All To Drive For! 2026 F1 Season Preview

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20:34Well, what about that fourth Mercedes-powered team now? The reigning champions, McLaren. Constructors champions for the last two years. Andrea Stella, the team principal, is trying to convince us that they're only the third best team as we go into Melbourne. Do we believe him?

20:51Jolyon Palmer:So, you know, he started off with the fourth best team after Barcelona. It was all like, we're fourth, we're fourth. and now he's headed back to we might be third and i feel like mclaren are on that trajectory already with with being the underdogs which they've even when they had the best car by miles they were saying no no no i don't know every race is tricky they never would just play the favorites and and accept that they had the best car i feel like they're close mclaren same thing two drivers that are that are pushing each other really hard mercedes power unit which is definitely not a hindrance at this stage at the very least it probably will emerge as the best one early on i think they're they're in the in the mix and what about the world champion lando norris um he hit a rich vein of form in the second half of last year how much do you think winning the title will kick him on to even greater heights this year well it's interesting you know

21:47James Hinchcliffe:you you look at you look at athletes and drivers specifically in this sort of situation right so much pressure to get that first championship. And one of two things happens once you achieve that it's either the pressure comes off and you, and you realize maybe a decade later that that pressure was part of what made you good enough to accomplish that in the first place. And the form falls off a little bit, or the other way around, you release all that pressure, all that tension, all that expectation you've got your championship that can't be taken away and you drive a lot freer and that can be a lot faster and lead to fewer mistakes and and smarter decision making so it remains to be seen which way lando goes but based on just what he's saying how he's saying it you know i'm hopeful that it's going to be an even you know leveled up version of lando norris now that the pressure of the championship is off his shoulders should i give you a little stat

22:46Jolyon Palmer:the last driver that didn't back up a championship with another championship was Jenson Button in 2009. Nico Rosberg retired. He didn't have a chance. But it's Jenson Button. So it's, you know, often, as you say, Hinch, drivers that have all this pressure, they have the championship at the end, then have the confidence to go and piece it together without all the questions. And I feel like Lando had more than his fair share of questions as well over the last couple of years. Take it back to 2010 then. Jenson switched teams from Braun to McLaren. Even though he didn't win in 2010, do you think he drove better than he did in 2009?

23:28Jolyon Palmer:I think so. They were probably his best years, I reckon. The McLaren years, 2010, 2011 particularly. And he was a champion. I think you could sense it. Well, Oscar, let's talk about him, Oscar Piastri. It feels like he's still got a lot to prove. We've seen him get better and better from each season to the next. JP, you were watching Trackside in Bahrain. Do you think the way you need to drive these new spec cars will suit Oscar's style? My slight question is whether it will actually suit Lando's style more. Because when I was watching, there was a difference in the attitude of the cars of Lando and Oscar.

24:12Jolyon Palmer:The sample size was pretty small, to be fair. And they were running through various setup tweaks anyway to fine tune their imbalance. But I felt like Lando was happier to have the car on the limit of rear grip more. So on the edge of oversteer. and that's on the on the back of uh last year where certain circuits the lower grip circuits where oscar sort of fell away your austins your mexico's lando again was much happier to drive the car on the edge of rear grip fight some oversteer whereas oscar really wants that rear end planted and then build the confidence kind of with a slightly more understeer or neutral neutral balance but not with it lively and darty so if you watch charlotte claire's run of fast laps at the end of testing he was the king of hanging on to it for dear life keeping speed up and just just braving it through 14 corners and i think your leclerc's your verstappens and you could put norris in that camp as well of a driver that's happy to have it on the edge of the rear because you've got a shorter wheelbase so the cars are naturally a little bit more darty and because of the recharge predominantly where you want to get a load of deceleration done on the rear axle so more rear braking it's going to destabilize the cars more my hunch is that it's going to suit those drivers a little bit more than those that want a nice planted rear end and and and sort of get into the mid corner with with stability more it's going to be track specific though as well isn't it it'll be everything specific condition specific track specific you know you can have a setup even even charl in the last runs it was a little bit inconsistent where he'd gone too much in the direction of oversteer.

25:49Jolyon Palmer:And the balance will still need to be found. You can't hang on to a thing that wants to spin out every corner. And Oscar's proven that he's a fast, adaptable driver. So we will see if he can move from year one to year two to year three. There was progression all the way. If he does that again, he'll probably be champion this year. So there's a lot going for him. I just slightly wonder if we'll see those that can hang on to the car a little bit better with oversteer thrive. And what about papaya rules? We talked about it so much, didn't we, last year? Do you think that's a thing of the past now?

26:23Or do you think they're going to change, adapt the way they go racing? Or do you think everything that JP's just said, it won't even be an issue this year?

