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On BBC iPlayer. The last five years has just gone bam. Stacey Solomon and Jo Swash are opening their doors to their home. People's cottage is a lot like our relationship. Constantly working on it. And their perfectly imperfect family life. We have more arguments parenting together than we do parenting separately. I'd like to get myself down to the level of the kids. You bring them down! Stacey and Jo. We all look back at this time and we all be like, oh, that was a magical moment. Watch on BBC.
We'll do your ISA. With the Vanguard managed ISA, our experts will take care of things for you. What will you do instead? When investing, your capital is at risk. Tax rules apply. Search Vanguard now. You are listening to Missed Apex Podcast. We live F1. Welcome to the Mist Apex podcast. I'm Stuffy and I'm going to be your host today for the Japanese Grand Prix preview as we look ahead to what we may expect this weekend. Do not fear, Spanners has just landed.
on his well-deserved family holiday. So he's skipping tonight, but he will be back for the race review this weekend and ready for your Monday morning commutes. We've got a great panel tonight, as always, with your regular Myst Apex panelists. And we're going to be discussing everything from Suzuka track changes.
two special liveries. But not before I remind you that. We are an independent podcast produced in the podcasting shed with the kind support of our patrons and partners. We aim to bring you a race review before your Monday morning commute. We might be wrong. But we're first. So joining me today is the one and only Matt Toon. How's it going, Matt? Anytime they change the asphalt, I'm a happy camper. Yes, lots to talk about with changes to the track surface that could be influential to...
how this Grand Prix plays out this weekend. And also joining us all the way from down under. It's a nice early morning for Jono, but not too early. Jonathan Simon. How's it going, Jono? The problem is, Scott, that... We're trying to do a new show around April Fool's. So it is the worst time of the year to prepare for this because I don't know what's real and what's not.
And it was completely bamboozling me as I was reading stuff ahead of the podcast. So we're bound to slip up. We are probably going to slip up sometime in the next hour. I did get fooled by one.
I'll admit, and it was a technical one by the one and only Scarborough. And it looked me in until I read the whole thread. I was very close to posting it in our... whatsapp group thankfully i didn't because i would have looked a right fool but i am just going to preface this preview of the japanese grand prix we will not be discussing
Yuki Tsunoda and Liam Lawson. No, that has been discussed to... Every man and his dog has discussed that over the last week, and rightfully so. It's been a very relevant story, but there are still... Eight other teams out on track with 16 other drivers. And, well, there's plenty to talk about with their aspirations for this weekend and the championship as a whole. So I think the first place to start is Suzuka.
For me, personally, Jono, it's a favourite of mine. I love watching F1 cars go around that circuit. And it's also a favourite of mine to drive in the sim. Sometimes... A little bit left to be desired in regards to battles for race wins, but we still see quite a bit of wheel-to-wheel action, especially in the modern era of F1. And there are some relevant changes to the track that could play a factor here this weekend.
A very, very tight and twisty circuit, high speed. First sector is so thrilling to drive. I never understood it when I drove it on the sim. I had my... probably my worst race there and i also set a world record there i have no clue why that's the case but it just is suzuka right that's like the the personality of this track that the if you've never seen the circuit before um
The first sector, like we said, tight and twisty, the S's section is one of the most iconic sections of Formula One in history. You drive through there, it's... very difficult to overtake. We've seen overtakes though there in the past. And when you pull it off, you look like an absolute menace. So you got that. We've got track changes as well, which we'll talk about. But... it's the possibility and i i think what makes this track so good is the narrow nature of it
compared to a track where we just came from in china it's very wide like you look at the back straight you could fit almost six cars i don't know i don't know the exact measurements but it feels so wide compared to suzuka the rundown to term one breeds accidents because it's narrow it's tough to overtake but it's also rewarding when you pull off that overtake because it's so narrow but it's also a corner where you can defend
or attack on the inside or the outside. I really like Turn 1, and of course, yeah, the Sennaresses are just some of the best plays. I'd love to position myself there.
actually in real life to see the the changing directions of of these modern f1 cars because i imagine it's it's unreal maggots and beckett's it's another one where i'd love to sit similarly at as well um but yeah no the circuit always is quite narrow we still see quite a bit of wheel-to-wheel racing which is a few bit few and far between on the calendar now um these days um but one thing that also plays a big factor which
I don't know. I feel like I'm a little bit disappointed in that we've moved Suzuka earlier on in the season to avoid wet weather conditions or at least conditions that will throw up a red flag. But it seems like that we are once again going to be getting some wet weather here this weekend. Similar kind of conditions or shall we schedule to as what we saw in Australia, maybe a potential dry Friday.
with it progressively getting wetter over the weekend. And that's really going to maybe play a massive factor into any wheel-to-wheel racing and, shall we say... the McLarens, the Red Bull, of Max Verstappen, of what we may see towards the front of the grid on Sunday. Well, weather is always going to be your number one factor.
when it comes to stuff like this it's going to override a lot of car performance characteristics but What I really think is, and especially based on what we saw in China, I'm very curious to see how the fact that they've resurfaced the entire first sector is going to influence teams like Haas.
where you know they have a serious ride height restriction. That's going to be key for these teams because if the rest of the track is smooth enough, they really going to be able to put the car into their preferred performance window. And so, Matt, that's intriguing, right? Because Haas was a very good performer in China. And in China, the track was resurfaced too.
