Our reaction to the Chinese GP Sprint Race

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Matt and Tommy reflect on Lewis Hamilton's first win for Ferrari and what it means for the main race on Sunday.  Join our BRAND NEW YouTube memberships! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCD5jAyCSDRR5yTgswfDbK8w/join  Join our Patreon for bonus podcasts, videos and more!: http://patreon.com/mattp1tommy  Listen to the FULL PODCAST here: http://lnk.to/p1podcast  Follow us  Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/mattp1tommy Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/mattp1tommy Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mattp1tommy Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mattp1tommy Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mattandtommyp1  PCSpecialist: https://pcspeciali.st/mattp1tommy £30 Discount Promo code: MP1T  Email: mattandtommyp1@gmail.com

Transcript

00:00What happened in the sprint for the Chinese Grand Prix?

00:09Lewis Hamilton on top, Ferrari on top, never doubted it, never doubted it one second coming

00:14into this weekend that Hamilton would be quick and bounce back from Australia and...

00:19You said it didn't you, all along?

00:22I did, I did, I think we got slightly mixed up in the editing for predictions where I said

00:27a big flop, I actually said...

00:28Editor did your day there.

00:30Yeah, yeah, it was complete and utter syncing up with my audio and doing some weird things.

00:36Anyway, yes, Hamilton P1, what a win, dominating display, I can't quite believe that not only

00:46obviously Hamilton getting pole, because we thought it was all for McLaren, but the race

00:51pace, what's going on?

00:54It was unbelievable race pace from Hamilton and I think particularly, you know, when Oscar

00:59Piastri got through on Verstappen, we all thought, right, now McLaren can show what

01:03they've got, let's watch him absolutely reel him in and Hamilton, you know, pulled away

01:10and yeah, an amazing performance from Hamilton.

01:14His start as well was very Schumacher-esque, watching him just cut over completely to the

01:21side to cover off Verstappen, which is exactly what he needed to do, super aggressive at

01:25the start on his old rival Max and yeah, what a win for him to literally the second race

01:32as it were, I know it's a sprint race, but second race of the year and he's already won

01:36for Ferrari.

01:37Yep, first win for Ferrari and...

01:42Question from P1 Patreon member Sam, is the Ferrari race pace promising for tomorrow?

01:48Both Charles and Lewis looked fastest on track at the end.

01:53I'm not starting to dream, I am slightly, but I'm not starting to dream that Championship

01:57is very much back on, but 100% promising, obviously you have to take into account the

02:03factors of Hamilton was the lead car and it was clear that a lot of drivers were struggling

02:10on their tyres, a lot of graining, obviously Norris was in trouble from a very early stage,

02:17but Hamilton of course, you know, led the way, but it's not, you know, it's not an autopilot,

02:21he still has to drive the car and we've seen, you know, with the likes of McLaren, for example,

02:28it is not as easy as it is potentially displayed and shown and portrayed to dominate or to

02:35drive away in a car that might be fastest.

02:39Hamilton, yeah, has shown that there is some really good pace there, but what I'm interested

02:45to see is if McLaren later on today can bounce back in qualifying, you know, lock out the front

02:51row or whatever, you know, whatever's possible for them, does that then change the complexion

02:56of the race completely? And if Hamilton's stuck in a bit of traffic, do we see that same pace?

03:01And of course, you then throw in the element of strategy as well, when they pit, obviously,

03:06they're not going to stay out on tyres that are graining so heavily, it could change the

03:10complexion once more. So I don't think it's going to be a Hamilton Sunday masterclass where he wins

03:17by 30 seconds. But then again, I said he was going to be a big flop. So don't listen to anything that

03:21I say.

03:23I think this might be, we've criticised the sprint, haven't we in the past for being a

03:28spoiler for the main race, I can't remember a time where the sprint has been kind of left us

03:35asking more questions than kind of before even the race, you know, we went into this weekend

03:41thinking, based on Australian McLaren domination, they're going to dominate, they've messed up

03:46qualifying, even in the sprint, they'll fly through the field. And actually, we're going to go into

03:50qualifying now. And of course, Hamilton drove a brilliant race and Friar looked very good.

