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Oscar Dominates in the Desert - 2025 Bahrain Grand Prix Review · The Undercut

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Foreign thanks for tuning in to the undercuts review of the 2025 Bahrain Grand Prix. Please rate, review and subscribe wherever you.
• 0:17
  Speaker B: Listen and enjoy the episode.
• 0:20
  Speaker A: By being a racing driver, you are at risk all the time. By being a racing driver means you are racing with other people. And if you no longer go for a gap that exists, you're no longer a racing driver. All right, Nick, so fourth round now. The 2025 Bahrain Grand Prix. I mean, quite a difference from the race that we had last week with.
• 0:45
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 0:46
  Speaker A: And crazy. I guess the only similarity would be that the front of the grid didn't really. Or the, you know, the front of the race didn't really change.
• 0:56
  Speaker B: But everything behind everything, I mean, it was. We love Suzuk. Suzuka is a great circuit. Bahrain is not historic, but high tide egg and everyone knows it. But it's, it's, it's a track that you do get overtaking and there was so much overtaking today. Obviously not for the lead of the race, but all the way through the midfield. I mean it. Yeah, it was, there were, there were times when there were multiple overtakes in the space of like three corners. And it was, it was super exciting. So we, we made up for Suzuka and then some. It was a great race.
• 1:35
  Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, and it's. It was from the very beginning. I mean, Lando looking like he had the most amazing jump of his whole entire career. Getting all the way up to P3 from P6 and he just made the jump a little bit too early because.
• 1:51
  Speaker B: It wasn't really a jump. It wasn't really a jump. He was like a foot too far forward in his pit box. He just rolled. Yeah, and I don't get why he did because he looked like he'd stopped in the right spot and then he engaged gear and then he just inexplicably rolled forward. I don't get it. Did he think he was too far back and tried to get to the front of his box? I don't know. It was weird. But it was a great start. Did you watch the in car from his car on the start?
• 2:19
  Speaker A: I saw a little clip.
• 2:20
  Speaker B: Oh, he was on it. It was great. Yeah, and he picked his line perfectly. If only he hadn't been a foot too far forward.
• 2:28
  Speaker A: Yeah, and Max saw it.
• 2:32
  Speaker B: Of course he did. He always does.
• 2:34
  Speaker A: So yeah, that was unfortunate. He ultimately got a five second penalty for that. But I mean he, he almost made up that whole entire time by the time that George pit. Because that's who he was Behind. By the time Lando came out of the pits, I mean, he. It was almost neck and neck as George was coming out of the pits. He was able to stay ahead, but he almost made up that whole five seconds.
• 2:57
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it makes you wonder, if he hadn't got that five second, would he have skipped him? Would he have got past him at the stops? I don't know, probably. But you've got to, you know, it's the race is the race, so if you've got a penalty, you serve the penalty. And. But it was the, you know, the opening part of the race. Great start from. From Lando, and, you know, he was attacking the Ferraris, who had a really good start as well. I. I've not seen too many replays of the pass on Hamilton where he had to give back the position, but it looked really close. I don't know. It looks so close. I'd have. I mean, they must have put it this way. The McLaren guys must have seen some replays and seen that he did actually go all four wheels over on the. On the exit. But if he was already in front anyway, they were extra conservative by virtue of the fact that they're the fastest car out there, so they can be. But I don't know, I'd be interested to really break that one down and see if he really should have given the place back. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt for now. But it did feel like either Lando could have squeezed it and could have made it because it didn't really look like he was going too fast to have made the corner. It felt like he was giving a little bit more space than he maybe have needed to, and that played a little bit to his disadvantage on this particular occasion.
• 4:31
  Speaker A: Yeah. And that was after the restart. Correct. Because, I mean, it looked like Lando was gonna get by Charles, but because he was fighting Charles so hard, Lewis just had a crazy easy breaking zone and was just able to sneak. Sneak by him as Lando had the bad exit out of the little. Oh, it could have been chicanes there.
• 4:55
  Speaker B: And I've been watching too much golf and I've lost all track of time on what. What actually happened at which point in the race. But it was. Yeah.
• 5:03
  Speaker A: And there was a lot.
