F1 Testing Analysis and Guessing

Spanners and Trumpets are joined by   the voice of the London ePrix, PR meister Chris Stevens and Chris ‘Catman’ Turner as they turn the tables on testing laptimes. From spicing up the testing show to sandbags at dawn, from donut drivers to huge helpings of hopium, no glory run goes unnoticed in this, the latest episode of Missed Apex Podcast. 

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Sure, here is a detailed summary of the podcast episode transcript:

# Missed Apex F1 Podcast Episode Summary:

**Title:** Spanners, Trumpets, and Chris Stevens Analyze F1 Testing

**Hosts:**
- Spanners (Richard Ready)
- Matt Trumpets
- Chris Stevens (PR Specialist)
- Chris ‘Catman’ Turner

**Main Discussion Points:**

1. **Testing Expectations:**
- Spanners emphasizes that testing is not a race and should be absorbed and speculated on, rather than expecting exciting action.
- The hosts agree that testing should not be spiced up with gimmicks like sprint testing or reverse grids.

2. **Lap Times and Sandbagging:**
- The hosts discuss how lap times in testing can be misleading due to factors like fuel loads, different wing configurations, driver strategies, and teams deliberately hiding their true pace.
- Teams may also run non-legal cars or exceed track limits to gain an advantage.

3. **Alpine's Strategy:**
- Alpine is mentioned as a team that often hides its true pace in testing and may have been doing so during the Bahrain tests.

4. **Mercedes' Approach:**
- Mercedes is known for playing games and hiding lap times in testing, with a focus on developing the car throughout the season.

5. **Red Bull's Consistency:**
- Red Bull tends to be less secretive in testing and has a history of developing the car well throughout the season.

6. **Ferrari's Tendency:**
- Ferrari often shows strength in testing but tends to fall away from the top positions by the first Grand Prix.

7. **McLaren's Problems:**
- McLaren faced issues during testing due to a mistake in their development path, which they discovered too late to fix before the season.

8. **Key Takeaway:**
- The hosts conclude that while testing lap times can be misleading, it's essential to observe teams' strategies, behaviors, and any problems they encounter to gain insights into their potential performance during the season.

**Additional Points:**
- The hosts discuss the impressive coverage of testing by the Sky team, highlighting interviews with personnel that provide valuable insights.
- Chris Stevens suggests that testing could be made more entertaining by incorporating obstacle courses and competitions between drivers.
- The hosts mention the excitement surrounding Mercedes' attempts to cover their car when it broke down during testing.
- Catman Turner jokingly suggests that testing should be an open track day where anyone can join, including everyday drivers.
- The hosts acknowledge that some teams may be running with ulterior motives, such as attracting sponsors or testing experimental components.

**Overall Message:**
The hosts emphasize the importance of analyzing testing data with caution and considering the context and strategies employed by the teams. They also highlight the need to observe teams' behaviors and problems to make informed predictions about their performance during the upcoming season. **Summary**

- Red Bull:
- Maintained their position at the front of the field, showcasing effortless speed and cleanliness.
- Verstappen and Perez displayed consistent performance, indicating a well-evolved car.
- They still had to make progress despite the car's similar appearance, highlighting the need for continuous improvement.


- Mercedes:
- Showed potential for catching up to Red Bull, but their testing performance was not a true representation of their capabilities.
- They aimed to validate their development direction rather than focus on absolute lap times.
- There is reason to believe they will be closer to Red Bull in the early stages of the season.


- Ferrari:
- Posed the biggest threat to Red Bull, but testing was not entirely representative for them.
- They faced structural issues with the wheel brows, which limited their running time.
- Aerodynamically sensitive updates are expected for the Azerbaijan Grand Prix, aiming to solve their problems.


- Alpine:
- Showed inconsistent behavior on track, but the team remained confident.
- Matt's reassurances suggest they have a solid foundation, despite the struggles in testing.
- They aim to solidify fourth place in the Constructors' Championship.


- McLaren:
- Faced significant issues, including unreliable wheel brows and aerodynamic inefficiencies.
- Team boss Zak Brown admitted they missed their development targets.
- Lando Norris expressed frustration and concern, hinting at fundamental problems with the car.
- They plan to introduce significant updates for the Baku Grand Prix, but it remains to be seen if they can solve their problems.


- Aston Martin:
- Showed progress and could potentially challenge for podiums.
- However, it's a remarkable development for them to gain a significant amount of time in one season.
- They are more likely to fight at the front of the midfield for fourth place.


- McLaren's struggles have opened the door for Aston Martin to rise in the midfield.


- Lando Norris's frustration and the team's lack of reassurance raise concerns about McLaren's ability to address their fundamental issues.


- Red Bull's dominance is expected to continue in the early stages of the season, with Ferrari and Mercedes vying for second place.


- Alpine's performance remains a mystery, with their on-track behavior contradicting the team's confident statements.


- Aston Martin's rise is impressive, but it's more realistic to expect them to fight for fourth place rather than challenging for podiums. * **Testing Lap Times:**

* Mercedes: Sandbagging or genuine performance?
* Chris Stevens: Mercedes is known for spicing up the testing show, but their lap times suggest they may have a genuine improvement over last year.
* Matt Trumpets: Mercedes looked happy with their car, which is a good sign.
* Chris Stevens: Mercedes ran with a high downforce wing, which may have contributed to their slower lap times.
* They also have a significant improvement planned for the Bahrain Grand Prix.

* **Mercedes Concept Model:**

* Mercedes brought a concept model to testing to verify their design and address last year's porpoising issues.
* Mike Elliott, Mercedes' Technical Director, has indicated that they already have a significant improvement planned.
* They will also have a different wing available for Bahrain.

* **Aston Martin:**

* Aston Martin came out of the blocks to impress in testing, leading to speculation that they could challenge for the top three.
* Matt Trumpets is skeptical of Aston Martin's sudden rise, citing the difficulty of making such a significant improvement mid-regulation.
* Chris Stevens believes Aston Martin could be the team closest to the top three, but they are still likely behind Mercedes and Ferrari.
* The team's investment in infrastructure and resources could be a factor in their improved performance.

* **Alpine:**

* Alpine has been tight-lipped about their performance in testing, but Matt Trumpets has heard positive noises from the team.
* Alpine has been developing their own unique design, rather than copying Red Bull or Ferrari.
* They have made significant weight reductions and improvements to cooling and power.
* Alpine's Technical Director, Matt Harmon, is particularly proud of the rebuild of the rear suspension, which should allow them to run lower to the ground and generate more downforce. * **Introduction:**

* The podcast begins with a discussion about the significance of lap times during testing and the varying strategies teams employ to optimize their performance.
* It is highlighted that teams may prioritize testing different setups and components over achieving fast lap times, leading to potentially misleading results.

* **Alpine:**

* The panel analyzes Alpine's testing performance and suggests that the team may have been focused on testing extreme suspension settings to gather data for future development.
* The team's emphasis on reliability is also discussed, as they faced issues in the previous season that cost them valuable points.
* The upcoming updates expected for the Bahrain Grand Prix are mentioned as a potential game-changer for Alpine's performance.

* **Ferrari:**

* The discussion shifts to Ferrari's testing, with the panel expressing uncertainty about the team's true pace due to their refusal to participate in the traditional fast-lap runs.
* The team's decision to run a low downforce wing, which compromises straight-line speed but improves cornering, is analyzed.
* It is suggested that Ferrari may have encountered issues with their new DRS wing, preventing them from showcasing their true potential.
* The panel predicts that Ferrari might face difficulties in maintaining tire life during races due to their current setup.

* **Predictions for the Season:**

* The panel members share their predictions for the upcoming season, with varying opinions on the top teams and drivers.
* Red Bull and Max Verstappen are widely favored for the championship, followed by Mercedes and Lewis Hamilton.
* Ferrari is placed third, with the expectation of a tight battle between their two drivers.
* Alpine and Aston Martin are considered potential contenders for the midfield battle, with Aston Martin showing signs of improvement.

* **Other Teams and Developments:**

* The panel briefly discusses other teams, including Haas and Alfa Romeo, acknowledging their potential for occasional strong results.
* Alpha Tauri's uncertain position is mentioned, with the possibility of significant changes in the team's structure and ownership.

* **Conclusion:**

* The podcast concludes with a call to action for listeners to recommend the show to friends who enjoy Formula One.
* The upcoming race review and live streaming plans are mentioned, encouraging listeners to tune in for further analysis and insights.

