IMOLA F1 GP Review 2025

Welcome to Mist Apex Podcast, I'm your host Richard Reddy, but my friends call me Spanners, so let's... This is our MLR Grand Prix And I'm so glad race was gonna be wonderful to be wrong. A dry Imola Grand Prix delivered some classic F1 racing. Save Imola! That's what I've always said. So, coming up, we'll discuss a wonderful gift. to the Tifosi. Max humbles McLaren once again. Norris finally bags of results against Piastri. Williams continue to amaze and will use the wonderful new racing rules

to yell about whose fault it is. We are an independent podcast produced in the podcasting shed with the kind permission 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. It's a good one to be joined by Matt Tudor. Rumpets, brand new race tyre. Absolutely, the C6, very exciting, and it performed its intended function, which was basically not being run in the race at all.

Yeah, well, the main function was to make sure the C3 wasn't used as the hard tire. Correct. Yeah. The first question I'll ask you in a moment probably is why wasn't Imola dull and boring? But we're also joined by F1 YouTuber and I think someone who is destined to become the biggest F1 personality on YouTube. It's Scott. Stuffy Tuffy. Hello, Scott. Hey, Spanx of the Kind Words. Yes, I listened to your preview in the week. We were so down on it. I had very low expectations for this triple header.

Because of what we'd experienced previously. But how pleasantly surprised. I was, as you said, Spanners, low expectations. the key to a good life is happy life expectations especially as a father which you are now just honestly don't expect anything good for your birthday or Christmas and you'll never be disappointed but I think I will go and ask Matt now Matt

Why wasn't the Imola Grand Prix rubbish? We had racing. It was exciting. We didn't know who was going to win. There was tire deltas. Why? In a nutshell. And I look forward to giving you this answer ever since I knew you were going to ask me this question. It's all down to Ocon. No, no. I did bring this possibility up. That someone stuck in the midfield was likely to try a cheeky early pit stop.

go for the undercut, and try the two-stop out, see if it works. And that's oftentimes a good choice for the midfield because when they pit, they wind up in clean air, so they can really run the tire. They don't burn it up. They don't have to fight through traffic. They're just running way behind the field. La-di-da-di-da. Just basically like practice.

And sure enough, at the end of lap one, in comes Aukon, puts on the hard tire. I thought, and everybody thought, he had damage. He might well have. I don't know why he came in. I never saw an answer to that. And then he's like, because it's a 28 second pit delta, he's last place, 20 something seconds behind everybody else. And then I watch his times and he starts just eating, chunking. He was up to like a nat 12th place.

before everybody else started pinning, going, uh-oh, we're in trouble. And once that cascade happened, the people in the front noticed it. And that's when you have your Leclerc's people who were stuck. making the early pit stop and thinking, oh, with this undercut, and this includes Piastri, with this undercut, even if I stop for a second time, everyone stops for a second time, and then I've got them. I've got two undercuts on them, and it's going to be brilliant.

And it would have been because it set up the long runners in opposition who are like, oh, yeah, we're going to double down on this strategy and we think it's going to work. And so it was a great race just from the start. Looking at all that going on. Well, the key thing is that there was some strategy to be had. And so often the last few, I would say the last couple of years, you've had basically they run on the medium for a little while.

and then go on to the hard, and that's C3, which is the hard tyre for most of the low-wear tracks, including, like, the... street circuits and stuff like it's fine there there's there's been you know in the past you'd go on the hard tire it's a terrible race tire i guess we i guess we have to use it but let's let's see what we can get out of the mediums maybe even go to a soft but recently it's been no See you soon.

for a little bit then c3 to the end of of the race and like nobody has been suffering deg on the c3 on those street circuits so like hats off to pirelli for bringing in that brand new tire we asked for it we wondered if it would work and it would work it did work And I guess going forward now, Matt, they...

They can use that again. They can use it anyway. They won't know. Yeah, it was really developed to be a street circuit-specific tire, which is why you saw people having such problems with it and qualifying. But that also, I think, kind of makes it fun. Like, no one ran it in testing. They didn't know anything about it. So getting the outlap right was a pain and it's flexible so the grip didn't always feel like it was there even if maybe it was.

So it made qualifying also a little bit more chaotic, which is either something that made you very happy if you're like, say, Carlos Sainz in Q2, which I'm just going to say was like a Lewis Hamilton Singapore kind of a qualifying lap he put in. Or if you're an actual Lewis Hamilton in a Ferrari, you're much less happy with the performance of that.

Yeah, so, I mean, it's the tyres, though. And I'm sure Scott will agree, you know, you run a lot of sim racing. We watch a lot of different racing series. If you qualify the cars in pace order and just go, right, go! A lot of the time there's not an awful lot of overtaking until the end. Formula One at least has struck on a formula where you do get deltas and overtaking, but...

I know, is that unsatisfying? We've deliberately made tyres that don't last, but when that formula works, I mean, it works. That was a good race today. We need it in F1. We need tyres where... There is a delta, especially with the last year of this regulation set. Dirty air is so prevalent. It's great. It's great that we've got... Qualifying, separated by, I think, pole position. Every pole position now, including sprint races, has been separated by less than one temp.

That's tremendous in how close the performance of the cars are. But when it comes to a race, it doesn't provide great racing. We need this tyre offset. That's why Bahrain was so good, because we had so many different varying strategies ongoing. While we had a very good race in the end, I am kind of a little bit disappointed and I wish there's an alternate universe where I could go and see where the VSC and the safety car doesn't happen because we literally had

Half of the field committing to a two-stop, and we had the other half on the one-stop. And I was so intrigued to see where this convergence was going to happen, especially up front with Verstappen and Piastri, because it was shaping out to be a really interesting race. You said Ocon provided a great race. Well, we also kind of...

Hindered it a little bit as well but thankfully with a late safety car it provided us with late drama because of course he broke down and brought out that VSC which a lot of drivers will be a little bit upset about. Yeah, the safety cars, the VSC and the full safety car, they took away, but then they gave as well. So we got a nice little nine-lap sprint in the end, which probably should have been like a 15-lap sprint, but...

Oh my goodness, that took forever. What on earth were you going through on your live watch-along stuffy? I was a bit confused. It was right there. It was right by the exit thing. It was sat on the forks for ages. Yeah, and it also took him a long time to assess what had happened to Antonelli as well. You could see on the track map that he was come to a standstill. And our cons...

I mean, maybe because he was closer to the marshals and closer to the escape road, but that's why they were able to ascertain that he couldn't get moving again. But the VSC was called so much sooner for Ocon. compared to Antonelli, even before they threw a yellow flag. And it's like, you can see there's a car in the graph. So the whole thing was just a little bit delayed. And yeah, I spent way too long under the safety car.

Safety first. We don't want issues with recovery vehicles on track. You can't mess with the safety car procedure, said Anthony Davison unironically on the Sky broadcast. Because he's a Mercedes guy, I couldn't tell whether he was being tongue-in-cheek. Oh, you can never mess with the safety car procedure.

But yeah, that took a long time, so it ended up in a sprint. But yeah, I really wanted to see actually Norris versus Piastri as well on those strategies because I felt like there was a chance that Norris was going to be right up behind Piastri after a stop. Yeah, I will just say, and I suppose this is the start of our discussion on Piastri and McLaren. I think today that if we saw that different alternate universe where we could see the race play out without the VSC.

I think Piastri and Spanners, you will probably be sitting here, point proven. I think we saw the lack of tyre management of Oscar Piastri rear his ugly head today. Now, it was only for two laps, but it got to the point where he lost a full second in two laps. And Piastri pulled the trigger and he came on the radio and went, he's too ambitious. Out the window. Right. And he went straight onto the committance of a two-stop strategy because he lost a chunk of time in a short period to Matt.

And if they didn't react, then it was going to be race over for them if they stayed on the one stop. Whereas Norris, his lap times as soon as he cleared George Russell, him and Max were neck and neck trading lap times. They act like you just saw. This, I feel like, is the first race we've had this season where we've truly seen proper tyre deck on the McLaren.

And Norris, I think personally, fared better with it today than Piastri. Just to say, you know, my plan was to talk about Verstappen first. I'm sorry. No, that's fine. I'm just saying, since you fed us into that, because I think, rightly so, Verstappen's performance was excellent, but it is fascinating, this battle between Piastri and Norris.

But I will say, Matt, when I've gone in the Discord chat and said, well, here we go, this is what I was talking about with the time management from Priastri, people have gone, nah, he pitted for some other reason. And so I'm like, I can't even have this one. I can't even have this one. He did literally say, like, these tyres aren't going to make it. The plan is out the window.

He has a reputation as just being the most chill customer ever. But the reality is, and I know this from watching the progression of Alcon on the hard tires, like suddenly his pace just dropped. And they said, essentially, you have rear graining, but you're not the only one struggling with it. And what I figured then was that once you're running in close traffic,

Those, especially your rear tires, were susceptible to graining. And once they grain, you lose the lap time. And I really believe that's probably if you ask somebody at McLaren who's on that side. They'd probably say, yeah, it was probably graining and not the tire itself that was gone. But again, Norris didn't have it. Either he dropped back a little bit more, or he was more cautious on entries and exits. He used the card differently and didn't suffer that problem for whatever reason.

