WHY 2026 is a critical year for F1 | Sky Sports F1 Podcast

Hello everyone, a very warm welcome to this week's episode of The Sky Sports F1

podcast

. Matt Baker joined me to reflect on a dominant Max win for Stappen Al in Japan. We have our two best analysts with us, Karen Chandok and Martin Brundle. Hi you both Martin, I'll start with you, how was your weekend? Did you get up at 3:00 a.m.? m. Friday and Saturday? You know, watching the practice sessions or maybe you watched them a little bit repeatedly, you didn't see them live. Did I do an aming? Yeah and um I saw the studio I saw the races I saw the weather and the various dramas and cars on the wall and um I miss Suzuku I actually wished I was there but it's not on my list this

year

of 16 races Yeah, no, it looked very special and also very strange to have it so close to the last time we were in Suzuka, but if you are going to go to a race track twice, Suzuka is a good option to go to Karon.

We were talking about this before we started recording. You were on your bike for the race. I was. It was um. I thought it might as well be efficient. You know, the children were sleeping. Everything was peaceful, so I hopped on my turbo trainer at home. and I had a good ride while watching the race, so that was yeah, multitasking, multitasking, actually, uh, right, there's a lot coming up, we have a lot to discuss and we're going to, I mean, appreciate that it's Tuesday now, The race was on Sunday morning, so we're going to touch on the race a little bit, but I think we're going to get more into the implications of the results and we're going to get to Max's victory, but also some strong words like Well, from Toto Wolf on about Max's dominance, we're also going to get into some important factors in the driver market in Formula 1, which is really heating up in just four races, but it seems like that's what we're talking about too.

We're also going to take a quick look at China and, being the Sprint race, we've also gotten some feedback on the drivers, but before we do all that time for our What I've Learned feature. uh Martin, this is your first time on the

podcast

this

year

, so I let you know what you've learned this week. uh, in Formula 1, what I've learned is that, despite my great hopes, wishes, expectations, uh, the group had closed the gap a little bit with Red Bull after Australia, when we went to one of the best circuits of all-time driving. Formerly known and currently known as Suzuka, Red Bull was first and second at Caner and that broke my heart a little.

Really because I thought I could be closer to the front, but that track was always going to be suitable for Red Bull, it certainly wasn't, yeah. I don't think many people were surprised that it was a Red Bull one two Kar that he did. you learn, uh, I learned that Carlos Science's job interview for wherever he ends up next year is still going very well, three podiums in three starts this season, uh, I learned that my apology to Yuki Coda during our Grand Prix weekend Australian Award was, uh, it was the right thing to do. what to do because I said last year that they should have hired Liam Lawson and Daniel Ricardo um and Har Yuki as backup and he is, to my delight, proving me wrong because he was excellent all weekend um and most importantly, I learned that cafe's favorite burger.

The Japanese shrimp burger at McDonald's is now a double pra burger. He sent me a very excited photo of him at yokichi station. I remember hearing about the pra burger and that Cofy really likes the pra burger, so it's good to know that I have raised the rating and yes, points for the Yuki soda at the Grand Prix at home, really very good story , so look, let's talk a little bit about the race and in particular I want to start with Toto Wolf's comments after the race. This was for the print media, he said a plain and simple quote, no one is going to catch Max this year.

Martin is right Toto in saying it so bluntly after four races, well, Toto sleeps his heart out, doesn't he, especially when we? Catch him right after yes, another disappointment in the Mercedes team at the moment, um, he lets it slip and as for what he thinks about his own team and other teams, um, I think that's like stating the obvious, uh, ya You know, the car is strong. Mat is at the top of his game, his teammate, uh, Sergio Perez, feels more comfortable with the 202 for the car, but he's not exactly using Max's mirrors at the same time as he sees him, so it looks unless McLaren Ferrari comes up with it, maybe Aston Martin or Mercedes. some sort of Genius upgrade to close the gap, you'd have to say yes, it looks like they have both championships under control, but we still have 20 races left and as we saw in Australia, you never know what happens.

