Australian GP: Our verdict on the first race of F1’s new era

The Athletic The race is on! And George Russell headed a Mercedes-Benz 1-2 in the Australian Grand Prix as Ferrari put up an unexpectedly good fight. But Wood Leclerc have won, had different strategic decisions been made, and how did the first race weekend for the new regulations really work out? I'm Edstore and joining me to tell all are Scott Mitchell-Mal and John Noble. Right, the big talking point to today was the nature of the racing under these new rags. The Australian Grand Prix obviously the first test. So the first word that I think everyone can then react to, I'm giving to third place finisher and early leader, Charlotte Clare, who said in the press conference, "Before it was more about who is the bravest at breaking the latest, maybe now there's a bit more of a strategic mind behind every movie make, because every boost button activation you're going to pay the price big time after that." So you always try and think multiple steps ahead. It's a different way to go about racing. So John, you're there in Melbourne, how do you like what Leclerc is talking about? It's definitely a new way of racing, but it's one that I think opinions divided depending on how quick a car you've got underneath them, because there's very much a divide in the order between the drivers who are happy, also happen to be those that are at the very front and the drivers who are unhappy seem to be in every other position. And I think we've also seen a very kind of confusing race in terms of what the reality was, that the first laps until the VSC when the Mercedes pitted were fantastic. You know, four cars, well three cars for a bit, that came, came you can up a little bit behind them, but the two fruars and George particularly, very close racing, yo-yo-ing, backwards and forwards. So it looked great. We weren't quite sure what we were seeing, but at least that looked spectacular. And I think we'll probably come back to you later on just this. I think we're going to see a lot of this, what some teams have called, yo-yo racing. It's going to be a new phenomenon in the early stages of races. But I don't know, FOM, we're very quick to pump out this. 120 overtakes in the Australian Grand Prix, it was 45 last year, therefore equals a massive success. It doesn't necessarily mean a massive success. A basketball match with this 122 versus 112 is not more spectacular than a 1-0 football match. The quality of a sporting entertainment is not down to a number of overtakes. And I think the problem we have is that the overtakes weren't spectacular or brilliant. They were all the result of someone pushing a button and having a bit more power than somebody else and being pretty straightforward. So on the surface, it wasn't a terrible day. It's very different racing, but is it racing that's going to keep people engaged once this season shakes out and all the novelty and things are different, have what been wiped away? How about you, Scott? Those numbers that John mentioned just mean nothing with that context. 120 overtakes, but if all of them are just made up of people going past each other one after the other on consecutive straights because that's just the yo-yo in that we're hearing, then that doesn't matter. overtakes have to be meaningful. Just counting the total number of them is absolutely useless without knowing how they were performed, what they actually meant for that driver's race, the skill that was involved in performing them out of that 120. How many were real overtakes? How many were done on the brakes? How many required more than just moving to the side and breezing past? I don't have the answer to that. I think you had right at the very start of the race was probably one of if not the best moves, which was Charlotte Clair's taking of the lead into turn one because yes, the superior launch did a lot of that work for him, but you actually got the move done on the brakes. That was great. But then what you saw between Le Clair and Russell, for example, you don't know what you're looking at. So how it's interesting and it's quite fun in its own way. And there was definitely elements to this race and the overtaking that we saw, especially in the first half, the second half was I think way too stagnant. The were good. Strategic racing doesn't have to be bad. So parts of this were perfectly fine to watch. What I'm slightly worried about is that basically the combination of this being the first race, so teams had very, very little to go on in terms of how to play it and the same goes for the drivers. And it being on a track where the big swings in performance based on where you chose to use your limited energy. Obviously, is a big fact to there. So did we see a greater manifestation of things happening? I don't want to say randomly because it wasn't too hard to follow in the opening laps, but just so much going on. Does that happen at other races or are we more likely to see some things we saw in the second half of the race, which was actually drivers settling into that rhythm of I don't want to just waste my energy because I'm just going to get done again straight after. So I have to pick my moment. And then like Olli Bam and versus Arvid Limblad, spending 20 laps behind a car that you're clearly quicker than, but you just can't risk burning your battery on. That's not good racing, even though you could spin that and say, well, it shows that drivers are having to work hard for the past. It doesn't matter if 20 laps of work ends up in a drive by anyway, it's kind of all irrelevant. So where exactly the reality of F1226 racing is impossible to judge after just one single case study, I think there were pros and cons to it, but I totally understand why there'll be a lot of people who hear what LeCler has to say, for example, marries that with what they saw from the outside and thinks, you know, it's not F1 racing as I know it and it's not the kind of racing that I'd like to see. There were three things that really struck me from that. The first is actually those early laps, that battle at the front. I think it was really good and interesting because yes, I have reservations about those passes, but the way you have to do it, completing a pass now takes kind of a lap or more in terms of the fact you need to get ahead and stay ahead with your battery state in the right place. And I was really interested seeing Russell and LeClerc playing that game in Hamilton getting involved and Antonelli cruising up. I thought LeClerc had the better of that. He outwitted Russell, we do have the advantage of being ahead, but LeClerc played it very cleverly. And obviously the overtake mode was in use as well. I watched Russell's on board in the clerks. See what it was. Great. Shane the VSC interrupted it and separated them. I think Russell would have come through in the end, you'd have worked at how he was experimenting. The second point is that teams are going to iterate and work their way out of this because they've got loads of data. And you will just as you knew in the past that if you had a 1.5 second-page advantage over the car, had you make an easy pass if not you don't. So you will know if they did that race again, they probably say, right, we know we need to get to turn 9, make the pass and still have 40% in the pack assuming the car I'm passing has got 20% or whatever. That'll work that out. So we won't see this constantly repeated. And the other point is that the very things that made Albert Park pretty bad for just the pure driving and qualifying was new to drivers. We're not driving at the limit of grip at times. There was a lot of slowing down on the straights and that kind of thing. That's just not good. That is bad. What made that bad made the race actually a little bit more extreme in terms of that energy trade off in the passing we saw early on? Just to come back to the first point you made about LeClerc outwitting Russell. It's actually not the first time we've seen him do this at the start of a new set of racing. Racing rules and different way of going racing. Do you remember back at the first race of the 2022 rules in Bahrain? He was really, really clever with working out against Max Verstappen kind of where to be in terms of using the DRS through the DRS detection point and then active action point and working out how much to defend and where to position the car for into turn one in Bahrain and then all the way up the hill afterwards as well. That was less in terms of a fundamental departure from the type of racing that was done before. But it's a good example of LeClerc being really sharp when it comes to knowing that there is being able to piece together multiple corners or sequences of a move and working out OK, where's the vulnerability, where's the opportunity? There's definitely an element here where there is a chance for drivers to shine in a different way and show a different part of their skill. It's not like this is Brain versus Brawn in terms of the way drivers did it before. The only overtook heroic clear and now we've taken that away and it's completely cerebral when engineering led exercise. It's not. It's never going to be that binary. It was never that binary before. So I do think there are, it's almost like it's a microcosm of the rules as a whole. There's parts of it that you can like and appreciate and enjoy and find interesting. But then there are some real problems within it as well and it's just important that they get acknowledged because if you don't acknowledge them then there's no way of addressing them if it turns out they do need addressing. I think the thing we've got tonight is that we don't know what element of the racing we saw today was A because it's all new. So we're drivers in those first laps just working out what happens if I overtake another car and use some boost. I need to see what happens. Do I overtake and sail away and it's all sorted or do I get repast and overtaken? So