Leclerc, Verstappen, Ferrari discussed on The Autosport Podcast
Automatic TRANSCRIPT
I don't think Verstappen wins that race. I think he maybe he gets closer to make one move. And I get frustrated when people are like, you know, in an ideal world, yeah, you wouldn't have the RS. But people do look back 20 years ago and yearn for that era that's always on the cusp of like, oh, it's better back then. It was better back then. Which area are you talking about? You're talking about gym Clark, you're talking about Emerson Fittipaldi. Michael schema, what do you mean? It's always the same thing, right? But those races were people remember those amazing key moments, but it was just tended to be just one. It wasn't necessarily constant wheels wheel fighting. I think with this the it's the same in Bahrain. It wasn't going to go on forever, and it was the same here. It just worked for that period of time. And they're so clever the way they were using it. Max adapted his approach. I think Jesse, you're right. He does seem to be sort of, he has changed, or the early evidence suggests he is sort of paying the longer game that really was evidence today because he had to wait until later on in the stint because that was just the way it played out with tires and he said he knew that I think he was like, I can't do my usual thing and go all out on the attack early on. He waited, he by the time he realized what the glow is doing in terms of using the second ARS to get back to you. He's like, no, you're not doing that again. And what was brilliant was leclerc immediately recognized that. So they both lock up. Leclerc hits on the gas and just heads off. It's like the peripheral vision. You know that helmet cam, you saw leclerc and Bahrain going left, right, left, right, left. How on earth they see anything is tremendous. Just the spatial awareness to know what your ride was doing, you're listening, you're feeling your hearing. It's just tremendous stuff there. But yes, I think people complain if you're complaining about that. I mean, are you ever going to enjoy Formula One? If that's what you're complaining about, you know, yeah. A couple of things that I loved about today was firstly, the two cars, the two teams set their cars up differently. So you had that top end pace from Red Bull and then you had the Ferrari that could pull away in sector one. In the race, it was max that topped out the speed trap at 334.6 kilometers an hour. Bottom of the 18 runners that run was Ferrari. Carlos Sainz, 318 and then slightly above him in 16th Charles Charles was at 320. So you've got an offset there of 14 kilometers an hour and then layer on top that slipstream, then layer on top, the DRS, and there was just that at that offset that made great racing and this new rule set, a new cars where different teams not only they'd look different visually, the bits that we can see. They're setting their cars up differently, but Alex, let me ask you, you're going to be flying out to Melbourne in a couple of weeks time while flying before. Two weeks. It's a week today. Experiment, Melbourne, no DRS. Like, would that shut up? Everybody don't wake up to the race. Right? So that's not the doubters. Would there be a terrible Melbourne race? It's not been on the calendar for two years. I think that's a fair. I don't think that's a fair circuit to test this out on because holy moly. It would stop it would stop. I like the idea of experiment Martin, but please can we not do it outside? That's like, RIP F one, I think. So I think there's three things there and one is to live so relentlessly in the real world. But you can't just have one race run to different rules. I got annoyed about that with the sprint races last year. It's like, haven't fine experiment with race weekend format. Don't have them count for championship points, because that's just not fair, really. And it would be to say it would be the same with Melbourne but I think the bigger problem is you would have one very boring race. They've done a lot of track changes, they've invested a lot of money, that great organization, the Australian Grand Prix corporation. I know they're really we're looking forward to having the race back and a lot of they have had to cap ticket numbers on fairly sure because they just can't get the number of officials and the way things are going to be managed for the COVID rules and things like that. Phenomenal race, I'm sorry looking forward to going back there. But yeah, I just don't think I just don't think having garris would work out, but I think what's really interesting is that don't forget, I think the way they reach those speeds are completely different. So the Ferrari hybrid upgrade they introduced at the end of last year packs one hell of a punch. So they accelerate off the corners really, really, really fast. The Red Bull has a much lower drag philosophy, so it is able to hit a higher top speed, but the Ferrari can get to its top speed quicker. So it balances it out quite nicely. I do, however, suspect that if the rebels were to look out the front row, I don't think Ferrari would see them by the finish. I think it's clearly a slightly peak year car or Red Bull just operationally. We saw that last year when it came to getting the best out of the tyres in what I still maintain was the fastest package last year. They're not necessarily a 100% all over it. But I do suspect they have just a fundamentally stronger package all round. So if it were to be rebel start in front, I think DRS or an earlier IRS, I still think Red Bull wins that fight. Yeah, I think Paris Paris was on for the win today, really. If you hadn't have been absolutely scuppered by latifah's crash. Lizzie, if he giveth, but he also taketh away. I think in the case of Red Bull. It's been a whole 24 hours since he'd been into the wall, so he was due a crash. You've got Alban coming in alongside him on a year out. And with the greatest of respect to Alban, who was a phenomenal racing driver, he isn't George Russell, and yet he's not having the problems that he's having. It is a difficult package obviously he's not where Williams wanted to be. But yeah, struggle was when you third year for Nicholas Steve, that's a bit difficult. It's just very quickly on Sergio Pérez, Jess. I don't know. I have a sneaking suspicion. His tyres did seem to be going off just a little bit towards that stint leclerc was coming back to him. Christian Horner says, yeah, that was the lap they were already planning on pitting, so strategically they didn't lose out they were obviously just completely scooted over by the safety car. But I wonder whether leclerc would have been able to get him towards the end of the race. And then the amount of time I'm sure max would have been his waived by. I wonder whether that in itself would have meant that leclerc just drives away in just about holds on. I'm not really sure. I think the safety car ultimately did destroy Perez's race, but it also might have saved Verstappen's race if that makes sense. It's one of those things like we just all never know where it is, or.