The WTF1 Post Race Podcast Penalties galore midfield mayhem into team politics and not a raindrop in sight. That was the Japanese Grand Prix in which Max was tapping a red bull put their Singapore dip in performance behind them and dominated all the way from FP1 to the checkered flag. They were doing so, they came six time constructors world champions. But you probably listened to all the actual analysis from the race weekend.
But we can have a look at some of the more interesting bizarre moments from the race. And obviously put the staff and dominance to one side. Actually, no, let's start with that. Because you know what the weirdest thing is, why were they rubbish in Singapore and then so good in Japan? Calon, no key flaking driver is alongside me, Harry Benjamin. Sorry, I should have done that earlier. It's okay. I think the people know by now, hopefully, that they haven't got a rid of us just yet. I don't know.
I think, you know, I was hopeful, as we've always said, it's the hope that kills you. But yeah, he really shut us up, didn't he? If you listen to the post-Singapore podcast, there's no doubt about that performance. I mean, the another flawless weekend. He's at the end of the day, him and the team, through a market where jobs that they're doing, they're also still human beings. It's very difficult to forget that. Or it's also, you know, just watching what they've done this season.
And maybe Singapore was just as slump as you said as well. Singapore was very, very specific. It's a night race. It's a street circuit. And it's not. It is actually traditionally maybe a track that highlights some weaknesses within the car and the package together with Max. But yeah, didn't he show us all this weekend? I mean, that qualifying, especially what a lap that was. I mean, it was good. It was very good. But of course, he didn't have any competition.
So it's just another weekend of dominance. But you can't fault a thing. A single thing they do. It's amazing. If we look right down the other end of the grid, let's start there. And now the one remaining seat for 2024 is the Williams, currently occupied by Logan Sargent and after the little incident in Singapore, he needed a good weekend and he didn't really have one. No, no, no, no, no, no, Logan is just finished a race weekend without a crash at this point.
I mean, I think you think that's costing the seat. Like even if he, like, it's all well and good being sort of off the pace a bit. But like Mick Schumacher, what ultimately did it for him was that he was costing the team so much money in crash damage? Yeah, crashing is expensive and you can't afford to keep having these crashes. I mean, especially a team like Williams, we keep saying this there.
They're at that tipping point on there where if they can get two cars consistently fighting towards the top 10, it's going to do huge things for the team. They don't need to be spending money repairing cars. And if they bring bits, for example, you know, if they've brought upgrades, are you going to put on Logan's car knowing that he's going to crash statistically every weekend? It's a cut, there's a cut through our industry. It's a cut through our sport. We're in the back half of the season.
These rookie areas, the areas that just shouldn't be happening for Logan. And yeah, I think it's a case of performance is important. But at a baseline point, you just can't be costing the team money, potential points and performance and it all snowballs into what they do in the following seasons and how they end the year. So, you know, he's been under pressure for ages. He's not up to his game. He's under even more pressure now.
And then there's that, you know, the impending doom of where's Liam Lawson going to go. Because we now know that Danny's staying on. Great to see Dan Ricardo come back because he didn't really get a fair shot after his injury. But, you know, what a job Liam's done. He literally outraced Sonota, beat him in the race. I mean, his move into Degna 2 on the opening lap to catch Sonota napping, what an overtake.
And you know, it just proves that there's actually people who are more worthy of a seat and form of the one who haven't got it. So where does Sergeant fit into all of that? He needs an exceptional last part of the season. Otherwise, I think his time in Formula One is, is unfortunately over. And that's the clickbait snip right there. But I've said, I mean, I obviously was on doing the commentary that we can. That's all we kept talking about.
It's just pressure and sergeants may have the support of team principal James Vowes, at least publicly. And Vowes are saying, you know, actually the crashes have masked his performance increase relative to Albert.
And also, we have to remember that Sergeant is very, very behind in terms of receiving upgrades because when Williams do get an upgrade, it goes straight on Alex's car because they know that he's the performing car and they can get the most out of him because they are lanching at the bat. They don't have as much money or spare parts to play with. They're going to put it on Albert's car. And that makes Sergeant look worse because he still has a car that's three or four specs behind.
But then when you add the crashing on top, that mindset that Sergeant must be in is going to be so hard to get out of. Like, if you had moments in your career where you've had, you know, a couple of bad races on the trot and you're just in this sort of cloud, like, how do you get out of that? I think that's the hardest thing, right? Like, there's obviously pressure in all scenarios in motorsport.