I think it was an element of that and I think this early lap showed that there is this sense that if you don't break free early on you can't actually do anything that you can overtake but in overtaking you run your battery down and then you get repast later. So unless you can overtake and get a second to get out of that overtake area then it's not going to happen. Then we also need to see if how much of this was down to the track. are the elements that there's being, I think, in the, it's in the top four worst tracks for energy deployment, which made it so terrible in qualifying and that horrible run from turn six up to turn nine that made qualifying so bad. Did it actually make the racing better because the cars are energy staff so the power offset is much greater. So when we go to tracks that are better for energy so actually it'll be better for qualifying are they worse for the racing because the car ahead isn't going to have this big power offset and you're going to have this ability to pass. So there's a lot of uncertainty about did we see today what F-126 is going to be like. Are we going to see action in the first 15 laps then it settles down into pace order. Are we going to see the scale of overtakes? Are cars going to be sailing past each other like this? So are they going to be harder for? I think we can need a bigger sample set unfortunately because I think a Scott's quite right he says the relevance that race that were fantastic. I loved those first few laps. Now for all the criticism of these rules and we've ended up with a powerhouse battle at the front between Mercedes and Ferrari fantastic but then you look at the second half of the race and just didn't seem to be. You didn't really know what was going on or what you were looking at and it was all confusing that cars would rapidly close up on others and they're not do very much. Yeah if I had to guess based on the limited information or answer only using what we've seen I suspect we probably saw pretty much the best and the worst of these regs that weekend the worst was in qualifying the best was in the early laps of racing my biggest concern is that the basement of the worst will can only be raised to certain amount because those are hard limits in terms of the laws of physics and the regs and the best I fear will become rare because of track and figuration and because more order will be imposed on it. Now more order will always be imposed by F1 teams that's just a fact of life. Yeah they've had a massive amount of data today and and data is great for F1 teams and pretty rubbish for everybody watching because it just means that they can be on top of stuff and they start to eliminate some of the variables and the stuff they can control just becomes the list of things they can control becomes bigger and the level of control they have becomes becomes greater. I do I do share the kind of overall view that the style of racing is something that like might just we might just have to get used to it. I think there will be a limit to it and I think what could be done differently is hard to judge. What was hard is for me to take in the second half of the race was it basically just became a stagnant boring Grand Prix and in that sense it was just classic F1 because I have said I don't know how much I've said this before but one thing I've one thing I have often fought in the last two or three years is you know people get pulled into F1 for different reasons in recent years which is amazing but I do wonder sometimes how many people who weren't mode sport fans before or F1 fans before are aware that racing is actually quite boring most of the time like a large number of racing laps are completed quite boringly and really good really exciting racing is really good and exciting because it's quite rare it's a bit like you know to take your your other sporting analogy John like football being a low scoring game doesn't make football boring it's those rare moments of amazing quality that lift it into something but it's just all the other stuff in the meantime just kind of has to be tense or engaging or curious or whatever and that's the stuff that's really good with F1 whereas like in F1's worst moments of racing's worst moments in general or when that you have flat stagnant Grand Prix where like nothing can really be done and you're just kind of waiting for other variables to come into it that's what parts of the second half of the race felt like with all of the extra battery demands led demands led on top of it so it was like in that sense it was a worst version of you know how bad F1 races could be already so the all of that is a really long way of saying basically it's really critical now to go to China and then Japan afterwards and if nothing changes just be open-minded to see sort of how much it shifts does this get better does this get worse what's it like overall what are the net gains and losses here and just just really I think it's going to take a bit of time to landing in these regulations and what we've been saying all along in terms of criticism and stuff like that is still valid but equally valid is the point that like this is not the time for knee jerk reactions we need more data. China will be fun because it's a sprint weekend that's going to create some challenges in terms of working out the best way to do the deployment but we'll quickly tackle a few members questions on this particular subject now from the race members club we've kind of touched on some of these so some of these will be fairly short answers but John Gui Babasha says how organic is the racing it seems very artificial by overtaking by using more battery and being re-overtaken when your battery is finished. Now John that word artificial has been used quite a bit where do you stand on that? Yeah I mean it is overtaking by numbers in effect that your number of your battery needs to be more than the car ahead of you to successfully pull off the overtake and it seems that the these regulations are not only very complicated in terms of you change one thing it has an impact on another for example you know straight-line mode is a consequence of the fact that there's not enough battery power so you need to have active error so we ended up in straight-line mode and then the FIA decision to or initial decision to scrap that straight active arrow zone on Saturday morning then triggered at the revolt from teams and drivers because it then had impacts on ride heights and tire campers and pressures everything with these rules is interconnected so battery deployment is also not only impacting your straight-line speed it's impacting your approach to corners it's pushing your apex speed in the corners it's approaching how quick you're through the corners which is then impacting your tire temperatures so these we've got a rule set where they're very complicated living and breathing machines they're ultimately you're chasing a number which has made it a bit like a more like a computer game than what we've known for me to want to be in the past which was a you know battle of drivers to be better than others in grip limited sections of a circuit and that whole concept has changed because while there were some overtakes on you know officially under breaking today they're all set up and teed up by someone having a bigger number on their battery than another driver if we can consistently have kind of contested braking zones inside by side though there are a few good passes there was the bit at 1011 that wasn't a pass with Russell and Ecclurke that Russell got annoyed about that turn three pass Russell did on Ecclurke as well was it was a decent one if it can set up though that's that's great I think artificial is a tricky word because you've got the same potential the two you could you could say DLS was artificial because you can't counter it because you get it because you're behind so yeah all of this isn't the heart ultimately of these of these wrecks there was an interesting concept I spoke to team boss this morning we're just discussing that the driver comments after qualifying and why the drivers were so unhappy with these regulations because why couldn't get in my head is why for example in the 80s we celebrated Alan Prost you know the professor because he would drive slower in certain stages of a race would then charge through and come through and win and that was you know genius thing we've seen in the modern era as well looking after perlite tires was better the drivers that can manage things and be conservative to then come through and win was all celebrated so why when we listen about energy deployment and being easier on entry to corners why is that different to what we've had in the past and his argument was because now the drivers are slaves to the system basically that the system is deciding 99% of what a driver's doing so it's not about them driving in a better way on an entry to a corner it's about the computer system triggering them to say right you have to drive like this we're going to see per clip in this area on the entry to corner and they're just following instructions and following orders and that individuality has gone whereas when with DRS you can argue DRS was artificial but the driver needed to set the move up they needed to activate the DRS themselves they needed to pull off that the move afterwards more often than when the DRS was correct so it's this subtle shift between drivers using the tools available to make the difference individually to them actually just being a part of a system where a lot of that impact is decided for them and I think that's that's the reason why the drivers are so unhappy because it's this important shift between those two things that seem similar but actually a very different yeah you've got to the absolute heart of the problem there and when I do my driver rankings obviously I look at a lot of the data and the onboard and everything and the overwhelming defining factor in