That said, the evidence at the time showed that the undercut was extremely powerful, and in fact it was so powerful, and this gets me into the whole nut of the McLaren strategy, it was so powerful that when Norris pitted, like right before the virtual safety car, He was net four seconds back of Verstappen, and he lost 1.6 seconds in his pit stop because it was a slow stop, which also meant he had to fight through the traffic.

So maybe if you go back and really figured it out, he might have been a second off Max and headed to his pit window. So this is it, though. The fact that they pitted into traffic says... That's not the ideal time to go pitting. So I know lots of people have said, oh, look, they were trying to go for an undercut. I go, okay, undercut was fairly powerful, I see him. And I think they had gotten to see Leclerc undercut Russell already by that point.

That's why you go, well, it could be graining and they've panicked. But for me, all of the traffic dispels most of these things because if he was doing okay out there, they would go, well, it's not strategically a great thing. stay out of the traffic and i do think that this issue with the time management has been disguised by the tire

scenario we've been talking about before on the street circuits where the C4 is fine, they're on the medium, the C4's okay, starts to kind of go off, but then they go on the C3 and it's bulletproof till the end of the race. So we've not seen a lot of tyre management yet this season. And the weather hasn't helped that either. It's been cool.

It's made managing tires easier. So I think all of those play into it. I'm not sure about the traffic. I think the slow stop might have put them behind traffic they were trying to get ahead of. Not all of it. So I will throw that in there. No, I think it was going to be... Because it was, what, an extra second and a half? Yeah, very close. But that can make a big difference on pit exit. He had to overtake like four or five cars though, didn't he?

I don't think that was a great window to go into. So I think they've seen it in previous times where the tie's started to go, but they know that the tie they're going to go on to...

is going to last the rest of the race, so why not go early? You've got the undercut and no real penalty for that. This time, I think he was genuinely in a little bit of trouble. And even if it's just the graining and it would have gone off, there are the cars ahead of him or well the cars he was sandwiched by weren't struggling as much with the graining and were able to go through it and carry on so i just think that's a genuine

part of his package. He's got really good things about him, like the fact he carved through that traffic as if it wasn't there. That's a really great quality. I think we're allowed to talk about the good qualities and the bad qualities. The feedback I've been getting from people simply for pointing out this time management thing is crazy. Yeah, and before the entirety of Australia shows up and rings your doorbell, I'll also say he's still learning, folks.

Like, this is not the complete package of Piastri. You're going to give him a couple more years, and he's going to pick up the finer nuances. Maybe. We think the potential is there of managing as well as Lando manages, because he didn't start out managing tires that well himself. And you've just mentioned about Piastri still learning. Well, I think, of course, he's learned today what it's like to be leading the World Championship because we saw a Piastri today.

In my opinion, bottled that first corner. If that's Max Verstappen... leading down into the first corner there, and he has Oscar Piastri try and swing it around the outside. Do you think in a million years that he's letting that happen? No way. Not with the way the racing rules are currently written, where the inside car has all of the power. Now, of course...

bigger picture and so forth. But I've discussed this, that it was a change of mentality from Piastri today. I think maybe beforehand there might have been discussions, but look. If that happens, we've got the better race car. We have better tyre management. Everything is pointing in a direction that we can beat Matt. out on track, even if he gets us at the first corner. What we don't want to do... He's a Norris in Miami. We don't want to lose 25 points. We don't want you having that.

attitude of bin it or that's it um you back out or we crash attitude whereas I mean, ultimately, that's cost him today. Yeah, so in his head, someone said, well, this is your title to lose now, so don't throw away points. In the midfield, he was able to do whatever he wanted. And so I did wonder that where you go, yeah, we can't just let Norris sail through.

It's a complete chasing. As we know, in sim racing, karting, chasing is completely different to leading. And especially when you've got a 20 point lead. I mean, it's just... Yeah, it's not the piastri that we saw in Miami. It's not the piastri we saw in Saudi. I thought if he gets a decent start and he covers off that inside line, which is what he did, and he didn't get the best start, but he at least kept Max behind him.

I thought, this is it. This is a done deal. It's his corner. It's his race. He'll drive off into the distance. But credit to Max. You give him an inch, he'll take him off. No, no credit to Max. I'm going to blame Pia. Everyone's like, and I was just saying, I had the same reaction. I saw that corner. I'm like, you better drive that guy into that gravel because you're allowed to. And he just didn't. And I was like, oh.

Man, that's just, that's such a letdown. But then I thought about it and I realized he made one of the most fundamental errors you can make when you're leading a championship. He was raising the wrong person. He was trying to keep Russell behind him and out of the lead, and he'd already covered Max off. If he'd just let Russell go... Last whiskey. There's no way Max gets around him. And then Max is eating his dirty air. He loses the tires like Piastri lost the tires behind Max.

And the race is his, because there's no... I mean, we saw what happened to Russell. Russell didn't need any help today losing the tires on his own. McLaren has a huge advantage over them on race pace. It would have been candy from a baby for him to win the race in that scenario, but he got... sucked into fighting for the win, and it cost him in the end.

Yeah, now I think about it, he probably was quite preoccupied with Russell because Russell was the one who had the best start out of the three of them. But if he positioned his car better in the middle of the track, which he's entitled to do because he's out up front, he could have blocked off arguably both of them and controlled.

That run into the first corner. But I think he was so focused on the inside car. Has all the power. But he just broke too early. Whereas he should have just driven. He should have carried that speed.

through it but yeah changing mentality um is clearly what we saw from piastri today and then it just kind of i don't know the race felt like it was very just snowballed from there for him it just wasn't a very impressive race for him but i will say compared to his teammate lando He manages and reacts to these races. Better than him. I would say. It was very un-Piastri-like, isn't it? One of the things we've liked about him is how robust he is. And I think if you were defending against Russell...

You would break a little bit earlier to make sure that you've got that inside line. If there was a car threatening the inside, and I think you kind of maybe got caught into the mentality of that, then all of a sudden... you're changing tack and having to defend against Verstappen. So if he'd have breaked later, he would have got to the apex first and he could take it all the way to the edge. I don't know how they realised this, but he just realised immediately, no, I break too early.

Verstappen's got the outside. He's now under these rules entitled to the corner and has the sense to give him space. What would be really interesting is if in that scenario, he just drove him to the edge anyway. Because I don't think Verstappen yields. I think there would be some contact. I think you could get a little bit closer. I think Piastri left him a lot of room. That really didn't make it hard at all. Because he was so keen to avoid, I think, to avoid.

any contact and avoid risking I think yeah he's now acting like he's got something to lose At the risk of giving away later content, I think we saw this exact scenario happen with the LeClerc-Alban thing. If he'd kept the speed and just gone to the edge, Max would have been bouncing through the gravel. And even if he got a 10-second penalty, I'm not sure.

Max would have been able to make it up, assuming he didn't, they both didn't just, like, crash themselves out of the race entirely with the contact. We're talking about the racing rules. diverting let's divert away to this incident between Leclerc and Albon and I know these two have been disagreeing and I have an opinion on it so basically it's Leclerc is on these really old

hard tyres, and they said to him, we don't have a tyre for you to come in on. You've just got to make it to the end. He's like, no, give me the softs. We can't do the softs. It's 17 laps, whatever, to the end. They won't last. In the end, there was nine racing laps, so Leclerc's soft would have been completely fine. But anyway, so he's having to fight off Alex Albon with Lewis Hamilton in the frame catching up, and it's the second of the chicanes.

Isn't it? Is that right, Stuffy? It was the second of the chicanes. What, Alex Albon and Leclerc was the first corner? Technically, well, the first and second corner. Second corner, because the kink is the first corner. Two and three, yeah, the commentary got it wrong. I've DM'd Harry Benjamin to tell him he got that wrong. I'll see if he cares to respond.

But yeah, so they're going through there and there's the classic scenario that we're facing at the moment. The cars are very near each other on the apex. Certainly visually watching that, we couldn't have paused that afterwards and said, right. Which one was ahead at the APAC? And Leclerc goes all the way to the edge. Alex Albon goes on to the gravel.

They both feel aggrieved and then Leclerc ends up under the instruction of Ferrari to give the place back. So I will ask, who do I ask first? Because this could taint it. Matt, whose fault is it? The people who write the racing rules for encouraging this foolishness. I'm going to get that out of the way. We all agree on that. So, we called for racing rules for ages, Matt. So, I don't know if this is in part our fault. Did we invoke... Because it used to be so vibes-based.

