Australian F1 GP Race Review 2026

0:00Dreaming of getting the all-new iPhone 17 Pro designed to be the most powerful iPhone ever. Then stay in bed and let a boost mobile expert deliver and set it up for you. Oh, actually, they will have to get up and open the door. Oh, right. Delivery available for select devices purchased at boostmobile.com in terms of life. When you manage procurement for multiple facilities, every order matters. But when it's for a hospital system, they matter even more. Granger gets it. And knows there's no time for managing multiple suppliers and no room for shipping delays. That's why Granger offers millions of products and fast, dependable delivery. So you can keep your facilities stocked, safe, and running smoothly. Call 1-800-Granger-Click-Granger.com or just stop by. Granger. For the ones who get it done. You are listening to Mistake Pet Podcast. Welcome to Mistake Pet Podcast.

1:03I'm your host Richard Reddy. But my friends call me Spanners. So let's be friends. It's the Australian Graumcree Race Review for 2026. The brand new regulations came in, chugging and downshifting, interqualifying. But ended up in a race that certainly gave us some things to look at and discuss. And it's definitely not all negative. So coming up, we'll discuss Super George, delivering on his winter promises Ferrari are legitimately in the fight. But did they make a rare strategic blunder? Is there hope for anybody else? Did we kind of like that race? Or were the doom mongers correct? And more on this Red Eye Edition of Mistake Pet Podcast. We are an independent podcast produced in the podcasting shed with the kind support of our patrons and partners we aim to bring you a race review before your Monday morning commute. We might be wrong, but we're first.

2:07Joining us from On the Ground in Australia land, it's Jonathan Saman. Hello, Jono. Hello, Spanners. And I am very excited to be here because I had some sick tickets for this weekend. And like I told you earlier, like not quite the celebrity illuminati kind of, you know, paddock area that nobody has access to. But just below that turn one grandstand, great view of the action. And to see the Ferrari's pop out in P1 and whatever P3. I don't even know where Hamilton ended up at the end of the first lap because he was all over the place. That was so amazing to watch. But next year, somebody hooked me up with that. I don't know if I have to join the illuminati or something, but let me know and I'll be there. You have to work your way up from Friday Hospitality. This year, I'm hoping for Saturday Hospitality and then one day, one day. But look, Jono, I want to get into the regulations and what it was like on the ground and stuff. But I really want to focus and make sure that first off, this is a race review. I know we want to talk about the rigs and we will. But you know, first off, there was a lot of like championship connotations and actions.

3:09So I think that's where we'll begin. You know my logic. But first of all, we need, we need a friend and joining me on the Bleary UK red eye adventure is presenter Antonio Rankin. Hello, Antonio. Hello, everyone. I would like to make it very known that I have been a Mercedes fan this whole time and a Ferrari fan this whole time. And whoever else happens to do well this season, I knew it all along. Could we erase all my internally beating George Russell predictions from the winter programming? Obviously, that was always a big ask. But you know, I think I'm going to join the Russell bandwagon. Is it too late to claim? Can you die on a lot of Hill's spanners and a lot of those hills are made of dust? Yeah, well, you have to make predictions at the beginning of the season. George Russell quite obviously was the bookies favorite and for good reason and has delivered. So if we're going to talk about anyone, it has to be George Russell first. I think we'll, we will forgive his attempted non-committal T pose, which he didn't commit to. The very, very cringe post-race, the post-race radio message.

4:12Where I think he was going for Borat, but again, didn't commit. But it was a dominant qualifying performance. He had a swagger of just a complete driver with the car underneath him. And for everyone who's been watching George Russell's career, this feels better than a one-off win or like a that stolen podium or a Williams point. This feels like it could well be the beginning of his ascendancy of something. For sure. And my thing with George Russell is, he's not Max Verstappen, he's not one of those drivers who comes out of ashes to magically pull out race results unless the car is there or fortune is on his side. But with a rocket ship underneath him, apparently, he really does have all of the components of a championship winning driver. And we saw that today with just how well he was able to continually put pressure on the Ferraris through all of the, what was it, eight switches of leader in the first ten laps? He carried on pushing and pushing, didn't put a toe wrong, which would have been

5:13very easy to do with all of the pressure of new season, leading the first race, new car. He could have gone very wrong, but he did a fantastic job of coping with the pressure. You have just realised it is going to be impossible to not dip our toes in the rigs. I'm so sorry. No, no, it's going to be impossible. As Antonio mentions, the first thing, John, which is the 8,000 swaps, the Moto GPS swappings of the lead. Do we get into that now because some people say, some people said, look, this is artificial. Like, I feel like Spanner's you thought it was too artificial to enjoy, which I disagree with. But I don't know if I'm throwing words in your mouth. I don't know if I understood you properly. There's a duality of F1 fandom, isn't there? So you can talk about race cars go zoom. And from race cars go zoom, it was kind of fun. But I will say we did predict in the offseason, 100% we said, there are going to be overtakes just from people using their batteries at different points. And the commentary is going to scream, oh my god, what an incredible overtake. And another one. And another one. And so it was written. And so it so it so it unfolded.

6:19But just from a look, don't be a killjoy. They still had to get past the. They were still slowing each other down. Those decisions to race were still letting Hamilton catch up. So so here's his two sides to it. The bad side is people will say it's artificial. And fans will say, this is like just somebody pressing a battery and going past. But for 15 years, DIS was artificial. And we eventually hated that for like two rounds. And then liked it. And some people never liked it. But in the end of the day, you get what I mean. A guy got past or a girl. We haven't had girls in Fairflight. Let's have some girls in everyone. Anyway, they got past because they opened the flap and the rear wing and made it past. Now, Perali as well manufactured tires that degrade and created racing because one person was on a certain set of rubber that didn't last and somebody else managed to get it to last. So why is that not artificial? But for some reason, as soon as it becomes battery charging. And it's for some reason, I think new things scare people and new regs make people uncomfortable.

7:22And I think eventually we'll get used to this. And now we combine this with, you know, I get it straight line and arrow modes the same for everybody right now. But at least combining it with the tires and combining it with what we've seen with battery, I think we'll get used to this and enjoy it. And I think it creates Antonio like drivers now have to think how they have to race, wheel to wheel. They have to manage battery while also managing race craft. Oh, for sure. And I think it adds a really exciting element undoubtedly. But to go back to what you were saying, every single component of Formula One, you can pick parts and call artificial. The fact that there are regulations at all and not just build the fastest car you possibly can could be called artificial. And the way that overtake mode, for example, compares to DRS is very similar. If you're one second in front of the car behind you, you get extra energy for the following lap. It's just now you can deploy it wherever you think is best. You can use it as a boost or as extra energy over the course of the full lap. And it is exciting. It does mean that you can see

8:22back and forth, but that is not a new thing. If you cast your mind back to Jedda 2025 early on in the season last year, you will remember Max Verstappen and Charlotte Claire were cat and mouse for about 10 laps using the DRS zones to basically overtake each other at the exact same points lap after lap, meaning that it was not only predictable, but those changes were happening in a much more boring way than they were in today's race, for example. So if anything, it's taken the artifice of DRS and turned it into a dynamic strategic element of the race, which I really don't think is a bad thing. We were seeing the drivers learn in real time, weren't we? So at first, they're like, yes, I can get this overtake done. Oh no, now I'm vulnerable to an overtake. Ah, wait, wait a minute. There's a chance to win overtake. And after that happened a few times, you saw them kind of both settle and go, oh, yeah, I know it looks like this fruit that I can just pick off a tree, but, but actually I've got, and we'll see that settle down. So I'm actually, although I'm

9:23going to laugh at the, the comms and the commentators for, for going, oh my goodness, it's a billion over 10. That's actually fine. It's just added an extra strategic element. And if you go, well, okay, I can use my battery and I can somehow do a block pass. It's going to change the way they race. If I can hinder them in some way, or if I can use my energy in a section where I think, actually, I can get away until the next point I've got enough battery to be able to defend myself. And I think Russell even said in the post race he goes, I did one overtake, but I thought it was done. So I didn't press the mom button. And therefore, oh, I'm calling him on the rest of the season. I didn't press the button. Therefore, the clerk was able to come back. Well, he's learned now. Actually, that could have been a genuine overtake. Yeah. And I'm interested to see how that unfolds over the course of the season because it will be different at every track. And I feel as though that learning curve will be every single race we can, especially as we see development in the cars themselves. But the concept of energy boosts, et cetera, is also not new this season, even the way that the recharging works as we call it on this year's cars. It's very similar to

10:26how the energy recovery system works on previous cars in the ground effect here. So the MGUK, for example, as it was called, worked by when you're breaking harvesting that kinetic energy, hence MGUK. So when you're breaking now, you're harvesting energy for recharging the battery. It's a very similar concept, except now there's also the option to do so manually and automatically. So there's a bit of a baseline in the energy recovery. Now, whereas you get to add a little bit of driver taste, depending on strategy. So yeah, I take like another element really. Yeah, I take back none of my negativity from Saturday in the quality. No, no, no, in the quality review, because I feel like that was all legitimate looking at the on boards. I still have problems with that. And even going through turn nine. Oh, look, they're charging down towards turn nine. No, no, no, no, they're both slowing down a lot. And it was weird kind of watching them, like skill extract cars, like going through turn nine and 10 side by side, because it was now slow enough for it to. And I was