qualifying was you know after the potential the car you're in was the deployment and you saw variation between teammates and that's what was decided so yeah that the driver influences a problem Scott question from Pat F the multiple overtakes between Russell and LeClerk and the early stages are exciting but some of the moves felt a bit uncanny the cars surging past each other he excited at this prospect of a new unpredictable overtaking opportunities or does it make racing let's engaging if cars can just drive around each other seemingly from nowhere so I wouldn't say excited but curious for sure because I think there's this this is why I'm so I'm urging you know get to let's go China let's go to Japan let's see what it's like on different tracks especially tracks that have parts of the circuit where straits are somewhere in the middle of what we saw in Australia because the the problem with which we saw in qualifying and then in the race as well with Melbourne is that run from turn six to turn nine is so long and then the run from turn ten to turn eleven is so long that you just spend a load in one place you'll get done in the next place and it's and it's too aggressive it's too immediate it's like because there's no opportunity between those straight to recharge. So once you've made your move, you better have made that move properly and got a bit of a gap, otherwise you're going to be vulnerable, right? But we did see this race as well, cars overtaking other cars into turn one and then up to turn three or getting close enough to fight. There were a couple of moves that didn't quite come off at turn three that were close to coming off. That happened through the field. So that gives me a bit of optimism that what we could see when we go to China, for example, look at that long back straight all the way down to the hairpin, having as close to 100% of your battery available, coming off the long right hand, or the back straights obviously going to be critical. But if you look at it at say, the run out of the last corner to the first corner, or I forget how many it ends up making up now, is it turns six in China is the slow right hander at the start of the middle sector. After you go long right, winds back round and then you come back out of the opening sequence and you kind of go up the hill right down into the hairpin basically. That hairpin in China should become an overtaking spot now. And how many times in the last let's say 10 years have you seen an actual overtake happen there? Like it's just always been too short because by the time you come out of the tight opening section you don't have enough. But if you've burned some battery on the start finish straight or whatever, you should have a bit more to play with in that part of the track. So that sort of thing becomes more interesting. And therefore it's going to be track specific based on how vulnerable the car in front is and how much strategic variety the car behind has because the problem we saw as this race developed was drivers became so mindful of the consequences of burning their energy in Melbourne. And specifically the fact you had these two straights right after each other that basically if you couldn't get the move done early enough on the on the straight on the on the run sorry from 9 to 9 to 10 then basically you'd burn all of your battery for no reason or you just about get ahead but then you'd be a complete sitting duck on the on the next straight. If you can just have if you can have a circuit where there's just enough time in between just to recharge just a little bit you'll start to see drivers willing to make that move willing to burn that bit of energy because they've got more of a chance of holding on at the next corner or you'll have a situation where both drivers can be burning loads of energy but then they both vulnerable or both one of them is able to fight back coming out of the next corner so they might be able to claim the position back legitimately rather than just by blasting past them because they'll be fighting out in similar situations. So I am as I say curious and maybe actually at the end of that answer a little bit more excited than I thought I was about going to other tracks and seeing what kind of racing we can have and how it shakes out. And finally from Ranch Dengus one I'll take has the battery power overtaking the tyres as the limiting factor in racing these cars. I would say yes kind of the hierarchy now is almost actually I'd slightly underestimated this. The way you deploy it is absolutely critical and we were seeing variations there so that's kind of your top thing. The way you harvest is really important as well so that's kind of next on the list because that's how much battery power you've got but really subtle differences in deployment causing quite big swings and then I think you're then getting into things like tyres so yes this is very very much an energy formula. Let's get on to the conventional part of the race should we say now Scott's probably the most asked question we've had from the race members club is actually about whether Ferrari threw away potential victory by not stopping under the virtual safety car either first time when Russell did or the second time and indeed whether Ferrari had the pace to win if they'd done so Dylan Clifford Brandon Shield, Ferrari fan club, Sedi, Daniel O'D, Andrew Potts, Nando Lloris, Leastone Eric Bryant, Gary Oliver and Ethan are among those to ask versions of that question so what do you think? I was thinking new F1 same old Ferrari and I couldn't get my head around it at all but Lewis Hamilton was absolutely spot on with his slightly exasperated comment on why they didn't split the cars and at least box one during the virtual safety I totally understand you don't want to give up track position with with Charlotte Claire in the race lead but boxing Hamilton seemed like a bit of a no brainer I guess the argument would potentially be that once you've as you've got the Mercedes in between you once Russell comes into the pits you're not going to take the lead anyway with Hamilton but you just reduce the risk of what exactly what happened which is you just open the door for both Mercedes to get ahead of both Ferrari's and then you're in a much worse position to be able to to win the race so I think that was I think that was unnecessary and a missed opportunity but I don't think it changed the outcome because while LeClaire was doing a very very good job early on and while the way that it played out with the the race pace as in the second half of the Grand Prix would suggest that Ferrari was a match or close to a match to Mercedes here and therefore able to with track position advantage hold on there are two big caveats to that the first is kind of what we talked about already which is that when it comes to overtaking now I think track position is less relevant so you could have especially once things got figured out a little bit more there was probably an opportunity for if he really needed to Russell just burning a bit more battery down while making sure he got in front and then doing what he needed to do to stay there if possible but the second factor which is I'll admit much more of an intangible thing and is potentially you know I'm not saying it's not vibes based but just looking at how the race played out and what the situation was going into it I'm pretty sure Mercedes had quite a bit of reserve in this Grand Prix the pace that we saw was didn't quite tally with what looked possible off the back of Friday the pace that they did have when they needed to push was there whenever they wanted it and it all had the air to me of effectively winning at the slowest speed possible because this is the first race with a brand new engine there's a lot of unknowns you've got the cars running one and two as well so you don't have to be pushing as hard as possible to maintain a gap or build a gap or anything like that plus the way that it shook out in terms of committing to the one stop early open the door for them being more conservative in terms of tire management versus whatever Ferrari could do pushing later a bit pushing more a bit later on sorry with slightly fresh tires so I just I don't think we saw the real pace of the Mercedes I think they did all they needed to do to win this great win this race and nothing more I would agree with that if you look purely at the lap times it indicates maybe there's kind of 10th and a half advantage from Mercedes over Ferrari I think the real advantage is a bit bigger than that if I'd have put it at three or four tenths which I think could be reasonable which is enough to be comfortable but not quite as much as maybe it looked at one stage so that's positive especially seeing as this track isn't the perfect configuration for Ferrari the Ferrari's clearly a really good car as well just in terms of the aerodynamics are two things possibly the best car it's hard to be absolutely definitive but there's some little signs of that but overall what they said on the strategy for Sir said it's about they didn't think that they could one stop they didn't think the hard would last quite as endlessly as they did so they just felt it was the best strategy I think what's an interesting question and it's the same uncertainty that we need to see how these rules pan out the thing about track position is if it's correct now that you unless you can build up a one second advantage from the car behind when overtaking and then you're going to repast the following lap that is track position actually now quite critical so if you can get ahead of somebody can you effectively then control a quicker car behind you if they haven't got this massive advantage so in theory if you can get to the front and then you can hold someone off is that can you maintain that basically throughout a whole race now and hold off a quicker car if they can't build up this one second gap to get in front I think that's the