Who will win in Melbourne, and how is the F1 field shaping up? Australian GP Preview

Hello and welcome to Pit Tour, brought to you by Shannon's.

On today's episode, it's Australian Grand Prix Week with Formula One's season opening

race just days away in Melbourne's Albert Park.

But not everyone is ready for the first Grand Prix, with questions over Aston Martin's

participation this weekend.

My name's Michael Luminato, it's great to have your company and the company of my

co-host.

Much like Honda, he knows 2026 has started much too early, but unlike Honda, he's ready

for it.

It's mat patient.

Oh, I thought about ready for it, but we were just talking on VIVA for that.

It's one of those things you look up and go.

It's Australian Grand Prix Week.

We've known this to be true for months, of course, but has stuck up on us a little bit,

but of all the years to have the first race, I'm super excited that we have it this year

because it's the new look Formula One, we get the first taste and there's a lot of

pre-event, isn't there?

But the best thing is going to be Friday, FB1, we see cars out on track.

Some of them will go around for the majority of the hour.

Some of them may not do many laps at all, but at least we get to actually start talking

about the narrative.

So I'm super looking forward to Friday and getting the season underway.

Yes, of course, we had a similar vibe last year when we got the first who was Helmton

Ferrari race and didn't that story go well for the rest of the year.

So brace yourselves for 2026 and how this is going to go to go.

This is going to be one of the more extreme circuits as well for the new Formula in terms

of how the engines work.

Talk a little bit about the engines, perhaps a little bit later on.

And certainly as we go through, what we're expecting for this season because to preview

the Australian Grand Prix for you, we're going to go through effectively team by team or

group by group, what we expect those groups to be anyway based on pre-season testing.

No guarantees, any of these are right.

So I would probably hold off taking your money to your local bookie to put anything down

based on what we're about to say.

But this is the vibe at least as Formula One heads in a somewhat haphazard way anyway

towards Melbourne this weekend.

And let's start at the front of the field, of course, this is the big ticket stuff and

this is where we expect local favourites from El Berne and Oscar Piastra to be competing

anyway.

Among the front runners, the vibe seems to be, Matt and we touched on this briefly last

week.

We can spend a little bit more.

The front four from the last couple of years as we've come to know it continues to be

the front four Mercedes McLaren Ferrari and Red Bull racing all look roughly in the

ballpark.

We don't know how big that ballpark is after testing, but they're all roughly there.

So one outlier for me, and we may as well start here, given that's where Piastra is,

is McLaren, not because I thought there's anything to look particularly suspicious about

their pre-season testing, but it's the only non-works team in that top four.

And I wonder if that's going to become something we talk about over this season.

Yeah, I think so, perhaps with the early season rate of engine spec, perhaps.

I mean, I know we're going to see these cars in very similar spec in Melbourne and beyond

that.

When you mention those top four teams, I was going to slightly take issue with you.

Oh, you slightly.

I don't like to disagree with you too much on this podcast because you are hosting after

all.

But I've kind of split it.

I reckon with this about four different tiers of teams amongst the 11, and we'll get

to the team, I think, is at the top of tier one, tier one A, perhaps in a sec, but sticking

with the McLaren question, I think to my mind, there's a lot of, when I say uncertainty,

I don't mean that in a bad way.

I suspect that they're not going to be particularly good, but I wasn't sure we learned the full

picture from them in testing relative to the other three teams in this sort of first

group that you mentioned.

I still think there's a few unknowns there, not for bad reasons, but I just think there's

a little bit that's inconclusive.

And I guess one way to look at that is you can trust in the body of work that they have

because they are now a two-time rating constructors champion.

So the concept of them may be being a little bit behind the eight ball, or we don't quite

trust them.

I don't think we have that conversation in 2026.

Maybe we had it in 2024, but there's proof of concept there.

I think they will get it right, but I'm still not a hundred percent certain where they're

going to be in that top group at the moment.

And I guess there's two ways to look at that.

Yes, there's more headroom for them as the season goes on.

It's just a little bit of a shame that I'm not going to say they're going to be at their

weakest, but they're going to be at their most inconclusive, perhaps, this weekend in

Australia, because I don't think the McLaren we see in Australia is going to be the McLaren

we see for the rest of the season.

Which, look, if Oscar Piastry gets on the podium, we don't have to write that, no, Australia.

It has ever been on the Australian Royal Prix Formula One podium ever again.

They're happy days for all of us, but I just wonder if McLaren's going to be the

best version of themselves this weekend, and if it might take them a little bit of time

to come to the boil.

I don't know whether that's your conclusion from preseason testing, but that's how I felt,

just a bit not sure, I guess.

That's certainly been the way the team has been forecasting its own performance in

Australia.

In a Q&A recently, that they were going to be playing a defensive game for the opening

part of the season.

But they said this even a couple of months ago before the car hit the track, that while

there have been many big upgrades already to several teams Ferrari, for example, for

pretty big upgrade, I think it was in the second Bahrain test Mercedes as well.