• 5:04
  Speaker B: There was a lot. There was so much happening in this race, whether it be Carlos trying to dive bomb into turn 10 and, you know, took. Who was that? Lawson wide. I forget. But there was just. There was just a lot happening throughout the race.
• 5:22
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 5:23
  Speaker B: I mean, and maybe we've just been a little bit subdued because we've had in particular Suzuka. But when everything happens all at once, I'll kind of get a little bit too excited.
• 5:33
  Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, speaking of Carlos, he had what was coming into after qualifying, coming into this was looking like he should finally have a really good race at Williams, but he really did not. I mean, he, like you said, he had the moment where he pushed Liam wide and then he had a moment where he crashed into the side of Yuki and completely destroyed his side pod. And while his side pod was destroyed, he dive bombed in on Kimmy, forcing Kimi way wide and got himself a 10 second penalty for that and ultimately retired after all of that.
• 6:08
  Speaker B: So it was.
• 6:09
  Speaker A: And I guess that was the reason the safety car came out too. Right. Because his side pod blew up and shot debris everywhere.
• 6:16
  Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I've got a kind of a list of things and it was. One of my list of things was should it have been a safety car?
• 6:27
  Speaker A: Mark would say yes.
• 6:31
  Speaker B: But no. I mean, it's. When you look at how long the safety car was sitting at the end of the pit straight waiting for everyone to catch up, you kind of think that's plenty of time for someone to come out with a broom and brush away if they'd have VSC'd it.
• 6:51
  Speaker A: Sure.
• 6:53
  Speaker B: Plenty of time to get that stuff out of the way or at least the big pieces that would actually have a material impact. It just felt like it was somewhat of a needless safety car. They were maybe too conservative or they saw an opportunity to neutralize an advantage that McLaren had that would have ultimately led to Piastri running away with it. I don't know. I'm not in conspiracy corner, but it just felt like it was a bit of a soft safety car. Yeah.
• 7:23
  Speaker A: But I mean, I guess it goes with. They're overly cautious in these situations when there might be a Marshall on track. They're going to go with the more cautious route if it's, you know, on the line. And ultimately it didn't neutralize at least P1 in the race because Oscar was able to pull away, pull away fairly easily after that. But what was crazy about the safety car is the top three guys were all on different, different tire compounds, which almost never happens. I mean, Oscar, I think went on to medium or maybe it was the top four on to mediums. George went on to softs, Lando went on to mediums, and then Charles was on hard tires or something similar to that.
• 8:08
  Speaker B: Yeah. In the media pen at the end, I Think it was. I think it was Oscar. Anyway, one of the drivers said, yeah, we knew that we were the only ones with the extra set of mediums. So the tire strategy kicked in way earlier into the. Into the weekend. That McLaren were the ones that knew that they needed two fresh sets of mediums for the race. So when the safety car came, they went straight to the mediums. They didn't think about it. But you had George going on to the softs. He came out and he's onto the radio and he's like, 24 laps on softs. That's a bit audacious, I think was the word he used.
• 8:51
  Speaker A: Yeah, right.
• 8:53
  Speaker B: And you had the Ferraris going on to the hards, so all very different. And it's like, is the Ferrari gonna go? You know. Well, it's always that same argument, right. You've got George, who's the guy furthest up the field, who's on the quicker tire, and so he can make immediate grounds. Obviously, coming off the back of the safety car wants to try and get. Get past and try and get the clean air. But then you've got the guys who are on a slightly harder compound trying to play for it to come into its own at the end. Sort of a La Lando on the medium and George on the soft at the very, very end to try and have that bit of over, you know, the bit of offset at the end to be able to make up some spots. But it was, yeah, I think the safety car camera at an interesting time because it was towards the end of the pit stop cycle where some guys still had to pit. And it just meant that a few people got disadvantaged. But the people who were undercutting aggressively, like the Alpines, suddenly found themselves in a really good spot. And the people who were maybe going a little bit long and I don't know, I've not done. But my. I've not been able to really drink, drill down into it. But Antonelli was having a good race, but then suddenly he was not having a good race. And I think was that down to the safety car? Did he pit just before the safety car and was massively disadvantaged, but at one point he was really at the sharp end, like fourth, fifth, sixth, something like that. But then suddenly found himself in a position where he's like, in that DRS train with Albon and Baerman and those guys down, battling for the, you know, the last of the points.