26:31James Hinchcliffe:Well, I mean, certainly they hope it's going to be an issue, right? They want both drivers fighting each other and at the front. But at the end of the day, you look at how it turned out. They got a driver's championship and a constructor's championship. So it's hard for anyone to argue that their rules don't work or need any tweaking at all. A, I think that they regret ever saying the term papyrus over the radio and allowing that to be such a thing for the last year and a half. But I don't think it changes at all. I think their approach is exactly the same. I don't think that because Lando has the number one on his car, it makes him number one in the team.

27:05James Hinchcliffe:I still think that you have to earn that on track and on the stopwatch. And the team's going to take the same approach. Because again, you look at the result of last year, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. But just as an aside, do they apply papaya rules in IndyCar as well? Does McLaren apply it there as well? I've not heard the term used in the same capacity on the IndyCar side. I think it's a little bit of a different dynamic because there is no team championship here. Here it's all about the driver champion. So you're never going to give up spaces to a teammate unless you are well and truly mathematically out of it.

27:42James Hinchcliffe:So I think the nature of the championship kind of takes care of that a little bit. All right. What about Red Bull? We've referred to them in passing and how JP thinks these cars will suit Max Verstappen. But that team has been pulling up trees over the last few years, hasn't it? They've got their own power unit for the first time this year and they've hit the ground running. And let's remember that they only founded the company Red Bull Powertrains in February 2021. and here they are supplying four cars, want to supply more in the future. What an incredible effort by Red Bull. I think we should start by saying that, Red Bull powertrains.

28:25Jolyon Palmer:100 % agree. They have done such a good job to turn up and be competitive. Again, I listed already the engine manufacturers that struggled, but they've got a lot of resource, those others, and it takes so much to turn up and be competitive in what is really a kind of an engine formula right now certainly the first half of the year with everyone getting on on top of it so they were reliable they were quick mercedes still think that they've got the best uh recharge capacity which means they can deploy more energy which is an amazing feat if it's even close to being true if they're even in the in the picture which certainly looks like they're competitive in a straight line so hats off and the turnaround i think is just is almost it's almost complete from the fallout up until christian horner leaving in in what june last year lauren mecky's coming in the team falling away adrian newey leaving all the high profile departures max verstappen talking about potentially leaving talking to toto wolf about the mercedes seat if they're even competitive this year on the back of what they did at the end of last year i think it's it's an absolutely amazing turnaround for the whole entity of Red Bull Racing.

29:38And competitive-wise, Hinch, where do you see Max in particular lining up on the grid in Melbourne?

29:45James Hinchcliffe:Well, it's like we talked about, and JP just mentioned it, we talked about how these rules are going to benefit the drivers that have that extra capacity. And yeah, George is one of them, Carlos is one of them. Even for those guys, Max is still a standard deviation above. We've seen it so many times in the last four years where he, I mean, he feels like he's out for a Sunday drive. You hear him on the radio, he's monitoring what other drivers behind him are doing in yellow flag zones and reporting it to the stewards. I mean, the, the, the leftover mental ability that he has, I think is, is going to just be so far, you know, ahead of everybody else and is going to put him in such good steed.

30:28James Hinchcliffe:So, you know, on paper, when you look at what the rules were going to be, you're like, yeah, this is going to play into Max's hand. The only thing that's going to maybe hold him back is this the question mark over the new power unit. Well, that question's been sort of answered, partly answered. It was, as you guys have said, incredibly impressive what that group has done. And if they're even in the ballpark, Max can be the difference maker there. And, um, and I think he has, you know, look over one lap. I'm not sure yet exactly how it's going to play out, you know, which teams, which drivers, which engines have the advantage.

31:02James Hinchcliffe:So where's he going to line up on the grid? I'm not sure. I think it'll be at the sharp end, but certainly over a Grand Prix distance. if that powertrain is reliable and has the the capabilities that it looks like it does so far i in a lot of ways i think it is advantage max also we we should remember last year he qualified

31:21Jolyon Palmer:nearly half a second away from lando on pole uh oscar was was then second on the grid in the race the mclarens just absolutely disappeared from him the red bull pace just wasn't there and he was nose to tail with Lando at the end for the win. It was a complex race. It was a hectic race, chaotic, but he almost won it with no pace in the car at all. And I think that's what Max can give you. On any given day, we've seen it time and time again, Brazil over the years, any level of mixed up race, opportunities will come or he'll just make them and he could be a difference maker. and so if you're Isaac Hadjar what are you thinking coming into your first race with Red Bull Racing can he match Max I'd be nervous I'd be really nervous I remember watching uh Liam Lawson coming into the paddock and carrying out his Thursday media duties last year and I just thought he looked a little bit like a rabbit in the headlights he hadn't done many races remember was thrust into Red Bull huge pressure and and so it it turned out you know he had a disastrous weekend, not all of his making, and then was replaced.