McLaren's taking what feels very much though, like the McLaren approach for the last few

years, which is, wait and see, buy your time, big upgrades come when we're certain of

them.

It's not sure when they will start coming this year, but they've said, and perhaps I'll

be lying, who knows, we'll find out when they get here in this total vis-ter-action.

But there are no big upgrades in Melbourne, so essentially the car they've been testing

with is fundamentally the car that will be in Melbourne, which isn't necessarily a bad

thing.

Like you say, we don't know, but it feels like it'll take much like 2024, I suppose,

when the team powered up to eventually we need to construct this title.

If you're going to win it, or they're going to be in the mix, I think it'll be a slow

build-up towards that.

They've got 24 rounds to do it plenty of time for that build-up, but I think that seems

to be the vibe.

Unless, of course, there's so much sandbagging and restriction going on among all the teams

that actually the order is dramatically different to what we expected from testing, and maybe

they do just emerges the fastest car.

Yeah, for those of you playing Bingo at home, you can cross sandbagging off your Bingo

car, because we've got to note the first five minutes of this year's episode, but that

24, 25 points really important, I think.

This feels like more McLaren 2024 spec, coming into the Australian Grand Prix with promise

but not the finished article, and then they slowly build and become the best team by the

end of the season.

Last year we arrived at Albert Park, and we were finding pretty slim reasons to not install

McLaren as favourites.

They looked like they were going to dominate Albert Park, and they did dominate Albert Park

and Oscar Piastry was going to be on the podium, and then it rained and so on and so

forth.

But last year, the fact that they were running 1-2 for most of the weekend in whatever

order it was was no surprise whatsoever.

I'd be really surprised if we saw that this week.

They're going to be there and they're about, but I think they're going to be a team that

does the steady improvement as the season goes on, because as you've said, this is the way

they've gone racing these past couple of years.

2024 was a classic example of that.

Was it the Austrian GP?

Yeah, they thought that'd be great.

I've seen to remember, I think it was 24, maybe it was a British GP.

I think Miami was the first one, Norris Scott, that's right.

Yeah, that's right.

Maybe Austria was when Piastry finally, they finally found their level.

Yeah, that's right.

That's where I'm thinking Austria.

And then from there on, they were clearly the team to be, despite not winning the World

Championship at the end of it.

And then last year, at the start of the season, they just did a leg of one, weren't they?

So I don't think we're going to see that for 2026 and how much that storyline you brought

up earlier about them being the only customer team in that top four.

How much of that is a factor or whether that's just a storyline of convenience, I guess,

for the other three.

I'm not really sure yet, but they'll be strong.

Will they be strongest?

To me, no, because I think we were talking before about those top four teams, I would

divide them in.

I think there's a one A and then there's a one B category in that top group.

And I think one A category, one A only has one team, I don't know about your thoughts,

but to my mind, Mercedes has to be in one A, don't they?

That is my feeling, but I wonder how much of that is simply, we've been hearing rumors

for a year, maybe longer, that Mercedes is on the front foot with these regulations.

These rumors, they all come from somewhere, and I'm not saying they're planted in any

way, because it seems like they're pretty accurate based on pre-season testing, completely

the most laps.

We're always near the top of the time sheets.

Looked like a team that really knew what it was doing, although we shouldn't forget

too quickly that that first Bahrain test was hampered by quite a few reliability issues,

although the second wasn't.

I mean, that's the point of testing.

Every team will say anyway in response to problems.

But it certainly feels like a team that looks confident, that feels confident.

It has an engine that clearly is working very well, even though it tried to tell everybody

that the Red Bull engine was the best.

I think by the end of the testing, it was pretty clear that the Mercedes was at least competitive

for the top spot.

They've got George Russell.

I think we talked about the end of last year.

It feels to me like a driver who's ready to be fighting right at the front, and he proved

that last season's a very polished performance from him.

And Ray Kimmy Antonelli looks like a very solid number two, based on the end of last

year.

Of course, he's still a teenager, I'm pretty sure, I wouldn't expect him to be a number

one just yet.

It feels like this team's ready to be back at the top, and it feels like the stars of

a line again in a way they just weren't really, obviously, during the last set of regulations

technically, but even just the way the team is going about it's business.

Yeah, that's the key point you just mentioned there.

It says like a silly thing to say, teams to be have body language, right?

You can tell when they know that they think that they've got the answers to be at the top.

There's not a swagger as such, but if you're looking at posture and formula one team,

as Mercedes right now is standing very upright with the shoulders back, excellent posture.

And we look at that, because I'm looking at the way they've attacked the preseason, and

I'm looking at it going, this looks convincing.

It also looks familiar.

This looks like the Mercedes, perhaps, an iteration of the ruleset previously, maybe

not as far back as 14, but certainly through that Lewis Hamilton winning era, through

the back end of the teams, the 20 teams, there was just that inner belief and confidence

that they knew what they needed to do to get it done, and they knew their areas of superiority.

I'm getting vibes a little bit like that, perhaps the only reason that I'm a little cautious

about that is that we still need to see it when it actually matters.