• 10:44
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, there was so much going on near the front, it was hard to keep track of anyone, really, like P5 or down. I feel like there was something that happened where he fell back, not immediately, but like maybe 20 laps in or something. And he just wasn't able to kind of move back up at all. And then the safety car came out.
• 11:05
  Speaker B: But I pretty much.
• 11:06
  Speaker A: I think almost everybody came into pit in the safety car other than Max stayed out because I think he had just pit shortly before that because he was on hard tires that were going off.
• 11:19
  Speaker B: And then what did they, what did the whole guys do? Did they pit? Where's Martin when you need the, the full.
• 11:25
  Speaker A: I know he always has the whole thing, whole pit strategy ready. Yeah, I know they ended up really well. I don't really know how they ended up really well, but that's kind of.
• 11:37
  Speaker B: What I'm thinking happened. Like maybe they, they were on a different strategy and they, they went long and they ended up in a good spot. But you know, when you think about how, how things played out for different teams, it was definitely, you know, I, I saw an interview with Ayao Komatsu at the end and he didn't even have words. He was so excited. He just basically said. He just mumbled a bit and then went, I'm sorry, I'm foreign. I don't have. I don't know what words to use right now.
• 12:07
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 12:07
  Speaker B: Love that guy and a big fan. I mean, obvious love Gunther. We've always loved Gunter, but I think that Yao is the guy who's just come in at the end of. Just as you know, Gunter's character and his direction could only get them so far. And I think that they needed to be under the direction of someone who's a much more, you know, much smarter engineering kind of mind to be more effective and efficient with the funds that they have and not be a battling kind of guy, but a battling team, but more of a think their way to the front team, which is really what I think they've got with Komatsu and I think he's great and he's Japanese, so I love Japanese people. They're so much fun.
• 12:50
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 12:51
  Speaker B: And absolutely it's yeah, great team. Like I say, my local team from up the road. And so to see them come home with a double points finish with Ocon and Bearman. Again, Bearman in the points. He obviously had a. Not. I was going to say the FIA would have fined me for how I was about to describe Bearman's weekend in Australia, but ever since then he's been in the points. And this is, I think the second. It's what the Fourth race, first weekend was terrible. Second week was what China and I think they both finished in the points there. Bearman finished in the points in Japan and again both of them in the points today. This is, I think, their best ever start to a season in terms of points finishes. And good on them. Really good going.
• 13:45
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, especially with Ocon, with his qualifying crash in the beginning of Q2 to come all the way back to P8. Like you said, Behrman from P20 on the grid to start all the way into the points. Really amazing. No matter what what the reason, whether it was luck with the safety car, who cares? They put themselves in an incredible situation and made it work and got double points and that's great. I guess the, the team that you could say was disadvantaged from the safety car, I guess it's Ferrari because they're the ones that started on the harder tire compounds and they were staying out later, kind of going for the overcut scenario. And, you know, Charles looked like he was in for a potential race win when they had come in for their first pit stops. And then by the time that final 20 lap battle with him and Lando, he was just kind of holding him off. And then by the time Lando got by him, he just dropped off. And then Lewis was stuck in P5 kind of by himself at that point.
• 14:54
  Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, in my, my talking points for myself, I. The Ferrari story is two things. Firstly, starting from the front row, can Charles Leclerc be happy with fourth? And then Lewis Hamilton. Best. Probably best race. Best Grand Prix. Not best race, but best Grand Prix. Probably that he's had mixed fortunes all around. Could they have done more? I don't know. But yeah. To the immediate question, is Charles happy with fourth? No. Stunning. Second. You always want to be on the podium, but I think that it was a weekend where they brought their new floor. The problems that they've been having with their car in terms of ride height. Didn't see. I don't know, did they? Were they playing it conservatively? I don't know. They were there or thereabouts. But they were definitely the third fastest team.
