Melbourne GP: Crashes, Chaos And Championship Dreams!

2 Soft Compounds Ep 4 - Melbourne GP: Crashes, Chaos and Championship Dreams! 

🏁 Melbourne Madness! The Two Soft Compounds team is back, and what a race to dissect! Rick Houghton and Paul Velasco (GrandPrix247) break down all the chaos from a jaw-dropping Australian Grand Prix that had it all - rain, crashes and shock results!

🇦🇺 McLaren stuns the grid! Rick called it in last week's episode - Lando Norris finally delivers a champion’s drive, leaving Verstappen in the dust! The pair also discuss Oscar Piastri’s home heroics that nearly paid off - until they didn’t. Plus plenty of chat about the real jaw-dropper - 18-year-old Mercedes rookie Kimi Antonelli charging from P16 to P4 like an F1 veteran! Plus lots to discuss regarding Liam Lawson as his Red Bull debut flops and Ferrari’s strategy team hands out yet another masterclass in how to fumble a race.

👀 Next stop: China! Sprint weekend, limited practice, and the pressure cranked to 11. Can McLaren prove their pace is real? Will Ferrari stop tripping over their own shoelaces? And are rookies like Antonelli ready for another curveball?

🔥 Bold takes, big debates and no-holds-barred analysis—this is Two Soft Compounds! 🚀

Podcast Rundown

1️⃣ Show Introduction and Race Recap 

2️⃣ Rookie Baptism by Fire 

3️⃣ Antonelli's Impressive Debut 

4️⃣ Lawson's Disappointing Performance 

5️⃣ Racing Bulls and Unexpected Results 

6️⃣ Ferrari's Strategy Disasters 

7️⃣ McLaren vs Red Bull Battle 

8️⃣ Looking Ahead to the Chinese GP 

Production Credits:

Presented by: Rick Houghton & Paul Velasco
Studio Engineer & Editor: Roy D'Monte
Executive Producer: Ian Carless
Produced by: GrandPrix247 & W4 Podcast Studio

Chapters

• 0:00 Show Introduction and Race Recap
• 6:05 Rookie Baptism by Fire
• 16:35 Antonelli's Impressive Debut
• 23:05 Lawson's Disappointing Performance
• 30:23 Racing Bulls and Unexpected Results
• 38:46 Ferrari's Strategy Disasters
• 52:00 McLaren vs Red Bull Battle
• 1:10:34 Testing Limitations and Rookie Challenges
• 1:28:30 Looking Ahead to the Chinese GP

Transcript

Rick Houghton: 0:00

Hi, welcome to the Two Soft Compounds podcast. Before we begin, I've got a quick favour to ask. There's one simple way you can support our show, and that's by hitting that follow or subscribe button on the app you're listening to the show on right now. It really does make a huge difference in helping us get the show out there to as many people as possible, so please give us a hand and click that button right now. Thank you.

Paul Valesco: 0:27

I don't make mistakes. I make prophecies that immediately turn out to be wrong.

Rick Houghton: 0:35

Anything can happen in Formula One, and it usually does, welcome to a brand new episode of Two Soft Compounds. Those two soft compounds are me, rick Horton, and Paul Velasco, the founder and chief editor of Grand Prix 24-7. So we've had the first race of the season. We've got the second race of the season in just four days time. So much to talk about the Australian Grand Prix, paul, I know that we can refer back to practice and qualifying as we talk about individual performances, so, but let's sum up the race. I mean, first of all, I love the fact and I said this on last week's podcast I love the fact that we tested in Bahrain but then we started in Australia, so there was no correlation between testing and the first race. And then, of course, it was an exciting race for many reasons.

Paul Valesco: 1:18

Oh, man, Jeez, I was shell-shocked. First of all, I had to wake up here at 4.30 am you guys probably even earlier, so that already kind of got me going in terms of it was unusual. And then sitting down listening to the whole preface and then heading towards the track, boom, action already starts. Poor old Isak Hadja, that pretty racing bull, just slammed straight into the barriers and that just was, I think, the trigger for probably the craziest, most epic Formula One afternoon I've witnessed in a long time.

Rick Houghton: 1:50

Yeah, it definitely was, and you had to feel sorry for the guy who was clearly upset over it. I think Helmut Marko afterwards said it was a bit embarrassing that he appeared to be crying, but I thought, give the guy a break. I love the way Anthony Hamilton comforted him when he got back to the paddock. So not a great start for him. And, of course, the rookies they were always going to suffer. I mean, not many rookie drivers jump into their first race in Formula One on A, a street circuit and B with those changeable weather conditions. Most of those rookies have never, ever driven a Formula One car on intermediate tyres, to start with.