I don't think they were that disappointed.

They didn't headline the times at the end of the test.

It's almost a perfect outcome for them, and that they were reliable, and they put a lot

of case in, and the car looked good.

But no one was talking about them being top of the time sheets and running away with

it.

And that's almost the perfect situation if you're a team like them.

We mentioned before about being really interested to see what happens once the cars get on track

for FP1 in Melbourne.

For Mercedes, I am so looking forward to Q2, Q3.

I think that's going to be when we might get that first answer like, oh, okay, maybe these

guys are in their own little category, subcategory at the top of tier one.

I suspect that may be the case, and I think if you were, as unknown as this race weekend

is, and we'll get to the circuit and we'll have you in a minute, but to not imagine a Mercedes

on the podium, and perhaps on the top step is a bit of a stretch at this stage, I'd say.

Yes.

One, a, first among business class, I suppose.

Indeed.

They're looking forward to, as I'm sure they are actually getting onto the track and starting

to do the business.

I'm not sure what the emotions inside Ferrari would be at this point.

Maybe a little bit of optimism because certainly their tests seem to go pretty well.

Both drivers seemed cautiously optimistic about where they'd landed, not necessarily

in the sense they think they're at the front that the nightmare of 2025 is behind them.

That seems at least to be the case.

The car feels like a happier one to drive at a minimum, whether or not it's very fast

or very slow.

You top the times, but times and pieces in testing, they are what they are.

I can't read too much into them.

But I think that's, for me at least, and I wonder if this is a little bit true for Ferrari

as well, Q2 and Q3 is going to be somewhat tense of a moment.

Yes.

You're just going to be reading and find out whether that's slow build through testing

that looks, that looks pretty confident, admittedly, this was a team that also seemed

like it really was said on doing what it was doing and it was working, whether or not

that was accurate, that accurately describes where that car is at, because the drivers

we know are there.

Okay.

Some question marks this year, admittedly, around Lewis Hamilton, but we know he's potential

and we know the theoretical potential of Ferrari, even though it's very rarely met.

I think that's quite a big moment for Ferrari.

I agree.

And the point you make there about the, I feel that they'll be slightly more on edge

through Q2 and Q3 than perhaps some of the other teams in that core top quartet that

we're talking about, because to me, they probably have the greatest variance and that can

come from execution, it can come with all sorts of other things that traffic that everyone

else has to deal with.

But I'm not so much looking at Lewis, it's good to hear that Lewis Hamilton is optimistic.

It still amazes me with him that after all these years and how experienced he is, that

he still rides such an emotional rollercoaster, either it's the best day of his life or the

worst, even now in 2026.

So in my mind, if the car is a bit easier to drive, a bit more benign, then we're going

to see his performance as lift, but then Charlotte Claire, is there a better one lap driver

and formula?

I don't know.

There is.

I mean, he hasn't had the machinery to necessarily show that the last couple of years.

A Ferrari on pole in Melbourne, it's of, you know, we've seen it before, things tend

to go pretty well where Ferrari's qualified very well in Melbourne, particularly.

But yeah, the execution and the tension aspect, you get the feeling that if they have

us in good Q3 and maybe both cars are in the top five or certainly on the first three

rows in Melbourne, it's not going to be a proof of concept fist pump.

Yeah, we did this moment.

It might be more an exhale of relief if they're able to do that because, you know, typically

if Ferrari, if there's a wave of road or trip itself over in these situations where they

might have an advantage, they tend to find it.

So if they can be in the top two to three rows in Melbourne, I think that will be a bit

of a relief for one and just take some of the pressure off of this early part of the season

because they like so many other teams.

The whole of last year was wait till next year, wait till next year, wait till next

year.

Well, we don't have that anymore.

We're here.

And, you know, the time for talking and the time for all this optimism is kind of coming

to an end because on Saturday afternoon in Melbourne, we're going to get our first.

The first votes will be in, if you like, the verdict will be in on which teams have actually

got things right and then the real story starts.

And for the sake of the show, I think it would be really good if Ferrari was able to convert

that preseason promise into something on Saturday.

And to me, the wildcard here is Red Bull Racing, which is somewhat surprising to say over

so many years.

The team started testing very well.

Its engine learned, earned a lot of praise.

Some of that was probably a little bit heavily layered on, but I think we shouldn't

track from the achievement and we can tell this by comparing it with the Audi engine and

certainly the Honda engine, but Red Bull powertrain's first power unit from a ground-up

operation looks competitive, looks enough to be among the front runners, which is it

which are pretty significant achievement.

The team we know can win titles.

Max Verstappen came with only a couple of points of winning the title last year, despite

the car being pretty ordinary, so much so that Yuki said it was sacked for driving it

by the end of it.

New teammate, you know, Isaac Hadger this year, that'll be an interesting comparison first

of all, particularly given the way these engines seem to want to be driven, seems to be a

Max Verstappen thing as much as he seems to dislike them.

But this is the team I'm really struggling to place.

