Chapter 1: What was the hosts' reaction to winning the Autosport Awards?
Hello everybody and welcome back to the P1 Podcast with Matt and Tommy. If you're noticing a gravelly voice, it's when you go to places and talk to a lot of people and you project your voice and now it sounds like this.
If you missed it, we're going to just start it and say right now, we went to the Autosport Awards last night, not hungover, neither of us are hungover, we were very sensible because we knew about this Mercedes car launch. However... My brain decided, you know what you need, Matt, at 7 a.m. after going to bed at like half two? It's some adrenaline.
Why don't you just remember everything that happened at the Autospot Awards? We won. We won. We won. We won. And it's thanks to you because it was the fan vote. We are creators of last year, I guess. Yeah, maybe, yeah. I still haven't processed it. My brain is very sleepy. But thank you.
Yeah, can't thank you enough. We did a little video on P1 Extra. Go check that out if you've not seen it and subscribe to that channel because, yeah, we just wanted to share our thoughts while it was still fresh in the mind and it's still very much fresh in the mind. It was an amazing night. So apologies that we're a little bit...
groggy and tired, but we're going to be chatting about the Mercedes, of course. Can we call it a launch?
It's a render. So Mercedes, they are doing a car launch.
I believe they're doing it after when they get a car, but obviously so many of the teams are just doing these livery launches so they can say like, here's our design. They have the moment in the sun, but it's so secretive at the moment. There's so much going on with the new rules. There'd be so much changing. You know, Mercedes are a prime example when we went into 2022.
I remember them dropping those renders of their car. Of course, they ended up with that zero side pod concept. It looked completely different. And do you remember everyone sharing those renders of side by side versus the real car? So don't be surprised if Mercedes have a six-wheeled car when it comes to testing or something, and it's completely different.
Yes, because they don't want to give away any secrets. This is not to show off what innovations they've done. It's to show off their livery, and that's about it. Well, let's speak about it. Let's speak about it. I really like it. I'm a big fan. I wondered whether Tommy is going to say, I don't like this, I don't like this, I don't like this. That's fine.
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Chapter 2: What are the details surrounding the Mercedes car launch?
But looking at this, the front angle, great. Some of the side angle. And I think when we see it on track, I know a little bit more as well of how much the silver parts... Ring the Tommy when we see it on track. When we see it on track, because it can change your opinion. But for me, I'm looking at that going...
graphic designer calm down, you don't need to have too many ideas on one thing because the stars, as you mentioned, on the back, I don't like the stripes, basically. You don't like the stripes? No, I think they're really cheesy. I think they are too garish and the bit on the back that I think is the coolest bit about the Mercedes is the faded stars.
So why you'd put stripes on it as well, stars and stripes, are they American? I don't know, very weird. No, they're not. They're not, exactly, they're not. It just screams like, too many ideas and a lot of the time with the best F1 liveries in my opinion, it really is like less is more and I really don't like the stripes at all.
That is the one thing that I saw and I was like, particularly the rear three quarters when you can see the stripes and the stars together, it's like that's a lot going on. That's kind of my thoughts on it. It didn't wow me. I think initially you see it from certain angles. It's like, that's really cool. But I was just like, those stripes, not for me.
No, not for you.
There's a lot to Adidas, I would assume. I don't know.
People have been saying... You would say, yeah, you assume, but I don't... Adidas, I don't think it's four.
No, it's not. It's three stripes. So I don't really understand why. Like if it had been, ironically, I'd even say the Adidas stripes would have looked cooler because it's like the three stripes and they're bigger and it's like a pattern. But why there's like four or five, maybe it's, is it four? Yeah, four. So four or five.
eight championships, four on each side, I don't know, maybe that's what it is. Oh, the Popo are out. The police are here to arrest me for my opinions.
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Chapter 3: How does the 2023 Mercedes livery differ from previous designs?
I am now even more concerned that there's going to be a Mercedes dominated era. That's all we're going to say. That's the concern has been greatly heightened. And I think Ferrari are finished. So good. I've lost all hope immediately. That's fantastic. So, of course, no car launch renders at 9 a.m., as Tommy said.
Nixie underscore one asks, should teams be obliged to do a live stream when revealing their car?
Should they? I don't know. The renders, maybe the fact that it could have been a video would have been nice. In this day and age, Haas is a great example. They drop renders, don't they? They had the renders of the car. It's not the real car. It is easy enough for teams... They dropped a video. Yeah, they dropped a video. And I like that.
So even though it's not a car launch, you don't have the build-up and a physical car, it is a little bit nicer to have that anticipation, obviously, where you can watch a video and there's a little... Even if it's 30 seconds of lights and teasing a little bit, it's like, oh, this is... Because that's what Haas obviously did. rather than just going, here's the car. But yeah, they dropped it.
They do love a little 9 a.m. launch Mercedes here in the UK. I don't know if it's the Mercedes admin just gets into work and he's like, no messing about, come on, post it. 901, clocked out, see you later. But yeah, they do... They do love dropping some renders and sometimes Mercedes do do a big extravagant car launch.
