Lewis Hamilton secures his first P1 for Ferrari in an incredible Sprint Qualifying session. Matt and Tommy discuss how turn one will go, did McLaren throw it away and is Lawson under threat already?
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FunTranscript
00:00What happened?
00:01Ferrari's on pole.
00:02In qualifying.
00:03Ferrari is on pole.
00:04For the Chinese.
00:06Ferrari's on pole!
00:07Grand Prix.
00:08Ferrari's on pole!
00:09Where's... not Charlotte, is it?
00:17So let's get into Q1, shall we?
00:19Get straight into it.
00:20Doohan, Gasly, Ocon, Hülkenberg and Lawson were the bottom five.
00:25Of course, the big talking point has to be Liam Lawson.
00:3120th on the grid.
00:33And it is...
00:38You cannot say it's anything other than a disaster of a start in that red bull seat.
00:44They did not hire Liam Lawson to be that far off Max Verstappen.
00:48I know they didn't hire him to beat him or match him,
00:52but they didn't hire him to finish last in qualifying.
00:5632.729.
00:58And Verstappen did a 31.916.
01:00So eight tenths clear was Max in Q1.
01:06I'm running out of words, Tommy.
01:08I really am.
01:10In race two.
01:11It's all well and good building something.
01:14You know, going to a new team and building and learning.
01:17But you cannot be qualifying last.
01:20That's too much of a headline to ignore, I think, if you're Red Bull.
01:24It is.
01:25It's the headline fact that he is dead last.
01:27Not the fact that if it had been 12th, 13th, maybe even 14th.
01:33Yeah, it would have been a bit like, oh, Lawson's really struggling.
01:36But it wouldn't be this absolute kind of, this is so bad.
01:41And you think it couldn't have got any worse after what happened in Melbourne for him.
01:47Goes into the very next kind of session.
01:49And here we are.
01:50He is dead last on the grid while his teammate is on the front row.
01:54Absolute disaster for him.
01:56First question.
01:57P1 Patreon member Giovanni Segrande.
01:59Do you think it's too early to pass judgment on Lawson in that Red Bull seat?
02:05Look, I think there is an argument for drivers that are getting up to speed in a new team.
02:13But the problem is one driver is second.
02:16The other driver is 20th.
02:19That is too big of a gap for anyone to ignore.
02:23Perez didn't do that.
02:24Perez had bad qualifying.
02:25Perez was knocked out in Q1.
02:27I don't ever remember him qualifying plumb last.
02:32Yes, we have problems with that Red Bull seat.
02:34Clearly, it's evident.
02:37It is, I would say, categorical proof now
02:41that there's something wrong with that second Red Bull seat.
02:45But I don't think it is too early to pass judgment.
02:48Lawson himself said before the season it's his job to adapt to the car.
02:52And he hasn't been able to do that yet.
02:55He needs to show improvement quickly.
02:58Otherwise, the chatter will be who's going in that seat next.
03:02If we just said too early to pass judgment on Lawson,
03:07I can't believe we're at this stage already that you can pass judgment on him.
03:11Because it is an absolute disaster that it's this early on in the season.
03:18The only way we could be talking about this,
03:21even being a thing and judging him so early,
03:24as if he'd had the worst start imaginable.
03:27And he has had the worst start imaginable.
03:30It is so poor.
03:34Clearly, that decision to bring him in.
03:38I don't think you can even jump on the,
03:40oh, he's too inexperienced because look what Perez was doing.
03:44I know he wasn't qualifying dead last.
03:47But it's just an absolute disaster for them.
03:50And they need to find someone that can just be in that car and do a solid job.
03:56Now, I'm not saying, you know,
03:58round three, Red Bull are going to make any drastic decisions.
04:00But if he qualifies last again in the next race or even the next session,
04:08genuinely could be five races.
04:11Tommy said that, not me.
04:13It's not out of the question though, is it?
04:14If he keeps qualifying last, I don't think it will happen personally,
04:17but they are cutthroat.
04:19They got Max in after five races.
04:22They weren't cutthroat with Perez,
04:24but Perez brought a lot outside of obviously racing as well,
04:28that perhaps Lawson does not have the benefit of being able to sort of fall back on.
04:34And as well, you know, let's just kind of throw in Yuki Tsunoda here.