Despite being a works manufacturer, despite being relatively stable as well, notwithstanding

to management changes at the top and the new engine, I can't figure out where I want

to put them in the order.

And I think that's a separate question, because what clouds that a little bit is because

they have the ultimate difference maker in the sport in Max Verstappen, if they just had

a perfectly acceptable lead driver and an experienced teammate that Hadger is only coming into

a second season, I think where we perhaps put them in the pecking order is far different.

You know that they have a guy that, given the slightest sliver of opportunity to do something,

and if it requires a different driving style, even if it's one that he might not like or

might not necessarily want to come to terms with, he feels to me like he'll be the quickest

adapter out of any of these drivers.

And you mentioned the thing about stability before, and I always look at this with Red Bull

because their story began here all those years ago.

It's bizarre to me that Red Bull Racing in 2026, you look at the continuity of senior

people they've had over the course of the journey now.

This is a Red Bull Racing with no Christian Horner, with no Adrian Newey, with no helmet

Marco.

It's a team that we know, and it looks the same as a team that we know, but the one

hole over is Max Verstappen.

Right?

It's obviously a lot of senior people in management positions there that are going along

and engineers and what have you, but Verstappen to me, this is a separate question if they

have insert other driver here in the lead car over the course of the weekend.

And the uncertainty is like you know that he can drag a car, attune to positions that

may not necessarily on merit should be in because we saw it last year, it was the 2025

World Championship.

The fact he was even within two points of Norris at the end of the season, given what those

two guys were driving, was an achievement that probably only one driver could have done

last year.

I don't think is anyone else that could have done that.

So that's why they're, seems funny, just talk about Max Verstappen as a bit of a wild

car, but I kind of feel that's where they are this weekend.

He could do something absolutely extraordinary, wouldn't be surprised because we've seen

it before.

But yeah, I'm not super sure about them at the moment because there's just been so

much change, even despite the fact that that new engine, you know, the new engine program

rolled out pretty seamlessly, you know, to say, yeah, I'm really smoothly, and I think

you're right.

I mean, I also think Verstappen, he could come to embrace this year as much as the driver

who only obviously wants to win.

I think we saw the second half of last third of last season, really, he really embraced

the irritant role, I think, I wrote this a bunch of times last year, like he, he revels

in being an agitator, he absolutely loves that role.

And we talked about this on the pod last year, a couple of times.

We know that he's probably the best driver in the field.

We know that he's the best champion in the field, and he's also the best underdog in

the field, which is a sentence we never thought that we'd have to say because we'd ever

had reason to know that last year, I just thought it might have been his best formula

one season to spite up winning the World Championship.

I know that sounds counterintuitive, but he was so good at being the potential spoiler

of being the underdog that I, I kind of liked underdog Max, a lot more than I liked

dominant Max because it was a different side to his career that quite frankly, we never

thought that we were going to see.

Yes, and we'll let him see what side of Max we see this season.

Before we get to the rest of the field, let's go to move of the week brought to you by

Shannon's.

We are now pretty much in the thick of the motorsport season internationally, at least we've had

supercars, we've had MotoGP now at the weekend.

What caught your eye, Matt?

Well, I was going to mention something that happened in the MotoGP sprint race, but you

told me off here before they have watched it, it's not always spoilt for you.

Everyone else has watched the MotoGP sprint race and you can go, oh yeah, that bit, don't

tell Michael, he hasn't watched it yet, but move is a way to stop listening for a few

minutes.

That's fine.

That's like standard podcast for a leak and just tell you your headphones off.

Move of the week for me, and this is a slightly left-field one, I'm going to stick with MotoGP

in Thailand because it was the highest profile thing that happened last weekend, was after

an absolutely grim race for Yamaha in Buriram that they basically stopped all four of their

riders from speaking to the press because these were so grim.

And Yamaha's managing director Paola Pavessio came up and threw himself in the fire for

10 minutes in front of the world's press, explaining why Yamaha was so grim and how things

are so terrible, but there is going to be a way back.

What's really interesting is that, and you know, this is a more, you know, not as living

at day to day as I do with MotoGP, there's a huge rule change set for 2027, right?

And where the whole 1000 CC era is going in the bin, we're going to have 850 CC motorbikes,

no error on them, it's going to be very, very different formula.

Yamaha has taken this really drastic decision to run a V4 engine project that's probably

not ready this year with an eye to next year.

It brings them into lockstep with all the other MotoGP manufacturers, but the project

isn't really ready.

And it's very unlike a Japanese company to throw something that's still in a developmental

stage into the white heat of competition, knowing the prospect for embarrassment.

And I cannot tell you in Burram, how bad the Yamaha's were.

The only reason that any of them score points was because other people had crashed out

or retired and they were half a minute off where they should have been.

They're in a class of one and it's a class of one you don't want to be in.

So I thought it was really interesting that rather than let this story just sort of run

its own course, Yamaha, so tried to get on the front foot with this.

Sent its most senior person out in front of the press to try and explain it.