• 15:57
  Speaker A: Yep, absolutely. And they lost all their tire buildup that they had had from staying out when the safety car came out. And they're all on the same tire, so being the third fastest car isn't going to help you there. But the last, like winners of the, of the race, so to speak, I guess, are the old Toro Rosso or Alphatauri teammates. Both Pierre and Yuki getting their first points. On the season. I think they're Pierre's first points on.
• 16:28
  Speaker B: The season, but definitely, yeah, Alpine's first.
• 16:30
  Speaker A: Well, Yuki's at Red Bull.
• 16:32
  Speaker B: Yeah. And, and the first points for the second driver in the Red Bull since Checo. I was gonna say since Daniel Ricardo, but when. I don't even remember the last time that Red Bull's second driver scored points. And that's super mean to Checo because I'm sure he did get some good points last year at some points, but I just don't know when it was.
• 17:01
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean he really did struggle at the end of last season, so it could have been a while.
• 17:10
  Speaker B: Yeah. But I think, I think, you know, just to kind of stick on the Yuki Liam situation. Another not so great weekend for Liam. He had a 10 second penalty for causing some collision or other towards the end. Yuki obviously didn't keep his nose clean. He was in there with, with, with Carlos and they had, they came together more than twice I think, but he got some points and I think that, I think we can consider this a relatively successful weekend for Yuki. In the context of Max was running seventh up until the last corner. Well, the, well, the last lap, turn four of the last lap when he managed to get past Pierre who had a phenomenal race. All teed up of course by that qualifying. That lap in qualifying was amazing. From Gasly.
• 18:07
  Speaker A: That was awesome. He was great all weekend.
• 18:09
  Speaker B: Oh, he had a great weekend. I watched his qualifying on F1TV, the in car and then at the end of the lap when he's doing the cool down, he's like, yes, yes. You know, he knew that he'd had a really good lap and he had a good race off the back of that because you know, you qualify better, you have better race. And I just felt for Pierre because it, yeah, it sucked that, that Max got by him at the end. But you know, Max finishing sixth and Yuki finishing, I think ninth, ninth. Right.
• 18:41
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
• 18:43
  Speaker B: A decent weekend for Yuki in his second in his second weekend in the big team.
• 18:51
  Speaker A: So not including the sprint race, I can't find the sprint race details from last year, but it was the Las Vegas Grand Prix of last year that Checo scored points. So that's my A.D.D. working for you.
• 19:06
  Speaker B: Okay.
• 19:06
  Speaker A: Stuck in my head and I just had, I had to find the answer. Yeah, I mean, I guess let's talk about some of the, the other rookies we haven't spoken about. Obviously Hajar has been incredible so far. He struggled at the very start, dropped back a few places. He unfortunately wasn't able to get back up into the points, but a P13 finish and then Jack Doohan was. Was right behind him, which I guess is not bad for how Doohan has been recently. He had some good moments.
• 19:34
  Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I think Doohan.
• 19:38
  Speaker A: He.
• 19:39
  Speaker B: He had a couple of unfortunate moments out there on the track and I think that if it wasn't for Pierre being in sixth right until the last lap and coming home seventh, I think we'd have said it was a good weekend for Doohan, all things considered. Yeah, but when your teammate finishes seventh and you're like another seven spots back. Yeah, I don't know. But, you know, I think he had probably one of his best weekends. I mean, he's only had five Grand Prix to this point, but I think he made a solid account of himself. I think the V Car guys had a difficult one. Isaac Hajar has been great so far this year, but did they even show him on tv?
• 20:27
  Speaker A: Not much today.
• 20:29
  Speaker B: Nothing really happened in his race.
• 20:31
  Speaker A: It was like we said. I mean, we're now expecting so much from him. I think I put him in my top 10 in coupe, so I think I did.
• 20:38
  Speaker B: I think I put him in ninth. I think I put him in ninth and Alex in 10th. Because obviously Williams have had points finishes every race, I think.
• 20:51
  Speaker A: Well, Albon has. Yeah.
• 20:53
  Speaker B: And, and. But they. It was a. The wheels came off for Williams a little bit. Obviously there was. Carlos had a very scrappy weekend, came together with Yuki and all of that. Interestingly, they didn't bring him in, have him sit for 10 seconds, change his tires and serve the penalty and then send him back out for a lap before they retired his car, which is normally what you see if you got a penalty. Teams generally want to serve the penalty so that they don't risk having any sort of grid penalty for the next race.