04:37And the fact that, of course, Tsunoda once again doing a decent job, qualified P8.
04:42Yeah, his CV is looking great right now.
04:45But does he want it?
04:47Does he really want to just jump into that car
04:50and maybe have the same struggles as Lawson?
04:53Because that would just be insane, wouldn't it?
04:55If Tsunoda gets the call up, he's got five races to prove himself,
04:58Lawson goes back to the RB,
05:00and then Tsunoda has the exact same struggles knocked out in maybe Q2.
05:05And I guess for Yuki's sake,
05:10if this was something in the future that would happen,
05:12for Yuki's sake, he could do it without really losing too much,
05:16because it is clearly a well-known issue now
05:22that Red Bull have a problem with that second car and just how it's built.
05:27Moving on, of course, another driver that's had a pretty shocking performance
05:31was Hülkenberg, 19th on the grid,
05:34outqualified by Gabriel Bortoletto up in 14th in the Sauber.
05:38Hülkenberg's got to step it up.
05:40He's got to, because this is not what we expect from him.
05:45And up against a rookie as well,
05:48Hülkenberg may think going into 2026,
05:50Audi, yeah, I'm going to be the lead driver.
05:52Not if he has a chill in 2025 and is like,
05:55ah, I'm driving a dustbin, it's fine, don't worry about it,
05:57won't try that hard or whatever might happen.
06:00It's bizarre to see him so far down
06:02when he is seen as a bit of a qualifying specialist.
06:05We saw so many great performances from him.
06:07So down in 19th for him,
06:09as I say, outqualified by his rookie teammate, Ocon,
06:11also outqualified by his rookie teammate, Olly Behrman,
06:14and Gasly, outqualified by Doohan.
06:17Yes!
06:18I love to see that from Doohan.
06:20Just the fact that he's able to,
06:24I know deliver is probably a strong word,
06:26he was still knocked out in Q1,
06:27but that's more of the Alpine than it is anything else.
06:29From Doohan personally to beat Gasly in a qualifying session
06:32so early on, props to him.
06:35Big props to Doohan under that amount of pressure.
06:38You know, we talk about Lawson
06:39and potentially being dropped in five races or whatever,
06:42and that was the whole story around Jack Doohan,
06:46that he's got five races to prove himself.
06:49It's going to be almost impossible for him,
06:52pretty much impossible for him.
06:54And so far, did a great job in Melbourne qualifying.
06:58Of course, kind of fell foul in the race,
07:00but so did many others.
07:02And then as outqualified Gasly in this session,
07:07gutted for Alpine that I think if you gave Jack Doohan
07:10a choice of points and behind Gasly
07:13or kind of beating Gasly but you're 16th,
07:16he'd take the points.
07:19But it's a big confidence booster.
07:21Alpine way down the order is a big surprise
07:25based on how we thought they were going to do this year,
07:28but a great job from Doohan.
07:29And you've got to say he is kind of resisting
07:32all that pressure because he could have so easily spiraled
07:35and kind of flopped based on all this.
07:38Off to Q2 we go.
07:39Alonso, Behrmann, Sainz, Bortoletto and Hadjar
07:41are the bottom five in this session.
07:43And we're going to just dive straight into a question
07:45that I'm going to enjoy Tommy's answer to.
07:47P1 Patreon member, you will not have the drink.
07:49Is Alonso on the decline?
07:52Beaten by Stroll in this qualifying session, Tommy.
07:56Of course, Stroll, the number one driver
07:59when it comes to championship points,
08:02you can't dispute it for this year.
08:05How do you respond, obviously being a Fernando Alonso stan
08:09about him being on the decline?
08:11Yeah, Alonso, you know,
08:15you can't say he's on decline based on being, what,
08:18half a tenth behind his teammate.
08:21And spinning off from like ridiculous gravel
08:24that was on the track that shouldn't have been there.
08:26Exactly.
08:26And he was plenty ahead of Stroll in the race
08:29going into an Australia.
08:30This is a bit of an over-exaggeration
08:32to kind of be saying he's finished already when,
08:36look, he's, he was,
08:38I think the most disappointing thing
08:40is the fact that he was running so quick.
08:43I think it was Q1 when he went second at one point
08:46and we're going, oh my word,
08:48has Adrian Newey just turned this into a rocket ship
08:50in literally one race?