At least they woke this banners. We didn't ask for these racing rules. Come on. No, we didn't. The mistake is, and I think this is a Formula One mistake, is the focus has become on overtaking. What are the rules that allow for overtaking? But really what we want is rules that promote the best racing. And the best racing means that both competitors

If they're within a certain window, both competitors are entitled to raising room to keep the battle going, because the battle is what makes it exciting. We've discussed this before, and this is not... anything new for me it was a simple case of without respect to the actual rules because we can argue about those in a second who was where and what and get out our protractors and draw lots of lines on on things and tweet them out

No, it was simple. Albin had a massive overspeed. He was fully alongside in any common sense definition of Leclerc. And at that point, Leclerc owes him some space on the exit of the corner. Be-all, end-all. That's the way I always judge it. In a perfect world, I totally agree with you, and I don't see... Common sense supplier factor. We talk about the lane system. It's quite simple to implement and view. And that's what promotes multi-corner racing. That's what we want to see.

However, as per the racing rules and as per the racing guidelines that still aren't official, ladies and gentlemen, they've had to have been... gained by insider means from journalists who work up and down the paddock. Overtake on the outside of a corner. As the overtaking car on the outside, you have to have its front axle ahead of the front axle of the car you're overtaking at the apex. And in relation to the Clare and Albon...

He was only, in my view, he was only, he only had his front wheels alongside Leclerc. He wasn't even fully ahead. So I think Ferrari... But I get why they did, which I'll touch on in a second. I know it's a Ferrari.

gave that position up because if they don't you're at the whims of the stewards we know are super inconsistent and these margins are so small as you mentioned Spanish you don't know officially who's up front or not plus you don't know how the FIA are going to interpret these rules because it doesn't say fully ahead how far ahead is ahead you know so instead of getting a 10 second time penalty and him dropping back down to like 10

They just sucked it up and said, you're better off finishing sixth. I looked, he would have been 12th out of the points if he got it 10 seconds. Okay, even worse. Alright, okay, so, from my point of view... I think we're all on the same page. So we're all talking sense, or we just disagree with who was ahead at the corner, or at this mythical apex. Now, I think the apex line is, assume it's a 90-degree corner from the apex. So like the inner part of the track.

45 degree angle to the equivalent on the outside. If you drew a line there, that's my apex. But I looked at Alex Brundle's analysis of this on F1 TV that you sent me, Alex Brundle, a friend of the show, he's been on here multiple times, and his analysis made me go, oh, you're looking at it in a completely different way.

Where he paused it, the cars, which are quite long, like the middle of the car was at the apex, and you go, I didn't even think of that. Like, I always thought that you're judging the front of the car at the apex. So he's looking at this point and he's looking at the onboard. And I think the onboard is probably the worst way to look at it. You've got Christian Horner. That was the angle he was using when he printed it out.

to take to journalists a few races back. On the onboard, you know, you've got field of view issues, so whichever field of view they're choosing, it could make it look different for me from the outboard. I'll just give you my opinion. For me on the outboard, it looked like from the end of the straight, so the bit that then goes through the corner to the apex, it looked like Leclerc was ahead the whole time from the outboard shot. So if I'm correct...

Here's how I think it played out, because I think both drivers agree with me. I think Leclerc thought he was ahead, and I think Albon thought that he wasn't ahead. And that's why Albon bailed. so if you think you're ahead and you're entitled to that racing room you hold and ultimately then if you get contact Or, you know, get contact and then buy home.

It's a little bit more risky, but you know that the stewards are going to rule in your favour because you know you're ahead. I think ultimately he bailed because he wasn't sure or he didn't think he was ahead and the clerk went all the way to the edge. because he thought he was ahead. And he was really passionate on the radio going, is this what racing is now? I just have to let them back through. What can I do? What have I done wrong? He had no idea what he'd done wrong, in my opinion.

He didn't do anything wrong. He followed the racing rules. Okay. I'm going to disagree with you but say you're right for a different reason. I thought Alvin was a head. That's valid. We can agree. And honestly, at fact, speed in that amount of time, you're asking drivers to actually just look over and go, oh, you know, now that I'm going 200 kilometers an hour into this turn, I look over and I see that

Doggone it, you look like you're a couple of millimeters ahead of my axle, so I will just back out here. It's the most insane thing, right? No, no, I'm the inside car, so it's your wing mirror and my... Hang on. Exactly. And this is the thing. If I was Ferrari and I wanted to argue that point, I'd say, you know what? Leclerc was the attacking car.

And his wing mirror was alongside. So it was Albin always going to be at fault in that scenario. Albin owed him space. And they haven't even provided a decent definition of which car is overtaking which car. Like, that's not in any driving guideline rules I've seen. So is Albin being overtaken, or is he still overtaking Leclerc? There's no definition, and it's just, it's madness. Just leave each other room if you're alongside. Done.

Leave it to the FIA to make something that should be so simple, overcomplicated, just like a red flag system as well and pressing a button. We'll get to that, no doubt. Other than that, though, we did have a lot of good overtakes and a lot of good racing here, I thought, and a few drivers back to McLaren and Lando. I mean, there was a lot of criticism about Lando at Miami, and he's battling with Verstappen. I actually assessed how because George was defending very well.

And Lando. That was such a good fight, Scott. Take us through that because the Mercedes was quick enough to stay ahead into turns two and three, so the first chicane. But they had that great series of laps. into, I guess, four and five. And both drivers, it was like a little masterclass, like a little demo of attacking and defending. This is your business. This is your business supercharged with the help of zero accounting software. These are your numbers.

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begins. Roland Garros, grand slam tennis for the first time on TNT Sport. Of course, we know the McLaren is comfortably quicker than the Mercedes, and also George started on his mediums that he used in his Q3 run as well. So his tyres were slightly a little bit older and used than the McLarens.

And Lando, well, Georgia's perfectly positioning his car on the inside. Of course, we know, as we've just discussed intensely, how the inside car basically has all the power and it's so much more difficult overtaking on the outside because... You have to cover more ground, not more track and What that was doing though is that while George was positioning his car on the inside,

Lando was just patiently waiting and then ensuring that he could try and do the cutback. He failed to get the run down into turn five because George knew about... Obviously, that's what he was going to do. But then this is where it comes to fair racing. George didn't actually utilise the rules to his advantage because he could have...

False Lando off the track when Lando actually made his pass. Oh, now I've got to go and look back at that. Really? No, this is where it gets super complicated. But this was fair, hard racing that we want to say. Because George and Lando have respect for each other and they're friends off the track and race each other for years. Yeah, he just covered too much curb on the inside, but looking back at it, George had the entitlement to launch it.

in the apex and run Lando off. But George has a bit more respect than that, I guess. I mean, we're going to have to deal with diversions, I think, in a race as complex as this. which is really Russell should have given up on that battle earlier. It was great fun. And he was, he was even on the radio going, Hey guys, I think I'm, I think I might be like wearing my tires out, pushing really hard to stay ahead and fighting. And it's like, yeah. A hundred? And that good?

Good, because this is what we've been saying about him for the last few seasons racing against Hamilton. For him to come on the radio and go, this doesn't feel like the right thing to do. You go, oh, okay. Russell fans should be really encouraged by that one radio message because they killed their own race there. It's not exciting to let...

Norris go through and say this is not our race, but he did himself so much damage. Part of the undercut was not just the pure undercut from Leclerc. A lot of it was he was physically losing time, having to defend. So hopefully he looks at that, goes forward and goes, right, let's pick our battles. Time management is king. Time management is key. So with the McLaren guys, yeah, some great overtakes.

from Norris, some great overtakes from Piastri. So both these McLaren guys are driving really well. I did want to start with Stappen. That's coming up next. We get to the situation where, because of the tyre management issue, whatever went wrong... We get to the safety car and suddenly Piastri doesn't have another tyre to go on to. And so Norris, encouraged by his engineers, like, take the tyre. Yep, right thing to do as well. You've got the tyre, you take it.

giving up track position. So he's giving up track position to Piastri, and they choose not to pit Piastri. I mean, I'm sure there was some soft... they could have put him on. So the team's decision has switched the positions and now Piastri is ahead on track of Lando Norris. Norris has the best chance on fresh tyres of going and chasing Verstappen. You're the referee. Matt, what do you do in that situation?

I'm with Ruth Buscombe, and I argued at the time to all the people sitting in my living room. You swap the drivers. It's such a no-brainer at that point. Plus, he had a slow stop. I didn't look at the timings, but it's entirely possible. He had a free ride, but they had a slow stop, and he wound up behind Piastri. And the reason is simple. McLaren has said the Drivers' Championship would be great if it happens to land in their lap. But the Constructors is what you want. And if you beat Max...

You're seven points to the good. If you don't beat Max, you've still got second and third, and who cares what order the driver is finishing, because you've already said you don't care about that. Instead, I think they chose to keep things harmonious at the team because they looked at the points table and saw that both Lando and

Oscar were far enough ahead that a max victory wasn't really going to make any kind of a serious difference. And they said, oh, you know what? We'll let this one slide. And let the drivers work it out. And as a result... Five seconds.