32:30Jolyon Palmer:I feel like Isaac's got quite a bullish mentality. He's hard on himself, but he's very honest. He's a hard worker. Everyone that's worked with him at Racing Bulls says fantastic things about him. The key asset he's got that I would say, well, he's got more than Liam really, is one lap pace, which is so much of the game in Formula one is qualifying well even when yuki qualified well in in qatar at the end of the year in the sprint he finished what fifth or sixth as soon as you can't put qualifying laps together it's really difficult to do something amazing in the race so hopefully that'll that'll help isaac but i do feel like he's still stepping into max's team he's still up against the best driver in the sport i think it still stands as the toughest job where's his confidence at because he's had a slightly disjointed preseason as well he didn't get the rubber the green when it came to reliability in Bahrain he put it in the barrier at the Barcelona shakedown I mean you've already said JP that he's hard on himself so Hinch do you think Hajar is coming into the season

33:37James Hinchcliffe:on the back foot a little bit um but no you know the incident certainly you know finding the barrier doesn't help but I think back to last year he found the barrier before the lights went out in Australia and he bounced back, you know, completely fine and very strong. The following few Grand Prix scored his first points in Japan, two races later. So he's not short on confidence. That is, that is one thing you're not going to see at a hajar, but it is the tallest order in, in formula one in motorsports. I think being teammates to max. And especially if that car is just on the brink of being competitive enough to fight for podiums and wins in the hands of max, if he's not able to also be up there fighting for podiums and wins and he's fighting to get into Q3s, it's going to be a tough look.

34:23Jolyon Palmer:So there's one thing that I think will help him out in this, and that is the field spread is going to be much bigger. So if he's half a second off Max, that is exactly the same as basically everyone's been off Max. It could be Yuki, could be Checo, could be Alex Albon, Pierre Gasly. But half a second off Max, I think in the early races, will leave him in the top 10, probably in the top eight because of the field spread. So we'll be back towards when Checo had his worst season comparatively against Max in terms of qualifying. It was 2023 and he had his best ever career finish. So I think when Yuki had that gap, he'd be 18th on the grid.

35:02Jolyon Palmer:It would be, oh, I'm out in Q1 again. Same with Lewis at the end of last year. The gaps were small compared to Charles, one or two tenths, and he'd be out. Charles would just be through. whereas I think if you have the same gap at the start of this year you're in a Ferrari you're in a Red Bull you're in Q3 you build up that experience you alleviate loads of pressure so that'll definitely help him you mentioned pressure I think there's one fundamental difference at Red Bull this year compared to the previous 20 and that is that Helmut Marko is no longer there he's no longer cracking the whip at the young guys so whether you're 18-year-old Arvid Lindblad, whether you're Liam Lawson, who's had a rough time with him last year, or whether you're Isaac Hadjar trying to make a go of it at Red Bull, I think without Helmut in the background, they will be able to build up to it more this year.

35:58There won't be the, I have to produce in every single session. I think they can build up and you'll see sort of less pressure and I think easier an easier time for those three young guys do you agree

36:10Jolyon Palmer:I think so I think already we saw the difference with Laurent Mechie is taking over at Red Bull how he tried to put his arm around Yuki rather than Yuki feeling like he was going to be fired after every single session let alone race and it helps as a driver not to be looking over your shoulder within one two Grand Prix's with Red Bull and Lawson's out having the time and knowing that you've got a bit of time it has to help well what of ferrari for years we've talked about them being the winter world champions particularly in the 90s when i first started reporting on formula one and they've done it again we've already mentioned charlotte claire fastest of everybody by a mile in the second Bahrain test.

37:00Hinch, how excited are you by what Ferrari have in store?

37:05James Hinchcliffe:Well, I mean, I think first and foremost, it's exciting to see that they've produced a good car. They've produced a good power unit because we've seen even the customer teams for them have been performing pretty admirably as well. And that's not been the case the last handful of seasons, really. Even when they maybe had a little bit of hope in the preseason, you know, in terms of fighting for wins regularly, it was usually gone. pretty quickly once the season started. But this one looks a little bit more genuine. Yes, the session topping lap time came with a heap of caveats with tire choice and who knows what they were doing engine modes and fuel loads and all those things.