11:27like, is that good or bad? I can't tell. I just have the feeling, John, that we're going to get used to this quicker than than I thought. And I will point out that, yeah, everything is artificial. We are not we are not having organic farm grown orchards where we pull up formula one cars off the tree. Like we do have to decide. Do you remember the uproar over titanium sparks and everyone calling it fake? And it's like, but it's pretty. Can't we just have the just have the pretty thing? And that's a whole point, right? That's how a formula one came into existence because they wrote a formula, a rule set, which is what we've got right now in 2026 and what we're dealing with. And what you mentioned before about, you know, that the stuff in qualifying, which I think was really poor, like that might be one of the worst things I've seen in the sports history. Yeah, you're good. Quality sucked. Yeah. Now I feel like George Russell right now, he's one, one race. He's got to win seven until this compression ratio rule changes. So the rule will change up the Canadian Grand Prix. It's going to be five seven. It's very much like two races. It's going to be five. Yes. So that for George Russell, there is 125 points. Have I done the math right? Yes,

12:31I think 125 points. If he wins every race, now not to forget Kimmy Antonnelli, if he can steal a couple of wins, that's good for his championship chances. But let's see if Max Verstappen is correct from two, three years ago, Spanish, where he said, this is going to be a combustion unit kind of development race. And those comments came out in the last couple of days from, you know, 2023. And certainly if you can clamp Mercedes down, I think that this championship is going to be much more interesting at the moment. It's not okay. Well, let's be clear. George Russell, there's only one one race so far. And that is the Australian Grand Prix. We've gifted him five races in advance. I have to say he didn't have it. He's all his own way. So immediately, of course, I'm texting van Jean going car merchant. Russell does nothing wins well championship. I'm doing all that. But actually, I actually think the Ferraris were very close in this race, Antonia. And so Russell had to win this race. He had to take it from Leclerc and Hamilton. I mean, I think Mercedes had the better car and the faster car. I think it was Ferrari having to do extra work today. And if we talk about

13:36the strategy call, which obviously was a bit tenuous for the first VSE, I don't think if they had pitted, it would have made a whole lot of difference. A split strategy to be experimental. Yes, maybe. But it was there race. It was Mercedes race to lose, right? And they were really slow off the line. They had absolutely horrible starts, both drivers Ferrari flew off into the distance. But Mercedes proved themselves in the streets and by being able to stay so close behind those Ferraris for as long as they did. And like we said, like getting a bit experimental with when they use their boots. If you look at how Mercedes pace compared to Ferrari was when they were battling. So Charlotte, obviously in that lead fight with George Russell compared to afterwards, Mercedes blew them out the border. And I think the only reason Ferrari was still in the race was because of track position, because of the start, because they were either holding up George Russell or something like that. Obviously, you think if Russell had got away first, he would have just disappeared into the distance. He would have disappeared. Yes. And that's what the numbers say. And my core field in our in our Patreon and our discord chat as well, Mistapix posted some numbers

14:40and it clearly shows that in clean air, they're untouchable. Oh, I wanted it. Stop there. I was going to be all optimistic about Ferrari later on. I did get the feeling towards the end that Russell was was definitely cruising home. And there's absolutely no point going off and building up a 10 second lead, because you know, say unless you're going to fully commit to a full safety car pit stop, extra free pit stop lead. I think your positivity is coming from which by the way, very surprising, Lando and Norris's comments after the race said Ferrari have the best car. I write what? Okay, so when, okay, I'm actually going to argue a little bit in the Norris camp. No, that feels like a massive exaggeration. But sticking to Mercedes just for a little while, they said they both started with 0% battery. So neither Mercedes managed to get any battery to start with. And you go, well, is that something that's going to happen a lot? Or is that just a mistake they made with the warm-up? Mercedes said that was a mistake. Mistake. They feel that to one off.

15:42So, so whilst I put in the Ferrari notes, the the the rocket start. It's real. It's real. They may have been flattered a little bit by the fact that the Mercedes just didn't have power. But look like said he only had 20% on his battery. But then looking back at the replays, you think actually a lot of the cars got away in a similar kind of fashion to the Ferrari's. It's just that the Mercedes didn't. So I'm going to stop being excited about the the boost charge with Ferrari. I think they just had a lucky thing in testing where they hit go between the two and the three and got the rocket start. It might be that as well though. They were really not held very long on the grid at all. If you noted, the lights went out so far. Yeah, it didn't feel like it was 10 seconds right of the blue of the spooling time. Yeah. And then like lights out and back like it was very quick. So it might have literally just been a reaction time thing where drivers like Lewis Hamilton will have an edge through experience and just being that good. But I don't think we

16:43can understate actually how bad Mercedes starts where they were awful. Like there was a huge drop back from both of the drivers where they both lost a couple of positions. It wasn't just that everyone else had done okay and they were comparatively bad as that. They were actively lacking in that area. So if they do manage to sort that out, I'd be interested to know actually what the engineering is underpinning that. But if they can sort that out, they'll disappear off into the distance. And you've didn't accidentally drop back to sixth pretty much immediately. So that start lost a lot of time. That start was was good fun. And actually it looked like there was so much more room on track. So I'm definitely already seeing the small size of the cars and the nimbleness of it. It made that that start much more exciting. Well, did you see Franco Colour Pinto's reaction? No, to almost dodging Liam Lawson. Liam Lawson practically almost stalled. And I've never seen in my entire life watching Formula One such an amazing reaction. He almost collected Lawson and the wall and was millimeters off both. And I think anybody who's seen it will know and it's

17:45impressed. Somebody post it right now. I want to watch it again. Is it better or worse than Hadjar in F2 in the Monaco tunnel? That was different. Different speeds. They're both equally as good. But yeah, the start was great. And there was some with all the different starts. I hope I hope they don't figure it out too quickly because all the differences made for an exciting run down to turn one. And you had Lynn Blad launching into P4. And then taking Hadjar as well. And he must have just been inside that helmet. Go, we I'm amazing at Formula One. This is easy. He had much to give him some kudos. He was incredible. Like one of the surprise performances of the race for me. And that's giving him full credit because he is an excellent driver as we've seen so far. But he held max up for several laps defending. And it might be that because he's coming into a car where he doesn't know any other Formula One car with any other regulations. It's all he's learned. So maybe he had a bit of an edge there with the insuertiveness and max getting to grips a little

18:50bit with boost mode and recharge. But he did a fantastic job. And he showed really impressive race craft. I picked the wrong season to sort of switch to Lawson fandom. I don't know. Is that overwinter and with Dr. Dave? I was like, yeah, hey, says the Aussie. We're not taking any Aussie slander for Kiwis here. If you did your character checks, spanners on Harvard Lynn Blad. The man is ruthless. Easy. And he is built for Formula One. And after listening to Impost Race and everything he's said this weekend, I've become even more of a fan. He's he's built for this. He's built for this level of racing. He just out and out said in the post race interviews, I'm built for this. I'm ruthless. I'm I'm going to just go rot everyone. The drivers are better not sleep with two eyes closed. I'm coming for them in their homes. It was, yeah, it was pretty ruthless. And Paul Lawson must have just been thinking, Oh, no, no, not again. No. Has Lawson ever led a teammate in the championship in his four seasons in Formula One? I don't think it's how I'm going to take a punt. And I'm going

19:54to say no. No, it's a little unfair because he's been a sub. But yeah. Hey, back to the just quickly on the start. Yeah. I haven't seen a team like Ferrari have an advantage at the starts. This good since 20 years ago, the Renault's the Fernando Alonso Renault's where they had this launch control. And it was in the mid 2000s. And they used to, there was a race in Canada, one of the shortest runs to turn one. And they went from like six to first, even shorter than Australia. So it's it's fun to watch. And I get it. It's dangerous. And everybody out there is going to be boring and be like, I don't want to see this in just the rules. No, this is incredible. And we should see this more. And Colour Pinto's reaction was great. And keep the starts like this. That was amazing. And seeing it, like I said, I know people weren't there in the grandstand. So this is not going to resonate. But seeing it from my vantage point and just 15 cars pop up out of nowhere. And you're like, wow, Ferrari's leading. I haven't enjoyed a start that much in a while. And credit to Fernando Alonso too. Kudos to him. Went from last to like, it felt like first. I always felt like that last again. And then retiring and then coming back last as well and doing

20:57a few laps for data collection. No, Alonso was doing intermittent racing. That was, you know, it's just taking it in sections. It worked out. Yeah, hit workout, run walk, run walk. He was only racing between 10 a.m. and and 4 p.m. Yeah, doing all his racing between those hours. So how you got to 10th, I think. But yeah, that let's start. I'll do them individually. Because I don't want to get bogged down into going into Ferrari. But yeah, Antonelli goes down to sixth place. The clerk weaves his way through effortlessly. Absolutely dream start gone. Well, George was amazed because he said, I covered off Hadja and I was looking for him, looked away and then the clerk popped up. So he didn't know Charles was on the inside. Yeah, absolutely shocked. And then, okay, so I'm obviously looking for Lewis as a Lewis fan. And I just had a moment where it was like, well, this is a proper scrap and he didn't look. I've got lots of positives from Hamilton this weekend. But the start, I went, oh, no,