When Norris finally passed Biastri, he was five seconds back at Max, and there was no catch in him at that point. I think you're missing one crucial factor, which is I think they're scared of Mark Webber as well. And he comes across as a nice... Could be. I was about to make a... witty little quip there and you stole it from me. Mark Webber was 100% on the pit wall.

Zach Brown and Andrea Stella's necks in both hands. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. I think it's more sinister. It's more sinister than that. He's got the hat with the corks and everything and like a big knife and he's going... oh you think that's a strategy call this is a strategy call yeah so yeah the harmonious thing is is interesting that zach brown is like oh we don't care about not we don't care but they're prioritizing the constructors championship over a drivers championship that's i find that

crazy as someone who's been watching since 1985 or whatever. Well, if you actually look at the list of sponsors that McLaren have, and as always, they have an obligation to their sponsors, they have the most out of any team on the grids of the constructors is what they want to aim for, and it's where they get the most money.

They're damned if they do and they're damned if they don't because ultimately Piastri is... in he's leading the world championship he's the driver's world champion he's they still think realistically while max was leading internally the battle is between their own two drivers they don't want to get in the way of that and Like you're ultimately giving the championship leader.

You're asking him to give up willingly points so that your rival can get more of an advantage on you. It would be a 13-point difference if he was to then go and get Verstappen. That's what you'd be asking to volunteer. So it's three points between those positions, but Piastri loses three, Norris gains three, and then seven for getting... I don't even think Piastri would willingly give it up if he was demanded to, because that's just...

a scenario that if you're Piastri again, no. I'll deal with that. I'll deal with the repercussions afterwards. I'm not letting my championship rival. Like, gain points on me willingly. Yeah, Matt. Yeah, and this just goes back to the same argument, which is if all you're looking at is a constructor, You say to Piastri, Norris goes ahead. He chases Max. If he doesn't get him, he gives a position back.

But if he beats Max, and Max is your championship rival, and he's the only one not on McLaren, then you've limited your 7-point or, what is it, 10-point loss to Max. No, no, no, no. I think what we're missing is that you're making a damaging morale call to one driver being said, hey, look. You messed up your race in the first stint, therefore you're not in a good position. We're giving your position to Norris.

Can I just add that I know obviously in a nice world, yeah, they'd be able to swap positions back at the end. People forgetting that Lewis Hamilton was basically one lap short of overtaking Piastri at the end to front podium.

That, Piastri's tyres fell off a cliff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is it. I think maybe the team thought, well, this is going to sort itself out naturally anyway. So, I mean, it didn't take that long for Norris to get by. And I don't think he was going to catch Verstappen anyway. Right, yeah, and this discussion has reminded me of one thing. I have a tiny little question for you. They pitted Norris right before the virtual safety car when Piastri was still outside Max's.

pit window. Why didn't they keep him out so that Max couldn't pit until Piastri was inside that window? This is a question that I genuinely have, if anyone knows the answer. Was he gaining, though, at the time? I'm not sure. His last full lap was three and a half tenths faster than Max's. Okay, so Piastri's. Max is out front on his own looking at that gap. I think if Piastri starts closing that gap, Max can add more pace. I don't think Max showed us his full pace today.

There was one. I think he did when Lando started to clean air. Well, in both end of those stints before the safety cars came out. They were trading fastest laps and trading. Max went to 17s. They went into the 17s eventually. Yeah, Max and I've seen people say Max had the fastest car. I think him and Lando equally had the fastest car. I think it was those two like it was last year. I mean, once again, an alternative universe. It would have been great if Norris was the one who...

We're starting on the front row with Max because I think we could have seen a real battle between those two today. I think that was in... Well, then Norris needs to start qualifying then, doesn't he? Well, yes, ultimately, as do the Ferraris. I'm just going to put it to you that Max was brilliant in the lead of the race and won the race for him because he spent the whole race in clean air.

And he never had to fight through traffic, which is why I bring up the Norris pit stop block thing. If they're pitting Norris to undercut Max, what are they really saying about what they think Piastri is going to do in the ring? They're either not thinking about it, like they have two completely separate strategy teams,

Or they're like, I think we're going to hedge our bets a little bit here because I'm not convinced Piastri's got the pace today. But Max never suffered the degradation of being in traffic. And that's really where McLaren needed to put him to have a chance to win the race. That's my real takeaway from this, is that being enduring air.

absolutely crushed your pace over the long haul. And with the VSC and the SC, he completely avoided it. So he was brilliant, but he was also incredibly lucky with the timing of that. Yes, but Red Bull did, credit to Red Bull, they did have some updates here this weekend and they seem to have had a desired effect because...

He had clean air in Miami, and he had issues with tyre deck. And I think we were all expecting the same with Red Bull here at Imola, especially with this step softer that we had. And, yeah, ultimately, their updates seemed to work with their tyre deck.

It's a worry for McLaren because have they truly capitalised? And I think the answer is an overwhelmingly no. They haven't truly capitalised on a dominant car at the early stages of this season. We saw how important the first seven races for Max Verstappen was last year. And he got himself that advantage. There is only, what, there's just 22 points, I think it is, from Max to Oscar in the championship at the moment.

Like, he is so well within this Drivers' Championship and Red Bull seem to be getting their act together.

Well, I mean, Piastri won a bunch of races. You could argue that that is capitalizing in on it. However, and I know people are going to... It's foolish when he's leading the championship, so... I know there's going to be bad feedback on this, but ultimately I still don't think it's Piastri that's going to take that title charge to... to Verstappen so what we've talked about with them not capitalising on it is Norris and his many errors like he's made many errors he's put himself in disadvantage

He's not shown what he can do in qualifying. He had that big crash as well in Saudi. And he's the one. that if he's going to make a title charge, he could have wasted it. But I think you're right, that Red Bull looks really good. They did loads of updates, didn't they, on this one? They had the scoop, which looked a little bit like the 20... 2020 Ferrari? When did Ferrari have like a bathtub? A scallop thing. Was that 22?

Yeah, they went for something a bit more like that. And yeah, I mean, they got a good qualifying car. They've always had a good qualifying car. And then they now seem to have a good race car as well. Yeah, it's not... It's not a tractor like people are making it out to be. It is definitely a quick car and it's a championship winning car. And look, I'm just glad someone's going to be challenging the McLarens because...

I know we've spoken about it to death, but it's 20-26. It's around the corner. It's not going to be long until teams move their focus. fully onto next year. We need a competitor to McLaren to keep them honest and to keep this championship interesting to the end of the season. And don't forget, Ferrari still has their update to fix their issue in the works. So there could be more than one if we get really long.

How did you just say Ferrari are fixing their car? Yeah. I mean, after this weekend, they'd need to do a lot to fix that car. I don't know about that. Did you hear what Lewis said about his car when he got out of it? I mean, yeah, it looks good in the race today, but it's no good if you're starting in 11th and 12th, is it? All right, I take it we're talking about Ferrari then. All right, let's go.

What's going on with Ferrari? The worrying thing on the Saturday was obviously they qualified poorly. And before that session, Hamilton had said, right, we're focusing on qualifying pace, which we now know from our chat with.

Francesco Compello from the Ferrari strategy team is that you can just go right we're going to have less cooling so we'll have more performance but then in the race you have to sacrifice so when they turned up outside of outside of the top 10 you suddenly go oh oh well that's that's it for the race then but actually they look fairly strong in the race

I have an apology to make to the Tofosi and Ferrari in general. It's my fault. I jinxed you guys. I wore your merchandise, the first bit of merchandise I've bought in many a year in F1. I removed it for today's race and you had an unbelievable race, to say the least, a great recovery race. So I do apologise from the outset.

Yeah, what was really interesting was that Leclerc and Hamilton both said they got the most out of that Ferrari that they possibly could. There were seven teams that qualified above. Seven teams. That is not where Ferrari should be in qualifying. That's just... If they were able to get that car in the top five with the race pace they had today, yes, the race was much more preferable for them. Hamilton finishing in fourth and Leclerc got screwed by the VSC a little bit.

we know in this era this last year of this regulation set that qualifying is Just as, if not more important than the race itself, because you just cannot be starting that far down, especially for a team like Ferrari. Okay, we're going to make this about the C6 tire. Fine, be that way. But first, I got to tell you what Lewis said about his car when he got out of it.

He said it felt, and I'm quoting here in case anybody gets offended by my language, freaking mega. That was his actual quote getting out of the car. So Ferrari, as we kind of thought, actually has really good race pace, qualifying as a weakness. And here I think the C6 tire, here I will get a little bit into Ferrari's business and go. Well, why didn't they just put a set of mediums on if position was that important? You've got a three lap set of mediums you're going to have to use in the race.

But you're going to be starting four or five spots up the grid. Because the issue with the C6 tire is Ferrari requires more out of their tire to get qualifying pay. and the 6 was just too flexy for them to really be able to manage the kind of time they needed to make it to Q3. That is a very fair point because Aston Martin, that's how they got to Q3. They used their mediums because they knew that they could manage that tyre throughout a whole lap of qualifying.

