Kimi Climbs To Glory - F1 Italian GP Review

0:00This podcast is part of the Sports Social Podcast Network. Be, be, be me up Andrea, please. For allspot.com and allspot.com, I'm Kevin Turner, and this is the Allspot F1 race review. We just had a remarkable Italian Grand Prix, around 13 of the 2026 Formula World Championship, and a really strange race in terms of energy, slip streaming and a fantastic win for Kimmy Antonelli. And joining me to talk about it is Jake Boxel. Leg what's your first thoughts about that one then? I really enjoyed that race too. I did as well. We keep saying that. It was a very unpopular, we keep racing. We've got a temper on to you. It was fine. It was all right. Not too bad. Well, before we get into the sort of the detail and the analysis, it's as quickly a result. So yes, Kimmy Antonelli winning from Mercedes Teamwork, George Russell, Mattress Stappen, third in completing the podium.

1:01Then the two McLean's, Orlando, Nois Oskipiastry, a disappointed Lewis Hamilton in sixth. Peer Gazzleau shock, pole sitter, we'll talk about that a little later, coming home seventh and best of the rest. Then Arvid Limblad, Franco Collapinto and Yuki Sonoda rounded out the point scorers, then it was Gabrielle Bautiletto and Audi Teamwork, Nuka Holkkenberg, Carlos Scythes, Liam Larson, Oli Baim, and Esteban Ockon, Alexander Albon, and then the two Cadillacs of Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas. And then the retirements, both Astamartins failed to fish, and of course, Charles Leclerc's fry after that rather nasty accident parabolic. What does that mean for the championship world? Kimmy Antonelli is now 66 points clear of George Russell, who is now 10 points ahead of Lewis Hamilton, they were tied on the same score coming into the Italian Grand Prix, and in the constructors championship, Mercedes is sort of hedging away. They're not flown away in the way that we might have expected, given the number of wins they've got, but it's 468 to 346, and then McLaren on 287, Redborne 204, and then Racing Rules, now a little bit of breathing space

2:01in the battle for fifth. And right, well, before we get into it in the studio, let's hear from Stuart Coddling, who is out at Monza. Well, how about this for a vista, the pit exit of Monza, the temple of speed, has the temple of speed been desecrated this weekend by the 2026 F1 cars, and the slightly bonkers nature of the energy-starved racing, or has it been a little bit of a classic Monza slipstreamer? I don't see Jackie Stewart coming past me with his long fourth gear, and I don't think the McLaren's long gear ratio has really helped them this weekend. It has been quite an atmospheric race. Obviously, the locals kind of mixed feelings for them, but the guy who's supposedly keeping the gate safe for us to stop randoms coming in, the media centre, and nicking our stuff, said, it's quite weird.

3:02I wanted Luke or Hamilton to win, so I was disappointed when Charles went off and smoked the barrier, but they'll take an Italian winning. So this could be a turning point in the career of Kimi Antonelli and his profile at home. Certainly a lot of happiness in the crowd. They've now sort of filtered off now, and it's just me, few marshals wandering off, some random people who magically got onto the circuit and decided to drive it, probably not entirely legally. And for me, the atmosphere of Monza is very much intact. There's actually my first time here in 10 years, and quite a difference. Since then, we've been booted out of the traditional media centre into a bunch of shipping containers with aircon, is how I'd describe it outside the paddock. It's about as far away from the media panels as possible to get. And that is basically in keeping with Liberty Media's policy

4:04of selling everything as a VIP, so the old media centre has been turned into a VIP enclosure. And ye, God's, the paddock itself was like Oxford Street when the Christmas sails are on. Just people everywhere. Is that a good thing? Tricky to say, it just makes for a trickier working environment, because no one wants to come out and talk to you in case they get mobbed for selfies. So bit trickier working environment, but at the same time, quite atmospheric. And one of the things the local organisers did is a sort of blowtorch these little mementos of every single Italian Grand Prix winner. I'm just going to kill a mosquito that's trying to feed off my forehead here. They glued all these decals relating to every Italian Grand Prix winner onto the ground in the paddock. And that really, really did remind you