Paul Valesco: 2:20

Yeah, that was really a baptism by fire for all of them and I don't think there's ever been a start to a season so challenging in recent memory. I mean, can you think of any? You're a bit of an? An and I'm going to eat humble pie first, because you haven't ribbed me and I'm quite surprised because I had Max Verstappen winning and you had Lando and, yeah, you were right. But we'll get to that a bit later.

Paul Valesco: 2:54

I really got it totally wrong, mate. I really I feel embarrassed and I feel, you know, maybe I'm losing it. You know because, honestly, maybe I'm losing it. You know because, honestly, I didn't see Kimi Antonelli coming to deliver such an amazing race. I mean, the kid's 18, he's the youngest. I didn't see the magic that a lot of people saw and kudos to them. I took my hat and I eat humble pie. The kid just. Yeah, he just delivered from you know. Okay, he didn't quite get it to grips in qualifying, but qualifying was totally different, it was dry and all that and suddenly he's confronted with this. I would have put money on him being the first guy out and actually he just kept on surprising me. He got past Bortoletto, lost it, everyone spun, but he also spun, but he came back and he finished P4 in his debut. I can only think of Kevin Magnusson, I think back in 2014 or so, who finished on the podium, but P4 for the 18-year-old when all around him were just losing. It was absolutely amazing. What did you think of that?

Rick Houghton: 3:53

Yeah, I feared the worst, like you, when I watched qualifying and he took too much kerb into turn six and basically wrecked his floor and that was the end of his qualifying. So he starts P16. I thought, okay, based on what I've seen so far in the qualifying in the dry, this is going to be a really difficult race for him. And then I just watched in awe, as you know, lap by lap, he was making overtakes, he overtook on the outside on a number of occasions. Yes, he had a spin, but everyone did. But he was able to keep it on the tarmac, like you say, and I just think it was a fantastic performance. And I, like you, eat humble pie because I thought it's only a matter of months until they put Bottas in that car. But Antonelli is the real deal. He's 18 years old and boy is he the real deal.

Paul Valesco: 4:36

Yeah, look like I said, we both put our hands up to that, but I'm going to just throw it this way. Yes, one Grand Prix does not make the man or a Grand Prix driver, but if I was gravitating to him only being 30% successful in this role and Bottas taking over, I was giving him there was a pretty good chance that he would be taken out Like, I would say, 70% chance. Kimi would lose the drive within a few races. I really believe that and that's why they got Valtteri. But now it's 50-50. I mean the kid, let's see how he progresses in the next race. But, man, every box was ticks and more Quite. The opposite, though, with Liam Lawson. Man, you know, the more I know, the less I know. It's ridiculous To me. He's not really a rookie. He's got 11 grand prix under his belt. He's in the best team in the world. Okay, he had a bit of bad luck in fp3 where the car, but then after that he just never got it back together and they took a risk with the car for the race. Mate, it's your first race at red bull. Why are you taking a risk?

Paul Valesco: 5:36

Honestly, I, as much as I'd never seen the kimmy antonelli I saw on sunday. I'd never seen that kind of Leon Lawson before either. Again, let's not judge a guy on one race. He did miss FP3, but, yeah, very disappointing. And I got that super, super wrong. I also got Nick De Vries wrong, and this has got shades of Nick De Vries for me. When I saw him do that, when he crashed, I thought because he wasn't making progress, that's the other thing, you know. Making progress, that's the other thing, you know. While Antonelli was going up, I think he just started behind Antonelli You're going to give us the numbers and, uh, he just never made any progress. Then he spun and I thought, man, imagine Sergio Perez watching this. He must be whooping. Eh, you know, I don't know. What did you think of Liam?

Rick Houghton: 6:16

Um, you know what, at one stage he was lapping three seconds a lap slower than Max. Wow, and I know that when they put him in the Silverstone test he was coming up sort of two, three, tenths slower than Max and you think, okay, well, that's obviously why they made a decision to put him in the main Red Bull car.

Paul Valesco: 6:34

But what do you know about? Sorry on that, because you'll know this Jad mentioned something about him running a different spec car to Max. Do you know much about that?