But what you tend to find with drivers is they tend to be the ones that put the most pressure on themselves. So, you know, if you take a, as you said, like James Viles is saying publicly, they support him and everything, but it's, it's not stopped the mistakes from creeping in. It's almost like the more support he gets publicly, the more pressure he puts on himself to turn it around because he knows that he has everything he needs to perform.
And that makes it even worse when he doesn't perform and the spiral continues, doesn't it? And, you know, I think every race and driver in the world has been in that position. It's just unfortunate for Logan that he's, he's finding himself here in Formula One because he's constantly in the spotlight. You've got people like us constantly judging their performances that he does and, you know, it's hundreds of thousands of people judging it and millions of people watching.
So, it's very easy to be sat saying it, but there is, you know, these are the best drives in the world. They need that level of, you know, mental strength and ability to control their emotions in order to prove that they're deserving of a spot there. There's not enough seats and there's too many drivers. So like I said, it's, it's not unsalvageable, but he just needs something spectacular. And I don't think anyone is expecting Logan to beat Alex.
I think that that's kind of the frustrating thing being sat on the sidelines is we're not expecting this amazing performance where he goes and challenges, Olben, because the, the kind of expectations been set. We just, you just want to see a weekend free of mistakes where he doesn't crash or doesn't go off for there isn't something that goes wrong where he can just build to see what actually is levels really at.
And then you can make an assessment of whether or not he's fast enough to be there, but yeah, it's really easy to get caught in the cycle, whether you believe you're in a supportive environment or you're in one of the more hostile environments, you know, do not need to name many names to know which teams have a slightly more hostile environment for drivers.
But at the end of the day, the driver is the one controlling the drivers, the one in control of their own emotions and their, you know, their surroundings are their perceived, other, you know, their perspective, their perceived reality. And yeah, hopefully he can switch himself out of it.
He can see the team support he has and just go on to produce an era free weekend, not even a fast one, just an era free one, just to see really where he's at to try and build something for the back part of the season. Yeah, well, he gets a weekend off and then it's into Qatar for, for local sergeant and the rest of the field. So, you know, we don't like to see anybody do badly, but we'll be wishing for, for sergeant to have a good end to the year and he absolutely needs one.
We mentioned Red Bull in Matt and they're revolving door drivers and technically they had a double DNF this weekend, but it was only Sergio Perez. That was weird. Like, I didn't, I thought in the rules that you had, if you were good at a tire car, there had to be a legitimate reason if it wasn't an obvious, you know, you couldn't just do it to save the engine or something like that. You had to try and, you had to justify, you know, this is why we're retiring the car.
And if you do retire the car, surely that means the car is unfit to participate in the race. So it cannot re, take, cannot rejoin the race. So that's why I was so confused. But obviously there is this loophole where they got it cleared by the FIM back when it into the race to search your pair is only to serve his penalties so he doesn't carry over to the cat-up. It just makes you realize how smart the people in Formula One really are.
They know every line of the rulebook and how they can interpret it for their own gain. And you know, my favorite part was the camera shot when the staff came into box and it was like something out of like the office, wasn't it? I think that's what people were comparing it to when they just paned around and it was just Sergio in the back of the, still sat in the car. It was so, so good. But yeah, it's, it's nice, isn't it?
Because Red Bull, even the race, they dominate, they give us something to talk about. Dave gave Sergio a little rest, gave him some time. He clearly had a very, what a difficult start to the Grand Prix. He had had a little bit of time to think about it before he could go out, serve his penalty and then come back in again and finish the race on a, yeah, let's call it a slightly higher note than how it would have finished if he had just had the start of it.
Yeah, again, while we're talking about drivers that didn't necessarily have the weekend they really needed, he was another one of those candidates, wasn't he? Yeah, he certainly was. And despite Red Bull only having one car, that's all they need. In the race, I thought it was very sort of Noah's Arkey during the lot of that race, very two by two. You know, you had the two McLaren's together, the two Mercedes, the two Ferraris, for the majority of that race, it's certainly the early part.
There wasn't really too much mingling. But then of course, the teammates were really getting their elbows out in Mercedes lands. Hamilton versus Russell, what did you make of this? Because I thought it was on the edge and especially in the final last that Mercedes got the strategy wrong with George Russell, keeping him out on the hards on that one stop. And I thought it was so funny when he brought up the DRS maneuver that signs did in Singapore.