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[01:03.000 -> 01:10.680] You are listening to Miss apex podcast we live at one
[01:19.760 -> 01:29.840] welcome to missed apex podcast I'm your host Richard Ready but my friends call me Spanners so let's be friends. This week we're looking at all the amazing
[01:29.840 -> 01:37.080] and scintillating action from the testastic extravaganza in Bahrain. Now I
[01:37.080 -> 01:41.440] did try my best to temper your expectations of testing didn't I? If
[01:41.440 -> 01:45.760] you've never tuned in to testing before, I tried to say to you
[01:45.760 -> 01:52.120] that testing is to be absorbed in the background and then wildly speculated on
[01:52.120 -> 01:56.480] endlessly based on very little information or facts. And if you're one
[01:56.480 -> 02:02.560] of those people complaining that testing was boring, please, please do us a favor.
[02:02.560 -> 02:07.440] Do us old sweats a favor because we enjoy testing. Please
[02:07.440 -> 02:13.700] just don't watch future testing episodes and let us enjoy our boring testing. Don't pressure
[02:13.700 -> 02:19.340] them into snazzing up F1 testing. Please. I like it the way it is. I don't want sprint
[02:19.340 -> 02:25.600] testing, I don't want double points testing, and I don't want double points testing and I don't want reverse grid testing.
[02:25.600 -> 02:26.600] Please let us keep our thing.
[02:26.600 -> 02:27.600] It's boring.
[02:27.600 -> 02:28.600] It's supposed to be.
[02:28.600 -> 02:34.440] Absorb, relax and then guess stuff, preferably on or with a podcast.
[02:34.440 -> 02:36.080] And that's what we're going to do today.
[02:36.080 -> 02:40.720] We're going to have some fun trying to figure out and guess the relative order of the teams,
[02:40.720 -> 02:44.680] not just for race one, but for the whole season as well.
[02:44.680 -> 02:45.920] We are an independent podcast
[02:45.920 -> 02:49.640] produced in the podcasting shed, with the kind permission of our better halves. We aim
[02:49.640 -> 02:57.200] to bring you a race review before your Monday morning commute. We might be wrong, but we're
[02:57.200 -> 03:00.960] first.
[03:00.960 -> 03:06.080] I'm joined in the shed by Matt to Rumpets. How's it going, Matt?
[03:06.080 -> 03:11.120] Never was so much F1 watched by so many, for so few conclusions.
[03:11.120 -> 03:14.840] We're gonna jump to some conclusions, don't worry about that!
[03:14.840 -> 03:18.040] We're also joined by PR guru Chris Stevens.
[03:18.040 -> 03:19.480] How's it going, Chris?
[03:19.480 -> 03:20.480] Hey, Spanners.
[03:20.480 -> 03:26.440] You know, maybe we could set up, practice session and maybe a qualifying and a race
[03:26.440 -> 03:28.000] for testing.
[03:28.000 -> 03:33.400] Well, you'd have to give out some kind of award, or how would you grade how well everyone
[03:33.400 -> 03:34.680] had done at the end of that?
[03:34.680 -> 03:39.000] I think if you get a top three, that's quite good.
[03:39.000 -> 03:41.600] And just gather them all together for photos to celebrate.
[03:41.600 -> 03:42.600] Yeah.
[03:42.600 -> 03:43.600] Yeah, exactly.
[03:43.600 -> 03:45.840] And maybe as a sort of reward
[03:46.640 -> 03:52.080] for your, you know, your national success, they could play your national anthem on the podium,
[03:52.080 -> 03:55.920] we'll call it. The point is well made. It is testing, it's not a race. We're also joined
[03:55.920 -> 04:00.240] by another person called Chris. It's Chris Catman-Turner. How's it going, Catman?
[04:00.960 -> 04:05.520] Good. Although I think you should have testing as an open track day. So, you
[04:05.520 -> 04:09.720] know, Joe blogs with his Mini Cooper S from Kent can just join on the track when he wants
[04:09.720 -> 04:15.320] to. Alonso is looking really good, but there's Derek down the inside in his lime green Nova.
[04:15.320 -> 04:20.720] Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. It would spice it up a bit. Yeah. So I think we are all generally
[04:20.720 -> 04:25.040] in agreement that that testing doesn't need spicing up. I am someone who, if testing
[04:25.040 -> 04:31.800] is available to watch, I 100% will tune in and watch it with zero expectations. But Chris,
[04:31.800 -> 04:37.220] you're not someone who actually tunes in to testing, like, you know, you're not hanging
[04:37.220 -> 04:38.220] on its every word.
[04:38.220 -> 04:42.260] No, and I think if they did try and spice up testing, the way they would go about it
[04:42.260 -> 04:51.200] is just doing like what I said, but making it non-championship uh round like they used to have back in the day. No I don't think it's
[04:51.200 -> 04:56.800] necessary to have your eyes glued to the screen for eight nine hours a day during pre-season
[04:56.800 -> 05:07.080] testing. I think there's an awful lot that that goes on and a lot of it is just the standard going through programs, running to a target
[05:07.080 -> 05:10.920] lap time and is not for show at all.
[05:10.920 -> 05:15.920] And more importantly, there's very little context to what's going on on the track.
[05:15.920 -> 05:21.880] So and we'll discuss that later about why what we see in testing doesn't actually mean
[05:21.880 -> 05:22.880] all that much.
[05:22.880 -> 05:23.880] Cat and mouse.
[05:23.880 -> 05:26.000] I love the peep behind the curtain. It's really
[05:26.000 -> 05:31.920] good to see them, you know, just testing random things and putting, you know, billboards on the
[05:31.920 -> 05:35.520] back of their car and trying to work out how that affects the airflow. I think it's fascinating.
[05:36.240 -> 05:41.440] Let me have my time. And also, if you don't want to watch, there's a big red button in the top
[05:41.440 -> 05:49.560] left-hand corner of your remote. So frankly, like, I think it's just an expectations game. I mean, look, if we didn't have testing,
[05:49.560 -> 05:53.760] would we have seen Halkenberg's comment that, well, I still don't know what all the buttons
[05:53.760 -> 05:56.480] do, but thankfully I'm not pushing anything to blow up the car.
[05:56.480 -> 05:57.800] Is that what he said?
[05:57.800 -> 06:06.600] He literally said that, yes. We wouldn't have Anthony Davidson's classic imitation of Crofty running around the internet right now,
[06:06.600 -> 06:11.600] entertaining everybody, or Sam Collins just going bonkers in the pit lane, or
[06:11.600 -> 06:17.300] you know, the excitement of watching Mercedes try to cover the entire car when it died on day two,
[06:17.300 -> 06:20.400] when, you know, it could be given a proper burial.
[06:20.400 -> 06:22.400] We wouldn't have any of that stuff, but
[06:22.400 -> 06:26.960] having seen this complaint on social media, and having never met a problem that I didn't
[06:26.960 -> 06:31.800] want to solve, I do have some ideas for spicing it up that might work.
[06:31.800 -> 06:36.080] I'm just curious to run them by you.
[06:36.080 -> 06:41.520] And I will state that most of these are rooted in me watching things like American Ninja
[06:41.520 -> 06:47.540] and random Japanese game shows late at night when I get home from gigs but I'm not tired enough to sleep yet.
[06:47.540 -> 06:53.280] So my first one is, we all know that one of the most important things to do in a Formula
[06:53.280 -> 06:55.800] 1 team is to beat your teammate.
[06:55.800 -> 07:03.080] So instead of the teams assigning a fair amount of stints to each driver, each stint the drivers
[07:03.080 -> 07:04.080] have to compete.
[07:04.080 -> 07:09.660] So my first idea is like, get them on a tightrope with pugil sticks over a mud pit, winner drives,
[07:09.660 -> 07:10.900] loser watches.
[07:10.900 -> 07:16.640] And then you could do things like American Ninja obstacle courses, so that every new
[07:16.640 -> 07:21.260] session of testing, the drivers have to compete to be in the car.
[07:21.260 -> 07:23.640] And if they lose, they don't get to drive at all.
[07:23.640 -> 07:29.480] I think that would make it more exciting. No, no, they have to beat Race Control on the Pugil sticks. Race Control,
[07:29.480 -> 07:36.440] ready! Gladiator, ready! That's a really niche 90s reference. Only Catman got it. Absolutely.
[07:36.440 -> 07:40.280] I do think there are a couple of drivers, we will remain nameless, who would quite like
[07:40.280 -> 07:49.840] to beat Race Control every now and again for certain things that have happened. But look, I will say the testing coverage was fantastic. So well done to the whole Sky team,
[07:49.840 -> 07:55.680] having what, nine hours of broadcasting every day, covering that off. And it was a mix of that kind
[07:55.680 -> 08:00.240] of relaxed style of saying, here's what we can see on track, here's what people are messaging
[08:00.240 -> 08:04.800] us and texting us, here's a little bit of inside knowledge, and here's the odd feature. And I think
[08:04.800 -> 08:09.280] the most illuminating thing really was just the interviews with the personnel
[08:09.280 -> 08:13.320] because that's the thing where you can really pick up how the teams are feeling.
[08:13.320 -> 08:17.840] Yeah, the interview with Matt Harmon from Alpine was amazing.
[08:17.840 -> 08:22.480] They did one with Mike Elliott, I think, from Mercedes as well.
[08:22.480 -> 08:26.000] There was a lot going on at this test that the commentators didn't
[08:26.000 -> 08:31.600] necessarily talk about directly, but if you watched through it and listened through it,
[08:31.600 -> 08:35.560] there was an immense amount to learn about what might happen this season.
[08:35.560 -> 08:41.200] All right, well, let's get deep into it and let's discuss the news this week,
[08:41.200 -> 08:52.880] which is, of of course testing. Big Dirty News
[08:52.880 -> 08:59.080] We've seen three full days of testing in Bahrain and the biggest hot takes from media and social
[08:59.080 -> 09:06.080] media is that everyone seems to think that Aston Martin are back. Are you buying into that propaganda?
[09:06.080 -> 09:12.720] Mercedes, according to most, are still trailing and in danger of being sucked back into the claws
[09:12.720 -> 09:19.200] of the midfield in the guise of Aston Martin. Red Bull, it seems, according to everyone,
[09:19.200 -> 09:26.160] are basically untouchable racing gods and they are doing a fairly good impression of that description.
[09:26.160 -> 09:32.960] McLaren, according to some, seem to have got a bad car on purpose to specifically hurt Lando
[09:32.960 -> 09:40.320] Norris and overall reliability is very good. Very, very few flags compared to previous testing
[09:40.320 -> 09:45.440] sessions and despite the nerfing of the floor rules the cars seem to be a good
[09:45.440 -> 09:49.640] one to one and a half seconds faster than last year. So we are going to go
[09:49.640 -> 09:53.840] through some detailed looks of what the teams have done, well certainly the teams
[09:53.840 -> 09:58.960] that have interested us, but first let's look at the factors that disguise pace
[09:58.960 -> 10:10.560] and why we might not see everything just by lap times. Right, so, I'm a bit of a hypocrite because I say lap times mean nothing, Matt, but I
[10:10.560 -> 10:12.480] am sitting there looking at lap times.
[10:12.480 -> 10:18.840] Lap times give us a kind of a baseline to just start our guesses at.
[10:18.840 -> 10:25.000] Yeah, with the caveat that the team has to be doing like an actual simulation.
[10:27.840 -> 10:29.960] And they're not testing out a bunch of different other stuff that you're not even remotely aware of.
[10:30.380 -> 10:35.480] They can give you an idea, but I mean, really it's fun for the teams that are
[10:35.480 -> 10:40.420] playing and, and there are definitely some that play the let's go fast on the, on
[10:40.420 -> 10:45.840] the softest tires game, especially if you tune in the last 90 minutes or so on the last day
[10:45.840 -> 10:53.600] of testing. And the first day. But I was kind of not joking. I have rarely seen a testing session,
[10:53.600 -> 10:57.680] I can recall, and maybe this is just because I've gotten deeper and deeper into the sport,
[10:57.680 -> 11:04.480] where so many teams showed up with absolutely ulterior motives that had nothing to do with
[11:04.480 -> 11:06.240] lap time. And we can get into which
[11:06.240 -> 11:13.760] teams and what they were up to a bit later. I think in general though, if you're looking for
[11:13.760 -> 11:20.720] the lap times, there's a few reasons that are obvious where teams can actively go about and
[11:20.720 -> 11:26.480] disguise their lap time. So they can put more fuel in it and they can, for example,
[11:26.480 -> 11:32.640] you know, run a different wing or they can have drivers lift off between sect timings or lift off
[11:32.640 -> 11:38.240] before the end of the lap or just not push. And there's, I guess, you can turn down the engine
[11:38.240 -> 11:43.200] modes as well, Chris. So there are some things that the teams can actively do to say, right,
[11:43.200 -> 11:45.320] we don't want to show you our full pace.
[11:45.320 -> 11:47.720] Because you don't want to panic teams into going,
[11:47.720 -> 11:50.200] oh my goodness, we need to change our whole concept
[11:50.200 -> 11:53.960] because Williams are top of the grid by eight seconds.
[11:53.960 -> 11:54.800] No, exactly.
[11:54.800 -> 11:57.120] There's a lot of things that they'll be doing.
[11:57.120 -> 11:59.000] They will have a checklist of things
[11:59.000 -> 12:00.640] that they're trying to check.
[12:00.640 -> 12:03.800] And ultimately it's about finding the good balance,
[12:03.800 -> 12:08.640] making sure that the car isn't absolutely wayward and terrible it's about finding a nice
[12:08.640 -> 12:12.840] baseline setup making sure the car is reliable and like the things you
[12:12.840 -> 12:17.400] mentioned there they've got to do things that apply to other tracks not just the
[12:17.400 -> 12:20.840] one they're running on which is yes you know there are characteristics that
[12:20.840 -> 12:24.120] it's very abrasive it's quite bumpy it's incredibly hot there's a lot of
[12:24.120 -> 12:28.480] straights on it and big braking zones so there's other factors that they have to apply to
[12:28.480 -> 12:32.800] as well. Of course they're running tyres as well that they're not going to run at that Grand Prix
[12:33.360 -> 12:39.760] next weekend as well, so there's a multitude of reasons why it's not just a case of whoever was
[12:39.760 -> 12:49.360] fastest in testing is going to be the fastest when we go racing. But there is a range, isn't there? So for example, Mercedes could run between, I don't know,
[12:49.360 -> 12:53.200] X and Y, and that's their range that they could sandbag from
[12:53.200 -> 12:56.320] or perform and glory run to.
[12:56.320 -> 13:01.040] So obviously Alpine's bracket for doing that is lower.
[13:01.040 -> 13:04.120] So there's going to be obviously a big overlap in that,
[13:04.120 -> 13:05.600] but there's only a
[13:05.600 -> 13:10.600] certain amount of that. You can still see, oh, you know, are they able to run broadly
[13:10.600 -> 13:11.600] near the top?
[13:11.600 -> 13:16.600] And Alpine is one of these teams where everybody's thinking there's a lot more to come from them.
[13:16.600 -> 13:21.200] They seem to be sort of quietly confident that they've been able to get everything out
[13:21.200 -> 13:26.460] of testing that they've needed to without necessarily having to throw on a set of C5 tires
[13:26.460 -> 13:28.740] and go for a really, really good lap time.
[13:28.740 -> 13:31.320] And a lot of people are saying that, you know,
[13:31.320 -> 13:33.600] that they're going to be right in the mix
[13:33.600 -> 13:34.920] at the front of the midfield,
[13:34.920 -> 13:37.640] despite what we've seen in testing.
[13:37.640 -> 13:39.560] And teams do have different characteristics
[13:39.560 -> 13:40.640] and we'll get to that in a moment,
[13:40.640 -> 13:42.640] but Alpine is certainly one of the teams
[13:42.640 -> 13:45.360] that do tend to kind of hide a little bit in
[13:49.600 -> 13:57.600] testing. Although I will say, Matt, yeah, they're doing a particularly good job, but we'll get to that. Yeah, we will. But I just wanted to give an example. I was talking with a former engineer,
[13:57.600 -> 14:02.320] and they were like, well, even if you're looking at long runs, for example, he's like, you have to
[14:02.320 -> 14:06.120] know, was the driver told to go out and bang the tires
[14:06.120 -> 14:07.560] or were they told to gentle it in?
[14:07.560 -> 14:09.760] And someone held up an example of like,
[14:09.760 -> 14:12.180] oh, well, here's a long run,
[14:12.180 -> 14:15.240] but you can see at the very end, suddenly they go faster,
[14:15.240 -> 14:18.920] which means that the team said, drive to this lap time,
[14:18.920 -> 14:20.480] because we think that's the most possible.
[14:20.480 -> 14:21.520] And then the driver said,
[14:21.520 -> 14:23.520] well, I think there's some left in the tires.