uncertainty we've got I'd love to have seen how that race would have played out if it carried on because George didn't seem like George was taking it easy and just happy to sit behind the declare early on I think you wanted to get past you made several attempts so are we in a situation now where you can hold cars off and everything will boil down to the final lap in effect that you probably do you want to come into the final lap in the second place to use your battery and get past so that's that's an element of uncertainty that Mercedes was by far the quickest car today on 16 17 lap older tires it was and managing to bring it bring it home to do the one stop it was quicker than a flat out Ferrari but the track position elements I think it's quite really interesting and again we're not going to know till till China but we lost the opportunity when they didn't stop yeah this is why it would have been good for Ferrari to stay out of that because I think the best chance would have been for the clerk to continue to try and confound Russell Russell was in full on problem solving mode I suspect he'd have sold it eventually because they are on steep learning curve but who knows your best chance is to interfere with the quicker car if you're doing battle with them and if you put yourself on a different bit of track you're going to lose aren't you so I don't think it was a strategic disaster but and I don't think it I don't think it changed the result as Scott said but it could have perhaps been a more interesting and better potential for causing an upset but you had to say Scott hats off to Mercedes overall they have come up with what's currently the strongest package they're bang on top of the deployment and the harvesting as the comparison in McLaren in particular shows maybe the chassis slightly better than the McLaren as well but primarily it's that so they've done a really good job haven't they yes they have and anything anything that we say about you know criticising the rules overall or questioning the quality of racing or this that or the other never ever should detract from the person who ends up sticking it on pole and winning the race that is still incredibly incredibly hard to do. inform you the one and the technology side of things is a success in itself that that is part of F12 It always has been it should always be to a degree so The best package on the day car engine and driver has one It's as simple as that and to have the advantage that Mercedes does seem to have at the moment is Incredibly impressive. I think I think all the stuff we've said about This being so much data that teams will have loads to learn from and then you know a bunch of the variables will be reduced and things Are a bit more figured out over the first few races. I think that might happen in terms of the deficit to Mercedes as well I think there's a reason that the advantage was so big and qualifying here What you thought about ed in terms of being bang on top of deployment I think exaggerated the the advantage over a single lap here because it was it was so sensitive in Australia And we saw obviously what everybody was doing in terms of that painful run to turn nine and the even down shifting on full throttle At the end of the straight in Russell's case And if you were just a little bit behind the curve in terms of how to best maximize that I think that was two three attempts easy and you you looked at it Ferrari and McLaren Both sort of reflected whisperly at the end of qualifying on if we started qualifying knowing what we know now and seeing what they've done We'd have been able to find a chunk of time now that will go for Mercedes too But I just think there might be some low hanging fruit in terms of eating into some of that deficit There was an interesting anecdote I found out tonight about Part of the the journey that McLaren are going on both the drivers and the teams are understanding deployment and the complexities and sensitivities of it Is I think it was that one of the land those runs in Q2 Where he had a bit of a moment coming out of turn two lifted off To save it But then unbeknownst to him lifting off switched on the mgk and gave him a bit more battery deployment And then because of the way the whole system works he arrived at the next section with a bit more power than anticipated So these are the weird quirks and sensitivities of deployment that drivers are trying to get their heads around Um and it just shows that there's still so much to learn so much weirdness To go on to extract everything and I think the the pure thing is that Mercedes have optimized everything have absolutely nailed The qualifying setup as James Vals said they were kind of caught up on the back foot by what Mercedes had done McLaren are trying to dig deeper and get to it all but At the moment Mercedes have got a you know perfect deployment for qualifying Probably can't unleash that in the race because you're more at the the whim of what other cars are doing Yeah, and this will all Kind of shake out and tighten up over the coming races because of course everybody can see what everybody else is doing on Deployment and try and understand it as well. So That'd be so much number crunching and data analysis going on and it'll be all focused on that energy side of things But you know great effort from Mercedes George Russell seem pretty much at one with the car Even if he was laboring a little bit to get past Charlotte Claire and can we answer Nelly who we've got a question about later on in the podcast did a good job to back him up in second place Particularly after that FP3 Shunt but talking of Baffling deployment Scott should we talk about Oscar Piaestry because he didn't have the car to win the Australian Grand Prix So we weren't gonna have the first home win since 1980 but how much sympathy do you have for him not having even a raceable car After he put it in the wall on the reconnaissance lap. Yeah, bring back the T car. That's what uh That's what Piaestry needed After that it was massively Massive sympathy because there's a there's a degree and he admitted this as well. There's a big degree degree here of You know a bit of carelessness on on his part, you know on that on a reconnaissance lap You need to be risking it up on the the curb has his attention just wandered ever so slightly But as he said and there's no reason not to believe him on this even though you do have that sort of pinch of soul Because drivers are always not gonna want to take the blame if they if they can avoid it And if he's got if he's genuinely had an extra hundred kilowatts power kick versus qualifying Uh that is hard to deal with at the best of times let alone when you don't think it's coming or don't know it's coming And you're on cold tires because it's a reconnaissance lap and and whatnot So I think there is a head to what extent I don't know but there is there is a degree of um mitigation here certainly and and it's a significant significant variable Just just don't know how much so there's there's that side of things as well where you're like okay How much of this actually isn't his fault so that elicit sympathy but just the whole scenario is just you're kind of We were talking about this before the the race when it happened weren't we at about like um You know the pre-race crashes are so bizarre and so significant now that like they're they're very very interesting in a way But they're just I can't help but fill for them just on a human level because he must have just wanted the The ground to swallow him swallowing up after that. It's the worst possible thing That you can do and amazingly obviously not in the same circumstances But the second year in a row in Australia We've seen a driver have a gut wrenching shunt that stops them from actually taking the starve as the ezek hadjar You could argue is even more painful because he was 98% of a formation lap away from taking the start last year when it when he dropped it But this one was obviously worse because Piazza didn't even make it round to the grid Yeah, and it's significant because not only was Piazza on home soil and Wanting to show that he could be a factor after missing out the title last year McLaren a kind of inner hang in their mode while they try and close that gap and there's no guarantee they will but they might It's not impossible that Piazza could get into the championship fight and so any points left on the table now are Pretty bad news. So yeah, you can only have sympathy for him for that one now John. Let's talk about That kind of McLaren and Red Bull battle because they were the sort of second half of the big four were they and And then oris was fifth max was happened from the back was right with him in six But they were over 50 seconds behind race when a Russell So do you think that's representative of the pace on the gap? Uh today yes, but I think there's many elements I think there's many elements to it I don't mean there's one singular fault there I think the 50 seconds gap is make this look bigger than it is because Landau was fighting a lot of that race and I think what we've seen We saw it even with the George Russell and Charles Leclerc battle at the front that if you start battling It's costing you lap time um So you you're losing one you can lose one two seconds of lap just by overtaking and reparsing and all those elements. So landau being involved in battles. I think gave some of that 52nd deficit Some of that deficits the deployment factor and they've not nailed the the understanding of harvesting deployment how to manage the battery she talked about which was exposed in qualifying and was true today in the race as well So some of it comes from that and I think equally some of it comes from the chassis that they haven't absolutely nailed this Uh the chassis regs yet Andre Estella talked tonight that there's upgrades coming quite aggressive upgrades He said in a few races So I think it's a combination of all these factors