But eventually it all came to no avail and even though they did try the DRS thing, I thought that came too late from Mercedes because signs got through. So how did you see that all? Because I didn't think they, I thought it was conky from Mercedes. It was, but I think the problem they've gone now is they've got a power struggle because they've got a driver who's desperate to win his eight world championship and become the greatest Formula One drivers history that has ever been.
And then you've got a young driver who's very keen to overthrow that, to become the number one Mercedes to build the team around them so that you can try and fight for his first world championship. And it's, it's a really unique dynamic between the two because they are being allowed to fight. And I think it's great that we're seeing this, especially this year, you know, we've seen it with the Ferraris drivers.
There's, there's less talk about number ones and number two is even if there is a slight favorability towards one driver, they are being allowed to fight when the situation allows for it. And I'm, I'm loving it because, you know, I still am off of the belief that I think if it was Hamilton having a go at Norris in Singapore, he would have gone through and then he would have gotten to signs. I think he's just has the edge on George a little bit on pace.
But obviously George was in the position, didn't capitalize on the result and he was kind of keen to sort of stamp some authority this weekend. But when he dive bombed Hamilton into the chicane, that's, you know, you've got a, as a race driver, you've got to kind of give as good as you get. Otherwise, you know, you can find yourself very quickly losing all the momentum that you're building up to in the course of a race.
And to see him, you know, see Lewis get his elbows out a little bit of like, you know, almost rubbing down the mainstray and then retaking the position back into turn one and turn two. It's just great to see, it's good to see two drivers at different ends of their careers, battling equally as hard for, you know, they're not, they're not fighting for a win. They're just fighting for number one position in the team and I'm loving watching that dynamic unfold.
And I, I think it's definitely a lot less harmonious on the inside than it looks on the outside. Do you do? I only, I only anticipate that escalating more and more and more as the season goes on because they are very well matched in terms of pace. It's very, very close. And they're both pushing for that number one spot. So yeah, if, if I'm watching the last year or the year, I'm keeping a keen eye on the Mercedes drivers to see what else comes up.
Yeah, this is what I thought as well because they have been, they're getting very punchy on the radio. But then both those Mercedes guys are very good in like the post race interviews. They're not, not slagging each other off and very much, you know, tying the party line. But you just think there's a bit of an edge creeping in now, especially with George Russell. And you know, I don't think he was happy what happened in that race. I'm sorry, I'm raising drivers ever happy.
That's my real question, dude. Is the driver that loses out ever happy? Look, look in the mirror. What do you see? I don't think raising drivers are ever happy unless they're winning. And that's everything that goes, you know, you've dedicated your whole lives to get to Formula One, you find yourself in a position where especially for George as well, if you look back to the Williams days, he kind of thought he was going to go to Mercedes and fight for victories.
He stepped in for Hamilton at Bahrain and he had the win kind of taken away from him there. And we were all sad. They go, well, it's fine. He's going to jump into a Mercedes and he'll be fighting for regular victories because that's where Mercedes were fast forward to the changing regulations and they didn't quite get it right.
And it must be incredibly frustrating for Russell because he for sure thought that he was going to find himself in a position to fight for wins consistently and it just hasn't materialized yet. So you can sense a bit of that frustration kicking in. Yeah, let's see where this goes. I'm keen to watch what comes next because as you say, they're very, very good to the camera.
But what's happening behind because if it keeps boiling and boiling and boiling eventually he's just going to the balls going to burst, isn't it? Well, in a similar vein, the McLaren guys were getting a bit edgy on the radio as well. Piaestry managed to get ahead of Norris after Norris got ahead of him at the start of the race. But that's because I think Piaestry kind of got sideline by the staffer who has a really cut across and fend off Piaestry from his better start.
But Piaestry didn't roll over straight away when asked, you know, Lando needs to come through he is quicker. And it clearly, I think Piaestry still needs to work on his race pace. I think he is fast. There's no doubt about it. But Norris just seems to have the edge when it comes to race pace at the moment. Fantastic to get his first podium, a double podium for McLaren. I mean, will we spoke about it?
I think we spoke about it consistently when they're fighting to get out of Q1 in Bahrain and now they're scoring double podiums. I mean, what a rate of improvement that is. But I also think McLaren might have some problems starting to creep up on them. Maybe for the next couple of years, I mean, Piaestry has just signed this long-term contract up until the end of 2026. Norris is there to the end of 2025. Norris is the de facto team leader. And so far, no team mate has really...