21:58uncles racing with the kids. And I just felt like there's a he didn't do it. It wasn't a good start from Hamilton in a racing way. 2007 Lewis exact same circumstances around the outside. Yeah, I feel yeah. And it was the polar opposite today at the start. Well, he's except for later on in the lap, you know, there's an extra caution at 40 where his his risk reward calculation is different. He's not going to be win or been. But it just like he missed out in like three or four distinct phases of that where he might have otherwise sent it. And obviously, if he was in the war, we'd be going reckless Hamilton. Hasn't he learned in his 40 years? You know, what I dare say, though, I would say everyone was being really cautious today. And actually like as the races progress and people get a lot less cautious because who was it? Was it a total talking about how they'd instructed the cars to leave a metre of racing room? They were all being super cautious, right? So I fear that that advantage you were just talking about spanners that all of the other drivers have over Uncle Hamilton, as you can call it with,

23:01yeah, might actually get worse because they're going to get a lot scrappier as the season goes on. And if he doesn't start leaving some of those inhibitions in the pit lane, he's not going to be able to keep up with the likes of Lynn, blood and Tinelli, etc. Well, look, let's say this evens out on Ferrari, you're in a title chase. Actually, Hamilton's pace looked really good in in the race and qualifying looked way better. So, and you know, and they Ferrari had issues with AI apparently in qualifying. Yeah. No, no, no, no, check this out. So there's basically the deployment has an AI program which has to learn the places to deploy it, but it's relying on having typical runs. That facial expression, Antonia, is correct. And so because they didn't get typical runs in Q1, then it was deploying it in the wrong places in Q2, which is why on eight lap old mediums, they looked really, really competitive. And then on brand new sticker soft, they didn't at all. And apparently this is down to the AI and deployment issues. I think McLaren had something similar, but everyone just had a collective what I think when

24:06they heard that isn't that just a bit embarrassing like you've got a team full of the best engineers in the world, the smartest automotive minds of racing that are currently alive. And you don't have enough natural intelligence. Yeah, it should I wasn't thinking about how the battery gets deployed. All I was thinking was you press the loud pedal and it will use engine power and battery power until the battery is empty. And then you'll get that D rate. But no, I guess that's not it. I guess you control the ice and then the computer says whether you deploy or regen. And if that's true, that's so unsexy, it's unreal. That's that's what I was saying earlier. There's like it's like you know how the gearbox on a Formula One car is semi-automatic. You select the gear, but it's automatic. Yeah, you're asking for the gear and then the transmission does it for you? Yeah, well, it's it's a similar concept, I suppose, with the energy recovery where you can control aspects of it, but there is still a baseline recovery area, which like I said, when you're breaking when you're kind of half on the throttle when you lift early, and then also with deployment, sometimes

25:10it will eak somehow for you, other times you've got your boost button. So it's kind of a mixture of both where yeah, you could be really let down by your AI system if it doesn't know what if it's artificial dumbness. Yeah, it's well, because so we've had three teams, I think, declare issues on that. Oh, and in fact, yeah, so we had Ferrari with this and then we had in Q1, we had Verstappen's recovery going to full mode at the wrong time. So I wonder if that was a computer system thing. They said, I think Vashay said, yeah, computer glitch. So that's what he means is probably an AI glitch. When he had the lock up, you're talking about when he had a lock up in Q1. Yeah, because you could tell straight away, that's not a driver ever kind of lock up. Yeah, but then then we get the situation like PS3's where he crashed before the race and you know, we were all talking about it because McLaren or PS3 said post race, well, the power unit just deployed it 100 extra kilowatts out of nowhere. And when you watch it back, it did, but then I'm going, has there ever been a collision in Formula One that's actually a driver's fault? I feel like

26:14it's just constantly, it's never a driver's fault. Now, I'm not saying I want to blame Oscar for it because yes, watching it back, it was very unlucky, but there was an element of cold tires on the curb. Yeah, can we blame the driver for once? Why are we not blaming the driver? It looked exactly what it would look like if you spun it up in the wrong place on a low traction area and on the power. It looked quite a bit like it actually looked a bit like the 2008 Singapore P.K. Junior crash. Oh, no, don't bring that up. It's spinning up, getting the wheel spinning. Now, if that was in the damp, you would go, yeah, you know, driver error, a bit like Hajar and Stroll on various parade laps in last year. However, bone dry in Australia, I'm leaning towards fully believing that 100 kilowatt sudden spike might do that. You know, you go, no, it's just, you know, like when you're trying to teach your granny to use a phone and she's pressed some button and she insists, like, no, I haven't touched anything. I swear, I haven't, but granny,

27:14you're on loudspeak. You've touched something. Do you think maybe there was a slip of the finger on the steering, maybe like a wheel in the wrong position, the button slip, you know, like the throttle at the wrong time. Yeah, yeah, the way that these power units work, Oscar kind of described, look, I wasn't expecting the 100 kilowatts, but it was my fault that the power went that way. His throttle input was less than qualifying, yet he got more power than quality. It's just the way that the power units work. So I think that's driver error because he drove it that way, which caused it, but he's going to learn not to do that again. So it's a predictability issue, man, and actually knowing the car he's driving. I'm still going to err on that's very unlucky, especially at your home race. And I would have more sympathy for the crowds. And I'm assuming that the crowd was very crestful and Jonno, it was the most devastated. I've ever seen a sporting crowd, and I've been to some devastating basketball buzzer beaters and after the siren AFL kicks,

28:19and I've never, I've saw, I swear, I saw a kid cry. You're laughing, though, you're laughing about a child crying. This kid doesn't realize, like, PS3 is not paying his future and his uni bills and energy bills, but at, you know, 10 years old, it's the biggest deal in the world. I find that pretty funny. But is this the lowest moment of PS3's career? I know people bring a Baku last year. I'm going to say that, but I think when did he lose the championship? That's the thing. Like, was it Baku? Was it this? I feel like this is like home crowd. I'm going to go for like four, five places in a row. I'm going to go for that. That's the end. The entire second half of last year was awful. See, this breaks what I was about to say. This is a message specifically to PS3 fans because I wanted to have sympathy, but you guys gave me so much crap last season. You went from now, our spanners stopped pointing out the things that happened for the last two seasons and they're probably going to happen this season. And you like sent me so much like force of Australia. I could feel the heat and the spiders calling

29:23all over me. Sorry. And then when all the things that did happen, that I said would happen, did happen. And I pointed them out, you were like, stop being mean to our spanners. Stop pointing out the thing you said was right. So, hey, I'm just saying, do you want to truce? You're lying. Australians are nice. Wow. You obviously have not met me enough, Antonio, if you think we're all nice. The other thing is I feel like every year of an F1 season, you have a country that hates you've gone from Dutch to Australia. And I want to know what country this year, like, is it going to be Argentina? Are you going to go in on Colour Pinto? No, hell no. Colour Pinto is great and I like him. And he's good looking and funny. Can we just want to stake that for the record? No way am I going up against the Argentinian. But yeah, I might go anti-bottas this year and see what they're doing. But that's also Australia. He's Australian now technically. He's honorary Australian. Anyway, can't do that. Australian PSG fans, I offer you a truth. So, let me know if you accept my terms. Where is Bottas actually from? Finland, Finland. Everyone's forgotten the where he's actually from.

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31:36to offer page for details. Youth Mental Health is a complex challenge that requires comprehensive solutions. We must strengthen after-school programs. We must make digital literacy tools available in our schools. We must work with mental health professionals to support children, and we must empower mentors, educators, and parents to keep kids happy. Learn more about our commitment to finding lasting solutions at EmpowerOurFutureCoalition.com slash Solutions. Paid for by the Coalition to Empower Our Future. Well, so one thing I don't want to forget is we talked about Ferrari pace, and yes, Spannus, as Hamilton fans, didn't look too bad. Like, he had some great pace, and I know people will say, well, look, we're backed off and, you know, he's ties right at that stage. But throughout the race, Lewis kept up with him, compared to last year where it was an absolute disgrace towards the end of the year. He couldn't drive those grand-of-fit cars. He seems comfortable in the cars. I see what Norris is saying. The Ferrari looks quickest when it comes to cornering speed and the

32:40chassis. But when it comes to the power unit, Mercedes haven't advantage. You just can't touch. So that's the issue we've got right now with this pecking order is until the rules change. Mercedes, I think, have the advantage. Now, let's see. I could be wrong. Imagine next week, we're coming to China and it's like, oh, for the end of all, on so is one the race. You know, we have no idea what's going to happen in China, but it looks like it's going to be Mercedes. Okay. Well, look, this isn't just copium, as the kids say. But we said, you know, going into this season, track specific because the turbo choices is absolutely huge here. So no one was picking this as a Ferrari strong track. You guys took away the chicane and taking away that chicane before turn nine was just, it's so unlucky because I respect why they did it. They're like, we need to keep this track relevant. Let's create overtaking opportunities. But boy, that chicane would have been brilliant for regen. It would have saved some blushes and qualifying. But also, you know, that would have suited Ferrari as well. So if we go to tracks where there's more slow speed and

