How Did Max Verstappen Claim Pole? And Other Qualifying Reactions - 2025 Japanese GP

[00:00:18] I think we're live. Yeah, I think we are live. If you can hear us guys, drop us a hello and drop us what you think of qualifying from today because we've had so much time to prepare and Kunal and I are still not over and done with our preparations and our analysis from qualifying. Because that Kunal, that was a qualifying session. That was Max Verstappen or Pole for the first time in nine months. So much has happened since then. It's unbelievable.

[00:00:44] Was that a qualifying session or was that a Max Verstappen special all along? Because at the end of the day, I think it was just Max Verstappen. My goodness. Magical Max, as we call it. Call him what you want. Super Max. I think Fernando Alonso has already taken Magical Max. But it is so crucial to dissect how on earth did he really pull that off Samuel. That's the key thing.

[00:01:11] I think I have an answer to that. And a simple answer to that question is because he is Max Verstappen. Nobody else can do it. It's a cheat code. It's like having a 95 rated player or having Ronaldo or Messi in your FIFA Ultimate team. Just because they're Ronaldo or Messi, they can do anything. They can shoot from the halfway line and score. They can dribble past 10 people and score. And your only response to that is because they're Ronaldo or because they're Messi. Same in Formula One, Kunal. You can only get a pole position with a car that's been struggling badly.

[00:01:41] And has often faced issues with a second driver. And put that into P1 because you are Max Verstappen. I think we've reached that level of greatness. Well, I don't understand the FIFA scoring. I definitely don't understand the sport of football. As they say, you need just one ball to play the sport of football. What Max needed was definitely more than that today. Because he said he almost would have crashed five times on that lap, right?

[00:02:08] He said turns one and two, turns six, seven and eight. And at the spoon corner, he said he almost thought he's going to crash. But Samuel, the key to Max's lap, actually, I'm not going to build up any suspense. Despite everyone saying build suspense when you're doing content online, keep people longer on the stream. No, I'm going to tell you right away based on my readings. Max's lap was all down to tire preparation. His tire preps were so slow. And I was sitting in on his radio channel trying to listen in.

[00:02:36] And his tire preps were so slow or so good that there was once when GP already complimented him, saying this is very good. And he said, now it's time to wake up the tires in turn 15 and gentle introduction. And then his outlap for that final Q3 run was so slow that I think it was Oscar Piastri, or maybe it was Lando Norris, I can't remember,

[00:03:04] who was actually told that that's Max ahead of you. He's having a reasonably slow outlap as well. It was all down to that tire preparation, which gave him the bite when he really needed it. And guys, everyone who saw us in the preview would remember this is that classic driver's circuit where, you know, a driver's confidence in the car, in the package, in confidence and experience even of maximizing these risk opportunities,

[00:03:34] or, you know, while out at the circuit is what delivers lap time. And that's what Max Verstappen got today. What a golden lap. We will remember this lap for ages to come. He'd be a good dad, wouldn't he, Kunal? Because he's easing into the tires, knowing when to wake it up at the right time, not stressing it out too much. But when he wakes up the tires, he has so much of fun with it. He's able to play around, have a healthy breakfast, and then just push it out, send the tires to school,

[00:04:04] and school every single other driver on the grid as well. Because that is how you drive in qualifying. That is stunning. And I don't even know how to describe it beyond the point. Because nobody else can do that. I don't think there's any other driver on the grid who, given the circumstances, and given how tricky this car is, and given how good the opposition is, can pull out a lap like that. And it's not like McLarens, I mean, they made a major error. Lando Norris came out to the media and said that, I think I did everything possible with the car on that lap.

