Chapter 1: What are the highlights from the Miami GP sprint weekend?
Hello everybody and welcome back to the P1 Podcast with Matt and Tommy in flesh. Finally, finally, finally Tommy's off from holiday, you know, finally turned up to work and we are here in person to do our driver ratings. Very exciting. We're in Adelaide. We've got our show literally tonight and Tom Bellingham, how are we feeling?
Very good, really excited for the shows, and yeah, great to be together in person again for our favourite podcast, Driver Ratings, of course.
Indeed, and sprint weekends are the easiest ones to grade, so let's get straight into the news, shall we? And begin with Sergio Perez. Sprint qualified 18th, finished the sprint in 16th, qualified for the main race in 20th, and finished the race in 16th. Sergio Perez is receiving... A 7 out of 10. Had a great weekend, Sergio Perez, in a Cadillac that appears to slightly be moving forward.
I say moving forward, still absolutely nowhere near the main sort of midfield teams. But he, despite having a little bit of qualifying problems, I believe, for the main quali in particular, Bottas did cook him there. That was the only time where any Bottas cooking happened and Perez was very strong in both races, it has to be said. So yeah, I think that he is fully deserving of a 7 out of 10.
And the Cadillac is always a little bit like, oh, they've had problems here and problems there. And it's nice to see, despite there were some minor things that were going on, a pretty strong performance from Perez. So a 7 out of 10. I have gone... He's already changing. First grade, he's already changing.
I'm thinking it was going to be a six, but I think you've convinced me for a seven.
Who is the Perez stan here?
Because I believe it was you. Well, no, it's because of the other person's grade that we'll speak to afterwards, his teammate's grade. But no, I will go for a seven for Perez because... Yeah, it's a difficult one because of the Cadillac and where it is, but you're right.
He's had a strong showing and realistically, there's not much he can do in that car other than maybe be an Aston Martin, which he did in both the sprint and the main race.
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Chapter 2: How did Sergio Perez perform during the Miami GP?
As for the penalty, which clearly you've downgraded him for, there was a problem with his switch. So I am going to give him the benefit of the doubt of the reason why he did not qualify.
slow down in time for his stop as well as being on one of the strangest clearly gambles of all time from Cadillac putting the soft tyres on after the early safety car clearly hoping and praying for rain so that it would then be a perfectly timed switch to maybe to the intermediates so they went for a really weird gamble with Bottas but I mean you may as well right you're not scoring points unless you get
A thunderstorm, well not a thunderstorm, it'd be cancelled. A rainstorm at the perfect time. So look, it was a bit of a weird gamble and kind of one of the reasons why he was so far back. So I'm going to go for a five. Perez was still better, but I don't think Bottas had exactly the most optimum strategy. The fans gave Bottas a five out of ten as well.
Franco Colapinto, sprint qualified eighth, finished the sprint in 10th, qualified for the main race in eighth and finished seventh. I am going for a nine out of 10 for Franco Colapinto. The reason it's not a 10, it's close to a 10. I think it's one of, if not his best weekend in Formula One so far.
Is the sprint, I think that there was an opportunity, of course, starting in eighth where he may well have scored a point, but it was Gasly that was able to finish eighth in the sprint. But as for the main race, he was beautifully controlled.
Of course, there was the contact with Hamilton, which of course didn't get penalized for, it was a racing incident, but he was fortunate, I guess, to not come away with much damage himself there as he lost the back end and took out a lot of Hamilton's car. But all but pretty much positives for Franco this weekend. You know, to finish seventh in the end after Charles Leclerc's penalty. God damn.
Charles Leclerc's penalty. Seventh is a phenomenal result from Colapinto and exactly what he needed. So yeah, nine out of ten.
I've gone for a 9 out of 10 as well for Colapinto. Almost the perfect weekend for him. The only blip is probably the contact with Hamilton and also the sprint race where, to be fair to him, he was caught up in the fact that he was side by side with Verstappen and Hamilton at the start, had nowhere to go, and that meant he dropped a little bit further back.
unlucky not to score but I think his qualifying has really let him down this year and that's where he's kind of been way off off Gasly's pace but for him to beat Gasly in both sessions it's not a case of you know the only reason he's got a fantastic result here is because Gasly's ended up upside down and out the race and
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Chapter 3: What were Valtteri Bottas's results in the Miami GP?
What a huge achievement in Aston Martin. But a decent set of results. Two 15th places. How is that decent? Based on, you know...
alonso is going to win the championship this year in a new rocket ship uh but this is where us and martin are and yeah we didn't see maybe when we've given him a seven where he's going around the outside of five cars into turn one and having a bit of fun so it can't be any higher than than a six but a little nod to the fact that that he's got two 15th places
Two 15th places and finishing both of the races, which is always great. Yeah, I've gone for a six as well. Was fighting Lance at times, but of course beat him ultimately in the end of both. Outqualified him. I say outqualified. I mean, he still was outside the 107% rule in the sprint qualifying because of the fact he had track limits, but still was the better Aston Martin driver.
And yeah, I've gone for a six out of 10, although we hardly ever see him on the broadcast because he's so far back. The fans gave Alonso a five. Do better, they have said. Next up, Arvid Lindblad. Sprint qualified 15th. Finished the sprint and did not finish the sprint. He didn't start the sprint. Qualified 16th for the main race and finished 14th.
I have gone for a 5 out of 10 for Arvid Lindblad. I think it was a very... I just, yeah, a very anonymous weekend once again. It feels as though sort of trailing off at the moment after such a phenomenal start to his season. He's just not been able to pull it together as much as I would like to see. I don't think V-Car bar particularly fast, but I think there were opportunities this weekend.
