Chapter 1: What were the highlights from the Chinese GP qualifying session?
Hello everybody and welcome back to the P1 Podcast with Matt and Tommy. Thick and fast, another session done and dusted, qualifying for the Chinese Grand Prix. We have our result and we have, I would say, a finely poised race for tomorrow. I am rather excited for it, I'll be completely honest.
And I would say, of the three qualifying sessions, of course including the sprint qualifying, that was the best qualifying... We've had, and that's because of George Russell's car. Thank you, George. How are you feeling, Tommy? I'm feeling good. I think all the complaints about qualifying were justified.
It was very confusing and different and not what we liked, but it's clear to see that everything is...
a bit better here and i think as well like it just proves that what we want to see more than anything is competition at the front and when we saw you know q3 where it looked like it was going to be close between quite a few drivers felt a bit more like the qualifying evolved didn't it when when you're actually seeing people going for for pole position and it's close which at the end of the day that's what we all want as formula one fans
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Question from P1 Patreon member Cesar. Should they just directly start quali with Q2, since both Williams, Astons and Cadillacs are always going to go out in Q1? Then in brackets, just kidding.
and you should be just kidding how dare you slander my team williams um look science wasn't far away from from making it through to q2 i think he was a couple of tenths and yes that is quite a big margin in formula one but it's not an unassailable margin and i do firmly believe that one williams will uh start to knock on the door of q2 hopefully in in the not too distant future um but
Yeah, it's a joke. It's the two by two of the Williams-Astons and Cadillacs once again. But look, it's not the same as sprint quali because Valtteri Bottas outqualified Lance Stroll. And I think that, I mean, it goes straight in the head to head in my favor of the Bottas camp. Come on, Bottas believers. We love to see it. You'll start a quali then. You'll start a quali Bottas.
Yeah, and I know as well also that the head-to-head between Perez, that basically his car just could not stop falling apart. His engine cover came off at the end of the sprint, which I found was absolutely ridiculous. But yeah, we'll still take the point for the Bottas believers. Yeah, the bottom six having just exactly the same as what we had in the sprint quali. It's a shame.
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Chapter 2: How did car issues affect Mercedes during qualifying?
The same six, again. We've kind of joked that this year, so far, we're going to have the fact that it is the two Aston Martins, the two Cadillacs, and then whoever else, even if Aston Martin maybe are making a few gains, very little, but you think they might catch up. But Williams, oh, it's painful.
You hope that it's just a track thing and they're really struggling here and other tracks will be a bit more competitive and that midfield will swap around, like we said a few times. But, oh, it's painful to watch Williams. We heard a radio message, didn't we, from Albon shouting terrible, which...
After all the highs of last year, they must have gone into the season so excited to have it go this badly already. You can understand their frustrations big time. It's kind of to be expected, though. If we remember, they missed shakedown. They were so far behind very quickly. So the expectations, I think, for Williams fans, for Williams themselves...
couldn't have been anything other than serious struggles at the start of this year. I guess the saving grace once they've clearly got more fundamental problems than Alpine, but once they get a handle of some of those issues, you can see with Alpine, they're starting to unlock more performance with that Mercedes power unit and so on and so forth.
So they know that they have the best in class engine. There's no denying that. So it's just figuring out the overweight problems and everything else that that Williams car is struggling with at the moment. And hopefully, fingers crossed, that should be something that they can work towards. And you would expect a big improvement from Williams. But let's see, every team is improving.
It's just about which one can bring the best upgrades and the quickest. Yeah, because they've got that Mercedes engine, as you say, and we've seen Gasly in particular do amazing things today. McLaren looked much more competitive than they were. So you've got that in your locker. They just need to sort the issues with the car and how it's overweight and they're behind.
And in a weird way, you'd rather that than your engine, I think, be miles off because you'd think that'd be a lot harder to develop. Yeah. Yes, exactly. Right, let's head to Q2, where the bottom six were Hulkenberg, Colopinto, Ocon, Lawson, Lindblad and Bortoletto. Now, the big moment here was the moment right at the end for Gabby Bortoletto. Big old moment.
i mean incident whatever you want to call it spinning around the final corner just looked like he chucked the car in with a bit too much speed trying to make up maybe a bit too much time around that final corner and it ended pretty badly uh thankfully for him of course the car wasn't obliterated and he eventually drove it out of the wall and and into the pit lane um but that did cost a few drivers come the end of the session
Yeah, it did. There are a few drivers that, as they had the double yellow going into that final corner, obviously Portoletto got going again, which meant that the Alpines could make their improvements. Colapinto, so, so close. To say that he wasn't even 11th and he was that close. The tiniest of margins to almost get through. And that changes your whole kind of perception, doesn't it?
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Chapter 3: What were the results of Q1 and who were the bottom six drivers?
maximize this opportunity that he's got um he said in in this kind of post-race uh press conference or the chat afterwards in park ferme being like oh glad i can't remember what he said something like glad that that brussels got it all sorted or something and i'm thinking like It's you two for the championship, potentially. You want him down in tenths.
No, he said it was a shame he couldn't see two laps, two flying laps or two fresh sets for Russell. Don't think it was a shame, mate. No, I don't think you want that. You wouldn't have had your first proper pole position. Exactly. But back to the pure pace question, I think that Russell had the edge. Whether it was going to be three tenths down the road, I'm not entirely sure. But...
Look, this is Formula One, and Russell, I think, did a phenomenal job to be able to deliver, I mean, a lap that's two tenths off, he didn't have his tyres in the right window, and had no battery starting the lap, and he still qualified second, tells you all you need to know about that Mercedes car. Yeah.
So, I would say, yes, if every driver had, every driver, if Antonelli and Russell both had the same session in terms of problems, Russell probably would have got pole, but... It's part of F1 as well. These things happen. Yeah, these things happen. And to be honest, Russell will be counting his lucky stars that when he stopped out on track, he was going to qualify P2.
When he was having to literally crawl around the entire lap in first gear, he would have taken P2. He would have literally snatched it out of your hands. So another Mercedes 1-2 is not something we expected with only a few minutes to go in the session. But also deep down, we all knew that that was probably going to happen. But no, nothing to take away from Kimi Antonelli.
He still did a great lap and fully deserving of his first pole position. And it really excites me now for the race where I'm hoping for the first time this season, we're going to see an Antonelli start that isn't terrible. That's what... I mean, even just go down to fourth. Why seventh every time? Like, come on, let's at least only lose a couple of positions.
But no excuses, I think, for Antonelli this time, starting on the clean side of the grid. Fingers crossed for him. Question from people on Patreon. Remember, Lumixion. Will Ferrari play it a little safer than the sprint if they both manage to get past the Mercs at the start? No. No, I don't think they will. I...
I guess for us watching and like, you know, if you've ever played the F1 game or something, then yes, you might work with your friend to try and catch someone else up. But in Formula One, I mean, Jacques Villeneuve said that the two Ferrari drivers would rather see them finish third and fourth than the other driver winning the race. You don't want to see your teammate win. No chance.
You don't because it ultimately reflects badly on you no matter what, you know, the circumstances are. Ferrari won't play it safer they can't and they will battle each other for the win of course they will if Hamilton and Leclerc both get through on the Mercedes they are then fighting for the win at the Chinese Grand Prix yes they may then end up screwing themselves against the Mercedes but
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