Maybe they're scarred because the one memory I have of a Mercedes car launch was when Lewis announced that he was leaving Mercedes for Ferrari. And then it was just kind of like they had to do this car launch and all the press were there just wanting him to ask him about Ferrari. They're probably like, let's just... Yeah, they didn't want that news to come out just then, did they?
I think with the renders, it's kind of lazy. I'm not going to lie to you. It feels lazy. The fact that... They, as you say, they haven't made a video, they haven't done like an anticipatory 1 minute 30 like Haas did or 1 minute 50, whatever they did. Now that's, I think, the least you can do.
Of course, as we mentioned, they are going to do a car launch from what we understand later on, I think early Feb. So, like... that's the thing that doesn't make sense to me the most is why would you do a car launch? And they've done this several times now. Why would you do a car launch when we all know what it looks like?
And that's the main thing everyone tunes into is what is the car going to look like?
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Chapter 4: What are the hosts' contrasting opinions on the new Mercedes design?
So it is a little bit different because, you know, I'm calling it now like Mercedes will do a car launch and you bet 99.9% of the Twitter comments are already seeing this. Yeah.
Well, yeah, exactly. So, yeah, it's not as if Mercedes don't have money either. That's my main gripe. Like with Haas and smaller teams, I can understand maybe why they would just put a video out there and be like, cool, see you at the season. This obviously is the first of two parts, as we've mentioned, but it feels like I know the movie ending before we even tune it out.
It's all tiny and we'll forget about it come Australia, but this is what we're going to talk about in January. It's coming up. Next question comes in from P1 Patriot member Lex Wakeman. With the rumoured Mercedes engine advantage this year, how many potential race wins could Antonelli have? Podium in his first year, maybe eyes on the championship in the second?
I think that sort of trajectory makes sense for me. I think Kimi, what we saw last year, were moments of brilliance, but not nearly enough to suggest that he can win a world championship yet. I think that's doing George Russell a massive disservice if we say that Kimi, from what we have seen last year, will be able to beat George. Yeah, imagine predicting him for the world championship, crazy.
I imagine predicting Charles Leclerc to win the World Championship. I'm already massively regretting that. I genuinely think there's more chance of Nico Hülkenberg winning the World Championship. But back to Mercedes, back to Kimi. I think this makes perfect sense. I would expect him to get a few wins. I'd expect him to be on the podium a lot.
What kind of step up we're going to see this year, and I think we've sort of explored that a little bit, is unknown. If we see an Oscar Piastri-esque step up, then perhaps. Kimi does have the talent, he has the raw speed.
And, you know, I'm in two minds whether these new regulations will actually play into the hands of the rookies and the not as much experience because they don't have as much muscle memory to sort of overturn. So there's that side of things. That's, again, an unknown, a bit of an exciting prospect for Kimi Antonelli fans. But I don't think he's challenging for a championship in the first.
But if we see a big step this year, then why not in 2027?
Yeah, obviously I predicted him champion. And, you know, that mainly was at the end saying that it's because for me, George Russell is the obvious choice. And I didn't want to like do a predictable choice, which again, like it is so odd that it's the predictable choice when he's never won the world championship. But I am like...
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Chapter 5: What elements of the Mercedes livery do the hosts appreciate or dislike?
The cars aren't going to be starting up. There's so much to learn. And this is the thing with it. So Antonelli, if Mercedes are clear, he's gonna win races, surely. And the championship is whether he's got that consistency because we know George Russell is one of, if not the most consistent driver on the grid. That's something he's always, been, even when he was at Williams and stuff.
I think George is obviously the favourite, but Antonelli surely, if the car's good, he's going to have a great season because he's got a very high ceiling and he showed those moments last year where towards the end of the season, like Brazil, he was amazing in that race and the whole weekend was clear of George Russell. It needs to be more than two or three races a year.
Exactly. So I think it's quite clear where we both stand on how Mercedes are going to do this season. I will sort of say on top of this that we can't discount McLaren. We really can't discount McLaren. I think as well. not for the championship, but for great results.
Again, Williams, it's the Mercedes-powered cars that genuinely, it's not, we are thinking, of course, Mercedes will have the advantage because they're the ones developing the engine. They're always going to have first dibs in terms of the information and everything as it comes in.
But I think it would be very silly to say that McLaren don't have a chance of winning the World Championship back to back. They're not being spoken about. We've sort of, of course, said that we think it's unlikely just from what we've been hearing.
But we've heard many a rumour in the last 25 years of watching Formula One, and a lot of them involving Ferrari being the fastest car after testing and then ending up not being the fastest car. So there are plenty of rumours that go around, especially into new regulations that don't come true.
Yeah, you never know. And yeah, even if Mercedes are clear, You've got McLaren, as you say. You've got Williams, who are on an amazing trajectory as well, who are going to have and have put everything into this regulation. You've got McLaren, who you could argue were obviously very, very, very good last year.
And maybe that's helped them in being able to put more focus onto the new year, because they already had a really good car from the get-go. And you can't count them out.
It is funny there how all the talk is that Mercedes engine and it goes back to the prediction that I made about Max Verstappen not winning a race and I know it's triggered a lot of people, but it is my concern that we are going to get a situation where if that Mercedes engine is clear, it's an engine formula, if they have found this trick that makes them half a second clear,
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