08:52This is insane.
08:54And Aston do look all right,
08:56but he's not that far off his teammate.
08:59It's not complete disaster in my opinion.
09:02Of course, you know, I would say that,
09:03but I don't think it's...
09:04Yeah, you're coping a little bit there, bro.
09:07I don't think it's this, oh my word,
09:09because look, it's literally the second race.
09:14Yeah, Stroll beat him in Q2 by seven hundredths of a second.
09:17So we can't quite say there's like that...
09:19And Stroll's doing a good job as well.
09:21You know, you need to give some credit to Stroll as well.
09:23It's not just that he did have a good race in Australia.
09:25It's at the same time.
09:26Exactly.
09:27Alonso being washed and also Stroll doing well.
09:30No, not that one.
09:32Next question.
09:33At Shukjoakin, is Oli Behrmann the GOAT?
09:38Oh, we'd love it.
09:39Oliver Behrmann, a great performance in qualifying,
09:42P12, and this is more the performance I expected from him.
09:46I think it's clear that we've got a bit of work to do
09:49in the Oli camp when it comes to wet conditions,
09:52but that will come with experience.
09:54Some drivers learn quicker than others,
09:56but in the dry, that is a great performance from Oli
09:59to beat Ocon so comprehensively in Q1 by four tenths of a second
10:05and then improving his time by three tenths
10:07and finishing 12th with a 31.9.
10:11Of course, it's a sprint,
10:12very unlikely to finish in the top eight,
10:15but it's a confidence builder for sure.
10:16And I think that will settle him quite nicely
10:18going into main qualifying tomorrow.
10:21You mentioned about him kind of having struggles in the wet,
10:24but let's not forget,
10:26you know, he had an absolute shocker in Melbourne
10:28even in the dry sessions where he crashed and then he beached it.
10:33So for him to actually bounce back
10:36from what is an absolute disastrous debut,
10:40you know, we've spoken about the likes of Lawson
10:43and how other drivers in the past that once you get on a bad run of form,
10:47you can easily just kind of, it gets worse and worse and worse
10:50and you can't kind of build your confidence back.
10:53For him to put in a performance like that straight away
10:56is an absolute kind of dream return.
10:59It's an amazing performance to be up in P12.
11:01Don't think the hash should be there
11:02based on his experienced teammate as well.
11:05And to do it when he had such a poor kind of first weekend
11:09showing that he can put those kind of bad moments behind him
11:11and just get on with it.
11:13So it's very impressive from Behrman.
11:15Absolutely.
11:16And the storylines continue.
11:17Carlos Sainz, definitely worth mentioning down in 13th.
11:22And I think it's fair to say down
11:23when his teammate Alex Albon qualifying P9
11:27just on the fringes of the points just outside of.
11:31Carlos, yeah, to say I'm surprised would be an understatement
11:36to see where he's put that car.
11:39And more so in comparison to Alex Albon,
11:42I think both of us came into this season
11:43expecting quite confidently for Carlos Sainz
11:46to enter the team and do very, very well.
11:49But Albon has stepped up to the plate
11:52and done a fantastic job so far.
11:55Very quickly hushing the critics,
11:59us being two of them,
12:00of perhaps where his performances have been
12:04over the last few seasons.
12:06But now we've got a comparable teammate.
12:10You can't really deny that Albon's doing a great job.
12:13There's nothing you can say.
12:14He's doing a fantastic job.
12:15Yeah, he really is.
12:17We both kind of, I think I gave him a nine out of 10
12:20and you an eight out of 10 of Carlos Sainz
12:23beating Albon this year.
12:24But Albon's done an amazing job so far.
12:27I have literally just seen, literally 30 seconds ago,
12:31a quote from Carlos Sainz that said
12:32his seat came out of place during the session,
12:35which probably doesn't help matters,
12:38but that's not to take away what Albon has done.
12:42Because, you know, yeah,
12:44maybe Carlos Sainz has had a problem.
12:46They were very close, incredibly close in Q1.
12:53But that being said,
12:55that doesn't take anything away
12:56from Alex Albon doing a fantastic job.
12:58Let's go to Q3.
13:00Where the top 10 were Hamilton Verstappen,
13:02Piastri, Leclerc, Russell, Norris, Antonelli,
13:04Sonoda, Albon and Stroll.