5:06that this is a circuit that is not only more than 100 years old, it has what hosted pretty much every Italian Grand Prix Bar 1 since the beginning of the World Championship in 1950. And it continues to exercise a magical effect, even if some of the racing this weekend has been quite artificial to say the least. Well, artificial, that seems. So he's going quite well there, and then he's through the race under the bus at the end. So I'd say any set of regulations is artificial by nature. They're all playing the same game, so I'm not sure that artificial is caught in the right word. Yeah, I think, and we were discussing this upstairs, I think he was right with kind of slipstream first, certainly, which it certainly was. Yes, battery modes and energy management sort of helped facilitate that, but I think it was, it was a fun race, you know. I'm used to bonds are sort of being quite, you know, before the race starts, I kind of thought,

6:07oh, we'll be done by about half past three, and then I can crack on with everything else I've got to do. It wasn't quite like that, of course. I mean, I, I mean, a lot of you, I'm sure, grown up watching, obviously, all the post-Chican moms or races, obviously, they came in 1972, and by large Italian Grand Prix, really atmospheric event is a great event to be at, isn't it? But the races are usually a bit disappointing. There have been a few decent ones, but generally a bit disappointing. But this one wasn't, this one had action, and I watched it with my 10 year old start, and I said to him, I think this is probably as close as you're going to get to watching what moms was like before 1970 when they put the chicanes in, because it was slipstream, it was about where you placed your car when you wanted to overtake. So, okay, it's for a different reason, but I kind of thought it was quite fun. Yeah, exactly. And I think it pays not to sort of, I know we get paid to analyse stuff, it gets, it pays to sort of not think too deeply about, like if you're enjoying something. I don't think you need to be too pure a ton of quabata and go, oh, I shouldn't be enjoying this, because this is X-wise there, it's like, well, I just enjoy it, man.

7:08Yeah, I think it was unfair if there's a semi-playing field and you'd be there, but I don't think that was the case. And just on the point about the tempo of speed, and oh, you know, was it, the pole top, the pole top, the pole top, and the pole speed was 158 miles an hour. The all time record is 164, so it's not awful. And the fastest lap that I had on the last lap was 155 miles an hour. So we're not talking, it's not slow, is it? It's not quite as quick. I know, obviously, at the end of the straights when you've not got a full energy, it doesn't look as good. We've talked about that before. But anyway, well, let's get into it. I mean, obviously the headline thing is, Kimi Antelay's win for 90th on the grid. It's the second furthest back, a Grand Prix winner started in the history of the World Championship since 1950. The record is John Watson at Long Beach in 1983, from 22nd, him and Nicolayda, and Clarencey Mate came through. That was for a very specific reason. Then we've got, for those watching the video, we've got the list here of all winners of World Championship races from outside of the top 10.

8:09And Kimi Antelay there, 19th record, obviously, 20 seconds, as we were saying. And of course, he's overtaken Rubens Barrakello for second place in this. I'm kind of excluding you in the 500 ones, Bill Vukiewicz there, a bit of a legend. But yeah, Rubens Barrakello, I remember that race. That was his first Grand Prix, that was pretty cool as well. I'm Yoltz Gouac and I'm another. Yeah, slipstream, there he is, being all emotional. It was a good day for F1. And there's Water coming through from 22nd, which of course is a record that can now be equaled. That's the Cadillac, but yeah, Antelay's got to try a bit harder, got to stop behind three more cars. Okay, so that's the historical bit. So how did he do it? Let's get into how he did it. So yeah, what was the key parts to Antelay's win? So the strategy originally, and this had its genesis in FP2 was that Antelay was going to go very, very long and very deep into the race on the hard tires. So he started on the hard. Basically sacrificed all of his qualifying simulations in FP2 to kind of do a very long run, because he knew he had the penalties