Well, actually, science was pretty there with him. But I don't know. This feels like Norris' team, right? And I think Piaestry is going to cause problems for Norris. I agree, 100%. And I think the thing with, kind of, your... If you want to call it Carlando, as everyone always calls it, the whole Carlos and Lando bromance is... They've gone on really, really well. But I don't sense that happening with Piaestry. I don't think Piaestry has the same personality as Norris. You kind of...
For these... These way away, if you want to call it, like, inter-team driver, bromance, things to happen. You kind of have to get along. You have to have the sense of humour. And I don't really sense, at least, to the public, that Piaestry is really that bothered about being mates with Lando. He kind of just wants to focus on winning races and getting the job done and driving the car to the maximum. And if you come in as a rookie, you challenge Lando and Norris.
And Lando and Norris' team straight away, of course, that's going to get Lando's back up a little bit because, you know, you're comfortable in the situation. And Piaestry traditionally just keeps getting better and better and better and better. His developmental process and his rise through the ranks is not really something we've seen. You know, he won Frecker in his second season when the new regulation of car came out.
He dominated the championship after he had won bad round in Monzer and then the rest of the year, he was basically untouchable. He then went into FIF3, he won that, he went into FIF2, he won that. Like, what do we don't really see drive is coming through with this level of natural ability, with the composure, with the speed, but he's never really stayed in the chase. He's always won a championship in the first year, the last few years anyway.
We haven't seen him have time to be able to develop and build. And that's the thing that I'm really excited to see is if he's got now a long term deal in the same team where he's clearly very happy, very comfortable, the car's competitive, what can Oscar Piaestry do? Because that question mark has never really been answered. So I'm excited to see what happens there.
And I think Lando's going to have to get invented to beat him, especially if this keeps going midway through next year, I expect Piaestry to be the number one at McLaren in terms of pace. So I got back from Japan last night and Piaestry was on my flight. He was in business and I was not. You're in first class, you're in first class. I wish. But maybe this is, I think this is just a bit telling, it's probably not, but I quite enjoyed it, telling of his personality.
So we end up both going, anyone who knows Heathrow Terminal 5, if you're getting a cab or an Uber, other ones are available, you go to the short stay car park and you get the lift and takes you to floor one. And I find myself in the lift with Oscar Piaestry and he doesn't know me really and I don't really know him. And I was tempted to go to Hey Oscar, like congrats on the podium.
I'm a Harry by the way, I do the F1 coverage for the BBC, but I was like, now we're both knackered, we've just done a 50-hour flight. And he's just there scrolling through Twitter, having a little look because we know he loves his tweet. And he, no one, no one recognizes him in this lift. Like these aren't F1 people in this lift, no one knows who this guy is. And it's quite a full lift and this woman gets on and sort of start, oh can someone please hit number two, please number two.
And then like straight away, Oscar is like, no problem, hits the button for number two, looks, smiles and then just gets on with this day. And it's just a small thing, but I thought, what a nice young man, what a lovely young man Oscar Piaestry is. He really is, I remember I stopped racing in 2018 and then I came back from my last season in 2019 and in Freckin the year that he won it.
And I hadn't driven a race car in a year, we went to the last test of the year in Barcelona, I was with a new team and they were, they were, they were nowhere, they were really struggling and they kind of brought me in to try and help out to bring them back on the road where they were last and second, last the two other drivers and every test up to them.
And we did the test in Barcelona, I managed to stick the car around about the top five and it was all quite happy and we were sat at the airport in Barcelona and the easy year terminal. And I, the last time I had seen him was a few years before we were both coaching in F4 at the banking a croft circuit, which is some tiny track in Darlington for the people don't even know where that is.
And we sat and we were having a chat and I remember him saying, you know, I really hope you come back and it'd be great to see you and everything anyway fast forward two years. Seeming the airport and he literally made an effort to come up to me and just said, it's great to see you back, you know, I hope you have a great season, if there's anything I can do, whatever blah, blah, blah, let me know because you're done all the testing.
And I was just like, that's so telling of what a, like what a great character he is. There's no malice, there's no malicious, he just wants to show up and do a good job and focus on the job that he's doing and it's exactly the little story. It's like that where you go, not only is he a very fast competitive, he's actually a great guy who's fully deserving of the opportunity that he's given. So I think both of us agree and hopefully everyone listening agrees that we just want to see him grow.