[14:23.520 -> 14:31.600] So even when you're looking at these times, very, very large grains of sodium chloride need to be applied because there's a lot of
[14:31.800 -> 14:34.160] context that goes into generating these numbers
[14:34.560 -> 14:41.160] that we may not be aware of and may not be able to deduce from the information we do have. And if you say you
[14:41.160 -> 14:42.600] notice, oh, in turn 14,
[14:42.600 -> 14:52.880] we're just lacking a little bit of a front end and we could get more lap time if we turn the rear downforce up with the spinny pokey
[14:52.880 -> 14:53.880] thing, right?
[14:53.880 -> 14:57.640] But then you go, well, but if we do that, we're not testing the wing in the way we
[14:57.640 -> 14:59.440] want to test it for the rest of the season.
[14:59.440 -> 15:04.380] So you're not going to like dial in to turn 14, even though you could gain four tenths
[15:04.380 -> 15:05.440] of a second you're
[15:05.440 -> 15:09.440] going to just continue with your test so there's some kind of non-deliberate
[15:09.440 -> 15:13.140] sandbagging things where you just there's just no point in pursuing the
[15:13.140 -> 15:17.560] out-and-out lap time during testing. And of course some teams as well are going
[15:17.560 -> 15:21.160] to be bringing updates to the first race of the season as well so you know this
[15:21.160 -> 15:25.600] may not even be the the final version of the car that starts the season as well. So, you know, this may not even be the final version of the car that starts the season
[15:25.600 -> 15:31.440] as well. And of course, a lot of the teams as well, this was kind of their first appearance
[15:31.440 -> 15:36.480] of the car, like the Red Bull, for example. Like, yes, they had their car launch in New York, but
[15:36.480 -> 15:42.080] that was not the RB19. And it was the same for a few teams as well. Like the Haas, we got the first
[15:42.080 -> 15:47.100] look at the Haas as well. so they have to go through some quite basic
[15:47.100 -> 15:49.220] and fundamental things to kind of kick that off
[15:49.220 -> 15:51.900] and make sure the car's actually working.
[15:51.900 -> 15:54.700] One thing that we sort of did glean from this
[15:54.700 -> 15:56.880] is that the cars seem to be about a second
[15:56.880 -> 16:00.020] to a second and a half faster than this time last year,
[16:00.020 -> 16:01.140] which is what you'd expect.
[16:01.140 -> 16:02.700] Obviously at the start of last year,
[16:02.700 -> 16:05.360] it was the beginning of a brand new set of regulations
[16:05.360 -> 16:08.720] and the development was going to be incredibly rapid,
[16:08.720 -> 16:10.640] but that big gain has still been made
[16:10.640 -> 16:12.420] despite having their wings clipped a little bit
[16:12.420 -> 16:15.060] with these floor regulation changes
[16:15.060 -> 16:17.320] that were supposed to help stop porpoising.
[16:17.320 -> 16:19.080] Absolutely, it's going to be evolution
[16:19.080 -> 16:21.520] rather than revolution at this point.
[16:21.520 -> 16:22.360] But also don't forget,
[16:22.360 -> 16:24.720] there's still a lot of them still hunting for sponsors.
[16:24.720 -> 16:33.600] So some of the teams might be tempted to, as you say, kind of run low or run light to try and
[16:33.600 -> 16:39.120] attract sponsors or new drivers or whatever. And don't forget in testing, you don't have to run
[16:39.120 -> 16:48.000] a legal car. You can do whatever you want with it, you know. So, gone are the days when they would just strap on a much bigger engine or whatever,
[16:48.000 -> 16:53.000] but, you know, you could, you don't have to run anything as if it's in part-firming conditions.
[16:53.000 -> 16:57.000] Yeah, well, your team, Williams-Kapman in 2014, didn't they?
[16:57.000 -> 17:02.000] They ran out basically a stripped-out shell of a car that Rocket launched in testing,
[17:02.000 -> 17:09.120] looked like it was leading the field by a long way, and then rocked up at race one with a handy martini sponsorship.
[17:09.760 -> 17:14.880] Exactly, that was a very profitable test for them and was in no way, shape or form anything
[17:14.880 -> 17:17.040] like the car that they went racing with.
[17:17.040 -> 17:21.920] No, and then on the other hand, McLaren turned up with so many sponsors that they needed a
[17:21.920 -> 17:25.920] revolving e-ink board to fit them all in, and that actually,
[17:25.920 -> 17:31.680] I've heard, that the e-ink and the changing of the e-ink heavily weighed them down. But
[17:31.680 -> 17:37.260] they did calculate that they could fill up to 80% of the driver's view screen with adverts
[17:37.260 -> 17:39.000] without inducing seizure.
[17:39.000 -> 17:45.120] I like that. I mean, we need these sorts of innovations if Formula One is to continue
[17:45.120 -> 17:49.920] making obscene amounts of money, which of course means we get to continue watching cars go around
[17:49.920 -> 17:55.840] tracks. Yeah, it is amazing. For those who haven't actually seen it, so on the side of the cockpit,
[17:55.840 -> 18:01.760] it's basically an Amazon Kindle screen that just changes the sponsor every minute or so. It's
[18:01.760 -> 18:05.520] absolutely impressive technology and great innovation
[18:05.520 -> 18:09.560] there from Zac Brown and his team. But as you say, it adds a little bit of weight. I
[18:09.560 -> 18:11.360] think it was 190 grams per pound.
[18:11.360 -> 18:12.360] Ah, that's okay.
[18:12.360 -> 18:16.520] Which is, you know, a couple of locks of Lando's hair.
[18:16.520 -> 18:23.280] When you consider that the paint on a Formula One car can add up to six kilos, then this
[18:23.280 -> 18:26.320] seems to be the direction to go in as well.
[18:26.320 -> 18:29.760] And actually, just following up on what you said about not having to run a legal car,
[18:29.760 -> 18:34.320] you also don't have to do a legal lap time. I mean, that's true. Because you can exceed
[18:34.320 -> 18:39.360] track limits as much as you want. No one's really going to do anything about it. So it could well be
[18:39.360 -> 18:44.800] that the best times we saw, there were multiple track limits violations. Really, the only one
[18:44.360 -> 18:47.960] times we saw there were multiple track limits violations. Really the only one we've, well, that I've seen in detail anyway,
[18:47.960 -> 18:53.000] was the fastest lap from testing that was set by Perez because it was on the YouTube.
[18:54.040 -> 18:58.240] So, so in Abu Dhabi testing, the young driver testing, why don't the young
[18:58.240 -> 19:00.440] drivers to make themselves look really good, just skip the
[19:00.440 -> 19:01.880] chicanes like Alonso did?
[19:02.040 -> 19:12.080] Because I think it will show up in the data when the team actually go and analyse the data. Yeah I think there's my shot at a seat gone then,
[19:12.080 -> 19:16.240] never mind. But we are kind of just building this picture to go, okay look, the teams weren't
[19:16.240 -> 19:22.200] specifically going for a lap time, for example Mercedes looked to have run a higher downforce
[19:22.200 -> 19:27.180] rear wing for the whole test and said they wouldn't be running that in the race.
[19:27.180 -> 19:29.780] A lot of the team spent a lot of time on the C,
[19:29.780 -> 19:31.700] oh, Matt, you're gonna have to help me out here,
[19:31.700 -> 19:36.380] on the C5 and C4 tire, which are like basically,
[19:36.380 -> 19:39.900] in old money, the soft and super soft,
[19:39.900 -> 19:42.260] or the soft and ultra soft,
[19:42.260 -> 19:43.980] remember the ultra soft, the purple one.
[19:43.980 -> 19:45.960] Yeah, remember the hyper soft as well. one. Remember the hyper soft as well.
[19:45.960 -> 19:46.920] There wasn't a hyper soft.
[19:46.920 -> 19:50.720] The hyper soft was plaid though, that's the difference.
[19:50.720 -> 19:53.000] So, but yeah, so they were running tires, Matt,
[19:53.000 -> 19:54.740] that they aren't going to run in the races,
[19:54.740 -> 19:56.240] as Chris mentioned earlier.
[19:56.240 -> 19:58.280] The C3, the yellow sidewall tire,
[19:58.280 -> 20:01.280] is going to be the soft tire for the race in Bahrain.
[20:01.280 -> 20:04.220] So it makes no sense really to run a tire
[20:04.220 -> 20:05.520] which didn't look like it was lasting
[20:05.520 -> 20:11.120] the whole lap, but they need to know how that tyre runs. Exactly. I feel kind of proud that you have
[20:11.680 -> 20:16.160] mastered the Pirelli tyre basics. Thank you, Trumpets. You have taught us well.
[20:16.160 -> 20:18.880] This is what eight hours of testing a day will get you.
[20:19.680 -> 20:28.560] No, no. This is what eight years with Matt Trumpets will get you. Eventually, you have to accidentally learn how the Pirelli tires work.
[20:28.560 -> 20:33.040] Yeah, it's impossible to avoid because I talk about it so much, it just seeps into your brain.
[20:33.040 -> 20:36.040] And I actively try to not listen as well.
[20:36.040 -> 20:37.040] Despite your best efforts.
[20:37.040 -> 20:42.000] No, I like the fact that you brought up the Mercedes running the high downforce wing,
[20:42.000 -> 20:44.120] which isn't really appropriate to the track.
[20:44.120 -> 20:46.880] Ferrari ran a medium-low downforce wing, which isn't really appropriate to the track. Ferrari ran a medium low downforce wing,
[20:46.880 -> 20:52.400] also not appropriate. They did bring a new wing with instead of the twin stalks that had a nylon
[20:52.400 -> 20:58.880] configuration, but they had issues with DRS. So neither Ferrari nor Mercedes, for example,
[20:58.880 -> 21:05.460] were running an appropriate aerodynamic package for the actual race all three days. You might have noticed if
[21:05.460 -> 21:10.440] you watched any day one coverage there was a lot of bouncing. A lot of the teams
[21:10.440 -> 21:17.400] were exploring the lowest possible ride heights that wouldn't, that might set off
[21:17.400 -> 21:23.960] the new sensor for bouncing that the FIA is running on the cars. So you'll get
[21:23.960 -> 21:26.000] long chunks of time where the teams
[21:26.000 -> 21:33.280] are purposefully running setups and configurations that aren't right for the track. And this is one
[21:33.280 -> 21:40.960] reason why it's worth bearing in mind that the lap times may not be entirely representative.
[21:40.960 -> 21:51.640] There are other things we can bring to bear on that. And I should probably mention Alpine too, which I don't even think they might've done partially a single race
[21:51.640 -> 21:59.120] sim, but mostly they were very focused on testing setups that come along with their
[21:59.120 -> 22:03.920] brand new rear suspension, because they have entirely rebuilt the rear end of that car.
[22:03.920 -> 22:10.240] Absolutely. And that's another reason why you can't even look at what the cars are doing on
[22:10.240 -> 22:14.440] track and go, oh, well, that car's oversteery, understeery, because they're not running an
[22:14.440 -> 22:20.520] appropriate setup or even suspension geometry for the circuit. So when people go, oh, well,
[22:20.520 -> 22:25.920] the Alpine looked bouncy on its rear end. That's just not what they would run here.
[22:25.960 -> 22:31.420] So, you know, it's so hard to tell what they're actually doing, but I'm
[22:31.420 -> 22:32.820] sure we can make conclusions anyway.
[22:33.580 -> 22:33.920] Yeah.
[22:33.920 -> 22:38.000] Well, what I love about that is they actually, uh, Mike Harmon again,
[22:38.000 -> 22:41.760] referenced that and said that, oh, you know, we have some new technology
[22:41.760 -> 22:45.680] in the rear end that's going to let us run low and very, very stiff,
[22:46.240 -> 22:53.120] but it required us running those configurations on this track, which is very bumpy and not really
[22:53.120 -> 22:57.920] where you want to be running those kinds of spring rates, but it was more important to learn
[22:58.560 -> 23:05.520] than it was to make a lap time. So, now that we've painted the picture for you of why you definitely
[23:05.520 -> 23:11.360] shouldn't read too much into the lap times, let's read into the lap times and give you
[23:11.360 -> 23:27.040] our best analysis of F1 testing 2023. So while it's fun to dig into the details while watching the testing, the best thing
[23:27.040 -> 23:31.560] to do is just absorb it, learn, try and read some body language.
[23:31.560 -> 23:37.880] I will tell you actively also not to look at the lap times, ignore the live timing.
[23:37.880 -> 23:43.440] But I'm a massive hypocrite because I am sat here with my HB pencil and my notepad writing
[23:43.440 -> 23:46.380] down lap times and sector times as they appear
[23:46.380 -> 23:51.220] on the F1 Live Timing app. And I've always done this kind of thing to a certain extent
[23:51.220 -> 23:55.800] just to give me a baseline to work from. But the biggest thing to do is to put those lap
[23:55.800 -> 24:02.800] times into context. So yes, I sat there and I spotted on the morning of day three that
[24:02.800 -> 24:05.800] George Russell and Sergio Perez went out at a sort
[24:05.800 -> 24:12.120] of reasonably similar time, both on the C3 tyre, which will be the Redwood soft tyre
[24:12.120 -> 24:17.000] in the first Grand Prix in Bahrain. And it looked like they were both doing race simulations
[24:17.000 -> 24:23.960] of the early phase of the Grand Prix. So, heavy fuel, soft tyre, let's see how far
[24:23.960 -> 24:26.560] we can make this tyre go into the race
[24:26.560 -> 24:28.240] to give us the best strategic option.
[24:28.240 -> 24:33.160] So not necessarily out and out pushing, and for all the caveats we've described above,
[24:33.160 -> 24:35.960] we can't tell how representative the times are.
[24:35.960 -> 24:41.400] Both the drivers I was watching in that stint didn't have a huge amount of tyre deg, looked
[24:41.400 -> 24:49.880] very comfortable on the wheel, they weren't snapping, they weren't struggling. So if you listen back to our masterclass with Bradley Philpott,
[24:49.880 -> 24:53.760] we could get the idea that they weren't on the edge, they weren't on the limit of what
[24:53.760 -> 24:59.680] they could do with the car, which to be fair, they wouldn't be doing instant one of a race
[24:59.680 -> 25:04.480] anyway. So I'm sitting there marking it down, I'm like, ooh, okay, well, for their chosen
[25:04.480 -> 25:11.040] performance in this test, actually Red Bull are a little quicker in Sector 1, a little quicker in Sector
[25:11.040 -> 25:15.160] 3, and a lot alarmingly quicker in Sector 2.
[25:15.160 -> 25:16.760] What can I read into that?
[25:16.760 -> 25:17.760] Nothing.
[25:17.760 -> 25:20.080] But it's an interesting thing to look at.
[25:20.080 -> 25:25.580] The most useful thing I look at when I'm trying to say, well, which teams are going to do
[25:25.580 -> 25:30.900] well out of testing or based on what I've seen in testing, the most useful thing is
[25:30.900 -> 25:36.800] in the middle of a regulation set, how were those teams doing at the end of last season?
[25:36.800 -> 25:38.680] Where did it look like they were going?
[25:38.680 -> 25:42.120] And historically, how do they approach testing?
[25:42.120 -> 25:45.920] So I don't think this is controversial, that Mercedes tend to hide
[25:45.920 -> 25:52.080] quite a lot in testing. They go about their plan, not only do they not worry about the lap times,
[25:52.080 -> 25:58.160] they actively tend to hide lap times, and they go into the season knowing they're going to develop
[25:58.160 -> 26:03.440] in season. It's very much part of their season plan to develop in season and finish strongly.
[26:03.440 -> 26:07.360] Red Bull are a little bit less like that. They may well
[26:07.360 -> 26:11.840] have a developing season, they're incredibly good at it, it was their big strength over Ferrari
[26:11.840 -> 26:16.800] in the previous era of Formula One, but they don't seem to play as many games, perhaps, as Mercedes.
[26:17.600 -> 26:23.680] Ferrari look like the opposite, they actively want to show strength, that seems to be the Ferrari
[26:23.680 -> 26:25.680] mentality. If they have some pace,
[26:25.680 -> 26:30.560] if they're feeling good, they want you to know about it. So relative to the top teams around
[26:30.560 -> 26:37.440] them, they tend to fall away between testing and the the first Grand Prix. And I also just like to
[26:37.440 -> 26:43.280] take the position that in modern Formula One, mid-regulation, there isn't often a wild swing
[26:43.280 -> 26:45.840] between the relative positions of the car.
[26:45.840 -> 26:51.360] So, at the start of the hybrid era, yes, Mercedes briefly had Williams as their company as a distant
[26:51.360 -> 26:56.080] second, but then once Ferrari and Red Bull established themselves as second and third,
[26:56.080 -> 27:02.000] that order stayed pretty consistent for years as Red Bull slowly clawed their way back.
[27:02.000 -> 27:05.240] When Red Bull established themselves as the lead car chasing