And they comfortably got into Q3. The race, obviously, as we expected, fell apart for them. We were a bit unfortunate with safety cars as well. But George Russell even said, he goes, I could have got pole position. He was only a 10th back. And he had to start his lap in first gear because he had to let Carlos Sainz through the last corner. So he didn't have the optimum exit out of the last corner and George Russell could have stolen pole position.

Who knows how the race would have panned out. But why did Ferrari not see that? Why? If they knew they were struggling so much. It's just a little bit of self-awareness sometimes. Just, okay, it might not look good. qualifying on the mediums but it definitely looks worse not making it out of q2 and not being in Q3, not even having one car. That was embarrassing, especially at Imola. I mean, you're fortunate enough to have two home races a year. And I mean... Extra pressure for you guys at Munza.

I think you can't really just think about that. They've got to focus on one race. I mean, it's the same. They can't go, oh, well, we're at Imola, it's our home race, so let's use the special button or something. But they do, though. They do that at Monza every year. They bring a specific upgrade package to Monza. I think the only reason they will still be developing this car this year is because they don't want to end the season like winless.

And I genuinely think if this is a terrible season for them, Fred Fasor might be looking at the chopping block. Because... I don't know, Scott. I think every team principal is saying, judge me on 26. I mean, yeah, that'll be the angle he'll be pushing, but a Ferrari have different standards to everyone else up and down the grid. If they end this year winless with Lewis Hamilton and it's only a sprint race they've got...

I mean, there's a lot of racing left, Scott. I think I can't give up on it. And plus, we've got the massive upgrades package coming up in Barcelona, and some teams are going to be nerfed with their floppy, floppy wings. Yeah, the issue with the Ferrari, and they feel like they really know what it is, is got to do with the rear suspension in the gearbox. And they have spent the time and money.

to develop a solution for it that they are planning to implement. So we can't really know where it's going to wind up until we see that on the car and see it run on the car. And then beyond that, you know, I mean, as Spanner says, there's a lot of races to go. And, you know, the next one, Monaco, might be a very good one for them.

Okay, so specifically for the drivers and their races, I think Leclerc, obviously very unhappy and got just the wrong end of the stick on all of the safety cars and that's not like a thing that the team... can particularly dictate but you can feel like the world's against you and he certainly had that he had a very woe is me everything's going against me and it kind of was then very upset about the albon incident as well i think he was kind of robbed of a result

In this race, because, you know, the Ferrari had a decent race pace. It did, really. And actually, I'm so glad you brought that up. I meant to make the point that all of the teams had three race tires, meaning three tires that weren't soft. And anyone who ran early and stopped before the virtual safety car took the virtual safety car as essentially a free chance to get on the level with the people who ran long.

But that meant that when the safety car came out and Piastri was in this boat too, they didn't have an extra race tire to go onto. That's why they kept Leclerc out. That's why they kept Piastri out. Because they were going to put him on the soft tire. Now we... There's an argument to have been made that it's going to take long enough that the software might get to the end.

But they knew the old fire would get to the end and just do the best you can was the very conservative strategy across the board. No one put on a soft to see what would happen. Yeah, Wes is asking, is Lewis Hamilton's position still untenable? And that is a specific reference to, sorry, one of the most ridiculous headlines I've seen. And I know, yeah, the writer probably doesn't write it, but the publication should be embarrassed

Five races in, they were saying Lewis Hamilton's position untenable. Five races in to a new team and a new power unit. Absolutely ridiculous. headline and he's gone and finished fourth. Now, did you not catch that one? I'll send it to you. No, that's...

Honestly, people are doing anything for clicks now. Yeah, no, it was pure clickbait, and that journalist is a respected, experienced journalist, should be embarrassed to be associated with that title. I know they're not specific, but I'll assume that they went... into the office and went, don't ever associate me with a title like that again. I'll assume that.

He still, I don't think, is the better driver at Ferrari at the moment. I think it's fair to say that Leclerc's probably got it over him. Now, he did some really good overtakes eventually in the end. Good overtake past Antonelli, but Antonelli's mediums had gone at that point. He was stuck behind Antonelli for like 35 laps or something. And then, you know, good overtakes making progress through the field, decisive past Albon and Leclerc. All good.

But I did think that the message at the end, this is for the Tafosi, it fell flat. So, obviously, in their minds all weekend, they were like, we need to deliver. This is the first time Lewis is in front of the Italian fans. The first time he's in front of the home crowd at Ferrari. We've really got to give them something. And I don't think that P4 was it. And it was a P4. Guys, you know I'm a Lewis fan. Please don't come at me too much. But it was a P4 that came with a huge amount of luck.

He was out-qualified by his teammate. He took what I would say is that kind of disappointing midfield strategy of, like, we'll go on the hards and we'll go long. That cost in places at the front. So that decision, which is a classic Hamilton... tactic when qualifying doesn't go well, cost in places at the beginning means he's stuck behind Antonelli. So that's like a bad thing.

right you have to think would it have just played out better if he'd just gone on a normal strategy and tried to ride that out yeah you get a bit of luck then because you've you've you've extended your stint you've extended your safety car window you've got one That's a huge slice of luck, isn't it? Getting the VSC and getting that cheap spot and going up the grid.

And then, okay, you've got your mediums, but also your teammate was involved in an altercation with Albon, who was probably on his way to challenging for a podium as well. So, A, it's not a podium. You know, it's not being on the podium and going, this for you, foci, chest dumping.

But it was also quite a jammy P4 in the end. Obviously, you have to earn your own luck, and you did lots of good things along the way, but there was a big slice of luck involved in that. So to me, that fell a little bit flat, Lewis, I'm sorry. I think it makes LeClerc the best teammate ever. I mean, like, he just took Alvin, he just took him out like a good teammate, and your football team just taking that guy out, and you got a free shot at the goal.

Uh, no, um, he did lock out, but in Ferrari's defense, they split their strategy between the drivers. And given the historical appearance of the safety car and the virtual safety car, running one driver long and the other short really does sort of give you a... the best opportunity to take advantage of it if it appears. So I don't... I'm not sure it was entirely a Lewis bass.

put me on the hard tire come on coach put me in put me in put me on a hard tire and more ferrari going like well you know we could put you on the hard tire and have have charl on the saw on the medium tire and then we've covered all of our bases Safety car wise. Yeah. Wow. Death. I love everybody with that. No, it's just. I have a higher standard of what's going to make me happy about Lewis Hamilton at Ferrari, I guess.

Maybe that's a me issue. I think Hamilton being happy about the car should make you happy about him being at Foro. true but it's also a low bar like he's you want to see him winning races and you want to see him at bare minimum finishing on the podium same as same as if you're a Charles Leclerc fan or just a Ferrari fan in general that's where they should be at a bare minimum and Yeah, look, the race was a good recovery, but ultimately there just shouldn't be.

not making it out of Q2 I mean it's just yeah it's not acceptable at any racetrack but hopefully they get on top of things and yes they are putting a bit more resource into trying to sort out their car but It's just kind of a long way to go for them, isn't it? I can hear a little baby in the background, Stuffy. That's your little seven-month-old.

Apologies. That's all right. You go and attend it all the way to attending to your little one. Just remember that Uncle Spanner said, don't do it. It's a pain in the behind.

You did warn me numerous times. I tried all the little ones. I try and tell all the little ones Trumpets, even Catman years ago when he was starting his. No, don't worry, Stuffy, if you need to sort stuff out. Right, where do you want to take us next, Matt? I think one of the things... that I've found was that the midfield battle is so fascinating this season that people can pop up out of nowhere, have great qualifiers, I mean, in the practice.

The timing sheet's all over the place. You've got Hajar popping up there regularly. You've got the Williams being pretty consistently on form. But the thing with the Williams today, Matt, Didn't that look like a race car? That looked like a real race car this weekend. Yeah, it did. And the first clue was just the performance and qualifying. I'm still going to go back because Carlos is kind of my guy because he's got my number.

That lap, that lap in Q2 was really extraordinary, but I think it also points out the difficulties of that C6 tire. You had to have the absolute perfect preparation lap. And with the traffic around Imola, that's almost impossible. And that's part of the chaotic result. But Alvin was wheeling that thing around, chasing down Ferraris. And he did. He admitted after the race, he's like, yeah.

Yeah, you know, the LeClerc thing. He says, I might have been a little impatient because I could see a podium driving away from me. That's interesting. And he says, twice in that race, I literally fought. I had a podium in this car and it was genuine.

May not be at every circuit, but Williams have come a long way in a suddenly very short period of time. So he was hunting down Piastri, so I'm reluctant to use that second bit as evidence because Piastri's tyres did drop off, but they were super old. But I think they were about the same age as Max and Norris were running around pretty comfortably on the mediums in the beginning part of the race. Plus, there's less fuel. So I don't know. I don't know if that, I don't want to get

get thrown down there. I'm just saying. You don't want to argue about why it's harder to warm up. Actually, interesting thing, the hard tire warmed up rapidly, but then it went immediately off because the tread is thinner. It doesn't maintain its temperatures as well, whereas the hard tire that was new took a little longer to get up. and that's why you didn't have enough racing laps for everybody on fresh rubber to really make passes happen. Well, okay, let's go.