Now, I know one sector isn't the whole circuit here, but the first sector at Zizuka makes a huge difference because that's where most of the lap time I feel is gained around here is that first sector. We saw it with the Red Bulls when they had that aerodynamic car to perfection. Adrian Newey designed that car 10 years ago, 15 years ago in the Sebastian Vettel era.
to an absolute T, and they were so quick in the first sector. And so will you see that kind of lap time gain, that performance gain in qualifying from the Haas this weekend? The Ferrari is another car which we'll talk about as well. They were very quick at China when they could run the car low, which we'll get to in a moment's time, which can I just point out, Ferrari, oh, we seem to be quick when we run the car low, but then we get disqualified.
That's every team on the grid. I'm pretty sure if you run the car low, you end up gaining lap time. So maybe just raise the ride heights a little bit and then you get the true performance of your car. I don't know. That's what they had to do. Sorry, Matt. That's what they had to do in Australia. wasn't it, is that Charles Leclerc stated, oh, they're raising, had to raise the ride high and everyone thought it was for wet weather conditions. But little did we know that it was clearly an issue.
Yeah, really it's ugly head in China. Yes, the sprint race weekend never helped with setups, but I reckon that's definitely what they were.
fearing in australia but yeah we'll get on to ferrari shortly but going back to track changes as well i mean one thing that was a big factor in china was that the tires your favorite subject matt well don't worry listeners we're not going to get matt to talk about this for too long i know spanners will be listening to this back going oh no what have i just done but the big factor in china was that pirelli were not prepared
for the track surface there, whereas they will be here at Suzuka. So that is definitely going to play a factor. And I think really the only constant we're going to know heading into this weekend is that McLaren are definitely the team to beat.
and there's definitely going to be a fight up there barring no driver mistakes between piastri and norris i don't think anyone okay yeah max we know what he can do in the rain and over a single lap in that red ball but I think everyone is pretty much expecting McLaren to still be fighting out front and for this early championship fight to continue between these two guys who have got one win apiece.
Well, I'm glad you have put the focus where it rightfully belongs. I mean, here we have a battle between Piastri and Norris. Basically, it's 1-1 if we were scoring boxing rounds right now. And we're coming to a circuit.
where they have partially resurfaced it so pirelli will have better information two-thirds of the circuit is going to be the same this is actually one of the most stressful circuits on tires of the entire season it's at the maximum force the amount of energy that goes into tires because of those rapid directional changes because of your deep braking zones especially like coming out of 130r into the casio triangle
there's a lot going on with the tires so you'd think that it would favor the person who can manage the tires better who can get them into the window quickest yeah and john i want to come to you i'm just looking back at the the results of piastri of course is in his third season at f1 and we know that piastri's weakness that he has improved on over time is his tire management
And this is a track that actually Norris has comfortably beaten Piastri over the last two seasons. He's finished positions, multiple positions last year ahead of Piastri. And I'm looking back at 2023, his first year. He finished... 16 seconds, 17 seconds ahead of his teammate. And then, yeah, last year he finished. Where did he finish? He finished, well...
Norris was in P5, Piastri, PA. It was even worse, 27 seconds, 28 seconds last year. So Piastri heading into this weekend, yes, he's improved, but... Definitely kind of, you'd think, on the back foot on previous form here at Suzuka compared to Norris. Well, possibly, but looking at China, you'd throw history out the window, like I think Piastri so far in the first two races.
Bar weather has looked all right. Like even in Australia when he kept Lando Norris pretty honest until that mistake where they both ran off the track and then Piastri for some reason got really eager on the throttle and accelerated. I think the pressure from Max got to him anyway. We'll talk about that incident in our season review. But I think we've seen a different Oscar. And I think one thing is I do think Norris has the better of him. And I do get kind of sick of the Oscar Piastri bashing.
just from everyone, really, in Formula 1. I get it, Norris is quicker, but also, Piastri's shown some improvement this year. So I don't want to look at past results at Suzuka and think that Oscar's going to produce the same. I also think that... This is a very important race for the season. If Oscar can grab another win here...