33:41some real limited stuff going on, I think we might find the big turbo teams having a bit more in advantage. So I think looking at the pace, the clerks relative pace to Hamilton at the end was because I think the clerk turned his attention fully to I want this podium. So the Ferrari guys are going to be racing each other, right? So there's some positives from the team radio with Hamilton as well. I feel like whatever was going on in that team radio was not perfect, but it wasn't what was happening last season. He even had someone on the radio saying to him, you're doing well, the pace is good, good job. And I just had a moment of like, there was no reply from Hamilton, because I think he was probably gently sobbing saying, me, me, me, good job. Good job, me. Well, then later in the race, they said something along the lines of like last push and he went leave me alone. No, no, no, no, that was quite nice. It was like, yeah, no, I get you. I appreciate the encouragement, but I got this. I'm on it is what he was saying. So the difference between him and the clerks pace was from the clerk just letting that gap come, come down. So he was no longer

34:46pushing for the front. But yeah, so Ferrari had a chance to be more competitive perhaps than they could have been. And they refused the free virtual safety car. So how how big a deal do we think refusing the two, I think two opportunities to take a cheap virtual safety car was biggest hand up is from Antonia zero. Literally zero, because if it was that bad, they would have made something of the second VSC. Stop shaking your head. I'm speaking. You shake your head. All you want, Jono, with the 10 seconds that they eventually had behind Mercedes, it would have been negligible, especially given the fact that they objectively had a worse and slower car. I really don't think it would have made a huge amount of difference. And like I said, they had multiple opportunities to correct that Lewis ended up staying out the longest of any of the drivers. And without issue, really, he didn't particularly drop off. So I don't think it was that bad. He kind of did, but also I wasn't necessarily disagreeing with you. I was more so saying

35:48every strategy works when you're the quickest car. Now let's let's flip it. So let's say it's Ferrari who pitted first and Mercedes stayed out and then couldn't pit under the second VSC because you know Bottas' car was blocking pit entry. We get it. I think Mercedes still win the race. Now looking at the pace and everything, they catch Ferrari, they win. So no matter what Ferrari did, it didn't matter. I think whatever they chose, they're finishing third and fourth. You disagree. I'm going to disagree with your disagreeing already and you haven't even spoken. You're pre-disagreeing with my point. I'll try and make a case of where Ferrari fundamentally got it wrong. So I think Ferrari fundamentally thought it was a two-stopper that they could make cleverly into a one-stopper. So I think when the cars peeled in and they didn't stop in their heads, they were rubbing their hands, they were going, ah, ha, ha, good. These guys have all committed to a two-stop. And I think some of them did pit accepting that it was going to be a two-stop. And so we can't look at the losses just on the final finishing positions and say, well,

36:49Leclerc was 10 seconds behind or whatever and the VSC would have been nine seconds. Because once Ferrari were in that mindset of we're going long now, I think they perhaps overmanaged on their mediums thinking, well, we've got to stretch this out because actually a one-stopper is going to be difficult. In the end, I think had they taken that VSC kept track position, they may well have been able to keep that tyre life performance on the hard, because there wasn't any drop off on the hard. And in fact, there was a bit of a seesaw battle two-thirds of the way in where Mercedes Ferrari could pick up their pace and suddenly go into the 22s. And then you look and you go, well, Mercedes could just respond to that as well. Then both teams dropped back and it was more about managing relative pace. I've got no doubt that Mercedes had had more in the tank that Russell could have gone and defended more if Ferrari had had gone again, but had they pitted, they wouldn't have lost the time from over-managing thinking that they were the one-stoppers in a two-stop race.

37:49So they were losing exponentially all through the period where they were out on older softs and Russell was out on new hards with good pace going, actually, there's no drop off on the hards, I can keep chewing them up. So that's why I think it's not quite as straightforward as this is Mercedes dominance all the way. I think there was a strategy call that went wrong, and how often have we seen the teams underestimate or tend to estimate towards two-stop and it ends up being one-stop? That happens hundreds of times last season. And Mike Coolfield, who's in the chat who I've been desperate to catch up with, ex-Hars and Mercedes strategists just haven't been able to hook it up, has been calling that in our Patreon Discord, been going, I think this is going to be a little bit more conservative than, yeah, someone should hire that guy. So he's gone, yeah, no, I think this is going to be a one-stop. And for some reason, the strategists in the paddock are overestimating the tire wear, and I think that's the case of what happened today. So that's my case of why, yes,

38:51I think Ferrari did give stuff away by not pitting. They should have split the strategy. They should have at least tried it. Oh, yeah. No, no. Whether you and I disagree with each other on this, they should have at least attempted it and seen what happened. And I think that's the biggest issue right now is they didn't at least try to put one of the cars on the different strategy. They should have put Lewis on it. Have they got anything like Scooteria rules where they're not allowed to split? I'd imagine they're allowed to split. Like Hamilton was screaming for it. Hey, he was saying, make sure, he was saying, why didn't we split? We should have put one of the cars in, which makes sense. And then the second one, he was like, guys, do not bring us in at the same time, because I think in his head, he's like, they're going to double stack me, aren't they? Don't you do it? Don't you double stack me? Well, this just goes back to what we were saying, isn't it? You have to be a bit over tentative for the first race of the season. They won't want to, they won't want to do anything that they perceived as risky, even though it wasn't really because we saw it work out for Mercedes. You know, they saw the opportunity for having two cars on the second row, finishing strong positions and have a good start

39:55to the season, which frankly, they really needed, and you can't underestimate for stakeholders, team members, the drivers themselves, how important that three, four finish was. Yeah, that's good. They was floundering all last year. They needed a good ish or at least optimistic beginning. Yeah, so maybe, yeah, it was the the lower risk, lower rewards sort of strategy. There were a few things that they did feel overall. It felt like a better team, but not splitting the strategy shows caution and also Hamilton actually slowed down, I think, on that second one to give himself an extra chance for them to change their mind and bring him in because then the gap came up. But yeah, I don't know. The Ferrari pit crew were out. I don't think that was a bluff, but they found themselves in the strange situation where actually they were unexpectedly out in first place and it's always harder when you're the lead car and that kind of should we shouldn't situation comes up. Yeah, and if you remember, it was the pit lane open entry was open just for

40:57a couple of seconds, whilst Bottas was parked there. So they could have dived in. If they needed to that badly, they could have tucked on in there, but they didn't. So obviously, they didn't need to. Otherwise, we would have seen them both pile in before the pit lane entry closed. So who's going to be happy and who's going to be unhappy out of those those top four? Obviously, Russell is cock-a-hoo. I don't imagine he's insufferable at the moment. Antonelli, I think Antonelli will be relieved after that P3 crash. And did you see the scenes with Total Wolf like jeering him up after that crash? And he and no, Antonelli was like, oh, I no longer believe in the ability to drive a deraise car. And Wolf is like hugging him, hugging him like a son. That's exactly what he sounded like as well. That was spot on. I know. And then Total Wolf was hugging and going, no, you must get to the job. You have to believe. And he was like, you can believe. And he's like, and I could feel the belief flowing from Total Wolf to Kimmy Antonelli. And the mechanics, all that belief flowed through it got him out on track. And it was a solid

42:00second place. However, I will say, it didn't feel like he sized through the field to get out from six to second place. Like the safety cars came out that everybody pitted. And then Antonelli kind of merged in second place. It just happened. Yeah. It felt like it just happened. And I lost him as well at one point. I remember it was like lap four going, where's Kimmy? Like did he miss? Yeah. Because sometimes when you're at the track, it feels like 1952 Formula One. And you're like, where's my hand radio in my stopwatch? And I don't know what's going on. Why do you sit so far away from a screen? The number one requirement for me for tickets at F1 is being near a screen. Well, let's save that for the bad thing of the week. Well, let's do it now. I'll quickly do it now and I'll come up with another miss the Apex. Okay. Because you pay such big money, the most expensive seats at the racetrack. You know, there's two and one grandstead seats. And apparently, I spoke to some people at the Australian Grand Prix Corporation who work for it. And they said they were inundated with complaints of people who sat in the grandstand. One of them was me about

43:00how far the screen was from the grandstand. And you couldn't see anything. It was like looking, you may as well have held up an iPhone from a kilometer away. It had better opportunity to view what happened. Yep. You want that Samsung times 10 zoom lens? Well, anyway, I think the problem is and because the events, you know, record crowds as usual every year, the Australian Grand Prix is growing, it is like a festival with a Formula One racetrack in the background. And you're like, oh, look, there's cars going around. What's happening here? Now, all these extra corporate spaces compared to what the track looked like, you know, 15, 20 years ago when I was going as a kid, there's less room for screens. I feel like now because there's so many more corporate boxes. Yeah. So I understand that with corporate boxes and famous Christian Peterson on our podcast, famous Danishman said, without the corporate people, it becomes Formula 2. And I love that quote. But at the same time, give us a big screen to watch. I'm not going to pay big money to not see what's happening. And the commentary was quiet too. Yeah. This is this is my gripe as well, actually, at the races. You can't hear anything. You can't see anything. If you're at a race like

44:06in Europe, for example, like they have local commentators as well, which is great. You know, the local fans should be able to understand what's going on. But it means you get very little of what's actually going on. And there's no internet because there's a hundred thousand people there. Exactly. So you're fighting to even get live timing up and accessibility wise, it is really poor. It's really. And on top of that, you, Antonio, you go to the main grain screens like on the main straight. And I, I snuck in there. I'm not going to say how, but managed to get in there at one point. And you hear the commentary blasting. And I'm like, oh, I can finally understand what's happening during the race. But for some reason, at turn one, too, it's like, oh, Jonno's here this weekend. And the world hates Jonno. So let's just make it a bad experience for him. It felt like the world was against me, so on. Hey, go watch a Formula E race where it's just like techno music into the entire thing and throw lighting and seizures going on. Yeah. So George Russell, obviously he's going to be absolutely delighted. And then, yeah, Antonelli, I think relieved.