[00:04:33] And I extracted every last tenth and millisecond of it. And still, Max Verstappen was up by 1.2 hundredths of a second. That, by the way, is just 4% of the time you take to blink. That's how close qualifying was. And Max Verstappen was the one who had the advantage in that. My God, he's... Yeah, I think we need to start worshipping him, Kunal. And especially when his teammate, who, by the way, did very well to be very close to Max in most of the qualifying session,

[00:05:03] has qualified in P15. How do you explain that to a layman? You can't. I think the only reasonable explanation is, he's Max Verstappen. He's just the very best. Super Max, as Anike says on our live stream chat. And, you know, yes, we have to compare him to Yuki Tsunoda, etc. But at this moment, I'm still not done talking about Max. Because he's not had a pole position since a really long time. As you remember, I think it's been...

[00:05:32] You know, everyone else has scored lots of poles till Max actually had a pole position. And I actually wrote that down. So I'm going to try and find that while we speak at some point. But since Max's last pole position, okay, and my notes are several. Lando Norris has had eight. Russell has had three. Leclerc had two. Sainz had one. And Piastri had one. So that's how long it's been since Max's last pole position. And his last...

[00:06:01] He's at three consecutive poles here. 2019, 2022, 2023. Two. Right? And now it's his fourth consecutive pole that he's pulled out here as well. So just Max's masterclass. In a car that he's clearly been saying it is still not the best of the class. And, you know, we saw that there were times when Ferrari came close. There were times when Mercedes actually came close.

[00:06:27] In fact, McLaren said, Mercedes is our biggest threat for the race weekend. And guess what? Max has just put it out there. And Sawmill, it could well be one of those damp, wet, damp, dry to wet, wet to dry races. And you know which driver is actually the best of the class when it comes to mixed weather conditions. And Max has actually put himself in the best position to try and be in that battle for the win. And for Formula One's sake, for Max Verstappen's sake, I really hope we have mixed weather conditions.

[00:06:57] Because if it is dry, then the McLarens are going to run away with it. They wanted Yuki to be there so they could help Max with strategy. Right? But Yuki's not there. It will be two against one again in the top three. Two McLaren drivers versus the one lone Red Bull Ranger, as we've called him all these years. But Max will have track position, which we saw in China can turn out to be the most important thing. We saw that with Oscar. We saw that with Lewis also in the sprint race.

[00:07:27] Being ahead does you such a world of good, especially in terms of preserving your tyres. And those McLarens, I don't know if they're set up to race in the front or race in the middle. Because we saw that issue with Mercedes a couple of years ago. Sometimes you're so confident that you're going to be leading, that you end up setting up your car, that it's not the best to follow, but the best in clean air. And then your tyres could end up being even worse, which means you consume even more of them and cannot really fight your way up to the top. For all you know, that might happen if it's a dry race.

[00:07:53] And let's not forget, there is no better driver in Formula 1 in converting a pole position to a race win than Max Verstappen. Let me just tell you the numbers of this. Let me pull this up from my document. Verstappen has had 32 race wins from his past 40 pole positions an 80% pole-to-win ratio. And mind you, a lot of his poles that haven't been converted into wins have come down to DNFs or technical issues.

[00:08:22] Like I can remember the British GP where Carlos Sainz won his first race. I think that was part of it down to that as well. Carlos Sainz also winning in Australia when Max had pole because Max had some underbody issues as a result of that. There's so many instances where Max hasn't converted pole because of some crashes or some DNFs. Given a normal scenario, like Alice has now pointed out in our chat, you just can't beat him. He's great under pressure. And as we saw Suzuka and Monaco, two of the best pole laps. I agree with you.

[00:08:51] In the third best or fourth best car, as Anikir has pointed out, Max is still the best driver out there. And I don't think he's going to lose pole, Kunal. I don't think he's going to lose P1. Be it dry, be it wet. You give Max Verstappen half an opportunity, he's going to take it. And it's clear, he's the best driver on the grid. If that was Lando's 100% and he couldn't get P1, and Max was giving his 100% in the third best car, that tells you all you need to know. Third? I would say it's probably fourth best car as well. It's not the third best in my opinion.

