Chapter 1: What is the main topic of the Australian GP Driver Ratings?
Hello everybody and welcome back to the B1 Podcast with Matt and Tommy. Driver Ratings is officially back. I know you've all been just absolutely chomping at the bit to come and disagree with us with whatever we grade every single 22 of the Formula 1 drivers out of 10. Tommy, how excited are you that this series is back and I think it might well be more difficult than ever.
I think it's the most difficult one I've ever done. We'll learn a bit more as we go throughout the season, like everyone is going to in these regulations. But yes, it's certainly going to be difficult, but that also means disagreements and differing opinions, which is what makes this series fun. And a lot of variables as well.
At this point, it is hard to know what all of the drivers have gone through. What's a driver? What's a battery? What's harvesting? So take the ratings, as always, with a pinch of salt, and we'll get into the news, shall we? So let's begin with a different driver to normal. Of course, we have 22. And we're going to start with Sergio Perez. Qualified 18th, finished 16th.
my grade for Sergio Perez is a 6 out of 10. I think it perfectly reflects a better than straight down the middle performance this weekend. He outqualified Bottas, albeit, here we go, variable number one of 3,000 is that Bottas had some problems in qualifying with shock, the battery, which cost him a lot of time. But still, I have to say, Perez finished the race in a Cadillac.
He battled Liam Lawson. I saw some great quotes already between Lawson and Perez. Absolutely phenomenal. Back and forth already. Lawson basically saying, I don't know why we're fighting. Like, it's for the world championship when it's for 16th. And Perez was like, well, I just kind of wanted to fight. So...
I'm kind of more with Perez on this one in the fact that it's a race and if they're fighting for a position then fight for position so yeah I mean look you can't really do much more with Cadillac right now but a 6 out of 10 I feel quite comfortable with so that's what I'm going for I have gone for a 6 out of 10 as well for Sergio Perez. I completely agree with you.
You have to go for more than straight down the middle for Sergio Perez because the fact that he's had a good qualifying, he's finished the race, the fact that he's battling anyone in a car like that, albeit the fact that Lawson obviously had the problem at the start, which is why he was further back, but the fact that he's able to be racing other cars, he's got it to the finish.
I think a 6 out of 10 is definitely what it should be. We need more Perez Lawson head-to-head. That's all I'll say. I need it every single race weekend because it is so, so good. I think Lawson also said something about the fact that Perez isn't over it, which I think is just crazy. Okay, the beef continues. The fans gave Perez a 5 out of 10. Valtteri Bottas, qualified 19th, did not finish.
I've gone for a 5 out of 10 for Valtteri Bottas. I feel like Cadillac could be getting a lot of 5s because they're on their own, essentially. It's a new car. They're learning a lot. It feels like the car is falling apart a lot of the time. Both of them had their mirrors fall off in practice. bits falling off here and there.
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Chapter 2: How do Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas compare in their ratings?
And unfortunately for him, you know, his penalty that wasn't his fault for the mechanic being working on his car just before the start has undone a chance of anything really in the race. But he was off his teammate Gasly in qualifying and the race. So I'll go straight down the middle with a five. Okay, the fans gave Franco a 5 out of 10 as well. Pierre Gasly qualified 14th, finished 10th.
I've gone for a 7 out of 10 for Pierre Gasly. It's a good result for Gasly, but they struggled a bit more than I expected and maybe I expected more from Gasly this weekend. I know the Alpine didn't look... As good as we thought, but it is a much better car. I'm also amazed he did not get a penalty for the Ocon collision. That seemed like quite the move with quite big contact.
which he got damage from and floor damage but you can argue it was kind of his own doing with quite an aggressive move but he got away with it and got a point for Alpine which I think is a good result considering after qualifying they were much further down than we expected.
Yeah, I am going to go for an 8 out of 10 for Pierre Gasly at scoring a point in a pretty chaotic race in a car that perhaps didn't deserve to be there.
Of course, you know, there are DNFs and things that have occurred with other drivers, but at this stage of the season, you've got to kind of give the plaudits to drivers that have done pretty well in what I would say Alpine is maybe the seventh, eighth fastest car at the moment. So I've gone for an 8 out of 10. He fought Ocon really hard, really hard indeed, and
Don't know whether it was penalty worthy. It was very much on the line. It could have gone either way. He got away with that. He still had damage to his front wing and was able to hold off Ocon after that little bit of wheel to wheel action. So, yeah, I think scoring a point in the first race of the season is a very good performance from Gasly. The fans gave him an eight as well.
Gabriel Bortoletto qualified 10th, finished 9th. Bortoletto is receiving an eight out of 10 from me as well. I think the Audi, you know, I look at the results and I think I feel like Bortoletto could have finished seventh with the pace in the car of the Audi. They went for a two-stop strategy, which was an aggressive one.
But at the same time, I do genuinely put the car performance of Audi up in that sort of best of the rest area, maybe slightly behind V-Car over one lap. But still, a really great start to the season for Bortoletto, qualifying in P10, making Q3 and then having that problem with the car, of course. But then still had a very solid race and just missed out behind Lindblad in the end.
I have gone for an 8 out of 10 for Gabriel Bortoletto. Of course, the difficulty to judge here is that his teammate didn't do the race. But the fact that he managed to, you know, Gabi managed a great qualifying to get into Q3, even though his car then broke down itself. And a good result as well, but could have even been higher at the end.