He is going to pass a Marathon, not a Sprint Karine, what is your opinion on those comments from Toto? I think he is a man who is frustrated, right? Know? I think the best Mercedes was 45 seconds from victory, but if we take the Red Bulls out, they were still 25 seconds behind the best non-Red Bulls, which is a huge amount in a Grand Prix. You know, Toto made an interesting comment to Ted. I thought after the race he said you know the first moment. It was terrible and after that it wasn't so bad. I look back at some of the numbers and it's not a bit better, but I mean in the first stint he lost 11 seconds to science in 15 laps, which is 3/4 of a second.

Almost and after that he still lost on average about 6 collapses, so yes, it was a little better, but not much better, so I think there were comments from a frustrated man who is coming off a tremendous streak of success and is again looking to another. The team he co-owns is unlikely to win the World Championship this season and those are not the standards he is accustomed to or expects. I think the team was going to say yeah, it's definitely not the standard they expect, and they actually moved on. say and this is a pretty funny moment at the press conference, then he praised Max's driving style saying how he is, he's working spectacularly, you can see the way he handles the tires and now it's basically a case of the best of The rest is fact, uh, that got steamy at the press conference and said that Toto has been saying a lot of good things about him recently, which I thought was pretty funny and could be smart management on Toto's part. but Martin must be, it must be difficult for someone like Toto Wolf, as Kon said, who is so used to success now for the third year in a row and we dare say that maybe until

2026

, until those regulations change it, there is nothing .

There are many reasons to be optimistic that he can close the gap on Red Bull. Well, they have to understand this car and I think that's a big concern for all the people there and you know there are a lot of very messy people with a huge amount of resources and performance and budget tools, so I'm not going to try to guess what it has. bad because uh or or I say what I think is wrong because if they don't know it, then I certainly don't know it. The team, um, can't handle the high spin cars.

This is the third season they appear. They think they have overcome it. There are a lot of positive noises and then it still bounces a bit with the port position, but its problem is timing. At the same time, things work wonderfully and are quite fast, in phases, but they can't seem to reproduce that session after session, let alone from one Grand Prix to another, so this is the problem they have, this knife. edge of a car um that sometimes feels like it's arrived you know they finally ordered it and most of the time they just can't they can't understand it and when you have that when all your tools and all your smart people doesn't correlate with the stopwatch and the performance of other cars on the track and you can't seem to nail it down, so that's really frustrating and I would say very worrying, yes there will definitely be some worried faces at Mercedes Karen. just explain to listeners and viewers about

2026

, it seems very far away, it's a year and most of a season, but why is it so important for Formula 1 and what is being done behind the scenes to ensure teams are ready for the regulation changes, first of all, the regulations have not yet been fully defined, what we do know is that internal combustion engines, the amount of power from that will be reduced compared to the battery, so the Formula One car has been hybrid ever since. 2014 um, the amount of hybrid power from the electric side will now be equal to the amount of power from the IC, so 50/50 um, which is a big change on the power unit side now, as we understand, still there's a There's a lot of talk about how they're going to make that work because in order to harvest the amount of energy and get the amount of energy that you need to deploy, you have to take a significant amount of drag off the car.

So there are a lot of conversations between the teams, the FIA ​​and the Formula 1 technical department about what is the best way to achieve this, so at the moment there is a lot of conversation, but there is still no definition in terms of what the rules are. of the chassis. For me, this is Martin. You could correct me, but I think this is the first time I can remember that the chassis rules are being dictated by the engine rules that we are used to in the last 75 years of the world championship. You know, the engine, the engine, whatever it is, it's based on the back of the regulations designed for the chassis with arrows and wings and active suspension coming and going and all that kind of stuff, but this is the first time that Pu's rules apply. defined and then they're gone, oh wait a second, we're going to have to adapt the chassis rules to make sure the cars don't lift up and slide in the middle of the street, so there's still a lot to define, but uh in summary Matt, there will be a big regulation change once again in 2026, yes, I mean, you have to be very worried about this because here we are 22 months away from these cars running and it is not defined, it will also have active aerodynamics, um, with much. more wing movement than we currently see with the DRS drag reduction system and, um, yes, as Karon explained, there is a lot more battery power, so the cars will probably be heavier and more complex and have to solve collection and deployment.