And as moves go to gag your own riders after one race and for have a senior measurement

figure come out and put his head up and said, this is all going wrong.

That is one hell of a move, whether it's a good PR move or not, I don't know, but I admire

the bravery.

So in the true tradition of left field moves of the week, that is mine.

Yes, I like it a lot.

I like that the courage with it must have been required.

All courageous things might have happened on the track all the way there and disembowel

yourself for 10 minutes in front of the pdf, very well done.

And a very good pick.

Also, I'm sticking left field, I'm going to go to Formula One in the build up to the Australian

Grand Prix, the start of the season.

The end of last week, the World Motorsport Council met, the F1 Commission also met before

that.

Side on last minute rule changes, as is a bit of a tradition with Formula One, it changed

the regulations a few days before the start of the year.

And I'm going with this one, the move to drop the two-stop rule from the Monaco Grand

Prix last year, as it should, should it have been implemented last year?

Well, I think we can't blame anyone for trying, I suppose, but certainly a fair few teams

and drivers suspected what would happen, did happen, which was everyone would go even

slower than usual to give them time, themselves time and space to make their second pit stops.

No additional action was brought to the race, in fact, ended up looking a bit more like

a fast than it normally does, so that won't be the case this year for Monaco.

Not sure if there's any talk of any other random left field rule changes to try and spice

up the Grand Prix, maybe there's some optimism that actually these cars will be very suited

to the last couple to Monaco, might at least look more spectacular, even if there's no

additional racing.

No, fair call.

I mean, I think it's one of those ones, as soon as that came in last year, we all spotted

a loophole, the way the teams were going to exploit that last year.

And ostensibly, that was a rule ported to improve the show, and God knows the show at Monaco

needs improving, but I think we all saw that one as soon as the ink was barely dry, so

this isn't going to work, because this is how teams are going to tackle this.

So I will give Formula One Q-DOS for not stubbornly sticking to this and say, no, it'll work,

just give it time to realize, maybe not, and anything that brings any spectacle to Monaco

at this point, I will for it, because it looks pretty in the first laps great, and the

charge up the hill and all of that, and then wake me up when it's over, it's a, it's

kind of become one of those sorts of races, but when it's only one of 24 hours, Mark,

we can get away with these things.

That's true.

That is true.

The only question now is whether or not Christian Horner will be in charge of L-Pain by then,

and at that point, we can start the countdown to him suggesting they just elongate the track

towards the east, which will never happen, but Mark works someone suggested, and we can

all talk about that for a week while we wander around.

Excellent.

So bad.

Let's move on now to the rest of the field ahead of the Australian Grand Prix.

And why, why don't we start talking about L-Pain?

I want to compare them with Williams, the two Mercedes-powered teams in the midfield.

The other two Mercedes customers on the grids, Williams, of course, headed the midfield pretty

comfortably in the end, last season, directory seemed ready to be upwards, and they missed

a vast line of tests, and it all felt very 2019, or even, was only a couple of years ago,

as well, they missed the first stage, and they were the car turned up undercooked.

Yes.

L-Pain, no finished last.

The worst last, I read, I haven't checked the numbers on this, but I trusted the worst

last in F1 history, both points margin, remarkable, but here they are looking fairly competent

after testing with that Mercedes engine and not the Renault engine in the bag.

How do you see these two teams fearing?

Yeah, it's interesting because you've sort of got this next cluster of teams in what

I'm calling tier two.

I would not have expected to have L-Pain probably at the top of this list.

I mean, it looks like the Mercedes power plant's going to be the one to have, and I'm wondering

if this is more a common tree on Williams than it is on L-Pain, and that Williams did

miss the first test and the cars overweight, and they're certainly not starting from a

great place.

But if you're L-Pain, this is why you shut your own engine program to go buy one from

somebody else.

And the whole of last year felt that they were just in this holding pattern because they

were developing an engine, they weren't going to use it anymore, and they were kind of

it.

They were so much of an afterthought, every day on the MPA Gasly had popped up and you

go, oh, L-Pain's in Formula One, Pia Gasly's in Q3, that's nice.

I think I'll call up into a score as many poises Jack do and did, so there was nothing

much to talk about there, but it's really interesting that you can see, I'm not discrediting

what L-Pain has done as a team and as a chassis design, but it's pretty clear that Mercedes

engine is good right now, and L-Pain of the customer teams, other than McLaren, is doing

their best job of exploiting that.

And because of how big this rule changes, this is the season where you can go from the

worst last team in the history of Formula One into a credible midfield performer.

This is why you take all the pain of last year, if you're L-Pain, it's just a shame that

Jack doons not the card this year, rather than last year, but that's a separate story.

But they came out of testing as probably the best of that, whoever's fighting for fifth

place group, it's an interesting little fight because I think you'd be shocked if any of

those top four teams fell down into this category, but there is an interesting fight within

a fight here.

L-Pain clearly looks to be the better of the Mercedes customer teams coming into Australia.

And it's either got to be maybe harsh as in that conversation, maybe like a little half-step

behind, but that who's the next best team?