• 21:31
  Speaker A: I think time just gets added on.
• 21:34
  Speaker B: Well, I hope so.
• 21:36
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 21:36
  Speaker B: Even though they're like 19 laps back. I don't know. Yeah. But, yeah, I was hoping this was going to shape up like you said earlier, for. It was a really good, you know, a solid weekend for Carlos, but it didn't happen. And then Alex, I don't really quite know what happened with his race, but he was down in 12th. So fruitless for them. V Carb again, you know, fruitless for them and pointless also for the Sauber guys. I don't even. Nothing Aston Martin, nothing really happened with them and Aston were totally anonymous. I don't even know what. What happened to them at all. All I could say Is like, Adrian New is bound to have a remarkable influence on the team because how can he not at this stage? Because they're really terrible.
• 22:29
  Speaker A: They are really bad.
• 22:31
  Speaker B: When you think about just. Well, it was three years ago. Was it the 22 season? It wasn't the 23 season, was it? I think it's a 22 season where Aston Martin just produced this beast of a car.
• 22:46
  Speaker A: Yeah, it was 22.
• 22:47
  Speaker B: Yeah. And Alonso was overtaking Carlos. Science and corners that aren't normally corners. You overtake people and man, how far they've fallen. They've. It's weird. It's weird. And I hope that they have now throwing everything at 20, 26, because this year, yeah, hopefully they can pick up a few points, but just cut the losses, focus on next year and try and have another 20, 22 type situation, because that's going to be. That's going to be Fernando's last year. If. If you're not at the front, he's going to be done. And. And that. Be that.
• 23:26
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. It'd be great if they were able to figure something out. I mean, like you said, it would be odd if Newey had no contribution. Like, that's not gonna. That's not expected. At the very least, they should be able to make some. Some headway at all. And I guess lastly, although, like we've said, Red Bull had overall, another disappointing race weekend for them, but just to add on top of that, they had the weird issues with the pit stop lights that weren't going green, so they kept coming out of the box, out of the pit box, slow. It was very odd.
• 24:03
  Speaker B: I didn't actually see that because I was. I took the kids to the Easter egg hunt down the road and so we went and had brunch afterwards. And so they had a TV right there, but we didn't have any commentary. And I didn't actually pick up on that. And I was just reading about that about an hour or so ago, but it just felt like there were a lot of gremlins involved because obviously there was that in the pit box where that wasn't working. George, nothing seemed to work on his car. His transponder was out, His Drs was having all sorts of stuff. And when you said, lastly, we've still got a couple of things to cover because we got that and we got.
• 24:46
  Speaker A: Totally forgot about that.
• 24:48
  Speaker B: But there was. Yeah, just a lot of weird things going on in terms of technical glitches. But, yeah, so I totally didn't pick up on the Red Bull pit lights situation. But to George, the reason I was like, so George was in second place. It was lap 38, and then suddenly he was last. If you look down the left, yeah, suddenly he was last. I was. I'd turned around to someone, and I was talking for, like, 25 seconds. I turned around and I looked, and George was in last place, and they weren't showing him on the tv. And I was like, ah, what's going on? So at that point, I stopped watching. I turned my back on the tv, and I was like, no, I've got to get home. I have to get home. I went all like. I went Rain man on the situation. And I was like, no, I can't look at anything. I've got to go home. And I've got to rewind it to about lap 35 and then pick it up at home. And so I just fled and I threw the kids in the car and I went home, and I've turned it. And it was just a transponder issue. Yeah, but with that transponder issue and a lot of stuff going wrong, they had this DRS issue, didn't they, where. Because his transponder wasn't working, it wouldn't pick up if he was a second behind the car in front. And so they had to override the. The DRS thing. And there was.
• 26:18
  Speaker A: Well, not only that. Not only that, but the cars behind him, because he. He didn't have. The only person in front of him was Oscar. He's not getting drs, but behind him, because his transponder was off, they weren't connecting to his. So when they had drs, they had to manually use their DRS because it wasn't syncing up with what his was. So it was also affecting the people behind him.