37:42James Hinchcliffe:But I think fundamentally, the car ran pretty well. I think both drivers, you know, got up to speed with it and were relatively comfortable with it. I do agree with JP that the nature of this regulation change with the chassis side is going to require drivers who don't mind the back end moving a little bit more, which definitely gives the advantage to Leclerc over Hamilton within that team. But Hamilton, again, smart driver, maybe the energy management side kind of favors him a bit more. And so there's a little bit of give and take. And that might be a team where we see maybe a bit more ebb and flow based on the racetrack.

38:19James Hinchcliffe:And if it requires more energy management or is it front limited or rear limited, we might see that back and forth volley between them a bit more dramatic but i'm excited i think every ferrari fan is excited and uh it would be great wouldn't it to see you know charlotte lewis able to fight up there for a championship leclerc won in melbourne the last time we had a significant rule change back in 2022 i mean jp can we talk about them being the favorites we we'd be wrong

38:50Jolyon Palmer:but we could discuss the prospect that they might be. I don't think they are the favourites. I think, don't the bookies still have George Russell? They certainly did over the winter have Russell as the favourite. Because the bookies know everything, obviously. We just go off what the bookies say, don't we? We just echo their thoughts. But if you want to say who's the favourite, isn't that what the favourites are? I don't think they, on outright pace, are going to be the best in Melbourne. But what I'm excited by is the raceability of the car. I'm excited by the race starts of the car and I hope they're going to be in the mix and I hope that they can prove the bookies wrong and take the fight all the way to Mercedes at the start of the year.

39:40Jolyon Palmer:But my hunch says that the favourites are Mercedes still heading out there. but yeah i think ferrari they've got a very drivable car it looks calm they're not having to to do odd things to to recharge which you're certainly seeing a lot more from red bull a little bit from mercedes as well in terms of gear usage uh throttle input the ferrari looks way more drivable and much more like a regular f1 car they can get off the line as well as anyone were you surprised by the number of innovations that we've seen on this year's Ferrari it was reminiscent I felt of the sort of Adrian Newey heydays at Red Bull and McLaren and Williams just almost every day it felt like there was some new trick thing coming out being shown to the world on the Ferrari for me that that smacks of a very healthy environment within the team given that we're talking about Ferrari and the pressure cooker environment.

40:38And if they didn't win a race last year, what happens if they don't win a race in 2026? Yet still they're able to do all of that imaginative thinking is incredibly impressive, really.

40:51Jolyon Palmer:I love it. I love to see big innovation. Yeah, I think that the exhaust wing that came in and then the total loop, the loop wing on the rear. So I'm looking forward to seeing if that reappears in Melbourne or if that was just a one-off concept, let's just see if this wacky thing works and we'll try. But even then, the fact that they can throw it on, on a day two morning, one lap, take it off, sit in the garage for a while, it shows where they are with their testing program anyway. If it works, they're hiding it. Brilliant. They've got something in reserve. If it doesn't, then they're at the position where they can try these things, take it off.

41:31Jolyon Palmer:One lap didn't work, But as a conceptual idea, it shows that they're quite well down the line of development, I'd say.

41:37James Hinchcliffe:The other thing I like about the Ferrari situation is to me that that signals a culture within the team that's allowing engineers to think outside the box, to take risks and not be afraid of getting fired if it doesn't work. You know, that's sometimes the fear and sometimes what keeps creativity stifled. And so seeing the organization having not one, not two, like several different things that might work, but they might not, which in a cost cap era, you know, those risks are even bigger to take. But still, there's not a, it seems like that blame culture that sometimes has existed at that team in the past might have receded a little bit.

42:17James Hinchcliffe:It's gone back. It's allowing engineers to really thrive. And like I said, think outside the box, be creative and not worry about getting fired if it doesn't work. So to JP's point, that points for a very, very healthy culture, a very good organization at the moment that is in a very good place. Now, Hinch, you were driving a NASCAR truck over the weekend in St. Petersburg. So you're the most recent racing driver on the call right now. can we talk about race engineers okay and and Lewis Hamilton specifically Ricardo Adami who was with him at Ferrari last year has been moved into a different role he started a relationship with Carlos Sanze who used to engineer Kimi Raikkonen back in the day but the thought is that that's going to change mid-season tell us about the importance of the relationship with the race engineer and how unsettling it is for someone like Hamilton, even with all of his success and his experience, how unsettling it is for him to be churning through all these race engineers.

43:29James Hinchcliffe:Well, I mean, let's think about the bulk of his success came with one engineer, you know, and consistency in that role is huge. It is so disruptive having to change engineers year over year, never mind mid-season. Mid-season is rough. And we've seen other teams do it. I I think LeClaire had that happen last year or the year before. It's not uncommon, but it's not a sign that things are going well. You know, that's not something you do when everybody's in sync and really getting along. So at the end of the day, I think the race engineer, racing driver relationship is probably the most important one on the team.