And it seems to me that these regulations should have been written in stone a good year ago or something like that and then you have a new team like Audi pointing out that Red Bull powertrains are a startup. Orb with Ford's assistant, but there are many things that are known and I hope we are doing well. You know, I expressed in a comment recently that I felt these hybrid engines were perhaps the worst decision I've ever made. In terms of the cars, they have become so big and complex, but my goodness, they are fast and impressive.

We've solved it now, but in the first few days it was a hassle and we don't want to go through that. Again, we had in 2014, where one power unit was hugely dominant or, you know, maybe a team of them is completely right, it's a shame. I think what that also means is that what you're seeing in 2024 will largely be locked in for 2025 because who's going to have the resources, the budget and the time to put a lot of work into that 2025 car and update it during the season? When it's an SE J by 2026, so I think teams will get quite nervous and angsty about what's the right thing to do.

What are we aiming for? What are the regulations? We need to start fixing some things, but fortunately, with the incredible resource of Formula One Ingenuity, they will fix it, they will fix it and that's why, like in the pandemic, it was Formula One that came up with the ventilators, designed them, created them and brought them to market faster than anyone could even dream of, so you know, we have the ability to do it, but I don't know why. We put ourselves under so much pressure, Karim, what is the time scale? So what in an ideal world would we maybe use the 2022 regulation change?

Actually, I know it's a one-off because of covid and we delayed it a year, maybe another regulation change before that, how long would it last? A team would want to know about regulation changes before they happen. I think there's a balance there, because if you give them too much time, then they know they fake everything to death and spend a lot of money on it. So I think we want some kind of control over that, but I agree with Martin that we're getting to a point where it needs to be defined. I think the teams have it all, as I understand it and when I spoke to some of the team technicians in um en jeda they expected the rules to be 100% set by June, but the feeling in the paddock is that they are not. to get and this conversation could continue later this year and They think it is too late.

They would like you to know 18 to 20 months before the start of the first race or the first test to have the rules written in stone and then there will be some clarifications. You know a few questions along the way, but I want you to know that most of it is resolved, which is getting tough now you know where, we're at the beginning ofApril, we're only talking six and seven weeks away and um They still don't have any firm clarity in terms of what these moves are going to be and how they're going to make it all work to shift Focus into this season and I'm wondering, after four races , if we could comfortably.Let's say we have a competitive order, Martin I, in my opinion, is Red Bull Ferrari McLaren and then Mercedes, a kind of SL Aston Martin in that fourth fifth place, when we talk about preseason, it's always like saying, you know, give it four runs, go, go, until I've had a variety of tracks, are you comfortable with that with that list in that order?

Do you think after four races that's pretty much where we are in Formula 1 at the moment? Yes, I think there is no doubt about it. Matt, probably what's hardest to define is the upcoming SL, well, Alpine. I think I pretty much fell behind, but again, all the great runs in the second half of the field, now I know a lot of fans are saying "well." That's not for the win or it's not for the podium, but I mean it's desperate, isn't it for the last few championship points in the top five that you just mentioned? They could stay at the table if they have a problem with tripping over each other. or whatever, so you know Yuko has hoovered up some of those and, uh, I mean, it is, and the kind of positions they have at the end of the season means they have to take those few wins off the table, um , and that's why we're seeing such scrappy racing back there, but yeah, I think until we see the upgrade of some of the cars, in the next few races, if they can really close G, it's hard, it's hard to find a fourteenth. . second and in any case who's to say Red Bull won't find a tenth or two other TS anyway, so I think it's fair to say that's the order and it really depends on which of Aston Martin and Mercedes are in shape on any given weekend as to which way you would put those two and if you look at it, McLaren, because both drivers score points in all four races, McLaren already has twice as many points as Ash in Mercedes.