I think the Williams were testing all throughout the weekend anyway, a more lower downfall set up. They started this weekend with two different wing configurations. They were very quick in a straight line, but just didn't have a lot of stability in sector two and sector three, but they found a good balance.

I tell you what, Carlos Sainz, thankfully he got himself back up into the points because they truly, I mean, they split their strategy. I get it. Because you don't want your eggs all in one basket, I guess. They panicked a little bit, it seems like, with bringing Carlos Sainz in, just reacting to everyone else, committing to a two-stop. At one point, he was down in 16th, they went, Albon's doing 21-8s, and he's like, well, it's clearly a one-stop then.

It was so, after Miami, it's just like, can he just be, and even the radio message at the end, it was like, We'll be on the right side of one of these decisions one day, guys. It's like, oh, Carlos, you poor man. In the live chat, Maria said, when is James Vowles going to finally get behind his number one driver? And you go, well, actually, you know.

Sainz hasn't had the rub of the green. It does look like good signs of him coming into Fortum. But yeah, it's just at the moment. I think, has Albon taken a massive step up? I'm so curious to see how... it turns out over the course of the season, and if we're still saying this at the end of the season. Because if we are, and we're saying, right, Albon's the better driver, then we've seen the potential of that Williams now.

If Sainz overtakes him and is consistently on top of him, then we might look back at the beginning of this season as a waste because you kind of go, wow, what other results were there available? I think he's 100% stepped up. When you have a higher calibre of teammate come alongside you in any sport.

You sometimes see mediocre players play okay with other mediocre players in their team but then when they go out to a better team and they're playing with better players around them they take a step up and I think that's what Alex Albon's done I mean ultimately he was teammates with Latifi, Sargent. I don't think he was there when Sorokin was there. But that's not a high calibre of driver. And when you know that you're not, that you're comfortably quicker than them.

Sometimes it's easy to just kind of not be at your peak, whereas signs... has come in. There's all this talk about science, science, science. He has a point to prove. And boy, has he proved it, I think, at the start of this season. And I mean, that's his third top five finish, I think, this season in seven races. That's absolutely brilliant for a Williams. And they are comfortably the fifth fastest team. And at certain tracks, they're taking it to Mercedes and Ferrari.

is unbelievable for a team that supposedly has put all focus on 2026. Wow, just to address that quick point, they've turned the tap off. for further development. So they built their car and what they've said is they're not going to do anything more. So the big test of whether they do that fully is going to be Barcelona really when the teams start coming in with their upgrades and Williams come in with nothing.

as far as we know. Well, I would be careful about that. They will have scheduled a year's worth of updates. depending upon the tracks that they've looked at, but what they won't be doing is spending any resource on fixing problems that they find along the way. They're just going to get the duct tape out and do the best they can with it, and they're going to spend all that resource developing next year's car. Okay. And I don't know. The Williams thing with Alba, it's...

Important to remember the race car is a feedback mechanism for the driver, but it's also important to remember the teammate is also a feedback mechanism for the driver, and Albon is getting... scads of high-quality feedback from his teammate now. that he's not had in the past. And you can see how it's moving the whole team forward. Carlos hasn't lucked into the same kind of results that Albon has had, but I think he's clearly demonstrated he's mostly on top of the car.

So Herb in the live chat. By the way, if you want to be in the live chat, these are our patrons. So patreon.com forward slash mist apex. You can still... watch it live on on youtube uh but for the live comments we just have that with our patrons because they tend to be you know friendlier because when we did the youtube people are coming by to go you're a turnip and everything you say is wrong it's like yeah i know

But the patrons say that in a nicer way. So patreon.com forward slash Miss Apex. Thank you to the people who responded to our midweek shout out. And, you know, the point that I think I like the most is that.

We are an independent podcast in a landscape of all these sports podcasts by big, big firms. And because we have Patreon support, we pop in there and US, we're top 200 on a Monday. By the way, I don't know if you care about this, but... in the episode charts on a monday in itunes in the us we're like fourth or fifth and the same in the uk yeah the rest all around us are all owned by big conglomerates and there was one independent I thought they're doing well they're catching up to us

had a meeting with a massive company turns out they're being backed by a massive company as well now and you go right well we're being backed by patrons so if you like this kind of thing if you got an hour in So Herb says, Our Herb's comment flies by this, doesn't it? I think you should apply the same logic as you do to Hamilton swapping cars, engines and brakes to science.

That would be a fair comparison, right? Yeah, but Matt struggles with Sainz the way I do with Hamilton because Matt's a massive Sainz fan and always has been. I think your standards and your expectations are higher. You wanted him to just come in and sweep away all before him.

well yeah but i didn't expect him to do that but i think his performance in the car is broadly the same if not better than albums but he's not had the race results to demonstrate that and I think that's where people can get hung up and I still think he's probably got some not small amount to learn about the car to get that last bit out of qualifying, which is where you're really going to see the difference between someone who fully knows a car and someone who's still learning.

He is starting to get to grips with the car as he's starting to be a lot closer with Alex. Did he out-qualify Alex? I think he did. So he's starting to regularly get into Q3 again. I think Australia took a real big hit to his confidence in the manner that he went out there on that first lap. And I think expectations for signs... Maybe a bit higher for Hamilton purely because of how quickly he got to grips with that car. Of course, that post-season test last year, he was tremendously quick.

I mean, as well, age, Sainz is 10 years younger than Hamilton, so we expect Sainz to be able to maybe adapt a bit quicker, but I always have faith in Sainz that eventually he would get on top of it, and he does seem to be, he just needs to get the rub of the green. Can I talk about the car a second? And not just the car, but like Williams approach that I really liked. Coming in with a low downforce and gradually adding on until you have a car that has balance.

Seems like to me to be a very good way to go about your weekend when mostly what you hear the drivers complain about is the balance being inconsistent. And getting their drivers comfortable is oftentimes worth a lot more lap time than what the computer tells you the optimal time is with the full amount of downforce on it. So before we go to the podium, I've just got a couple of qualifying things. So I didn't want... Q2 and Q3.

Very, very rare for me not to do that. So I've caught up since, and I haven't actually caught up. I've caught up with the news. I didn't go and sit and watch it. But I know there's the stuff with Behrman that Scott wants to talk about. It leads me on to talking about Tsunoda and stuff. This is the first time I've had an option to watch it, like I've been able to.

And it was starting to butt up against an invitation to play mini golf and have a couple of beers in the summer sun. And when the red flag started coming out, it was dragging on. My brother-in-law said to me, he said to me, he was like, look, we don't mind. We'll miss the mini golf. We'll sit here and we'll watch qualifying with you. We know it's important to you. Don't worry about it. The kids are happy. And then that second red flag came out. I went, no, let's go.

Let's do our mini golf. And then when I saw the results, I was like, okay, well, I know what's happened here. Norris has stuffed it, probably messed up his lap. Yeah, Verstappen's got a bit of a good qualifying car, but that'll probably disappear in the race. Look at that, Piastri's being all consistent. Again, good for Russell. Oh, a lot. That is Alonzo, right? But I didn't feel, and I think it is shaped as well by the fact Yuki was out.

And the fact that both Ferraris were out. I really am a bad broadcaster in that way. The result affects my mood and how I broadcast so much. So I didn't end up catching up with it. But I think the first thing I want to say is that Tsunoda crash, it looked avoidable. I think he put his hand up. He said it was his own fault too much.

too much curb and the curbs at Imola can really they're inviting because you can get so much more lap time and open up the corner but then they will really really bite you that looked like a bit of a horror crash it didn't look that bad on tv and someone in our group chat a video that had been taken. from the crowd and that thing it flipped like it really went for it and you go as soon as the car

is going in a direction where the head is like the top of the head is the front of the vehicle. That's when you get scared. Like when Russell in Australia, the top of his head was facing the oncoming traffic. You go...

All the safety stuff goes out the window because now it's like the soft underbelly is exposed. Yeah, I remember the TV you saw that there was a crash and Yuki had crashed and then... you saw the TV coverage, and the first image you saw was just the face-on image, and all four wheels were damaged, and you're like, oh!

It's not often you see all four sides of the car are damaged. How's that happened? And then you saw it and you're like, oh, it was a big one. But yeah, no, totally avoidable. As you said, we saw the RB cars both have spins and Colopinto. through the curbs that have removed the sausage curbs from a few years ago. Yeah, I think Yuki though, that crash in itself.

I think that may be a sign of the fact that he was struggling with that car all weekend, and he was around a second off the pace of Max in a lot of the sessions, and it's just pushing it a bit too much. Yeah, I think it was very costly, but a good... With strategy, he was able to recover today, but he did have a brand new power unit in the car, which always helps because of that crash.