Rick Houghton: 6:46

Yeah, apparently, spec car to to uh, max is that? Do you know much about that? Yeah, apparently they. They made a last minute decision to change the spec on the on the car from what would normally be their sort of standard wet setup. They went for something a little bit different.

Rick Houghton: 6:53

I don't know whether that was liam lawson who was saying, do it this way and I can make it work, or whether it was the team that was dictating that to him, but clearly that didn't help. But you know, three seconds off the pace of your teammate, I mean we always say you know you've got to beat your team teammate first. I mean it's clear that whoever is in the sister Red Bull car, it's a difficult car to drive unless you're Max Verstappen. I think Max Verstappen could drive anything, but I think the team's built the car around him for the last couple of seasons, so anyone who comes in is going to find it really difficult to drive that car. One thing that I noticed we mentioned, perez. Do you remember? On the podcast last week I said that the Racing Bulls could be the best of the rest and you went what? Behave yourself? That's never going to happen. And then Tsunoda, did I say that, did I?

Paul Valesco: 7:37

say that or are you inventing this? No, no, you said it.

Rick Houghton: 7:39

You said it he berated me and I thought actually I think Paul's probably right there, I've got that completely wrong.

Paul Valesco: 7:44

Yeah, mate, that's what I said. I agree to humble pie. I got that wrong too. I couldn't believe how good Hadjo was, up until he wasn't. Do you know what I?

Rick Houghton: 7:51

mean yeah, exactly. And you know, tsunoda putting it fifth on the grid in qualifying, that was superb. It was absolutely yeah and yeah. And then he was sixth for most of the race until he had the spin which sent him way down, finishing the race in 12th. But the race in Bulls looked like a serious threat this year. So did Williams. Of course, carlos Sainz crashes during the race. Apparently it was because of an unidentified torque issue, so when he feathered the throttle it lit up the rear tyres more than he was expecting, mate seriously.

Paul Valesco: 8:25

He said it's a massive torque surge. Massive torque shit surge, mate. Seriously, anyone. Can you know when you've got it on the gas too long, too soon too? Whatever, you're going to get a torque surge. Hajak also got a big torque surge. Come on, don't give me torque surge. Is that going to be the buzzword of the season? I've got a talk search yeah. I mean, it was clearly an excuse wasn't it. Listen, I love Carlos. He's brilliant. He galvanized that team, but his opening episode was horrible.

Paul Valesco: 8:54

Let's be, honest, it was horrible. He came in as like the de facto team leader. He galvanized everyone and boom, the first slap he got in the face was Albon out-qualifying him. Yeah, okay, that was pretty massive from Albon, because Albon was just keeping Carlos due to the glory hunting. I don't think he was glory hunting. He's really brought a good energy to Williams, but in the end, unfortunately, it was not the kind of knight in shining armor. You know. You get the knight in shining armor. He comes, he galvanizes the place, boom, boom and off they go. And he fell off the horse, which wasn't very cool, like too early in the battle, do you know what I mean? But he'll mount up and I think he'll be better. But honestly, that brings us to Alonso. Mate, what's Alonso doing? Crashing? And then he blames it on dust on the track. Alonso, there was no dust on the track, mate.

Rick Houghton: 9:42

There was a kerb yeah, the most experienced driver in Formula One, who very rarely makes unforced errors. Very rarely, I mean. Occasionally he gets into scrapes with other cars that see him go off the track, but just by himself. Virtually impossible. So who knows what was going on there?

Paul Valesco: 9:55

And this was by himself. This was by himself, right yeah it was by himself. He claims it was dust on the track. There was no dust on the track because at first the track was wet so there couldn't be dust. So I don't know what he was saying about that. And then I just saw him take too much curb and that's it. Boom took him and I was surprised. But you know what? Hey, it's so good that the least experienced guy and the most experienced guy crashed on that Grand Prix.

Rick Houghton: 10:18

Yeah, and it just shows you how tough it is to drive these cars Every guy finished deserves a kudos.

Paul Valesco: 10:24

You know, because we're talking about the good, the bad and the ugly, which we'll get to later, but really there was no bad. If you survived that Grand Prix you were okay. You know what I mean, Because it threw everything at canon Guys driving 1,000 horsepower cars.

Rick Houghton: 10:36

You know, last week on the podcast, paul, we said that we're going to make our predictions for the Australian Grand Prix. You said you thought Verstappen would win. I've said I thought Norris would win. What we should have also done, I think, is talked about who was going to crash their car first, and of course, at FP1, it was Oli Berman, and I thought this is strange. It was a dry practice session.