It impressed Karine then with Ferrari consolidating that second position maybe last year you wouldn't, I don't know, you would have said Ferrari was comfortably the second best team last year compare it to this season where they seem to have cemented that. position now as the second fastest team. I think towards the end of last season they were the second fastest. You know, L took that streak. There were five qualifying places in a row in the front row. Carlos obviously won in Singapore, so I think towards the end. Last year they were the second fastest team and they just took advantage of that.

I think they did a good job. They did a solid job. They came close if you look at the time difference between the best Ferraris and the best. You are the best Red Bull at Suzuka Now, compared to 6 months ago, they are closer, there is no doubt about it, and in a way they have broken McLaren Mercedes' back. And didn't we think it was a gang of four chasing? Red Bull, but I think you're right and you say it's now a group of three behind Ferrari. I think the problem is that again they seem to have a car scoring.

Know? I think you can't when it's that tight and there's a little bit of Hav and Have Nots, I think there's a Class A, Class B, maybe that's a better way to describe it, the top five teams. I think you've separated yourself a little bit more from the bottom five, there's that division and it feels like in the first four weekends you have the top nine teams locked in and then the bottom five teams are basically competing against Stal for that last point. Um, that seems to be the way it's developing right now. and you know, when you get into things like the driver market, you have a guy that we just mentioned scientifically before, who is unemployed, he may not get a seat in Red Bull, he may not get a seat in a Mercedes, but he probably won't. gonna. get a seat at Ason Martin because if Fernando doesn't go anywhere and Lance takes that seat, suddenly you have a race winner from the last two seasons who is potentially looking at one of the bottom five teams for his future, which I think which is a little embarrassing, and I understand that it's only four races at the beginning of the year, but you know, those are the signs of a perfect transition to our Driver Market section and talking about Carlos SS because he's incredible. who has not yet been hired and signed Martin comes to you about this, which there is probably nothing more Carlos can be doing right now in Formula 1 to prove that he deserves a seat if you had a crystal ball where would you see Carlos' future in Formula 1 in the coming years?

It's very difficult for him. In the preseason. St. I said I thought he was going to fly this year because he, he has no pressure anymore, he can drive himself. a little bit more, the team member criticized it with Lewis Hamilton and natural talents are always going to flow, you know there's nothing to lose everything to gain everything, the right mentality to just go and fly and really, really, just take it to all. and show everyone how wrong they are and that's exactly what he's done and he's let Charlotte Clair falter to some extent um in some ways, but I would never underestimate Charlotte Clair, but I would never underestimate Cara.

Science also cannot understand what Ferrari has. You know, two bigger brands in form one, probably our Ferrari and Lewis Hamilton at the moment, they know they're coming together and it's a great story. I think Mercedes, if Antonelli is ready, will try. Put Antonelli in Leou Hamilton's seat. Can I Antonelli, the Italian, he is currently 17 until August? I agree, Fernando L says that Aston Martin will hardly go to, you know, laen st will hardly get his son out of there unless he doesn't want to. Do it more, but it seems like he does it. Will Pérez stay with Red Bull?

See, that's the key, that's the cork in the bottle, where, where does that do that? Because you know, putting science in the red ball would be a piece of cake for me or an Aston Martin or a Mercedes for that matter, now he's got the experience, he's got the speed, he still has youth on his side to some extent, so the problem What he has is that, zba, let's call an Audi in the future, uh, putting him under pressure to make a long-term deal, which means he will be in the saber next year, treading water and then depending on how quickly Audi can get its team and its power unit together and become competitive and that's not an easy task so you know it could actually go and have three really serious Four Seasons with another team and still join when they're mature and ready to start, so, but they are putting it under pressure and I don't see the other three teams, ready. to uh give in to that pressure and sign SS um so they have some sound.