Still to finish in a point starting from the pit lane at Imola is still a good showing. He did make some good overtakes. I think we're setting the bar too low. It's sort of back to Perez level. It's not the disaster of the Lawson thing. It's back to where Perez was. So you kind of go, well, all right. The kindest thing to do is just leave him alone for a little bit and not think about it. I will say in defense to you, Key, he has been getting updates.

a week later or a race weekend sometimes two race weekends later than max understandably max is your number one driver but i there is also that as well so the car we know is going to be set up slower than max because you can't set it up the same way as max because you're just going to be so far off the pace but with a lack of updates as well

It's not going to be the same, is it? Mark in the chat there says Spanners is perfectly describing the fact that there's too many races. I used that exact argument to my brother-in-law and I said, mate, there's 30 race starts on the calendar now. And so a race... Definitely, I will cancel everything for a Grand Prix. And the fact that there's 24 Grand Prix now and the six sprint races on top, I really took that life decision to go, I don't need to see every second of qualifying.

which is a big departure from where I've been in the past. So Matt, did you have something else on Tsunoda? Topics I want to cover now are Conor Pinto and Behrman. Okay, we can talk about that. Since we're talking about Colopinto, at first to note, I know he had a different front wing on the Friday. Which already means he's lost, even if he got the same wing on Saturday, he's lost that practice time with it. So these are just

context. It's not a second though, is it? No, but I wanted to make the larger point about both the crashes. Both of them were on the curb. And the car essentially got lifted because it got too far over the curb. And I think we may be coming to the end of this regulation where they're able to run lower ride heights. And the faster they go, the further down the car gets pushed. So curbs that were safe last year are now upsetting the cars and they're finding it out the hard way.

So you're giving them a little bit of an out, if you like, an excuse, basically. What I will say for what Matt adds as his further point is that Colopinto in particular... Hadjar had the same exact moment in Q3, which he was really upset about over the exact same kerb, exact same circumstance. Yet Hadjar had the awareness to lift out and not keep his foot planted. Colopinto didn't, went into a spin and...

Look, Collar Pinto has already, unfortunately, because of last year, eventually lost the Red Bull seat for the crash in Vegas. All you have to do in your first race weekend back in F1 in a car that you've never driven before. It's chill. It's chill. Do you know what? No one's going to expect you to beat your teammate. No one's going to expect you to perform miracles. Just go out there, gain your experience. It's the start of a triple header.

And just bank a decent race. Build some confidence. And he did the complete opposite. Yeah, and a big crash bill already. Although I will say, if you're Alpine and you're Briatore and you've just ousted, allegedly. the old team principal and you're now effectively acting as as team principal uh there's another person there that is i think is actually doing like the job and the duties of the ollie oaks was doing but briatore is definitely hobnobbing around in that key team principal role.

And I would be very surprised if he wasn't the key driver of swapping out Dewan or not extending Dewan's contract and then taking what I think is probably around 30 million from Colopinto or some division of that for this five races. Oh god, I'm so curious to know what's happening over the next...

I think Perez is coming in. I honestly think Perez is coming in. But all I'll say is, you've made that decision, and you know that he probably lost. Other teams rejected it because of those crashes at the end of last season. Didn't he crash? two races one weekend. He crashed twice in Brazil, I think.

Yeah, but in fairness to Brazil, they were both dangerous circumstances. So I think Brazil was a bit of a buy for him. But what are you thinking on the pit wall as Briatore if you then look around to your teammates and they go, well, what did you think was going to happen? as much as I'm a fan. Yeah, what did you think? It bit them immediately. So Scott, what was going on with this Oli Behrman thing? You have to break down the scenario for me a little bit as well.

So, what happened is that because of Collar Pintech's crash, there was a red flag very late on in the end of Q1. Now, Behrman was, at the time... about to finish his lap. He was literally on the start-finish straight bend coming to the start-finish line. Now, Oli Behrman... crossed the start-finish line. His time registered. He went up into P10.

comfortably through to q2 then his time disappeared because and on all the information and stuff he normally says uh if a laptop has been deleted it's for certain reasons um but there was no reason for it So the FIA then released that he'd actually had his lap time deleted because he'd crossed the finish line as the red flag came out or before.

After the red flag was thrown yet the data and everything suggested otherwise Now supposedly what has happened, and this is why the start of Q1 was delayed, is because they wanted to find out whether or not he actually had, because there was supposedly a three-second delay from them pressing the button in the FAA headquarters to then the...

dashes displaying the red flag. That's quite a long delay. That's more than electronics. When was the last time, I can't remember which one it was, there was a driver that... I think it was Albon, wasn't it? Albon Hülkenberg's time actually was deleted for track limits, but he actually competed in Q2. I think that was Bahrain maybe or something. So they wanted to sort it out to decide whether or not he should actually participate in Q2.

Half are still disputing this. They're saying, no, we think we've been hardly done by here. You look at the TV coverage, you look at the data, it all states that he crossed the line before the red flag was shown. The FIA are pretty much stating otherwise they've made mention of...

Orange lights, I think it is. They're saying orange lights on the start-finish line indicate that actually a red flag has been thrown. But I'm sorry, that's not a red flag. Like, if the red flag is showing, it isn't showing whether there's a delay or not. You haven't had that consideration. He should have been through to Q2. So I think the FII have absolutely messed up here. And Oli Behrman, I think, said it brilliantly. He went, they do this.

They don't ever admit when they're wrong. And they just stick by the wrongful decision. Yeah, it's all, not any. All, not any. I'm having a hard time with this because while I agree with them and Barrowman very much about the FIA, they're not an organization that ever likes to admit fault. The rule actually states very clearly that as part of a red flag being flown, the orange Abort lap lights atop the gantry will be illuminated, and they were in fact illuminated, and visibly so.

So I have a hard time believing that the FIA is about when they threw that red flag. But I believe that the lag between when they said they threw it and when the panels were visible to the drivers is something that perhaps bears some further investigation because that seems like an awful long time when we're talking about a safety critical intervention.

Alright, let's move on to the podium. An exciting... in fact there's a bunch of stuff that we haven't got to so i'm hoping some of it will come up as we do our awards so the patron live chat is giving us some of their awards as well so we're going to start with a missed apex one so we're going to ask our panel who missed the apex That means we can end on a positive note. I won't do the patron ones yet, because you're going to steal ones from the panel. Scott, stuffy, toughy, I'm glad.

you've had more time to be on Mist Apex lately because you've got a little tiny one and frankly, you've got no social life anymore. But also because... You're taking content creation more seriously. You're YouTube. I said to you two years ago, you're going to be the biggest F1 YouTuber in a few years. And you're giving me a bit of a funny look, but I think you're on your way there.

You don't have to respond to that. I just knew. I just knew you had that and I wanted to keep me close. Keep your enemies closer. That's what they say. But the live watch-alongs that you do are huge. They're huge now. Like, you are a big star. In my mind, you're already a big star on F1 YouTube. So thank you for lowering yourself down to Miss Apex. Always, man. You know, got to help out the little guys. Help the little guys out, you know. So where can we find that?

You can find me on YouTube at Stuffy. The link... to that will be in the description below and yes come join me for every race weekend if you just want a community feel of course you also get that in the missed apex patron as a patreon discord as well so feel free to join there but yeah i if you if you're a bit Tired of the traditional broadcasting feel. Come on over to mine, which is a bit more chilled.

With my alternative commentary, it seems to be going well. It's really popular. I love that you're always wrapping Mist Apex on there. Don't be fooled by his stardom. He's still a mapper. So, Stuffy. Stuffy, who missed the Apex for you? There's a number of options. I think we've spoken about the majority of them. I'm going to have to say Piastri. I just think he had a really missed opportunity to increase his championship lead.

this week and it was uncharacteristic of him. But yeah, we've discussed it already. I think... We may see him come back stronger. And he seems to be a driver that has learned from his mistakes in his short time in F1. And I think this will be... and experience that he learns from the next time he's in this position. Chris K says as well, yeah, Oscar. Steve, Aussie video producer Steve, says, I hate to say it, but Oscar screwed up a bit this week. So I'll disagree with that, not...

Not the avoidable. I think he was kind of doomed this week, but that's because I've got my little cross to bear that I think he might struggle on the tyre management. But I tell you what, The audience interaction and the amount of feedback I've got from that take affected me and I chickened out. I was fully going to make a call and say,

This is going to be the race where Piastri's tyre management starts to show through. Because we've said, oh, this isn't a tyre management race. This isn't one. And it sounded like an excuse. And I nearly called it for this. But I went, oh, I don't know if I can handle it. Like, if he just has no tyre issues during this high-wear C6 race, I thought, oh, I'll save myself the bother. So then I don't deserve to be able to go see. Set down.

I just think he would have fared better if he was in clean air, ultimately. That was it. It was a dash like Saudi, like Miami. It was a dash to the first corner. because we know Clean Air is king, in his own famous words, back in Baku. So he missed that opportunity. And unfortunately, his race suffered because of it. Matt Trumpets, you have good hair, both facial and top of head. No, I don't think I've ever said that before. You always come armed with a clean cut.