And what we say next best team, that means that you're in Q3 probably, that means that

on a good day you might be finishing top five or six in a race, particularly early in

the season where we don't know how these cars are going to be racing and what's the reliability

like.

These big points on offer here for whoever is that next best team outside the big four,

and it wouldn't surprise me if that next best team right now is out there.

Yeah, it's a really good point, in fact, because I think qualifying is also a little bit

of a question mark in terms of how teams approach that with these engines, with keeping the

battery up to charge and warming up the tyres, all that kind of thing, especially the track

like Melbourne, that if you are that next cab on the rank in terms of order behind the

front runners, it's not outlandish that you actually call qualified head of a few of them,

not necessarily on let's say pure raw pace, this is going to be a weird distinction we

have to make it various times this season, I think, but just by executing better, and

not just because you're on track at the right time, yeah, but just by nailing the way

you've prepared everything, that'll equalise over the season I'm sure, but these first

few rounds, we could be liable to see a couple of surprise performances.

I think Williams is surprising, you know, Alpine, when he was both abandoned last year's

cars pretty much immediately to do this, Alpine maybe talked about it a bit less because

the team was in such dire competitive strates that it was sort of almost crisis leveled,

even though they knew that they were going this direction for this year, which Williams

was pretty open about how much it was devoting to this year while also performing well on

track a little bit surprisingly, I think even how well they didn't the end.

And so I'm not willing to ride off Williams completely because I think my confidence has

been shaken a little bit by how this first season went, but I think the trajectory is

still good.

I think the preparation that's gone in for this season is good enough that I think the

season can be salvaged, just maybe not as good as it should have been, but I think they'll

still be set up for the medium term under these rules to ultimately be at least the best

midfield team.

But we'll wait and see.

I think that's a big question, Mark, considering how much they talked about preparation

for this year has been key really for a couple of years now, but the comparison that you

mentioned has because we don't know, I think the midfield looks as tired as it's ever been

or at least it's unpredictable as it's ever been on the two, I guess, ultimate customer

teams in, in half versus racing bulls racing bulls, very much being the, the B team, I

guess again, at least that's the, that's the approach they're taking to Red Bull Racing

and Haas buying a lot from Ferrari, although I was having to go to branding on the cards,

can you get complicated versus the new works team in Audi.

They bought the Salva team, they've assumed the Salva team to the engine and the chassis

factory are separate, but this is the Audi operation.

I think Audi's probably at the back of this pack, but I also don't feel confident about

making that prediction, nor about really racing bulls.

I'm a bit more optimistic about Haas, but it feels very clouded.

Racing bulls, I am kind of scratching my head as to like, they're racing team, that's

great.

They've had some good drivers come through.

I'm not sure what the purpose of the whole of the years, I mean, they've changed

their mind on it a hundred times at this point.

It's inconclusive for me.

The Haas and Audi conversation, Audi probably starts the year at the back of that group

simply because, you know, okay, the name on the doors different, it's not an exact start

up, but it's you.

And I feel they have more variance and it wouldn't surprise me that they have maybe

higher peaks this year than some of the other teams that we've just been talking about,

but maybe the median is a bit lower than that.

Haas to me, and I've gotten an allergy here, it's going to make your hungry, so you have

to stick with me here.

Haas is the vanilla ice cream of Formula One at this point.

I mean, that it's perfectly dependable that it tastes nice and you know what you're going

to get, but it doesn't really move the needle for me, I've got to say, like, it's completely

fine.

And I say vanilla, that's not, I'm not dissing them in any respect there.

They kind of feel like, oh, yeah, that's just Haas, that's just what they do.

And where that's interesting for me is, you mentioned before about how the start of this

season, we're not sure how it's going to play out, could be a little bit messy, could

be a little bit chaotic operationally, the way these cars needs to qualify.

It would not surprise me at all sometime in these first four or five races that we see

a race where Haas scoops up a heap of points just through being operationally slick and dependable

and making fewer mistakes than the rest.

That's kind of the business model with Haas, really.

And like I said, vanilla ice cream, if it's a hot day and you know, it's nice, right?

It's one of those known things, it's going to be good, there's no ambiguity, I'm going

to be happy with this, they're going to scoop up some points in this early four or five

races just by being Haas, more than maybe some of these other teams.

Yes.

Well advised and I suspect deliberate use of scoop through that analogy as well.

Thank you.

Well done.

I'm not 10 minutes left, we could talk so much more than 10 minutes about these last couple

of teams, one of them in particular, I think, but this is in my backmarkers category as

I'm sure it is for you.

Although perhaps you've got two tiers of backmarkers as well, Matt, which I guess I'm

increasingly having two tiers of backmarkers, yes.

The back row and the one closest to the toilet that's getting the most use on the air

of what I guess, Cadillac and Aston Martin.

For me, in that order, which I'm surprised to say, I didn't think this would be the case,

even if Aston Martin were at the back that they would be last reports out the morning,

we're recording this on Tuesday before the Australian Grand Prix that there was some

consideration from Aston Martin to just not even turn up in Australia.