This then puts him on a front foot compared to Lando Norris's results. And, you know, I know it sounds pretty simple and pretty basic what I'm saying, but that's important. You know, Oscar's got to win this weekend. The McLarens look quickest. We know the McLarens very quick around medium to high speed corners.
which means they're probably favorites around Suzuka. No coincidence, has a lot of medium to high speed corners. So I do think they're going into the weekend favorites and I do think Oscar needs to grab the win, which is pretty obvious. So I do like how exactly you have walked into my trap. I did. I have thought about I thought about this a little bit today. And, you know, as I'm sure most.
entirely normal people would do i actually went back and looked at last year's results uh between uh piastri and norris relative to the tire compounds but also but i in addition to that did some categorical thinking so Real quick, in case you care, when at the races that had the hardest tires programmed, Norris was 5-1. Beat Piastri.
Five races to the one for Piastri. Which this weekend, Matt, we're bringing the C1, C2, and C3. The hardest available from Pirelli. So then, Scott, you look into that and you go, maybe Oscar's a good favorite this weekend. Well, no, it's the other way around. Norris 1-5. Oh, sorry. Well, that got me a bit excited there. Sorry, but I'm not done yet. There's some silver lining at the end of this, but I just like to start with the basic facts.
For the middle set of compounds, the two, three, four, when they were the selections for races, it was three to two. Norris with the three, Piastri with the two. And then when we had the softest compounds, it was nine to three or four if you give piastri hungry which i sort of tossed out because because of the shenanigans by the team, but also because the issue being Piastri was faster in the first part, but Norris was clearly faster in the second part. So if you give him...
Hungary, it's nine to four. So I got kind of curious about that. So basically, Oscar gets beat no matter what tire? Is that what you're saying there? Well, basically what I'm saying is... He just gets beaten in general? Well, what I like is...
The number of races, how close it was, depends on which sets of compounds got programmed. And that got me to thinking. Scott? I think what is... so evident as we've seen the last couple of seasons as the pack has got closer and closer in performance and what we're going to see this year is qualifying qualifying is so so important and i think for fans
Saturday that Saturday session is just so whereas people used to be able to just not pay attention to it I think this year you really need to because thus far well I know we've only had two race weekends but We've seen Dirtier play a massive factor, and we saw it play a massive factor last year and get progressively worse. Oscar Piastri, as he said in Baku, clean air is king. That's why he went for that send on Charles Leclerc in Baku.
Who knows whether Norris would have got to Piastri without that issue? It might have been just hyperbar. We know drivers back themselves, and he kind of had that excuse to an extent. But this is a more high-loaded circuit. there's going to be a considerable downforce is important. So if you're not that car out in front, then you're going to be at disadvantage, even if you're in similar, well, exactly the same car. So Piastri and Norris.
I mean, yes, of course, we expect them to be on the front row, but it's so important for whoever that driver is to get on pole position and lead into turn one to manage this race because... that could really decide this season. So, I mean, I'm so intrigued how they're going to get on because, yeah, Norris, of course, sprint race, it wasn't a faultless weekend for him in China, was it?
Yeah, and you also mentioned the weather, Scott, which is very Australia-like this weekend. You've got a couple of dry Friday, Saturday, and then Sunday, we're going to wake up. You guys, I don't know what's going to happen to you guys in the UK. You're basically going to sleep and it's going to be raining. You're going to wake up. It's still going to be raining. I'm going to have the race at a reasonable time as an Australian, which is...
Just before I raise my point, unfortunately for all the Aussies listening, this is the last reasonably timed race until Las Vegas. And that's it for the rest of the Formula One season. Every other race is at a terrible time. Make the most of it. But I have really, I can't remember the last time I got up three weekends in a row this early. So I have a new appreciation for those on the other side of the world.
I do have an appreciation for you, Jono. As we said, we started this stream and I saw your windows go from darkness to light outside. So that's committing for you and what's... Yes, those of you on the other side of the world have to go through. No, of course. And I'm slowly waking up as every minute progresses as we record this too.
But anyway, my point is, it's going to race on Sunday. So we're spending all this time talking about whether Oscar Piastri is good on what tire and what's going to happen. he might be using the intermediates and then you talk about track position that might be more important we saw in australia how difficult it is to i mean we don't need to see in australia how difficult it is to overtake in the rain because it's like that pretty much most f1 races so
again, rain in Suzuka, it's very dangerous, narrow circuit, a lot of spray, monsoon conditions potentially too. Now, I know the rain is sort of going to clear over the course of the Sunday, and that's why it's going to be very, very similar to what we saw in Australia. in terms of conditions? Well, one person will be hoping it rains and stays wet and doesn't dry out is Max because in Australia, he was tremendous in wet conditions as we know he is, but it was when the trap was drying up.