that Together there's no miracle step there. They're gonna have to chip away at it Um, so I don't think every race they're gonna be 50 seconds back But this is not a gap that's gonna close up Into next weekend's Chinese Grand Prix. So I think they are You know probably they're with Red Bull in terms of that that fight behind Mercedes and Ferrari The question is and we don't know yet whether it's 10 seconds back at a Grand Prix on a typical day or 20 or 30 But I don't think it's not gonna be 50 seconds every race Yeah, and it seems that the harvesting of the Red Bull power unit is pretty good Still got a bit to gain on deployment And maybe it's better in that regard than the Ferrari that seems to be a slight limiting factor for Ferrari But again, this wasn't a great track. I don't think for Ferrari So we'll get a better idea as we build up more and more races Let's move on now to oh, we should briefly mention I guess he's a hadjosh in we Scott he was having quite a nice We can't wasn't he but Engine problem set in very very early on and then put him out not much later than that Yeah, I suspect he was one of the few people who wasn't quite as impressed as a lot of us with arvid limblad at the start of this Grand Prix We're getting to limblad specifically in a little bit But he was making life unnecessarily difficult. I was so I imagine hadjah thought Early on there's hadjah kind of grappled with the that kind of moving and shaking of the the first few laps and trying to Trying to settle down amid the chaos I do think hadjah did a really good job this weekend and going back to that point on Piaestry and having sympathy for F1 drivers Just when I saw the engine go up and smoke good effort from Red Bull not quite not quite a full-on Combustion engine failure of old but as a new engine manufacturer That's a pretty good first effort of having your engine go up and smoke properly rather than just Come to a limper holder the side of the track. I just I just felt when I saw that like Obviously, it's he gonna be him or or or the staff and and then you see hadjah dropping down on the the timing tower on the side and I just thought it doesn't deserve that not by any means Obviously had such a heartbreak and start his F1 career here 12 months ago And then he's done a really good job this weekend there or thereabouts versus for staff and on On Friday looked pretty good in final practice Q1 Q2 as well Just constantly like a top five top six threat which considering where Red Bull seemed to be was was really really strong But then to step up when he needed to in Q3 Get everything right and nick ahead of those direct rivals by less than a tenth and be third on the grid You know whether he was going to get a podium out of this race didn't look likely I suspect he probably would have fallen who knows maybe you would have ended up behind the staff and bike by the end of the the the Grand Prix. But I'm not actually sure. I think there was such a big gap between where Red Bull could have been in this race and where the Stappen was because of the time lost coming through. There's no reason for me to think that Hadja couldn't have beaten Norris and the Stappen and been behind the Ferraris most likely. So maybe fifth is what you're looking at, which would have been fantastic way to start is is is Rebel Racing career. Because the thing he has proven this weekend straight out the box is that he can he it doesn't mean he will do it all the time, but he can be there to pick up the pieces when the Stappen's out the picture. When was the last time we could say that about Rebel Racing? Let's have a quick whistle stop tour in the midfield now because there's been a lot to talk about in this podcast, but Scott, their midfield battle was one in the An barley berm and in seventh place does that confirm the preseason expectations that it's heading that pack? That's tricky. I think it's definitely definitely in the mix. Racing balls was really fast this weekend, really impressive. And then didn't quite have an optimum race despite Limblad's best efforts. Liam Lawson was out of the picture early on, obviously in terms of the leader of the midfield fight after his his awful start. So has I think what what was most accurate this weekend in terms of or rather what was most accurate from testing and validated this weekend is just has is just so so unproblematically decent in the midfield like it's not the I don't think it's the fastest car in the midfield on any on any given day or any given moment. It looks like there might be one or two that are quicker out Audi will not to digress too much, but Audi Audi had that this weekend as well with over moments, but that was really, really fast as a as a package. But the has is just consistently there. And I'm actually wondering if the start of has this season in terms of the midfield specifically might be a bit like Williams is last year. We're actually as a car. It's not out and out much faster than it's immediate rivals, but if it's just always like the best or the second best midfield team, which it looks you know, based on bar and in Australia limited time. We'll say it could be it just it just seems like a reliable predictable package. Certainly certainly only bare man. Esteban Ockon slipped into Iowa. I've got a completely different car complaining again immediately on the first race weekend of the season and how much how much of that was the adjustment again need to unpick a few things to try and work out. But yeah, I do think I do think has overall might have the best midfield package at the moment. Just even if it's occasionally lacking that just tiny last little bit of pace, it does look like it's going to be a really reliable consistent force at the front of the midfield at least early in the season. Yeah, and you could sort of start to see that once bare man had kind of dug himself out the qualifying in juice to all I think asked it under a cheaper bit in qualifying. You could see that probably there was maybe a bit more pace in that car, but like you say, it is really, really tight. But John, let's talk about Arvid Lindard. I'm on my driver rankings. Yeah, but he's definitely going to be in the upper echelons of that after finishing eighth on debut. How impressed were you with him? Oh, super. What a really great strong weekend considering that the endless complications of these regulations, you know, you're thrown into Formula One a time when all drivers are trying to get around things. You got endless other stuff to learn with a team that's learning about stuff, which I think is a completely different challenge to slotting into a Formula One. Whether teams fully understand everything you need to know about energy deployment and how to handle the cars. So clean slate coming in, but didn't particularly put a foot wrong all weekend looks very quick, look composed, looks on top of things superb start. Fantastic early stages are he's battling out there with Lewis. I think it was even third at one point very, very early on in that first lap. So, you know, right up there consistent, got the points, very strong debut. So I think, you know, will build and be strong and I think racing bulls has got a very good replacement for Isaac Hachar. And I think his underlying pace was just better than Lawson's. Yes, Lawson had qualified him, but Limblad was on course to buy, I don't know, maybe a tenth, tenth and half, two tenths. Until on his last lap, he just didn't have any power on the runs to a nine. So he was like two seconds off, which team apologized for. So yeah, it could have been even more impressive in terms of the on paper results. But yeah, very, very good start. Scott, you briefly touched on Audi. We were a bit uncertain on them in preseason testing. We did have them in that tightly packed four car midfield group and they kind of laid on start to catch the eye with long run pace. So we surprised with Bortelato reaching Q3 and then taking ninth. A little bit, yeah, because the bit that stood out most in testing was that was the Holcomb Burger long run towards the end of the second test. And because it was, because it came at a time where there clearly was obviously a lot of fuel in the car. It was a question Markable, how how how much leading could that really be when when we know that the fuel should be at least a sort of understood variable there? So it was definitely Audi was on my list of curiosities coming into this one. I felt it had the potential to make the biggest step of any of the teams we saw in terms of where we had them. So for Audi and racing balls to have jumped ahead of Williams, sorry to have jumped ahead of Alpine and Hass on single lap pace anyway. I thought was I thought was okay. I I didn't expect it to be quite that good. But it's still a bit misunderstood and then mixed bad because it was a weird weekend wasn't it? Because obviously Bortelato did that and then couldn't take part in Q3 because of a problem and then Holcomb Burger hasn't taken the start. So don't really know what to make of that package. It does seem to be quite a decent turn of speed in there. But it's not as it's not as reliable as Audi would want. Let's put it that way. Yeah and Holcomb, I'm not starting. I don't think they've properly explained that. They've just done the usual thing of technical problem. So that's probably some kind of an Audi PU related thing. It's yeah, they did a useless update after the qualifying issue as well where they just said that basically something like Bortelato had a technical problem and hasn't been able to make it into Q3. We're looking into it. So we can we know that. There's no point in issuing that as a as a communication. It's embarrassing really Audi have been investing a lot in Formula One. If you want to come in Formula One and tell a story just doesn't mean you have to give all the details. But it's just going to be if you're going to just be as boring as possible and not say anything out of nobody's