• 26:42
  Speaker B: Yeah, that's right, because definitely at the end, and I didn't pick up on it when Charles was in third place, but they. The radio came over for Lando and saying, only use DRS when we know we're 100% good. And then you go, oh, yeah, because if his transponder's not working, then you don't know if you're a second behind, so you gotta be very, very noticeably there. But they had this weird situation, and George sort of mentioned it in the immediate interviews with David Coulthard that they did the override and he hit the button for the radio and it came open. So at the end of the race, it did pop up on the screen saying, drs infringement under investigation for George Russell. Because he said that he hit the radio button and for I don't know why reasons is DRS owned. And he's like, oh, my, DRS is open, Close it, back off, make sure you don't have any advantage, and then carry on and try and disclose it. I don't know if they self disclosed to the stewards or the race director or whatever. It would make sense if they did, because it would. They should have done. And if they did, that obviously would have played in, but I'm not seeing any. It doesn't look like any penalty's been dished out. I've not seen anything at all. Have you?
• 28:07
  Speaker A: It's ridiculous. No, they haven't given a penalty. Yeah, he got away with it.
• 28:11
  Speaker B: Well, no, I mean, I think. But if you. If you hit the button and it not the DRS button, and you're like, oh, there's something really weird going on.
• 28:19
  Speaker A: That's what he said.
• 28:19
  Speaker B: And you back off. If they've got everything. If they self disclose that they had this problem with the DRS and it opened when he hit the radio button and he backed off to make sure that he didn't gain any advantage from it, and they. And they go to the FIA or the race director and say this happened. We don't get why we've had all these strange issues. Then. Yeah, I get why they wouldn't give a thing if he did get. If he. If they're just sandbagging or, you know, they're making shit up and they're like saying that they didn't do anything and they did, then I'm sure we would have seen some penalties by now.
• 28:53
  Speaker A: I don't even think. I think even if it was unintentional, he should get the penalty because regardless. And obviously I feel differently about this than the neutral fan. Okay, I understand that. But if he's getting any advantage for using the DRS when he's not within a second or in a zone where the DRS should be, then regardless, he should get some sort of penalty.
• 29:16
  Speaker B: 100%.
• 29:16
  Speaker A: There's something he did that fucked up.
• 29:19
  Speaker B: No, but you're 100% right. If he gained advantage, because the whole point of DRS is to give an advantage to get them closer. But if he didn't get that advantage and it was in error because it just opened when he hit the radio button, then they shouldn't be penalized for that, I guess.
• 29:34
  Speaker A: But if you have DRS wing open with nobody in front of you because he wasn't within a second of. He wasn't nearly within a second of Anybody. So he had free air and the DRS wing open. So how much do you have to slow down to get rid of that advantage?
• 29:48
  Speaker B: You just come off the gas. Oh, man.
• 29:52
  Speaker A: Didn't seem like he slowed down at all during that race when he was on, you know, 20 lap old soft tires.
• 29:58
  Speaker B: But they have. They have the data, they have the video, they have all the things and so I don't ever see. But it was. I just love that we've got so much to talk about in this race because, you know, and we've Talked for like 35 minutes and we haven't actually really talked about how great piastri was, you know, you know, good qualifying, really good qualifying. And. And then he just bossed it from the front. And also we touched on a little bit earlier, but did Lando's racecraft let him down a little bit today? Because it just felt that he was a bit scrappy, you know, the battle with leclerc overtook Hamilton and had to give the place back. And then on the last lap, he was close enough and he could have got past George, but he went to try and go around the outside rather than do the switch back and then try and get George into turn four. I don't know, it just felt that, yeah, Lando's probably looking at today and thinking really should have been second.
• 31:16
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 31:16
  Speaker B: But he didn't.
• 31:17
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, maybe I do think that Charles was way too aggressive and definitely gave Lando no room which. Which made Lando had to line it up again for another five laps to get the chance to pass Charles again after that because he went so wide and lost so much time. But I mean, I thought the George in the moment, I thought that George was wrong. But as I watched the replays, it was totally. He. It was great defense on George for George on that last lap. Fair play to him. George was amazing in this race.