But we started to see that Red Bull fall off on its tyre management and that will be potentially the same case again on Sunday. If he puts himself, he could easily put himself on the front row and get in the way of the McLarens as everyone's expecting. But would he be able to stay there? I'm not so sure, Matt.
Well, yeah, if qualifying is wet, we're talking about a different story. But if the race is wet to dry like Australia, well, we saw at the end of the race, Red Bull just doesn't have the car to catch the McLaren, especially in the dry. So I do like that you stole my bottom line conclusion, which is the biggest weakness of the McLaren is being in dirty air.
And the singular unanswered question we have, thanks to that faulty hydraulics that caused Norris's brake pedal to go, is we don't know if Norris behind Piasseri can preserve enough tire to launch a legitimate attack at the end of the race. We don't have that data point yet. No, but we do have a brief data point of the McLaren in dirt here from Landon Norris in the sprint race and he was unable to make up sufficient amount of positions that you would expect. of a car that is three temps in...
clean air conditions over the rest of the field. So yeah, maybe a potential weakness of the McLaren that is one to keep an eye on as we head into this weekend. But let's head on now to another team that is probably glad that there's been a big... talking point of Tsunoda and Lawson and Red Bull taking all of the headlines over the past two weeks and that is Ferrari because of course I think it's kind of
F1 news cycles move very quickly, even in F1 now these days, let alone the rest of the world. And it seems that a lot of people may be already forgotten that they had a double disqualification.
on the Sunday for the Chinese Grand Prix. After the highs of the Saturday of Lewis Hamilton qualifying on pole and doing a... start to lights finish a tremendous drive they lost that performance on the sunday with the setup changes and well they were costly setup changes and there are jonno as we were discussing earlier there are rumours that they might be bringing new parts. Yeah, I find that interesting because their first upgrades of the year were supposed to be next week at Bahrain.
And there's a chance that we will find out in the next 24 hours if they've brought those or advanced those upgrades to Japan, if they'll run them in Suzuka, which again... Ferrari, is there any other team where more anti-panic articles and anti-panic situations happen of any team on the grid? Like I've been reading so many things that are like, oh, Ferrari have been very impressed by their sim.
that their pace on the simulator this week and there could be improvements come japan it's like there's an article like this all the time when they perform badly so i don't know if that's true or not that was from italian media that ferrari think they've clamped down on the errors
from Australia and China, especially with the Ride Heights. We saw Lewis Hamilton get disqualified for plank wear. Leclerc got disqualified too. It was a bit of a shambles finish for them after what looks so promising on the Saturday with a sprint win.
I have a feeling too with the plank wear for Hamilton. Now, if these upgrades help that, I'm not sure. The upgrades sort of that I've heard that they're going to bring in are centered around the middle of the car. So your side pods and that kind of stuff. Maybe the floor. I'm not sure what to read anymore. It's April Fool's. I could have read a fake article. You don't know. But if that's the case and it does help...
That's massive. And I'm not sure if Ferrari in China said, let's run the car low in the hopes that we might have five lap safety car period. then the plank won't wear as much and we might save that little one millimeter and not get disqualified. You know, that could be a possibility. That's why it was so quick in the sprint. There wasn't as many laps to wear out the plank compared to the Grand Prix.
We call them updates and not upgrades for a reason. They might work. I'm sorry. They might not. We shall see. But I mean, no, they all call them upgrades. But the reality is if you look at their performance on track. Maybe it will help. Maybe it won't. My theory is to the Ferrari thing is slightly different. And I think what it is, is the margin they allowed themselves in the race. was tinier
than their margin of knowledge because of how much the track evolved and how rapidly it evolved. And this actually weirdly ties back into the whole Norris Piastri thing, which is we expected to see a lot of graining on those tires.
and on the sunday and we didn't expect the hard tire to work nearly as well as it did in china as a result the cars were going faster developing more aerodynamic load and looking at the asymmetric wear on hamilton's plank clearly he was probably using more curb on exit than they anticipated so it doesn't take a lot you don't have to be wrong about a lot in formula one
for to go from because it was only like six tenths of a millimeter too much wear yeah it's like it was less than the width of your or the Quite a bank card, as an example, your average bank card. You're talking, trying to hold with your fingers the space that they fouled by is super difficult. to-dos but look they have to draw a line somewhere don't they and i thought it was quite interesting not to go too far back to china because
I mean, I guess it's so totally relevant to whether they can fix those issues, whether it will slow the car down. But I found it bizarre listening to Fred Vassour, and it's kind of been a bit overlooked, is that he stated, obviously, Charles Leclerc lost that front wing end play.
And he was quicker than Lewis, who had the intact car. And Fred Vassor said they did not understand on the data at the time, maybe they do now, they didn't understand on the data at the time why Charles Leclerc's performance was better than...