Rick Houghton: 10:57

This is Oli Berman, who jumps into a Ferrari at one of the fastest tracks of the season last year in Jeddah and does a really good job. And this again, you know. We now know, even though rain could be a factor, but we now know that the Haas is the slowest car you know of the lot, even slower than the Sauber, which we'll come to eventually as well on the podcast. But it really surprised me that Oli Berman dropped it in FP1. And then you know he finished the race as a rookie even though he's not really a rookie because he's had a few outings so far in a Formula One car um, but he finished 14th and it just surprised me how lacking Oli was this weekend. Would you agree?

Paul Valesco: 11:36

yeah, I mean, like I said, I'm still processing it. I mean, I'm like I'm shell-shocked because everything I thought would happen actually didn't happen. It got so bad that I registered for the Fantasy Formula One okay, and I convinced my family to do it, because we also do the Fantasy Football League and my wife's into it too and it's made her learn about soccer. But she's not into Formula One at all. Like you know, she's a marathon runner and she sticks to marathons and I do Formula One, so that's why it works, you know. So she's got no interest, but she, because she likes this management thing, she got an F1 Fantasy League. She's second in the league with like fucking 80 points and I'm last with two. Come on, man, you know seriously. So I don't know, I just feel very like. I feel a bit like Isak Hadja. Do you know what I mean? The first Grand Prix? Do you know what I mean? The first Grand Prix? I just crashed into the barrier with my predictions, mate.

Rick Houghton: 12:25

Yeah, I mean I'm the same Most seasons. I do the Fantasy Formula One and get it hopelessly wrong, even though I think I'm somewhat in the know. But it just shows the unpredictability.

Paul Valesco: 12:36

What do you mean? You're in the know, you and I know we could run a Formula One team better than most of these pawpaws, right?

Rick Houghton: 12:46

Yeah well, right, yeah well, there's a couple of teams. Yeah, I would say that's probably correct, um towards. I mean, let me, let me give you a fact here. This is I love this fact nico hulkenberg first outing in the sauber the non, the non-podium. In the history, of 5 000 times he's driven a grand prix and never had a podium, I know, but he's in the sauber and he scores more points in the opening race than the whole Sauber team scored last year. I mean, that's just an amazing stat, don't you think? Yeah?

Paul Valesco: 13:11

more amazing. He did a good recovery drive and that's, I guess, why a team high as a guy like Hülkenberg. Every time I speak about Hülkenberg, unfortunately, I think about Valtteri Bortes, because Nico is a good, solid driver. So is Bortes. Because Nico is a good, solid driver. So is Bortes. But Bortes is a 10-time Grand Prix winner. In my book he's a bit better, but okay, he drove a Mercedes and Nico probably never had a good car. But if Nico never had a good car, why didn't he ever go to a team and actually build a car around him? That actually was good? He's never had that capacity. So Saab is in transition. They're waiting for Audi. Are they going to spend any money? It wasn't an easy car. It was probably the worst car last year. So why is it going to get any better this year if all their resources are going to be tied up next?

Paul Valesco: 13:52

year but anyway, look, Nico drove a good drive. Let's give him credit. Listen, all those guys. You've got guys like Lance Stroll up there. What's Lance Stroll doing up in such a good result? You know what I mean? Yeah, you know, because I've always said this Lance is a guy who, if attrition is bad, he can be quite good. I mean, what's your call on Nico?

Rick Houghton: 14:12

I've always liked Nico Hulkenberg. I think he is a good, solid driver and I would agree with you, if he was in a better car he will have. He would have performed better over his career with podiums and wins. I'm pretty convinced of that. Yeah, you know, the nearest he came to the podium was in in that horrendously wet race in the Hockenheim ring a number of years ago where Mercedes had an absolute nightmare and he was uh, he was running towards the end of that race in a podium position and then, like nearly everyone in that race, spun out and lost it.

Rick Houghton: 14:40

Um, I do think he's generally a good driver. I was surprised when he went to sauber, but I wasn't that surprised because, of course, it's turning into audi and he's got a multi-year contract, so he's like everyone else is waiting for audi and their influence and their big money and everything else that would go with that. So I can can understand why he did it. I thought he'd be kicking around towards the rear of the field in every race and, yes, it was affected by rain. Some people did better than others, but to finish seventh in the Sauber I thought was great.