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Chapter 3: What were Franco Colapinto's performance highlights?
I gave it a seven, yeah. no no no don't you dare you sit with your six and you lock that in who is the fanboy of Orlando Alonso in this podcast I've gone for a seven because his first part of that race was absolutely brilliant the first couple of laps was awesome to watch Alonso putting himself in P10 is ridiculous there's part of me
no evidence to suggest this whatsoever, that he has, like, got half a fuel tank in there and just... He knows he's going to come into the pits at some point, so he's just gone, full send, I'm going to try and make some headlines and I'll come into the pits with a problem. Maybe that's what it was. It was secret refuelling in the garage when he came back into the race.
Yeah, it could well have been. No, I'm sure that's just a silly thought of mine, but... It was so great to see. He was not scared in the slightest. He shoved his nose wherever he wanted to. And that's the Fernando Alonso that we all miss actually seeing up at the front. So I've gone for a seven because that was a standout, cool thing to do. So there you go.
I thought you were going to interject with... No, you may want to give him a seven now, but even I'm like, it's like a 6.5, but we're not doing halves. This is our first half grade of the year. Yeah, I mean, look, it's going to be, there's not going to be many things he can do in that card this year, probably. So let's go seven. You give me a free pass there.
The first editor rage-inducing moment where we change our grades halfway through. The fans, they didn't care. Five out of ten for Fernando Alonso. Same as Lance Stroll. Disgusting. You're all washed. Okay, Tommy, let's not start an argument with our fans. Come on. Let's not do it. Let's now go to Arvid Lindblad. Qualified P9, finished the race in eighth. Hmm, this is very intriguing.
What do we do? I'm going to give him a 10 out of 10. Harvey Lindblad's getting a 10. Straight up. Straight out the blocks. Lock it in. It's beautiful. It's wonderful. I'm factoring in here that is literally his first race. That is his first race in his F1 career. And this is the beauty of our driver ratings.
It's the beauty of us all having an opinion is that some people will just look at a driver's race no matter what their background is and give them a grade. Yeah. I think what we do is try and factor in external things as well, like experience, like, you know, whatever it might be.
And that's what I'm doing with this, because I think if it was any other driver, it's a 9 out of 10, great performance, great start to the season. I think for Lindblad, he put himself up to third place at the start of the race. And that, I mean, to be fair, before that, it's worth mentioning, great qualifying, missed out on the final run, but ultimately still got into Q3 in his first F1 race.
And then to be completely and utterly fearless to get stuck in with the top drivers. Yes, he fell back. Of course, he's going to fall back. Ultimately got beaten by Berman, but I've been so impressed by his first weekend in Formula One that I have to give him a 10 out of 10. So if you disagree, I respect your opinion, but I don't care. I don't. It has to be a 10 out of 10.
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Chapter 4: How did Pierre Gasly perform in the Australian GP?
I like the little updates that you get. Maybe it's a low 0.1 or a high 0.1. Very, very small criticism. But I just wanted to talk about it because it is a change and it's something that we've not seen. I don't know the last time we saw...
it to one decimal place considering all of qualifying is to the normal yeah i saw a lot of people getting very irate about this i didn't even really notice it in the race which probably suggests that i didn't really care that much and it didn't bother me um in qualifying you absolutely have to go to those decimal places because the gaps are a lot closer and it means so much more because every millisecond counts in qualifying because it can change a position
in a race i'm fine with the timing tower looking a lot cleaner and ditching two numbers that don't really mean a lot uh when you can still see that someone's 0.7 behind so they're within the uh kind of oh my god i nearly called it attack mode we are literally becoming formulary um jesus to be able to have the overtake mode and the the button so
Yeah, I personally, I don't see why this is such a big issue, particularly with 22 cars now on the timing tower. I think you need to simplify as much as possible. And I'm not against it. I think the two numbers missing by literally three races will have forgotten it even exists. I disagree. I'm looking at it right now. It's angering me. So I get the people that are angry that it's gone. Okay.
Because I know we're saying it's 22 drivers on the grid, but that's long ways that it's... Yeah, but... Wide ways. But it is a case of, like, why was it even needed in the first place? Is it because... Because when they do the intervals, usually it's just the numbers, right? Even if someone's a lap down, I'm pretty sure they show the gap.
Is it because they think the back markers are going to be so far behind that they're going to be like hundreds of seconds and it's going to be too big? So they've had to shorten the end. So Cadillac being 204 seconds behind, Because I don't know. I certainly mean, yeah, like if it's... I don't know. I'm just, I'm spitballing. But it's, yeah, I don't know. It's... I don't mind it.
I'm looking at it now. Change back. Okay. This is the number one thing wrong with F1 right now. Of all you watched. Everyone's going to be happy. Of all you watched in that race and the harvesting and super clipping. Right, let's head to Alex Albon, qualified 15th, finished 12th. I've gone for a 6 out of 10 for Alex Albon.
A P12 is very anonymous, but he's delivered a slightly better than straight down the middle grade, like a few people have done this weekend.
and I don't think correct me if I'm wrong there's been a more anonymous team this weekend than Williams they've just kind of been there they've not been so awful that it's been embarrassing but they've equally not been so good that they've surprised people and they've just kind of
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