03:57But it kind of don't think it necessarily means that is going to happen again. And that's a great

04:03thing for Formula One, because we were kind of a little bit worried after the first race,

04:08that we might see some kind of domination from one particular team. But it's kept us guessing.

04:15And I love the fact that we've had a sprint. And we could see a completely different order in

04:20qualifying again, and we don't know how it's going to go in the main race, which is, you know,

04:25keeps us guessing. And I think that's a great thing for F1. But you can't doubt that Ferrari,

04:31their pace did look good. But I think you alluded to this that when you're ahead,

04:37it helps a lot. Because my word, people were struggling. You look at the likes of

04:44Antonelli in the Mercedes couldn't get past the RB Landa took ages to get past. And Aston Martin,

04:50even much quicker cars are really struggling to pass.

04:53Yeah, it's it's one of those tracks, right, where dirty air is is quite significant. There's a lot

04:59of medium speed corners in those first couple of sectors, just long corners just to really

05:05help with the degradation and the tire temperature spikes of the tires. So

05:10it's no surprise that the drivers were struggling out there on quite a sunny day. And of course,

05:13the tracks a little bit of an unknown quantity as well with it being newly resurfaced,

05:18and it's constantly ramping up. So yeah, I think having a sprint round here was,

05:23I guess from an entertainment perspective, really good because the lack of data and

05:27not knowing how this track was going to react as as caused a bit of an upset in this in the

05:33sense of the expectation of McLaren walking this this Grand Prix weekend. Next question. Bray

05:42is the Ferrari versus Sauber championship fight over?

05:50Great question. That's a really good question.

05:53Um, yes, yes, it's over. I'm sorry. I didn't expect even to say after one race of this

06:00season that Sauber would have more points than Ferrari, but that happened. But it's a humbling

06:05experience. Being a Ferrari fan is a humbling experience. And me being a Charles Leclerc fan,

06:10more specifically, this was a very humbling experience. I can absolutely respect the job

06:16that Hamilton has done. And I am fully expecting a Charles Leclerc masterclass and qualify later

06:21on today. And we'll see exactly the same thing from Charles. But that, you know, delusion,

06:26realism, we'll see. We'll see where it lands. But yes, Ferrari. Not gonna jump too many jobs,

06:36too many conclusions right now. But that was such a performance that it gives me hope,

06:41which is really scary. The man that was waving an Italian flag after FPT when

06:47Charles was first and now they've actually won a sprint race. And you're like, just stay calm,

06:52everyone's got to keep the hype down. I don't want to believe too early.

06:58I've only been hurt 45 times. Exactly. This is quite a funny question, though, because

07:05last week we thought Ferrari, they were look, they look terrible. I know it was a very unusual race.

07:11But it makes for such an exciting season if we are going to have such

07:16kind of changes from from race to race. And going into this season, we said that it could be so

07:22close that you just nail the setup or you have a great qualifying and you're in clean air,

07:27you can kind of outperform the car. And, you know, on on paper, it was a McLaren one, two

07:34every day of the week, and they finished second and eighth. So that's the beauty of Formula One

07:39that it keeps us guessing. Next question, P1 Patreon member, Abu Dhabi 2021 survivor,

07:44should McLaren fans hit the worry button as he couldn't pass Stroll? He, of course, being Lando

07:50Norris. It was, I guess, a concerning performance in the sense of that McLaren doesn't seem to be

08:01the overall package that perhaps they were expecting coming into the season. And we were

08:06expecting, at least on the tyres that we saw in the sprint today, Oscar couldn't obviously get

08:12anywhere near Hamilton at the end of the race, albeit had been following Verstappen the quite

08:16closely for the 19 laps. Norris, of course, he made that mistake, which it's just not it's not

08:26great for his confidence. Yeah, we come off the back of Australia. Right. He's won the race. We're

08:31all good. We're going to build from this. Lando is going to continue this sort of championship

08:35momentum. Of course, he's not thinking about it. That's what he tells the media. But we're thinking

08:41about everyone's thinking about everyone thinks about the championship at this stage of the year.