And we'll be great to see him continue to rise to the very top of the sport. And who knows, maybe he's the guy to challenge Max for staff him. Let's call it, let's put it out there. Why not? Because he's got the pace. I genuinely believe he's got the pace, he's got the results with the experience and the car. Why not? He's beating everyone else. So why not? Your listening to the I love Oscar P. Astray podcast brought to you by Kalana Keif and Harry Vegman. No, let's do it.
I think Oscar P. Astray is the man that can beat Max for staff then. Oh, do you agree? Let us know. Get in touch in all the ways somehow. Okay, that's P. Astray chat. Let's move on, Joey. Because there were a few other things to sort of mull over in that race. And one of them was to do with time penalties that I'm quite intrigued about and a five second time penalty. Now cast our minds back to Singapore. Perez basically T-bones Alex Albon and finishes, you know, well up the road for him.
Gets a five second time penalty for it, but it doesn't lose him any spots. And he's ruined Alex Albon's point scoring race. He's now not scoring points. He does the same to, um, early tea, bone Kevin Magnuson into the hairpin in, uh, in Tazuka. Gets a five second time penalty for it. And I'm just like, you've just ruined Magnuson's race. Like Magnus I'm actually having a pretty decent race for the house and you've ruined it and could well have put him out of the race.
Now five seconds is, that's not enough, right? No, no, especially when the races are as long as they are. I mean, the penalties are so at junior level F four F three F two, fracker, the penalties are all the same because it's FIA systems, right? And if you get a five second penalty in a 20 minute race or a 30 minute race, it affects you much harder because the grids are very close and you have less time to build a gap.
Where it doesn't work in Formula One is you have so much longer in this so much variation in the difference in cars performance, especially in race trim. You can make up the difference very, very quickly, especially if the move like, for example, with Paris, he's gone in and you know, Harpoon came out in a house. He's going to build enough of a gap to the cars around and with who he's racing that he's not going to get penalized for it. And I think that's really telling exactly what you said.
Like if the penalty system actually worked, we wouldn't see drivers making repeat mistakes the same weekend because it's almost like if he knew that there was a harsher penalty, he wouldn't take his bigger risk. It's almost like, well, if I get it done, I'm going to lose more time being sad behind him anyway. So let's just see what happens. It's for me there needs to be, you know, I love letting drivers race.
I think that's, that's, I hate these like sort of like track limit five penalty, five second penalties when drivers go around the outside and it's, it's all about 50, 50, but if there's been an actual racing in it and there needs to be much stricter penalties for F1 drivers to avoid them doing because as you said, you know, we also saw it with Sergeant T-boneing, as always, Bottas wasn't it. Yeah. Exactly the same move.
It's just, it just needs to be stricter penalty so that you, you can't get away with doing it because it's so easy now to make a mistake and then let it get done and your five second penalty can be for something that's a little bit more, you either get rid of it entirely or you leave it for something that's a bit more 50, 50, well, it's, it's 60, 40 and you want to inflict a little bit of pain on the person that's done it rather than, oh, well, I've just harpooned someone I take in the mouth.
Their race is over and I can just make up the five seconds at some point because I'm driving massively under the limit anyway to save the times. That's my, I don't know what everyone else thinks. You know what? We don't see enough of any more in Formula One. Drive through penalties. I knew you were going to say I knew you were going to say I knew you were going to make your drive through your penalty. But where have they gone?
Now it's a five seconds or a 10 seconds penalty which you can serve within the race which means, it during a pit stop if you haven't done it. A drive through penalty I think would have done the trick because then you've got to trundle through the pits and you can't stop so you can't, you can't get any kind of strategy benefit from changing tires at the same time or doing a front wing tweak or whatever.
You literally have to drive at 80 or 60 kilometers an hour through the pits and that is your punishment. Where are they going? This is it. We're going to start over to hashtag bring back the drive through. Bring back the drive through. Bring back the drive. Bring back the drive. We're going to we're going to hear people shouting it from the rooftops after the next race.
And I agree with you actually I think the drive through is the perfect penalty to penalize drivers when they make big mistakes that severely impact other drivers. The drive through is great. It gives you time to think about your actions. It shines a lie on you as well because you've got to trundle through the pit lane as you said. Yeah. And it hurt. Bring back the drive through. Let's do it. Let's make it a thing. Can you remember the last drive through penalty? I cannot.