Paul Valesco: 15:09

Yeah, no, look, look at it this way. They would have never dreamt of that result. And look, he got trounced by Bottoletto in. Not trounced, but he got beaten by Bottoletto in qualifying. But that's a rookie, he's never. This is his first Grand Prix. I mean, that's pretty. It doesn't look good on your CV. You know what I'm saying? Let's be honest. So, and then for him to jump, come back and that's why they got him the, I would do what Gabriel Bottoletta did, had a reasonably good race, kind of anonymous, and then been it all by himself. That, to me, was you know, the guards weren't kind to the rookies this year.

Rick Houghton: 15:45

They weren't. Well, not so far. Like you say, though, changing conditions First time, all of those rookies would have driven on intermediates and would have driven a Formula One car in the wet because it was none of those conditions in testing, of course, and some of them, like Oli Berman, had driven Formula One before in a number of sit-in races. Liam Lawson, of course, was with the Racing Bulls last year, so you know he had the experience. But when it comes to the rest of the rookies, yeah, they really struggled, but you can't blame them Absolutely.

Paul Valesco: 16:15

Like I said, everything was thrown at them, plus the kitchen sink. We talked about Albon, did we yeah?

Rick Houghton: 16:20

So Alex Albon finished fifth in the Williams A good solid race, really Didn't put a foot wrong, kept it on the track. I thought it was a really good start for him and you know it gives his confidence the world of good. Like you say, he out-qualified Sainz on the Saturday, which must have been a confidence boost, and then Sainz lost it on Sunday. He didn't had a good solid race. So that gives him the confidence, moving into round two, that he is almost, you know, the top guy on the team at the moment.

Paul Valesco: 16:49

Yeah, no, I think I see it exactly pretty much the same way In terms of Sainz. I think Sainz has got to do the spade work to get back. And then I did briefly mention Lance Stroll. Let's give him another shout out because you know pretty bad conditions. He kept out of trouble, very anonymous. He probably would have been beaten by Alonzo who binned it, which was, as we've discussed, quite weird and quite ironic. Is that Bortoletto, his protege. They both crashed. I mean, you can't script this shit. You know it's like absolutely, if you wrote that in a movie they'd say, oh, come on, please, you can't, that wouldn't happen anyway.

Rick Houghton: 17:23

Moving on, before we start talking about Verstappen and Norris and Piastri, can we talk about Ferrari please?

Paul Valesco: 17:32

were they there? I didn't see them in the race, did you? I heard some guys bitching like a frenchy sort of monogamous sort of accents, like a french like. So he was like unhappy. And there was a pommy guy very unhappy and the red, but that was like, yeah, would it be nice if they arrived, that they actually do. They know. The grand prix started.

Rick Houghton: 17:52

The season has started well, you know what I'm gonna have a bit of a rant here, because I've for many, many years have criticized ferrari on the pit wall, especially with their absolute garbage strategy calls yes, explain that.

Paul Valesco: 18:04

What actually?

Rick Houghton: 18:05

happened. I mean, they've done it year after year after year with different team bosses, with different uh pit wall personnel. I don't a nine-year-old interested in Formula One could make a better strategy call than Ferrari did on Sunday.

Paul Valesco: 18:18

Do you think they use Italian computers?

Rick Houghton: 18:20

or something, no idea. Maybe Maybe they use slate and chalk.

Paul Valesco: 18:24

I have no idea but Okay, tell me, give me the nuts and bolts. What do I need to know? You see, most of my friends are Tifosi.

Rick Houghton: 18:32

Yeah, you know, I've got a friend who loves Formula One. I said what do you think of the race? He said, oh, it was terrible. I went what? And then I realized, of course he's a Ferrari fan, so from his point of view it was terrible. Okay, so what went wrong? So this is when we get the second spell of rain.

Rick Houghton: 18:49

In the last quarter of the race, when they all knew rain was coming and most of the teams were saying to their drivers listen, we know it's going to rain for at least one lap and we know the rain's going to be between class two and three, which basically means more than a drizzle, more of a shower, most teams were telling their drivers listen, we're not sure it may last for a lap, it may last for two laps, but we don't think it's going to last for very long. And we're going to have to take the call on whether we bring you in for intermediates or we keep you on the medium or hard tyres. And every team communicated to their drivers, including Ferrari, who told Lewis Hamilton we think it's going to rain for one lap. Now, normally, when it comes to wet conditions, it's the driver that takes the lead on feeding back to the team what the conditions are like, because he's the one who's driving it round the track, so he's got a much better indication on what grip levels are like than the team have. So in this instance they told Hamilton okay, it's going to rain for one lap. So when it started to drizzle, the general consensus between them and him was okay, we stay out and we see if we can get an advantage, because others may come in for the intermediates, and then we wait and see if it stops raining after a lap. We've pulled the gamble and it's worked.