13:07First question, P1 Patreon member Bois Lumper.
13:10Hamilton flop is the greatest thing Matt did.
13:12Thanks for the jinx.
13:14So if you didn't tune into our predictions,
13:17podcast that we put out every Wednesday,
13:19I predicted as my big flop, Lewis Hamilton.
13:22Now it wasn't necessarily to Lewis as a driver.
13:25It was more just the fact that I didn't believe
13:28in a particularly strong performance
13:30from Ferrari in the next race.
13:33But then as soon as I did that,
13:34I think I saw a quote of Fred saying
13:36something along the lines of that Ferrari are going to be,
13:39haven't shown their true form
13:40and this, that and the other.
13:41And I'm like, oh my God,
13:42championship back on, what have I done?
13:44And you fast forward to today
13:47and Hamilton is on sprint pole in the Ferrari.
13:52Yeah, you're welcome.
13:52That's what I'm going to say to all team LH fans out there.
13:55What a job from Lewis Hamilton, of course.
13:57He got pole for McLaren in his debut year with McLaren.
14:03He got pole in his debut year at Mercedes
14:06at the Chinese Grand Prix as well.
14:08And he has done it with a sprint pole again.
14:11He loves the Chinese Grand Prix.
14:15And yeah, he's done an amazing,
14:17amazing job to put it P1.
14:22And I just did not see it happening.
14:24Even when in the kind of early parts of qualifying,
14:27he looked like he was delivering a good performance.
14:30It really did feel like McLaren was still going to
14:32maybe even walk it after what happened in Q2.
14:35But no, Hamilton pulled it out the bag
14:40and yeah, he's got an amazing kind of fan base
14:43and normally runs well there.
14:45So what a place to do it.
14:47He just kind of hoping that he can do it
14:49in the main race as well,
14:50because that's obviously where the big points are delivered.
14:53Indeed, it was a phenomenal job from Hamilton.
14:57It was a really cool moment to see him get his first,
15:00not full pole position, but sprint pole with Ferrari.
15:04But we're going to get on to this next question.
15:06And I think this is a big talking point.
15:08Question from P1 Patreon member, Alan Enderpay.
15:11Are McLaren not severely ahead as we originally thought?
15:18This is a tough one to measure right now.
15:22I still categorically wholeheartedly believe
15:26McLaren are the fastest package.
15:28We saw that in glimpses across this qualifying session.
15:31We saw it last time out in Australia.
15:35Now, Norris has said the car's difficult to drive.
15:39There are mistakes in it.
15:41I think also, we're also seeing the exact evidence
15:46of it's not easy to dominate in the fastest car
15:49because you have to turn up week in, week out,
15:52which is what Max Verstappen has done so brilliantly
15:57over the last few years.
15:58It almost seems a given to fans around the world
16:01that if you have the fastest car,
16:03you should be winning and topping every single session.
16:05I think George Russell became Max's biggest fan recently,
16:09saying that Max always turned up in the fastest car
16:12and delivered in every Q3 and et cetera, et cetera.
16:15What I will say is my final point on this
16:17is that this won't matter that much
16:20if McLaren lock out a one-two in the main qualifying.
16:24Norris can easily gain a few positions in the sprint
16:27if he's aggressive.
16:28Oscar can still win the sprint from third.
16:30If they manage that and also do a great qualifying tomorrow,
16:35we won't talk about this.
16:37Yeah, I think McLaren should have got pole, absolutely.
16:39You look at SQ2 and Lando was fastest.
16:43He did a 31.1 and he was actually a couple of tenths slower
16:48in SQ3, which isn't normally the way
16:50where Lewis Hamilton found half a second, for example.
16:55And Max found over half a second, seven tenths going into,
17:00you know, there was time to be had in that final kind of run.
17:04And you've got to think with the pace that Lando showed
17:08and Piastri as well,
17:10that McLaren should have got pole position
17:12in a front row lockout, but they didn't.
17:15And it's worrying for McLaren.
17:19They are fortunate, like you say,
17:20that it's the session that doesn't matter as much
17:24because, you know, if we are to believe
17:27there's a championship fight on them with, let's say, Max
17:32based on the first race, even though it is a stretch,
17:36it's only going to be like a couple of points
17:38when you finish a few places down.
17:40But in a main race, that's a big chunk of points.