45:08LeClurk and Hamilton, I don't know why, but it just seems to the vibes I'm getting from Hamilton. He just feels happier and hungrier. And he's able to take the positives from like, you know, all his post race interviews, he was basically like, yeah, no, that's great. This is great. This and he seemed so fired up and bubbly like he's looking beyond the result and looking at all the things that are working that weren't working before. Yeah. LeClurk has been very open about how much work he's had to do on himself in the winter break because mentally as an athlete coming off of multiple backs back while championships to struggling. Most weekends actually loves using to score points. It must be absolutely brutal. So having even in testing where they had like we saw those clips of them being first into turn one off of a practice start. It gives you something right and you have to be able to feed off of that as an athlete to bring it back into yourself and push out a little bit of self-believe. Now, on the subject of Antonelli, Mercedes

46:11have put an unbelievable amount into Kimi Antonelli, expediting him through the formula series to give him that formula one C as soon as it came up, arguably prematurely. They have put so much, so much support, money, resources into him as a driver. So I will bet that there is a big sigh of relief seeing him nearly matching George's pace. Obviously, George is the faster driver of course he is, but he defended well mid-race. He held his position. He played a very vital role in splitting the Ferrari's from George Russell. He did exactly what he was meant to do. And he has proven himself to be the perfect complimentary driver to George. I think it's like a really nice success story in Antonelli. Antonelli comes across as really brave to me, not because there's come some kind of bravado. He's not Johnny Bravo. I'm Antonelli and I'm so fantastic. It's because he seems really scared and he does it anyway. And on my workstation for

47:15years, without getting too specific, I used to have a dino print and it would say feel the fear do it anyway because sometimes you go, oh no, oh no, okay, deep breath, go. And that's how I feel Antonelli does everything, like he just gets in the race car. Okay, now we do the race car, and he's screaming and he does it anyway and everyone's hugging him. So I've just got a lot of admiration and support behind Antonelli experience and story this year. He's going to find a way to accelerate his improvement just quickly because George is only going to get better for the what the next five years we assume, like if George Russell, like he's still in his prime, and I don't even think we've seen the best of George Russell. So Antonelli, how do you play catch up to that? Like how fast is he going to improve as a 20 year old now? Is he 28? He's still 19.90, but is he up with I'm saying? I don't know. Someone quickly, Google, I think he might still be 18, but I think you're 18. Yeah, really? I don't think the expectation is for him to go and beat up George. So I think if he keeps coming in P second, I think he's going to be happy. Mercedes is going to be happy. Everyone's going to be happy as long as he's developing and making progress. I think

48:18that's I think that's fine. I think if he dares to start beating Russell, that's what that's what I want to see. Does Russell then kind of turn around to him and go, oh no, my championship, back off. But in a scenario like this weekend, what could he have done better? Nothing. He came in P two, not crashed in P three, not crashed. Well, you right. He did everything that he could to maximize the result for the team and did it basically was exactly expected of him right. And it's not like a bare minimum anymore to be a good enough second driver because we've seen it at Red Bull at a lot of the other teams actually launched roll I daresay. It's not like a bare minimum anymore just to keep up. So the fact that he is able to do so with the experience gap, which like you said, is massive. Yeah, huge. Yeah. Yeah. How much time can we spend on Red Bull? I really want to get into Red Bull. I've more than let's think. Let's go there now. Let's press

49:18one of the fancy buttons, though. Can I start? No, fancy button. Don't worry, you're going to get the point from Loveable, Jonathan Simon. Still still a baby, really? How old are you? 30? Jon, oh, 30? Oh, don't tell me. 29? No, 30. He's actually 29. No, I've minus one year actually. Yes. Oh, this crew is getting old and disgusting. But yeah, you can be followed by we were not and Tony will get to you and Tony disagrees. Yes. You're old enough to drive a truck at least. But Jon, you have a terrible social media handle, but we will link to it. Don't even say it in the show notes. There will be links there where people can go and follow you, talented TV reporter and journalist. We're really, really lucky to have you on the crew. And I know like you and stuff, you're getting far more involved in the project this year, which I'm delighted with. And please take us on a journey of Red Bull. And I think this was Red Bull versus McLaren, but not in the positions we were expecting. Well, now that you bring up McLaren

50:21and five seconds on them, the more they learn this power unit because it came in late, I think they'll be quicker in Shanghai. And I think they'll be quicker in the next couple of races because they got the PU late. Now they were competing with Red Bull who was supposed to talk about. And it seems like looking at the lap times, the Red Bull was quicker, borderline slightly slower on race pace than the Ferrari, even though I know Hadja and Verstappen would have likely outqualified the Ferrari. So I don't know what kind of happened in qualifying there, very weird pecking order, but race pace wise, it seems like Red Bull sitting third. Now I want to bring up Hadja first, because well, magnificent performance. Did I guess that? No, no, no. In court, like, you know, today you can control the reliability spenders. I guess some people say it's his driving style that caused it. Is that what you're about to say? No, he's driving style calls. I just think there was an over-optimistic about, so he put a quality lap together. That's fine. But it wasn't a good start, lost out to Limblad. And then the, if you look at the front pack, they broke away. But there was,

51:26Hadja was not in that pack. In my understanding, he was battling issues, the whole race, including pre-race and lap one. That's from my understanding. So we'll give him the benefit of the day out of thinking that his car was absolute, you know, a dog's purpose. Wait, wait, what nationality has had, John? French. He's French. Oh, that's my new nationality. Yes, I'm anti-hadja, no. Come on, yeah, anti-hadja. Now the French are coming at the police. He's a bad guy. He flipped off the cameras, the journalists. That was all over the press. He's setting him stall out to turn heel. He, John, no, you're giving me that. He's a car wrecker, those that caused by his driving style. And I don't think he's, because Vache said that the staffen would have been two or three tents off the pole. And actually, Hadja was seven tents off. So that's Vache saying really that Hadja was off the pace in qualifying, despite being P3. Yes, come on, France. Come at me. It's time. And goodbye to all our French listeners. There's like the season. Do you want to throw in an

52:28insult against like the French just as a bitch? Who else can you insult? Yeah, what are you going to do? Continue being rude to me while I pass through your country to get to Spain. Now, I said in the previous show, there's no segueing out of this. That Hadja, I said, we'll see, you know, if he has a, as an equal car to Max, it looks like he kind of does. Now, he's performed well in a car that's finally drivable, a second red bull that's finally drivable for the first time since Daniel Riccardo was in it whatever eight years ago. So Hadja now is great. We know that. Can we give Yuki Snow to a second chance? No, he all of a sudden the worst driver in the world because for some reason, he jumped in a red bull that wasn't drivable, yet we praised him as the man who should have been in that second red bull seat who was a great driver. For some reason, he jumps in an undrivable red bull. Now, everybody cares about him. They think he's a terrible driver. What happens if he jumped into this red bull and ended up qualifying third as well? Do we think Snow does good again? I just think the reputation. I think Snow does need

53:32a second chance, really. And I'm glad Gasly and Albon and Perez in a sense have all got a second chance. But I like you, Jon, I like you, Jon, you can stay. I agree with your sentiment, but disagree fundamentally with the concept of fairness in motorsports because motorsports isn't fair, right? I agree. I'm sure that Daniel Riccardo, we could tag him back in and he'd probably do a decent job. I think Lawson would probably somehow make an okay job of it as well, but it's not how it works. Hadjar right now, as it stands, is the man in the car and he is the one doing a good job. So we could also say, like, actually, maybe some of that is just due to the fact that Hadjar is an excellent driver because there is, you know? I think you can play endless, like, oh, if only this, if only that, if we could give him one more chance. Well, I'm going to give Hadjar no chances. I'm on the Hadjar, hate train.

