, what would you call it, morale, and maybe some general help, his main focus is Honda and the 26 car. That's where all the eggs in this particular basket are. Whether or not they deliver that is very much an open question.
But yeah, I wouldn't expect a ton from Aston going forward. They might have an odd good result, but it'll be as much luck as it is skill. You are a musician. You play a trumpet. You appear places. Your wife sells books. You are on social media. And... He's not the mild-mannered man he is on Miss Apex when you get him on social media. Oh, no. Matt has opinions. Go and follow him by clicking the links in the show notes below and go and follow him on Blue Sky.
I don't know if you still lurk on X or not. But, you know. Occasionally. Occasionally. Go and find him. All the journos are still there. Whatever. And then you need to know that you can contact Matt directly via email. He's got a Miss Apex email address. So Matt. Matt, who missed the apex for you? It's going to be hard to top Aston, but if I'm Sauber, I have done this thing.
Yeah. Hulkenberg disqualified Bortoletto dead last from a car that looked to be reasonably competitive. Don't ask me how they did it. I have no clue, but wow. This was definitely not the track for them. Where can we find you? Oh, don't worry about following me on social media. I've got one mission this week, and that is to get people to Miami. So email spanners at mistapex.net. with the subject line Miami, and I'll compile a list and I will get those details out to you.
You will only get the details of where the event is if you get in touch with me. So I need to know the sort of numbers that I'm dealing with. I'm always terrified that no one's going to turn up, but I also need to be aware of the other issue. which is if we have too many people. Great guest speaker.
Open tequila bar. There'll be some nibbles there. There'll be quizzes. It'll be a good time, a great way to wind down after qualifying because there's no sprint in Miami as well. And also, you know, me and Matt and Christina will be out and about.
around the track as well so you know we'll tell you where we are and we had a few people last year say oh we saw you but we didn't want to bother you no no no no come and bother us honestly uh we we we love uh you know we love speaking to people we love meeting people so uh definitely come and say hello right uh who missed the apex for me uh i don't know
It's got to be, for me, it's got to be Red Bull in general. So that political situation is now coming to a head. Matt mentioned the loss of talent. And basically there's a dozen factors all start stemming from the start of last season. Really, I think that effect is still being felt. And it looks like they're desperately trying to cling on to their star driver.
at Orwell providing a car on the racetrack that looks solidly like a midfield car. And so that's Who Missed the Apex for me. Oh no, you missed the Apex. And now we get to end by being super positive and asking people what was their thing of the weekend. Scott, who's your thing? What is your thing of the... Where is your thing of the weekend?
I mean, I have many experience of starting last on plenty of iRacing. And karting events. Don't sell yourself short. Thank you for reminding me. I have a significant weight disadvantage compared to you lot. The race starts in the kitchen, Scott. But starting P20 after what was a shocker of a qualifying for him. That first lap, I recommend anyone go and look it, no doubt.
Formula One have clipped that first lap, as they always do, and we've spoken about it, it was mega. And then to make up an additional five positions... Yes, I won't still pass as my good thing of the weekend because maybe Matt wants to touch on the other half of that.
With the combined strategy and just, yeah, he's driving. He was just aggressive out on track and continued. I mean, it could have easily gone downhill for him after a poor start to his season in Australia. I've been in it in FP1. And for him to... To follow up, Suzuka up here and China here. Yeah, I'm all for it. I'm a big Oli Behrman fan. Cool. Matt, two rumpets who hit the apex for you.
Well, I wasn't going to go for a single driver, but you are right. I am going to go for the entire Haas team. Their strategy was on point. They got Behrman admittedly with the help of the safety car from 20th to 10th. They got Alcon after his mistake in qualifying from 14th to 8th. Double points. But the real reason I bring it up is they are fit.
in the Constructors' Championship right now. They are fit in the Constructors' Championship. And they interviewed Camazzo after the race. And he was like, the thing is... Everybody works together. The whole team comes together to make this result happen across the board. And you can't help but be a little excited for Komatsu at this point because he certainly didn't inherit.
A team that looks anything like the performance of the one we see today. Well, let's just hope Toyota keep them on. They will. Okay. And so for me, I... I'm going to have to split it between two. I'm going to be selfish. So I think Piastri's performance looks all the better when you compare it to the more chaotic.
weekend of his his teammate because you got an example of what goes wrong if you don't get a grip early on in the weekend what goes wrong if you can't qualify maybe what goes wrong then subsequently as you're in the carbon fiber zone and going wheel to wheel with slower cars who are still very hard to overtake. In the contrast of that, you have this absolutely pitch-perfect weekend from Friday to the chequered flag on Sunday. So Piastri there, yeah, one thing of the weekend.
But my thing of the weekend, my driver of the weekend is absolutely 100% George Russell, racing smart. and getting a p2 that i don't think that mercedes was entitled to at all go and follow my panel two rumpets go and find scott stuffy toughy on youtube follow me on Twitter, Instagram, and Blue Sky, and come and hang out with me in Miami. Our email address is feedback at mistapex.net. We will see you midweek, but until then, work hard. Be kind and have fun. This was Myst Apex Podcast.
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