9:09because he was going to get completely out of the power unit changes. Yeah, he was taking 30 places for overall. So it's amazing to get 30 places and still start 90. Yeah, yeah. And one of those idiotic pieces of other people getting penalties. Exactly. So that was the plan at least. And on that first, before the safety car, actually he made up a lot of ground very, very quickly. So it was, to be fair, it was dealing with the Williams and the Cadillacs and the Hases and the cars like that. But by the time we got up to the safety car when Charlotte Claire crashed, Antelay was already up to 12th. So he'd already made a lot of progress, but the safety car came probably quite a bad time for that strategy to work out. So again, this was an opportunity for everybody to hit, put on a different, well, all under the red flag, rather, come into the pit, get a completely free stop and not have to go and do another one during the race. This is difficult, Antelay, because he was on the hardest tire.

10:12He now can't go to the end because he's got to switch to soft saw mediums. So there must have been a possibility of games at the end. That was still a bit of a question, I wasn't it, because I knew everyone else would on the hard. And obviously, as we will get too late to Lewis Hamilton did run to the end on the medium. So do you think that they knew they were going to need a stop or do you think it was more, we'll see what happens as the race progresses? I think that, I think it is a little bit of wait and see because again, you don't know how long they're going to last, but I think there is a sort of tacit acceptance that, yes, there is probably going to need to be another stop later down the line. That's when you do that. But in the short term, it was very, very good for Antelope because then you have another standing start, you're on the softer tire against those that have now put on the hard tire. And he's able to make further grabs very, very quickly. So he gets onto the back of the top, top seven. Gazzley starts to fall back a little bit because yes, he's had an amazing pole, but we knew that he wasn't going to stay there.

11:13And it got to the point where he started to drop behind the McLaren's and Lewis Hamilton and everybody. So he was the first to fall, then Norris was next. That's a nice before. And well, Norris just tied up with Gazzley for a long time. Yeah, of course. And then it was Hamilton and Piaštry. That brought him into the mix again and at this point, Russell's battling with Max was to happen and taking a little bit of time off of each other. And again, I think this is helping Edson Ellie's cause. So it was very, very quick, which I think to a certain degree was expected, but when you have the red flag in there and you get another start and just start from 12, it kind of opens up for you a little bit. It just worked out very, very nicely. And then enjoyed that long battle with Russell. And yes, that was a little bit yo, yo, but at the same time, it was actually quite a nice duel between them. Yes, Russell kind of, it was a bit like Canada. Russell got the lead eventually stabilized

12:17and it was all looking relatively good. And then the VSC comes up for an upstroll. That's the point at which Anthony Ellie gets that stop now because I think it is a little bit clear at that point that staying to the end on the mediums is gonna be touching go and he's already lost that battle to Russell. Well, at that point, he'd just been told to hold off and because they wanted to break away from the staff and all that. Actually, I think they were probably, if they could have worked together with the slip streaming, in the old school, Jim Clark, Graham Hill, 67 style, he would have worked better for them. So I got, I see, and that's interesting. You have that interpretation of it really because I was sort of feeling that it was still very much nip and tuk-t between them. And it was just a case of would the medium fall off so much that he would leave him powerless against Russell. I suppose that's what we were assuming. My point of view would be that that is the case. And so Max, which happened and Anthony would have been falling away from Russell if that had gone on without the VSC. Yeah, I think if you kind of leave it open, yes, Monza's not particularly high-deg,

13:18but at the same time. And then you were seeing this towards the end with Russell on the hard tire. Actually, there is the mechanical degradation of the tire, not necessarily thermal, even though it's very, very hard. It just reaches a point where it hits a cliff and it goes and the tires get tired quite essentially. It is difficult to see a scenario where Anthony comes back at him and makes the one stop or no stop, brother, but goes the end on the medium, rather. It's difficult to see how that would work. So that makes it a no brainer then for both and certainly I'm just happy to come in in that VSC window, perfect timing for them. I mean, almost was as well as they came out of the pits. It ended, so it was kind of almost perfect for them. For those of you who've watched the video, we've got the graph there. It's kind of taking us up to the VSC line now. That drops, obviously, Anthony away from Russell. We've got some cars to overtake. And then the line back towards him, actually, what really strikes me about that is how linear it is, which shows that they're both absolutely flat-chat. They're both at the limit of what they can do. And it's just that that line, unfortunately,