[00:09:20] But, you know, with the Max Verstappen factor, it is so difficult to actually call Red Bull and where they stand in that whole pecking order of the 10 teams in Formula 1. So Max's gap to P1 was 100, right? So Lando Norris was 0.12 slower than Max Verstappen. But guess what, Somal? I was just doing some more math.

[00:09:46] This is not the closest or the smallest pole position margin in Suzuka. There was a margin that was smaller than this. In 2000, Michael Schumacher beat Mika Hakkinen to pole position by 9,000th of a second. Okay. So that's how close it is. But of course, I don't think that... I didn't get to dig when last were three drivers so close.

[00:10:12] Because 400s is what Oscar Piastri was off in P3. And, you know, Oscar was like, to be so close to pole and then still be P3 is what is painful, right? It's the first time Oscar Piastri is outside of the top two in qualifying in 2025. And, you know, stats against are going against Piastri, who's, you know, increasingly becoming one of those favorites for the Drivers' Championship in 2025. Like we said in the preview episode, the front row has a heavy victory bias.

[00:10:43] Only three times has a race been won outside of the front row since 1991. That was, you know, Raikkonen in 2005 from 17th, a massive outlier. Alonso in 2006 from 5th. And then Valtteri Bottas won from third position in 2019. So Piastri would be hoping to emulate Valtteri when it comes to race day. But you said something interesting. Max will not give up P1 easily. That's the truth.

[00:11:12] But the truth also, in my view, Samuel, is that he will be forced to give up P1 in race strategy because he will be having, you know, I think if he's holding position and it's dry, he will be chewing his tires more than the others. The McLaren is just so much better at tire management and, of course, curb riding as well. Something that's crucial at Suzuka. So in my view, Max will not give it up, but he'll be forced to give it up in pit stop strategy

[00:11:37] unless Red Bull and Yuki Sonoda find a way to get themselves involved at the front, which seems doubtful. But we haven't really seen too much of dry running properly, properly as well. I mean, the race simulations do definitely show that McLaren are faster. But race day is something else. Race day is when Max Verstappen comes alive. That's the big factor, right? Who would have thought, Kunal, after looking at qualifying and all the data, that we would have Max on pole position in the first place. I'm backing it. I'm riding my luck here.

[00:12:06] I'm saying that Max will still prove to be the differentiator and the X-factor and will continue to go on and get the win. But that's the difference, right? You're backing Lando or Oscar. We'll find out who in a second. And I'm backing Max. I know Sundaram is somewhere backing Fernando Alonso still. But that seems unlikely as he's digging up his numbers. We still miss F1 stats, Guru. But he's coming up with some fun stats that we'll all be talking about tomorrow. So that's why he's not here. But yeah, I'm backing Max for the win. I'm still going him.

[00:12:34] Because at a driver's circuit like Suzuka, I think the driver makes a big difference in terms of saving the tyres, doing well here, being the X-factor when others start to fight. And I do sense that somewhere, some McLaren driver will have to pick up the pace and be a little urgent. Because I don't think Piastri will digest being in P3 that easily. He's going to fight at the front, for sure. And if there is a fight for P1 and P2, I know who I'm backing for that.

[00:13:03] I'm actually wondering when will Piastri get involved with Lando Norris? Because I would love to see a Piastri vs. Norris battle without papaya rules, number one. And Piastri taking the battle to Max Verstappen. Could Suzuka actually give us that box office battle, which we've never seen. We've seen what Norris vs. Verstappen looks like, but we've not really seen what Verstappen vs. Piastri looks like. And if I remember correctly, he was in the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix last year

[00:13:32] when Max just spun Piastri out. Hopefully that doesn't happen. Because on one hand, I also want Piastri's Drivers' Championship, hopes to not take a spin just because he was engaged in battle with somebody like Max Verstappen. Yeah, and as our very good friend F1 Statscorer has mentioned, Hinchcliffe joked about, James Hinchcliffe, IndyCar driver and F1 TV pundit, joked with Christian Horner about