Lewis Hamilton's who had the full intact setup and that's why Lewis ended up yes suggesting they should change positions but I thought that was really bizarre especially for a team like Ferrari to not know why so clearly whatever they made set up decision wise clearly wasn't going to work and i hopefully yeah they've they've sorted that out for for this weekend because we need more than one team to to push those mclarens at this early stage
It's hit or miss with that because I remember Felipe Massa, Barcelona 2010. Yes, I owe you. I know everybody listening is going, yeah, I remember that race. And I remember how Felipe Massa went. But anyway, he lost his front wing end plate and then ended up setting the fastest lap of the race and looked very quick. And oftentimes engineers go, well, why? Well, it's very baffling.
all this time to put on this extra sort of beards on it's like a beard for your front wing you know what i mean it's like why would you do that you might as well just shave it off and you're quicker and more aerodynamic but there's been other times that drivers have lost their end plates and then have been torrid
with pace. I don't know why it's so hit or miss. I'll throw to Matt on this quickly because I've got something very important to bring up about the Ferrari plank wear. I'm glad to hear it. But fundamentally, what you need to understand.
is that when a Formula One car goes around a turn, the tires and the forces are asymmetric. The outside is loaded, the inside is unloaded. And in the case we had here, it was... mostly left-hand turns and it was a missing left-hand front wing end plate so you have essentially rebalanced your front axle to put a little more weight on the inside tire
which is a lot like something you can do at the rear with a differential. And it's also kind of something like you would do with the fiddle brake on the McLaren. So either the outside tire was too loaded and this... balanced it more evenly or fundamentally because there was now suddenly much more force on the right side it was causing it to rotate slower than the left and actually allowing the car to work better but what you will also notice
is at the end of the race when the car was very very light he lost a lot of lap time and that's because part of what was making that work was the physical weight of the car not the aerodynamic downforce adding weight to the front axle. So when too much weight went away, he lost performance very rapidly. And that is probably what Ferrari is looking at to figure out what tweaks they can make. uh going forward and then so with the plank where quickly
You mentioned how Lewis Hamilton Matt was using the curbs a lot. At Suzuka this weekend, we forgot to mention one more track upgrade, is that at around four or five of the corners, there's a double curb now.
So like the exit of Degna 2, there used to be like a little fake synthetic grass. And so drivers were able to run wide there without... running too wide where it would delete your lap time this year you can't do that the gravel's now all the way up to the curb they've got rid of the synthetic grass it's now a double lifted curb so if you're using the curb a lot more this weekend
It's going to wear the plank more. Another thing along with that too is more margin for error, sorry, less margin for error, more accidents, which could be a possibility. Now, I'm not a betting man, Scott, but I looked at the betting odds anyway for a safety car. $1.54 for a safety car on the Sunday. Virtual safety cars don't count. $1.54 with rain.
and and the circuit where you could easily make mistakes now there's less margin for error which is great this is what we want to see with the sport double curbs and gravel closer to the circuit as long as we don't get a turn six Australia issue where the grabber was sort of kicking back up on the circuit and you had marshals having to sweep that up every two seconds. We don't want that. But apart from that, it's a very, very good modification to the track.
Yeah, I was just thinking about that, looking at the image of the change of the corner. I'm actually in favour of it. I think it makes that corner a lot more challenging because they really approach that second right hand, the one that goes under the bridge. For those of you that are listening, it's a corner that they used to, I mean, there was a lot of... leeway.
there really looking at the comparison images if you can find them online somewhere or just tuning in this weekend but Jono in regards to safety cars I do think we'll see one Suzuka very much is always like that but thankfully for the rookies and Carlos Sainz
there are no road markings in the middle of the track for them to spin their rear wheels up on. So we won't see, hopefully, any... innocuous crashes like we saw in Australia but moving on let's head to I think a bit of interesting news is that we know that throughout the duration of the season rookies have to be given
a certain amount of practice sessions or the teams have to give up their certain amount of practice sessions throughout the year. I think it's six per car. Is that correct? No, I think it's four. It's four for the season, Matt, isn't it? This year, it was two last year and they've doubled it. So the rookies have to run. Yeah, it's four. Four FP1 sessions. But it doesn't specify which car. I'm pretty sure it's per team. Does it?
i thought there was okay maybe i was i thought that each driver had to at least give up what minimum one uh session but anyway what i find interesting is that jack doing is giving his seat up in FP1. Another rookie who so desperately needs time out on track and confidence in that car, potentially in a weekend where... Look, not interchangeable. Brad will be straight on at me that I've said interchangeable. Changeable conditions over this weekend.
Surely every single lap is important for him because Ryo Hirakawa and, of course, another Japanese driver stepping in to take that practice session. Of course, Japanese circuit. Honda, owners, so forth. Of course, there's that link. But yeah, I find that just a shame that a rookie is not going to be getting as much practice as they so desperately need.