14:19for Russell, intersects before the end of the race, essentially, is the difference. But I mean, there's two things that struck me about, Anthony, one was, I know, yes, you say, well, he was helped out by the red flag and the VSC. So the circumspect nature that he went through the pack, it reminds me a little bit of mattress happening in 2023, 24, he was taking grid penalty spars, one, where he just had the confidence to know, I just need to avoid knocking a front wing off or having something silly. So as a case of even the strapping game, right, I'm not going to go full attack. I'm going to pit at my moments because the full attack will come later. He felt a little bit like that with Anthony. And then the other thing, of course, was his unbelievable pace when he was out on the fresh tire. And it sort of went from being, oh, Russell might hold on to, or this is not going to work for him. So I'm, well, when you gave him 10 out of 10 in your driver ratings on all this, what, just a bit of a bit of a bit of a, a little bit of an off. I presume that you said, all the tracks breaking up, so we'll let him off. Oh, I think, I think sometimes you have those races

15:21where you go, well, the driver's not been completely perfect, but I think he's been so good in every other set of the race that it supersedes that little mistake. And he had toned for it really quickly. So through that stint, he had 15.5 seconds gap to Russell after he'd come out of the pit lane and 24 laps to go. So that's about 0.6, 0.7 seconds that he needs to find per lap. And it's looking quite good for Russell because Anthony's working his way through the traffic and he's sort of, he's taken about half a second off a little bit more. But then it gets to a point where it completely flips and then Russell's getting losing a lot of time. He's telling us only going to get slow on that point, isn't it? And it's now sort of 0.8, 0.9 seconds flat. Now it's start being a second per lap. And that's the point where Anthony's looking inevitable as a force. Did very nearly throughout a way with that mistake

16:22on the gravel, but ultimately got it back, had so much pace that he could go and do it again. That was quite a smart thought from Russell because he obviously saved all his electrical energy to go right. I know you're going to get me, but I'm going to make it as hard as possible. So down the start finish straight we're going well. Anthony's just going to walk past, but obviously George is deploying everything he's got. So Anthony's like, oh, Anthony's going, I'm running out of running our road. And then he goes off. It's the sort of thing where Anthony hadn't been out to recover as well as he did. That would actually one, George Russell the race. So I thought that was quite a good race craft from him. It wasn't unfair. It was just, well, I'm going to ask the question. And Anthony had the answer. So it's a big question and Stuart did a little bit in his video was should Mercedes have brought George Russell in during the VSC. I think it made ultimately the right call to split the strategy. Yes. So when you bring both drivers in, you do not know if it is the best strategy. And the team alluded to this.

17:22So I thought, well, said at that point, they thought the strategy might actually be in favor of the staying at anyway. So yeah, exactly. You don't know at that point. And you don't know if you're going to make the gains back over the rest of the race. Because in theory, you lose time trying to overtake somebody or you get drawn into a yo-yo battle and lose time as the carant later did later in the race. So it's really, really difficult to judge. And so by leaving Russell out, they've guaranteed themselves a victory either way, whatever happens. And I think that's kind of the key for Mercedes as the team. They want to go in that race. It doesn't really matter to them who does. So leave Russell out. He's got enough in hand over everybody else to go and win it theory. But if Anthony gets rid of the pack and makes quick progress, then he's not that can go and win it. So yeah, either way, I think it guarantees itself the race victory. Yeah. And I think George Russell kind of knew that. And he's, I thought he was going very sensible post-race

18:23into where he sort of congratulated Kimmy, but also, you know, said, well, it made it didn't make sense to split the strategy. There's a very sensible team, team-of-you just on the wrong side at this time. But I guess we have to ask the question now. Is it tight over really 66 points? And it's not just, like I said before, it's not just the gap. It's the level that Anthony leases. Like this was one of those weekends where he goes, he's had the grid penalties because of the engine changes. Russell hasn't had his yet. So it just feels like, it's almost like Russell no, almost needs to go into, I need to get him ahead together for 2027. A little bit, Nico Rossberg 2015, 16, Stiley needs to kind of get them momentum at the end of the year for next season. Or am I being pessimistic about a championship fight? No, I think you have to look at it from a perspective that it is 100% answer to lose. And I don't think you will. We don't know what the calendar's going to be like towards the end of the year as well. We don't know, will we get the full score point, yeah? Collection of races.