Rick Houghton: 19:59

The problem is they stopped communicating with Hamilton after that, so it rained for two laps and then it rained for three laps. Everyone else had come in. At one point Hamilton found himself in the lead of the race, yeah, yeah, briefly, but clearly in conditions that were not drivable. So he made the call I'm going to have to come in now. Ferrari didn't make that call. Ferrari just stopped communicating, had no clue what to do or what to say. And the other thing. Now I read this this morning and this might be total bullshit, but you remember his Source Don't know, okay, don't know, Okay. One of those sources.

Rick Houghton: 20:35

Yeah, and it might have been on social media as well. But yeah, and it might have been on social media as well, but, um, his engineer, ricky, was talking to hamilton throughout the race and he was talking about. He kept saying use k1, use k1, which we took to mean the overtake button, and hamilton was saying I'm not, I'm not near enough, leave me alone, leave me alone. It turns out that in the debrief afterwards it turns out hamilton didn't have a k1 button on his car. I'm like, how do you screw? How do you screw it up that? It's like I don't understand. I mean, surely, before you get into your first Ferrari race, hamilton sits down with his race engineer, ricky, and says okay, this is the sort of information I want on the radio during the race. This is what I want to be told. This is where I want to be able to communicate to you, mike, sorry, you know what?

Paul Valesco: 21:20

happens. It just didn't happen, Absolutely. You know what that spends. Exactly what you said is this they had this glorious honeymoon, but now it's reality check. You know what I mean? This is the reality check, the reality check. Maybe they spent too much time honeymooning and shit and they should have actually, as you rightly said, sat down and said this, this, this, this, this, this, this Too many mistakes. It's like they were working together for the first time. It's like hi Lewis, I'm going to be your guy today. Okay, cool, you know, it was just so, mate. Can these guys not get a break, Because they just run by a bunch of buffoons. Seriously, what did you tell me? But how did they mess up Leclerc? Because he was also no way. They had no pace. They were champions up to FP3, and then they just disappeared.

Rick Houghton: 22:05

Yeah, they had no pace. They clearly got an issue with the tyre window. It's like they can't get the tyres to work in the right way. So I was watching the timing screens and I was going one lap, leclerc was kind of on the pace, followed by three laps when he just wasn't followed by a four flat where he was back on the pace. It was like the tires were just in and out of the window all the time. And the one thing that summed it up for me was the radio message from leclerc's engineer, where leclerc said I've got water sloshing around in the cockpit and the engineer came back and said, yeah, that'll be the water then and yeah, and even Leclerc said, oh, brilliant words of wisdom yeah, exactly, that was beautiful.

Paul Valesco: 22:43

That sums up Ferrari to me. Yeah, that's beautiful. Yeah, but what did they mess up with Leclerc? Why wasn't he further up the order?

Rick Houghton: 22:51

I just don't think they had the pace and I think, you know, we heard rumors after testing that we thought Ferrari were going to struggle going into the first few events, and I think that they proved it right. Whether their car works better in dry conditions remains to be seen, and it looks as though. I've looked at the weather forecast for China. It looks so it's going to be fine, fine weather for the whole three days, which that's going to tell us something about the, the, the order, the true order, because of course we had, we had drivers who maybe did better because it was raining in Australia than they would have done if it was a dry race. I mean, that could be the case for Sauber, it could be the case for Lance Stroller, aston Martin, you know, get a dry race on a traditional racetrack. Maybe the results will be a little bit different.

Paul Valesco: 23:35

No, definitely there's guys that won't be scoring points so handsomely like Nico did, for instance, but uh, let's talk about the boys, that guys who stole the show mate, lando and Max, oh my god, oh my god.

Rick Houghton: 23:48

I just thought, you know, um, after last season Lando came back and when they were interviewing him this weekend he was asked loads of questions about how he was going to see off the challenge of Max and and had he developed? And he kept saying. He said I've developed over the winter, I've learned from my mistakes of last year. I'm approaching this in a slightly different way and I thought, okay, well, the proof will be in the pudding. And then the race he drove on sunday. I just thought there is a seasoned, experienced professional now, whereas last year I still thought he had a bit of immaturity about him and the way he drove the car. But yes, on sunday I just thought, my god, look at the way he's going. He looked confident, he looked at ease with the car. His radio messages were the calmest I've ever heard in my life.