[27:05.240 -> 27:10.400] down Braun, they could have won trophies in 2009, you could argue. They then became that
[27:10.400 -> 27:16.540] dominant force through the blown diffuser era. Ferrari settled into second, had their
[27:16.540 -> 27:23.300] own odd shot at glory, and then McLaren flattered to deceive in that kind of third place.
[27:23.300 -> 27:29.720] But generally, I agree with Trumpets. Do you want me to say it again? Just for... yeah. I agree. I agree with
[27:29.720 -> 27:33.960] Trumpets. One of the best things you've said about testing is you can't tell the
[27:33.960 -> 27:38.000] pace. You can tell very little about pace, but you sure can tell when they're having
[27:38.000 -> 27:46.880] problems. Yes, absolutely. And if we're going to talk having problems, I'm afraid that everybody's favorite
[27:46.880 -> 27:55.600] McLaren seemed to be top of the list across the three days of testing. And unusually,
[27:55.600 -> 28:06.120] we know the reason for that. And it's, yeah, it's that they've made a mistake and found they'd gone down a development path, but they
[28:06.120 -> 28:09.960] found it too late to fix it for the start of the season.
[28:09.960 -> 28:12.120] So that's a good example of a problem you can see.
[28:12.120 -> 28:16.400] I'm just going to stop you going down the McLaren path, because as it happens, McLaren
[28:16.400 -> 28:20.560] are going to be the first team that we cover kind of in depth.
[28:20.560 -> 28:27.000] But Chris, on the general guessing the order of things, what do you look for?
[28:27.000 -> 28:33.320] I think, yeah, the ease of which you can go about your testing.
[28:33.320 -> 28:38.040] And if there's one team it's been incredibly easy for, it's Red Bull.
[28:38.040 -> 28:44.680] And I think if there's one prediction that you can make after testing, it's that Red
[28:44.680 -> 28:46.000] Bull are going to be up at the
[28:46.000 -> 28:48.680] front of the field because it was just effortless.
[28:48.680 -> 28:53.600] Which is, to be fair, what you would expect before testing. So you would have predicted
[28:53.600 -> 28:58.680] Red Bull to come in, and we did predict this in the last show, we did say, unless Red Bull
[28:58.680 -> 29:03.940] have done an incredible fluff, they're going to turn up business as usual.
[29:03.940 -> 29:09.440] To an extent, yes, but even when, you know, at times the Mercedes looks like a handful,
[29:09.440 -> 29:14.960] the Ferrari doesn't look so good out on track, at no point is anyone looking at the Red Bull
[29:14.960 -> 29:31.200] thinking, oh, that doesn't look quite right. It just was fast, and it was clean and effortless for both Verstappen and Perez to glean laps out
[29:31.200 -> 29:32.200] of it.
[29:32.200 -> 29:35.880] And that performance was never guaranteed for Red Bull, because we were just saying
[29:35.880 -> 29:41.160] that the cars are probably a second to a second half faster than they were last year.
[29:41.160 -> 29:45.360] If they turned up with last year's car and were a second and a half behind, they
[29:45.360 -> 29:47.360] would be mid-table at that point.
[29:47.360 -> 29:50.480] So to stand still in this business, you have to make progress.
[29:50.480 -> 29:55.840] So they still had to evolve that car, even though it looks quite similar on the outside.
[29:55.840 -> 30:01.580] They've made subtle changes and obviously quite good changes that have meant that it's
[30:01.580 -> 30:03.800] allowed them to maintain that position.
[30:03.800 -> 30:09.360] Okay, so we're going to get into the specifics of the teams, but I'm going to give you my order
[30:09.360 -> 30:16.160] and just tell me if you wildly disagree with me, because when I went on Twitter with my order,
[30:16.160 -> 30:19.920] nearly every reply was telling me that I was mad. I don't think anyone agrees with me,
[30:19.920 -> 30:26.300] but I'm sticking by my guns. I think Red Bull is still on top. I think Mercedes are second and catching up.
[30:26.300 -> 30:29.600] I think Ferrari will continue their trend of falling away.
[30:29.800 -> 30:35.100] Alpine will solidify fourth place, mainly based on Matt's reassurances.
[30:35.300 -> 30:40.600] And Alpine will rise to fifth, somewhat through performance,
[30:40.600 -> 30:44.100] but also because it looks like McLaren are having an absolute nightmare
[30:44.100 -> 30:45.400] and will fall away.
[30:45.400 -> 30:47.840] Is there any wild discrepancies from that?
[30:47.840 -> 30:54.760] So I think the general consensus at the moment is that Mercedes doesn't quite have second
[30:54.760 -> 30:55.760] nailed down.
[30:55.760 -> 30:56.760] I think everyone's expecting...
[30:56.760 -> 30:57.760] Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
[30:57.760 -> 31:00.720] Over the course of the whole season, not turning up a day one in Brazil.
[31:00.720 -> 31:03.480] Over the course of the whole season depends on a million different things.
[31:03.480 -> 31:08.320] Yeah, but we're judging here. We've got to be careful here. We're judging who is going to be
[31:08.320 -> 31:12.720] first, second and third at the end of the season, not who's going to have a bit of a spike at the
[31:12.720 -> 31:16.320] beginning of the season. Okay, but all we can look at from testing is what's going to happen
[31:16.320 -> 31:23.120] in the first four races at best. So looking at the start of the season, all you can really look at
[31:23.120 -> 31:27.040] and say is Red Bull are very quick, Ferrari if there
[31:27.040 -> 31:31.040] is going to be a challenger to Red Bull in the early stage of the season it will be Ferrari,
[31:31.040 -> 31:36.080] Mercedes have a little bit of work to do and potentially it's going to be Aston Martin that
[31:36.080 -> 31:48.440] leads the midfield and even knocks on the door of the top three. Yeah, I didn't realise that El Plan for Alonso was to just depose Vettel and take his rising
[31:48.440 -> 31:49.440] steam.
[31:49.440 -> 31:54.120] But yeah, I would agree that I think Aston have made good progress.
[31:54.120 -> 31:57.880] I don't think they will have launched past Alpine by any stretch.
[31:57.880 -> 32:04.440] And the struggles that Alpine have been supposedly having in testing, the team don't seem worried,
[32:04.440 -> 32:08.160] so I'm not worried because for me, the biggest thing that you
[32:08.160 -> 32:11.580] can tell is not the behavior of the car on track, because we said that that's adjusted
[32:11.580 -> 32:13.360] by so many different things.
[32:13.360 -> 32:17.620] It's not even what the drivers or the teams say, because we know that they lie through
[32:17.620 -> 32:21.580] their teeth, but it's how they say it.
[32:21.580 -> 32:26.480] People like Alpine have been quietly confident, they always are, but yeah, McLaren
[32:26.480 -> 32:33.040] have been saying things and through gritted teeth and yeah, does not fill me with confidence.
[32:33.040 -> 32:34.640] So yeah, they will definitely fall away.
[32:34.640 -> 32:40.240] Keeping it general, Matt, you know, anything, you know, shocking from my order or at least
[32:40.240 -> 32:44.000] like you can see my working out, I think I've presented my working out okay,
[32:44.000 -> 32:45.920] even if Twitter's yelling at me.
[32:45.920 -> 32:49.520] Now, I appreciate you showing your work.
[32:49.520 -> 32:52.960] It makes it easier for us to point out where you've gone entirely wrong.
[32:52.960 -> 32:53.960] Fantastic.
[32:53.960 -> 33:00.800] I did notice that, sorry, that Alfa Romeo were rather low in this pecking order.
[33:00.800 -> 33:05.320] They're even below the Red Bull B team, maybe not for much longer Red Bull B team.
[33:05.320 -> 33:11.760] I didn't even split. Honestly Haas and Alfa Romeo kind of go hand in hand. So yeah, I
[33:11.760 -> 33:16.320] just had those two lumped in just above Williams.
[33:16.320 -> 33:19.680] Not even with Gran Ugio's amazing lap time that he paced.
[33:19.680 -> 33:23.040] He won day two, didn't he? He won day two, there was fireworks, there was celebrations,
[33:23.040 -> 33:24.880] he was doing donuts as well.
[33:24.880 -> 33:29.160] You think a team that lost its technical director over the winter is going to beat three of
[33:29.160 -> 33:31.160] the teams on the grid?
[33:31.160 -> 33:35.680] We all know it's not the who's got the technical director now, that'll nail them for next year
[33:35.680 -> 33:38.120] or development later in the year.
[33:38.120 -> 33:42.480] Just like the new Ferrari boss, he's going to have no influence at all on what Ferrari
[33:42.480 -> 33:43.480] actually do this year.
[33:43.480 -> 33:45.040] Trumpets, you were rudely interrupted.
[33:45.040 -> 33:49.560] It's okay, I'm used to it, being both a father and a teacher.
[33:49.560 -> 33:50.720] Happens all the time.
[33:50.720 -> 33:51.960] And co-host of Miss Daybreak.
[33:51.960 -> 33:59.120] And yeah, that too. I would disagree with Ferrari. I think Ferrari right now pose the
[33:59.120 -> 34:12.120] biggest threat to Red Bull, and if we talk about Ferrari the team I'll explain why I don't think testing was entirely representative for them. Mercedes I think will be closer and
[34:12.120 -> 34:16.880] again there are reasons for that. If you're a Mercedes fan do not give up
[34:16.880 -> 34:21.720] hope based on this test. This was incredibly important for them to validate
[34:21.720 -> 34:25.520] the direction they're going in, not for absolute lap time.
[34:25.520 -> 34:27.900] That's coming in the future.
[34:27.900 -> 34:36.380] But the biggest mystery to me is Alpine, which showed us nothing that made any sense at all,
[34:36.380 -> 34:40.320] but told us many things that sound fantastic.
[34:40.320 -> 34:45.680] And Aston, which showed us, I'm thinking possibly everything they possibly could,
[34:52.160 -> 34:52.800] but it's that thing where all the teams develop, all the teams gain time. And so,
[35:01.440 -> 35:02.240] is Aston really going to be fighting at the front for podiums? It's, it would be a remarkable
[35:06.320 -> 35:07.200] development for them to gain a, what would it be like a second and a half
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[36:57.800 -> 37:07.920] okay let's look at the testing performance of McLaren in the testing at Bahrain in 2023. I'm not going to sugarcoat it,
[37:07.920 -> 37:13.680] this looks bad and all of them look sad. Zac Brown said that they'd missed their
[37:13.680 -> 37:20.240] development targets and you could be hyperbolic about that but it's certainly not the biggest
[37:20.240 -> 37:30.200] portent. If you put the chicken guts on the bottom of the boat they will certainly spell a difficult battle ahead. The team look glum. Norris looks
[37:30.200 -> 37:36.960] noticeably angry and glib and short in interviews and the team just don't seem
[37:36.960 -> 37:41.400] to be saying anything reassuring. Their new team boss said that he is realistic
[37:41.400 -> 37:46.560] about the present and optimistic about the future. And that sounds like every
[37:46.560 -> 37:51.840] new middle manager that I've ever worked with coming into a new position in my professional
[37:51.840 -> 37:58.240] career. I am not going to be betting any of my money on a McLaren title push, which is sad.
[37:59.040 -> 38:07.080] This is McLaren. I've grown up with McLaren being a title contending team. The title of the championship is the aim for McLaren.
[38:07.080 -> 38:10.960] They won a driver title as recently as 2008.
[38:10.960 -> 38:16.020] They had arguably the fastest car as recently as 2012.
[38:16.020 -> 38:20.040] The target is the title and it looks like for the 10th year in a row they're going
[38:20.040 -> 38:23.760] to fail to bring a title fight to the books.
[38:23.760 -> 38:25.440] Catman lay this out for us.
[38:25.440 -> 38:27.480] Give us an optimistic spin if you can.
[38:27.480 -> 38:29.480] Oh, that is a hard ask.
[38:29.480 -> 38:30.480] Yeah, sorry.
[38:30.480 -> 38:31.680] That was unfair.
[38:31.680 -> 38:35.520] McLaren do very well at developing through a season.
[38:35.520 -> 38:40.440] And they apparently, so as Trumpets alluded to earlier on, they said that they realized
[38:40.440 -> 38:44.360] they were going down the wrong development track, but well too late to actually do anything
[38:44.360 -> 38:46.240] about it for their launch spec car.
[38:46.920 -> 38:51.360] So they're going down a different track at the factory and going to bring not a B
[38:51.360 -> 38:55.560] spec car, although I don't know what a B spec car is, unless it's something that's
[38:55.560 -> 38:57.320] gone down a totally different directive path.
[38:57.880 -> 39:01.680] Um, in for Baku, I believe is when they're going to bring that in.
[39:01.680 -> 39:08.720] So we'll see if they have a sudden jump in performance then, but don't forget of course it will be totally different to the car they're
[39:08.720 -> 39:14.200] currently driving. So it will be untested and it won't be easy to drive. So I don't
[39:14.200 -> 39:17.600] have high hopes for them this year. That's for sure.
[39:17.600 -> 39:23.520] It makes me really lose faith in McLaren because we're always talking about they're going to
[39:23.520 -> 39:25.040] be the ones to break away from the're going to be the ones to break
[39:25.040 -> 39:30.320] away from the midfield and be the ones to challenge the top three.
[39:30.320 -> 39:34.920] And if they could get manufacturer status, for example, then they might be able to fight
[39:34.920 -> 39:36.820] for titles.
[39:36.820 -> 39:42.360] And when you see things like this, you realize that they just have actual more fundamental
[39:42.360 -> 39:45.960] issues that lie within that team first.
[39:45.960 -> 39:48.360] And of course they had an awful test last year
[39:48.360 -> 39:50.080] and if you want your positive spin,
[39:50.080 -> 39:51.840] then they did manage to score a podium
[39:51.840 -> 39:54.080] in the third race of the season at Imola
[39:54.080 -> 39:55.160] or something like that.
[39:55.160 -> 39:57.340] So, you know, maybe they can turn it around,
[39:57.340 -> 40:01.240] but it seems to be the really awkward issue
[40:01.240 -> 40:04.100] of having a really draggy car,
[40:04.100 -> 40:05.840] which of course then means that you have
[40:05.840 -> 40:10.680] to take downforce off the car so that you don't get absolutely mullered on the
[40:10.680 -> 40:15.160] straights so they're not even able to utilize all the downforce that that car
[40:15.160 -> 40:21.640] has at the moment and I don't know about you but I think Ottmar Safnauer
[40:21.640 -> 40:25.600] might have a little wry smile just watching Oscar Piastri drive in that
[40:25.600 -> 40:28.160] car in the early stages of this season.
[40:28.160 -> 40:32.080] Well, I think I would agree with you on that, Chris.
[40:32.080 -> 40:40.880] I mean, if I'm Piastri, I might be asking myself, have I jumped on the wrong horse here?
[40:40.880 -> 40:41.880] Yes.
[40:41.880 -> 40:45.640] Because, I mean, Alpine certainly didn't look great, but they didn't look
[40:45.640 -> 40:50.680] anything like the fairly obvious disaster of McLaren. And let's be clear,
[40:50.680 -> 40:53.880] the issue for them, one of the biggest issues, were what they call the wheel
[40:53.880 -> 40:59.280] brows that sit over the front wheels. Structurally, they were unsound and they
[40:59.280 -> 41:04.720] spent loads of time trying to adapt them so they could simply go out and run laps.
[41:04.720 -> 41:05.040] And that is a very big echo of the problem that they had with the brakes. of time trying to adapt them so they could simply go out and run laps and
[41:05.040 -> 41:09.200] that is a very big echo of the problem that they had with the brakes. Now
[41:09.200 -> 41:15.920] McLaren has told us it's it's not a huge change but they have some very
[41:15.920 -> 41:21.000] aerodynamically sensitive surfaces. They're bringing updates and as Catman
[41:21.000 -> 41:26.240] mentioned by Azerbaijan we should expect to see them. They think we'll solve this
[41:26.240 -> 41:33.440] problem. But what I didn't get a sense of from Norris, who was very, I don't know, is moody,
[41:33.440 -> 41:38.000] acceptable these days. That's what I'm going to use. He seemed kind of moody in the garage with
[41:38.000 -> 41:43.680] the car. Is that those fundamental issues he was talking about with the car wanting solved
[41:43.760 -> 41:44.520] Fundamental issues he was talking about with the car wanting solved
[41:47.400 -> 41:54.860] We're solved. Maybe this update will solve it Maybe it won't but it's a real it's hanging over the head of McLaren that if they want to be at the sharp end
[41:54.860 -> 41:59.080] They need to fix this and they need to demonstrate it
[41:59.080 -> 42:04.880] But it's also a bad look for a team that's talking to Honda that they show up two seasons in a row
[42:06.080 -> 42:11.200] Thoroughly unprepared unless this has been pointed out in the chat, this is just like ultimate troll level