going to care what you're doing. So they've done really well. That's a really good start for them and I would like them to be a little bit more communicative on that sort of thing. Right John Alpine, tough time for them. Pierre Gasey was 10th. He beat Esther Benocle on their wheelbanging battle. Bit disappointing though given where they looked to be in testing. So what was the trouble for them? Yeah, so I think there there's a satisfaction they scored a point. But as as manager director Steve Nielsen said tonight it was a bit like losing a five or finding a button basically that they'd come into the season. The switch to Mercedes was you know going to leapfrog them towards the front. You know qualifying in the upper reaches of the top 10 sniff of podium and the weekend has been much more difficult than that. But I think this is something from what I understand that the team well knew that there's some car characteristics they found first exposed in Barcelona testing have been confirmed in Bahrain. The era is not working perfectly. The car is suffering from high speed understeer and that's very limited in fact. Limit in the more in qualifying than it appears to do in the race but it is something that held them back in sections of the Albert Park circuit. So you've got that element then you throw on top also the the infancy of the Mercedes relationship the deployment factors that we've mentioned from McLaren and Mercedes. So the combination of these factors basically mean that the weekend didn't wasn't as strong as they hoped. And then in terms of this dialing out this problem of the arrow and Steve Nielsen described as you know the carrying up with an injury at the moment basically that until they bring these parts this high speed understeers going to remain not such a problem in China because there's a lot more medium speed. There aren't the super high speed sections that are critical to lap time here but there are in Suzuki for example. So the hope is they can get these upgrades in time for Japan but if not it'll be quite a tough first few races for them but by the time we get to Miami irrespective of what happens in April if those Bahrain and Saudi Grand Prix take place which is looking very unlikely they should then get sorted then can start getting forwards and getting their season back to where they hoped it would be. Let's move on to Aston Martin now Scott because the full extent of their troubles was laid back actually completing 64 racing laps across the two cars representing quite a good Sunday didn't it? Yeah better than expected but I think that reflects the expectations more than the achievement. There was also slightly strange Honda update at the end where they've basically said that they're approaching the point of being able to do race distance and that they're able to you know they've understood it now with the battery so there's a little bit of a okay well then why didn't you just do that today but I think they're just I think that is just because they're so owing on the side of caution with everything like Alonzo Fernando Alonzo was formerly retired from the Grand Prix precisely to save parts stroll was in and then back out again so it was obviously I wondered if they just wanted to make like have a car running at the at the end and it was just a total mileage limit that they wanted to impose or something like that. Basically what they've got out of this weekend is proof that whatever countermeasures of been put in place to mitigate the severity of the vibrations that were damaging the battery and causing the problem there, have worked, the engine can run, and also, as the weekend went on, they could get more of a tune from it in terms of performance. Alonzo basically halved the deficit from Friday to Saturday, still too slow, 2.7 seconds, I think, off in Q1, 7/10 away from the next car, I think. So you're still talking too big, too way too big a gap, but it just shows how untapped this all is in terms of the potential when actually adding performance. The race was painful, the pace was, Alonzo's first lap was mega, and it was fun to see them put him on softs and just let him charge forward for a bit. But the gravity was stronger than normal, I think, in terms of pulling him back down, and then it wasn't a good run thereafter. I need to go back over it and check out exactly how this played out, but there was definitely a point where after everybody had made some pit stops, like stroll was about 12, 13 seconds behind Sergio Perez in the Cadillac, and even if there was some, I don't know, virtual safety car timing around that, that influenced it. That did mean that he was running behind the Cadillac on Merit, and the Cadillac's race pace was a business was the, as the Grand Prix went on. So yeah, there's, there are fewer Alon bells ringing after this, but then by no means out of the woods yet. Mention a Cadillac there, John, a few numbers, 5.3% off the outright pace and qualifying, but for the purposes of the 1.07%, which is measuring Q1, 3.9%, that's a big tick. Feltie Bottas didn't make the finish, even after his steering wheel changed, but Perez did, so how could it start with this? I think it was the start they needed, and I think it just confirms the journey that Cadillac's been on in terms of its ticks, every box it needed to do, that it's got a team up and running, it's got the factory up and running, it got a car out on time, it was at the test on time, it got to the 1st Grand Prix, it qualified for the 1st Grand Prix, it's got a car to the end, so all those elements are exactly what it's got to do, but then the next job to do is to improve and make the car quicker, and the job now probably starts from here on in. Sergio Perez mentioned this tonight that now we need to improve, we need to get our heads down, we need to make this car quicker, so I think they've ticked every box up until now, excellent, fantastic job, they're established, it all looks like a normal racing team that doesn't look out of place in the paddock, doesn't look out of place on track, but this is the starting point, now it's time to bring the upgrades, get more out of that car, push on forwards and keep going forwards, but I think that's nothing that they weren't expecting or anticipating. And just so we complete the set, Scott a word on Williams, Alex Aldman finished 12th, fortunate that team perhaps to be overshadowed in the struggle stakes by Aston Martin, but this weekend did confirm what we feared about its form, didn't it? Yeah, if you just want a word on Williams, it's rubbish, it's nowhere near where it should be, cars slow, it's bad and qualifying, it's uncompetitive in the race, it's clearly overweight, they're unhappy about what they're getting from Mercedes in terms of openness on the engine side, but I don't think they should be going anywhere near that topic at the moment, it can't be the fourth of the four Mercedes teams and be complaining that you're not getting exactly what you need out of that, focus on the problems closer to home first, especially after all the noise about how important 2026 was, I don't really even care that there's massive potential in this, that there could be big gains if they just get the weight out over the first few races, just go and do it because the promise or the potential of the package where they get to by the end of the year might genuinely be really good, like so much can change over this year, it's entirely possible Williams ends the year as the lead midfield team and with the best car in the midfield. And if they do that, they've done a great job, all of the stuff that they still have there is clearly working well and you will probably be able to argue that it means that the trajectory is still in place, but it doesn't, it doesn't change the fact that they've messed up by being in the position that they're in now because there was no reason or excuse at all good enough for a team that finished fifth in the championship last year, made a big song and dance about switching to 2026 early and then everybody else blow a blow to have ended up in this position. But even if there is an explanation for it, the reason for the reason is not good enough, there's no excuse valid enough. So yeah, it's just exposed, it's exposed how bad it is. It's one of, it's one of the biggest disappointments of 2026, even though it had a relatively, you know, undesirstress opening weekend, like to be where they were in the context of Williams, I thought was really poor. Yeah, reality check is probably the phrase. I would use for Williams. Now we have still got our 90% off your first month membership for the race members club. That's via Patreon, John. Obviously our members output was a little bit different this weekend because Scott wasn't down under with you as he was meant to be, but travel thwarted him. So you did a few updates from the paddock as well. So still lots going on, even if there wasn't the chance for in-car insights because we don't normally have a car for this race. Yeah, I had to do Billy know mates insights, which is basically me sat in the paddock doing it. But it was actually quite a quite good fun, but I do miss our, I do miss the in-car insights that become quite a quite good little kind of chat and download in the evening, but I think we'll be back for China, even though we don't have a car in China, but I'm sure we can find something to chat along there, but there's still plenty to talk about. It's been one of the more interesting weekends just for every day, something amazing happening in the paddock. So it's always plenty to talk about. It was just one of those weekends that just kept on, kept on giving for drama and intrigue and you never quite knew what to expect. Kind of the next step of whatever stories we were chasing. We also debuted the knowledge bucket as a formal part of the members club portfolio this weekend. That was for you after the end of Friday, Ed, in terms of being able to debrief a