[00:14:01] swapping Max Verstappen into the racing bulls car because that's a better machine. And Max responded with the beautiful pole position. That's how good he is. Let's answer Aniket's question. Do you have any idea why Fanko TV is not showing the Hindi commentary option? Aniket, let's watch it. Saturday is not Hindi commentary. So we only have it on Sunday for the main races. And at 10.30, at 10.25 a.m. in fact, you'll catch myself and Chetan Narula on that stream commentating on Formula 1 in Hindi. And that's going to be so much fun. We're so excited for that.

[00:14:30] But that's going to be tomorrow. Also to watch for tomorrow, Kunal, should we move on from Max? Should we talk about McLaren briefly? Let's go on to lots of other things that happened in qualifying. What's next? I want to talk about Yuki Tsunoda for a second because that, to me, is the next big story in the entire weekend. And in my mind, I think even though the result might not have reflected how good Yuki was, and this might look like a failure,

[00:14:59] the fact that he's now been outqualified by Liam Lawson in a V-cup, the memes are real. But at the end, I think it shows how much trust Red Bull had on Yuki Tsunoda. The fact that they didn't give him an extra set of soft compound tyres, of a new soft compound tyre, in the Q2 session, because they trusted Yuki to get out of Q2 with just one set of fresh soft compound tyres. That, to me, shows that Red Bull Racing view him as an equal to Max Verstappen, which, in my eyes,

[00:15:28] is beautiful. And that's all the trust he's earned over the course of free practice. So, Yuki Tsunoda, I'd say job well done. Good job. Yes, I think so. I mean, for the first time, the second Red Bull seed, something that we said we need to look out for this weekend, actually got out of Q1, which in itself is great. He's been, you know, two or three tenths of Max Verstappen pretty much every session, which again is great for Yuki's confidence. And, you know, someone, one of the reasons that Yuki said he couldn't deliver that lap in Q2

[00:15:58] was just down to warm-up off tyres. So, what worked for Max Verstappen in Q3, where he put it on pole position, actually worked against Yuki, where he did not warm them up correctly. And that's what cost him performance. And Yuki said, I'm still learning. I'm just bummed that, again, it was such a large consequence of something so small, which is warming up off tyres. But, truth be told, he is learning, he is getting there. And I think just the way in which he's, you know, embraced this opportunity,

[00:16:28] like we said again in the preview episode, is so lovely to see because everyone else is talking of pressure and he's saying, guys, put all the pressure on me as you can. Imagine doing that in Suzuka in front of, you know, 100,000 plus fans, Japanese fans, that too. And, you know, he will look at Max and he will go like, oh my goodness, that was a magical lap. It was, and I don't think anyone is expecting him to do that. He's just looking at and saying,

[00:16:58] looking at that and saying, it's my luck when I'll be older and I have grandchildren, I'll tell them what it was like to race against Max Verstappen where he was so quick, et cetera, which is what typically most of these drivers are going to do. But he's not going to look at it and say, be crushed saying, oh my God, I had the chance to put it on pole and I did not because there was a Max special. And again, you know, McLaren, since you are wearing papaya and we didn't really say much, McLaren led every practice session, including Q1 and Q2.

[00:17:28] They topped all the sessions, but it was the Max Masterclass that sort of took things away from them. But yeah, Yuki Tsunoda, interestingly, Samuel, in Q1, and I've written it down here, in Q1, we had two driver pairings that were separated by one thousandth of a second, which means, let me guess, let me guess. Go for it. One was Tsunoda and Max Verstappen. No, it was Tsunoda and Antonelli. Antonelli. Seventh and eighth. Tsunoda was seventh and Antonelli was eighth.