[42:12.000 -> 42:17.600] from the team. You could say that, but last year, as Chris said, they had an awful testing session,
[42:17.600 -> 42:22.240] but the problem is they looked fast in that test, just fragile, and then they dropped away. Whereas
[42:22.240 -> 42:26.080] now they're looking fast or reliable. And that's
[42:26.080 -> 42:31.760] not what you want from a team that is, as you said, wooing Honda to come back and join them.
[42:31.760 -> 42:33.920] I said sugarcoat it, can't I?
[42:33.920 -> 42:36.720] Okay, I'm going to make it worse.
[42:36.720 -> 42:40.080] Okay, you're a McLaren fan in general.
[42:40.080 -> 42:40.640] Absolutely.
[42:40.640 -> 42:50.640] Yeah. And so where's the hope though? Where's the hope? Because if there's hope, no one has told Lando Norris. Because he just looks fed up. And there was a really awkward
[42:50.640 -> 42:56.560] thing with Ted Kravitz, who is one of the most fun, wonderful analysts and interviewers,
[42:56.560 -> 43:02.560] just trying to engage with Lando Norris in not a cringey way, like some of the other presenters do,
[43:02.560 -> 43:05.740] but in a kind of, I understand you, I understand how to get the best
[43:05.740 -> 43:08.820] out of you way, and Norris just all but told him
[43:08.820 -> 43:11.100] to shut up on several occasions.
[43:11.100 -> 43:13.640] You know, man's not happy.
[43:13.640 -> 43:16.040] He mugged him off at the end, didn't he?
[43:16.040 -> 43:17.260] Ted made a joke and he just went,
[43:17.260 -> 43:18.700] right, I'm off, and just walked off.
[43:18.700 -> 43:21.020] That is not a happy Lando Norris.
[43:21.840 -> 43:23.520] Right, controversial opinion here
[43:23.520 -> 43:25.520] that I'm gonna get absolutely destroyed for
[43:26.480 -> 43:31.520] are the drivers the problem in this team so Lando Norris...
[43:31.520 -> 43:34.000] What's going on here? All right here we go.
[43:34.000 -> 43:35.840] These are the opinions of Chris Capmanton.
[43:35.840 -> 43:38.720] Chris Capmanton.
[43:38.720 -> 43:42.240] Okay I haven't pre-warned the panel with these opinions.
[43:42.240 -> 43:43.680] Okay let's go. No no have it let's have it.
[43:43.680 -> 43:44.720] Let's go strong.
[43:44.720 -> 43:45.000] Hang on I just want to make sure the live stream can see all of the panel with these opinions. No, okay, let's go for it. No, no, have it. Let's have it. Let's go strong.
[43:45.000 -> 43:48.500] Hang on, I just want to make sure the live stream can see all of the panel's reactions.
[43:48.500 -> 43:50.500] Please carry on.
[43:50.500 -> 43:57.500] So, you've got Lando Norris, who has had to adapt his driving style from being a rookie
[43:57.500 -> 44:03.000] to a very difficult car that has got very certain characteristics.
[44:03.000 -> 44:05.160] Carlos Sainz, for example, said that when
[44:05.160 -> 44:11.120] he came to the team, he found it very hard to adapt to. Lando is sitting there going,
[44:11.120 -> 44:17.400] right, this car works for me. It's absolutely fine. I can make it work. Has he got the appropriate
[44:17.400 -> 44:22.280] feedback to be able to make that car progress through the field? You would have thought
[44:22.280 -> 44:28.320] that being paired with Daniel Ricciardo, who's had many years at a title winning team, might have helped. But the problem is,
[44:28.320 -> 44:35.520] he's now gone and is replaced with an absolute rookie, Oscar Piastri. And are the two of them
[44:35.520 -> 44:40.640] going to be able to drive this car and this team forward in the right direction? If we're playing a
[44:40.640 -> 44:45.760] game of whose fault is it, the drivers might have to sit somewhere
[44:45.760 -> 44:47.120] high up in that.
[44:47.120 -> 44:51.600] So I don't think it's a terrible a point as, because you're not saying like, these are
[44:51.600 -> 44:52.600] bad drivers.
[44:52.600 -> 44:55.920] You're saying this is now a team that is being led by Lando Norris.
[44:55.920 -> 44:58.080] Who was it McLaren when he first went there?
[44:58.080 -> 44:59.080] Was it him and Carlos Sainz?
[44:59.080 -> 45:00.080] Yeah.
[45:00.080 -> 45:01.080] Yeah.
[45:01.080 -> 45:02.520] Together then Sainz left, Ricciardo came in.
[45:02.520 -> 45:08.680] So they had a driver that was relatively new and a driver that was all at sea. And now they've got Lando Norris
[45:08.720 -> 45:12.480] leading the team and leading development. And if you listen to, you know, a lot of
[45:12.480 -> 45:16.240] people, but like say specifically Will Buxton during the testing, talking about
[45:16.240 -> 45:21.080] how Lewis Hamilton took a lot of the testing responsibility and development on
[45:21.080 -> 45:26.960] his shoulders in 2022, sacrificing results and being the leader to
[45:26.960 -> 45:33.280] direct the development of the team. Is Lando Norris that panel? What do we think? Who's
[45:33.280 -> 45:34.320] got an in on this? Matt?
[45:34.320 -> 45:37.200] Matt McClure I'm not sure I have an in on it, but the
[45:37.200 -> 45:41.440] problem you have with certain drivers, and I'm going to reference Michael Schumacher here,
[45:42.400 -> 45:46.240] is that they will simply drive around problems and be
[45:46.240 -> 45:51.480] equally as fast. There was a classic issue on the Ferrari back in the day and
[45:51.480 -> 45:57.560] it was him and Eddie Irvine and he was fast, Irvine wasn't. They found the
[45:57.560 -> 46:01.160] problem, fixed it, and suddenly Irvine was as fast as him. When they asked Schumacher
[46:01.160 -> 46:05.480] about it, he's like, oh yeah, the car's more stable but it's no faster.
[46:05.480 -> 46:11.760] So the question isn't so much can they lead the development, but are they the kind of
[46:11.760 -> 46:17.440] drivers who can give the engineers the information they need to fix these sorts of problems.
[46:17.440 -> 46:20.760] Chris, are you going to let this slander continue?
[46:20.760 -> 46:25.360] Lando Norris, one of the most prepared young drivers in the world, someone who
[46:25.360 -> 46:32.960] put the highly fancied Daniel Ricciardo to the sword, are you gonna let this stand? I think
[46:34.000 -> 46:38.400] that a. Lando looks miserable because he's entering his fifth season in Formula One and
[46:38.400 -> 46:50.880] still doesn't have a car capable of winning races, and b, that you do not spend as long in the McLaren Junior
[46:50.880 -> 46:59.320] program that he did without learning how to give proper feedback on a car, and how to
[46:59.320 -> 47:03.800] play the role that isn't just driving the car.
[47:03.800 -> 47:08.840] Because if there's one team that's going to be a bit of a stickler for things like that,
[47:08.840 -> 47:09.840] is going to be McLaren.
[47:09.840 -> 47:15.720] Well, I wasn't expecting to end this segment on Catman hates Lando Norris, but it was an
[47:15.720 -> 47:21.120] interesting, it's a different perspective, and that is one of the teams I'm most curious
[47:21.120 -> 47:22.120] about.
[47:22.120 -> 47:26.600] I am curious to see, do McLaren turn up at Bahrain for race one with
[47:26.600 -> 47:35.600] something or as it looks now, nothing.
[47:35.600 -> 47:42.200] Let's have a look at Red Bull's performance in testing. It looked metronomic. They were
[47:42.200 -> 47:54.320] doing their impression of F1's version of the statue of David, they looked picturesque, they looked sculpted, and they were letting it all hang out for everyone to see.
[47:54.320 -> 48:01.400] Chris, is Red Bull as magnificent and as composed and as prepared as they seem to be?
[48:02.000 -> 48:04.000] as they seem to be? A short answer, yes.
[48:04.000 -> 48:10.000] They've really kind of entered this harmony between the car, the team and the driver,
[48:10.000 -> 48:17.000] particularly, that is very akin to what they had with Sebastian Vettel in the early 2010s
[48:17.000 -> 48:22.000] when he was dominating the sport and rewriting the record books.
[48:22.000 -> 48:26.160] So, I think, particularly in the early part of the season,
[48:26.720 -> 48:32.960] Dell will be probably the team to beat. You won't see the effect of their error restrictions from the
[48:32.960 -> 48:39.920] cost cap breach that is part of their punishment because most of the work had already gone into
[48:39.920 -> 48:45.920] the 2023 car. So you won't see that until the development phase of the season.
[48:45.920 -> 48:52.080] Yeah, slightly harder to draw the new design when your wrist has been slightly slapped in
[48:52.080 -> 48:56.480] the manner that Red Bull had theirs, very, very gently disciplined.
[48:57.280 -> 49:04.320] Yeah, yeah. A couple of wraps with the cane there maybe in comparison, but yeah,
[49:04.320 -> 49:05.840] I think they're the team to beat
[49:05.840 -> 49:07.680] at the start of the season.
[49:07.680 -> 49:08.840] Matt.
[49:08.840 -> 49:11.400] Yeah, I mean, they essentially showed up to testing,
[49:11.400 -> 49:13.400] painted a big target on their back and said,
[49:13.400 -> 49:15.640] come get me if you can.
[49:15.640 -> 49:18.280] And I think that's fine.
[49:18.280 -> 49:20.120] They started out with the, I mean,
[49:20.120 -> 49:22.560] they had the advantage at the end of the season.
[49:22.560 -> 49:24.780] If everybody develops the same amount,
[49:24.780 -> 49:25.040] they should
[49:25.040 -> 49:31.680] continue with that. Where the testing restrictions might get interesting is if they wind up in a
[49:31.680 -> 49:38.000] close fight with, say, Ferrari, or, you know, let's just why not shoot for the moon a three-way with
[49:38.000 -> 49:45.120] Mercedes and Ferrari. Going into the end of the season, they might begin to find that they're a little unhappy that their
[49:45.120 -> 49:51.760] accountants didn't do the best possible job for them last season. But aside from that, the thing
[49:51.760 -> 49:56.720] that the thing that struck me about this two things. One, they're on supposedly the minimum
[49:56.720 -> 50:00.960] weight limit, which is good because the tires weigh two kilograms more than the power unit has
[50:00.960 -> 50:10.720] to weigh one kilogram more, which means that they found some more weight savings over the course of the off-season. That and the fact that Perez, in general,
[50:10.720 -> 50:16.640] although he had a harder time with tire degradation, I think, than Verstappen did,
[50:16.640 -> 50:22.320] on one lap pace, he looked to be much closer, which suggests that the evolution that Red Bull
[50:22.320 -> 50:31.760] have brought, because it really is an evolution of their design, is possibly more neutral and offers some setup possibilities to help Perez be closer to the front.
[50:31.760 -> 50:38.280] And just on that, obviously, there's a sort of slightly different spec of tire for this year
[50:38.280 -> 50:46.240] that is said to be, I don't want to say contributing it, and there's like the whole reason why Paris is a bit closer
[50:46.240 -> 50:49.840] to Max maybe, but maybe they've done stuff with the car as well.
[50:49.840 -> 50:53.520] But overall, there's a lot less sort of push in the front end.
[50:53.520 -> 50:57.760] And like you say, Matt, it's more neutral and favoring.
[50:57.760 -> 50:59.720] What was it before?
[50:59.720 -> 51:01.680] Even favoring isn't the right word.
[51:01.680 -> 51:03.160] So where's it come from?
[51:03.160 -> 51:04.160] Let's make that clear.
[51:04.160 -> 51:06.560] Where have the tires come from if we're talking
[51:06.560 -> 51:12.920] about tending to be oversteery or understeery? Italy, yeah, cheers mate. So are we saying
[51:12.920 -> 51:18.600] they've become more neutral from what? Yeah, from a more understeered balance.
[51:18.600 -> 51:23.000] Oh, okay. Wouldn't that suit Verstappen more? Out of those two?
[51:23.000 -> 51:26.840] Well, Verstappen has this knack of being able to take any kind
[51:26.840 -> 51:31.920] of car, doesn't he? And being able to make it fast. But I think Perez does like a more
[51:31.920 -> 51:39.040] neutral car. Oh I see, okay. Matt. So the point of the new tyres was that understeer
[51:39.040 -> 51:46.440] was a big problem with this regulation set. The new front tires are meant to help combat that understeer,
[51:46.440 -> 51:51.200] and by all accounts, they have absolutely done that. How does this help Perez, who prefers
[51:51.200 -> 51:55.880] either a neutral or slight understeer compared to Verstappen, who likes a much pointier car?
[51:55.880 -> 52:02.500] Well, what it means is that Red Bull can have a more neutral platform and allow the tires
[52:02.500 -> 52:08.000] to help Verstappen be pointy and still have the room for mechanical suspension
[52:08.000 -> 52:14.280] adjustment to give Perez something closer to the feel that he needs to be fast through corners.
[52:14.280 -> 52:21.360] And so by giving them extra room on the pointy end, Red Bull can actually dial back a little
[52:21.360 -> 52:30.040] bit and still give both drivers more of what they're looking for. In a very simple but not at all technically accurate explanation.
[52:30.040 -> 52:35.120] That's what that all sounds very good and exactly what I think is happening.
[52:35.120 -> 52:40.600] But do you really think that Red Bull have given two hoots to what Perez actually wants?
[52:40.600 -> 52:45.360] As long as Verstappen has the car he wants, why does it matter what Perez wants?
[52:46.160 -> 52:51.360] Because, do you remember all those times Perez started 8th and 10th and was able to give Max
[52:51.360 -> 52:56.960] no help at all up the front? And if we look at Ferrari times, I mean, we see Leclerc like,
[52:56.960 -> 53:02.640] what, thousandths ahead of Sainz? Yeah, when you're fighting for the World Championship,
[53:02.640 -> 53:08.800] you want the Mexican Minister of Defense to be starting p2 if Max is starting p1
[53:08.800 -> 53:14.180] Don't you I there's a big assumption here that the Red Bull are the Verstappen team
[53:14.400 -> 53:18.320] so and that may well be accurate but I do feel like if
[53:18.540 -> 53:23.000] They come out with a car and and Paris happens to be faster because it suits him
[53:23.000 -> 53:25.760] I don't think that they're at all costs
[53:25.760 -> 53:30.200] going to say no it has to be Verstappen. I don't think Verstappen has the same grip on Red Bull as
[53:30.200 -> 53:32.400] Schumacher on Ferrari.
[53:32.400 -> 53:39.400] But even if they are a Verstappen team, you still want Perez to be the one coming second.
[53:39.400 -> 53:45.760] Not only to take points away from your rivals, but also it's great for the Constructors' championship as well.
[53:45.760 -> 53:50.200] Clearly, all this conversation for me is holding the hope out as a Perez fan that there's just
[53:50.200 -> 53:54.560] a chance that he comes out of the blocks and he just looks a little faster. Verstappen
[53:54.560 -> 53:59.080] has a couple of DNFs, oh darn, that's unlucky. Safe ones, mind you. And then suddenly Red
[53:59.080 -> 54:07.040] Bull are almost politically forced to back Perez and ask Verstappen to support Perez, which he won't.
[54:07.040 -> 54:09.600] He definitely, definitely won't.
[54:09.600 -> 54:12.840] And then that paves the way for the Mercedes push.
[54:12.840 -> 54:14.880] Or whoever, I'm neutral, I don't care.
[54:14.880 -> 54:15.880] Sorry.
[54:15.880 -> 54:20.640] Perez has proven that he can, when the car is working for him, he can fight Verstappen
[54:20.640 -> 54:25.360] because he was very quick in Jetta, he should have won that race,
[54:30.000 -> 54:32.880] but for the safety car that ruined his strategy and he should have won in Spain, but for the team telling him to get out of Max's way.
[54:33.600 -> 54:34.560] Well, he had a chance.
[54:35.680 -> 54:40.160] In the early stage of last season when the car was a little bit more suited to
[54:40.160 -> 54:46.560] Perez, not necessarily by design, but it was, then he can take the fight to Verstappen.
[54:46.560 -> 54:52.320] Yeah, I guess you're right in that you want him to be finishing second because that was
[54:52.320 -> 54:56.920] probably Lewis's main problem when fighting against Max, is that Bottas wasn't able to
[54:56.920 -> 55:06.740] get in between them. But what it does lead to is if Perez does have a difficult few races, difficult weekend, that may pave the way
[55:06.740 -> 55:11.740] for a certain Daniel Ricciardo to stake his claim
[55:11.820 -> 55:13.340] on that seat for next year.
[55:13.340 -> 55:15.900] Here's where I think that is completely wrong.
[55:15.900 -> 55:19.400] Perez's pace might depend more on his willingness
[55:19.400 -> 55:20.620] to play the number two role,
[55:20.620 -> 55:23.580] if that's the way it shakes out, than his performance.
[55:23.580 -> 55:28.000] The way it all worked out last season was fine. He had a few good races, he disappeared for a little bit of
[55:28.000 -> 55:33.160] the season, which he's done actually for the last couple of seasons he's been there, but
[55:33.160 -> 55:38.480] then he's strong and he's useful towards the end. So being useful is more likely to keep