I think my advice to Carlos and his father would be that, you know, things happen very quickly in this business. Two weeks, plenty of time in Formula 1 and keep your options open. It's the craziest idea in the world and I got criticized on the podcast for saying this a few weeks ago, but I'm going to try it. Again, look, see what reaction I get, new audience G, yeah, new audience, could you take a year off? ​​Is there any world where I say there is no push for me this year that will see me near the front of the grid?

Yes, certainly the sber. Project AY, but we know that next year is more than likely to end up at the back of the grid, so if you take a year off, we've seen drivers take a year off because they didn't get the seat they wanted. they needed. They wanted to but they were the ones who had already won their championships and had nothing to prove stronger. Mansel you know they went off to do other things or I or in the case that he took a year off he signed his contract early with Williams he knew that he was I'm going to come back and win a championship so I think it's different in the case of Carlos you know that he's in a different stage of his life, in a different stage of his career, he hasn't gotten that championship yet, you know, that opportunity to challenge for the championship let alone win one, so I think it's not something that he would be thinking about doing at this stage of your life and I totally agree with Martin.

I mean, you know Audi with the best will in the world and they have tremendous financial backing and I have already invested a lot of money in this project and I will continue and continue to do so, but F1 is difficult if you arrive at 26, I would say there are at least three seasons left before that you start to really start hitting. finish um and be a championship contender, compete contender, so for Carlos, you know he's turning 30 next year, does he want to spend his prime building a project that may or may not pay dividends? Probably not, um, I think with Antonelli it's interesting because you know, if you wait for him for two years and give him experience in another team, whether it's Williams or somewhere else, they see him and then he joins Mercedes in 202 and I think it's something special.

I saw it in an F3 test. Earlier this year it was extraordinary to see, but he is still quite raw and still quite young. In 2027, he will only be 20 years old. You know, Mercedes will still get another 20 years of profit from it, but I think for me it's really important in this. Big change in regulations between the 25th and 26th to try to have experienced drivers. I think you want to have people who can guide the team and help in the transition into the first year of the regulation change, especially Mercedes-Benz as the official manufacturer. engine team also full stop and then on the science of Carlos Martin, is there any stage this season where Ferrari and Fred Verer sit down and walk away?

Did we let the wrong pilot go? Well, if they do, they certainly won't tell us. They, um, made the decisions from him, um, you know, Charl is a Char, a world-class racer. Drive, uh, um, you know what they've done, is they had a great couple, they have a great period now and and, they, you. I know that they are losing, that rarely, that they are almost manageable together considering how competitive they are, they are future-proofed and they are just perfect, excellent marketing kits, they really are great at everything and they have divided it because they want to take.

Lewis because he's a seven-time world champion and he transcends our sport by some margin, so, you know, if they let the wrong one go, or if they could let any of them go, we can debate that. all day, but there's no point wasting heartbeats on that, that's what Ferrari is going to do and you know, we'll see what Lewis can do in a Ferrari, will it be a solo boat that almost failed or will it be a Michael Schumac, you know ? fantastic race, win the championship, win the crusade, we're good, you know, we're a few months away from finding out how it's going to go, but, you know, there's no point in Ferrari looking over their shoulder wondering that and they made their decision. they wanted Lewis in the car and they have him and they will make the most of it, they certainly will, yes and obviously, as we talked a lot, when Lewis signed with Ferrari as a purely commercial decision.

With the share price going up so much, you know they've obviously made great strides as well, so yeah, very, very interesting stuff. Martin, you mentioned that Perez was the cork in the bottle, which I think is a brilliant way to put the expression on what his future means for the rest of the lineup in 2025. What do you think of his start to the season? He has earned three second places in four races. Are you doing everything you can to make a case for that second? He seats at Red Bull and yet to some extent he didn't, he didn't win Australia when Max's car failed, which is what B would want him to do.