08:44You have to. So for Norris and for McLaren fans, I wouldn't be hitting the worry just yet, just

08:52purely because I do genuinely think that at least in clean air, McLaren are the fastest package. So

08:57as long as Lando delivers in qualifying, he made a mistake, obviously made a couple of mistakes,

09:03in fact, in sprint qualifying, eradicate those get one good lap in starting the top three,

09:08and I think it'll be a completely different story. But Lando, from what it seemed, just tried

09:13to he overdid that first lap. And it's a trend that we maybe have seen a little bit of Lando

09:19and his engineer talking about not overdriving the car. The pace is there. And perhaps Lando just

09:25tried a little bit too hard made that mistake on lap one fell back. And then the difficulty in

09:30overtaking is not just what we saw with Lando, but up and down the field. So once you're there,

09:35you're kind of stuck, especially in a race where you can't deploy strategy. So one point is not

09:42what I expected from from Lando in this particular sprint. But as we said yesterday, it's gonna

09:49happen. It's good to happen in a sprint rather than the main race. And I fully expected to be

09:54back up there in qualifying later. Yeah, you shouldn't worry too much about the kind of

10:01difficulty to overtake because that happened to everyone throughout the field, like I mentioned

10:04earlier. Antonelli was so close to Sinoda and couldn't make the move sort of drivers kind of

10:11up and down the field. It was only really probably Lawson that managed to get past people. And that

10:17was Anoska, of course. Anoska, yeah, on max. But it was a very difficult, difficult kind of track

10:25to overtake. George's move in particular, just while we're talking about overtakes was really,

10:30really good. To kind of do that early in the race, because it looked like at the end,

10:36Charles had a load of pace, but couldn't quite make it stick on George at the end. But back to Lando,

10:44I'm less worried about the fact that he couldn't overtake Stroll because it was a difficult

10:50track to overtake on. I'm more worried at the kind of signs that after we mentioned

10:57what happened in qualifying for the sprint and how he's made some mistakes, he needs to kind of

11:04bounce back from that and not have them creeping in again, because that was just kind of Achilles

11:08heel last year. For him to kind of do another start and then drop positions is a worrying sign.

11:18He's lucky that it is only the sprint. But of course, the big kind of feeling after Melbourne

11:26was Lando sorted his problems out. He can definitely can still absolutely win this

11:32championship, no doubt. It's literally like one mistake in the sprint race. But it's still kind

11:38of a worrying sign that it kind of felt like a repeat of watching last year watching him kind of

11:46mess up on the first lap, drop back and then have a have a difficult race. Yeah, for sure. I think

11:52this weekend, there's been a few mistakes. He's made mistakes in sprint qualifying. He's made a

11:56mistake in the sprint race as well. He just needs to bounce back now for the main qualifying and

12:02main race where the big points are scored. And then once I what I said yesterday, it will be

12:08forgotten in a lot of ways if Lando wins tomorrow. So yeah, we'll see how that one unfolds. Next

12:15question. P1 Patreon member Rebecca, what is the reason for the difference in team performance

12:20between here and Australia? Is it the track or changes to the cars? I think the beauty of Formula

12:25One and the reason why you know, last year, we saw so many teams be quick at different tracks

12:31is because we are so close in terms of performance now. Some car characteristics work better at some

12:39tracks. So like Australia is a massively different circuit to China. We then go to Japan, which

12:47maybe is slightly more China than it is Australia. But still, you're kind of trying to find

12:54similarities. Because yeah, the beauty of it is that Formula One tracks these days are so varied

13:00and so awesome. And then you throw in the likes of sprint weekends and teams still getting used to

13:08their new package and how they set up the car. It's not a we've built this car for 2025 from

13:14race one, we know how to do it. We know how to make everything we know how to put everything

13:17together. Perfectly. That's not the case. They are all learning on the fly. So that's another reason

13:23of course you throw in that in qualifying in Australia, they were thinking about the race

13:28and the fact it was going to be wet. So that was a completely different setup again. So with Formula

13:33One, lots of different factors. But you know, you have a rough pecking order. But that's the reason

13:39why it chops and changes. And that's the way absolutely should be, you know, if we don't,

13:44you look at kind of performance from testing. And you you just think, okay, McLaren or even the pace

13:51that we saw in qualifying in Melbourne, McLaren one to every race, okay, you know, it's not going

13:57to happen for anyone else. But more variables in the sport is what makes the results better.