[55:38.480 -> 55:44.980] him that spot. If he's too good and pushy once he's already been established that he's
[55:44.980 -> 55:52.000] the number two for the season, which he pretty much will be, then that's when they might still bring Ricardo in if he's going to be a troublemaker.
[55:52.000 -> 56:00.000] His only chance is to come out of the blocks, win the first five races, and make it politically impossible for them not to back him.
[56:00.000 -> 56:06.800] I rarely make predictions, but the first bad week in Perez has, I guarantee Sky is going
[56:06.800 -> 56:10.320] to be nothing but, will they bring Ricardo into this problem?
[56:10.320 -> 56:12.120] Yeah, I know you a hundred percent right.
[56:12.120 -> 56:16.680] I know it because we do it all the time to a bunch of different drivers, and the moment
[56:16.680 -> 56:23.420] they start that drumbeat, it's going to be difficult for Perez and for Red Bull to manage
[56:23.420 -> 56:25.800] those expectations.
[56:25.800 -> 56:32.080] The problem is for high performing athletes is that your mental state and your ability
[56:32.080 -> 56:38.040] to manifest doing well is entirely based on yourself.
[56:38.040 -> 56:43.120] So if you've got everybody telling you, oh, Ricardo's there, he's going to snap at your
[56:43.120 -> 56:45.060] heels, he's going to be the one next in.
[56:45.060 -> 56:46.080] Cause you had a bad weekend.
[56:46.480 -> 56:48.780] That can very easily spiral for Perez.
[56:48.780 -> 56:54.000] So I think even though Ricardo is really basically just going to be a donut driver,
[56:54.260 -> 56:59.020] as far as I'm concerned this year, it might add more pressure than it should.
[57:00.300 -> 57:02.780] As in doing donuts when they want to do demonstrations on top of it.
[57:03.640 -> 57:04.140] Oh, okay.
[57:04.220 -> 57:04.380] Yeah.
[57:04.380 -> 57:04.900] I like it.
[57:05.240 -> 57:10.140] Donut driver. You've coined a new phrase. Okay. I like that. Let's move on
[57:17.600 -> 57:19.120] Moving on to
[57:19.120 -> 57:21.920] Mercedes and their performance in testing in Bahrain in
[57:22.840 -> 57:26.480] 2023 Mercedes is a team that does have a reputation
[57:26.480 -> 57:33.360] for holding its cards close to its chest in testing. Are they sandbagging? Are Mercedes
[57:33.360 -> 57:38.640] sandbagging? Yes. Well, at least that's what they say. Rachel Brooks was interviewing Toto Wolf and
[57:38.640 -> 57:45.000] said, are you hiding pace? And he paused as if he was considering playing it coy and saying
[57:45.000 -> 57:49.320] oh no Gov this is all we've got we've come out here with everything we've left
[57:49.320 -> 57:53.360] it all on the track and that's all we've got but then he just out and out
[57:53.360 -> 57:58.520] said yes we are hiding pace of course we are we just don't know how much pace
[57:58.520 -> 58:03.880] everyone else is hiding Mercedes have a reputation and they have a penchant for
[58:03.880 -> 58:06.240] not going for lap times
[58:06.240 -> 58:11.040] or showing particularly what they have in terms of race pace during testing. 2019 I
[58:11.040 -> 58:16.320] think is a great example where Ferrari really looked the best in pre-season and Mercedes
[58:16.320 -> 58:22.840] then just turned up and blew them away winning the first 37 races of that season. The two
[58:22.840 -> 58:26.560] years before that, Mercedes had the best car throughout the
[58:26.560 -> 58:32.160] whole year, but Ferrari looked like they were going to come out and dominate them when really
[58:32.160 -> 58:39.840] it was very close. So it just seems to be Mercedes' MO to come out and do that. And obviously last
[58:39.840 -> 58:49.780] year it went a little bit wrong because they had specific problems that then didn't let them carry out their normal plan of developing throughout the season. But I would still say
[58:49.780 -> 58:55.880] that is a spike and not a trend. And I'm still expecting that if I look at the Mercedes pace
[58:55.880 -> 59:03.900] and I see where on paper just the simplest Occam's razor explanation of where they are
[59:03.900 -> 59:06.240] in the grid in testing, you can shuffle
[59:06.240 -> 59:11.760] them a little bit forward. Because that's what they've taught us since 2013, pretty
[59:11.760 -> 59:17.840] much. And the big thing is, they look happy. Chris Stevens.
[59:17.840 -> 59:50.320] The big question is, was it porpoising? And no, it was not. The biggest issue that plagued Matt Well, I mean Mercedes told us before we even showed up to testing that the car they were
[59:50.320 -> 59:57.120] bringing wasn't the quote-unquote finished product. It was essentially a concept model
[59:57.840 -> 01:00:04.800] that they needed to verify, because last year they brought a model and it didn't correlate
[01:00:04.800 -> 01:00:09.600] to what they had predicted and that cause them an immense amount of grief.
[01:00:09.600 -> 01:00:18.900] So they came up with an idea or they stuck with their basic concept with the fixes they found last season and they brought sort of a proto.
[01:00:19.400 -> 01:00:25.280] Model of it but we've already learned I think I'm going to say Mike Elliott, but now who knows,
[01:00:25.280 -> 01:00:27.440] who knows if that was the right name in the interview that I saw.
[01:00:27.440 -> 01:00:31.120] I think it's Mike Elliott, who is the technical head.
[01:00:32.000 -> 01:00:38.320] Right. And that they already have a big, significant improvement planned. We know for
[01:00:38.320 -> 01:00:42.800] a fact they ran with a high downforce wing, and they're going to have a different wing available
[01:00:42.800 -> 01:00:45.600] for Bahrain. And that a lot of the
[01:00:45.600 -> 01:00:50.320] characteristics people remarked on, like sort of those snaps of oversteers you get coming out of
[01:00:50.320 -> 01:00:55.760] corners and stuff like that, were quite possibly down to this slightly odd configuration, which
[01:00:55.760 -> 01:01:03.760] Mercedes probably ran, to be absolutely certain they had solved their parpusing problem. So, no,
[01:01:03.760 -> 01:01:07.320] we have no idea what Mercedes is actually capable
[01:01:07.320 -> 01:01:13.960] of yet, but what we do know, and I think Chris is, Chris Stevens is correct, who have pointed out in
[01:01:13.960 -> 01:01:19.440] this instance, is that they seemed happy, which suggests that the targets that were internally
[01:01:19.440 -> 01:01:30.000] generated for them were all met, and that the information the engineers were getting back at the factory each day made them happy with the way they wanted to go this season.
[01:01:30.000 -> 01:01:34.640] Mike Elliott is the technical director of Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 team.
[01:01:35.280 -> 01:01:40.240] There you go. And by the way, he does seem to be the person that Mercedes put forward
[01:01:40.240 -> 01:01:42.320] when it comes to technical explanations.
[01:01:42.320 -> 01:01:44.880] Yeah, drop us a line, man. Come on, give us an interview.
[01:01:44.880 -> 01:01:45.000] Yeah, come on, tell us. Come on, give us an interview.
[01:01:45.000 -> 01:01:45.800] Yeah, come on, tell us.
[01:01:45.800 -> 01:01:46.300] Come on, Mike.
[01:01:46.300 -> 01:01:48.300] Spanners at MrApex.net.
[01:01:48.300 -> 01:01:49.100] Just tell me.
[01:01:49.100 -> 01:01:52.100] I'll only tell 47,000 people.
[01:01:53.400 -> 01:01:54.900] Is that what we're up to now? Blimey.
[01:01:54.900 -> 01:01:58.900] Well, for a race review, it's up and around 50,000,
[01:01:58.900 -> 01:02:02.100] if you include our YouTube of people who download our race reviews.
[01:02:02.100 -> 01:02:08.760] And the only reason that it gets up to those levels is because you people who listen to us... you people... you people
[01:02:08.760 -> 01:02:12.840] who listen to and enjoy hanging out in Missed Apex tend to tell your friends
[01:02:12.840 -> 01:02:16.400] about it and you tend to post it on places like Reddit and Twitter. No matter
[01:02:16.400 -> 01:02:19.800] what you're following or your size of the amount of Facebook friends or
[01:02:19.800 -> 01:02:25.580] whatever, if you just post, hey I was was listening to missed apex and those guys seem kind of
[01:02:25.580 -> 01:02:25.960] fun.
[01:02:26.120 -> 01:02:30.620] If you want an F1 podcast search for mistake, that really has been our
[01:02:30.680 -> 01:02:32.840] absolutely biggest marketing tool.
[01:02:32.840 -> 01:02:36.580] So please, please, please tell your friends about mistake, PECS podcast, and
[01:02:36.580 -> 01:02:40.720] just grow this community, which I think is kind of okay.
[01:02:41.380 -> 01:02:41.680] Yeah.
[01:02:41.900 -> 01:02:44.580] And you know what, if you're watching, if you're watching on the YouTube, right.
[01:02:44.940 -> 01:02:45.680] Yeah. Just. Just like that. Like button,'re watching, if you're watching on the YouTube, right? Yeah. Just,
[01:02:46.600 -> 01:02:48.720] just like that like button, just like, and subscribe,
[01:02:48.880 -> 01:02:52.280] just click that like button. It's right there. Just give me a little,
[01:02:52.320 -> 01:02:54.600] just give me a little click. And then you see that subscribe button.
[01:02:54.600 -> 01:02:56.560] That's like right next to it as well. Just do that.
[01:02:56.960 -> 01:02:59.360] Just give that a little click as well. And it will be all good.
[01:02:59.400 -> 01:03:01.720] And then we'll be distracted from the point we were trying to make.
[01:03:02.120 -> 01:03:07.960] Yeah, exactly. Now the very quick point I was trying to make. Yeah, exactly. Now, the very quick point I was trying to make was the following up from
[01:03:07.960 -> 01:03:12.880] the sort of concept design that Mercedes are running. Didn't they also say that they have
[01:03:12.880 -> 01:03:19.520] an entire like B-spec car ready to go in case they turn up a testing and it was a complete
[01:03:19.520 -> 01:03:20.520] disaster?
[01:03:20.520 -> 01:03:24.800] No, I don't think that's what it was. I think that that was clarified to be this is going
[01:03:24.800 -> 01:03:26.600] to be an evolution of what we're
[01:03:26.600 -> 01:03:30.400] doing now and it's planned regardless of how well it goes.
[01:03:30.400 -> 01:03:32.480] We already have this update in the pipeline.
[01:03:32.480 -> 01:03:35.960] It's not, if this doesn't work, we're going to rip off Red Bull.
[01:03:35.960 -> 01:03:42.400] I would be sure they had a plan, but I'm pretty sure that plan wasn't just a straight copy
[01:03:42.400 -> 01:03:45.080] like certain other teams we won't mention right now.
[01:03:45.080 -> 01:03:47.320] You mean Aston Martin?
[01:03:47.320 -> 01:03:48.320] You said it, not me.
[01:03:48.320 -> 01:03:49.320] No, I did, yeah, you're right.
[01:03:49.320 -> 01:03:50.320] Come on.
[01:03:50.320 -> 01:03:58.660] So just a very quick point for me, the thing of testing for me is that we still have three
[01:03:58.660 -> 01:04:03.360] top teams with three completely different philosophies.
[01:04:03.360 -> 01:04:07.400] I had assumed by now that they all would have converged on the Red Bull
[01:04:07.400 -> 01:04:12.840] philosophy, which is the, you know, the, the very simple, elegant looking
[01:04:12.840 -> 01:04:17.840] design from outside, but you've got the Ferrari bathtub still going strong.
[01:04:17.880 -> 01:04:20.500] And you've got Mercedes with their, where are we at?
[01:04:20.500 -> 01:04:25.880] Half pod, half pod, 0.5 pod and Lady Gaga shoulders.
[01:04:25.880 -> 01:04:27.480] Yeah, yeah, exactly.
[01:04:27.480 -> 01:04:32.520] So that does worryingly remind me of that Alpine that looked very top heavy a
[01:04:32.520 -> 01:04:34.720] couple of years ago that didn't do so well.
[01:04:34.720 -> 01:04:35.860] So we'll see.
[01:04:35.860 -> 01:04:40.460] But yeah, I just think it's such a wonderful thing that we have so many design
[01:04:40.460 -> 01:04:42.520] philosophies that get so close to each other.
[01:04:43.120 -> 01:04:43.560] It's brilliant.
[01:04:44.440 -> 01:04:44.720] Yeah.
[01:04:44.720 -> 01:04:48.560] But I mean, in general, you look at the body language of Mercedes and their previous
[01:04:48.560 -> 01:04:53.760] testing performance and you would say barring disaster they're going to be a little better
[01:04:53.760 -> 01:04:58.240] than they would on paper appear, which is why in my initial ordering of the teams
[01:04:58.960 -> 01:05:06.640] I really do have over the course of the whole season, I have Mercedes just behind Red Bull with a shot and
[01:05:06.640 -> 01:05:13.520] Ferrari falling back to third. It will take a whole year to figure out whether we're right or
[01:05:13.520 -> 01:05:19.040] wrong but I mean there are some signs if you want to look for Mercedes sandbagging. They were
[01:05:19.040 -> 01:05:25.920] massively down on top speed. Now they were down on top speed during the season, Catman, during last season, but you know
[01:05:25.920 -> 01:05:31.520] they're a full like over 10 kilometers an hour down on the main straight. They either haven't
[01:05:31.520 -> 01:05:38.400] solved that problem at all or they're turned down more relative to say Ferrari who were showing the
[01:05:38.400 -> 01:05:44.000] highest top speed. Absolutely, so as you said in testing we have no idea what engine modes they're
[01:05:44.000 -> 01:05:47.200] running, what fuel loads they're running, what configuration they're running.
[01:05:47.200 -> 01:05:51.160] So it would tell the, as Trumpet said earlier, they were running a high downforce wing.
[01:05:51.160 -> 01:05:57.120] So it's likely we weren't seeing the true deficit, but that is a large thing.
[01:05:57.120 -> 01:06:04.760] And for me, is that because this zero pod concept is just draggy because the rear tires
[01:06:04.760 -> 01:06:07.080] are stuck out like, you know, as
[01:06:07.080 -> 01:06:10.000] I say, big kind of sails on the back of the car.
[01:06:10.000 -> 01:06:11.000] On their own, yeah.
[01:06:11.000 -> 01:06:12.000] Of the car chumpets.
[01:06:12.000 -> 01:06:15.600] Yeah, I mean, there, drag exists lots of different places.
[01:06:15.600 -> 01:06:18.960] The rear wing contributes more to the drag.
[01:06:18.960 -> 01:06:20.760] Rear tires are the most.
[01:06:20.760 -> 01:06:27.100] But I think you could look and see, there was a great shot of the Mercedes, because
[01:06:27.100 -> 01:06:32.900] all the teams were locking up into turn 10, with smoke just pouring down, tire smoke just
[01:06:32.900 -> 01:06:35.060] pouring down this side of the car.
[01:06:35.060 -> 01:06:40.840] And you can clearly see that the evolution they've had has started to work at moving
[01:06:40.840 -> 01:06:46.540] some of the direct airflow away from the rear tires, but as also we
[01:06:46.540 -> 01:06:52.020] previously discussed, a lot of that was acceptable as a compromise based on a
[01:06:52.020 -> 01:06:56.020] ride height efficiency that they were never able to achieve in real life
[01:06:56.020 -> 01:07:02.220] because of the purposing. They know all this. So what's to come for Mercedes is
[01:07:02.220 -> 01:07:05.460] clearly going to be a continual improvement of that.
[01:07:05.460 -> 01:07:09.260] And as far as them being down on top speed, well, that's mostly because they're running
[01:07:09.260 -> 01:07:15.980] the highest downforce wing they had, which is naturally going to be draggy and reduce
[01:07:15.980 -> 01:07:17.800] your top speed.
[01:07:17.800 -> 01:07:22.040] And they ran that to try and induce porpoising as much as possible, didn't they?
[01:07:22.040 -> 01:07:23.040] That's the guess.
[01:07:23.040 -> 01:07:25.240] I mean, obviously Mercedes isn't telling us that.
[01:07:25.240 -> 01:07:28.400] So speculation, but reasonable.
[01:07:28.400 -> 01:07:30.640] And a lot of people are reporting
[01:07:30.640 -> 01:07:33.160] that the solution that Mercedes have come up with
[01:07:33.160 -> 01:07:35.240] is to do with their rear suspension
[01:07:35.240 -> 01:07:38.080] and it being more compliant than before, which
[01:07:38.080 -> 01:07:41.440] is allowing it to keep kind of sucked down to the track
[01:07:41.440 -> 01:07:45.680] and not be smacking it every time that the car generates
[01:07:45.680 -> 01:07:46.680] any downforce.
[01:07:46.680 -> 01:07:50.120] Have you got any insight on that, Trumpets, as to what they've changed?
[01:07:50.120 -> 01:07:51.520] Um, no.
[01:07:51.520 -> 01:07:55.360] You've made it into a Tech Time Catman and you know what you're doing.
[01:07:55.360 -> 01:08:02.760] I don't have any direct insight, but what I would suggest is that the teams are probably
[01:08:02.760 -> 01:08:05.960] getting better at using, you know how at the front they have that
[01:08:05.960 -> 01:08:12.960] deflectible keel, there's a spring in there. I think that the teams are simply getting better
[01:08:12.960 -> 01:08:19.760] at using that to interfere with the natural resonance of the chassis. Yeah, resonance of
[01:08:19.760 -> 01:08:25.280] the chassis. To damp it down, because on the first day, a lot of teams were bouncing a lot because