54:35But Antonio, you are a defender of the week. The people's presenter, you're an incredibly talented presenter. You go out there and you bring events to life and we love having your mistakes podcast. You are not admittedly. You are not as old and disgusting as the likes of Kristivens have become and John O's become and even Kristina's tipped over that edge as well. But people can follow you. That's not even a compliment anymore, is it? No, man. It's just what happened. I used to have such a young dynamic crew, but Antonio J. Rankin on stuff still, or have you dropped the J? Antonio Dot Rankin. Antonio Dot Rankin on stuff. Go and follow. Not so much on the tiki tocks anymore. Yes, I am. I normally use that now, like, for race weekend reactions and then my proper, you know, grown-up stuff that apparently is required of me goes on Instagram. All right. Okay. So go and follow her. We'll have the links to Instagrams and tiktoks on there. But you cannot deny that Hadjar, as much as you're defending him and standing him, he's still up against it. Because look at the snap in starting from the back of the grid.

55:38Looks pretty awesome to be fair. What? Yeah, but yeah. I feel like that's such a null point. Like, yeah, Max was absolutely exceptional working his way up very in a very agile, responsive way, especially after probably having a bit of a knock to the ego, at least yesterday in qualifying, getting to grips with the car. He did an excellent job and gave us some really good battles. It was interesting, I thought, that he couldn't quite close that gap to Lando in the final stages. I expected a bit more of him. Yeah, but he's gone all Marvin, the miserable Android, doesn't he? From Hitchhiker's, he's like, oh, you drove, you know, it takes so many people. Yeah, but it was easy because they were slow and everything's rubbish and I hate it here. Max is, yeah, he's not like, exactly. He's not like, like, it was kind of, I get his disappointment with the new rules. And, you know, I know there might be people listening, but who haven't seen this, but there's been, you know, the interview that I mentioned earlier from two, three years ago that surfaced. And he called everything that was bad about these new regs in that interview from

56:44the super clipping to the strongest petrol engine will win Mercedes. And, you know, all that kind of business, I think he is extremely smart. I don't think the qualifying accident will be an ego hit though, Antonio. And I think the reason is he's too smart as a driver to know that wasn't his fault. I think he didn't do anything wrong. I do think I'm not going to bring a what if in, but what if he signed with Mercedes, we'd be looking at another staff and title. Let's not get into that mess. Maybe not. But again, there's that out there. It's hard. It's hard not to attribute to his relative position in the performance pecking order, isn't it? It's like, yeah, I hate hypothetical hypocrite claims because people do that too all the time. But if he'd have won the race today, would he be on the podium? Go, no, this is terrible. No, he'd be spraying his champagne everywhere. No, no, no. I disagree with that. And a lot of people have been saying that even pundits on TV and everything and saying that, well, if a staff was winning, he wouldn't criticize these regs. He criticized the regs three years ago. How did he know he wasn't going to be winning today?

57:46Yeah. And he's saying the exact same comments today. So I think they are nuts. The regs win or lose. That's yeah. Yeah, I feel like I've said this so many times. I completely agree. Max is just Dutch. He will not fail to himself. You know, like Dutch people are like if English people were given truth serum. And I say that in like the most loving way because I find it so refreshing. Actually, hearing a driver really say what they're thinking from Max and coming from such incredible sources, well, obviously from a multiple world champion. I agree. I think even if he was winning, he would be saying the exact same things that he is now because he just wants good racing. I think overall the Red Bull is kind of is giving eighths across the top Trumps cards, like in all areas. You know, I don't think it's got a big turbo. It's not got a great start. It's not got the best acceleration. It doesn't seem to be the best on tires necessarily or have. I was giving p8s as well. Or have the best power. He wasn't in p8. Was he overall? He came up to p10 by lap 10. I think he ended in seventh. All right. Okay. But do you know what I mean?

58:51It seems to be like, they're fine. The Red Bull seems fine and kind of good in all areas. But it's not looking like, okay, if they just unlock this one thing, they're going to be up with the front guys. You know, and I think Lewis is looking at, if I'd had a better start, if we'd taken the alternate strategy, if we'd taken the VSC car in his head, he's like mental maths. I basically won that race. This is great. Whereas for Red Bull, they go, well, we actually need incremental improvements in about 20 different areas. That's my general line of thinking. No, but that's spot on. And if you look at the data, that's pretty much the same thing. For Ferrari, the power unit, I think, is the biggest improvement they need to make. The clipping for the Ferrari power unit was not the worst on the grid, but it was pretty bad. Was it? So if they can sort that out, I think they're up there with Mercedes. Or if you can stop this illegal Mercedes. Or did I say illegal? Sorry. Let me take that back. Bleed that out. I'm going to heavily implied that, hey, well, if the advantage is down to power, how much of it is down to this compression ratio thing. Oh, please. He loved ABS before that

59:53became illegal too. Yeah, he loved this. He loved this dust, didn't he? Yeah. It's what happens within the scope of regulations. Teams will maximize every possible margin they can. It's, it, it always happens. And it's not their fault. Because if you're given a legal opportunity to make sense of a great area, of course, you're going to take it. That's on the FIA for not being far clearer and becoming down harder sooner. Well, Fred, Fred in the Patreon chat. And by the way, thank you to our patrons patreon.com forward slash mistakes. Still $5 a month to join our discord getting on free feed and find out first about all the mistakes. Stuff. But Fred says, well, Red Bull or Ferrari develop faster. Now, my, my general take from this race is that Ferrari just didn't show their full potential. I genuinely think there was a chance they could have been way closer for poll and could definitely have been on the front row. And I think that's part of Hamilton's optimism as well, which is like, well, we didn't deploy properly in two and three, but that's not a core fundamental car issue. Therefore, I can look at

1:00:58these areas where it went wrong and go, yeah, we're, we're good. And so I think Red Bull are actually from a raw potential point of view. I think they're starting from further back. That's just my guess right now. And I don't know what's happening with McLaren in terms of their overall packing order. Well, McLaren is what I said earlier is the more they understand the power unit. And that's what the team's been saying post race. It's what the drivers have been saying the quicker they'll get because they're trying to understand, okay, we have the exact same Mercedes power unit, which is allegedly giving them such a massive advantage. Why don't we have one? Now chassis is not that bad. So I think they need to understand how it works, how to deploy the energy, all these kind of business. Once McLaren get a better understanding, that's all you really need to know. They'll become quicker and quicker in the development race. So Spanish, when it comes to aero and wind tunnel time, Ferrari have the most of the big four. So good point is that side of the things that can improve. Yep. Okay. Why don't we go to the sort of disaster zone end of the grid? That's more fun. I feel like we've been more positive than is warranted. So let's go down to

1:02:03the bottom end of the grid. Aston or Cadillac, where do we want to start? Aston, please. Go on, then, John, no, give us your Aston take because, okay, hang on. What I will say is there is a lot of people there who keep going things like, oh, within 2.5 seconds in the end, not bad, shows they've got the potential to basically win the title. And then I saw people actually online going, they got to lap 30. Wow, like we are honestly handing out participation trophies at this point. Well, I look, they were expecting not even to start the race. And I think, I don't need, I don't know, I'm not going to go into that. I'm very confused because Stroll did 43 laps along so I did 21. Now, every time they drove past my grandstand, with the way these vibrations were being hyped, it felt like I was, you know, feel some hydraulics or something. But no, it's not like that bad to where it causes an earthquake. But it's apparently pretty bad and, you know, it's detrimental to their health. They're not optimistic about Shanghai. More parts are coming in afterwards. Apparently, they're talking about,

1:03:08oh, there'll be more parts for these Middle Eastern races. And I'm like, well, that's if there is a Middle Eastern race, by March 20 is the deadline, you know, that the sport setting to cancel those races. So this could be an ongoing thing for next one, two months where Aston might not even be able to finish races. The one thing I did notice is Adrian Newell is extreme car design. Now, I know Fernando Alonso is not tall, like myself in Antonio. He may be honest, I'm a little yes, sorry not to bring up our pre show again. Yuki said no to have something to say. Yo, Yuki, yes. Now, he sits very low in the car from what I watched in person. I didn't even know what he sees above. Like, can he see the road when he's out there? Can he see an epic? Like, can somebody notice that anybody out there in person in Australia? Did anybody else notice that? He sits so low like the top of his helmets below the cockpit, it feels like. I don't know how he sees anything. So is that a Adrian Newell extreme car design? Yeah, yeah. I want to ever see that load. Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, that kind of doesn't help with your take on Aston. No, so it kind of

1:04:10just yeah, so you can say, right, some positives that it wasn't as bad as they thought they started the race. Great. They they they were doing their intermittent racing and coming in and out. So I think maybe they had to shake their hands off like anyone who goes karting for the first time and you're doing your death grip on their hands and your hands get sore. So yeah, yeah, they would have got some data. They would have got some some running. But yeah, there's far too much hand waving. There's far too much hand waving. Yeah, but once we sort the power you now, it will be great. We don't know. They don't even know if they've got a good chassis. They don't know if all the things start. They've got nothing operational to go on as far as race pace. So to say, on one lap pace, we got within two and a half seconds in Q3 and somehow claim that as success is no, let's it is still a absolute disaster. Antonio, are you going to be more positive? No. Good. From my experience, obviously working with teams where they've had complete crap shows. If they're putting out statements, if they are at that point of having to do press releases, apologising vaguely for how bad the car or like we saw with Honda, the power unit battery is,