14:04And it's not as easy as just kind of running a simulation and going, we've got the quickest car

14:09we're going to win. In that race, Piastri is a great example that when he got past Max, we thought,

14:16right, he's gonna fly up to the back Hamilton now. And if anything, he, well, he did, he lost a quite

14:22a massive chunk of time. It's kept us guessing a lot into the to the main race, which I'm actually

14:29really excited for, because a lot of questions haven't been answered. And I like that fact.

14:35Yeah, yeah, we all do. We don't want to have a predicted race coming up. Although if you still

14:41need to play, then then maybe I can do it, right? I please it was. Yeah, getting mugged by George

14:48Russell was obviously not ideal at the start. George did a brilliant move into the hairpin,

14:53which kind of scuppered Charles's race. I think he's securing a p3. Without George,

14:58going through at the start there. So yeah, a slightly quiet start to the weekend for Charles,

15:04but we bounce back. We got quali coming up. Please, of course, if he'd got George,

15:11he'd have overtaken strolling the championship as well, but not quite yet.

15:18Lance Stroll beat Fernando Alonso by 13 seconds of the sprint. So

15:22Lance Stroll once again, reaffirming number one driver Aston Martin team strong, it's happening.

15:28I think we also maybe just touch upon Liam Lawson making some small steps of progress,

15:34I will say, finishing 14th in the sprint. You know, a glimmer of hope of, you know,

15:40going to will in wheel to wheel racing, putting noses in from very far back, it felt like one

15:47of them was going to go wrong at some point, but it didn't. So yeah, I think you can. Yeah,

15:52you can only have, of course, he actually did have an employee damaged in when he made contact with

15:57the Alpine. But overall, I think it will be something that he I think we're talking about

16:03learning. Liam is learning, I think every single lap he turns in that car of how on earth to tame

16:10this bull. So let's see. Let's I hope for his sake, he doesn't qualify 20th again. Because that

16:18was a small step in the right direction for Liam. It was if he just gets a clean run. You know,

16:26famous last words, but if he gets a clean run in qualifying, surely he's not going to be

16:30last or out in Q1 again. But he I know he was racing much lesser cars, but he did look confident

16:39on the on the brakes kind of, let's say from very far back, he knew he kind of knows he's got a good

16:45car underneath him. It's just about learning how to drive it and how to kind of extract it. Because

16:51that was the problem, wasn't it in in qualifying sprint qualifying, sorry, and getting getting

16:56the tyres in. So yeah, he provided a lot of the racing action at the at the back him had jar as

17:03well, kind of rubbishing any rumours that there's nothing to play for between the bottom teams are

17:08still very much racing, even though it does absolutely nothing because it doesn't kind of

17:14define the grid anymore. Or I needed reminding of that was Jack doing on the final lap,

17:19just sending it quite unnecessarily, I would say. Yeah, it's not good. He doesn't need to be

17:25doing stuff like that. Just don't give Alpine excuses. Don't give them anything to you know,

17:30you had a great qualifying mode and had a spin and you kind of don't want to make any bad headlines.

17:37You just kind of need to be quiet, really say cutting for him. Right, that's it. We're done.

17:43We're wrapped up pretty quick one. But of course, it is just the sprint race that we are covering.

17:48So we'll be live later on, of course, as always on Twitch and YouTube for the main qualifying

17:54session as well as of course tomorrow for the race. And yeah, can't wait for it Ferrari on top

17:59Hamilton, an absolute masterclass today. Can he deliver again in qualifying into into Sunday?

18:06Hopefully, I also hope Shah will be there as well. Because I need I need it for my own

18:11emotional stability. We'll see you very soon. Lots of love. Take care. Bye.

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