It's probably going to be easy. Yeah, there was one night in Singapore, Harry, but I cannot. I cannot for the life of me think when the last drive through penalty was I have a terrible memory, but I don't really remember a drive through penalty in recent times for something serious. That's the important thing. Yeah. I agree. Let's bring back the drive through. Yeah. Do you remember when stop and goes were a thing as well? Like I don't know. I don't know how long ago is that?
Well, you had like the proper 10 second stop goes, which also impacted you as well. I know the five seconds. Just five seconds is just not enough time. Five seconds is just not enough time. Let's make it more. Bring back the drive through. That's the answer there. We're sold. Bring them back. When do we make you the president of the FIA, Harry? When do we make you the president of the FIA? That's what we're going to do. First, first policy. First policy. Bring everything. Drive the penalty.
Drive the penalty. Yes, yes, the penalty. Jump start. Drive the penalty. Yeah, I'm pretty sure jump start. We get you a drive through penalty back in the day. Definitely. I'm pretty sure passed them out of the night. I picked up a couple of them. Oh, I don't know how it was. I don't know how it was. I don't know how it was. That was a bone I had to pick. There were some other intriguing things that were happening out there. There was a bit, it was kind of missed on the coverage.
But the two outpins got into a bit of a hussy fit towards the end of the race. Because Gasey was ahead of Ockon, but then Gasey got told he had to move out of the way and let Ockon through because early on in that race, Ockon had been trying to get a long zone, but that didn't work. So Gasey, so he let Gasey through to try his luck and Gasey didn't manage it either. So then Alpine said, well, you have to swap. But Gasey fought back by sort of saying, well, are you serious?
I outqualified the guy. He undercut me. I'm still in front of him. This is not a straightforward swap around. He did do it in the end, but he wasn't happy. Most two are already on the fringes of being friends. Yeah, but doesn't that show you exactly my point from earlier? No racing driver is ever happy. How can you use and excuse, I outqualified him. It doesn't matter. He's the strategy's worked out in his favor. It's technically his points. You were let through.
He didn't fight you to let you through to give you the chance to try and have a go at the driver ahead. It didn't work out. You switched to positions. The way it works is formula one. And that's where I kind of understand the other side of things from a team's point of thinking, it's not like this is the first time we've ever seen that level of logic being implemented to team orders. It's not like it's a new thing.
So to sit there and go, well, I was faster in qualifying and he undercut me and he's like, well, yeah, the race fell better for Ocon than that's just the way it is. But no racing driver is ever happy unless they're the one that's profiting. There's two things you take from this podcast. It's bring back the drive through. And it's only ever the driver that's ahead of their team, may that's ever happy. And that's formula one in a nutshell. Really, isn't it?
Yeah. Well, I think the Alpine debrief would have been a fun one to sit in on. And we kind of talked about Ricardo and Sudoda being confirmed for next year early Ron, but it's obviously a big talking point outside of the weekend. Do you think Lawson is prime candidate for Williams or do you think there's bigger work at play here with Sergio Perez's contract coming to an end next year? I wouldn't give. I wouldn't give up Lawson.
If I was part of the Red Bull Management, I would, there's no way I'd give up Lawson after the job he's doing Lawson's in a difficult situation though, because he's even come out publicly and said, hasn't he? He's not, he's not, once now he's here, he's not stepping back down again. So I think if they've got any hope of retaining him, it's guaranteed race seat in 25.
But then again, it's so difficult once you've got the momentum and you've got that, you know, it's not like it was one good result. It was, it's been several. He's been, he's been really, really exceptional since he came into Formula One and you kind of want to capitalize and have a momentum and keep building rather than having a year out. And yeah, I, where do you go though? That's the point because if you go to Williams, you have Alex Holbin as a number one.
It's, it's a team that's growing and is coming back on the up again. It's got great, you know, amazing history and great pedigree, but they've not been a front running team for a long time. They're trying to work their way back there and it's clear that the steps are working. But what do you stay with Red Bull and have that carrot of the, the main seed while you're watching Paris not perform? It's a, it's a really tricky one. It really, really is, isn't it?
And Red Bull have put themselves yet again in an absolutely brilliant position because of how, you know, cut throat they are with their driver program, but also how brilliant they are at identifying talent. Because surely they, they can loan out loss into Williams for a year. If they can have them, they'll, they'll pay for him to be there. So Williams don't have to fill out any money for a salary or anything like that.