I think those reporters for that and the race are reporting that, but they will turn up

because they contractually obliged to, they may not have enough engine components to get

to the end of the weekend because they went through so many, Honda has some terminal

battery issues brought about by, they believe, unexpected vibrations in the power unit.

They can't forget how to solve it yet, they'll have some fixes in place and across a lot

of performance.

There are rules that allow for reliability fixes even when engines are frozen.

Almost certainly, though, Honda will get the concessions that will allow at a minimum

one upgrade this year, if not two, depending on how far off the pace they are.

I don't know if the rules have scope to make that decision if they're not finishing any

races to analyze their performance, but that's a question for the year.

But it certainly seems like Cadillac, the brand new team running for our engines, but

built from the ground up, they got its entry only about 12 months ago.

I think it was the end of last January or early last February that they were told they

would be a Formula One team, maybe not finishing last in Australia or perhaps even this year.

Well, and to think that they are only allowed in after they proof that they wouldn't embarrass

themselves or the sport by being in Formula One isn't that amusing, but anyway, we took

a little bit about this last week and it sounds like sort of faint praise when you're describing

someone as being perfectly acceptable or credible, but as far as Cadillac go, the undertaking

to start a new team in Formula One in 2026 is absolutely monumental.

When you've got this huge rule changing, yes, you can recruit from all of the other teams

and build your staff out, and you have two very sensible drivers for a first year team

in Sergio Perez and Valtteri Bottas.

I think what they've done through preseason and the way they will arrive in Melbourne is

better than maybe anyone else might have thought they were going to be, but maybe not

better than they thought they were going to be.

There's been this sort of inner confidence there where they haven't made big grandiose statements

about what they're going to be doing, but in no situation, did you feel that they were

a bit exposed or not quite ready?

They seemed to me, I think they would turn up, they would look good, they would perform

like a Formula One team, they would do a perfectly credible job, and are we going to be seeing

them in Q2 probably, arch, I mean, maybe there's a lap that might sort of be more on what

other teams do, I think, but to see them turn up and be as credible as they're likely

to be and as, you know, step one on this big, big plum that they're on, I think they're

going to be perfectly acceptable this year, but to turn up all the way down here and do

what they're going to do this weekend, I'll be really surprised if they don't do anything

other than compete and hold themselves in really higher steam.

And again, that sounds like faint praise, but when you're a starter with the complexities

of operating in Formula One in 2026, that is a really, really good outcome.

And I think the only people that won't be surprised about them are themselves because

they've carried themselves like this the whole way through preseason haven't they?

Yes, they've been so well prepared, super methodical, I mean, it sounded funny at the

time, but even late last year when, you know, they'd hired people to work and do, they

were running through simulated race weekends, like acting as if they were there, they were

at their presence.

Yeah.

Silverstone going through the routines, doing as much as they could to feel like a real

Formula One team before becoming a real Formula One team.

It would be interesting to see them under the pressure of competing admittedly, there's

probably only so much pressure they're going to be under, they're going to be near the

back.

You never know though, like when Robbie hits the road, I mean, they may at least have

asked and Martin to compete with as long as the Aston Martin car stays on track, but

I also think this is the kind of year and this looks like the kind of outfit where I wouldn't

be surprised to see them pick up the odd point very occasionally.

I certainly don't think they're going to be regular top 10 scores, but in those races

where there's a little bit of attrition, something random's going on, maybe there's a bit

of weather, they look well prepared enough to be in that midfield mix to pick up a 10th

place.

Well, yeah, it appears to get that point of well to be able to get a cue to appearance

that looks very impressive.

And this is where that driver line up is really important because when there is a strategic

dice to roll or something, you can do executionally.

You know that you've got two drivers that are well versed in bringing those sorts of

strategies home.

That's not a variable you have to worry about.

You've got two drivers who are super experienced.

If you do go slightly left field on strategy or there is an opportunity to do something, you're

going to capitalize on that opportunity because the two guys behind the wheel are proven

commodities and yeah, they're closer to the end of their careers in the beginning, but

they're also not going to drop the ball on a chance to actually do something big, which

would make it just be so big for this team to be able to get off that zero sometime in

the first four, five, six races to be able to get some points in the bank as a building

block for the future, I think.

Yeah, now, like we've got to talk about that, because this is why I think you may not

see very much this weekend.

Who knows, judging by the reports, running out of parts, as we said, it is, I think we

can use the word crisis quite openly now, considering there was some consideration of

them not even turning up to Australia.

That's pretty significant, even in that new era, the new team's era of 2009-ish, when

those teams that all eventually fold and they all turned up to Melbourne, they didn't

always qualify.

They didn't always qualify.

As in one, we'll qualify if the cars get on track, but in the hundred and seven percent

rule, pretty confident about that, I think.

I've got to make it there though, but then the weekend essentially becomes for as long

as they can last a test session.

The problem, I mean, it's both a problem and maybe you can see there's an opportunity

that it's clearly the engine that is most holding it back.