19:24Are we going to have Katar and Avidabi? Are we going to lose one and maybe get to Himalaya or are we going to go to somewhere? I don't know. Algarve, yeah, exactly. We don't know what it's going to be like. It's more the dumb racers to endos and more difficult is for Russell. And as you say, you've still got to an entry penalty, which we're probably doing back here, which is probably the best case scenario for him. It's going to be difficult. It's going to be really, really difficult. And barring a sort of late collapse kind of like as Pestri had last season, you know, I think, you know, Antony's, he's just sort of got it all together as an A. He's just got the better of Russell in most ways. And I think this was the race where Russell needed it to go his way so that he could take some points off, Antony and maybe to down about less than 50 or something like that and then give himself a chance going into the final flyaways. But it was his race and yet he was kind of undone

20:29by two kind of miracle moments if you like Gazzle taking part when Antony le cutting through the field from 19th on the grid. So if that's the scenario, then yeah, he's stoned down the barrel of a championship to beat ultimately. Yeah, yeah. And well, let's go, let's go a little bit further on and look at Max Astappan and Red Bull. I mean, that was a classic optimising. I know, Astappan had a couple of little moments didn't he? He's a run through the run off at the first cane and he admitted to having a sort of moment in the same place to Antony leader, which I don't think we saw. But otherwise, it was one of those relentless taking opportunities when they were there, out breaking people when he had the chance, but they just didn't quite have the pace. But I thought pretty impressive, given that he complained about deployment, it showed that maybe the FI had a point about the qualities of the internal combatant and you know the Red Bull fall. Can we say that? I think it can't be that bad. I can't just pull onto the works of that log. No, exactly. I think it's a bit of gamemanship in that system,

21:32which is difficult to kind of glean who does have the best internal combustion engine and whatever, but it's obviously very powerful. So it was a fantastic race from Astappan again and he's just quietly going about his business, sort of industrious, hardworking nature. Red Bull now the strategy. Yeah, exactly. But yeah, then he had the opportunity to kind of go for a little bit on a fresh set of hard tires, kind of like you had a new set of mediums available or baby-redible figure, it would be best to get to the end on those. But yeah, he was able to kind of catch back up, maybe not at the same race as Antony leader. No, he lacked a lot of pace compared to Antony leader, at that point, because he probably expected given the tyres. Yeah, but it did look for a time like you might be challenged for third against the McLaren's. But as I'm sure we'll get into, they kind of contrived to help his cause, let's say. Well, let's get on to that, because this is a kevran time. So we've talked for about, say McLaren and Ferrari

22:34being too reluctant to impose team orders. And I thought this was an absolute classic. This is an absolute McLaren. Let's give him actually to have the third place. They called him, we know that Lando Norris, obviously, had a little bit of a shaky weekend, but once again, his ultimate race pace was good. And he's the one coming at our PS3 and for stepping on a racing. So if that happened, came past PSG quite easily, didn't he? But then hung on to him, good. Norris managed to get up to them. And then he said, well, Max can't get away. He doesn't seem to have that pace. And then PSG defended like it was the world championship on the line. Put him on the, I mean, actually, to be fair, Norris did go together. It wasn't actually there, a little bit like Montreal last year. But I just don't understand why you don't get on the radio and go, right, Oscar Lando's quick at the moment, let him have a gut max. If he doesn't work out, we'll swap you around again very much as we've seen other teams do. I mean, famously, Mercedes did it with Bottas and Hamilton, Hamilton was fighting with the championship, and he gave Bottas the plates back. So am I being harsh?