They let him sit there for a year, get a full season under his belt, go alongside a known quantity, not just a Formula One, but also to Red Bull, Alex Albon. And like very much when they started Daniel Ricardo into his Spaniard racing all those years ago, just to gain some experience, they let Lawson race it out and, and then they have Ricardo and no, no, no, no, no, they've got the staff and in Paris and Red Bull.
And even if everybody lasts a full year, then suddenly they can go, all right, well, by Paris, thank you very much for a great career. Ricardo, you're going back to Red Bull, Lawson, you're in to Affertary or sorry, Sonoda, you haven't made the cut Lawson's now replacing you. This, that the other. Or equally, you get four, five races into next season. Perez ain't performing Sonoda, Ricardo, one of them ain't performing. Lawson then get started in straight away.
So they've got these two or multiple different sort of options to them. So once again, I mean, they've got the best driver program going, like no other team can compete. I just wonder though, if he does end up at Williams, are Williams really going to put themselves in a position where they allow a clause in the contract that says that Lawson can be pulled out at any time? Because especially if they're developing, you know, they've got the thing that Red Bull need. It's the other way around.
It's they have the product, they have the seat because that's the problem. Red Bull don't have enough seats. And I can't imagine in any way that Williams are going to allow Red Bull to obviously, they want Lawson because Lawson's doing a good job and it would fill up. But they do have other drivers, you know, they've got the other likes of Frederick Vestey who could jump up and do a fairly good job, I think, unknown quantity, but he's doing a really, really good job and F2.
And it's part of the Mercedes Jr. staple and I just wonder how you go about playing. And that's a big thing because you're in a great position if Perez fixes everything and they perform. But I just can't see there being a position where Williams wore a risk being damaged midway through the season because they lose one of their two drivers. And I just can't see that ever being the case. So it's a game of chest really isn't in between the two.
But the one thing that has to be made clear is that Lawson is 100% deserving of the full time seat to see what he can do with a full winter of prep building a team around him. And then, you know, seeing what he can do over the course of a year because the job that he's done in the last few races has been really, really exceptional.
I have heard rumblings that Rebel have promised Lawson a 2025 race seat where that is, who knows, but they said, look, be a reserve for one year and you will be in Formula One for sure in 2025, maybe even earlier. So I think Lawson has proven he could be a Grand Prix driver at a rather good one as well. Exciting times, isn't it in Formula One with that one remaining seat? But now it's time for our WTF1 podium.
We must nominate our star performer, our worst performer and our biggest surprise performer of the Grand Prix. Do you want to go first? Or me? What do you want to start with? You can go first, but where do you want to start? That's the real question. I want to start with worst performer just because that's all I can. We know who it is. We know who it is. We know who it is. We know who it is. Should we say it together? One, two, one. DeFrees. Sorry, I would have it's die hard.
Sorry, Nick DeFrees. So sorry Nick DeFrees. So sorry. You're in his land right now. Callan lives in the Netherlands. Literally. You're in Nick DeFrees. Please don't kick me out of the conger. I love him. I love Strew Waffles and I love Nick DeFrees. Okay, should we really do? Well, you said Perez, didn't you? Obviously, I'm going for Perez. Who are you going for? I'm going to go for Sargent. Okay, fine.
Perez tipped it for me because he literally he couldn't gain on the staff and at all throughout the weekend. He started off 7-10s down and he pretty much stayed 7-10s down from the staff and on pace. So that was my reasoning for that. Yes. Okay, you're up next. Who's your star? It's got to be the staffen. I mean, he made me my words. Didn't I just tell him by 20 seconds?
He didn't look challenged at all and any, there was no point in the weekend where I thought anyone was going to be him and that is where the other star performance and a shout out to Red Bull as well. What a job they've do. Well, that little corner, the staffen corner, what a job they've done this year and constructors champion. Just now that you've won the constructors and you're going to win the drivers, please slow yourself down. That's all I ask.
I'm going to be a little more magic like Singapore. Just a humble request from a humble request. Please slow yourself down. What about yourself? I mean, it's hard to look past the staffen, but just to be different, I'm going to go with McLaren as my star performance. Yes. Best of the rest. Second and third on the grid, converted that into a double podium, seamless race, pacey, didn't put a fit wrong. Yeah, McLaren, it is for me. I've got no arguments with that at all.