44:09James Hinchcliffe:Everyone's role was vital and one person not doing their job means you won't win on Sunday, but that one has so much influence over the direction of the car of the team. And it was, it was obvious last year that that relationship between, between Lewis and Ricardo was not what it needed to be and was unlikely to continue into 2026. But the delay in naming who his race engineer was going to be was a bit concerning. The fact that they're saying even who we've selected is a bit of an interim solution. and there's probably someone else coming down the pipeline, it is tough. It doesn't matter how talented you are.

44:46James Hinchcliffe:If you're not on the same wavelength as your race engineer in these weekends, think about a sprint weekend, one practice session and into sprint qualifying. If you and your engineer are not speaking the same language, if the engineer doesn't know what the driver needs out of a car, can't kind of decipher the language that is coming out of a racing driver, because sometimes we're not the most articulate post-session. You know, we're maybe not using the engineering terms you need to hear, but you need to understand what your driver's saying and what that really means and what that, you know, what change needs to be applied.

45:17James Hinchcliffe:So it's, uh, it is another situation that really puts Lewis on the back foot, unfortunately.

45:22Jolyon Palmer:I think it's really tough. I think especially this set of regulations with the communication that's got to be, it's got to be on point, the connection with the race engineer to the driver has got to be better than ever. uh it's a it's not an easy job as well because you know i i remember being in brazil last year and the crowd were really booing ricardo adami who was the lewis had qualified badly and every time he looked around they were just they were really jeering at him that's a race engineer getting heat from the crowd um if i'm lewis i want to know at the start of this year who's my new guy their relationship you know was it was not a great one so fine you change the race engineer but i want to know who it is i want to really work with over the winter get to know them understand the communication inside out and i think not having a you know a settled engineer and having a new engineer and a changeable team is it's tough i had when i was racing at renault i had one engineer in 2016 julien simon chantoms and uh we had a good working relationship but he left at the end of the year i had a new engineer at the start of 2017 chris richards did sort of four or five races and then uh and then was was moved to a different role carol loose then was was my race engineer who's still at alpine but it was it was difficult as a driver to have all of these different people then as your main go-to guy in the team set up work communication uh just the way you go about of things is all different.

46:54Jolyon Palmer:And I think that puts Lewis on the back foot personally. There's so little breathing space between the races. Once we get going, once you get on the treadmill of a 24 race season, you don't have much time to chat and get to know people in between races because you're always on the move. It's frantic. And also, you know what it's like when you're racing, you have the first couple of races really to make a huge impression. on the one hand lewis is figuring out a new a new race engineer now he's looking at the next one maybe someone being lined up as a more longer term replacement on the other hand you've got charlotte claire who is in the form of his life i think he had an amazing season last year he's had probably the best winter in terms of a driver the of anyone he'd ended up topping the times but had such a good run had reliability has brian bossey still as the as his race engineer so he's got a a known quantity.

47:48Jolyon Palmer:And if he starts the year just ahead of Lewis because of various things, maybe it's just pure driving genius, but maybe it is Lewis feeling a little bit destabilized in the team, not feeling completely comfortable still. It's very difficult to get a new race engineer and turn the tide when the development path will obviously start to go down to what Charles says, a little bit like Red Bull have with Max. It's so important in this set of rules to start well, be competitive and be heard in the team. This episode is sponsored by Indeed. You just realised your business needed to hire someone yesterday.

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49:37let's move on to aston martin now because i think if we were doing a podcast six months ago to discuss aston martin's prospects in 2026 i for one but i'm guessing you guys as well would have been pretty excited about what lay in store for them we could see how competitive the honda power unit was in the back of the red bull we knew that adrian newey was working frantically on the 26 car at their Silverstone campus. And look where we are now, Hinch.

50:07James Hinchcliffe:Yeah, it's not the prettiest picture, is it? And I think what's tough about it is neither of the two main elements really delivered what people were expecting. The power unit seems to be struggling. The chassis seems to be struggling. And that sort of one-two punch has left them in a really dire situation. You got to credit Adrian Newey, who is not just the designer, he's the team principal now at Aston Martin for kind of being open about the fact that that car started life about four months late just because of the facilities, you know, coming online back at the factory, which is a bit surprising that that happened in the first place.