[00:17:58] Oh, I thought you made teammate pairings. Okay, no, no, okay. Ah, okay, so Tsunoda and Antonelli and? It was Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen. Lewis Hamilton was fifth, Max Verstappen was sixth. You missed one, Kunal. You missed one. Now who? Hulkenberg and Bottoletto. You're talking of only 0. A gap in Q1? Only 0.05. Is that what you're talking? Yeah, yeah. Really? Yeah,

[00:18:27] only 0.05 seconds between them. Wow, okay. Hulkenberg is beaten Bottoletto two times in a row in qualifying. And do you remember what he said on F1 TV after qualifying for Australia that, my God, this rookie is fast. I need to step up my pace. Your guy has done it. Well, you know, I'm glad he's done it. It's good for him. It's good for the rookie also to know that this is what a quick teammate can do to you in Formula 1. And

[00:18:58] both the Sauvers were the only team to get eliminated in Q1, unfortunate. But, again, they both said that that was the maximum that could happen, you know, for their package this race weekend. And I would say, Samuel, that the big change from Friday to Saturday was the wind. And I think that wind was what caught out a lot of people. And what would you pick? I mean, as a fan, of course, I know you're going to say wet.

[00:19:26] But one of the key differences I've noticed between the drivers is Leclerc and Norris were the two front-running drivers who said, we actually want it to be dry. Is it that, is it because they're afraid of Max and the monster he becomes in the wet? Or, well, at least in Leclerc's case, he said, I have gone extremely aggressive with cast setup and I think that setup will work better for us if it strays dry. That's what he said. And then

[00:19:56] Lando Norris, of course, was small that when he and Piastri actually tried to push more with their package, they went slower. But it was the opposite for Max that when he pushed, he actually found more lap time. So, such beautiful nuances in each driver bite, in each story as, you know, as we would read post-qualifying.

[00:20:27] Yeah. And I find that comment to be very interesting but not surprising. Of course, Lando and Charles wanted to be a dry race because it's like asking, would you like to play football against four arms or would you like to have him in an arm wrestling competition? He's four arms. You don't want to arm wrestle him. You want to play football against him. That's the strength. You've got to play to your own strengths and not go to the strengths of your rival which is the wet where Max is literally untouchable. The guy can win from P17. And it is talent,

[00:20:57] not luck. So there's a reason behind that. Wow. But I think it's going to be a very interesting race also, Kunal, because if it is cold tomorrow, as I predicted in our preview episode, I genuinely think that George Russell can be in the mix. Sure, he was not in the top three and you can shed more light on why exactly that happened. But the Mercedes in cooler temperatures has turned out to be a very good race car. In Qatar, last year, they were very good. I remember Las Vegas, they were dominant

[00:21:27] by far and away the best of everyone. Of course, it's not a very slippery surface here so that slightly plays against him because Las Vegas is the ultimate Mercedes circuit that way in terms of car characteristics. But cooler temperatures, a very, very good driver and unlike Red Bull Racing, two drivers in the top five. So, that really helps out. Wait, was Antonelli fifth or sixth? I think it was sixth. I'm getting confused. Six. So, two drivers in the top six. So, that's a genuine strength. And by the way, we'd love to know your opinions too, guys.

[00:21:56] You've been so engaging in the chats and we'd love to hear your comments and what you think about this whole scenario too. But yeah, Mercedes, I don't think we can call them out. No, I don't think we should because firstly, hats off to Antonelli. Just two tenths of George Russell. It's his best start position of 2025, I believe. And let's remember, he is a rookie even more so for this circuit. And, you know, as endearing as a teenager would, you know, sort of sound

[00:22:25] after driving a really quick Formula 1 car across the best driver's circuit around, he said, I couldn't build the confidence I wanted to even though I was sort of making steps. And he said, I felt quite lost after the free practice sessions, but I maximized my qualifying result and I finally put in a decent lap. And then, you know, he said, I still have a lot of work to do. Yes, Uttara Antonelli is leading the rookie championship. Although, I don't believe so. I think Isaac Hartjad