I've got Siri going off in my ear right now. I don't know how to help out. Siri want to make a contribution to who they think their star performer was. I don't know. I don't think that came on the recording. Anyway, look at him. Right at the end, biggest surprise performer. I was back to being, isn't it? A big surprise performer. Oh, I don't actually know. I'm not a bit nervous really. I'm very kind of, I, the reason I didn't choose McLaren is my star performer.
Do you think that was the surprise? I think it was, seeing both of them up there again. I, you know, I just, I can't get my head around. And this is maybe just my own, again, everything in Formula One is perception. I can't get my head around how they've managed to fix the problems in every weekend. They have a good weekend. I'm like, well, this is just clearly, this is a Singapore. This is a one off. And then they do it again and again and again and it just continues to surprise me.
And I, I, I think, Piaestry out qualifying Norris was an even bigger surprise to me. Obviously, Suzuki is a hugely demanding circuit. You know, what a, what a lap from him. And yeah, just the whole of McLaren in general and the strength of the unit was a, I continues to be a surprise for me. And maybe that means I'm just not paying enough attention and I must look better. Must do better. I still don't know. I still don't know who my biggest surprise perform would be.
There's no one that really screams surprise. Like, maybe the hardest thing is that I'm just trying to be difficult as well. That not going for the obvious. But like the Alpenes, both getting points, something that's, you know, bit of a surprise. But yeah, I don't, you know, don't really have one. Red Bull surprised me by sending parrots back into the race. There you go. We'll have that one. I think surprise was a surprise. Perez was a bit of a surprise before once with me.
It's a track that traditionally is kind of quite well and he was just nowhere. That's another point I'd say, you know, he, I know you've already used it, but it's kind of worth mentioning, you know, we've seen him get, we've seen him get great results there, different generation of cars. We've seen him get great results there in a salva that came up when I was looking through the, the preview for the weekend.
I forgot about that when he was the tyre whisper back then and yeah, it's traditionally a track. He kind of goes quite well. I thought he was going to do better, but obviously, yeah, as they say calamity. Perez needs to channel his 2012 Salva days and and and use that against for stappum because he did have some bloody good results. Um, so it was his teammate that was on the podium. Come here with Kabiashi, 2012 Japan in a salva. What a year that was for the Japanese driver.
I think I got a bit emotional that weekend just to see him on the podium. It's great. Where is Camille now? Is he racing WECK? Yeah, he's like the boss of Toyota. Like he is literally he employs himself. No, he's not the boss. I tell you what. So Camille Kabiashi is team principal of the Toyota WECK team, right? In which he also actually, does he still race in it? I think he does still race in it. I'm afraid I saw I saw he was in Fuji a couple of weeks ago. Wasn't he?
Because I saw this amazing edit on Instagram that someone had did of like a cut back to when he got the podium and says, oh, it was so well done. And that's. Oh, he's team principal and driver. Then he also raced like in a NASCAR race the other week for Toyota. He does super formula for like fun. And you know who the boss of Toyota like motorsport is now. I'll go tell me. Kazuki Nakajima. Remember him? Wow. Yeah. This is a blast. Yeah. Crazy man. Crazy. Well, that's what they're up to.
That brings us nicely to the end. We're just trying to get Camille on. I think he'd be good. Come on KK. We need you on. We're out of time, but in the meantime, make sure you're following, subscribe to WTF1 socials and YouTube channel and me, Harry Benjamin and him, Karen O'Keefe. And we'll see you next week.
We've got a non-race week show, but we'll look forward to Qatar where Max was that and will become a world champion once more probably after the sprints, which will be a little bit of a sort of, I don't know, a little bit under the radar, but he was always going to be a champion. Because no one expected him to become championed in the Harry. He's just like, he's just overrised. And he's just like, oh, do it in the sprint. Like, oh, clearly, no. Maybe, maybe.
Okay, look, like they have the option here. We've sent out a humble request just to drag it out a little bit longer. We had Nickel on the podcast last week. And the longer the later layer, it's the less time that Max has to go on their podcast. So we know he hates podcasts. We know he hates podcasts. That's where I was going, but this week found out. So I'm thinking, I'm really keeping it straws here, like, because I have nothing left.
I'm really hoping that means that he's not going to go on their Qatar. And that's my two senses to why Max was that more not win the Qatar Grand Prix. You are a clever man. You are a clever man. You're clever, then you look. I'll give you that. Thank God this is a podcast. Alrighty, we'll see you next week. Bye.