little bit what had been learned. What do you reckon? I would like to think there's going to be so much to learn, certainly in the first part of the season. How prepared would you be to make the knowledge bucket a semi-regular occurrence? You've talked about it enough on pods. There's a lot of space in it for more knowledge. So I think we can keep doing that. You obviously did your post run insights. Talk about Ashton Martin. I did a headshed on the 88 LaRouche Lola that took over the demo. So lots going on there. If you're interested, there is that 90% off your first month membership. Hit the link in the episode description. I head to Patreon, search for the race of the race members club to find out more. Well, it may be a new season, but as usual, the final part of the podcast is devoted to questions from the race members club. Thanks to everybody who sent those in. I suspect when we get together in the middle of the week in China, John will answer some more of these as well in the next podcast. But the first one for you, John from Evan Canney, do you think the FIA will systematically remove the pre-race start procedure? So reduce to three seconds, then one second, then remove it? For the first time in a long time, the start looked like a technical challenge. It's a shame to reduce that challenge due to the unfounded fear of cars not pulling off the line. A simple answer, no, because I think there are still major problems with the start. I think the fear is weren't unfounded, because I think it was an absolute miracle that we didn't end up with a very serious crash today. If you look at Franco Colapinto's race start and how close he came to swiping straight into the back of Liam Lawson's near stationary racer bulls, I mean, it is almost a miracle that it didn't happen. And I think this is what Yandrea Stella tonight was saying we need to still address these start problems because we've got huge variations of speed. We've got drivers, a lot of drivers have been troubled today. I think George, even George's battery was down. Kimi Antony made a poor start. The Red Bull batteries were drained, so they weren't very good. Lawson got away very badly. And I think when you've got inconsistent starts like that, there's a high chance of instance happening. It may just be that we were slightly lucky today with a gap with castry on the grid, for example. Drivers may be a bit more cautious, themselves mindful of being uncertain about how things will play out. So as Yandrea Stella says, just because nothing happened today doesn't mean we ignore this problem and think the safety issue has gone away. So I still think it needs to be looked at. And I still think if anything, there's going to be movement towards seeing how the systems can be changed or something done to make sure these starts are a bit more consistent because if we rerun that race again in similar circumstances in a parallel universe, Colapinto straight into the back of Lawson. Yeah, I really can't stress enough how lucky F1 is that that didn't happen. And I was saying lucky for Colapinto, but you know, I don't want to discredit the job he did in that like the reactions outstanding. There's a bit of there is some luck involved in that he sees it when he sees it and that his corrective action doesn't result in some kind of wall strike or just clipping the back of Lawson. He can only control so much there and what he does is is phenomenal. If anyone has F1 TV access that allows them to go back and look at on boards or can even find it online somewhere, watch Sergio Perez's view because he's the car directly behind and I've looked it back and that's it's it puts it into a context that the even the Colapinto on board doesn't like the Colapinto on board frightening then the Perez one. I mean you do see like in the end like the gap is big enough obviously because he got through it but there's a bit of margin either side as well but it's the angle that's what makes it so improbable and the big slide and lurch like I don't know how he doesn't either hit loss and first or then the wall. He comes so close to to hitting the wall and yeah I cannot stress enough how frightening and dangerous it is to have cars at the back of the grid unsighted for a car stopped further forward and bear in mind that also was a car that was in the more or less in the middle of the pack because loss and qualified was it eighth on the grid so it's not like it was that you know there was another four it could have been another three four rows at difference in terms of the near mist because Colourpinter wasn't at the very back of the grid either so you cannot see anything especially when you have the further back you go you have drivers reacting later and later to the stopped car because naturally they're seeing it later or slow moving car because it doesn't have to be stopped entirely so it's a complete lottery basically whether or not the driver sees it in time and then you're relying on them being superhuman in terms of their reflexes so I think this should act as a wake up call and for anyone who anyone who didn't think that this was a risk should reconsider that position now obviously this is possible any time it can always happen that a car doesn't move for some kind of technical problem but if we have a known issue with it and we've seen enough cars fumble starts now across practices and the real thing to know that this is something that can happen maybe it's maybe much more likely to happen with these cars that's why you take it seriously because it's not just like one of those things it's a specific thing that these engines have triggered so let's just take it as seriously as possible because even if we do I don't think you'll take the randomness out of the actual quality of the launchers I still think you'll get variation in a good way at the front of the grid and between cars yeah I would say very much the question I understand because they didn't put that into the the main race coverage of the replay or anything I don't know if that was deliberate or whether they just didn't notice it could very well have been that it wasn't noticed I would tend to alter that as the motor likely option but it was yeah Colour Pinto you could not have put a piece of paper between him and Lawson's car very very good effort by Colour Pinto to avoid it and not hit the pit wall but yeah close to a big one there right the next question from Stuart Edwards Scott is it too early to say welcome back to the real Lewis Hamilton yeah it is because remember that he he had a pretty good debut for Rwe 12 months ago the result wasn't wasn't where he wanted it where they wanted it to be but pace was sort of fine versus Lecler other factors kind of limited the the the end result so I'll be a little bit wary of reading too much into it what is encouraging is that Ferrari's obviously starting off more on the front foot than it was for most of last year and there are still the same kind of positive noises as from the very start of preseason in terms of what the cars doing dynamically and what Hamilton kind of wants it to do so if that continues and it's more positive and optimistic then I think you have the chance of seeing the best of Hamilton on a sustained basis and then we will be able to say that we're seeing you know the real Lewis Hamilton again because yeah I still feel like the peaks not necessarily an issue I think you just see enough glimpses of it here and there the question you know the real Lewis Hamilton is someone who turns up weak in weak out right and that's what we need to say it will be the same for China because he won the sprint race last year so if he goes there and does well it kind of it just reflects the start of 2025 even more closely so yeah we just we just need a few more weekends but I would say it's at worst it's gently encouraging and he's definitely trying to be as constructive as possible he battered away and he suggested that he didn't like the strategy when he was asked about it after the race several times well obviously in the car he was legitimately I think questioning it right question from Arley Emerson that I'll take if we're going to see a season number say these dominance how encouraged can we be that Kimi Antonelli looks up forgiving as a title fight based on this weekend well let's say there's going to be Mercedes early season dominance I think that there's a bit more of a story to be told behind beyond that but I think it was a pretty encouraging weekend for Antonelli I think Russell probably was a bit more on top of absolutely everything Antonelli obviously had the crash in FP3 and he did a very good job to come back and recover to qualify second there that said without the red flag in Q1 the car might not have made it out so I think that maybe just gave them enough time so yeah fine margins but he was there I don't think the Mercedes were fully stretching their legs so I don't think we got a full-on pace comparison but certainly a good weekend from Antonelli and although that FP3 shot made you think oh this could this could turn into a bad weekend he did what he could there after and on your point about the the rush job to get the car ready again after FP3 into qualifying Mercedes couldn't do all the setup work that they wanted to do for Antonelli's car so it was a more basic version of the Mercedes setup on the car for the remainder of it as well so I don't know whether that mitigates you know the entirety of any Russell performance gap but it's worth it's worth having that in mind I think as soon as he climbed from the wreckage in FP3 his weekend is all about what can you recover from here because there's just no there's just no way you can be at 100% after that it impacts confidence you don't know what state the car's going to be in and as I said that it doesn't sound like it was a absolute maximum potential so to come away with the result he has and overcome that difficulty in the first in two is a very