[00:22:54] is probably outshining every other rookie, but maybe in terms of points, yes, why not? But George Russell pointed out something very interesting. And you know, this is what I love about Formula 1, that even though you know what works, there's so much trial and error. George says, I tried something different with the tires on my final run in Q3 and they just ended up being cooler. And they weren't ready when I started the final run. And what did you notice when you were watching his onboard, Samul? Yep,

[00:23:24] turn number one, not very good. He had a bit of a slight, didn't have enough grip. His car aggressively lost grip over there. So he had to make a big correction. And even at the hairpin, his exit wasn't the very best. I don't think he had enough. Or rather, I don't think he had the right tyre temperature because his exit was very slippery. Almost like he was driving a rally car. So maybe too much heat in the tyres or something where he's not able to get them in the ideal operating window. Maybe that could be the case. But yeah, two slides, turn number one,

[00:23:54] hairpin and it all went sideways from there. It also went sideways for Lance Stroll, the lead driver at Aston Martin who scored 100% of the team's points. And Lance said he hit a gust of wind, a 20-kilometer per hour gust of wind through the S's and then it just went away from him in Q1 and he said it would have been tougher to get to Q2. Anyway, Jack Doohan who also got, wasn't he

[00:24:24] eliminated? Yes, yeah, he was eliminated. He was 19th. He was 19th but still 3 tenths quicker than Lance Stroll in P20. And I think Jack Doohan was just 1.1 second away from the drivers, the McLaren driver who topped Q1 if I remember correctly. So that's not too bad. But you know, Samuel, Jack Doohan said that he tried running T1, turn one, entry into turn one with the

[00:24:53] DRS open on the Alpine simulator. And it worked. Well, well, it's, you know, let's not fault him for being a racing car driver, please. I am questioning how good or bad in this case is Alpine's simulator and the team that ran him there. Because did no one at any point point that out to him, that this is the difference between real life and virtual life that's there? I mean, it's a bit of a

[00:25:23] bummer that that's what happened to Jack. He said his seat had two cracks in them. That's how high speed, that's how much damage he faced in that high speed shunt that happened in FP2. And of course, in FP1, he was replaced by Rio Haryanto as well. No! Interesting! That's a flashback from 2016. Do you remember? No, I have no idea what I was doing in 2016, apart from celebrating our Rossport.

[00:25:53] We have two Rios who have now competed in FP1 sessions. There's Rio Haryanto who used to be there for Yeah, yeah. This was Rio Hirakawa or Yeah, let's go. Let's go. But I don't blame you because it's such a fleeting appearance. It's inconsequential, honestly, if we were to put it that way. Yeah, could be. What else is inconsequential? Lewis Hamilton, slower than Isaac Hatchar, 400s off. That's strange.

[00:26:23] Fernando Alonso, Aniket, no, Sadhan Nub. I like Aniket's comment. Yeah, Sadhan Nub is saying what's up with the rookie Fernando. Well, Fernando said, you know, they maximized the package of their car. They just don't have a really quick car at the moment and this was the most that they could pull out. He said, we give it all. We don't have a pace for Q3. On pure pace, we will struggle to be in the points. He's, of course, asked for a wet race. So, I like how the grid is split. Those at the front want it to be dry. Those in

[00:26:53] the middle and the bottom want it to be wet because it maximizes their potential. Aniket is asking, apart from Formula 1, which is your favorite IPL team? Wow. Mine has to be Royal Challengers Bangalore just because of how closely I worked with them on various Formula 1 related stuff. We had the Royal Challengers Bangalore logo on the Force India car for a few races for several seasons. I think it was Adrian Sutl, Nico Halkenberg and Paul