He clearly feels more comfortable with this car and with himself and driving well, I mean, we don't. We also don't know what's going to happen, it seems like he's calming down a lot, but you know the concept of Max having some kind of management or key man clause in his contract where he can leave if he wants, that would create a completely conversation. new, but let's assume that's not happening right now. You know, I think commercially it is very useful for a Red Bull to have Sergio Pérez in the car and, as you know, he has a lot of experience, he doesn't throw it at the wall. a lot and it doesn't really bother Max, it's fast enough to keep Max on his toes but not really bother him, he's the perfect driver in that seat right now so I think you know there's a reason why Sergio has been in that car. so long and that's because he shoots Red Bull and what they need at the moment and I don't think that's particularly changed, unless they think someone else is coming, they should take advantage and take advantage of the opportunity.

I think the good news here is that he aie. bman and ly Lawson Liam Lawson um it changed the mood a bit because the Formula One teams have been very cautious with their driver line-ups and have stayed away, that's why we've seen several F2 champions not making it to F1 recently and um and suddenly maybe the kids can step in and do a great job like a bman did in Jed, you know, and Liam Lawson did in zanor last year for example, so I think that opened up a little thought. that of the teams um and that also plays in Antonelli's hands in that sense, so um in thismoment and I very much agree with what Korea said a moment ago that moving to this great unknown of the 2026 car, certainty, experience and feedback will be fundamental and I think a team like Red Bull could think that this is working, you know? especially when both championships come back comfortably, you know, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, karon, what if then RB had Daniel Ricardo fighting at the peak of his powers right there with Yuki Coda knocking on the door and defending that? second seat at Red Bull, do you think we'd be having a different conversation now?

I don't know because everything is relative, right? The reality is that Pérez seems to have improved his game, his ranking in Japan was the best I think I have seen in a long time. Obviously Melbourne was where I needed to step up on a day where Max had a problem and didn't, so that's a negative, but overall he started the season pretty well. Now he did the same thing last year, we'll have to see if he can continue for the rest of the year. Right now, he's making a good case for not being replaced. And I also think there was obviously a bit of a needle between him and Max afterwards, I think it was Monaco, was it last year or the year before, um, there's been a needle around that too, yeah, yeah, but it all seems to have calm among the rest of the kind of red chaos and I think Max and Yos and you know, we should call them Team Max, it's like having pears there, you know, you know where it is, it's three four ten away, um and it's relatively peaceful, like that What if they want to alter Apple's car? and we know that they wield a lot of power, as you know, as it should be, a guy who has won more than 50 grands prix in that team, has a lot of power and I imagine him saying: I think you're going to bring Carlos SS. here because we believe that it could be a little more competitive, we are not convinced that that is going to go down, in addition to having Pérez, whom he has quite well covered, yes, well, in a moment it will be said that there is so much movement within the market of drivers it will be.

It's going to be a banging story, but to use your brilliant expression, Martin, again, cork the bottle, if it goes, I feel like a lot of things are going to fall into place quite quickly and, as you said, two weeks is a long time. in Formula 1. And let's move on and look ahead to next week and China, so our first time in China in five years, the big story that dominates the Chinese Grand Prix right now is the fact that it's a Sprint race and Brillante, I think we can all agree that maybe we like a Sprint race weekend, it spices things up, gives us something different to talk about and obviously we only have six this year, the problem is that maybe the pilots are having.

The fact of putting Shanghai as a Sprint race is that we haven't been there for five years and therefore we are going to a track without that with limited racing. Remember that you will only have the first practice as a practice session before moving on to qualifying for the Sprint race. I have two drivers here, so this is a perfect forum to discuss Martin. I'll start with you, if you only had one practice session before going to a track you haven't been to for 5 years, how would you feel? They have simulators, many of them know the track well, it is a track that has produced great races in the past and we often see on a weekend with red flags due to the weather, a driver may have a problem with the engine or gearbox. changes. and you miss a whole session or it throws you over the edge or something and they just have to get up and move on, so honestly no I don't think it's a problem, they know they know their way.