50:47James Hinchcliffe:But, you know, these things, it's a very complex machine that they had to get up and running. So if you look at it as a car that is four months behind the others, is it actually really impressive? You know, four months ago, where was everybody else and by the end of the season are they going to be in a good position i don't know if that's just a wishful thinking on their part on my part i don't know um but yeah i think it's it's tough to watch because again that's a team that came in with a lot of hope a lot of expectation based on all the investment in the facilities based on the honda relationship based on adrian newey being there and so far they've come up short in i think every conceivable metric

51:26Jolyon Palmer:I wish I had Hinch as my PR manager when I was racing. It's the best spin I've ever heard of a completely disastrous winter. Yeah, I needed a bit of that in my career. From where they are, it feels like a really massive thing to say on a 24 race season. And I know they will develop. The rate of progress is going to be massive. It has to be because they're starting so low on every single metric. the mileage has been terrible so they're going to learn more and pedro de la rosa was talking about it in bahrain every time the car leaves the pits there's already something they can learn but the way that they're going to start the year i think is so far on the back foot and it's such a long project and that's why i think this year is in in any level of adrian newey credentials fernando alonso credentials the infrastructure they've got it's uh it's a it's long game back right i'm i'm taking a dose of hinches positivity i want to take some as well think where has were after the melbourne grand prix last year right they they were last in qualifying a long way off they were last of the finishers in the race they turned up in china a week later and were much more competitive and then look at ollie bearman's p4 on merit in Mexico seven months later.

52:48Am I? I mean, Hinch, I've got a big dose of that positivity here, but is it too much to see a similar trajectory for Aston?

52:57James Hinchcliffe:You know what? I'm going to go a step even further, boys. Buckle up. Because I think it's even more likely that it's possible in 2026, because in 2025, we're at the end of a rule cycle. There's so much less development to be done in these cars, there's so much less lap time to find that the fact they were able to turn around like that is impressive. The caveat to that being, because I can already tell where JP's going to go with this, and it's a point he's already mentioned, the gaps are so much bigger, right? So for Haas to go from 19th and 20th to scoring points is three, four tenths. To go from the 10th or 11th fastest team in Melbourne this year to fighting in the top 10 is going to be two seconds.

53:41James Hinchcliffe:And yes, there is so much window for progress. There is so much opportunity to develop these cars, but it's going to be a tremendous amount of lap time that they've got to find. Now, luckily, it is not just the car, right? The engine can also improve in leaps and bounds, you know, as this season progresses. But it's a tall order. There's no way around it. JP where does this leave Alonso he's been hanging on for the last waiting for the 26 rules

54:10Jolyon Palmer:and in a in a not a good place I even even Hinch saying you know luckily it's not just the car that they can improve it's everything well I'd rather it was just the car give me a good power unit and we'll work on the car but no we've got to work on the power unit as well and the gearbox and and everything in the big picture they have a lot of talent still at their disposal they have Adrian. Fernando's obviously going to be 45 this year. So you wonder for him if he's going to stick around to see the good times roll in at Aston Martin. But they could because Honda have shown, having started dismally, it took a few years, but they got competitive in their last set of regs.

54:49Jolyon Palmer:Everything that's going in there should make a competitive Aston Martin. I just don't see it being 26. A couple more teams. Haas, first of all, they've got that Ferrari power unit in the back. We've seen how effective it is away from the line, seen how drivable it is. Oli Behrman seemed to be flying in the Bahrain test, as he was at the end of last season. Esteban Ocon, on the other hand, was being given the hurry up by his team boss, Ayo Komatsu, in testing. Komatsu saying that he'd expected more from Ocon last year, in year one. Do you think Hensh Haas can be best of the rest? As in outside of the top four teams?

55:30James Hinchcliffe:Yeah, no, I think they're positioned very well. They're poised very well. It seemed like it was between them and Alpine in Bahrain. And you've got a race winner in Esteban Ocon who does need to perform this year. There's no doubt about that. I do worry a little bit about his driving style. Does that suit a car that's a little bit freer in the back? Is he going to be more unsettled on entry and under braking with this type of car than maybe an Ollie Bearman will be? We'll see. But the, the Ferrari power unit's obviously good. It has some advantages. We've talked about the race starts. That's going to be a huge element, especially early in the season.

56:07James Hinchcliffe:Behrman is, you know, coming into his own. He had a very strong second half of last year as well. It's kind of similar to, to Kimi Antonelli. And yeah, I think the team is positioned really well. We're a couple of years into the tenure with, with AO at the helm. And it seems like it's, it's in a good place. So they're going to be in that fight for, for, yeah, those, last couple of points paying positions, I think, week in and week out. And JP, the two new teams, Audi, Cadillac, who do you think will be best, first of all, of those two teams?