[00:27:23] DiResta who were there playing for one of those collaborated content. They came and played with Royal Challengers Bangalore at the Chinnasamy Stadium in Bangalore. That's my favorite team. Samil, yours has to be Mumbai Indians. Of course, it is. They don't feel like my club anymore after what they have done to Roachamay. Maybe I'm too emotional a sports fan, but that can't be what you

[00:27:53] do to your captain. Come on. I don't feel the same love for the club anymore after that. But yeah, Mumbai Indians. But on the RCB chat, the coolest visual for me of football, cricket and Formula 1 loving kid back in 2011 was to see a Force India Formula 1 car in the middle of the Chinnaswamy stadium and the cricketers, Chris Gale especially, trying to hit balls right at it. That was unbelievable. What an activation you guys did back in the day. You got a fan in me.

[00:28:23] And again, I haven't become an RCB fan as a result of that, but that's still something that I look back and say, wow, that is so cool. Mumbai Indians doesn't have an F1 team collaboration unless the Ambani is actually buyer team, which now they have the money for it, but they don't have anyone who's willing to sell it to them. So unless one of the three Ambani kids were saying, I really want a Formula 1 team as well, it's not going to happen because that's what Vijay Malia did. He said, I have an IPL team, I want to get a

[00:28:53] Formula 1 team. Although the Formula 1 team came first. Zareka is saying, can Mercedes recover from that qualifying drop? I believe so. I don't think I would rule them out of the final step of the podium yet. I still believe, at least based on what we saw, it could well be that Leclerc and Verstappen have put their race cars a little out of position, if that's the way to put it, which gives

[00:29:22] me the feeling that George Russell shouldn't be ruled out. He's in fantastic form and momentum. He said his contract is only 24 hours of a discussion away from Prado Wolf, but clearly lots of 24 hours have passed ever since he could have got that extension. So if Max keeps putting these kind of performances and if Red Bull keeps falling back in the races and doesn't recover in the next few races, there's a

[00:29:57] who do you drop? Who do you drop? I don't know. If I was Thor to Wolf, I'd be so conflicted because honestly, I don't think there's any other driver on the grid. I'm counting out the world champions. I don't think there's any other driver on the grid after Max who's ready to be a number one quite like George. I see something in him that I don't see a Lando or an

[00:30:27] Oscar even still. I don't know, man. It's such a tough call to make. But okay, we must end on this note. We must end on one note, which is your heartbroken note, Carlos Sainz getting a good drop for impeding Lewis Hamilton. I think that was a bit too obvious, just unfortunate. But Carlos Sainz was so close. I wish the

[00:30:57] team would have done a better job, which I understand. And Sadeka is of course saying, can we have three drivers per team? That would be fantastic if we could. Because A, that would just give us more cars on the grid, which I think he said, actually our

[00:31:26] car is a better race car than a qualifying car. And he was just saying hats off to the work that everyone's done in position winning

[00:31:56] becomes incredibly hard. And I get a feeling, again, I could be wrong, I get a feeling Oscar will fight very hard for P2 because if he loses that intra-team battle at lap number one, then obviously papaya rules come in handy and then everything unravels from there. So Lando is the only one who's sort of trying to attack and defend both at the same time, which means sandwich. And sandwiches don't go very well in Japan. They like their tuna apart from bread. They like to have the draw is what I've heard. So Oscar

[00:32:26] Piastri will attack, Verstappen will defend, Lando Norris gets caught out. That's what I think is going to happen at turn one. And just to very quickly get on Sarika's comment on three-driver sport team, that reminded me of Honda MotoGP back in the day because they had a super team once with Casey Stoner, Danny Pedrosa and Andrea Divizioso all in one team. Three Honda bikes back in 2011. Mercedes, do it. Get Carlos Sainz in as well. Oh, God. But what's your prediction for lap one? I get a feeling turn two. We are going to see some