23:34Although I just feel like McLaren need to go, come on. They just let their guys race and Max went, oh, thanks very much. Yeah, it was, it was strange because, as you say, they were right in this and they were right behind for stappin and by the end of the race, just happened to go up what three seconds to pair of them. Just got away. And Norris, this spatch, PS3 on the final lap, there seems to be, I don't mind that McLaren wants to sort of pursue fairness in racing. No, no, I think that's a great philosophy. Yeah, I think it is great, but there comes a point where it is to the detriment of a result, and I think this is one of those cases where thirds on the table. At what point do you go, okay, we're going to take that, because I think we can get past Max here, and I think like we think Landis wants to do it. As you say, have a go invert positions if it doesn't go right, but yeah, I think this sort of, sticking to that kind of principle a little bit too rigidly.

24:35But we saw Mercedes handle it quite well. I thought it was anvil, you know, where they, they got on to say to George, to say to, to Antonelli pass, because he had a chance of getting to, to Norris obviously didn't get anywhere in the end. But it can be done, like I think if it's along as the, the drives have brought into the wall next weekend, it might be me if you've got two number ones. This is a problem that Red Bull obviously doesn't have. But with McLaren, Ferrari and Mercedes, they've got, you know, two drivers who, you know, one week, one could be in next week, the other. Just, you just got to utilize what, who's got the pace at that moment, surely. Especially if you think that the noise has gotten outside, the shot of the championship probably, I think it's too, too long a shot, isn't it? But yeah, I was a little bit frustrated that we could have had a nice race between, you know, our last two world champions, Norris and the Stappen and instead of the McLaren's 40th, other than Max's sort of drove away. I think, yeah, my theory is that McLaren doesn't want to have to make that decision and it doesn't want to have to make the difficult strategic cause and by, to do that, it wants to have the absolute fastest car

25:36to the point where the drivers could just sort of decide between themselves on the circuit and it takes kind of the onus away from the team. And that's great when you do have the fastest car as they did in, let's say, the first two thirds of 2025, but when you're in situations like this and you don't and you need strategic intervention to maximize your position, it does seem uneasy at making those decisions and I sort of feel like at some point they're gonna have to because it will be a difference between, you know, fourth place and not even third place or a win or something like that. Don't have to make that decision at some point. Yeah, yeah. Right, while we're on the subject of strategy and pit calls, so having just, you've just explained very well why it was basically an O-brainer for, Kimi Hansen, Ellie and Max Schraffs to come in during the VSC because they were on the mediums. Ferrari, left Lewis Hamilton out and he'd already said, oh, don't fancy these tires, Chaps, don't think these are very good. And then he stays out.

26:36So can you explain to me the Ferrari thinking? Oh no, maybe not. I think I could probably sit here for an hour and I still wouldn't have an answer for you. It's, one I do have is that, because of the timing of the VSC, it would have been doubtful that Hamilton, he would have gone into the pits. And he'd have lost a bit more time. I don't know if he would have come out on the VSC, I think everyone would have sped up a little bit by that point. Being that as it may, going towards the end of the race on a set of mediums was a risk that Mercedes and Red Bull didn't want to take. So Ferrari was ambitious, let's put it that way. And I don't understand Ferrari's strategic cause. It sort of, it seems to be that it doesn't want to go with the norm, it wants to do things differently. And one time out of 10 that works,

27:39but the reason that these are the normal strategies because these are the ones that work and these are ones that are going to get you to the end. It's like, okay, these tyres are falling off. We should probably pit. Oh, well that's what everyone else would do. Let's stay out of them. Also they had less, really they had, they were risking less because they were already further back. So you kind of, in a way, you more likely to take the pun, you would think, but yeah, just a bit frustrating that especially on their home ground, we'll see the new engine upgrades, they were kind of there, but they're not quite there. Yeah, I guess we need to get on to Charles the Clerk as well. I don't know what he's got against me, but every time I write or say something nice about the Clerk, he then comes out and absolutely bins it. So I don't blame him for the first corner thing. I think Hamilton put his car in a potentially risky place. Don't blame Hamilton for going for it, but you can see on the on board, the Clerk's got the lock on and he's just got no grip. So it's just one of those things unfortunate. But then more than unfortunate is the Ely Clerk's,