Out there the simulators are clearly very good and quite realistic um and then we've all been working hard on those um so that they appear pretty well prepared the cars won't be a million miles away in seter um and that just, honestly, I don't. I know, it's an added challenge, but I personally don't see it as a factor. I guess for us Kon fans, it creates a lot of uncertainty, doesn't it? Because they won't have all this data. They won't be able to predict or apply race strategies the way they would on a normal race weekend, that creates danger and a bit of uncertainty.

If I were a driver or a team member, I would hate it and I have the same complaints there, but now on the side of the fence that we're on now, I think it's great, you know, we want, we want them to go into the unknown, we want them to go into the unknown. that Friday night qualifying for the Sprint without knowing it. 100% if the setup is correct and guess what with the format change from last year to this year, in terms of the order of the sessions, it means that they will have the opportunity to change the car and change the setup.

So you get two bites of Cherry, you know? And in fact, they don't just go to Park F after FP1, which is a big change, so I think it's okay. I think it will be a fun weekend to watch. um we have good racing there because you get pretty big um it's a very different track it's a limited left front track the left front tire takes a bigger hit there than anywhere else on the calendar so actually um in terms of trying to get it. the right set up and managing the balance and the tire it's a very difficult track to get the car working properly and I think it will be interesting to see, I mean a balance point, his Odie bman, his second part of his career after of the pit stop.

In jeda he was in a Hardon Panai that he had never driven in his life and he was outstanding in it, you know, because they only have two games a weekend and, uh, he was, you know, he did it, he solved what he had under he. I went in and kept going and it was great and you know this is a kid that came in on a Saturday morning so I think you know the weather conditions there can be challenging and I love that long straight and there's a good set of quarters that too they prepared them very well, so I'm glad to see it back there and it's been repaved Karina.

I wonder if maybe there will be flashbacks to Istanbul in 2020 when we obviously went onto a new repaved track and it was very, very slippery. I don't know if you have any information about the track or what your expectations would be about how the cars are going to circulate around the circuit. I think that may well be the case. You already know. The track was built on some sort of swampy terrain, wasn't it? So you started getting these huge bumps you know in the run up to turn one for example you get that huge bump right when the drivers were turning so it was du a resurgence um and I'm glad they took the opportunity to do it. , it's just going to throw another curve ball because they're going to have, like Mar said, they're going to have all their simulation numbers and what happens is Peri sends engineers where they have a machine that basically measures the surface roughness, they're going to send that information to the teams, they're going to plug that in. information to the simulators and all that happens, but as we found out in Turkey, that doesn't always translate into being accurate, um, and yes, the simulators are brilliant, but ultimately, it's still not real life and, you know , we've seen wet racing there in the past, remember that fantastic Sebastian Vettle win, we had a great, uh. with Schumaker also in 2006, I think his last win was in 2006 with Ferrari, so we've seen some brilliant races there over the years and yes, I'm looking forward to seeing them.

In March, it brings back memories of Istanbul, doesn't it? It almost went away with the drivers that went off and skidded, but I mean, look, that was Lance St., he got a survey that week, right? So who knows, and I led the race comfortably for a good while, um, yeah, it's the oils that come off a new surface and they just sat on top of it and mixed with a little bit of water and became the equivalent. It really was kind of icy and the drivers were lap after lap before they could get grip, it just meant a fascinating ROM Prize, but I don't know the details of the surface in Shanghai to be seen exactly. how long it's been down, but there's no doubt about it.

F1 cars lay down a racing line fairly quickly on a surface, as long as they do enough dry laps. Unpredictability, that's what we certainly like as fans, maybe not as engineers or. or strategists, it's time to tell you about the Chinese Grand Prix, so it will be another early start, but luckily for us in the UK, our last early start before we set more reasonable times, of course you can catch it. all the build up and all the action from the Chinese Grand Prix not this weekend after Skyports F1 um but yeah that's all thanks Karen thanks Martin fascinating talk uh very good to have your company uh we'll be back next Tuesday to look back uh or to look forward I should say to the Chinese Grand Prix.

I hope you can join us and then goodbye for now.