Paul Valesco: 24:34

I just thought he was at one yeah, and I'm super, super impressed with norris. You know you definitely got it right with him and I went with Max, so we've got one-two, which is not bad. Come on, yeah, it's good, it's not so bad. As I said in the previous podcast, norris for me is a good guy. A good guy's finished last. They say yeah.

Paul Valesco: 24:52

And I'd like this guy to win a bit like Jenson Button, et cetera, et cetera. We've discussed these guys. What I saw is exactly what you saw. I saw a much more mature guy. I saw that. I'm pretty confident. A year ago Max would have charred him. Yeah, max would have had him. There's no doubt about it. Those last six laps he threw everything at him. Norris was good. He still got a bit more. He still had the little edge over Piastri in qualifying and in the race. Piastri was superb. To me, piastri had a fantastic race, but I think it was really unfortunate to lose it the way it did. And what was interesting is they lost it at exactly the same time and at exactly the same spot on the track, and Norris managed to keep it going and actually nipped into the pits, which saved his race.

Rick Houghton: 25:36

Whereas.

Paul Valesco: 25:36

Pi and Norris managed to keep it going and actually nipped into the pits, which saved his race, yeah, whereas Piastri, instead of taking it to a spin, he caught it, went straight but then got it on the grass and that was the end of P9, which is really a shame. I mean, I really like that guy. He's really going to push Norris.

Rick Houghton: 25:53

But Norris owned him. I think Norris did own him. Yeah, I mean you look at the recovery drive from Piastri. I mean he was a full lap down when he got back on the circuit, nipped into the pits, changed tires, came out and still managed to finish in ninth ahead of Hamilton. I just think that did you see that? Overtake on Hamilton yeah, I mean just I mean that recovery drive alone tells you a the speed of the car and b just how good he is as a, as a driver he was gutted.

Paul Valesco: 26:12

It was a. It was kind of a rookie mistake, it's sort of a rookie mistake. He was gutted. You could see he knew that that wasn't on the. Yeah, it's a cruel sport. Formula One mate.

Rick Houghton: 26:23

Yeah, I mean, I think we can both agree in the early part of the season. Anyway, it's going to be the two McLaren boys versus Max Verstappen, isn't it? I mean they're going to push each other.

Paul Valesco: 26:32

Well, push each other. Well listen, I'm going to venture that the mercedes is good as the red bull. The only difference is max makes the difference. Yeah, because you. I think any driver next to max will be beaten by max. You know what I mean.

Rick Houghton: 26:43

If he was any driver, honestly, I do believe that any of the 19 guys on the grid as his teammate, max would own them yeah, I mean, how exciting heading to, uh, what we think is going to be a dry grand prix weekend of china in just four days' time. And it's the first of the sprints this weekend, by the way. So we've got just one practice session, then we've got sprint qualifying on the Friday. On the Saturday we've got the sprint, then we've got qualifying, and on Sunday we've got the race. So everyone's going to continue the learning process on a dry weekend Before I go on that one and you're going to prompt me.

Paul Valesco: 27:15

I have one thing to say about rookies we're lucky we live in this era of super bulletproof cars. Yeah, Because 20 years ago, 30 years ago, we'd have had five deaths. You know that right. Yeah, yeah, Five guys would have died, Simple as that.

Paul Valesco: 27:30

Now it's criminal that in a sport at the highest level, you that, in a sport at the highest level, you cannot test Right now like it was with Fernando Alonso. Before Fernando Alonso got into a Formula 1 car, he had done something like in one year. He had done something like six seasons of testing, Six seasons, All the mileage he did. He had so much mileage and knew that car so well. These kids arrive. They're scared to break the things in the three days that they have, They've got like 16 hours to do. It's obscene. It's like saying to Real Madrid, Manchester United, because you guys are such important teams, you cannot train. Okay, don't go ballistic about testing. But the amount of money they spend on simulations, which is when you crash, you still survive. You just say to the engineer just restart me there, because I crashed in the wall. If these kids had 1,000 kilometers or 10,000 kilometers or whatever, we wouldn't have had six crashes.