56:40Jolyon Palmer:Audi will be best. Should be considerably at the start of the year, but the projects are very different, aren't they? Audi have taken over Sauber, Cadillac have taken over nothing. They're starting from scratch. but Cadillac are using a Ferrari power unit whereas Audi are manufacturing their own one yeah a good counterpoint TC I still think looking at where looking at where they're at I think Audi with yeah huge manufacturer resource huge heritage taking over Sauber with a lot of heritage as well I think they're starting in a much better place Cadillac have the Ferrari power unit which is a big head start because Ferrari have done a good job on that they've also got a lot of good personnel in the team I just think that their development rate will again be pretty big because they're going to go into this eyes open uh getting the car on the ground and working will be literally plan a and then from there when it's working they get feedback from the drivers we know are good uh then we'll see the development come but at the start of the year Audi will be better and I think at the end of the year, Audi will still be better.

57:50And Hinch, how big a news is Cadillac on the other side of the pond? I mean, we all saw the Super Bowl ad, but they're very much selling themselves as the American team. Is that how it's being perceived?

58:03James Hinchcliffe:Yes, certainly. I mean, it definitely has created quite a buzz over here. And I think once we're racing and once you see the car on the racetrack and once they can really start telling the story of going to events, going to Grand Prix, you know, fighting in races, it's just going to level up even more. Right now, it's still a bit of a concept, right? It's a commercial. It's some press releases. You know, the general population's not following along with testing too closely. But once, you know, lights go out and we start having some races, I think it's going to turn a lot of heads and hopefully, you know, bring a lot of new fans to the sport.

58:43all right guys let's bring it on to the very first race of the season the australian grand prix at albert park in melbourne gets us underway this weekend what kind of a race can we expect i mean jp let's start with you you you saw it all trackside in bahrain is it going to be unlike anything we've seen in the recent past?

59:04Jolyon Palmer:I think it will be, yeah. I mean, let's start with the fact there's no DRS. So actually overtaking and defending will be different. And linked to that, it's all about power unit management or battery management now. So when I was watching it in Bahrain, it was largely okay. The teams had a handle on it. They were having to harvest energy at various points, but it wasn't massive. The big thing I think heading to Melbourne as the season opener is it is going to be really difficult for teams to recharge the electric power and the batteries. Yeah, they're so thirsty, these batteries. They've got a lot of power when you deploy it, but it means that we're going to see a lot of harvesting.

59:46Jolyon Palmer:So I think on the straights, probably we're going to see some sort of super clipping is the new term, but de-rating into corners where we're expecting drivers to be sort of flat out, hit the brakes hard. I think in Melbourne we'll see a little bit more of that. On the other hand, we might see an unpredictable race because that's where overtaking and defending, if you've got a car that's trying to harvest energy and you can deploy a little bit more, you've got plenty of overtaking chances in Melbourne. So everything that makes it difficult for a Saturday, difficult for qualifying, difficult to recharge, a little bit maybe odd to watch initially, will make it unpredictable and good on Sunday.

1:00:23Jolyon Palmer:And there'll be plenty of other tracks where it will be back towards more what we're used to. But I think Melbourne could be an outlier. Hinch, we've had six days of testing in Bahrain, plus that three-day shakedown in Barcelona. Do you think the teams are ready, or are some of them still a little bit undercooked, still trying to work it all out?

1:00:44James Hinchcliffe:There's definitely still some questions to be answered. There's still some strategies to be ironed out, there's still some understanding that needs to happen. You know, these are very complex machines and how to optimize everything over a lap, over a stint in the, in the various different settings you'd use for qualifying over a race. It's going to be a lot of learning, you know, six days is more than we're used to, but it's still not anywhere near enough. I mean, JP, you know, engineers, you give them four weeks of track time. They'll use every lap. They'll come up with something to play with and try to figure out.

1:01:20James Hinchcliffe:So, you know, Melbourne is going to be a very interesting almost test session, you know, until we get to Saturday afternoon. You even listen to some of the people. I think it was Ollie Behrman saying that a sprint race in the second round in China is I think optimistic was the word that he used. Just because, you know, you go in with still so many questions to answer at each of these new circuits and have one practice session before you're going into a meaningful session is going to be a lot. So, yeah, it's going to be, I think, glorified testing through FP1, 2 and 3. And we'll see what the order is when qualifying comes.

1:01:55And how much of a benchmark is Melbourne or is it a bit of an outlier? The person who wins Melbourne, is that an indication that they're going to go and win lots of Grand Prix?

1:02:06Jolyon Palmer:They'll probably win a few, but it doesn't mean they'll be champion. Absolutely. Melbourne has become an outlier of a circuit. When you mentioned Haas at the back last year and then finished fifth in China with Ocon, because Melbourne is a weird circuit now, it's a brilliant circuit, but there's barely any slow speed corners. There's a load of straights. And that's where Haas suddenly turned up and realized they haven't got a good car in the high speed because they hadn't really run it in the high speed. So like I said, the issues that teams will face in Melbourne will be very, very different to when they come even to China.