• 31:54
  Speaker B: He's just have. He's just quietly had a very good year. He's always been the man to just pick up the points, get a podium, just pick up the points, keep his nose clean. And yeah, he's, He's. I'm really impressed with. With George this season because he's the. He's clearly that, you know, the leader of the team and how can you not with Kimi Antonelli who has been great. And I think the result has not flattered Kimmy and Antonelli. I think he had a better weekend than the result really says. But George has got that swagger and he's just confident. He's Just a confident guy right now and he's doing a good job.
• 32:46
  Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. I think Drive to Survive did George a disservice because they had that whole episode where it made George seem like he was totally, like accident prone and made a bunch of mistakes where honestly, I don't think I ever really felt that way about him.
• 33:02
  Speaker B: I don't think so at all.
• 33:03
  Speaker A: And I felt coming out of Drive to Survive, I felt so unconfident with their team. And I think part of that swayed how, why I was feeling that way and why we were all kind of down on Mercedes. But I don't think it was a fair assessment of how good a driver he really is. And he's really proving it, like you said.
• 33:22
  Speaker B: Yeah, yep. Totally agree, totally agree. Yeah, but what a difference a week makes.
• 33:30
  Speaker A: Yeah. We were so disappointed from what we had last year last week, and then now the championship is blown wide open. I mean, what's, what's the difference now between the two McLarens are now one and two in the driver's championship. Let's see. I think it's, it's really close. Three points apart, Lando's up by three points. Yeah.
• 33:59
  Speaker B: If Lando hadn't managed to get past Charles, it would have been equal on points. They would have both been on 74. But, but Oscar would have been in the lead because he'd won two races. But with Lando getting by, he's still got a three point lead. Actually, his, his lead has extended 300% because Max was only one point behind him last week. And so now you got Lando on 77, Oscar on 74, five points behind. That is Max. And the further six points behind is George and that's the top four. And then you got a, then you got quite a drop off to leclerc, Antonelli and Hamilton and Alex Halborn in eighth.
• 34:45
  Speaker A: Yeah, nice. I mean, bold claim right now. I think that Oscar is the favorite to win the driver's championship right now.
• 34:53
  Speaker B: I won't disagree with you. I think that he's. Oscar is so calm and cool, so calm and he doesn't make any mistakes. And it feels like Lando's Australia. Yeah, but that was a different kind of mistake. That was for sure. You know, his foot stayed in it and he. Yeah, it was just a tricky, tricky track. Yeah, yeah, but Lando is quicker. Just. But he just, he makes errors like in China, locking it up going into the hairpin.
• 35:35
  Speaker A: Yeah.
• 35:37
  Speaker B: Yesterday he made errors in Qu. In the first sector in qualifying and ruined his qualifying lap. And, and that was it. He was down. Starting down his sixth. Yeah, he came up to third, but he started in sixth. Yeah, he's got the fastest car. If he's starting in second, even if he didn't quite get it ahead of Piastri, then a. It's a one, two or by just team orders or something happens in the race and he gets ahead. So I think, yeah, Piastri is definitely looking the. The surer bet so far, but we'll see how it goes.
• 36:12
  Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he just keeps getting better and better and better, but yeah, it's. It's crazy exciting and we. I can't tell you how the rest of the season is going to go, let alone next next week. And we are. Where are we next week? Saudi Arabia.
• 36:30
  Speaker B: Yeah.
• 36:32
  Speaker A: Fast track.
• 36:33
  Speaker B: Yeah, I've, I've. I've driven Saudi on the F1 game. Holy crap. That's fast. Like tiny error and you're in the wall. Yeah, it's very tricky track and it's one of those that it's probably too twisty to have a whole lot of good overtaking, but they've got a slow corner leading into a long straight and then a proper breaking point at the end of the main straight. So with Drs, we're going to get some overtaking. Probably not going to be the most exciting racing, but it's. It's not just going to be a procession. I think so.
• 37:16
  Speaker A: No, no.
• 37:17
  Speaker B: Should be good.