Rick Houghton: 28:24

Before we wrap up, then let's look towards China. Then, Again, it's going to be another fascinating race and it's going to be. You know, you can't rule out the McLarens to take the top two steps on the podium. But again, Max Verstappen, I know you're not that interested in the technical stuff, but just a little bit of a technical thing as we move into China.

Paul Valesco: 28:42

No, I am interested, but I'm ignorant about it. I'm very interested.

Rick Houghton: 28:45

So we talked about the flexi wings. Apparently, the rule in Australia was that you could have flex between your front wing dividers by two millimetres, and apparently when we get to China, the FI have decided that that flex is only going to be half a millimeter. And they do say that the McLaren benefits from that flex. So if they tighten up on that rule, will McLaren be as fast as they were in Australia? So that's an interesting one. I think Max Verstappen is now understanding the car. Helmut Marko said they were having problems bringing the tyres into the window, but that would have been difficult to gauge in a wet race, to be honest. So I don't know how he came up with that, and I think he's got these quotes that he just pulls out.

Rick Houghton: 29:28

Yeah, I think he pulls them out. Oh, that was a rainy one.

Paul Valesco: 29:31

I forgot that was a rainy one. Oh, I set the wrong. Yeah, now I get it. Look, yeah, I've heard a lot of things.

Rick Houghton: 29:38

The car can't be that bad, mate. No, it can't be. It can't be that bad. I mean, in Max Verstappen hands it could be bad, but we wouldn't know. Liam Lawson will be the measure of that, I suppose, when we get to China. I am so excited to see what Kimi Antonelli can do, perhaps in fourth place on the grid, because he could be the fourth fastest car or the fifth fastest car this coming weekend then that's going to be amazing to see what he can do. Based on what he did in his first wet race ever in a Formula One car in Australia. I think he's the one that I'll be really looking at to see how he performs in a dry race in China. Plus, for all the rookies, it's the first time. They love taking part in a sprint race and that means they get one less testing session because there's only one FP1 on Friday. So I'm really excited about this weekend. I think it's going to be great. What do you think? Paul Predictions.

Paul Valesco: 30:27

No predictions. Fuck, I'm not giving any predictions. Nothing, really nothing.

Rick Houghton: 30:32

I thought we were doing this league throughout the podcast.

Paul Valesco: 30:34

Yeah, we're doing the league thing because I have to and I'm going to say Piastri wins.

Rick Houghton: 30:37

Oh, really, I was thinking about that. Actually, I was thinking of Piastri who goes first.

Paul Valesco: 30:41

Okay, the guy who loses goes first. Okay, okay, okay. So I'll go Piastri, I'll go Norris again. Oh, you little weasel, I tell you, max will win it.

Rick Houghton: 30:51

You know, easily win it, easily win it. He's done really well the china, chinese grand prix in the past. I think a lot of, a lot of uh. The performance in china will be down to which cars have the best straight line speed, because you know that back straight is one of the longest in formula one. I think the straight line speed of the williams is going to be quite impressive in china. We already know mclaren is a massively good in a straight line. Red bull Bull and Mercedes I don't know. I think they're very good in slower corners, but I'm not sure on the straight line speed. So it remains to be seen. But once this weekend's out of the way we've had a wet start in Australia, we're going to have a dry weekend in China We'll really start to know what the true packing order is, won't we?

Paul Valesco: 31:31

Yeah, I think we really do kind of have an idea. But you're right, I'd say three to four races, different circumstances, and it will be good. So I haven't made any other predictions apart from Piastri. So you made a lot of predictions there. So, producer, just make a list for me, just transcribe that list, because I'm bringing receipts next week.

Rick Houghton: 31:52

Okay, fantastic, paul, always a pleasure. Thank you, my friend. We look forward to speaking to you next week when the Chinese race weekend will be done and dusted and we'll be able to analyse it in great detail. Talk about the heroes, the zeros, the good, the bad and the ugly. We'll see you on Two Soft Compounds next week. Two Soft Compounds was presented by myself, rick hutton, alongside paul valesco. The studio engineer and editor was roy de monte, the executive producer was ian carlos, and this podcast is a co-production between grand prix 24 7 and w4 podcast studio dubai. Don't, if you want to join in the conversation, leave a comment on our Instagram page at Two Soft Compounds. We love getting comments, questions, and we'll give a shout out to some of the best ones on the podcast in the next few weeks. You can also email us at twosoftcompounds at gmailcom and if you haven't done so already, please do click that follow or subscribe button. See you next time.