1:05:17then it's really bad because any other time you see PR coming out of driver interviews saying, you know, something's coming. We're working on this. We're doing this. The fact that there is a statement coming from Adrian Neue himself going like, yeah, guys, like, I'm sorry, we're not doing well at all. That is a real red flag and a stick of weather. There's no sandbagging whatsoever. The car is awful. And did it irritate you both at a lot of like, this was happening, like pointing, like Honda's pointing the finger at and Adrian Neue's pointing the finger at them and they are pointing the finger at Aston and it's not who's taking the blame for this. It seems like every one is pointing the finger at everybody else. It's like in GT3 when like the BMW has a bad race, for example, and they go, yeah, but it's because of the balance of performance, like they just really nerfed our car this weekend. Of course, you're not going to say it's you because that looks awful in front of all of your investors and all of the people who are supporting you, right? I think there's a general note that we are all as a community. We believe the things that come

1:06:20out of the sources because we want inherently people to be good. Don't want to accuse anyone of lying, but people are going to corporate. Corporate is going to corporate and PR is going to PR. So just take the statements that come out of the teams and the drivers and the managers with a with a pinch of with a little bit of a pinch of salt. We can be skeptical without calling them liars and being overly cynical. Now Cadillac, well, I'm sorry, I wanted to move on. I need to move on for time. No, no, no, no, Cadillac. Go. Cadillac. Ouch. Well, what's there to say really? Like, we knew that we're going to be slow. I know. And I know, and I know it was the one saying, leave them alone. Don't put any pressure on them, but it's a welcome to F1 boys, isn't it? Three laps down. I have it on somewhat good authority that operationally Cadillac are struggling as well, right? On every level. It's not just the car. It's the way that the team is run is ineffectual, basically, you know how we all made jokes about Ferrari just thrown through being a mess. This is like, like, actually, okay, but it sounds teething issues or is that this is the and that's what's

1:07:22difficult is because they don't have a culture of a team because they're new. They don't really exist yet, but it might be a case of teething issues or it might be they've hired the completely wrong people who don't have chemistry, don't like well together. And it's actually a complete stem issue with the team. They need a montage is what they need. They need a montage. Come on, a movie montage where they progressively in each they do like, you know, there's music, and then you see them working together as a team. They go on team activities in every race. They get a little bit stronger. But do you know what? Do you know what? I bet. Because they had that Super Bowl advert that we're going to the moon is going to be amazing. It's going to be incredible. I suspect that there's a little bit of reality check of this whole weekend. I don't think they would have expected to be that tip for it to be that humbling. And it probably is humbling that all we entered the the pinnacle of motorsport, whatever Chip Gennassy is tweeting about everyone at the moment. But I reckon you go in there and you go where three seconds off the pace

1:08:23and qualifying that is huge. And yeah, no matter how realistic you are being, that would have been disheartening. Being lapsed three times, that is huge. And I think they'll have gone away from that going, well, we, we, we F1, F1, we did it. We arguably did better than Aston Martin. But wow, this is like, you've gone in for your first boxing match and you start getting that you, you trained hard, you know, you sparred. But once you get hit in the face, you're like, oh my god, getting hit in the face sucks. And I think they got punched in the face quite a bit. So what did you expect? Two laps down, you're saying? Yeah, no, no, it's a good point. Yeah. And I'm such a terrible because I was the one telling everyone, leave Cadillac alone, leave them to try. But when you look at the reality, it's the reality is harder to absorb than that my fictional thing of just leave them alone to get on with it and get it all together. Well, somehow they've done a good job of finishing above Aston Martin, Paris finished above Strol and Alonso. So there's a win. Well, they've got a lot of benchmark worth having. So who are their benchmark really? It's,

1:09:25it's got to be ours, doesn't it? That's the team that realistically, they've got to look forward to and say, yeah, same power unit, we've got to be doing about the same as them. The thing is, I want Cadillac to do well. This isn't coming from, then it isn't like, is such a nice story for the sport to have another team come in full stop as well as having Audi, of course. You do want them to hit the ground running and give a little bit of dimension to the second half of the field, but it does sound like the whole project, really, like you said, Span has underestimated F1 a little bit. Vitsy in the chat, so it says, if anyone needs their expectations in check, it's Perez judging from his comments and quality. I think he's referring to the post-quality radio where he's like, good job, guys. Well done. No, really good. What? Gentle parenting. If you could just go ahead and crank up that pace, that'd be swell. Sorry, Johnny. No, no, no, that's all right. Look, I think for Cadillac, what's, you talked about benchmarks. Now, as a new team coming in, like you look at 2016, what was the, what was the team's Jules Bianchi race for?

1:10:29I'm having a brain lapse here. Mauritia. Mauritia, that's it. Now, I don't think it's going to be a Mauritia situation or like a HRT 2010. Like, it's not that bad. Like HRT didn't even qualify for the race in 2011, you know, under and seven percent. It's not far off that. But it looks more like a force India 2008 kind of situation where they'd barely scored a point. And then, you know, history quickly is they had a horrible year for India didn't score a point. We're like Cadillac right now, miles off the pace. But 2009 did well, ended up almost winning a race. Now, I'm not saying Cadillac's going to win a race. It depends on the money they pour into the project, but I'm saying give them a year. Like, it's going to be like this for a year. They might not score a point this year, but next year is where we should start judging the team. And I mean, force India did it really and so badly evolving over a very long time into racing point, having Sergio Perez actually get on the podium. And where are they now, Antonio? Where are they now? They've had a lot of a game

1:11:30they're willing to play. 15 years, Antonio, Rick. And then we'll come back. They'll be right up that mark my words. Antonio, as an example, you use the team that didn't finish the race today. And out in Q1 and one of the team cars didn't even qualify. No, take off my rose tinted glasses. I like them. Okay. So for Cadillac, you know, maybe in China, they only get lap two times. And that will be progression. Well, that's good. Yeah. Yeah. If this was 10 years ago, I don't think they'd have shown Cadillac on the screen. You probably wouldn't even know. You probably wouldn't even know who was driving for Cadillac. Now we're in the era of every driver matters, every driver's a superstar. So let's all take my initial advice to leave them alone and then immediately not do that after China as well. Tell you what, guys, I know there's an intriguing battle for a best of the rest going on, but on this show, I will tell you now, we pick the points we want to talk about the conversation flows in the way the conversation flows. And we're often around in the midweek to pick stuff up

1:12:31as well. And what we might do is just do an Australia race mailbag. And I'll pick that up with Matt on Tuesday. Cause I know Matt is chomping at the bit. He's at work today. And we recording in the middle of the night for him as well. So let's go on to our awards. It's been a long time. Where are the buttons? There it is. It's the podium. And for all the shouting and winging from me and lots of people, you know, I've got I've got over that in time to just go and look at the race cars. And I did enjoy the race cars going round and round. And if you take away the energy overtakes at the beginning as they were sussing it out, actually, it was a relatively normal Australian Grand Prix. It's fairly hard to pass. Lots of cars got up to a car that they're faster than and then couldn't get passed. The tyres as is usual in Australia. It wasn't particularly hard where. And, you know, so the new regulations did give us something of a spectacle to look at. And I think if you are the commentary teams and if you are Stefano Dominicale, that little battle

1:13:33between George Russell and LeCluck. For whatever reason, whatever caused it, they will have side a huge, huge sigh of relief that they've got something to point out and say, see? But what do you are? Panelists look at and go, see? That was rubbish. That was good. Let's start off with the negative one so that we can be positive. Oh no, you missed the apex. Let's fly through our awards. Antonio Rankin, who missed the apex for you? Why? Why were their marshals on track during the VSC? Oh no. As cars went past. Those marshals have mothers. What they were watching that on TV? My goodness. I can get it. If you go, there's a VSC wait for a gap. They didn't wait for a gap. There was so, there was like a negative gap. There was five metres. That was the gap. They just went for it. And they looked like there's that Aussie laid back attitude. Wasn't it? They're like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll just go and pick up the cabin. Oh, look at that waste car.