good recovery job and that's that's all he needed after FP3 yeah I think you would still comfortably say Russell is the more light when the championship of those two but Antonelli is in a position where he can force himself into that and he will be aiming so so solid start in that regard so maybe he could be a factor I think it would be good for the season if he is right John a question from Adam B given everything you knew going into today what's surprised you most about this race I think that open in segment when Ferrari took the fight to George Russell but as we've said many times still don't know quite what we were looking at where we were we looking at a Ferrari that is more matched to Mercedes race pace so the right circumstances can challenge it are we looking at the nature of F126 of this yo yo style of racing where if you've got track position then you can keep it if your rival can't get a second ahead in one clear lap so I mean it was a fantastic open sequence to a Grand Prix it's enough to I think alleviate calls and claims that F1s in crisis and these in emergency knee jerk reaction change because there was enough promise from that to point is what is this what what have we seen is this where we're going forwards so I think that's the positive because my prediction going into it's going to be quite a boring afternoon beyond a bit of first lap shenanigans the likelihood that was that the two Mercedes just disappearing up the road which didn't happen so the fact that Ferrari had that little sniff early on and kept in it until the VSCs I think was the big thing that surprised me anything surprised you Scott um I think the the final deficit for McIron I think to be just sneaking in front of a staffer who started down in 20 if in that race is a is a really bad result we don't know if Oscar Piaštry could have had a cleaner Grand Prix and without any setbacks would it have been a bit closer but I think it has to be quite alarming that even if you don't have everything nailed for for qualifying to make the most of it that you end up what would you say it was 52 seconds behind your engine supplier and the team that you've beaten the last couple of years with the same engine um yeah that's uh it's high opening how much works needed to be done even if there is low hanging fruit to be able to take chunks out of that deficit you know they could literally half that gap and still be way further behind the Mercedes and they've been at any point over the last two years I'd maybe throw in perhaps a weekend surprise was just how big a difference tiny differences in deployment we're going to make I thought it was the amount of harvesting that was going to be the overwhelming factor in it is but actually those subtle differences the power of them and the amount of lap time they were just a small difference in state of charge of battery a given corner etc very very significant but that will of course close up as everybody gets on top of it right Scott question from Thorin Gooderson if this race was part of last season would it have been one of the best four overtakes on track for P1 for iStratggy heartbreak for us to fose in two well champions fighting close for over 10 laps ah that's that's hard primarily because uh I remember last year's race is the challenge is going on in 2025 um I don't know that that's really hard I think I just I'll answer it slightly differently which is that it's definitely it was definitely one of the best possible races f1 could have had to start this set of rules and as season openers in new regulation cycles go you know it wasn't you know it wasn't boring from start to finish um yes it exposed some some problems but there were areas of it that were sort of cautious optimistic as well I think there was there was too much that was just radically different to compare it directly to 2025 as well it's not the same kind of racing um so I think overall as a spectacle I suspect it would probably be quite quite high up the list versus 2025 races in terms of how much happens I don't personally enjoy the way that happens as much as I did some of the ways races played out in um in 2025 so So for things going on, it would have been probably in the top half, top third of 2025 races, and then where you judge it in terms of just how good or bad that was just comes down to how you read that kind of racing. Question from Richard Randall for me, is there an argument that some venues for qualifying to instead be a time trial of sorts rather than a whole lap? Could we consider a quick zone, say 75% of the lap distance to decide the grid where there's less chance of batteries being depleted and giving us a proper flat out time through those points? I'm sure they'll be downsized, but while the cars mature to the regulations, we'd have a better chance of a peer performance result, especially a venue for where energy is at premium. You can make that argument, you shouldn't have to, but you've got to the heart of the problem, which is the need to charge on the lap. The trouble is, firstly, you've got to do it a lot, because if you're on your battery, you deplete it from full to completely empty in, it's like 12 seconds or something of that order, is it? You can't get the exact numbers, but I think even 75% of a lap, it wouldn't work. Also, they design the cars around the fact you will need to be harvesting in terms of braking and that kind of thing. A peer performance, I know what you mean in terms of the kind of grip limited performance of the cars, you want that to be measured as it should do, but ultimately, peer performance of the cars now is the energy regime. That's the first order thing. A good suggestion, but I think the problem isn't entirely solved by it, because I don't think the problem can be solved. Right, John, a question from Visch, does Mercedes have a fair advantage by building a genuine good engine or an unfair one with the 18-to-1 compression ratio skepticism? I think the compression ratio topic is probably faded away by the fact that it wasn't Mercedes 12, McLaren 34, Alpine 56 and Williams, wherever they could have got with their overweight car. So the fact that McLaren were pulled back into the pack behind, for example, the fact that you looked at the power-unit performance and the deficit between Mercedes and, well, difference between Mercedes and McLaren was as extreme as other manufacturers, which shows that the key thing seems to be deployment and how you're managing the battery. So I don't think the compression ratio issue is the ultimate deciding one. There may be totals being right, that it was a storm and a teak up and not the three-four temps that it was, but we'll find out later this year and definitely next year. But I think the ultimate truth is, Mercedes has built the best engine and has built the best car and pulled it off brilliantly to dominate this Grand Prix and our favourites for the Formula One World Championship. A question now from Flavio Arian, who says, "What does Gary Anderson think of the Formula having watched the first race?" Well, Gary isn't here, but he has told us what he thought. Flavio, I think the regulation achieved what they set out to do, which was to make the racing a bit more entertaining. I think in those three or four first laps there was more overtaken than probably any season Melbourne for quite a while. But was it real racing? I'm not quite sure. I think three or four more races before we find out how all pounds out is important. I think the best team P.U. package ended up winning the race, which is always the right thing. I think Ferrari did a very strong job to show that their small turbo work well for off-the-start line. But anyway, as I say, three or four more races before we make a big decision because it's different tracks. It'll be different solutions to how you deploy and harvest the energy. So let's give it time and open opportunity and see what happens. And of course, if you want to hear more about what Gary Anderson thinks, listen to the race F1 tech show. We'll be putting out an episode of that before the Chinese Grand Prix. And the final question for this podcast that I will take from Roll, fun, 86, there's numbers and letters in there, it's tricky to say. Since most of the other questions will be about energy in P.U.s etc, I just wish to know your opinion on the Coppinto and go penalty. Adam Nelson asks, "Do Alping need to do something about Coppinto?" After having testing an almost a full season, he is still nowhere near Gatsley and doesn't seem to have the skills to put together a competitive Grand Prix balancing tires and everything else. Yes, the Coppinto and go penalty is the caption set. That's what that's a reference to. So rather than stop and go, Coppinto and go, I don't think it was particularly targeting him just a bit of a caption blunder, but the actual penalty itself was normal. We can't such a car within 15 seconds of the red lights going off for the formation lap and they did. So it's bang to rights. But I think on Coppinto, he didn't have a great weekend. Obviously Alping is a whole struggling. He didn't have Gatsley's pace quite, although the qualifying deficit wasn't representative. He was much closer than that. But I think I would say, look, Coppinto some time. He's had his first pre-season, this is his first full season. And we have seen him put together some good Grand Prix weekends, admittedly, more in the early days of Williams. So there's a driver in there. Let's give him a proper run into this season and through it before making definitive conclusions because there's some good quality there. Well, thanks to everybody who asked those questions. Thanks to Scott and John for answering them. We'll of course be heading on to China where we will record a podcast that will probably answer some more of your questions as well. That'll be me and John. And in the meantime, stay with us for everything you need to know for the world of Formula One. The Athletic