[01:08:25.280 -> 01:08:30.200] they were running very low ride heights and you're hitting the bumps.
[01:08:30.200 -> 01:08:35.520] It seemed like to me, I could see that this pattern starting and then just damping out.
[01:08:35.520 -> 01:08:38.040] It wasn't just Mercedes, it was several teams.
[01:08:38.040 -> 01:08:48.000] So I think they've just simply gotten more sophisticated with their usage of the suspension and to help solve that problem.
[01:08:48.800 -> 01:08:55.840] While Chris does clips for our TikTok, so Chris, zone in, hit record on this. What is very clear
[01:08:55.840 -> 01:09:03.120] from testing in 2023 is that this Mercedes car is going to be competing for race wins in the season.
[01:09:03.120 -> 01:09:08.640] to be competing for race wins in the season.
[01:09:14.880 -> 01:09:21.520] In testing in 2023, Aston Martin came out of the blocks to impress. The whole of Formula One seems to think that Aston Martin are, if not title contenders, about to leap up to join the top
[01:09:21.520 -> 01:09:25.880] three in Formula One. I personally have doubts that they will suddenly
[01:09:25.880 -> 01:09:32.480] pop up as a top three team, like most people seem to think that they will. But let's dig
[01:09:32.480 -> 01:09:38.000] into the scale of what that achievement would be. Mid-regulation, they are going to jump
[01:09:38.000 -> 01:09:48.000] up from 7th in the championship, allegedly, to suddenly being competing for race wins, for giving the likes of Ferrari and Mercedes a bloody nose week on week,
[01:09:48.000 -> 01:09:56.000] I am slightly sceptical of that. If Aston Martin finish this season in the top three of Formula One,
[01:09:56.000 -> 01:10:04.000] it will be the most phenomenal off-season mid-regulation performance of the century.
[01:10:04.000 -> 01:10:07.760] If they do it, well done. But I have my doubts.
[01:10:08.480 -> 01:10:14.880] Now, do we think in this panel, is anybody buying the Aston Martin hype? Who's most
[01:10:15.440 -> 01:10:31.040] on the Aston Martin hype train? Chris, you're most. You is still a small gap at the beginning of the season between
[01:10:31.040 -> 01:10:39.120] Red Bull and Ferrari and then Mercedes that is somewhat bridging the gap between the top
[01:10:39.120 -> 01:10:44.920] three in the midfield, then Aston Martin are going to be the ones closest to the top three,
[01:10:44.920 -> 01:10:45.360] even if there isn't
[01:10:45.360 -> 01:10:50.080] quite as big a gap between those top two teams of Mercedes.
[01:10:50.080 -> 01:10:54.840] I think Aston will be the ones that are leading the midfield charge and maybe just starting
[01:10:54.840 -> 01:10:58.480] to bridge that gap ever so slightly.
[01:10:58.480 -> 01:11:08.760] And I think the reason that you're able to see something like this now is because of the cost cap, which, you know, it's taken a couple of years to kind of actually show
[01:11:08.760 -> 01:11:13.840] the effect of it. But now you're seeing the quality of the team
[01:11:13.840 -> 01:11:17.480] itself, not just who spends the most money. And, you know, we've
[01:11:17.480 -> 01:11:22.020] seen it with Mercedes how, you know, even this team that has
[01:11:22.020 -> 01:11:24.520] been utterly dominant in Formula One for the last eight years,
[01:11:24.840 -> 01:11:27.200] royally screwed things up last year.
[01:11:27.200 -> 01:11:30.940] And that cost cap is, is not really allowing them to chuck money at the
[01:11:30.940 -> 01:11:35.680] solution like they normally would do enter a team like Aston Martin that has.
[01:11:35.960 -> 01:11:40.900] Being investing so much in their resources and in their infrastructure
[01:11:40.900 -> 01:11:45.540] to be the ones that can make that stride forward.
[01:11:45.540 -> 01:11:49.900] So what you're saying is Aston Martin being able to spend up to the limit of the cost
[01:11:49.900 -> 01:11:55.160] cap means that they can compete with all the teams that also choose to adhere with the
[01:11:55.160 -> 01:11:56.800] limits of the cost cap.
[01:11:56.800 -> 01:12:01.720] It's the additional investment that that team has had since it was Force India, Racing Point,
[01:12:01.720 -> 01:12:05.440] whatever, but it's more the other, the top three teams
[01:12:05.440 -> 01:12:09.840] being pulled back in terms of that money they can spend.
[01:12:09.840 -> 01:12:15.600] CW 2. Yeah, and it's not at all down to Aston's accountants simply being slightly more clever
[01:12:15.600 -> 01:12:20.800] than Red Bull's accountants, another area in which they have copied the current world
[01:12:20.800 -> 01:12:25.360] championship team. Well that's it.
[01:12:25.360 -> 01:12:31.840] Yeah, no, I mean, there are rumors about exactly how much Aston is getting away with under
[01:12:31.840 -> 01:12:34.240] the cost gap because their accountants are better.
[01:12:34.240 -> 01:12:38.880] But I leave that aside for a moment and I ask you a much simpler question.
[01:12:38.880 -> 01:12:43.160] If we start with the idea that every team improves between the end of last season and
[01:12:43.160 -> 01:12:50.640] the beginning of this season, and then we double it for Aston because they have Dan Fallows and they have Alonso.
[01:12:50.640 -> 01:12:51.360] Mm-hmm.
[01:12:52.240 -> 01:12:58.320] Alplant. That still puts them well behind Mercedes. Look at how bad Mercedes looked
[01:12:58.320 -> 01:13:04.080] last test. Was any midfield team really close to them over the course of the season?
[01:13:04.080 -> 01:13:04.880] No, no.
[01:13:04.880 -> 01:13:09.360] No, not at all. I mean, maybe a little, maybe every now and then when things went wrong,
[01:13:09.360 -> 01:13:11.840] but no, no midfield team came close.
[01:13:11.840 -> 01:13:12.560] I think that's the-
[01:13:12.560 -> 01:13:17.760] Aston is not going to close that gap in a single season. It just is not going to happen.
[01:13:17.760 -> 01:13:21.280] And we know things about some of the other midfield teams,
[01:13:21.840 -> 01:13:24.640] because now I'm going to make it all about Alpine.
[01:13:24.640 -> 01:13:25.440] Like there's an Alpine segment to make it all about Alpine. There's an Alpine segment.
[01:13:25.440 -> 01:13:26.440] Just make it about Alpine.
[01:13:26.440 -> 01:13:27.440] Okay, fine.
[01:13:27.440 -> 01:13:29.040] I'll leave it for then.
[01:13:29.040 -> 01:13:33.640] I just, I'm just getting anxious to get it in there because it's really exciting, but
[01:13:33.640 -> 01:13:35.140] completely unconfirmed.
[01:13:35.140 -> 01:13:38.340] So it's going to be the most interesting thing to watch on Friday, I think.
[01:13:38.340 -> 01:13:39.340] But fine, go ahead.
[01:13:39.340 -> 01:13:40.340] Come on.
[01:13:40.340 -> 01:13:43.920] I'll be brief and then you can fanboy on Alpine all you like.
[01:13:43.920 -> 01:13:49.420] So two things for Aston Martin, I think their catering department must have a lot of photocopiers
[01:13:49.420 -> 01:13:51.080] in it.
[01:13:51.080 -> 01:13:54.600] But the second thing is just think of what this is going to mean.
[01:13:54.600 -> 01:13:59.840] If they go from seventh in the championship up to fourth, their column two payments at
[01:13:59.840 -> 01:14:06.640] the end of the season are going to go up by about $20 million, which is a massive thing for
[01:14:06.640 -> 01:14:14.800] a little team like this, particularly as they're trying to finance making a massive new factory
[01:14:14.800 -> 01:14:18.560] just outside Silverstone. So it's going to be a real help to them if they can get that.
[01:14:18.560 -> 01:14:23.600] It's not little team though, is it, in terms of the amount of money that they can spend
[01:14:23.600 -> 01:14:27.360] out on things that don't involve the cost cap?
[01:14:27.360 -> 01:14:30.120] Because Stroll is like the richest person in the world.
[01:14:30.120 -> 01:14:31.120] Okay?
[01:14:31.120 -> 01:14:32.120] That's 20 million.
[01:14:32.120 -> 01:14:35.680] Hang on, no, no, Stroll could buy F1, if he wanted to.
[01:14:35.680 -> 01:14:36.680] He really could.
[01:14:36.680 -> 01:14:39.720] That is chump change, my friend.
[01:14:39.720 -> 01:14:42.920] It's still Jordan in my eyes, come on.
[01:14:42.920 -> 01:14:44.120] They still force India.
[01:14:44.120 -> 01:14:46.480] Yeah, exactly. Okay. Okay. Trumpets.
[01:14:47.360 -> 01:14:51.840] I was going to say the brains of force India seem to have landed in another outfit,
[01:14:51.840 -> 01:14:56.560] but that's just me. Yeah. No, I was going to argue with the idea that Aston is now a quote unquote,
[01:14:56.560 -> 01:15:02.560] tiny team. They are anything, but they're funded to the health. They are using all the loopholes
[01:15:02.560 -> 01:15:05.320] and all of the knowledge and building brand
[01:15:05.320 -> 01:15:12.200] new facilities to, to try and catch. Wait a minute. Mercedes and Red Bull and Ferrari.
[01:15:12.200 -> 01:15:16.080] You seem very, I just don't see that happening in a single season. You seem very enthusiastic
[01:15:16.080 -> 01:15:21.040] about Aston Martin all of a sudden. Have you had one of Lawrence strolls dinners? You can
[01:15:21.040 -> 01:15:27.760] try. I think you can track what F1 media have had a dinner at the Stroll mansion, because you
[01:15:27.760 -> 01:15:31.880] can just see a sudden uptick, and it's the same rhetoric.
[01:15:31.880 -> 01:15:34.280] Laurence Stroll is amazing.
[01:15:34.280 -> 01:15:37.080] Everything Laurence Stroll does turns to gold.
[01:15:37.080 -> 01:15:43.640] He was once locked in a cellar with a ball of yarn and with a simple spinning wheel turned
[01:15:43.640 -> 01:15:46.840] it into a pool of gold and then he
[01:15:46.840 -> 01:15:52.040] made everyone guess his name and no one got him and he danced off into the sunset and
[01:15:52.040 -> 01:15:54.000] made Tommy Hilfiger.
[01:15:54.000 -> 01:15:58.920] That's the narrative Catman that everyone just spins and you can see the same language.
[01:15:58.920 -> 01:16:01.520] He's magnificent, everything he does succeeds.
[01:16:01.520 -> 01:16:04.000] He's got a massive head.
[01:16:04.000 -> 01:16:08.160] Absolutely I think that is absolutely right because have you ever seen that man look angry?
[01:16:08.160 -> 01:16:11.080] It would make you lose about five inches in height.
[01:16:11.080 -> 01:16:14.360] Just the withering looks that that man can give.
[01:16:14.360 -> 01:16:16.080] I don't think it's the fact he's buying them dinner.
[01:16:16.400 -> 01:16:18.320] I think they just don't want to get on his bad side.
[01:16:18.320 -> 01:16:22.040] If you ever hear me starting to go down that same path,
[01:16:22.240 -> 01:16:25.520] just feel happy because you know that I've had a nice day
[01:16:25.520 -> 01:16:30.720] out at the Stroll Mansion. All right, well I think Matt wants to talk to Alpine, so let's do that.
[01:16:33.040 -> 01:16:41.920] Alpine have set the stall out as they bring up Western Europe's biggest challenge to motorsport
[01:16:41.920 -> 01:16:45.680] history. The French outfit is ready to conquer the
[01:16:45.680 -> 01:16:52.320] mountains with Pierre Gasly and Esteban Ocon to combat the English archers. I
[01:16:52.320 -> 01:16:56.480] don't know, just trying to make a medieval war reference but I'm gonna abandon it.
[01:16:56.480 -> 01:17:02.600] Alpine has Matt's favorite driver in it which is Esteban Ocon. He is facing, in
[01:17:02.600 -> 01:17:05.760] my opinion, a massive challenge from Pierre Gasly.
[01:17:05.760 -> 01:17:09.480] You have assured me that there's good noises coming out of Alpine.
[01:17:09.480 -> 01:17:11.840] On the surface, they've hidden it well.
[01:17:11.840 -> 01:17:17.320] They are a team, like Mercedes, that tend to kind of hold it a little bit back in testing,
[01:17:17.320 -> 01:17:21.400] but my goodness, I mean, they look like they must be really holding it back.
[01:17:21.400 -> 01:17:23.160] Well, yeah.
[01:17:23.160 -> 01:17:27.080] And this to me, this is the biggest and most fascinating
[01:17:27.080 -> 01:17:32.940] story of testing. Alpine clearly, maybe not the absolute fastest, because I think the
[01:17:32.940 -> 01:17:37.080] McLaren and Norris was a bit faster than them, but with the two drivers they had, Alonso
[01:17:37.080 -> 01:17:46.400] and Alcan, clearly the fourth place team. No doubt about that. They won that. They brought developments every single race, and they
[01:17:46.400 -> 01:17:53.200] have hewn their own path through these regulations. They are not copying Red Bull. They're not copying
[01:17:53.200 -> 01:17:58.160] Ferrari. They are looking to both for inspiration, but they have their own ideas, and they've
[01:17:58.160 -> 01:18:05.120] followed them and executed them and achieved, you know, sort of their goal, which was fourth place, for last season.
[01:18:05.120 -> 01:18:12.720] Here's what I've learned that makes me fascinated. One, weight. They have cut so
[01:18:12.720 -> 01:18:19.520] much weight from this car that they have effectively the ability to move ballast
[01:18:19.520 -> 01:18:23.960] around wherever they want to put it. And now given the fact that the tires have
[01:18:23.960 -> 01:18:25.160] added two kilograms,
[01:18:25.160 -> 01:18:27.200] the power unit have added one kilogram,
[01:18:27.200 -> 01:18:31.520] and the weight has stayed the same at 798 kilograms,
[01:18:31.520 -> 01:18:33.320] that's a remarkable achievement.
[01:18:33.320 -> 01:18:37.000] Two, they've massively improved the cooling,
[01:18:37.000 -> 01:18:40.400] which means that their power unit from Viri
[01:18:40.400 -> 01:18:42.960] now has more power to it.
[01:18:42.960 -> 01:18:44.440] I don't think we saw them running it
[01:18:44.440 -> 01:18:46.680] at anything close to its maximum
[01:18:47.180 -> 01:18:54.280] But a cooler air equals better combustion equals more power at the wheels where you need it
[01:18:54.320 -> 01:18:56.560] So we've got the weight and we've got the power
[01:18:57.000 -> 01:19:00.860] But what the technical director Matt Harmon was most proud of
[01:19:01.400 -> 01:19:07.440] Was the rebuild of the rear suspension and he mentioned two things. One,
[01:19:07.440 -> 01:19:13.560] that they would have a ride height tool that would allow them to run lower to the ground,
[01:19:13.560 -> 01:19:20.720] which means more downforce for less drag. And two, that they would have similar technology
[01:19:20.720 -> 01:19:25.680] that would allow them to run stiffer platforms, which means that the aerodynamics of
[01:19:25.680 -> 01:19:31.280] that car will be better compared to cars that have to run softer to cope with things like curbs and
[01:19:31.280 -> 01:19:38.160] this and that and the other, which explains why, in my mind, why we saw them looking so skittish
[01:19:38.160 -> 01:19:44.800] all the time. Essentially, they were running very stiff suspension settings to test for
[01:19:49.360 -> 01:19:49.920] very stiff suspension settings to test for races further down the road. And the last...
[01:19:55.040 -> 01:19:59.680] Yeah, no, no, no, no, go on. That just seems high risk to me. And that seems a lot like what Mercedes were doing last year, where it was like, no, no, no, it's okay. Everything's fine. It's
[01:19:59.680 -> 01:20:04.240] just, this is a particularly bumpy track. But they were saying that two races out of three.
[01:20:04.440 -> 01:20:05.200] this is a particularly bumpy track, but they were saying that two, two races out of three.
[01:20:11.700 -> 01:20:15.640] Well, and like we know, for example, in an Ocon stent that one of the reasons why they didn't run so many laps and remind me if we have time before the end, and I'll just run
[01:20:15.640 -> 01:20:17.880] through who ran the most laps and this, that, and the other.
[01:20:18.160 -> 01:20:22.320] They didn't run a lot of laps because the setup changes they were doing took more time
[01:20:22.320 -> 01:20:25.360] than anticipated, but they're testing like really out
[01:20:26.240 -> 01:20:31.600] suspension settings. They have an entire new rear end. They have entirely new settings available to
[01:20:31.600 -> 01:20:37.760] them they didn't have last season and I think they were just testing outliers that that computer
[01:20:37.760 -> 01:20:44.240] simulations found for them to see if there was anything special in there. They didn't care about
[01:20:44.240 -> 01:20:45.920] lap time at all. They know they've got
[01:20:45.920 -> 01:20:51.680] it in the bag because the car is so light. And the last thing is they've got an update coming to
[01:20:52.240 -> 01:20:59.040] Bahrain. So they're going to have an even better package than we saw this week in testing.
[01:21:00.480 -> 01:21:06.360] I think the big thing for Alpine needs to be the reliability as well because if there's
[01:21:06.360 -> 01:21:11.540] anything that almost cost them fourth in the championship, apart from McLaren fighting
[01:21:11.540 -> 01:21:18.240] that battle with only one car, is that their reliability very nearly cost them in a number
[01:21:18.240 -> 01:21:23.040] of races. So I think if they can get that sorted and keep the same amount of speed then