28:41the Clerk's crash, which was quite reminiscent of his 2020 off, wasn't it? So I mean, he just, he just leaves a bit more on the ragged edge than the others, doesn't he? Yeah, it does, but it was, in that scenario, he was, what, he was defending against Piaestry, wasn't he? He was sort of wide and he'd gone too wide. He did need to be wide, because Piaestry was still there. I mean, he almost touched. Yeah, just go each other enough for a minute. It is to be wide, but I think there was a point where he could have caused threats a little bit, because by that point, Piaestry was behind. And then, Claire didn't make that correction, because I guess he didn't sort of have that little mirrored signal maneuver moment. He does seem to be someone that he's absolutely determined to stay on the throttle once he's on it. Little bit like he's, he's often Spanish, or pre-qualify, novels of Spanish, was it? Catalonia, whatever they call it now, because Spain's coming up this weekend. Yeah, he's like, I'm on the throttle and I'm not, damn, I'm coming off it. I'm gonna just, I'm gonna stay through it. Yeah, real shame for, for Leclerc and Ferrari,

29:44a bad weekend at home, really, for them. Well, okay, let's look at the complete opposite to that, at least on Saturday. There have, it's rare. So long time since you've had such a feel, good pole position as Pia Gas, that apart from Tato, well, obviously furious, matching his mindset. Pia Gasley, I think it's the second longest weight in F1 history before his first pole after Sergio Blair is. That's just a mega performance all the way through, qualified, actually, wasn't it from him? Yeah, it was, it was excellent. I think looking at M&Q1, particularly, that you kind of got there at the end, and Colopinto was fourth in that session. I think there was a point, no, would you kind of thought, I think it'll get a good result here, I think. I had a feeling, I'll be honest, I sort of had a feeling that it would go very, very well for him. And after that first run in Q3, and he was what, P3 at that point, I had to blow that out of gas. He could be with a shout here. Maybe there is just sort of, he's not gonna find the progression that maybe Russell does or somebody else.

30:46But the truth is that no one really was finding much in the first sector. Russell did find a little bit and then found a tiny amount of greater time. But Alpine just timed Gasly's exit from the pair and everything just perfectly, and he just nailed the lap. And he just all came together and, yeah, I think every, there was nobody that didn't like the idea of Pierre Gasly being on pole. Everybody on the top of that. Apart from to. Now, while he's questioning for you then, so I've recently as a top 10 unexpected F1 pole citizen, on allspool.com. Should I now, I'm gonna have to, this needs to go in, doesn't it? This probably needs to go, needs to, I need to rewrite, add it in somewhere. Yeah, depending on your number 10s. Fatorio Granby at 975 Swedish Grand Prix. I think Gasly's got to go in there. Yeah, I think I've actually. I've actually lost by the competitive order. Yes, it's certainly unexpected. Just to cover off a couple of other things from qualifying, Max just happened no penalty for holding up to Russell.

31:49I agree with that. You, you, you happy? Yeah. Thought that was. Yes, they were a bit too close. Don't think that's Max's fault really. He's still doing the call for. Yes, he's still on a lap. He's still on a lap. I just, yeah, that was a, that was a non thing. And then I mean, I know, I know we slightly disagree on this. Oscar Pierre has to his three place grid penalty for holding up Liam Lawson. Now, I'm not arguing that he didn't hold him up. He definitely did impede him, but my question to you and indeed the stewards is, what was he supposed to do without the aid of one of those vanishing buttons or like Star Trek style transporter? Be, be, be me up Andrea, please. I don't see how we could have got away out the way of Lawson there, because he was actually stopped and it just happened through. So I thought that was, I knew he was going to get a penalty, but I thought that was harsh. Yeah, no, I don't disagree with you. And we did read the Stewards report and it says, yeah, I was going to say it was quite contradictory. Yeah, he basically, he couldn't do anything else,