17:43So it's kind of good for them that it's happened now.
17:47But after Norris's brilliant drive in Australia,
17:50well, quite rightly, we're praising him
17:52despite what some haters were saying,
17:54that he drove an amazing job
17:57and, you know, did an amazing job in that race
17:59and kind of thought, OK, it's thrown everything at him.
18:02He had a lot of pressure going into the season
18:04as the championship favourite.
18:06And we go into kind of the second qualifying,
18:09albeit sprint qualifying of the year,
18:12and he's made a mistake that's kind of put him down,
18:14down the order.
18:16It's how he bounces back from that
18:18and make sure it doesn't kind of become a trend
18:20like it maybe did at some points last year.
18:23Question from P1 Patreon member Ted from the Discord.
18:27Max and Lewis turn one.
18:28How do you think this will go?
18:31Well, I don't think it'll be that crazy.
18:35But then whenever I say that, things might pop off.
18:38It's an interesting turn one, isn't it?
18:39It's very long.
18:40You can easily try and swoop it around the outside
18:42to then get the inside.
18:44However, if you then look back
18:45to what Lando Norris attempted in the sprint last year,
18:48was it not?
18:49Where he attempted to go around the outside
18:51and got on the just off the racing line
18:56and found himself going wide, lost a handful of positions.
19:02So I'm in so many minds about how Max is going to play this.
19:09On one side,
19:11he knows that this is a different championship fight
19:13where we could have plenty of teams
19:16having a good opportunity of winning races.
19:19He knows full well that McLaren are the fastest package.
19:22He's got one of the McLarens right behind him.
19:24He's got Lando in sixth.
19:25Does he just think, right,
19:27I've got to beat the McLarens in this situation?
19:29It's only the second race.
19:31Hamilton may well turn out to be a title contender
19:33like my mum predicted before the start of the season.
19:36So Max will go for the win.
19:38Don't get me wrong.
19:40I also don't think he's going to go too crazy
19:42if he's still ahead of the McLarens
19:44because that I believe is where everyone's full focus
19:48are on in terms of who's going to be the championship favourites.
19:52Yeah, half of my brain is going,
19:54it's Max Verstappen is always like,
19:57he always goes for it,
20:00even with any kind of context.
20:02And you've also got the added fact that it is Lewis Hamilton.
20:04And while some would believe it's very early,
20:08too early to say how this championship is going to go,
20:11that maybe, you know,
20:14is Verstappen looking at the McLarens as his championship rival?
20:17Probably yes, more than Lewis Hamilton.
20:19It's still Lewis Hamilton who he's had history with
20:21and he's going to want to put one over on him.
20:24And that is just the way Max drives
20:26and always has driven,
20:28that he doesn't care who it is,
20:29who the context is.
20:31He almost wants to scare everyone into racing him.
20:35And that has worked in his advantage.
20:37But the other part of my brain is kind of thinking,
20:40surely in a sprint weekend,
20:41he's just got to bag these points here
20:43and that McLaren are a bit further down the order.
20:47And he just needs to keep himself scoring lots of points.
20:51He did that brilliantly in Australia.
20:54Keep himself there.
20:55And if Red Bull can somehow turn the deficit around
20:59or McLaren, you know, make the odd mistake here and there,
21:02he can be the one to capitalise
21:04because you can never write him out.
21:06Yeah, I'm fascinated to see how this unfolds.
21:07For me, the favourite going into the sprint
21:09is still Oscar Piastri from third.
21:11It has to be because that McLaren is very, very quick.
21:15And Oscar's going to want to gain a few points on Lando
21:19because he lost so many in Australia due to that mistake.
21:22So sign me up is all I'm going to say.
21:25It's so good, it's so set up beautifully.
21:27So that is it.
21:28Thank you, everybody.
21:28We'll see you very soon.
21:29Tomorrow, in fact, for sprint race roundup
21:32and sprint quali, sorry, main quali roundup.
21:34And then we've got the race on Sunday.
21:36Lots of excitement.
21:38This championship is going down to the wire.
21:40Okay, no, it's literally the second race now.
21:42What's going on?
21:42Come on.
21:43We're back.
21:43This is 2025.
21:46Hamilton and Ferrari on pole.
21:47Yes, please.
21:48Bye.
21:50Goodbye.