Well, he should have upgraded to premium economy and he would have guaranteed overhead bin space. That's what I would say. Yeah, no, it's I'd say it's the least surprising and most depressing thing. because doing really you know he's paid his dues he's done a he's done a really decent job but because he didn't have because he's not franco colopinto he didn't have a miracle run in a williams
which is like, you know, it's the equivalent of like, oh, getting three heads in a row. Oh, look, a rookie had three races in a row where he was fast and didn't crash. He must be a genius. Then he goes and crashes the rest of the season. But now he's a genius. Everyone knows he's a genius. Everyone knows he's fast.
doing showed up was stable did the job he was asked to do was asked by alpine to step into that seat he did that he's shown up he's done a decent job as as decent a job as any midfield rookie could do but the knock on him is he's already lost that seat and i don't know what he would have to do he could beat gasly and i don't really think it would matter at all they're still going to take it away from him
And can I clarify, it is two per car. Sorry, Scott, just before people get mad in the comments. So that means four sessions this year for rookies. This will be the first for Alpine. They'll have three left. You might as well use both on Dewan's car. right now because you know that basically the writing's on the wall you're not going to keep jack doing is what we're hearing so why give him the most seat time
Try and put somebody else in the car that is or raise some finances by giving some funding to somebody else who will jump in the car for an FP1 session. But you also don't want to waste them, Matt, because you might want to put somebody in the car who may race for you. full-time in the future, a.k.a. why don't they just chuck Franco Colopinto in there for a race? If he's eligible.
Because the eligibility rules are very... There's a lot of grey area around that with rookies. He might not, actually. I don't think he's... Yeah. What is a rookie? Six races under the FIA, you're no longer considered a rookie. So I don't think he's illegible.
for those three sessions but to answer your question as well matt the only way jack doing holds on to that seat is if he brings in more sponsorship and money than colapinto does yeah i think pretty much the only way he could perform out of his absolute socks, which could potentially bring sponsors, but it's still not going to be as much as Colopinto, which is a real shame because I like to see Colopinto on the grid, but not in...
replacement of another rookie, which is a shame. But speaking of the conditions, going back to those this weekend, I mean, who are the drivers we should be keeping an eye on? Of course, there's always the wet weather. merchants, shall we say, those that pop up, those that did well in Australia. Strolls had a...
Steady start to this season. I mean, should we keep an eye on Lance Stroll, who looks like, unfortunately, a bit of news off track. And I am saying, unfortunately, because I think he is a... A driver who has overstayed his welcome. His old man, Daddy Stroll, has increased his stake in the Aston Martin company. I'm not sure if it's the F1 team or is it Aston Martin as a whole. this past week. So those thinking he's setting up anytime soon.
Think again, because he's just invested some more. So Lance Stroll is sticking around for a while longer. So yeah, but he's had a good start to this season. But is it because Alonso is not really... caring that much? Is he just focusing about next year? What do you guys think? I think Fernando Alonso had the crash in Australia and then obviously the issues in China. It's two races, small sample size. And I think you have to give...
stroll the benefit in Australia. Basically, like Fernando Alonso, you crashed. that's you can't just say oh well you know based on past results stroll's been better that's bad if you crash into a wall so you've got to give stroll commandments on that and then obviously china was pretty good from him too i
I do believe, though, of the long term, we're going to see that flip to where we actually think it is in terms of the pecking order between those two drivers. I think Fernando Alonso is still going to have the better of him. Here's where it gets interesting. Do we talk about this Aston Martin? um selling the stake in the f1 team yet do we do we get this far scott or do we then we can touch it out i think it's relevant right now and then yeah we can move on
Yeah, because it's not the most interesting news, but it's basically Aston Martin, the car company, they were in the news for having sold a stake in their F1 team. Again... I apologize to the audience if this is an April Fool's joke because I don't think it is. But basically, they've recently cut jobs, which isn't an April Fool's job. That's proven last year. So the car company is trying to raise money for their road car.
project which is you know the aston martins you see driven out there on the roads so i lawrence strolls firm from my understanding they've now owned more of a percent of the f1 team because of the fact that Aston Martin has sold a stake, their little stake of the team to raise some funds, but they're going to come back. They might buy back into the team if they do well financially, you know, with their road car business, because Lawrence Stroll has come out and said, you know what?
Nobody panic. Aston Martin's here for the long term. And he was absolutely livid. He called it a joke that the team was valued $640 million, which can I also add... Breaking news, man out there is livid that his investment is worth less than he actually thinks it is and tries to pump it up for the public so he can get invested to buy in. So I also think there's a little bit of that coming in from Lance Stroll, not Lance Stroll, Lawrence Stroll.
who's owning the team. So that's pretty much the background of that, is basically Aston Martin sold a stake, which means Lauren Stroll gets a bigger stake because they've sold their portion of the team. But they say they're going nowhere. Lawrence is here to stay. Aston Martin's here to stay. Which means everyone gets what they wanted. More Lance Stroll. Yes. Happy days. More memes, everyone, online. Matt. Well, the theme that comes to mind is McLaren.