We don't know how good the car is admittedly, it could also be very slow, but the major

problem here, the reason we're talking about them as a crisis team, is that the engine

is not reliable enough.

That means if you can fix the reliability, then everything else can start to fall into place

rather than the car you're thinking it being very fast, and actually it's just simply

very slow, that can be more difficult to understand.

But the downside is that engine repairs, reliability fixes, take a long time.

It's not going to happen for Australia, probably not going to happen for China, you'd certainly

be hoping if you're Honda or you'd least basically understood it in time for your home

race in Japan.

Oh, man.

Oh, yes.

I bet they're wishing Japan was back at the end of the year, but this is going to be a very

painful few months if not entire season for Aston Martin, the team that spent big on

being ready for 2026.

Yeah, a Japanese GP in October would be quite a handy route, I wouldn't have, but my

only question to you is, so the race start is 3pm local on Sunday in Australia.

What time is Fernando a lot so flight, do you think?

I think it's 5am Sunday.

10am Sunday, but I think he was saying, I reckon, when he got the message saying, inevitably

his flight was cancelled, I think he said, that's fine.

Yeah.

I never received this message.

Sorry.

I have no idea who you are.

Oh, I never saw it.

I've never shown up.

Look, I mean, look, also, should we just mention that it's 25 years ago that Fernando

a lot so first debuted at Albert Park.

What a statement that is to say.

There's a part of me.

I love Formula One when Fernando a lot so it's fighting for something meaningful.

I think back a couple of years ago when he's standing on the podium at Albert Park, it's

great.

There's different energy to Formula One when he's good, but you mentioned before, the

key thing here is we can't just say, well, once they get the engine sorted, the car

will be fine because we just don't know yet.

And the fact that we're on the eve of a new season, yes, it's 24 rounds.

They are so, so undercooked at this point.

They haven't even been defrosted, less got the other yet, it's so undercooked.

So we just don't know and there are so many, you know, holes in the burst air wall, they're

trying to plug right there.

The first one has to be the engine, right?

You've got to get that sorted first, as you said, not the work of a moment, but this

is going to be a long, slow, torturous season for them.

They're going to clearly be at their worst here.

And I mean, if either car was still running after 15 laps on Sunday, that would be a bit

of a surprise you would have to say, I think they're going to go around for as long as they

can go around.

It just may not be for very long.

Yeah, not for very long at all.

So you're asking Martin Faire and get your photos in as soon as you see him on the track

because that might be your first and last chance to get any good footage of him.

Before we wrap up, I just want to touch very, very briefly on the other last minute rule

change.

It won't come into effect till June a little bit earlier, but Mercedes included his

voters unanimously, all the edge of manufacturers have, to change that compression rule loophole.

I think we talked about very briefly last week, but Mercedes says there's only worth two

or three horsepower that Red Bull thinks is worth 10 times as much.

It seemingly is against Mercedes interest to vote against, to vote for this rule change.

It does also prevent, though, other teams from pursuing similar avenues and there were

rumors that that might have happened.

We did talk about the end of last year, but it does set up that first of June date, which

is between Canada and Monaco.

So after the Canadian Grand Prix, before the Monaco Grand Prix, as a potential little change

in how we understand the formguide to look and potentially how we understand the engine

formguide particular look, which maybe, considering we've got three different manufacturers

in that front runner group, may change the complexion of the season.

Yeah, savvy by Mercedes, I think you would say, because it's one of those, you take a little

bit of short-term potential pain for longer-term gain, because the last thing you want is, if

you've stumbled across something clever and you've maximised that, if it becomes allowable

and everyone else does the same thing, then we're all back to the starting spot, right?

So it's one of those things that politically there would have been a bit of, all right,

then at Mercedes, then we'll go through with this, but yet you, to use a famous model

at Monaco, it's like, we're kicking the candy on the road here, aren't we?

We just take a little bit of short-term pain for longer-term advantage.

It's one of those strange rule changes where I feel that everyone has lost and everyone

has won at the same time, and maybe the status quo maintains in Mercedes who has that little

back to the advantage.

But yeah, it was not the outcome to that little stash that I was expecting I had to say when

that kicked off.

Yes, but again, to go back to where we started this podcast, it certainly sounds like

confidence from Mercedes.

Oh, yeah, let's find out, because this weekend we get some answers at the Australian

Grand Prix at Albert Park, the first round of the season, because that's all the time

we have for Pit Talk this week.

You can subscribe to Pit Talk wherever you get your favourite podcasts, and you can leave

us a rating and a review as well.

This weekend, as I said, is the season opening for me the one Australian Grand Prix with

lights out at 3 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time.

It's also the Supercars Melbourne Super Sprint with races every day, Thursday, the Sunday,

all of which you can catch live on both Fox Sports and KO.

You can give up today with all the latest F1 Supercars and MotoGP news at Fox Sports.com.au.

From Matt Clayton and me, Michael Laminato.

Thanks very much for your company, and we'll catch you next week.