Let's not forget Liam Lawson was eighth in the race at the start of the Sunday one, although obviously that didn't end too well. So yeah, Arvid, I think a five kind of very much just visually demonstrates how anonymous it has been. So yeah, no notes really.
It screams a five out of 10 driver ratings grade, doesn't it? I've also gone for a five for Arvid Lindblad to give him a bit of...
credit or forgiveness it's a very problematic weekend with a lot of issues similar to to the Audis and in the sense that his car wasn't working a lot of the time so he didn't get much data from you know the sprint that he didn't even start which never helps things but yeah very anonymous from him after his heroics in in Melbourne but uh
not a huge amount to say really he was just very much in that midfield pack uh in the race and um yeah five out of ten the fans agree they've gone for a five out of ten as well liam lawson sprint qualified 16th finished the sprint in 14th qualified for the main race 11th and did not finish I've gone for a 6 out of 10 for Liam Lawson. A fantastic qualifying in what might have been.
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Chapter 4: How did Franco Colapinto fare in the Miami GP?
I've gone for a 5 out of 10 for Charles Leclerc. This is a really, really difficult grade, I have to say, and I do understand why some people would give him higher than this, give him lower than this, because at the end of the day, he was so strong, so fast... Yeah, Ferrari didn't have the pace to win, but he was comfortably quicker than Hamilton or Weekend.
But I have to downgrade him for a big error. And it's a big, big error. You know, he was going to finish that race in third, even fourth. You could have been forgiven for just settling for fourth. But to spin...
and then to basically just and you understand it in the panic of oh my god i've just thrown this thrown this away cutting all the corners which then threw him down even more um it's a it's a massively costly mistake when he was going to get a fantastic result um really really strong even if it was just a fourth place
and for him to drop all the way down to basically behind an alpine a midfielder i have to be harsh so i've gone for a five perfect um trying not to be you know blinded by my fanboyism
But I still back it. I'm going to go for a 6 out of 10 for Charles Leclerc. It was a 9, bordering on a 10 if he'd finished third in the main race as well, in a Ferrari that absolutely was not the second fastest car this weekend. I'd say third, Max Verstappen in that Red Bull, who knows. But the Ferrari was not... Not ultimately that quick this weekend.
I think Charles was, now that we've seen kind of more leaning towards with these tweaks with the regs, a bit more pushing, right? A little bit more down to driver skill and not just battery. And I think Charles Leclerc was having such an amazing weekend. But it's a huge error.
And I can understand probably three different grades for Charles Leclerc, depending on how heavily you weigh this against him. Of course, had he crashed a bit out the race, then it would be lower than this. He managed to just about crawl his way to the finish and picks up a drive-through penalty, which drops him down to eighth. And something I want to discuss because...
I've seen a lot of people talking about this, and I've looked into it a little bit more, is the consistency of this penalty. So Lewis Hamilton at Singapore got a five-second penalty for doing what I believe is very similar to what Charles Leclerc did when he had no brakes, which is still a car failure, which is still a driving a car in an unsafe manner.
And Charles did that on the last lap when he'd had the incident. And I can understand if both of them got 20 seconds or both of them got five. So I was quite surprised to see the 20 seconds because when you look at the document as well, they don't penalize him for the unsafe condition of the car, which I think is mental because I saw his left front wobbling. The reason was insane.
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Chapter 5: What was Pierre Gasly's performance like in the Miami GP?
My goodness gracious me. On the breaks, he was phenomenal and was not caring in the world who he was going up against. So we move to Kimi Antonelli. Sprint qualified second, finished the sprint race in sixth, qualified first and finished the main race in first. I've gone for a nine out of ten for Kimi Antonelli.
Such a shame with the sprint race for him because, of course, that lost him a handful of positions due to the track limits. Apart from that. Yeah, had he finished without that penalty, he could well be knocking on the door of a 10 again. But sadly for him, that did not happen.
In the main part of the race weekend, qualified first in a Mercedes that could have easily been beaten by McLaren this weekend with the upgrades that they had brought in comparison to Mercedes that had brought hardly anything. And then finished the race in first as well, despite having a poor getaway once again. It's a really strong performance from Antonelli.
You're kind of almost forgetting already that this is his second season and that he is putting in performances that will make George Russell and probably the rest of the championship contenders, if you put McLaren in there, quake in their boots because this Kimi Antonelli, if he continues this up, could be world champion come the end of the year, but he has to put a consistent season together.
So nine out of 10 from me.
I've also gone for a 9 out of 10 for Kimi Antonelli it's another 9 out of 10 I feel like his last three race wins have all been 9 out of 10 because they haven't been perfect his race was fantastic and for him to put the margin he did on George Russell looked so much quicker than Russell this weekend. But it can't be a 10 because of that unfortunate sprint weekend.
So talking about the bad, you know, the fact that he got those track limit warnings did in the main race as well. But that's the kind of bad side to his weekend. But there's a lot more good than bad. And like, what a fantastic performance where. We've had this big break. How is he going to handle the pressure of leading the world championship?
Well, apparently very well winning the race again, qualifying first, you know, in a crazy race as well, where people were spinning off, making mistakes and stuff.
kept it together yes maybe a little bit fortunate that that he got that that undercut to to win the race but it's still a fantastic drive for from Kimi because the Mercedes certainly wasn't anywhere near like a clear of the field like it has been so what what a start to Antonelli season and it's going to be fascinating to see if he can continue that form because
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