They started up a road car division. Now, granted, Aston already existed as a road car division. But there was a long argument for a severe period of time that the road car division was starving the Formula One team. Now, I don't know the connection between the race team and the Aston road car.
But I'm not surprised at all, just looking at your general economic headwinds at this point and looking at how all car companies are doing. We talked a lot about how much Audi is struggling. They're cutting a massive amount of jobs and they have this...
unbreakable commitment to this team, they would probably rather not fire the people who work for their road car division, but they're stuffed. They've got the, they own the team and until they can sell it or come back to some sort of profitability on the road car side. This is an issue they're going to have to manage. And it makes sense to me, honestly, to have the road car division and the race team fully separate, which is, I think, what we see at McLaren now.
And it's really better for both sides. And in the statement, Aston Martin, just going back to that, they've said, this isn't a bad sign. that they've sold a stake in the team. In fact, they said it's a good sign that they're going to be an F1 for the future. That doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever, but I'll take their word for it. And the way I understand it is...
They're basically, this is what I'm, because it makes no sense, right? So this is, I'm going to try and make sense of this. I think they're saying this is a good thing because they're taking the money from the sale to then improve their road car business. Once that gets on track, they're going to...
I'm assuming buy back into the F1 team. That's kind of what I'm understanding. Because as far as I know, have you ever bought like anyone out there is listening? Have you ever bought like a share or stock or an investment, even like a little crypto coin?
and everyone out there goes, oh, this is the best thing you'll ever buy, like the people who own it, and they pump it up. This is essentially what I was reading for like five minutes, reading about this. Aston Martin and Lauren Stroll pump up their investment as if it's like the best thing in the world, which...
It might be, because we often forget, when I say we often forget, I did for a good whole couple of weeks, that Adrian Newey's part of that team. And they may have a bright future next year if he can really get to grips on the design of that car for the new rule set. Yes, and Aston Martin. I think it's good, actually, that they're going to be around for the future. I mean, he's invested, whatever your opinions of the Stroll family may be, he's invested a lot of money in that team. He's built...
Brand new facilities from the ground up at Silverstone for them. And look, I think it's great that Aston Martin, of course, being British, having that name in F1 has been... around for so many years. It's good to have them around. Just wish they'd have a bit of a... Better drive a line up. But yeah, it won't be for a few more years. It looks like Alonso's going to go on into his 50s and trying to make the F1.
movie in real life happen. And Lance Stroll isn't going anywhere anytime soon unless it's under his own accord. But moving on from Aston Martin and financial talks, it's not really our... topic of specific um Expertise. Not that we're really experts in F1 as well. Well, sometimes. I think we are. Sometimes we are. I think the drivers who need big performances here this weekend, yes, we've been saying it's only two race weekends, but there are definitely drivers out there who have started off.
better and those that definitely need a good well a good race here this weekend a good performance overall and one of those is is Carlos Sainz in the Williams completely outperformed by Albon in the first two weekends And Sainz, for me, really needs to start his season. He's not really got going at all. I don't think he's crashing Australia.
I think that was a talk spike. I think that's exactly what you get when you dip a wheel on the white line there, Carlos. And then Matt is shaking his head right now and disagrees with me. And then China... Just, yeah, also very fortunate to get those disqualifications and sneaker points. But overall, it was a poor Chinese weekend for him as well. But, Matt, do you disagree with me?
Oh, yeah. I mean, we wouldn't have a show if I didn't disagree with everyone about everything always, would we? No. What I had read subsequent to the incident, which, again... James Vowles does seem to have a habit of sheltering his drivers at the expense of his engineering talent, and that's fair. But in this instance, I don't think the car was in the correct map for the conditions.
So the downshift, upshift, I can't remember what it was, delivered an incorrect amount of power. So he wasn't in the correct ECU map for where he was. on the circuit. And that was what Williams determined was the issue. That's a very actually quite plausible thing to me. So maybe it's not to you, but it is to me.