[00:32:57] damage, cars being damaged turn two. That's my feeling. The midfield especially because we've got Tsunoda who's of course knows he has the pace. How clean can he keep? Oliver Behrman is there as well. Lewis Hamilton, Antonelli, so a mix of rookies as well as experienced drivers up there. Fernando Alonso, ever cheeky. I get a feeling turn two is where we will see some action, some overtake, some cars going off, some cars getting beached in the gravel, some front

[00:33:26] wing end plates being damaged. That's possibly what could happen but I get a feeling as well it's going to be Piastri on full attack mode. trying to get P2, P1, whatever he can and then he knows whichever McLaren is going to be running up front will have the prioritized team order or whatever, you know, papaya rules in their favor and that's possibly what's going to happen. I also think Leclerc in general has been a good

[00:33:56] starter in recent times as well so watch out for him. Could it you know we've got like four different teams or three different teams in the top four itself and yeah, all I know is you're going to be screaming in Hindi while the opening lap is happening on the fan code commentary that you're going to lead Sambl tomorrow. That's going to be so much fun. Are you in studio tomorrow or are you going from Bahrain? No, we actually no, I'm in the studio from Saudi Arabia. We don't have a studio

[00:34:25] in for Japan. It's too early in the morning. So our first studio is from Bahrain but my first studio is actually Saudi Arabia. Nice, nice. But studio or not, we're going to be back here live on YouTube after the race as well. I think three hours after the race is what we normally target so that we all have time to have a meal to understand what went down, dig up some data, take a bit of a shower and then just process everything because there's so much to do. And immediately after the race, Kunal and

[00:34:55] Sundarama just hooked onto their laptops trying to find all these data, stats, numbers, trends that I'm just amazed by. And that will also be evident tomorrow in our live stream when we'll be right here on the Inside Line F1 podcast analyzing everything that went down at the Japanese GP and understanding why and how Yuki Tsunoda got a podium because that's Kunal's bold prediction and I'm hoping that that comes true. But thank you for watching everyone. This has been a really fun 35 minutes. Should we end with this last comment? Yeah, we should end with this last.

[00:35:25] Yeah, it's a good comment. Yeah, it's McLaren and spurpled all three sectors but split between Lando first and Oscar's second and third while Max perfected the law of averages. Theoretical lap time and advantage lost 126.760 quarter seconds faster than pole. Are you F1 stats good in disguise? That's a good piece of data my friend. That's very well done. That's how you and I also read data because at the end of the day it is about

[00:35:56] stringing a lap together. That's the beautiful way of putting it. You can be fastest across all sectors on different laps but what matters is are you the fastest on that particular lap when you need to be. Max being max like I said turns 1-2, turn 6-7-8 and spoon is where he said he maximized his risk. Again a very philosophical way to end it is drivers know where they leave lap time on the table. That's another quote we end up hearing a lot of times post qualifying

[00:36:26] that I left some time on the table. They know where they can risk more. It's just about how much of that risk they are able to eat on that particular lap. For example, if you can eat 100% of that risk, you actually don't eat that 100% every single corner. You're going closer to that 100%. We've seen Fernando Alonso say this before that, my goodness, if I keep driving, and this was last year, if I keep driving Q3 laps this way, I will crash

[00:36:55] one day. It's all about going as close to that 100% and then bringing it back. And going as close to that 100% and bringing it back. And that's just what Max did today with such beautiful Max magic, as we call it. And it's not good manners in Japan to leave anything on the table half empty, be it lap time, be it food. And Max respects Japanese culture quite a fair bit. He did excellent today. But that's the note we will end on. Let's see what's going to happen tomorrow. Send in your questions and predictions to Uttara on our social media page. She's managing

[00:37:25] it so well and we'd love to get all of your predictions and questions there. And she can chat with her and you on our live stream tomorrow after the race as well. So stay tuned for that. Like, share and subscribe to the Inside Line F1 podcast and please stay updated when we go live next because that will be a really fun episode after the race tomorrow. Okay then, we'll catch you tomorrow guys. Bye-bye.