1:14:34It just, I know there were very big gaps that were in the field over the course of the race, but that was just not on. That should not happen. I really will not accept it ever. VICE is doing one for Ferrari who's saying, Ferrari strategy still be business as usual. John, who missed the apex for you? Yeah, dude. Why was the screen so far away? Oh my god. Did I do that again? Can somebody ask why it was either, anyway, maybe I shouldn't say the same thing. Were your turn one tickets at the ground, not good enough? No, no, no, were your diamond shoes too tight? Your $50 notes won't fit in your wallet. Okay, here we go. Well, that's only 25 quid. Yeah, no, it's worth nothing. Can I point out that I had to pay for tickets? That's, you know, it's not like I was gifted tickets by team spinners like you were last year. How close are you to Japan? Well, talk to me about Japan after the show. Let's talk after all I could fly there as well. Missed the apex. Now, since I've run out and I've

1:15:37rented enough in this podcast, but there's like six things on my list. I'm going to choose number seven and apparently the actuator failed on color signs front wing, which is simply the thing that flaps it open and down, you know, automatically. And I called this when it was you me Catman about a month ago, spanners on this podcast saying it looks flimsy. It looks like a two-dollar shop car thing. And I knew one of these was going to fail in round one. And here we are. Now, if that's George Russell in a championship fight and it fails and he has no control over it and all the teams have it not good. You can give a couple more. You can give a couple more if you've got a long list, Johnny. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, it's all good. So go back to the kid crying. No, let's not do that poor kid. Well, yeah, I'll leave it at that. So I've got to come up with a Missed Apex award and Williams was going to be my one, which is there's lots of, there's too many little faults. So in fact, I'm going to give it to Williams as well. And it's not just for that wing. It's for the fact they then had electrical faults in qualifying and they couldn't get out. And actually, the overall core pace isn't there as well. So it just looks like nothing, nothing is working at Williams. And how about secret people out of the Williams,

1:16:43you know, telling journalists in the F1 paddock, oh no, it's not a crash test. That's not the reason why we've struggled. And then we on Missed Apex said, no, it sounds like a crash test. And a week later, it's a crash test. Stop covering things up Williams. Oh, I don't talk of things. Oh, I might go for mainstream media because there's, there's lots of the mainstream media are now using the press handouts. And you'll know this in the press world, Antonio, they, they get like the WhatsApp groups and they've got these lines of briefings. They all used the term when they were trying to get, they were going to get rid of one of the straight mode zones, right? And nearly every mainstream journalist used the term curveball in their tweet or whatever it was or in their article. Oh, how are they going to handle this curveball? So very clearly the FIA has gone, well, we've done this thing. I know it's last minute, but it's a curveball. It's not panic. It's not blind panic. It's a curveball. And they all just did that. And so like, stop giving away. Stop telling me that you're all just punching out talking points given to you by the press and by the FIA in the teams.

1:17:44I mean, you get given like there are always on those tables in the media centers like you get a media pack, basically, with your with your name and your publication on it. That doesn't mean you can be lazy with language. So that's just ridiculous. Spanners, they didn't use a shock bombshell change, which is the least used term in media. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I look, I know, I was chatting to one of the one of these journals, one of the churn sites. And he was like, yeah, mate, well, I've got, I've got to do eight articles a day. So yes, most of the time, I'm just taking what the teams tell me you know what's up groups and putting that out. Yeah, eight articles a day, you know, quality is going to be reduced, but they need the clicky clicks. Dan says a Missed Apex award to leaving both the cooling fans on Kimmy's car in qualifying. Oh, that was bad. It was bad. But I'm also going to put that blame on Antonelli's crash in FP3. That's the kind of pressure you put your mechanics under. And that's when procedures go out of the window. And yeah, it's ultimately the guy's fault, whoever the Derek is that left the cooling fans on there, but that starts from the crashes in FP3.

1:18:46So the driver should treat FP3 as a dress rehearsal. I said this in the quality reaction yesterday. You all showbiz people. It's the dress rehearsal. If you snag your dress or ruin your microphone in the dress rehearsal, you are putting the production under a lot of strength. So yeah, I, in fact, there you go. Antonelli, Missed Apex, FP3 crash. More important than you think will end on a positive. It's the thing of the weekend. Antonio Rankine, who hit the Apex for you? You're going to, you're going to hit this Williams. What? They have gone through the winter break from Hal. In on paper, gone through all of the same nightmares that Aston Martin have been through. All of their events had to be cancelled. They had to overhaul everything in the break. And you know what? They still came back with somewhat respectable results. Yes, I'm not saying at all that they did a great job because they didn't. They're behind where they were last season. But the fact that they actually got what was it P12 P13? Yeah, it's really serviceable for the

1:19:52amount of strife they had over the winter break. And it takes a lot to come back from that. If I say, we're going to Milton Keynes and we're going to the snow dome, right? And then all we end up doing is having a walk around the lake. But if I say to them because I know there's a fair going on, we're going to go for a walk around the lake and let's see what's happening. And we get to the fair. And actually, it's not that crowded. You can get on everything and there's brilliant rides. That's the secret to a happy life. James Vals did not give me low expectations. I don't know. I'm assuming he's dead. Oh, he's a new dad. He's the same age as me, but he's only got a little baby. I think that's his first one. Yeah, when you've got talking kids, you know that you don't say you're definitely going to win the championship this season and then have Carlos signs looking utterly, utterly dejected. Expectation management is everything in life. And that's why James Vals is going to get a bit of a negativity because he hyped it up for three years. But that's a good thing though. I understand why he hyped it up. He

1:20:53didn't try and sandbag to try and manage expectations either, which I would argue is actually worse. No, managing expectations publicly and in it. I can just tell you. I can tell you've got a happy good life because there's no way. I think we'll see Antonia in the Williams garage at Silverstone. Oh, I think that you're setting this up Antonia by day by day. Just a little by little comment by comment. So I think me and John have a lack. So like people like Antonia and Chris and Matt and all that. I've got integrity on this panel. Will we clear me and John will shill. We will shill for paddock passes paddock club passes. And we don't even want some more than shill steady steady. Right. I sat at a sat at a final offer Saturday paddock club passes for grumpries and good spin on your team. Good spin on your team. Let's see. I hit the apex award for you, John. Oh, yes. Now, you know, I always come up with weird ones. But since I was at the track and for anybody who has never been to a race, this is good stuff to listen to. You get an insight

1:21:57into the sounds of the cars and what they look like in person and all that kind of business. And the sound of the anti lag or whatever system F1 calls it is incredible. Now, of course, you could hear on every car except the Ferrari because you know, the Ferrari keep their turbo spinning. There's no need for the anti lag to keep the turbo spinning because it's already spinning, which is hence the reason for the good starts. And while they'll win the Monaco Grompry, oops, did I just say that? Oh, spoiler. I also believe, you know, the Audi, the sound of it just sounds like a bunch of nails have been thrown into that engine and the anti lag is spinning and it sounds called the pops. It's it's I like it. I like the sounds of these cars. You know, I came in first practice as soon as they came out. I reckon they're louder. They sound fun, more aggressive. It's not quite the V10, but it's their spinners. It's enjoyable to listen to. Okay. I'm going to go for two. I'm going to go for Lynn Vlad because he's he's he's coming. He's coming ready for bear. Like he is loaded up. He's got sandwiches in his backpack. He's also got non perishables because he

1:22:58knows is in for the long haul and he's got a double barrel waiting to take it to F1. I like he has built my expectations up though. So he may fall foul of that, but it has got to go to George Russell despite the cringe post race. That is that is Zach Brown levels of cringe horrendous. I'm not wrong. I'm like I'm not to be an old man. And he's I think he practices these. That's the worst thing. Like he practiced the Jabba dabba do for weeks. He'll have been going. I'm going to do the Jabba dabba do one. And then this was like a failed to bore at one. Okay. Fine. And then yeah, you've got to commit. If you're going to do T-pose commit to T-pose. However, all of that has not overshadowed that this is kind of an ascendancy moment. This is a pinnacle moment where he's now staring down the barrel of a genuine world championship title opportunity. It may not paint out. It may well do, but he now is going to bed tonight going. I mean, the fight. This could be it. So he gets my hit the apex award. Very positive. And it's good with Lin-Blad too.

1:24:02You mentioned earlier, like you know how five years ago whenever it was came up to Lando Norris and said, yeah, I'll see you in five years. And that was awesome to see. Now I know, you know, everybody does that. Like I think 2000 people have done that today. And you only hear about the one story that's actually worked out. I get it. But it's still cool to see that because it, you know, he's I think he's so determined as an individual. I always thought he's coming in and it's just going to be some sort of second red bull driver that's going to be kicked out of the team. Like most of the other juniors. I think he's got a future in F1. I really like what I see from him. And you've got you've got a future in in TV young man. Go and follow Jonathan Simon by clicking the links in the show notes below. Follow our fantastic presenter and vertical scroll media person on the Instagram and TikTok and Tonya Rankin are rank in R-A-N-K-I-N. Yeah, Rankin. Just checking. Yeah. Yeah. Find it. Find it. Never heard that name before. But follow spanners. My goodness. He's the best one. We are on the verticals. Follow at mistake XF1 on YouTube,

1:25:02TikTok, Instagram follow me on Instagram at spanners ready. Blue sky is going to be my main hangout. I think when I'm still on X at spanners ready there, we'll see you early in the week to pick up stuff and maybe do a mail bag show until we see an X work hard. Be kind and have fun. This was Miss Day Prank's podcast. We spooled the turbos for this show. A no super clipping for us. Come on to your Tonya looks ready for bed. Some super clipping there. Me too. Me too. Life is a napsport. Knock knock. Oh, who's there? A boost mobile expert here to deliver and set up your all-new iPhone 17 Pro designed to be the most powerful iPhone ever. You call that a knock knock joke. This isn't a joke. Boost mobile really sends experts to deliver and set up your phone at home or work. Okay, well, it's just that when people say knock knock, there's usually a joke to go with it. Like I said, this isn't a joke. So the knock knock was just you knocking. Yeah, that's how doors work.

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