• 37:19
  Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. And I guess we will go briefly into coops. Probably not. Not going to do as well as Martin does at this. He knows his way around this, but a lot of pretty good scores. Max sucks. Was able to get 265 points, which is a hundred more points than I got this weekend. So. Really great. And R. Heatley, who I think was the one who ended up winning last year, he's got a gold and he Recognize the name. Yeah, he's got so. Exactly. He got the second Most points with 245 and unstoppable. Ferrari in third with 240. And then going into. Oh, no. It locked me out. Dang.
• 38:13
  Speaker B: I saw that I had gotten a little. A bit of an uptick.
• 38:20
  Speaker A: Yep. You moved up 11 spots and you're up into 23rd. I dropped down a bit. I was in second place, but I'm in the. Still in the top seven. So I'm in the hunt.
• 38:31
  Speaker B: Yeah, I'm about. I'm 49 points behind you. I'm second in pine sports behind you myself.
• 38:44
  Speaker A: And I think Martin did move up, but he's still. Oh, no. He moved a little bit down, but as Martin would say, still all to play for.
• 39:00
  Speaker B: Absolutely, absolutely.
• 39:02
  Speaker A: Yes.
• 39:03
  Speaker B: You are indeed in seventh. You moved down five spots, but yeah, Healy 42 spots up. That's amazing.
• 39:11
  Speaker A: I think that is it. I don't think. I think we got to pretty much. Pretty much everything.
• 39:16
  Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, okay, so we were starting to worry. Well, I was starting to worry. That was it Fred Vasseur who said it's now a qualifying championship. And I think that there's definitely. There's definitely. It's a lot harder to follow this year than it has been in the last couple of years. And that's the constant conundrum. That's the constant thing that F1 is trying to legislate for, is making it easier to follow the car in front. And they've never been able to find it. The closest I think that they came was 2009 with Braun, the year that Braun won it, where they were introducing the diffuser and the regs around that. But obviously Braun found that loophole that made they had the double diffuser. But ever since then they've never been able to find that. That's something that makes it easier for the car behind to follow. And the more mature a rule set, the harder it becomes to follow the car in front. So while I think we were all going, why do we need new rules next year when everything's amazing now, I think we're getting to the point at which, yeah, the rules have been running for the last four years and now people have figured it out and we're getting into that same familiar situation where it's very, very difficult to overtake the car in front because you can't be close enough to pass, you can't get close enough to pass. And so you're constantly working on tire offsets. And then the problem we had in Suzuka was that the new section, the new asphalt, meant that the tyres were lasting too long and so no one had a tire offset. So tracks like Bahrain are always going to give us better racing because they're super abrasive. There's always going to be different strategies. And I think that's going to be the thing going forward. They've got to find a way, maybe they move a step softer in the range and mean that, like, no one's going to be able to do a one stopper or something. They've got to do something with the tyres and speak to Pirelli. But as long as they do that, then we should be still in for some good racing this year.
• 41:39
  Speaker A: Yeah. And is it this year that they're starting the rule at Monaco that you have to take two stops?
• 41:46
  Speaker B: That's only in Monaco. That's just Monaco. You got to do two.
• 41:50
  Speaker A: Right. But maybe they'll. Maybe they'll change that for all races at some point.
• 41:56
  Speaker B: I don't know. I don't know. It's. It's a bit of a. It's a bit gimmicky, but I think Monaco needs it. Introduce a bit more jeopardy in Monaco. Someone will mess up a pit stop, hopefully, and make the racing just a little bit more exciting.
• 42:11
  Speaker A: Yeah. Racing quote, unquote air quotes.
• 42:16
  Speaker B: Well, in Monaco last year, there were more overtakes than were in Suzuka last week.
• 42:22
  Speaker A: Yeah, I guess that's true.
• 42:25
  Speaker B: I heard it on a podcast, so it must be true.
• 42:28
  Speaker A: It must be true. Yeah.
• 42:29
  Speaker B: It's on the Internet. So there it is. Yeah. He has to give up the corner. I had the nose ahead. What is wrong with these people?
• 42:39
  Speaker A: Thanks for listening to the undercuts review of the 2025 Bahrain Grand Prix. Please rate, review and subscribe wherever you get your podc. And join us next week for our review of the 2025 Saudi Arabian Grand Prix.
• 42:52
  Speaker B: See you.