[01:21:23.040 -> 01:21:29.920] they are a pretty deadly package in that midfield battle. And right Matt, we're going to move on to Ferrari but
[01:21:29.920 -> 01:21:35.040] a little peek behind the curtain. I'm no longer in a physical shed although I am in a shed of the
[01:21:35.040 -> 01:21:40.240] soul. I'm actually in the house at the moment so I can take advantage of a new feature of being in
[01:21:40.240 -> 01:21:45.420] a house which is that I can go and use the conveniences and top up my refreshments.
[01:21:45.420 -> 01:21:50.420] So I'm going to play some music and I'm going to rely on you to do an impromptu, interesting
[01:21:50.420 -> 01:21:56.580] and social media ready introduction to the Ferrari segment and manage our panel. With
[01:21:56.580 -> 01:22:09.520] no warning whatsoever, let's move on to Ferrari with Matt Trumpets.
[01:22:09.520 -> 01:22:15.860] Well Ferrari is perhaps in many ways the biggest question mark on the grid.
[01:22:15.860 -> 01:22:22.440] They have a new team principal, they have some decidedly unsorted problems, and they
[01:22:22.440 -> 01:22:26.800] have absolutely refused to participate in the traditional
[01:22:26.800 -> 01:22:34.680] who can go fastest at the end of testing fast-off that we saw other teams participate in.
[01:22:34.680 -> 01:22:41.400] And I'm just curious now to get the panel's opinion as to where they think Ferrari's
[01:22:41.400 -> 01:22:43.400] testing really wound up.
[01:22:43.400 -> 01:22:46.480] I thought it was quite interesting to see
[01:22:46.480 -> 01:22:51.840] the long run, particularly from Carlos Sainz, and when he was being followed by Fernando Alonso in
[01:22:51.840 -> 01:22:56.640] the Aston Martin, I think this was the end of day two or possibly even the end of day three, when,
[01:22:57.200 -> 01:23:07.760] as you said, they weren't going for the fast lap lap times and they weren't showing bad degradation,
[01:23:07.760 -> 01:23:10.080] but the Aston Martin could keep up with them.
[01:23:10.400 -> 01:23:12.600] So where does that put us?
[01:23:12.600 -> 01:23:18.920] Because realistically with last year, Ferrari could bang in a fast lap in
[01:23:19.320 -> 01:23:24.760] qualifying, but then 10 laps into stint one, their tires would be cooked and they
[01:23:24.760 -> 01:23:25.920] would be falling
[01:23:25.920 -> 01:23:29.960] off a cliff and Red Bull would just be marching on imperiously.
[01:23:29.960 -> 01:23:33.820] Do we think that they've managed to solve that problem, which is probably the bigger
[01:23:33.820 -> 01:23:36.320] problem that they had, rather than out-and-out pace?
[01:23:36.320 -> 01:23:42.760] Well, the fact that they seem to be quicker in a straight line but slower in the corners,
[01:23:42.760 -> 01:23:47.720] i.e. the car has relatively a little bit less downforce
[01:23:47.720 -> 01:23:54.440] than last year, that would not bode well for that keeping the tyres alive scenario.
[01:23:54.440 -> 01:23:57.120] They're going to be sliding them about all over the place.
[01:23:57.120 -> 01:23:59.600] In this configuration, of course.
[01:23:59.600 -> 01:24:01.480] In this configuration, yes.
[01:24:01.480 -> 01:24:02.840] Yes, of course.
[01:24:02.840 -> 01:24:06.320] Based on what we have seen in testing, which might not be what we see this weekend.
[01:24:06.320 -> 01:24:07.680] Yes, I get it.
[01:24:07.680 -> 01:24:15.200] Well, I can, I can remind you that Ferrari ran a low downforce, a medium low downforce
[01:24:15.200 -> 01:24:22.720] wing, not appropriate for Bahrain, which has particularly abrasive surface.
[01:24:22.720 -> 01:24:26.760] So running low downforce, you are are gonna cook the tires a lot faster
[01:24:26.760 -> 01:24:30.880] They're gonna slide more in the corners because you don't have the appropriate amount of downforce
[01:24:30.880 -> 01:24:36.540] But what you will have is top line speed so much like Mercedes we're guessing
[01:24:37.200 -> 01:24:41.120] Ran high downforce to test their purposing solution
[01:24:41.520 -> 01:24:46.560] It also makes sense that Ferrari, a team that struggled to maintain
[01:24:46.560 -> 01:24:54.320] their tires, might run a lower downforce wing to see how their solutions are working.
[01:24:54.320 -> 01:25:01.200] And the final piece of this puzzle is that the wing they did bring, the new one, that was
[01:25:01.200 -> 01:25:05.880] appropriate for the circuit, had issues with DRS. So we never, I don't
[01:25:05.880 -> 01:25:13.760] think, got to see appropriate times from Ferrari, which we should probably see in
[01:25:13.760 -> 01:25:19.320] practice next week. So how optimistic are we then? How optimistic are we? Because I
[01:25:19.320 -> 01:25:24.240] think people are really putting them a firm second, and I just don't
[01:25:24.240 -> 01:25:32.000] see that. I think if we come to mid-season, I really genuinely think Ferrari will just naturally fall away to third.
[01:25:32.000 -> 01:25:50.800] They might, because we don't know how far along Bonato got with the development, because from a development point of view, this is still Bonato's car. But what's interesting is what Vasseur, now the team principal, did talk about, which is that they have made
[01:25:50.800 -> 01:25:56.560] some moves in the strategy department. They've reduced the number of people on
[01:25:56.560 -> 01:26:02.680] the pit wall and they have, quote, revised the flow of communications to make sure
[01:26:02.680 -> 01:26:07.920] we have an efficient exchange because because when everything goes well, there's time for three or four people to interact.
[01:26:07.920 -> 01:26:13.840] But when you have to react in a second, it's a different story. So maybe Vassur, the HR manager,
[01:26:14.640 -> 01:26:20.480] might actually be bringing some extra good sauce to the Ferrari platform.
[01:26:20.480 -> 01:26:28.800] Yes. So Chris kind of jumped in earlier and said that it's too early for Fred Vassar to have made any kind of impact on that Ferrari
[01:26:28.800 -> 01:26:34.600] team WHATSOEVER, and I sat on that for this very moment because I knew I'd be able to
[01:26:34.600 -> 01:26:35.760] prove him wrong.
[01:26:35.760 -> 01:26:41.000] Which of course, he's able to make a difference to that team, in the manner that Trumpets
[01:26:41.000 -> 01:26:49.360] has just so eloquently pointed out, in terms of improving the way the strategy is
[01:26:49.360 -> 01:26:54.960] done because of course that was their Achilles heel last year on top of reliability in terms of
[01:26:54.960 -> 01:26:59.360] the car and how the car is designed and manufactured and all this. Of course,
[01:27:00.160 -> 01:27:06.520] it's far too early for Vassa to have made any kind of difference in that but the most important thing was the strategy and he's already
[01:27:07.200 -> 01:27:09.000] addressing the issue and
[01:27:09.000 -> 01:27:16.360] For those of you who are concerned because as we all know Ferrari has to have won the world championship by the end of testing
[01:27:19.520 -> 01:27:25.440] Absolutely, so look we've painted this picture here that we've all got very different opinions.
[01:27:25.440 -> 01:27:29.040] So why don't we just, you know, finish this off because we have run out of time for this
[01:27:29.040 -> 01:27:34.160] testing review. And I do want you guys to tune in midweek because we are going to be speaking
[01:27:34.160 -> 01:27:40.560] to Mike Caulfield, who was an F1 strategist for Mercedes and Haas and is still very much
[01:27:40.560 -> 01:27:53.040] involved in Formula 1 and he is on the ground. so he's going to give us quite an insight into what it's like to prepare for race one in an F1 team and also Jono's going to lead up a crew
[01:27:53.040 -> 01:28:00.240] that is going to dissect the latest series of the Netflix drama... dramatization? sports
[01:28:00.240 -> 01:28:05.840] documentary... Drive to Survive and they're not doing a review of Drive to Survive.
[01:28:05.840 -> 01:28:09.960] They are talking about some of the things and the interesting stories and narratives
[01:28:09.960 -> 01:28:13.000] that have come out from that. Chris, you're on that panel as well.
[01:28:13.000 -> 01:28:16.840] I am indeed. And I would say, if I were going to give it a five second review, it is the
[01:28:16.840 -> 01:28:21.640] least dramatized Drive to Survive season ever.
[01:28:21.640 -> 01:28:26.120] I heard they went on a camping holiday with the Horners. I don't know if I might shuffle
[01:28:26.120 -> 01:28:32.440] past that one. I look, I know I'm a bit of a, I'm a bit sensitive about Abu Dhabi 2021.
[01:28:32.440 -> 01:28:38.200] I tuned in, I wasn't expecting it to be straight away. And here's the thing with the thing
[01:28:38.200 -> 01:28:42.040] that happened. And I went, Oh my God, 45 seconds and I paused it. And I went, I will come back
[01:28:42.040 -> 01:28:43.040] to that.
[01:28:43.040 -> 01:28:47.600] Spanners, it was literally the last thing to happen in Drive to Survive of course they were going to pick it up right there. I just
[01:28:47.600 -> 01:28:53.120] wasn't emotionally ready I've had a year of being told to shut up stop going on about Abu Dhabi
[01:28:53.120 -> 01:28:58.720] 2021. I go okay good right let's focus on the 2022 season I can't wait for all the behind the scenes
[01:28:58.720 -> 01:29:06.880] stuff and they just went and now remember that time that was horrendous? I do remember. I do remember.
[01:29:06.880 -> 01:29:08.160] And then I said that on Twitter
[01:29:08.160 -> 01:29:09.960] and lots of people told me to cry more
[01:29:09.960 -> 01:29:12.560] because that's what a lot of people on Twitter say.
[01:29:12.560 -> 01:29:13.540] And I did.
[01:29:14.800 -> 01:29:16.760] But there will be a crew.
[01:29:16.760 -> 01:29:19.400] I think it's gonna be Jono, Chris, Stuffy,
[01:29:19.400 -> 01:29:23.360] and either Matt or Antonia, depending on who, is available.
[01:29:23.360 -> 01:29:26.800] But Chris, my order, I'm sticking with it I think my
[01:29:26.800 -> 01:29:37.040] whole season order is Ferrari sorry whoa whoa whoa is it 2002 you forget yourself sir you forget
[01:29:37.040 -> 01:29:41.680] yourself right it is going to be it is going to be Red Bull I think Red Bull are the the runaway
[01:29:42.320 -> 01:29:45.520] favorites for the championship and therefore Max Verstappen.
[01:29:45.520 -> 01:29:49.000] I think Mercedes are going to be the second best team. They're going to win races. I think
[01:29:49.000 -> 01:29:54.120] Lewis Hamilton is going to have an on-paper shot at the title, but it's going to be a
[01:29:54.120 -> 01:29:58.700] stretch. Ferrari, I think, are going to be third with their two drivers just really battling
[01:29:58.700 -> 01:30:03.000] each other. And then I still think there's going to be a big gap all the way back to
[01:30:03.000 -> 01:30:05.360] either Alpine or Aston
[01:30:05.360 -> 01:30:07.800] Martin, but I think Alpine in the end.
[01:30:07.800 -> 01:30:12.280] That may well be your season-long prediction, but Spanners, I think you're the only person
[01:30:12.280 -> 01:30:16.200] in the world making a season-long prediction at this point.
[01:30:16.200 -> 01:30:19.200] The rest of us are just focusing on the first four races.
[01:30:19.200 -> 01:30:20.200] That's fair.
[01:30:20.200 -> 01:30:22.520] And Chris, people can follow you at Chris on Racing.
[01:30:22.520 -> 01:30:25.440] At Chris on Racing on Twitter and Instagram.
[01:30:25.440 -> 01:30:28.760] Keep an eye on it because my season is coming up
[01:30:28.760 -> 01:30:30.780] and I should have some exciting things
[01:30:30.780 -> 01:30:34.140] to be talking about what I'm going to be doing in 2023.
[01:30:34.140 -> 01:30:37.040] And of course, Chris and I were on the commentary team
[01:30:37.040 -> 01:30:40.740] for the penultimate round of the Myst Apex iRacing F3 Cup.
[01:30:40.740 -> 01:30:44.280] So go and check that out on the Myst Apex Motorsport YouTube
[01:30:44.280 -> 01:30:44.780] channel.
[01:30:44.780 -> 01:30:45.280] It was highly dramatic and the championship'spex Motorsport YouTube channel. It was highly
[01:30:45.280 -> 01:30:50.400] dramatic and the championship's really coming to a head. I want to try and convince everybody who
[01:30:50.400 -> 01:30:55.920] listens to this show to go and check out the final round which is in a month's time. Our own Kyle
[01:30:55.920 -> 01:31:02.560] Power is just a slight second place to championship holder. He's still leading actually. Oh he's still
[01:31:02.560 -> 01:31:09.000] leading okay so can he overcome the three-time Mr. Apex champion Danny Henney?
[01:31:09.000 -> 01:31:11.440] Links to that round in the show notes below.
[01:31:11.440 -> 01:31:14.360] Let's go to Chris Catman-Turner.
[01:31:14.360 -> 01:31:17.040] You're at CatmanF1 on Twitter.
[01:31:17.040 -> 01:31:18.040] Go and follow him.
[01:31:18.040 -> 01:31:22.880] Do you think, do you, like everyone else, seem to think I am mad with my top five order?
[01:31:22.880 -> 01:31:28.320] In fact, I think I'm the only person who has Aston Martin fifth. Aston Martin's a very difficult one to predict,
[01:31:28.320 -> 01:31:33.120] but I do think the others have fallen away. So I agree with you that Aston Martin will make
[01:31:33.120 -> 01:31:37.440] those strides up from seventh to fifth. And is a stride up. If they make it to fifth,
[01:31:37.440 -> 01:31:43.360] that's still pretty good. Although not as good as where the team was before Lawrence Stroll took
[01:31:43.360 -> 01:31:46.000] over. Exactly. They are strolling towards the front, aren't they?
[01:31:46.000 -> 01:31:49.000] Don't do that. Don't. Why? Why would you do that?
[01:31:49.000 -> 01:31:56.000] Matt2Rumpets, at MattPT55 on Twitter and Matt Trumpets on Facebook.
[01:31:56.000 -> 01:31:58.000] What's your top five, buddy?
[01:31:58.000 -> 01:32:10.260] Well, I think Red Bull, Ferrari, Mercedes, Alpine and Aston, but I do got to throw in there, we didn't
[01:32:10.260 -> 01:32:17.920] talk about it much, but I see both Haas and Alfa Romeo playing the Joker from time to
[01:32:17.920 -> 01:32:22.200] time and having really stupidly good results.
[01:32:22.200 -> 01:32:26.000] Well, occasionally, but to do that, I think they would have to do take a really kind of
[01:32:26.000 -> 01:32:30.000] outlandish approach and just keep rolling the dice race after race and hope for the
[01:32:30.000 -> 01:32:32.000] odd headline result.
[01:32:32.000 -> 01:32:36.000] I really don't think either of those teams is going to do anything remarkable.
[01:32:36.000 -> 01:32:41.000] I think you've just listed the eighth and ninth best team of the year upcoming.
[01:32:41.000 -> 01:32:44.000] I'm not sure they're that far down the list.
[01:32:44.000 -> 01:32:45.320] We might disagree there, but maybe we sure they're that far down the list.
[01:32:45.320 -> 01:32:48.680] We might disagree there, but maybe we should do the second half of our list later.
[01:32:48.680 -> 01:32:52.780] Maybe we should, because Alpha Tauri, they could be anywhere.
[01:32:52.780 -> 01:32:54.800] They could be 7th, they could be 10th.
[01:32:54.800 -> 01:32:55.800] Yep.
[01:32:55.800 -> 01:32:56.800] Yeah.
[01:32:56.800 -> 01:32:57.800] They could be sold, they could be in England.
[01:32:57.800 -> 01:32:58.800] And they could be sold as well.
[01:32:58.800 -> 01:32:59.800] Who knows what's going to happen with them?
[01:32:59.800 -> 01:33:05.600] Well, who knows what's going to happen, but I have had a fantastic time predicting this
[01:33:05.600 -> 01:33:11.440] with you and having a guess, and all our predictions should just be treated as the guesswork of
[01:33:11.440 -> 01:33:14.540] enthusiastic long-standing Formula One fans.
[01:33:14.540 -> 01:33:18.520] If you want to get involved in our Patreon Slack group and our live chat and get a little
[01:33:18.520 -> 01:33:22.360] bit of extra loose content every couple of weeks, where me and Matt kind of tangent a
[01:33:22.360 -> 01:33:25.480] lot and, you know, deviate from F1 as well.
[01:33:25.480 -> 01:33:30.280] There's extra patron-only episodes and you can get an ad-free audio feed.
[01:33:30.280 -> 01:33:32.820] Patreon.com forward slash missed Apex.
[01:33:32.820 -> 01:33:37.560] But the number one thing I would ask of everyone who is listening, has got all the way to the
[01:33:37.560 -> 01:33:42.800] end, has got through 94 minutes of rambling, is we must be good enough for you to recommend
[01:33:42.800 -> 01:33:49.700] to two friends that if they're into F1, they might want to check out Missed Apex podcast. Tune in next week
[01:33:49.700 -> 01:33:53.500] we've got some great stuff coming up and then our race review will be at 8 p.m.
[01:33:53.500 -> 01:33:58.260] on Sunday we'll be streaming live and then our race review will be ready in
[01:33:58.260 -> 01:34:05.860] your podcatcher and on YouTube for your Monday morning commute. Until then, work hard, be kind and have fun.
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