32:51but it was unnecessary. Yes, it was unnecessary. So basically for being born and being a 401 driver, Oscar Pierre actually got three place penalty. Yeah, I thought that was just, yeah, he was, it was just an unfortunate crossing of paths, if you like. And it was, you know, it was, it was Red Bull kind of making a hash of it if anything, because Lawson was a bit of an afterthought there. He'd done his job. Oh, yeah, he'd gone there, Matt Tushitoli, awesome. Yeah, it's like, yeah, you know, he's done his job. Let's give him his pound of flesh and give him a go. Didn't really work. So I mean, just going back to Gassley briefly. So we've obviously lost an out of the picture and look like in the barrier, seventh place with Gassley in the race was, I was surely the yacht sort of they could do, really. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, it's just even through, you know, through the practice sessions, you knew that the Alpine race pace wasn't going to be there. Yes, they can sort of pull it out on one lap. And it was, you know, they trimmed out the car quite a lot. You can see even though the rear wings on a skinnier

33:52stage to be just because of the straight line mode, still let's see, it's pretty trimmed out. And I think they were just chasing that quality performance. But ultimately, you're at the position where even in the low speed, your tires are just sliding across the ground a little bit more. So you're having to back off on the race pace a little bit. And it's just ultimately, that's the situation that he's in. So seventh was a very, very good return for him. I think maximized everything. I don't think there's anything more that he could do. I mean, even with Hamilton's problems that we talked about, or I say problems not coming in when he should have done. Gassley was still three seconds behind, and he was nearly 20 seconds ahead of David Lindblad in eight. So, yeah, before we finish, I guess, Lindblad, another good result racing ball was eight, probably the best he could hope for. And Colopinto, another one of your mates, Frank Colopinto coming through to night after kind of throwing it off the track. Yes, he did. Which was a shame because he'd been quite decent this week.

34:53Oh, there it is. I mean, you've got to be dead. There's a shot. It's got a good picture, actually. He just came out of a battle with the staff and at that point, over third, and he was run fourth. And then, yeah, there we go. Bit around the crossing. So it's come through tonight. It was good, obviously. He's probably thinking, ah, could've been a place higher, given where Gassley was. But anyway, there we go. So, new track this weekend. Yeah. What's your reckon? Are you expecting? Who's going to be good? To my expect. I have no expectations whatsoever. I shall be there. So you are expecting to be there. So that's what I expect. Yes, I'm expecting to be there. That's how I am. Let's see. I think it's... A lot of drivers have said that it's quite fun to drive, actually. I think that's been the feedback from the Formula 3 guys. They've done a test there already. You sure on the clerk in the Lewis Hamilton, have done a little bit of running there on a filming day. But yeah, you do kind of need to look at what the F3 drivers have said about the circuit.

35:55A lot of red flags in their test sessions over a few days. So clearly, it's sort of very, very sort of tough on the drivers. Once you get the flow of it, it seems that it's going to reward you. But the walls are very, very close. You've got that big looping kind of banked hair pin, which is really going to test commitment. I think it's going to be interesting. Don't think it will be... Yeah, I think it will divide opinions, certainly. I think that would be... That would sum up everyone's 20s, 20s, it would go well. Yeah, well, frankly. And then he thoughts on who might have the right package for the track. This should be... Yeah, I'm saying these will be strong. I think there will be some corners around the circuit that have worked very, very well for Ferrari, what it requires, little bit of compliance over bumps. Again, it is quite corner heavy, so they should be relatively quick. But I think in the sort of sections where you've got those sort of combined braking

36:55and then during corner sections, McLaren should be quite good around those. So I think it should be quite close among the top three, but it's... You know, I said, last time Ferrari would do good at Monza and clearly that hasn't happened. So... No, they've been wronged. They've been wronged, they've been wronged. They've been wronged, they've been wronged. OK, well, no, we're going to keep asking you anyway. Thanks very much, Jake. But also, Lake, thank you very much for joining us. We'll be back soon with another Auto F1 race review.