Look at that man. Look at that clean cut. Hair aside. Where can people follow you? Where should they follow you on social media? You can go to most socials and find me at MattBT55. If you're on Facebook, Matt Trumpets. But otherwise, yeah, just drop me a note. If you're in town, give me a shot. We'll have a beer or a lunch or something like that. We would discuss on pre-show that Matt's going to be in Italy.

And I said, because you're more universally popular than me, a higher percentage of people who consume this content actually like Matt, you can pin your location and have people who just like you come up to you. Whereas I'm not sure I would do that. I can't tell you how many tire-motivated conversations I've had with people. And I'm like, wow, man, I have really converted you to the cult of the tire. I have to say, when you were out there talking about the Pirelli tires on this podcast,

It was barely being talked about on even the major broadcasts and other podcasts. We were out there boring people about tires before it was cool, before it was trendy. And it's still not cool, but we're still doing it. Who missed the Apex for you? I hate to say it, but my team Oz just did not have the best of weekends for a variety of reasons, but, you know...

That's the way it turned out. But they've been going all right, but I did find myself going, oh, why bother? That was the thought I had, because I think Ocon was out, and then Behrman was running around last, and he was going, oh, why'd you bother this weekend? They kind of seem to be able to get one car correct and the other one not. So this weekend it was Bermuda. I know we just discussed the red flag issue, but he was comfortably probably going to be quite high up in Q2.

if he got the opportunity to do so. So his race would have been completely different today. But yeah, they can't seem to get both cars in the right window. One either qualifies well or the other one's dead last at the moment. Spanners, who missed the Apex for you? Well, you can, you know, follow me on Instagram and stuff. I've been posting stuff there over at TikTok at MissedApexF1 and, you know, on the normal, on X and Blue Sky. And so I'm going to agree with Amanda.

in our Patreon live chat, that Yuki was my Miss Apex, and I'm a big Yuki fan, and you just go, oh, son, you took yourself out of the running, and sorry, I take no comfort in the fought his way back to one point. in the same car as won the Grand Prix. I can't bring myself to be happy about that. I'm not saying he's got to beat Max at this point, but he's got to...

not put it in the barrier and put himself on the back foot. We've also got Harb, who says the racing rules missed the apex. Maria says Aston's missed the apex as well. The safety car missed the apex. Was it really needed? Probably wasn't needed for 10 la- For 10... No, it was 11. We lost 11 laps, I think, under the... Oh, I don't know. It felt like forever. There was lots of people actually saying Oscar this weekend, which is harsh, because he has had a really great...

Thank you, patrons. Now, why don't you give us your Hit the Apex Award so we all get to end on a positive. So, who hit the... It's our thing of the weekend. So, Scott, what was your thing of the weekend? I know someone just mentioned Aston, Miss the Apex, but I actually think them... Being ballsy enough to use the medium compound tyre at the end of both Q1 and Q2 to get into Q3 and Alonso to start P5. was tremendous. Yes, I don't know the inner workings of it, but I know that Alonso felt

Feels super aggrieved about the safety car and he was showing a lot of emotion when he just fell short of catching Uki for his first point of the season. On the flip side, Lance Stroll still finished. seven places lower than where he started. But Alonso, it does feel like his performance this weekend deserves... a point and I think yeah using that medium when others weren't willing to to get through to Q3 I think was a strategic masterclass from them which you don't often say about Aston.

I can ruin that impression by saying they had two mediums and a hard tire, which is why they lost out in the last stint. I won't do that to you. Yeah, well, we'll forget about the race and we'll just... Remember the great qualifying? Increasingly though, so this is part of the reason why I went and played mini golf and had a couple of beers in the sun, is that you can't tell now whether they're going to have race pace. So qualifying is like...

Oh, is someone just going to ruin it by... shutting off their cooling and just going right let's just you know let's go up the grid because like what's the point what's the point in Ferrari being sorry in Alonso being P5

And then he's just going to fuck you and go, oh, that's not entertaining. I haven't spent 24 hours being excited that, oh, Alonzo is going to get a result. I think... I think there was justification for being excited about it because we know Imola has the history of being a difficult track to overtake.

So there was more likely, yes, he was going to lose a few positions. The Ferraris would make their way through eventually. But Alonso and Aston Martin aren't a team that are scoring points on the regular. So I think it was a gamble worth taking for them. And I think it actually would have paid off if it wasn't for the safety cars.

did really seem to be on the wrong end of them at the worst time they were two for two so Alonso nearly did it so yeah a real shame for them but it definitely was a gamble worth taking at a track where It was presumed we definitely weren't going to get as much overtaking as we thankfully eventually saw. Matt, who hit the apex for you? Well, I have an honorable mention, and that's to whatever commentator told George Russell.

on the radio while he was saying, I don't know how I'm going to get these tires to the end. They said, that's what they pay you the big bucks for, buddy. And that made my whole family laugh out loud. That was hilarious. But my actual... Nailed it. Thing of the weekend. And this is because I've done some looking backwards. Hajar. Isaac Hajar is just crushing it very quietly in that. And he's such a magnetic person on camera and his emotions and raw.

I just got to say good things about him. And I think he's winning the rookie battle right now by like a lot. When you consider the star, oh, the infamous star where he didn't even make. The start of the race, that was on the formation lap, wasn't it? Stuart says, Williams is my thing of the weekend, of course. Paddy says, Ferrari's calm and legible radio is the thing of the weekend.

for me I mean they did they did manage that strategy right and they said to Hamilton I think Hamilton wanted to undercut didn't he he wanted to get out of there and Ferrari stuck to their guns and said no no no we think We think this going long is the way, and it definitely was. So here's my thing of the week, and I think I'm going to give it actually to Verstappen because that overtake was so spectacular at the start of the race, and although...

There was the rub of the green with those safety cars, so they were well-timed for him. I would have preferred it if he'd have not got that luck because I think he probably had the pace to compete. And sometimes you get this thing where it's a bit of a waste because they got the car together, they got the package together, they qualified well, overtook at the start. Didn't really get to show how good.

The driver car combination was there, but when everyone's talking about, is it going to be Piastri? Is it going to be Norris? Verstappen, he keeps putting his hand up and also for breaking the lap record at a Nürburgring as well in a GT Ferrari. What was that? What was he racing in? Oh! The Nordschleife. Yeah, right. So what did I say? He was doing his license test to be at you.

have to do a certain amount of runs to get your license to compete in the vln endurance championship which of course he's he's very passionate about he was actually in the sim after qualifying um competing with his sim racing team doing a few stints so And he even actually stated...

iRacing. Yes, that's the one. He was having a conversation with Oli Behrman, and the thing is, whenever I've brought up the iRacing... stuff people are oh don't talk about your iRacing when they said like did you find it difficult he said well no because i run that all the time in iRacing he said once you get used to the compression and how the suspension's going it's like you know it's the same and he was really prepared because honestly i think

I know he does triples, but you get in. Everyone come to my house. Get into my sim rig. with a VR headset on, and you, honestly, it's immersive. I know what it's like to drive a car, and that feels a lot like driving a car. There's even a theory that his best results are at the iRacing circuits he races the most.

Is there? Antonelli's the same. Antonelli's the same. I think a lot of this new generation, they'll have gone, yeah, sim racing's really accessible, you don't even have to travel anywhere, and they see that as part of their racing. It is great to see actually more than half of the F2 grid. have an iRacing account. You see them regularly in iRacing. Alex Dunn in F2 won this weekend for the second time and he's leading the F2 Championship, I remember. Thinking who's this?

kid winning all the F3 races I'm participating in and it's Lo and behold, it's him from, yeah, obviously. So Anthony was the same. Anthony was a phase where he was just racing Brad Philpott like tons because they just happened to be free at the same time. I had a bunch of races with Jake Dennis, who's now in Formula E. I had a couple of races where we had the likes of Alonso and Grosjean and stuff. So no more shade on iRacing. My iRacing experience exactly counts.

Right, so I think that brings us to the end of the show. Go and follow our panel. Scott, stuffy-tuffy, mate.

two rumpets and of course follow me i'm the best one links in the show notes below and consider becoming a patron at patreon.com forward slash mist apex just checking the time yep we did come in at under an hour a vow that we will never break we'll never take more of an hour of your time but we love joining you on your commute or mowing the lawn and we will see you for a monaco preview a new show until we see you then work hard be kind and have fun this was missed apex podcast

I can't even remember if I did my thing of the weekend. I didn't, did I? Oh, it was Verstappen. Yeah, cool. And then I just was talking about iRacing and then I wanted to... I'm excited because we've got the iRacing Cup. Season 8 coming up on Friday. It's going to be streamed live with our commentator, Scott StuffyTubby. And I'm going to win a race. No chance. Top 20 is my legitimate aim. This is your business Superchance with the help of Xero Accounting Software. This is managing cash flow.

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