1:02:40Jolyon Palmer:but then trying to contrast Melbourne with other circuits like I mean Monaco is an extreme but you've got your Budapest your Zandvoort loads of the the sort of tighter tracks the racing will look different the pecking order could turn on its head and then there's development and everything else to play in as well well like everyone listening and watching I cannot wait guys and it's prediction time now poll top three on sunday and i want a driver's world champion at the end of the year and a constructor's world champion okay and i will remind you of this conversation at the end of the year we are set up to fail here aren't we right let's start with poll in melbourne who's going to go first i feel jp because you went track side yeah all right all I'll take the burden of responsibility here.

1:03:31Jolyon Palmer:I will say pole is... George Russell takes pole.

1:03:38James Hinchcliffe:Yeah, that's who I was going with was going to be George for pole. Brilliant. Well, I'm going to say something different. I'm going with Charles Leclerc. I think this could be a repeat of 2022 when he started from pole and won the race by 20 seconds. What about the race then? I've just told you who I think is going to win on Sunday. and I think you'll see George Russell and Lando, I think, will be on the podium with him. Guys, what do you think? What does the podium look like on Sunday?

1:04:05Jolyon Palmer:I'm going to lump in with you, TC. I'm going to say Leclerc wins the race on Sunday. Mercedes have had some reliability concerns, so I don't know if that will play out or not. But I think Leclerc will win. Let's just go normal race. Russell hounds him but can't pass in second and Max is third, dragging the Red Bull to the podium.

1:04:27James Hinchcliffe:That is very much in line with what I was thinking, but I don't want to be that guy. So I had LeClaire to win as well, just because the car's quick. And I still think that those, you know, that start advantage is going to be huge. I do think that you know the the team still all believe Red Bull has an energy management you know advantage to a certain extent that could be highlighted at a place like Melbourne so I've got Max on the podium and then yeah it's it's it's Russell or Lando in in p3 for me I I'll go I'll go Lando just to be a little bit different than JP all right and what about the mad question then world champion are you prepared to even go there lads it's a chum at the

1:05:08Jolyon Palmer:job at TC. So I'm going to go for the least mad, mad prediction and say that this is the year of George Russell. He's ready for it. He's going to have the car and I think he's going to deliver for the title. That's a good shout. Hinge?

1:05:22James Hinchcliffe:Yeah. I mean, look, I had George six months ago when you were looking at how strong he ended the season and all the rumors about Mercedes. But the reason I didn't pick Max was the big question mark over the power unit. And I think that that's been answered well enough for me to say that I think Max gets number five. Amazing. So we've got, I'm going with George. So we've got two Georges and one Max. And does that mean that Mercedes are going to be constructors for JP and me and that you think Red Bull are going to win the constructors, Hinch? Nope. I'm going to go even weirder. I'm going to say McLaren wins a third consecutive constructors championship.

1:06:00Jolyon Palmer:Just pure, the drivers are fourth and fifth,

1:06:02James Hinchcliffe:but they're just so close. Every time, every time. And if there's any issues at the front, they're going to be up there. I think they still have the strongest lineup across both cars. But what is very apparent is that, you know, it is going to be very unpredictable, isn't it? And that is great for the sport, great for the neutral, great for fans all over the world.

1:06:24Jolyon Palmer:And honestly, TC, Mercedes could have hoodwinked us completely with the performance and they might turn up to Melbourne, have nothing more in the tank. They actually weren't sandbagging in Bahrain and we're all going to look really silly. We just don't know how it's going to roll out. And that's what we love about it. Guys, thank you both very, very much for your time. Hinch, enjoy the IndyCar race in St. Petersburg. Enjoy driving the NASCAR truck. Enjoy spraying the champagne on the podium, Hinch. Much appreciated. And JP, I'll see you down under. I will see you down under. Looking forward to it.

1:07:01well thanks very much to jp and to hinge great to have them on the show again and you can keep across all the action in melbourne at f1.com the official f1 app and at f1 on social media and thank you to you for listening and you will also be able to watch some episodes of f1 nation on the f1 youtube channel this season so check that out and why not check out the latest episode of F1 Explains, which breaks down everything you need to know about F1's new era. Just scroll down on the F1 Nation feed to find that. And one final parish notice this week. Look out for the first F1 Beyond the Grid of the new season.

1:07:40It's with Carlos Sainz. That's out later this week. F1 Nation will be back on Monday after the Australian Grand Prix. But for now, this podcast is produced by F1 and Audioboom Studio.

1:08:03Transcription by CastingWords