It's plausible, but also very coincidental it happened as his left rear hit that white line. But even so, he needs a good, strong weekend here at Suzuka. He's gone well here in the past. Albon is clearly riding a high at the moment. The Williams looks alongside that RB to be at the top of the midfield. I know you'll mention Haas in China, but we still don't really know what Haas is...
potentially going to turn up here this weekend, especially if it's similar conditions to what we saw in Australia and we know how poorly they performed there. And Oni Behrman in particular, I mean, he'll be hoping for a dry race this weekend.
had two wet races now arguably of course brazil last year was horrendous but he's had two wet races now where he's not had he's not exactly had confidence builders to say the least so i think the midfield is going to be really intriguing i don't really know kind of what order that's going to be unless you guys have a bit of insight there
No, not yet. I normally make my judgments after the Friday practice because you never know. I thought the Sauber was going to be a lot slower this season. And then apparently reports came out that... the car they ran in preseason testing was not the same car that they brought to Australia. So that's the reason why we're very surprised. It's like a mini McLaren. Yeah. Yeah. So there's a possibility that, you know,
Any judgment you make until you watch FP1 is kind of useless. You've got to wait for those Friday practice sessions, see what cars are brought in, then you can kind of sort of get the picking order where you need it to be. I mean, I do like that you brought up Haas. Because I think they are really the most intriguing story. In the first race, they were very clearly the worst team. Yeah. In the second race, they were very clearly the best of the rest team.
And we really just don't know with the resurfacing where they're going to wind up. So they're going to be fascinating to watch. and especially if it comes to being a wet race on the sunday i'd be i'd be really curious as to how they do but in general the cars that are less tricky to drive and have a better balance overall will be the ones that are the most fun to be in if it's a wet race on the sunday
And that can help a little bit. And really, I know we don't want to talk about it, but if they could get their strategy act together, I mean, the Visa Cash App RB looks to be the class of the mint field so far, but they just have no strategy. Yeah, we can touch on that. It's kind of touching on Yuki, but it's touching on the team as a whole, yes. Their strategy for the past two race weekends, they should be...
I cannot believe that Yuki Snowda only has three points. And those three points are from that sprint race. Like, their strategy department is absolutely horrendous. And, I mean, are they... pulling people off the streets or are they just running a trainee program we know it's the junior team are they running junior strategists on that pit wall because it's just isaac hadger was also a victim of this in china and
I just don't know what kind... And this isn't the first time. There's many instances throughout the previous seasons where they've done this. Yeah, I... don't get it and it doesn't showcase what those drivers are doing with that car at the moment and yes we do expect them to be fighting at the top of the midfield again i mean
They're three for three. I know Yuki's not in that car, but they're three for three for getting one car into every Q3 session thus far. So is that going to be four for four? You're basically saying, Scott, that... The V carbs, the only time that Yuki scored points was when they didn't need to have any strategy involved, the sprint race.
No pit stop. Just drive, Yuki. Don't worry about us. Oh, you produced a good result all of a sudden. It's terrible. Daniel Ricciardo was also subject to a few dubious strategy decisions as well when he was in. a good race, having a good stint. So yeah, it's not just multiple drivers have experienced it. Can I point out, Matt, you mentioned that the Haas, you thought it's the best car of the midfield. You don't think the Williams is?
Do you think Williams is a front runner now? Is that why? I said they were the most intriguing because they went from the worst in Australia to being best of the rest in China. Yeah.
That makes sense. Because the Williams looks the quickest of the midfield cars. But yeah, that is intriguing about the Haas because we thought... remember i said before like the sauber i i said in our australia preview that they were going to finish last and then the has ended up being the slowest car out of nowhere so yeah i don't know what's happened there and if it goes back to what we were talking about with the resurfacing
there's a very, very strong possibility that the Haas will be quick again, at least in the first sector at Suzuka. And just, I think... To round off what has been a lovely preview with you guys here for the Japanese Grand Prix is that it just came into my head that Alpine is currently the only team.
not to score a point in the constructors as of yet. And Gasly has had, of course, he got disqualified in China, but he's had two 11th place finishes in the first two weekends. We are going to see, this is how close... the performances of these teams are right now and how much of an interesting season it's going to be because I can't remember the last time if Alpine scored points here this weekend that's only the third race weekend of the year when was the last time we went
that quickly into a season where every team had scored a point. I mean, I think that's quite... Tremendous, to be honest with you. And I think that's a great prospect for this weekend and for the rest of this season. Matt, thank you for joining me. And as well, Jono, we'll let you get a little nap or go and have some coffee and well-needed caffeine.
start your day yes sounds good love a bit of a espresso shot personally but yes thank you everyone for tuning in it's going to be a cracker of a weekend with those changeable conditions lots to keep an eye out on and for those of you who as always will be into our race review to remind you spanners will be back from a makeshift studio maybe with a cheeky suntan as well if the weather is okay where he is in the world
on Sunday nights. You can tune in live on YouTube or listen back for your Monday morning commute on Spotify, Apple and other podcasting platforms. I've been stuffy. You can follow me on YouTube for my F1 watch alongs. I'll be live for every single. session. Matt, you can follow Matt. His socials are in the description below as well as Jono's. Thank you guys. I've been stuffy. I'll see you on Sunday.
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